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   dc.politics      General havoc in Washington DC      48,889 messages   

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   Message 46,998 of 48,889   
   Dave Cross to All   
   BYE!! 'I'm leaving, and I'm just not com   
   17 Aug 20 10:07:41   
   
   XPost: alt.politics.radical-left, alt.journalism.newspapers, alt   
   politics.usa.republican   
   XPost: alt.culture.alaska   
   From: Davecross@kremlin.ru   
      
   Don't let the door hit you in the ass.   
      
   Anthony Baggette knew the precise moment he had to get out: He   
   was driving by a convenience store in Cincinnati when a police   
   officer pulled him over. There had been a robbery. He fit the   
   description given by the store's clerk: a Black man.   
      
   Okunini O?ba´de´le´ Kambon knew: He was arrested in Chicago and   
   accused by police of concealing a loaded gun under a seat in his   
   car. He did have a gun, but it was not loaded. He used it in his   
   role teaching at an outdoor skills camp for inner-city kids.   
   Kambon had a license. The gun was kept safely in the car's trunk.   
      
   Tiffanie Drayton knew: Her family kept getting priced out of   
   gentrifying neighborhoods in New Jersey. She said they were   
   destined to be forever displaced in the USA. Then Trayvon Martin   
   was shot and killed after buying a bag of Skittles and a can of   
   iced tea.   
      
   Tamir Rice would've been 18:Black teens make their mark in Tamir   
   Rice’s America   
      
   Baggette lives in Germany, Drayton in Trinidad and Tobago,   
   Kambon in Ghana.   
      
   All three are part of a small cultural cohort: Black emigres who   
   said they felt cornered and powerless in the face of persistent   
   racism, police brutality and economic struggles in the USA and   
   chose to settle and pursue their American-born dreams abroad.   
      
   No official statistics cover these international transplants.   
      
   In Ghana, where Kambon is involved in a program that encourages   
   descendants of the African diaspora to return to a nation where   
   centuries earlier their ancestors were forced onto slave ships,   
   he said he is one of "several thousand." Kambon rejects   
   descriptors such as "Black American" or "African American" that   
   identify him with the USA.   
      
   Tiffanie Drayton works on Pigeon Point beach, Trinidad and   
   Tobago, in January.   
   In Trinidad and Tobago, where Drayton works in her home office,   
   which has a view of the ocean and hummingbirds frolicking above   
   the pool, there are at least four: Drayton, her mother, sister   
   and her sister's boyfriend. There are probably more.   
      
   About 120,000 Americans live in Germany, home to about 1 million   
   people of African descent. For historical reasons, Germany's   
   census does not use race as a category, so it is not possible to   
   calculate how many hail from the USA.   
      
   "There's a lot of institutional racism in Germany," said   
   Baggette, 68, who has lived in Berlin for more than 30 years and   
   said he still feels conflicted about his move.   
      
   He described the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, as a time   
   when neo-Nazis and skinheads would "throw Black people off of   
   the S-Bahn," the city's subway system.   
      
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   "But I still felt, and feel, better off here – safer," he said.   
      
   'I don't have to think of myself as a Black woman'   
   In interviews with more than a dozen expatriate Black Americans   
   spread out across the globe from the Caribbean to West Africa,   
   it became clear that for some, the death of George Floyd in   
   Minneapolis provided fresh evidence that living outside the USA   
   can be an exercise in self-preservation.   
      
   A study in 2019 by the National Academy of Sciences found Black   
   men were about 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed   
   by police. An analysis this year by Nature Human Behavior of 100   
   million traffic stops conducted across the country determined   
   that Black people were far more likely to be pulled over by   
   police than whites, but that difference narrowed significantly   
   at night, when it is harder to see dark skin. Black Americans   
   face a far higher risk of being arrested for petty crimes. They   
   account for a third of the prison population but just 13% of the   
   overall population, according to Pew Research, a nonpartisan   
   "fact tank."   
      
   12 charts, 1 big problem:How racial disparities persist across   
   wealth, health, education and beyond   
      
   Drayton, 28, is writing a book about fleeing from racism in   
   America. She said one of the starkest illustrations of how her   
   life has changed since moving to Trinidad and Tobago in 2013 is   
   how she feels comfortable driving her kids around the block to   
   get them to sleep each night without being worried about what   
   happens if she is pulled over by police.   
      
   "In America, your hands are shaking. You're worried about what   
   to say. You're worried about whether you have the right ID.   
   You're just so worried all the time," she said of the   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)   

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