Racism rears its ugly head in Connecticut

Photo of Omar Thornton

When 24-year old Omar Thornton left home for work on the morning of Monday, Aug 3, 2010, his fiancée reportedly said that he kissed her as usual, but as she later related, he seemed withdrawn and preoccupied. Was he aware that it was to be his last day at work at the beer distributing company, Hartford Distributors, run by the Hollander family in Manchester, CT, and had he already planned what he would do if he were fired? Reports stated that he was suspected of theft and was due to have his employment terminated. No one knows what was raging in his head when he left home that fateful morning.

On his arrival at work, Thornton was probably called into a meeting with the company’s vice-president and union representatives. At that meeting, he likely knew that he was being fired. He probably expected that it would be for theft, for which he was previously accused, and which would disqualify him from receiving unemployment benefits. With no income, and unable to get a job reference, what was he to do? He also probably thought, “here again, these Whites are out to get me.”

His actions demonstrated a man who had planned what he would do while he was being escorted out of the building after his termination. News reports state that he asked to for a drink of water and when he was allowed to go for it, retrieved guns from a locker, returned and opened fire, killing eight other people, and knowing the consequences following his actions, himself as well. Released 911-Emergency calls made by Thornton revealed a man deliberate and calculated. What was clear is that his former employers were content that they had done the right thing, by firing a thieving employee they had returned the beer-distributing warehouse to the pure and uncontaminated all white environment it once was.

Reports following his rampage through the warehouse are contrary to others that featured prominently in the media. Most reports played a constant loop of the image of a Black man gone wild, killing eight white people and terrorizing others. A few media reports, quoting his fiancée and her mother, revealed that he had complained several times of racial discrimination and harassment from his white co-workers. He also supposedly made reports to his union representatives who did nothing about the allegations. He even took pictures with his cell phone of a noose and other racial graffiti on bathroom walls. No doubt that cell phone and its contents would be of vital importance to providing some explanation for what was happening in his mind. It is a possibility that he had or was about to make official reports of racial discrimination against the Hollander family, his former managers and supervisors at the beer distributing warehouse, and the only recourse was to have his employment terminated. Who then would believe another unemployed Black man, seen as disgruntled?

Hartford Distributors - beer and wine distributors owned by Hollander Family in Manchester, CT

The Hartford Courant, in its online edition on Wed., Aug. 4,

“Was Yesterday’s Workplace Shooting in Manchester, CT, Race-Related?” said, “In the aftermath of the incident, questions are emerging as to whether the shooting was race-related. Hannah said that Thornton (who is b[B]lack) had complained about racial harassment at work, including a racial slur and noose on a bathroom wall, which he is said to have taken photos of. And according to Will Holliday, Thornton’s uncle, whom Thornton apparently spoke to after the shootings: “He said, ‘I killed the five racists that was there bothering me. He said, ‘That’s it. The cops are going to come in so I’m going to take care of it myself.’”

A comment posted to the Courant article on Aug 6 said,

“Something has been going on to trigger this incident. [A]a young man with his whole future ahead of him, why? Has to be some type of racial abuse. [E]even the 911 call from [M]mr [H]hollander is [O]omar “the b[B]lack guy””

Obviously, Thornton had reached the end of his tether. He was tired of putting up with the slights, the comments, the remarks, and the overt actions to undermine him, his masculinity, and directly his race. He knew that his complaints were ignored and he felt that he was likely being made a scapegoat. To many Blacks living in Connecticut, racism exists and as an issue, the distrust between Whites and Blacks runs deep, is pervasive and insidious. While racism is rampant throughout the United States, the fact that history records that people from Connecticut were instrumental in slave causes, it seems as though those efforts to eradicate slavery were only superficial, as they had not permeated to the majority of the White population. There remains evidence throughout the state of the forced labor done by Black and Indian slaves. Many Blacks in Connecticut state that racism is so much a way of life that they put up with it because they have to and want to live.

Another comment to the Courant article said,

“Damn right it was racial. [E]veryone in CT knows that Manchester is a racist town. It’s called Klan-chester. That man did’nt just wake up and decide to kill a bunch of people. Im interested in what the pictures will reveal on the young mans cell phone. But we all know, if there were photos on the phone depicting racist activity, the photos are gonna be erased, they already said they checked the walls and found nothing. Or the other possibility, the phone will turn up missing. But all african americans in connecticut know that the dirty specter of racism abides unchecked in Klan-chester.

Placing Thornton’s actions in perspective, but with a parallel, the Economist magazine in its Aug 7 edition,

“Lexington: Build that mosque”, asked, “What makes a Muslim in Britain or America wake up and decide that he is no longer a Briton or American but an Islamic “soldier” fighting a holy war against the infidel? Part of it must be pull: the lure of jidhadism. Part is presumably push: a feeling that he no longer belongs to the place where he lives. Either way, the results can be lethal.”

As with those Muslims who choose to become suicide bombers, what was it that made Thornton realize he had enough, could take it no more, and couldn’t see any other viable way or option? How many others in Connecticut, who have been denigrated and discriminated against because of their race have reached that tipping point? While Thornton’s actions are unjustified in a “civilized” society, equally, the racism that is practiced and perpetuated is never “okay” or “cool” in whatever way it is done. Just as equally, the question has to be raised and asked of the white majority: is the practice of racial discrimination and racism ever justified?

Another comment to the Courant article suggested that,

“If Omar Thornton was not drunk or on drugs at the time he killed these people, then the issue of racial abuse must be investigated very seriously. No sa[n]me person would do something like this without a previous provocation. Plus, Negroes are not usually mass killers anyway!” This commentator indirectly refers to the perception that Blacks do not attack and kill other races, they shoot each other; that inter-racial killing has to be aggravated and provoked.

As a new reporter for The Villager Newspaper chain, with its office in Putnam, and with responsibility for Killingly and Brooklyn, I came face to face with the stark realities of overt racism. In March 2006, I drove from New York City to Putnam, CT, to interview for the position as a reporter with a local newspapers. I pulled into the parking lot of a liquor store to get directions to the newspaper’s office. After receiving the directions, I distinctly recalled backing out of the parking lot onto the main road, which was clear of traffic. I drove a few hundred yards into another parking lot and as I was about to disembark from my car, I observed flashing lights in my rear view mirror. Wondering what was amiss, I exited the car and came face to face with a white police officer who proceeded to question me about what I was doing in Putnam and where I was going. He issued me with a warning ticket for backing unsafely into a roadway. Later I became aware that in the newsroom, where I was going for the interview, there was a police scanner, over which announcements and chatter, the editor and the newsroom staff monitored, listening to broadcasts and communication from and among the police. They had heard of my arrival and the description made by the police officer of stopping a Black man. I later learned that I was stopped because I looked Black and my car’s registration was from New York, and it was thought, if not openly said, that I could have been dealing in drugs, a claim made about vehicles with New York license plates in that part of Connecticut.

As a mixed race man from a Caribbean country, which boasts six different races, among whose peoples I am neither completely Black nor of East Indian descent, race was never an issue. In an all white environment as Putnam, I was Black. But in my research of Killingly, where I lived and worked, of the 12,000 people inhabiting the town and boroughs, at the time, I was one of an estimated five Black people.

A few weeks later, in Killingly, I was stopped again by another police officer who enquired what I was doing in Killingly, and to give an account of my movements, coming from and going to. Even though I told him I was a reporter with the local newspapers, he still issued me warning ticket for speaking on my cell phone, which I did not have with me at the time and quickly realized the futility and the potential for escalation to either a direct summons or arrest if I had protested the warning ticket. Racial profiling is common, as with New Jersey state police who have achieved national notoriety for their actions toward Black motorists or the Essex County police who shot an unarmed Black man who was allegedly cruising for sex in Branch Brook Park in Newark. But, in Connecticut, while there are a few Blacks who have succeeded by being patient and cutting through racism’s dense fog, many others feel condemned to live lives of misery, eking out livelihoods as best as they could. Similarly, it should be noted that not everyone white is racist. I encountered kind and generous people in Connecticut.

I lived and worked in Killingly and learned of a more egregious instance of racism: a mother, a Black woman, who lived in Danielson, a borough of Killingly, recounted the circumstances surrounding the mysterious and as yet unsolved death of her 12-year old son. Shortly after she and her family had relocated from New London to Danielson, on a hot summer’s day, her son who had befriended five white boys from the nearby high school went swimming with them in a river. At a point along the river, over which tracks for the Providence to Worcester freight line passed, was a swimming hole popular with the locals for cooling off from the summer’s heat. One of the white boys, who was present on that fateful day, relayed to his mother and to the Black boy’s mother what transpired at the river.

Apparently, when the group of six boys arrived at the trestle, the train tracks crossing over the river, except for the Black boy, they all jumped in to swim. Despite encouragements from the other boys to jump in, the Black boy protested that he couldn’t swim (a fact confirmed by his mother and sister) and didn’t want to swim. The one white boy, who was questioned by the police, said that he was in the water when he heard and felt a splash and he realized that the Black boy had entered the water, but remembering that he said he couldn’t swim, he started to look for him to see if he was in difficulty. Not seeing him, he continued to swim and later when he and the other four boys were leaving, he realized that his friend was not with them. Summoning the police, a search was conducted and the Black boy’s body was found early the next morning caught in the roots of a tree under the water. He had drowned. The white boy related that after telling the police what he knew, later that night, at about midnight, while asleep, a police officer visited his home. He was awakened and questioned again about the circumstances surrounding the death of the Black boy and the policeman reportedly told him not to discuss what he saw or knew with anyone. He said he later found out that the other four white boys were taken out of town by their respective fathers and were not questioned by the police. He said he believed the Black boy was pushed from the trestle and as he fell, he hit his head on a part of the submerged base of one of the columns in the river. Many who knew I was asking questions about the boy’s death advised me to be careful, as the police in Danielson had a reputation of intimidation and harassment, and that I should vary my travel patterns to and from work.

Not long after I had begun to ask questions, I discussed the matter with my editor who advised me to be careful and to keep him informed. A short time later, I received an email from a woman who claimed she met me once when I visited a middle school. She invited me to a barbecue and while she described that it was an annual event to display old Model T Fords and other mechanical antiques, she mentioned that for food there would be “hotdogs, hamburgers, fried chicken and watermelon too.” Realizing the racial undertones, I forwarded the email to the editor asking him to advise me. I later found out that he contacted the woman and nothing more was done about the matter.

Fortunately, after reporting and covering events in Killingly and Brooklyn for six months, and not having any more run-ins with the police, I received another job offer and relocated back to New York City.

FIBO hosts 8^th Annual Beach party

By Antoine Craigwell

(New York, NY) – For one weekend, Aug 13 to 15, New York’s Fire Island is set to see an influx of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender (LBGT) people of color gathering to celebrate as a community.

FIBO 2009- Arrivals for beach party. Photo credit: FIBO

In its eight year, the organizers of Fire Island Black Out (FIBO) are hosting this annual event in the Cherry Grove section of Fire Island. The weekend begins with a cocktail reception on Friday evening at the Hilton Garden Inn in Ronkonkoma, on Saturday, a Day at the Beach with a variety of events, and on Sunday, and a Day of Relaxation, which culminates with a sunset party thanking all those who participated, volunteered, and contributed to FIBO’s success.

“The attraction of Fire Island, a predominantly white gay beach resort, is unlike any other. It provides an opportunity for one weekend in the year for members of the Black gay community to come together with their family and friends,” says FIBO president and CEO James Wellons, Esq.

As a build up to this weekend, Wellons says that in April FIBO hosted a season kick off party at its home base in Philadelphia, PA, and was followed in June by a fundraising event for Housing Works at their Hell’s Kitchen location.

Co-founded in 2003 by John Goodman, II, FIBO was bought by Wellons, who established a corporation and a board, and as an annual summer event, has become a staple in the calendar of the Black gay community.

FIBO 2009-Crowd on beach at Cherry Grove. Photo credit: FIBO

FIBO, Wellons says, has three fundamental tenets as qualifications, which include encouraging diversity, strengthening the community, and forging friendships and an award is given to any staff, volunteer or other person who exemplifies the spirit of what FIBO is all about. This year, he says, at the cocktail on Friday evening, Dennis Williams, representing Home Box Office, will be a presented with the FIBO vision award.

“We expect about 4,000 people this year, compared to the 3,200 who attended last year’s event,” he says.

FIBO 2009-Dance party at the Ice Palace. Photo credit: FIBO

For a charity to receive a contribution from FIBO, Wellons says his organization chooses those that provide life sustaining resources for the LGBT community of color. He says that living up to its commitment of giving back to the community, between 20 to 45-percent of the balance of the proceeds are to be donated to three non-profits. This is done after expenses and a reserve for operating costs for next year’s event are deducted. Charities receiving donations this year include the Ali Forney Center, Housing Works Haiti Relief Fund, and the Friends of Fire Island National Seashore.

On Saturday, FIBO events include volley-ball games, a beach tent contest, and at the Ice Palace Hotel, a writer’s panel sponsored by Embrace TV, a poetry slam and spoken word contest hosted by Buttafly Soul, and a Bump and Dip pool party featuring Grammy Nominated Brian Slade “Tonex” performing with a live band.

The writer’s panel, coordinated and moderated by Nathan James, features New Jersey residents Taylor Siluwe, features editor, Out In Jersey and author of “Breeding Season” and “Dancing with the Devil”; J. Omar Tutle, author of “Masai” and “Justice”; and Delvon Johnson, author of  “Love Yourself First”. James, who is also author of “The Devil’s Details”, “Check Ride”, and “In His Court” says that the writers on the panel would examine and discuss their work, the relevance of the issues in their respective books to the world today, a question and answer from the audience, and each author reading selections from their works.

FIBO 2009- on the beach. Photo credit: FIBO

“This is an opportunity for a collection of authors from the Black LGBT community to promote their own work, raise the profile of LGBT literature, increase literary consciousness, and to entertain and uplift the community,” says James.

Those with FIBO identifiable bracelets, the organization’s Website says, are entitled to discounts on a variety of services and from vendors island wide, and access to amenities, including being able to use the outside shower, and as promised from last year’s event, to be able to store up to two bags in a specially designated storage area.

Among FIBO’s corporate sponsors are HBO, Hilton Garden Inn, Grove Palace Hotel, Embrace TV, Next Magazine, and Belvedere Vodka, and promotional sponsors include The White Party, Inferno-Dominican Republic, Sizzle Miami, Nubian Dreams Cruise 3, Philadelphia Black Gay Pride, Gay Black London, Blackout-Women of Colorfest, Circle of Voices, and Hump! with DJ Soul.

Revenge for prosecutor’s  poor performance following case dismissal

By Antoine Craigwell

(New York, NY, Friday, August 06, 2010) – Last Friday, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance reportedly called the attorney for Kate Barnhart, head of New Alternatives, to inform him that she and co-defendant Joan Pleune should surrender for re-arrest on previously dismissed charges of criminal trespass and obstructing government administration.

Barnhart’s attorney, Stephen Edwards, said the DA called him to inform him that the two defendants should come in voluntarily for the arrest process; turn themselves in to avoid the embarrassment of being arrested in person by the police. Edwards said that despite the DA’s office saying that they had grounds to reinstitute charges, he doesn’t believe in the reasons and is planning to have the complaints defeated on procedural grounds, saying there is insufficient basis to substantiate them.

The DA’s verbal proposal of re-arrest, said Edwards, is to institute new charges, file a new complaint, with an added charge of resisting arrest, which was not on the original; remove the charge of obstruction of government administration, which was on the original complaint; and continue with the trespass charge from the prior complaint.

“I also believe that there are a number of other flaws and will attack the complaint, and based on these two reasons, to have it [the complaint] dismissed, as well as on the grounds of fairness and due process. Unless we see the complaint, we’re not taking any legal position. We’re not ruling anything out. This is an unusual position for them to take and we may try to persuade them against certain actions. One of our arguments is that this constitutes double jeopardy,” Edwards said.

According to Barnhart, the DA apparently didn’t like Judge Shawndya Simpson’s July 19 ruling when she dismissed the charges of criminal trespass and obstructing government administration against a group of 17 for shoddy prosecution. In her ruling, Barnhart said, the judge wrote that the charges didn’t fit the behavior outlined in the complaint, and reportedly explained in several pages, the deficiencies of the charges and the complaint’s insufficiencies.

Barnhart, Pleune, and 15 others, civil disobedience and protest activists, were arrested on Sept 29, 2009 for a sit-in protest in the lobby of the building housing the New York City offices of Connecticut-based Aetna, the health insurance company. The protestors had gathered to protest the Aetna decision to deny health insurance coverage to Mark Milano, a member of ACT-Up, who needed life saving medication and chemotherapy.

Protestors in linked arm sit-in at NY's Aetna office, Sept 29, 2009

“For us, as long as someone’s life is at stake, this makes it all the more worthwhile to protest and to fight for,” Barnhart said.

A volunteer and protest activist with Health Care-NOW!, who was also arrested in September, Laurie Wen, said “We were furious and decided to protest that one of our friends had cancer, and the insurance company, Aetna, refused to pay for his chemotherapy. The day before the action, Aetna called Mark and offered to give him treatment. We believe that Aetna knew all along what they were doing, and knew that a protest was imminent, to call him the day before with treatment information. Aetna continued denying his claim and even to claiming that they hadn’t received a letter from his doctor. We believe that Aetna was trying to prevent us from protesting when they granted him approval for treatment the day before, so as to avoid exposing their deadly practice of denying people health care.”

As a grass-roots protest organization, Health Care-NOW! was formed in 2004 in NYC, with an all volunteer membership of over 60,000, and with chapters in cities nationwide, is headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. Several organizations participated in the September protest with Health Care-NOW! including ACT-UP, Mobilization for HealthCare for All, a campaign founded by Healthcare- NOW!, and Private Health Insurance Must Go Coalition.

A representative from Aetna’s press office, Cynthia Michner, said that since the protest happened on property not owned by Aetna, she could not say anything about the event. With regard to Milano, in keeping with HIPPA regulations, she said that a PHI form had to be completed by him, which would give Aetna permission to discuss aspects of his case with the media. Michner promised to provide a copy of the statement Aetna issued following the protest, to research whether Aetna had a hand or in any way influenced the Manhattan DA’s decision to re-prosecute the two activists, and insisted that she had never been asked any such question by anyone before. Up to the time of publication, nothing was received from Aetna.

But, Pleune, a 71-year old grandmother, who has been arrested 14 times for protesting since her first arrest in 1961 when she was part of the freedom march in Jackson, MS, and was in prison for almost six weeks, said that her participation this time was for a health care issue.

“I was arrested because of a protest against Aetna. The charges against me were criminal trespass and against Kate for criminal trespass and for obstructing a government officer,” Pleune said.

The DA’s offer of an adjournment contemplating dismissal (ACD), Pleune added, was extended to everyone except Barnhart. For the other protestors, she said, if there were no other arrests in six months then their case would be sealed and dismissed. This, was not offered to Barnhart , Pleune said, because, as the DA’s office said, Barnhart had misdemeanor convictions from previous protest actions. But, others, she said, from the 17 who were arrested in September, also had misdemeanors and were given the ACD offer.

“It seems as though the DA has it in for her. They offered a conviction for the misdemeanor and for time served, which was 24-hours. I refused to take the offer and decided to stand in solidarity with Kate, especially with the most vulnerable member of our group, and she was the most vulnerable,” said Pleune, who is retired from running an adult literacy program, now does mostly activist work, and is part of the granny peace brigade.

Barnhart said that this re-arrest is a form of harassment that is seemingly politically motivated. She said that in 2003 she was arrested for protests against the death of Rachel Corrie, who was murdered by the Israeli defense force, while defending a Palestinian family’s home in Gaza from being destroyed. Barnhart said that the accounts of Corrie’s death were that the Israelis ran her over with a bulldozer and killed her and then ran her over again. The 2003 protest, she said, took place in front of Bank Leumi, located in Manhattan’s Diamond District, an area populated predominantly by Jewish diamond merchants.

“What we did, since the bank is on Fifth Avenue, we chained ourselves across Fifth Avenue with a cardboard bulldozer and other signs to represent her murder. At that protest, 16 people were arrested. I was charged with obstructing government administration,” Barnhart said.

The obstructing government charge, she explained, refers to the police as government agents and any action preventing the police from executing their duties or interfering with them is considered obstructing government administration. Sixteen defendants, she said, were convicted at a jury trial and sentenced to 10-days community service, without any other stipulations. Four of the group were separated by the prosecutor who asked the judge at the time to impose a sentence of a year in jail. But, Barnhart said, it was discovered that the prosecutor at the time went back over a decade to the protests against apartheid and unsealed cases to find grounds proving that the four were repeat protesters and should be given harsher sentences. She said that along with the other three who were singled out, they appealed to the New York Court of Appeals, which ruled unanimously that while the prosecutors could have sought to unseal the cases in the process of an investigation, they were not allowed to unseal cases to use in sentencing.

Barnhart, who resigned from her position with Sylvia’s Place, started New Alternatives to provide shelter, social service and legal aid to homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth who flock to NYC from all over the country. She said that the possibility of re-arrest and the ensuing legal battles means that she would not be available to work with LGBT youth.

“Since I’ll be spending my time in court, it negatively impacts my time to provide services for the vulnerable homeless LGBT youth, but it would not affect my ability to advocate for the legal rights and benefits of those youth,” she said.

Barnhart is concerned about the welfare of her father who suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease.

“It is difficult for my family and especially my father, since he is someone with Alzheimer’s, and as the person who is his caregiver, if I would be sentenced to jail time, then I would not be available to attend to and take care of him,” she added.

Reached for comment, Erin Duggan, from the DA’s office, said that Barnhart has not been recharged yet, and she could not comment.

Edwards said that he is concerned about the cost of a re-prosecution on frivolous grounds, which is wasting court personnel’s time and resources.

“My clients feel there is a political motive that the DA’s office doesn’t like these people’s message, and because Kate has a previous charge of a similar nature, the DA’s office is using the previous charge. There is speculation that there is a more devious motive behind this,” he said.

When pressed further on the DA’s office expending resources to reopen and re-prosecute a dismissed case, Duggan said, “I cannot comment, [this] office prosecutes cases based on the facts that come before us. We base all of our decisions, which are founded on prosecutorial decisions. We don’t discuss cases in the public before they are prosecuted.”

Barnhart said Edwards advised her and Pleune that the DA’s office suggested that they should arrange a date to surrender. However, when they offered to do so, on a particular date, the DA further advised them that his office was not ready to receive them. She added that many other people are planning to turn themselves in as a form of protest against wasting city resources in continuing to prosecute non-violent activists.

“We don’t know what would happen when we surrender, since this is unprecedented. We imagine that we would be arraigned and be put through the system once again. We don’t know if they would book us and make us spend a night in jail,” said Barnhart.