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Good Morning Tom, Sybil, and Jay.

Well guys, I am truly trying to figure out what in the world is up with the town of Paris, Texas???

You may remember the name and it’s likely for a number of reasons that are not at all good…

…and that’s nothing against the 25,000+ people who live there the majority of whom, I’m sure are decent folks just trying to make a living…

But you may recall that the town came in to the national spotlight in 2007 after a 14-year-old Shaquanda Cotton was sentenced by a local judge to up to 7 years in a youth prison for SHOVING a hall monitor at Paris High School…

This was three months after the same judge had sentenced a 14-year-old white girl to probation for the far more serious crime of arson… After national civil rights protests and petition drives, Texas authorities ordered Cotton’s early release after a year in prison…

Then in 2008, 24-year-old African-American, Brandon McClelland, was killed by two white men who ran him over and dragged him underneath a pickup truck until his body was nearly dismembered… This heinous crime occurred a decade after the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd in Jasper, TX 200 miles away…

Charges were dropped in the McClelland murder despite the fact that state troopers discovered the victim’s blood and tissue on the underside of the truck…

Protestors descended on the small town where we saw dueling skirmishes between the New Black Panther Party and white supremacist groups…

And then in 2009, after Justice Dept. mediators unsuccessfully tried to mediate between black and white citizens, nooses, Confederate flags and racist graffiti popped up all around town …

Well, sadly folks … Paris, TX has yet another shameful claim to fame… a wrong started 3 years ago that continues to this day…

On March 18, 2008 at 2 AM in the morning, then 48-year old Bobby Yates got a knock on his door… A 16 year old white female and two adult white males claimed they were locked out of their own homes and asked to use his phone… Yates reluctantly allowed them in…

Several hours later, Yates made a 911 call, which is on tape, and told the operator that three people were in his home threatening his life, beating him and refusing to leave… Yates can clearly be heard on the 911 call telling the group to get out of his home…

When police arrived, Yates told them he attempted to escape but they grabbed him and prevented him from leaving… The white female then claimed Yates touched her private parts…Well, you know what happened next…

Yates was arrested for the Sexual Assault of a Child… But, Tom, here’s what I didn’t tell you… Because of a tragic hunting accident 20 years ago, the accused, who has no criminal record, has been wheelchair bound because the entire lower portion of his body was amputated…

Not only does he not have any legs, he has no lower portion of his body…you understand, right?  This is the guy they’ve charged with sexual assault.

Now, even though Yates called 911 for help that night, which again I must stress was recorded, the police reports states the 16 year old white female, who was reportedly high on drugs, called 911… and if that’s not enough Paris justice for you, to secure an indictment, a photo of Yates was taken by authorities to make it appear as though he was not handicapped, as his height was omitted and his wheelchair not included…

Yates has endured countless hardships since his arrest including an eviction from his housing complex and racist threats on his life …

The former lawyers assigned to him have all pressured him to plea-bargain for a reduced sentence, something he has refused because of his innocence… This past week a continuance was granted to allow for new legal representation… Jury selection will begin next month…

Yates ongoing case is yet the latest in a number that has prompted citizens and observers to call for an in depth investigation by the United States Department of Justice in to legal practices in Lamar County, TX, where Paris is located…

We should do the same… You can go to justiceforbobbyyates.blogspot.com for more info and to donate to Yates’ Legal Defense Fund… He desperately needs funds to continue his effort to free himself from these outrageous and inhumane charges…

So this week’s quote comes from none other than yours truly… and it goes like this:

“The euphoric claims of a Post-Racial America is proving to be nothing more than a collective racial amnesia, conveniently forgetting that race, indeed, still matters.”

Until Next Time, this is Stephanie in Love and Hope.

admin Texas Bobby Yates, hate crime, Paris Texas, sexual assault

Good Morning TJMS Family.

Well, there’s certainly been a lot going on lately down in the Lone Star State…

That’s right, Texas has been in the news recently for a number of reasons – not many of them good…

Last week, many of us watched in horror the video of the fired African American teacher at the Houston charter school beating up an African American boy…

And we’ve also been troubled by the recent textbook controversy in which a conservative slant is being imposed on millions of the state’s public schoolchildren…

Both situations say a lot about the current state of education in Texas… but today, I’m going to focus on the physical assault…

I watched the teacher on Good Morning America after appealing to the media to quote-unquote “give her side of the story”… I couldn’t imagine what that would be given the tape of her beating, dragging, and kicking a terrified 13 year-old …

After the teacher, her attorney, and the host viewed the tape, the teacher correctly acknowledged there was nothing that could ever justify her actions… “Exactly” I thought, before wondering why she’d even come on the show…

And then I knew. After claiming her adrenaline was high because of a prior incident, she got back to her classroom to find the door locked and a group of children circling a recent transfer and special-needs student… She said the children – the boy in particular — were standing around the student in a “threatening” way and that they were all African Americans with prior court issues and that the special needs student was white…

Wow… guess the teacher and her white attorney thought that was a pretty important point… So important, they wanted to say it on international TV although they already admitted there was no justification for assaulting the boy…

I guess it didn’t matter that the teacher wasn’t protecting the student at that point since the boy she was beating was cowering in a corner in fear …

I guess the whole purpose of her interview was to appeal to white America and to show how she was standing up for one of theirs …’

What other purpose could there have been for her TV appearance…? Why mention the race of the students at all?

Is it horrible that any young student can be taunted by others? Definitely.

But when an adult, and a teacher no less, totally loses it, repeatedly assaults a child cowering in front of her, and then appeals to the court of public opinion on the implicit basis that a white child’s trauma at the hands of African Americans is somehow worse than the opposite, that’s beyond belief…

And that teacher should be held accountable in both a court of law and in the court of public opinion…

I leave you with this: “What is done to children, is what they will do to society.”

Until Next Time, this is Stephanie in love and hope and you are listening to the TJMS at its Best.

admin Abuse, Public School, Texas