iHldhMhhlin.lhhhhiMnl WILS 03/S0/95 ihhillinililil **CHILL - UNC-CH WILSON LIBRARY N C COLLECTION p 0 BOX 8890 CHAPEL HILL NO 27515-S890 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2016 VOLUME 95- NUMBER11 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 Historians warn about use of anger, race in ‘16 elections By Jesse J. Holland WASHINGTON (AP) - Fear of a changing America is fueling some of the anger playing out publicly around Donald Trump’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination, historians Ken Burns and Henry Louis Gates Jr. said March 14. “We are in a retrograde moment right now in which the dog whistles of race are with us,” said Burns, an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Trump is “speaking to a need and a deep set of fears within a large segment of the American commu nity,” added Gates, a Harvard University scholar and host of a genealogy show on PBS. Those fears need to be assuaged, and policies formulated to meet the needs of those worried about their future, he said. The comments came during a National Press Club luncheon during which the two men discussed the state of race relations in the United States and their upcoming television projects. “Jackie Robinson,” directed by Burns, along with Sarah Burns and David McMahon, will air on PBS in April, while Gates will host “Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise” on PBS in the fall. Trump, the Republican front-runner, has roiled the 2016 presidential race with his comments about Islam, Mexicans, the media and protesters at his rallies. Violence erupted last week when one of his sup porters punched a protester being led from an event, and his March 11 rally in Chicago was cancelled for fear of further violence. Burns said some of Trump’s comments and actions - like forgetting that he had repudiated a Ku Klux Klan leader - “that is the wink wink dog whistle that signals to our unreconstructed brothers.” “We’d like to believe in our better selves but in point of fact, a lot of us aren’t that,” Burns said. Gates, who supports Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, said he would advise her to “study”, why some voters are so angry, and “why they are so prone to anti-black, anti-Islamic feelings, and why they want the wall up” at the U.S. border with Mexico. Gates also said President Barack Obama underestimated the depth of animosity toward him. “I think he believed the narrative that a day of racial harmony had come,” he said. “I don’t think they anticipated the depth of American racism and how much had not changed because a black man had been elected president.” Gates said even he was shocked at the amount of vitriol he received after an encounter with a police officer. Gates was arrested by a white officer who was investigating a burglary at Gates’ home in Mas sachusetts. The two men met at the White House for a beer with Obama, and are now friends, Gates said. But the flood of hate telephone calls, e-mails apd letters stunned him. “I was surprised by how organized hate can be,” he said. President Barack Obama holds a baby as he and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada greet the audience after reviewing the troops during the State Arrival ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, March 10. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) Group: Trump should apologize for saying ‘Islam hates us’ By Jill Colvin FAYETTEVILLE (AP) - A leading Muslim civil rights group is calling on GOP presidential front- runner Donald Trump to apologize for his claim that “Islam hates us.” In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper that aired, Trump was asked whether he thinks Islam is at war with the West. “I think Islam hates us,” Trump responded. “There’s a tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it. There is an unbelievable hatred of us.” The statement drew swift condemnation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which called on Trump to apologize for the comment, as it has in response to other comments Trump has made. “Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric does not reflect leadership, but instead reflects a bigoted mind set that only serves to divide our nation and the world,” Nihad Awad, the group’s national executive direc tor said in a statement. The group suggested Trump could do so at the March 10 GOP debate. Asked during the March 10 GOP debate in Florida whether he was referring to all Muslims across the globe in his comments, Trump replied, “I mean a lot of them.” “I will tell you: There’s something going on that maybe you don’t know about,” he said. “But there’s tremendous hatred. And I will stick with exactly what I said to Anderson Cooper.” Trump's statement also became an issue for Florida’s Republican Governor, Rick Scott, who repeat edly sidestepped questions in an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Scott, who says he will not endorse in the primary but is friends with Trump, was asked whether he thinks “Muslims in the state of Florida hate America.” Scott instead shifted his answer to more general themes, calling Florida “the best melting pot in the world" and saying: “We love everybody coming to our state.” The avoidance prompted host Mika Brzez inski to suggest ending the interview early. The questions come as Trump continues to dominate the Republican presidential contest, locking up delegates, despite a series of controversial statements. President Barack Obama watches his Lin Manuel Miranda rap video with Brian Mosteller, Director of Oval Office Operations, and Personal Aide Ferial Govashiri in the Outer Oval Office, March 15. (Official White House Photo by Amanda Lucidon) White ex-trooper guilty in shooting of unarmed black man By Jeffrey Collins COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - A white former state trooper was led out of a South Carolina courtroom in handcuffs March 14 after pleading guilty to a fel ony charge in the 2014 shooting an unarmed black driver seconds after a traffic stop. Sean Groubert will be sen tenced later, but Circuit Judge 1 Casey Manning appears to have already decided there should be some prison time because he sent Groubert to jail while he mulls the punishment. Groubert faces up to 20 years for assault and battery of a high and aggra vated nature. There is no mini mum sentence. Before the hearing started, Levar Jones, shot once in the hip by Groubert, walked into court with a limp. He constantly turned and twisted a Rubik’s Cube, per haps to calm himself. As pros ecutors replayed the video of the shooting taken from Groubert’s dashboard camera, Jones’ shoul ders jerked. He didn’t speak at the 20-min- ute hearing March 14, but pros ecutors said he may talk when Groubert is sentenced. No date has been set for that hearing. Groubert answered questions from the judge. The only hint of an explanation for what hap pened came when his lawyer re quested he continue Ex-Black Panther convicted in officer’s death dies in prison LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - One of two former Black Panthers con victed in the 1970 bombing death of an Omaha police officer has died in prison. Nebraska Department of Correctional Services spokesman An drew Nystrom said David Rice died around midnight Saturday, March 12 at the state penitentiary in Lincoln. Rice’s death will be investigated. Nystrom said the cause hasn’t been determined, but he had been treated for chronic obstructive pul monary disease since 2013. The 68-year-old Rice, who had changed his name to Mondo we Langa, was convicted along with fellow Black Panther Edward Poindexter in the death of officer Larry Minard. Authorities say they lured police to a house with a 911 call, then detonated a homemade bomb that killed Minard. The pair maintained their innocence and argued they were tar geted by an FBI program that undermined radical political groups. Nebraska prosecutors successfully defended the way the case was handled in various appeals the two men filed over the years. Rice and Poindexter both questioned a key witness in the case, Duane Peak, who implicated both men in the bombing plot. Peak, who was 15 at the time, testified that he made the 911 call that lured police to the vacant house. Attorneys for Rice and Poindexter questioned whether Peak could have made the 911 call because a recording of the call appeared to show an adult man’s voice. The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled on an appeal that involved the 911 tape, and it decided in 1983 that the recording wasn’t enough to create reasonable doubt about Rice’s guilt. NAACP: Plaque at Confederate statue must mention slavery By Emily Wagster Pettus JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - The campus NAACP says a plan to add context to a Confederate statue at the University of Mississippi is a failure because a proposed plaque does not mention slavery as the central issue in the Civil War. Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter announced March 12 that construction had started for a stand to hold the plaque and could be finished by the end of the month on the Oxford campus. However, the campus NAACP says that the university’s proposed language “woefully fails its students, faculty and staff when it does not acknowledge the true history of the Confederacy.” The group cites Mississippi’s 1861 declaration that it was seceding to protect slavery. The NAACP says there’s no need to mention the statue was a gathering point for a mob fighting integration in 1962. medication and visits to a psy chiatrist to deal with post-trau matic stress disorder from an on-duty shooting in 2012. His supervisors said Groubert pro tected the public by chasing a suspect who fired on him dur ing a traffic stop. Groubert was awarded the Highway Patrol’s Medal of Valor. The suspect is serving 20 years in prison on an attempted murder charge. The Highway Patrol fired Groubert after watching a video of his encounter with Jones on Sept. 4, 2014. When the video was released publically a month later, it shocked a country deal ing with a wave of questionable police shootings. The only evidence prosecu tors gave March 14 was the vid eo and Groubert’s statement on the shooting, given a week later. They did not match. The video showed Groubert pulling up to Jones without his siren on for a seatbelt violation. Both men get out of their cars at a convenience store and the trooper asked Jones for his li cense. Jones said he took off his seatbelt because he was stop ping at the store after work. The video shows Jones turn ing and reaching back into his car, and Groubert shouts, “Get outta the car, get outta the car.” He begins firing and unloads a third shot as Jones staggers away, backing up with his hands raised, and then a fourth. Jones’ wallet can be seen flying out of his hands. In his statement, though, Groubert said: “The subject was highly aggressive and belliger ent and ready to attack me from the second I initiated the traffic stop.” The video shows Groubert started firing four seconds after asking for Jones’ license. From the first shot to the fourth, the video clicks off three more sec onds. “Everything seemed to be happening in fast forward from the time I saw the driver begin running toward the vehicle. I was unsure if the shots fired were coming from my own pis tol, or if he was actively shoot ing,” Groubert said in the state ment. In the video, Jones cried in pain waiting for an ambulance and repeated: “Why did you shoot me?” Groubert has spent the past 18 months driving a truck. He and his wife were arrested for shoplifting in October, and those charges are pending. South Carolina’s Insurance Reserve Fund agreed to pay Jones a $285,000 settlement in the shooting.

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