The Strange Fruits of Sarah Bartman by Julius Kane

Basketball Great Michael Jordan Says he was Racist at One Time

Basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan says in a new book that he considered himself a racist growing up. In a new book entitled "Michael Jordan: The Life" by author Roland Lazenby, the five-time National Basketball Association most valuable player and current owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, says that as a teenager he was "against all white people."




Excerpts of the book published on Wednesday by the New York Post include Jordan describing how growing up in North Carolina during the 1970s, where he said the Klu Klux Klan thrived, helped shaped his views on racism. In one instance, Jordan recalls a school girl calling him the n-word.


"So I threw a soda at her," Jordan says in the book. "I was really rebelling. I considered myself a racist at the time. Basically, I was against all white people."




It was after that incident that Jordan's mother convinced him that he could not go through life consumed by racial hatred. Jordan, who went on to win six NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls, recently spoke out against racist remarks by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who has since been banned for life by the NBA and could be forced to sell the team.




"As an owner, I'm obviously disgusted that a fellow team owner could hold such sickening and offensive views," Jordan said in a statement last month. "As a former player, I'm completely outraged. "I am appalled that this type of ignorance still exists within our country and at the highest levels of our sport. In a league where the majority of players are African-American, we cannot and must not tolerate discrimination at any level."

Monica Lewinsky wants her story told

WASHINGTON (AP) — Monica Lewinsky says there's no question her boss — Bill Clinton — "took advantage" of her when he was president. But she says their affair was consensual and if there was any abuse involved, it came afterward, when Clinton's inner circle tried to discredit her and the president's opponents used her as a political pawn.


The former White House intern, now 40, writes about her life in the next issue of Vanity Fair magazine, out this month. In released excerpts, she says she's perhaps the first Internet era scapegoat and wants to speak out on behalf of other victims of online humiliation.


Her willingness to step forward may come at an inopportune time as former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton considers running for president. Republicans have signaled they don't consider her husband's scandal from the late 1990s out of bounds in the realm of 2016-style political dialogue.


Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a likely GOP presidential contender, answered criticisms of the Republican record on women's issues by saying in January that the last Democratic president engaged in "predatory behavior" with a woman, Lewinsky, who was 22 when her liaisons with Clinton began in 1995. Clinton's lies about the relationship contributed to his impeachment by the House in 1998; the Senate acquitted him.


Lewinsky writes that she deeply regrets the affair and made a point of staying silent through several presidential campaigns to avoid becoming a distraction. Now, she writes, it's time to stop "tiptoeing around my past — and other people's futures. I am determined to have a different ending to my story. I've decided, finally, to stick my head above the parapet."


Invoking her headwear from endlessly repeated TV clips and the stained garment considered as evidence against Clinton, she writes: "It's time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress."
But these aren't her first public words on the scandal. Lewinsky broke her silence in 1999 with a blockbuster interview with Barbara Walters, gave several subsequent interviews and cooperated with author Andrew Morton on his book the same year, entitled "Monica's Story."


"Sure, my boss took advantage of me," she writes now, "but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any 'abuse' came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position."

Man Convicted of Robbery Never Went to Prison

CHARLESTON, Mo. (AP) — Cornealious "Mike" Anderson spent 13 years free from prison due to a clerical error, then nearly a year behind bars when the mistake was caught. On Monday, he walked out of a southeast Missouri courtroom a free man again — this time with no need to look over his shoulder.


Mississippi County Associate Circuit Judge Terry Lynn Brown needed just a 10-minute hearing before ruling that he was giving Anderson credit for time served for all 4,794 days between his conviction and when he was arrested last year. The judge granted Anderson his immediate freedom.
Anderson, 37, left the courthouse with his wife and 3-year-old daughter on one arm, his mother on the other, tears in all of their eyes.


"Very happy," Anderson said as he climbed into a sport utility vehicle for the ride home to suburban St. Louis and a planned family celebration. "My faith has always been in God. I'm just so thankful. That God for everybody."


Anderson was 23 when he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for his role in the robbery of a fast-food restaurant's assistant manager. He told The Associated Press last month that he waited, and even asked about going to prison, but the order never came.


In the years since his conviction, Anderson started his own construction-related businesses, married and had children. He also coached youth football and volunteered at his church in Webster Groves, Missouri.


At the hearing Monday, Anderson's attorney, Patrick Megaro, said Anderson remained out of prison through no fault of his own, and in the intervening years, turned his life around.
"He has been able to accomplish for himself what the criminal justice system does not accomplish in many situations," Megaro told the judge.


Brown agreed. He pointed out that Anderson's crime was serious, but acknowledged that he's a far different man now than he was then.


"You've been a good father," Brown said. "You've been a good husband. You've been a good taxpaying citizen of the state of Missouri.


"That leads me to believe that you are a good man and a changed man."


As the judge announced his decision, about 10 of Anderson's relatives broke out in sobs and cried. Some hugged and thanked God. Anderson's plight drew international headlines last month. An online petition on change.org includes more than 35,000 signatures urging the state to set him free.


The release was met with virtually no resistance from the Missouri Attorney General's Office. Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane told Brown the court should consider the seriousness of Anderson's crime, but also Anderson's behavior over the 13 years of his freedom and the impact that imprisonment would have on his family.


Attorney General Chris Koster said in a statement, "From the outset, I have proposed a solution that balances the seriousness of Mr. Anderson's crime with the mistake made by the criminal justice system and Mr. Anderson's lack of a criminal record over the past 13 years. Today's outcome appears to appropriately balance the facts as we understand them."


The judge said that rather than grant parole, Anderson would get credit for the entirety of the time he should have been in prison. The distinction is important because it means Anderson doesn't have to report to a parole agent.


Megaro lauded the state's understanding of an occurrence that is exceedingly rare.
"This was not an easy case," Megaro said. "I believe it teaches us that justice can be swift, justice can be harsh, but justice also can be merciful."


Anderson had never been convicted of a serious crime before the robbery. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison for the holdup, then told to wait for orders that would specify when and where he was to report to prison. But the orders never came. Anderson suspected that his case had been overlooked and asked his former attorney what to do.


"Day by day, month by month, year by year, time passed, and they never picked me up," he said in an interview last month with The Associated Press.
A court filing by the attorney general's office said the mistake happened when a trial court clerk failed to inform the Missouri Supreme Court that Anderson was free on bond after his initial conviction.


So Anderson went about his life, never trying to conceal his whereabouts or identity. He married, divorced, married again. He raised three children of his own and a stepchild, owned and operated three construction businesses. He coached his son's youth football team in Webster Groves, and he ran the video operation at his church.


In July, Anderson's sentence was supposed to end. It was then that someone at the Missouri Department of Corrections realized he had never been put behind bars. Eight U.S. marshals arrived one morning at his home in a middle-class neighborhood and took him away. He was in prison by noon that day, and had remained behind bars until Monday.


The hearing was in Charleston, Mo., because that's where Anderson had been imprisoned.
"Go home to your family, Mr. Anderson," Brown said after his ruling.

Rapist, Killer and Ex-Boyfriend Jaacob Vanwinkle Denies Raping Girlfriends Daughter

CANON CITY, Colo. (AP) — A man charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl and killing her mother, brother and sister in Colorado bound and gagged the victims with socks and packing tape, newly released court documents show.


A 16-year-old girl told police she was able to escape the man after he assaulted her because he passed out after drinking and taking some of her mother's prescription pills, the arrest affidavit states. The girl ran to a neighbor, who called 911.


The document revealing the new details about the March 9 triple slaying in Canon City was released Friday. Jaacob Vanwinkle, 31, a sex offender from Indiana, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault. Vanwinkle was being represented by a public defender, who did not immediately return calls for comment.


The girl told authorities her relatives were tied up in a garage, and officers later found their bodies in a bedroom of the house. She said her mother and Vanwinkle had broken up about two weeks earlier, and he returned to the house, summoned her downstairs, grabbed her from behind and held her at knifepoint, according to the affidavit.


Officers said they found Vanwinkle in a different bedroom. He initially told them he watched TV at the home, left to get methamphetamine from a friend, and returned to find the bodies but decided not to call police because he was a fugitive, the affidavit says. Authorities were drafting a warrant for his arrest for failing to register as a sex offender at the time of the killings.


Vanwinkle also told police he moved the bodies and hid a knife in a crawlspace after wrapping it in bed sheets, the affidavit states. He acknowledged sexually assaulting the girl but denied the killings, the documents say.

South Korea's Ferry Disaster Probe

 A probe into South Korea's ferry disaster has heard that warnings over the ship's seaworthiness were ignored, prosecutors said Wednesday, as rescuers worked to recover more than 90 people still missing two weeks after it sank.

The confirmed death toll from the accident stood at 210, with 92 unaccounted for, the coastguard said, with divers pushing deeper into the submerged vessel's interior in their search for bodies.

The recovery operation has stalled in recent days because of strong currents and debris blocking access to some of the cabin decks.


Prosecutors investigating the disaster on Tuesday questioned the regular captain of the 6,825-tonne Sewol, who was on leave when it capsized April 16 with 476 people on board -- most of them high school students.


Senior Prosecutor Yang Jong-Jin said the captain, identified only as Shin, told investigators that he had warned the shipping company of serious stability problems with the Sewol.
The Chonghaejin Marine Co. purchased the then-18 year old ferry from Japan in 2012 and refurbished it, building extra passenger cabins on the third, fourth and fifth decks.

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A handout picture taken on April 29, 2014 showing President Park Geun-Hye paying her respects.

Shin said the renovations altered the balance of the ship and undermined its anti-rolling ability.
When he advised the company about the problems, his warnings were brushed aside, he told investigators.


The precise cause of the accident is still under investigation, but experts have suggested a sharp turn may have caused its cargo to shift, and the ferry to list irretrievably to one side before capsizing.
Kim Han-Sik, the CEO of Chonghaejin Marine, was summoned to the prosecutors' office Tuesday in the port city of Incheon, from where the ill-fated ferry departed bound for Jeju island.
Kim, 71, issued a tearful apology for the "horrible tragedy" the day after the accident, saying he and other company officials were responsible for a "grave sin" in letting it happen.

In Shin's absence, the Sewol was skippered by captain Lee Joon-Seok, who is now under arrest along with 14 crew members. The coastguard released a video earlier this week showing Lee scrambling to safety as hundreds of his passengers remained trapped inside the ferry. Public disgust at the behaviour of the crew has been matched by the anger of the victims' relatives with the official response to the disaster.

President Park Geun-Hye apologised on Tuesday for her government's failure to combat systemic and regulatory "evils" that may have contributed to the accident and for the "insufficient first response."

But many of the victims' families rejected her apology, which was made during a meeting with her cabinet ministers.

"An apology made before several cabinet members behind closed doors cannot be considered an apology," said Yoo Gyeong-Geun, the spokesman for a group of around 100 families who issued a statement demanding a thorough probe into the rescue operation.

The tragedy has proved a challenge for Park, who has built a reputation for strong leadership since taking office just over a year ago, but is sometimes criticised for being aloof and domineering.

On Tuesday, Park visited a memorial to the young victims of the disaster in Ansan city, where the high school that had 325 students on board the Sewol is located.

She was heckled during her visit by some family members who also turned away wreaths donated by the president and other senior officials.

Cliven Bundy Racist Remarks

Less than a week ago, Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy's standoff with federal authorities over unpaid grazing fees was treated as political gold by some conservative politicians and media personalities. The figure of the rugged Westerner standing up to armed agents of the state seemed a perfect opportunity to highlight long-standing complaints about the size and scope of the federal government.

But stories showing Bundy in a less flattering light exploded on Thursday after he was quoted in a New York Times profile questioning whether African-Americans were better off as slaves.
“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” Bundy said during one of his daily press conferences. “[B]ecause they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children; they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”




After the story quickly went viral, Bundy was forced to address his remarks during a press conference on Thursday afternoon. Bundy said he is opposed to slavery. "I don’t believe in any of that type of stuff," he said, but he also used the word "Negro" or "Negros" at least a half-dozen times during his brief remarks. "They’re not slaves anymore," Bundy added. "But they seem to be slaves to the welfare system.”


"It really don’t matter to me if you twist my words out," Bundy said at the end of his press conference. "It matters that my heart goes out to the people of this world, and they understand what I stand for."


Bundy initially denied the comments in an interview with radio host Alex Jones. But after video of his full comments surfaced, he doubled down on his remarks on Thursday, saying in a radio interview with Peter Schiff:

“That’s exactly what I said. I said I’m wondering if they’re better off under government subsidy, and their young women are having the abortions and their young men are in jail, and their older women and their children are standing, sitting out on the cement porch without nothing to do, you know, I’m wondering: Are they happier now under this government subsidy system than they were when they were slaves, and they was able to have their family structure together, and the chickens and garden, and the people had something to do? And so, in my mind I’m wondering, are they better off being slaves, in that sense, or better off being slaves to the United States government, in the sense of the subsidies. I’m wondering. That’s what. And the statement was right. I am wondering.”

After a week of accusations that the federal government had overplayed its hand by sending armed officials from the Bureau of Land Management to seize cattle from Bundy’s property in the dispute, critics of Bundy and his armed supporters seemingly seized the upper hand.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, resumed the offensive, calling Bundy a “hateful racist” in a statement released on Thursday and urging Republican leaders to distance themselves from him.




“For their part, national Republican leaders could help show a united front against this kind of hateful, dangerous extremism by publicly condemning Bundy,” Reid said in the statement.
A number of Republican officials, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, have begun doing exactly that, the Washington Post reports.




“I wholeheartedly disagree with him,” Paul said in a statement, calling Bundy’s remarks “offensive.”
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus also condemned the comments, saying, "Bundy's comments are completely beyond the pale. Both highly offensive and 100% wrong on race."




A spokesman for Republican Nevada Sen. Dean Heller echoed Paul’s comments, saying, “Sen. Heller completely disagrees with Mr. Bundy’s appalling and racist statements, and condemns them in the most strenuous way.”




Bundy explained his comments by saying he was just trying out a Glenn Beck-style thought experiment. Later in the same press conference, he praised the family lives of workers, presumably Latin American, who are living illegally in the U.S.

“Now, let me talk about the Spanish people. You know, I understand that they come over here against our Constitution and cross our borders. But they are here and they are people. And I’ve worked side by side with a lot of them. Don’t tell me they don’t work and don’t tell me they don’t pay taxes," Bundy said. "And don’t tell me they don’t have better family structures than most of us white people.  "We need to have those people join us and be with us, not come to our party.”