tylercoates:

UUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH TO ALL OF THIS.

A Texas high school cheerleader who was kicked off the squad for refusing to chant the name of a basketball player - the same athlete she said had raped her four months earlier - lost a U.S. Supreme Court appeal Monday.

A federal appeals court ruled in September that the cheerleader was speaking for the school, not herself, and had no right to remain silent when called on to cheer the athlete by name.

The Supreme Court denied review of the case Monday without comment.

The girl, identified by her initials H.S., was 16 when she said she was raped at a party in her southeast Texas hometown of Silsbee in October 2008. She identified the assailant as Rakheem Bolton, a star on the Silsbee High School football team.

Bolton ultimately pleaded guilty in September 2010 to a misdemeanor assault charge and received a suspended sentence.

At a February 2009 basketball game in Huntsville, Texas, H.S. joined in leading cheers for the Silsbee team, which included Bolton. But when Bolton went to the foul line to shoot a free throw, H.S. folded her arms and was silent.

H.S. said the district superintendent, his assistant and the school principal told her she had to cheer for Bolton or go home. She refused and was dismissed from the squad.

H.S., joined by her parents, sued school officials and the district. They claimed the school had punished her for exercising her right of free expression.

An appeals court in New Orleans ruled against her, saying a cheerleader acts as a “mouthpiece” for the school.

Federal courts have also ordered H.S. and her parents to reimburse the district more than $45,000 for the costs of defending against a frivolous suit.

The family’s lawyer, Laurence Watts, said the ruling means students who try to exercise their right of free speech can be punished for refusing to follow “insensitive and unreasonable directions.”

WTF is this shit. Seriously, WTF.

lattershed:

rivertrash:

the-madame-hatter:

There’s another infamous shooting of a nine-year-old girl that is making headlines this week in Tucson. This time, we wonder if the rest of the media will bother to cover it.

The little girl’s name was Brisenia Flores. She lived near the border with her parents and sister outside the town of Arivaca, Arizona. On May 30 of 2009, a woman named Shawna Forde, who led an offshoot unit of Minutemen who ran armed border patrols for patriotic “fun”. Forde’s gang had decided to go “operational,” which meant they concocted a scheme to raid drug smugglers and take their money and drugs and use it to finance a border race war and “start a revolution against the government”. They targeted the Flores home, which had neither money nor drugs, based on dubious information. They convinced Flores to let them in by claiming to be law-enforcement officers seeking fugitives, then shot him point-blank in the head when he questioned them and wounded his wife, Gina Gonzalez. And then, while she pleaded for her life, they shot Brisenia in cold blood in the head. (Her sister, fortunately, was sleeping over at a friend’s.)

(via CrooksandLiars)

That poor baby. That poor family. That poor community.

I’m so sick of this shit. This is racism. Pure and simple. This is where racism always leads. This is what a culture of white supremacy looks like, people. White politicians on tv frothing at the mouth over “illegals threatening our way of life”. Is it any wonder that POC are rounded up and shot when the people who represent us continue to mark these minorities as “threats”?

This needs to fucking stop. We need to stop tolerating the people who help create this culture of xenophobia, white supremacy, and fear.

WHAT THE FUCK

oh my god.

(Source: onceuponanotsolongago, via tulletulle)