Black Lives Matter (BLM)

Your White Neighbor’s ‘Black Lives Matter’ Yard Sign Is Not Enough

July 5, 2020 By Shayla Lawson, In These Times. Educate! Anti-Racism, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Education, Racism

Despite my having grown up in the South, Portland is the most racist place I have ever lived. This is because being anti-racist isn’t about using politically correct buzzwords and giving lip service to sensitive conversation topics. Being anti-racist is about constructing a landscape that is safe for dark people to inhabit. It is not about white people trying to prove they are “woke” by putting up yard signs. That is not even what “woke” means. “Woke” is a territory of open-eyed, unsuperficial, cultural awareness white people are nowhere close to occupying; they are not even in the neighborhood. But being anti-racist in this dangerous era is something they can do, by going out of their way to make nonwhite people feel safe.

Facebook Groups Pivot To Attacks On Black Lives Matter

July 5, 2020 Amanda Seitz, Associated Press. Educate! Black Lives Matter (BLM), Facebook, Racism

A loose network of Facebook groups that took root across the country in April to organize protests over coronavirus stay-at-home orders has become a hub of misinformation and conspiracy theories that have pivoted to a variety of new targets. Their latest: Black Lives Matter and the nationwide protests of racial injustice. These groups, which now boast a collective audience of more than 1 million members, are still thriving after most states started lifting virus restrictions. And many have expanded their focus. One group transformed itself last month from “Reopen California” to “California Patriots Pro Law & Order,” with recent posts mocking Black Lives Matter or changing the slogan to “White Lives Matter." Members have used profane slurs to refer to Black people and protesters, calling them “animals,” “racist” and “thugs”— a direct violation of Facebook’s hate speech standards.

Pro-Israel Racist Group ADL Moves To Co-Opt Black Lives Matter

July 1, 2020 Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada. Educate! Anti-Defamation League, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Israel, Palestine

For those who yearn for an end to systemic racism, these are exhilarating times as Black activists and organizations lead a global uprising against symbols and structures of white supremacy. But if you are a racist group masquerading as a civil rights organization, these days are fraught with the danger that you’ll get found out. It’s a balancing act that has for years bedeviled the Anti-Defamation League, a major Israel lobby group in the United States. The crisis is particularly acute right now as the ADL tries to portray itself as an ally of Black Lives Matter while also shielding Israel from criticism over its plans to annex Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, further entrenching the system of apartheid.

Whole Foods Is Quietly Telling Workers Not To Show Black Lives Matter Support

June 30, 2020 By Nicole Karlis, Salon. Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), Solidarity, Whole Foods, Workers Rights and Jobs

This week, a group of Whole Foods workers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, walked out after being told they couldn’t wear Black Lives Matter masks because they weren’t part of “the company dress code.” Prior to the incident, wearing masks with other symbols or logos, including ones that featured the New England Patriots, were reportedly acceptable. This is according to a report in the Boston Globe, which details how Whole Foods worker Savannah Kinzer and a few of her colleagues wore BLM-themed masks on Wednesday. A manager told them they either had to remove the masks or go home. Seven of them walked out. On Thursday, Kinzer showed up and passed out more masks, but they were met with the same fate. Dozens of workers were sent home again.

Protesting For Black Lives In Trump Country

June 20, 2020 Mesha Jefferson, Otherwords. Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), Police violence, Rebellion2020, Trump

I grew up biracial in a small, conservative town. Still, after living for years in Austin, moving back to one was a culture shock — it felt like going back in time. For the last three years I’ve lived in Volusia County, Florida — home to Daytona Beach, many small towns and suburbs, and a population that gave about 55 percent of its vote to Donald Trump in 2016. Racial divides are still evident in Daytona and the surrounding areas. Daytona itself is divided by U.S. Route 92, with poorer people of color primarily residing south of the road. The further north you go, the richer — and whiter — it becomes. I’ve had my fair share of interactions with racists here. I often feel out of place. Even in my own neighborhood, I don’t feel safe walking around without my dog or another person.

Scheer Intelligence: The Powerful Past, Present And Future Of Black Lives Matter

June 19, 2020 Robert Scheer, Scheer Post. Educate! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Defund the police, Podcast, Police violence

Black Lives Matter was founded in 2013 after the murder of Trayvon Martin highlighted the dangers Black children, women and men face daily because of the color of their skin. The grassroots movement has protested against police violence and anti-black racism since then, and advocated for policy changes to address racial injustices. Despite having been active for the better part of a decade now, Black Lives Matter was recently launched into the global spotlight after the police assassination of George Floyd rocked the world. On this week’s episode of “Scheer Intelligence,” Dr. Melina Abdullah, one of the Black Lives Matter co-founders, tells host Robert Scheer how while BLM had worked hard to raise awareness about the slayings of everyone from Sandra Bland to Eric Garner, the activists did not expect the response to Floyd’s death to be so far-reaching.

‘Black Lives Matter’ Is International

June 19, 2020 Roger Harris, Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Educate! Black Lives Matter (BLM), colonization, Rebellion2020, US Empire

Corte Madera, California - The police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25th was the spark that ignited the tinder of accrued injustice throughout the US and globally. This injustice has deep antecedents in the US and indeed in much of what is now called the Global South. There is a shared history of colonial conquest of the Indigenous and the abominable institution of the enslavement of African peoples. What happened has its roots in systemic oppression that has resonated internationally. Just as the police suffocated George Floyd, US unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Zimbabwe, and nearly one third of humanity are designed to asphyxiate those nations which aspire to pursue an independent course.

Juneteenth: Strike For Black Lives

June 19, 2020 Strike For Black Lives. Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), Police Abolition, Rebellion2020, Washington DC

We are calling for disruptive actions aimed at shutting down the city: Strikes, sick-outs, blockades, occupations, and spontaneous marches. We’ve watched a wave of grieving and rebellion take hold of the nation, and we say it’s about time. We seek justice for Terrence Sterling, Jeffery Price, D’Quann Young, Marquees Alston, Miriam Carey, and Ralphael Briscoe, as well as the many hundreds of Black people who have been killed by MPD, ICE, or other white men with badges and guns. We remember families separated by prison walls and by state borders. We mourn all the community members we’ve lost doing sex work, defending sacred land, crossing borders, and the rebels we’ve already lost from the Ferguson uprising.

Reporter Sues Newspaper For Prohibiting Her Coverage Of Protests

June 18, 2020 Louise Hall, The Independent. Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), Media, Racism, Rebellion2020

A reporter in Pittsburgh is suing the newspaper she works for after the company prohibited her from covering the city’s Black Lives Matter protests because of a tweet concerning the issue. The suit claims that Ms. Johnson was prevented from pursuing stories on jailed protesters or social-media efforts to raise bail funds after she posted a tweet on 31 May highlighting the different treatment black and white people regarding property damage. “Horrifying scenes and aftermath from selfish LOOTERS who don’t care about this city!!!!!” the tweet says. “.... oh wait sorry. ”No, these are pictures from a Kenny Chesney concert tailgate. Whoops." Post-Gazette managing editor Karen Kane previously declined comment. Ms. Johnson’s fellow reporters, her union, and the city’s mayor have all voiced support for the reporter. Guild President Michael A Fuoco, who is also a Post-Gazette reporter, said that guild leaders were “appalled” by the paper's move.

What Would The Black Panthers Think Of Black Lives Matter?

June 18, 2020 Paul Street, Truthdig. Strategize! Black Lives Matter (BLM), Black Panthers, Capitalism, Racism

The U.S. ruling class, whose capitalist system is the historical midwife of modern racism, is not threatened by the racialist and black-capitalist BLM. But just to make sure that black anger is kept within safe political boundaries, a critical, cash-rich arm of concentrated wealth agreed last year to lavishly fund the group and a significant number of black middle class-led policy and advocacy groups coming in under its rubric. In August 2016, when I first heard that BLM had scored $100 million from the Ford Foundation and other elite philanthro-capitalists (including the Hill-Snowden Foundation, the NoVo Foundation, Solidaire, JPMorgan Chase and the Kellogg Foundation), I wrote it off as “fake news” from the right-wing noise machine. But the story checked out. The remarkable grant—a vast sum of money off the charts of normal foundation giving—was a matter of public record. Fred Hampton said "We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don’t fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism."

The Black Lives Matter Protests Are Working

June 14, 2020 Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, Lydia O’Connor, and Celeste Lavin, Huffington Post. Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), George Floyd, Police violence, Rebellion2020

so far, the Black Lives Matter protests — which built off years of work by BLM activists since 2013, in the streets, in halls of government and educating the public — have spurred some significant changes. From cities redirecting funding from police departments to Confederate monuments coming down in droves, here are some of the steps toward racial justice and ending police brutality that we’ve seen in just 16 days since protests began. For activists out on the streets today and the movement for Black lives and racial justice more broadly, the work is far from over. Much of these moves represent incremental change or simple promises of change, and fall far short of what activists are calling for. For instance, while over a dozen cities are considering reducing police budgets, Minneapolis’ city council is still the only one to go so far as to announce it will “dismantle” its police force, and it still has to develop a plan for what “transformative public safety” model will take its place.

Authorities Seize Masks Oakland Printer Made For Protesters

June 6, 2020 Martha Ross, Mercury News. Educate! Black Lives Matter (BLM), Post Office, Rebellion2020, Surveillance

The family that owns an Oakland screen printing business said they feel “angry, concerned and threatened” after they learned that cloth masks they made for protests around the country were temporarily seized by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which suspected they might be “non-mailable matter.” Rene Quinonez of Movement Ink in Oakland said he and his family stayed up late and worked for several days to produce 2,500 masks, which read “Stop killing Black people” or “Defund police.” The masks had been ordered by The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a Black Lives Matter-affiliated organized, to distribute to protesters in New York City, Washington D.C, St. Louis and Minneapolis.

The Murder Of George Floyd Is Normal In An Abnormal Society

June 4, 2020 By Vijay Prashad, Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Educate! Black Lives Matter (BLM), George Floyd, killed by police, Police abuse

The recent murder of George Floyd in the US is sadly unsurprising in a country that upholds capitalist exploitation through white supremacy There is no need to wonder why George Floyd (age 46) was murdered in broad daylight in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25, 2020. The script of his death is written deep in the ugly drama of US history. As you read this, somewhere in the United States, another person will be killed—another poor person whom the police deem to be a threat. Tomorrow another will be killed; and then another. These deaths are normal for the system. Outrage against this system is a logical, and moral, response.

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