By Grant Stern for Verified Politics – The NFL Player’s Association just picked a free agent quarterback as their Week 1 MVP for his charity work, even though he didn’t even make it onto the field. Colin Kaepernick has been blackballed by the NFL’s ownership – 97% of which is composed of enormously wealthy, mostly conservative white males – over his controversial stand to peacefully protest racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem while playing for the San Francisco 49ers last year. Kaepernick guided the Niners to a Super Bowl just four years ago, turning in a stellar performance while his team came up just short against the Baltimore Ravens. Now, he’s still making good on his pledge to donate $1 million to charity, even though he’s unemployed. The Chicago Tribune reports: The NFLPA found particularly impressive, Kaepernick’s continued donations to charity, including a Sept. 7 gift of $100,000 split between four organizations. Kaepernick, who some say hasn’t been signed by an NFL team due to his political activism, gave $25,000 each to DREAM, a New York City after-school program that promotes sports in urban neighborhoods, the Gathering for Justice’s War on Children, a forthcoming initiative to tackle child incarceration, United We Dream, an organization focused on empowering immigrant youth and the Coalition for the Homeless.
By Rafael Shimunov for Medium. When protesters were caged in by an abusive police force, the Central Reform Congregation of St. Louis served as a model to all congregations and opened their doors to protect them. The people of St. Louis took to the streets in response to the acquittal of ex-cop Jason Stockley for the murder of Anthony Lamar Smith. Stockley, when engaged on a police chase of Smith was recorded premeditating his killing of Smith. Police responded to protests withunhinged violence. Here is a video of at least 40 militarized forces attacking an elderly woman with a shield, then overrunning her and others under them. Rather than administering first aid, they continue to overrun her and eventually force her up for detainment.
By Ariel Dorfman for Tikkum – The organizers of the white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville last month knew just what they were doing when they decided to carry torches on their nocturnal march to protest the dethroning of a statue of Robert E. Lee. That brandishing of fire in the night was meant to evoke memories of terror, of past parades of hate and aggression by the Ku Klux Klan in the United States and Adolf Hitler’s Freikorps in Germany. The organizers wanted to issue a warning to those watching: that past violence, perpetrated in defense of the “blood and soil” of the white race, would once again be harnessed and deployed in Donald Trump’s America. Indeed, the very next day, that fatal August 12th, those nationalist fanatics unleashed an orgy of brutality that led to the deaths of three people and the injuring of many more. Millions around America and the world were horrified and revolted by that parade of torches. In my case, however, they also brought to mind deeply personal memories of other fires that had burned darkly so many decades before, far from the United States or Nazi Europe. As I watched footage of that rally, I couldn’t help remembering the bonfires that lit up my own country, Chile, in the aftermath of General Augusto Pinochet’s September 11th coup in 1973 — that “first 9/11,” which, with the active support of Washington and the CIA, had overthrown the popularly elected government of Salvador Allende.
By Adam Johnson for FAIR – Since the Charlottesville attack a month ago, a review of commentary in the six top broadsheet newspapers—the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, LA Times, San Jose Mercury News and Washington Post—found virtually equal amounts of condemnation of fascists and anti-fascist protesters. Between August 12 and September 12, these papers ran 28 op-eds or editorials condemning the anti-fascist movement known as antifa, or calling on politicians to do so, and 27 condemning neo-Nazis and white supremacists, or calling on politicians—namely Donald Trump—to do so. For the purposes of this survey, commentary that drew a comparison between antifa and neo-Nazis, but devoted the bulk of its argument to condemning antifa, was categorized as anti-antifa. There were no op-eds or editorials framed as condemnations of “both sides” that spent as much or more time condemning or criticizing neo-Nazis. The “both sides” frame—which was employed by Donald Trump in the wake of the attack, and endorsed by white supremacist David Duke—was almost always used a vehicle to highlight and denounce antifa, with a “to be sure” line about neo-Nazis thrown in for good measure. A breakdown of the op-eds and editorials can be found here.
By Colin Campbell and Sean Welsh for The Baltimore Sun – Mayor Catherine Pugh says she has no plans to remove the Francis Scott Key monument in Bolton Hill that was vandalized before dawn Wednesday and has directed art preservation experts to determine the cost of cleaning it. Exactly 203 years after the Maryland attorney wrote the poem that would later become the national anthem, the city awoke to find the words “Racist Anthem” spray-painted on the Eutaw Place monument and red paint splashed on it. The third stanza of Key’s poem includes a reference accusing the British of encouraging American slaves to join the fight against their masters. City officials said they know of no way to prevent future vandalism, short of catching the person or people responsible. Police don’t have any suspects or surveillance footage of the incident. “Ultimately, it’s going to come down to them being caught and charged,” police spokesman T.J. Smith said. Officers make periodic checks on city property during their patrols, but the department does not plan to place the Key monument under constant police protection, Smith said. “We can’t ensure it’s not going to happen again,” Pugh spokesman Anthony McCarthy said. He said, however, the mayor does not plan to take it down and wants to see it restored.
By Abraham for BAJI – NEW YORK, NY – This morning Attorney General Sessions announced that the Trump Administration will rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allowed 800,000 immigrant youth to live, work and remain in the United States without the constant fear of deportation. Established in 2012, the program has transformed the lives of young people, including thousands of Black immigrants, bringing stability, along with economic and educational opportunities to marginalized families and communities. “BAJI is appalled by Trump’s decision to rescind DACA. By canceling the program President Trump is yet again pandering to white supremacists over immigrant, Black, and poor communities, as well as millions of organizations, businesses, and allies that support DACA recipients. It is now up to Congress to come up with a long term solution to our broken immigration system that protects human rights and enables immigrant families to live and thrive in the U.S.,” says Opal Tometi, BAJI’s Executive Director and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Global Network. “BAJI stands with the millions of young undocumented immigrants whose lives are on the line, including those protected under DACA. Until dignity, justice, and human rights protections can be afforded all oppressed communities in the U.S….
By Rod Such for The Electronic Antifada – One of the earliest boycott, divestment and sanctions, or BDS, victories in the United States came in 1973 when United Auto Workers Local 600 in Dearborn, Michigan, voted to divest its Israeli bonds after a campaign waged by the Arab Workers Caucus and the American Arab Coordinating Committee. The campaign drew comparisons with apartheid South Africa and won the support of many Black autoworkers in Michigan. Was it just an oddity that decades before Palestinian civil society called for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel in 2005, industrial workers in the US heartland were already waging a BDS struggle? Or, far from being a rogue wave, was it an integral part of the oceanic upheavals among workers, students, immigrants and people of color during the heady maelstroms of the 1960s and ’70s? The Rise of the Arab American Left makes it clear this was no oddity, although it did have certain characteristics unique to the Arab American experience. Given the relative paucity of scholarship on the history of the Arab American left, this book is a must-read for those who wish to learn more about that community’s activism during this period of radical upheaval.
Newsletter Environment, Indigenous Rights, Internet Freedom, NAFTA, Neoliberalism, Poverty, Racism, TPP, Trade, Trump, Worker Rights and Jobs By Daniel Cooper Bermudez, www.popularresistance.org
September 10th, 2017
By Daniel Cooper Bermudez. The Trump administration is renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico in secret, just as President Obama did with the TPP. Over the past two decades, NAFTA has resulted in workers losing their jobs and being replaced by machinery, ruined family farms throughout the continent, displaced communities and privatized social services, environmental disasters like the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a widespread attack on labor rights and unions. This week, we explain our opposition to NAFTA2 and put forward a strategy to remake trade so it is no longer corporate-driven trade for the profits of a few, but people-driven trade to benefit all and protect the planet.
By Paul Street for Counter Punch – The United States, where median Black household wealth is less than 7 cents on the white household dollar and where the mild slogan “Black lives matter” is considered controversial, is still very much a racist nation. Grasping the nature of this national racism in 21stcentury means looking at the different levels on which race operates here. One level is at the nation’s discursive and symbolic surface. It is about language, imagery, signs, the color of elite personnel, representation, and, well, symbols. A different and deeper level is institutional and structural. It’s about how labor markets, the financial sector, the real estate industry, the educational system, the criminal justice complex, the military state, the corporate system, the dominant media, and capitalism more broadly all work to deepen, maintain, and/or reduce racial oppression and inequality. At the surface and symbolic level, racism has experienced significant defeats in the United States since the rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the middle and late 1950s. Open public bigotry has been largely defeated in the nation’s corporate-crafted public culture.
By E.B. Furgurson III for Capital Gazette – It was art as protest, or vice versa, as a handful of activists lit up the Maryland State House in Annapolis on Friday night with anti-racism messages. The night sky and the facades of the oldest state house in the country were emblazoned with “Disable White Supremacy,” “Alt-Right is Wrong” and “Stop the Hate,” projected using stage theater lights powered by a small rented generator. It was like 21st-century tech meets “This Little Light of Mine,” the church spiritual reworked into a civil rights anthem during the height of the movement for equality 50 years ago. The effort was led by Phil Ateto, of Glen Burnie, a volunteer with the Backbone Campaign, an organization that spearheads and teaches creative protest techniques, like the projection stunt or mass kayak gatherings for water-related issues. He has been involved with the Backbone Campaign for about five years, he said Friday night as he was adjusting focus on the State House. “It’s a good way to get into good trouble,” he said. “We know we have to be the change we want to see. And doing it by engaging in nonviolent direct action, artistic action.” The Backbone Campaign, divided up into a network of smaller groups called Solidarity Brigades, held similar projection protests across the country Friday in cities from Seattle to San Diego and Atlanta to Toledo, Ohio.
By Jim Gonzalez for The NiLP Report – In the wake of the former Sheriff Joe Arpaio pardon, most media and political commentators have mainly discussed President Trump’s disrespect of the conviction rendered by a federal court. Alarmingly, there is very little focus on how Trump’s pardon endorses egregious human rights abuses against Latinos committed by Arpaio for decades, which included illegal detentions, humiliation, torture, and wrongful death. The Maricopa County Medical examiner found 157 deaths (including 39 suicides) between 1996 to 2015 in Arpaio’s lockups and “Tent City” concentration camps — a suicide rate of 24 percent. A 2015 investigation by the Phoenix New Times found that “more than 13,000 claims were filed against the Sheriff’s Office over mistreatment, abuse, and ultimately death.” Trump’s pardon encourages in chilling terms a playbook of oppression against Latinos. It also serves as a harbinger of what Trump intends for the young DREAMers who have received coverage under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA).The Trump/Arpaio practice of branding and abusing Latinos as criminals sends a very clear message to hate groups that it is open season against Latinos in America.
By Matthew Delmont for The Conversation. There is a historical relationship between Nazism and white supremacy in the United States. Yet the recent resurgence of explicit racism, including the attack in Charlottesville, has been greeted by many with surprise. Just look at the #thisisnotwhoweare hashtag. As a scholar of African-American history, I am troubled by the collective amnesia in U.S. politics and media around racism. It permeates daily interactions in communities across the country. This ignorance has consequences. When Americans celebrate the country’s victory in WWII, but forget that the U.S. armed forces were segregated, that the Red Cross segregated blood donors or that many black WWII veterans returned to the country only to be denied jobs or housing, it becomes all the more difficult to talk honestly about racism today.
By Staff of Unicorn Riot – Charlottesville, VA – As white supremacist groups continue to hold “free speech” events in the wake of the deadly hit-and-run attack in Charlottesville, many elements of the self-named “alt-right” have come under increased scrutiny. Organizations have been refused service by web providers and payment processors. Many individuals are facing personal consequences at home and work. The insurgent neo-fascist movement is being repeatedly shamed, confronted, and rejected in the wake of the murder of Heather Heyer by neo-Nazi James Alex Fields, Jr. after the Unite The Right rally ended in failure on August 12 in Virginia. We are releasing another 428 screenshots from the main white supremacist chat server used to organize the Charlottesville rally, highlighting the web of far-right racist organizations involved and their extensive preparations for violence. While the aftermath of Heather Heyer’s death still unfolds, many people are also wondering why so many of the racist assaults captured on camera in Charlottesville, including several beatings of black men by white supremacists with clubs, remain unaddressed. As many locals and antifascists had told Charlottesville authorities for months, the racist groups planning to converge there had been openly preparing a violent offensive.
By Marjorie Cohn for Truthout – On Friday, less than two weeks after refusing to unequivocally condemn the white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Donald Trump granted former Arizona Sheriff Joseph Arpaio a rare presidential pardon, calling the notorious racist an “American patriot.” The pardon is noteworthy for many reasons. First, it demonstrates Trump’s utter disdain for the rule of law. US District Judge Susan Bolton convicted Arpaio of criminal contempt for showing “flagrant disregard” of a 2011 court order that he cease racial profiling. Nevertheless, for 18 months, Arpaio, who called himself “America’s toughest sheriff,” continued his racist practice of detaining Latinos without reasonable suspicion. “The fact that Arpaio is quite literally convicted of being in criminal contempt of the courts is a big selling point for a president who has evinced nothing but contempt for the judicial branch since before he took office,” Dahlia Lithwick wrote at Salon. Second, the pardon sends a clear message to Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and anyone else whom special counsel Robert Mueller subpoenas to testify in his Russia investigation. Trump could pardon them, too, if they refuse to cooperate and are held in contempt of court.
By Jessica Wang for Alternet – Recent events in Charlottesville have renewed the debate around whether to take down Confederate memorials and statues, but the latest short film from the Equal Justice Institute’s Lynching in America project shows that much more is needed to truly confront the bitter legacy of slavery and racial injustice. Abbeville chronicles the unveiling of a historical marker dedicated to the brutal death of Anthony Crawford a century ago. Lynched in the town square of Abbeville, South Carolina, Crawford was a successful African-American farmer who argued with a white merchant for a fair price for cottonseed. For his “crime,” he was publicly stabbed, shot and hanged by a white mob, and his family was subsequently run out of town. Crawford’s murder counts as just one of the 4,084 racial terror lynchings identified by EJI in 12 Southern states between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and 1950, and yet is one of only a handful of deaths recognized today by public markers. In fact, the Abbeville memorial is one of six lynching markers erected by EJI as part of an effort to force Americans to face our history of racial terror and reshape the national narrative about race. The other five can be found in LaGrange, Georgia, and four cities in Alabama.
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