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Racism

Photo Of Police Officer With Armed Men Prompts Outrage And Investigation

June 8, 2020 Sara Gentzler, The Olympian.   , ,
A photo circulating on social media Friday showing an Olympia Police officer posing with a group of armed men in front of Baskin Robbins on Olympia’s west side has prompted outrage from many, a response from Mayor Cheryl Selby, and an investigation by the police department. A Facebook post featuring the photo that was shared on Twitter Friday is captioned “this is us the 3% with a OPD at 140am when she came to that k (sic) us for being there and her partner on duty came and thanked us to.” The hand gesture is associated with the Three Percenters movement also mentioned in the photo’s caption. The gesture represented “wp” for “white power,” and eventually it was sincerely adopted by some white supremacists. In a statement Friday night, Interim Police Chief Aaron Jelcick described the men as “a group of armed individuals dressed in fatigue or militia like clothing.”

Confederate Monuments In Richmond Coming Down

June 8, 2020 By The Virginia Defender. , ,
Richmond, VA, June 3 -- The Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, an all-volunteer, grassroots organization that since 2007, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of the slavery-defending Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, has been calling for taking down all the city’s white-supremacist memorials, is elated to learn today that some of the statues’ days are now officially numbered. Their demise is long, long overdue. Local and national media are reporting that Virginia’s Gov. Ralph Northam will announce tomorrow that he will order the 14-foot-tall statue of Lee to be removed from its 46-foot-tall pedestal on Richmond’s famed Monument Avenue and put into storage until there can be public input about its ultimate fate.

The System Was Built To Break Black People…

June 8, 2020 By Rodney Foxworth, Medium. , , ,
While we like to believe that the system is merely “broken,” now is the time we finally acknowledge that the system was purposely designed to break black people. But we refuse to break, and here we stand, unbroken and undeterred. Like many black people in this country, I live each day with anger and pain, but also joy and optimism. Our strength keeps us from breaking under the weight of racism and economic injustice. Instead, we build.

Minneapolis City Council Members Consider Disbanding The Police

June 7, 2020 Hannah Jones, City Pages. , , ,
If you’ve been tuned into the Minneapolis public safety scene, you know that for years, Reclaim the Block and other grassroots community groups have been asking the city to do one thing: stop investing in policing. Budget meeting after budget meeting, they’d turn out with their petitions and signs, demanding the city put less money into its police department and more money into programs that stop crimes from happening in the first place – affordable housing, addiction counseling, violence prevention programs. The council's been listening. “I think we’ve had a vision for a while of wanting to see another kind of city response to those [911] calls,” says Council Member Steve Fletcher, whose Ward 3 covers parts of downtown.

We Protest Police In The Streets, So Why Do We Let Police In Our Schools?

June 5, 2020 By Dave Stieber, The Chicago Reporter. , , ,
There is a large body of research that shows that having police in schools negatively impacts student learning and makes kids feel unsafe. It took the murder of Philando Castille in 2016 and George Floyd, but the Minneapolis Public School Board voted last night to cut ties with the Minneapolis Police Department. We have examples in Chicago and across the country of police abusing our students in schools. This includes police tasing a student, body-slamming a 12-year-old, flipping a student’s desk and dragging them across the floor, slapping and kicking a student, and arresting students as young as six years old.  Our students are being charged with crimes that would normally be handled through existing internal disciplinary policies if not for the police presence in schools.

Black Journalists At Philadelphia Inquirer Call In Sick

June 5, 2020 Black Journalists of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Popular Resistance. , , ,
To the leadership of the Philadelphia Inquirer: As journalists of color, we do more than report on the community — we are the community. We do our best to give the community a platform to be heard. We strive to represent the voice of the people. And we are tired. We’re tired of hasty apologies and silent corrections when someone screws up. We’re tired of workshops and worksheets and diversity panels. We’re tired of working for months and years to gain the trust of our communities — communities that have long had good reason to not trust our profession — only to see that trust eroded in an instant by careless, unempathetic decisions. It’s no coincidence that communities hurt by systemic racism only see journalists in their neighborhoods when people are shot or buildings burn down.

As Protests Rage Over George Floyd’s Death, Climate Activists Embrace Racial Justice

June 4, 2020 Ilana Cohen, Evelyn Nieves, Judy Fahys, Marianne LaVelle, James Bruggers, Inside Climate News. , , ,
Friends of the Earth tweeted #BlackLivesMatter, and the head of the NRDC promised: “to be fully and visibly committed to the fight against systemic racism.” When New York Communities for Change helped lead a demonstration of 500 on Monday in Brooklyn to protest George Floyd's killing in Minneapolis, the grassroots group's activism spoke to a long-standing link between police violence against African Americans and environmental justice. Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community-based organization, said she considers showing up to fight police brutality and racial violence integral to her climate change activism.  These community organizations in New York have been joined in protest by the nation's most prominent climate change activist groups, including the Sierra Club, 350.org, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion.

Action To End Media Bias Against Victims Of Police Violence

June 4, 2020 Unicorn Riot. , , ,
Protesters are gathered outside WCCO, where Bob Kroll’s wife Liz Collins works. Kroll is the president of the Minneapolis Police Federation with a checkered past. Organizers refer to “Bob Kroll and the Art of the Coverup”. Day 9 of Minneapolis protests for George Floyd. Our coverage started on May 26.

Contemporary White Antiracism

June 4, 2020 Cross Cultural Solidarity. , ,
The easiest way to find local White antiracist groups is to look at SURJ’s list – which includes SURJ chapters as well as other White antiracist groups – organized by state and city.  SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) is a nationwide network of White antiracist groups, with chapters in roughly 100 cities.  For building White working-class antiracism, see SURJ’s commitment to such organizing, as well as the more explicitly radical, self-defense oriented group, Redneck Revolt.  White antiracist groups, historically and in the present, tend to be predominantly female.  White women and LGBT people are far more likely join antiracist groups than men, and especially straight men.  STAND is one example of an organization working to bring White men into antiracist work.

Responding To Protests, Green Groups Reckon With A Racist Past

June 3, 2020 By Shannon Osaka, Grist. , , ,
Already stressed by the threat of coronavirus and widespread unemployment, the United States has erupted into protests after the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, by a Minneapolis police officer. Now, prominent groups in the environmental movement — which has long struggled with a dark, racist past — are speaking out against institutional prejudice and calling for the movement to better prioritize social justice. “For too long conservation and environmental movements have not spoken up to address the long-standing challenges that non-white communities face,” Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. “Environmental organizations should work to bring down the barriers that affect Black, people of color, and Indigenous communities.” The League of Conservation Voters, Earthjustice, 350.org, and the Sierra Club also issued statements.

White Supremacist Infiltration Of US Police Forces

June 1, 2020 By Danielle Schulkin, Just Security. , , ,
The term “systemic racism” does not mean that individuals who operate within the system are generally racists. Instead, it means the institutions we have in place produce racially disparate effects on minority populations. And, in that regard, there are well-documented empirical studies of systemic racism in law enforcement agencies—including the use of policies like stop and frisk and disparate rates of policing activities including traffic stops, searches of motorists during traffic stops, levels of respect shown during stops, misdemeanor arrests, marijuana arrests, use of SWAT teams, individuals jailed for inability to pay petty fines for moving violations, militarized policing of different neighborhoods, resolution of murders of white versus black victims, sustained complaints against police officers, and unarmed victims of police shootings.

Black And Minority-Owned Businesses Are Denied Virus Relief Funds

May 29, 2020 Ama Nundoo, Face 2 Face Africa. , , ,
Many Black and Latino business owners say they are on the verge of losing their businesses because they are currently out of work due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, that may not be the only reason because according to a new survey, these two minority groups have also been side-lined and are barely benefiting from the Paycheck Protection Program and other government aid efforts. The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is a part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act that is intended to provide some form of financial aid to small business owners who are finding it hard to function amid the coronavirus pandemic. Nonetheless, Black and Latino small business owners are on the losing end of the scale, according to the survey conducted by the Global Strategy Group for two equal-rights organizations, Color of Change and UnidosUS. From April 30 to last Monday, a total of 500 business owners and 1,200 workers were interviewed, according to the New York Times.

Minneapolis Protests Police Murder Of George Floyd: Day 2

May 29, 2020 Unicorn Riot. , , ,
Protesters are continuing to gather outside the Minneapolis Police (MPD) 3rd Precinct building today after extended protests and clashes with police yesterday. The Twin Cities is still engulfed in mass outrage after MPD officer Derek Chauvin was filmed choking a black man named George Floyd to death in a disturbing video that went viral Monday night. On Wednesday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called on Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to file criminal charges against Officer Chauvin. Chauvin and three other officers involved in Floyd’s were fired on Tuesday. Such a quick firing of officers after a police killing is unprecedented in Minneapolis history. More evidence continues to emerge that suggest police lied when they claimed that George Floyd was resisting arrest at the time Officer Chauvin started choking him out with a knee on his neck.

Minneapolis Explodes Against The Police

May 27, 2020 It's Going Down. , , ,
The Minneapolis Uprising will surely be seen as a turning point in 2020, not only in terms of marking the first large scale grassroots rebellion against the State in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, but also because it showed the drive of the people to take action in the face of various forces attempting to push them off the streets. But from activist protest managers, to police with high grade firepower, to even the State’s quick rush to fire the officers involved in the killing, all efforts failed in putting a wet blanket over the popular rage of the thousands who turned up Tuesday night and made chants of, “No Justice, No Peace,” not just an empty threat, but a promise of total ungovernability.

A History Of Mutual Aid Has Prepared POC For This Moment

May 26, 2020 By Myriam Gurba, Remmexcla. , , ,
Southern Solidarity has gone from 24 daily meal distributions to 250. “We’re doing this because capitalism is making survival impossible,” Araujo says. She plans to meet with researchers and academics to develop a guidebook on how to create a mutual aid project during a pandemic but, in the meantime, she has advice for those of us interested in lending a hand: “Assess and observe,” she says. “Do not mimic colonizer actions. Connect to existing institutions. And, most of all, insert your radical imagination.”
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