Systemic Racism

Fight the Power: Resistance Radio At The Virtual GRC Summit

October 8, 2020 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Grassroots Radio, Repression, Resistance, Systemic Racism

This year's Grassroots Radio Conference will be a virtual summit, Friday to Sunday, October 9 to 11. The annual event is typically hosted by a Pacifica Radio affiliate station, most recently by K UHS H ot Springs-Arkansas in 2016, WCAA-Alban y in 2017, KB O O-Portland in 2018, and three low-power FM stations, WXIR , WAYO , and WEPL in Rochester, New York, in 2019. The coronavirus lockdown forced this year's conference to go virtual, but it will still be hosted as planned by WX OX -Louisville. WXOX broadcasts to the community still rising up in response to Louisville police killing emergency medical technician Breonna Taylor and Kentucky National Guard killing barbecue chef David McAtee, both of whom were Black.

Racist Roots: Origins Of North Carolina’s Death Penalty

October 6, 2020 Henderson Hill, NC Policy Watch. Educate! Death Penalty, North Carolina, Systemic Racism

Right now, our nation is in a moment of reckoning with our criminal punishment system. We are finally seeing clearly what should have been obvious long ago: The system has its knee on the necks of Black people. In North Carolina, as we begin a long-overdue conversation about the future of police and prisons, we must confront the punishment that sits at the top of that system, condoning all its other cruelties — the death penalty. When citizens have acclimated to the state strapping a person to a gurney and killing them in front of an audience, it becomes harder to shock them.

Report: Special Police Units Exclusively Used Force On Black People

September 30, 2020 Jacob Fenston, DCist. Educate! Police, Police violence, Systemic Racism, Washington DC

The vast majority of people stopped, frisked, or arrested by officers in D.C.’s special gun recovery and narcotics units were Black, according to a new report mandated by the D.C. Council. Black people were the subjects of 87% of stops, 91% of arrests, and 100% of use-of-force incidents, despite making up 46% of the population. White people accounted for just 5% of stops. The report gives a more complete picture of the operations of these special units, which have been accused of using aggressive tactics with little oversight or transparency. The units are responsible for complex narcotics investigations, as well as efforts to get illegal guns off the streets.

New law Surfaces South’s Racist Beginnings Of Felon Voter Disenfranchisement

September 30, 2020 Iliana Hagenah, Scalawag Magazine. Educate! Rebellion2020, Systemic Racism, Tennessee, Voter Rights

Tennessee - In June, large crowds of Black Lives Matter protesters occupied the plaza in front of Tennessee's State Capitol, where inside, a 44-inch bust of the first Klu Klux Klan Grand Wizard, Nathan Bedford Forrest, has sat still in his bronze bearing for over 40 years. A line of state troopers stood silently on the other side of the encampment, making arrests and dragging protesters away. Those who remained chained themselves to the property, chanting and playing Kendrick Lamar through loudspeakers, annoying representatives inside the capitol, and making it clear—they were not leaving until the immortalizing bust of the KKK's first leader was removed or Governor Bill Lee would meet with them.

Poll: Financial Pain From Coronavirus Pandemic ‘Much, Much Worse’ Than Expected

September 11, 2020 Joe Neel, NPR. Educate! COVID-19, Poverty, Recession, Systemic Racism

In America's four largest cities, at least half of people say they have experienced the loss of a job or a reduction in wages or work hours in their household since the start of the coronavirus outbreak. That's the finding of a new poll published Wednesday by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Many of these problems are concentrated among Black and Latino households in the four cities, according to the poll, which gathered responses from July 1 through Aug 3.

Shut Up, History

September 8, 2020 Susie Day, Counterpunch. Strategize! Baltimore, Black Panthers, Prison, Systemic Racism

Awhile back, a friend and I were talking about History and rebellions, and I lamented how the 1871 Paris Commune had failed. My friend, a self-avowed psychic, said, “Yes, history records very few total victories over oppression. That’s because, on this worldly plane, most things are not supposed to work out. It’s all about the trying.” So this will be a short essay on trying. On how, in the late 1960s, two Africa-American men met at the Baltimore chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and tried to build “The Revolution.” And how, for the past six years, I’ve tried to write a book about them.

1,000 Strikes Since March 1st And More

September 7, 2020 Mike Elk, Payday Report. Resist! Breonna Taylor, Strikes, Systemic Racism, Worker Rights and Jobs

We wanted to send a quick update to report that Payday’s Strike Tracker has now recorded more than 1,000 strikes across the U.S. since March 1. Earlier this week we surpassed the 1,000-strike count after a series of fast-food worker strikes hit both Tampa and LA. (For more on this strike wave, see our long-form “How Black & Brown Workers Are Redefining Strikes in the Digital COVID Age.”) In Tampa, pro-worker forces attempted to raise support for Amendment 2, which would raise Florida’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026.

Black-Led Resistance Movements Are Paving The Way For Reparations

September 4, 2020 Sarah Freeman-Woolpert, Waging Nonviolence. Create! Economic Justice, Reparations, Restorative Justice, Systemic Racism

Months after the police killing of George Floyd sparked racial justice protests around the world, Black Lives Matter activists are once again flooding the streets — this time in response to the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Among the demands that continue to ring out is the call for reparations, or payment to people of African descent. Several African countries — including Namibia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — have also joined the call, demanding reparations from European countries for the perpetration of genocide under colonialism.

Police Fatally Shoot Man 20 Times After Suspected Bike Violation

September 3, 2020 Lucy Nicholson and Steve Gorman, Reuters. Educate! Los Angeles, Police lying, Police violence, Systemic Racism

Los Angeles - A Black man who was stopped on his bicycle for an alleged “vehicle code” violation was shot to death by two Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies, who fired 15 to 20 rounds after the man punched one officer and dropped a pistol on the ground, authorities said on Tuesday. A semiautomatic handgun apparently fell from a bundle of clothes that the man, identified as Dijon Kizzee, 29, had been clutching and dropped when he struck an officer in the face, said Lieutenant Brandon Dean, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman. Dean said the two officers opened fire when Kizzee made “a motion that he’s going to pick up the firearm.”

An Outside View: Kenosha Is A Microcosm Of The US In 2020

September 1, 2020 Ramin Mazaheri, The Saker. Educate! Kenosha, State Violence, Systemic Racism, United States

The situation in Kenosha is a microcosm of the United States in 2020 – tragedy on top of tragedy on top of tragedy: A Black man wantonly paralysed by cops, his three sons forced to watch, ethnic-based violence deteriorating a community already gutted by anti-patriotic neoliberal economics, shops frantically boarding up their windows after having been shuttered during a pandemic lockdown, a 17-year old shooting and killing two protesters – there is just a complete lack of security everywhere over here.

People Are Protesting The Desecration Of A Historic Black Cemetery

August 29, 2020 Kristina Gaddy, Washington City Paper. Resist! Development, Maryland, Sacred sites, Systemic Racism

This summer, on an industrial and commercial section of River Road near the Capital Crescent Trail in Bethesda, you can regularly find area musician Brian Farrow in the roadway playing “Potter’s Hornpipe,” a song written by Black composer Francis Johnson in 1816 in honor of a destroyed African American cemetery. Nearby, protestors hold signs that say “Black Ancestors Matter” and “Black Lives Matter from Cradle to Grave,” while Marsha Coleman-Adebayo of the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition and Macedonia Baptist Church leads chants of “Save Moses Cemetery!”

Racialized Austerity: The Case Of CUNY

August 28, 2020 By Michael Fabricant and Steve Brier, Gotham Gazette. Create! Austerity, Higher Education, New York City (NYC), Systemic Racism

In the aftermath of the covid outbreak and in a moment of Black Lives Matter national organizing in response to police brutality the issue of racial justice has lit up cities and towns across the country. Racist policing practices have had a huge impact on public opinion, with polling data showing that even more white suburban voters favor policy reforms. The shift has been public, sudden, and potentially electorally-decisive during this political season. What remains less visible are racialized and racist choices to deepen state disinvestment in institutions critical to the health and welfare of Black and brown communities, what we term racialized austerity.

Is Movement Journalism Needed During Reckoning Over Race And Inequality?

August 27, 2020 Tina Vasquez, Nieman Reports. Strategize! LGBTQ, Media, Systemic Racism, wealth inequality, Women

Last summer I found myself at the M.W. Stringer Grand Lodge in Jackson, Mississippi. Considered “the epicenter of the civil rights movement,” the well-worn building was once the training site for the Freedom Riders and home to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It seemed a fitting place to launch Freedomways, a journalism fellowship prioritizing women of color and LGBTQ+ people rooted in the American South and committed to doing reporting that advances justice.

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