Locked in a tense and even battle with Allen, Freedom High Schools boys basketball team needed a little spark to get some separation.

That spark came in the form of a whistle.

And that whistle was big trouble for the Canaries.

Fourth-seeded Freedom knocked off top-seeded Allen, the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference champion, 75-71 in the District 11 Class 6A semifinals on Wednesday night at Libertys Memorial Gymnasium.

The Patriots (16-8) advance to meet seventh-seeded Northampton, a 60-46 winner over Easton, in the district championship 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Easton Area Middle School.

That's a fun one. These kids deserve it, Freedom coach Joe Stellato said. (Allen)'s a great basketball team, obviously. We've said it before, it's tough to win a league championship and come back and win a district championship. It's just not easy. But, they're a very good basketball team; they're well-coached by a legend. It was just our turn tonight.

I'm speechless, senior guard Malek Mims said. Emotions are crazy right now ... Our team has been talking about it for so long ... For it to come true is amazing.

Mims slashed to the basket and scored while being fouled by Allen senior big man Quinton Stewart, giving Freedom a 38-34 lead with 5:32 left in the third quarter. In the commotion after the play, Stewart was whistled for a technical, which gave him a fifth and disqualifying foul, and left the Canaries without one of their post players.

That was huge. He was killing us, Stellato said. When they have two bigs (Stewart and Aquele Adderley) like that in the game, they're a dangerous team. They've proved that all year long. That obviously helped us, because it's tough to cover both those guys.

That's their strength and that's one of our weaknesses our rebounding, Patriots senior guard Caleb Mims said. When he fouled out, they were the same size as us. That was a huge advantage for us.

Canaries coach Doug Snyder was disappointed to see his team falter on what was a point of emphasis.

The word 'composure' was used several times in the pregame speech ... We've played them twice. In both cases, there were several technical fouls called on both sides. I knew that was going to be the case, Snyder said. I said to our guys, 'You need to keep your calm; you need to be composed; you need to keep your cool.' We didn't do that. We have to accept the blame on that. Quinton Stewart can't sit on the bench for almost an entire half of a district semifinal.

Malek Mims sank the two free throws from the technical and the one for the original foul. Then, senior guard Malik Harrington drilled a 3-pointer and Freedom took a 44-34 lead by scoring eight points in just 32 seconds of game time.

The Patriots led by as many as 13, 51-38, after a layup by senior David Barnes in the final minute of the third quarter.

The Canaries (22-5) cut into Freedoms margin by getting to the foul line in the final period. Allen made nine foul shots down the stretch, but the Patriots still seemed to have the game in hand when senior forward Samir Georges rebounded a missed foul shot and scored to give Freedom a 68-62 edge with 1:20 on the clock.

Allen junior Mel Copeland, however, drained a deep 3-pointer to slice Freedoms advantage to 68-65 with 1:05 to play and then Freedom turned the ball over thanks to a backcourt violation.

The Canaries missed a shot on the ensuing possession and Malek Mims followed with two pairs of free throws to seal the result in the final 45 seconds.

The formula that we developed over the course of our success this season was not followed tonight, Snyder said. We were sloppy, undisciplined, a little selfish ... Freedom made us pay.

Caleb Mims finished with 20 points for Freedom. Malek Mims and Barnes added 16 points apiece.

Stellato was happy with the contributions the Patriots received across the board.

They came up huge, the coach said. Taj Montgomery came in and had a great second half. Barnes played outstanding. Georges came in and had that huge layup. Everybody contributed; it wasn't just The Mims Show tonight.

Everybody played their game, said Malek Mims, who set the school record with his 252nd career steal. Nobody tried to do too much. We shared the ball. Everybody did their thing and stepped up.

Ellis finished with 24 points, followed by Copeland (17), Manny Ozuna (14) and Adderley (13) for the Canaries, who now play Easton in a consolation game noon Saturday at Pleasant Valley.

I think I have to come after them hard tomorrow in practice and see where they're at, Snyder said. I asked them to look in the mirror and accept the fact that they made mistakes.

Freedom will make its first appearance in the district final since losing to Parkland in 2013. The Patriots, who beat Northampton 74-68 in January, havent won a D-11 crown since 1976.

Similarly, the Konkrete Kids (15-9) havent captured a district title since 1972.

Something has to give.

We're not going to go in there all cocky, Malek Mims said. We're going to prepare for them the right way and try to do our best to win that game.

Both of us are very hungry, Caleb Mims said. Nobody expected this. Its going to be a war. Im sure theyll be ready and so will we.

Kyle Craig may be reached at kcraig@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KyleCraigSports. Find Lehigh Valley high school sports on Facebook.

Original post:

Freedom boys hoops clips No. 1 seed Allen, is 1 win away from ending 44-year drought - lehighvalleylive.com

Lela Mae Williams and seven of her nine children on arrival in Hyannis. Frank C. Curtin/AP hide caption

Lela Mae Williams and seven of her nine children on arrival in Hyannis.

After three days on a Greyhound bus, Lela Mae Williams was just an hour from her destinationHyannis, Mass.when she asked the bus driver to pull over. She needed to change into her finest clothes. She had been promised the Kennedy family would be waiting for her.

It was late on a Wednesday afternoon, nearly 60 years ago, when that Greyhound bus from Little Rock, Ark., pulled into Hyannis. It slowed to a stop near the summer home of President John F. Kennedy and his family. When the doors opened, Lela Mae and her nine youngest children stepped onto the pavement.

Reporters' microphones pointed at her, their cameras trained on her family. The photographs in the next day's newspaper show Lela Mae looking immaculate. In an elegant black dress, a triple string of pearls and a white hat, she was dressed to start a new life.

"She was going to have a job, and she was going to be able to support her family," one of Lela Mae's daughters, Betty Williams, remembered in a recent interview. Before coming north to Massachusetts, Lela Mae had been promised a good job, good housing and a presidential welcome.

But President Kennedy was not there to meet her. And there was no job or permanent housing waiting for her in Hyannis. Instead, Lela Mae and the others were unwitting pawns in a segregationist game.

"It was one of the most inhuman things I have ever seen," recalled Margaret Moseley, a longtime civil rights activist in Hyannis, in a televised interview a few years before her death.

Fuming over the civil rights movement, Southern segregationists had concocted a way to retaliate against Northern liberals. In 1962, they tricked about 200 African Americans from the South into moving north. The idea was simple: When large numbers of African Americans showed up on Northern doorsteps, Northerners would not be able to accommodate them. They would not want them, and their hypocrisy would be exposed.

The Reverse Freedom Rides have largely disappeared from the country's collective memory. The scheme almost never appears in history books and is little-known even in Hyannis, the primary target of the ploy. But some hear echoes of that segregationist past in America's present. And for the families that came to the North based on a lie, the journey has cast an enduring shadow on their lives.

The segregationists' game

In the summer of 1961, black and white activists, who became known as the Freedom Riders, boarded Greyhound buses and crisscrossed the South with the goal of integrating interstate buses and bus terminals. When the buses pulled into Southern cities, they were greeted by mobs armed with bats and firebombs.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader, shakes hands with Paul Dietrich just before a bus of Freedom Riders left Montgomery, Ala., May 24, 1961. AP hide caption

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader, shakes hands with Paul Dietrich just before a bus of Freedom Riders left Montgomery, Ala., May 24, 1961.

Southern segregationists, who were still furious over the school desegregation fights that dominated the 1950s, saw the Freedom Riders as sanctimonious provocateurs. In a television interview from the time, Ned Touchstone of Louisianaa spokesperson for a local segregationist groupsaid the North was "sending down busloads of people here with the express purpose of violating our laws, fomenting confusion, trying to destroy 100 years of workable tradition and good relations between the races."

Touchstone and other segregationists thought there was no way the Freedom Riders or their fellow Northern liberals actually cared about integrating interstate transit or advancing civil rights. Instead, they were convinced it was a strategy to embarrass the South and capture black votes for the Democratic party.

The segregationists decided to answer the Freedom Rides with the "Reverse Freedom Rides." They would use the same weaponGreyhound busesand send African Americans to Northern cities.

"For many years, certain politicians, educators and certain religious leaders have used the white people of the South as a whipping boy, to put it mildly, to further their own ends and their political campaigns," said Amis Guthridge, a lawyer from Arkansas who helped spearhead the Reverse Freedom Rides. "We're going to find out if people like Ted Kennedy ... and the Kennedys, all of them, really do have an interest in the Negro people, really do have a love for the Negro."

My mom thought that when she came to the North, she was going to have a better life for her children.

Betty Williams

The segregationists tapped into a network of local groups called Citizens' Councils. Despite the sanitized name, the councils were essentially "the Ku Klux Klan without the hoods and the masks," said historian Clive Webb.

Webb, a professor at the University of Sussex in England, specializes in studying racists. Fifteen years ago, he published the firstand still the onlymajor academic article on the Reverse Freedom Riders.

The Citizens' Councils attempted to cloak their racism in respectability, Webb said. They held meetings in fancy downtown hotels and wore suits and ties."They could be members of the police force," said Webb. "They could be bankers, businessmen and the like."

These men masterminded an advertising effort, with flyers and radio commercials, to attract African Americans to accept bus tickets, bought with money the councils had raised. Their ideal recruits were single mothers with many children, and men who had gotten entangled in the criminal justice system.

"They targeted people who were either welfare recipients or prison inmates," said Webb. "People who were placing a burden, as they saw it, on public resources."

Then, they sought media attention. George Singelmann of Louisiana, who claimed credit for the original idea, had once worked in a newsroom. He made sure to alert the press.

"Negro 'Ride' Plan Stirs New Furor" read a front-page headline in The New York Times. The Boston Herald added, "14 More Jobless Negroes Sent North." As spring rolled into summer and then fall, nearly daily articles chronicled the scheme as it unfolded.

Relishing the coverage, Guthridge said in an interview, "If it takes two weeks, two months, two years, five or 10 years, we will continue it until the white people up there ... tell those politicians we are tired of using the American Negro for a pawn just for their votes."

The Reverse Freedom Riders Eddie Rose, Almer Payton and Willie Ramsey are shown with Citizens Council director George Singlemann. Jim Bourdier/AP hide caption

The Reverse Freedom Riders Eddie Rose, Almer Payton and Willie Ramsey are shown with Citizens Council director George Singlemann.

But when talking to reporters, the segregationists were not always so transparent about their motives. They offered ever-changing justifications for the scheme.

Ned Touchstone said his primary motivation was "to bring about a more equitable distribution of the colored population." He added that African Americans were begging for assistance."Is it a crime to help people who come to you and say, 'Boss man, I want to go to the North'?" he said.

Singelmann cited American tradition as the rationale for the Reverse Freedom Rides."Our forefathers put everything in their possession into covered wagons and went out across the plains. In those days, it was rugged Americanism. Now today, for some reason or other, it's being frowned upon. I don't understand it," he said.

The Citizens Councils' plan didn't quite work how they had wanted; they'd envisioned sending thousands north, but the reality amounted to a couple hundred. Those folks boarded buses to New York, New Hampshire, Indiana, Idaho, Minnesota, California and elsewhere. Lela Mae Williams and her children were part of the 96 unwitting Reverse Freedom Riders who arrived at a makeshift bus stop closest to the Kennedys' "summer White House" on Cape Cod. They were far, far away from their rural Arkansas home.

The Williams family of Arkansas

For generations, the Williams family lived on the border of Louisiana and Arkansas. Betty and Mickey were born in the tiny town of Huttig, Ark. They had a little farm and a big family.

Betty Williams, who was 18 years old when the family moved north, recalled the joy of fishing in the pond out back and scampering down the path to relatives' houses. But her memories are also colored by the trauma of whippings by the school headmaster and relatives dying without a doctor to visit.

"I remember the flooding in the house, snakes underneath the beds," said Mickey Williams, one of Betty's brothers. He was five when the family left Huttig, and his memories of the South are few and faded. But he does remember that the family struggled financially."We were poor," he said. "We were really poor."

Still, Mickey and Betty said, their late mother, Lela Mae managed to cook all their meals from scratch and insisted on schooling for every child.

At the time, Arkansas was segregated, and the Williams family was confined to the black side of town. Growing up, Betty didn't know anyone who was white.

"[I] never thought about why we were separated like this, why we can't go to school together, why we can't sit and eat together. I never even questioned that," she said.

But Betty's mother was aware of the political forces that swirled outside their three-room house, and she wanted better things. So when she heard about buses heading up north and promises of jobs and housing, she was enticed. And when she heard the Kennedys would greet the travelers, she was even more enthusiastic; she kept portraits of John and Robert F. Kennedy hanging on a wall next to one of Martin Luther King, Jr.

"My mom thought that when she came to the North, she was going to have a better life for her children, better jobs and better housing," said Betty. "Everything that a mom could do, everything within her power, everything within her reach, my mom did it." So Lela Mae accepted tickets to take her family up north.

The Sunday after the school year was finished, two cars came to pick up Lela Mae and her nine youngest childrenages two to 14and take them 150 miles to Little Rock's bus terminal. (Betty would follow on a different bus later that summer.) Amis Guthridge himself drove them, and bought the children ice cream and root beer.

The segregationist lawyer had alerted the local news outlets that he'd be holding a press conference when they arrived. At the bus terminal, he stood at the center of a small crew of journalists. Ernie Dumas, a young reporter for The Arkansas Gazette, was there.

"He made a little grinning speech," Dumas, now 81, recalled. Guthridge, pointed to the family and said, "These fine, fine people. This wonderful woman and her fine little children," Dumas remembered. He thinks he saw Guthridge wink at his fellow segregationists, who sat off to the side.

Two unidentified women, residents of Hyannis, Mass., help some of the nine children of Lela Mae Williams (not in photo) off the bus, June 8, 1962 at Hyannis on their arrival from Huttig, Ark. Frank C. Curtin/AP hide caption

Two unidentified women, residents of Hyannis, Mass., help some of the nine children of Lela Mae Williams (not in photo) off the bus, June 8, 1962 at Hyannis on their arrival from Huttig, Ark.

Then, he remembers that Guthridge said, "We're going to send them up to Massachusetts, and the Kennedys and those fine people up there are going to take care of them and give them a better life."

Dumas was not able to interview Lela Mae that May day in 1962, but he remembers her seeming a little reluctant, perhaps a little embarrassed.

In silent TV footage taken at the bus station, she looked focused. Some of the kids seemed giddy, flashing smiles at the camera and playing with a well-loved rabbit doll. Others were subdued, sitting quietly in pairs on the wooden benches in the waiting room. The family had very little luggage; after all, most of the Reverse Freedom Riders were told everything was going to be provided.

After the press conference, Lela Mae herded her children onto the bus, toward the back of the bus and then onward, toward a promise that was a lie.

"We called them refugees"

In the weeks before the Williams family boarded the Greyhound bus, the very first Reverse Freedom Rider to come to Hyannis arrived on May 12, 1962.

David Harris, a 43-year-old army veteran in a suit and tie, received an enthusiastic welcome by a crowd of more than 100 people. There were several speeches, plenty of hands to shake and lots of reporters. Senate candidate Ted Kennedy was there to meet him. Harris drew cheers when he told onlookers it "felt mighty good when I crossed that Mason-Dixon line."

In the weeks and months to come, the Greyhound buses kept arriving, but the spectators disappeared. Ted Kennedy never showed up again. The rest of the Kennedy family never made an appearance. Only a small crew of Hyannis residents, including the civil rights activist Margaret Moseley, remained.

Hearing media reports that more Reverse Freedom Riders were on their way, religious leaders, the local NAACP chapter and a few concerned residents teamed up to help. The group was half black, half white. They divided the tasks and gave themselves a name: The Refugee Relief Committee.

"We called them refugees. They represented what we feel a refugee is. They were homeless, broke, tired and afraid. We had to help them," Rev. Kenneth Warren, a Unitarian minister who was the chairman of the committee, said to a reporter at the time.

That summer of 1962, Moseley carried the bus schedule with her. Among her many duties, she was in charge of greeting the new arrivals."Most of the people who came had only a shopping bag with perhaps one change of clothing," said the late Moseley in an interview with Tales of Cape Cod in 1994, three years before her death. The Reverse Freedom Riders arrived with "no money, knowing nobody."

Moseley remembered one of the children who arrived asking, "Where are the cotton fields?" She told him there were no cotton fields. She said this news came as a terrible blow. She recalled the child saying, "Well, what am I going to do to find employment? I can chop cotton. I don't know how to do anything else."

The committee scrambled to help, convincing the local community college to open its dorms to the new arrivals. The local jail provided the bedding. And when the summer semester started and students came back to the dorms, they got the governor to lobby for nearby Otis Air Force Base to open its barracks.

Some children of reverse freedom riders families toss ball among themselves amid Army barracks at Camp Edwards, Mass., June 11, 1962. J. Walter Green/AP hide caption

Some children of reverse freedom riders families toss ball among themselves amid Army barracks at Camp Edwards, Mass., June 11, 1962.

At Otis, the rules were strict. Curfew was at 8 p.m., and lights were out at 8:30 p.m. Boys older than five were to be housed in barracks separate from their mothers. Heat and proximity to latrines were luxuries, not to be expected."They will be treated with firmness, with civility, with fairness, but not with familiarity," wrote Major Gen. Thomas Donnelly, the man in charge of the base. "The basic attitude is that these are people with problems that we are trying to help in finding solutions."

But their efforts didn't stave off accusations from the segregationists that Hyannis was practicing forced segregation. In his effort to prove that white Northerners were indeed as racist as white Southerners, Singelmann told reporters that Otis Air Force Base was equivalent to a "concentration camp."

Betty never thought of life in Massachusetts as a concentration camp but, she said, things weren't easy. "I used to never smile that much. I never smiled. I don't know why that was," said Betty, who joined her mother and nine siblings in the fall of 1962. She was 18 and eight months pregnant at the time, with her 2-year-old son in tow. Her older sister, Gloria, and her two children also came in the fall.

As the committee tried to disperse the Reverse Freedom Riders so it would be easier for them to find work, the Williams family was sent 100 miles north to Newburyport, Mass. And Betty did find work cleaning houses. While she noticed the kindness of the townspeople, she said there was also a nagging feeling of distance and difference.

She realized that Northerners "don't think the same; they don't do the same. The culture is a whole lot different from where we were raised."

"A rather cheap exercise"

As the Reverse Freedom Riders adjusted to their new lives, the country around them debated whether to intervene.

Illinois' governor compared the Reverse Freedom Rides to Nazis deporting Jews. A Mississippi congressman delighted in watching the North squirm, saying, "They want to 'free' the Negro in the South, but want to shun responsibility for him once he has been 'freed.'" Gov. John Volpe of Massachusetts pledged to help, but worried his welfare budget would be depleted. He asked the federal government to step in.

President Kennedy largely tried to avoid the topic. When worried and enraged citizens wrote letters to the White House, the standard reply was that the situation was "deplorable" but "there is no violation of law." When Kennedy was asked about it at a news conference, he paused before saying, "Well I think it's, uh, a rather cheap exercise in ...." He hesitated, stumbled and tried to dodge the question for more than a minute.

Conversely, there were those who wrote hate mail to the Refugee Relief Committee about how the Bible calls for segregation, and even sending gag giftsincluding a live opossum and a goat to Hyannis for the Reverse Freedom Riders to eat.

But the prevailing sentiment was that the Reverse Freedom Rides exposed the callousness of the Southern segregationists, not the hypocrisy of Northern liberals. Private citizens from across the country wrote to offer their support. Some suggested housing the Reverse Freedom Riders in their own towns and homes; others wrote checks. The first donation arrived from Little Rock, where many of the Reverse Freedom Rides originated.

By the late fall, the scheme fizzled out unceremoniously. Funds that the Citizens' Councils had raised were drying up, and riders were hard to recruit. Betty Williams was the very last Reverse Freedom Rider to arrive in Hyannis, disembarking from her Greyhound Bus on October 17.

But even when it was over, the Williams family and the other Reverse Freedom Riders were still 1,000 miles from anything that resembled home.

The Williams family of Massachusetts

Like many of those sent to Hyannis, the Williams family ultimately moved to Boston in search of work. They lived in one of the city's most notorious housing projects: the Bromley-Heath Apartments. Milkmen and furniture deliverymen were rumored to dodge the premises.

"The projects were nothing to be proud of," recalled Mickey. His memories of the place are dotted with cockroach sightings and crumbling concrete.

She tried with every ounce of strength that she had to try to hold this family together.

Betty Williams

As she had done in the South, Lela Mae tried to make life for her children as stable as possible in an unstable situation. She gathered discarded tires, filled them with dirt and turned them into flowerbeds among the dilapidated brick apartment buildings.

But apart from the flowers, things were collapsing. With their support network and their relatives half a country away, their tight-knit family began to fray, Betty said. Things the Williams family had never experienced in their tiny Southern towndrugs, jail and unfriendly neighborsstarted to define their lives. "Things weren't like that when we were in the South," Betty said. "All this happened when we came here."

One thing from the South, though, had followed the family to the North: racism.

"We were being attacked in school by white kids," Mickey said, recalling Boston's efforts to desegregate through busing during his high school years. "I just remembered that they were all outside surrounding the school. White people, white kids. Young guys, old guys. They had dogs. They had chains. They were trying to get into the school."

Buses arrive at South Boston High School, Jan. 8, 1975 as classes resume at the racially troubled institution. Police were on hand to provide protection as black students arrived. PJH/AP hide caption

Buses arrive at South Boston High School, Jan. 8, 1975 as classes resume at the racially troubled institution. Police were on hand to provide protection as black students arrived.

This wasn't what Lela Mae had envisioned for her children. From one of Boston's harshest street corners, during one of the city's worst chapters, "she tried with every ounce of strength that she had to try to hold this family together," said Betty. After years of processing what happened to their family, Betty and Mickey said they have resolved not to focus their energy on the segregationists who tricked their family. "I don't want no hatred to live in my heart. Nowhere. I don't have room for that," Betty said.

Mickey, who has been working on a series of children's books about little-known African Americans who have done remarkable things, has spent years flipping through history books unearthing forgotten stories. But it's only recently, he said, that he started to think that his own family's journey might have a place in history.

Echoes of the past in America's present

In April 2019, historian Clive Webb was cooking in his kitchen with the radio playing when a news story came on. He paused as he heard President Donald Trump explain his idea of putting undocumented immigrants on buses and dropping them off in so-called "sanctuary cities."

"They want more people in the sanctuary cites. Well, we'll give them more people. We can give them a lot. We can give them an unlimited supply," Trump declared at a news conference. "And let's see if they're so happy. They're always saying, 'We have open arms.' Let's see if they have open arms."

At the kitchen counter, Webb said, he thought back to segregationists like Amis Guthridge who had said the same of the Kennedy family and black people. "In 1962, what was happening was the actions of a political fringe group," said Webb, "And in 2019, it's the federal government." (There is no evidence that the Trump administration has enacted the policy, and the White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

According to Webb, the story of the Reverse Freedom Rides is not a tale of how the United States is battling the same foes forever. Instead, he said, it is a reminder of how bystanders can foil a racist plot. "The white conservatives, who were behind that campaign then, actually underestimated the decency of many ordinary people," Webb said.

But the story has been largely forgotten by the next generation of Americans. Even the Williams family tried to forget. Both Mickey and Betty said their mother never talked about the trick that was played on her.

"She never discussed anything. Nothing. Nothing at all," said Mickey. "She didn't want to burden us. It was just pride."

The white conservatives, who were behind that campaign then, actually underestimated the decency of many ordinary people.

Clive Webb, historian

It might have been that pride or perhaps the haziness of the segregationists' lies, but the Williams' family lore somehow became that they were Freedom Riders, not Reverse Freedom Riders. Jahmal Williams, one of Betty's sons and a professional skateboarder, said that growing up, whenever stories about the Civil Rights Movement would flicker past on TV, his mother would say, "We played a part in this."

It was only when his grandmother, Lela Mae, passed away in 2013 that Jahmal had an inkling that there was more to know. At her funeral, he saw a pamphlet about the Reverse Freedom Rides. He went home and started Googling.

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The Reverse Freedom Rides And Their Long Aftermath : Code Switch - NPR

Photo credit: Courtesy of the National Shooting Sports Foundation

When Igor Volsky, the co-founder and executive director of Guns Down America, a gun-control group dedicated to building a future with fewer guns, saw an article in The New York Times claiming that gun manufacturers are suddenly (more on that in a moment) marketing to women and minorities, he showcased his ignorance about America and our freedom in a series of tweets:

1/ Gun makers are softening their image to put a better face in front of people & ramp up its appeal to women, children and members of minority groups, wrote Volsky.Thats right: Gun makers are increasingly advertising to WOMEN, CHILDREN & MINORITY COMMUNITIES.

Volsky then tweeted: 2/ Firearm industry realizes that to survive into the future it must broaden its reach beyond the aging white men who have been its core customers -- and so theyre now trying to sell their products to other demographics. This is incredibly dangerous.

Reading the reaction on Twitter is amusing, as a lot of people called Volsky out on his views.

i am a minority woman and i want to buy a gun because i am unsafe living alone in my neighborhood. i also hunt goat, deer and pig so i might want my own gun one day instead of just compound bow. why is it wrong for me to have a gun? said someone with the username Eat ule.

One of the most exciting things to watch in the firearms community for the last 20 years is how much more inclusive it's become. If you are on the fence about buying a gun or learning how to use one, dont delay any longer! No matter who you are, gun people will welcome you, tweeted Nathan Lewis.

The demographics of gun ownership are changing in America (see, The Rise of the Woman Gun Owner), as more people embrace their freedom. Still, it isnt truthful to say that firearms manufacturers have only recently begun marketing to women. Companies, such as Colt, Savage Arms and Remington, have long run ads designed to specifically appeal to women.

An ad for the Savage Model 1907, a semi-automatic pistol made from 1907-1920, for example, showed a photo of a woman in a nightgown firing this Savage pistol. Under the photo was the ad copy: Her propertyher little onesher own lifeshe knows are safely protected when she has a Savage Automatic in her home. She knows its ten sure shots are at her commandquick or slow, as she choosesone to each trigger pull.

This articleshowcases just a few of the ads gun manufacturers ran over the last century and moreas they marketed guns to women.

But Volsky didnt just get this history wrong, he also said selling guns to women and minorities is incredibly dangerous. This sounds like both sexism and racism, as Volsky seems to be saying he doesnt think women and minorities are capable of handling their Second Amendment freedom.

A lot of female and minority gun-rights advocates did call Volsky out on his views. Maj Toure, head ofBlack Guns Matter, said, Imagine being either so uninformed on the racist roots of gun control or so full of yourself that you would not only think but also believe that melinated Americans owning guns would be incredibly dangerous. I wonder what he thinks of the thousands of melinated law-enforcement officers and military personnel that carry firearms to protect life as well?

Originally posted here:

A Tweet Shows How Scared Gun-Control Activists are of Women and Minorities Enjoying Their Freedom - America's 1st Freedom

The death of Elisabeth Scholl at the age of 100 is a reminder of her brave siblings, Sophie and Hans, who were prominent among the small number of Germans who actively resisted the Nazis and paid for it with their lives. Their story shows that resistance to the Nazis was possible, although extremely dangerous, and that freedom of speech cannot be taken for granted.

In 1943, these two young students and their friends formed the White Rose movement, based in Munich. Sophies fianc Fritz Hartnagel, a soldier on the Eastern front, had informed them of the mass shooting of Jews and other horrors that he witnessed. They wrote six leaflets, describing Nazi war crimes in Russia, of which some 15,000 copies were distributed across several cities.

In February 1943, after the German defeat at Stalingrad, there was a crackdown on such dissident activities. The Scholls were denounced by the Munich university caretaker, whereupon the Gestapo arrested them and anybody else involved. Under interrogation they confessed their own role but refused to incriminate any of the other White Rose members. Sophie managed to protect her fianc, who survived the war; their correspondence was later published by her sister Elisabeth.

Hans and Sophie were tried before the Nazi Volksgericht (Peoples Court), presided over by the notorious judge Roland Freisler. He acted as prosecutor, recorder, judge and jury, in a courtroom bedecked with swastika flags and overshadowed by a huge bust of Hitler. Freisler subjected the two young students and their friend Christopher Probst to his tirades, but Sophie courageously stood up to him: You know as well as we do that the war is lost, she told the court. Why are you so cowardly that you wont admit it?

Freisler imposed death sentences on the Scholls and Probst. They were executed by guillotine the same day at Stadelheim Prison. Just before his beheading, Hans Scholl reportedly cried out: Es lebe die Freiheit! (Long live freedom!).

Later another White Rose activist, Alexander Schmorell, was executed and subsequently canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church. The same fate befell their teacher, the psychologist and musicologist Professor Karl Huber. The latters friend Carl Orff, the composer of Carmina Burana, refused to intercede on Hubers behalf, telling his wife that he would be ruined by any association with the White Rose. Huber, too, endured a show trial in the Peoples Court. Two years later Freisler was killed when a bomb fell on his court in Berlin, bringing the entire building down on top of him.

The Scholls parents and two sisters, including Elisabeth, were also taken into protective custody this was the iniquitous Nazi practice of Sippenhaft, whereby entire families could be punished for political crimes committed by an individual. Their father, who had been mayor of Ulm, was given two years for listening to enemy radio broadcasts. Elisabeth, who lived in Ulm and had been unaware of her siblings campaign, later recalled that she spent six months in solitary confinement and was only released when she became seriously ill. Afterwards, the Scholl family was ostracised and impoverished; nonetheless they survived the war. Elisabeth live long enough to see her brother and sister commemorated in many ways for their act of symbolic resistance, including a film, The White Rose. A modest woman, she insisted that she had not been in the resistance and could not take credit for their courage. She recalled walking with her sister beside the Danube on the day before war began in 1939. Sophie told her: Hopefully someone will stand up to Hitler. At that point she had no idea that she herself would be that person.

The story of Sophie and Hans Scholl still resonates today. They, like their contemporaries, had grown up as members of the Hitler Youth an experience vividly depicted in the satirical movie JoJo Rabbit. Yet they found the inner resources to resist the Nazi machine. Devout Catholics, their determination to bear witness for their faith played a part, but so too did the fact that they had a teacher who showed them the meaning of intellectual freedom and integrity. This was the lesson that Sophie and Hans learned from Kurt Huber. Integrity is the ability to face up to the truth and make whatever sacrifices are necessary to uphold it. The Scholls were true to themselves. Not only young Germans, but students everywhere could do worse than to follow their example.

Read the rest here:

Sophie and Hans Scholl died resisting the Nazis. Let's not take freedom for granted - TheArticle

By 1690, Jamaica was the jewel of Britains American possessions. An economy largely based on the production of sugar brought wealth and led to the beginnings of an imperial system.

But that system was built on the almost unimaginably brutal reality of slavery, enforced by almost equally unimaginable cruelties and daily punishments and control.

The system was ruthless and relentless. In the mid-18th century one plantation in Westmoreland Parish, site of the most serious slave revolt in 1760, recorded twice as many deaths as births, many from pure overwork. Importation of fresh slaves, often from the Gold Coast of Africa, filled the gap and reinforced the system yet contained the seeds of the systems eventual destruction.

Vincent Browns Tackys Revolt: The Story of An Atlantic Slave War, places the Jamaican revolts of 1760 firmly within the broader history of the time, notably the Seven Years War, for which Brown comments that historians have barely noticed that the Jamaican insurrection was one of its major battles. The judgment is correct when one remembers that the Caribbean, not just Quebec, was key to British strategy.

This is not popular history, perhaps in either sense of the word. But it is important history

War suffuses this book: wars among African polities, wars between the European powers such as the War of Jenkins Ear and the Seven Years War, war and violence on the daily life of the plantation between master and enslaved. These wars within wars, Brown writes, ensured that slaverys violent conflicts integrated Europe, Africa, America, and the Atlantic ocean.

Brown endorses the phrase of freed slave and soldier Olaudah Equiano: that slavery was itself a state of war. Overseer and diarist Thomas Thistlewood chronicled the inhumanity of slavery, including his own brutalities. The daily violence of plantation life was a war for control no less than the broader contest in the Caribbean between Britain, France and Spain.

It is thus a small step for Brown to conclude that recognizing slave revolt as a species of warfare is the first step toward a new cartography of Atlantic slavery.

African commanders including Tacky, who had probably held a royal office or lineage in one of the Gold Coasts eastern kingdoms, and Apongo, a leader among the Akan-speaking peoples in both Africa and Jamaica, brought knowledge of military strategy and tactics.

Brown studies the movements of the insurrection closely and draws conclusions about its military and political aims. With experience of African political and economic life, the slaves sought something more than freedom alone. As Brown writes, their pattern of warfare indicates an attempt at territorial and political control, a strategy of maneuver rather than of retreat, evasion, or escape.

The revolt of the title was put down suddenly and fiercely. It began on 7 April 1760 in St Marys Parish but was possibly premature. A larger conflict, which the British called the Coromantee war, was timed for the Whitsun holidays and for when the merchant fleet sailed to Britain, leaving the island less defended. It continued for months.

After initial success in Westmoreland Parish and retreat into the mountains and forests from which they conducted skirmishes and other tactics largely derived from African warfare, the Coromantee rebels succumbed to overwhelming British power.

The Navy brought the full resources of transatlantic empire to bear against the rebels, Brown writes, articulating the local conflict to the wider war.

Dense, closely argued and meticulously researched, this is not popular history, perhaps in either sense of the word. But it is important history. Historians have long recognized the Seven Years War as a global conflict but this book brings the role of Africa and Africans fully into the struggle.

As Brown writes in conclusion: The Coromantee war was at once an extension of the African conflicts that fed the slave trade, a race war among black slaves and white slaveholders, an imperial conquest, and an internal struggle between black people for control of territory and the establishment of a political legacy.

The economic, political and cultural consequences of this war within wars reverberated out from Jamaica to other colonies, across the ocean to Great Britain and back again to the island, where the revolt reshaped public life and lodged deeply in collective memory.

The Jamaican revolts influenced, sometimes in subtle ways, the movement for abolition of the slave trade, and eventually slavery itself, on both sides of the Atlantic. To correct a victors perspective and recover lost history and the dignity of the enslaved, Brown has written a 21st-century military history one which takes full account of all the combatants and those for whom they fought.

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Tacky's Revolt review: Britain, Jamaica, slavery and an early fight for freedom - The Guardian

When Chinese authorities announced a lockdown on the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late January in an attempt to halt the spread of a deadly virus, millions of people fled the city, eager to escape before the enforced quarantine began.

But Chen Qiushi, a self-described citizen journalist, boarded a train to Wuhan on Jan. 24 to document the unfolding epidemic.

In around two weeks, the 34-year-old vlogger posted more than 100 videos from Wuhanwhere the virus now known as COVID-19, which has now infected more than 83,000 people in more than 50 countries, is believed to have originated. His posts, which garnered hundreds of thousands of views on Twitter and YouTube, showed sick people languishing in crowded hospital lobbies, detailed shortages in medical supplies and described exhausted hospital staff.

Why am I here? I have stated that its my duty to be a citizen-journalist, he said in one video, filming himself with a selfie stick outside a train station. What sort of a journalist are you if you dont dare rush to the front line in a disaster?

His posts also drew the attention of the authorities. In an anguished video post near the end of his first week in Wuhan, he said police had called him, wanting to know his whereabouts.

I am scared, he said. I have the virus in front of me, and on my back, I have the legal and administrative power of China. But he vowed to continue as long as I am alive in this city.

On Feb. 6, Chen told his family that he planned to report on a temporary hospital. He hasnt been seen since.

This month, Chen is on One Free Press Coalitions list which highlights the 10 most urgent cases of threats to press freedom across the world.

Read about all 10 journalists under attack on the March list here:

1. Chen Qiushi (China): Journalist missing as Chinese authorities stifle reporting on coronavirus outbreak.

Freelance video journalist Chen Qiushi has not been seen since February 6, when he told family he planned to report on a temporary hospital. On January 24, he traveled to the city of Wuhan in Hubei province from Beijing and began filming and reporting on the coronavirus health crisis, according to his posts on YouTube, noting local hospitals were short of resources and struggling to handle the number of patients who needed treatment. Later, China expelled three accredited Wall Street Journal journalists over an opinion headline relating to the crisis.

2. Daler Sharifov (Tajikistan): Tajikistan silences independent media ahead of March 1 elections.

Daler Sharifov is ordered two months of pretrial detention since Tajik police raided the independent reporters home on January 28, confiscating a computer and books, and days later issuing a statement announcing charges of inciting ethnic, racial and religious hatred. The statement refers to more than 200 articles and commentaries containing extremist content he published between 2013 and 2019. CPJ calls this a clear attempt to silence ahead of elections one of the few media critics that remain. A guilty verdict could mean up to five years in prison.

3. Patrcia Campos Mello (Brazil): Politicians join in online sexual harassment to undermine journalists integrity.

A reporter for Brazils largest daily newspaper, Folha de S.Paulo, Patrcia Campos Mello experiences ongoing harassment online in retaliation for her reporting. During a congressional hearing in Braslia last month, an individual falsely accused Campos Mello of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for a scoop. Hundreds of Facebook and Twitter users, including the son of President Jair Bolsonaro, shared the allegations, many using sexual language. The allegations were later referenced by the president himself, whose 2018 presidential campaign backers distributed misinformation through WhatsApp to millions of Brazilians, Campos Mello reported.

4. Roohollah Zam (Iran): Trial underway for anti-government journalist held in undisclosed location.

Intelligence agents of the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guards Corps arrested Iranian journalist Roohollah Zam in October. Founder of anti-government Amad News, Zam had been living in France and, following his arrest in Baghdad, was extradited to Iran. He is accused of working with French, Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies, amounting to 17 charges, including espionage and spreading false news, although the government has made his platforms almost completely inaccessible for more than two years. In February, at least three trial sessions were held in his case.

5. Agns Ndirubusa and the team at Iwacu (Burundi): Court delivers prison sentence and fines for Burundis only imprisoned journalists.

Following their October arrest, a Burundi court convicted four journalists on January 30 of attempting to undermine state security, fined them each $530, and sentenced them to two years and six months in prison. The four, who had been covering clashes in the countrys Bubanza Province and submitted their appeal on February 21, include Agns Ndirubusa, head of the political desk at Iwacu, one of Burundis last independent outlets, and three colleagues: broadcast reporter Christine Kamikazi, English-language reporter Egide Harerimana and photojournalist Trence Mpozenzi.

6. Azimjon Askarov (Kyrgyzstan): Kyrgyz court hears final appeal of journalists life sentence.

After nearly ten years in prison and his life sentence twice upheld, award-winning journalist Azimjon Askarov, 68, pursued a final appeal at the Supreme Court. The February 26 hearing was quickly adjourned until April 7. The ethnic Uzbeks reporting on corruption, abuse and human rights elicited trumped-up charges that included incitement to ethnic hatred and complicity in the murder of a police officer. Kyrgyzstans one imprisoned journalist experiences deteriorating health amid harsh conditions and limited access to medication.

7. Jamal Khashoggi (Saudi Arabia): U.S. executive branch idles while calls persist for Khashoggis justice.

February 14 marked 500 days since Jamal Khashoggis murder inside Istanbuls Saudi consulate. The Washington Posts columnists fianc, Hadice, observed the date with an op-ed calling for justice. The Trump administration has so far ignored a law passed by Congress, and signed by the president, that mandated the release of an intelligence report about Khashoggis murder by January 19. Thats in addition to ignoring a deadline to reply to Congress regarding the killing, as required under the U.S. Global Magnitsky Act.

8. Pham Doan Trang (Vietnam): Journalist in hiding to evade arrest continues reporting.

Phan Doan Trang has been in hiding since August 2018, after Ho Chi Minh City police brutally beat her and confiscated her national ID card, on top of silencing measures including interrogation, monitoring and shutting off her internet and electricity. A colleague reports that Trang, cofounder of The Vietnamese and Luat Khoa news publications, has not fully recuperated from the assault and her health has deteriorated. While moving between safe houses, she has continued critical reporting on the environment, freedom of religion and online civil society.

9. Mahmoud Hussein (Egypt): Journalist held in extended pretrial detention for unspecified charges.

Mahmoud Hussein, a journalist working with Al Jazeera, has spent more than 1,000 days in pretrial detention in Cairo. Last May, an Egyptian court ordered his release, but authorities opened a new investigation with unspecified charges and returned him to prison. Husseins initial arrest dates to December 2016, and his detention has been repeatedly renewed every 45 days, with anti-state and false news charges stemming from a 2016 documentary about conscription in Egypt which the government claims uses fake footage and aims to incite chaos.

10. Aasif Sultan (India): Communications blackout further delays imprisoned journalists trial.

Kashmir Narrator reporter Aasif Sultan has spent more than a year and half behind bars, since his 2018 arrest and charges months later of complicity in harboring known terrorists. He has been repeatedly interrogated and asked to reveal his sources for a cover story on a slain Kashmiri militant, whose killing by Indian security forces set off a wave of anti-government demonstrations in Kashmir in July 2016. A number of hearings have been postponedand other journalists harassed and detained the past year.

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Contact us at editors@time.com.

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These Are the 10 'Most Urgent' Threats to Press Freedom in March 2020 - TIME

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PUBLISHED: 14:56 04 March 2020 | UPDATED: 15:03 04 March 2020

Mark Langford

HMS Vengeance exercises its Freedom of Bury St Edmunds with a parade through the town centre. Picture: CHARLOTTE BOND

Charlotte Bond

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Crew from HMS Vengeance, a nuclear powered submarine which is affiliated to Bury, exercised their right to parade through the town centre and were joined by Bury St Edmunds sea cadets today (Wednesday March 4).

They formed up at the war memorial in Angel Hill where the Reverend Simon Harvey, the vicar of St Mary's church in Bury, conducted a short service.

The parade, led by the cadets marching band, then set off along Abbeygate Street, Cornhill, the Buttermarket, Central Walk, and across St Andrews Street to Charter Square, before returning to Angel Hill.

Shoppers and market traders, with stalls bedecked in Union flags, lent support as the parade made its way through the town.

The Freedom of a town or city is an ancient sign of trust given to military organisations, allowing them to march through with drums beating, flags flying and bayonets fixed.

Link:

Submariners from HMS Vengeance and Bury sea cadets exercise Freedom of Bury St Edmunds with parade in town centre | Latest Suffolk and Essex News -...

A Friendly Atheist headline directed me to a righteous rant on religious freedom.AOC: The GOP Only EverInvokes Religious Freedom When It Wants to Justify Hate, the headline read. It seems that during a hearing in the U.S. House last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the following:

There is nothing holy about rejecting medical care of people, no matter who they are, on the grounds of what their identity is. There is nothing holy about turning someone away from a hospital. Theres nothing holy about rejecting a child from a family. Theres nothing holy about writing discrimination into the law, and I am tired of communities of faith being weaponized and being mischaracterized, because the only time religious freedom is invoked, its in the name of bigotry and discrimination. Im tired of it.

Huh, I thought. Huh.

Ive long been tired of the way the Right talks about religious freedom, but Ive rarely seen the problems with the Rights religious freedom framework stated so simply and directly. The only time religious freedom is invoked, its in the name of bigotry and discrimination,AOC said. And you know what? Its true.

Here, Ill make a list of evangelicals religious freedom claims.

Are you sensing a pattern? I sure am.

I grew up in a conservative evangelical home in the 1990s and early 2000s, and I dont remember hearing a lot about religious freedom. My impression, based on my own experience, is that religious freedom took off as a catchphrase on the Right at the same time that LGBTQ rights became increasingly accepted by the mainstream. From where Im standing, calls for religious freedom look more like a claim developed specifically to discriminate against LGBTQ people than anything else.

It also makes a handy argument for denying people health insurance that covers contraceptives, of course. Still, overall, religious freedom claims primary target seems to be LGBTQ individuals.

See, Im not sure the Right is actually as full-throated in its support for religious freedom as it claims. After all, what does the Right not include in its catalogue of religious freedom? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Recall that those evangelicalsthe conservative ones Im talking aboutstill want to put Christian prayer back in school, because were a Christian nation, dammit. That is not a religious freedom argument. Its a religious dominance argument. This wing of evangelicals doesnt believe in religious freedom for anyone but Christians.

Remember, these are the same people who argue that our founding fathers established our country as an explicitly Christian nation and call openly for Christian preference. These are the same people who want school board meetings and city council meetings to open in Christian prayers. They dont want religious freedom. Thats just a smokescreen they use to justify their bigotry. What they want is religious dominance.

AOCs comments remind us that this issue isnt all that complicated. Its actually really, really simple.

I have a Patreon! Please support my writing!

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You can't have both religious freedom and religious dominance - Patheos

RUSH: For those of you watching on the Dittocam, this will also be at RushLimbaugh.com. I want to show you a picture up close of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That is it right there. And I couldnt stop looking down at it the whole time that Im wearing it. The clasps in the back, its just beautiful.

Weve also got one more photo to show you that will also be at RushLimbaugh.com.

A black and white picture taken from below the second floor with the Medal of Freedom in color.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Will in Rhinebeck, New York. Great to have you, sir, the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Rush, thank you so much. Its great to hear from you. Mega dittos, mega prayers. Ive been listening to you for about 15 years. I just want to thank you because during the Obama years, you were the beacon of hope for all of us.

RUSH: Thank you, sir. For me, too.

CALLER: My daughters and I are huge fans of the Rush Revere books. Were actually reading through the First Patriots right now. It was such an honor to see you receive the Medal of Freedom. It just couldnt have gone to a better person.

RUSH: Well, it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Its so special and the president was not gonna let me miss it. He was not going to let me talk him or myself out of appearing at the House Chamber that night. Remember, folks, I knew I was gonna get the medal. The president had told me that it was gonna happen in a couple of weeks in the Oval Office and for those of you just tuning in, let me remind you of something else.

There are details here that I cant tell you that I so desperately want to because they describe and illustrate even further the kind of person Donald Trump is. But to do that I would have to go into details about my condition and my treatment, and Im just not gonna do that. Im not the only one thats ever gone through this. A lot of you have, a lot of you are, and I vowed when this whole thing started, Im not gonna bleed on anybody with this.

But someday, somehow, Im gonna be able to tell the entire story, because there are elements of it that youll just laugh yourself silly. Theyre all about Donald Trump refusing to hear no, no matter how polite, no matter how sincere, no matter how heartfelt, no way, not possible. As I say, its an aspect of his personality that these people, his political opponents havent the slightest idea. They have no way of understanding it.

He just will not be denied, and for all these times when you think people on his staff are getting away with sabotaging him like the whistleblower, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman? No. No. It may look like it in the moment, but they are going to I dont want to say pay a price. Theyre gonna be outed for what they did. Theyre not going to get away with it, is the point. Hes just indomitable and will not let anybody deny what he wants and I dont mean that as hes oppressive and insensitive and doesnt listen.

Its, in fact, the exact opposite.

Read the original here:

The Presidential Medal of Freedom: Its Just So Beautiful - RushLimbaugh.com

Brazils democratic institutions are under attack. Since taking office, the Jair Bolsonaro administration, helped by its allies on the far right, has systematically undermined cultural, scientific and educational institutions in the country, as well as the press.

Early on, prominent members of Bolsonaros political party started a campaign to encourage university and high school students to covertly film their teachers and denounce them for ideological indoctrination. This persecution campaign, ominously called School Without Party, created a sense of intimidation and fear in educational institutions in a country barely three decades out of an oppressive military regime. Last month, Bolsonaro suggested that the state should censor textbooks to promote conservative values.

The Bolsonaro administration has made it clear it will not tolerate deviation from its ultra-conservative politics and worldview. Last year the administration fired the marketing director of Banco do Brasil, Delano Valentim, for creating an ad campaign promoting diversity and inclusion, which was then censored by the government. Later that year, as Brazils Amazon forest burned at an alarming rate, Bolsonaros administration retaliated against scientists who dared to present facts. Ricardo Galvo, the former director of Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), was removed from his post for releasing satellite data on deforestation in the Amazon.

The government is also dangerously hostile to the media. On 21 January this year, the federal prosecutors office opened a baseless investigation into the American journalist Glenn Greenwald and his team for participating in an alleged conspiracy to hack the cellphone of Brazilian authorities. The prosecution, a clear attack on freedom of the press, was a response to a series of exposs that Greenwald and the Intercept published concerning possible corruption in Bolsonaros inner circle.

This is not an isolated case. Government officials throughout the country, from regional courts to the military police, have taken it upon themselves to ideologically defend Bolsonaro and curtail free expression. In 2019 alone, there were 208 reported attacks on media and journalists in Brazil.

On 16 January, Bolsonaro and the then special secretary for culture, Roberto Alvim, filmed a joint broadcast that laid out their ideological plans for the country. They praised the conservative turn and the resumption of culture in the country. The next day, Alvim went further: during a video segment to announce a new national arts award, he made apparent allusions to Nazi principles and lifted phrases from the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Domestic outrage and international condemnation caused Alvim to step down. But Alvim was merely giving voice to Bolsonaros far-right political project, which continues in full force: a continuous affront to freedom of expression, justified in the name of national culture. Public institutions that represent Brazils multicultural heritage the Superior Council of Cinema, Ancine, the Audiovisual Fund, the National Library, the Institute of National Historical and Artistic Heritage (Iphan) and the Palmares Foundation for Black Culture have faced censorship, funding cutbacks and other political pressure.

The Brazilian film-maker Petra Costa, director of the documentary The Edge of Democracy, currently has a chance of becoming the first female Latin American director to win an Oscar. Yet Bolsonaros secretary of communication recently used his official Twitter channel to disseminate a video attacking Costa as an anti-patriot spreading lies about the Bolsonaro government. Similarly, the feature films Bacurau, Invisible Life and Babenco received international acclaim at the Cannes and Venice film festivals, but Bolsonaro has declared that no good films have been produced in Brazil for a long time.

The Bolsonaro government is also working to reverse several important social achievements of the last two decades, including affirmative action. Between 2003 and 2017, the proportion of black students entering Brazilian universities increased 51%; the Bolsonaro regime wants to roll back this progress. Bolsonaro and his ministers routinely disparage ethnic minorities and the LGBTQ+ community all while ignoring the violence and criminality of rightwing paramilitary militias.

This is a government that has no development plan for its people. Instead, the Bolsonaro regime is engaged in a dangerous culture war against contrived internal threats. It denies global warming and the burning of the Amazon, despises leaders who fight for the preservation of the environment, and disrespects the culture and environmental preservation carried out by indigenous communities.

We fear that these attacks on democratic institutions may soon become irreversible. Based on the most extreme and narrow conservative principles, Bolsonaros project is to change the content of school textbooks and Brazilian films, restrict access to funding for scholarships and research, and intimidate intellectuals, journalists and scientists. We ask the international community to:

Pressure Brazil to fully respect the universal declaration of human rights, and thereby respect freedom of expression, thought and religion.

Finally, we call on human rights bodies and the international press to put a spotlight on what is happening in Brazil. This is a grave political moment. We must reject the rise of authoritarianism.

Read more from the original source:

Democracy and freedom of expression are under threat in Brazil - The Guardian

TAYLORSVILLE The Freedom boys basketball team became impossible to keep up with Friday night , shooting its way to an 83-65 victory at Alexander Central in front of a packed house in Northwestern 3A/4A Conference action.

Three nights after tying a career-high with 36 points, Patriots senior guard Bradley Davis lit up the scoreboard for 28 to go with eight rebounds, shooting 11 of 19 from the field including 6 of 11 from 3-point range. Classmate James Freeman joined Davis in double figures with 21 points to go with a game-high nine assists and made 3 of 5 long-range attempts.

Second-ranked Freedom (20-1, 9-1 NWC) made 15 treys in all as it clinched at least a share of a second straight regular-season title plus the NWCs No. 1 3A state playoff seed on the same night it reached 20 wins for a ninth time in 10 seasons.

We dont want to look at the end of the season yet, Pats first-year coach Clint Zimmerman said. That will take care of itself. We got to keep chipping away and try to get better. Clinching and having a shot is good, but we have to make sure we dont get complacent with that and we come in ready to go on Monday, Tuesday and Friday.

The Patriots were certainly ready to go Friday, starting off on fire with four out of five first-quarter baskets coming from long range en route to an early 14-10 lead.

Alexander managed to keep the contest tight in the second quarter, going into the half down just 33-28 after Freedom led by as much as 11 at one point.

Freedoms offense exploded in the third. Davis scored 18 of his 28 points in the period, helping the Patriots go off for 30 to finally put some distance between themselves and the hosts. Freeman scored 15 after halftime as Freedom never took its foot off the gas, playing with intensity until the final minute and grabbing the victory by a healthy margin.

Qualique Garner added nine points, Nick Johnson had seven and Ben Tolbert drained two 3s for his six points.

Zimmerman talked afterward of his teams willingness to play every possession as if the game is on the line, no matter the score.

Thats something Coach (Casey) Rogers started with this group a long time ago, he said. Its all about having great habits, and habits transcend what the scoreboard is. Habits go beyond the kind of play, its just doing your job all the time, and were trying to continue that.

The Patriots will look to wrap up the title in outright fashion Tuesday at home against Watauga.

Freedom's Josie Hise (right) battles with an Alexander Central player for position under the goal on Friday.

Freedom 77, Alexander Central 46

The Lady Patriots rode a stifling defensive effort to guarantee at least a share of a fifth straight NWC regular-season title Friday night, matching their second best start in program history (by the 2000-01 team) one game after sewing up a 12th consecutive 20-win campaign.

No. 1 Freedom (21-0, 10-0 NWC) scored 29 points off 31 forced turnovers while committing just nine turnovers and drilling 13 3s. Senior Guard Blaikley Crooks double-double with 20 points and 11 rebounds to complement a stat line that also showed five assists and four steals.

Josie Hise (17 points, six assists, five steals), Christena Rhone (12 points, seven assists, four steals) and Jayda Glass (14 points, four rebounds, three steals) joined Crooks in double figures largely due to their efforts on defense as well.

I think to turn up the pressure and get some unforced errors, that helped us, Freedom coach Amber Reddick said. In the second half, we did a better job rebounding the ball. Thats something we talked about. Alexander has a lot of size and we knew we had to do a better job rebounding. We (also) cleaned up our defense in the second half and kept them off the free throw line.

Freedom won each period, never trailing after the opening minute and leading 17-10 after one and 40-25 at the half.

Reddick said shed appreciate what Friday meant for at least a moment before moving on to the next goal.

I really do have to stop and remind myself to enjoy it, she said. This is a great bunch of girls. They get along, theyre so much fun to coach. But sometimes its easy for me to get tunnel vision, so I do have to stop and tell myself to enjoy this because this is a fun group.

Freedom looks to extend a 38-game win streak on Tuesday vs. Watauga, the last NWC team to hand FHS a loss in January 2018 in Morganton. The Lady Pats have taken six straight from the Pioneers since, four of those by single digits. Freedom has only won by single digits twice this season.

View original post here:

Both Freedom teams clinch NWC titles they hope to win outright next week - Morganton News Herald

But Robert is far from the sole object of Ednas desire. Their liaison eschews monogamy in more ways than the obvious infidelity, taking as lovers the moon, the gulf and its spirits. In the moonlit sea Edna walks for the first time alone, boldly and with overconfidence into the gulf, where swimming alone is as if some power of significant import had been given to control the working of her body and soul. Solitude is essential to Ednas realization that she has never truly had control of her body and soul. (The novels original title was A Solitary Soul.) Among Ednas more defiant moments is when she refuses to budge from her hammock, despite paternalistic reprimand from both Robert and Lonce, who each insist on chaperoning, as if in shifts. Ednas will blazes up even in this tiny, hanging room of her own, as Virginia Woolf would famously phrase it nearly 30 years later. Within the silent sanctuary of the hammock, gulf spirits whisper to Edna. By the next morning she has devised a way to be alone with Robert. Chopins novel of awakenings and unapologetic erotic trespass is in full swing.

Upon her return home to New Orleans, Edna trades the social minutiae expected of upper-crust Victorian white women receiving callers and returning their calls for painting, walking, gambling, dinner parties, brandy, anger, aloneness and sex. She shucks off tradition and patriarchal expectations in favor of art, music, nature and her bosom friends. These open her up, invite her to consider her self, her desires. One friend offers the tattoo-worthy wisdom that the bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. Is Edna such a bird? This is the novels central question, one it refuses to answer definitively. Chopin gives Edna the freedom to feel and yet not know herself. The women in the novel draw forth Ednas intuition they take the sensual and braid it with the intellectual. Eventually, the body and the mind are one for Edna.

The Awakening is a book that reads you. Chopin does not tell her readers what to think. Unlike Flaubert, Chopin declines to explicitly condemn her heroine. Critics were especially unsettled by this. Many interpreted Chopins refusal to judge Edna as the authors oversight, and took it as an open invitation to do so themselves. This gendered knee-jerk critical stance that assumes less intentionality for works made by women is a phenomenon that persists today. Especially transgressive was Ednas candor about her maternal ambivalence, the acuity with which Chopin articulated the fearsome dynamism of the mothers bond with her children: She would sometimes gather them passionately to her heart, she would sometimes forget them. This scandalized and continues to scandalize readers because the freedom of temporarily forgetting your children is to find free space in your mind, for yourself, for painting, stories, ideas or orgasm. To forget your children and remember yourself was a revolutionary act and still is.

Edna Pontellier does what she wants with her body she has good sex at least three times in the book. But the more revolutionary act is the desire that precedes the sex. Edna, awakened by the natural world, invited by art and sisterhood to be wholly alive, begins to notice what she wants, rather than what her male-dominated society wants her to want. Ednas desire is the mechanism of her deprogramming. The heroines sensual experience is also spiritual, and political. Political intuition begins not in a classroom but far before, with bodily sensation, as Sara Ahmed argues in her incendiary manifesto Living a Feminist Life: Feminism can begin with a body, a body in touch with a world. A body in touch with a world feels oppression like a flame, and recoils. For gaslit people women, nonbinary and queer people, people of color people who exist in the gaps Cauley describes between the accepted narrative of American normal and their own experience, pleasure and sensation are not frivolous or narcissistic but an essential reorientation. The epiphany follows the urge. Feeling her own feelings, thinking her own thoughts, Edna recalibrates her compass to point not to the torture of patriarchy but to her own pleasure, a new north.

Like Edna, Kate Chopin did what she wanted with her mind, whatever the cost, and it cost her almost everything. In 1899 The Awakening earned her a piddling $102 in royalties, about $3,000 in todays money. Shortly after its publication the now unequivocally classic novel fell out of print. Chopins next book contract was canceled. Chopin died at age 54 from a brain hemorrhage after a long, hot day spent at the St. Louis Worlds Fair with her son. Her publishing career lasted about 14 years. And yet she established herself among the foremothers of 20th-century literature and feminist thought. She showed us that patriarchys prison can kill you slow or kill you fast, and how to feel your way out of it. She admired Guy de Maupassant as a man who had escaped from tradition and authority, and we will forever argue whether Edna is allowed this escape, whether she shows us not the way but a way to get free. As for Chopin, there is no doubt that she was free on the page, free to let her mind unfurl. None of this is accident or folly, not caprice nor diary. She knew what she was doing. She was swimming farther than she had ever swum before.

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The Classic Novel That Saw Pleasure as a Path to Freedom - The New York Times

On February 5, 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched the International Religious Freedom Alliance (IRF Alliance), an Alliance of like-minded partners who treasure, and fight for, international religious freedom for every human being. The launch comes a few months after on July 18, 2019, at the second Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington DC, Secretary Pompeo announced new initiatives including the creation of the IRF Alliance. The Alliance is intended to bring together senior government representatives to discuss actions their nations can take together to promote respect for freedom of religion or belief and protect members of religious minority groups worldwide.

At the launch, Secretary Pompeo stressed the ever-growing need for such a combined effort listing some of the worst acts of violence based on religion or belief from recent years, including terrorists and violent extremists who target religious minorities, whether they are Yazidis in Iraq, Hindus in Pakistan, Christians in northeast Nigeria, or Muslims in Burma and the Chinese Communist Partys hostility to all faiths. Indeed, such acts of violence based on religion or belief are at increase and need urgent and comprehensive response to stop the atrocities, assist the victims and survivors, prosecute the perpetrators and protect the communities from re-occurrence of such acts of violence in the future.

Shoes of victims are kept as evidence as security personnel inspect the interior of St Sebastian's ... [+] Church in Negombo on April 22, 2019, a day after the church was hit in series of bomb blasts targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka, the worst violence to hit the island since its devastating civil war ended a decade ago. (Photo credit: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)

26 countries joined the IRF Alliance, including, Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, The Gambia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Senegal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Togo, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. The members of the IRF Alliance have pledged to uphold the Declaration of Principles, a constitution for the IRF Alliance solidifying their commitment to protect the right to freedom of religion or belief.

The Declaration of Principles incorporates several reactive and proactive measures that the members of the IRF Alliance are to adopt to promote and protect the rights to freedom of religion or belief for all. Furthermore, it incorporates a list of potential instruments of actions to aid their work, including regular monitoring, reporting, information-sharing and outreach to impacted individuals and faith communities, support for victims, such as through redress, resettlement, or other actions as appropriate, targeted sanctions against perpetrators, raining of law enforcement officials, building the capacity of national human rights institutions, and cooperating with civil society, investment in projects to protect space for civic engagement by assisting human rights defenders and victims of persecution, as well as to build societal resilience.

During the launch, Secretary Pompeo further announced that Poland will host the next Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Warsaw from July 14-16, 2020. The upcoming Ministerial will be organized in cooperation with the United States and will address several topics requiring urgent response including improving the lives of persecuted and discriminated communities, empowering individuals to affect change, and promoting inclusive dialogue to mobilize action and increase awareness regarding the scale of persecution against religion or belief worldwide.

The U.S. must be commended for the work it has carried out to lead the efforts to promote and protect the rights to freedom of religion or belief for all. The IRF Alliance is intended to provide a springboard towards action to address violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief globally. To be able to do so, the IRF Alliance must grow in numbers and in the common commitment. Other states must join and stand up for human rights of all people persecuted for their religion or belief.

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U.S. Launches The First-Ever International Religious Freedom Alliance - Forbes

Captivity is a mentality! Has Netflix renewed OA for the fourth season???

OA, an American mystery drama, is all set to say our goodbye as Netflix has canceled further seasons of it. This is one of the saddest news for the fans who were eagerly waiting for the suspense left in season 2 to get revealed in the third one. Soon, after the release of 2nd season on 22nd March 2019, which was a massive hit as it broke the records of the previous seasons. On 5th August 2019, Netflix officially canceled the further seasons of the show, leaving the suspense with a big question mark. The news extremely hurts fans.

What is OA all about???

OA is a science-based fuction series. The co-creator of it is Brit Marling. It was premiered on Netflix on 16 December 2016. The director is Batmanglij. Previously, the OA story was divided into 5 phases and therefore ought to be directed in 5 seasons. Still, after the release of the second season, Netflix canceled its further seasons leaving behind the unveiled secrets. When co-creator Brit Marling got the news, she was shocked and said while posting on Instagram Zal and I are deeply sad not to finish this story. The first time I heard the news, I had a good cry.

When is Releasing??

As it is canceled. So, how will it release??

Cast-

The cast of season 2 included Brit Marling, Jason Isaacs, Patrick Gibson, Emory Lohen,Ian Alexander, Phyllis Smith, Brandon Perea, Brendon Meyer, Will Brill, Alice Krige, Chloe Levine and many more.

Plot :

As season 3 cancelation has been done. Therefore, there is no need to discuss the scheme. But let us talk about the plot of the second season

The second season follows the OA as she traverses to another dimension and ends up in San Francisco to continue her search for her former laptop. Hap and her fellow captives, as prarie passes paths with private eye Karim Washington to assist in the investigation of surreal disappearance of a missing girl.

The news of cancellation is a heartbreak for the fans, and they will need time to heal themselves.

The rest is here:

You Will Find Your Freedom : Has Netflix Renewed Season 3 of OA? - Union Journalism

Last November, each of the presidential campaigns received a questionnaire about an issue seldom discussed on the campaign trail, but one crucial to our democracy freedom of the press. To date, only Michael BloombergMichael Rubens BloombergDemocrats at debate criticize the candidate who isn't there: Mike Bloomberg Bundlers see fundraising problems for Biden Five things to watch in New Hampshire primary debate MORE has replied.

Where are the rest?

This is a trying time for journalism. Its a moment begging for new ideas to build trust, for a new tone to our discourse, for transparency over obscurity. A good place to start is with those who seek to occupy the White House.

Thats why we at the National Press Club Journalism Institute, together with the National Press Club, the Society for Professional Journalists and other industry partners,asked presidential candidatesfrom both parties to describe what a free press means to them, to define their obligations to the free flow of information, and to articulate their commitments to transparency. Bloomberg deserves credit for giving the questions serious consideration.

The Bloomberg campaign said the former three-term New York mayor wants the next president to be afirm and outspoken champion of the news media, has misgivings about the need for a federal media shield law and would restore regular press briefings to the White House.

Bloomberg, of course, is not a disinterested party. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, which includes Bloomberg News. Bloomberg Philanthropies is a donor to the National Press Club and the NPCJI. Widely respected, the news organization has nonetheless drawn flack for apolicy of not investigating Bloombergas a candidate and for applying that policy to the other Democratic presidential candidates.

The Institute submitted the same questionnaire to President Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpFive takeaways: Fear of Trump hangs over Democratic debate Klobuchar raises million since start of debate Buttigieg, Sanders aim to build momentum from New Hampshire debate MOREs campaign as well, though his track record answers some of the questions, and his contempt for journalists and news organizations is a recurrent theme in his Twitter feed.

But over the course of the presidential campaign most other candidates have given only passing reference to issues of press freedoms.

At theDec. 19 Democratic presidential debate, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete ButtigiegPeter (Pete) Paul ButtigiegFive takeaways: Fear of Trump hangs over Democratic debate Klobuchar raises million since start of debate Buttigieg after debate: I would be 'most progressive' nominee in party's history MORE took note of the presidents disdain. When the American president refers to unfavorable press coverage as the product of the enemy of the people, democracy around the world gets weaker, he said.

At the same debate, Sen. Amy KlobucharAmy Jean KlobucharFive takeaways: Fear of Trump hangs over Democratic debate Klobuchar raises million since start of debate Buttigieg, Sanders aim to build momentum from New Hampshire debate MORE (D-Minn.) noted that in separate Senate Judiciary Committee hearings she asked Trump attorneys general Jeff SessionsJefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsBloomberg has thoughts on press freedom; the other candidates should give us theirs, too Doug Jones says he will vote to convict Trump Senate Democrats outraise Republicans, but GOP has cash edge MORE and William BarrWilliam Pelham BarrRepublican senators call on Twitter to suspend Iran's Khamenei, Zarif The Hill's Morning Report Trump basks in acquittal; Dems eye recanvass in Iowa Trump 'apoplectic' in phone call with UK's Johnson about Huawei decision: report MORE whether they would imprison journalists for doing their jobs and neither gave her an unequivocal answer. My dad was a newspaperman, Klobuchar said. So this is not just talking points to me.

Meanwhile, Andrew YangAndrew YangYang hits candidates for acting like Trump is 'the cause of all our problems' Overnight Defense: Impeachment witness Vindman escorted from White House | Esper says Pentagon protects service members from retribution | Trump ousts EU envoy Sondland Watch live: Final Democratic debate before New Hampshire MORE hasproposed invigorating journalismand sowing news deserts with a $1 billion fund administered by the Federal Communications Commission to make grants to for-profit, non-profit, and local government entities to help support local news operations.

Good for them for addressing the issue.

It deserves more.

Its time to hear from the rest of the pack. Its time for voters to demand a commitment to press freedom. Its time to ask: Do you believe the president has a role in restoring faith in a free press and the checks it places on our institutions?

Record numbers of journalistsare being imprisoned abroad. Killings, miraculously down, still continue. In many cases, as in the coldblooded murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the responsible parties are state actors who make a mockery of justice.So we have asked the candidates how they would use diplomatic tools to promote a free press across the globe.

Wouldcandidates grant asylum to journalists such asEmilio Gutierrez Soto, who fled Mexico amid death threats from the military?Gutierrez' asylum claimshave twice been rejected by an immigration judge; deportation would mean returning tothe deadliest country for journalists.

At home, the last two administrationshave targeted journalistic sourcesas if they were spies. Forty-nine states have statutes or case law that protect reporters from revealing sources to government officials. Yet, the federal government offers no such protection.

Journalists working in the United States havebeen detained, their equipment confiscated, their homes searched. Federal agencies and the Supreme Court have limited information available to the public through the Freedom of Information Act. And journalists are routinelydenied access to government experts, no matter the subject.

Journalism is the key to an informed public. And in the end, only an informed public can govern itself. We need to know where the candidates stand. Its time.

Jim Kuhnhenn is a veteran Washington correspondent for the Associated Press and Knight Ridder who is now the Press Freedom Fellow for the National Press Club Journalism Institute. He is a former member of the congressional Standing Committee of Correspondents and a former president of the Washington Press Club Foundation. Follow him on Twitter @jkuhnhenn

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Bloomberg has thoughts on press freedom; the other candidates should give us theirs, too | TheHill - The Hill

There has been considerable anxiety, anger, angst and agonising about the role language plays in contemporary times, and in the dark times.

Language is under attack when used in certain ways in the university and academia, on the streets and in polemics. It is also under scrutiny when used in and as poetry. As though poetry which makes nothing happen (W.H. Auden) would overthrow regimes, incite people and shred nerves. But why are we afraid of a mere poem?

When poets sought to channelise public outrage or personal anguish into words, poetry was a genre that appealed to them, for various reasons. It was crisper, shorter.

It was not easy to decode and meanings in its compressed sentences, involved myths and convoluted syntax, and so hidden meanings about protest in the form of metaphors were not visible at first.

One had to work with the text and we all know the people in power, when they do read, rarely have the time for this. But the question for us readers is: how do we see meanings like dissent or freedom or resistance in poetry written for and within contexts as diverse as racism and civil rights in the USA, totalitarianism in the USSR, the freedom struggle, the French Revolution and 18th century British monarchys excesses?

The protagonists, when identifiable in poetry, are different, the victims and perpetrators different and the contexts, radically divergent. Ostensibly. Yet symbols of oppression or protest, freedom and aspirations in poetry seem to work across continents.

Literature is the hunger for Otherness, as diverse critics from Geoffrey Galt Harpham and Martha Nussbaum to, more recently Ranjan Ghosh and Hillis Miller have argued.

Also read: Amid Conflict, Young Kashmiri Writers Are Finding Solace in Literature

When we read, we seek to enter the lifeworlds of Others, other characters and their lives. The Other lifeworld is the exotic, which by definition is distanced and distant from ours and is best consumed detached from its original contexts. The literary as exotic enables us to encounter the Other world, but without the messiness of living in it. Thus hunger for the Other is not limited by geocultural boundaries: in fact, quite the opposite, it is a hunger for cross-cultural solidarity.

Cross-cultural solidarity that enables us to bridge different historical circumstances is possible, if we read ethically, as argued elsewhere. To read the suffering of the Other in literary texts, and in certain ways, is to be hungry not only for accounts of suffering but hungry for an end to that suffering.

Like the Ancient Mariners guest who wakes up sadder and wiser after the consumption, via listening, of the Mariners tale, the hunger for the outsider ought to engage with the Others suffering. Even aesthetic norms of specific cultural forms are ignored in our quest for Otherness, producing then an ethical aesthetics. For a cross-cultural solidarity to occur via aesthetics, the latter must be consumed as ethical aesthetics, unrestrained by its original context but infused by it.

Also read: No Longer the Other: How Holocaust Poetry Reclaims Identities

Thus, Holocaust texts, slavery narratives, and trauma texts from Rwanda may be read with a degree of fidelity to their origins but need not be restricted to them.

Reading literature is an act of deviance then, travelling away from originary aesthetic norms of the text, as Ghosh puts it: Becoming aesthetic owes to sahityas ability for deviancy, detouring competencies in the form of an imposed aesthetic or trained habits of aesthetic response.

Reading as deviation and detour enables us to slide across geocultural formations. Reorganising the reading of Otherness could possibly be transcultural when, for instance, we practise an aesthetic that maps, for example, forms of dehumanisation across contexts to see dehumanisation, as a global condition (what Michael Rothberg would pioneer as multidirectional memory studies. And yes, yes, this reinstates to a considerable measure the old universal nature of the literary.)

Even when we do not know of an-Other context, we are able to imagine that world. Like peace and poetry, we need to be able to imagine this. In the words of Denis Levertov:

But peace, like a poem,is not there ahead of itself,cant be imagined before it is made,cant be known exceptin the words of its making,grammar of justice,syntax of mutual aid.

With the above sense of literature-as-deviance-and-detour in mind, it was intriguing to see Poetry Foundations collection, Poetry of Protest, Resistance and Empowerment. The assortment of poems cut across numerous contexts and cultures, and yet, they made sense even though, in a few cases, one had to look up a historical reference or two.

Partially illustrating how tropes of oppression, protest, suffering and hope can emerge from very different spatio-temporal contexts we can skim through some of the poems here.

There was on the site, Langston Hughes who in I look at the World writes

I look at the worldFrom awakening eyes in a black faceAnd this is what I see:This fenced-off narrow spaceAssigned to me.

I look then at the silly wallsThrough dark eyes in a dark faceAnd this is what I know:That all these walls oppression buildsWill have to go!

If Hughes was speaking of walls of oppression, another text in the collection pointed to the walls that are blackened with the sorrows and blood of the oppressed. Here are William Blakes lines from his astonishing London, from the 18th century:

the hapless Soldiers sighRuns in blood down Palace walls

The radical poet of 18th century England speaks to us alongside Hughes from 20th century racially segregated America, employing the same trope of the wall.

Claude McKay in America would describe his country as feeding him the bread of bitterness, but admits he loves this cultured hell. And then proceeds to tell us how he stands with respect to this nation:

Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state,I stand within her walls with not a shredOf terror, malice, not a word of jeer.

Within Americas walls, this is how a citizen stands.

James Baldwin in Staggerlee Wonders, deeply critical of the exclusionary policies that run his country, is caustic about how white America worries about China, Vietnam and planting a flag on the moon, but does not honour any treaty anywhere in the world:

They have hacked their children to pieces.They have never honoured a single treatymade with anyone, anywhere.The walls of their citiesare as foul as their children.

So much for walls across time and space. And, not on the website, a poem that resonates throughout India since the early 20th century, also gives us the oppressive wall, the metaphor of restricted freedoms and the prison, in the lines of Gurudev himself:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;Where knowledge is free;Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and actionInto that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

The freedom to transcend walls, to not be limited, is the aspiration of a nation, says Tagore.

Or, look at how Anna Akhmatovas justly famous Requiem ends, at a wall, imposing, unmoving, behind which many loved ones have disappeared forever :

I pray not for myself alone,but for everyone who stood with me,in the cruel cold, in the July heat,under the blind, red wall.

This is the wall at which people wait for their loved ones.

Shifting the trope slightly, but continuing with the image of a lock-down, a carceral and an immobility regime is Maya Angelous legendary Caged Bird:

a bird that stalksdown his narrow cagecan seldom see throughhis bars of ragehis wings are clipped andhis feet are tiedso he opens his throat to sing.

And Angelous bird sings of what else butfreedom :

The caged bird singswith a fearful trillof things unknownbut longed for stilland his tune is heardon the distant hillfor the caged birdsings of freedom.

So many walls, from America through London and Russia to Egypt and India. Capturing oppression, resistance, resilience and employed as a trope, the wall or the cage, is a potent transcultural sign: it tells us of Others whose lives are led (and end) within immobilising walls.

If Tagore and Angelou speak in their poetry of life beyond the walls that enfold, secure and limit them, Constantine Cavafy goes further, and wonders why we never protested when the walls were being put up. Here is Cavafy in Walls:

Without consideration, without pity, without shamethey have built great and high walls around me.And now I sit here and despair.I think of nothing else: this fate gnaws at my mind;for I had many things to do outside.Ah why did I not pay attention when they were building the walls.But I never heard any noise or sound of builders.Imperceptibly they shut me from the outside world.

Like the German pastor Martin Niemllers famous lines Niemllers lines are engraved at the New England Holocaust Memorial Museum in Boston, USA, having deviated from its origins to energize the imagination of visitors elsewhere about the one who never protested when various people were being taken away (first they came for the socialists) so that when his turn came there was no one to protest, Cavafy alerts us to the risk of not resisting and with the metaphor of walls.

Each of the poets here was dealing with a specific cultural context, from civil rights to the anti-colonial struggle. They all found the image of walls, walling in, plastic enough strange, for inflexible walls to employ.

When we read Blake or Cavafy, we see in our minds eye, an abstract human, incarcerated, yearning for justice and freedom. The incarcerated are the exact opposite of us readers, who are free to read, to roam. The freedom to read Literature is the freedom to know about Others who are unfree, albeit in different conditions of immobility. The study of Literature and poetry has never been more urgent than now.

Just one poetic trope across centuries and contexts reminds us that people behind walls are not always secure: often they are immobilised with terror.

The language of poetry, when speaking of immobility regimes, breaks free.

Pramod K. Nayar teaches at the University of Hyderabad.

Continue reading here:

Poetry, Walls and Freedom - The Wire

On Jan. 24, Secretary of StateMike Pompeo abruptly ended an interviewwith NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly after she asked hima series of pointed questions about Ukraineand following his statement that he has defended all State Department personnel if he could point to his remarks defending Marie YovanovitchMarie YovanovitchTrump ousts impeachment witness Gordon Sondland Impeachment witness Alexander Vindman escorted from White House Yovanovitch: Standing up to our government should not be 'dangerous act' MORE, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. A few minutes later, a State Department official asked Kelly to accompany her (without a recorder) to Pompeos private living room. Inside the room, according to Kelly, Pompeo berated her, frequently using the f-word. Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?, he asked, and challenged her to identify the country on an unmarked map.

The following day,Pompeo issued a statementclaiming Kelly had violated the basic rules of journalism and decency, saying she lied to him about the subject of the interview and broke a promise to keep their subsequent exchange off the record (Kelly disputes both). Other than implying that Kelly (who has an advanced degree in European Studies from Cambridge University) mistook Bangladesh for Ukraine, he did not dispute Kellys account of his post-interview comments.

A few days later,the State Department barredNPR reporter Michele Kelemen from accompanying Pompeo on a trip to the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The Department did not give a reason for its decision.

Americans across the political spectrum should be denouncing the intimidation of a journalist. They arent.

To be sure,five Democratic senators condemnedPompeos behavior as insulting and contemptuous. Sen. Bob MenendezRobert (Bob) MenendezMedia's selective outrage exposed in McSally-Raju kerfuffle Dem senators say Iran threat to embassies not mentioned in intelligence briefing Overnight Defense: Iran crisis eases as Trump says Tehran 'standing down' | Dems unconvinced on evidence behind Soleimani strike | House sets Thursday vote on Iran war powers MORE declared that, As the United States chief diplomat, the Secretary of State should know that freedom of the press is a fundamental human right, a foundational pillar of democracy, and an indispensable check on authoritarian overreach. And the White House Correspondents Association called the retaliation against NPR outrageous and contrary to American values.

In the hyper-partisan, siloed world in which information is disseminated and issues are framed, however, millions of Americans have not learned thatemail exchangesbetween Kelly and aides to Pompeo demonstrate that the NPR reporter did not agree to limit her questions to Iran and ask no questions about Ukraine. Although her plan was to spend a healthy portion of the interview on Iran, she said I never agree to take anything off the table. She specifically mentioned Ukraine as a topic. Kelly insists as well that no one ever asked her to keep Pompeos post-interview comments off-the-record.

Perhaps, not surprisingly given its brazen-it-out and never-apologizemodus operandi comments from Trump world are, at best, disappointing.

During an appearance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuBenjamin (Bibi) NetanyahuMORE in the White House on Jan. 28, PresidentTrump pointed to the great Pompeo, inducing a standing ovation from the assembled guests. That reporter couldnt have done too good a job on you, Trump (who, in November 2015,mocked Serge Kovaleski, a New York Times reporter with a physical disability, and has often called the press the enemy of the people) said, I think you did a good job on her, actually.

In covering the incident,Fox News reportedthat NPR stood behind its reporter, but then changed the subject, reminding readers that in December 2018, her news organization had been forced to issue a lengthy correction after falsely accusing Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpFive takeaways: Fear of Trump hangs over Democratic debate Klobuchar raises million since start of debate Buttigieg, Sanders aim to build momentum from New Hampshire debate MORE Jr. of lying to the Senate about plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

And presidential impeachment lawyer Alan DershowitzAlan Morton DershowitzPelosi: Republicans embraced 'darkest vision' of executive power by acquitting Trump Trump couldn't get Ukraine to smear Joe Biden, so Senate Republicans did it for him Trump's acquittal may have profound impact on presidential power MORE,who patted Pompeo on the backat the White House as Trump praised the Secretarys very impressive behavior, emphasized that he thoroughly disapproved of the way he has reportedly treated a reporter, only to opine (in a non-sequitur, usually applied to excuse the actions of demagogues and dictators) that if Pompeo can help bring about peace in the Middle East, Ill forgive him.

In an op-ed in theNew York Times, Kelly summarized whats at stake. Committed to the free and unfettered flow of information, journalists sit down with senior government officials to ask tough questions, on behalf of our fellow citizens, she wrote, and then share their answers or lack thereof with the world. Freedom of the press is enshrined in the Constitution so that people in positions of power will be held to account. The stakes are too high for their impulses and decisions not to be examined in as thoughtful and rigorous an interview as is possible.

These values, which are fundamental to democracy, it seems clear, are under assault. They deserve the visible and vocal support of every American.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He is the co-author (with Stuart Blumin) ofRude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century.

Originally posted here:

The latest assault on freedom of the press | TheHill - The Hill

Recently, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath said during a pro-CAA rally that anyone raising azaadi slogans will be booked for sedition. This stern warning by a chief minister whose administration has brutally cracked down on anti-CAA protesters is not a surprise. The important question is, who is afraid of the azaadi slogan?

In the last few months, this slogan has come under severe attack from the right-wing media ecosystem. Several fake videos have been broadcast on mainstream media platforms, aiming to delegitimise the detractors of the BJP government, who have raised slogans demanding azaadi.

The azaadi slogan went viral in 2016 in the aftermath of the infamous 9 February incident at JNU in Delhi. When then JNUSU president was released on bail, the university students had raised cries for freedom from poverty, from Brahmanism and from capitalism, feudalism, casteism, unemployment and hunger. Thereafter, the rhythmic chanting of azaadi slogans captured imaginations across the country.

The slogan was further popularised in 2019 when Zoya Akhtar featured it in her blockbuster movie, Gully Boy. Since then, several versions of the azaadi chant have been floating online. They have become so popular that a section of Pakistani students have also chanted it in their own country. In any case, in India the azaadi slogan has become a solid part of the protest repertoire.

For example: When women are not able to go out in the night without fearing molestation and harassment, what they are experiencing is a lack of azaadi.

The azaadi slogans began in Kashmir, but perhaps were first heard in mainland India in 2012-13, during the anti-rape movement after the Nirbhaya incident. Those protesters rejected the idea of protection as a deterrent for sexual crimes and advocated the opposite idea, that of freedom without fear. Several places in Delhi had then reverberated with azaadi slogans. Those protesters, who included men and women, demanded freedom from rape culture, freedom from patriarchy, freedom to move around at night, to love, and freedom to marry or not marry, and so on.

Curiously, even the right-wing groups such as the ABVP, which participated in the 2012-13 protests in Delhi, raised these slogans, probably because the anti-rape movement had also taken on a strong anti-Congress flavour. Azaadi slogans of that time were an attempt to break away from notions of victim-blaming, to which is related the idea of forcing on women the protection of patriarchy. They argued the converse; that the more women stepped outside the confines of their homes, the safer the streets would be for them. The movement therefore redefined the meaning of azaadi from political to social freedom.

One curious aspect of azaadi is that in order to have it you have to fight for it, reclaim it. During the colonial period, Indians fought for azaadi from the British. They wanted Indians to be the masters of their own fate. This is what azaadi actually meansthe capacity to decide your present and future. Naturally, when you try to break the shackles that are holding you back, you come up against them in all their power and fury: the British also unleashed brute force upon Indians countless times during colonial rule.

Freedom is never complete. Azaadi is an ongoing process that you have to assert and fight for at every turn. In India, where communities hold a large measure of control over individuals and their aspirations, where identities are controlled by caste or patriarchal structures and their moralistic orders, the fight for azaadi is even more important. The demand for freedom exists only in those conditions where an individual or group feels that their aspirations are being hindered by unfavourable political conditions or economic and social constraints. Thus the demand for azaadi is an expression of unequal power relations in the socio-economic and political spheres.

Naturally, those in the upper echelons of the power hierarchy, who believe they are the sole custodians of culture, will resist any movement that threatens to take away their power. That is why the chants of azaadi have been met with both outright physical violence and symbolic violence. Women demanding azaadi to take their own decisions are being vilified and slut-shamed. This conservative backlash is well-represented by Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattars utterances. He once remarked that if youmeaning womenwant freedom, then why dont you just roam around naked.

Those who believe in azaadi are routinely branded as tukdey-tukdey gang members. We also encounter slogans such as Afzal wali azaadi, Burhan wali azaadi, bandook se denge azaadi, Gauri Lankesh wali azaadi; and so on from right-wing organisations. Their slogans are directed against voices that are critical of the present regime. Yet, for all the reactions it has invoked, azaadi has continued to reverberate across India as a powerful slogan of protest.

Logically, those who are afraid of azaadi slogans are those who fear a political and economic change that would topple them from their position of power. Their fear also emanates from a psychological condition whose origins lie in a crisis of legitimacy. Over the last five years, many celebrities, intellectuals and media personalities have advocated for the present regime. Their future and interests are linked with the present government and so they have thrown their weight behind it. Any political change will create a deep legitimacy crisis for them. The situation is a kind of downward spiral: they have to continuously create a fear psychosis and narrative that favours the regime while delegitimising the protesters and their repertoire.

For example: When you are strolling in the park with your sweetheart and suddenly a bunch of people come and start thrashing you, you are experiencing a lack of azaadi.

Though the azaadi slogans are political, as the saying goes, the personal is also the political. So you find the younger generation seeking azaadi against curfew hours in hostels and opposing the strong societal and familial resistance against own-choice marriages, against moral policing and so on. Each of these are instances of lack of freedom experienced by the youth in one way or another.

The following slogan sums up this sentiment: When you want to pursue education, but are unable to or you are unable to avail quality medical services due to lack of money, you experience a lack of azaadi.

Arguably, the azaadi slogans also add a dimension to the fertile discourse over what constitutes development in India. The Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen has been arguing that development should also be measured through the lens of freedom, which means that it should entitle people to basic services such as education, healthcare, and employment. Development, in this context, also means building capacity, especially among the marginalised. Therefore, when the youth, women and marginalised groups hit the streets with slogans demanding azaadi, they are not just protesting against a law but breaking their shackles to become more confident and empowered.

For instance: When Dalits are not able to enter temples or fetch water from public sources, they are experiencing a lack of azaadi.

Azaadi cannot be boxed in. Its meaning is redefined by every generation based on their context. The contemporary popularity of azaadi slogans reflects the ambitions of the youth. To criminalise their hopes and aspirations is just the old resisting the birth of the new.

The author is a PhD scholar at JNU in Delhi. The views are personal.

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Azaadiphobia: Who is Afraid of Freedom and Why - NewsClick

Theres only one political body that is more incompetent than the Iowa Democratic party. That body was delivering what could be its last State of the Union speech on Tuesday.

For the fourth year, Donald Trump pretended to address Congress like his presidential predecessors, with some kind of legislative agenda worthy of the chief executive of the most powerful country on the planet.

But our reality-TV president has shown a stubborn resistance to playing anything like the normal role of a commander-in-chief. This time last year, he threatened war if Congress continued to investigate his many varied scandals, crimes and impeachable abuses.

If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation, he said in a nonsense rhyme that sounded like the vaguely ominous threats of a childish bully armed with nuclear weapons. It just doesnt work that way!

Strangely enough, the investigations continued all the way to impeachment, and the Democrats still voted for his new North American free trade legislation. So his assessment of politics was as perfect as his call with the Ukraine president.

Trump is supposed to be a straight shooter but his State of the Union speeches are as unruly as his tweets. Two years ago he said his administration was working on a bipartisan approach to immigration reform. The next year he said that countless Americans are murdered by criminal illegal aliens.

This time around, he insisted he was building the worlds most prosperous and inclusive society. That was shortly before he recounted a gruesome spree of deadly violence by one immigrant.

As someone famously said, it just doesnt work that way.

In case you were wondering how Trump was going to demagogue his way through the next eight months of an election, you can now rest easy. He has identified the enemy, and it is something called free government healthcare for illegal aliens.

Like some Frankenstein amalgam of spare body parts, Trump is fabricating an entirely new Republican party by sewing together its most nightmarish fears. Its only a matter of time before he declares a war on Islamist atheists.

Sitting behind Trump was his chief tormentor. Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, was dressed in white, along with several dozen Democrats marking the centenary of womens voting rights in the United States.

Trump showed his respect for the institution of Congress by refusing to shake Pelosis outstretched hand before he launched into his annual exercise in teleprompter reading. For most of Trumps speech, Pelosi adopted the posture of a schoolteacher reviewing the grade paper of one of her worst students.

Socialism destroys nations, said Trump after welcoming Venezuelas opposition leader, Juan Guaido. But always remember, freedom unifies the soul.

Pelosi shook her head as she mouthed the words to herself over again. Freedom unifies the soul. Can a soul be divided and shattered like a horcrux? How does freedom put a soul back together? And most importantly, did this speech get reviewed before it passed the presidents lips?

Trump's ideas about freedom are as strange as his devotion to Vladimir Putin

Trumps ideas about freedom are as strange as his devotion to Vladimir Putin. With a grand flourish, he awarded the nations highest civilian honor, the presidential medal of freedom, to the spectacularly racist hate-monger known as Rush Limbaugh. Trump said he was giving him the medal in recognition of all that you have done for our nation [and] the millions of people a day that you speak to and inspire. The fact that Limbaugh is now stricken with cancer does not erase a career of spewing the opposite of an inclusive society, especially through the Obama years.

At this point we should spare some thoughts and prayers for the people with the worst job in the White Houses west wing. Working as a speechwriter for Donald Trump is as thankless a job as trying to style his hair: theres not a lot to work with.

You start out with the doorstopper volumes of great presidential speeches, and you end up writing a line that sounds like youre driving a bulldozer. We are moving forward at a pace that was unimaginable just a short time ago, said Demolition Donald, and we are never ever going back!

This is the kind of rhetorical flourish a speechwriter crafts when the facts fail them. Trump constructed his big speech around some economic statistics his team had cherrypicked about the active workforce.

Somehow he failed to say that economic growth has slowed to 2.1% for the last two quarters. When economic growth under Obama was around this level, back in 2012, Trump himself thought this was less than great. The economy is in deep trouble, said the man with a tweet for all occasions.

The sick joke of the Trump presidency is that its becoming increasingly hard to tell the difference between funny strange and funny haha. After bragging about getting his NATO allies to help pay their fair share, Trump pointed to his greatest military innovation.

Just weeks ago, for the first time since President Truman established the Air Force more than 70 years earlier, he declared, we created a new branch of the United States Armed Forces, the Space Force.

At this point the cameras turned to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, who looked like he could barely stifle his giggles.

It has long been unclear how much of this presidents entourage is engaged in a daily stifled giggle.

On the eve of his impeachment acquittal, so many of the jurors listening to Trumps state of the union treat him like a man-child whose conduct cannot be judged by normal adult standards. I believe that the president has learned from this case, Senator Susan Collins of Maine told CBS News. The president has been impeached. Thats a pretty big lesson.

Yes, thatll teach him. Now he knows he can ignore congressional budgets, use military aid for his own personal gain, and coerce a foreign government to interfere with an American election.

This is a special place, Trumps America. Its the kind of country where senators can openly surrender their principles and power out of fear for their own reelection. Its the kind of country where half of Congress can cheer race-baiting radio stars and a president who demonizes immigrants.

And its the kind of country where a presidents speechwriters can just give up on the whole speechwriting thing to list a bunch of randomly famous American names to wind up one final Trumpian state of the union.

This is the home of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, the Wright Brothers, Neil Armstrong, and so many more, Trump said as his speechwriting staff threw in the towel. This is the country where children learn names like Wyatt Earp, Davy Crockett, and Annie Oakley.

One day they will learn the name of Donald Trump too. Hes the guy who put kids in cages, watched TV all day, and made a Space Force. He got caught lying and cheating but there were no referees, so he never stopped.

See the rest here:

Freedom unifies the soul: Trump's State of the Union speechwriters have thrown in the towel - The Guardian

Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia independently reviewed the records without redactions and found the Justice Department had overreached in its efforts to conceal information.

Boasberg wrote in an opinion, nowhere does the White House directly ask for legal advice in the email, nor is there any other statement that can even be fairly construed as a solicitation of legal counsel.

As the Courts review makes clear, the communications here reveal no deliberative process that could expose the agencys policy deliberations to unwarranted scrutiny. Absent more, the privilege cannot apply. A record is not protected merely by virtue of being a relevant predecisional communication, he found.

As previously mentioned, the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, the most recent amendment of the law, included provisions specifically seeking to constrain overuse and abuse of Exemption 5. One requires agencies to apply a foreseeable harm standard when seeking to withhold records under the exemption. The standard would require agencies to sufficiently show that disclosure of the requested records would cause a specific harm.

An amicus brief filed by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in an ongoing FOIA appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit notes the purpose and intent of the foreseeable harm reform to curtail abuse of Exemption 5. (Amicus briefs are legal documents filed by parties not involved in the case but who have an interest in the subject and want to offer expertise or perspective on the issues under consideration by the court.) Congress enacted the foreseeable harm standard to reverse the growing trend toward excessive government secrecy; Congress was concerned, in particular, with overuse of the deliberative process privilege, the Reporters Committee argued in the brief.

The brief also emphasizes the importance of requiring agencies to identify a specific harm that FOIA exemptions were meant to prevent. An agency cannot prevail by speculating that harm might result from disclosure, or by reciting generic rationales that could be applicable to broad categories of agency records, the Reporters Committee wrote. If an agency fails to satisfy the foreseeable harm standard as to any particular record or portion thereof, the [FOIA Improvement] Act makes clear that it must be released.

Effectively reining in overuse of Exemption 5 might also require new FOIA reforms. One potential reform would be to further shrink the amount of time records can be withheld under that exemption, perhaps to 12 years, the same cap for shielding presidential records involving deliberative process.

Another promising reform would involve mandating a balancing test if an agencys redactions are challenged. CREWs Anne Weismann recently wrote in support of such a change that Congress should reform the [FOIA] statute to mirror how the deliberative process privilege is treated in the discovery context.

When a litigant challenges the governments invocation of the deliberative process privilege in discovery, a reviewing court balances the governments interest in secrecy against the litigants interest in disclosure. Exemption 5, by contrast, has no balancing test when considering an agency claim that material is protected by the deliberative process privilege, she wrote. Accordingly, Congress should amend Exemption 5 to require agencies and reviewing courts to weigh an agencys need to protect the quality of its decisions against the publics interest in disclosure.

As Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) said in support of the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, a truly democratic system depends on an informed citizenry to hold their leaders accountable. Allowing agencies to use Exemption 5 as a get out of jail free card to avoid disclosing embarrassing or politically problematic records whenever they want runs directly contrary to that goal.POGO will continue working with our partners to pursue further reforms to improve FOIA and increase transparency and accountability in government.

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The Most Abused Freedom of Information Act Exemption Still Needs to Be Reined In - Project On Government Oversight