Daily Archives: July 13, 2020

Digital Couture Fashion Week debuted online, and Lady Gaga is the new face for Valentino. Find these stories and more as we uncover the top international fashion news of the week.

Couture Fashion Week has begun online. The two-day event featured a wide range of designers, including Chanel, Viktor & Rolf, and Balmain. The latters Creative Director, Olivier Rousteing, used TikTok to showcase the collection along the River Seine although technical issues prevented the full stream. Chanel found inspiration from the late Karl Lagerfeld and his party days from the 80s.

Viktor & Rolf shot a video, titled Change, and showcased three different mindsets. Maison Valentino plans to showcase its Couture collection via a live-streamed performance at Cinecitta Studios in Rome on July 21st. As a teaser before the show, the designer debuted a mini film, directed by fashion photographer, Nick Knight. Christian Dior presented an ethereal-esque film, Le Mythe Dior, directed by Matteo Garrone.

Louis Vuitton is no longer sticking to the regularly scheduled program for menswear, and switching to a seasonless model. In a recent announcement, Virgil Abloh explained that the label would showcase a physical show in Shanghai on August 6th, with Tokyo set to follow.

Were getting rid of the straitjacket the industry has been operating under, Abloh said. This seasonless approach has become more popular amongst large fashion houses, including Gucci, who made the same move in May. This is a new system for the designer, who wants to remove the brand from the status quo.

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the past 4 months of doing perceivably doing nothing gave me a lot of time to think. or Off-White are the concept cars. its the pinnicale place to place my most forward ideas. the film released yesterday is a fashion week offering is a prequel of things to come. its a messages at surface level but its the nuance that foreshadows the future which is the most important part. it describes my start at the house with my motley crew of characters that make up my team. starting from the literal home of Mr. Louis Vuitton where the film starts to my home office on Pont Neuf, then eventually elsewhere. all seasons ive done at LV now collapse in to one, one-long-season, a continual story. the newest isnt necessarily the most valuable just because its new. it also allows the narrative between seasons to be the foundation, not just the event of another fashion show. as the creative head of my studio this film features esteemed black talent. Sa-Ra, REGGIE KNOW, Kamasi Washington, Black Anime and Ibrahim Karma each amplify my vision and showcase the creative impact diversity can have in all industries. that WWD article lays out the vision in detail, but in short ive crafted a new system that abides by my whole new logic about fashion, fashion shows etc. that article spells it out further. on that note Stay there, well come to you film titled Message in a Bottle directed by @virgilabloh c/o @louisvuitton illustrations REGGIKNOW @fashionfigureinc animation BLACK ANIME @BLACKANIMEX music SA-RA @SaRaCreativePartnersinfo @TazArnold @ShafiqHusayn @OmmasKeith @KamasiWashington @ThunderCatmusic @TerranceMartin music director @_BenjiB production @PlayLabInc & @Beg00dStudios

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Tommy Hilfiger is launching a new platform, The Peoples Place. This new initiative aims to advance the representation of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) within the fashion industry. What is happening to Black communities in the U.S. and around the world has no place in our society, said Hilfiger. The first part of the platform includes a minimum commitment of $5 million per year for funding over the next three years.

The fact that it has continued to exist in our industry is unacceptable. We are far behind where we should be in achieving diverse representation. It shouldnt have taken us this long to acknowledge that, but we are determined and committed to changing it going forward. We will be intentional, fearless, and unwavering in the actions we take. Through the Peoples Place Program, we will use our platform to create opportunities and stand up for what is right, Hilfiger explained.

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Today we are launching the Peoples Place Program, which will seek to advance the representation of black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) within the fashion and creative industries. Centering around Partnerships, Career Access and Industry Leadership, an initial minimum commitment of $5 million in annual funding will be made for the next three years. What is happening to Black communities in the US and around the world has no place in our society. The fact that it has continued to exist in our industry overtly and systemically is unacceptable. We are far behind where we should be in achieving diverse representation. It shouldnt have taken us this long to acknowledge that, but we are determined and committed to changing it going forward. We will be intentional, fearless and unwavering in the actions we take. Through the Peoples Place Program, we will use our platform to create opportunities and stand up for what is right. @thomasjhilfiger The program takes its name from Tommy Hilfigers first store which opened in 1969 in his hometown of Elmira, New York. At only 18 years old, Tommy created the Peoples Place as a dedicated space for people from all walks of life to come together to enjoy art, music, fashion and pop culture. Shaped by the cultural revolution of the 1960s, the original store fostered an exchange of ideas, encouraged authentic self-expression and challenged social norms. It is in this spirit that the new Peoples Place Program has been founded and will continue to expand. The program journey starts now, and we will keep you updated as this program evolves. Photo: Larry Stemerman, Peoples Place partner and co-founder, circa 1970

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Stella McCartney is launching a digital music festival called Stellafest. The event aims to raise money to end violence against women. The musical showcase features artists including Chloe x Halle, Kelis, and Soko.

Artists from our community have come together to create a festival that is truly global using technology and social media to bring the mosh pit onto your mobile, said McCartney. While I was sad not to see Dad and all the other great performers at Glastonbury this year, we have put together an incredible lineup and are raising our voices to end violence against women, a cause more urgent now than ever.

Lady Gaga is the new face for Maison Valentinos perfume. The fragrance is called Voce Viva and is a genderless scent that is meant to celebrate everyones unique voice, style, and self. Lady Gaga means freedom, self-consciousness, pure heart, said Pierpaolo Piccioli, the Creative Director of Maison Valentino. Her participation in this campaign elevates the symbolic power of the project to the highest level. The new fragrance will debut in September.

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Top International Fashion News of the Week | 12.07.20 - The Trend Spotter

As the struggle for racial equality continues, The Drum outlines the long-term pledges that advertising's biggest businesses have made to address racism, inequality, discrimination and micro-aggressions within their own organisations, and beyond, over the past month.

The death of US citizen George Floyd in police custody in June (and the outcry over others who endured a similar fate including Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Elijah McClain) has sparked six weeks of global outrage and protests. It has also led to an ongoing discussion about how individuals and society, including businesses, can help dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy from the ground up.

For ad agencies oft criticised for the 'male, pale and stale' approach to leadership and a lack of diversity within their walls the Black Lives Matter movement has forced those at the top to hold a mirror up to their own policies around diversity, inclusion and supporting Black talent.

UK ad agencies initially signed an open letter pledging solidarity with the Black community, promising to take action on inequality and maintain inclusive cultures that are sensitive to the enduring injustice and pain of racism.

The effort was coordinated by Creative Equals, a body dedicated to promoting diversity in the workplace, which has set up a steering group to monitor the progress of those who signed it.

Another letter dubbed 'Call for Change' and signed by 6000 Black ad professionals emerged, outlining an actionable plan 12-step plan for ad shops to follow in order to enact change.

Spearheaded by Nathan Young, a group strategy director at Minneapolis agency Periscope, and Bennett D. Bennett, who runs independent consultancy Aerialist, this address to the industry emphasised that although Black ad execs were encouraged by the message of solidarity sent out by ad leaders following Floyd's death, the words rang "hollow" in the face of their daily lived experiences.

"Agency leadership had been blind to the systemic racism and inequality that persists within our industry," it read, noting that "many gallons of ink have been spilled on op-eds and think pieces, but tangible progress has eluded this industry for too long."

In the weeks since, holding companies housing some of the biggest ad agencies in the world have each unveiled the measures they are taking to address these longstanding issues.

Below, The Drum has rounded up the responses and outlined how agencies are measuring their progress.

On 17 June, WPP announced a set of commitments and actions to help combat racial injustice and support Black and minority ethnic talent.

Explaining the pledges, chief exec Mark Read said: Over the last three weeks, I have heard an outpouring of pain, anger and frustration from Black colleagues, along with clear demands for change. This is the moment to embrace that change, and to use our creativity, our scale and our influence to make a difference in the fight against racism.

But what are the key tenets of the holding company's promise?

WPP will take decisive action on each of the 12 points in the Call for Change letter, ranging from investment in the career paths of Black employees and measurable commitment to improving Black representation in senior management

A pledge to use its voice to fight racism and advance the cause of racial equality in and beyond the ad industry. This means working with clients, partners and industry bodies to ensure Black and minority talent is fairly represented in creative work and within the wider industry.

The promise of $30m over the next three years to fund inclusion programmes within WPP and to support external organisations

At the start of July, Publicis boss Arthur Sadoun outlined seven actions (designed with help from 18,000 of the network's staff) designed to push the businesses diversity and inclusion mandate forward.

What has become clear is that too many initiatives and disparate efforts without focus do not drive the necessary impact to truly change things, Sadoun said.

This is why we deliberately want to take fewer but stronger actions with on-going measurement and accountability.

Here are some of the big steps Publicis is taking:

It will publish and monitor its diversity and inclusion data. Though French privacy laws ban under penalty of sanctions the collection and use of ethnicity data, its already disclosed data for our US workforce, revealing that 5.4% of its workforce in the US is Black. This includes 8% in junior levels, 4.6% in mid-level positions and just 1.9% at the senior leadership level.

The holding company has promised to be intentional about cultivating the careers of Black talent across all roles within its organisation, through structured career development programmes, mentorship and personalised coaching. It will also design a recruitment, interviewing and onboarding experience that champions Black talent

A vow to make everyday bias training required for all Publicis employees.

The business will also invest 45m over three years on diversity, inclusion and social justice. More specifically, this will fund the new training programmes, apprenticeship development and support the networks relationships with NGOs and institutions fighting against racism and inequalities.

Its also launching a Diversity Progress Council to evaluate these actions, composed of Publicis Groupe staff and clients as well as academic and youth representatives.

We are now at a tipping point when meaningful change and progress are being demanded to address a situation centuries in the making, said IPG chief executive Michael Roth in an open letter to employees in June.

Following consultation with staff, the group has revealed a series of initiatives designed to combat systemic racism.

The plan includes:

Greater transparency when it comes to diversity data and action on inequal pay.In recent years, IPG has hired third-party economists and statisticians to help us find possible pay disparities in its US organisation, against a broad set of criteria. Roth has committed to continue these reviews with further improvements to its pay practices.

Tying goals relating to hiring, promoting and representing people of colour and women to executives pay packets. Though details on this are sparse, Roth promised that his leadership teams ability to meet these goals (or not) will impact compensation.

Investment in time and resources to cultivate more inclusive leadership and management through learning and practical experiences, including support for all managers and human resources, to ensure employees are allies and advocates for each other day-to-day.

Investing additional resources to help scale its Business Resource Groups (collectives which focus on unique interests and concerns of employees who identify with specific dimensions of diversity) globally.

In an internal memo, Omnicom boss John Wren Wren recently commended Omnicom chief diversity officer Tiffany Warren and the Omnicom People Engagement Network on the tremendous progress they have brought to Omnicom over the course of the past decade.

However, he recognised that efforts to date have not nearly been enough.

We must turn these horrific events into a catalyst to make lasting changeas individuals, as a company and as a community.

Since George Floyds death Omnicom group has:

Declared Juneteenth (19 June) a company-wide holiday. Though its not clear if this is permanent or for 2020 only.

Pledged to use the discussion led by Warren and the Omnicom People Engagement Network, as well as the guidance of our diversity leaders to improve existing diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Vowed to strengthen its support of programs its already investing in, including the AAF Most Promising Multicultural Students Program, The LaGrant Foundation, 4As Multicultural Advertising Intern Program and Adcolor.

Said it will adopt new programs where appropriate and hold ourselves accountable in the areas of training, recruitment, talent development and retention, and compensation.

Havas chief exec Yannick Bollor gave staff a day off in the aftermath of Floyds killing to contemplate our roles in improving racial justice and diversity in and outside of our business, to take personal action or to do whatever you feel best serves you, your personal journey, your loved ones and your communities."

In June, Bollor said the company was actively working on additional resources, programming and actions that will be shared both at global and village/agency level in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, it has:

Launched a curated media marketplace via its media arm representing Black, Hispanic, LGBTQ+ and other minority-owned publishers, as well as publishers that create content specifically for underrepresented communities.

In a statement sent to Adweek at the start of June, Jacki Kelley, chief exec of of Dentsu Aegis Networks American operation, said with transparency, we have begun open discussions with our employees and will work with them as we build plans for a truly equitable workplace, absent of discrimination, racism, or bias.

The holding company has yet to outline its measures, and said it will share the outcome of these discussions following meaningful progress.

Originally posted here:

Black Lives Matter: what have advertising's biggest agencies promised? - The Drum

A demonstrator holds a sign during events marking Juneteenth in New York City City, June 19, 2020.(Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters)Elected and appointed officials in local and state government have abdicated the first responsibility of the offices they hold.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLEThe only people who might better know the streets of urban America than the cops who patrol them are the crooks who haunt them. What can the criminals tell us now about the state of our cities? The crooks know that the streets and alleys are being returned to them and that the police are in retreat. That is unmistakably the case as crime, particularly violent crime, is exploding all over urban America. I was deputy attorney general the last time we suffered a crime wave of national proportions and had to learn the why of it in order to help lead the response that started the trend going the other way. It is mind-boggling to me to see how we are being condemned to repeat the exercise at the cost of many innocent lives, the vast majority of them being black lives.

The blame for this turnabout is not with the police. Rather it is squarely on the shoulders of elected and appointed officials in local and state government who have abdicated the first responsibility of the offices they hold to maintain public order so as to assure their citizens that their most fundamental civil rights will be preserved. Abdication is not a form of neglect, nor is it the result of ignorance, and it is not even a function of just wrongheaded policy choices. Rather, it is the intentional adoption of legislation, directives, and orders that have the effect of crippling the police function and thereby condemning to death, at the hands of criminals, minority citizens of inner-city and gang-infested neighborhoods. This week the Washington Post reported of the July Fourth weekend that tragedies struck in urban centers thousands of miles apart, with 65 people shot over the weekend in New York and 87 in Chicago, and homicides climbing from Miami to Milwaukee.

The case can be made that this intentional abandonment of the commitment to public safety is genocide because its victims are foreseeably overwhelmingly black and Latino. If this phenomenon were occurring in the white suburbs, we would see a police presence that no one could believe possible. That would be, of course, except in those jurisdictions where the populace has foolishly accepted prosecutors who have bought into reimagining the prosecution function as some fairytale undertaking where every crook gets released right back onto the street and accorded second, third, and fourth opportunities to go out and find new victims.

There is no need to study and debate the reasons for the current crime wave, which will grow exponentially as it is left unchecked. The studies have already been done; the experience is on the books. Ridiculously stupid explanations, such as that from Mayor Bill de Blasio and others that COVID is to blame, are an insult to the intelligence of even the least informed. What is even more astounding than the expectation that such drivel would be swallowed by the public is the questions it raises: Okay, whatever the reason, people of color and their children are dying in alarming numbers what are you doing about it? Many state and local officials would have to answer: Nothing. De Blasio if truthful would have to say that he has dismantled the only police functions in the City of New York that have worked in the past to combat such violence. Mayor Jenny Durkan in Seattle, a former prosecutor who should know better, literally surrendered part of her city to a mob and likewise owes those victimized by that cowardice more than an apology.

Why do the criminals who are now reclaiming ownership of the streets know that they can get away with all this escalated criminal activity? There are several reasons. Any police officer or prosecutor who has had responsibility in the criminal-justice system for street crime (and I was one) learns a hard truth early: A very small percentage of all violent offenders commit a disproportionate share of all violent crimes. One sees it immediately when they come to court with rap sheets replete with prior arrests over a substantial period of time, often for crimes escalating in their seriousness. The system reinforces the notion that crime pays and you can get away with it by starting with light consequences that escalate only as the perpetrator keeps at it. In the worst cases, the bad conduct causes more injury as it progresses, such as from assault and mayhem to murder. That characteristic of the criminal-justice system has now been enhanced exponentially by policies and practices that include no pretrial detention of offenders even with a demonstrated propensity to commit more crimes, and police under siege being directed to refrain from, discouraged from, or just naturally pulling back from aggressive enforcement. The facts of these developments get short shrift from a media tribe that would rather air protest footage with the loudest voices calling for defunding the police. That erroneous and incomplete focus helps foster public indifference to the unconscionable slaughter and mayhem being visited on vulnerable urban communities.

At the height of the crime wave of the 1980s and 90s, we learned the hard way that one of most difficult parts of the solution is identifying and isolating that ultra-violent minority of criminals disproportionately responsible for a large measure of all violent crime. The truth, not necessarily a popular narrative today, is that there is a subset of criminals who, if not neutralized in their ability to commit crime, will commit offenses over and over, time and again. Studies of real recidivism have proved the point. But that commonsense approach is now under assault by, and an anathema to, those who insist on using data about drug sentencing to claim that all long-term incarceration is a mistake. Perhaps someone will figure out a way to neutralize chronic violent offenders without incarceration, but until they do the choice is simply to either put the repeat violent offender away or leave him on the street to make more victims. The crime bill and the federal policies that former vice president Joe Biden now distances himself from, but that he once wisely supported, were based on some solid criteria by which this subset of criminals self-identified through conduct and therefore could be singled out for lengthy prison terms.

But there is at work an even more pernicious force that undergirds the conditions that are producing the explosion in the shootings of men, women, and, yes, even children in our urban cores today. That force and it is one to be reckoned with is the work of those who are exploiting some unjustified use of force by police to condemn all the police. Even more pernicious, the political cowardice of federal, state, and local officials who decline to call them out on the facially illogical and counterintuitive demand that, in the face of an explosion of crime, it is sound public policy to diminish the police function. That many of the people advocating dismantling the police function behave like a mob should come as no surprise. The truth is that those calling for canceling the police are simply people bent on the destruction of one of the pillars of our culture: adherence to the rule of law.

That is not to say that we do not have, in aspects of our society, systemic racism that has drawn legitimate protest and that demands change. Nor can we ignore that use of force by police not only carries the potential for abuse but has become a lightning rod for legitimate criticism by those who care deeply and rightly about the commitment we as a society have made to racial equality and the maintenance of civil rights for all of our people. But missing too often from even that discussion is the fact that police officers, even if just for their own protection, are far more often peacemakers than protagonists where confronted with potential violence.

So what to do? First, those who know we need cops to protect those most threatened by this explosion in urban violence need to step up and say so. Those are our elected and appointed officials, as well as the leadership in the law-enforcement community. Attorney General William Barr is among those leading the way, just this week both recognizing the need for change in relations between police and minorities and strongly backing more, not less, investment in further modernizing the police function. Chiefs of police, sheriffs, etc. need to speak up as well and loudly. Next, responsible individuals who do or can represent the minority communities being victimized by this mayhem also need to call out those who are failing in the responsibilities of public office to afford these citizens their rights to live in peace. And responsible people need to run against those failing officials in coming elections, pledging to make public safety a priority.

Finally, the Trump administration needs to continue marshaling federal resources to help dedicated state and local police leaders stem this tide of violence before it becomes an overwash that floods some of the most vulnerable populations among us. That means having the U.S. attorneys and the FBI, the ATF, and other federal agencies make federal prosecution of violent offenders, particularly gun offenders, an absolute priority. State and local authorities can use available data to identify to their federal counterparts those offenders with the greatest propensity to be repeat violent offenders. It was done 30 years ago as part of a stopgap measure to arrest an alarming trend of urban violence, and it needs to be done again. Yes, the issue of law and order probably strikes an unpopular political note with the media and does not resonate in suburban salons; but order through law is an absolute responsibility of all public officials at all levels of government. Commitment to meet that responsibility is owed to urban minorities suffering so badly under the cowardly political pandering of too many to an agenda that would sacrifice black lives to advance anti-rule-of-law objectives.

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Political Pandering to the Anti-Police Agenda Is Costing Lives - National Review

Teachers like Jennifer Boyer have become the rope in a political tug of war over reopening Texas schools.

While record numbers of Texans are hospitalized and dying from COVID-19, the question of whether teachers will be pulled back into classrooms next fall, willing or not, has spawned pitched national and local battles over the safety of restarting in-person public education.

Those decisions will largely be made by local school boards and superintendents, but pressure from Republicans from President Donald Trump on down to get back to business has teachers feeling left out of the planning process.

Im pretty angry. But Im mostly angry at the high-up decision makers, all the way from the president to our state officials and the [Texas Education Agency], says Boyer, who works with elementary school gifted students in San Antonio's Northside Independent School District.

Boyer is worried about her own health. She suspects the medicine she takes to keep cancer in remission might put her at higher risk for COVID-19. But she is years from retirement and cant financially afford to quit.

She watches national and state education officials push to reopen at the expense of her and other teachers wellbeing. I feel like its a political decision, she said.

Under the guidelines Texas education officials released Tuesday, schools will be required to offer five days of in-person instruction per week, forcing some school superintendents to ditch plans they had already created hoping to keep families and teachers safe during the pandemic.

If parents are worried about safety, they're free to keep their children home to take virtual classes. A recent University of Texas and Texas Politics Project poll showed that 65% of Texans said it was unsafe for children to go back to school, including 42% of Republicans polled and 91% of Democrats. Black and Hispanic Texans, who are disproportionately susceptible to the virus, were more likely than white Texans to say in-person instruction was unsafe.

But the states public health guidance does not give teachers an avenue to opt out like parents can, and says little about how school districts should protect the teachers and staff who are more vulnerable than children to dying from the virus leaving those decisions largely up to locals.

The extreme political pressure on school districts to keep their buildings open, even as the number of COVID-19 cases in Texas hits day-after-day record highs, is terrifying for educators and school staff who may have to put their health at risk to keep their jobs.

Teachers at this point were ready to put our collective foot down and were not going to be bullied into going back into an unsafe situation, said Traci Dunlap, an Austin ISD kindergarten teacher. Unfortunately, I have a lot of colleagues around the state that are talking about resigning, retiring, retiring early, leaving the teaching profession.

Particularly galling for some teachers is the TEA's own behavior. Even as the agency compels teachers back to the classroom, its own offices remain all-but-closed with most staff working from home to protect their own health. As of July, agency staff have had the option to return to the office building on a voluntary basis and the TEA is working on next steps for later this summer and beyond, according to a written statement from the agency.

Well, if its safe enough for students to come back, isnt it safe enough for you to go back to work? And if the answer is, No, then they need to reevaluate how theyre treating their students, said Mario Pia, an eighth grade Austin ISD teacher. Student and teacher safety is number one.

When Texas unveiled its final plan for reopening schools this fall, the Texas Pediatric Society praised Gov. Greg Abbott for ensuring in-person instruction is available to every child, which the organization argues is best for students mental, educational and social wellness. And some Republican state lawmakers celebrated the decision as one that gave school districts the most freedom and flexibility for their communities.

The debate extends far beyond Texas boundaries, as the Trump administration pressures governors and local leaders across the country to offer daily in-person instruction, part of a larger plan to bolster a slumping economy. Trump slammed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this week for asking schools to do very impractical things with very tough and expensive guidelines for opening schools.

Although Texas new public health guidance includes requirements for most teachers and students to wear masks, and recommendations for social distancing and sanitizing, teachers said it doesnt go far enough compared to more stringent CDC guidelines.

They implored state leaders to reconsider expanding online learning and to make in-person learning as safe as possible by mandating smaller class sizes, additional busing and staggered schedules. Already, teachers unions are encouraging their members to look into legal avenues to teach remotely or stay at home, including retiring early, resigning, asking for federal disability accommodations, or filing for family and medical leave. Some school districts, including Houston ISD, the states largest, are already reporting teacher shortages, and the bench of substitute teachers is growing sparser.

On a call with superintendents Thursday, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath acknowledged superintendents wanted more guidance on how to let more staff work remotely. He suggested they make good use of a three-week transition period Texas is allowing school districts this fall, during which school districts can stay virtual and get their safety protocols ironed out before bringing more students to campuses. Districts that keep their buildings closed past the three-week period will lose state funding.

But the desire for flexibility goes beyond those three weeks. Across the state, local health authorities and teachers are refusing to comply with the states orders, arguing its not safe to go back as cases rise.

El Paso Public Health ordered all schools to delay on-campus instruction until Sept. 8, more than three weeks after school was expected to start Aug. 3. And El Paso districts Thursday pushed their start dates for remote instruction back to Aug. 17.

In Austin, where cases are climbing daily, the local teachers union is calling for school buildings to be closed for at least nine weeks, well beyond Austin ISDs Aug. 18 start date. And its encouraging teachers to stay home even if district officials dont agree.

I would love nothing more than to be able to see my students and do my job in person. But I dont want my students to become ill with this virus, I dont want to get sick, I dont want the people that I care about to get sick, Dunlap said.

Teachers and parents have been flustered by wavering guidance as state leaders delayed the release of information that would guide school reopening plans, hindering school leaders ability to provide accurate and timely updates.

This Tuesday, United and Laredo ISDs in South Texas announced that instruction would be entirely online and interactive starting Aug. 10, calling it the safest way to deliver quality instruction to students until further notice. But the state guidelines released the same day require school districts to offer in-person instruction five days a week for all students who want it.

The next day, the Laredo school districts were forced to change plans, posting on Facebook that they would have to amend their plans and would let parents and staff know when they are finalized. By Thursday, Laredos local health authority mandated local schools close their buildings until cases subside.

Many districts had been planning for some combination of in-person and remote instruction, including having alternating groups of students on campus a few days a week. Premont ISD, in rural South Texas, had planned to offer in-person instruction Monday through Thursday, using Friday as a day to deep clean buildings and allow students to get used to online learning, according to Superintendent Steve VanMatre. Now they will have to scrap that plan.

When Premont ISD brought about 200 students back to its campuses for summer school instruction, one of few across the state to do so, the county and city had few confirmed cases. But during summer school, the local public health agency reported two school-aged children were infected with the virus, VanMatre said. Those numbers will only be higher in larger, urban and suburban school districts. Within the last two weeks, 14 Corpus Christi ISD employees tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Caller Times.

And VanMatre knows the fear of infection will rattle his teachers. I worry that were going to lose some quality teachers as a result of this pandemic, VanMatre said. I also know that if were not intentional and smart with how we manage this with Premont kids, we could lose a generation of students and thats unacceptable.

Carliss Muse, a mother and an educator with a congenital heart condition, knows that struggle well. An educational diagnostician at Klein ISD, outside of Houston, she works to help diagnose students with special needs, including some who are immunocompromised. She plans to keep her 16-year-old son home and learning remotely from Katy ISD this fall, and wishes she had the same option.

Yes, I want my son to be educated. But I dont want him to risk dying to do that. I dont want him to risk bringing something home, she said. I would like to get back to work again but not at the expense of my health.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/10/texas-reopening-schools-teachers-coronavirus/.

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Texas teachers caught in the middle of political battles over schools reopening - KXXV News Channel 25

Food is a protest that has community care and radical self-preservation at its core. And now, during an uprising in the midst of a pandemic, we must dig deep into our history and present resources to honor and elevate the relationship that food and protest have always shared.

Each day we get reports of more deaths in our community: The violence of white supremacy and the racialized impact of COVID-19 takes our breath away, literally and figuratively. As we initiate our mutual aid support systems, our instincts and cultural traditions are clear: prioritizing tending to the communities at the greatest risk of being overlooked or harmed, meaning the disabled, trans, elders, and houseless; increasing food accessibility; holding space for collective grieving, prayer, and joy; adapting protest actions to meet the needs of physical distancing; creatively expressing resistance in ways that include song, art, and unlearning; and showing up for each other because our liberation is intertwined.

But at a time when its not possible for large groups to gather inside, what shifts are required to heal, and to protect our community?

This question is on my heart every day. As a co-founder of Peoples Kitchen Collective (PKC) and founder of JUSTUS Kitchen, two social justice food projects based in Oakland, California, much of my work focuses on bringing people together. I steward projects that contribute radical hospitality and beloved community to the social justice movement and in doing so, hold a safer and braver space for folks of color to have healing food experiences that incorporate cultural and spiritual significance.

As a Black woman in a racist and sexist world, I make two distinct choices on an ongoing basis: one is what I believe; the other is how I feel about those beliefs. As someone whose lineage after Africa reaches back to Mississippi and Kentucky, my family stories include the DNA of survival, and I choose to believe that my ancestors planned my presence for this very moment. Each time I get to feed my community, I feel the sacredness of this path Ive chosen, one of social justice food projects bent on collective liberation.

In her dissertation, Soul Food as Healing: A Restorying of African American Food Systems and Foodways, the sustainable food systems scholar Lindsey Lunsford asks, How does food reveal the vulnerabilities and strengths of African Americans? She also poses a question to the Black elders she interviews: What does cultural and spiritual health mean to you? In so many ways, her conclusion and the responses from her interviewees were that soul food offers freedom to claim autonomy from, as she writes, the white supremacist demonization of soul food as unhealthy and inferior. The first soul food, she adds, was a Black womans breast milk. So this protest is one of the longest you can imagine.

In each generation, the movement has tended to the question of food. On the one hand, there is food as a form of mutual aid distributed to sustain activists; on the other, there is food as the actual mode of protest. From generation to generation, the legacy of food as protest is filled with stories of Black women who were of service in one, or often both, of these spheres.

As the daughter of Frances and granddaughter of Aquilla and Viola Mae, the largest lesson Ive learned is that if you want to experience liberation, Black women must be at the table. So to answer the question of what must be done to gather, heal, and protect our community, I decided to use my imagination to host a time-bending For Us By Us council of Black woman food activists from the past and present. Each one of them used their love of the community to activate their passion for civil rights, cooking, farming, cooperative economics, historical stewardship, sustainable food systems, and food access.

Sitting at this figurative table of multidisciplinary food activists are ancestors Georgia Gilmore, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Ruth Beckford, along with contemporaries Adrian Lipscombe, Thrse Nelson, Lindsey Lunsford, and Adrionna Fike. Some of these women you may already be familiar with, but my hope is that if you dont know them, this story will send you in their direction and beyond.

In my mothers family we have the tradition of singing before our meals to bless the food. Ive continued this tradition with both Peoples Kitchen Collective and JUSTUS Kitchen. A sung blessing has the power to settle ones heart and make you fully present in preparation for the power of a shared meal.

So now, Id like to invite you to this table with the refrain from Ellas Song by Sweet Honey in the Rock:

We who believe in freedom cannot restWe who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Georgia Gilmore was born in 1920. A cafeteria worker, midwife, and single mom, she started fundraising for the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) in 1956 by selling food and organizing other cooks under the cover of the name Club from Nowhere. Together, they raised essential funds to support the Montgomery bus boycott that began on December 5, 1955, and lasted for 381 days. Although the boycott was catalyzed by the arrest of Rosa Parks, many people, including Georgia, had started their own bus boycotts months earlier to protest abusive and unequal treatment. During the Montgomery boycott, Georgia would often sing a song as she distributed the hundreds of dollars in jangling coins and folded bills into the collection plate at the weekly MIA community rallies.

After being fired from the National Lunch Company because of her outspoken activism during the boycott, Georgia ran a restaurant out of her home to feed protesters and other organizers, including Martin Luther King, Jr., who was one of her benefactors. It was a place where they knew the food was going to be delicious but more importantly, safe.

Georgia died in 1990, on the 25th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery March. The food she prepared before she passed away that morning fed the protesters at the commemorative march that day.

Some 25 years later, on the 50th anniversary of the march, Lindsey Lunsford found herself on the bridge to Selma at a pit stop, eating the most restorative soul food of her life as she nursed the blisters on her feet from the 40-mile walk. As I spoke to Lindsey about her connection to Georgias legacy, what became clear is that she, like Georgia, knows that food is the basis of identity, healing, and liberation within the Black community. Lindseys role as a Sustainable Food Systems Resource Specialist at Tuskegee University is what I imagine Georgias role was to her community: innovating on the mission of resourcing and caretaking her people in the face of unchecked racism.

For Lindsey, that work includes facilitating public community dialogues where, she says, residents of the Black Belt are able to share their food traditions and feel supported in reclaiming them. At each of these dialogues, Lindsey provides the soul food that is proven to uplift the social and cultural wellness of her community. Georgia would be proud.

Georgias legacy has also influenced Thrse Nelson, who this past February wrote the Southern Living article The Story of Georgia Gilmore. In it, she stated that hospitality professionals provided practices and strategies that became the most effective tools of resistance. Thrse would know: Like Georgia, she is a caterer and private chef, and claimed that expression for her cooking skills because it gave her, she tells me, the power to have full autonomy over [my] practice in the food industry. It is one of the most dexterous opportunities in business, she adds. And we wouldnt have the network of food supporting protests if [we] didnt have the [catering] skill set.

As she navigated the sociopolitical realities of the food community, Thrse felt strongly that there was more she needed to learn, or rather unlearn. That led her to begin researching and reclaiming our Black food stories with Black Culinary History, the organization she founded in 2008. Ever since, shes made the connections between past and present and cultivated networks around the food skills and technology necessary for Black liberation. Those she has worked with and learned from range from young ones with a burgeoning interest in food to cutting-edge chefs to land-based food projects like Soul Fire Farm, Black Urban Growers, and Black Church Food Security Network.

Today, Thrse imagines a future where these projects are shared and thriving. During the civil rights era, the leaders were so intentional and connected, she says. I hope history sees our movement in the same way.

Although she remains much loved for her impassioned devotion to voting rights, Fannie Lou Hamer was also responsible for some of the last centurys most successful food sovereignty work initiatives that created the foundation for many of todays social justice food projects.

Born in 1917 in Mississippi, a state that has both weathered some of the countrys most continuous eruptions of race-based violence and been the site of some of its most powerful expressions of Black liberation, Fannie Lou was tireless in her pursuit of justice and equality.

At a critical point in her activism, she turned toward collective land stewardship as a more viable alternative to directly combatting state-sanctioned systemic racism. In the late 1960s, she founded the Freedom Farms Cooperative (FFC), a 680-acre agriculture cooperative in the Mississippi Delta. Part of Fannie Lous battle for land reacquisition, FFC used food as a means of self-empowerment: Fannie Lou knew that if she and her community could grow their own food, their freedom could be won more solidly on their terms.

During the nearly 10 years that the FFC thrived, it was home to many of Fannie Lous supplementary initiatives. One of the most innovative was the pig bank: With financial backing from the National Council of Negro Women, Fannie Lou organized a system in which families would raise a piglet for two years and then return it to the bank to breed. Two of its offspring would remain in the bank to be given to other families in the cooperative; the others could be mated, sold, or slaughtered for food. In this instance, food was its own protest a direct action to reclaim food traditions and access and the message was self-determination.

Today, Adrian Lipscombe is actively taking on the mantle of land stewardship in La Crosse, Wisconsin. As the chef and owner of Uptowne Cafe and Bakery, she is intimately familiar with food as both a mode of protest and a form of mutual aid to sustain activists. In 2016, she knew she needed to leverage her skills on behalf of the Dakota Access Pipeline activists at Standing Rock. With a community call to action, she says, I was able to get the volunteers and supplies necessary to bake thousands of rolls of bread. Adrian sent those 5,000 rolls to the activists to serve at what some folks call the National Day of Mourning and others call Thanksgiving. Eight months pregnant at the time, she wasnt able to travel to Standing Rock herself, but felt it was still crucial to bear witness and respond to the desecration of sacred land and the violation of indigenous rights by both private and government entities.

Now, as Black folks across the world receive newfound support and uplift as individuals redistribute their wealth in response to the violent impacts of white supremacy and systemic racism, Adrian is using this attention to start fundraising for an ambitious and timely initiative called the 40 Acres and a Mule Project. Adrian, who is also a city planner and architect, and the granddaughter of a Black Texas landowner, conceived of it as a collective land project similar to the work of Fannie Lou Hamer; its purpose is to teach agricultural traditions, honor Black foodways, and develop strong cross-sectorial networks. With it, Adrian is channeling all of her experience to once again affirm the inalienable right to, and necessity of, land for food sovereignty and self-determination.

Radical self-determination was one of the touchstones of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, which was founded in 1966. Three years later, Ruth Beckford became the unaffiliated co-founder of its Free Breakfast Program for Children at St. Augustines church in Oakland. One of the most highly regarded of the Black Panther Partys more than 40 Survival Programs, it manifested the organizations belief that empowering children with a nourishing, culturally relevant breakfast was essential to helping the Black community survive the brutalities of systemic racism. A nourished mind is one that is able to learn and celebrate ones culture and claim ones power.

Ruth, who became an ancestor just last year, was a dancer and a social worker who exchanged all her social currency to ensure the free breakfast programs viability. Much loved by her dance students and their families, she turned to them to volunteer to cook and clean for the program, and to donate food. Partly as a result of her efforts, the program grew from feeding a dozen children on its first day to more than 20,000 nationwide at its height. In this case, the children were the protesters who were being fed, and the food they ate was its own protest against the federal governments continued mistreatment of the Black community. With this food protest, the Black Panther Party shamed the government into starting a long-overdue nationwide school food program.

Today, my own Peoples Kitchen Collective is honored to continue a small part of the Black Panther Partys and Ruths important legacy: For more than a decade, weve hosted a free breakfast every year at West Oaklands Life is Living Festival, serving hot, organic, and locally grown meals. Elsewhere in West Oakland, that legacy influences the work that Adrionna Fike, a worker-owner at the Mandela Grocery cooperative, does in caring for activists and community, especially during this pandemic and social unrest. In the eight years that Adrionna has been with Mandela Grocery, the cooperatives commitment to mutual aid has flourished in the form of cooking classes, partnerships with community resource groups, and mentoring worker-owners at a neighboring coop. Mutual aid is mutual, she emphasizes. By caring for others we are also cared for.

When asked why she was called to do this work, Adrionna acknowledges the presence of spirit in her decision, which she made as she worked in a Harlem community garden after college. Her studies of anthropology and modes of community consumption also turned her in the direction of Black cooperative ownership structures and economics. The legacy is proven, she says. We own our business, we have the ability to create wealth among ourselves and our community, and have better quality of life and clearer food politics. We are fulfilling that need.

At the end of this For Us By Us council, I imagine that all eight of us are at the table holding hands as we recommit to this powerful legacy of feeding our community and supporting Black autonomy. And then Ruth gets the entire table of beautiful Black women to stand up and begin to dance, because whats a revolution without celebration?

I believe Black women have historically taken on this work of food and protest because we are the original caregivers and leaders. We know that our survival is found in our relationships to one another and the land. Our lived experience teaches us that we must develop many different kinds of intelligence to be prepared for a world that often descends into chaos, brutality, and inequity.

We stand on a very specific threshold of healing from the inequities of racism, sexism, and classism. Broader communities of people are prepared to hear and receive what is needed to make a collective shift toward liberation. Black women have taken the responsibility of building many of the liberated systems that will replace the ones currently festering with these social ills. All the work our Black woman ancestors in the food community have done on our behalf is a forever legacy of liberation. We will follow the path theyve laid out for us, one of protest that is seeded with the nourishment of their wisdom.

Jocelyn Jackson is the founder of JUSTUS Kitchen (@JUSTUSKitchen), a project that creates healing food experiences that inspire people to reconnect with themselves, the earth, and one another, with the goal of collective liberation. She is also a co-founder of Peoples Kitchen Collective (@510PK), an Oakland-based large-scale community dining project that uses food and art to address the critical issues of our time while centering the lived experiences of Black and brown folks.

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