Daily Archives: April 27, 2021

LOCK HAVEN While trustees of Lock Haven University do not have any vote in the proposed integration of LHU, Mansfield and Bloomsburg universities, The Express recently asked each trustee a set of questions to gauge their thoughts on the ongoing process.

The Board of Governors meets this Wednesday in Harrisburg to receive the integration plans.

Receipt of the consolidation proposals which culminate months of meetings by multiple task forces established by PASSHE triggers a 60-day public committee period before the board is scheduled to act on integration in July.

LHU trustees include: Daniel Elby, chairman; Mary Coploff, vice chair; Mike Hanna Jr., secretary; Margery Brown Dosey; Krystjan Callahan; John Gower; James Gregory; Albert Jones; Angela Smith; Mark Stern and Mia Swales.

First, the LHU administration was asked: Will LHU trustees get a vote on the integration plan?

LHU interim president Dr. Bashar Hanna provided this answer:

Act 50 provides for approval of any integration action by the Board of Governors. Trustees have been an integral part of the development of the plans through working groups and information sharing workshops and other communication.

The following are the remaining questions posed to the trustees, along with answers compiled by Chairman Elby from the responses received:

Q. Knowing LHUs financial situation and enrollment challenges, what is your opinion about integrating LHU with Mansfield and Bloomsburg?

A. This move is logical to assure a sustainable future for the regions universities, and addresses financial and enrollment challenges. It is important to move in a direction that benefits the students and communities in our region. With integration there will be more educational and networking opportunities accessible to students at all three institutions. This makes for stronger bonds and community within individual and integrated institutions.

Q. Do you see integration as inevitable?

A. This action is necessary to achieve sustainability and is a standard business model. Some concerns have arisen about the timeframe of the integration process as well as establishing a clear picture of affordability for students. Sometimes the only way to go up and get through, is to go through. We may have to crawl before we can walk and get back on our feet, but this is the way to sustainability.

Q. What programs-opportunities and aspects of current student life would you insist on within an integrated LHU?

A. It is important to maintain and offer appropriate athletic and student life opportunities to provide a rich campus experience. It is equally important to have the flexibility to assess the workforce and labor needs and offer a diverse curriculum across the three universities to address those needs, including liberal arts programs. Courses should be offered both physically and remotely to allow all students access.

Q. What would you tell students, alumni, faculty, staff and LHU supporters about LHUs future as this process continues?

A. Change is part of progress and we are on the threshold of change. Whichever way we proceed, we need to concentrate on what is best for LHU and best for our community. This is a great opportunity to survive, grow, and get even better. Change is hard, but we must come together and tackle this action together. We can only be successful if everyone moves forward in a unified manner for the greater good of our students. As an institution, divided we will only graze on the land of The Haven together we can fly as the bald eagles that we are proud to be.

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Lock Haven University trustees address integration | News, Sports, Jobs - Williamsport Sun-Gazette

Wrapping up three outdoor programs over four days, large and small jazz groups will play in the open air, weather permitting.

The concert is March 5 at 7 p.m. Instead of using a mobile stage pulled onto the Green, the groups will set up on the slab to the east of the Regier Art Gallery in Luyken Fine Arts Center.

Concert-goers should bring chairs or blankets to sit on the grass on the Greens south end, facing the fine arts center. In case of rain, the concert moves to Krehbiel Auditorium, inside the building.

On the program is a jazz combo and a large jazz ensemble.

The combo is Caleb Abbott, senior from Wichita, tenor saxophone, Eli Regier, freshman from Newton, alto saxophone, Emma Beachy, junior from Kalona, Iowa, piano, John Mark Koontz, North Newton, bass, and Brad Shores, drums.

The combo will play Ill Remember April by De Paul & Raye; Smack Up by Harold Land; It Could Happen to You by Van Heusen & Burke; and On the Sunny Side of the Street by McHugh & Fields.

The jazz ensemble personnel are: Eli Regier and Josh Kennell, sophomore from Newton, alto sax; Caleb Abbott and A.J. Dugan, Walton, Kan., tenor sax; Bryce Wilson, sophomore from Sterling, Kan., bari sax; Jerod Kaufman, senior from Moundridge, Kan., Adam Kroeker, senior from Augusta, Kan., and Chris Strecker, sophomore from Goessel, Kan., trombone; Phillip Balzer, freshman from Hurley, S.D., Kayla Newman, senior from Sedgwick, Kan., Dan Kaufman, freshman from Moundridge, Adrian Rogers and Brad Shores, trumpet; Emma Beachy, piano; Brendan Thompson, drums; and John Mark Koontz, bass.

The jazz ensemble set is Yearnin by Oliver Nelson; Harlem Airshaft by Duke Ellington; Nobodys Perfect by Sammy Nestico; and Isfahan by Ellington & Strayhorn.

Joel Boettger, director of bands at Bethel, will conduct the jazz ensemble.

COVID-19 protocols are in place on the Bethel campus face coverings are required, along with physical distancing between non-family groups.

Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Known for academic excellence, Bethel ranks at #14 in theWashington Monthlylist of Best Bachelors Colleges and #26 inU.S. News & World Report, Best Regional Colleges Midwest, and earned its third-straight NAIA Champions of Character Five-Star Gold Award, based on student service and academic achievement, all for 2020-21; is Zippia.coms highest ranked Kansas small college with the highest earning graduates; has the #10 RN-to-BSN program in Kansas according to RNtoBSN.com; and is #57 among 829 U.S. colleges and universities named by lendEDU.com as Best for Financial Aid, as well as #23 Safest College Towns in the U.S., ranked by lendEDU.com for 2020-21. For more information, seewww.bethelks.edu

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Jazz returns to the Green - Bethel College, KS

Navalny supporters participate in rally on Wednesday, April 21, 2021. (Sefa Karacan / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

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Imprisoned in Penal Colony No. 2 outside Moscow, Alexey Navalny had spent 24 days on a hunger strike before Russian authorities granted his request to be seen by civilian doctors on Friday. Although it is not clear that public pressure forced the governments hand, the Kremlins concession followed protests in 23 Russian cities and several foreign capitals, in which thousands of people demanded Navalnys release.

But that turnout was dramatically smaller compared to January, when over 100,000 took to the streets after the opposition leader was arrested on return to his native country from Germany, where he had been recovering from Novichok poisoning. While some 1,700 attendees were arrested on Wednesday, including at least 10 journalists, the police response was more restrained than during previous banned protests.

Despite Fridays rare bit of good news, the movements momentum appears to be flagging. For all the international outpouring of support following his heroic return to Russia after a near-fatal poisoning, the 116 million views of his video expos of Putins palace, and all the cruelty with which the state has treated him and his supporters, only 4 percent of Russians say they are prepared to trust him, according to a March study by the Levada Center, Russias leading independent pollster (Putins trust rating stood at 31 percent).

Protest organizers even fell short of the 500,000 online signatures they originally sought in order to hold the rallies (which in the end went ahead regardless). As the liberal journalist Andrey Loshak lamented, 400,000 people in a population of 146 million is a rounding error. What dictator would listen to a third of a percent?Current Issue

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Certainly, the climate of fear has had a chilling effect. The government is currently preparing legislation to classify Navalnys Anti-Corruption Foundation and network of regional headquarters as an extremist organisation on par with terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. But the low numbers of active Navalny supporters cannot simply be attributed to increased levels of state repression.

While outside of Russia, there are widespread assumptions that Navalny is being embraced at home as the leader of the Russian opposition, wrote Alexander Baunov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center in a recent article, only about 20 percent of the population is sympathetic toward him. It appears that Navalny may have overestimated the readiness of ordinary people to support him.

To make things worse, vocal US and European advocacy for Navalny has enabled Putin to denounce himwith some successas a foreign import with a core base limited to Western powers and their fellow travelers among the Russian liberal intelligentsia, who are portrayed as elitist, Moscow-centric, and detached from reality. However well-meaning, the international spotlight on Navalny as Russias last hope for democracy has played into the hands of the Kremlin, which hopes that by silencing just one voice it can wipe out the current wave of dissent.

Yet away from the headlines, thousands of ordinary peoplecommunity activists, charity volunteers, and city council membersare proving that narrative wrong. Through incrementalism rather than high-stakes political standoffs, they show that Navalnys fate, intensely important from a human and political point of view, does not define Russias democratic future.

Russias civil resistance is much broader than Navalnys movement, Baunovs Carnegie colleague Andrei Kolesnikov told me in an email. According to Kolesnikov, the biggest political threats to the Kremlin have nothing to do with Navalny. Although Navalny remains the countrys biggest lightning rod for the politically disaffected, Putin is more afraid of unrest over economic, environmental, and social issues, such as rising food prices, waste disposal, and pension and benefit cuts.

This appears to be borne out in the contrast between the governments hard-line on Navalny and its conciliatory response to apolitical protests by local residents and environmental groups. These included campaigns against the creation of a landfill in the White Sea town of Arkhangelsk and a limestone mining project in the Southern Urals that threatened a mountain considered sacred by indigenous groups. Faced with those spontaneous demonstrations, the authorities quickly backed down.

For some, the relentless focus on political confrontation between the regime and the opposition is a poor guide to Russias democratic development. We need to be looking beyond Navalny and protests, says Sarah Lindemann-Komarova, an American community activist who has lived near Novosibirsk since 1992. Of course they are significant but you cant equate them with civil society.

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Although direct political engagement remains stubbornly low in RussiaNavalnys slogan is the fight between good and indifferenceno less important but all too often overlooked forms of civic engagement are becoming increasingly popular.

Thinkers from Tocqueville to Robert Putnam have identified voluntary groups and associations as the lifeblood of democracy. And in Lindemann-Komarovas view, what is keeping the prospect of democracy alive in Russia today is not outspoken dissidents like Navalny but rather a patchwork of people practicing local politics with a small p.Russian Opposition

People assume that there is no civil society in Russia, that Putin killed it, Lindemann-Komarova told me. But civil society has never been more vibrant, stronger, and more diverse than now. She describes a boom in volunteering, environmentalism, and community organizing over local issues such as park upkeep, land use, and animal welfare. Few of those involved belong to Western-style NGOs or self-identify with the opposition. Yet by working together they are building the social trust, agency, and stakeholder citizenship on which any genuine democracy depends.

One reason why such activity has yet to translate into political gains is that Russian civil society started from such a low base, according to Maria Snegovaya, a post-doctoral fellow at Virginia Tech focused on new approaches to research on politics and society in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Unlike in Poland or the Baltic states, says Snegovaya, civil society did not play a significant role in Russias transition from communism. It is the great irony of 20th century Russia that even democracy was largely imposed from above. Gorbachevs perestroika was designed in the Kremlin and mainly supported by the intelligentsia class. Under Boris Yeltsin, another member of the old Soviet establishment, democracy devolved into a Hobbesian free-for-all that lacked legitimacy, benefited the few, and never put down deep roots. That in turn made it easy for Putin to dismantle it a decade later.

In the absence of a robust culture of bottom-up civic engagement, Navalnyshould he ever win powerrisks becoming another Yeltsin: a ruler whose narrow base belied his democratic pretensions and made him dependent on oligarchs and Western support.

Promisingly, Snegovaya has observed growing signs of organic self-organization and active citizenship that can sustain a truly democratic leadership. It is particularly apparent at the local level and among young people of the so-called Putin Generation. She co-led an empirical study of civic engagement among Russian youth run by the Center for European Policy Analysis in collaboration with the Levada Center, in the fall of 2019. Among its findings is that while young people are no more likely to vote or attend protests than their older cohorts, those aged 16 to 20 are four times more likely to have worked as a volunteer than those aged 30 to 34.

Though Russias Gen-Z may not be substantially more politicized or even socially liberal relative to its predecessors, it stands out in important ways. The new generation is less paternalistic, less apathetictrends that we didnt see in previous generations, including millennials, says Snegovaya.

Another area in which grassroots democracy is taking hold is local politics. While the national stage is all but closed for anyone outside of United Russia or long-co-opted legacy opposition parties such as the Communists and the ultra-right Liberal Democrats, city councils and even regional parliaments still allow independent participation.

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Independent and Green Party deputies make up one-fifth of the Novosibirsk City Council. Among them is outspoken Navalny supporter Sergey Boyko, who came second in the 2019 mayoral race with nearly 20 percent of the vote. His YouTube channel, which features sardonic commentary on United Russias mismanagement of the city, has over 23,000 subscribers.

In a recent video criticizing the mayors plan to spend thousands of dollars on a vanity TV project, Boyko asked, What would you rather fund, the mayors TV channel, or repairing the roads? Maybe Im the crazy one, maybe you all are thinking, who needs roads and pavements, we just want to sit at home and watch the mayors TV channel!

The council also includes Natalia Pinus, an independent who is not aligned with Navalny and adopts a more conciliatory, practical approach to local problems. She has campaigned against the sale of prime municipal land to politically connected businesspeople, named and shamed large-scale debtors whose proximity to power has allowed them to avoid repayment, and supported an initiative to build an animal shelter for stray dogs. These issues cut across ideological lines and appeal to people of all political stripes.

When we talk about the non-systemic opposition we usually only hear about the Navalny style of very muscular, take-no-prisoners form of politics, says Lindemann-Komarova. I think thats very important, but there are others who have a different strategy and a different approach. The fact that a significant but medium-sized city like Novosibirsk has room for both underscores the diversity and growing maturity of Russias local politics.

Over the past decade, there has also been an explosion in NGOs, bringing their number in line with that in Poland and Ukraine. Among them are groups providing free legal aid to political detainees such as Apologia Protesta, and those like OVD Info that track arrests and abuses by the security services.

But even this proliferation of citizen groups does not reflect the true levels of community engagement: Many organizations deliberately shun the NGO label to avoid scrutiny from a government that views NGOs as tools of Western influence. And whereas previously a lot of funding came from established or foreign donors, citizen crowdfunding increasingly provides a base of domestic support, with the added bonus of being impervious to restrictive new laws that classify any organization receiving funds from abroad as a foreign agent.

On the one hand, a change of guard in the Kremlin remains as remote as ever. Russia has an aging population of which young people comprise less than a fifth. And Navalnys life continues to hang in the balance. Yet looking at her data, Snegovaya does not lose heart. It took the Israelites 40 years to wander through the desert. Modern Russia has only been around for three decades, she said. You cant kill the trend, you cant kill progress.

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As Alexey Navalnys Life Hangs in the Balance, the Movements Momentum Flags - The Nation

Dear Editor,

It seems one of the riskiest things a Caucasian can do today is express an opinion about racial justice. However, I believe in the cultural virtue of open dialogue on issues of importance, and thus will forge ahead. Mindful of current norms, however, Ill preface my remarks by acknowledging my deficit of lived experience. In todays lexicon my background is one of economic and racial privilege.

I dont recall ever doing or saying things intended to demean others based on their race, but that observation is incomplete as it speaks only to my intentions. Research on the neuroscience of unconscious bias suggests we are often unaware of the latent shortcuts and subtle taxonomies our brains default to when appraising other people. This gap between associative perception and conscious thought suggests that the way our words and actions are received is a better measure of racial tone than how they were intended.

In the past decade Critical Race Theory (CRT) has supplanted traditional liberalism and civil rights thinking regarding racial justice, at least for the progressive left. Conceived as a framework for legal reform in the 1970s, CRT transmuted into a political agenda by the 1990s. CRT is organized around two core beliefs. First, that white privilege is a persistent feature of American society, propagated through legal and judicial mechanisms. White privilege is of course the notion that a myriad of advantages and benefits accrue to members of the dominant race. Second, CRT asserts that it is possible to transform the relationship between the law and racial power, and through that process to achieve broad-based equality.

The schism between CRT and traditional civil rights philosophy is profound. CRT questions concepts, such as legal equality, and Constitutional neutrality, that are foundational to liberal democracy. For example, CRT asserts that reason and empathy are insufficient to provide privileged people with a proper understanding of the lived experiences of marginalized people. CRT also argues that bias frequently undermines supposedly race-neutral processes in our legal system, and excuses violations of the constitutional rights of non-white people. It also asserts that hate speech does not deserve the protections of the First Amendment because it is actually a form of violence. Rejecting traditional liberalisms emphasis on color blindness and meritocracy, CRT favors an inherently race-conscious approach to social transformation. Where liberalism favors a commitment to equality of opportunity, CRT advocates for equity in outcomes.

Though deeply concerned about police brutality, until recently I was skeptical about CRTs argument that our legal institutions are structurally biased against people of color. Statistics compiled by Heather Mac Donald and other scholars demonstrate that the incidence of police shootings per arrest does not vary meaningfully by race. Over time, the mistreatment of martyrs like Trayvon Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have convinced me otherwise. Ms. Mac Donald and the defenders of broken windows policing tactics do not properly account for the massive differential in police presence within minority communities. I believe this differential in crime-seeking attention by itself constitutes a structural bias on the part of law enforcement.

Ironically, the practice of over-policing communities of color was facilitated by another structural form of bias. Redlining is the systematic denial of services by the government or the private sector based on race, ethnicity, religion or gender. Prior to the Fair Housing Act of 1968 American communities were blatantly segregated by racially prohibitive zoning regulations. The Federal government also deemed predominantly black neighborhoods high risk and discouraged banks from underwriting mortgages for them. Even after passage of the FHA, mortgage companies and landlords often used covert redlining (e.g. offering disparate interest rates based on the borrowers race) to suppress minority homeownership.

Segregated communities and low rates of home and land ownership have reduced wealth-building opportunities for minorities throughout the post-slavery era. At the end of the Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman promised four million freed slaves land that they would own, a policy known as 40 acres and a mule. Instead, after Lincolns assassination, his successor Andrew Johnson reneged on the deal. Black Americans started their freed lives empty handed. By some estimates that land would have been worth as much as $3.1 trillion today.

At the same time former slaves were being denied the land promised to them, the U.S. government was providing wealth-building stimulus to mostly White Americans. In 1862, the government enacted the Homestead Acts, a series of laws meant to help settle the west. The federal government distributed 270 million acres of land, most of it stolen from Native Americans, to settlers. Today 48 million Americans are descendants of the homesteaders who benefitted from this largesse.

This relates back to the debate about police brutality because wealthy communities have lower rates of crime, and black households currently hold just 3.8% ($4 trillion) of U.S. household wealth ($116 trillion). Differential crime rates and the racially motivated war on drugs have historically been the most pervasive rationale used to justify calls for a stronger, more persistent police presence in minority communities. Thus, a history of structural bias in economic opportunities indirectly fueled the over-policing of minority neighborhoods.

Redlining has gradually declined in the face of more active fair housing enforcement, but structural bias by the federal government has not disappeared. A disturbing example was revealed by a class action lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1999. In Pigford v. Glickman the USDA was accused of systemic racial discrimination in the allocation of farm loans and assistance between 1981-1996. The Pigford case is a fascinating example of how overlapping economic and political barriers can inhibit access to ostensibly race-neutral government programs.

In the Jim Crow era, African-Americans in southern states were systematically disenfranchised from political participation and chased off their farms by lynching and KKK terrorism. By the early 20th century, southern states had effectively established a one-party system of apartheid, ruled by white Democrats. Blocked from political power, most African-Americans were also unable to access credit, causing even more farmers to lose their land. In Mississippi, where 2/3 of all farmers in the late 19th century were black, most African-Americans were forced into sharecropping or tenant farming. By 1992 the number of black-owned farms had declined by 98%.

When a global crash in commodity prices spurred a farm recession in the 1980s, several relief bills were passed to address the crisis. However, USDA programs were mostly administered at the county level. Decisions to approve farm loans were made by 3-5 committee members in each county. Even after African-Americans regained the ability to vote in the late 1960s, those USDA committees remained overwhelmingly white. The historical pattern of discrimination against minority farmers thus continued unabated.

As a result of the Pigford suit, the USDA officially admitted to having discriminated against black farmers. In 1999 a U.S. District Court found in favor of the more than 13,000 plaintiffs and established a settlement pool of over $1 billion, the largest civil rights settlement in U.S. history. Another 70,000 farmers had filed late or been exempted from the class, so a 2008 farm bill created a process for additional claims. In 2010 Congress appropriated $1.2 billion to settle with those additional plaintiffs. Most recently, the American Rescue Plan President Biden signed provided $4 billion for debt forgiveness and $1 billion in other support for socially disadvantaged farmers, benefiting many who were not compensated by the Pigford settlements. Advocates identified this part of the relief bill as the most important legislation for African-American farmers since the Civil Rights Act.

Critical Race Theory is nuanced and controversial. I find some of its tenets to be illogical, but it does correctly argue that structural racial bias continues to exist in our institutions. In the spirit of our liberal democratic traditions, I think empathy and intent still matter and equating speech with violence is counterproductive.

Channeling MLK, Id argue that our compass should be aimed at becoming post-racial as opposed to becoming persistently race-conscious. However, CRT and recurring examples of police brutality compellingly suggest that we will never reach MLKs dream until we fully acknowledge and address the prevalence of structural bias in our society.

Derek RidgleyNederland

(Originally published in the April 15, 2021, edition of The Mountain-Ear.)

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What is 'Structural' Bias? The Mountain-Ear - The Mountain -Ear

A new station is set to be built in Gabalfa on land previously earmarked for student flats as part of the South Wales Metro.

The metro station will likely be built on the old coal yard, a derelict strip of land off Mynachdy Road next to the railway.

That land had previously been earmarked for student flats. Developers wanted to build 361 flats there, but then went into administration.

Now the Welsh Government has bought the site, bringing better public transport connections to the nearby housing estate and saving the land from degrading further.

Julie Morgan, Labour MS for Cardiff North, said: Im absolutely delighted to announce that the Welsh Labour Government has bought the land at the old coal yard in Mynachdy in order to develop a metro station.

This is fantastically good news for Mynachdy because it will bring much needed transport into the area, but it also means that it is much less likely that there will be student housing on that patch.

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The station would lie between the existing Cathays and Llandaff stations.

It is unclear exactly when the station will be built. But by 2028 Transport for Wales is planning to build several new stations elsewhere in Cardiff including Crwys Road and Newport Road, as part of the South Wales Metro scheme.

The metro scheme will see Transport for Wales upgrading the public transport network across south-east Wales, with new tram-trains, stations, bus routes and electrified lines. One target for the metro is to let passengers board both buses and trains with the same ticket.

Weeds have been overgrowing in the old coal yard for decades, while fly-tippers often dump rubbish there. The yard was previously used as a depot to store coal.

Rhys Taylor, Liberal Democrat councillor for Gabalfa, said: Mynachdy had a direct bus stop until 2014, and in 2015 the Liberal Democrats started talking to residents about what we could do. The coal yard was identified as an opportunity for the metro.

The team started petitioning residents door-to-door, and put a petition to Cardiff council in 2015 and to the Welsh Government in 2016. So its been an ongoing campaign since 2015 and residents have backed this for a long time.

Very few buses stop here and people feel quite cut off. We have an elderly population here, for who not having a bus stop outside their home is really isolating. The new station will be amazing: a regular railway service taking you into the city centre or out of Cardiff.

The old coal yard site is within walking distance to the University Hospital of Wales, one of the largest employers in Cardiff.

Joel Williams, Conservative Senedd candidate for Cardiff North, said: "Credit where credit is due: Cllrs Rhys Taylor and Ashley Wood have been calling for this for many years.

"Well done both for running a positive campaign. This project will be great for the community."

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Metro station to be built in Gabalfa on land previously earmarked for student flats - Wales Online

White Musician: Every Confederate Official and Slaveowner Should Have Been Executed and Their Land Redistributed to Black People. Soul Khan performs at Red Bull Outdoor Stage in Toronto, Canada. Photo: Facebook.

Songwriter and artist Soul Khan isnt known for his tact. In fact, the retired battle rapper, who is white a white musician, is known for the contrary. True to his outspoken nature, Soul Khan recently shared his thoughts about confederate officials, their assets and slavery.

On Saturday, April 17, Khan tweeted every single confederate official and every slaveowner should have been executed and had their land and other assets redistributed to Black people.

The 36 year-old West Hollywood native wrote the comment in response to another Twitter user, @disco_socialist, who asked his followers to name something you believe that *sounds* controversial & spicy, but really isnt.

Some users applauded him for his words, while others criticized him for touting liberal views but still benefitting from white privilege.

User @willie35 wrote those confederates had the man in charge executed (A. Lincoln) then Andrew Johnson gave everything back. @Mecca34848039 added, This is the tweet.

Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 74: Jamarlin Martin

Jamarlin returns for a new season of the GHOGH podcast to discuss Bitcoin, bubbles, and Biden. He talks about the risk factors for Bitcoin as an investment asset including origin risk, speculative market structure, regulatory, and environment. Are broader financial markets in a massive speculative bubble?

However, user @FormallyPremium responded differently. Not impressed. This is just a tweet. We still have to live with accrued oppression that you directly benefit from, @FormallyPremium wrote.

White liberals tweeting all the transformational wouldves, shouldves and couldves but dont get nothing done but ordering their favorite drink from the local hispter coffee shop, @FormallyPremium continued.

Soul Khan rebutted that he wasnt trying to impress anyone and understood a tweet was not a blueprint for a revolution. He also noted, Im definitely not a liberal.

A member of the American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) responded with the hashtag #BlackReparationsMatter accompanied by a graphic showing lots of Black leaders followed by the text, IMITATION is the BEST FORM of FLATTERY.

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White Musician: Every Confederate Official and Slaveowner Should Have Been Executed and Their Land Redistributed to Black People - Moguldom

The former US senator and CNN political commentator Rick Santorum has sparked outrage among Native Americans, and prompted calls for his dismissal, by telling a rightwing students conference that European colonists who came to America birthed a nation from nothing.

There was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans but candidly there isnt much Native American culture in American culture, Santorum told the ultra-conservative Young Americas Foundations summit, entitled standing up for faith and freedom, and shared by the group to YouTube.

We came here and created a blank slate, we birthed a nation from nothing, he said.

Santorums comments, effectively dismissing the millennia-long presence of Native Americans and the genocide inflicted on them as the Christian settlers transformed and expanded their colonies into the United States of America, angered many within the Native American community, and beyond.

The erasure of Native people and histories, which existed before and survived in spite of a white supremacist empire, is a foundational sin of a make-believe nation, the activist Nick Estes, a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux tribe and host of the Red Nation podcast, said on Twitter.

According to Rick Santorum, the US was founded as a Judeo-Christian theocratic state. He might be right about that, but the idea that the first colonizers escaped religious persecution is laughable. Invasion was an economic enterprise for god, glory, and gold.

In his remarks, Santorum, a two-term US senator for Pennsylvania and a twice-failed candidate for the Republican partys presidential nomination, likened the colonization of Native lands to an act of religious freedom.

I dont know of any other country in the world that was settled predominantly by people who were coming to practice their faith, Santorum said. They came here because they were not allowed to practice their particular faith in their own country.

Others were outraged but not surprised by the comments of Santorum, who joined CNN as a senior political commentator in 2017.

Rick Santorum is just saying what the majority of Americans silently believe the only real history is US history, said Brett Chapman, a Native American attorney and descendant of Chief Standing Bear, the first Native Indian to win civil rights in the US.

Everything centers around it. Many claim to appreciate and respect Native history yet know nothing about it. Lets not act like hes some lone wolf out there on this.

The Cherokee writer Rebecca Nagle pointed to CNNs lack of Native American commentators, while giving a platform to Santorum, who has previously made offensive and false claims about other minority communities.

On Monday, the Native American Journalists Association cautioned Native American and Alaska Native reporters from working with, or applying for jobs, at CNN in the wake of continued racist comments and insensitive reporting directed at Indigenous people.

Last week, a CNN host incorrectly identified Minnesotas lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, as a white woman. The network has yet to correct its mistake.

Politicians also weighed in. Seriously is anyone surprised to hear this hot garbage coming from Rick Santorum? Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) said in a tweet. Nothing was here?! No native American culture in American culture?! America hasnt changed?!

Mark Pocan, Democratic congressman for Wisconsin, was even more critical. Native & Indigenous nations lived, governed, and thrived here before their land was stolen and they were murdered in a mass genocide, you ignorant white supremacist, he wrote.

Meanwhile, Nick Knudsen, executive director of DemCast USA, a digital hub of Democratic opinion and online activism, said it was long past time for CNN to cut ties with Santorum, whose extreme views have become a lightning rod for controversy in recent years.

In 2015, he insisted the US supreme court would not have the final say on same-sex marriage, the same year he said he regretted his comments from a decade earlier comparing homosexuality to bestiality.

In 2018, shortly after a former student killed 17 teenagers and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, Santorum taunted survivors who formed themselves into gun reform campaigners.

How about kids, instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that? he said on CNNs State of the Union.

The politician, who claimed the survivors March for Our Lives group was supported by Hollywood elites and liberal billionaires, later tried to distance himself from his comments, claiming that he misspoke.

In a statement, the National Congress of American Indians, the nations largest organization representing American Indian and Alaska Native groups, criticized the former senator.

Rick Santorum is an unhinged and embarrassing racist who disgraces CNN and any other media company that provides him a platform, Fawn Sharp, the groups president, said.

She said Santorums assertion that settlers birthed a nation were wrong. What European colonizers found in the Americas were thousands of complex, sophisticated and sovereign Tribal Nations, each with millennia of distinct cultural, spiritual and technological development, she said.

Hopefully, sophisticated and humane Native American philosophy will win out over the caveman mentality of people like Rick Santorum.

CNN did not respond to a request from the Guardian for comment.

In a brief statement to the Guardian issued through a spokesperson on Monday afternoon, Santorum said: I had no intention of minimizing or in any way devaluing Native American culture.

Link:

CNN urged to fire Rick Santorum after racist comments on Native Americans - The Guardian