Daily Archives: June 4, 2021

With or without Donald J. Trump atop the party, the Republican strategy for the 2022 elections and beyond virtually assures race and racism will be central to political debate for years to come.

Why it matters: In an era when every topic seems to turn quickly to race, Republicans see this most divisive issue as either political necessity or an election-winner including as it relates to voting laws, critical race theory, big-city crime, immigration and political correctness.

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The big picture: These topics pit the mostly white GOP against the very diverse Democratic Party. It's unfolding in local school boards, national politics and on social media.

An Axios-Ipsos poll on race relations last month shows this starkly, Axios managing editor Margaret Talev writes:

There's a massive gulf between how Republicans and Democrats view race a 66-point gap on whether the U.S. must continue making changes to give Black Americans equal rights to white Americans.

There's a 48-point gap on whether the events of the past year led to a realization there's still a lot of racism in the U.S. and a 49-point gap on whether the protests were good for society.

Of all demographic groups, white people were the most resistant to structural reforms to address institutional racism a gap driven by Republican sentiment.

Chris Jackson of Ipsos Public Affairs says the GOP focus on race looks counterproductive at first, since a majority of Americans favor continued efforts to equalize the playing field for Black Americans.

But the pollster said a closer look reveals that the GOP's focus is more strategic around specific ideas that drive culture wars and could potentially move swing voters.

Here's where the GOP sees an opening: In our poll, just one in five white independents supports the "defund the police" movement.

Half of white independents say the media exaggerates stories of police brutality and racism.

Two in five white independents say social policies, including affirmative action, discriminate unfairly against white people.

Those issues prime this slice of the electorate for messaging that paints Democrats as extreme on issues around race.

Between the lines: Republicans have at times played on racial fears for decades. It became more explicit in the Trump era.

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Race central to Republican strategy for 2022 and beyond - Yahoo News

Until 1991, when Clarence Thomas was nominated and then confirmed to the Supreme Court, the most prominent black conservative in America was likely Thomas Sowell, the Chicago-trained economist and polymath. From his longtime perch at Stanfords Hoover Institution, Sowell has, through his books, newspaper columns, and television appearances, done as much to popularize free market economics and to level biting critiques of liberal thinking on race, education, and civil rights as any conservative intellectual of the past 40 years, black or white. Now, he is the subject of a new book, Maverick, by columnist and Wall Street Journal editorial board member Jason Riley, who attempts to take the measure of one of the eminences of the modern Right.

Maverick is an intellectual biography of Sowell, meaning that its focus is more on its subjects ideas, as revealed in his published writing, than on the facts of his life or psychology. We get only the briefest glimpse of Sowells childhood and young adulthood: Born in rural, segregated North Carolina in 1930 and orphaned at a young age, he was adopted by a great aunt who moved him first to Charlotte and then to Harlem. After dropping out of the prestigious Stuyvesant High School, Sowell worked odd jobs and then spent time in the Marines before enrolling in college, first at night classes at Howard University and then at Harvard, from which he graduated with a degree in economics in 1958. After taking a masters degree at Columbia, Sowell then followed his mentor, the Nobel Prize-winning economist George Stigler, to the University of Chicago to pursue his doctorate. There, Sowell, an undergraduate Marxist, was exposed to the ideas of two other libertarian-leaning Nobel Prize winners, Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek. Though Riley is at pains to stress that Sowell was no mere sock puppet for his white professors, it was this encounter with the hard-nosed, empirical, free market economics of the Chicago school that paved the way for Sowells shift, in the late 1960s, toward the political Right.

Maverick is structured as a loosely chronological account of Sowells career as a public intellectual, supplemented with personal details from Riley's interviews with Sowell and some of Sowells own correspondence, published in 2006 under the title Man of Letters. Broadly speaking, we see Sowell moving from an early interest in classical political economy and the history of economic thought his early scholarly publications included essays on Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx and a book, based on his dissertation, on the 19th-century French economist Jean-Baptiste Say toward the more general inquiries into subjects such as racial inequality and political theory for which he is best known today.

Sowell is an absurdly prolific author (he published 36 books between 1971, when he turned 41 years old, and 2018, when he turned 88) who has tried his hand at a vast array of subjects, meaning that Riley faces a difficult task in providing a concise survey of his thinking in less than 250 pages. But on the whole, he does an admirable job, introducing readers to not only Sowells better-known arguments for instance, that unequal outcomes among minority racial and ethnic groups are better explained by cultural traits than by discrimination, or lack of discrimination, on the part of the majority but also works such as Knowledge and Decisions (1980), in which Sowell both popularized Hayeks theory about how market prices work as a decentralized means of communicating information and broadened the theory's application beyond the field of economics. We also get an ugly glimpse of the way that Sowell has at times been treated by the black liberal establishment, which has accused him of being an Uncle Tom, an unthinking mouthpiece for white conservative interests, and much else that isnt fit to print.

But if Maverick serves as a useful survey of Sowells ideas, it at times sacrifices depth for breadth. Riley emphasizes over and over again that Sowell is, as his title suggests, a maverick and a contrarian who likes to think for himself. But too often, these assertions of Sowells uniqueness serve as a substitute for any meaningful engagement with the broader social and intellectual currents that shaped his work. To cite one small but frustrating example, we are twice told that Stigler threatened to resign as Sowells doctoral adviser because he believed that Sowell had a mistaken interpretation of "Says Law," the idea, in economics, that supply creates its own demand. The point of the anecdote is to illustrate Sowells independent-mindedness, but Riley never, at any point, explains the substance of Stigler's and Sowells disagreement. Perhaps it was over some minor technical point that would bore the general reader, but this is, after all, an intellectual biography of an economist. Those who are easily bored wont be reading it in the first place.

The greater missed opportunity, however, comes in Rileys cursory treatment of what is surely the most obvious and unavoidable fact about Sowell: that he is a black conservative. Riley notes in passing that Sowell, like Clarence Thomas and Glenn Loury, came from a distinctly working-class background and so was always socially separated from the politically liberal black middle class. And Riley mentions the influence on Sowells thought of an earlier generation of black intellectuals such as E. Franklin Frazier, St. Clair Drake, John Hope Franklin, and Kenneth Clark. But it is only that a mention. We are given little sense of how Sowells ideas fit within this tradition of black thought (indeed, only Fraziers ideas are even briefly summarized); rather, we are made to understand Sowells departure from mainstream black thinking as a matter of his prioritizing facts and evidence over emotion and political correctness. Consider, by contrast, the following passage from Corey Robins The Enigma of Clarence Thomas, on how Sowells brand of free market conservatism fit within a certain strand of black thought that stressed the need for black people to achieve autonomy from a white-dominated political process:

In the black experience, argues Sowell, economics has always been more important than politics. Politics is the sphere of white domination and rule; economics, the medium of black transformation and progress. At the moment of African Americans greatest degradation and despair, at the moment of their most acute powerlessness, it was the laws of capitalism that did the most to mitigate and constrain the despotism of white America. With all his supremacist hauteur, the white man was not the master of his house. His posture of superiority, his sense of power, was pushed and pulled by forces beyond his control: by the laws of nature, as refracted through the imperatives of the capitalist market.

Whether one agrees with Robins analysis or not, such attempts to explain how Sowells black identity informs his conservatism and vice versa are especially welcome today, when racial politics threaten to swallow the whole of national politics and when, at the same time, some of the most perceptive and influential critics of the anti-racist establishment are black conservatives and classical liberals, including Loury, John McWhorter, Coleman Hughes, Thomas Chatterton Williams, and Kmele Foster, as well as, in a different register, Kanye West and Candace Owens. Some of these figures embrace a post-racial identity Foster, for instance, refuses to identify as black but others, such as Loury, West, and Owens, put their blackness, and their concern for the welfare of black people, front and center in their politics. I had hoped that an intellectual biography of Sowell, one of the earliest and most prominent figures in this minitradition, might help me understand the present by casting light on the past. Maverick is fluent and informative, and useful for anyone approaching Sowells work for the first time. But it leaves these larger questions not merely unanswered, but unasked.

Park MacDougald is Life and Arts editor of the Washington Examiner Magazine.

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The enigma of Thomas Sowell - Washington Examiner

Not a great week for journalism at the ABC, News Corps Sharri Markson tweeted on Monday, when the week was barely a day old.

It is hard to remember the last time a News Corp columnist declared it was a great week for journalism at the ABC. Marksons tweet linked to a story in The Australian that quoted former Attorney-General Christian Porter saying his dropping of his defamation claim against the ABC was a humiliating backdown by the ABC.

Apart from reporting the settlement, the main basis for the article was that the ABC had warned its staff not to claim victory following Porters withdrawal, and to be careful in the way they talked about it.

At such a legally sensitive moment, one might have thought the ABC warning to staff was mere prudence, but it also points to more recurring issues about how media organisations view their journalists statements on social media. These issues are likely to become more common, not less.

Read more: View from The Hill: Porter decides it's time to 'fold em' in ABC defamation case

Last weekend, the Sydney Morning Herald published a story quoting Liberal Senator and former ABC journalist Sarah Henderson saying the national broadcasters social media policy was woefully inadequate.

There are genuine dilemmas here. Journalists as professionals and employees are subject to certain disciplines. What they tweet can and will affect the way others perceive their work.

Conversely, as citizens, they also have the right to free expression.

In April, The Australians economics editor, Adam Creighton, sent this tweet:

Does such a cri de coeur affect how readers regard his judgement and capacity to report? Or should he have the right to say how he feels?

The ABC is the Australian media organisation that has most earnestly sought to resolve these dilemmas. It has four eminently sensible guidelines:

do not mix the professional and the personal in ways likely to bring the ABC into disrepute

do not undermine your effectiveness at work

do not imply ABC endorsement of your personal views

do not disclose confidential information obtained through work.

Henderson pointed to two breaches of these guidelines. One was from an ABC lawyer who called the Coalition government fascist and Prime Minister Scott Morrison an awful human being on Twitter, and then resigned. Henderson said he should not have been allowed to resign, but should have been fired.

Her other example involved what she called Laura Tingles trolling of a prime minister last year. This is an inaccurate use of the word trolling, but increasingly politicians (and journalists) seem to equate any criticism of themselves on social media as trolling.

Tingles single offending tweet concluded we grieve the loss of so many of our fine colleagues to government ideological bastardry. Hope you are feeling smug Scott Morrison. The tweet was posted late at night after a farewell function for her friend and colleague Philippa McDonald, and it was deleted the next morning.

Read more: Latest $84 million cuts rip the heart out of the ABC, and our democracy

It is asking a lot of ABC journalists to feel detached and impartial about government cutbacks to their own organisation that adversely affect the careers of their colleagues. Nevertheless, the ABC has a large investment in Tingles public credibility, and the tweet was immediately addressed internally.

ABC Managing Director David Anderson injected an unusual note of common sense when he was asked whether Tingle was reprimanded during a Senate estimates hearing. He called Tingles tweet an error of judgement and said theres a proportionality that needs to be applied.

The larger danger is that journalists, especially those at the ABC, will get caught up in public controversies surrounding their own work. While at one level they clearly should have the right to defend themselves, the problem is the temptation to succumb to the cheap point-scoring in which critics often engage, to be dragged down from the professional standards of the original program.

Though recent public controversies have focused on apparent breaches on social media not being sufficiently punished, there are also dangers and potential injustices in an unduly restrictive approach.

The most obvious victim of a journalist being punished for social media activity was SBS football commentator Scott McIntyre, who posted a series of tweets on ANZAC Day in 2015 about the cultification of an imperialist invasion.

Read more: Conspiracy theories on the right, cancel culture on the left: how political legitimacy came under threat in 2020

Then-Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull thought they were despicable remarks which deserve to be condemned, and contacted the head of SBS, Michael Ebeid. Ebeid fired McIntyre the same day.

Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson was then quoted as saying McIntyres freedom of speech was not being curtailed, and that his historical claims will be judged very harshly.

Whatever the merits of his ANZAC tweets, they had no relationship to his role as a football commentator. Is his reporting on soccer compromised by his views on the ANZAC tradition?

This episode illustrates that political correctness and cancel culture are found across the political spectrum and media organisations will continue to grapple with these issues as the social media profiles of their journalists continue to grow.

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Journalists are not going to stop tweeting. But should media outlets exert more control over their posts? - The Conversation AU

On May 25, 2020, footage of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis set the internet ablaze, igniting a fervor for justice among the attentive and then-quarantined online masses. In the now widely circulated video, George Floyd can be heard pleading, I cant breathe the same three words Eric Garner had yelled not six years prior 28 times before he became unconscious and later died. What followed was nothing short of a wildfire.

Compounded by the killings of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and, later, the killing of activist Oluwatoyin Salau and the shooting of Jacob Blake Floyds murder prompted an international wave of protests and a global dialogue surrounding anti-Blackness and racial injustice in the months following his death. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, by far the largest of its kind, would receive more than $90 million in donations while organizing over 7,750 demonstrations in the US alone between May and August 2020. Online, social media users were quick to take advantage of their digital platforms, informing followers about racial injustice through the sharing of infographics and what artist and educator Mandy Harris Williams aptly titled critical caption essays.

Evidently, the posts were impactful, with 23 percent of adult social media users in the US saying they changed their views about a political or social issue in 2020 due to something they saw on those platforms, up from 15 percent in 2018. Corporate commitment to racial advocacy became a necessity rather than a consideration once social media users began to take aim at specific instances of racism and unfair treatment at many companies. Hundreds of businesses rushed to release pledges committing to upholding racial justice within their organization. But did any of these companies do more than commodify a movement? A year later, have any of these companies transformed themselves for the better?

Beginning on June 2, 2020, Blackout Tuesday would merge these growing trends in online activism and calls for corporate accountability on social media. The online protest involved posting a single image of a black square to Instagram feeds, intended to quite literally black out users feeds and interrupt regular posting as a show of solidarity to Black victims of police violence. By the end of the day, the number of Instagram posts tagged with #BlackoutTuesday was in the tens of millions and more than 950 brands, including ViacomCBS and Apple, had participated in some way. However, the social media protest quickly proved to do more harm than good.

What originally began as a hashtag (#TheShowMustBePaused) created by music executives Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas, to disrupt the long-standing racism and inequality that exists from the boardroom to the boulevard within the music industry, quickly became appropriated by users, divorced from its original creators and intentions, and made shallow and performative. As #BlackOutTuesday grew in popularity, critiques of the initiative noted how the posting of mostly wordless black squares drowned out Black voices central to movements and obscured valuable information and updates, such as video evidence of police brutality, protest details, and donation links a far cry from the racial uplift the posts set out to achieve. Instead, a majority of Blackout Tuesday posts were effectively one-off statements functioning as a form of virtue signaling, a public expression of an opinion or backing of an idea intended to demonstrate ones moral or political correctness, often without much substantive action.

Before the end of May 2020, racial advocacy and anti-racism were not a priority for socially responsible companies, with consumers struggling to identify businesses seen as good allies to the Black Lives Matter movement. However, as the discussion of racial injustice and discrimination solidified the importance of anti-racism in corporate social responsibility, consumers expect more from where they shop they want donations. In a survey conducted by the public relations firm Edelman in 2020, 60 percent of American respondents said brands needed to use their marketing dollars to advocate for racial equality. The same percentage also said they would buy or boycott a brand based on its response to the ongoing protests. How companies reacted to the BLM movement became a litmus test for how consumers would interact with them in the months to come.

Nike is no stranger to making political statements through its advertising campaigns, especially when it comes to Black Lives Matter. The multinational corporation has a long history of navigating issues pertaining to diversity and inclusion through both its sponsorship of Black athletes and its executive management: In 2018, the Wall Street Journal chronicled Nikes boys-club culture and the executive exits that followed a company-wide probe. Following a 2018 partnership with ousted American football player and activist Colin Kaepernick for the 30th anniversary of its Just Do It ad campaign, Nikes response to the growing unrest was heavily awaited.

On May 29, 2020, prior to Blackout Tuesday, Nike released a video statement on the Black Lives Matter movement in which it called on audiences to pay attention to the unrest unfolding before them. It was met with widespread support and acceptance, with many seeing the statement as a model for corporate social responsibility.

Since then, Nike has continued to restructure its executive leadership team under the stewardship of CEO John Donahoe, promoting Felicia Mayo, a Black woman executive, to the role of diversity chief in July 2020. And as part of the companys internal goals, or Purpose 2025 Targets, Nike, with Converse, Jordan Brand, and Michael Jordan, committed a combined $140 million over 10 years in support of local and national organizations dedicated to addressing racial inequality for Black Americans, an initiative known as the Black Community Commitment. Though not a gold standard, Nikes promise of holistic social responsibility has been matched by few companies.

The millennial-pink beauty brand Glossiers rather diverse word-of-mouth marketing strategy has helped maintain the companys reputation as one of the industrys more inclusive and progressive companies. On May 30, 2020, Glossier similarly posted a statement on Instagram pledging to stand in solidarity with Black communities and the Black Lives Matter movement. It also committed to donating a total of $1 million to Black-owned beauty businesses and organizations addressing racial injustice through an inaugural grant initiative. A year later, Glossier announced it would renew the grant program for 2021 as part of a broader $10 million commitment to bolster equity, inclusion, and representation in the beauty industry over the next five years.

Despite this, Outta the Gloss, a collective of former retail employees of the company, shared on Instagram an open letter to Glossier in August 2020. The letter detailed a sometimes racist and inequitable working environment and included a list of demands, such as standardized anti-racist training for management and the hiring of an on site HR Liaison working solely with retail. Later, the group launched a boycott of Glossier at the urging of its followers. Other than an August blog post from Glossier CEO and founder Emily Weiss, Outta the Gloss maintains that its demands have yet to be meaningfully acknowledged by the company, leaving consumers to question Glossiers commitment to anti-racism within its own workplace.

In contrast, the beauty company Sephora set to make right a history of racist discrimination in its retail stores. On May 30, 2020, Sephora CEO Jean-Andr Rougeot issued a statement committing to stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement; a few days later, it published its own #BlackoutTuesday post and closed its retail stores for a two-hour company-wide training on racial bias. The companys US business also became the first major retailer to sign the 15 Percent Pledge, a campaign founded by fashion designer Aurora James asking retailers to dedicate at least 15 percent of their shelf space to Black-owned businesses. (Retailers and brands such as Vogue, Bloomingdales, and Old Navy among others have since signed on, too.)

Sephora has also pledged to do the following in 2021: increase the seven Black-owned brands it carries to 16, focus on supporting BIPOC founders in beauty through its Sephora Accelerate program, and continue providing new training modules for in-store employees while reducing the presence of third-party security officers.

Meanwhile, the department store Nordstrom was quick to involve itself in the Black Lives Matter movement, despite the companys more conservative customer base. It published a #BlackoutTuesday post, and later released a statement committing to increase representation of Black and Latinx populations in management roles and [deliver] $500M in retail sales from brands owned by, operated by, or designed by Black and/or Latinx individuals, both by the end of 2025. It also promised to ensure that its training resources for customer-facing employees include anti-racism and bias content.

Both Sephora and Nordstrom have acknowledged that in their commitment to addressing anti-racism, the work begins internally.

Other retail companies have failed to make any substantial long-term commitments.

The e-commerce retailer Fashion Nova was criticized by users and influencers alike for failing to acknowledge or respond to the Black Lives Matter movement prior to June 1, 2020, despite its large consumer base of Black women. The fast-fashion retailer which has been called out a number of times for stealing designs from small businesses and Black designers and for underpaying garment workers in its Los Angeles factory ultimately posted a black square with no caption on June 2. It issued a statement the following day in which it remarked, Our actions speak louder than our words, and pledged to donate $1 million to various community resources and activism, awareness campaigns, and other initiatives to help in the fight for racial equality and opportunity.

Fashion Nova has not made any other statements pertaining to the Black Lives Matter movement since then, though it continues to partner with celebrities such as Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion in its philanthropic initiative, Fashion Nova CARES, which has provided financial support to the Breonna Taylor Foundation and emerging Black designer Tia Adeola, among others. Despite the companys ubiquity in Black communities and its reliance on Black celebrity and culture for relevance, its Instagram page, which functions as its main form of advertising, is devoid of any mentions of anti-Black racism beyond donations, and lacks representation of Black models.

Starbucks, which also has a fraught history navigating race, pledged to stand in solidarity with its Black partners, customers, and communities, and to donate $1 million to organizations promoting racial equity while simultaneously banning employees and baristas from wearing any pro-Black Lives Matter clothing or accessories. Ultimately, the company revised its decision on the dress code, making 250,000 pro-BLM T-shirts for employees in an attempt to show support for the movement, and continue to offer their elective online anti-bias classes.

And in October, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson announced that the company would tie executive pay to the meeting of racial diversity targets set to boost diversity in Starbucks workforce by 2025, the company aims to have people of color represented in at least 30% of roles in corporate operations and 40% of retail and manufacturing roles, though the company declined to share details of how exactly these goals would be tied to executive pay.

Since then, the company has reached a voluntary agreement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in light of 2007 allegations of racial bias in its promotions, and has started a $100 million Community Resilience Fund that will support small business growth and community development projects in BIPOC neighborhoods.

In the music tech industry, companies such as SiriusXM, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music also made respective Blackout Tuesday posts. On June 2, Spotify shared a number of in-app features intended as a show of solidarity with Black creators and users, though artists were quick to criticize the lack of money being donated. This initial offering included a rather out-of-touch 8-minute, 46-second track of silence meant to memorialize the length of time that George Floyd was suffocated by Derek Chauvin, a Black History Is Now hub, and a selection of Black Lives Matter playlists. Later that week, the company committed to contributing up to $10 million in an employee match allocated to organizations addressing anti-racism and racial justice, donating an additional $1 million in advertising inventory to social justice groups (though $345,000 worth of this advertising budget was used to promote the companys own Black History Is Now hub).

Now, the question remains: Have these companies pledges led to any real impact or change in the year since a national racial reckoning? Among the groups that received money from the aforementioned companies including national organizations such as the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation and the Equal Justice Initiative was the NAACPs Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). In a statement, LDF president Sherrilyn Ifill shared that the most valuable gift over the past year has been the increase in pro bono support which enabled them to litigate and advocate with greater intensity, and to increase the pace of our work, increasing the funds capacity to support Black communities.

Still, if anything is to be learned from how these companies have approached corporate accountability, it is that it pays to take a stand, even if performative. As millennial and Gen Z consumers increasingly expect brands to be actively involved in social justice movements, publicly choosing a stance has rewarded companies with consumer loyalty.

Following Nikes BLM statement video, the company moved up 22 places on Social Chain Datas social media leaderboard in May 2020, into the No. 31 spot. The ice cream company Ben & Jerrys saw its social media reach grow by 35 percent on Twitter and 27 percent on Facebook, after declaring, We must dismantle white supremacy last June. However, #HasBenAndJerrysTweetedYet, a hashtag started by Twitter user @telushk, has been gaining traction this month in light of the companys refusal to acknowledge its investments in Israels illegal settlements. If these predominantly white and men-owned companies ultimately reap the benefits of committing to anti-racism and the fight against white supremacy, is this change really a transformation? And is it substantively supporting Black Americans who confront the burden of racism and racial injustice in their everyday lives?

The range of company pledges, commitments, and statements weve seen indicate an ever-present truth: that no matter how impactful or effective corporate activism is, it will also always be inherently performative. Companies cannot be entrusted to be the leaders of the peoples social justice movements.

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Blackout Tuesday 2020: One year later, what have companies done for Black lives? - Vox.com

By Xela VS

Of course, I am pro-Palestinian. That is, if I use the definition most people invoke when they hear the word Palestinians: an oppressed people living under the terror of the Israeli coloniser, who only have a few miserable stones to defend themselves against the high-tech violence of the Israeli army.

Yet this definition calls for nuance. Or rather, for thorough revision. The Palestinians are indeed oppressed, and their human rights are not respected. But the oppressor is not the worlds most demonised country called Israel, but Hamas, an islamofascist terror group that rules with an iron fist over a people systematically indoctrinated from birth to hate and exterminate Jews. This inherent antisemitism is nothing new under the Palestinian sun. Just ask the Mufti of Jerusalem, who conspired with Adolf Hitler to bring the Shoah to the Middle East. A historical tidbit seldom mentioned in our ever-radicalising neo-Marxist, islam-glorifying academic institutions former bastions of knowledge, nowadays strongholds stinking of political correctness.

Hamas is not a democratically elected government, as Westerners naively believe, but a bunch of terrorists funded by jihadist billionaires who mock democracy. Neither do they believe in human rights. Thats why they hang adulterous women and throw homosexuals off buildings. A whole lot less merrymaking than the gay parade in Tel Aviv, where transgender people of all religions are jumping to the beats of Lady Gaga.

This islamofascist mob is also not afraid to use innocent Palestinian women and children as living shields on tanks bought with the millions of dollars they receive from the United Nations to build homes, hospitals and schools. But instead of building infrastructures for health care and education, they dig subterranean tunnel networks to smuggle weapons and fire thousands of missiles at Israeli shopping malls, kindergartens, and Jerusalem, which they hypocritically claim to be their cherished Holy City.

Digging tunnels and firing missiles are an expensive affair, paid for by not only the UN, but also by zakat, muslim donations that go to charity funds largely controlled by Hamas. The families of suicide bombers, or freedom fighters as journalists worldwide like to call them, receive a reward from the Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund, starting from several hundreds of dollars up to 5000 dollars a painful, yet lucrative sacrifice to parents who apparently can tolerate the idea of their beloved child pressing the detonation button. Does the perspective of paradise, where martyrs can indulge in rivers of wine and decadent orgies, make the decision easier? Or is the hatred for jews so great that sacrificing a son or daughter is a price they are willing to pay for the greater good? As Golda Meir famously said: Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.

President Donald J. Trump has successfully tempered this murderous hatred for four years and made the world understand that Jerusalem was and will be the eternal capital of the Jewish nation by moving the American embassy there. Now that his successor has taken power and the threat of American retaliation is diminished, Hamas dares to kill Jews again and muslims along the way, for that matter their recent rocket attacks have buried a Palestinian man and his young daughter alive.

Meanwhile, the Western world applauds Hamas, like ignoramuses who do not realise they are helping to oppress the Palestinians by not recognising the hideous crimes of terrorists who would kill them too, if they could. Out of silly political correctness, nauseating antisemitism disguised as antizionism, willful ignorance, or a nauseating blend of the three? Who will tell?

A rapid scroll through social media feeds shows the increasing level of support for Palestine as if the Palestinian people were one unanimous entity, forced into Apartheid by the Zionist devil. What nobody talks about, or cares to talk about, is the bloody violence resulting from the rivalry between adherents of Hamas and Fatah a Palestinian antagonism making far more victims than the defensive actions of Tsahal. But the international media remain deafeningly silent about those victims. Facts not involving Jews are not that exciting, and the truth is annoying if it distorts ones narrative.

What the media also avoid discussing, are Arabs with Israeli citizenship who dont live under the terror of Hamas, but still choose to burn the Israeli flag and stab their fellow Jewish citizens with knives. They could just leave the country they despise and emigrate to one of the twenty-two Arab states, where Shiites and Sunnis diligently butcher each other. Perhaps life in Israel, the only country that gives their Palestinian brothers work, food, water, and free medical care, is not so terrible after all.

Israeli initiatives for peace agreements, including the one proposed by the former US commander-in-chief, have been plentiful, but unfortunately, unsuccessful. It takes two to tango, and, as one might suspect from terrorists, Hamas is not interested in peaceful coexistence. The preamble of their Covenant clearly states that they will not rest until the complete annihilation of the Jewish state through jihad is a tangible fact: Israel will exist and continue to exist until islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.

The greater the animosity against Israel, the greater the need for it to continue existing, so that the horrors of the past cannot be repeated. Am Israel Chai! The Promised Land is here to stay.

Hopefully, the awfully limited vision of Israeli oppression versus Palestinian victimhood is hereby nuanced. How regrettable that these nuances are being made by unknown individuals like me, and not by the journaille of the Western mainstream media, misleading their readership with cherry-picked facts and straight-out lies. Their detestation of Israel far outweighs their love for the Palestinian people. Otherwise, they would have called out their real enemy a long time ago.

Xela VS is a freelanche writer.You can follow her on xelaphilia.com.

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The Enemy of the Palestinian People - European Jewish Press

Navy SEAL veteran Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) recently took to Twitter to announce a newly created whistleblower website to help root out the scourge of wokeness in the U.S. military and he is getting trolled hard over it.

The trouble started on May 28, when the former SEAL officer-turned-congressman posted a call to action on Twitter encouraging service members to reach out to his office, and to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a former Army officer, with evidence that woke ideology has infiltrated the ranks of the U.S. armed forces.

It is not uncommon for members of Congress to solicit tips through whistleblower and complaint pages: After all, its a useful tool for hearing from constituents, informs lawmakers of issues facing folks in their district, and it might lead to impactful legislation that resolves whatever problem someone blew the whistle on.

That said, Crenshaws recent call to action is somewhat atypical, seeing as these sorts of campaigns usually focus on gathering evidence to illustrate the severity of a single concrete problem like sexual assault and harassment in the military, government malfeasance, and other systemic issues like corruption, not for something as vague and subjective as woke ideology in the ranks. It might also strike some as ironic that Crenshaw has offered up whistleblower protection seeing as he made headlines not too long ago and faced the possibility of an ethics committee investigation over his alleged involvement in a plot to go after another veteran who blew the whistle on sexual harassment at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

For those who have been hiding under a rock (or something), the typical complaint about wokeness in the U.S. military goes a little something like this: Because some of the branches in the military created maternity flight suits and updated their hair regulations for servicewomen, this proves that the Department of Defense is caving to pressure over political correctness and isnt focusing enough on warfighting. The counter-argument to this is they can do both: Servicewomen can wear their hair in a ponytail and shoot the enemy at the same time, probably more effectively since their Kevlar helmet wont be pushed down over their eyes due to a tight hair bun.

The complaint that the U.S. military has become too woke isnt entirely new, but it has become a favorite line among some Republican lawmakers as of late. Indeed, Crewnshaws call to action came just one week after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) retweeted a video that included Russian propaganda that was cut over a new Army recruitment commercial with the words Holy crap. Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea. The Army recruitment video told the story of an actual soldier, and her path to joining the service, and Cruz was blasted for criticizing a soldier who volunteered to serve her country, and for using a sweaty Russian military video to do it. Other videos from the same campaign were similarly trolled over alleged wokeness to the point that the service shut down the comment section on YouTube for the videos.

And so, with the internet being the internet and with Twitter serving as the de facto proving grounds of snark on social media, a bunch of people, some of whom were veterans, had a field day using the whistleblower site (which is still live, by the way).

Some of the responses specifically parodied the effort to source examples of wokeness in the military. But others took a different approach, and started writing out the plotlines for movies and shows, like the one above which referenced Stripes. They then took screenshots of their submissions and shared them online.

My platoon deployed to Klendathu, wrote Peter Lucier, a Marine veteran and past contributor to Task & Purpose, based on a screenshot of the whistleblower submission page posted to Twitter. Big K. It was a slaughter. That motivated me to go to officer candidate school. Now I have to sit through History and Moral Philosophy classes? Are you kidding me?

For the section that asked respondents to lay out their goals, Lucier wrote Kill the bugs in an obvious head nod to the 1997 sci-fi action flick and bastardization of Robert Heinleins book Starship Troopers.

The trend quickly got on. Woman in authority implied I was a little short for a storm trooper, wrote another, this one a reference to Star Wars Episode IV. And then it just picked up steam from there:

Now, Im not sure what the original plan really was here if Crenshaw and Cotton expected droves of service members to descend upon their whistleblower page with stacks of documents laying out all the ways the U.S. military has gone soft because it changed a few regulations to allow some of its service members to be comfortable in their day-to-day jobs. Or if they expected hard evidence that would explain how celebrating the voluntary service of a diverse group of people has eroded the fighting power of the U.S. military.

Based on these responses, it doesnt seem like it worked out that way. On the upside, this is a pretty great movie and TV watch list, so long as youre willing to wade through the tidal wave of sarcasm.

Update: This article has been updated after publication with additional submissions from readers and respondents online.

Related: What Ted Cruz doesnt understand about those woke Army recruiting commercial

Originally posted here:

Dan Crenshaw wants people to blow the whistle on woke ideology in the military and hes getting roasted for it [UPDATED] - Task & Purpose

Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas is reportedly considering the development of tools that would help Americas children discern truth from lies and know when they are being fed disinformation.

The Washington Times, which first reported the story, says a department spokesperson declined to give details, but that more information would be revealed in the coming weeks.

Mayorkas might want to start by fact-checking his recent claim that the U.S. southern border is closed. He made the statement when news pictures showed waves of people crossing the border. Should kids believe him, or their lying eyes?

Should anyone, regardless of political party or persuasion, be comfortable with government telling especially children what they can believe and whom they can trust? This is what totalitarian states do. Its called propaganda.

We are already inundated with political correctness, cancel culture and woke-ism. TV networks spend more time delivering opinion and slanting stories to particular points of view than what once resembled if not objective journalism then at least fairness.

The list of government officials who have lied is long and dates back to the founders of the nation. Some lies could be defended on national security grounds. Others were used to cover up wrongdoing or enhance the image of the one who lied.

In recent years, we recall President Clintons denial of having sex with Monica Lewinsky, President Obamas claim about his health care program: If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, President George H. W. Bushs Read my lips, no new taxes, assertions by the George W. Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, Richard Nixons lies about Watergate, the lies told by Lyndon Johnson, members of his administration and generals about how we were winning the war in Vietnam (Johnson had pledged during the 1964 campaign not to send Americans to fight in Vietnam, another lie), and the CEO of R.J. Reynolds telling a congressional committee in 1994 that cigarette smoking is no more addictive than coffee, tea, or Twinkies. The Washington Post reported in January that by the end of his term, former President Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day.

I could go on, but you get the point.

George Orwell was prescient when he wrote in 1984 about Newspeak and the Ministry of Truth. We have already achieved the former in what we are allowed to say, or not say, lest we be smeared with nasty rhetorical stains. Lets revisit the Ministry of Truth for those who havent read the book or need a reminder.

The Ministry of Truth was related to Newspeak in that it had nothing to do with truth, but propaganda by another name. Its job was to falsify historical records in ways that aligned with government policies and its version of those events. It was also tasked with defining truth, which sometimes resulted in doublespeak, or contradictions, that served the purposes of the state.

Truth has become subjective and relative in modern times and is now personal. You have your truth and I have my truth. Even when they contradict each other, it doesnt matter as long as we both feel good about it.

This flawed notion has contributed to our cultural decline.

Try this experiment if you want to see how far we have moved from objective truth. Go to any popular definition website and type in truth. They assume truth exists and can be discovered.

The truth is supposed to set us free, but if we cant recognize or define it, we will be in bondage. Secretary Mayorkas should reread Orwells novel and then abandon any plans to indoctrinate schoolchildren.

Editors note: Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas latest book Americas Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers and the Future of the United States (HarperCollins/Zondervan).

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Will Homeland Security be Ministry of Truth 2.0? | News, Sports, Jobs - Marquette Mining Journal

Draymond Green and Charles Barkley make for a very entertaining duo on Inside the NBA. They proved this yet again during Mondays games.

Youve gotta remember that Barkley is the same former NBA superstar who once said Im not a role model. The Chuckster will say what he feels when he feels like saying it. Expecting political correctness from the Sixers and Suns legend is like expecting an early Christmas.

Having said that, Barkley is also a man who never takes himself too seriously, even on live TV. Hes always down with joking about his own experiences. And yesterdays Inside the NBA gave us yet another neat example of his easygoing nature (skip to 14:00 in the video below).

Chuck: I think they [the cops] did arrest him [the fan who ran onto the court].

Dray: Yes, but arrested doesnt mean you went to jail.

Kenny: Two guys that know a little bit about that.

Chuck: Lets just say this, every time Ive been arrested, I went to jail.

Also Read:Is Anthony Davis playing Game 5 tonight vs Suns? Los Angeles Lakers release groin injury report for The Brow ahead of clash against Chris Paul and co

Charles Barkley keeps reminding us time to time that hes been arrested a number of times, so thats hardly front-page news at this point. What is front-page is the comic relief that he provides, as many people noted on NBA Twitter.

Also Read:Michael Jordan is the GOAT, but tonight, LeBron James can make a resounding statement: Skip Bayless piles pressure on Lakers Finals MVP ahead of Game 5 vs Suns

But there is another side to the way NBA fans responded to this discussion. Instead of taking light-hearted discourse on basketball-related issues for what it is, some people expect accuracy and correctness at every moment.

Its pretty safe to say that if youre getting arrested, youre more likely than not getting held at a police station lockup. What happens later is a matter of judicial processing.

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"Every time they took me to jail when I got arrested": Charles Barkley jokes about his past misdemeanors with... - The Sportsrush

On Sept. 2, 2020, Laurie Schipper addressed a two-page letter to Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence board members. It has been a challenging and reactive time with so many opportunities to make transformative changes, it began.

Three months earlier, in the midst of the racial reckonings brought forth by the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people, Schipper and leaders of 44 other sexual assault and domestic violence coalitions from 33 states signed the Moment of Truth letter, which acknowledged the ways that their leadership failed underrepresented survivors, leaders and movements, specifically people of color. In it, they detailed changes they would support surrounding partnerships with police departments and the criminal justice system. The work that led to the letter was not easy, nor was it an easy road after, as the stance was seen as controversial by some in the state and nationally.

She received feedback from several leaders of ICADVs culturally specific programs. Those are great words, but wheres the action? they asked. Schipper came to the decision that it was time for her to step aside and make space for a person of color to hold leadership.

We tell ourselves that because were in Iowa, a white-majority state, that its too hard for us, that the numbers [of qualified people of color] are not there. It is hard, because you dont get the numbers unless you do the internal work, Schipper said.

She wrote in her resignation letter: This is a truth I have been thinking about for a number of years, recognizing that I am one of those white women who took on a leadership role at age thirty and stayed forever, never making room to center the leadership of women of color. ... It became clear to me during our staff discussions that it was, indeed, time for me to move on.

She was 58 and had been the executive director for nearly 30 years. ICADV board members and staffers were surprised, but supportive. Schipper called on the board to hire a new executive director as soon as possible, and indicated that she would stay on through the spring to help train her replacement. At the same time, Schipper and other ICADV staff members created a five-year action and accountability plan.

What we found is that the work that weve done publicly around supporting communities of color and leaders of color brought an amazing group of women to the position as candidates, Schipper said. There were a lot of women of color that could have filled this position. Thats something that white-led organizations should know, even if its Iowa.

In January 2021, ICADV hired Maria Corona, who is a three-time graduate from Iowa State University with degrees in womens studies and international studies, a masters degree in family and consumer sciences, and a Ph.D. in human development and family studies. Before her hiring at ICADV, Corona worked closely with Latina and Latino survivors of domestic violence at Iowa States Child Welfare Research Training Project and worked as a diversity outreach coordinator and advocate for survivors of domestic violence at Assault Care Center Extending Shelter & Support (ACCESS).

Schipper has transitioned out of her role as senior consultant to the executive director and now works for Galvanize USA, a national womens empowerment and voter engagement organization.

The following conversation with Schipper and Corona has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Laurie, when did you come to the decision that you would step down and make space for a woman of color?

Schipper: Its important to acknowledge that Ive thought about it for years, and as a white woman, Ive had the privilege of setting it aside and asking if it was convenient for me at this moment. It started in 2015, although it wasnt a specific plan. It was working with folks at the national level thinking about what it would look like to center the leadership of women of color and the needs of marginalized communities. That work was really transformative and led us to the Moment of Truth letter.

After the letter was released, our culturally specific programs were holding us accountable. At the time it was really painful; now I know it was a gift.

I was talking to some of my friends who run national programs, and they said, Do it. Just do it. I still didnt think it was financially possible in my life. But hearing them say to do it stuck with me. I was in a place of great privilege and I had waited way too long. And if not me, who could we ask to do this? It was hard and scary and sometimes I felt sorry for myself. I was defensive, threatened and sad that people didnt beg me to stay. But leadership is taking the leap.

Because I had been here so long and because the Moment of Truth letter caused a lot of commotion politically with law enforcement and legislators, it was important for me to stay in a role of leadership so Maria could get her feet planted and I could help open doors or deflect anything that was my fault so she didnt have to. Its a complicated role and I wanted to make it easier. I had to do a lot of white fragility work in a short period of time. That transition has been the growth experience that I didnt anticipate and that will always be every time I see Marias face, something that I am so humbled by and so appreciative of and love her so much for.

Corona: Its important to know that the national folks that Laurie tapped into for support through this process are also women of color. If you dont surround yourself with diverse thoughts and people who come from underrepresented communities, youre not really going to hear and feel what it means to give up your space as a white woman. So that support that Laurie had was essential to this transition. She could have easily just talked about it with her white friends and they might have said, Are you crazy? Why would you leave that role?

It may feel like a very micro-level thing that happened, but its actually huge. Im a state-level leader, but Im on a national stage because of our position as a coalition and what we do policy-wise at the national level.

Throughout this transition, I never felt that Laurie framed this experience as, Im doing this for you. Its not a hand-me-down. Its her own reckoning. I appreciate Laurie for staying as long as she did, because this is a really hard job.

I have knowledge, skills and experience. Ive been organizing in the community and Im well-versed in research, grant-writing and other administrative pieces. There are other areas that I need support in, and her staying really gave me the space to take a breath, to think about the transition and really assimilate into the role and feel what its like to be in this powerful space.

My undocumented mother would never think of this as a reality, and shes so proud. To have the opportunity to do this and show my skills and compete, and I know there were a lot of other great candidates, it was all about showing that this is my purpose. I went to grad school for this. Its a marathon that Im still running. There will be rocks along the way and things thrown at me and other barriers that I have to face as part of my identity. [Schippers] staying so long gave me a sense of support and it made me feel like Ive got this. I can do this. It also allowed me to learn from her.

Schipper: I took Marias job at the age of 30, with one job experience under my belt and a bachelors degree. Maria would have likely not been able to get hired at that point in time. Maria has articulated to me that in order to feel heard by the world, she had to get a Ph.D. So this wasnt about going to look for somebody who may or may not be qualified. Maria was very qualified and would not have been considered likely because of structural racism.

This isnt about being a white savior. Its about white folks taking on a super hard reckoning and learning things about themselves that they dont want to know, and then stepping aside. I want white folks to know that my world didnt come to an end. It was hard, but wow, what I get to watch happen now. This is where Maria was supposed to be.

You mentioned the notion that women of color often have to be extra qualified to even be considered for jobs. What are other barriers or challenges that women of color face in being hired for leadership positions?

Corona: Women of color always have to prove that were good enough, that we are in this space because we have the skills, the capacity and that weve done the work. As a Latina, I come from a very collectivistic space. We are very community-driven, and what we do in our life, its all driven out of love for my community. Yes, its out of love for my family, but also for other families who look like mine, or that experience systemic racism. Thats how I drive my leadership, based on lived realities and experiences of people. Thats something that I think women of color also have to constantly prove is valuable.

Because theres a lack of representation, theres a limited number of folks I can look to for support. Theres very few Latino/Latinx nonprofit directors. I cant really reach out to people who are like me and vent.

Another barrier is the space within your organization. Do people believe in you? What perceptions do they have of you? Do they believe youre capable enough? If you dont have a team that respects who you are and recognizes your value as a human and a professional, youre not going to feel welcome. Youre not going to feel supported. Youre going to be constantly battling within your own organization. I have never been in a space with majority-white people that actually believe in me. And it sucks. Youre always wondering, Should I say something? Should I say that a comment was racist? Should I have a conversation? Im thankful to say that as of now, I havent had to do that. ICADVs team is amazing and they are all ready to do the anti-racism work. Before I came here, they put together an action and accountability plan for working toward being antiracist and uplifting and centering the BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, people of color] community. Having that space ready, I didnt have to come in as a new leader and walk on eggshells because someone is doubting me and my skills. I am so lucky to say that, even more so because Im in Iowa.

For me, after graduating from Iowa State University, I wanted out. I was like, I need to get out of Iowa. I need to go somewhere where I know my community is and I know I can feel the love and respect that I need and deserve. I never expected that at ICADV. Im still building relationships its my fourth month on the job but I feel very comfortable. With the video of the 13-year-old Latino kid that was killed by police in March, I was able to come in and say, This is really heavy on me right now. And theyre there for me telling me to take care of myself. You can really be your full self at ICADV. Im so proud to be here. Im so proud of my team. Its all a matter of us holding ourselves to the action and accountability plan.

Another barrier is relationships with community leaders and leadership across member programs. What do they think about me? Never in my life would I have thought that I would be able to get on a call with the attorney general. When that happened for the first time, when I hung up the phone, I cried. I come from a community and a family that said, if you see a cop, go the other way. You dont talk to them. You dont call them. Im calling the biggest cop in town now. Im getting on a phone call with him to ask him to do something for me. That is incredible. I would have never thought that thats something that I would be doing in my life. It gives me a sense of so much responsibility, not just for survivors of violence, but for communities of color. To know that Im in this position is amazing. It fills me with lots of strength and it makes me feel empowered. It also makes me feel a little afraid because of the amount of responsibility that I have for my people, for my community and for communities that are underrepresented.

Laurie is one of the women that has paved the way for people like me, for women like me. She gave space for my community, for the undocumented community, for folks that are typically not given the room to speak up. That means a lot. And it was really thoughtful. Everything was really intentional, thoughtful, and set up for me to succeed.

Schipper: Not all white-led organizations will necessarily be ready for this. There have been a lot of casualties before Maria [at ICADV] in wanting to diversify for the political correctness of it and hiring women of color when we werent ready to look at our own white supremacy culture. For those women, it was never a fair playing field when they came into our organization and they all left. We have lots of reckoning to do around that. I wanted to make sure that we took on several years of really intensive work around our own white fragility, anti-racism work before our team was ready for this.

So as much as I would want to encourage people to look at their ability to center the leadership of women of color, I also think you have to do the work to get there. I am haunted by the women before Maria that didnt find the space welcoming, that didnt find it a place where they could fulfill their potential and left.

Corona: Thank you for saying that. Thats why Im lucky to be here now. If I were to have come on 10 years ago, I probably would have not been in the same space that Im in now. I could see the internal work that the staff does on their own; its really beautiful to see that growth. Its scary for white people to do that. You get lots of feelings like shame and guilt. Youre uncomfortable. But its courageous to stay in those feelings and work on them and process them. To say, Im going to work on myself and Im going to work on my behaviors and habits that have caused harm and that continue the ideology of whats supposed to be professional, thats courageous. The team is doing that work all the time. And when they dont, they call each other in. Ive witnessed that and its amazing.

You mentioned the notion of doing the work. What does that look like?

Schipper: We had a book club that met regularly over a two- or three-year period. It was mandatory for all white folks at the coalition. We took recommendations from folks of color on staff who thought we should read specific pieces. We had hard conversations where we challenged each other. Then we asked ourselves about how many groups we could join where we could support leadership of color. We delivered cookies to organizations that we didnt know anything about except that their work was something that we wanted to support. We did listening tours all around the state, and met with natural leaders in communities of color, like ministers and day care operators. We went to all kinds of places where people could tell us what we could do to be supportive as a white-led organization and how we could open doors for their agenda.

I had thought this was a great plan on my part. I wrote up an introductory letter, saying that well bring the cookies and that we just want to hear about what you need, and that we have some political power and that we can open doors for you. Immediately it was clear that the organizations didnt buy that for a second. It took so much energy and relationship-building to get organizations to believe that we really meant it, and that we werent there to mine information or resources from them. It took probably three years of us having cleared our legislative agenda completely, saying, We will only support what the community wants and that we will not support the criminal justice system as the primary intervention for community safety. It took a lot of time to [prove] that we meant it.

Corona: Thats important, because youre going into a community and youre listening. Youre not going in there with an agenda, which is a typical thing for white-led organizations to do. It is hard for us as people of color to tell people especially white people what we need from them. We are accustomed to always giving up something for them because they always need something from us.

Another thing weve done internally is modify personal practices to support staff of color specifically. For example, if theres an internal promotion happening, its a priority to consider BIPOC staff. Its one thing to say something, and its another to actually write it into your personnel policies. Another example is through ICADVs victim counseling training. We now center intersectionality and the systemic issues that survivors especially survivors of color have to navigate. Its our lens of how we look at the training. Other things include investing in racial and social justice action and activism.

What Laurie did was intentional and thoughtful. It was very well-planned. All of that internal work she did as a leader and as a team, that is not something our community knows. So its very easy for them to perceive that what she did is performative when actually things have been worked on for a very long time. Its something that you have to actively do every day. Nationally, other coalition directors in the field are doing the same thing now. That is beautiful. It just takes one person to actually do the things that everybody is thinking about but is too afraid to do.

What will it take for us as a collective society to reach a point where its just ingrained to elevate women of color?

Schipper: Until its not us and them anymore. When we were creating the action and accountability plan, someone challenged me in my language in that I continued to say us and them. So my language was still portraying us meaning the white people on staff creating the plan and how they would respond to that.

I have dear friends who are white and are leading organizations who cant do this for financial reasons or because theyre not ready. And its super important to know that some of them mentored me to this point. Some of their work was holding me accountable and keeping me honest. Just because you cant leave your organization to center folks of color doesnt mean you cant lead. I couldnt have done what I did without their help and expertise around anti-racism issues. Other folks who are in a position of privilege and can leave, I would want them to know that its never too late to keep growing and challenging yourself and being afraid. Its OK. Jump.

Corona: It takes boldness from leaders that hold the power to hire and change policies. Its about hiring, but its also about making the space welcoming. Its about making policies equitable for all identities. You really have to center BIPOC folks when youre crafting your policies and creating a culture. What does it mean to be in a space that is all white? Is there going to be a safe space for those people? Its more than just hiring people, its about retention.

Schipper: I stepped into this role in 1993. Ive been here a long time and didnt do the work. So I want to acknowledge that. Yes, we came to a point where we knew we had to be proactive for it to be successful. I think there were folks that felt that what I was doing was performative in some ways, but in my heart I really wanted to protect Maria in any way and give her space to get to her feet. The learning that I got from this is that theres a way to do that without standing in front. Maria didnt need me to stand in front at all. Maria is brilliant. I dont think I was brilliant, and I didnt have to be. I just had a lot of skills. And I think thats whats really significant here. We are losing so much by not giving folks like Maria a chance to lead. I am so humbled by her fearlessness. This is not an easy job under normal conditions, and we are in a hard world right now. So my bravery and leadership is nothing compared to what she is doing right now.

Corona: Imposter syndrome is going to kick my [butt] every day. Having Laurie to go to is very rewarding for me. There are going to be good things and there are going to be rough things that happen. I know I can count on Laurie, I can call her even just to cry it out. Ive already done that. She is willing to give up this space and uplift a woman of color, but shes also willing to be there for the hard parts. That says a lot about who she is. I couldnt be more thankful for that.

Schipper: I always thought my legacy would be that I was hardcore and that I stood up to the system and that I changed laws, but watching this have a rippling effect on the people in my life and in the field if I had to pick a legacy, thats the one I would want.

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'It was time for me to move on' - Business Record

The protesters who made their way through Center City on the first day Philadelphia saw mass demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd were looking for places to direct their anger.

They came upon the statue of Frank L. Rizzo, the late mayor and police commissioner whose legacy so perfectly captured the style of policing they were fighting against that the monument could have been placed there for the occasion. Rizzo supporters got the statue installed outside the Municipal Services Building in 1999. Mayor Jim Kenney ordered it removed in the middle of the night amid the sweeping protests last June.

A year later, Philadelphia is still grappling with place names and monuments that honor people whose legacies many find offensive and how to implement a better system of commemoration going forward.

There has been a renewed push, for instance, to rename Taney Street, which is believed to be named after the U.S. Supreme Court justice who authored the racist Dred Scott decision denying citizenship rights to African Americans. Meanwhile, significant questions remain about the two statues that became flashpoints last year: the Rizzo statue, which the city is storing at a secret location, and the Christopher Columbus statue in Marconi Plaza, the fate of which remains before a state court.

After the protests, the Kenney administration launched a commission to review current commemorations and formalize a process for green-lighting future ones.

Who the city visibly commemorates is important to the mayor, Kenney spokesperson Kevin Lessard said in a statement last week. The mayor would like to see more influential Philadelphians of color represented in public monuments.

Adam Waterbear DePaul, a member of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvanias tribal council, has long hoped for greater awareness of the history and current experiences of indigenous people in the Philadelphia area.

He didnt anticipate that such a moment would be sparked by the police killing of an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis. But ever since then, the Nation has been inundated by people curious about us, about indigenous issues, really about all human rights issues.

Consistent controversies in cities across the country have included renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day as Kenney did this year or removing statues of Columbus, who founded slave colonies at the outset of the genocide against the Americas indigenous populations.

Obviously, it comes out from an incredibly unfortunate circumstance, but its a great thing to see that the social consciousness is changing in this way, DePaul said.

READ MORE: The Rizzo statue disappeared. Philadelphia is still unpacking its legacy.

The Nation hasnt taken a stance on whether governments should get rid of Columbus Day or remove monuments. But it supports the celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day and wants to see more accurate portrayals of the areas indigenous communities, in education and monuments.

Every part of Lenape history in current life has been incredibly erased, especially here in our Eastern woodland homelands, and all of it needs to be brought more into the public consciousness through education, DePaul said. And it would be great for the city to have a part in that.

That could mean a physical monument, he said, but only if the city works with the Nation to shape the design, because so many monuments are problematic.

They tend to root us in the past, DePaul said. They foster the narrative that the Lenape and all Native Americans are a people who once lived long ago, rather than a people today who drive cars and have jobs and have iPhones and walk among you.

Such an inclusive process is what the Kenney administration hopes to achieve with its Landmarks and Monuments Review Commission. The commission has created a database of 7,000 place names, public art, and memorials, and is crafting a process to review the commemorations.

The citys chief cultural officer, Kelly Lee, who is leading the effort, was unavailable for an interview, Lessard said.

The commission should be careful not to move too quickly to erase potentially problematic names or monuments, said Ken Lum, cofounder of the Philadelphia-based Monument Lab, a public art and history studio that says it facilitates participatory approaches to public engagement and collective memory.

That needs to be done with great sensitivity because it could be misconstrued as some sort of extreme [political correctness] project or something like that, said Lum, an artist and University of Pennsylvania professor. The exercise could be a very worthwhile pedagogical learning time for the city.

The fight over the statues isnt over, despite the monuments being out of sight. Lawyer George Bochetto has filed lawsuits on behalf of groups upset with the citys handling of the Rizzo and Columbus statues.

The Frank L. Rizzo Monument Committee, which raised money to commission the statue, is challenging the Kenney administrations handling of the removal, and seeking to have it returned to them. Bochetto said he knows where the statue is but cant disclose the location due to a confidentiality agreement in the federal case.

Its in a city warehouse, sitting on a flatbed truck in a prone position, somewhere damaged, he said in an interview.

Bochetto also represents a group suing the city over the Columbus statue. The 145-year-old statue is still at Marconi Plaza in South Philadelphia, but has been encased in plywood since last June. With Kenneys support, the citys Art Commission and Historical Commission voted last year to remove it.

READ MORE: Philly lawmaker and Italian American groups sue Mayor Kenney for renaming Columbus Day

Bochetto accuses the city commissions of failing to follow their own rules and procedures when it comes to the removal of statues.

Both of them are kangaroo courts, Bochetto said of the two commissions that sided with Kenneys administration.

The city is preparing to remove the Columbus statue even as the court battle unfolds.

While these matters work their way through the court system, the city is laying the groundwork to prepare for the statues eventual removal, Lessard said in a statement. In addition to satisfying any requirements set forth by the two commissions or the court, the ultimate timing will also depend on availability of the conservation team and execution of the contracting process.

The Rizzo statue still carries political weight.

On the campaign trail this year as he seeks a second term, District Attorney Larry Krasner, a criminal justice reform advocate, has framed its removal as evidence of the progressive direction in which many Philadelphia voters have gone in recent years. Krasner won a primary challenge last month in a landslide.

There is one factor thats going to be very hard for anyone to get around, which is that the Frank Rizzo statue is gone, he said early in the campaign. And that says a lot in the city, where Rizzos influence even now continues, but where his shadow has been disappearing more and more over time.

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Philly grapples with statues of Frank Rizzo, Christopher Columbus, and more a year after protests - The Philadelphia Inquirer