Daily Archives: December 7, 2021

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Former PresidentDonald Trumpaccused the Black Lives Matter movement of encouraging violence against police officers.

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Speaking toBrexit campaignerNigel Farageduring an interview on British television, Trump claimed, perNewsweekthat an anti-police chant heard at a 2015 protest was the original message of Black Lives Matter, the outlet writes.

Its shocking that it started off with pigs in a blanket, right? You know that, right? The expression Fry em like bacon, Trump told Farage.

That was about our great police. And all of a sudden this becomes mainstream? I dont really think so.

And antifa. Very bad, Trump added. They had antifa in that rally, they had antifa leading a lot of people on that day on January. And I will say that its pretty incredible that nothing happens to them.

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When Farage asked Trump if he believes BLM is about racial equality, Trump replied Theyre about politics, but I think theyre about a lot of other things.

He added, If you go back to their original founding and what they were saying. Kill the police. What theyre saying is kill the police. And that becomes mainstream? Not good.

Heres more from Newsweek:

The fry them like bacon chant Trump mentioned was sung at a protest march held by a Black Lives Matter group in St Paul, Minnesota, in 2015.CNN reported in July 2020 that the chant was sung by a group that was independent from the national Black Lives Matter organization and has never been an official, national or prominent slogan of the movement.

Trump frequentlymade reference to the horrible chantduring his years in the White House, claiming it was the first time he became aware of the Black Lives Matter movement. He also mentioned the pigs in a blanket chant during the final presidential debate againstJoe Bidenin October 2020, while claiming he was the least racist person in this room.

Despite Trumps claims, the global Black Lives Matter movement has never called on supporters and activists to kill police officers.

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Donald Trump Says BLMs Original Message Was Kill The Police - Black America Web

Ten years ago, a group of mostly young activists took to the streets the expensive streets of New Yorks Wall Street. One of the worlds top financial centers, headquarters to the titans of finance and the companies they headed. The activists raised their voices to speak back to the 1% of the super wealthy who own most of the nations resources. We are the 99% was their rallying cry. The 99% of Americans who lived at the other end of the economic ladder. This was Occupy Wall Street that went from street demonstrations to a makeshift squatters settlement in Zuccotti Park.

Occupy Wall Streets message and movement found eager supporters around the country and the world. Occupy Boston set up tents in Bostons Dewey Square, inspired by the energy and spirit of the movement. The encampment grew to include a kitchen to feed the hungry, and even a library named for social justice legends Audre Lorde and Howard Zinn. Here, many first-time organizers received an on-the-ground education about grassroots actions from veteran activists who had lived through the civil, voting and womens rights movements. The intergenerational mix of protestors expanded as more Boston-area residents, and others, joined the protest as did the groups list of issues, eventually embracing anti-war efforts, health care access gaps and environmental concerns. On a visit to Dewey Square, then-Governor Deval Patrick observed to WBZ radio, Im just trying to understand, theres such a range of issues and interests.

All of the Occupy groups refused an organized structure and designated leaders, insisting their movement could be steered by any among them they were not leaderless but leaderful. They may not have been traditionally organized, but they were laser focused on the central mantra of the 99% vs. the 1%. They helped concretize and humanize the economic inequities, their frustration addressing the widening gap they felt between the haves and have-nots. At Dewey Square, 27-year-old Amy Fisher told WBZ, Im really sick of nothing happening to reduce income disparity. Its just going to get worse and worse and worse until violence takes over.

Her words seem prescient considering the ongoing street protests about living wages and low-income workers fight for a $15 minimum wage. And the economic pain and suffering levied by the impact of COVID, which has swelled the ranks of the unemployed.

Ironic that the 10th anniversary of 'Occupy' arrives as the super wealthy literally cant stop making money. As I noted recently, billionaire MacKenzie Scott, who founded Amazon with her ex-husband Jeff Bezos, has acted on her pledge to give away most of her fortune $8.5 billion so far to various institutions and causes addressing public health, climate change, pandemic assistance and more. But because of the way the wealthy are invested, she earned back all the money she gave away. (Ill point out that her ex-husband is spending some of his billions flying into space.)

Occupy Boston only lasted two and half months, before Boston police razed the encampment on Dec. 10, 10 years ago this week. But the mantra the 99 vs. 1% is now part of the lexicon. And the economic inequalities the mantra reflects are now generally understood. Whats more, many of the Occupy activists were forever changed by their experience and have gone on to work for the cause of the 99% in nonprofits, politics and, yes, other protests. Occupy lives through the marchers in last summers George Floyd protests for racial justice. Seeds of Occupy fueled #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. Perhaps the late professor and activist David Graeber said it best. Back in 2011, he foresaw Occupys fundamental lesson, telling Time magazine, the system is not going to save us, were going to have to save ourselves.

Continued here:

Ten years on, the 'Occupy' movement is mainstream - wgbh.org

Is justice really blind? When truly assessing the equitability-related outcomes of legal procedures in the U.S., the answer is no.

Procedural justice is defined as seeking fair processes. This is important, as a persons perception of fairness is strongly impacted by both the result of a process and the quality of the persons experiences while engaging in the process.

Democratic systems are only effective if they grant participants equal access to the political process and provide societal outcomes that are considered just and fair by the entirety of a citizenry. Failure to do so might compromise the legitimacy of a system, and create division, inequity, mistrust, and exclusion.

In recent years, a large facet of the legal community has admitted that there is a clear racial inequity in the outcomes of the criminal justice system. It is also true that many Black people in the U.S. do not feel that the legal system, or the process of engaging with the legal system, is fair. To many, it is overly punitive.

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement emerged as a continuation of previous movements for racial justice to name the ways that Black people are harmed by the criminal justice system, including by police officers, prosecutors, prisons, and empowered vigilantes with a proven degree of impunity.

Historically, these practices have been fueled by racially targeted tropes about Black people being criminal, in need of supervision, violent, and deserving of harsh punishment.

When they speak out, however, Black people are met with aggressive resistance through the perpetuation of the very tropes they are insisting on eliminating. For example, after the surge of protests of 2020, immediately following the killing of George Floyd by a police officer, White vigilante agitators arrived at protests to confront activists, and anti-protest bills with broad, sweeping criminalization language surged across the country through the state legislatures, presenting harsh felony charges for protesters within certain proximity to resulting property damage.

Some media outlets slammed the protesters, using charged language not only about the individual actors engaging in property crimes, but any protester involved with the movement, and any group of people affiliated with the cause.

State legislatures proposed bills that include overly harsh charges for people who allegedly engaged in petty crimes during protests, and even proposed the elimination of civil and criminal liability for those who harm or kill protesters. The bills were highly politicized, and not surprising considering other moments in history, where hyperbolic, criminalizing language was used to describe a need to quell the Black voices or punish the Black community, while little to nothing was done on a large scale to address the issue of police brutality and other oppressive actions in the Black community.

Source: The International Center for Nonprofit Law, reproduced with permission

The results of Kyle Rittenhouses trial reignited activists to speak out about the historical continuation of laws that encourage vigilante justice through the legal system, especially when Black people cause trouble. (Rittenhouse, who lived across the state line in Illinois, shot and killed two White men at the scene of civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisc., prompted by the police shooting and paralyzing of Black man.)

This triggers strong memories of post-Civil War Black communities being silenced by racial violence when they engage in procedural justice seeking measures to accomplish economic growth. In some instances, entire Black communities bore the brunt of White anger without protection through criminal or civil process. On the contrary, those processes were used as weapons against positive change.

Rather than respond to recent demands for change in the justice system or policy changes from BLM and other groups, at least 36 anti-protest laws have been enacted, and at least 50 are still pending.

The criminal justice system has been able to avoid meaningful change by focusing on racially biased, controlling images of Black people, and fallaciously blaming Black communities for this misfortune. This has been accomplished by using the acts of a few to label an entire movement.

By the end of June, at least 11,000 people had been arrested in George Floyd-related protests, and by November 2020, at least 25 people had died in relation to the unrest. Still, many newly proposed anti-protests bills pose strict consequences for even being proximate to areas where property crime occurred during race related protests.

Civil law cases against protesters also followed, implicating significant numbers of people together, regardless of the lack of strong evidence that suggest respondents approximately caused physical damage themselves while engaging in protest.

Notably, these egregious bills and frivolous legal practices also greatly impede upon one very important process used by American citizens to seek change: the First Amendment right to free speech, and to peacefully assemble. Questions related to the impact on civil liberties, as well as First Amendment-related lawsuits are emerging in response to anti-protest bills, hoping that the courts will prevent the use of these laws to unconstitutionally burden protest activity. However, as an aside, the damage has been done to a degree.

Fighting for procedural justice would create processes that produce equitable results. It would also eliminate the practice of one sector of society bearing the weight of punitive practices.

It would also apply assessment, since institutional structures are as fallible as we are. Unfortunately, some legal minds remain complicit in the perpetual exclusion of Black people, but hopefully we will work toward a society where justice isnt choosyor selectiveand there isnt a price for seeking it.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owners.

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Jilisa R. Milton is a civil rights attorney, policy analyst, community organizer, social worker, and abolitionist of harmful practices against Black people. She is a survivor of police violence and a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Birmingham Chapter. Currently, she serves as national vice-president of the National Lawyers Guild.

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Criminalization of Protest in the Fight for Racial Justice - Bloomberg Law

The American Museum of Natural History has covered up a monument to the past.

A statue of Theodore Roosevelt that has stood on the front steps of the Manhattan museum for more than 80 years is now blocked from view, photos taken by The Post show Monday.

The bronze effigy to the nations 26th president, criticized for glorifying colonialism and racism, is being sent to North Dakota on a long-term loan to the upcoming Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library.

Just two weeks after the move was announced, the statue is already completely hidden from view, covered by scaffolding and a tarp, The Posts pics show.

The removal, being carried out by the museum with help from the city, is expected to take several months to complete, officials said when announcing the deal.

Opposition to the statue mounted in recent years, especially after the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests sparked by George Floyds murder by a Minneapolis cop in May 2020.

In June 2020, officials at the museum which is privately run but sits on public land proposed removing the statue amid a nationwide movement to remove public works honoring Confederate leaders.

The New York City Public Design Commission voted unanimously that month to relocate it.

One of the ex-presidents descendants, Theodore Roosevelt V, supported removing the statue, which he conceded is problematic in its hierarchical depiction of its subjects.

Rather than burying a troubling work of art, we ought to learn from it.

It is fitting that the statue is being relocated to a place where its composition can be recontextualized to facilitate difficult, complex, and inclusive discussions, he said of the North Dakota librarys plans.

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Theodore Roosevelt statue in NYC covered ahead of move to North Dakota museum - New York Post

WE CARRY THE DISTANCE MIGRATED BY OUR MOTHERS (DETAIL) BY JESS X. SNOW/WWW.JESSXSNOW.COM

Click here to download this article as it appears in the magazine, with accompanying artwork.

This article is from the Fall 2021 issue of the Nonprofit Quarterly, Climate Justice: A Movement for Life.

When I was a child, my mother would often tell me stories about her experiences growing up in Sioux City, Iowa. She described playing childhood games around the city dump, which had been parked in her neighborhood. The communitys trash had to go somewhere, and the powers that be chose to send it to the part of town that was predominantly home to people of color. There were people of means and people of limited means in the community; because of segregation and discrimination, both lacked political clout.

It is said that the sense of smell is harbored within our most vivid memories, which may explain why that dump found its way into the stories my mother shared with me.

In 1979, when I took my first job out of college, at the Environmental Protection Agency, I saw up close how my mothers experience was far from happenstance. In neighborhood after neighborhood, I witnessed people who looked like me living in disinvested and redlined neighborhoods standing in the shadows of chemical plants, refineries, and toxic waste sites. I saw air, land, and water pollution resulting from mining activities. And I was routinely assaulted by the same pungent odors that would have been constant in my mothers childhood and that poisoned generations of Black and Brown children.

Not unexpectedly, these communities faced a host of other challenges linked to environmental hazards that were part of their daily lives. They dealt with chronic health problems and disparities regarding healthcare access and treatment. They dealt with failing schools and economic dislocation. They had little or no opportunity to influence or reverse the decisions that had led to these conditions.

Those early experiences have stayed with me throughout my career and have shaped my environmental justice journey, which now spans five continents and more than four decades. Along the way, theyve fueled an ever- growing sense of urgency as I witness the burgeoning threat of climate change inflict increasingly disproportionate damage on already marginalized communities around the globe.

Over the past eighteen months, Black Lives Matter and the COVID-19 pandemic have shone a spotlight on systemic racism here in the United States and across the globeand put an even finer point on the idea that we must act differently if we want to achieve change. Never has it been more apparent that environmental justice cannot occur in a vacuum. Around the world, there is a growing understanding that we cannot even begin to address the disproportionate impacts of environmental and climate change on people of color, women, and the poor without also addressing the overlapping and intersecting factors of economic, racial, and social justice.

For too long, government and philanthropy have approached climate change and climate justice as stand- alone issues. Climate injustice is a root cause of health inequities, and influences how children learn and grow. Environmental injustice amplifiesand is amplified byeconomic, gender, and racial injustice across the globe. These are integrated problems that require integrated solutionssolutions that tap into the skills and knowledge of people and communities that have been experiencing these issues for generations. As we come to grips with the overlapping and urgent threats of climate change, racial injustice, and a worldwide pandemic, its time to take a comprehensive, coordinated approach.

Adopting an integrated approach to climate justice is difficult workit requires a seismic shift in how we think about some of the most persistent and potent challenges facing our planet and all who inhabit it. It also requires a fundamental rethinking of the systems we use.

People of color are the global majority. They are the hardest hit by the issues, and the most affected by centuries of decisions made by those who do not share their interests. Those who have access to the power and money needed to make change must be willing to upend traditional, top-down approaches so we can design equitable, community-led solutions. Failure to do so will only continue to reinforce our historic inequities.

Ceding power might sound intimidating to those working in and under philanthropys existing structures, but there are a growing number of examples that offer a road map for how to create community-based approaches to climate justice that are embedded with racial, social, and economic justice. I offer three, here.

After Hurricane Maria, the Fundacin Comunitaria de PuertoRico (Community Foundation of Puerto Rico) working in partnership with philanthropy and government agenciesbegan an ambitious effort to help isolated, low-income communities create community-owned, solar-powered electricity systems designed to help them weather future catastrophic storms and create a path forward for scalable economic growth.1,

Through the Puerto Rico Community Green Energy Corridor project, these communities not only get access to the tools to create their own electricity but also work closely with experts who help them organize, manage, and maintain these systems. Over time, these systems will help create new businesses and job-creation opportunities in long-overlooked rural communities that face high unemployment and poverty.2

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This model is transforming lives in tiny barrios like Toro Negro, a rural community in the municipality of Ciales with a population of about one thousand people. Toro Negro went live with its power grid in the summer of 2018, after residents actively participated in its design and construction. The community now manage their own nonprofit, which owns the microgrid and is responsible for its future maintenance.3 The community make key decisions about the rate they are going to charge themselves, and identify other funding mechanisms to ensure self-sustainability for the long term. With a strong, locally managed electricity system, they are able to spin off new, locally owned businesses and create family-sustaining jobs while being able to weather future storms.

Toro Negro might be smalland the Puerto Rico Community Green Energy Corridor might be largely unknown in the mainstream United Statesbut imagine if philanthropy and donors began exploring how they could invest in replicating its model across the Caribbean. Scores of rural communities, most of which are poor, would become more economically viable. At the same time, it would mean investing in tangible projects that address the impacts of climate change, establish sources of green energy, and improve health outcomes. It would also help make these communities more resilient in the face of future stormssaving countless lives and billions of dollars in the process.

In Yavatmal and Dhar, cotton has historically been the most profitable crop, but livelihoods are now being threatened by climate change. Cotton happens to be one of the most water-intensive crops to grow, and changes to the environment have made water an increasingly precious commodity in these regions.4

The most obvious solution to this challenge centers on helping farmers develop agricultural practices that optimize water use. Yet when the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) began working with locals there to address this challenge, the water shortage turned out to be a canary in a coal mine of sorts: it exposed a series of other, interrelated challenges that had long vexed the regionin particular, issues involving gender equity.

ISC launched a project to enhance the role of women and address the regions water shortage by designing and implementing regenerative agriculture, soil, water, and pest-management models through cotton cultivation training and demonstration programs; improving understanding of local water balance by involving farmers and village-level institutions in water budgeting and developing village water management plans; and strengthening women and advancing equity through gender learning groups and training women farmers and entrepreneurs.5

Still in its early stages, the project already shows whats possible for communities when they take steps to embed gender equity in efforts to improve local economies and tackle problems created by climate change. For instance, focusing on promoting environmentally sound entrepreneurial opportunities for women (such as the production of compost and biopesticides) has created an open lane to encourage environmentally friendly cotton production, providing tangible examples of the vital role women can play in improving quality of life and economic conditions in their villages. Further, ISCs expert gender learning groups augment understanding of the role gender plays in cotton cultivation and water management. Those learnings could have wide-ranging implications across India and elsewhere in agricultural regions that face the dual challenge of climate change impacts and a severe imbalance of opportunity and influence based on gender.

In the United States, Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the irrefutable link between climate and racial justice more than nearly any other environmental catastrophe. For it is out of that August 2005 tragedy that one of the most consequential movements for racial and social justice was born: Black Lives Matter.

On the tenth anniversary of Katrina, Slate magazine published a piece titled Where Black Lives Matter Began. In it, author Jamelle Bouie traces the roots of the Black Lives Matter movement to the stark inequities that those category 5 winds and relentless rain laid bare for all the world to see. People desperately huddled on roofs and crammed the damaged Superdome. Bodies floated through flooded streets. Entire neighborhoods were left in ruin. The faces of suffering the world saw were disproportionately, predominantly Black and Brownpeople whose limited means and historic disenfranchisement had destined them to live in the most vulnerable sections of New Orleans.

When we look at the first 15 years of the 21st century, the most defining moment in [B]lack Americas relationship to its country isnt Election Day 2008; its Hurricane Katrina, Bouie wrote. Black collective memory of Hurricane Katrina, as much as anything else, informs the present movement against police violence, Black Lives Matter.6

Katrina offers an accessible and familiar touchstone to make the clear connection between climate justice and racial, economic, and social justice. In post-Katrina New Orleans, the interconnectivity between the health of the planet and the health and well-being of its most divested and exposed citizens is undeniable. The scope of the catastrophe, and the wall-to-wall media coverage it attracted, laid bare the depths of Katrinas impacts. Without both, what happened to mostly Black and Brown people might not have been so clear.

***

Enormous opportunities for transformative change exist at the intersections of climate stabilization, racial and economic justice, gender equity, health, access to safe and affordable housing, transportation, and social mobility. To effectively meet the present moment and lay the groundwork for a more just future for all requires that we embrace fully the connectivity of our challenges, in ways that encourage and energize community- based solutions that reach beyond a singular focus.

Our most pressing challenge lies in the fact that countless catastrophes of significant scope inflict damage in far more covert and sinister ways around the globe. Factory emissions vanish into the sky; toxins silently permeate soils and groundwater; pervasive ozone gases are unseen, and to most, abstract. I suspect that in my mothers childhood home of Sioux City, ways may have been devised to mask the stench of that landfill. But that does not answer the question as to what remains beneath the ground or in the air around the dumpand how it continues to affect those who live nearby.

Read more from the original source:

Health and Wealth: An Integrated Approach to Climate Justice - Non Profit News - Nonprofit Quarterly