Daily Archives: December 23, 2021

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international[1] activist group. They originated in the African-American community. They are against violence and systemic racism by white police officers towards black people.

The movement began in 2013 with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media. It started after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin. It became famous for street demonstrations following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The former sparked riots and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. The latter led to protests all over the United States.[2]

After the Ferguson protests, participants in Black Lives Matter demonstrated against other African-Americans' deaths, such as Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Laquan McDonald, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling.

In 2020, during the George Floyd Protests, Black Lives Matter became much more widely accepted. Black Lives Matter filed a lawsuit against the police department of Seattle, Washington for violence against protesters.[3]

"It's now something where the Mitt Romneys of the world can join in, and that was something unimaginable back in 2014," said Justin Hansford, executive director of Howard University's Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. "That is the result of six years of hard work by people who are in the movement and have put forward so many discussions that really changed peoples hearts and minds." Hansford was also an activist in Ferguson.[4]

The movement has also been criticized. In the New York Times, Deroy Murdock asked about the true number of black people killed by police, and about the way the BLM movement reported these killings. He wrote: "But the notion that Americas cops simply are gunning down innocent black people is one of today's biggest and deadliest lies".[5] Some of the black leaders of the American civil rights movement criticized the tactics of the BLM movement.[6] Glenn Loury, a professor for economics, warned about focusing on police violence against black people; the other side would only use this to compile statistics; in these statistics black people will be overrepresented. According to Loury, it would be better to reform social structures, so that people could benefit, irrespective of skin color. One of the examples he gave was early-age education.[7]

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Black Lives Matter - Simple English Wikipedia, the free ...

Louie French, who won the Old Bexley and Sidcup by-election earlier this month, believes taking the knee in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement had "lost its strength" but stressed he still strongly supported those who wished to carry out the gesture.

Mr French explained: I wouldnt personally look to be taking the knee.

I respect the peoples right to campaign or protest, things that people feel strongly about.

He added how he was very proud to support the England Football team, who have adopted the gesture, in order to tackle racism at home and overseas, especially when they come face to face with it at matches.

The Conservative MP said that racism anywhere was completely unacceptable in this day and age.

JUST INAshley Banjo opens up on negative comments he still receives from Diversity performance

But he claimed the gesture was a bit showbizzy now suggesting that taking the knee had lost its strength.

Asked whether he thought his comments would provoke upset in his constituency among those from BAME backgrounds, he disagreed.

He said: I have got an excellent relationship with people in all different community groups.

This is something that happens on the football pitch - I am not a footballer, I am here in Westminster.

READ MORE'Use brown belt Tory by-election candidate puts foot down to defend UK's green spaces

The England Football team adopted taking the knee before their Euro 2020 matches.

The gesture is now repeated before Premier League games.

Players vowed to continue the gesture through the 2021/2022 season.

In a statement in August, Premier League players said: "We feel now, more than ever, it is important for us to continue to take the knee as a symbol of our unity against all forms of racism."

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'Lost its strength' Conservative MP says he wouldn't 'take the knee' as it is 'showbizzy' - Daily Express

SARATOGA SPRINGS Black Lives Matter activists and their supporters told the departing city council members just how little they would miss them during Tuesday nights meeting.

Mayor Meg Kelly and commissioners John Franck, Michele Madigan and Robin Dalton are in their final daysas they yield to newly-elected Democrats.

The activists criticism was directed at Kelly, Madigan and Dalton.

The meeting got off to a hostile start when BLM supporter Angela Kaufman tried to present the mayor with a container of cockroaches.

I was at the pet store the other day buying gifts for my boys when I found the perfect gift for a mayor who appears to not be able to tell the difference between activists and cockroaches, Kaufmantold Kelly, who didnt accept the gift.

BLM activist Samira Sangare of Clifton Park read a timeline of activists interactions with local police for which she said the council provided no accountability.

It began with a July 30 protest during which activists were met by state police, sheriffs deputies and city police in riot gear, along with a military vehicle, she said. Pepper bullets were shot at the activists.

June 28, 2021, Sangare said. [Assistant Police Chief John] Cantone and Robbins sat side by side, fear-mongering, and blamed us for fights on Caroline Street.

During the council meeting that followed those events, Sangare said, Kelly threatened to have the group arrested for being disagreeable during the meeting.

At one point, Madigan told the speaker that the activists should have accepted her invitation to meet.

You never cared about us. You never cared about the community, Sangare replied. You never cared about Darryl Mount.

Activists have been protesting on behalf of Mount, a biracial man who was pursued by police in 2013 for an alleged domestic dispute. Authorities say Mount fell from scaffoldingduring the incident.He eventually died in 2014, afternine months in a coma. Protesters contend police beat him to his death.

Referencing the state Attorney Generals office investigation of city police to assess whether protesters were targeted with excessive force and retaliatory arrests Sangare told the councilors, I cant wait for all the lawsuits that come your way.

Madigan, when referencing incoming Democratic officials, expressed with apparent sarcasm her relief that the new city council members would diversify city staffing through their appointments. She indicated that it would soon be revealed that the incoming council members hadnt chosen a diverse group of staffers.

At one point during the meeting, in an attempt to demonstrate that the activists shouldnt be treated like crap, BLM activist Lexis Figuereo revealed that his sister is a caretaker for the mayors sister.

Kelly, who said her sister is disabled, said she didnt appreciate Figuereo bringing that up, asserting, You have a hell of a nerve. She added, Thats the lowest blow that you can give anybody.

The mother of Figuereos two young children, Gabrielle C. Elliott, also played a recording of her interaction with police on Sept. 7. Elliott was arrested outside of the police station on charges of attempted assault, resisting arrest and endangering the welfare of a child. She was present that day to support her husband, who faced warrant charges from a previous protest.

The charges against Elliott were recently adjourned in contemplation of dismissal, but Elliott said she was still angered by the councils lack of accountability for the police separating her from her 6-year-old son and then-1-year-old daughter.

Your lies, your manipulation, have resulted in more trauma on all of us more than you will ever realize, Elliott said.

Shewent on to tell the departing council members not to let the door hit your a on the way out.

Figuereo then brought up that Madigans 18-year-old son had been arrested for an alleged assault and robbery earlier this year.

I havent heard much about her son in the news, the activist cracked. Im pretty sure hes facing a felony.

Madigansaid to the activist, Dont bring up my family.

Figuereo, a local bartender, asserted that he knows Madigan from frequenting the cocktail lounge.

An emotional Madigan replied, You people are abusive.

Dalton, reflecting on what she also said was abuse, told a reporter that she wouldnt advise anyone she cared about to run for the city council here.

Contact reporter Brian Lee at [emailprotected] or 518-419-9766.

Categories: News, Saratoga County

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BLM activists confront outgoing Saratoga Springs officials once more at meeting Tuesday The Daily Gazette - The Daily Gazette

A new study conducted by Susan Olzak, an emerita professor of sociology at Stanford University, examined protests' effect on police killings involving Black and Latino individuals.

Olzak's research, published by Time, revealed that in 170 cities between the year 2000 to 2019, protests directly influenced the decline in police killings of Black and Latino people, but not for white individuals. Olzaksaidthat one rally in a city would drastically decrease Black casualties by 11% and Latino deaths by 7% in the following year.

George Floyd's death by now-convicted police officer Derek Chauvin ignited a significant increase of protests against police brutality, according to CNN.

A study by Ph.D. Travis Campbellfound that if 4,000 people joined a Black Lives Matter protest, particularly between 2014 to 2019, one less person was killed by the police, according to Vox.

However, critics said that the protests brought more destruction, citing examples like the rallies held in Portland, Oregon, and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Olzak, however, set out to answer ifprotests lead to progressive change.

Olzak's study reviewed the establishment of citizen-run watchdog organizations and determined if their presence to hold police accountable influenced any reforms. However, she found these boards did not reduce police shootings or brutality.

Additionally, following Floyd's death, police departments in California declared they would ban chokeholds,accordingto the Los Angeles Times.

Mayor Bill de Blasio wrote a statement on June 7, 2020, saying he would work toward rebuilding "a fairer city that profoundly addresses injustice and disparity." :

"While we have taken many steps to reform policing in this city, there is clearly more work to do to strengthen trust between officers and the New Yorkers they serve," he added.

New York lawmakers signed a bill rescinding the 50-A legislation that helped shield police officers from being held responsible for misconduct by keeping their records classified, The New York Times reports.

City officials in Dallas prohibited chokeholds and other airway-restricting maneuvers, The Hill reports.

Civis Analytics, a data science firm, conducted four polls, and the results revealed that 15 million to 26 million Americans were involved in protests connected to the death of George Floyd as of July 2020, according to The New York Times.

Olzak concluded in a Time article that "if American citizens are concerned with producing policies that reduce inequality in power, resources, and opportunity, the data are clear that protest holds some promise."

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Protests Decreased Police Killings Of Black People, Researcher Says - Blavity - Blavity News

OPINION: The Torrance Police Department is just the latest in a long line of law enforcement agencies that have come under fire for officers racist texts and social media posts.

Credit: Stock image/Getty Images

The revelation that officers of the Torrance Police Department in California exchanged racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic text messages is further proof that police racism is widespread in law enforcement agencies across the country. This is not an example of a few bad apples spoiling the whole bunch. The whole apple orchard called American law enforcement is rotten to the core.

So far, prosecutors in Los Angeles County and Torrance have dismissed a total of 90 cases involving the offending officers, with more than 1,800 cases under review, and state officials conducting an investigation.

The Los Angeles Times revealed the details of the scandal, in which over a dozen officers shared racist texts involving the lynching of Black men, cops calling Black people savages, the N-word, and more. Over a dozen officers have been placed on administrative leave so far.

And yet, Torrance has been here before. The years of racist texts follow a longstanding pattern of racism by the department. In 1995, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the Torrance Police Department for discriminatory hiring practices, including only three Black officers, six Asian officers, and 15 Latino officers in a 233-member force. And the police reportedly engaged in blatantly racist policies, including using racial epithets to describe Black people and stopping all Black motorists.

The problems coming out of Torrance are not limited to that city or the state of California, but rather point to a systemic issue of policing across the United States. The racism and white supremacist violence reflected in text messages and online posts reflect the everyday misconduct, abuse, and brutality that police officers commit against Black folksin the streets and on a daily basis.

Earlier this year, a private Facebook group of current and retired officers called Pittsburgh Area Police Breakroom featured posts referring to Black Lives Matter protesters as thugs and terrorists, transphobic comments, pro-Trump memes, and attacks on democrats and COVID safety measures.

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If you are a law enforcement officer and you kneel or lie on the ground so easily over the false narrative of police brutality, you will one day be executed on your knees or your stomach without a fight by the same criminals that you are currently pandering to, posted one police officer, referring to the racial justice movement as Black Lies Matter.

Credit: Stock image/Getty Images

Last year, the San Jose Police Department placed four officers on administrative duty for posting racist and islamophobic comments on the 10-70DSJ Facebook group. One officer made death threats against Muslim women, posting I say re-purpose the hijabs into nooses. A current officer said Black lives dont really matter, while a retired officer called Black Lives Matter activists racist idiots, un-American, and enemies that the police swore an oath against.'

In 2019, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting identified nearly 400 police officers who are members of Confederate, anti-Islam, misogynistic or anti-government militia groups on Facebook. Of these, 150 were members of violent anti-government groups such as the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers. White supremacists waved Blue Lives Matter flags at the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Va., while Portland, Ore., police officers texted with far-right extremist groups.

And ProPublica exposed a secret Facebook group where Border Patrol agents have engaged in disturbing social media activity such as joking about the deaths of migrants, posting sexually explicit illustrations of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and discussing throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress touring a Texas detention facility.

Another review of the social media activity of 2,900 officers from eight police departments and 600 retired officers found that 1 in 5 of current officers and 2 in 5 of retired officers used violent, dehumanizing or biased language on Facebook, mocked due process, and otherwise made comments that would undermine public trust in law enforcement among Black and Brown communities. That report led to 72 Philadelphia officers placed on administrative duty, of whom 13 were fired.

Some police officers have used digital media to brag about their racially violent exploits. St. Louis police officer Dustin Boone was convicted of a federal crime for the 2017 beating of Det. Luther Hall, a Black undercover police officer he thought was a Black Lives Matter protester. Sentenced to a year in prison for a beating Hall said was like that of Rodney King, Boone was undone by his text messages. Its gonna get IGNORANT tonight!!, Boone texted two days before the attack. But its gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of these shitheads once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart!!!!

Meanwhile, Black police officers have used digital platforms to express their frustration over police racism. In February, a Black Louisiana deputy took to social media to decry police brutality and institutional racism before taking his own life.

Ive had enough of all of this nonsense, serving a system that does not give a damn about me or people like me, Lafayette Parish Deputy Clyde Kerr III, 43, said in a video he posted on social media. You have no idea how hard it is to put a uniform on in this day and age with everything thats going on. Affected by the death of George Floyd, the Army veteran and father of two children later killed himself with a bullet to the head. This is my protest against police brutality and everything else that comes along with it in this broken, wicked, worldly system that does not give a damn about people, Kerr added.

Further, let us not forget the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, an insurrection organized on social media. Some of the rioters involved in the attack were military and law enforcement officers who took selfies, posted videos, comments on Facebook, sent messages as it happened, and used social media to help other insurrectionists.

And this problem of racist police on social media is not limited to the United States. For example, in Australiawhere Black Aboriginal people face police brutality and deaths in custodymore than 1,000 Queensland police officers participated in a Defend the Blue Facebook group featuring racist, sexist and homophobic content. The group was shut down, and eleven officers were disciplined.

Last year, Facebook investigated the TN Rabiot Police Officiel, a 7,000-member group of French law enforcement officers posting racially offensive comments, as Belgian federal police investigated online racist comments made by its officers. And Facebook groups featuring hundreds of racist comments against Indigenous people by members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have thrived. The buffalo are not coming back. We may even exterminate them a second time, read one post.

When defenders of police brutality say we dont understand the police have a tough job, they are wrong. Black people know that since the days of the slave patrols, hundreds of years of oppressively policing Black folks is hard work. Tens of thousands of enslaved Black people escaped Americas plantation police state to Canada and Mexico. During Jim Crow, law enforcement and Ku Klux Klan were often one and the same. This is why it is almost laughable to claim white supremacists have infiltrated police departments when they always were the police.

Today, police racism continues online, via text and social media. These are not a few rotten apples, but a nationwide orchard of rotten blue fruit, from sea to shining sea.

David A. Love is a journalist and commentator who writes investigative stories and op-eds on a variety of issues, including politics, social justice, human rights, race, criminal justice and inequality. Love is also an adjunct instructor at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information, where he trains students in a social justice journalism lab. In addition to his journalism career, Love has worked as an advocate and leader in the nonprofit sector, served as a legislative aide, and as a law clerk to two federal judges. He holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He also completed the Joint Programme in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford. His portfolio website is davidalove.com.

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The post A few bad apples? Racist text messages by Torrance officers show that policing in America is rotten to its core appeared first on TheGrio.

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A few bad apples? Racist text messages by Torrance officers show that policing in America is rotten to its core - Yahoo News

In 2013, that Brooklyn coalition, led by Black voters, sent Mayor Bill de Blasio to Gracie Mansion.

Then, in early 2020, the pandemic hit New York City, claiming tens of thousands of lives. It killed people from all walks of life, but hit especially hard in the minority and immigrant communities in the Democratic base. Every level of government, including City Hall, had failed them.

A year later, the Democratic primary included three major Black candidates. One of them, Maya Wiley, a progressive, garnered significant support. But working-class Black New York went with Mr. Adams, handing him a narrow victory. Basil Smikle, director of the public policy program at Hunter College, said they wanted someone who understood their everyday lives.

The Dinkinses and the Obamas of the world, yes its aspirational, wed all like our children to grow up to be them, said Mr. Smikle, who is Black. But to what extent do you know how people are living?

Mr. Adamss political showmanship doesnt hurt.

In 2016, when Mr. Adams became a vegan, reversing a diabetes diagnosis, he promoted the diet as a way to liberate Black Americans from the history of slavery and published a cookbook.

Years earlier, in the State Senate, Mr. Adams produced a dramatized video from his office encouraging parents to search their childrens belongings for contraband. You dont know what your child may be hiding, Mr. Adams tells the camera, pulling a gun out of a jewelry box. The stunt left political insiders giggling. But it demonstrated how deeply connected Mr. Adams was to the voters he represented.

It is comical, but let me tell you, my mom would probably be nodding her head for the entire video, said Zellnor Myrie, 35, who holds Mr. Adamss former Senate seat, and was raised in the district by his mother.

Much of what appears to be paradoxical about Mr. Adams is, to Black Americans, just familiar.

All of us have been at dinner with some uncle who talks about Black on Black crime, said Christina Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University. We know Eric Adams.

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Opinion | The Rise of Eric Adams and Black New York - The New York Times

By MARY UYEMATSU KAO

As 2021 comes to an end, and the U.S. approaches the one-million mark of American lives lost to COVID-19, I would think holiday celebrations should include more somber notes than usual. Instead of seeing street behavior that would acknowledge grieving over 800,000 people in the U.S. who have died of COVID-19, we witness the convulsions for survival in a society and nation that is imploding as the wealth gap stretches far beyond our imaginations. In a nation inundated with death, whether from school shootings, the uptick in crime rampages, fentanyl overdoses, alongside COVID-19 deaths, those who have passed may or may not have received the deserved attention due to their lives and legacies.

Among those who have died that you may not know is Glen Ford, co-creator and executive editor of the website Black Agenda Report. He passed away in July of this year at the age of 71. As a revolutionary journalist, he was a voice of clarity and foresight against what is now more widely recognized as neoliberalism. Ford was known for calling out an elite class of black misleaders who keep the movements for justice and human rights in a non-threatening position to the powers that be.

Why do I want the Japanese American community to know about him? For the same reason that I credit Malcolm X for giving us back our identities as Asian Americans by dismantling the ideology of white supremacy. Just as the black civil rights movement gave rise to the Third World Movements of the 60s and 70s, the Asian American Movement has taken inspiration and leadership from the struggles of black Americans.

Glenn Omatsus Four Prisons article summarized the corporate offensive during the 1970s as creating devastation of the African American community. . .[it] provides the necessary backdrop for understanding why the mass movements of the 1960s seemed to disintegrate. The movements did not disappear, but a major focus of activity shifted to issues of day-to-day survival.

Omatsu quotes Vincent Harding for marking the 1970s as the winter of civil rights: . . .a dangerous loss of hope among black people, hope in ourselves, hope in the possibility of any real change, hope in any moral, creative force beyond the flatness of our lives. (The Four Prisons and the Movements of Liberation, Amerasia Journal Vol. 15, No. 1,1989)

The grandfather of rap, Gil Scott Heron, referred to this time as Winter in America:

And now its winter

Winter in America

And all of the healers done been killed or sent away

Yeah, and the people know, people know

Its winter

Winter in America

And aint nobody fighting

Cause nobody knows what to save

And aint nobody fighting

Cause nobody knows, nobody knows

And aint nobody fighting

Cause nobody knows what to save

Glen Ford was razor-sharp in pointing out the compromising misleadership of Barack Obama, when the so-called progressive left was enamored by Obama and the Democratic Party. Ford initially gave Obama a pass when he was first nominated for the presidential run. But it didnt last long once Obama occupied the Oval office. It soon became clear who Obama was protecting and serving and it wasnt black folks!

Ford exposed the Democratic Party for gobbling up and co-opting the aspirations of the black movements for justice and human rights, and instead funneling them into the lesser of two evils choices. Fords rewrite of the time-worn saying not the lesser of evils, but the more effective evil puts in a nutshell how Obama, being the first black president, was able to subvert progressive movements as they put their trust in him to make America right [pun intended].

Ford sums up Obamas more effective evil: Hes expanded the theaters of war in drone wars, and hes made an unremitting assault on international law. . . . what will go down as his biggest contribution to history is a kind of merging of the banks and the state, with $16 trillion being infused into these banks, into Wall Street. . .and the line between Wall Street and the federal government virtually disappearing. (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/an-intra-left-debate-is-obama-the-more-effective-of-2-evils/262134/)

Ford more recently pointed a finger at the leaders of the Black Lives Matter Movement, who were quickly doused with corporate funding after the George Floyd murder gave rise to massive street demonstrations. White America was out in the streets calling for Black Lives Matter; corporate dollars rushed to douse the fire by neutralizing Black Lives Matter leadership into the mainstream of the corporatized nonprofit industrial complex. Hey, if corporations can cry Black Lives Matter, as Alfred E. Newman (remember **MAD Magazine**?) would say, What me worry?!?!!! NOT!!!

Black Agenda Report (BAR) practices the traditions of telling it like it is and the truth will set you free. The scourge of corporate media is BARs analysis on whats happening today from the viewpoint of how black and all oppressed people are affected.

Ford spent more than 40 years in journalism with an impressive track record. From being a Washington, D.C. bureau chief and correspondent for the Mutual Black Network (a syndicated news service), to creating the Black World Report and in 1977, producing and hosting Americas Black Forum, the first nationally syndicated black news program on commercial TV. These efforts paved the way for the founding of the Black Agenda Report. (https://newsone.com/playlist/notable-black-deaths-2021/item/23)

Glen Fords voice has now transitioned to the archives of BAR, but BAR continues in the principles it was founded on. BAR is also a syndicated news organization, featuring articles from other news outlets. BAR features Aida Chvez, D.C. correspondent for **The Nation**, who reported on the Innovation and Competition Act 2021 (USICA) that is now going through Congress. She raises red flags on threats for a new Cold War :

For months, Pentagon officials, lawmakers, and the national media have focused on Chinas growing military capabilities . . .the biggest military threat to the United States and the world. . . . There is only one country that maintains nearly 800 military bases in at least 80 countries around the world, spends more on the military than the next seven countries combined, and has used nuclear weapons in war. The same country has been directly responsible for countless military interventions. And it isnt China.

. . .this $250 billion innovation bill is nothing more than a dangerous escalation in a multipronged offensive against China. The Innovation and Competition Act leverages industrial policy to ratchet up U.S. militarization and potentially instigate global conflict all while hindering the global fight against climate change. And just as the War on Terror led to a systematic assault on Muslims and people of color. . .the language of national security and competition that will arise around a new Cold War could serve to justify racist and repressive policies here at home.

Chavez goes on to explain: Domestically, the bill would establish an anti-China bureaucratic apparatus tasked with hunting down undue Chinese influence in the United States, which critics warn would exacerbate the racial profiling of Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals living in the U.S. and inflame anti-Asian racism. It allocates $300 million a year for 2022 to 2026 to create a Countering Chinese Influence Fund. . .

At the close of this year, honoring Glen Ford along with all those who have passed this year of 2021, may the memories of your lives continue to give us hope and direction for a better way to live.

Best wishes for safe and kind-hearted holidays, and to peace and good health for 2022!

Mary Uyematsu Kao is a retired photojournalist. She published her photography book Rockin the Boat: Flashbacks of the 1970s Asian Movement in June 2020. Comments and feedback are welcome at uyematsu72@gmail.com.

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THROUGH THE FIRE: Legacy of a Black Revolutionary Black Agenda Report - The Rafu Shimpo