Category Archives: Black Lives Matter

1. Was Black Lives Matter A Scam? - Essence  Essence
2. Ye was right to call attention to BLM hypocrisy  The HawkEye
3. LA advocates call out Kanye West for sending 'White Lives Matter' shirts to homeless people on Skid Row, turni  Business Insider India
4. Kanye West's 'White Lives Matter' shirts given out to homeless people in Skid Row  CBS Los Angeles
5. Can Ye West ever support the black community again after siding with right-wing ideologies?  Marie Claire UK
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Was Black Lives Matter A Scam? - Essence - Essence

One year after the real-estate buying binge of its founder was exposed by The Post, a new documentary dives deep into the murky finances of the Black Lives Matter Global Foundation and meets some of the people it allegedly harmed.

The Greatest Lie Ever Sold, a film spearheaded by controversial conservative commentator Candace Owens, premiered Wednesday in Nashville at a screening attended by Kanye West, Ray J and Kid Rock.

In the documentary, the Daily Wire host examines what Patrisse Cullors, BLMs self-described trained Marxist co-founder, did with the $90 million that her group amassed after the May 2020 slaying of George Floyd, the Black man whose cries of I cant breathe set off global protests when he died under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer.

Cullors resigned from the national non-profit in 2021, a month after The Post revealed she had spent millions on real estate in the previous months and the organization has remained mired in financial scandal. Cullors said her departure was unrelated to those attacks, and that she was leaving to focus on a book and TV deal.BLM has denied that any wrongdoing occurred.

Black Lives Matter, Owens charges, is a fraudulent organization that uses black emotion and black pain to extort dollars from white America.

In the films most poignant moments, people who claim their lives were harmed by BLM and its supporters speak out.

None of BLMs $90 million bounty helped the couple who shared the last four years of Floyds life.

Housemates Alvin Manago and Theresa Scott lived with Floyd in a tidy red two-story home on a corner lot in Minneapoliss leafy Minikahda Vista neighborhood.

He was a people person, Manago tells the filmmakers of Floyd. A Bible was the only thing youd see on his desk.

In the film, Scott displays Floyds Bible, filled with the pink and yellow highlights he used to pick out lines from Proverbs and the Gospel of Matthew.

I used to hear him reading that Bible out loud all the time, she recalls with a smile.

The couple still has Floyds Bible because no member of his extended family ever came to claim it.

I aint never met a sister, I aint never met a brother, Smith says. Floyds family could not immediately be reached for comment.

When Floyd died, catapulting his family into the media spotlight, they didnt even come and look and see where the man lived, Smith says. They never came and got none of his stuff. Nothing.

That left Manago and Smith with a pile of possessions and mounting bills.

We would share everything the rent, lights, gas, Smith says. So when that happened to Floyd, everything fell back on me and Alvin.

Floyds car, a dark green PT Cruiser shrouded in blue and black tarps against the harsh Minnesota weather, was left to molder in their driveway.

We couldnt do nothing with it because we didnt have the title, Manago says. They wont take it or move it.

Manago was at a loss to explain what happened to all the cash BLM activists collected, and why none of it went to help them.

Its like they used it as a way of funding whatever their motivation was, he says.

We were looted for over $400,000 worth of merchandise, said Fraser Ross of his Kitson boutique in Los Angeles. It was a disaster.

But the May 30 protests that led to the ransacking of the celebrity-favorite stores was only the beginning of Ross humiliation at the hands of self-proclaimed BLM allies, he claims in the film.

The looting came just hours after model Chrissy Teigen posted social media messages pledging $100,000 to bail protesters out of jail which Ross felt was encouraging the violence.

When you have approximately 30 million followers, you can start a movement, he says in the film. And then you had celebrities like Jennifer Garner giving four hearts to that post.

Well, its not their stuff being destroyed, he says. I went online and posted an Instagram of the store being looted, and I tagged it, Thanks, Chrissy.

His post set off a flame war with Teigen and two of her prominent online pals, Jen Atkin of Ouai Haircare and Instagram influencer Dana Omari, who publicly ridiculed Rosss losses and accused him of racism.

Theyre mocking the looting! he exclaims. You should be in federal prison if youre inciting violence with that many people following you.

The increasingly nasty posts culminated in an ultimatum from Omari, Ross claims: either publicly apologize to Teigen and admit that his anger over the looting comes from a place of privilege or write a $10,000 check to Black Lives Matter.

I was worried at how aggressive they were, he says. And the looting was still approaching Kitsons flagship boutique. He paid the $10K.

The film shows what Ross says is a follow-up text message from Omari, who demanded to see his receipt from BLM, or else.

Remember if you dont actually make the donation, Ill bring the posts back from the archive, the text reads. And Ill do another post about this unfortunate situation. Thank you 🙂

And she told me, Chrissy Teigen thanked me for what she did, Ross adds.

Omari denies Rosss story in the documentary, telling the filmmakers that he made the BLM donation of his own volition. A representative for Teigen did not respond to a request for comment.

Four miles east of the peaceful block where George Floyd lived in Minneapolis is the gritty street where he died: Chicago Avenue, now known as George Perry Floyd Jr. Place.

Pastor Charles Karuku, a Kenyan immigrant, has lived in the area since 1987.

It was just a typical Midwestern city with low crime and hardworking people, Karuku recalls in the film.

We saw anger, mayhem, looting, destruction of property, burning of police precincts, the pastor says of the protests that turned to riots in the wake of Floyds death. And it was completely foreign to me.

Karuku preached on Chicago Avenue throughout the chaos.

Weve seen death, he says. Weve seen a man shot right in front of us; weve seen a woman who was pregnant shot right in front of us.

Homicides in Minneapolis increased by 60% in 2020 and have remained stubbornly high since.

When the documentarians came to film in March 2022, the neighborhood still bore the scars, with empty storefronts up and down the two-block strip.

I feel like there has been a tremendous loss, Karuku says. Its a hard thing for people to rebuild themselves, especially after what they went through.

But BLMs millions didnt go to benefit the devastated neighborhood, says Karuku.

Everything looks worse than it was, he adds. So many elements took advantage of the death of George Floyd to stir up emotions for political gain, for financial gain, and to propagate division.

They are not helping the community. They are helping themselves.

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'Not helping the community': George Floyd roommates, others slam BLM in new film - New York Post

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, showed up to his Paris fashion show wearing a White Lives Matter shirt alongside Republican political speaker Candace Owens.

Of course, white lives, black lives and all lives matter. But Ye wore this shirt to stand against the widely known political organization Black Lives Matter. While BLM initially began as an attempt to bring justice to the Black community, it has mostly hurt them.

I support Ye in using his platform to expose the injustice the BLM organization has brought to Black citizens across America.

Since Ye expressed his support for former President Donald Trump, the media has deemed him as crazy and illogical. However, Ye has a logical meaning behind his supposed madness.

Ye grew up on the south side of Chicago and experienced violence in his community. He sees the violence the BLM movement has brought and the division it has created in the U.S.

Although some may perceive Yes actions as insensitive, ignoring the violence and neglect caused by this organization would be more insensitive. In 2020 alone, 25 people were killed during BLM protests. Because so many people were affected by the violence from the BLM movement, the movement became counterproductive.

The BLM movement has collected over $80 million since 2020. Owens, who sported a matching White Lives Matter shirt alongside Ye, claims that BLM allocated a large amount of this money to support Democratic politicians and even sex workers in the Black community.

In an interview for her new movie The Greatest Lie Ever Sold, she said, $200,000 of the money went to escorts, BDSM workers, strippers, peep show workers, phone sex operators and webcam performers.

BLM is not a movement to support the Black community and end racist violence. Rallies organized by the group have ended in murder, and supporters have even vandalized homeless shelters.

The organizations effect on these communities does not match their motto, To bring justice, healing and freedom to Black people across the globe.

Ye and Owens did the right thing by exposing this injustice. If we want to support causes that benefit the Black community, we should contribute to families in poverty, women needing childcare and improving education.

The BLM movement has hurt the Black community and increased division and racism in the U.S. Nobody is inherently racist. Racism is learned. We need to teach love and respect, not hatred and anger, and the BLM movement is not helping us do this.

Originally posted here:

Ye was right to call attention to BLM hypocrisy - The HawkEye

Most political parties would love the "problem" Democrats have with Black men: According to CNN exit polls, 79 percent of Black men voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election; only Black women were more supportive of the Democratic nominee. But when a party assumes it is entitled to every vote within a certain demographic, it will treat even the slightest sign of defection as an emergency, and that's what you're seeing in Democratic circles when it comes to Black men defecting to the Right.

Biden himself said as much when he told a popular Black radio host during his 2020 presidential campaign, "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't Black." Some of his supporters went even further: One professor claimed Black men voted for Trump because they wanted proximity to the patriarchy and power structures, while a congressional candidate from Florida said one in five black men voted for President Trump because "they hate Black women."

The most recent iteration of this drama is playing out in Georgia, where there is concern on the Left that many Black men won't vote for Stacey Abrams. They are right to worry.

This "problem" that the Democrats have with Black men was observed more than half a century ago by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an assistant secretary of labor under President Lyndon Johnson. In his 1965 report, formally known as "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," Moynihan predicted that equality in a post-civil rights era would be impossible for Black Americans because of two factors: racism for at least one generation after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the structure of Black families.

>>>Dads Cannot Be Replaced With Government

Moynihan famously focused much of his report on the problem of children being raised without a stable family structure. When the Moynihan report was published, 25 percent of Black children were born out-of-wedlock, which at the time seemed catastrophic. But by the mid-1980s, that percentage had doubled, and it has hovered around 70 percent since the mid-1990s. In 2019, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of Black children were living in single-parent households.

But another equally important finding in the report was that within many Black families, the roles of men and women were reversed. Moynihan argued that the Black community was locked in a matriarchal structure that imposed a "crushing burden" on Black men while also depriving them of the authority they needed to lead.

This it turned out was a crucial insight, though like the rest of the report, it has been ignored. Moynihan's characterization of Black family dynamics as a "tangle of pathology" led liberalsthen and nowto dismiss the entire report as a racist attempt to blame Black people for their social condition.

The truth is more complex: Many Black men, then and now, do an admirable job of providing for and protecting their families, but there are also entire neighborhoods in some cities where it is rare to find a Black child living in a home with his married biological parents.

For the most part, women in these communities are married to the government, at both the federal and state levels, which plays the role of husband and father. Democratic elected officials and unelected bureaucrats promise and provide food, shelter, health care, and childcare to millions of low-income Black women and their children.

But while this began as a solution to certain problems within these communities, it has had the unintended effect of exacerbating them. The Democratic Party's subversion of male responsibility and authority within the home has made it increasingly antagonistic toward men and the traditional family structure. President Obama was routinely criticized by his liberal Black base whenever he promoted marriage and fatherhood in speeches to Black audiences. And since then, those progressive critics have become the official voice of the party: The 2020 Democratic party platform did not contain a single reference to the importance of marriage and the nuclear family.

The Left's detachment of parenting from marriage is not confined to elected officials. Most people associate Black Lives Matter with criminal justice reform, yet none of its 13 founding principles mention police brutality. The co-founders were clear, however, about their desire to "disrupt" the nuclear family.

The media has joined hands with activists and the Democratic Party in this regard, too. Several years ago, an MSNBC roundtable discussion featured three Black professors who dismissed people advocating marriage and responsible fatherhood as believers in the "magical Black father myth," while Hall of Fame NFL coach Tony Dungy was harshly criticized for appearing with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in April to promote a responsible fatherhood initiative.

Democrats and their media supporters are not completely misandrist; Black men who identify as part of the LGBT community are welcomed allies in the Party's war against traditional masculinity. But Black heterosexual men who are given a platform must demonstrate fealty to the matriarchy and radical gender politics.

Thus, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared that drag queens are an integral part of the education of schoolchildren. Louisiana senate candidate Gary Chambers told young Black men at an HBCU they should support abortion on-demand. Like his female counterparts, he promotes the destruction of Black life in the womb with much more passion than marriage and stable family formation.

Given all this, it might be surprising that only 20 percent of Black men have defected to the Republican Party, which can only be explained by the Democrats' claim to be the only viable party on race; the Left sells itself as the guardian against the ever-present threat of Jim Crow (and his offspringJames Crow, Esq., Jim Eagle, and Jimmy Crow). The cynical manipulation of America's bloody racial history for the sake of political loyaltya phenomenon I call the "Selma Syndrome"is one of the strongest forces holding Black voters in place right now. But BLM's alleged financial mismanagement helped many Black men realize that our deaths are being used as raw material for the Left's pursuit of political power and financial gain.

>>>Black Fathers Matter

Democrats can feel their grip slipping. People who use their platforms to decry masculinity can't also claim to care about men. The Moynihan report included a quote from Dorothy Height, former president of the National Council of Negro Women, that still holds true today:

"If the [Black] woman has a major underlying concern, it is the status of the [Black] man and his position in the community and his need for feeling himself an important person, free and able to make his contribution in the whole society in order that he may strengthen his home."

Height understood something today's liberals don't: Disaffected and alienated menof any colordo not help build strong homes or communities.

An MSNBC host recently admonished Black men who are reluctant to support Stacey Abrams to "get in line" behind the Black women who do. This has been the Left's perspective for decades: Black women lead; Black men follow. But in this world where Black women don their capes to "save democracy," Black men are relegated to damsels in distress.

No wonder we're defecting. Many of us want to build and lead families of our own, not be mothered by women who didn't birth us.

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The Democrats Are Losing Black Men. The Moynihan Report Explains Why - Heritage.org

Harold Hutchison

MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann claimed during a Monday MSNBC appearance that the FBI was all over Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, but was asleep at the switch on Jan. 6.

When January 6th happened, the FBI really was asleep at the switch and it wasnt an intelligence failure, Weissmann, a former FBI general counsel, toldDeadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace. It was a failure to act on the intelligence that they had and I find that Chris Wrays testimony was exactly what you do not want from public officials. It lacked candor and fulsomeness in saying what exactly they knew and where their failures were.

What we did not have to my knowledge at least is intelligence indicating that hundreds and hundreds of people were going to breach the Capitol complex, Wray said in testimony given on June 15, 2021. That to my knowledge we did not have.

Hundreds of peoplestormedthe Capitol building in Washington, D.C., during the certification of the electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. Five peoplediedin the riot, including an Air Force veteranshotby a Capitol police officer.

The summer 2020 riots that erupted after themurderof George Floyd in police custody after he was pinned to the ground in May 2020, causing nearly $1 billion indamage.

Over 91% of 637 riots from May 26, 2020 to Sept. 12, 2020 werelinkedto Black Lives Matter, according to a 2020 study from Princeton Universitys U.S. Crisis Monitor.

WATCH:

Chris Wray had a very different response to the Black Lives Matter protests over the summer where they were all over it, Weissmann, who was joined by fired FBI agent Peter Strzok and former FBI agent Frank Figliuzzi, said. The deputy director of the FBI said that, This is the most significant domestic terrorism event facing the bureau. That was the Black Lives Matter protest.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contactlicensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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Asleep At The Switch: MSNBC Legal Analyst Claims FBI Was All Over BLM Protests, But Failed To Act On Jan. 6 - News Talk Florida

cut out photo of harrison tuttle over a map

In 2022, were witnessing the first wave of Gen Z candidates running for Congress. But were also seeing the first wave of Zoomers running for state and local offices to effect change in their own backyards. Chegg Life sat down with a series of candidates under 30 who will be on the ballot this November. We asked them about the problems theyre running to fix, the importance of local politics and cynicism among young voters. View the whole series here.

Running for office was never part of Harrison Tuttles life plan.

As a kid, he was more concerned with the score of the Boston Celtics game than he was with politics. But as he got older, the Rhode Island native began to reflect on hardships hed experienced in his life specifically homelessness and struggles with his education and the systems that failed him and so many other Rhode Island residents.

In 2020, Tuttle then just 21 decided to run for local office during the height of the George Floyd protests.

I was tired of just posting on social media and talking to my friends, he says. I wanted to get involved.

Today, Tuttle says hes focused on improving the lives of others. He works at an education nonprofit and is the executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of Black Lives Matter. Tuttle is taking his ambitions a step further by running for State Senate in Rhode Islands District 31.

When did you become interested in politics or government? And when did you decide to run for office?

I had done some research about other Black activists and found out that the best way to change the world and the state is to get involved with people that share that goal. I actually got involved with a Black Lives Matter branch forming in Rhode Island in the political action committee, and we had the idea of taking protests from the streets to the statehouse. Because here in Rhode Island, although we're a Democrat-controlled state, our elected officials are extremely conservative, deeply entrenched in our city. And since we're the smallest state in the country, there's not a lot of movement or even people running against them.

Story continues

I got involved in political organizing because I specifically wanted to see things like police accountability, making sure that people have the necessary investments and things like education, housing and health care.

And you touched on this a little, but what would you hope to accomplish if youre elected?

It's really important to me that work in Cranston and District 31 stays progressive. But most importantly, being able to advocate for things like more affordable housing and making sure that we have a single-payer health care system. Also, making sure that our education systems, specifically our public school, are fully funded. That starts with changing the educational formula. And so we've got a lot of work to do. But it starts with making sure that we have everyday people in office that know some of the struggles that everyday people go through.

What would you say to anyone who suggests that you're too young to be a state senator or that you don't have enough experience? Have you had any opponents or critics use your age against you?

My opponent has a fancy law degree. I dont. But what I do have is an experience of an education system that has failed me, a state that has not provided enough affordable housing, where someone like my mother had to raise me and my two other brothers on a fixed income and not be able to afford groceries.

And so I have the experience of bad policy by the same people that will tell you that you need more experience. That's why I'm running. And I think anyone who says wait your turn needs to step away because clearly they're not interested in actually changing things for the better, just using their position of power to scare off other people that actually want to create change.

In order for us to create the change, we have to be the people that actually have the power.

What would you say to members of your generation who feel cynical about this whole thing? How would you inspire them to try to get involved or make a change?

I think every generation feels as if it's going to be their turn. And what ends up happening is you have folks that do something about it, and you have folks that kind of sit on the sidelines.

We can't afford to sit on the sidelines, we've got to break the mold of what it is to be an elected official. You don't need to be born into royalty; you don't need to have a special degree. What you need to do is have a community and come together and get out there and knock on doors. And that's how you change things. And so we can either be cynical about what's going on and talk about it from the sidelines as we've got elected officials who are 80-plus years old, that are making decisions on our climate, or we can actually do something about it and run for ourselves because, at the end of the day, they won't be there and people our age will be.

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This 23-year-old was tired of complaining on social media so he decided to run for office - Yahoo Life

Democrats

Wisconsin Dem took to social media to celebrate world's most notorious dictators

Mandela Barnes, the Democratic Senate candidate in Wisconsin, praised Irans supreme leader Ali Khamenei for supporting Black Lives Matter, said he wanted to be the "Dennis Rodman" of the Assad regime, and used his Twitter account to defend some of the worlds most notorious dictators and repressive regimes.

On Jan. 1, 2015, Barnes applauded a Twitter post by Khamenei that slammed the U.S. government over slavery.

"The issue of US govt oppression against blacks is a 100s year-old issue," wrote Khamenei, adding the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.

Barnes "liked" Khameneis post on Twitter and responded to the Iranian leader: "The first tweet of 2015 from @khamenei_ir is #BlackLivesMatter. Let that sink in. May This be a most wonderful year for you and yours."

Barness social media posts could raise questions about the candidates willingness to align himself with anti-American and undemocratic leaders. The news comes as Barnes, the Wisconsin lieutenant governor and former state legislator, has faced criticism over his repeated appearances on RT, a Russian state-run news network that the U.S. State Department has described as "propaganda support for the Kremlin's foreign policy objectives."

Barnes also wrote several posts opposing any U.S. effort to oust Syrian presidentBashar al-Assad in 2013, while the embattled dictator was massacring his own people and using chemical weapons.

"I'd like to pull a Rodman next. I should have hopped that fence to Syria when I had the chance," wrote Barnes on April 9, 2013, a few weeks after Assads regime carried out a deadly Sarin gas attack against its opposition.

He also opposed efforts by the United States to aid the Syrian opposition after Assads use of chemical weapons.

"Seeing school administrators plead for more state aid, but seeing that our country is able to send weapons to Syria makes me more anti war," wrote Barnes in June 2013.

After the Obama administration opened up diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2014, Barnes wrote that he wanted to work at the "embassy in Cuba" and asked "where would one apply for such an opportunity?"

Barnes also appeared to criticize the removal of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, writing in 2016 that "when you drop cookies, you get crumbs everywhere. Then you gotta get a vacuum, and that's what happened when we removed Saddam."

Barnes previously joked that his father almost named him "Muammar," an apparent reference to the late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

"My dad told me a couple of years ago, he said I was lucky I was born when I was born. If I was born five years earlier, my name would have been Muammar," said Barnes during a Civil Rights panel discussion in 2015.

A spokesman for Barnes's Republican challenger Sen. Ron Johnson said the posts were evidence of Barness "extreme positions."

"Not only has Moscow Mandela Barnes gone on Russian propaganda TV six times to denigrate American law enforcement, but he has also cozied up to awful dictators and communist groups around the world," said Johnson spokesman Mike Marinella. "His extreme positions are wrong for Wisconsin and would make our state less prosperous and less free."

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Barnes Praises Khamenei, Hopes to Be Dennis Rodman of the Assad Regime - Washington Free Beacon

VALLEJO A Black Lives Matter mural will be painted on the street in front of Vallejo City Hall on Saturday during a day-long block party that will feature local musicians, food and activities for children.

The party will be hosted by Askari Sowonde Productions 411 Series - Vallejo Seeking Solutions and run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the 500 block of Santa Clara Street.

The community is invited to help paint the mural while being entertained by local musicians, including bluesman Alvon Johnson, percussionist Zebra Man, jazz guitarist David El and vocalist Jasmine Robinson.

The Greater Vallejo Recreation District and the John F. Kennedy Library will host arts and crafts activities for kids. A food truck and some classic cars will round up the scene. Speakers will include Mario Saucedo of Solano AIDS Coalition and Vallejo City Councilmember Tina Arriola.

The project comes to fruition after a two-year delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sowonde, an activist and event organizer, first proposed the mural to the Vallejo City Council in 2020, which voted 5-2 in favor of the mural later that year.

This wasnt an easy decision for some of them, but it was worth it to many of us, Sowonde told the Vallejo Sun.

Sowonde and local artists Mishel Deniz Adolph, Mario Saucedo, Atsie Pirtle, Verlannia Manchester and Randy Babb designed the mural, which was approved by the Vallejo Arts Commission in 2021.

Unlike other Black Lives Matter murals of unadorned type, this one includes two colorful portraits and bright, artistic lettering. It will be painted in one line on Santa Clara Street with the words facing City Hall.

Sowande said she knows that having the words written down on the ground does not necessarily mean that minds will be opened. This is solely about our people, our way of life being recognized, and saying that we're here, that you need to see us, and things need to change, she said.

A flier announcing the event includes the phrase "Black Lives Matter is NOT about An Organization." The #BlackLivesMattter and #BLM hashtags first erupted on social media after the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin in Florida. The slogan was reportedly created by one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which has since attracted criticism over their financial practices.

Sowonde said the slogan is about a fight that has gone on in this country for 100 years and that she sees it as a progression of the Black is Beautiful movement of the 1960s, when James Brown sang, "Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.

Its about the history of our people and the fact that we're still struggling like crazy in 2022, she said.

The mural was not supported by all. Councilmembers Rozzanna Verder-Aliga and Hakeem Brown were the two dissenting votes against the project. Brown made a long statement criticizing "empty platitudes," saying that it is hypocritical to paint a Black Lives Matter mural when education is underfunded and many Black Vallejo youth lack opportunity.

Sowonde responded to Browns criticism, saying he "thinks differently than a lot of us, but in a way he's right. We need action, not only words.

She said she sees the mural as making a statement to set an intention for positive future actions, not as a statement that the fight is over. I'm hoping that when they walk across it that their minds will open, but Im not naive, she said.

This is about being seen and visible in this community, Sowonde said. Were not seen at city council.

A Black Lives Mural painted in Martinez in July of 2020 was repeatedly vandalized and ended up being paved over within the same year. Sowande says she is concerned that there will be pushback, but said, At some point, I have to stop worrying. What shall be will be.

For more information or to find out how you can participate in the block party celebration contact Mishel Deniz Adolph at misheldeniz53@gmail.com.

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Black Lives Matter mural to be painted in front of Vallejo City Hall Saturday - The Vallejo Sun

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Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman said at one point during his political career that he holds a "Black Lives Matter kind of worldview" and appeared to insist that crime rates in major cities are tied to how much they "don't embrace" the movement, calling the notion "common sense."

Fetterman's remarks, offered during an interview with The Pitt News in August 2016, came during his tenure as Braddock mayor after he failed to garner his party's nomination for the Senate earlier that year.

"Let me take issue with the anti-establishment," Fetterman said. "I never positioned myself as anti-establishment. In fact, I was the only elected official in my race, I point out. Katie McGinty never held elected office and [Joe] Sestaks only elected office was a term, I believe, in Congress before he started running. So this idea that I was anti-establishment I just ran on what I felt were important, common sense issues whether that was a living wage, marijuana legalization, a Black Lives Matter kind of worldview, but also a community policing."

Fetterman, who said at the time that he did not consider his position on various issues to be "radical," claimed it's "common sense" that cities that "don't embrace" the Black Lives Matter movement have higher crime rates.

DEM SENATE CANDIDATE JOHN FETTERMAN DEFENDS PULLING GUN ON UNARMED BLACK JOGGER IN 2013

John Fetterman speaks during a pro-choice rally at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. (Michelle Gustafson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

"All these different issues that I ran on never felt like they were radical or very leftist, they just felt like common sense to me. Its like, what happens if you dont embrace Black Lives Matter? Well, you look at what happens in Baltimore, at what happens in Chicago. I mean, thats common sense."

Fetterman garnered criticism late last month after he claimed that ID shouldnt be required to vote because "poorer" people and "people of color" are "less likely to have their ID."

The now-viral clip of Fetterman, which came from a 2021 interview between him and liberal pundit Brian Tyler Cohen, featured the candidates perspective on why requiring universal voter ID in Pennsylvania is a bad idea. In it, he said, "In my own state they are going to pass, attempt to pass, a constitutional amendment making sure that universal voting ID for every time you vote, not just when you sign up to vote, but every time you vote."

FETTERMAN TORCHED FOR SAYING POORER PEOPLE, MINORIOTIES LESS LIKELY TO HAVE ID TO VOTE: COMPLETELY RACIST

Fetterman explained the alleged dark motive behind this amendment, stating it will be passed"because they understand that at any given time theres tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians who typically are on the poorer side and are people of color that are less likely to have their ID at any one given time."

The Democratic Senate nominee has also faced criticism over a resurfaced 2013 incident in which he pulled a shotgun on an unarmed Black jogger whom he suspected of involvement in a nearby shooting. Fetterman has since said his actions were wrong, but initially defended himself by saying he heard the sound of automatic gunfire and rushed to confront the man he suspected of being responsible. Fetterman held the man, then-28-year-old Christopher Miyares, at gunpoint. Police who arrived at the scene searched Miyares and found that he was unarmed.

Fetterman, who has served as Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor since 2019, campaigned on Monday alongside three West Philadelphia council members who have publicly supported the Black Lives Matter movement and backed calls to "defund the police."

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate nominee for Pennsylvania, and John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate, will face off in the Nov. 8 general election. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

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"Three outstanding Councilmembers who are with me in my fight to turn out every vote here in Philly Support local Black-owned businesses," Fetterman said of the council members in a tweet.

Fetterman will face off in the November general election against Republican nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz in an effort to become Pennsylvania's next U.S. senator.

Fox News' Gabriel Hays and Thomas Barrabi contributed to this article.

Kyle Morris covers politics for Fox News. On Twitter: @RealKyleMorris.

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Fetterman said in 2016 he held a Black Lives Matter 'worldview,' considered viewpoints to be 'common sense' - Fox News

Police officers should not take the knee, the new Met commissioner has said.

Sir Mark Rowley, who took up the post last week, set out his position on how police officers should respond to the Black Lives Matter movement.

We should not align with any protest group, whether its a cause that everyone agrees with or a cause that only 1 per cent agrees with, he said.

At a Black Lives Matters protest over the death of George Floyd in 2020, a number of police officers were caught taking the knee with protestors.

Sir Mark told The Sunday Times: We are the police and we should operate without fear or favour. We get lost trying to please all of the people all of the time.

A Cambridge graduate who planned to join the police as a forensic scientist, Sir Mark said a formative experience in Birmingham as a young officer taught him a lesson about his own resilience.

Just 18 months into the job Sir Mark was attacked by a group of men as he tried to arrest a man who threw a beer bottle at a car window. They beat him unconscious as well as breaking his nose. It was a really important experience for me in my life, he said.

Read more from the original source:

Police should not take the knee with Black Lives Matter campaigners - The Telegraph