Category Archives: Black Lives Matter

October 6, 2016Why Black lives matter.

Black lives matter.

They matter because they are children, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers.

They matter because the injustices they face steal from all of us white people and people of color alike. They steal our very humanity.

Systemic and institutionalized racismare the defining civil rights and social justice issues of our time. Weve come to understand that to be silent about the violence and threats to the lives and well-being of Black people is to be complicit in that violence and those threats.

There is good news: the first step in overcoming systemic racism and injustice is to simply understand and admit that there is a problem. Its trying to understand the perspective of others whose experiences are different from our own. To not just listen, but to truly understand those whose struggle for justice is real, and not yet complete.

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, President of the North Carolina NAACP, said it best when reacting to the recent police shooting in Charlotte, NC. He said, Our objective is simple: to ensure justice-loving people act toward justice, with all evidence, and that we stand together and act from a place of power and love, rather than out of fear and anger.

Its been hard to watch the list of unarmed Black Americans killed by law enforcement officers grow longer and longer.We understand that numerous Black Americans and white Americans have profoundly different experiences and outcomes with law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Thats why its become clear to usat Ben & Jerrysthat we have a moral obligation to take a stand now for justice and for Black lives.

We want to be clear: we believe that saying Black lives matteris not to say that the lives of those who serve in the law enforcement community dont. We respect and value the commitment to our communities that those in law enforcement make, and we respect the value of every one of their lives.

But we do believe that whether Black, brown, white, or blue our nation and our very way of life is dependent on the principle of all people being served equal justice under the law. And its clear, the effects of the criminal justice system are not color blind.

We do not place the blame for this on individual officers. Rather, we believe it is due to the systemic racism built into the fabric of our institutions at every level, disadvantaging and discriminating against people of color in ways that go beyond individual intent to discriminate. For this reason, we are not pointing fingers at individuals; we are instead urging us to come together to better our society and institutions so that we may finally fulfill the founding promise of this country: to be a country with dignity and justicefor all.

All lives do matter. But all lives will not matter until Black lives matter.

We ask people to be open to understanding these issues, and not to reflexively retreat to our current beliefs. Change happens when people are willing to listen and hear the struggles of their neighbor, putting aside preconceived notions and truly seeking to understand and grow. Well be working hard on that, and ask you to as well.

- Your friends at Ben & Jerrys

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Why Black Lives Matter | Ben & Jerrys

News releases | Research | Social science

March 7, 2022

After Black Lives Matter formed in 2013, in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, new ways of talking about race gained traction.

A new study co-led by the University of Washington shows how Black Lives Matter protests have changed the way people talk about race.Clay Banks/Unsplash

And with protests sparked by subsequent police killings, such as those of Eric Garner, Philando Castile and George Floyd, the use of and online search for anti-racist terms skyrocketed, indicating a growing common anti-racist lexicon and generating renewed attention to racial justice that continues today.

The growing use of these terms, according to new research, shows how Black Lives Matter has shifted the conversation around racism, raising awareness of issues and laying the foundation for social change. The research, led by Indiana University and the University of Washington, published March 3 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

When protest happens, it changes the way people talk, said lead author Zackary Dunivin, a doctoral student in sociology and complex systems at Indiana University. Black Lives Matter got people to pay attention when people werent paying attention. The protests got people to care, and that has changed the way people are talking and thinking about race.

In the paper, Dunivin and co-author Jelani Ince, an assistant professor of sociology at the UW, show that how people talk about an issue and how often they talk about it can create momentum and bring attention to a cause. They point to civil rights marches, which led to changes in voting and housing rights, and to anti-Vietnam War protests, which helped shift public opinion and led to Congressional hearings.

To evaluate the impact of Black Lives Matter protest, the researchers turned to social media, news coverage and online search engines. They set out to determine how these protests shifted public interest and conversation by examining attention to and use of related terms and topics.

The researchers chose four different publicly available data sources: Google search, Twitter mentions, national news mentions and Wikipedia page visits. They created a list of more than three dozen terms to search for, such as systemic racism, prison abolition and others that are associated with Black Lives Matters themes and the concept of anti-racism.

The study found that during Black Lives Matter protests, people search for these terms up to 100 times more than they did in the weeks prior to the protests. Over time, these spikes in searches for terms related to Black Lives Matter have expanded to include other ideas: In the early years of the study period, searches for police shootings and the names of victims of police homicide were common; in 2020, searches included topics like prison abolition and redlining.

In addition, the study noted the staying power of ideas: Six months after the George Floyd protests in 2020, social media attention to anti-racist ideas was significantly higher than it was before the protests. Daily visits to Wikipedia pages for Black Lives Matter, for example, were around 10 times greater; for systemic racism, 5.5 times greater; and for prison abolition, 1.6 times greater, from August through December 2020, compared to the same period the year before.

As social scientists, we know that change is not an inevitability, but requires persistence from actors over time. This shift in discourse is a reflection of change in the political terrain, Ince said. It shows that the movement is evolving. Its not just a moment, its an accumulation.

Of course, not every search or use of the designated terms indicates support, the researchers said. Data measuring page visits, for example, doesnt capture why someone visited a page it just tracks the visit. Along the same lines, use of a hashtag doesnt necessarily prove a users intent to support a movement. Further data-driven research could pursue those questions, the study points out, and specifically the role of countermovements and rhetoric in association with the use of anti-racist terms.

But what online searches, media coverage and tweets do show, Ince and Dunivin said, is how the issues and terms raised by Black Lives Matter have grown in public awareness over time. And the terms themselves have expanded beyond their connection to specific incidents of police homicide to broader issues of inequality.

While the study didnt link these terms to social change such as votes or policies, it does show how a current movement is building toward that change, the authors said.

Black Lives Matter is providing an alternative route to the social problems society has created, Ince said. These protests arent just trying to make noise, but to reimagine what community can do. This is an attempt to do what should have been done decades ago.

Other co-authors on the study were Harry Yaojun Yan and Fabio Rojas at Indiana University. The study was funded by the Racial Justice Research Fund at Indiana University and the National Science Foundation.

For more information, contact Ince at jince@uw.edu or Dunivin at zdunivin@iu.edu.

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How Black Lives Matter protests sparked interest, can lead ...

Photo: John Minchillo (AP)

Amazons charity platform AmazonSmile has suspended Black Lives Matter Tuesday for failing to meet eligibility requirements because of their financial disputes with some states, per a Washington Examiner investigation. BLM reported by the end of summer 2020 that they had raised $60 million. However, states have threatened to take legal action against the organization because they didnt indicatewhere their donations went to by the end of summer 2020.

An Amazon representative told the Washington Examiner that in order for an organization to be eligible to participate with AmazonSmile, they must be in good standing in their state of incorporation and in the states and territories where they are authorized to do business.

From Washington Examiner:

BLM voluntarily shut down its online fundraising on Feb. 2 after California and Washington issued legal threats to the group for its failure to report what it did with the millions it received during the second half of 2020. BLM published a report in February 2021 claiming to have ended 2020 with $60 million in its coffers.

As of Wednesday afternoon, BLM remains out of compliance in those states, as well as in New Jersey, North Carolina, Connecticut, Colorado, Maryland, Maine, and Virginia.

BLM said when it shut down its fundraising that it had engaged compliance counsel to get back in good standing with the states.

In addition the Washington Examiner found the organization changed its accounting cycle, allowing them to delay their reports on donations from summer 2020 to May of this year.

BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors said the donations that went unaccounted for came from white corporation guilt, via the Washington Examiner. People have to know we didnt go out and solicit the money. This is money that came from white guilt, white corporation guilt, and they just poured money in, said Cullors.

According to the Washington Examiners investigation, other companies have also decided not to follow through on their BLM contributions including Intel and Cisco.

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Black Lives Matter Kicked Off Amazon Charity Platform

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Rev. Jeffrey Jemison joined "Jesse Watters Primetime" on Tuesday to discuss how Black Lives Matter organizations took advantage of donor funds and how leadership needs to be held accountable.

REV. JEFFREY JEMISON: I'll tell you, you have to be careful where you put your money. And for leaders, those who are heads of organizations, they have to make sure they have to be held accountable, have to make sure that they're doing what they say they're going to do. This happens in organizations that fall all the time. But this whole organization, the whole purpose, should be examined. And I think that most of all, we have to make sure that people who are in need are getting businesses started. Money is going, that is being raised is going directly to affect their lives in a positive way. This, without a doubt, is not affecting their lives, the ones who are in need, but those who apparently have been taken advantage of and they've been fleeced.

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Black Lives Matter organizations 'fleeced' those who needed funding: Reverend - Fox News

Hey, whatever happened to that story about Sandra Shells? She was the 70-year-old nurse killed by one of Los Angeles many unhoused individuals (drug-addicted psychopaths) while she waited for a bus at 5:15 in the morning in January, on her way to her job at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

A homeless guy, Kerry Bell, walked up to Shells and punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground and fracturing her skull. She died of her injuries three days later.

Her life mattered more even than, say, George Floyds and I can prove it.

1) Shells was a hardworking nurse, remembered as kind, compassionate and giving and a favorite of patients.

2) There is no evidence that shed ever committed a home invasion robbery on a woman in Texas, pistol-whipped the woman and put a gun to her abdomen.

3) She was not a meth addict.

4) She did not have a long rap sheet, including selling cocaine, selling crack and theft.

5) She was merely standing at a bus stop not, for example, resisting arrest after passing a counterfeit bill and having the police called on her.

But no one even knows her name, much less runs around erecting sacramental altars to her.

To the contrary, news about this vicious assault on a kindly nurse was purged from all media outlets approximately 10 minutes after it happened. The police havent even released her assailants mug shot. Only after extensive searching online can you find the arrest report for Bell. Race: B.

It doesnt matter to me, but it does to some of you, so Ill mention that the victims race was also B.

If you cant remember Shells name, then please remember this name: George Gascon, the district attorney entirely responsible for the explosion of murders, stabbings and smash-and-grab robberies in Los Angeles. So many, in fact, that the sickening murder of an elderly nurse isnt considered especially newsworthy.

Theres an effort underway to recall Gascon a George Soros-sponsored D.A.

Coincidentally, theres also an effort to recall San Franciscos Chesa Boudin, another George Soros-sponsored D.A.

George Soros-sponsored D.A. is shorthand for This man will empty the prisons of berserk savages to prey on you and your loved ones. Which happens to be the official policy of the Democratic Party.

Gascons response to the bloodbath hes unleashed on the City of Angels is to announce: In many ways, we cannot prosecute our way out of social inequalities, income inequalities, the unhoused, the desperation that we have.

What does the in many ways do in that sentence? I know English isnt Gascons first language, but I cant make heads or tails of the in many ways.

Nor, come to think of it, the rest of the sentence. Is it a prosecutors job to reduce social and income inequalities? How about inequalities in work ethic, mathematical skills, good looks, athletic ability, comedic talent and empathetic understanding?

While its nice that the Los Angeles D.A. has made the amazing discovery that people are different, if he thinks its his duty to make all people the same, he may have a misunderstood the job description of a D.A.

As for Gascons apparent goal of eliminating the desperation that we have, the main cause of desperation among Los Angelinos right now is George Gascon. If he really wants to do something about the desperation, he should resign.

Gascon is either very, very stupid or thinks the public is stupid, and his incomprehensible verbiage will persuade them that the last thing he should be doing is prosecuting criminals.

Hows this for desperation? The fabulously wealthy Clarence and Jacqueline Avant, a legendary music producer and his ex-model wife, felt they had to hire a private security guard for their $7 million Beverly Hills home. Late last year, theyd also voted with their neighbors to hire guards to patrol their pricey Trousdale Estates neighborhood.

Days before the neighborhood patrol began, Aariel Maynor, a felon on parole despite a long list of priors (assault, robbery and grand theft) snuck past the Avants private guard at the front door, smashed a sliding glass door in the back, and burst in on the very much awake Mrs. Avant, a night owl, as her husband slept in their bedroom.

Maynor promptly blew her away with an AR-15 rifle. Hearing the gunfire, the private guard rushed in and Maynor shot at him, too, missing. He fled, but was captured about an hour later, after accidentally shooting himself in the foot while burglarizing a house seven miles away.

Mrs. Avants life mattered even more than some other celebrated lives you may have heard of.

1) She was the pillar of that family, as a friend put it.

2) She was a generous donor to local causes, such as the Neighbors of Watts and the South Central Community Child Care Center.

3) She was not a meth addict or violent ex-con whod put a gun to a womans stomach, or passed a counterfeit bill in Minneapolis, then resisted arrest.

4) For my liberal readers: Mrs. Avant was an African-American.

But far from a national rending of garments, as we saw in tribute to Saint George, the response to Mrs. Avants murder was this: The D.A. promptly sent out a fundraising letter, making a heartfelt plea on behalf of armed criminals like the sociopath who killed her.

Gascons letter urged the passage of a law that would end sentence enhancements for crimes committed with a firearm. Such sentence enhancements, Gascon claimed, have never been shown to reduce the rate of crime, and excessive sentence enhancements can actually drive up re-offense.

Really? Can I see the study? Pro-crime zealots just make this crap up. Studies show that imprisoning criminals actually INCREASES crime.

Ann Coulter is an American conservative media pundit. Reach her on Twitter at @AnnCoulter.

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DO THESE BLACK LIVES MATTER TO L.A.'S IDIOT D.A.? - Fort Bend Herald

In the letter E of the street mural in front of Palo Alto City Hall, Oakland artist Cece Carpio painted the likeness of Assata Shakur, a convicted cop killer from New Jersey who escaped from prison and is believed to be in Cuba. Post photo.

This story was originally printed by the Daily Post on Thursday. To get all of the local news first, pick up the Post in the mornings at 1,000 Mid-Peninsula locations.

BY EMILY MIBACHDaily Post Staff Writer

A Santa Clara County judge issued a tentative ruling yesterday (March 2) in favor of the city of Palo Alto in a lawsuit filed by six of its police officers, who claim that a Black Lives Matter mural in front of City Hall was racist and offensive.

Judge Socrates Manoukian posted a ruling yesterday siding with the citys request to throw out the lawsuit. The ruling isnt final. The judge will hear from both sides one more time and could reverse himself.

Six officers sued the city saying they were harassed and discriminated against by the city, which commissioned a Black Lives Matter mural that depicted Assata Shakur. Shakur is a civil rights activist turned fugitive after she was convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973.

The mural was painted on Hamilton Avenue just a month after demonstrations swept the country in response to the death of George Floyd in 2020. The lawsuit complained that a portion of the mural included part of the logo for the New Black Panthers, which has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.

Matthew McNicholas, a lawyer for the six officers, wrote in a Feb. 17 filing that the city sponsored hate speech, and it seriously affected the officers psychological wellbeing.

Was it a hostile work environment?

McNicholas argued that the mural created a hostile work environment.

But Judge Manoukian said that in order to come down on the side of the officers, they must show that the city took some sort of action against the officers, like demoting them. Simply annoying them doesnt count.

Manoukian then cited McRae v. Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, a 2006 state case, in which the court said workplaces are rarely idyllic retreats, and the mere fact that an employee is displeased by an employers act or omission does not elevate that.

The mural, Manoukian, doesnt reach the threshold of creating a hostile workplace.

The officers also argued that the mural was an attack on their race, ethnicity or national origin.

Plaintiffs are racially diverse

The officers initially claim in their lawsuit that they are protected based on race, ethnicity, and/or national origin. But, Judge Manoukian points out that officers Michael Foley, Chris Moore and Julie Tannock are Caucasian. Eric Figueroa is Filipino and Caucasian. David Ferreira is Caucasian and Pacific Islander/ Asian and Robert Parham is Hispanic.

Since the officers are not all one race or ethnicity, Manoukian agreed with the citys argument that the only thing common to all the plaintiffs if that they are all police officers, but being a police officer is not a protected class.

Manoukian said that if the officers had pointed out in their lawsuit that the New Black Panthers are a hate group targeting all non-African Americans, then he may have been included to agree that at least a portion of the mural was offensive.

However, the officers made that claim in their objection to the citys request to throw out the lawsuit, not their lawsuit.

There is nothing to suggest that the mural and its iconography was created in favor of one (protected) group over another, Manoukian wrote.

The judge goes on to state that the citys refusal to remove the mural was not based on plaintiffs race, ethnicity or some other protected classification.

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Judge tentatively rules against police in lawsuit over Black Lives... - The Daily Post

Less than a fifth of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people in Britain think Boris Johnson has kept his promise to address racism made at the height of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in the UK, according to a new survey.

The State of Hate 2022 report from Hope Not Hate (HNH) also found more than half of ethnic minority Britons (52 per cent) said they have experienced or witnessed racial abuse in the past 12 months alone.

The survey is based on a sample of 1,082 ethnic minority adults in the UK between 17 December 2021 and 4 January 2022.

Meanwhile, the HNH poll found two in four people (43 per cent) experienced or witnessed racial discrimination in the workplace in the last year, while just under half had experienced racial discrimination from a public institution.

This contradicts the findings of the government-approved Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities (CRED), which produced a widely-contested report last year concluding that Britain does not have a problem with systemic racism.

Back in 2020, Mr Johnson addressed racism felt by Black and minority ethnic people in the UK at the height of the BLM protests, sparked by the murder of George Floyd, a Black man in the US who was killed by serving white police officer Derek Chauvin.

The injustice sparked international demonstrations, with many people taking the streets in solidarity with Mr Floyds family, fuelled by a sense of outrage at systemic racism around the world.

Speaking in June 2020 in a video shared online, Mr Johnson promised to address racism and said people who lead and govern cannot ignore the feeling from people in Black and minority ethnic groups that they do face discrimination.

He added: You are right, we are all right, to say Black Lives Matter; and to all those who have chosen to protest peacefully and who have insisted on social distancing I say, yes of course I hear you, and I understand.

After it emerged just 17 per cent of people surveyed in the HNP report believe Mr Johnson has addressed racism since June 2020, senior policy officer Rosie Carter said: It is clear that when communities are listened to, the premise in the Commissions report that the UK should be seen as an international exemplar of racial equality, and that issues of race and racism are becoming less important in explaining social disparities, is even more of an insult to those who experience racism.

The anti-racism organisations report also found that politics is deemed to be more divisive than ever.

It found that far right terrorism convictions have increased by 50 per cent since 2020, while more than two-thirds of the British public think the UK is going in the wrong direction.

A mixture of political distrust, the pandemic, growth in conspiracy beliefs and the cost of living crisis has created fertile ground for the growth of right-wing ideas and its increasing influence on more mainstream political and media narratives, it said.

Nick Lowles, CEO of HNH, said: After years in the political wilderness, the crises weve collectively faced over the past two years have emboldened cynical far right activists to exploit our fears and uncertainties and return to traditional methods of campaigning.

In 2021, we saw far right activists marching on our streets, leafleting, and now they are preparing to stand in local elections. What were looking at is a country that has moved on from Brexit, which marginalised the British far right, and the fallout from an erosion of political trust.

The threat is real - the far right is stirring again, but there is still hope. While they have more opportunities to exploit discontent than for many years, we can still prevent them from succeeding.

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Just one in five think PM kept promise during BLM protests to address racism - The Independent

Throughout Black History month in February, Black Lives Matter signs went up in some schools while the same signs in other schools were being torn down in others.

National, state and local-level battles over Critical Race Theory, which erupted at the same time parents were getting charged up about mask-wearing and other pandemic protocols in schools, have energized conservatives and played a role in school board races and school governance. But as pandemic restrictions relax, its unclear how much diversity training and Black Lives Matter signs will remain an energizing force in the next round of school board races in April.

Meanwhile, school districts continue to take a variety of different approaches to teaching about diversity, even as Republicans in the Legislature have pushed legislation to ban both the teaching of critical race theory and anti-racism and anti-sexism staff training for employees of school districts and independent charter schools.

Black Lives Matter at School is a national coalition organizing for racial justice organized by the National Education Association (NEA). School districts around the country participated in the National Black Lives Matter Week of Action this year, Jan. 31 Feb. 4. Milwaukee Public Schools was the only Wisconsin school system to officially participate this year although other school districts may have pulled elements from the BLM at School website.

In Milwaukee, on Monday, Jan. 31, the week kicked off with a presentation by Decoteau Irby, Ph.D., associate professor of educational policy studies at the University of Illinois Chicago and author of Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership where he outlines how schools can move from being stuck in failure to embrace an improvement process.

Milwaukee school superintendent Keith Posley found many aspects of the action week powerful.

He observed how intensely high school students absorbed the movie, John Lewis: Good Trouble.

An intergenerational panel discussion was important, he said, because so many young people spend so little time with elders in the community, hearing what it was like growing up Black in years past.

NEA Demands: Justice For Black Lives states NEA EdJustice, the sponsor of Black Lives Matter at School. It makes four demands under the following headings:

At its national website, Black Lives Matter at School makes no apology for its goals: [to] mobilize activists in the fight for racial, social and economic justice in public education and offer resources and tools for activism.

Lawmakers in at least 27 states are attempting to pass legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about the role of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history, the NEA EdJustice website states. In response, educators across the United States are signing a pledge to teach truth.

An opponent of this approach, Conor Friederdorf, writes in a March 14, 2021 article in The Atlantic headlined What Happens When a Slogan Becomes the Curriculum that BLM at School has moved from giving information about Americas history of racism to pure indoctrination.

And educators should not be neutral as to the question Should my students be taught what to think, or how to think? Schools should do the latter. They should promote truth seeking and diversity of thought, writes Friederdorf.

But supporters of BLM at School contend that students are already being indoctrinated on the other side to accept or at least tolerate elements of racism or deny that systemic racism exists in our society. There are not always two sides to every conflict, they say Sometimes one side is right; the other side is wrong.

In February 2018, in Oconomowoc, the high school principal and one school board member resigned after the high school was told to curtail any discussion of white privilege. In August 2021, three more Oconomowoc school board members resigned stating that conflicts with other board members and an interim superintendent made continuing on the board counterproductive.

CRT isnt here? Are you sure about that? Its in Oconomowoc, its in Beloit, its in Elmbrook, school board candidate Alexandra Schweitzer wrote on her campaign Facebook page. Its everywhere. Parents need to rise up and get this vile hate out of OUR schools! We need to remind the school boards that these are OUR kids. And the board serves US! We, the People [do]NOT give consent for this garbage to be indoctrinated into our kids minds!

Schweitzer lost her election but got more votes than incumbent Juliet Steitzer who also lost her seat on the board. Steitzer was one of three board members who faced a recall effort in September 2020, but the recall petition failed to garner enough signatures. The main issue highlighted in the recall effort was not critical race theory or white privilege but in-person learning versus virtual and hybrid.

The mixing of racial issues and pandemic protocols in school board elections makes it difficult to measure to what degree diversity is in the forefront of voters minds. In the Mequon-Thiensville school board recall election, it became clear that a core group had enough passionate voters to sign the petition for a recall, but failed miserably with voters in the November 2021 recall election. During that election, issues of diversity were overshadowed by issues concerning the pandemic.

As mask wearing and in-person instruction become less of an issue, it is unclear whether cultural conflicts will remain strong enough to propel conservatives to victory in the April school board races.

Not every school district outside of urban areas faces intense conflict over diversity education.

A March 22, 2021, article in the student newspaper of Wauwatosa, The Tosa Compass, asks the question in a headline: Does the Wauwatosa School Districts curriculum reflect its contemporary and diverse student body?

Student journalist Evelyn Skyberg Geer gives a mixed answer. It is true that Tosa schools recently instituted an optional Black literature class at both high schools but there is much more they could do.

Geer quotes the principal of Tosa West, Ebony Grice: I like the idea of equity focused courses. I think those are important There are so many groups who need to be highlighted who are underrepresented and undervalued.

Grice acknowledges that there will be pushback, telling Greer, The world is more comfortable with leaving things the way they are.

Geer asks, Is the district listening?

The Tosa Compass has also covered Wauwatosas new superintendent, Demond Means, who is hardly new to southeastern Wisconsin.

From 2008 to 2017, Means was superintendent in Mequon Thiensville during a calmer period. As a Black superintendent who was open to charters and vouchers, he was seen by many Republicans as an alternative to the leadership in Milwaukee Public Schools. Perhaps, some suggested, he should be superintendent of MPS.

In Nov. 2015, he was chosen by Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele to head the Opportunity Schools and Partnership Program created by state Republicans to take over and privatize low-performing public schools in MPS. In 2016 MPS improved its standing on state report cards and DPI announced it no longer had to participate in the program, which was never implemented.

Means got his chance to manage a larger, more racially diverse school district in 2017 with his appointment to the Clark County district in Athens, Georgia. He lasted just a little over two years, until the school board bought out his contract.

He was brought into Clark to address the racial disparities in the district, but quickly became embroiled in the communitys politics. He was accused of being autocratic and hiring people he knew from Milwaukee. A local publication, flagpole: the colorbearer of Athens, Georgia, reported The African-American head of the Georgia Federation of Teachers accused Means of using racial tactics to divide the community with the goal of turning failing schools over to for-profit companies.

Some school board members gave Means high marks for progress in minority student achievement, but the gains were not across the board, and the pandemic made it difficult to determine how successful Means reforms would be in the long term.

Means did not respond to the Examiners request for an interview about how the district is interacting with the community on diversity, what he learned from his experience in Georgia and what insight he has. The question is how a superintendent can effectively drive educational reform especially around issues like equity and diversity.

Its mostly community makeup, that drives change, says Posley. A superintendent that has been around does have a little moxie They may have been [a community members] childs teacher; [that community member] may have gone to school with the superintendent.

Outsiders parachuting in with a reform agenda face challenges. Eric Gallien understands the limitations of that approach. Gallien became superintendent in Racine in 2018 after serving in the Milwaukee school administration.

The Racine districts makeup is complex, with a diverse central area and mostly white, middle-class communities that are not part of the city of Racine. Some parents use open enrollment to leave the district.

Politically, much of the Racine district is represented by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, and Racine was the second city in Wisconsin, after Milwaukee, to be opened up to private school vouchers.

During the worst of the pandemic, Racine school board meetings became contentious as teachers demanded that schools go virtual while many parents pushed to keep schools open as much as possible.

Diversity conflicts have been minimal at the board level, says Gallien. We have been very strategic in avoiding the political debates. The district has used a softer approach offering teachers various options for training in diversity. Teachers have to learn to meet the needs of their students no matter where they are.

During Black History Month, it was up to each Racine school to determine its activities, not the central administration. One high school had the Black student union host a forum with community members. Other schools had performances based on events in Black history. Other schools held celebrations and potlucks.

What factors make diversity work and de-escalate conflict? Is it the composition of the community or how the board and administration has handled a situation? I think it is a combination of both, reflects Gallien.

Reducing conflicts does not mean Gallien sweeps everything under the table. The Racine district does have an equity office; it tackles problems with less fanfare than in some other districts.

In Waukesha schools, taking down diversity signs and telling everyone not to talk about controversial topics did not eliminate those conflicts.

Posley believes we cant ignore conflicts in hopes that they will just go away. The more we introduce and communicate, and work together, the better this is going to become We have to teach the truth tell the real story of our history. For Posely, it also means that people have to be willing to open up and share what is in their hearts when the staff comes together in diversity workshops. One of the big things for us is the courageous conversations about race. It is mandatory for all of our staff. I am finding that people are approaching conversations more now and talking about stuff and really having dialogue. In the past people just kept it to themselves and didnt say anything But now, they get to put those views on the table and share those kinds of things.

Correction: An earlier version of this story mistakenly reported that Eric Gallien was formerly schools superintendent in Beloit. We regret the error.

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Bridging the diversity divide in schools - Wisconsin Examiner

UPLIFT Concert Focuses on Black Futures Month, Hosted by BLM at the Miracle Theater in Inglewood

(courtesy of UPLIFT)

The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLM) hosted the second installment of their two-part concert series in Inglewood, on Thursday, March 3. Jimetta Rose and the Voices of Creation took to the stage, while pierre bennu debuted exclusive short films at The Miracle Theater in Inglewood, California.

Damon Turners cultural organization, Trap Heals, worked in collaboration with BLM to usher in a free local event, the UPLIFT concert was in honor of Black Futures Month.

Part one of the concert was deemed a success. Last Thursday, over 150 people attended the show to commemorate Black Futures Month. The experience provided a space to honor the progress of the Black community and look towards an exciting journey past the separation caused by COVID-19.

Co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of BLM, Dr. Melina Abdullah stated, Providing our community a space to celebrate and uplift Black joy and creativity is an essential part of ending white supremacy, which attempts to relegate us to a dehumanized existence.

(courtesy of UPLIFT)

Abdullah continued, We are building Black futures that enable us to live as our freest and most divine selves. After surviving a pandemic and enduring continued and increasing state violence and economic oppression, our people deserve an inspiring and healing experience. That is what UPLIFT provides for Black Angelenos.

Visual Artist pierre bennu stated, BLMs work on a global stage is transformative to our era. My work seeks to liberate the viewer on an interior level. Having them coexist during this years Black Futures Month celebration has definitely been transformative to me as an artist and I hope that it can be transformative to the viewers who we reach.

(courtesy of UPLIFT)

Performing sensation Jimetta Rose shared her thoughts on the event, by stating, The songs we perform are intended to be new prayers and mantras for the changing world. We sing these songs to heal ourselves and others and to remember that togetherness is not a thing of the past and that love is not taboo. We are using our voices and our powerful focused intention to build the future we want to see coming into view.

The following is the list of songs Jimetta Rose & The Voices of Creation performed:

The Key to this event is to bring awareness, to the opportunities that will be available in the future of the Black community. It was created to inspire the collective community and surround the neighborhood with a much-needed healing experience.

Read the rest here:

UPLIFT Concert Focuses on Black Futures Month, Hosted by BLM at the Miracle Theater in Inglewood - Lasentinel

The global color line endures, well into the 21stcentury, and white supremacy remains a global political and social project.

This is true both in times of war and peace. But it is during times of war and other disruption that these divides of race and other forms of social inequality are laid bare in the extreme.

War is a crucible for society; it reveals the deep character of a nation and people, the good and the bad, those attributes and traits more easily concealed during other more normal times.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has focused the world's attention. Reports suggest that at least 1,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine, and millions displaced. Immense damage, into the billions of dollars, have been done to the country and its infrastructure.

RELATED:Ukraine and the dark lessons of war: What does it mean to "take" a country or a city?

To this point, the Ukrainian military is performing better against the Russian assault than most observers expected. The Russian military has yet to capture Ukraine's major cities, and has reportedly suffered heavy casualties.

In terms of conventional warfare, Russia will almost certainly prevail but it may, in the end, be defeated by what national security experts predict could be a 10- or 20-year insurgency and resistance campaign. Russia appears to lack either the will or the military power to occupy and pacify the entire country of Ukraine for an extended period.

Ultimately, the Ukraine war is a security crisis in the heart of Eurasia, whose consequences will impact that region, and the entire world, for many years to come.

The global color line intersects all these events and possible outcomes. Questions of identity and national belonging are central to the Ukraine crisis.

Reflecting that dynamic, much of the coverage of the war in Ukraine by the mainstream news media is advancing a narrative which implies that the lives of white people (especially when they are Christian and European) are more important than those of nonwhite people and Muslims.

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In his new essay recentlypublished at Salon, Chris Hedges summarizes this:

Rulers divide the world into worthy and unworthy victims, those we are allowed to pity, such as Ukrainians enduring the hell of modern warfare, and those whose suffering is minimized, dismissed or ignored.

It is not that worthy victims do not suffer, nor that they are not deserving of our support and compassion, it is that worthy victims alone are rendered human, people like us, and unworthy victims are not. It helps, of course, when, as in Ukraine, they are white.

In a recent essay for MintPress News headlined "It's Different, They're White," Alan MacLeod explains:

For many, this disparity is simply about racism. "Ukraine is not the worst act of war since World War II. It's not even the worst war going on right now," wrote Sri Lanka-based journalist Indi Samarajiva, referring to Syria and Yemen; "It's just the worst to happen to white people."

Certainly, there has been a shocking amount of casually racist commentary on corporate media. "This isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European city where you wouldn't expect that or hope that it's going to happen," said CBS News foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata from Kiev.

Al-Jazeera English presenter Peter Dobbie made similarly Orientalist remarks, expressing his concern for wealthy Ukrainian refugees fleeing, while also demonstrating his contempt for poor non-white people in the same circumstances, stating:

"What is compelling is that just looking at them, the way they're dressed. These are prosperous, middle-class people, these are not obviously refugees trying to get away from areas in the Middle East that are still in a big state of war. These are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa; they look like any European family that you would live next door to."

Others made similar remarks. "It's very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed," said Ukraine's former Deputy Chief Prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze, while talking to the BBC, which did not challenge him on the statement. "The unthinkable has happened This is not a developing, third-world nation; this is Europe!" exclaimed ITV News reporter Lucy Watson in a tearful explanation as to why we need to help the refugees. "They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking," wrote former Member of the European Parliament Daniel Hannan in The Daily Telegraph. "War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone," he added.

D'Agata later apologized for his comments. Frankly, why should he? He was simply sharing his deeply held beliefs common to many white people in the West about the comparative value of Black and brown people's lives.

MSNBC host Joy Reid also addressed the way questions of race are influencing news coverage in the American and European media:

As the world watches the devastation unfold in Ukraine, nearly 4,000 miles away, another crisis is deepening that we don't hear much about in the U.S., and that is the war in Yemen.

The coverage of Ukraine has revealed a pretty radical disparity in how human Ukrainians look and feel to Western media compared to their browner and Blacker counterparts, with some reporters using very telling comparisons in their analyses of the war

Let's face it, the world is paying attention because this is happening in Europe. If this was happening anywhere else, would we see the same outpouring of support and compassion?....

We don't need to ask ourselves if the international response would be the same if Russia unleashed their horror on a country that wasn't white and largely Christian, because Russia has already done it. In Syria,

This is a teachable moment for us in the media. We aren't afraid to call out our own industry. There is a lot of soul-searching that we need to do in Western media about why some wars and lives seem to matter more than others.

On the ground, race and the color line are a matter of life and death in Ukraine.It has been reported that Black African immigrants in Ukraine (including students) are not being given the same priority as white Ukrainians for evacuation and permission to enter neighboring countries such as Poland.

Race as a modern concept was an invention of roughly the 15th century, at the outset of the European global project of colonialism and imperialism, which included the Transalantic Slave Trade and acts of genocide against Black, brown and indigenous peoples around the world. Biologically, the concept of race is meaningless: All human beings are 99.9% the same genetically. But race is real because it is a social fact, one that has shaped entire societies for centuries.

For example, in practice this means that race is made real (and can be unmade) by societies and individuals. Therewere no "white" people in Europe prior to the invention of the race concept. Other identities of religion, class, region, language, clan, birth, "people," "country" and "nation" were primary.

For most of its existence what is now known as Europe has not been united by a common identity. For centuries that continent and region featured savage warfare and other conflict between people we would now consider "white," even without considering the obvious examples of the two world wars in the 20th century.

Despite the racist fantasies that Europe was once a "pure" and exclusively "white" civilization that was somehow homogeneous, actual history tells a different story. Mongols, Arabs, Africans, Turks and other "non-white" people(s) have played influential roles in the history of Europe from antiquity to the present. This is especially true in the vast landmass of contemporary Russia, much of which is actually in Asia.

RELATED:Trumpism is rooted in twisted visions of medieval Europe

One reason why race endures as a category of power and societal meaning is because it shifts and changes over time in response to the political and social questions of the moment. Russians and other Eastern European or Slavic peoples were not viewed as entirely or decisively "white" by American and European elites until well into the 20th century. (The same can also be said of many people from southern Europe, including Italians and Greeks.) For example, Hitler and the Nazis clearly viewed Slavic peoples as inferior, as compared to Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Teutonic and other "prime" European "stock."

The centuries-old racial logic that places white Europeans at the top and all other so-called races in descending order of "civilization," "intelligence," "beauty" and overall desirability with Black people on the lowest level still holds influence in contemporary Western and global society. Much of this racist pseudoscience is based on the concept of the "Great Chain of Being," which posited that God was at the top of the natural order, closely followed by white Europeans and then descending downward to "the negro," apes and gorillas.

Associologist Lisa Wade wrote in 2012:

The theorization of the great chain of being was not just for "science" or "fun." It was a central tool in justifying efforts to colonize, enslave, and even exterminate people. If it could be established that certain kinds of people were indeed less than, even less than human, then it was acceptable to treat them as such.

This is a "generalizable tactic of oppression," by the way. During the period of intense anti-Irish sentiment in the U.S. and Britain, the Irish were routinely compared to apes as well.

Madison Grant, a "race scientist" of the late 19th and early 20th century, made this influential pronouncement in his book "The Passing of the Great Race":

The United States of America must be regarded racially as a European colony, and owing to current ignorance of the physical bases of race, one often hears the statement made that native Americans of Colonial ancestry are of mixed ethnic origin. This is not true. At the time of the Revolutionary War the settlers in the thirteen Colonies were not only purely Nordic, but also purely Teutonic, a very large majority being Anglo-Saxon in the most limited meaning of that term. The New England settlers in particular came from those counties of England where the blood was almost purely Saxon, Anglian, and Dane.

The prosperity that followed the war attracted hordes of newcomers who were welcomed by the native Americans to operate factories, build railroads, and fill up the waste spaces "developing the country" it was called.

These new immigrants were no longer exclusively members of the Nordic race as were the earlier ones who came of their own impulse to improve their social conditions. The transportation lines advertised America as a land flowing with milk and honey, and the European governments took the opportunity to unload upon careless, wealthy, and hospitable America the sweepings of their jails and asylums. The result was that the new immigration, while it still included many strong elements from the north of Europe, contained a large and increasing number of the weak, the broken, and the mentally crippled of all races drawn from the lowest stratum of the Mediterranean basin and the Balkans, together with hordes of the wretched, submerged populations of the Polish Ghettos.

As to what the future mixture will be it is evident that in large sections of the country the native American will entirely disappear. He will not intermarry with inferior races, and he cannot compete in the sweat shop and in the street trench with the newcomers. Large cities from the days of Rome, Alexandria, and Byzantium have always been gathering points of diverse races, but New York is becoming a cloaca gentium which will produce many amazing racial hybrids and some ethnic horrors that will be beyond the powers of future anthropologists to unravel.

In a widely-discussed 2009 essay for the New York Times, Brent Staples explored the relationship between white supremacy and the dehumanization of Black people in American society:

Hitler found quite a bit to admire about this country during its apartheid period. Writing in the early 1930s, he attributed white domination of North America to the fact that the "Germanic" peoples here had resisted intermarriage with and held themselves apart from "inferior" peoples, including the Negroes, whom he described as "half-apes."

He was not alone in these sentiments. The effort to dehumanize Black people by characterizing them as apes is central to our national history. Thomas Jefferson made the connection in his notorious book "Notes on the State of Virginia," in which he asserted fantastically that male orangutans were sexually drawn to Negro women.

By defining Negroes not as human beings but as beasts, the nation rationalized subjugation and cruelty and justified laws that stripped them of basic human rights. The case for segregation itself rested heavily on the assertion that animal origins made Negroes feebleminded, smelly and intolerably offensive to white sensibilities.

From before the founding through to the present, America remains a society structured by race and racial inequality. Social scientists and other experts have repeatedly shown that Black and brown people's life opportunities are disadvantaged across almost every area of American society, when compared to white people as a group.

In all, the assumption that white people's lives are more valuable to society is like a kind of cultural oxygen. To challenge it with the assertion that "Black lives matter" is to invoke a rage and backlash so extreme that tens of millions of white Americans are willing to destroy their own democracy and society in a racist temper tantrum embodied by Trumpism and neofascism.

RELATED:There is no "Putin wing" of the GOP: Why almost no Republican backs Ukraine over Russia

The news media and others with a public voice have a responsibility to make the world and its complex events more legible for the public at large. In a time of global democracy crisis, that responsibility is even more essential, and especially so when global stability is under threat by a war in Europe. To refuse to see race and the color line, and their impact on such events, is simply to deny reality.

In a recent essay for CNN,Peniel Joseph explored this global context:

The global crisis of racism, inequity and anti-immigrant xenophobia might seem secondary to the violence of the conflict in Ukraine but in truth, they are inextricable concerns. Russia's assault on Ukraine's sovereignty reflects the growing strength of autocratic leaders, such as Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro. Similarly, the treatment of African refugees in Ukraine in the context of war illustrates the xenophobia and racial intolerance that has fueled Brexit and aspects of the anti-globalization and nationalist movements that have flourished over the past decade.

One of the most important lessons of Russia's war against Ukraine is that the whole world continues to watch, respond to and take cues from not only American and Western power, but more tellingly, the power of our example. No single ethnic, racial or religious group has a greater capacity for civilization, personal dignity or citizenship than others. Now is the time to stand with all Ukrainians, immigrants and refugees seeking refuge from the storm of war.

The Ukraine conflict has complicated origins. But it is also clear that Vladimir Putin is a hero of the global right, which includes the various neofascists, white supremacists, racial chauvinists and allied forces who dream of creating a new "white Christian empire." Resisting and defeating Putin will weaken those forces as well, and strengthen bothAmerican and global democracy. That is a struggle that people of conscience on both sides of the color line should unite behind.

Read more on the Ukraine conflict and how we got here:

Read more here:

Whose lives really matter? How racism colors coverage of the crisis in Ukraine - Salon