Category Archives: Black Lives Matter

Rochester NY protest: Daniel Prude demonstration held

Protesters hold demonstration on Jefferson Avenue Tuesday night after Daniel Prude grand jury decision was announced.

Robert Bell, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

Chimere Fullilove opened her Jefferson Avenue candy store Sept. 5, 2020, two days after the public found out about Daniel Prude's death at the hands of police. As days turned into weeks, protestorsfrom across the Rochester area took to the streets.

And about a week after the public learned ofDaniel Prude's killing by police, the demonstrations continued, and people from all through Monroe County gathered to celebrate his lifeon the same street where he died.

Those public expressions of outrage and mourning often began near Fullilove's shop because her shop Candy Galore, Food & More was mere yards away from where Prude lost his life.

Most residents who spoke withDemocrat and Chroniclesaid that they supported marches and protests, but some feel as thoughthe people and problems of Jefferson Avenue have been an afterthought in the fight for justice.

They feel as if they were not seen or listened to even while their front yards became the site of weeks of protests and increased police presence. Some said that they believed the protesters were afraid or weary of residents, while others ignored them all together.

"They came down here for one thing and one thing only," Fullilove said. "Don't be fearful of us. Don't just come down here for one thing without really knowing what goes on down here."

What goes on down Jefferson Avenue can be seen in broad daylight.

On one end of the avenue, children joyfully enjoy a school playground: their laughter and play is heard even when they're out of sight. On the other end,an open-air drug market thrives.

In the time it took reporters to walk from West Main to Bartlett Street, no less than three police cars passed. Still,a young man walkedthrough traffic offering drugs to whoever might beinterested in purchasing. Thepolice did not stop or speak to the man during the time the Democrat and Chronicle was present.Like countless other cars, the officersdroveby.

Residents said theyare primarily left to sort out problems on their own.

Fullilove initially remained optimistic about her new location, but the foot traffic she expected to be beneficialis minimal.

"When I moved into this spot, I thought I would sell a lot of candy with a school across the street," Fullilove said. "But parents won't even let their kids walk up and down the street with all the drugs and violence."

Candles line the sidewalks, altars and memorials to those who have died. The nameless memorials are tended by community members family and friends of the lost ones, in some cases, even by strangers who maintain the candles and other items.

There is not one grocery store on Jefferson Avenue nor are there any close by. Residents must leave their neighborhood and travel miles for fresh food, a task made all the more arduous if they do not have their own vehicle or means of transportation.

Elders convene for conversation and fresh air, chairs from their kitchens or living rooms are dragged outside for community time.

Bunny Williams is one of those elders surveying the neighborhood on the corner of Jefferson andCady.Jefferson Avenueis vibrant, full of people who clearly care for each other several people stop to wave or say, "Hey, Bunny! How you doing?" during the course of the Democrat & Chronicle's interview with Williams.

But it is also the site of decades of city, county and state neglect.

Williams has lived in the neighborhood for 65 years since he was born. He saidhe was present for part of Daniel Prude's interactionwith Rochester Police in March 2020 that ultimately led to his death.

Williams said he believes that if it weren't for the wave of people who came to his neighborhood to protest police brutality and city inaction, Prude's death would have remained unacknowledged.

"If they hadn't come down here, nothing was going to be done about it," Williams said. "The mayor knew, and she ignored it."

Williams said that RPD's recent instances of police brutality or excessive force including Prude's death, thepepper-spraying a 9-year old child and the tacticsused on protesters is the worst that he's seen in all his years living in the city. Police will be responsible for another person's deathunless something more substantial is done to curb police violence against members of his community, he said.

"It's going to happen again," Williams said. "Doesn't matter how many people come down here to protest. Just watch; it's going to happen again."

Recently, news broke that only one of the seven officers suspended for their roles in the death of Daniel Prude will face potential discipline from the Rochester Police Department after an internal investigation.

"If they can bring departmental charges against one, why not the rest of them?" Joe Prude said when reached by a reporter.

Last year, during the protests, demonstrators called for Mayor Lovely Warren's resignation because of her involvement in obfuscating the public's knowing about the Prude case. Though it wasn't directly because of her handling of Prude's death, by early DecemberWarren will resign from office after pleading guiltyto a campaign finance charge.

The definition of justice is different for everyone affected by last year's turmoil. While police reform or abolition is top of the list for most, some of those on Jefferson Avenue are primarily concerned with their quality of life, citing a need for fresh food and access to more opportunities.

While echoes of the Prude demonstrations linger, residents like Sean Brown saidthe gun violence tormenting the community needs the same energy.

"You can't just protest every time a cop kills someone," Brown said. "You got to protest for it all. Black lives matter, right?"

This was a critique some had of the protests last year, though it warrants reminding that community organizations within the city of Rochester, like Community Justice Initiative , do both. CJI actively protested the death of Daniel Prude and the pepper-spraying of the child, while also holding "Feed the People" events and events to end violence in the community. Other organizations, like People's Liberation Program, are working to establish and sustain a grocery program in the 19th Ward and PLEX neighborhoods.

On March 23, the first anniversary of Daniel Prude's death, Niya Shabazz, an organizer with CJI, participated in protests at the East Avenue Wegmans. At the time, Shabazz responded to accusations that demonstrators only care about the community when a someone dies at the hands of police.

"Where were they the last couple of months when CJI had a stop the violence campaign?" she asked. "Join us or reach out to a young person you think may need some guidance. We believe in holding each other accountable. We just don't attack racism. We attack all facets of oppression."

Brown and Williams both said they want answers on how guns are reaching the community and why nothing is being done about that by city and state officials, as the ongoing violence suggests to the two residents.

While Jefferson Avenue deals with the dual realities of the threat of violence fromthe police department and violenceby members of thecommunity, residents who spoke with the Democrat and Chronicle said justice centers on safety, opportunityand a constant push for awareness.

Those residents living on and around Jefferson Avenue said theywant not only to survive, but to thrive and that takes buy-in, concern and care not only from community members themselves but from those who drop into support them during a time of crisis.

"We can't just gather around when it's a tragedy," Fullilove said. "We need to gather people from all walks of life to come down here and ask us why.

"Why are these tragedies happening in this neighborhood?"

Adria R. Walker covers public education for the Democrat and Chronicle in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on Twitter at @adriawalkr or send her an email at arwalker@gannett.com. You can support her work with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America.

Contact Robert Bell at: rlbell@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @byrobbell & Instagram: @byrobbell. This coverage is only possible with support from our readers.

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Where Jefferson Ave. stands a year after being a protest hotspot in Rochester - Democrat & Chronicle

A former African slave is telling Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory advocates that they need to go back to school to understand what is happening in Africa today and to learn that the United States offers them unique opportunities that they are unlikely to find elsewhere.

"The United States is the only country that can free you, (where) you can get a decent job and be a free man." Bol Gai Deng insisted.

Deng is a former slave and South Sudan presidential candidate.

In this week's episode of the CBN News Channel program The Global Lane, Deng explained that he became a slave in 1987 after the Sudanese government-backed Mujahadeen raiders kidnapped him and burned down his village.

Deng and more than 700 other captured children were forced to walk through the bush, 250 miles from their homes. He was only seven years old when merchants took him to northern Sudan to be sold into a life of brutal enslavement.

"I was beat up, I was told what to do, and sometimes they used to put chains on my legs to the point where I would become so disciplined to my master," Deng recalled.

He escaped after three years in captivity and eventually made his way to Khartoum where he found help from a Catholic charity. Later, he traveled to Egypt where he was offered asylum in the United States.

He said BLM and CRT advocates can learn a few lessons from former slaves like him.

"I believe Black Lives Matter does not understand what is going on in Africa, they don't know what is going on around the world," Deng explained.

"They need to understand that slavery still exists in Africa today (where) more than 9.2 million (people) are still in captivity in slavery."

Deng said Libya is just one example. He claimed that women in the north African country are still being sold into slavery for as little as $400 each.

Also, he suggested that people obsessed with America's slave and racist past should view the country as a land of advancement and freedom.

"In fact, the United States is the only country in the world that can give the slave freedom to become a congresswoman. You cannot find that in the world except in the United States of America."

And although new elections have yet to be scheduled in South Sudan, Deng has declared his candidacy for president.

How will he bring people together in a nation where the majority Dinka and minority Nuer tribes are still fighting one another?

Deng suggests tribal divisions will end once the people of the world's newest nation embrace Christian values and begin to view themselves as Southern Sudanese instead of members of a specific tribe.

"I think what they need right now is a good leader who will understand that what is going on in South Sudan is the lack of leadership--and that is a tribal line," the former slave explained.

"We in the Christian community believe in love," Deng said. "We believe in peace. We believe in unity and my life in America taught me so much to the point where if you live in the United States, you are an American citizen and I believe the same philosophy could take place in South Sudan by leadership."

Watch Gary Lane's interview withBol Gai Deng below. The Global Lane can be seen at 9:00 pm Wednesdays on the CBN News Channel.

***Please sign up forCBN Newslettersand download theCBN News appto ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***

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Former Slave to BLM: 'Slavery Still Exists in Africa Today' - CBN News

Tony Evans, founding pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, recently introduced a concept he calls Kingdom Race Theology to his congregation as his alternative to Critical Race Theory, by way of two Wednesday evening sermons. According to a July 27 article in Baptist Press, Evans described Critical Race Theory as a post-Civil Rights social construct that seeks to demonstrate how unjust laws have served as the embedded foundation and filter through which racist attitudes, behavior, policies and structures have been rooted throughout the fabric of American life and systems even after those laws have changed.

During those sermons, which may be viewed on the internet, Evans declared his concern that Critical Race Theory which he acknowledges can be useful in addressing systemic racial injustice becomes divisive and an impediment to Christian unity and the ministry of reconciliation when it is associated with the New York Times 1619 Project and the Black Lives Matter organization (which Evans distinguishes from the Black Lives Matter movement).That concern prompted Evans to introduce Kingdom Race Theology, which he defines asthe reconciled recognition, affirmation and celebration of the divinely created ethnic differences through which God displays his multifaceted glory as his people justly, righteously and responsibly function personally and corporately in unity under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Evans dedication to Christian unity is commendable. His argument that the 1619 Project and Black Lives Matter organizational aims are unbiblical pyrotechnics from the Critical Race Theory firecracker (a metaphor he used during his July 14 sermon) which threaten Christian effectiveness and Black families does not hold up under careful examination.

Evans objects to the 1619 Project because its author, journalist Nicole Hannah Jones, contends the United States did not begin with the Revolutionary War in 1776 but more than 150 years earlier, when enslaved Africans were delivered to Jamestown, Va., in 1619. In the 1619 Project, Jones argues that the basic reason for the Revolutionary War for independence from Great Britain was so white enslavers could create a nation where chattel slavery was legalized.

According to Evans and other Christian nationalists, this perspective about the origin of the United States threatens national harmony and fosters cross-racial conflict. Evans even claims near the end of his July 21 sermon that Frederick Douglass called the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution perfect and freedom documents.

According to Evans and other Christian nationalists, this perspective about the origin of the United States threatens national harmony and fosters cross-racial conflict.

That is what Evans wants his congregation to believe. But that is not what Douglass said on July 4, 1852, during a speech to hundreds of abolitionists in Rochester, N.Y.

What to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

To claim that Douglass uttered those words during a Fourth of July public gathering yet considered the Declaration of Independence perfect and a freedom document is worse than an inexcusable exaggeration. It is nonsense.

Evans also claims that the Black Lives Matter organization not the movement threatens Black families. He did not cite any evidence to support that claim in either of his sermons. However, Evans shares that view with Armstrong Williams, a conservative Black syndicated commentator and television personality, who claims that the creators of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation believe, maintain and teach against the idea of a nuclear family with a father and mother in the household, and instead espouse the benefits of what they refer to as a village.

Before Armstrong Williams became one of the leading Black television station owners, he was a legislative staffer for Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina (who campaigned for president in 1948 to maintain racial segregation), and a confidential assistant to Clarence Thomas when Thomas was chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the position Thomas held when Anita Hill alleges that he sexually harassed her).

Kingdom Race Theology suffers from other flaws. Although Evans calls it a Christian theology, he did not urge followers of Jesus to demand societal remedies for the continuing evils of systemic racism, sexism (including bigotry and discrimination against LGBTQ persons), militarism, imperialism, capitalist-inspired classism, technocentrism, xenophobia and other oppression. Evans never spoke the words repentance, restitution or reparations.

Evans is free to call his views Kingdom Race Theology. However, his views do not honor the tradition of Jesus.

Why does this matter?

Tony Evans is a popular Black pastor, radio commentator and religious author who shares his views on daily radio broadcasts heard throughout the world. He is free to declare his beliefs about racial injustice. Evans is free to call his views Kingdom Race Theology. However, his views do not honor the tradition of Jesus, John the Baptist and other prophets of the Christian Bible (such as Amos, Micah, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel) who condemned societies that practiced and prospered due to social injustice. They also do not honor Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Martin Luther King Jr., Samuel DeWitt Proctor, and other Black followers of Jesus who did not hesitate to condemn America.

There is nothing new about what Evans calls Kingdom Race Theology. It is the same pietistic pablum white Christian nationalists always have spoken, except that it is now coming from the mind and mouth of a popular Black proponent of Christian nationalism to promote a pietistic defense of American exceptionalism and objection to prophetic critique of white supremacy and American empire.

Wendell Griffenis an Arkansas circuit judge and pastor of New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Ark.

Related articles:

How the oldest American lie sustains our racial malaise | Opinion by Richard T. Hughes

Could you win a quiz show by defining Critical Race Theory? | Analysis by Mark Wingfield

Want to understand Critical Race Theory? Read the Good Samaritan story | Opinion by Susan Shaw and Regina McClinton

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Tony Evans misses the mark and misrepresents history with his Kingdom Race Theology - Baptist News Global

EVERETT Workers at Fred Meyer and QFC should be able to wear Black Lives Matter buttons on the job, the National Labor Relations Board says. Retail giant Kroger, which discouraged some workers from doing so, is reviewing a settlement agreement.

Tom Geiger, a spokesperson for the union that represents the Kroger employees, said members were asked to remove buttons that said Black Lives Matter, after the union handed them out in August 2020. The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21 alleged Kroger failed to bargain over a change in workplace conditions and prohibited workers from taking action together both violations of federal labor law.

The NLRB found merit in both claims, said Region 19 Director Ronald Hooks. Hooks, who heads the NLRBs Northwest Regional Office in Seattle, said the Division of Advice found that both of those acts by the employer constituted violations of federal labor law.

Memos from the Division of Advice, which offers guidance in difficult cases, are not typically available to the public while the case is open. Hooks said Region 19 received the memo in mid-September and is negotiating a settlement with Kroger.

We are reviewing the proposed settlement agreement, wrote a Kroger spokesperson Monday. Our company is unequivocal in standing with our Black associates, deeply listening and taking action to advance more diverse, inclusive and equitable communities.

If the NLRB believes there is merit to allegations against an employer, attempting to negotiate a settlement is the first step in resolving a case. If the parties cant reach an agreement, the NLRB issues a complaint against the employer. That leads to litigation.

Hooks said if the parties cant reach a settlement, he expects the NLRB would issue a complaint sometime in October.

For Fred Meyer and QFC workers, the update was a welcome one. Workers wore the Black Lives Matter message to support the movement, and because many had experienced or witnessed racism in the workplace, said Geiger, the UFCW 21 spokesperson.

The message of Black Lives Matter that the workers were wearing was both an expression of a problem they were experiencing or witnessing in the workplace that they wanted addressed and also a comment about what was and continues to be happening in our society in general around racism, and racism toward Black people in the community, specifically, Geiger said.

In Snohomish County, employees at Fred Meyer and QFC first wore face masks and other items that said Black Lives Matter after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer. The officer knelt on Floyds neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, ultimately killing him, while other officers watched.

Floyds death sparked international protests against police brutality and racial inequality. The 2020 Black Lives Matter movement became one of the largest social movements in U.S. history.

As the summer progressed, however, some of the workers were told they werent allowed to wear the slogan, Geiger said. In some cases, Kroger management suggested workers wear a bracelet that said Standing Together.

It showed how much Kroger completely missed the point, Geiger said.

In August 2020, UFCW 21 gave its members the Black Lives Matter buttons. The union filed a grievance with the NLRB, after workers were asked to remove them.

Katie Hayes: katie.hayes@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @misskatiehayes.

Katie Hayes is a Report for America corps member and writes about issues that affect the working class for The Daily Herald.

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Grocers at odds with workers over Black Lives Matter buttons | HeraldNet.com - The Daily Herald

BLM Speaks on Resignation of Ed Mullins, President of the New York Police Association

Black Lives Matter Logo (Blacklivesmatter.com)

In response to the resignation of Ed Mullins, president of the New York Police association, amidst FBI raids on his home and association office, Black Lives Matter has released the following statement:

The FBI investigation and subsequent resignation of the New York Police Department association president, Ed Mullins, is further proof that it is beyond time for police associations to end. Police associations are not unions. As it is chanted at our weekly #EndPoliceAssociations protest, they are organized crime.

Black Lives Matter stands in solidarity with real unions that represent the interests of working-class people. Police associations do the opposite: they oppose working class people at every turn, break strikes, and bust unions. Police associations bully and bribe public officials, pilfer the public purse by advocating for inordinate shares of public funds for police at the expense of vital public services, and they shield murderous, violent, and corrupt cops from any accountability through measures like Qualified Immunity and attempts to block meaningful police reform. Ed Mullins is not an anomaly. He is the norm. Kimberly Potter, the officer who murdered #DaunteWright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis in the midst of the Derek Chauvin trial, was the president of her police association. The LAPD officer who murdered #DanielHernandez, Toni McBride, is the daughter of Los Angeles Police Protective League head, Jamie McBride. Whenever police murder and harm our folks, police associations refuse to protect and serve the people; instead, they close ranks and protect themselves.

The latest revelation about the New York police association and its president is one of countless examples of criminal behavior by police associations. Black Lives Matter demands that the Biden administration deploy federal investigations into all police associations nationally. We call on the AFL-CIO to expel police associations from their ranks. We implore elected officials and candidates for office to reject all contributions from police associations. We also know that power comes from the people and we invite all of those who seek justice to join the fight by showing up in the streets, advocating online, and doing the work to #EndPoliceAssociations. For more, go to endpoliceassociations.com.

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BLM Speaks on Resignation of Ed Mullins, President of the New York Police Association - Lasentinel

MAPLETON A woman holding a Black Lives Matter sign at a Maple River High School football game Friday night had it wrenched from her hands and thrown onto the sideline, prompting an investigation by the Mapleton Police Department.

Laura Nusser, who has two sons on the football team, said she chose to sit in the student section with her sign because of an incident her child had alleged earlier that day.

One of her sons, both of whom are biracial, reportedly told her a classmate had made an off-color comment during a homecoming activity about him going to the back of a line to wait behind mostly white students.

She told The Free Press she wanted students at the game to know some of their classmates think derogatory statements are funny.

Nusser called the school counselor about the incident Friday afternoon and wasnt satisfied with the response.

Maple River Principal Ted Simon

I did communicate with our counselor that night, our superintendent and everybody, so we are aware of what there are issues we dont know the details of at all yet, said Ted Simon, Maple River High School and Middle School principal, Monday morning.

And thats essentially what we need to do: investigate and find out for sure what is going on.

On Friday night, Nusser grabbed a Black Lives Matter sign she had made last year and headed to the football game, leaving it in the car until the second quarter.

A Facebook video taken by a spectator and posted by Dion Thomas, who picketed outside the high school Monday morning, shows Nusser seated and holding the sign above her head when an older man approaches. Seemingly without any direct provocation by Nusser, the man lunges for the sign with both arms, wrests it from Nussers hands as she yells, then tosses the sign over a railing onto the sideline.

Adults and students are now calling him a brave man ... Im being told I should of never brought racism to the homecoming game, I should have just put a sign in my yard, Nusser wrote on Facebook Friday night. I didnt bring racism to homecoming, other students did. I came to the game to support my kids.

An officer returned the mangled sign to her that evening, its bottom slightly ripped. He told her he found it folded in a trash bin.

Just over 500 students attend Maple River Secondary School, which houses students in grades 6-12.

Mapleton police officer Andrew Hagen questioned witnesses in the bleachers and at one point followed Nusser to question the man who took the sign from her, as shown in an 18-minute Facebook live video she posted.

Disgruntled and stunned faces stare back at Nussers phone camera throughout the video. Many spectators said aloud that she was lying and told her to go home.

Police made Nusser leave the venue at the request of Maple River school administrators because of her offensive language, Mapleton Police Chief Benjamin Honsey said in a Sunday press release.

Throughout her video, which was filmed directly after the incident, Nusser at various points says most audience members are racists while an officer escorts her away from the bleachers. While standing in the bleachers, she once called the high school parents f weirdos.

Nusser said it was unfair that she was forced to leave while the man, who was shown in her video to have returned to his seat after the incident, could stay.

She also claimed the man had lightly pushed her with his fingertips to her chest after he took the sign. She said his hat fell off in the struggle for the sign and she kicked it, enraging him and leading to the alleged push.

Hagen tells her in the video, He did not push you, saying he talked to three people who hadnt corroborated that detail.

The Blue Earth County Attorney will review the case for possible criminal charges once the police investigation concludes. Police encourage anyone who saw or recorded the incident to call the department at 507-524-3091.

Attempts to reach and identify the man involved were unsuccessful.

I wasnt really intending for it to be like that, Nusser said of the incident. I wanted the students to see it thats why I was over in the student section.

Standing outside of the 500-student secondary school early Monday morning, Maple River Schools Supt. Dan Anderson said a tripod video camera had been set up in case of any excitement in response to the incident. Principal Simon and Chief Honsey also stood nearby.

Dion Johnson, a 20-year-old former student at Maple River High School, stood outside the school Monday morning with a sign supporting the First Amendment in response to the video of a man taking Laura Nussers Black Lives Matter sign.

Dion Johnson, a 20-year-old former student at Maple River, stood outside along Silver Street holding a sign that said Stop Prejudice, along with another showing his support for freedom of speech.

I was pretty upset by the fact that this woman was not being allowed to express herself using her sign, he said. Her sign was actually ripped from her hands and thrown onto the field.

Dozens of vehicles passed by on the busy road ahead of the school days 8:05 a.m. start. A young man drove by in a truck with two Trump flags flying in its bed, his window rolled down as he smirked at Johnson.

I was told there was gonna be a whole convoy of those suckers, Johnson said.

Teresa Miller, 53, was the only person to join Johnson on the sidewalk.

She had never protested before. But after driving past that morning and sitting for a few minutes at her desk in the local business she owns, she thought, You know what, Im gonna go stand with that kid.

I have a granddaughter thats in first grade here. Shes biracial, Miller said, adding that she had lived in Mapleton her whole life. Shes the third generation of our family thats gone to Maple River, and I just want her to have a good school to go to and no bias.

Maple River Schools Supt. Dan Anderson

The principal said when students have concerns about mistreatment, they are told to share them with a school employee with whom they feel most comfortable. For student-athletes, that employee is often their coach.

As superintendent for over half a dozen years, Anderson said he finds students get along well in Maple River Schools. Asked whether he disagrees that any pervasive racial issues exist, he said yes.

I would say, culturally, we have things in our state that we certainly have to work through, and schools are part of that. So we are part of that discussion, he said. Here at school, things go quite well.

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BLM sign ripped from woman's hands at Maple River game; police intervene - Mankato Free Press

Last fall, I published an op-ed in the Stanford Daily that criticized the Black Lives Matter movement. Since then, I've explored this topic further through casual conversations with family and friends, further responses in the Daily, emails with students, and even Zoom calls with readers I've never met. These discussions helped me clarify my perspective and gave me insight into Stanford's ideological climate. I'm writing this article to reflect on what I've learned, share some of the conversations I've had, and pose a question to the Stanford community.

If I could go back in time and rewrite "The case against BLM," I would do several things differently. First, I would clarify my intentions and choose a different titleperhaps something along the lines of Andrew Samsones Black Lives Matter, So Refund the Police. I wanted to raise my concerns about aspects of the BLM movement precisely because black lives matter, and a more precise title would have conveyed this goal more effectively. Second, I would underscore that my goal wasnt to provoke. I wantedand still wantto contribute to a good-faith discussion. My article synthesized critiques issued by true intellectuals: Coleman Hughes, Chlo Valdary, Erec Smith, Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Shelby Steele, and more. Some are conservative, many are liberal, and all have devoted tremendous thought and care to the issues at hand.

I knew that publishing a criticism of Black Lives Matter would elicit intense pushback, so I wasnt surprised by the gist of the articles responding to mine. Im certainly not one to shy away from debate; Im ready and willing to have my ideas challenged. But the responses that the Daily published in the days after publishing my piece were clearly written to malign me, not to engage in good faith debate. They ranged in tone from condescending to vitriolic, and I had trouble making sense of their perspectives.

One author responded to my claim that the Black Lives Matter movement has risen to zealous extremes by citing disagreements among anti-racists, an argument that misses the point entirely. Sure, scholars might disagree about the specifics of the 1619 Project, but the central tenets of BLM remain unchallenged --and those who push back in a substantive way are labeled heretics. The paragraph in which I described the disproportionate homicide rate among black males was deemed racist, irrelevant, and callous and therefore not worthy of response. Strangest of all, the suggestion that police may fear for their lives when arresting criminals was met with a statistic showing that loggers and truck drivers are more likely to die on the job but manage to hold off on carrying out extrajudicial executions. This rebuttal is absurd. Under certain circumstances, police officers must act in self-defense, whereas loggers and truck drivers interact with logs and trucksnot violent offenders. Another memorable op-ed characterized me as a racist Republican who prefers "hot takes" over constructive debate, concluding that I'm not "owed the respect nor civility of the same Black people [I] insulted. (its an open question whether the same applies to black people who critique BLM -- are they owed any respect or civility?)

I reached out to both authors in hopes of talking more. One never responded. The other did so indignantly, declaring that speaking with me "sounds like a chore I cannot subject myself to." These interactions are surprisingly dissonant with what I've always imagined the goals of social justice to be.

The final installment of this saga took place in March when I embarked on a project to research students' perspectives on social justice. I sent out hundreds of emails to recruit participants. Some students declined, many accepted, and I went on to conduct dozens of interviews. A small minority responded with remarkable hostility and rudeness. Here are a few noteworthy excerpts:

All the authors of the above emails reiterated their commitment to social justice, yet none was willing to speak to me. "Don't fucking ever contact me again," one warned. Another instructed me to "stop reaching out to low-income students of color," and a third threatened to report me for harassment if I ever emailed her again.

I want to have difficult conversations, but I can't do it alone. I appreciate everyone who has reached out to continue the dialogue and help me see things in a new light. As the Stanford community continues to grapple with complex and controversial issues, I hope we can embody this spirit of intellectual rigor and respect. After all, what is justice without kindness?

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Reflections on "The Case Against BLM" - Stanford Review

With nearlytwo months left of this year's turbulent hurricane season, thousands of Louisianans are entering their sixth straight week without powerfollowingHurricane Ida. Meanwhile, displaced residents in search of adequate shelter for their families are piling into any neighbors' homes that are still intact, some with up to 10people in a single-wide trailer. Destroying more of Louisiana's power grid than any other storm in the state's history, Hurricane Ida has left millionswithout homes or access to clean water during a pandemic.

This destruction wasn't by simple happenstance or some sort of unpredictable anomaly it was the direct result of the failure of political and corporate leaders, year after year, to build adequate infrastructure, implement equitable protections for reliefand provide Black communities the same resources and protections afforded to wealthy, white neighborhoods.

We've seen this before 16 years ago nearly to the day, when Hurricane Katrina decimated Louisiana. The government and corporations provided no support that the people of New Orleans needed as delays in relief and rescue left millions of residents without food, water or shelter for weeks andseverely underminedthe economic stability of residents in the years since.

Color of Change, the organization I have led for the last 11 years, was founded in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It was born in response to a profound realization in that moment: No one in power was nervous about disappointing Black peopleand failing to meet our needs, not even at that massive scale of suffering. There wereno consequences for hurting Black communities.

Now, 16 years later, Black people have built the kind of power that it takes to be heard. As a result of the work of the movement for racial justice, we can now see how racial impact is more and more frequently part of the policy discussion when it comes to the problems we need to solve as a country from climate disasters and a pandemicto consumer protectionsto tax and education policy. But being a topic of conversation, whether in a government office or a corporate boardroom, is not enough. We do not yet have the power it takes to get the results we need when it comes to preventing events like Ida or COVID-19 from causing us more harm (and forcing more sacrifices from us) than other communities.

We must continue to build the power required to keep both politicians and corporations in check. This is what people are talking about when they talk about Black power: the ability to create tangible consequences for bad actors that are strong enough to prevent injustice and devastation.

When our government allows exploitative real estate corporations to develop shoddy private developments to maximize profit and displace Black residents, thousands are left without homes during a disaster. When elected leaders redirect vital infrastructure and health funds to already bloated, inept and abusive police departments, health and emergency services cannot reach those in need during times of crises. Even with widespread organizing for reinvestment into our communities, corporations activelydisrupt movements for collective power and change.

Climate change and structural racism share something profound: they are both outcomes that corporations and politicians have manufactured for their own narrow purposes and profits. They also bring out the worst of corporate myth-making.

Corporate leaders have pushed the sham of individual consumption reduction asthe main solution to climate change while it's apparent that reckless corporate overproduction, inefficiency and willful neglect ofresponsibility, including an extensive history of exploiting Black people, is the greatest contributor to climate change. Conservatives, including corporate leaders, have similarly tried to convince us that racism is a matter of individual behavior, rather than policies, systems and structures designed to maintain white supremacy and privilege.

Climate change and structural racism reinforce one another each makes the other stronger. We need to accept that racism is a climate change accelerator, and that climate change is a major racial impact and racial justice issue. And in both cases, unchecked corporate power is the biggest driver.

Climate disasters aren't a simple misfortune their destruction derives from geographic segregation, generational poverty and a lack of accountability from corporate powers and elected leaders who have siphonedresources from our communities from the start. Historic and current political decisions have placed Black people directly in the initial zone of climate danger. Fromconsistent faults in emergency protocols in New Orleans, unlivable air quality for majority Black neighborhoods in Detroit produced by Chrysler production plants, investing funds to police departments and giving tax breaks to corporations, environmental racism is the direct result of those in power intentionally choosing to prioritize profits over the well-being of our communities.

Corporations that have the means to ensure housing and substantial recovery for survivors of disaster but choose to do nothing are attackingBlack communities,no matter what their slick advertisements featuring Black people may say. To understand the impact of climate change and refuse to implement legislative regulations to halt its impact is another form of attack on Black communities.

As individuals around the country are showing up for survivors via fundraising, mutual aidand neighborly support, inaction from corporate powers and harmful policies implemented by lawmakers have led to New York City, one of the wealthiest cities in the world, being entirely unprepared formass flooding in subway systems and homes as a result of Hurricane Ida. Both private corporations and public elected officials have a responsibility not only to provide the necessary relief, but to prevent this kind of negligence from causingmore damage in the future.

Last year, corporations of all kinds publicly claimed to care about racial justice. But the fact is, moments like theselet us know which corporations are actually willing to put their money where their values are. Energy providers like Entergy and hospitality companies like Hyatt have an opportunity to uphold their commitments to justice and directly help those displaced in Louisiana. If they claim to care about Black lives, they, too, must support Black livelihood and wellbeing.

Forcing Black communities to bear the brunt of climate disasters disproportionately is not only unjust butwill only postpone the moment at which we realize that climate change is an issue that affects us all and will drastically impact our shared fate. We must see decisive and effective action right now from the corporations that say Black lives matter, in order to undo decades of racist political and corporate exploitation that have targeted Black communities.

But that requires investing more effort in movements for racial justice that can create consequences for those corporations if they fail to act. Rather than letting the intense energy of 2020 fade away, we must take that energy and our collective focus on racial justice to the next level. And that means increasing our support for Black-led organizing and Black community power. That is the only true bulwark against the flood of bad decisions that continue to produce climate disasters.

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Hurricane Ida's destruction was the result of years of systemic racism - Salon

The death of George Floyd in May of 2020 ignited a racial uprising in America, fueling nationwide protests and catalyzing the Black Lives Matter movement, according to Dr. Jallicia Jolly, a professor of Black and American Studies at Amherst College in Massachusetts.

As a result, for the first time in history, institutions and corporations were willing to educate themselves on the past and present evils of racism, said Jolly, who addressed Diablo Valley College students and faculty last month at the first Social Justice Speakers Series event of the fall, entitled Our Presence as Protest: Equity and Racial Justice in the Aftermath of 2020.

We saw unprecedented verbal commitment to anti-racism by academic institutions and companies like Nike, Starbucks, Ben & Jerrys and Victoria Secret, she said. However, There are [still] not many mechanisms to recruit and retain diverse people of color at the highest levels of power.

In academic settings specifically, Jolly said society needs to empower students and community members to critically engage and navigate systems of power within the college, university and beyond. This will require building meaningful coalitions, actions based on solidarity, and institutional accountability to produce structural change.

She warned that growing attacks on the teachings of Critical Race Theory are part of a broader, calculated assault against expansive views of racial justice. As rightwing activists continue in their attempts to gag anti-racist education, while spreading misinformation campaigns online and in the streets, Jolly said society must push back in order to make racial justice a reality.

Pointing to present-day ramifications of racist policies, she highlighted the convergence of COVID-19, xenophobia, global anti-blackness, and racialized violence that have forced society to ask a now-poignant question: Which lives matter and which deaths dont?

Jolly urged individuals and community members to stay vigilant in their pursuit of racial equality, saying, This is not just an intellectual exercise It involves a communal practice and a solidarity of action that is organized beyond institutions.

She added, These calls require a revolutionary imagination that sees far beyond immediate circumstances.

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Which Lives Matter and Which Deaths Don't: Professor Jallicia Jolly Talks Racial Justice and the Pathways to Systemic Change - The Inquirer

Tension is high in the small southern Minnesota town of Mapleton after racist remarks were allegedly made by school students, which was followed by an incident at a football game in which a man ripped a Black Lives Matter sign out of a woman's hands and tossed it over a railing.

"There was an incident at a football game on Friday, October 1, 2021, involving a few parents," Maple River Superintendent Dan Anderson said in a statement to Bring Me The News.

The Mankato Free Press reports that the source of the tension began last Friday when a white student at Maple River High School shouted "Blacks to the back." Laura Nusser, whose sons are Black, responded to the incident by bringing a Black Lives Matter sign to the homecoming football game that night. In a Facebook post, she said someone ripped the sign out of her hands and threw it over a railing.

Video of the sign being ripped from her possession was also posted to Facebook.Nusser said the man who took her sign also pushed her.

Nusser said was then was asked by the principal to leave the football game police escorted her out while the man who grabbed her sign and allegedly pushed her was allowed to stay.

Nusser then led a protest on Monday morning, during which a student allegedly drove by the protesters while displaying a Confederate flag and a Blue Lives Matter flag. Superintendent Anderson confirmed that an incident took place Monday but avoided discussing details due to data privacy regulations.

"We have investigated a related allegation that occurred on Monday, October 4, 2021. We have interviewed multiple students and any students violating district policy have been suspended," Anderson said. "Some of the students involved are not from Maple River, which limits our scope of authority to address their conduct."

The mother of the student who was suspended for driving the vehicle that displayed the Confederate flag argued to the Mankato Free Press thatthe Confederate flag is not about racism, if anyone actually does their history."

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But the Confederate flagis one of America's most enduring symbols of racism, given thatthe Confederacy was founded to preserve states' rights to own slaves, and its use has increasingly been adopted by white supremacists across the country.

"All students are welcome at Maple River. Behavior to the contrary has never been, nor will it ever be, tolerated. We will continue to work with law enforcement to ensure the safety and well-being of every student at Maple River," said Anderson.

Benjamin Honsey, chief of Mapleton Police Department, issued a statement saying the department will "continue to work on pending investigations and work toward de-escalating tensions within our community."

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Racism allegations grab headlines in small town Minnesota - Bring Me The News