Category Archives: Black Lives Matter

BLM influencersProvided

Celebrities and scholars, best-selling authors and everyday people are using their social media presence to lead the conversation on racial justice. Here are just a few of them spreading the word on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and other platforms.

TikTok culture changer

With more than 562,000 followers and nearly 40 million likes, Erynn Chambers has become one of the most popular creators raising awareness of the Black experience and anti-Black racism on TikTok.Provided

In June, Erynn Chamberswatched a TikTok video from drag queen Online Kyne, talking about how statistics are manipulated to make it appear that Black Americans are more violent.

So the 28-year-old elementary school music teacher from North Carolina opened up TikTok and addedher own commentary, in song form.

Black neighborhoods are overpoliced, so of course they have higher rates of crime. And white perpetrators are undercharged, so of course they have lower rates of crime, she sang. And all those stupid stats that you keep using are operating offa small sample size. So shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.

The video, labeled About yalls favorite statistics, blew up overnight. It was reposted again and again and has 2 million views.

It wasnt her only hit. Why is Rosa Parks the only black activist we learn about? also brought her attention as she examined how Parks came to be the face of the 1955-56 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott.

With more than 600,000 followers and 48million likes, Chambers has become one of the most important creators raising awareness of the Black experience and racism on TikTok, which has been criticized for promoting white voices over Black voices.

Chambers says shed been on TikTok for five years but spent more time watching videos than making them until the pandemic. The death of George Floyd got her to do more research into racial equity.

I never really set out for it to be this big thing, Chambers told USA TODAY. I certainly didnt expect to have a half million followers at any point in time.

Anti-racism teacher

Anti-racism activist Rachel CargleRachel Cargle

In 2017 at the Womens March in Washington, Rachel Cargle posed holdingprotest signs with friend and activist Dana Suchow in front of the U.S. Capitol. Cargles read: If You Dont Fight for All Women You Fight for No Women.

The photo went viral and so did Cargle.

An anti-racism activist and author of the upcoming book on feminism through the lens of race, I Dont Want Your Love and Light with The Dial, Cargle works outside academia as a public academic." Shetours the nation to give sold-outlectures. "The Start," for example, is a three-hour workshop on how to be an anti-racist.

"I teach from a platform from a frame of knowledge plus empathy plus action," Cargle told Cleveland 19'sSia Nyorkor."You have to have each of these things to be actively anti-racist."

Cargle also educates her followers, many of them white, on structural racism from a virtual public classroom on Instagram. Coursework includes understanding the intersecting inequalities of race, gender, class and other identities. In heronline learning collective, The Great Unlearn, supported through Patreon, students learn about race and history from historians and academicsof color.

"It's not enough to say, 'Oh, I know it's happening and I hope it gets better,'"Cargle told InStyle. "It's saying, 'I see you and I feel you and I understand, and I'm going to hold myself accountable.' That is what will move someone into action to say, 'I can no longer be complacent. I can no longer be silent. It's not enough to be not racist. I have to be actively anti-racist.'"

In her hometown of Akron, Ohio, Cargle is making a difference in the physical world witha pop-up,Elizabeths Bookshop & Writing Centre, to amplify literature"that has been written away from the pen of the white, cis, hetero man and gives us a new way to understand the world. And she's founderof the Loveland Foundation which offers free therapy to Black women and girls.

A voice ofsocial justice

John Legend plays the piano during a drive-in get out the vote rally in Philadelphia on Nov. 2.MICHAEL PEREZ, AP

Following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of law enforcement, singer-songwriter and longtime social activist John Legend lent his soulful voice to the anti-racist struggle, offering a Twitter primer on the defund the police movement and campaigning for Florida voting rights with Camila Cabello.

And Legends Oscar-winning civil rights anthem Glory from the 2014 film Selma became part of the 2020 soundtrack when he performed it with Common in August at the virtual Democratic National Convention. For the inauguration of President Joe Biden, he gave his rendition of the Nina Simone classic"Feeling Good"in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

These killings made clear to the general public what Black folks already knew: Racism is real, it is ugly, and it is woven into the systems that govern our everyday lives, Legend said at the virtual FN Achievement Awards the Shoe Oscars in December.

With his organization #FreeAmerica, Legend is working to reform the criminal justice system and end mass incarceration.

As a teenager growing up in Ohio, I watched my mother deal with depression and drug abuse after my maternal grandmother a person who filled our whole family with lovepassed away, Legend told PEOPLE in 2016. My mothers addiction didnt just tear her life apart. It tore me and the rest of our family apart, too.

By amplifying the voices of those affected by the criminal justice system and those working to change it, #FreeAmerica is working to build thriving, just, and equitable communities, Legend says.

Artists have a rich tradition of activism. We have a unique opportunity to reach people where they are, beyond political divisions, borders, and silos, Legend said in a video recently after being recognized by the United Nations human rights agency for his social justice advocacy work. Its been my privilege to use my voice and my platform to advance the cause of equity and justice.

Actress, singer, trans lives activist

Peppermint emerged in 2020 as one of the most important voices in the Black Trans Lives Matter movement.

Tapping her following on social media, she brought greater awareness to violence against Black trans women and the broader Black trans community and to the relentless toll of racism, homophobia, misogyny and transphobia.

I think were on the precipice of some really great change, Peppermint told Entertainment Tonight. Were able to speak about race and misogyny and sexuality in a mainstream way that weve not been able to do in years past without being shunned or canceled.

Peppermint attending the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards in Newark, New Jersey.JEFF KRAVITZ, FILMMAGIC

The first trans woman to originate a leading role on Broadway in Head Over Heels, Peppermint rose to fame on RuPauls Drag Race, followed by performances on Pose, God Friended Me and Deputy.

She recently joined the national board of directors of advocacy group GLAAD and was nominated as outstanding music artist for"A Girl Like Me: Letters to My Lovers" inthe GLAAD Media Awards, which honors LGBTQ representation in media.

Im so thankful that the Black Lives Matter movement began after the murder of Trayvon Martin and continued with George Floyd, but what were not seeing is the same sort of energy when it comes to the women who have been killed: Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland and many others, Peppermint told the Guardian.

Author, activist, internet yeller

Writer Ijeoma Oluo attends the 2018 The Root 100 gala at Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers on November 8, 2018, in New York City.JIM SPELLMAN, GETTY IMAGES

Ijeoma Oluo, who for years has been writing and speaking on race, saw interest in her work soar after Floyds death.Her 2018 book, So You Want to Talk about Race, catapulted her onto must-read lists.

The latest from this Seattle-based author, activist and self-described Internet yeller is a sign ofthe nations growing racial consciousness. "Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America" is about white male supremacy, which Oluocalls one of the most evil and insidious social constructs in Western history, from the violent takeover of indigenous lands and the genocide of native people to generations of trauma and loss from anti-Black racism.

The book title refers to the plea by writer Sarah Hagi in 2015: "Lord, give me the confidence of a mediocre white man.

This book illustrates clearly how this country must sustain the exploitation and oppression of Black people in order to protect white male power and white male mediocrity, Oluo told NBC News.

I want everyone who reads this book to see that we aren't just talking about a few bad dudes, we are talking about deliberately constructed identities and systems of power, she said. I want everyone to see what this costs us and to investigate how we each support these harmful norms and systems.

Writer, editor, cultural critic

Roxane Gay speaks onstage during the Hammer Museum's 17th Annual Gala In The Garden on October 12, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.PRESLEY ANN, GETTY IMAGES FOR HAMMER MUSEUM

Im a writer, editor, cultural critic, and sometimes podcaster, Roxane Gaytells USA TODAY.

And then some. Her trenchant insights on feminism, gender, race, sexuality and sexual violence have won her a large and loyal social media audience.

This year she launched a Substack newsletter, The Audacity, as well as The Audacious Book Club. Among the book clubs first picks from underrepresented American writers: Black Futures, edited by Jenna Wortham and Kimberly Drew; Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters; and The Removed by Brandon Hobson.

What makes her so popular is not just her searing memoir Hunger, or her best-selling nonfiction collection of essays, Bad Feminist, or her podcast, Hear to Slay. Or even that she was the first Black woman to write for Marvel Comicswith the Black Panther spinoff comic series World of Wakanda.

Shes an irresistible social media personality who also thinks and writes about fun things, as she puts it. Lighter fare includes her pop-culture likes and dislikes and adorable photos of her puppy in tiny clothing.

Then theres her inimitably good-natured shredding of critics. When one person tweeted at her Who cares what you think? she replied sweetly, You seem to care, dear heart.

Racial and economic justice activist

In June 2015, Bree Newsome Bass climbed a flagpole to remove the Confederate battle flag at a Confederate monument in front of the Statehouse in Columbia, S.C.BRUCE SMITH, AP

In June 2015, long before today's protests toppled monuments to Confederates, Bree Newsome Bassscaled a30-foot pole on the grounds of theSouth Carolina State House and removed the Confederate flag.

This nonviolent act of protest followed the massacreat Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, North Carolina. Eight Black parishioners and their pastor were killed by a white supremacist who posed with the Confederate flag.

When police ordered her down, she replied: "You come against me with hatred and oppression and violence. I come against you in the name of God."

In the following weeks, South Carolina removed the flag from the statehouse grounds andsome Southern states began taking down other symbols of racial oppression and terror.

Today Newsome Bass is a major figure in the struggle for racial and economic justice as an activist who organizes for housing rights. And her Twitter account is a one-woman racial injustice megaphone.

Everybody who didn't know is seeing America as it truly is right now. Can't provide resources for the pandemic but has all the resources at the ready to murder civilians in the street and teargas anyone who objects, she tweeted in May.

Anti-police brutality activist, writer, educator

Brittany Packnett Cunningham speaks onstage as Audible presents: "In Love and Struggle" at Audible's Minetta Lane Theater on February 29, 2020 in New York City.CRAIG BARRITT, GETTY IMAGES FOR AUDIBLE

In March 2015, President Barack Obama told Brittany Packnett Cunningham in a handwritten note that her voice would make a difference for years to come.

The elementary school teacher became a Ferguson Uprising activist and a member of Obamas policing task force after a white police officer killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, outside her hometown of St. Louis, in 2014.

Packnett Cunningham went on to co-found the anti-police-brutality platform Campaign Zero and the feminist media platform The Meteor and co-hosted the Pod Save The People podcast.

Whats your biggest flex of 2020? she recently asked her followers.

She had many of her own. Shes a cable news contributor, host of a new podcast, Undistracted, and a 2020 Fellow at Harvards Institute of Politics. Shes also writing a book and was on the cover of Vogue.

We want to build a group of people who are relentlessly undistracted who are focused on matters of intersectional justice, who are focused on leveraging all of their power toward that end, and who are committed to doing the work necessary, even when its difficult, Packnett Cunninghamtold W Magazine about her podcast.

Scholar, racist systems dismantler

Ibram X. Kendi visits Build to discuss the book Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You at Build Studio on March 10, 2020 in New York City.MICHAEL LOCCISANO, GETTY IMAGES

Less than a week after the 2016 election, Ibram X.Kendi,a 34-year-old assistant professor at the University of Florida, became the youngest author to win the National Book Award in nonfiction for Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.

Fast forward and today hes talked antiracism with Oprah Winfrey on her Apple TV+ show The Oprah Conversation and is considered one of the foremost anti-racism scholars.

The author of three New York Times bestsellers including 2019s How to be an Antiracist is not just writing about racism. As a Boston University humanities professor and founding director of that universitys Center for Antiracist Research, hes developing programs to dismantle it.

Coming out in February is Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, which he co-edited with historian Keisha Blain.

The heartbeat of racism itself has always been denial, and the sound of that heartbeat has always been Im not racist, Kendi, a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor, said in a recent TED interview. What I am trying to do with my work is to really get Americans to eliminate the concept of not racist from their vocabulary and realize, were either being racist or antiracist.

Best-selling author andProject Runway judge

Elaine Welteroth speaking at the Ms. Foundation 30th Annual Gloria Awards in 2018.MONICA SCHIPPER

George Floyd died 15 days after Elaine Welteroths wedding. She married musician Jonathan Singletary on their Brooklyn stoop, then threw a virtual block party.

It felt like one week we were dancing in the streets with our neighbors, many of whom are Black families that have been on our block for decades, and the next we were in the streets protesting, the bestselling author, Project Runway producer and judge andhost of "The Talk" on CBSsaid in People magazine.

When the first protest broke out in Brooklyn I remember saying immediately, I have to be out there. There wasn't even a question, said Welteroth, author of More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are No Matter What They Say. I needed to channel my outrage and my anger and my sadness with a community of people who were in mourning and ready to fight.

A former editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue, the youngest ever appointed at a Cond Nast publication in 2017, Welterothused her fashion industry influence to create "The 15 Percent Pledge." It calls on major retailers to devote a minimum of 15% of their shelf space to Black-owned businesses and to increase representation in their workforces.

"Right now, we are at an inflection point in this country, shewrote on Instagram. What you say and do in this moment will be remembered as a reflection of the value you place on human life. Let the energy and focus of your fight be directed at a system that has enabled terrorism against Black people on our soil for generations. Times Up. This is a war for human life. Which side are you on?"

Published11:37 am UTC Feb. 2, 2021Updated7:23 pm UTC Feb. 2, 2021

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BLM influencers: 10 Black Lives Matter activists on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter you should follow - USA TODAY

In 2020, Portland reported the most incidents of police brutality across the nation since the start of demonstrations in May, with nearly three times as many reports compared with second-place New York City, according to 2020PoliceBrutality, an open-source project that tracks officer violence in the U.S. Even as loud activists demanded institutional change, wildfires burned across Oregon and the COVID-19 pandemic raged, with both factors disproportionately impacting minority communities.

In September 2020, wildfire smoke created the most hazardous air quality conditions the Portland area had ever experienced, resulting in an 88% surge in visits to hospitals and emergency departments by patients with asthma-like symptoms during this time.

The trifecta of emergencies has magnified the need for culturally sensitive providers conscious of the social determinants of health in the city. In the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, healthcare providers are rethinking how they connect with the community.

As much of a dumpster fire and awful as 2020 was, it also taught me a lot about the power of mutual aid, Krieger said. Ive never been so excited to be in street medicine and street mental health. It feels like theres possibility here.

The EWOKs represent the only street medic teams in the city integrating physical and mental health services, according to Krieger, who works as a crisis therapist and supervisor at a local not-for-profit. But the city is aiming to implement a similar service.

In June 2020, the Portland City Council voted to direct $4.8 million from the police budget to a program called Portland Street Response, which will send trained mental health providers to certain 911 calls instead of law enforcement officers.

By tending to the full spectrum of a persons health, officials hope to bridge racial health inequities in the city, said Sam Diaz, a senior policy adviser in Portland Mayor Ted Wheelers office.

In 2014, a report by Portland State University and the not-for-profit Coalition of Communities of Color found that Black families lag behind whites in the area in health outcomes and law enforcement engagement, like many areas across the country. In these instances, hospitals and healthcare systems often pay for much of the cost of treatment. A 2020 study by the American College of Surgeons found that gunshot wounds cost the U.S. healthcare system $170 billion a year, with hospitals spending $16 billion on operations alone to care for patients.

In Portland, between 2003 and 2007, Blacks were more than six times as likely to die by homicide and twice as likely to die from diabetes as whites, according to the report. Black residents in Multnomah County, where Portland is located, were more than three times as likely to be represented in the criminal justice system than the population as a whole, according to the analysis. In 2019, the countys Black residents had an average annual income of $46,500, while whites income averaged upwards of $80,000, according to U.S. Census data.

This isnt new, Diaz said. We have report after report after report showing us the data, and it continues to be unacceptable.

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Portland healthcare institutions work to build trust with BLM - Modern Healthcare

On a Saturday night in early June, Shard Davis, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Connecticut, was sitting on a couch in a rented apartment in San Diego, scrolling through her Twitter feed. She was in California to do research on a project that was funded by a Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellowshipplans that had been affected somewhat by COVID-19 and the widespread protests for racial justice. Davis herself had gone to a Black Lives Matter protest in La Mesa the previous weekend. The event had started out peacefully but turned ugly when California Highway Patrol officers squared off with thousands of protesters on the I-8 freeway. There were reports of bottles thrown, tear gas unleashed, arson, and looting.

A week later, after attending another protest, Davis still couldnt calm down. As she sat alone on her couch, ruminating about the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and news coverage of the La Mesa protestthe crowd had been mostly white and Latinx, she said, but the media made it seem as though Black folks were the ones destroying propertyshe felt more and more enraged.

She asked herself repeatedly, What can I do? She was already thinking about what it would look like for universities to cut ties with police departments. I think I was just drawing the very obvious connections, she said. Academia is seen as a very liberal and progressive place, but systemic racism is running through all of these different institutions.

Although she was not an avid Twitter user, Davis came up with the hashtag #BlackInTheIvory, thinking it might be a good way for Black people to share their stories about racism in her sphere of influence. Folks tout the liberal ivory tower, she told me. They hide behind it.

She texted a friend, Joy Melody Woods, a doctoral student in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, to see what she thought of the hashtag idea. I love it, Woods replied from her iPhone. Already tweeted it out. Davis followed suit, using the hashtag while retweeting a physician named Shaquita Bell: Black individuals in the United States have endured events in our everyday life without an audience or validation of our experiences.

The next morning, Davis and Woods found their notification in-boxes filled with hundreds of tweets from Black academics and graduate students, sharing their stories of exclusion and pain. By Sunday night, #BlackInTheIvory was one of the top twenty hashtags in the country. #BlackInTheIvory is being asked during your first week of college if youre sure you can handle it, many said, or being asked on campus if youre in the right place or lost. #BlackInTheIvory is having campus security constantly ask for your research-lab badge, residence-hall identification, and/or drivers license. Marc Edwards, now an assistant professor of biology at Amherst College, recalled that, in graduate school, at another institution, a dean suggested he wear a tie to class in response to incessant profiling. #BlackInTheIvory is being thrashed in student evaluations for discussing racial injustice, Danielle Clealand, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote. And my personal favorite: #BlackInTheIvory is being asked to serve on endless diversity committees and write endless diversity reports, without regard for ones labor or time, also known as the Black tax. To drive the point home, Woods and Davis posted Venmo bar codes on their Twitter feeds for anyone who might care to contribute.

The movement took off, with feature stories in Nature, The Chronicle of Higher Education, NBCNews.com, and the Boston Globe. Davis and Woods created a Web site, which sold branded merchandise and launched an effort to match Black graduate students in need with donors. Not the Diversity Hire, read the text on one coffee mug.

Youre finally seeing people opening up and sharing these experiences, Woods said. We had been feeling like we were alone.

When Woods and I spoke in June, she told me the story of her own experience as an incoming graduate student. In the fall of 2016, she was the only Black student on her track in a masters program in public health at the University of Iowa. The college had no Black faculty, and Woods said that professors made it clear that she didnt belong, that she wasnt smart enough. One professor told her directly that she didnt have the skills to be a graduate student.

I was feeling maybe I am dumb, she said. I thought I was going insane. I would just be on the floor crying.

Toward the end of her first semester, Woods tried reporting one faculty member to the universitys Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, but the complaint went nowhere. Its hard to prove microaggressions, she said. Thats why we think were going crazy.

In Woodss second semester of graduate school, a private psychologist tested her for learning disabilities. She discovered that she had three: a reading impairment, a visual-spatial processing disability, and a nonverbal learning disability. The psychologist told Woods that she didnt know how she had managed to finish high school. Yet her professors refused to provide learning accommodations, as is required by law. (In response, a spokesperson from the college said that we have made progress since 2016, but it is not enough. We are determined to do better.)

So she left. Walked right across the bridge, as she put it, transferring to the College of Education, where she found three Black professors, an Asian-American adviser, and far more Black students in her classes. I was never the only anymore, she said. The course readings also featured more diverse authors, and, because they explicitly addressed issues of inequality, it was easier to have open conversations about racism. In her new program, Woods completed a masters degree in Educational Policy and Leadership Studies with an emphasis on the sociology of education.

But, in many ways, Woods is an exception. Both of her parents have bachelors degrees in electrical engineering, and her two older sisters have graduate degrees in medicine and science. Many other Black students leave graduate programs in despair, but Woods felt that her family simply wouldnt accept her defeat.

She persisted, but her education came at a cost. These experiences are traumatic, Woods said. They can be isolating and emotionally battering. The problem of being the first and the only Black person in any institution is that being alone makes it much easier for white majorities to dismiss ones perceptions.

As a doctoral student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, I experienced the same isolation and resentment that Black women are now once again shouting about from their Twitter-feed rooftops. I know all too well what #BlackInTheIvory is about. I was already writing about my time in graduate school when I came across the hashtag. It took a moment for its meaning to sink in. For so long, I had recalled my experiences in isolation, pushing them to the corners of my memory and doing my best to make them small. #BlackInTheIvory reminded me that, like Woods, I wasnt alone.

In 1988, I was the first Black woman to enroll in my Ph.D. program in ten years. I was there, really, only because my undergraduate mentor, Elliott Butler-Evans, a Black professor in English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, had insisted on it. He had attended the program and received his own Ph.D. there, some years earlier. He told me about the dearth of Black women with tenure in the U.C. system. In his eyes, getting a doctorate was my civic duty. So I went to graduate school.

There were seven incoming students at the history-of-consciousness program at U.C. Santa Cruz that year: five white men and women, me, and a Chicano from Los Angeles named Raul. One afternoon, the conversation in our first-year seminar turned to race.

Our professors for the seminar, Donna Haraway and Jim Clifford, were two of the most formidable minds I had ever met. The conversation was stimulating, as I recall. Something about how racial meaning is socially constructed, perhaps, rather than strictly biological. I was only just beginning to wrap my head around post-structuralism and theory, and the concepts were still fresh and new. But it soon became apparent that a young woman in our cohort was becoming agitated. Ill call her Mary. She shifted in her seat as though biting her tongue.

Its just that Im Italian-American and... I get really tan in the summer, Mary said. She paused, searching the room. It seemed that no one had a clue what she was getting at. Raul and I exchanged confused looks, waiting for her to complete her thought.

I mean, I get even darker than her, she said, crooking her chin in my direction. And thats when she hit me with it. So... I dont understand, why does she get to be Black?

I wish I could say that anyone had a good response to what Mary had said. If they did, I dont recall. I remember only the silence.

I was isolated in a program in which not a single student or faculty member looked like me, or my mother, or my grandmother, or anyone in my family. All around me were hippie-like surfer students, white kids who found it perfectly acceptable to walk the woodsy paths barefoot on a warm day, or to wear their straight hair in clumped mats. For so many of them, college was an inevitable part of growing up. They treated the privilege with a certain casualness that I, as a first-generation student, did not share.

And, although I didnt think of it that way at the time, I crossed a bridge that year in search of bolstering, just like Joy Woods. I made my way across campus, over to Kresge College, where I found the writer Gloria Anzalda working on a doctorate in literature. Gloria called herself a Chicana-Mexicana-mestiza. She had edited a seminal book for Black and brown feminists, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, that was mandatory reading in womens-studies courses across the country. I also found Ekua Omosupe, an African-American single mom from Mississippi. We three became friends. I was no longer alone.

Im putting together another anthology, Gloria told me one day, and I was wondering if you have any essays or poems youd like to contribute? She did that thing which is so often missing from our lives as Black scholars and academics. Nurturing.

It doesnt have to be polished. Just send me what you have. My essay, which I called Light-Skinnedded Naps, appeared in Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras the next year. It was my first published piece of writing. I was twenty-three years old.

Not long afterward, the literature department brought the novelists Toni Cade Bambara and Buchi Emecheta to campus, as distinguished visiting professors, and my life changed again. I became their teaching assistant, crossing campus regularly to commune with my newfound Black community.

One day, after class, I walked with Toni back to her office. The day was bright and impossibly bluewhich made her next words seem incongruous. She pulled a small AM radio from her pocket. Always carry a short-wave radio, she told me. For when the revolution comes. I loved her commitment to revolutionary ideas, and to Black people, and to me.

I plopped myself down in a chair in her office, continuing our conversation. Mostly, I was hungry for her affirmation, which she gave freely. Years later, I found an old cassette tape of an interview she gave for my dissertation, on nationalist desire in Black television, film, and literature. Playing it back, I was mortified to discover that I had done most of the talking. Toni listened patiently, offering mm-hmms in all the right places.

With Buchi, a Nigerian novelist, one day in particular stands out in my memory. She stood before a class of white students, pausing to survey a Douglas fir outside the window.

For you, the trees and the forest are very beautiful, she said. Beau-ti-ful, she repeated, enunciating each syllable with her thick, British accent. But for me I see something more in the forests.

Uh-oh. I surveyed the room, sensing what was coming.

I see fear and danger. She pronounced this last word dan-jah, allowing it to linger in the coffee-scented air for a beat or two. You just dont know who might be behind those trees. The class considered her words in silence. She was right, and they knew it, although I doubt that a Black person had ever said this to them before in quite that way.

And, if something happens, well, then... Im just another Black woman gone. I wouldnt even get two sentences in the newspaper. Buchi paused, allowing students to sit with their discomfort awhile. One rustled papers. Another crossed and uncrossed her legs.

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How Black Lives Matter Came to the Academy - The New Yorker

ELLSWORTH A nonprofit that helps inmates recover from substance abuse could be allowed back in the Hancock County Jail starting Friday, seven months after the agency lost access over its support for Black Lives Matter.

County Commissioner Bill Clark, Healthy Acadia Executive Director Elsie Flemings and Sheriff Scott Kane met Monday morning.

Clark said Monday afternoon that as a result of Monday mornings meeting, a memorandum agreement is being drafted and should be finalized by Friday.

Sheriff Kane canceled the contract after Healthy Acadia issued a June 10, 2020, statement in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Kane disagreed with allowing an organization in the jail that supports a movement that he says wants to harm law enforcement.

The Hancock County Commissioners met Saturday evening via Zoom, an online meeting platform.

Fleming reached out to me and weve set a date 9 oclock on Monday morning, that if we can get an agreement, she can start recovery coaching immediately, Clark said Saturday. Im confident we will have recovery coaching by the end of the day [Monday].

Commissioner Paul Paradis said he had talked to the sheriff earlier Saturday. He was a perfect gentleman, Paradis said.

Kane will be making a public statement at beginning of the commissioners meeting, on Tuesday [Feb. 2], said Paradis.Iview this as very positive and I want to thank the sheriff, Elsie Flemings and Chairman Clark for the work in re-establishing recovery coaching.

Recovery coaches, according to Flemings, provide an opportunity for inmates to develop an action plan for their release as well as work on their recovery.

The organization posted statements last summer supporting Black Lives Matter and the racial justice movement and criticizing racism and police brutality. Kane characterized the movement as seeking to harm police.

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Nonprofit barred for supporting Black Lives Matter may be allowed back in Maine jail - Press Herald

Vanessa Newman can remember exactly where they were when they first saw Emory Douglass work. They remember the sound of '60s jazz vinyls playing before heading to the grocery store with their dadan embodiment of their love for Black people as a Black queer kid navigating the world. Douglas's work was integral to the music and, really, every day of their childhood.

A revolutionary artist and the former minister of culture for the Black Panther Party, Emory Douglas was a formerly incarcerated youth who fell in love with graphic design in trade school and after attending San Francisco City College connected with the likes of party cofounder Bobby Seale. Together, they created The Black Panther in 1967, the newspaper reaching its peak with a 200,000+ weekly circulation. Also a living vessel of Black radical history and visioning, Douglas used printmaking and graphic design to best articulate the Black liberatory politics of the Black Panther Party via comics, illustrations, and visual propaganda.

Its fitting that Newman was so drawn to Douglas's work. This current iteration of young Black queer people building a new visual statement through the Movement for Black Lives looks to the Black Panther Party as a starting point. Designers like Newman and Fresco Steez, the former minister of culture at BYP100, uses the poetics of adornment, a clarity of political values, and a hunger for a new world that many deem impossible. These designers are melding together past, future, and current realities to make revolution irresistible. Douglas and his work have provided the blueprint for that liberatory design.

Joe AmonGetty Images

Anyone dedicated to a future that requires Black liberation must use all the tools available to make the fight visually, linguistically, and spiritually appealing to those invested in their own freedom. As Douglas stated in 1967 of his mission in helping to create the Panthers' newspaper, also with Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, "We were creating a culture, a culture of resistance, a culture of defiance and self-determination."

Like Newman, Steez is a designer dedicated to creating the visual language of this social moment. Born in Chicago, the community organizer is deeply involved with BYP100, a chapter-based organization founded in 2013 in response to George Zimmermans acquittal. Dedicated to advancing the Black communitys economic, social, political, and educational freedoms, BYP100 sees the future through a Black queer feminist lens. Throughout her time there, she designed all the merchandise for the organization, from hockey jerseys donning Lucille Clifton quotes to "Unapologetically Black" T-shirts inspired by Kanye Wests GOOD Friday music drops.

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Steez is also the former lead digital strategist at the Movement for Black Lives (or M4BL), where she recently designed bomber jackets, sweatsuits, and full regalia for fellows that speak to the continued defunding of the police campaign work. Further, she is currently working with Levis for its Black History Month capsule due out this month.

Steez began her design work at BYP100 as a reflection of two vital aspects of her life: community organizing and hip-hop. She thinks critically about what hip-hop culture means for organizing internally and externally. As a teenager doing organizing work, I was required to study the five elements of hip-hop (tagging, beatboxing, break dancing, emceeing, deejaying) and streetwear culture. And while we know that streetwear culture is Black culture, it has been commodified by all different identities of folks in order to build profit. This exploitation is compounded by luxury brands at the expense of Black and third-world people.

Steezs mother, Sheila Rollins, was a teacher by trade and matriarch of design by craft in Chicago. Steez follows a legacy of Black feminist ingenuity that keeps her rooted in the liberatory needs of Black people. My early understanding of how Black folks use visuals, fashion, aesthetics as a culture to resist poverty; to say, 'Despite the conditions we live in in this country, were gonna adorn ourselves in ways that glorify our experiences,'" Steez says. "We know that our clothes can be a vision for what our lives can be around beauty and around the full and expansive life that we deserve.

She continues, The thing that has inspired me in all the work that I do are the political histories and movements. What were the visuals? What was the culture behind them that was intentional? What gave them a visual identity to the community that they were working within?

The type of intentionality and care that Steez puts into her work is a deep nod to Douglas's work in developing a visual culture for the Black Panthers. As the party grew in notoriety and political acclaim in the late '60s, so did the surveillance of its leadership, namely the creation of COINTELPRO, a counterintelligence program focused on monitoring and dismantling the radical organizing work of the Black Panther Party by the federal government. These acts of intentional upheaval through COINTELPRO included everything from disrupting newspaper distribution to destroying the childrens breakfast program. These tactics of destruction are still ever present in the FBI's more recent creation of the Black Identity Extremists designation and the policing of Black activists across the country amid protests against police violence. The legacy of the suppression of Black liberatory struggle continues to this day.

We know that our clothes can be a vision for what our lives can be around beauty and around the full and expansive life that we deserve.

There is a cold eye of intimidation being used now to quell the fight for Black liberationa similar intimidation that killed and nearly wiped out the Black Panther Partybecause of the radicalization power that can happen with visual art. At the height of the uprisings this summer, there was a need for personal protective equipment, or PPE, which many didnt know how to fill. Steez and the digital team at M4BL knew that they could show up and keep people safe with masks, while also getting their bold statement across. These are new conditions to be organizing under, so we really thought about what piece actually supports their organizing work and clearly articulates their values, and the most relevant canvas in this moment was the face mask.

M4BL began sending out needed PPE to activists on the ground in seven major cities during the peak of the George Floyd uprisings, in early June. Masks with the phrases, Stop Killing Black People and Defund Police, were sent out nationwide. However, after shipping the masks, Steez was told that they allegedly had been seized by the federal government and were delayed until further notice. It wasnt until Steez and M4BL took to social media to spread awareness of the supposed PPE steal that the masks were returned to them.

If you have the grounds to seize these masks, then what grounds do you have to seize me? Right, in all seriousness.

The bold black-and-yellow masks were everywhere during the protests. Representative Ilhan Omar was seen wearing one, and former president Barack Obama even reposted an image of the masks on social media. But Steez is remaining focused on her core values of creating political timepieces that have clear principles.

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Like Steez, Newman is dedicated to tracing the connection between the history and principles of design to organized movements. As head of product at Somewhere Good, a digital platform from the same team behind Ethels Club, they are dedicated to creating a social media app that prioritizes a new way of being online.

Newman credits their precision in graphic design and the ability to gain access to resources to the strength of community organizing. I began to see that space making and community organizing are all design systems. Most of the Internet is not meant to build community; it was built to monetize people, they say. "The past two years of building brands, dreaming of flyers, and getting into the nerdiest details of typography always come back to finding what's been lost. I feel like Im always trying to reclaim a history that already exists.

The biggest lesson in a year of isolation has been that the vision for liberation is a collective work. In the midst of the months-long protests over the summer, Newman along with other Black designers began Design to Divest, "a Black-led collective of designers, artists, technologists, and strategists designing equitable futures by divesting from inequitable institutions," as stated on its website.

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However, Newman has no illusions about the visceral labor of dreaming. When youre Black and queer, you have to always be imagining. Explaining further, Newman says, I protect my brain at all costs. How do you do that in this world where you are supposed to stay disconnected from yourself, from your body, and from this world. All of these things are designed to distract us from our imagination.

Radical graphic design, whether it be through merchandise or visual aesthetics, has always been about writing a love letter to marginalized peopleto say without words or dialogue who you are, what you stand for, and how you are showing up for the next fight. It is a call to action after a year of grief and surface-level platitudes. Because of this struggle, Black queer designers like Steez and Newman are dreaming of what our movements must look like for a better world that many refuse to see.

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How the Radical Graphic Design of the Black Panthers Influences the Movement for Black Lives - HarpersBAZAAR.com

By The Washington Post 2h ago

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Caroline Kitchener

Washington - Gymnastics routines don't have official titles. But UCLA gymnast Nia Dennis likes to name hers anyway.

Her latest creation is called "The Culture," a tribute to the Black artists and musicians whose music she samples in the routine. "The whole thing, literally everything, is Black culture," she says. Dennis selected snippets of songs from Missy Elliot, Kendrick Lamar and Tupac, stringing them into an almost two-minute tribute to "Black Excellence."

The routine immediately went viral.

"I wanted it to be a celebration of everything [Black people] can do, everything we can overcome," said Dennis, a 21-year-old college senior. "Amid all the adversity and oppression we've been through, here we are."

In a sport dominated by White women, Dennis has gained a reputation for elevating the Black experience. Last year, it was a Beyonc-inspired routine that captivated the Internet and landed her on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."

While Dennis aspires to be an Olympic gymnast, she says, she won't compromise on her commitment to "push boundaries." Her routines will always reflect who she is, she says - the daily joys and struggles of being a Black woman in America.

I spoke to Dennis about her latest routine and her plans for the future.

She has many.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What inspired this routine?

A: The Black Lives Matter protests were pretty much the foundation. This summer, I had shoulder surgery so I wasn't going out. I was trying to heal, trying to prepare for the season. But I was definitely out there in spirit.

Q: How did you channel Black Lives Matter into gymnastics?

A: The subject of Black Likes Matter is so heavy. It is difficult for people to talk about - and sometimes you have to meet people where they're at, with a celebration. Every single song is a major Black artist, musician, from different time periods. They had a huge impact on Black culture, which has also had a huge impact on me. So I'm just literally celebrating what they've done and having the time of my life.

Q: What is it like to be a Black gymnast in a very White sport?

A: When I lived in Ohio, it was me and maybe two or three other Black gymnasts out of the whole gym. I was surrounded by White gymnasts all the time, and a lot of the things we do are not the same. Hair was always a thing. People would ask, "Can I touch your hair? How does it stand up like that?" I had to deal with things like that my entire life.

Q: What else have you had to deal with as a Black gymnast?

A: Literally, body image. Body image is already huge in gymnastics - looking fit, looking lean, looking skinny. And I was always considered fat because I'm a more powerful, explosive gymnast. There is a certain style, a certain look, that people are looking for and I never fit the look. I got told my lines weren't pretty.

Q: Your lines "weren't pretty"? What does that mean?

A: So for example, on bars, you do a handstand and you're in a perfect line. Your ribs are tucked in, you're squeezed super tight, toes are pointed, everything down to a T. Clean lines. People were always telling me my lines were not clean because my legs were strong.

It's been a struggle trying to find myself as a Black woman in America, for real. I was constantly told I wasn't good enough, and I'd be trying to change to fit into the ideal image of what everybody else wanted me to be. Then I came to UCLA, a place where I can celebrate Black Excellence, celebrate me. I can't imagine any other place where I could be me, the way I am here.

Q: You've used the term Black Excellence to describe this routine. What does that term mean to you?

A: It's a highlight and a celebration literally of Black greatness, things that have had an impact on Black culture and the Black community. Every musician in my floor routine has had an impact, whether it was dance, whether it was activism, whether it was stepping, whether it was Greek things. That was just great. That was just excellent.

Q: What comes next for you? Are the Olympics in your future?

A: I tried out for the Olympics in 2016, and tore my Achilles just three months before. I was devastated. I really wanted to quit gymnastics. That being said, my Olympic dreams have not died. I have been training some elite routines to kind of prepare for the Olympics this year, just in case.

Q: Are Olympic gymnastics different from the routines that you do?

A: [Olympic gymnastics] have been so cookie-cutter, very ballet, very classical. I'm really pushing boundaries by doing things that are modern, new, urban. In college, you have the opportunity to show your personality through your dance and through your music.

There's already been a push of boundaries with Simone [Biles]. She uses music that changes a lot. It's really upbeat, high tempo. That's already a huge push of boundaries, and I just want to push it even further. I want to bring that to the even bigger stage.

Q: Why do you think Olympic gymnastics are so cookie cutter? Obviously people really respond to the kind of routines that you do.

A: That's just the culture of elite gymnastics. That's always how it's been. When I was doing elite gymnastics back in the day, it was like, "Don't smile, don't laugh, don't talk." It's so intense, so strict. When we're out there and it looks like we're robots, it's literally just because there's no emotion behind it. There's no feeling.

Q: Do you think Olympic gymnastics could change?

A: I hope so. I want it to. I want it to be an enjoyable place for literally every gymnast.

I want to inspire young Black gymnasts because it's really rare to see us doing this sport. I want to let them all know: You can do anything you set your mind to. No matter what people tell you, go after it, and get it.

Q: After gymnastics, what do you want to do?

A: I love dancing. In my free time, I'm always dancing. Honestly, in the middle of practice, I'm dancing.

Q: In the middle of your routine, you're dancing.

A: Exactly. One day I want to be somebody's backup dancer - maybe for Janet Jackson or Missy Elliott. I've felt like gymnastics has always defined me. But over the years I've learned that there are so many things I can contribute to this world.

I don't have it all figured out, but I'm getting there.

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WATCH: This Black Lives Matter-inspired gymnastics routine is going viral - IOL

In retrospect, the zany-keen ideas behind productions spawned by indie opera company Heartbeat Opera appear to be no-brainers. Celebrate the 250th birthday of a classical music composer who lost his ability to hear (yes, Beethoven) with the sound of revoked-by-incarceration and often-silenced voices of singers and volunteers from six prison choirs? Simple concept!

But the concept goes deeper than that. Engage professional vocalists and dancers to join the choirs and an exceptional eight-member band (with instrumentalists from the prisons featured in given selections) to create nine interconnected music videos? Yeah, sure thing! Add a contemporary slant by curating the cast and crew with an ear to young talent and eyes aiming to rectify historical imbalances when it comes to presenting people of color in classical music? For repertory, choose excerpts from Beethovens Fidelio, Negro spirituals, and musical works or words by Harry T. Burleigh,Florence Price, Langston Hughes,and Anthony Davis andThulani Davis?

Certainly, we could have thought of all of that ... except we didnt, and Heartbeat Opera not only thought of it all, they made the visual album project titled Breathing Free happen during a pandemic that had the artists rehearsing remotely on Zoom. The cast recorded individual audio tracks and videos that were filmed in separate locations. A music team compiled the recordings and a team of cinematographers led by filmmaker Anaiis Cisco collaborated on the videos that complete and connect the nine episodes forming the 45-minute work.

Presented with support from Santa Monicas The Broad Stage in a series of West Coast virtual premieres during Black History Month, Breathing Free is directed by Heartbeat Opera co-founder Ethan Heard. The song cycles Black voices arrive unfiltered and emerge without pretense from the rubble of events in 2020. Speaking raw truth to power, the lyrics and texts echo most unforgettably with the pain of George Floyds murder or arrive textured with the reverberations of a contentious political environment. In other sections, powerful unity demonstrates a people equipped to counter the forces of systemic bias perhaps these voices strengthened by the Black Lives Matter movement and how it spread around the world yet the music is rarely without grief-stricken tones lamenting twin pandemics COVID-19 and racial injustice that continue to disproportionately devastate the lives of black, brown and indigenous bodies. From the guest artists, the singers inside these six prisons and the voices of protest and resilience heard in traditional spirituals and newer compositions, the song cycles themes include strength, pain, dignity, honor, protest, betrayal, grace, and most hopefully, future dreams of justice and equity.

The program is presented Feb. 10 and 13 by The Broad Stage, and Feb. 2027 by the Mondavi Center. Follow the venue links for more details.

Each screening of Breathing Free is followed by a live panel discussion with the artists and advocates speaking on themes introduced by the film. Prison choirs participating in the project include Oakdale Community Choir, KUJI Mens Chorus, UBUNTU Mens Chorus, HOPE Thru Harmony Womens Choir, East Hill Singers and Voices of Hope.

Repertory presented in Breathing Free includes:

Balm in Gilead traditional,arr. Sean Mayes

Lovely Dark and Lonely music by Harry T. Burleigh, words by Langston Hughes

Malcolms Aria from X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X music by Anthony Davis,libretto by Thulani Davis, story by Christopher Davis,arr. Sean Mayes

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child traditional

Songs to the Dark Virgin music by Florence Price, words by Langston Hughes

Four excerpts fromFidelio music by Ludwig van Beethoven, libretto by Joseph Sonnleithner and Georg Friedrich Sonnleithner,arr. Daniel Schlosberg

Abscheulicher! (Abominable one! Leonores aria)

O welche Lust (Oh what a joy prisoners chorus)

Gott! Welch Dunkel hier! (God! what darkness here Florestans aria)

Euch werde Lohn (You shall be rewarded Act II trio)

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Beethoven Meets Black Lives Matter in Heartbeat Opera's Breathing Free - San Francisco Classical Voice

Black Lives Matter (BLM), international social movement, formed in the United States in 2013, dedicated to fighting racism and anti-Black violence, especially in the form of police brutality. The name Black Lives Matter signals condemnation of the unjust killings of Black people by police (Black people are far more likely to be killed by police in the United States than white people) and the demand that society value the lives and humanity of Black people as much as it values the lives and humanity of white people.

Protesters carrying Black Lives Matter signs at a demonstration against police brutality in Boston, Massachusetts, May 2020.

BLM activists have held large and influential protests in cities across the United States as well as internationally. A decentralized grassroots movement, Black Lives Matter is led by activists in local chapters who organize their own campaigns and programs. The chapters are affiliated with the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, a nonprofit civil rights organization that is active in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

BLM was cofounded as an online movement (using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media) by three Black community organizersPatrisse Khan-Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi. They formed BLM after George Zimmerman, a man of German and Peruvian descent, was acquitted on charges stemming from his fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager, in Sanford, Florida, in February 2012. Zimmerman, a neighbourhood-watch volunteer, had seen Martin walking in his neighbourhood and called the police because he thought Martin looked suspicious. Although police told Zimmerman not to do anything, he followed Martin, got into an argument with him, and shot and killed him. Zimmerman remained free for weeks after the shooting but was finally charged with second-degree murder and arrested in April, after demonstrations demanding his prosecution were held in cities across the United States. At his trial more than a year later, Zimmerman claimed that he had acted in self-defense. His acquittal in July 2013 was widely perceived as a miscarriage of justice and led to further nationwide protests.

The BLM movement expanded in 2014 after the police killings of two unarmed Black men, Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Garner died in Staten Island, New York, after a white police officer held him in a prolonged illegal choke hold, which was captured in a video taken by a bystander. Brown, a teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Large protests of these deaths in the name of Black Lives Matter captured national and international attention. The BLM movement thereafter continued to play a prominent role in demonstrations against police brutality and racism. Notably, BLM activists protested the deaths at the hands of police or while in police custody of several other Black people, including Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Freddie Gray, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, and Breonna Taylor.

National march against police brutality, Washington, D.C., December 2014.

In 2020 George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was pronounced dead after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on Floyds neck for several minutes, despite Floyds repeated protests that he could not breathe. Wide circulation of a bystanders video of Floyds last minutes triggered massive demonstrations in cities throughout the United States and across the globe. The tragedy swayed U.S. public opinion in favour of the Black Lives Matter movement while drawing wide attention to the problem of entrenched racism in American society.

The Black Lives Matter movement has many goals. BLM activists seek to draw attention to the many ways in which Black people are treated unfairly in society and the ways in which institutions, laws, and policies help to perpetuate that unfairness. The movement has fought racism through such means as political action, letter writing campaigns, and nonviolent protests. BLM seeks to combat police brutality, the over-policing of minority neighbourhoods, and the abuses committed by for-profit jails. Its efforts have included calls for better training for police and greater accountability for police misconduct. BLM activists have also called for defunding the policethat is, reducing police department budgets and investing the freed-up funds in community social services, such as mental health and conflict-resolution programs. BLM activists have also worked on voter registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns in Black communities. In addition, BLM programs have celebrated Black artists and writers.

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Black Lives Matter | Definition, Goals, History ...

Its agenda is plain for all to see: cop-killing.

With another two police officers shot at the Black Lives Matter riot in Louisville on Wednesday, its time to lift the veil on the whole movement: Its a haven for unrepentant cop-killers.

These arent isolated incidents. It has been fewer than two weeks since supposedly peaceful BLM radicals chanted, We hope they die, while blocking the entrance to a hospital where two Los Angeles County sheriffs deputies were undergoing life-saving surgery. An assailant had walked up to their patrol vehicle and opened fire from point-blank range without provocation.

Those chilling words echo the rhetoric we hear from BLM founders and members, who make clear that a prime objective of BLM is to Kill Cops. Up until now, this has been kept well enough under wraps to deceive major corporations, professional sports leagues and countless well-meaning Americans.

Joe Biden has made propagating this movements lies a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, waiting months before condemning the wanton violence perpetrated by BLM. Staff members on the Biden campaign contributed money to secure the release of rioters charged with crimes. Meanwhile, progressive Democratic prosecutors refused to even charge some of the worst rioters.

Some people try to separate BLM the organization from the movement that goes by the same name, but at most they are two sides of the same coin. From the start, both the organization and the movement BLM writ large have been about hatred and violence that extends beyond police and includes all white people, all blacks who are conservative and the United States of America.

We saw this in 2014, when BLM first attained national prominence. After months of anti-police rioting, a man pledging revenge for Michael Brown and Eric Garner traveled to New York City, stuck a pistol through the window of a squad car and opened fire. Detectives Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu died on the scene.

I mourned the officers like the rest of New York did. And when I met with the Ramos and Liu families, I was aghast. I reiterated my call for politicians to abandon their reckless anti-police rhetoric. Maybe, I suggested, they should spend the next four months not talking about police hatred, but talking about what they are going to do about bringing down crime in the community.

Nineteen months later, a man opened fire at a BLM protest in Dallas, murdering five officers. BLM disavowed responsibility, but the killer had deep links to the movements radical ideology, stating that he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers. BLM supporters certainly didnt stop chanting Pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon in the aftermath, either.

BLM counts on a legion of journalists who believe BLM will help advance a progressive agenda. They will never admit that violence against police isnt an unfortunate outgrowth of the BLM movement but the central point.

Black Lives Matter isnt about black lives. It ignores the 8,000 to 9,000 black lives taken by other blacks every year in minority communities across the nation. Those black lives, and the lives of African American police officers, dont matter.

Black Lives Matter isnt about holding police accountable, and it isnt a good-faith call for reasonable reform.

If we had a functioning mainstream media, this would be common knowledge by now. Instead, people are learning the real nature of BLM by watching protesters scream We hope they die outside a hospital where two cops are fighting for their lives.

The time has come to face the facts. If you ever supported Black Lives Matter, then you are either a left-wing radical or you got duped. There is no shame in the latter. By design, the relentlessly repeated cry of Black lives matter is an unassailable moral truism, calculated to bully people into supporting a radical, revolutionary, anti-order movement.

The good news is that it isnt too late to make the right decision. You can be a good person who decries racism and condemns police misconduct yet still reject violent left-wing radicalism unequivocally. You can stand for the safety and human dignity of black people and of all people and simultaneously stand with the police officers who maintain law and order.

It starts with rejecting BLM and every politician who has been cynical enough to enable the radical forces intent on tearing this country apart. When you see Black Lives Matter, realize they are dedicated to killing cops. Too much blood has been spilled already. It has to stop.

Rudolph Giuliani is the former mayor of New York City.

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Face facts: Black Lives Matter is all about hate

In the wake of police violence against George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake and countless other Black men and women, the Black Lives Matter movement once again has the national spotlight. But with so much confusion and disinformation plaguing the conversation, not everyone understands what BLM is or how it works.

At best, myths about Black Lives Matter prevent people from giving their support. At worst, these myths actively detract from the movement and the anti-racism work its members have been doing.

What some people might call myths, I dont see them as myths I see them as tools by other groups used to do harm, stop change and maintain the status quo, said Richard M. Cooper, a clinical assistant professor at Widener University whose work centers on race and social justice issues.

In other words, myths dont just fall from the sky. Theyre created. They are a tool to provide misinformation, to incite fear, to get people to misunderstand an issue so that ...we dont have to promote structural change, Cooper said.

With that said, heres a look at the most harmful untruths surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement that need to end.

1. Its new.

The phrase Black lives matter wasnt really part of the modern conversation until the killing of Trayvon Martin, when writer and activist Alicia Garza included the phrase in a Facebook post and it was amplified by others. But the idea has been fought for over the past several hundred years.

Its really a continuation of the legacy of fighting for civil rights and social justice by people of color, particularly Black people.... It just happens to be called Black Lives Matter now, Cooper said.

He added that the only thing thats really changed is the access activists have to platforms, particularly online, and the speed with which people can get that information. But we are still talking about an ethnic group of people who have had to constantly and consistently fight for social agency and human rights in a society that continues to find ways to deny them of such, Cooper said.

2. Its disorganized.

There are three well-known founders of the Black Lives Matter organization, including Garza, but the general movement by that same name is a decentralized, grassroots effort that spans regions, demographics and mediums. For that reason, some critics say that it lacks leadership or a clear agenda. However, Cooper said this is largely a generational misunderstanding.

When it comes to the fight for civil rights, older generations were accustomed to seeing it unfold a certain way: A national or regional leader would serve as the spokesperson, organizing protests, sit-ins and other methods of demonstration, and lead the charge for change.

Black Lives Matter, on the other hand, exists in pockets across the country (and the globe). Theres no right way to get the message across, and members from hyperlocal chapters and other organizations rely on a variety of methods, including sustained protesting, social media campaigns, art and poetry.

SETH HERALD via Getty Images

According to Cooper, the criticism shows a lack of understanding about the particular features of the organizers and their strategies. They have been very smart and organic, Cooper said.

For an outsider, it might seem disorganized. But like demonstrations of the past, such as the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in the 1950s, many strategic choices have been made that people of color dont get enough credit for, Cooper said. It shows a level of sophistication, actually, and an understanding of nuances and regional differences that this group has organized far better than past movements.

3. Its pro-violence.

About 93% of the 10,600-plus racial justice protests in the U.S. this summer have been peaceful. Those that did become violent involved aggression by police or by counterprotesters from extremist groups, researchers noted. But one-off instances of violence, looting and aggressive demonstrators have been conflated to suggest the Black Lives Matter movement employs and condones violence.

Its absurd because its the thing were protesting against, said Michelle Saahene, co-founder of the activist group From Privilege to Progress. People need to be able to differentiate between protesters and rioters, or protesters and opportunists.

The unfortunate truth is that there will always be outliers who look for opportunities to cause chaos or harm during tense times. Looting and riots also occur because of hurricanes, sporting events and for many other terrible reasons. That doesnt excuse the violence surrounding Black Lives Matter protests, by any means. But it is important to understand that the actions of these individuals are not aligned with the mission of the movement.

And sometimes the violence is strategic. The riots that took place in Minneapolis following the police killing of George Floyd, for example, were stoked by a white supremacist. Two people were killed and a medic was wounded by a white teenager with a semiautomatic rifle at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last month.

Because theres so much anti-Blackness, and white supremacy wants to be protected at all costs, people go out of their way to make it look like this movement is a violent movement, Saahene said. People really need to just think a little bit deeper... about what Black Lives Matter actually stands for and what theyre fighting against. Violence just doesnt make any sense.

4. Its anti-police.

Law enforcements track record with Black Americans is troubling, to say the least. Not only are Black men and women disproportionately stopped, arrested and killed by police, many of these instances of violence occur following 911 calls for fairly routine issues.

But the Black Lives Matter movement is not about retaliation or eliminating police. Rather, its about examining the structure of law enforcement and how it can better serve communities, especially Black and brown ones.

Defunding the police is a big part of that goal. And that idea is scary to a lot of people, often because they dont understand what it means. Defunding isnt about abolishing law enforcement. Its to look at how police departments have been funded to do things that they shouldnt necessarily have to do anyway and dont necessarily do well, that would be better met by other groups whove been trained differently and provided better resources, Cooper said.

For example, domestic disturbances or mental health crises could be responded to by social workers or medical professionals rather than armed police officers. If you come to a situation with a weapon, there is a possibility, even with a particular police officer who may be well-intentioned, for something to escalate if for no other reason than youre coming with a gun, Cooper said. The goal would be to deescalate these types of situations without the need for force and hopefully save lives in the process.

5. Its racist.

The phrase Black lives matter is not meant to be divisive. And yet it ruffles some (white) peoples feathers. Some even go so far as to claim that prioritizing Black lives is a form of reverse racism (which, by the way, is not a thing).

Because our lives are treated as if they dont matter, we have to specifically say that they do, Saahene said. Its just a phrase to get people to understand that because you have black skin does not mean that you should be treated any differently and certainly doesnt mean that your life should be cut short.

Were not saying Black lives matter more, were saying they matter too, added Melissa DePino, who co-founded From Privilege to Progress alongside Saahene. Its not about giving someone more and someone else less. Its about creating a situation in which everybody has the same privileges.

6. Its a front for Democratic funding.

Saahene said that there is a misconception that the Black Lives Matter movement arose for the purpose of gaining political control.

One of the biggest contributors to this idea is likely a now-deleted Facebook post that claimed donations to Black Lives Matter were being funneled to a Democrat Super PAC.

The claims were based on a video circulated on social media that showed that attempts to make donations on the Black Lives Matter website redirected users to a website called ActBlue. The video then showed a page on OpenSecrets.org that tracked how ActBlue spends its money, highlighting several multimillion-dollar contributions to campaigns for Democratic presidential candidates such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Vice President Joe Biden.

What is misunderstood in this video and the subsequent Facebook post is that ActBlue is simply a donation processing platform. Though it is popular among Democratic politicians and progressive nonprofits, it acts similarly to PayPal or other online payment systems. ActBlue doesnt actually pocket any of the donations or decide how theyre allocated. A donation to Black Lives Matter goes to Black Lives Matter.

Though members of the movement do seek to change many of the laws and policies that harm Black people, Saahene said, its not a political group. Theyre activists like me.

7. Its on Black BLM supporters to fix racism.

Though it can be tempting for white people to lean on Black friends and colleagues to educate them about racism and point out where its happening, the truth is that its not their job to fix racism. Theres enough emotional labor to dealing with racism in everyday life; the last thing white allies need to do is add to that burden.

When youre doing anti-racism work, you cant always have the victims doing the work, Cooper said. Its those who have the advantages, structurally and historically, who need to be rolling up their sleeves.

DePino agreed that racism is not a Black problem and its up to white people to learn history, acknowledge and understand their biases, and figure out how to stop causing harm, even if its unintentional. Thats the work that we have to do. And we cant just pay attention when someone gets murdered. We have to pay attention all the time and integrate it into our everyday life.

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7 Myths About Black Lives Matter That People Need To Stop ...