June 6, 2020

18 Essential Books & Essays on Anti-Racism

https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/anti-racism-books-essays/

Though there are many facets to the centuries-long hold of white privilege and systemic racism, education has a huge role to play in both the longevity and dismantling of these issues. In the UK, we studied kings and queens while the parts about Britain’s appalling role in the slave trade and countless other acts in colonialism were conveniently skipped. And while school curriculums have to change, in the age of information, we have the ability to self-educate when it comes to social justice and deep-rooted racism. There are no excuses. To get started, we’ve put together an anti-racism reading list comprising books, poems, essays, and more. This list is by no means comprehensive, so if you have any recommendations or advice, please let us know in the comments section. You’ll find a list of black-owned book stores to buy from in the US here.

A reading list of essays, novels, poems, articles, and more for anti-racism self-education.


Wesley Lowery, They Can’t Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, And A New Era In America’s Racial Justice Movement






Angela Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle






Audre Lorde, Your Silence Will Not Protect You






Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth






Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America





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June 6, 2020

DON'T LOOK AWAY. The cop groped her and when she tried to break away, she was beaten while standing

THIS IS AN ATTEMPT TO CRUSH DISSENT LIKE A DICTATORSHIP

https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/1268575677286154246


Sheer brutality.

It continues...
How many cops does it take to beat up one woman?

https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/1269093749000454144


Indianapolis





Four Indianapolis officers taken off patrol after video shows two of them striking woman with batons during arrest

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/05/indianapolis-police-arrest/

June 6, 2020

Robert Ford Jr., an Early Force in Hip-Hop, Is Dead at 70

He chronicled the scene when it was new, then went on to mentor some of its most important early figures, including Kurtis Blow and Russell Simmons.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/arts/music/robert-ford-jr-dead.html



Robert Ford Jr., who as a journalist in the late 1970s was an early chronicler of the newly emerging hip-hop scene, and who then became a producer and mentor to a generation of influential figures, including Kurtis Blow and Russell Simmons, died on May 19 in Brooklyn. He was 70. His wife, Linda Medley, who confirmed the death, said Mr. Ford had dealt with several chronic illnesses in recent years.

Hip-hop in its pre-commercial days was brought to life by a relatively small network of D.J.s, M.C.s and party promoters. It largely developed in parks, rec rooms and hotel ballrooms, far from the eye of the press. At the time, Mr. Ford, who was known as Rocky, was writing about black music for the trade magazine Billboard when he received a tip from a co-worker about a curious trend in vinyl sales. He traveled to the Bronx to meet with Kool Herc, the D.J. now regarded as one of hip-hop’s fathers, to learn more.

Mr. Ford’s article, titled “B-Beats Bombarding Bronx: Mobile DJ Starts Something With Oldie R&B Disks,” ran in the July 1, 1978, issue of Billboard and is considered to be the first coverage of hip-hop’s germinal era in a mainstream publication. “Herc rose to popularity by playing long sets of assorted rhythm breaks strung together,” Mr. Ford wrote. “Since Herc was not completely satisfied with the new disco product coming out at the time, he started looking in cutout bins for tunes with good rhythm breaks.” Mr. Ford’s musical knowledge was vast. “He was out every night reviewing for Billboard, and he had very eclectic tastes,” said the music journalist and screenwriter Nelson George, who was then a Billboard intern.

Mr. Ford kept an eye on the rapidly developing hip-hop scene. In May 1979 he published an article, “Jive Talking N.Y. DJs Rapping Away in Black Discos,” in which he explored how D.J.s like DJ Hollywood, Kurtis Blow, Eddie Cheba and Lovebug Starski were beginning to rap to their crowds as they spun records. That fall, the first spate of recorded rap singles was released commercially, and rappers began to distinguish themselves from D.J.s and take their limelight. One afternoon, Mr. Ford spied a young Joseph Simmons — later known as Run of Run-DMC — on the Q2 bus posting a flyer for an event promoted by his older brother, Russell. Mr. Ford gave the young man his card and told him to give it to his brother.

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June 6, 2020

Anticon Label Sampler : 1999-2004

Label:
Anticon ?– abr0031
Format:
CD, Mixed, Sampler
Country:
US
Released:
29 Mar 2004
Genre:
Electronic, Hip Hop
Style:
Abstract, Downtempo, Experimental, Conscious

June 6, 2020

UK to change immigration rules for Hong Kong citizens if China passes law

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52900700

Britain will change its immigration rules and offer millions of people in Hong Kong "a route to citizenship" if China imposes new security laws, Boris Johnson has said. Writing in the Times, Mr Johnson said the UK would "have no choice" but to uphold its ties with the territory.

China is facing mounting criticism over its planned law. Many people in Hong Kong fear it could end their unique freedoms, which the rest of China does not have. The UK is already in talks with allies including the US and Australia about what to do if China imposes the new law - which would make it a crime to undermine Beijing's authority - and people start fleeing Hong Kong.

In the Times on Wednesday, the prime minister confirmed that if China passes the law, people in Hong Kong who hold British National (Overseas) (BNO) passports will be allowed to come to the UK for 12 months without a visa. Currently they are allowed to come for six months.

Around 350,000 people in Hong Kong currently already have a BNO passport, but 2.6 million others are also eligible. Passport-holders would also be given further immigration rights, including the right to work. This "could place them on a route to citizenship," Mr Johnson said.

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June 5, 2020

Trump's Atrocious Bible Stunt Might Be The Beginning Of The End

The entire affair was a disaster of epic proportions.

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/trumps-atrocious-bible-stunt-might



WASHINGTON, DC -- Donald Trump’s presidency has always been propped up with Tinker Toys and spit. Which is to say: this president is so grotesquely out of his depth that he requires copious backstopping in order to artificially appear as if he’s not quite as incompetent as he actually is. It started, more or less, when Sean Spicer was shoved into the press room to awkwardly explain how Trump’s sparsely attended inauguration was actually the most populated inaugural ever, and the same kind of frantic clean-up effort continues today as Fox News, AM talk radio, Russian trolls and scores of Red Hat fanboys desperately attempt to cover for his total inability to handle the gig. Think of it as an extension of his hideous physical appearance, necessitating that insane comb-over, the slathered on makeup, the billowy suits, the lifts in the shoes, and so on -- all required to at least make him presentable.

How often have we watched in shocked horror as Republican members of Congress or White House staffers scramble to triage his ongoing disaster porn. How often have we seen an entire party of apparatchiks whitewash his ludicrous tweets, or cover-up disastrous public appearances? By now, it’s too often to count. You know those guys in a parade who follow behind the horses and elephants, scooping up their droppings as they go? Trump is surrounded by guys like that. His presidency couldn’t survive without them. Left to his own devices, Trump never would’ve made it to the White House much less remained in office this long. He needed all varieties of propaganda and voter suppression tactics to get elected in the first place, not to mention a Russian intelligence-led cyber-attack on that election with the express intent to help Trump win. And to remain in office, he needed to scramble the Department of Justice until Bill Barr arrived to flush the entire Russia investigation down the golden crapper. Then he needed Rudy Giuliani’s cockamamy plot to extort Ukraine into helping Trump cheat in this election. And then he required a flock of GOP dodos in the Senate to stop him from being removed from office for the aforementioned cheating. Today, he requires all of the above players to spin his disastrous and deadly response to the coronavirus outbreak in order to keep his poll numbers from descending into Nixon-resignation territory.

I can’t recall another presidency glued together with this much titanium scaffolding to maintain even this level of frighteningly rickety instability. Today in the same White House press room where Sean Spicer said Trump’s inauguration featured record attendance, Kayleigh McEnany compared Trump’s unforgivable photo-op outside St. John’s Church to Winston Churchill surveying the Nazi-inflicted damage in London during World War II. Sure, okay. This is sort of like saying your office’s victory in that after-work softball game was just like the famous “Giants won the pennant!” moment. But that wasn’t enough to cover-up for such a shitty, shitty stunt. McEnany wasn’t finished. She went on to compare her boss’s Bible photo-op to when George W. Bush visited Ground Zero after 9/11; she compared it to Jimmy Carter during the energy crisis; George H.W. Bush’s signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and so on. That’s a lot of heavy lifting, commensurate with the degree of the atrocity. And so it’s no wonder McEnany spread it on so thick. Trump stood in the Rose Garden moments before the photo-op and told the nation on live television that he supported peaceful protesters. While he spoke those words, law enforcement thugs fired flash-bangs and gas grenades into the crowd of, yeah, peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park. All so Donald Trump could haul his ponderous bulk over to St. John’s Church to stand out front, holding a Bible he neither reads nor understands as if to say, “I’m strong and this is a Bible!”

This had to have been a Trump idea. I can’t imagine a professional political consultant who would instruct the president to engage in such an ungainly piece of amateur optics. Any actual practicing Christians who watched the scene had to have resented their Bible being exploited as a prop to augment the stature of a man who bragged about grabbing women by the pussies. Any Christians who were okay with it were probably Trump disciples in the first place -- and by elevating Trump over the exploitation of the Bible, they’re not only endorsing a sacrilege, they’re violating the first commandment: “I am the Lord thy God, you shall have no other gods before Me.” The entire affair was a disaster of epic proportions. Not only did it contradict his televised remarks moments earlier, but it ultimately made him look like a small, petty, clown dictator who can’t even get a photo-op right. So small, in fact, that it required all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to rush into position to help put President Humpty together again. My sincere hope, representing perhaps the silver lining in this crisis, is that Trump’s Bible stunt will signify the beginning of his final self-destruction. Trump always makes things worse for Trump, and this was a doozy. The question now is: what’s next? What else will he do in the face of the protests, and all the rest of the simultaneous disasters, to backstop his failing presidency? Everything is on the table because he’s capable of anything, and Election Day can’t come soon enough.

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June 5, 2020

Rumpy MacShitehawk is rage tweeting again (Murkowski)

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1268688013791506450

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Few people know where they’ll be in two years from now, but I do, in the Great State of Alaska (which I love) campaigning against Senator Lisa Murkowski. She voted against HealthCare, Justice Kavanaugh, and much else...

June 4, 2020

'Anti-vaxxers' are organizing even before a coronavirus vaccine is developed

Protesters in Iowa gathered Tuesday afternoon.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/501020-anti-vaxxers-are-organizing-even-before-a



In the days since George Floyd’s death, photos of protests have dominated both social and traditional media. But a demonstration outside the Iowa statehouse, where police had used tear gas to disperse protesters the night before, was not like the others. Dozens had gathered to protest mandatory vaccination, a public health policy that has been floated as a potential response to the COVID-19 pandemic, even before a coronavirus vaccine has been developed. There is still a lot scientists don’t know about immunity against the novel coronavirus and any potential effects of a vaccine. While some potential vaccines are currently in clinical trials, they are still months away from being available to the public. The White House has set a goal of developing a vaccine within 12 to 18 months, and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has said it could be available in 2021. Still, videos posted to Twitter by Iowa Starting Line showed a sizable turnout at the demonstration on June 3.

https://twitter.com/IAStartingLine/status/1268215551748452354
Republican state legislator Jeff Shipley criticized the public health response to the pandemic, mocking lawmakers who wear face shields and saying that ventilators are killing people. He also invoked the Black Lives Matter movement, suggesting that the two could collaborate. “It's probably impossible to develop a safe vaccine, it's hardly going to work anyway, this virus isn't even killing anybody. They must think you're really stupid," he said during the protest.

https://twitter.com/IAStartingLine/status/1268224720287252482
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"Anti-vaxxers," people who are opposed to vaccines, have joined protests in California and other states calling for stay-at-home orders to be lifted and businesses to reopen. Both groups have questioned recommendations from public health officials and experts and some members go as far as doubting the legitimacy of the coronavirus outbreak and ensuing pandemic. "Plandemic," an anti-COVID-19 propaganda movie, features prominent anti-vaxxer Judy Mikovits, whose work has been discredited. "Most of the arguments the coronavirus deniers use are very similar to those anti-vaxxers have been pushing for decades," Tara C. Smith, professor of epidemiology at Kent State University, said in an op-ed for NBC News. "They suggest that scientists and scientific institutions are hopelessly corrupt, that these institutions and individuals are lying to you and only folks like Mikovits are willing to risk it all to tell you ‘the truth’: that the government and specifically public health institutions should have no influence over how ordinary Americans live their lives and protect themselves and their communities from disease, and that natural immunity to infection is preferable to vaccines.”

The anti-vaccination movement, or vaccine hesitancy, has also been tied to the resurgence of measles in the United States and other countries by the World Health Organization (WHO), which listed it as one of the top 10 threats to global health in 2019. Other countries, including Australia, have seen increased activity from the anti-vaccination movement in recent weeks. A BuzzFeed News analysis using social media analytics tool CrowdTangle found that posting, engagement and follower counts on Australia's top anti-vaxxer Facebook pages and Instagram accounts had increased since February. In the United States, 51 percent of registered voters said they plan on getting a COVID-19 vaccine when one is widely available, while 22 percent said they will not be getting a vaccine and 27 percent are unsure, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll on June 1.

June 3, 2020

Enough, America. Enough.

Black Americans have been brutalized for too long. It has to stop. Now.

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/enough-america-enough



I was asked by a black friend recently how I felt when he posted challenging commentary on white violence against black people on his Facebook feed. It was an interesting question that I hadn’t considered, so I thought carefully before I responded. As a Brit with Jewish ancestry living in America, I told him that white American culture is not something I understand very well, so when Black Americans refer to “White People” it doesn’t feel as if they are talking about me. I am familiar with racism and understand just how brutal White European violence can be. My family were persecuted in Eastern Europe in the latter part of the 19th century, and faced virulent antisemitism in the UK.

My grandfather fought fascists in the streets in London leading up to World War II. My father was targeted for being Jewish at school in the 1960’s (sometimes violently). My family has received numerous warnings from Jewish groups over the years warning us of increased antisemitic violence in the UK, and I’ve also experienced my own share of anti-semitism over the years. My direct relatives thankfully avoided the Holocaust, but the memory of it is deeply etched in the psyche of every Jew alive. Growing up with this cultural memory has made me instinctively distrustful of White European culture, and I’ve always felt more comfortable around minorities.

And yet.

My skin color in this country affords me many luxuries in this country that African Americans are not. So while I can empathize with racism against black people, I do not, and cannot, understand it in the same way. I can go jogging in my neighborhood without getting shot. I can walk in my local park and not have the police called on me for asking someone to leash their dog. I will almost certainly survive any interaction I have with the police. I can walk into stores and not be thought of as a thief. I can get a bank loan and move to a neighborhood of my choosing. I will not be racially stereotyped in everyday settings. I won’t have to worry about my son going out with his friends, or whether he’ll even come back. I live in a country owned and operated by white people, and because I am white I get pretty much all of the perks.

This is what is called ‘White Privilege’, and to deny it — particularly in the face of what we have seen over the past few days — is an act of insanity. Of course this privilege has been going on since the inception of the country, but rarely has it made itself more apparent than the back to back footage of Ahmaud Arbery’s public lynching in Georgia, a white woman calling the cops on Christian Cooper while birdwatching in Central Park, and the slow, tortuous murder of Floyd George by a white policeman in broad daylight in Minneapolis. White people are not subjected to these extraordinary acts of depravity and abuse on a daily basis because they live in a society that values their lives. Thus the reality black Americans face is often incomprehensible to them. Something has changed though in recent days, and America seems to have reached a tipping point. There is no longer any excuse for white Americans to claim they don’t see what is happening, because they have just seen it. In the space of just a few days, white America has witnessed the most appalling abuses of black Americans imaginable all over their television sets and social media feeds. And they cannot look away.

Ahmaud Arbery was chased and lynched by two white men for the sole reason that he was black. Arbery’s attackers believed his skin color made him fair game, and that their skin color would allow them to escape justice. Amy Cooper believed her life was more valuable than Christian Cooper’s because she was white and he was black. When she called the police and told them there was “an African American man threatening my life” she assumed that the police would believe her, the distressed and vulnerable white woman, and arrest Christian Cooper, the aggressive, powerful black man. But white America got to see what Christian Cooper experienced because he filmed it for his own protection: White Privilege in all its grotesque, shameful glory.

Derek Chauvin believed he could kneel on George Floyd’s neck for almost 10 minutes because Floyd’s life was of little value. He watched coldly as others filmed him, listened to Floyd begging for his life, and ignored other’s pleas to stop killing him. In White America, Chauvin banked on there being no consequences for his actions. Now White America has seen what the slow, merciless murder of a 46 year old black man looks like. The protests of the past few days are a sign that Americans of all color have finally had enough. The barbarity and inhumanity African Americans have been, and are being subjected to is too much. The violence done in the name of “law and order”, the dehumanization and destruction of black bodies, the shooting of black children, the racist tropes, the segregation — it has to end. There are no more excuses for any of us to look away, and this past week has to mark a turning point in black and white relations in America. There is no turning back, and millions of Americans are finally standing up for justice.

Enough, America. Enough.

June 3, 2020

Joe Biden's George Floyd speech references Birmingham's Bull Connor

https://www.al.com/news/2020/06/joe-bidens-george-floyd-speech-references-birminghams-bull-connor.html


Eugene "Bull" Connor, former Birmingham, Ala. police commissioner and fiery segregationist, gestures during his speech, June 8, 1963, to the Tuscaloosa, Alabama County White Citizens Council. Connor urged the audience to stay away from the University of Alabama campus when two blacks are scheduled to enroll. (AP Photo/stf) The Plain Dealer

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden referenced one of the most painful eras in Alabama history in remarks about the police-involved slaying of Minnesota man George Floyd. Speaking at Philadelphia City Hall, Biden also criticized President Donald Trump and his handling of Washington D.C. protests over Floyd’s death.

“This nation is a nation of values. Our freedom to speak is the cherished knowledge that lives inside every American,” Biden said. “We will not allow any President to quiet our voice. We won’t let those who see this as an opportunity to sow chaos throw up a smokescreen to distract us from the very real and legitimate grievances at the heart of these protests.”

Biden went on to say that the it’s in “some of the darkest moments of despair,” that America has made great progress. “The 13th and 14th and 15th Amendments followed the Civil War. The greatest economy in the history of the world grew out of the Great Depression. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 came in the tracks of Bull Connor’s vicious dogs. To paraphrase Reverend Barber — it’s in the mourning we find hope,” Biden said.

In 1963, Connor was the Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner. He became known worldwide for using fire hoses and police attack dogs against black civil rights marchers in Birmingham. Images of the attacks were broadcast around the world and became lasting symbols of the brutality of the era.

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