Category: DEI

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The North: a new collection of interactive multimedia stories of Newark that “must be told”

The NorthAuthor of Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power Dr. Junius Williams introduces The North multimedia storytelling project with these words:

THESE STORIES MUST BE TOLD
Sometime ago, those of us who entered political movements for change walked on our first picket line or marched in our first demonstration. At some point we got hooked on concepts like “Freedom”, “Direct Action” and “Resistance” to get rid of Jim Crow racism. Eventually we came to learn how to spend time in jail, survive police and vigilante violence; to organize poor and working class black people; to extract perks and building blocks from federal programs and build coalitions among unpredictable community groups; to fight city hall; to negotiate agreements that produced opportunities and skill development for community development; and to manage campaigns to elect black politicians. read more

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Kim Guadagno is an immigrant hate machine echoing 45’s rhetoric

Immigrants
Steve Rhodes via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Gubernatorial candidate Kim Guadagno released a TV ad on October 12 reiterating her statement from the first gubernatorial debate referring to undocumented immigrants as “murderers and rapists”, using disparaging language like that of Donald Trump.

“Phil Murphy was very clear in the debate that he condemns murderous acts committed by anyone and that the people who commit those crimes should be prosecuted,” said Chris Estevez, President of the Latino Action Network. “Guadagno’s Trump-like approach paints all immigrants and Latinos as murderers and rapists.” LAN has condemned Guadagno’s statement. read more

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San Juan mayor responds to 45’s genocidal tweets: without help we will die

Mayor Cruz

The Nation reported on October 12, “San Juan Mayor Carmen Cruz woke up to Trump’s vindictive tweets on Thursday, and she texted a long message to Representative Luis Gutierrez of Chicago, who shared it with reporters.”

Follow Mayor Cruz on Twitter


Here’s the body of the Mayor’s message:

Puerto Ricans have suffered greatly in the past month. Two hurricanes devastated our homes and our electrical infrastructure leaving us without the essentials to survive: drinkable water, food and medicine. But perhaps more frustrating has been the devastating actions, time after time, by a President whose tweets, comments and actions seem to be taken out of a book on “how to add insult to injury” rather than a book on “how to help during a humanitarian crisis”. He is simply incapable of understanding the contributions, the sacrifices and the commitment to democratic values that Puerto Ricans have shown over decades. His actions are unbecoming of a leader of the free world. read more

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Nick Cannon kills it in ‘Stand for What’ video

Source: Nick Cannon Stand for What
Nick Cannon’s Stand for What via YouTube
Published Sep 24, 2017


Stand For what?!
You want me to stand for a song that continues to remind me of all the harms that have done me wrong?
Stand for what?!
For your Army that none of our sons truly belong
Stand for what?
The 100 years it took them to convince Congress to become the anthem after 40 failed attempts
Stand for what?
Your forefathers who really just Pimps.
Stand for What?
A song about War, not freedom
That’s how you want to lead them
Brainwash your people? that’s how you want to treat em
Slavemasters whips to Cops night sticks, that’s how you continue to beat em.
Stand for what
the beginning of Slavery in 1619
Or the end of those Black Marines of 1814
That’s really what the lyrics are about
They may have taken the word slave out
but they forget to remove the slave connotations from their brains and they mouth The mentality to make America Greater than your imagination is how you pout
Hating because we burned down their White House
Gave proof through the night, that its light out
For the old elitist white man thinking
Drunk off they ass with power at baseball games singing and drinking read more

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Why an American in England cried in the rain next to a statue of Abraham Lincoln

Statue Lincoln in Lancashire
Source: Lily Seville

Lily Seville posted this story on Facebook August 18 and made it publicly available so it can be shared.

I haven’t told any stories from England since I got home but it seems like maybe we could all use a good story about a civil war statue, a good story about an American President, and a good story about the power of the common people against the rich and powerful, so I’m going to start with this one. It’s probably for the best that you’re reading this here because I haven’t managed to tell this story in person without crying. read more

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Update from a Standing Rock volunteer after #45 orders attack on the camp

Protect the Sacred at Standing Rock
Source: hpr1.com
“Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere.” ~ Dr. King

This is an update from a Standing Rock volunteer. It’s not pleasant.

Friends,

I have returned from Standing Rock with my mind blown, my heart broken and my spirit troubled with foreboding of a deepening tragedy. Volunteering as a legal observer with the Water Protector Legal Collective I witnessed several confrontations between Water Protectors (WP) and law enforcement: national guard, sheriffs and private security (LE). read more

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Obama’s entire White House website, including data and Español/Spanish now live at the Obama Library site

White House website
Source: Wikipedia
All factual information from the Obama presidency is not lost! The President Obama White House website, including its Spanish language pages and its data catalog all remain publicly accessible at the ObamaWhiteHouse.gov website. Even the Obama White House social media feeds have been archived there.

Creation of this resource is another huge reason to thank President Obama: as of 23 January 2017, the incoming administration has already removed both climate change data and all Spanish language information. Pres. Obama’s team tells why he created the archive and what you’ll find there: read more

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Trevor Noah talks about his book on growing up in apartheid South Africa and inviting Tomi Lahren to The Daily Show

Trevor Noah on The Breakfast Club
Source: The Breakfast Club via YouTube

Trevor Noah speaks on The Breakfast Club about his autobiographical book on growing up knowing his birth – as a biracial child – was a crime in apartheid South Africa … a place where his mother had to dress as his nanny in order to be able to walk down the street with him.

Noah shares his questions and opinions on Donald Trump and speaks about his decision to invite Tomi Lahren to be his guest on The Daily Show. One reason for doing it was to have the chance to be heard by her audience, who otherwise would never learn anything about him. read more

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Trump Day 1: hate-based attacks, pussy-grabbing, threats – documented on reporter Shaun King’s Twitter feed

Shaun King
Source: Shaun King video clip screenshot
NY Daily News reporter Shaun King is doing something very courageous and important: documenting attacks and reports of hate incidents made by Trump supporters.

"Almost all white people except for educated white women chose Donald Trump in droves &that's a problem"- @ShaunKing pic.twitter.com/1GajQn8WLV read more

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An important essay by an honored student on the hypocrisies of inclusion in higher ed

Sung Yim with shaved head
Source: Sung Yim, courtesy of lutherxhughes.com

Sung Yim wrote an essay to Columbia University after essays the Korean poet was asked to submit as a student representative of Columbia College Chicago’s Nonfiction writing department were twice rejected and the last essay, cut down to almost nothing to eliminate any controversial bits. The author writes about the author’s own work:

It’s important to keep in mind that my work has always been scathingly political. That is, I would think, part of why the writing faculty nominated my work. It’s also important to keep in mind that they were soliciting short work of a long-form artist. I was clipping and revising each piece I was submitting to them, which took hours of free labor. read more

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Exposé: government assistance thief known in the 1970s as “Welfare Queen” was a white career criminal

Welfare Queen aliases
Source: Slate.com
Slate’s Executive Editor Josh Levin created a complex, in-depth multi-media story about the woman who was dubbed the “Welfare Queen” by Ronald Reagan. Mostly described by the media as a black woman, Linda Taylor was actually white and it seems she was also a kidnapper and murderer.

Ronald Reagan loved to tell stories. When he ran for president in 1976, many of Reagan’s anecdotes converged on a single point: The welfare state is broken, and I’m the man to fix it. On the trail, the Republican candidate told a tale about a fancy public housing complex with a gym and a swimming pool. There was also someone in California, he’d explain incredulously, who supported herself with food stamps while learning the art of witchcraft. And in stump speech after stump speech, Reagan regaled his supporters with the story of an Illinois woman whose feats of deception were too amazing to be believed. read more

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Dude’s viral post: yes, I am racist – but I’m not evil, I’m just primed for change

In an essay gone viral that reminds me a lot of Peggy McIntosh’s legendary ownership statement about white privilege, Jeff Cook explains that racism was incorporated into the Wheaties he eat for breakfast every day in white suburban America. But, he says, this involuntary programming makes him not evil, but definitely ready for change.

It’s a great essay, full of keen insights into both the writer’s mind and the society in which we live. Well worth the read. Here’s an excerpt:

Jeff Cook and Family
Source: beyondtheglasswall blog
read more

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Teacher helps students come to terms with the police murder of a classmate’s father

terence crutcher
Source: scarymommy.com
On 21 September, Rebecca Lee shared her experience on Facebook of helping the children in her school process and come to terms with the shooting death by a police officer, of Terence Crutcher. Crutcher was the father of a student at the Tulsa, Oklahoma school where Rebecca Lee is a literacy coach and writing teacher and ten other students at the school were related to him.

Crutcher was shot after his car stalled in the road and arriving police decided to brutalize and kill him, instead of offer him assistance. The white, woman police officer who murdered Mr. Crutcher has been charged with manslaughter. read more

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Hundreds of Asian Americans create Google Doc letter in 1 day to tell their families about the relevance of #BlackLivesMatter

An Open Letter
Source: Letters for Black Lives
Brian Fung of the Washington Post reports on a completely new phenomenon that came to life this week when Christina Xu started a letter online to explain to Asian elders why the #BlackLivesMatter movement has relevance and importance for the Asian community, called for community input and acquired hundreds of collaborators in the space of just a few hours.

In fact, let’s draft letters in our native languages to our parents and our communities. Get it passed around WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, etc. read more

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President, Press and Governor speak out: police brutality must be condemned and controlled

Alton Sterling
Alton Sterling Source: YouTube
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

– John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions Meditation XVII

This week saw the police murder father of five children Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana not long before school lunch supervisor and student mentor Philando Castile was murdered by a policeman near St. Paul, Minnesota.

New York Times writer Michael Eric Dyson offers a sizzling condemnation of white people for failing to hold brutal police accountable for killing people of color. Because ultimately, they don’t want to see that their greed for privilege has created and supports the social environment in which it is OK for this to happen. What a read: read more