June 2020 – Codeblack – Welcome to the Revolution

BY KHALEDA RAHMAN,

A North Carolina police officer has been fired after being caught on camera saying he “can’t wait” to slaughter Black people and that a civil war was needed to wipe them out.

Officer Kevin Piner was terminated alongside Cpl. Jessie Moore and another officer, James Gilmore, after an internal investigation, the Wilmington Police Department’s newly appointed police chief Donny Williams announced during a news conference on Wednesday.

Williams said the audit discovered extensive violations of the department’s policies, including the standards of conduct, criticism and use of inappropriate jokes and slurs.

He said the fired officers had conversations that included “disrespectful language, hate-filled speech and referred to Black people as the ‘N’ word.”Ads by scrollerads.com

Williams added that they had also criticized him, several black officers within the agency and people outside the department. He said they also criticized the Black Lives Matter protests and the department’s response to them.

“When I first learned of these conversations, I was shocked, saddened and disgusted,” Williams said.

“There is no place for this behavior in our agency or our city and it will not be tolerated. Our agency is hurting today because individuals who we believed honored their oath of office violated it and ripped at the very fabric of our family.”

According to documents released by the police department, the investigation into the officers began when a sergeant conducting a routine monthly video audit on June 4 reviewed footage from Piner’s car that had been classified as an “accidental activation.”

After the sergeant listened to parts of the two-hour video, she determined comments made by Piner and Moore were “extremely racist” and notified the department’s administrator for the camera system and an internal investigation was launched.

Just after the 46-minute mark of the video, Piner and Gilmore began talking to each other from their respective cars. Piner said the department’s only concern was “kneeling down with the Black folks.”

At one point, Pinner says he knew another officer was “bad news” and added: “Let’s see how his boys take care of him when sh** gets rough, see if they don’t put a bullet in his head.”

Around 30 minutes later, Piner received a phone call from Moore, according to the investigation.

During that conversation, Moore referred to a Black woman he had arrested the day before as a “negro” and a racial slur multiple times. “She needed a bullet in her head right then and move on,” Moore also said about the woman, according to the investigative documents.

Moore also described a Black magistrate as a “f****** negro magistrate.”

Later, Piner told Moore that he feels a civil war is coming and that he is “ready.”

Piner said he was going to buy a new assault rifle, and soon “we are just going to go out and start slaughtering them f****** n******. I can’t wait. God, I can’t wait.”

Moore responded that he wouldn’t do that, but Piner said: “I’m ready.”

Piner then told Moore that he felt a civil war was needed to “wipe ’em off the f****** map. That’ll put them back about four or five generations.” Moore told Piner he was “crazy.” The recording stopped a short time later, the documents said.

According to police, the officers admitted it was their voices on the video and didn’t deny any of the things said. All three denied they were racists and they blamed their comments on the stress on working in law enforcement amid protests sparked by the death of George Floyd. Floyd, a Black man, died on May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes while he struggled for air.

Williams said the officers will not be eligible for rehire in Wilmington and that he will recommend they not be allowed to work in law enforcement by alerting the North Carolina Criminal Justice Training and Standards Commission about their behavior.

Moore and Gilmore had worked for Wilmington Police Department since 1997. Piner was hired in 1998.

Cases involving the officers will be reviewed by the district attorney’s office to determine if they committed any crimes or showed bias toward defendants, the documents said.

Original article was published here.

Green had been in the living room of his Houston home when he first saw the excruciating cell-phone video on the news: a white Minneapolis police officer nonchalantly kneeling on the neck of the 46-year-old Floyd for nearly 9 minutes. The handcuffed man desperately crying that he can not breathe. The bystanders urging the officer to stop. His cold refusal to acknowledge their pleas.

Floyd’s body had been flown back to Texas to be buried. But first, there would be a funeral at Fountain of Praise church, one of the largest churches in Green’s district, at which the congressman had been asked to say a few words.

But now, as the service began, Green was struck by the words of the church’s pastor Remus E. Wright, who urged congregants to maintain social distancing, avoid getting too close, and keep masks over their mouths and noses. The coronavirus pandemic was lurking. And no life, the pastor stressed, was expendable.

Green couldn’t shake that concept—that we can’t afford to lose one more life. That now is the moment for drastic, desperate action. By the time he was summoned to the stage, the congressman had torn up his speech.

The death of George Floyd has prompted a generational national reckoning with race and justice unlike any seen in the United States since the LAPD beating of Rodney King, which was also captured on bystander video, in the early 1990s. Yet Floyd is just the latest to join a roster of black people killed by police in recent years: Laquan McDonald, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Korryn Gaines, Botham Jean, Breonna Taylor.

Visitors pay their respects to George Floyd in front of a mural in Houston, Texas on Monday, June 8, 2020.MARK FELIX/AFP VIA GETTY

For years, black activists and organizers have demanded a complete upheaval of the criminal justice system, yet their demands have been met with skepticism from the public and promises, often unfulfilled, of piecemeal reform from the police. But this time, after Floyd’s death, could be different. Polling shows that a majority of white Americans now agree that there is something systematically unjust about American policing.

“I’ve actually been really emotional,” Amber Goodwin, a longtime activist in Houston, who has worked on issues of gun and police violence, told me, adding that the conversation about changing American policing has seemingly evolved overnight. “I’ve always believed that another world was possible.”

Rather than contemplating body cameras and bias training, the public is now debating what it could look like to shift some responsibilities away from police forces altogether. The nation is asking: Where do we go from here? And it seems, Americans are at least momentarily willing to consider a radical answer in response.

“To see a person with a knee on the neck, that’s more than is tolerable for any conscience,” Green would tell me a few days after the funeral service, noting that the Floyd video had shaken the nation in a way unlike any other video before it. He’s worked on these issues for years, and can recite the names of half a dozen black people killed by the police during the years he led Houston’s NAACP chapter. The hard-earned reforms over the years have been important. But in this moment, the public appetite for change seems to finally match the urgency of the crisis. “This Black Lives Matter movement is moving the social consciousness of this nation,” Green added.

And so he ditched his prepared speech, in which he had planned to call for “unity” and declare that Floyd’s life could not be lost in vain.

“We are here because we have no expendables in our community,” Green declared from the stage. “George Floyd was not expendable. This is why we’re here. His crime was that he was born black.”

Moments later, the 72-year-old congressman used his place in the pulpit to unveil a historic proposal—the creation of a federal department, run by a Congressionally-confirmed cabinet position, to tackle American racial reconciliation.

“We have a duty, responsibility and obligation not to allow this to be like the other times,” Green urged. “We have got to have reconciliation…We survived slavery but we didn’t reconcile, we survived segregation but we didn’t reconcile, we are suffering invidious discrimination because we didn’t reconcile… It’s time for us to reconcile.”

‘We’re in the middle of a crucible moment”

Green’s call for a historic reckoning with America’s racial legacy was still ringing in my ears days later, as I sat in front of my laptop screen and dialed into the video conference link I had been provided. Determined to seize the moment, the Congressional Black Caucus had convened a forum on police violence and accountability, and asked a slate of black activists from across the country to testify. They had also invited me.

For the last six years, I’ve spent most of my time writing and reporting on police violence and the movement of young black organizers determined to end it. It wasn’t a beat I aspired to, or a story I had intended to tell, but rather an assignment seemingly provided by divine happenstance. In August 2014, I was a Congressional reporter for the Washington Post who happened to have a bag packed when rioting broke out in response to the police shooting of Michael Brown Jr. in suburban St. Louis. Two days after my arrival in Ferguson, another reporter and I were arrested by local police as we attempted to file our stories from the dining room of a fast-food restaurant just up the street from the protests. Critics, some within my own profession, insisted that the arrest had made me “part of the story,” and that I should be removed from the assignment. That made me even more determined to dig in my heels. In the half of a decade since, I’ve made police-accountability journalism and the stories of those impacted by the failures of American policing into my life’s work.

In 2015, my colleagues at the Washington Post and I launched Fatal Force, a national database tracking fatal police shootings that grew directly out of our reporting on the ground. The black residents and protesters who I’d interviewed in Ferguson insisted that the police were routinely killing black men and women in the streets. Meanwhile, the police and their unions insisted that just was not the case—they rarely killed anyone, they claimed, and on the rare occasion that they did, the person had it coming. The problem was either a flaw in the system, or a series of isolated incidents. Two competing narratives, driving a national debate over race and policing.

Yet, stunningly, no reliable national data existed to settle the question. It was unclear how many people the police were killing, who those people were, and under what circumstances they were dying. So The Post began tracking every fatal police shooting we could—relying on details provided by local news coverage and then supplemented by additional reporting of our own. In the five years that followed, we recorded nearly 5,000 fatal police killings by police—about 3 per day—and discovered that black Americans are killed by the police at at least twice the rate of white Americans.

One of our followup investigations would document how even fired police officers are often able to get their jobs back. Another documented the extent to which black communities are overpoliced yet underserved—the most violent areas of major American cities are also places where murders are rarely solved.

The American public now broadly agrees that there is a problem with race and policing. But a new debate has emerged: how deep and wide is that problem? The activists in the streets have been clear—they believe American policing, which in much of the nation descends directly from slave patrols, is systemically racist and fundamentally broken.

Where do we go from here? As I testified to the CBC, the role of a journalist is not to provide the answers, but rather to document, in excruciating detail, the extent of the problem. And so, when asked where we should go from here, I deferred to the activists, organizers, and the black Americans who have taken to the streets.

“We have truly tried it all,” testified Jeremiah Ellison, a Minneapolis city councilman and former street activist who spoke before me, ticking off all of the reforms his city has attempted that have failed to fix policing. He’s said he’s given up on police reform, and is now one of the leading voices advocating the abolition of policing as it is currently constructed. “We give police an incredible amount of trust. And they deserve an equally incredible amount of accountability when they break that trust. Instead, accountability eludes them entirely.”

“In my experience and my community’s experience, the role of police has been a really violent force,” testified Patrisse Cullors, one of three co-founders of #BlackLivesMatter and chair of Reform LA Jails. “What I’ve witnessed in the last 30 years is a deep investment into policing and incarceration, and a deep divestment from all of the things that help and support communities that are in need.”

For starters, at least, the activists argue that the police need to no longer be tasked with dealing with things like mental health, school discipline, drug and alcohol issues and nonviolent conflict resolution. The buckets of money being poured into police departments—at times the single biggest expenditure in a city budget—should be directed into other community services and resources.

“We’re in the middle of a crucible moment in this country,” Phil Agnew, another young black activist, would tell me a few days later. Agnew likes to say he was radicalized while a student at Florida A&M University, following the death of Martin Lee Anderson, a 14-year-old black boy who collapsed while doing a required workout at a boot-camp style youth detention center in Florida. When he first entered college, Agnew thought the disparities facing black Americans must be their own fault. But the more he read, and the more he learned, he realized the entire system of American life had been stacked against them. Later, Agnew helped found the Dream Defenders, one of the most influential activist groups to emerge following the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin. Most recently, he and Tef Poe, a Ferguson activist, launched Black Men Build, which hopes to organize and mobilize black men to be politically and socially engaged in advance of this November’s elections.

The next steps, Agnew said, need to be the creation of a world in which black Americans have the same likelihood of health care, clean water, job opportunities and quality education as their white neighbors. “Black people need to have the power to determine what our lives look like in this country,” he said.

Yet even as the activists insist that now is the time for sweeping changes and a deep reckoning with how the horrors of our nation’s history inform the inequities of our country’s present, the conversation in Washington remains much more narrow. Powerful Republicans and Democrats alike are offering legislation that, if signed into law, would undoubtedly increase police oversight and transparency, yet fall well short of the type of radical rethinking of American policing that the activists advocate. As the people in the streets call for abolition, the country’s leaders say they’re now ready to offer up reform.

“The nation is fed up with seeing the same situation play out over and over and over again,” said South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the sole black Republican senator, who has been charged with leading GOP police-reform efforts. The video of Floyd crying out for his mother as he died “broke the back of the American psyche,” Scott told me. “Enough is enough already.”

A crucial component of his legislation is a body-camera requirement, a proposal he began to advocate after the 2015 police shooting of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man, in Sen. Scott’s hometown of North Charleston, S.C.

In that case, the officer initially claimed to have been in a desperate struggle for his life when he pulled the trigger. But then a bystander released a cell-phone video that showed Scott running away as the officer opened fire, shooting Scott in the back as he fled. While body cameras don’t prevent such shootings, Scott conceded, they at least allow the public to see what truly happened in a given incident, and provide a better chance that officers will be held accountable.

“If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a video is worth 1,000 pictures,” said Scott, who spoke to me on the fifth anniversary of another tragedy in his home state: the racist massacre that left 9 worshippers dead in Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, shot and killed by a white supremacist.

The extent to which the GOP has empowered Scott marks a significant shift for a caucus that just years ago framed any call for policing reform as an attack on all police officers. And yet the senator must walk a rhetorical tightrope. His colleagues still loathe the suggestion that the criminal justice system is “systematically” biased against black Americans. And so Scott himself has avoided—even criticized—the term, even as he provides personal anecdotes that offer proof of such systematic bias.

“Can I identify racial outcomes in the law enforcement community that makes me feel like more of a target? The answer to that is yes. Does that speak to systemic racism? I don’t know. I don’t come to that conclusion personally.”

For decades, he’s been routinely pulled over and ticketed for what he says can only be considered “driving while black.” Back when he was on his country council in South Carolina, Scott was pulled over by police seven times in a single year. Since first coming to Congress, he’s been stopped by the police at least four times while on the grounds of the United States Capitol. On one occasion, Scott was pulled over while driving to visit his grandfather in a poorer part of town, years into his time as an elected official, and soon found his car surrounded by at least four police officers.

“As a person who has been racially profiled, it pricks at your soul, it makes you feel small. It makes you feel powerless and frustrated,” Scott said. But isn’t that, definitionally, systemic racism, I asked Scott?

“You guys in the media can fight over the philosophical definition of something, but I don’t have the luxury of doing is having that fight…What you call it…is important… it just isn’t that important to me right now.”

Setting aside the rhetorical debate, Scott and his Democratic colleagues do agree on something else: whatever legislation they end up passing will still fall short of eradicating the issue. “I’m looking for something that stops hate from manifesting, I don’t see anything in their legislation or mine,” Scott said.

None of the proposals put forth by either piece of legislation would have necessarily kept George Floyd alive, and neither guarantees that another George Floyd won’t meet the same fate. The passage of either proposal, or a compromise that combines them both, would at once be the most sweeping piece of police reform passed by Congress in a generation, and also largely inconsequential as it relates to curbing the number of police killings.

“It’s all tinkering around the edges,” said Jonathan Smith, one of the Justice Department’s top civil rights officials during the Obama administration, who oversaw the investigation of the Ferguson Police Department after the death of Michael Brown. “People want to do something, so people are grabbing for low-hanging fruit,” Smith said. “But it’s not going to solve the problem in any meaningful way. It’ll let people feel like they did something.”

“I think what we’re witnessing is, quite frankly, the birth of a new nation. Childbirth is very difficult, but we’re going to make it,” CBC chairwoman Barbara Lee said when it was her turn to question the panelists during the hearing.

“Many of my white contemporaries especially are finally waking up to begin talking about racism, specifically systemic racism,” said Lee, who has introduced legislation that would create a truth, racial healing and transformation commission in the United States. “But they’re not clear about the historical context as it relates to slavery and how it’s manifested today in policies and programs and funding priorities and in the brutal murder of black men and women by the police.

A few days later, I called Congressman Green to ask how such a reconciliation process would work. As we spoke, he sat in his office, flanked by hand-drawn portraits he had commissioned of Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. Across the room hangs another hero, Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman ever elected to Congress, who boasted in her campaign slogan that she was “unbought and unbossed.”

Chisholm, Green told me, was a “liberated Democrat,” willing to tell the truth even when it made others in her party upset with her. And it’s in that spirit that Green has joined Lee and others in calling for the United States to undergo a reconciliation process similar to those undertaken by post-Holocaust Germany and post-apartheid South Africa. Under Green’s proposal, the president of the United States would create a Department of Reconciliation, overseen by a Senate-confirmed cabinet secretary.

This person would be tasked with overseeing national and localized efforts to empirically document, educate the public, and then proposed remedies for the extent to which our nation’s original sin—centuries of slavery, followed by decades of legalized discrimination and oppression—still weigh down black Americans. The budget for such an office would fall under the Department of Defense, Green said, since future lawmakers would be loath to ever approve cuts to defense spending.

It’s striking, experts say, that the United States has never undergone such a process. While it’s true there have been commissions—the Kerner Commission after the riots of the 1960s, and the Christopher Commission after the riots of the 1990s—the federal government has never devoted significant resources to providing a sweeping corrective to the enduring damage wrought by American slavery.

“If you look at countries comparable to the U.S. in their long histories of racial inequality, all of them except the United States have gone through some sort of public reckoning of that past,” said Kathleen Belew, a historian who has studied reconciliation processes and author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. “There are ways that racism and white supremacy are deeply hidden inside many aspects of our society. A truth commission gives us an opportunity to get it all out on the table.”

It’s a process that’s played out before, at the local level. Activists in Greensboro, N.C. launched a truth and reconciliation process following the 1979 massacre in which white supremacists shot and killed five anti-racist protesters. In Maine, Native officials underwent a truth and reconciliation process to explain and address why tribal youth were both overrepresented and mistreated in the state’s child welfare system. And in Detroit, local activists pressed the state for a truth and reconciliation commission to definitively document the public policy decisions that resulted in the region’s stark racial segregation.

“The best thing that can come from a truth commission is that we narrow the range of permissible lies that we tell ourselves as a community about our own history,” said Jill Williams, who ran the Greensboro commission and has advised on others across the country. I think that could be helpful to America.”

One of the key components of any such commission is to establish a mutually accepted historical narrative. While we all live in the same nation, white Americans and black Americans believe fundamentally different things about what happened in our shared pasts, much less about how it still affects us all today. And how far off are we from having that type of shared history? Are we close?

“Oh, come on. No!” exclaimed Smithsonian Institute secretary Lonnie Bunch when I posed him that question about three weeks after George Floyd’s death.

“You learn a lot about a country by what it remembers, but even more by what it forgets,” Bunch added, once he’d stopped laughing at me. “I was struck, years ago, by a letter I received where somebody said that America’s greatest strength is its ability to forget.”

Few in recent history have done as much work as Bunch to force America to remember. After years running the Chicago History Museum, Bunch served as the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture—affectionately nicknamed “the Blacksonian“—before being named the first black man to ever oversee all 19 Smithsonian museums. To walk the halls of the Blacksonian, from its underground exhibits on slavery to its ground-floor exploration of civil rights to its towering tributes to black sports and culture, is to be confronted by the extent to which the nation we now occupy has been crafted by its past. Neither the inequalities that plague us today, nor the fight to upend them, can be separated from what has come before.

“There’s a lot of reason to recognize how today is tied to the arch of history, how the struggle is ongoing,” Bunch said, nodding to the protests surging in American streets, comparing the energy of this moment to the Civil Rights push that followed the Brown v. Board of Ed. decision and the murder of Emmett Till. “And the struggle takes resilience. It’s not always one big moment where there will be fundamental change. But what history tells you is that there are moments where you see the country take a giant leap forward.”

Once a shared historical narrative can be established, a reconciliation process can begin. “Restorative justice is a set of values,” explained Fania Davis, executive director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth. “It’s a theory of justice that brings together everyone affected by wrongdoing…We make mistakes. And we hurt people by those mistakes. But we can make amends for those mistakes, we can say sorry and we can take action.”

Davis is an elder in the movement, into which she was violently thrust after two of her childhood friends were among those killed in the 1963 Birmingham Church Bombings. “A big part of why you’re talking to me today is that I left that experience with this deep yearning to be an agent of social transformation,” Davis told me.

She began working with the Civil Rights Movement, and then the Black Power Movement, and then the anti-apartheid movment, and then the student movement. Her former husband, a Black Panther, was shot by a police officer who had entered their home as part of what was then-routine surveillance of black activists. When her sister, Angela, was arrested and held on murder charges (she’d later be acquited), Davis traveled the world raising public support for her release. It was that fight that inspired Davis to become a civil rights lawyer, and later to undertake the study of restorative justice.

Demonstrators march down Pennsylvania Avenue to protest against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, on June 3, 2020 in Washington, DC. TASOS KATOPODIS/GETTY

While the American justice system asks what rule was broken, who broke the rule, and how severely should we punish them, a restorative justice framework asks who was harmed, what their needs are, what the responsibilities of the person who did the harm are, and how we repair that harm and meet those needs.

Like many activists, Davis had been heartened by the newfound national conversation around defunding police departments and replacing them with social services, and she praised the steps taken by the Minneapolis City Council to disband their police department—and hopes that whatever emerges there next is a community-led restorative justice process.

She also hopes other municipalities follow Minneapolis’ lead, and endorses the idea of a nationwide effort to undergo reconciliation. “This is the first step in creating an amazing process that will allow us to imagine a public safety system where black lives matter.”

“It’s way bigger than the police”

Pastor Patrick “PT” Ngwolo met me at halfcourt just after 5 p.m., the Houston heat hanging in the air as a handful of children dribbled basketballs twice the size of their heads. The courts that sit in the center of the Cuney Homes, the city’s largest public housing project, have four backboards but just two rims. “George Floyd,” someone had scrawled in orange spray paint beneath each of them.

Cuney is a 600-unit project known colloquially as “The Bricks”—for the bland tan-and-red slabs that make up the outer walls of its two-story apartments. It’s located in Houston’s Third Ward, the center of the city’s black politics and culture: it’s raised generations of black artists and writers and politicians and a musician you may have heard of named Beyoncé. Yet even the Third Ward provides a tale of two cities. There are blocks of massive old homes, once belonging to the Jewish residents who lived here before the black people moved in. And then there’s “The Bottoms,” the low-lying stretch of projects, auto-body shops and corner liquor stores tucked next to Texas Southern University, the historically black college founded to serve the black students excluded from the University of Texas.

George “Big Floyd” was well-known in The Bottoms, where he spent most of his life living in a white one-story home on the edges of Cuney projects. Few here can recall precisely when they first met Big Floyd. He had just always been there, a fixture like the rusting metal clothes lines that hang between the apartments. When Ngwolo showed up a few years ago to start a church, Floyd’s mother was on the housing complex’s residents’ council, and helped him get permission to hold church outreach events on the basketball court. Soon, Floyd himself had offered to help, telling the pastor to use his name if anyone ever gave him trouble.

“He provided a lot of guys mentorship and advice,” Ngwolo said of Floyd, likening him to a neighborhood mayor. Floyd was an elder statesman. In a part of town where many men don’t survive their teens, he had lived long enough to meet his grandchildren. “If you’re meeting someone of note in Third Ward, they know Big Floyd.”

Ngwolo and I walked a block or two to meet up with J.R. Torres, a 27-year-old, who had known Big Floyd for years. Torres’ sister has a child with Floyd’s longtime best friend, and so Torres got to know him well over the years. He’d initially scrolled past the video in his Instagram feed, but then his sister texted him. The police killed Big Floyd, she told him. It was only then that he realized the man he’d seen dying on social media was the guy from his neighborhood, the one who’d always offered an encouraging word and begged him to stay out of trouble.

“It was unbelievable,” Torres told me. Even in a part of town that’s used to burying its young, the cruelty with which Big Floyd’s life was extinguished has left people in a state of infuriated paralysis. “We were actually looking at the life being taken up out of this man.”

The three of us drove to the other side of the projects in Torres’ white Buick Lacrosse—the funeral program from Big Floyd’s memorial displayed on the dashboard—until we arrived at the memorial. It was a massive blue display, in which the slain man is depicted with a halo and angels wings. “In loving memory of Big Floyd,” the tribute reads “Texas Made. 3rd Ward Raised.”

There were about two dozen people gathered in front of the memorial, including Leonard “Junebug” McGowen, a popular Third Ward rapper who was perched atop the hood of his car, a mostly-smoked blunt burning in his hand, when Ngwolo and I approached.

“I think it’s way bigger than the police.” McGowen told me. He’d known Big Floyd most of his life, growing up as a childhood playmate of one of Floyd’s nephews. He still hasn’t watched the full video. “Look at our president right now. Look how he talks crazy…It’s way bigger than the police. The police is like their street team. The police is like their soldiers. They’re badged up so they can do whatever they want to us.”

The men and women here don’t always use the same words and frameworks as the activists who’ve taken to the streets across the country. But, when you listen, it’s clear they want the same things. They want to live in communities safe from violence, especially from violence perpetrated by those who are supposed to protect them. They see a system stacked against them from birth. They’re trapped in run-down housing, segregated into failing schools, without access to higher education or well-paying jobs. They live lives of difficulty and frustration, while being patrolled by police who don’t understand them.

“We don’t need white police in black areas. They don’t get it. It goes all of the way back to slavery. The minute a white person sees us you already know what’s the first thing on their head. You know how they judge us: Monster. Predator,” said Joshua Butler, 28, who was out at the memorial that night. He wanted to be clear that he doesn’t think all police officers or all white people are personally racist. Still, he said, too often, people who haven’t grown up here, who haven’t lived these lives—especially police—just don’t understand. “Y’all don’t know how it feels to open up the ice box and see nothing for a week straight. You could never stomach that.”

After about half an hour of conversations, we climbed back into Torres’ car to drive back to the basketball courts, and I asked him for his story. He’d grown up here, in The Bricks, and went to Jack Yates high school just up the street. His counselors and teachers helped him enroll in a nearby community college, but he didn’t last long—on his first day of classes, he got discouraged when he couldn’t locate the correct classroom. Days later, he got picked up by police and charged with marijuana possession. He spent a week in jail, and soon had abandoned his aspirations for higher education. In the years since he’s worked a series of odd jobs—lots of landscaping to supplement his gambling winnings. He wonders if he’ll ever leave The Bricks. He’s not betting on it.

“They have to want to fix it,” Torres told me of a system that he and black Americans across the country know is stacked against them, “If they don’t want to fix it, it ain’t gonna get fixed.”

And you don’t think they want to fix it? I asked.

“Not at all,” Torres replied.

Original article was published here.

According to the report, an IRS working group first raised questions with Treasury officials about payments to people no longer living in late March as Congress was drafting the CARES Act. Meanwhile, Treasury officials pointed to language in the CARES Act mandating that economic impact payments be delivered as “rapidly as possible.”

“To fulfill this mandate, Treasury officials said Treasury and IRS used many of the operational policies and procedures developed in 2008 for the stimulus payments, and therefore did not use the death records as a filter to halt payments to decedents in the first three batches of payments,” the GAO’s report states.

The federal government distributed more than 160 million payments worth $269.3 billion, according to the GAO.

The report notes that the tally of money that went to the deceased may be lower because it doesn’t reflect returned checks or rejected direct deposits. The IRS and Treasury are still working to determine a final figure. But the GAO warns that any future stimulus checks, which federal officials continue to mull, could face the same fraud risks if they don’t implement key measures, such as checking death records.

The direct payment program’s pitfalls are among several issues raised in the GAO’s review of how the federal government has handled the coronavirus pandemic so far.

“Given the sweeping and unfolding public health and economic crisis, agencies from across the federal government were called on for immediate assistance, requiring an unprecedented level of dedication and agility among the federal workforce, including those serving on the front lines to quickly establish services for those infected with the virus,” the GAO concluded. “Consistent with the urgency of responding to serious and widespread health issues and economic disruptions, agencies have given priority to moving swiftly where possible to distribute funds and implement new programs. As tradeoffs were made, however, agencies have made only limited progress so far in achieving transparency and accountability goals.”

It’s not clear how much the federal government has spent on the coronavirus response because, under guidance from the Office of Management and Budget, agencies do not have to report obligations and expenditures until July.

The report notes that a separate program meant to help small businesses has promised $512 billion in guaranteed loans, but the GAO reported that the Small Business Administration wouldn’t commit to addressing fraud risks and hasn’t said how it plans to oversee the loans moving forward.

Also, the demand for personal protective equipment and other critical health care supplies quickly outpaced what was in the Strategic National Stockpile at the start of the pandemic, but GAO also found concerns among state, local and federal officials about how existing supplies were distributed and others were acquired.

Original article was published here.

It is fair to say LeBron James is launching one of the most important athlete political campaigns in history. As Georgia’s primary elections this week turned into a voting meltdown, it’s become even more apparent one of the biggest unknowns heading into Election Day is if U.S. citizens will actually be able to vote. Those who are unable to vote cannot enact change at the ballot box, destroying our democracy.

James is forming a voting rights organization along with several other prominent Black athletes and entertainers. The group, called More Than a Vote, will go beyond traditional get-out-the-vote campaigns. It will combat voter suppression, with James using his gigantic presence on social media to shed light on attempts to restrict voting access for minorities.

“Because of everything that’s going on, people are finally starting to listen to us — we feel like we’re finally getting a foot in the door,” James told the New York Timesin an interview. “How long is up to us. We don’t know. But we feel like we’re getting some ears and some attention, and this is the time for us to finally make a difference.”

James and his longtime business partner, Maverick Carter, are putting up the initial funding for the group. Multiple former and current pro basketball players, including Trae Young, Draymond Green, Jalen Rose and WNBA guard Skylar Diggins-Smith, are involved with the project. Comedian Kevin Hart and Saints running back Alvin Kamara have reportedly committed to the group as well.

With a nation outraged over the killing of George Floyd and police violence against Black people, athletes are filling the leadership void. They are also being rewarded for their activism, with Converse signing Washington Mystics guard Natasha Cloud to a lucrative endorsement contract because of her outspokenness. Cloud, who is openly gay, published a poignant essay about white complicity in systemic racism, titled “Your Silence is a Knee on My Neck.”

The unprecedented support of the Black Lives Matter movement is apparent across the sports world, with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell even releasing a video last week encouraging players to peacefully protest, and apologizing for the league’s previous stance. It’s now smart business to embrace activism.

With that in mind, James’ efforts against voter suppression promise to be widely broadcast. But the truth is, James has enough reach on his own to make a tangible difference in public awareness. The three-time champion and four-time MVP boasts more than 136 million followers across his Twitter, Instagram and Facebook feeds. To put that in perspective, 137 million people voted in the 2016 presidential election, the NYT points out.

Good news in the fight against voter suppression: @KingJames is coming onto the court. https://t.co/oyCC6vNSEr
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 11, 2020

One of the big takeaways from the nationwide protests over the last two weeks is how effective unrelenting pressure campaigns can be. Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti and New York City mayor Bill De Blasio have both pledged to reduce the budgets of their police forces, which could potentially reallocate hundreds of millions of dollars to social programs. The Minneapolis City Council has pledged to dismantle its troubled police force in the aftermath of Floyd’s death.

The movement has even broken through the thick walls of Congress, where House Democrats unveiled sweeping police reform legislation. Republicans on Capital Hill have said they will lay out their own legislation to enact police reform.

With one of the largest platforms in the country, James can mobilize the masses to pressure lawmakers to stop suppressing the voting rights of minorities. Georgia voters waited in hours-long lines Tuesday across Atlanta, where new state-ordered voting machines were malfunctioning and not working properly. Polling places were closed as well, due to the coronavirus. Residents who requested absentee ballots said they waited months for them to arrive, and sometimes they never came at all.

Former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost the state’s 2018 gubernatorial race to Brian Kemp amidst widespread accusations of voter suppression, says her absentee ballot was sent to her with a sealed return envelope. She couldn’t send it back.

With demands for absentee ballots surging, states are scrambling to respond. Results have still been counted well past election night in many places, including important swing states like Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

It’s apparent the White House will continue to use its bully pulpit to rail against mail-in voting, despite President Donald Trump voting by mail himself. In March, Trump explained his opposition to mail-in voting, saying Republicans would “never” be elected again if voting access were dramatically increased.

Trump’s powerful propaganda machine promises to be pushing conspiracies about mail-in voting up until Election Day, sowing doubt into our entire system. James is one of the few individuals with the reach to counteract the flood of untruths.

“Yes, we want you to go out and vote, but we’re also going to give you the tutorial,” James told the NYT. “We’re going to give you the background of how to vote and what they’re trying to do, the other side, to stop you from voting.”

The results of the presidential election won’t be known until November. But whoever wins the information war surrounding voting rights will have an undoubted advantage. James is using his platform to try and ensure truth prevails.

Original article was published here.

A portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth,” Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when a group of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finally learned that they were free from the institution of slavery. But, woefully, this was almost two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation; the Civil War was still going on, and when it ended, Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger traveled to Texas and issued an order stating that all enslaved people were free, establishing a new relationship between “former masters and slaves” as “employer and hired labor.” As much as Juneteenth represents freedom, it also represents how emancipation was tragically delayed for enslaved people in the deepest reaches of the Confederacy.

Newly freed black people celebrated the first Juneteenth in 1866 to commemorate liberation — with food, singing, and the reading of spirituals — and take pride in their progress. But a century and a half later, Juneteenth is still not taught in most schools, nor is the event a federal holiday despite decades of pushing from activists. In 1980, Texas became the first state to declare Juneteenth an official holiday. In 2020, Washington, DC, and nearly every state recognize the day as a holiday or observance.

While Juneteenth celebrations span the world — the global diaspora has adopted the day as one to recognize emancipation at large — the calls for Juneteenth to be a national holiday have grown stronger amid a climate seeking justice for black lives. Just this month, a number of corporations and institutions like Nike and the NFL have announced plans to recognize Juneteenth as a company holiday. Coinciding with the worldwide protests against systemic racism, and the mounting cultural pressure to reckon with America’s racist history, Juneteenth is receiving increased attention in 2020.

Setting the foundation for Juneteenth

During the Civil War, the US Congress passed the Confiscation Act of 1862, which authorized Union troops to seize Confederate property, including enslaved people. The act also allowed the Union army to recruit black soldiers. Months later, as the nation approached its third year of the Civil War, President Lincoln on January 1, 1863, would affirm the aims of the act by issuing the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. The document declared that “all persons held as slaves […] are, and henceforth, shall be free.”

Lincoln wrote:

I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

In 1863, the proclamation legally freed millions of enslaved people in the Confederacy, but it exempted those in the Union-loyal border states of Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky. These states held Confederate sympathies and could have seceded; Lincoln exempted them from the proclamation to prevent this. In April 1864, the Senate attempted to close this loophole by passing the 13th Amendment, prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude in all states, Union and Confederate. But the amendment wouldn’t be enacted by ratification until December 1865.

A group of formerly enslaved people who worked as laborers and servants with the 13th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War, circa 1862. Corbis via Getty Images

And though the Civil War ended in April 1865 when Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia, enslaved people in Texas didn’t learn about their freedom until June 19, 1865. On that day, almost two and a half years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger of the Union army arrived in Galveston and issued General Order No. 3 that secured the Union army’s authority over Texas.

The order stated:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, ‘all slaves are free.’ This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts, and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

The order reveals how slavery slowly unraveled as an institution in the early 1860s, as Union armies bored south, occupying plantations from the Southern border to the Deep South and finally to the periphery in Texas. Emancipation came gradually for many enslaved people, the culmination of a century of American abolition efforts, North and South.

Freedom came gradually ahead of the first Juneteenth celebration

Still, even under Order No. 3, as historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. noted, freedom wasn’t automatic for Texas’s 250,000 enslaved people. “On plantations, masters had to decide when and how to announce the news — or wait for a government agent to arrive — and it was not uncommon for them to delay until after the harvest,” he wrote.

According to Gates, newly freed black women and men rallied around June 19th in that first year, transforming it from a “day of unheeded military orders into their own annual rite.”

The first Juneteenth celebration took place in 1866 in Texas with community gatherings, including sporting events, cookouts, prayers, dances, parades, and the singing of spirituals like “Many Thousands Gone” and “Go Down Moses.” Some events even featured fireworks, which involved filling trees with gunpowder and setting them on fire.

At the core of the celebrations was a desire to record group gains since emancipation, “an occasion for gathering lost family members, measuring progress against freedom and inculcating rising generations with the values of self-improvement and racial uplift,” Gates wrote.

Communities would read the Emancipation Proclamation as part of the tradition, which was especially significant during Reconstruction, when the holiday reinforced hope. Reconstruction (1863-1890) was a time to rebuild the Southern economy and society through the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, black-run Southern governments, and the work of the Freedmen’s Bureau, among other efforts.

President Rutherford B. Hayes oversaw the end of Reconstruction. After the Civil War, reformers aimed to rebuild society through the passing of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, black-run Southern governments, and the work of the Freedmen’s Bureau.

But the goals of Reconstruction were consistently countered by white supremacists. For example, ex-Confederates were able to reestablish white supremacy throughout the 1880s after Democratic Congress members awarded Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the 1876 presidential election in exchange for the withdrawal of Union troops from the South, according to historian Richard M. Valelly’s The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement.After Hayes’s win, leaders at the state and local levels “weakened black voting in the South by means of gerrymandering, violence, and intimidation,” Valelly wrote.

Then in 1890, Mississippians drafted a white supremacist state constitution to disenfranchise local black people; it included provisions that required people be able to read and understand all parts of the state constitution in order to vote, according to the New York Times. This barred thousands of illiterate black people from voting in the 1890s.

Meanwhile, the Federal Elections Bill, or Lodge Bill, to oversee Southern elections failed in the summer of 1890, effectively closing the last window for national voting rights jurisprudence for decades to come. This signaled the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow. “Once black southerners were disenfranchised by the early 1900s, the stage was set for a systematic entrenchment of white supremacist norms and public policies,” Valelly wrote.

Then, and now, the symbolism and spirit behind Juneteenth remain sorely needed.

Over time, Juneteenth spread to neighboring states like Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and eventually to California as black Texans moved west; it also appeared in Florida and Alabama in the early 20th century due to migration from Texas, wrote historian Alwyn Barr in The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 4: Myths, Manners, and Memory.

According to Barr, Juneteenth observations declined in the 1940s during World War II but were revived in 1950 “with 70,000 black people on the Texas State Fair grounds at Dallas.” The celebrations would decline again as attention went to school desegregation and the civil rights movement in the late 1950s and 1960s. But they picked up again in the 1970s as advocates in Texas launched the first effort to make Juneteenth an unofficial “holiday of significance … particularly to the blacks of Texas.”

On January 1, 1980, Juneteenth became a Texas state holiday after state Rep. Al Edwards put forth legislation. Since that move, 45 states plus Washington, DC, now commemorate the day as a holiday or observance. Cities have also taken steps to specifically recognize Juneteenth at the municipal level. Philadelphia, the site of one of the country’s largest Juneteenth parades, recently passed an executive order designating Juneteenth an official city holiday for 2020. “This designation of Juneteenth represents my administration’s commitment to reckon with our own role in maintaining racial inequities and our understanding of the magnitude of work that lies ahead,” said Mayor Jim Kenney.

The shift in opinions and recognition of Juneteenth

Over time, Juneteenth has been called Emancipation Day, Jubilee Day, Juneteenth National Freedom Day, Juneteenth Independence Day, and Black Independence Day. Despite the many monikers, the day has faced competition from other emancipation holidays and has been mostly unknown to many Americans — until perhaps this year.

January 1 was once observed as Emancipation Day, for when the Emancipation Proclamation took effect in 1863. Juneteenth has also long been overshadowed by July 4, commonly known as America’s Independence Day, which marks the day the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. Various cities celebrated emancipation on other days: In New York, people celebrated on August 1 to acknowledge the end of slavery in Great Britain; in DC, observers commemorated emancipation on April 16 for the day slavery ended in the District in 1862.

Performers during the 48th Annual Juneteenth Day Festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on June 19, 2019.

Perceptions of Juneteenth have also changed over the past century. During World War I, white people and some black people even considered it un-American, unpatriotic, and shameful “because it focused attention on a dark period in U.S. history,” according to the authors of the academic article “When Peace Come: Teaching the Significance of Juneteenth.”

President Donald Trump, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on June 18, said Juneteenth “was an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.” He was apparently unaware that his administration has previously commemorated the day

One reason Juneteenth’s history has remained widely misunderstood, or even unknown, is because it’s not often taught in schools. Karlos Hill, an author and University of Oklahoma professor of African and African American, told Vox in 2018 that “Juneteenth as a moment in African-American history is not, to my knowledge, taught.” As for history textbooks that already tend to whitewash history, “I would be willing to guess that there are few, if any, mentions of this holiday,” Hill said.

In “Teaching the Significance of Juneteenth,” Shennette Garrett-Scott and others wrote, “It is sometimes hard to teach small but pivotal moments in American history. Survey classes mostly allow for covering the biggest events and the most well known people.” But to help students understand major moments like the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is important to teach the smaller historical milestones. To Garrett-Scott, teaching Juneteenth gives students a fuller picture of the long, enduring fight for freedom.

Another obstacle that remains for Juneteenth is the pervasive idea that it’s a “black thing,” much like Kwanzaa. “It is seen as a holiday that is just observed by African Americans and is poorly understood outside of the African American community. It is perceived as being part of black culture and not ‘American culture,’ so to speak,” Hill said.

In 2020, the meaning of Juneteenth is being seized more broadly by activists as an opportunity for the United States to come to terms with how slavery continues to affect the lives of all Americans today — it is something for everyone, of every race, to engage in. Stereotypes about black people as being subhuman and lacking rationality are rooted inslavery; these harmful notions still rear themselves today as police officers disproportionately kill black people under a racist regime. Advocates argue that the national holiday obviously wouldn’t put an end to racism but would rather help foster dialogue about the trauma that has resulted from the enslavement of 4 million people for more than 250 years.

In the weeks leading up to Juneteenth 2020, a slate of companies, including Twitter and Nike, announced their decision to recognize the day as a paid company holiday. Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who has released a resolution each year to recognize the historical significance of Juneteenth, has plans to introduce legislation to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Other US citizens are taking the call to action into their own hands too, like 93-year-old Opal Lee of Fort Worth, Texas. Lee launched a Change.org petition seeking 1 million signatures to make Juneteenth a national holiday. Almost 300,000 people have signed it thus far.

This year, Juneteenth will be commemorated with protests, marches, a general workers strike, and opportunities for healing and joy across the country. It will also be celebrated as it has been for decades, with cookouts and parades, as well as church gatherings and spirituals, keeping in touch with the original tradition. In 1937, formerly enslaved man Pierce Harper recalled the first Juneteenth: “When peace come they read the ‘Mancipation law to the cullud people. [The freed people] spent that night singin’ and shoutin’. They wasn’t slaves no more.”

Original article was published here.

Collectively, Black Americans are hurting. We are hurting from years of systemic racism and police brutality. We are hurting from the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and the countless others throughout the years. We are hurting from the words of Amy Cooper in Central Park, and other white Karens across America, but specifically as Black Americans in the Music Industry, we are hurting from years of silence from our white colleagues.

I’m certain that all of your Instagram accounts are flooded with organizations to donate money to, books to read and elected officials to email and while it is important that we do these things, I would argue that it is more important that we look to our workplaces.

Black music defines culture. It is culture. Black music is played every second of the day all over the world. This week on the Billboard Hot 100, Black artists occupy seven of the top ten slots. Hell, the Billboard Hot 100 IS Black Music. And yet, for as many Black artists that are dominating streams, headlining festivals and winning Pulitzers, we suffer from a shocking lack of Black people inside of the corporations and companies that profit the most from Black artists work.

It is embarrassing and you should be ashamed.

It is systemic and you did nothing.

It is unacceptable and you must affect change immediately.

Black people are tired of hearing the excuse that “we can’t find the right people” or “no one wants to work in music” because first of all, that is not true – our jobs are cool as shit. It should be embarrassing to all of us that there is more diversity on the floors of investment banks than there is in entertainment companies. It should be embarrassing to all of us that there are exponentially more Black bodies on the artist roster than there are in the office.

So, to answer the question I keep getting by my white colleagues of “What Can I Do?” If you have a position of influence in the music business, these should be three areas of focus:

Recruitment

We simply must do a better job recruiting and amplifying job awareness. Don’t just sit back and wait for people to apply for industry jobs. We must recruit employees with the same intensity we use for signing clients. Of course, due to COVID-19, many companies are not currently hiring but we can start the process by reaching out to Historically Black Colleges and Universities and doing Zoom meetings with their students and staff. We can tell them that when we return to hiring that “we want to meet you.” Because if we want to attract the best and brightest to mold the next generation of this industry, we need to tell non-white people loudly and explicitly that they’re actually welcome in the damn room.

When we’re recruiting, we also need to acknowledge the socioeconomic barriers that disproportionately affect people of color. In addition to looking at how pay is impacting the hiring pool, companies should be investing in fellowship programs and grants that help subsidize living costs because not having parents able to spring for an Airbnb or having “one of Dad’s friends” put you up in his pool-house for the summer is another systemic barrier to entry.

Development

Look around at your current staff. My guess is that there are enough white people in senior positions. It’s your responsibility to develop and grow black leaders. Younger recruits need people to look up to, to advocate for them, to support them. Working inside many companies as a minority is exhausting – the isolation, casual racism, being fearful of speaking up in case you face retaliation, microaggressions and gaslighting. Reach out – call them, meet with them, ask for their point of view. We have to give them hope and make it clear that they are valued. It is bittersweet to me when I think about Black leaders I look up to like Jon Platt, Jeff Harleston, Ethiopia Habtemariam and Sylvia Rhone because, like me, they are the exceptions – not the rule. Truly, in 2020 how can Jon be the only Black CEO of a global major music company?

Mentorship

I’m a product of mentorship. My personal story is this – two months after being promoted in the WME Music Department, I was put on Tyler, The Creator’s team by two white, male partners. I had no clue what I was doing but they took me under their wing. They let me ask them countless questions, took me to meetings, introduced me to people, were tough with me when they had to be, and ultimately changed the course of my career. Two of WME’s senior partners took time away from their days to invest in a young Black agent. The faith they instilled in me helped me build a strong relationship with Tyler and his managers Kelly and Chris Clancy. They bet on me and they followed through because it takes that kind of commitment and work to be a meaningful mentor. These two men are the exception. They took the time when most others do not. Otherwise there would be more people who look like me at the table.

This will take work, trust, and commitment on your part. You must become a champion of Black people inside of the building meaning, call them back, take them to meetings, introduce them to your network, but most crucially – put them in the game, Coach! Put them on significant clients or an important project or initiative so they can actually learn and contribute in a meaningful way. Make it your business that they succeed.

Black artists bring in the bucks, but we need more Black executive representation in leadership and in the C-suite who have different perspectives – and can bring in even more bucks. It is on every company in every facet in our industry to identify these future leaders early, build a plan for them, and set them on a path in the same way that it is so routinely and subconsciously done for their white counterparts.

Everything I’ve outlined is going to take more than one phone call to implement, but every one of you can make one phone call right now. Call your black colleagues and tell them that you are going to do better. Tell them you are going to hire more people that look like them. Tell them how you will mentor them and become a champion for them. Tell them you are going to give them the tools and a path to turn them into leaders. Ask them what they need, listen, and take action. Do it today, and do not let them down. We need action, not another panel. We need action, not words.

Original article was published here.

Many black business owners are in dire need of bailouts right now.Coronavirus shutdowns and social-distancing mandates have devastated black entrepreneurs across the country. Black businesses that were set on fire and destroyed during riots in the last few days have made matters even worse for some.

A recent study commissioned by the social justice advocacy group Color of Change found 39% of black American entrepreneurs believe their businesses won’t survive more than six months without some type of relief funding. Black business owners have struggled to get approved for Paycheck Protection Program loans administered through larger commercial banks. Business leaders like Magic Johnson and Sean “Diddy” Combs have pledged financial and administrative support to help ensure a generation of black-owned barbershops, beauty salons, service providers and restaurants doesn’t disappear.

Combs recently partnered with the National Bankers Association, a coalition of 22 minority-owned financial lenders, to create his Our Fair Share program to help black business owners navigate the PPP application process.

NBA board chairman Kenneth Kelly says corporations that want to help black businesses should consider adding them to company supply chains or working with minority-owned banking institutions like the ones he supports, which have a better track record of financing minority clients.”We have a higher affinity for looking at the totality of that customer as opposed to just numbers on a piece of paper,” Kelly told CNN Business.

2. Increase black home ownership

Corporations that want to help narrow the racial wealth gap between black and white America should consider donating to the National Association of Real Estate Brokers. The trade group’s realtors specialize in helping African Americans purchase properties, selling 20,000 homes to black purchasers in 2019 alone, a spokesperson said.

NAREB president Donnell Williams said companies that want to end systemic racism should consider contributing to NAREB’s “House Then The Car” program targeting black Millennials whose economic struggles and consumer behavior changes have fueled a record decline in black home ownership.

The home ownership rate for black young adults plummeted from 23.1% in 2000 to just 13.4% in 2015, according to an Urban Institute study. A 2019 analysis by the Center for Responsible Lending consumer advocacy group found black Millennials carry more student loan debt on average than their white counterparts and were also disproportionately hurt by the Great Recession of 2008. Additionally, NAREB says many black Millennials who can afford to buy homes choose not to although it’s an essential part of generational wealth building for most Americans.”There are 1.7 million Black Millennials in the US who earn more than $100,000 per year who are not homeowners,” Williams told CNN Business via email.

3. Support unions

Organized labor advocates say companies that want to end institutional racism can start by supporting black workers who want to form unions and increase union rights.Black Americans make up a disproportionate amount of workers in non-unionized business sectors like the home health aid and fast food industries.African Americans are 13.4% of the US population but they also make up 26.5% of the workforce at Amazon, which does not have a union.

4. Increase pay for essential workers

If essential workers are so … essential, then why aren’t they paid more?

Black Americans make up 17% of America’s essential workforce, according to a Center for Economic Policy Research report released in April. The national average salary for essential workers is about $32,000, roughly 18% lower than the average salary for all occupations, according to a recent Business.org study. Roughly 19% of African Americans live near or below the poverty line, according to the latest available US Census data.

Companies like Kroger, Target and Amazon recently have weighed rescinding their temporary “hero pay” wage increases for frontline employees even though the coronavirus pandemic is still ongoing. Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, whose workforce membership of 1.9 million includes roughly one million people of color, says these companies should make their Covid-19 pay raises permanent if they want to help more black Americans.”

Permanent hazard pay is a good first step to achieving policies that will ensure corporations support the communities they operate in, “she said.

5. Hire and promote more black executives

Former American Express CEO Ken Chenault

Top companies need to do a better job of recruiting and retaining black leaders. A recently published Stanford Graduate School of Business report on C-suite diversity at Fortune 100 companies found black professionals made up just 3% of the CEOs, 1% of the CFOs and 3% of the division leaders in 2020.

There are just four black Fortune 500 CEOs. In 2018, black professionals made up just 3.3% of all executive or senior leadership roles within two reporting levels according to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Hiring more black executives is crucial for companies that want their leaders to better reflect the communities they serve. Black leaders also serve as aspirational figures for the generations that follow in their footsteps.

Former EEOC chair Cari Dominguez told CNN Business corporate leaders must add more black Americans to their executive talent pipelines.

“I see companies asking for a diverse slate of candidates — but not saying [what percent] should be made up of people of color,” Dominguez said.

Kelly, the National Bankers Association board chairman, said companies sincere about combating systemic racism must make commitments that persist even when the issue is not national news.

“It must be a value system that they embody and not a temporary item that they use to check a box,” he said.

Original article was published here.

First of all, Trump is the only president on Earth who took pains to alert the world that his birthday was impending. We aren’t going back to pick out the tweet because Trump has likely tweeted 500 times since that day, but he made mention of his birthday on Thursday or Friday in a tweet about something entirely irrelevant. That alone deserves scorn. It is like the dolt who asks you what you’re doing this weekend and when you politely ask back, the person announces that he’s celebrating his birthday. Or something the average five-year-old does.

The “reminder” as to Trump’s impending birthday allowed the net to gather steam as we welcomed in “Barack Obama Day.”

On Twitter, several fans have used the hashtag #ObamaDayJune14 as a way to celebrate the 44th president’s legacy. “Even though it’s not Obama’s birthday, I’m still wishing him a happy birthday because he is the only president we’re acknowledging today #ObamaDayJune14th,” one fan wrote.

Since his departure from the White House, Obama has maintained a special place in Americans’ hearts. More recently, he gave an empowering speech at a virtual town hall meeting following the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died at the hands of police brutality in Minneapolis. While speaking about the importance of hope, the father of two explained that he was proud of young people’s ability to voice their concerns.

So, let’s join in and see how people are celebrating. Sadly, we cannot begin with a Trump tweet wishing the nation a happy Barack Obama day. He is strangely silent on something of which you’d think he’d be proud. So let’s check in on how others are celebrating and remember when we had a real president.

Original article was published here.

But, these bills, if they pass as conceived, would basically punish the system’s soldiers without altering the system itself. These bills would make the officers the fall guy for their bad behavior while doing little to condemn or even address the savagery and voraciousness of the system that required their service.

This country has established a system of supreme inequity, with racial inequity being a primary form, and used the police to protect the wealth that the system generated for some and to control the outrages and outbursts of those opposed to it and oppressed by it.

It has used the police to make the hostile tranquil, to erase and remove from free society those who expressed sickness coming from a society which poisoned them with persecutions.

This society creates conditions in which extreme, concentrated poverty can exist and then punishes those who react negatively to being condemned to that poverty.

This society doesn’t sufficiently care for and insure people, guaranteeing that every person, regardless of station or wealth, has equal access to health care, and then it punishes those who suffer from stress, depression and violent fits of rage because of it.

This society systematically cloisters power — economic, political and cultural — in the hands of an elite few, almost all white, and then bemoans the apathy of those from whom power is withheld.

We need more than performative symbols of solidarity. We need more than narrow, chaste legislation.

Even if either of the police reform bills were passed and signed into law, they would cost the nation nothing and would leave the power structure untouched.

In Martin Luther King’s 1967 book “Where Do We Go From Here,”he wrote:

“The practical cost of change for the nation up to this point has been cheap. The limited reforms have been obtained at bargain rates. There are no expenses, and no taxes are required, for Negroes to share lunch counters, libraries, parks, hotels and other facilities with whites.”

What he was seeking, what we were seeking, at that point — quality education, decent, good-paying jobs, fair housing — would actually cost the nation something. That is what real justice looks like: equal access to possibility, success and safety.

In this fight, our sights must be set high, our demands comprehensive. There is no glory in aiming small, in meekly pleading before power, to accepting crumbs on the floor when the bread is on the table.

If we are serious about battling racial injustice in the public square and not just on the police squad, we need nothing short of a new civil rights act, the Civil Rights Act of 2020.

At this point, politicians are still playing safe, being risk-averse while calling it radical.

They want the appearance of substantial action while leaving the substance of society untouched. They want to appear responsive without taking full responsibility.

Poverty is the problem. Wealth inequality is the problem. All the things that lead to and attend poverty and wealth inequality are the problem.

But no one wants to talk about that, let alone deal with it, because to truly tackle these issues would deal in some way with wealth redistribution, and the mere mention of that concept throws the comfortable and the rich into a tizzy.

So, we’ll ban some chokeholds. We’ll collect some new records and disclose others. We’ll put constraints on officers, requiring more training and exposing them to litigation.

But just remember: These are not necessarily rogue officers. They are instruments of the system and manifestations of society.

They are violent to black people because America is violent to black people. They oppress because America oppresses.

The police didn’t give birth to American violence and inhumanity. America’s violence and inhumanity gave birth to them.

Original article was published here.

After facing criticism for firing black transgender model Munroe Bergdorf in 2017, L’Oréal Paris made amends with her this week. A social media statement by L’Oréal Paris global brand president Delphine Viguier said, “I regret the lack of dialogue and support the company showed Munroe around the time of the termination. We should have also done more to create a conversation for change as we are now doing.” In response, L’Oréal Group is creating a U.K. diversity and inclusion advisory board that will include Bergdorf as one of its members.

Bergdorf also released a statement on her social media accounts, saying, “While what happened to me three years ago was extremely traumatic for me personally and professionally, sitting on a board to provide a voice and a champion for black, trans and queer voices in the beauty industry is important for me.”

“I’m really happy to see that Munroe Bergdorf and L’Oréal have reached an agreement on this matter,” said Aja Barber, a fashion writer whose video in support of Bergdorf went viral on Instagram last week, receiving 987,000 views. “I can only hope that this will remind all brands that it’s never too late to do the right thing when it comes to the mistreatment of brown and black bodies, racism and corporate responsibility.”

In tandem with brands showing newfound support for Black Lives Matter within the past two weeks, influencers and celebrities are becoming more vocal about a topic that was once considered to be career-damaging to speak about.

“There has been so much silencing,” said Barber. “There have always been rules about what you can and can’t talk about. Brands do not like the phrase white supremacy; it makes them deeply uncomfortable.”

Speaking out about racial inequality is still considered career-ending for some, an idea expressed by “Star Wars” actor John Boyega at a recent Black Lives Matter protest. The most famous, however, is Colin Kaepernick, who has still not been addressed directly by the NFL, despite its new statement in support of Black Lives Matter and black football players. Nike’s ad featuring Colin Kaepernick in 2018 was considered “groundbreaking,” “risky” and “provocative” at the time, given that no other brands were working with him.

“I have not seen a brand that has partnered with any political activist or affiliated themselves with ethnic communities for a creator-led campaign,” said Shaadow Sefiroth, a creator and digital consultant.

According to influencers, the idea that they needed to avoid voicing opinions on issues like racism was implicit, and some engaged in self-censorship to appear more appealing as potential brand partners.

“I’ve always maintained a PC level, just from working in television and fashion. I know that that all eyes are on me, and I have to be careful,” said influencer Melissa Chataigne, who has worked with beauty brands like Estée Lauder and NYX in the past. “I know it’s always better to stay ‘vanilla,’ especially if you’re working with different brands.”

Influencers say they have been more vocal about issues of racism due to recent events, and are not convinced that brands will automatically accept everything they say. Chataigne said that she has “spoken out more” in the past two weeks. “I worry that brands will be like, ‘Oh, she’s too controversial,’ but, so be it.”

Content creator Rabya Lomas, who has been vocal about racism and Islamophobia, agreed. “I have noticed that other influences who remain apolitical, and have a similar following or similar identity, seem to get more work. I can only think it’s my values and what I talk about that are potentially counting against me,” Lomas said. “I think, especially a lot of white influencers, are scared to speak up, because they don’t want to miss out on big brand campaigns. But, hey — guess what? I’ve been missing out ever since I started.”

In recent years, especially since the 2016 election, many brands have shifted from a politically neutral stance to taking a stand on social issues. Some topics, such as LGBTQ+ rights, were embraced earlier than others.

“You can have more than one political identity, so it almost felt like they wanted to hire Munroe so that they could capitalize on one of her political identities because that one was finally acceptable within their company culture. But then they were not ready for her to own more than one political identity,” said Barber of L’Oréal’s 2017 decision.

“I think being apolitical is seen as palatable for brands, because then they’re not seen as divisive,” said Lomas. “It’s actually more divisive to be apolitical because you’re leaving a whole subset of folks out of the room, out of the opportunity, and it’s unfair.”

With so many famous figures vocalizing their support, brands will have to take a look at their corporate culture to avoid situations like L’Oréal’s.

“For things to really change now, companies will have to change their entire structure. Fire people and hire new people; they need people who understand, otherwise change is impossible,” said Sefiroth. “An important element that is more often than not overlooked is a company’s culture — it is the most important as it defines the attributes that every single person who works there lives by.”

Original article was published here.

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