On the Fly
Stream of Consciousness by Chitown Kev
OK, so it is 2:27 pm, about an hour and a half to post and nothing...so to stream of consciousness, I go.
This new normal where I sleep in 3-4 hour shifts is...interesting...especially since I usually wake up during these shifts for a 15-30 minutes break. I mean, it’s as if my work is sleeping!
Which I don’t like.
A lesson that I have pretty much learned now: I don’t have to respond to every tweet on Twitter that I disagree with.
I rarely get into “rah-rah USA”-type sentiments but I had a moment while reading Catherine Rampell’s op-ed in the Washington Post.
I mean, in a decade that saw the assassinations of major political figures, a war that divided a country, a major phase civil rights movement, civil unrest, etc. this country still managed to do this:
I mean, a lot of us don’t even remember that we went through kind of a major flu pandemic back then.
And we’re settling for America as it is now?
Four more years of this shit?
I certainly hope not. Lord knows, America is far from perfect; always has been but...really? Really?
I hope not.
Now before I was so newly interrupted by my oddly scheduled new job, my idea was to write about some of the varied cases involving the overseas Black Lives Matter protests in places like London, Paris, Brussels, Germany, etc.
I vaguely knew, of course, that the overseas protests were not only about George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis but also about the internal problems with policing in other countries. I’ve seen the stories from time to time, of course, but I never really paid attention to them.
This New Yorker profile, for example, ofAssa Traoré, sister of Adama Traoré.
I mean:
“I saw you, I saw you all become targets,” Assa writes in “Lettre à Adama” (“Letter to Adama”), her book, from 2017, of Adama and his male peers. According to a report by the Défenseur des Droits, France’s civil-liberties ombudsman, the French police subject people of black and Arab appearance to identity checks twenty times more frequently than they do people who appear to be white. Running for president in 2012, François Hollande promised to institute a receipt system in order to monitor identity checks, but abandoned the plan under police pressure in wake of the 2015 terrorist attacks. In 2016, France’s highest court held the state responsible for “gross misconduct” in practicing racial and ethnic profiling. Civil-liberties groups describe the stops as frequent, arbitrary, and ineffective. A new report by Human Rights Watch, issued this week, characterizes the practice as “a brutal means” of exercising police authority, “often accompanied by intrusive searches of bags and mobile phones, as well as humiliating body searches, even in children, sometimes as young as ten years old.”
Jeez, so much for my romantic visions of fleeing to a life of peace and, perhaps, protection in Paris France. (OK, you know that I’ve read enough Baldwin...and other stuff actually...to know that to the extent that I would be protected, it would be because of my American passport more than anything else.)
Moving across the Channel, I’ve started to read about the case of Darren Cumberbatch.
Cumberbatch died of multiple organ failure in hospital in July 2017 after being arrested by police at a probation hostel in Nuneaton, west Midlands. His family say the electrician’s body was covered in bruises and “strange marks” when they visited him in hospital, where he died nine days after being apprehended. The incident prompted a series of marches for justice in Coventry, Cumberbatch’s home city.
An inquest heard he was punched 15 times by officers, and that police restraint, including use of Tasers and batons, contributed to Cumberbatch’s death. The coroner said the level of restraint used by Warwickshire Police was “excessive”. After the inquest concluded in June last year, the independent police watchdog pledged to “review the findings” of its investigation, not yet made public, into Cumberbatch’s death.
However, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has now admitted to the Observer that it has failed to even acquire the transcript of the high-profile inquest.
In a way, the idea that we (and I mean black Americans) are not alone over here in the United States is a...reassuring...thing to know.
(And now I had better attend to these cosmetics here since this goes live in 19 minutes.
And...I haven’t had one cup of coffee yet.
But you know that after I finish this, I am firing that coffee pot up!)
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NEWS ROUND UP BY DOPPER0189, BLACK KOS MANAGING EDITOR
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Learning why past initiative failed is important to understand to make future ones stick. Color Lines: What Went Wrong With the #8CantWait Police Reform Initiative?
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The rollout on June 3 went according to plan. Social media quickly latched on when Campaign Zero—a police reform organization born out of protests following the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri—launched 8 Can’t Wait, an easy to digest campaign aimed at dramatically reducing police violence against Black people with eight actionable items. #8cantwait began trending on social and continued to gain steam. Organizers claimed their “data proves that together these eight policies can decrease police violence by 72 percent.”
On June 5, Vox described the initiative as “promising, albeit a bit unproven.” Variety reported celebs like Ariana Grande and Oprah Winfrey enthusiastically endorsed the proposed policies. Campaign Zero co-founder DeRay Mckesson went on a press run touting his group’s neatly packaged plan. “…There hasn’t been data like this before,” Mckesson told GQ in an interview published on June 3.
“And also, there are a lot of supporters of police reform who feel like they’re not smart enough to understand policy—that policy is in this special realm that only people with PhDs can understand. That’s not true, and we want to normalize and demystify these policies. All of these policies are simple and clear enough for anyone to be an expert on,” he explained. “What we’re saying is if the police are going to exist tomorrow, they should have dramatically less power tomorrow,” Mckesson added.
Activists swiftly panned 8 Can’t Wait and accused organizers of promoting lies. Critics went hard against the campaign. “The campaign argues that if eight policy shifts are made at the city level, it can reduce police killings by 72 percent. But the data and study design do not support that staggering statistic put forth in the least bit,” activists Cherrell Brown and Philip V. McHarris said in a statement published on June 5.
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The backlash against the Minnesota Freedom Fund, explained. Vox: Racial justice groups have never had so much cash. It’s actually hard to spend it.
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In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, Americans eager to support protests against police brutality have flooded racial justice groups with donations. The groups are, of course, grateful. But they’re also not used to receiving so many millions of dollars at once. Some are struggling to figure out how to handle the unprecedented influx of cash.
And now they’re facing another problem: angry donors.
Much of the backlash is aimed at the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF). The charitable organization, which pays bail and bonds for people who can’t afford them, has received more than $30 million since Floyd, a black man, was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer, igniting protests in the city that soon spread worldwide. That’s 300 times the organization’s annual budget — a truly staggering increase.
MFF proved popular as people sought out organizations that would bail out protesters who’d been arrested. But some donors have learned that so far, only a tiny fraction of that money — $200,000 — has been used to bail out protesters, and they’re not happy about it (even though MFF has already bailed out all of the jailed protesters in the Twin Cities).
Some of the money, donors have discovered, is going to causes they didn’t intend to fund: MFF says it’ll spend some of it paying long-term legal costs for people who were caught and released during the protests, bailing out people in jail for things other than protesting, and paying bonds to free immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Feeling scammed, some of these donors took to social media this week to accuse MFF of “stealing” and “hoarding,” and to demand transparency, saying, “Show us the receipts.”
Other groups that received a deluge of donations in a short period of time, like the Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block in Minneapolis, have been transformed overnight from shoestring operations into well-funded organizations. They’re facing similar questions now, too.
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It's time to delve into the full spectrum of Black experience. harper’s bazar: Why we need to engage with Black literature beyond racial politics
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There's a huge spotlight on Black literature at the moment - for obvious and essential reasons. These spotlights on Black literature have appeared before, yet they rarely look beyond the confines of politically-charged, racially-orientated, or complex academic accounts of the Black experience, when it comes to mainstream trends at least. This sometimes leads to outdated or one-dimensional perceptions of what it means to be Black, both historically and today.
In its most negative guise, the subconscious begins to associate a Black experience with race relations, slavery, violence or erasure. The alternative to this, the ‘positives’, are reducing the lived Black experience to specific sectors of culture, for example music, sport, fashion, entertainment and art that can play into racial tropes or appear as illegitimate intellectual contributions to society as a whole (when compared to other human contributions such as science, history and so on). It's a nuanced issue, but it feeds into a dysfunctional value system that seeps into everyday lives. This allows non-Black audiences to distance themselves from stories about slavery, race and history simply because they happened in the past and are not explicitly connected to their current world. With contemporary, positive stories one has to engage with Black people.
Specific to literature, we as Black publishers see first-hand how Black writers are marginalised or hidden by the mainstream. Examples include publications refusing to review a book because they have dismissed it as too niche (too Black or not Black enough) and not of interest to their readers regardless of the quality of the writing. Their response implies that there is not enough space for equal representation or that literature is not judged on content, rather it is judged on the authors perceived importance to society. Another common occurrence is a literary festival or event only having space for one Black writer on a panel thus rejecting all other Black writers regardless of their merit.
We see this across many industries; it’s not an unfamiliar observation. There are Black bookshops up and down the country that are filled with century’s worth of Black literature including contemporary works, not just from the UK or US, but the world. If the usual response to observations such as above are: “we couldn’t find any Black authors to speak on the panel”, or “Black literature doesn’t speak to contemporary audiences or themes”, we know it’s because there is no visibility or an apathy toward engaging with alternative resources. This is demonstrated on personal levels, but most often than not, it is systemic and perceived as just ‘the way it is’.
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Africa won’t be exactly the same as East Asia Economist: How manufacturing might take off in Africa
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The father of development economics and the father of African nationalism did not take long to fall out. Arthur Lewis had made his name studying industrial revolutions. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first prime minister, had made his resisting British rule. On independence in 1957 Nkrumah invited Lewis to be his adviser.
It seemed a wise pick. Lewis was astute, respected, and trusted in anti-colonial circles. Later, he would win a Nobel prize for economics (the first black person to do so). In a landmark paper, he argued that in developing economies people were poor because they were in the wrong jobs: move them from subsistence farms into factories and commercial farms and the economy would grow.
But how to make it happen? Nkrumah wanted to throw money at factories. “I am a politician,” he explained, “and must gamble on the future.” Lewis urged balance. “If agriculture is stagnant,” he once wrote, “industry cannot grow.” He lasted only 15 months in the job. Meanwhile, it was the countries of East Asia, not Africa, that industrialised and grew rich.
The question of how to make African economies more productive is gaining new urgency amid a pandemic that is disrupting supply chains. Shortages of drugs and medical equipment are fuelling calls for the local production of essential goods. Tito Mboweni, South Africa’s finance minister, wants to “set up manufacturing to make what we need and stop relying on imports from China”. Uganda is trying to discourage imports. Ghana also says it is making import substitution a priority.
Yet a transformation of sorts had already begun well before covid-19. The proportion of Africans working on farms fell from 66% in 2000 to just under 58% in 2015. Most of these people flowed into informal services or petty manufacturing, such as taxis or roadside carpentry, where they earn more than farmers. They do not represent the industrial revolution of which policymakers dream. Yet beneath that broad trend lies a myriad of stories. Nigeria is slowly shaking off its dependence on oil exports. Rwanda hosts conferences and upmarket tourists. Lesotho, one of the few countries to have moved successfully into manufacturing, ships out its apparel along South African roads.
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Chika Okeke-Agulu says sale of sculptures removed during 1960s civil war ‘perpetuates violence’ of conflict. Guardian: Nigerian scholar calls for halt to auction of sacred Igbo artworks
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A prominent Igbo-Nigerian artist and academic has called for the cancellation of a forthcoming auction in Paris of two sacred sculptures taken out of Nigeria during its devastating civil war in the late 1960s.
Chika Okeke-Agulu, a professor of art history at Princeton University, said the sale of the Igbo objects – called alusi or “sacred sculptures”– at Christie’s auction house later this month would “perpetuate the violence” of the conflict.
Similar sculptures that adorned Igbo shrines in Okeke-Agulu’s hometown and across south-east Nigeria were taken during the failed push for an independent state of Biafra. Up to 3 million people died, many from starvation, during the conflict, one of the darkest chapters in modern history.
“The original acquisition was rooted in violence,” Okeke-Agulu said in an interview. “These objects are from my hometown, removed from places around eastern Nigeria during that war. What we’re seeing now is the continuing benefit from that original act of violence, which is an extension of that violence.”
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Air quality sinks to hazardous levels as biggest cloud seen in a generation swamps region after transatlantic journey. The Guardian: 'Godzilla dust cloud' from Sahara blankets Caribbean on its way to US
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A vast cloud of Sahara dust is blanketing the Caribbean as it heads to the US with a size and concentration that experts say hasn’t been seen in half a century.
Air quality across most of the region reached record “hazardous” levels and experts who nicknamed the event the “Godzilla dust cloud” warned people to stay indoors and use air filters if they had them.
“This is the most significant event in the past 50 years,” said Pablo Méndez Lázaro, an environmental health specialist at the University of Puerto Rico. “Conditions are dangerous in many Caribbean islands.”
Many health specialists were concerned about those battling respiratory symptoms tied to the coronavirus pandemic. Lázaro, who is working with Nasa to develop an alert system for the arrival of Sahara dust, said the concentration was so high in recent days that it could even have adverse effects on healthy people.
Extremely hazy conditions and limited visibility were reported from Antigua down to Trinidad & Tobago, with the event expected to last until late Tuesday. Some people posted pictures of themselves on social media wearing double masks to ward off the coronavirus and the dust, while others joked that the Caribbean looked like it had received a yellow filter movie treatment.
José Alamo, a meteorologist with the US National Weather Service in San Juan, Puerto Rico, said the worst days for the US territory would be Monday and Tuesday as the plume heads toward the US south-east coast. The main international airport in San Juan was reporting only 8km (5 miles) of visibility.
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Fighting stereotypes is a great way to show support for black live matter. Washington Post: A dad posted joyful photos of black fathers to shatter stereotypes. It became a movement.
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Sean Williams’s life changed four years ago at his local grocery store in Long Island.
Williams, a 37-year-old black man and father of three, was running errands with his youngest daughter when a white woman approached him.
She wanted to commend him for “sticking around,” he said.
This wasn’t the first time Williams received this type of comment. In his predominantly white neighborhood, the stay-at-home dad recalled getting frequent praise from neighbors, who applauded him for being an involved black father.
Williams knew why people were congratulating him: They were perpetuating the racist and pervasive myth of the “missing black father,” which purports that black fathers are too often absent from their children’s lives.
“I spoke with my friends who are all active black dads and asked them if they had similar experiences,” Williams said. “The answer was yes.”
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You can’t talk about K-pop fan activism for Black Lives Matter without talking about racism in K-pop. Vox: K-pop fan activism for Black Lives Matter needs context
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K-pop fans gained new attention this weekend, after they claimed to have registered thousands of tickets for President Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the intention of not showing up. To the president’s dismay, the arena ended up appearing more than half empty during the rally, leading some K-pop fans to declare victory — although it’s not clear how much of that was due to the fans’ actions.
The stunt was viewed by many as a demonstration of allyship with Black Lives Matter-supporting protesters and Juneteenth celebrants. It followed Korean pop music fans’ sabotage earlier this month of a surveillance app used by the Dallas Police Department — an app that the police encouraged locals to use to send tips about illegal activity among protesters. K-pop fans also recently participated in the derailment of a “White Lives Matter” hashtag, which they flooded with pictures and videos of their favorite idols.
And although these actions have been celebrated by many on the left, including by politicians and protesters themselves, some music fans think it’s important to also remember that K-pop — including its fandom — has a history of cultural misappropriation and racism. In recent years, Korean pop idols have been called out for perpetuating stereotypes about black Americans and for misappropriating black culture by wearing, for example, cornrows and dreadlocks. Artists have also received some backlash for stating that they are skilled at “talking Black” and for racist acts like wearing blackface.
“It sounds sort of racist because it often is racist,” Miranda Ruth Larsen, a K-pop fan and cultural studies researcher at the University of Tokyo, whose work focuses on male Korean and Japanese idols and groups, said during an interview for the Vox podcast Reset.
That said, the cultural misappropriation (a term Larsen prefers to “cultural appropriation,” which she says typically refers to a more conscious process) within K-pop shouldn’t be blamed solely on the artists.
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A note to racing's racists. ESPN: You scared no one, least of all Bubba Wallace
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To the person or persons who tried to ruin everyone's weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, I have something I need to tell you.
To the one(s) who thought they could dip into the tired, old 1934 or 1964 racist playbook and elicit fear by placing a symbol of hate -- a noose, for heaven's sake -- in the garage stall of a Black race car driver, I really need to make sure you are paying attention to what I have to say to you.
Oh, and the grown adult or adults who spent hundreds of dollars to fly a "DEFUND NASCAR" banner and Confederate flag behind a plane over Talladega, you should listen up too. Same for you rednecks who drove a parade of pickups around the perimeter of the racetrack with that same flag flying out of the beds of your 4x4s. Or even you, who wandered onto the property at Sonoma Raceway and hung "a piece of twine tied in what appeared to be a noose" from a tree.
I need y'all to read this next part.
It didn't work. Congratulations. You failed. In fact, what you accomplished was the complete opposite of what you set out to do when you tied a rope into a loop, called the aerial advertising guy or ruined the resale value on your truck by bolting a flagpole into the bed.
No nation, Confederate or otherwise, rallied behind your antiquated cause. Instead, the reinforcements who did roll in gathered to stand together on the other side of your pitiful effort to divide and conquer -- the right side.
And you want to know who really wasn't scared? Darrell Wallace Jr., that's who. Yes, Bubba wept on Monday afternoon at Talladega, but it wasn't because he was rattled by someone throwing down a piece of rope.
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