Please consider endorsing this labor leaders statement in support of the movement for Black Lives. As of Friday morning signers included SEIU HCII, SEIU Local 73, UE, UTLA, Oakland Education Association, and the Detroit Federation of Teachers. The organizers have set the deadline for sign-on to Monday at 12pm EST/9a PST to give folks time to work this internally.
Cell 773-849-5590
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Over A Year in Lock Down.
OCCUPATION IS A CRIME.
MILITARIZATION IS INJUSTICE.
SELF-DETERMINATION IS A RIGHT.
August 5, 2020, marked one full year that occupied Kashmir has been under a brutal lock down. Every day for Kashmiris is a day of occupation. A silent genocide is taking place & its time we break the silence.
Below are actions and events that you can participate in to stay engaged.
Join Us:
Hosted by ICNA Council for Social Justice
Car Rally for KashmirSunday, August 30 at 5PM
Starting at Fremont City Hall
For more information and to RSVP:
https://forms.gle/px1BKs7V61dAjwpb8
Take Action:
Sign the Equality Labs Petition to #EndCasteinUS
A new case against Cisco marks historic progress in ensuring caste oppressed people are protected in U.S. companies. This landmark case brings light to how caste has migrated to the U.S. from South Asia, and continues to operate inside institutions from corporations to universities.
Help Equality Labs reach their goal of 10K signatures on this major petition to achieve anti-discrimination protections for caste oppressed people!
Link: bit.ly/eqlcastepetition
Tune in:
The Kashmir Podcast with Ifat GaziaThe story of Kashmir has to be told.
A bi-weekly podcast in collaboration with Stand With Kashmir, to bring you stories of resistance and resilience from the people of Kashmir.
The Kashmir Podcast will delve into the everyday lives of Kashmiris, bringing you first-hand perspectives on their daily struggles & battles for justice, and stories of resistance and resilience in a fight against occupation and colonization.
Click HERE to tune in.
Follow on Instagram: @thekashmirpodcast
Artist Highlights:
Check out the work from these great Kashmiri Artists:
Tufail Nazir (@iamtufailnazir | Khoon Rezi)
Aatankki Music (@aatankkimusic | Beta Naaz Hai)
Rauhan Malik (@rauhanmalik | Khatt)
Tabeena Wani (@tabeenawani)
Numair Qadri (@numairqadri | Website)
Khytul Abyad (@khyyyk | Website)
Anis Wani (@aniswani | Twitter | Work)
Click on the image below to listen to a beautiful rendition of Hum Dekhenge by Kashmiri Poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, performed by a group of Kashmiri Artists, released on August 5, 2020.
"An ode to the pain and melancholy we have faced in the past 365 days, when our voices were snatched away from us."
Mixed Mastered and Music produced by - Rauhan Malik
ACTION ITEMS:
#GoRedForKashmir:
Change your profile picture to the red square and use the caption below:
Decolonize, demilitarize, and demand the right to self-determination!August 5, 2020, marks one full year that occupied Kashmir has been under a brutal lockdown. Change your display photo to red & repost this to raise awareness about the killings, mass torture, unlawful detentions, stealing of land, & settler colonialism taking place in Kashmir right now.
Every day for Kashmiris is a day of occupation. Stand in solidarity with Kashmir’s fight for freedom from India’s illegal occupation.
#GoRedForKashmir #RedForKashmir #StandWithKashmir
#DecolonizeKashmir #FreeKashmir #OneYearLater
Share our Posts on Your Social Media:
Check out the Social Media Toolkit here:
www.standwithkashmir.org/day365-tool-kit
Sign-on to the Solidarity Statement:Organizations can review and sign the statement here: https://www.standwithkashmir.org/solidarity-with-kashmirWrite to Your Elected Officials:
Contact your congressional representatives asking them to elevate the voices and aspirations of Kashmiris by issuing a public statement or recorded a video in support of the rights of Kashmiris to self-determination and civil liberties.
Step 1: Find your elected officials here:
www.govtrack.us/congress/members
Step 2: Use this template letter to reach out to your representative:
bit.ly/LetterToElecteds
Follow us on Social Media
Find Out More
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The six remaining Kings Bay Plowshares defendants have had their sentencing dates moved from September to October 15 and 16. They had requested a continuance because they want to appear in open court in Georgia and the virus situation there is still too out of control to safely allow it. Steve Kelly has now served almost 29 months in county jails since the action in April, 2018 so has already met the guidelines for his likely sentence. The court may not want to grant him further extensions. (You can send a postcard to Steve to let him know you're thinking of him. Directions on writing here.) The other defendants are not sure if they would prefer to seek more continuances or choose virtual appearances for sentencing in solidarity with Steve on those dates in October if it appears unsafe to travel to Georgia at that time. Check the website for updates. September 9 will be the 40thanniversary of the first plowshares action in King of Prussia, PA. Eight activists, known as the Plowshares Eight, entered the GE plant where nosecones for nuclear missile warheads were manufactured. They hammered on several and poured blood on the nosecones and documents.There will be a virtual Commemoration of the Plowshares 8 on September 9 at 7 pm ET sponsored by Stop Banking on the Bomb and other Pittsburgh based organizations. Molly Rush, Dean Hammer and John Schuchardt (three of the four living members of the group) will participate in a discussion and reflect on the action which sparked 100 similar acts of disarmament over the years. A summary of the history can be found here: https://kingsbayplowshares7.org/plowshares-history Emile de Antonio’s 1983 film, In the King of Prussia, is about the trial of the Plowshares Eight. The judge is played by Martin Sheen and the defendants are played by themselves. It’s available for viewing on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUph8GWFupE
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Do Trump and coronavirus have you down? Then join us on September 26 to celebrate the 15 year anniversary of one of the world’s most beautiful projects: Cuba’s Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade! Dear carole,
The Henry Reeve Brigade will celebrate its 15th anniversary next month! Yes, it will have been 15 years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and prompted then-Cuban president Fidel Castro to offer to send doctors to help treat patients in the storm’s aftermath. The US government refused this offer, but Cuba was not deterred from wanting to show the world some much needed solidarity.
Since its founding, the brave women and men of the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade have given emergency medical assistance to more than 3.5 million people in over 50 countries. To honor their compassion and commitment, we will hear directly from Cuban doctors working on the frontlines of the pandemic.
What: Cuban Doctors Speak: 15 years of the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade
When: Saturday, September 26 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT
Where: Online via Zoom, YouTube and Facebook.
There’s even more good news: Danny Glover will be on with us to offer his commentary, and journalist/author Vijay Prashad will host this fascinating conversation! Please join Danny, Vijay, and the Cuban medical personnel for this celebratory event. We promise it will nurture your soul.
In solidarity,
Alicia Jrakpo and Medea BenjaminP.S. The attacks on Cuba’s medical internationalism are not stopping! Even Human Rights Watch (HRW), a liberal NGO, has joined in on the Trump administration’s campaign to slander this amazing example of solidarity. If you have not already, please read the rebuttal to the HRW report then sign and share the petition asking HRW to retract their flawed report!
Also, Vijay Prashad has just published a lovely article about why Cuban doctors deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. Check it out!
P.P.S. 1980 Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel just made a video endorsing the Nobel for Cuban Doctors campaign! Click here to watch it!.
Want to make your own short video explaining why you support the Henry Reeve Brigade? Upload it to Twitter and tag @CubaNobel. Then we’ll be happy to like and retweet it! It’s a great way of spreading the word about the campaign.
We look forward to working with you to continue the aspirations of the Nobel Peace Prize for the Cuban Doctors campaign. Watch for our upcoming webinars and film series.
Remember to follow us in social media:
In friendship,
Alicia Jrapko and Medea Benjamin
Co-Chairs of the Cuba Nobel Prize CommitteeThis email was sent to caroleseligman@sbcglobal.net. To unsubscribe, click here.
To update your email subscription, contact contact@cubanobel.org.
© 2020 CUBANOBEL.ORG | Created with NationBuilder
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
- Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
- San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
- Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
Know Your Rights Materials
The NLG maintains a library of basic Know-Your-Rights guides.
- Know Your Rights During Covid-19
- You Have The Right To Remain Silent: A Know Your Rights Guide for Encounters with Law Enforcement
- Operation Backfire: For Environmental and Animal Rights Activists
WEBINAR: Federal Repression of Activists & Their Lawyers: Legal & Ethical Strategies to Defend Our Movements: presented by NLG-NYC and NLG National Office
We also recommend the following resources:
Center for Constitutional Rights
Civil Liberties Defense Center
- Grand Juries: Slideshow
Grand Jury Resistance Project
Katya Komisaruk
Movement for Black Lives Legal Resources
Tilted Scales Collective
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Reality Winner Tests Positive for COVID, Still Imprisoned
With great anguish, I’m writing to share the news that NSA whistleblower Reality Winner, still in federal prison, has tested positive for COVID-19. Winner, despite her vulnerable health conditions, was denied home release in April – the judge’s reasoning being that the Federal Medical Center, Carswell is “presumably better equipped than most to deal with the onset of COVID-19 in its inmates”.Since that ruling, COVID infections at Carswell have exploded, ranking it now as second highest in the nation for the number of cases, and substantially increasing the likelihood that its medical capacity will be overwhelmed.This news comes one week after Trump’s commutation of convicted felon Roger Stone, and two months after the home release of Trump’s convicted campaign manager, Paul Manafort:Roger Stone’s Freedom Is All the More Outrageous While Reality Winner Languishes in Prison
Donald Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s prison sentence is galling on numerous levels. It’s a brazen act of corruption and an egregious obstruction of an ongoing investigation of the President and his enablers. There are few figures less worthy of clemency than a Nixonian dirty trickster like Stone. But the final twist of the knife is that Reality Winner, the honest, earnest, anti-Stone of the Russian meddling saga, remains in federal prison.
Continue Reading
Please share this with your networks, and stand with us in support of Reality Winner and her family during this critical time.
Thank you,Jesselyn Radack
Director
Whistleblower & Source Protection Program (WHISPeR)
ExposeFactsTwitter: @JesselynRadack
You are receiving this list because you have opted in on our website.
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this listWHISPeR Project at ExposeFacts 1627 Eye Street, NW Suite 600 Washington, DC 20006
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Subject: Shut Down Fort Hood! Justice for Vanessa Guillén. Sign the petition!
SHUT DOWN FORT HOOD NOW!
In late April, Pfc. Vanessa Guillén went missing from her base in Ft. Hood, Texas. It took her family and friends working night and day to appeal to the commanding officers to get any attention whatsoever about her whereabouts. Vanessa had told her family she had been sexually harassed by her supervisor.For more than three months, Vanessa’s higher-ups paid little attention to her family’s urgent pleas to investigate her disappearance. She was treated as being disposable.In late June, her body was found 25 miles from the base. Vanessa had been tragically murdered by her abuser who later killed himself upon capture.The unspeakable crimes against Vanessa Guillén have opened a floodgate of testimonies about sexual assault in the military. Many women and LGBTQ2S+ people are telling their heartbreaking stories with the hashtag #iamvanessaGuillén.Vanessa’s death is a result of sexual harassment in the military, which is deplorable. Fort Hood is the worst. According to the Pentagon’s own reports, it has the most sexual assaults of any Army post in the country. That is why it must be shut down now!In addition, Fort Hood, the single biggest military post in the U.S. armed forces, is named after a Confederate general. Its name glorifies racism and slavery.When Vanessa Guillén enlisted in the Army, she thought she’d be doing good and it would be helpful to her. Instead, it destroyed her. But how could it not when the military exists not to help people, but to defend Wall Street? It invaded and still occupies Iraq and Afghanistan, killing millions, just for oil profits.The case for Justice for Vanessa is very much linked to the movement for Black Lives. Young people of color must have other options than police violence or going to war for their future.WE DEMAND:•Investigate Fort Hood Commanding General Robert White and others for conspiracy to cover up Pfc. Vanessa Guillén’s murder. Why did it take a mass movement to find what happened?
•Shut down Ft. Hood! There is no other way to end the deplorable conditions soldiers face.
•Job training, education, COVID-19 relief, not war! If we shut down the Pentagon, the annual U.S. defense budget of $1 trillion could be used for people’s needs, not war.
•End misogyny and homophobia in the military. Justice for Vanessa and all survivors.
147 W 24th St.
2nd Floor
New York City, NY 10011
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This legacy belongs to all of us:
“Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroyed the forest to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that by removing along with the forests the collecting centres and reservoirs of moisture they were laying the basis for the present forlorn state of those countries. . . Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature–but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.” The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man 1876. —Friedrich Engels
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On (Official Video 2019)
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BlackRock loves to make a killing on killing: Over a thousand Americans have been killed by Tasers — 32 percent of them are Black Americans. Tasers are made by the colossal law enforcement supplier Axon Enterprise, based in Arizona. One of their top shareholders happens to be Blackrock. Recently Blackrock has been trying to be sympathetic to the atrocities of murders waged on Black Americans and communities of color. If we ramp up massive pressure and blow the whistle on their deadly stocks, we can highlight that divesting from Tasers and the war in our streets will be a step in the right direction in building a fair and just society. This issue is important to having peace in our streets. But this will only work if people participate. Send an email to Blackrock to divest from the Taser manufacturer Axon Enterprise which is responsible for the killing of thousands of Americans, and CODEPINK will pull out all the stops to make sure Blackrock execs hear our call: Tell Blackrock: stop investing in Tasers!Blackrock could do this. They recently announced that they were divesting from fossil fuels — signaling a shift in their policies. If CEO Larry Fink cares about “diversity, fairness, and justice” and building a “stronger, more equal, and safer society” — he should divest from Tasers. Plus, compared to Blackrock’s other holdings, Taser stocks aren’t even that significant! But if Blackrock does this, it could be the first domino we need to get other investment companies on board too. Send an email to BlackRock and share this widely! Tell Blackrock: stop investing in Tasers!If there’s one thing our community stands for, it’s peace and social justice. And one way we can help achieve that is by cutting off the flow of cash into the manufacturing of Tasers. So, let’s come together to make that happen, and help prevent more innocent Americans from being killed with these senseless tools. With hope, Nancy, Carley, Jodie, Paki, Cody, Kelsey, and Yousef | |
This email was sent to giobon@comcast.net. To unsubscribe, click here. To update your email subscription, contact info@codepink.org. © 2020 CODEPINK.ORG | Created with NationBuilder | |
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Kimberly Jones
If you haven't seen this, you're missing something spectacular:
On Saturday May 30th filmmaker and photographer David Jones of David Jones Media felt compelled to go out and serve the community in some way. He decided to use his art to try and explain the events that were currently impacting our lives. On day two, Sunday the 31st, he activated his dear friend author Kimberly Jones to tag along and conduct interviews. During a moment of downtime he captured these powerful words from her and felt the world couldn’t wait for the full length documentary, they needed to hear them now.
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BLACK LIVES MATTER
Ultimately, the majority of human suffering is caused by a system that places the value of material wealth over the value of
human life. To end the suffering, we must end the profit motive—the very foundation of capitalism itself.—BAUAW
(Bay Area United Against War Newsletter)
Ultimately, the majority of human suffering is caused by a system that places the value of material wealth over the value of
human life. To end the suffering, we must end the profit motive—the very foundation of capitalism itself.
(Bay Area United Against War Newsletter)
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I didn't do nothing serious man
please
please
please I can't breathe
please man
please somebody
please man
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
please
(inaudible)
man can't breathe, my face
just get up
I can't breathe
please (inaudible)
I can't breathe sh*t
I will
I can't move
mama
mama
I can't
my knee
my nuts
I'm through
I'm through
I'm claustrophobic
my stomach hurt
my neck hurts
everything hurts
some water or something
please
please
I can't breathe officer
don't kill me
they gon' kill me man
come on man
I cannot breathe
I cannot breathe
they gon' kill me
they gon' kill me
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
please sir
please
please
please I can't breathe"
Then his eyes shut and the pleas stop. George Floyd was pronounced dead shortly after.
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By ShakaboonaTrump Comic Satire—A Proposal
Write to Shakaboona: Smart Communications/PA DOC Kerry Shakaboona Marshall #BE7826 SCI Rockview P.O. Box 33028St. Petersburg, FL 33733
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Enough is Enough: Global Nuclear Weapons
Spending 2020
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Raping, torturing their way across
the continent—400 years ago—
Colonial settler thugs launched this
endless crimson tide rolling down on
Today…
endless crimson tide leaving in-
visible yellow crime
scene tape crisscrossing Tallahassee
to Seattle; San Diego to Bangor…
Choctaw, Mohawk, Cayuga, Blackfeet,
Shooting Sioux, Shawnee, Chickasaw,
Chippewa before
Looting Lakota land; Looting Ohlone
Land—
Looting Ashanti, Fulani, Huasa, Wolof,
Yoruba, Ibo, Kongo, Mongo, Hutu, Zulu…
Labor.
endless crimson tide—hot lead storms—
Shooting, looting Mexico for half of New
Mexico; a quarter of Colorado; some of
Wyoming and most of Arizona; Looting
Mexico for Utah, Nevada and California
is dirty like Duterte—howling for shooting;
Next time demented minions raise rifles to
shoot; Remind them that
Real looters wear Brooks Brothers suits;
Or gold braid and junk medals ‘cross their
chests. Real looters—with Capitalist Hill
Accomplices—
Steal trillions
Not FOX-boxes, silly sneakers, cheap clothes…
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Veterans Join Call for a Global Ceasefire
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www.couragetoresist.org ~ 510.488.3559 ~ facebook.com/couragetoresist
Oakland, CA 94610-2730
United States
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"The biggest block from having society in harmony with the universe is the belief in a lie that says it’s not realistic or humanly possible."
"If Obama taught me anything it’s that it don’t matter who you vote for in this system. There’s nothing a politician can do that the next one can’t undo. You can’t vote away the ills of society people have to put our differences aside ban together and fight for the greater good, not vote for the lesser evil."
—Johnny Gould (Follow @tandino415 on Instagram)
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When faced with the opportunity to do good, I really think it’s the instinct of humanity to do so. It’s in our genetic memory from our earliest ancestors. It’s the altered perception of the reality of what being human truly is that’s been indoctrinated in to every generation for the last 2000 years or more that makes us believe that we are born sinners. I can’t get behind that one. We all struggle with certain things, but I really think that all the “sinful” behavior is learned and wisdom and goodwill is innate at birth.  —Johnny Gould (Follow @tandino415 on Instagram)
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Mumia Abu-Jamal: New Chance for Freedom
Police and State Frame-Up Must Be Fully Exposed!
Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent. Courts have ignored and suppressed evidence of his innocence for decades.... But now, one court has thrown out all the decisions of the PA Supreme Court that denied Mumia's appeals against his unjust conviction during the years of 1998 to 2012!
This ruling, by Judge Leon Tucker, was made because one judge on the PA Supreme Court during those years, Ronald Castille, was lacking the "appearance of impartiality." In plain English, he was clearly biased against Mumia. Before sitting on the PA Supreme Court, Castille had been District Attorney (or assistant DA) during the time of Mumia's frame-up and conviction, and had used his office to express a special interest in pursuing the death penalty for "cop-killers." Mumia was in the cross-hairs. Soon he was wrongly convicted and sent to death row for killing a police officer.....
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning and intrepid journalist, a former Black Panther, MOVE supporter, and a critic of police brutality and murder. Mumia was framed by police, prosecutors, and leading elements of both Democratic and Republican parties, for the shooting of a police officer.. The US Justice Department targeted him as well... A racist judge helped convict him, and corrupt courts have kept him locked up despite much evidence that should have freed him. He continues his commentary and journalism from behind bars. As of 2019, he has been imprisoned for 37 years for a crime he did not commit.
Time is up! FREE MUMIA NOW!
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DA's Hidden Files Show Frame-Up of Mumia
In the midst of Mumia's fight for his right to challenge the state Supreme Court's negative rulings, a new twist was revealed: six boxes of files on Mumia's case--with many more still hidden--were surreptitiously concealed for decades in a back room at the District Attorney's office in Philadelphia. The very fact that these files on Mumia's case were hidden away for decades is damning in the extreme, and their revelations confirm what we have known for decades: Mumia was framed for a crime he did not commit!
So far, the newly revealed evidence confirms that, at the time of Mumia's 1982 trial, chief prosecutor Joe McGill illegally removed black jurors from the jury, violating the Batson decision. Also revealed: The prosecution bribed witnesses into testifying that they saw Mumia shoot the slain police officer when they hadn't seen any such thing.... Taxi driver Robert Chobert, who was on probation for fire-bombing a school yard at the time, had sent a letter demanding his money for lying on the stand....... Very important, but the newly revealed evidence is just the tip of the iceberg!
All Evidence of Mumia's Innocence Must Be Brought Forward Now!
Mumia Abu-Jamal's trial for the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner was rigged against him from beginning to end........ All of the evidence of Mumia's innocence--which was earlier suppressed or rejected--must now be heard:
• Mumia was framed - The judge at Mumia's trial, Albert Sabo, was overheard to say, "I'm gonna help 'em fry the n____r." And he proceeded to do just that.... Mumia was thrown out of his own trial for defending himself! Prosecution "witnesses" were coerced or bribed at trial to lie against Mumia.. In addition to Chobert, this included key witness Cynthia White, a prostitute who testified that she saw Mumia shoot Faulkner... White's statements had to be rewritten under intense pressure from the cops, because she was around the corner and out of sight of the shooting at the time! Police bribed her with promises of being allowed to work her corner, and not sent to state prison for her many prostitution charges.
• Mumia only arrived on the scene after Officer Faulkner was shot - William Singletary, a tow-truck business owner who had no reason to lie against the police, said he had been on the scene the whole time, that Mumia was not the shooter, and that Mumia had arrived only after the shooting of Faulkner. Singletary's statements were torn up, his business was wrecked, and he was threatened by police to be out of town for the trial (which, unfortunately, he was)...
• There is no evidence that Mumia fired a gun - Mumia was shot on the scene by an arriving police officer and arrested. But the cops did not test his hands for gun-powder residue--a standard procedure in shootings! They also did not test Faulkner's hands. The prosecution nevertheless claimed Mumia was the shooter, and that he was shot by Faulkner as the officer fell to the ground. Ballistics evidence was corrupted to falsely show that Mumia's gun was the murder weapon, when his gun was reportedly still in his taxi cab, which was in police custody days after the shooting!
• The real shooter fled the scene and was never charged - Veronica Jones was a witness who said that after hearing the shots from a block away, she had seen two people fleeing the scene of the shooting.... This could not have included Mumia, who had been shot and almost killed at the scene. Jones was threatened by the police with arrest and loss of custody of her children. She then lied on the stand at trial to say she had seen no one running away.
• Abu-Jamal never made a confession - Mumia has always maintained his innocence. But police twice concocted confessions that Mumia never made. Inspector Alfonso Giordano, the senior officer at the crime scene, made up a confession for Mumia. But Giordano was not allowed to testify at trial, because he was top on the FBI's list of corrupt cops in the Philadelphia police force... At the DA's request, another cop handily provided a second "confession," allegedly heard by a security guard in the hospital......... But at neither time was Mumia--almost fatally shot--able to speak.. And an earlier police report by cops in the hospital said that, referring to Mumia: "the negro male made no comment"!
• The crime scene was tampered with by police - Police officers at the scene rearranged some evidence, and handled what was alleged to be Mumia's gun with their bare hands... A journalist's photos revealed this misconduct. The cops then left the scene unattended for hours.. All of this indicates a frame-up in progress....
• The real shooter confessed, and revealed the reason for the crime - Arnold Beverly came forward in the 1990s. He said in a sworn statement, under penalty of perjury, that he, not Mumia, had been the actual shooter. He said that he, along with "another guy," had been hired to do the hit, because Faulkner was "a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the center city area"! (affidavit of Arnold Beverly).
• The corruption of Philadelphia police is documented and well known - This includes that of Giordano, who was the first cop to manufacture a "confession" by Mumia... Meanwhile, Faulkner's cooperation with the federal anti-corruption investigations of Philadelphia police is strongly suggested by his lengthy and heavily redacted FBI file......
• Do cops kill other cops? There are other cases in Philadelphia that look that way. Frank Serpico, an NYC cop who investigated and reported on police corruption, was abandoned by fellow cops after being shot in a drug bust. Mumia was clearly made a scape-goat for the crimes of corrupt Philadelphia cops who were protecting their ill-gotten gains.
• Politicians and US DOJ helped the frame-up - Ed Rendell, former DA, PA governor, and head of the Democratic National Committee--and now a senior advisor to crime-bill author Joe Biden--is complicit in the frame-up of Mumia. The US Justice Department targeted Mumia for his anti-racist activities when he was a teenager, and later secretly warned then-prosecutor Rendell not to use Giordano as a witness against Mumia because he was an FBI target for corruption..
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All this should lead to an immediate freeing of Mumia! But we are still a ways away from that, and we have no confidence in the capitalist courts to finish the job. We must act! This victory in local court allowing new appeals must now lead to a full-court press on all the rejected and suppressed evidence of Mumia's innocence!
Mass Movement Needed To Free Mumia!
Mumia's persecution by local, state and federal authorities of both political parties has been on-going, and has generated a world-wide movement in his defense... This movement has seen that Mumia, as a radio journalist who exposed the brutal attacks on the black community by the police in Philadelphia, has spoken out as a defender of working people of all colors and all nationalities in his ongoing commentaries (now on KPFA/Pacifica radio), despite being on death row, and now while serving life without the possibility of parole (LWOP)...
In 1999, Oakland Teachers for Mumia held unauthorized teach-ins in Oakland schools on Mumia and the death penalty, despite the rabid hysteria in the bourgeois media. Teachers in Rio de Janeiro held similar actions. Letters of support came in from maritime workers and trade unions around the world.. Later in 1999, longshore workers shut down all the ports on the West Coast to free Mumia, and led a mass march of 25,000 Mumia supporters in San Francisco................
A year later, a federal court lifted Mumia's death sentence, based on improper instructions to the jury by trial judge Albert Sabo.. The federal court ordered the local court to hold a new sentencing hearing... Fearing their frame-up of Mumia could be revealed in any new hearing, even if only on sentencing, state officials passed. Much to the chagrin of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)--which still seeks Mumia's death--this left Mumia with LWOP, death by life in prison..
Mumia supporters waged a struggle to get him the cure for the deadly Hepatitis-C virus, which he had likely contracted through a blood transfusion in hospital after he was shot by a cop at the 1981 crime scene. The Labor Action Committee conducted demonstrations against Gilead Sciences, the Foster City CA corporation that owns the cure, and charged $1,000 per pill! The Metalworkers Union of South Africa wrote a letter excoriating Governor Wolf for allowing untreated sick freedom fighters to die in prison as the apartheid government had done. Finally, Mumia did get the cure.. Now, more than ever, struggle is needed to free Mumia!
Now is the Time: Mobilize Again for Mumia's Freedom!
Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
www.laboractionmumia...........org
Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal | Mumia Abu-Jamal is an I.....
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Message to the People
A voice from inside Pennsylvania’s gulag
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LETTERS NEEDED FOR
LEONARD PELTIER
Dear Friends, Supporters, and Family,
In light of the provisions of the CARES Act meant to decrease the risk to prisoner heath, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Attorney General has delegated to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons the authority to release certain vulnerable prisoners to home confinement. Currently, the process for identifying appropriate candidates for home confinement have not been solidified but we believe it may help to write to the BOP Director and Southeast Regional Director and ask that Leonard be immediately considered and transitioned to his home on the Turtle Mountain Reservation.Your letters should be addressed to:
Michael CarvajalDirector320 First Street NWWashington, DC 20534
J.A. KellerSoutheast Regional DirectorFederal Bureau of3800 Camp Crk Prk SW, Building 2000Atlanta, GA 30331
We have not drafted a form letter or correspondence. Your pleas should come from your heart as an individual who has supported Leonard for so many years. Say what you would like but we have put together some talking points that will assist you in your letter writing. Below are some helpful guidelines so your letter touches on the requirements of the Attorney General’s criteria for releasing inmates like Leonard to home confinement
OPENING:• Point out that Leonard is an elder and is at risk for example.” Mr. Peltier is 75 years old and in very poor health; his only desire is to go home to the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation and live out the remainder of his years surrounded by his family.”
MEDICAL:The AG and CDC guidelines for releasing inmates requires the health concerns cause greater risk of getting the virus. Leonard has the following conditions you can list in your letter• Diabetes• Spots on lung• Heart Condition (has had triple by-pass surgery)• Leonard Peltier suffers from a kidney disease that cannot be treated at the Coleman1facility and impacts as an underlying condition if contracting the virus.
RISK TO COMMUNITY:To qualify for release to home confinement we must show that Leonard poses no risk to the community.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT/RENTRY PLAN:To qualify for release to home confinement we must show that Leonard has a reentry plan. Leonard has support from the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Band and has family land on the reservation where he can live.
RISK OF COVID 19:To qualify for the release to home confinement must show that Leonard is at reduced risk to exposure of COVID 19 by release than he is at Coleman 1. Currently Rolette County, ND has no cases of COVID 19, Sumter County has at least 33 cases.
Questions and comments may be sent to info@freedomarchives.org
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Major Tillery, a prisoner at SCI Chester and a friend of Mumia, may have caught the coronavirus. Major is currently under lockdown at SCI Chester, where a coronavirus outbreak is currently taking place. Along with the other prisoners at SCI Chester, he urgently needs your help.
SCI Chester
500 E. 4th St.
Chester, PA 19013
Telephone: (610) 490-5412
Email: keason@pa.gov (Prison Superintendent). maquinn@pa.gov (Superintendent's Assistant)Please also call the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections at:Department of Corrections
1920 Technology Parkway
Mechanicsburg, PA 17050
Telephone: (717) 737-4531
This telephone number is for SCI Camp Hill, which is the current number for DOC.
Reference Major's inmate number: AM 9786
Email: ra-contactdoc@pa.govDemand that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections immediately:
2) Disinfect all cells and common areas at SCI Chester, including sinks, toilets, eating areas and showers;
3) Provide PPE (personal protective equipment) for all inmates at SCI Chester;
4) Provide access to showers for all prisoners at SCI Chester, as a basic hygiene measure;
5) Provide yard access to all prisoners at SCI Chester;
6) Provide phone and internet access to all prisoners at SCI Chester;
7) Immediately release prisoners from SCI Chester, including Major Tillery, who already suffers from a compromised immune system, in order to save their lives from execution by COVID-19.
It has been reported that prisoners are now receiving shower access. However, please insist that prisoners be given shower access and that all common areas are disinfected.
In solidarity,
The Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
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The violence occurred early Wednesday during a confrontation between demonstrators and a group of men armed with guns as protests continued over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
By Julie Bosman, Aug. 26, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/us/kenosha-shooting-protests-jacob-blake.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Kenosha County sheriff’s deputies moved to clear a park of protesters. Credit...Tannen Maury/EPA, via Shutterstock
KENOSHA, Wis. — Three people were shot early Wednesday, two fatally, law enforcement officials said, during a chaotic night of demonstrations over the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black resident whose children were nearby as their father was shot this week by a white police officer.
In Kenosha, a third night of protests over the shooting of Mr. Blake stretched into the early morning hours of Wednesday, after demonstrators clashed with law enforcement officials near the county courthouse downtown.
Tuesday evening was spent in a shifting, hourslong standoff between the police and protesters. Protesters assembled outside a newly erected metal barrier protecting the courthouse and threw water bottles, rocks and fireworks at the police.
The police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, repeatedly warning the crowd through a bullhorn that they were violating the city curfew of 8 p.m. and risking arrest. The crowd was eventually forced out of the park with tear gas and onto city streets, where the standoff continued.
Many protesters left the area, but others lingered and walked to a gas station several blocks away. There, a group of men with guns stood outside, promising to protect the property and verbally sparring with the arriving protesters. As the night stretched on, the gas station became a tense gathering spot, with bystanders watching from parked cars and people milling around in the street, arguing and occasionally shoving each other.
Police officers had crept closer to the gas station in armored trucks, urging the people who were still there to go home.
After midnight, shots were fired outside the gas station. Three people were struck, Sheriff David Beth said in an interview. The Kenosha Police Department said in a statement that there were two fatalities, and that one person had been taken to the hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
Sheriff Beth said that the investigation was focused on the group of men with guns outside the gas station, and that investigators were scouring video taken just before the shooting.
In one video, the men are shouting at each other, clutching their guns and occasionally pulling each other away to defuse the conflict.
“I’ve had people saying, ‘Why don’t you deputize citizens?’” he said. “This is why you don’t deputize citizens with guns to protect Kenosha.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Blake’s mother, Julia Jackson, had told reporters that she opposed the sort of destruction that had been left by protests spurred by her son’s shooting. On earlier nights, buildings and trucks had been burned down in Kenosha, a city of 100,000 people, where more than 100 members of the Wisconsin National Guard have been deployed amid the unrest.
Ms. Jackson told reporters that she had been praying for the country to heal.
“I’ve noticed a lot of damage,” she said. “It doesn’t reflect my son or my family.”
Mr. Blake, she and other family members said, is conscious in a hospital after being shot seven times. Family members and lawyers said that he was partially paralyzed from a bullet that severed his spinal cord and unaware of the protests that have spread across the country in his name.
Mr. Blake’s parents and siblings denounced the police and pleaded for justice.
It was a “senseless attempted murder,” Mr. Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr., said as he broke down and wept. “They shot my son seven times, like he didn’t matter.”
He said he had no confidence that the shooting of a Black man by a white officer would be fairly investigated.
That investigation is in the hands of the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation, which has not released basic information about the shooting, including the name of the officer, who has been placed on administrative leave.
The Kenosha Police Department, which has also declined to provide details of what happened, has been at the center of criticism from demonstrators, who protested for a third night on Tuesday.
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By striking, the players in the NBA, MLB, and beyond have brought their bosses to the table and launched a national conversation.
By Dave Zirin, August 27, 2020
The wave of strikes by athletes against racist police violence is not ebbing. On Thursday night, the New York Mets and Miami Marlins took the field, held a 42-second moment of silence (in honor of Jackie Robinson), and then walked off. They left behind a shirt that read “Black Lives Matter” on home plate.
Numerous NFL teams have canceled their practices, with the Baltimore Ravens, after a four-hour team meeting, putting out a remarkable action statement. NBA referees even organized a march in the Orlando Bubble, wearing T-shirts that read, “Everyone Against Racism.” Even the National Hockey League, after first ignoring what was happening, to the chagrin of many players, canceled a slate of games in solidarity with the events swirling around the sports world.
Pro athletes have shown themselves willing to fight and be heard. Black athletes are saying that they no longer will be a repository of adulation with their uniforms on but a risk to be killed by police when the uniform comes off. It is a historic moment by any measure, and one without a blueprint. We don’t know where this is going, or how long it will last. But folks are already asking what this can actually accomplish beyond raising awareness about the shooting of Jacob Blake.
For now, it’s centering the conversation in this country on racist police violence and not the gaslighting “law and order” bombast coming out of the RNC, and inspiring people to violence during a time of relentless darkness. Frankly, if nothing else came out of it, it would still be important. But the players want more. Supporters want more. Everyone strangled by the absence of political oxygen in this broken country want more.
NBA player leaders want the franchise owners to put some “skin in the game.” They want the billionaire owners—who are not only wealthy but politically connected to every municipality where they have a publicly funded stadium—to push for legislation and using their influence to fight back. As NBA insider Shams Charania from The Athletic reported on Twitter from a meeting between players and owners, “Players challenged owners to be proactive, not reactive, to social justice changes; create actions, not simply financial commitments.”
I’m all for extracting concessions from billionaires. But there is another avenue the movement can take. What these players are doing is nothing less than striking for Black lives. They are using their power as workers to protest not only the police shooting of Blake and the white supremacist terrorism in Kenosha, but also the fact that, as one player put it, “nothing is changing.” After a summer of marches, uprisings, and occupations, scant legislation has moved and police still act with impunity.
By exercising their power as workers, the players are inspiring an incredibly dormant part of the resistance to racism and Trumpism: the labor movement. If the NBA can shut down in protest of racist police violence, why not other industries? Why not cities? Why not entire sectors of the country’s economy? Strikes do not have to be about wages and benefits. There is a long, hidden history in this country of striking for human rights—“not just bread but roses.” It’s a history the players could help revive.
That may sound far-fetched, but I can say that I received half a dozen calls from unionists or union officials last night telling me that they and their members felt like they had been hit with an electric prod. The idea that everyone in the country was talking about this “strike” taking place was making so many of these workers feel like they also had power.
This isn’t just about solidarity. This is about results. If the players want the results they crave, and if the country is as broken as they believe it to be, this is an actual solution: to strike against racist police violence. to strike against Trumpism, to strike for Black lives. Nothing else has worked. But by withdrawing their labor, the players in the NBA have immediately brought their bosses to the table and launched a national conversation. If that message blares across the land—and if labor leaders rise to the occasion and respond with equal courage—we could finally see solutions and not feel like we are all poised with bated breath, just waiting for the next hashtag.
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“He can’t go anywhere,” the 29-year-old’s dad said, speaking of his son’s paralysis. “Why do you have him cuffed to the bed?”
By Clare Proctor, Aug 27, 2020
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2020/8/27/21404463/jacob-blake-father-kenosha-police-shooting-hospital-bed-handcuffs
Jacob Blake’s father, also named Jacob Blake, speaks at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. On Thursday, Blake’s father said his son has been handcuffed to his hospital bed. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
When Jacob Blake’s father visited him in the hospital Wednesday, he said his son — who was shot in the back by a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer over the weekend — was handcuffed to the bed.
“I hate it that he was laying in that bed with the handcuff onto the bed,” his father, also named Jacob Blake, said Thursday. “He can’t go anywhere. Why do you have him cuffed to the bed?”
Asked why his son was handcuffed, Blake’s father replied “he’s under arrest.” The father also said it was unclear what charge or charges his son might be facing, explaining “right now, we don’t know. We’re playing it by ear.”
The younger Blake, 29, was shot more than a half-dozen times on Sunday and is paralyzed from the waist down.
In the hospital, the younger Blake told his father he thought he could feel pain in his legs, but his father isn’t sure if the pain is actually coming from his legs.
The Kenosha Police Department, Kenosha County District Attorney’s Office and Wisconsin Department of Justice all did not immediately respond to requests for information on his arrest or charges.
Jacob Blake’s father said he hasn’t heard from the police department or Mayor John Antaramian, though Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has reached out, he said. The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.
At a news conference later Thursday, Evers was asked if he’s concerned about Blake being handcuffed.
“Hell yes,” Evers said.
“I would have no personal understanding why that would be necessary,” the governor added. “I can’t imagine why that’s happening and I would hope that we would be able to find a . . . better way to have him get better and recover.”
The family’s attorney is working to ensure Jacob Blake can go home once he’s released from the hospital, his father said.
When Blake saw his father in the hospital Wednesday, he thought he was hallucinating because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, according to his father.
“I told him, ‘You thought Daddy wasn’t going to see my son?’” his father said. “He grabbed my hand, held it real tight and started weeping, telling me how much he loved me.”
Though his son’s eyes were swollen, the elder Jacob Blake said he “looked and sounded like” his son, and he’s alive. Seeing him in the hospital was like walking across a desert to find someone waiting with a glass of water, his father said.
“It was way more than fulfilling,” his father said. “It was a feeling I can’t describe.”
Demonstrators have swarmed Kenosha in the days since Jacob Blake’s shooting. The unrest turned violent Tuesday night when three people were shot, two of them fatally. Authorities arrested 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide.
Anthony Huber, 26, of Silver Lake, and Joseph “Jojo” Rosenbaum, 36, of Kenosha, were fatally shot Tuesday. Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, of West Allis, was shot in the arm and is expected to recover.
Jacob Blake’s father declined to comment on the violence, saying he will fully address the matter when he speaks at the March on Washington in the nation’s capitol Friday. At a press conference with relatives on Tuesday, his mother, Julia Jackson, called for an end to looting and destruction in the city.
“We need healing,” Jackson said. “I also have been praying, even before this, for the healing of our country.”
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By Aldous J Pennyfarthing, August 26, 2020
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/8/26/1972595/-Kenosha-shooter-was-photographed-sitting-in-front-row-of-Trump-rally?detail=emaildkre
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The conservative media’s embrace of Kyle Rittenhouse speaks volumes about its priorities.
By Jamelle Bouie, Opinion Columnist, Aug. 28, 2020
Police let Kyle Rittenhouse leave the scene in Kenosha, Wis., despite his having an assault rifle and bystanders identifying him as the alleged shooter. Credit...Illustration by The New York Times, video still image by Brendan Gutenschwage, via Reuters
The most revealing thing to happen in conservative politics this week did not involve the Republican National Convention, at least not directly. Instead, it took place in Kenosha, Wis., in the aftermath of a shooting on Tuesday night that killed two people and wounded a third.
The suspected shooter, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from nearby Antioch, Ill., was in Kenosha with a group of armed counterprotesters. After several days of rioting — sparked by the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who appears to have been paralyzed after police shot him seven times in the back — so-called militia groups arrived on the scene to defend businesses and other properties from protesters. Rittenhouse was with one of those groups when, according to a visual analysis by The New York Times, he was seen running away from several people.
Eyewitness testimony fills the gap. Rittenhouse was approached by Joseph Rosenbaum, who threw a plastic bag in his direction. He ran, and turned to face Rosenbaum with his AR-15 in the ready position. Nearby, an unknown gunman shot into the air. It’s at this point that Rosenbaum reached for the barrel of Rittenhouse’s rifle. Rittenhouse then fired four rounds, one of which struck Rosenbaum in the head. Rittenhouse then fled the scene. Several people chased him, some shouting to identify him as the shooter.
As Rittenhouse is running, he trips and falls to the ground. He fires again — four more shots — as several people run toward him. One of the people in that group is hit in the chest and falls to the ground. Another, who is carrying a handgun, is struck in the arm. Rittenhouse then gets up and walks toward several police vehicles with his hands raised. Although bystanders identify him as the shooter, police pass him by. Rittenhouse is arrested the next day, in Illinois. Authorities charged him with first-degree murder.
This is a complicated situation, but a few things are clear. Wisconsin isn’t a “Stand Your Ground” state, and Rittenhouse was in illegal possession of a weapon — under Wisconsin law, it is a Class A misdemeanor for a minor to carry a deadly weapon in the open. There is also no legal right in the state to use deadly force for the protection of property you do not own. And in any case the “Castle Doctrine” only applies to the use of deadly force in one’s home, vehicle or business.
To the conservative media, however, what happened in Kenosha was eminently justifiable and even cause for celebration. “Are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder?” Tucker Carlson said on the Wednesday broadcast of his Fox News show. “How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?” Carlson, who has an average nightly audience of more than 4 million viewers, blamed local political leaders for the killings. “Kenosha has devolved into anarchy because the authorities in charge of the city abandoned it. People in charge in Wisconsin from the governor on down refused to enforce the law,” he said. “They stood back and watched Kenosha burn.”
Ann Coulter, a conservative author and provocateur, said that she wanted Rittenhouse “as my president.” Graham Allen, a contributor to Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, called the Kenosha killings a “justified shooting” in a video that has garnered more than 150,000 views. Katie Pavlich, another Fox News host, declared that, “When you have no police around to defend businesses, and people who are being attacked, then there is a void that is filled.” According to The Guardian, “fund-raisers, messages of support and celebratory memes” for Rittenhouse are being “shared widely” on social media platforms. And Paul Gosar, a far-right Republican congressman for Arizona’s 4th District, said it was “100% justified self-defense. Do not try to take a weapon away from a man or bear the consequences.”
What happened in Kenosha was a tragedy. Rittenhouse should not have been there, and we should agree — all of us — that the shooting should not have happened. We should also be troubled by police action, or the lack thereof, against armed militias. Tacit support from Kenosha police (at one point, an officer thanks the group for being there) almost certainly contributed to the permissive environment that led to the shooting. It is reminiscent, in that way, of the events in Charlottesville in 2017, where an official review found that law enforcement failed to “maintain order” and “protect public safety” leading to fights, skirmishes and the vehicular murder of a protester.
We should be appalled. But it appears only some of us are. Others are prepared to elevate Rittenhouse as a symbol of self-defense. It’s an ominous reaction, not the least because it might inspire other Rittenhouses to do the same, to travel to protests ready for the use of lethal force against protesters. Put differently, the extent to which Carlson and Coulter and Turning Point are representative of conservative thought on violence against protesters is the extent to which we may have to prepare for further Kenoshas.
I said, at the start, that these events lack a direct link to the Republican National Convention, the headline event for conservative politics this week. They do, however, have an indirect link. The night before the killings in Kenosha, Mark and Patricia McCloskey delivered a prime-time address from their St. Louis home as part of the convention’s opening program. The McCloskeys aren’t politicians or activists, they’re trial lawyers, famous for just one reason: brandishing firearms (Mark an AR-15, Patricia a pistol) at passing Black Lives Matter protesters. Their celebrity in conservative circles has everything to do with their threat of violence against people the president has denounced as a threat to the country itself. However ridiculous the McCloskeys may have looked in the media, the fact of the matter is their actions led to a reward. For threatening protesters with death, they were given a chance to speak to the entire nation.
One other thing. Earlier this summer, as the first protests against the death of George Floyd unfolded, President Trump took to Twitter to warn of consequences for those who damaged property. “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” Trump tweeted on a Friday morning in May. “Any difficulty and we will assume control, but when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Although Trump backpedaled in the face of criticism — claiming, implausibly, that he was making a descriptive statement of what would happen if looting began — his meaning was clear enough: that “looters,” however defined, would and should be shot.
The bully pulpit matters. Presidential rhetoric matters. Rittenhouse was a fan of the president — he took a front-row seat at a January rally in Des Moines — but that connection is less important than the atmosphere created by Trump’s words. A president who speaks of shooting people in the street — who elevates those who threaten to shoot people in the street — cannot be separated from the individual who does, eventually, shoot people in the street.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va., and Washington. @jbouie
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Individuals like Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali and Colin Kaepernick changed society. Can this generation do it by banding together?
"It is still early. The N.B.A. players’ message may not have reached everyone yet, nor has the economic impact been assessed. But it’s clear that while these athletes may be ready to return to basketball, they are finished playing America’s rigged game. And they have delivered a message that the entire country needs to hear: When it comes to social justice, it’s better to think and act like a team.
"By Michael P. Jeffries, Professor of American studies and an author, Aug. 28, 2020
LeBron James, center, and teammates during the national anthem before an N.B.A. game last month. Credit...Pool photo by Mike Ehrmann
Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos during the playing of the national anthem after they won medals at the 1968 Summer Olympics. Credit...Associated Press
Maya Moore of the Minnesota Lynx. Credit...David Sherman/NBAE, via Getty Images
Colin Kaepernick, center, Eli Harold, left, and Eric Reid taking a knee during the national anthem in 2016. Credit...John G Mabanglo/EPA, via Shutterstock
Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X in 1964. Credit...Bob Gomel/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images
In June, as the National Basketball Association prepared to restart its season amid the twin crises of the pandemic and the nationwide protests against racial injustice, the general manager of one team told the sportswriter Sam Amick, “You know and I know why we are playing — for the money.”
Players knew this, too, but trudged forward. Some, like Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets, questioned their role in distracting the country from protests. But the players ultimately decided to play, in no small part because the league agreed to let them use the games as a platform. Their jerseys were emblazoned with messages of social justice: “Black Lives Matter,” “I Can’t Breathe,” “Say Their Names” and “Enough.” LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers spearheaded a voting rights initiative with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In interviews, James and other players at times made statements about racism in response to questions about basketball. But it soon became clear that neither those actions nor the money was enough.
On Wednesday, the Milwaukee Bucks set off a fast-moving wave of protest in professional sports when they refused to play their scheduled playoff game against the Orlando Magic. They did so to demand justice for Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old Black man who was shot in the back several times by the police in Kenosha, Wis., on Sunday. The rest of the league quickly joined the strike. By Thursday, less than 24 hours after the Bucks’ action, discussions among N.B.A. players, coaches and owners had reportedly led to an informal agreement to resume play, but not before a ripple effect, including postponements of games in the W.N.B.A., Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer, had swept across professional sports.
By Friday, the strike had produced results. The N.B.A. and its players’ union made its return to play official. The playoffs would resume on Saturday with an agreement from the league to create “a social justice coalition” to be “focused on a broad range of issues, including increasing access to voting, promoting civic engagement and advocating for meaningful police and criminal justice reform.” Part of that initiative will include converting some N.B.A. arenas into polling stations in the upcoming election.
At the height of his career as an N.B.A. superstar, Michael Jordan once infamously defended his choice not to engage in politics, joking with teammates that “Republicans buy shoes, too.” James and his contemporaries are in another place altogether, withholding labor and taking reputational and financial risks that may have a lasting impact on professional sports and their role in society. Jordan, too, has evolved into a new role: As the owner of the Charlotte Hornets and the N.B.A. Labor Relations Committee chairman, he helped broker Thursday’s agreement to return to play.
To many, the walkout and its impact amounts to a watershed moment, and in some ways, it is. But it is one that was made possible by the Black athletes of past decades taking risks and making sacrifices for social justice.
Most Americans are familiar with Colin Kaepernick, who began his protest of racial injustice on Aug. 26, 2016, exactly four years before the Bucks’ strike. He lost his job and won a settlement from the National Football League, joining athletes like Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali who became global icons after taking a stand.
Kaepernick’s use of the national anthem evoked Tommie Smith and John Carlos holding up their fists in a Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics, but few sports fans of this generation know their names. The N.B.A. has its own legacy. In 1959, Elgin Baylor of the Lakers chose not to play in his team’s game against the Cincinnati Royals after he and other Black teammates were denied lodging at multiple hotels. Two years later, the same thing happened to Black players on the Boston Celtics. This time, those players, led by Bill Russell, and the Black players on the opposing team, the St. Louis Hawks, chose to sit out. In 1995, the Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf decided he would not stand for the national anthem because doing so violated his religious beliefs. After a one-game suspension, Abdul-Rauf adjusted, bowing his head to “pray for those who are oppressed” as the music played. He faced death threats, was viewed as a pariah across the league and found himself without work just three seasons later.
Black women’s contributions to this history cannot be ignored. In July 2016, W.N.B.A. players on three teams took to the court with “#BlackLives Matter” printed on their warm-up shirts. They were fined for wearing attire that was not approved by the league. Days later, the Indiana Fever defiantly wore the shirts again on television, and the fines were rescinded. In September that same year, the Fever became the first entire professional team to kneel during the national anthem as they demonstrated their solidarity with Kaepernick.
One of W.N.B.A.’s best players, Maya Moore of the Minnesota Lynx, has spent the past two seasons fighting for racial justice away from basketball. Her activism contributed to the 2020 release of Jonathan Irons, wrongly imprisoned in Missouri for over 20 years. Multiple players are following Moore’s lead and skipping the current season in pursuit of justice. Those who chose to play have continued their activism with a protest of one of the league’s owners, Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, who tried to suppress their voices.
In 2014, the Los Angeles Clippers and the Golden State Warriors nearly refused to play a playoff game in order to protest the Clippers’ owner, Donald Sterling, a notorious racist. But there was little time to plan, build trust or consider the ramifications, and that action was called off. In 2020, players had months to thoughtfully consider whether they could play without trivializing their message.
This is not the same league that shut down in March. The players now have proof that they are more powerful together than any one-man brand. Many marched with their neighbors over the summer. They tearfully and publicly grieved the loss of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others. They saw that constitutional rights don’t exist unless we practice them, that economic disruption gets results. They saw protesters of all backgrounds undaunted by tear gas and white supremacist militias. They saw again that Black life, dignity and sanity hang in the balance, and democracy hangs with them.
Some will argue that protest in sports is nothing new, and neither is racism, so nothing will change. On this we agree: The walkout will not end racism. But it would be wrong to underestimate this moment. Those who downplay the walkout have an interest in doing so and speak from a place of fear and denial. They fear that it will ripple beyond the professional sports leagues where it has already taken hold into more leagues, cities and partner industries that stand to profit from the silence of Black athletes. They deny the truth about the state of the country, the grievous harm caused by racial oppression and the inevitability of continued unrest in response to it.
It is still early. The N.B.A. players’ message may not have reached everyone yet, nor has the economic impact been assessed. But it’s clear that while these athletes may be ready to return to basketball, they are finished playing America’s rigged game. And they have delivered a message that the entire country needs to hear: When it comes to social justice, it’s better to think and act like a team.
Michael P. Jeffries is the dean of academic affairs and a professor of American studies at Wellesley College. He is the author of three books on race and American culture.
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The deafening silence of not having sports provided a powerful message from athletes demanding racial justice, after kneeling and slogans on jerseys seemed to have lost potency.
By Kurt Streeter, Aug. 27, 2020
It was the silence that spoke loudest.
No basketballs pounding on hardwood. All games canceled. No baseballs cracking off bats. Three games canceled. No soccer balls ricocheting down the field. Five games canceled. No booming aces. The Western & Southern Open tennis tournament halted for a day.
This is what the silence said: No more Jacob Blakes. No more George Floyds. No more Breonna Taylors. No more Natasha McKennas. No more Philando Castiles. No more Michael Browns. No more Tamir Rices. No more Eric Garners. No more Alton Sterlings.
No more pain.
Never before has the world of sports spoken so emphatically. The timing was unmistakably significant. The athlete walkouts were set starkly against a frightened Trumpian vision presented at the Republican National Convention.
We watched this week as two Americas clashed in front of us, separated by generations and by oceans-apart views of race, justice and what it means to be a patriot.
No longer was sports offering gentrified protest, with league-endorsed slogans on basketball jerseys. Calm collapsed in the face of the inevitably growing power of players to make more than a statement. They took action. It shattered the bubble of normalcy that had settled upon the N.B.A. and its fans, who watched happily from home as a pandemic and protests raged.
“We are scared as Black people in America,” LeBron James said, downcast as he spoke at a news conference inside the N.B.A.’s so-called bubble at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla.
“Because you don’t know, you have no idea, how that cop that day left the house,” he added. “You don’t know if he woke up on a good side of the bed, if he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. … Or maybe he just left the house saying, ‘Today is going to be the end for one of these Black people.’ That is what it feels like.”
Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics spoke with equally raw emotion: “Are we not human beings? Is Jacob Blake not a human being? He deserved to be treated like a human being and did not deserve to be shot.”
Sterling Brown, the Milwaukee forward who in 2018 was tackled by police officers and shocked with a Taser gun after a parking violation, read a statement for his team that concluded, “Despite the overwhelming plea for change there has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball.”
Jaylen Brown is 23. Sterling Brown is 25. LeBron James, one of the older players in the league, is only 35. All three, like so many of their N.B.A. compatriots, are part of an emboldened generation of Black athletes, a vanguard challenging America’s norms in numbers never seen before.
At the very same time, the Republican National Convention represented and embraced an entirely different vision — one nostalgic for the past, wary of change and angry for an entirely different reason. Sports personalities from an era when player protests were rarer figured prominently. Lou Holtz, the renowned 83-year-old college football coach who last led a team 16 years ago, proclaimed steadfast devotion to President Trump and spoke triumphantly of a mythical America where anyone can succeed by just working hard enough.
Herschel Walker and Jack Brewer, both Black former N.F.L. players out of the league for well over a decade, struck the same tone, hailing Trump as a heaven-sent crusader against racism and a proponent of social justice, ignoring a reality that says the opposite.
Two visions. Two Americas.
2020 vs. years gone by.
The N.B.A. is hardly alone. Walkouts rippled this week through the W.N.B.A., and through predominantly white sports like professional tennis and soccer. Games were postponed because of protesting players in conservative, tradition-bound Major League Baseball. At first the National Hockey League continued with its playoff schedule, before bending to pressure and taking a pause.
This was the logical next step in the fervent activism inspired this year by the killing of George Floyd. As the nation grappled with 401 years of racial trauma, it searched for ways to break apart systemic injustice and violence against Black Americans.
Players as prominent as Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets declared that holding a season now, resuming amid the pandemic, was a mistake and a distraction — and called for athletes to stay home and work within their communities for change.
But the N.B.A. and the W.N.B.A got back to work. The players chose to use nationally televised games as a platform for their grievances. They draped their courts and jerseys with slogans and calls for change. They knelt during the national anthem.
Yet those protests had lost their power. Slogans and refusing to stand for the anthem seemed less edgy when everyone — even corporate sponsors and team owners — glommed onto the movement like a fad.
Indeed, violence against Black people escalated. And that brought on this week’s refusal by the N.B.A. and others to play sports. It was a swift jolt to leagues, owners and networks that live off televised broadcast games.
Sports have long been a platform capable of providing shocks to the status quo. More than 50 years ago, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black-gloved fists at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
Muhammad Ali refused to fight in the Vietnam War. Billie Jean King, the W.N.B.A. star Maya Moore and a long line of female athletes fought for justice and equal pay. And, of course, four years ago this week, Colin Kaepernick was spotted for the first time in his protest of police brutality, refusing to stand during the national anthem.
The current refusal to play, however, is not simply a shock. This is an earthquake. Walkouts like this have never happened before in pro sports. Though this appears to be a temporary work stoppage — N.B.A. players have voted to return, probably this weekend, and other sports seemed to be following suit — a new high bar of protest has been established.
Black athletes and their allies will not hesitate to effectively strike again. Next time, the stoppage may well last longer than a few days. Maybe players will sit out an entire season. Maybe they will be from the N.F.L. Maybe Black college football players and their teammates at schools like Alabama, Florida and Oklahoma will walk.
Perhaps the other America will stiffen in tried-and-true backlash and persist in harkening to days of old.
But the silence will speak to us all.
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