Tuesday, June 16, 2020
As incidents of police brutality multiply, historians hear echoes of 18th-century ‘slave patrols’
Marquise Francis
National Reporter & Producer,
Yahoo News•June 15, 2020
George Floyd protesters face violence from police — and civilians who disagree with the cause
As protests over the death of George Floyd continue, mostly peacefully, videos of alleged violence and excessive force on the part of law enforcement are spreading on social media. Several videos showing violence on the part of civilians who appear to be opposed to the demonstrations have also surfaced.
Millions of people around the world, caught up in the tragedy of black Americans killed by police and white vigilantes, have taken to the streets in recent weeks to march for justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others. At the same time there have been counter demonstrations, generally much smaller, by racist groups including remnant groups of the Ku Klux Klan, and unrelated protests against coronavirus lockdowns by largely white, conservative, armed mobs.
It is hard not to notice that the police have treated the two kinds of protests very differently.
In February, police escorted more than 100 masked members of a white nationalist group on a march through Washington's National Mall. Patriot Front members shouted, "Reclaim America!" and "Life, liberty, victory!" as officers protected them against possible attacks.
In April, hundreds of protestors, many armed, entered the Michigan Capitol building and crowded halls and staircases demanding that the state legislature not extend Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's coronavirus stay-at-home order. One of the protesters carried a doll dangling from a noose. Police stood by placidly as demonstrators jeered and shouted from much less than six feet away.
Marquise Francis
National Reporter & Producer,
Yahoo News•June 15, 2020
George Floyd protesters face violence from police — and civilians who disagree with the cause
As protests over the death of George Floyd continue, mostly peacefully, videos of alleged violence and excessive force on the part of law enforcement are spreading on social media. Several videos showing violence on the part of civilians who appear to be opposed to the demonstrations have also surfaced.
Millions of people around the world, caught up in the tragedy of black Americans killed by police and white vigilantes, have taken to the streets in recent weeks to march for justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others. At the same time there have been counter demonstrations, generally much smaller, by racist groups including remnant groups of the Ku Klux Klan, and unrelated protests against coronavirus lockdowns by largely white, conservative, armed mobs.
It is hard not to notice that the police have treated the two kinds of protests very differently.
In February, police escorted more than 100 masked members of a white nationalist group on a march through Washington's National Mall. Patriot Front members shouted, "Reclaim America!" and "Life, liberty, victory!" as officers protected them against possible attacks.
In April, hundreds of protestors, many armed, entered the Michigan Capitol building and crowded halls and staircases demanding that the state legislature not extend Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's coronavirus stay-at-home order. One of the protesters carried a doll dangling from a noose. Police stood by placidly as demonstrators jeered and shouted from much less than six feet away.
Protestors try to enter the Michigan House of Representative chamber and are being kept out by the Michigan State Police after the American Patriot Rally organized by Michigan United for Liberty protest for the reopening of businesses on the steps of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan on April 30, 2020. Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
Also, in Rome, Ga., a viral video captured police calmly patrolling a KKK rally in full regalia.
In contrast, there have been a significant number of reports, many caught on video, of law enforcement instigating violence or mistreating law-abiding citizens during peaceful protests, most famously when law enforcement and National Guard personnel cleared demonstrators outside the White House for President Trump’s photo op at an Episcopal church two weeks ago. After first denying it, the Secret Service admitted last week that pepper spray had been used on the crowd.
In another instance, a video that has gone viral shows a peaceful protest last week in East Meadow, N.Y. An officer stepped into the path of a protester and stopped short, causing the marcher to bump into him. Police officers then swarm the protester and knock him to the ground, arresting him.
Police claim the march was impeding traffic.
Another video shows an NYPD officer pulling down a peaceful protester’s mask to pepper spray a young man in the face at point-blank range late last month.
Earlier this month, in Buffalo, a 75-year-old protester was pushed to the ground by two police officers during a Floyd protest. The push led to the man’s head hitting the pavement and he was left to bleed as officers walked past him. He was taken to the hospital with a brain injury.
On June 7 in Seattle, police clashed with a peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration, dispersing marchers with flashbang grenades and pepper spray and pushing some demonstrators with a police bicycle.
“This has been going on underneath my apartment for several days now,” said one local resident, @menilivne, who has filmed the nightly procession told NewsFlare. “Peaceful protesters stand in front of barriers that the police set up. Eventually, the police do something to provoke the protesters. Sometimes they approach them and start moving the barrier. This leads to a scuffle where the police use flashbangs, and in the past tear gas, too, against the protesters.”
Also, in Rome, Ga., a viral video captured police calmly patrolling a KKK rally in full regalia.
In contrast, there have been a significant number of reports, many caught on video, of law enforcement instigating violence or mistreating law-abiding citizens during peaceful protests, most famously when law enforcement and National Guard personnel cleared demonstrators outside the White House for President Trump’s photo op at an Episcopal church two weeks ago. After first denying it, the Secret Service admitted last week that pepper spray had been used on the crowd.
In another instance, a video that has gone viral shows a peaceful protest last week in East Meadow, N.Y. An officer stepped into the path of a protester and stopped short, causing the marcher to bump into him. Police officers then swarm the protester and knock him to the ground, arresting him.
Police claim the march was impeding traffic.
Another video shows an NYPD officer pulling down a peaceful protester’s mask to pepper spray a young man in the face at point-blank range late last month.
Earlier this month, in Buffalo, a 75-year-old protester was pushed to the ground by two police officers during a Floyd protest. The push led to the man’s head hitting the pavement and he was left to bleed as officers walked past him. He was taken to the hospital with a brain injury.
On June 7 in Seattle, police clashed with a peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration, dispersing marchers with flashbang grenades and pepper spray and pushing some demonstrators with a police bicycle.
“This has been going on underneath my apartment for several days now,” said one local resident, @menilivne, who has filmed the nightly procession told NewsFlare. “Peaceful protesters stand in front of barriers that the police set up. Eventually, the police do something to provoke the protesters. Sometimes they approach them and start moving the barrier. This leads to a scuffle where the police use flashbangs, and in the past tear gas, too, against the protesters.”
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA - MAY 30: Police advance on demonstrators who are protesting the killing of George Floyd on May 30, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Medics and journalists also have been targeted by police and even arrested for doing their jobs. One medic in Brooklyn pleaded to officers as he was arrested for giving first aid to someone. In another instance, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and his crew were arrested while broadcasting live on air in Minneapolis.
While there are many additional examples of police and Black Lives Matter protestors coexisting peacefully, you cannot find many, if any, videos of Ku Klux Klan, white supremacist or armed militia groups, having violent confrontations with police. The injustice harkens back to the very origins of policing in the U.S., in volunteer patrols charged with keeping African-Americans in their place and hunting runaway slaves.
Dating back to the 1600s, the British colonies that would later become the United States enlisted citizens of towns and cities to patrol their own communities and maintain order. Later in the 1700s, early policing evolved into slave patrols, responsible for heading off slave rebellions and preventing enslaved people from escaping. The inception of policing in America was built on keeping black lives in order.
“Policing has a historical base of controlling and containing black people,” Delores Jones-Brown, Professor of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College told Yahoo News. “We can talk about the overseers on plantations, where black [bodies] were controlled, followed by Jim Crow where police were in charge of controlling black people. In some ways everyone knew what was incorrect and immoral, but police were in charge of enforcing this law. There is over 300 years of this.”
Medics and journalists also have been targeted by police and even arrested for doing their jobs. One medic in Brooklyn pleaded to officers as he was arrested for giving first aid to someone. In another instance, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and his crew were arrested while broadcasting live on air in Minneapolis.
While there are many additional examples of police and Black Lives Matter protestors coexisting peacefully, you cannot find many, if any, videos of Ku Klux Klan, white supremacist or armed militia groups, having violent confrontations with police. The injustice harkens back to the very origins of policing in the U.S., in volunteer patrols charged with keeping African-Americans in their place and hunting runaway slaves.
Dating back to the 1600s, the British colonies that would later become the United States enlisted citizens of towns and cities to patrol their own communities and maintain order. Later in the 1700s, early policing evolved into slave patrols, responsible for heading off slave rebellions and preventing enslaved people from escaping. The inception of policing in America was built on keeping black lives in order.
“Policing has a historical base of controlling and containing black people,” Delores Jones-Brown, Professor of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College told Yahoo News. “We can talk about the overseers on plantations, where black [bodies] were controlled, followed by Jim Crow where police were in charge of controlling black people. In some ways everyone knew what was incorrect and immoral, but police were in charge of enforcing this law. There is over 300 years of this.”
July 11, 2009 in Pulaski, Tennessee. (Getty Images)
The first iteration of the KKK came about in the late 1860s, around the Reconstruction era, in southern parts of the U.S. Klan members sought the restoration of white supremacy through intimidation and violence aimed at the newly enfranchised black freedmen. The hate group terrorized black communities by carrying out lynchings and destroying black schools.
In more recent times, there have been disturbing signs of connections between the KKK and some law enforcement agencies and individuals.
In September 2019, a Michigan police officer was fired after KKK memorabilia, including a framed KKK application, was found in his home. The officer said the items were part of his antique collection.
In 2014, a Florida town was rocked by the news that two Fruitland Park police officers were allegedly members of the local KKK. One officer was later fired and the other resigned.
Police officers have been known to post hateful and racist messages on social media or dressing up in black face. One expert who studies hate and extremism says this reflects the systemic racism that runs through every American institution, including policing.
“If we contend that systemic racism runs across institutions in society, including police departments … to the extent that people of color are to be stopped by police, frisked and disproportionately killed in interactions by police, it stands to reason that the [issues] that are brought by citizens have some merit,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino in an interview with Yahoo News. “It stands to reason that the same kind of bias is similar with respect to rallies.”
Levin added that in the wake of tense protests between officers and community members, the only solution is for the two sides to work together towards change, to get beyond the optics of police throwing Black Lives Matter protesters to the ground, and police treating racist mass murderer Dylann Roof, who shot up a prayer meeting at an African-American church, to a meal from Burger King after his arrest.
“What activists have to do as well as police is roll up our sleeves together and figure this out,” Levin said. “This includes the development of self-policing by rallygoers.”
The idea of self-policing and any kind of policing reform is now the subject of a push by many top Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The “Justice in Policing Act” would be the most transformative policing reform legislation of its kind, banning chokeholds in all jurisdictions and requiring local police departments to send data on the use of force to the federal government. Democrats plan to present this bill to the House floor by July 4 — and Republicans plan to present their own plan.
The first iteration of the KKK came about in the late 1860s, around the Reconstruction era, in southern parts of the U.S. Klan members sought the restoration of white supremacy through intimidation and violence aimed at the newly enfranchised black freedmen. The hate group terrorized black communities by carrying out lynchings and destroying black schools.
In more recent times, there have been disturbing signs of connections between the KKK and some law enforcement agencies and individuals.
In September 2019, a Michigan police officer was fired after KKK memorabilia, including a framed KKK application, was found in his home. The officer said the items were part of his antique collection.
In 2014, a Florida town was rocked by the news that two Fruitland Park police officers were allegedly members of the local KKK. One officer was later fired and the other resigned.
Police officers have been known to post hateful and racist messages on social media or dressing up in black face. One expert who studies hate and extremism says this reflects the systemic racism that runs through every American institution, including policing.
“If we contend that systemic racism runs across institutions in society, including police departments … to the extent that people of color are to be stopped by police, frisked and disproportionately killed in interactions by police, it stands to reason that the [issues] that are brought by citizens have some merit,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino in an interview with Yahoo News. “It stands to reason that the same kind of bias is similar with respect to rallies.”
Levin added that in the wake of tense protests between officers and community members, the only solution is for the two sides to work together towards change, to get beyond the optics of police throwing Black Lives Matter protesters to the ground, and police treating racist mass murderer Dylann Roof, who shot up a prayer meeting at an African-American church, to a meal from Burger King after his arrest.
“What activists have to do as well as police is roll up our sleeves together and figure this out,” Levin said. “This includes the development of self-policing by rallygoers.”
The idea of self-policing and any kind of policing reform is now the subject of a push by many top Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The “Justice in Policing Act” would be the most transformative policing reform legislation of its kind, banning chokeholds in all jurisdictions and requiring local police departments to send data on the use of force to the federal government. Democrats plan to present this bill to the House floor by July 4 — and Republicans plan to present their own plan.
Representative Karen Bass, a Democrat from California and chair of the Democratic Black Caucus, and House and Senate Democrats raise their hands when asked about the viability of their bill during a news conference unveiling policing reform and and equal justice legislation at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, June 8, 2020. (Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Despite the evident difference in policing at rallies, and the fact that the KKK has a long history of killing black people dating back to the mid-1800s, President Trump announced last week that he is seeking to label anti-fascist group Antifa as a terrorist organization, not the KKK.
“The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization,” Trump tweeted on May 31.
The only caveat is, he can’t do this. The federal government only has the authority to designate foreign groups as terrorist organizations. There is no domestic terrorism statute under which to label U.S.-based groups.
“We don’t have federal legislation that mandates what the criteria for labeling a domestic terror group is,” Levin said. “We can develop that, but if we are going to do that and allow the government to interfere with peaceful First Amendment activity, do we feel comfortable with them interfering with domestic actors?”
The latter becomes a complex issue of whether to condemn hate or start a precedent of limiting free speech that may be harmful. All the while, the numbers show hate crime is growing. Hate crime hit a 16-year high in 2018, according to an annual FBI report. The biggest spikes in hate crime took place in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, the largest cities in the nation, according to Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
Yet polling shows most Americans sympathize with the nationwide protests. A new Reuters poll found 64 percent of American adults were “sympathetic to people who are out protesting right now,” while 27 percent said they were not and 9 percent were unsure.
The protests have helped energize the Black Lives Matter movement, which has gained newfound momentum since it began in 2013, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of teenager Trayvon Martin. While in its early days it was frequently met with the counter-slogan “All Lives Matter,” BLM is now widely recognized as an appropriate call to redress centuries of injustice, a rallying cry for equality in the name of humanity. The movement has always and continues to seek to “eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes,” according to its website.
A young boy raises his fist for a photo by a family friend during a demonstration over the Minneapolis death of George Floyd while in police custody on May 31, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)
With the latest wave of activism, at least public perception appears to be changing. In 2017, a poll by Reuters/Ipsos/UVA Center for Politics, revealed that 39 percent either strongly or somewhat agree with the idea that white people are the primary victims of racism. Just 32 percent supported Black Lives Matter, which at the time was associated in the public mind with NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who provoked outrage, from President Trump among others, by kneeling during the playing of the national anthem before games to protest police brutality and systemic racism.
A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll has found that a significantly larger number of Americans are changing their minds on NFL sideline protests. A majority of Americans (52 percent) now agree that it is “OK for NFL players to kneel during the national anthem to protest police killings of African Americans.” In 2018, according to another Yahoo News/YouGov poll, only 35 percent agreed with Kaepernick’s right to protest.
Having spent five years as an NYPD officer from 1985-1989, Levin believes that transparency is the only way for the police to regain trust in the public.
“One of the best things police can do is to have greater transparency to enforcement,” he said. “The issue is not only bias we have to address, but addressing standards in policing in which rallies and demonstrations are included. This includes training of different kinds of gatherings. A peaceful demonstration that is fixed is different than one that moves.”
Jones-Brown says President Trump contributes to the problem. “In D.C. you have the leader of the free nation, who doesn’t believe it’s a free nation. And whether overt or thinly veiled, [he consistently] comes out against people of color,” she said. “Police have been emboldened to act out towards black people.”
The world is watching — and joining in — as Americans march for change. Jones-Brown believes history continues to rear its head time and time again at these moments.
“We know there is vitriol from the Blue Lives Matter movement,” she said. “[It’s emphasized by] the position of black people in America and those who say black people should be subordinate. You see people say ‘How dare you?’ And the police have always been the force to keep you in your place.”
_____
Despite the evident difference in policing at rallies, and the fact that the KKK has a long history of killing black people dating back to the mid-1800s, President Trump announced last week that he is seeking to label anti-fascist group Antifa as a terrorist organization, not the KKK.
“The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization,” Trump tweeted on May 31.
The only caveat is, he can’t do this. The federal government only has the authority to designate foreign groups as terrorist organizations. There is no domestic terrorism statute under which to label U.S.-based groups.
“We don’t have federal legislation that mandates what the criteria for labeling a domestic terror group is,” Levin said. “We can develop that, but if we are going to do that and allow the government to interfere with peaceful First Amendment activity, do we feel comfortable with them interfering with domestic actors?”
The latter becomes a complex issue of whether to condemn hate or start a precedent of limiting free speech that may be harmful. All the while, the numbers show hate crime is growing. Hate crime hit a 16-year high in 2018, according to an annual FBI report. The biggest spikes in hate crime took place in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, the largest cities in the nation, according to Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
Yet polling shows most Americans sympathize with the nationwide protests. A new Reuters poll found 64 percent of American adults were “sympathetic to people who are out protesting right now,” while 27 percent said they were not and 9 percent were unsure.
The protests have helped energize the Black Lives Matter movement, which has gained newfound momentum since it began in 2013, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of teenager Trayvon Martin. While in its early days it was frequently met with the counter-slogan “All Lives Matter,” BLM is now widely recognized as an appropriate call to redress centuries of injustice, a rallying cry for equality in the name of humanity. The movement has always and continues to seek to “eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes,” according to its website.
A young boy raises his fist for a photo by a family friend during a demonstration over the Minneapolis death of George Floyd while in police custody on May 31, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)With the latest wave of activism, at least public perception appears to be changing. In 2017, a poll by Reuters/Ipsos/UVA Center for Politics, revealed that 39 percent either strongly or somewhat agree with the idea that white people are the primary victims of racism. Just 32 percent supported Black Lives Matter, which at the time was associated in the public mind with NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who provoked outrage, from President Trump among others, by kneeling during the playing of the national anthem before games to protest police brutality and systemic racism.
A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll has found that a significantly larger number of Americans are changing their minds on NFL sideline protests. A majority of Americans (52 percent) now agree that it is “OK for NFL players to kneel during the national anthem to protest police killings of African Americans.” In 2018, according to another Yahoo News/YouGov poll, only 35 percent agreed with Kaepernick’s right to protest.
Having spent five years as an NYPD officer from 1985-1989, Levin believes that transparency is the only way for the police to regain trust in the public.
“One of the best things police can do is to have greater transparency to enforcement,” he said. “The issue is not only bias we have to address, but addressing standards in policing in which rallies and demonstrations are included. This includes training of different kinds of gatherings. A peaceful demonstration that is fixed is different than one that moves.”
Jones-Brown says President Trump contributes to the problem. “In D.C. you have the leader of the free nation, who doesn’t believe it’s a free nation. And whether overt or thinly veiled, [he consistently] comes out against people of color,” she said. “Police have been emboldened to act out towards black people.”
The world is watching — and joining in — as Americans march for change. Jones-Brown believes history continues to rear its head time and time again at these moments.
“We know there is vitriol from the Blue Lives Matter movement,” she said. “[It’s emphasized by] the position of black people in America and those who say black people should be subordinate. You see people say ‘How dare you?’ And the police have always been the force to keep you in your place.”
_____
Families Challenge Suicide in Deaths of Black Men Found Hanging From Trees
Sandra E. Garcia, The New York Times•June 15, 2020
The families of two black men who were found hanged from trees in Southern California are asking authorities to further investigate their deaths.
The family of Robert L. Fuller, 24, disputed authorities’ initial pronouncement that he died by suicide. The family of Malcolm Harsch, 38, is worried his death will also be ruled a suicide.
Harsch was found at 7 a.m. on May 31 near a homeless encampment in Victorville, California, where bystanders told authorities he was living. There were no indications of foul play but the investigation was continuing, according to a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner’s Department.
The Victorville Fire Department found bystanders performing CPR on Harsch when it arrived at the scene, according to Sue Jones, the public information officer of the city of Victorville. Firefighters took over and tried to restore Harsch’s heartbeat, but they stopped after 20 minutes.
“We grieve for Malcolm’s family and extend our deepest condolences,” Jones said. “Malcolm Harsch’s life mattered.”
Harsch’s relatives were told by the coroner’s office that his autopsy was completed, said Harmonie Harsch, Malcolm Harsch’s sister, but they were not informed of the cause of death.
“We are really just trying to get more answers as to what happened,” Harmonie Harsch, 29, said in an interview Sunday. “My brother was so loving, not only to his family but even strangers. It is not like him.”
Malcolm Harsch moved to California 14 years ago from Ohio, Harmonie Harsch said.
“He loved doing tattoos, he was very artistic,” she added.
Harmonie Harsch said she was conducting her own investigation into her brother’s death.
“It has been stressful,” she said. “It doesn’t sound right.”
Around 50 miles west of Victorville, in Palmdale, California, Fuller’s family questioned authorities’ pronouncement that his death was considered a suicide.
At a rally for Fuller on Saturday, Diamond Alexander, his sister, said through tears that the initial resolution on her brother’s death “did not make sense.”
“Everything that they’ve been telling us has not been right,” she said, according to video of the rally in Palmdale. “We’ve been hearing one thing. Then we hear another. And we just want to know the truth.”
A passerby discovered Fuller’s body hanging from a tree in Poncitlán Square, across from Palmdale City Hall, at around 3:39 a.m. on Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Though the investigation was continuing, authorities noted in their news release that “Mr. Fuller, tragically, committed suicide.” Fuller’s autopsy has not been completed, authorities said.
“My brother was not suicidal,” Alexander said. “He wasn’t.”
The men’s deaths have struck a chord with people in northern Los Angeles County and across the nation as many have protested against racism and police brutality for over two weeks, in response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
A petition demanding for a full investigation into Fuller’s death had over 215,000 signatures as of Sunday afternoon.
At a news conference held by officials at Palmdale City Hall on Friday, residents made it clear that they did not trust that local authorities would properly investigate Fuller’s death. They demanded an independent review and transparency.
“Why was it right here in public, in front of City Hall, next to a church, in front of a library?” one woman said. “Why was it like that? Who would do that? No black man would hang himself in public like that.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company
Families of black men found hanging from trees in California dispute suicide claims
Sandra E. Garcia, The New York Times•June 15, 2020
The families of two black men who were found hanged from trees in Southern California are asking authorities to further investigate their deaths.
The family of Robert L. Fuller, 24, disputed authorities’ initial pronouncement that he died by suicide. The family of Malcolm Harsch, 38, is worried his death will also be ruled a suicide.
Harsch was found at 7 a.m. on May 31 near a homeless encampment in Victorville, California, where bystanders told authorities he was living. There were no indications of foul play but the investigation was continuing, according to a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner’s Department.
The Victorville Fire Department found bystanders performing CPR on Harsch when it arrived at the scene, according to Sue Jones, the public information officer of the city of Victorville. Firefighters took over and tried to restore Harsch’s heartbeat, but they stopped after 20 minutes.
“We grieve for Malcolm’s family and extend our deepest condolences,” Jones said. “Malcolm Harsch’s life mattered.”
Harsch’s relatives were told by the coroner’s office that his autopsy was completed, said Harmonie Harsch, Malcolm Harsch’s sister, but they were not informed of the cause of death.
“We are really just trying to get more answers as to what happened,” Harmonie Harsch, 29, said in an interview Sunday. “My brother was so loving, not only to his family but even strangers. It is not like him.”
Malcolm Harsch moved to California 14 years ago from Ohio, Harmonie Harsch said.
“He loved doing tattoos, he was very artistic,” she added.
Harmonie Harsch said she was conducting her own investigation into her brother’s death.
“It has been stressful,” she said. “It doesn’t sound right.”
Around 50 miles west of Victorville, in Palmdale, California, Fuller’s family questioned authorities’ pronouncement that his death was considered a suicide.
At a rally for Fuller on Saturday, Diamond Alexander, his sister, said through tears that the initial resolution on her brother’s death “did not make sense.”
“Everything that they’ve been telling us has not been right,” she said, according to video of the rally in Palmdale. “We’ve been hearing one thing. Then we hear another. And we just want to know the truth.”
A passerby discovered Fuller’s body hanging from a tree in Poncitlán Square, across from Palmdale City Hall, at around 3:39 a.m. on Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Though the investigation was continuing, authorities noted in their news release that “Mr. Fuller, tragically, committed suicide.” Fuller’s autopsy has not been completed, authorities said.
“My brother was not suicidal,” Alexander said. “He wasn’t.”
The men’s deaths have struck a chord with people in northern Los Angeles County and across the nation as many have protested against racism and police brutality for over two weeks, in response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
A petition demanding for a full investigation into Fuller’s death had over 215,000 signatures as of Sunday afternoon.
At a news conference held by officials at Palmdale City Hall on Friday, residents made it clear that they did not trust that local authorities would properly investigate Fuller’s death. They demanded an independent review and transparency.
“Why was it right here in public, in front of City Hall, next to a church, in front of a library?” one woman said. “Why was it like that? Who would do that? No black man would hang himself in public like that.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company
Tulsa, site of next Trump rally, has a place in the memory of black Americans — a terrible one
Ellis Cose, Yahoo News•June 16, 2020
Black community leaders slam Trump's Juneteenth Tulsa campaign rally
Trump campaign officials knew, according to the Associated Press, that planning a rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Juneteenth, a celebration of African-American emancipation, was offensive. They just didn’t know how offensive. They didn’t realize that some people would put it nearly on par with scheduling a Nazi rally at the gates of Auschwitz on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.
Why is Tulsa’s history so allegorically powerful? Because it showed the debased lengths to which white Americans, well into the 20th century, would go to destroy black lives and crush the hopes of black people for a better life, literally into dust.
According to Trump, his black friends (and I will take him at his word that he has some) convinced him that this Juneteenth, as America endures a huge racial reckoning, might not be the best time for his rabid supporters — some of whom, based on past experience, would come carrying Confederate flags — to descend on Tulsa.
Instead they will gather there the following day, June 20. But for black Americans, the location will still evoke memories of an epic episode of mob violence and racial cleansing.
Ellis Cose, Yahoo News•June 16, 2020
Black community leaders slam Trump's Juneteenth Tulsa campaign rally
Trump campaign officials knew, according to the Associated Press, that planning a rally in Tulsa, Okla., on Juneteenth, a celebration of African-American emancipation, was offensive. They just didn’t know how offensive. They didn’t realize that some people would put it nearly on par with scheduling a Nazi rally at the gates of Auschwitz on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.
Why is Tulsa’s history so allegorically powerful? Because it showed the debased lengths to which white Americans, well into the 20th century, would go to destroy black lives and crush the hopes of black people for a better life, literally into dust.
According to Trump, his black friends (and I will take him at his word that he has some) convinced him that this Juneteenth, as America endures a huge racial reckoning, might not be the best time for his rabid supporters — some of whom, based on past experience, would come carrying Confederate flags — to descend on Tulsa.
Instead they will gather there the following day, June 20. But for black Americans, the location will still evoke memories of an epic episode of mob violence and racial cleansing.
Smoke coming from damaged properties following the Tulsa Race Massacre in June 1921. (Oklahoma Historical Society/Getty Images)
The nightmare began on the evening of May 31, 1921, after rumors raced through Tulsa that a black shoeshine boy had assaulted a 17-year-old white elevator girl. “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In an Elevator” read a Tulsa Tribune headline.
Talk of lynching quickly took root. A mob gathered around the county courthouse where the black teen, Dick Rowland, was being held. The mob screamed for Rowland to be brought out. A small group of black war veterans armed themselves and went to the courthouse, hoping to protect him.
Angry words were exchanged, shots were fired and people lay dead in the street. The mob became an avenging army intent on destroying the Greenwood District, the most prosperous black community in America. The mob was joined by National Guardsmen and police. There were (unverified) reports of police-commandeered planes dropping nitroglycerin bombs as Tulsa’s whites contained what they described as a “negro uprising.”
When the mob was done, a 35-block area had been destroyed and some 10,000 blacks were homeless. The Red Cross, which conducted a major relief operation in the aftermath, estimated the death toll at perhaps 300.
The nightmare began on the evening of May 31, 1921, after rumors raced through Tulsa that a black shoeshine boy had assaulted a 17-year-old white elevator girl. “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In an Elevator” read a Tulsa Tribune headline.
Talk of lynching quickly took root. A mob gathered around the county courthouse where the black teen, Dick Rowland, was being held. The mob screamed for Rowland to be brought out. A small group of black war veterans armed themselves and went to the courthouse, hoping to protect him.
Angry words were exchanged, shots were fired and people lay dead in the street. The mob became an avenging army intent on destroying the Greenwood District, the most prosperous black community in America. The mob was joined by National Guardsmen and police. There were (unverified) reports of police-commandeered planes dropping nitroglycerin bombs as Tulsa’s whites contained what they described as a “negro uprising.”
When the mob was done, a 35-block area had been destroyed and some 10,000 blacks were homeless. The Red Cross, which conducted a major relief operation in the aftermath, estimated the death toll at perhaps 300.
The aftermath of the Tulsa Race Massacre, during which mobs of white residents attacked black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District. (Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
Newspapers of the time attributed the outbreak to the usual suspects. “Negro Reds Started Riots,” shouted the Los Angeles Times. The San Francisco Chronicle blamed “Bolshevik Propaganda.” In a generally sympathetic commentary, the Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out that blacks “fought for their country, just as the whites did. ... But it should not be forgotten that the strain of savagery in the race is not yet eliminated.”
The black-owned Philadelphia Tribune had a different view: “Once again has the attention of the world ... been called to the inhuman and brutal side of the American white man in his dealing with the colored people of this country.”
Tulsa’s was not an isolated incident. In the aftermath of the war to “save democracy,” white Americans set out to eradicate black hopes of equality. In 1919, violent riots had broken out in numerous cities, including Chicago, Washington, D.C, and Omaha. The worst was in the small town of Elaine, Ark.
The Arkansas Democrat blamed black radicals. In truth, those radicals were simple sharecroppers eager to unionize and get a better price for their cotton. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas describes the anarchy there as “by far the deadliest racial confrontation in Arkansas history and possibly the bloodiest racial conflict in the history of the United States.” It says something sad and profound that in neither Tulsa nor Elaine do we even know precisely how many were killed — just that there were a lot.
Whites inevitably blamed the violent outbreaks on blacks. The Chicago Tribune slammed the black press for spreading “propaganda” about racial equality. Such nonsense, concluded the Tribune, “is most generally ascribed to two causes: The presence of negro soldiers in France, where French women of the lower classes accepted them as equals, and the presence of an increasing number of agitators among negroes.”
Newspapers of the time attributed the outbreak to the usual suspects. “Negro Reds Started Riots,” shouted the Los Angeles Times. The San Francisco Chronicle blamed “Bolshevik Propaganda.” In a generally sympathetic commentary, the Philadelphia Inquirer pointed out that blacks “fought for their country, just as the whites did. ... But it should not be forgotten that the strain of savagery in the race is not yet eliminated.”
The black-owned Philadelphia Tribune had a different view: “Once again has the attention of the world ... been called to the inhuman and brutal side of the American white man in his dealing with the colored people of this country.”
Tulsa’s was not an isolated incident. In the aftermath of the war to “save democracy,” white Americans set out to eradicate black hopes of equality. In 1919, violent riots had broken out in numerous cities, including Chicago, Washington, D.C, and Omaha. The worst was in the small town of Elaine, Ark.
The Arkansas Democrat blamed black radicals. In truth, those radicals were simple sharecroppers eager to unionize and get a better price for their cotton. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas describes the anarchy there as “by far the deadliest racial confrontation in Arkansas history and possibly the bloodiest racial conflict in the history of the United States.” It says something sad and profound that in neither Tulsa nor Elaine do we even know precisely how many were killed — just that there were a lot.
Whites inevitably blamed the violent outbreaks on blacks. The Chicago Tribune slammed the black press for spreading “propaganda” about racial equality. Such nonsense, concluded the Tribune, “is most generally ascribed to two causes: The presence of negro soldiers in France, where French women of the lower classes accepted them as equals, and the presence of an increasing number of agitators among negroes.”
National Guard troops, carrying rifles with bayonets attached, escort unarmed African-American men to a detention center after the Tulsa Race Massacre. (Oklahoma Historical Society/Getty Images)
A century later, at long last, we seem prepared to remember those long-redacted chapters of history free of the denial, excuses and victim blaming of the past. Encouragingly, substantial numbers of whites are listening to black peers. Several years ago I wrote “The Rage of a Privileged Class,” a book explaining the intense frustration experienced by America’s rising black middle class. I advised black readers about the danger of pointing out racism at work. In all likelihood, I warned, such behavior would be met with a white wall of denial that might destroy their careers.
In the wake of the police killings of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks, and of countless videos documenting racial bias, whites are finally accepting the fact that blacks have not been lying all these years. Finally, we are seriously debating whether the price of social order is the loss of so many black lives.
But there is an even deeper question. Why have we embraced an approach to policing that results in the deaths of so many civilians, white as well as black? European police typically kill a fraction of the number of people per capita that American cops do. World Population Review calculated that American cops kill at a rate of 28.4 per 10 million people annually, compared with a rate of 3.8 in France, 1.3 in Germany and 0.5 in the United Kingdom. In Norway, Denmark and Iceland, the number of people killed by police in a typical year is zero. In Iceland, cops don’t even carry guns.
Last year in Norway, after an eight-hour standoff, police shot a man wielding a machete and a chain saw. His was the first police fatality of the year. Norway Today noted that police had fatally shot only five people in 15 years. In all such cases, the person was armed.
When I asked a Norwegian journalist about the difference in American and Norwegian statistics, she replied, “Police violence has never been an issue here. Actually, we mostly regard the U.S. handling of so many things as both extremely uncivilized and immature.”
There is a rich irony in our current reality, which finds us governed by the most dishonest, least grown-up president in history as we finally face some difficult truths — and perhaps take some tenuous steps toward maturity.
****
Ellis Cose is the author of “Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLU’s 100-Year Fight for Rights in America” (from which parts of this article are drawn) and “The Short Life and Curious Death of Free Speech in America,” both due out this year. https://elliscose.com/ Twitter: @EllisCose.
Tulsa Race Massacre / The Tulsa World Library
See all of the coverage of the race massacre in this special report.
A century later, at long last, we seem prepared to remember those long-redacted chapters of history free of the denial, excuses and victim blaming of the past. Encouragingly, substantial numbers of whites are listening to black peers. Several years ago I wrote “The Rage of a Privileged Class,” a book explaining the intense frustration experienced by America’s rising black middle class. I advised black readers about the danger of pointing out racism at work. In all likelihood, I warned, such behavior would be met with a white wall of denial that might destroy their careers.
In the wake of the police killings of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks, and of countless videos documenting racial bias, whites are finally accepting the fact that blacks have not been lying all these years. Finally, we are seriously debating whether the price of social order is the loss of so many black lives.
But there is an even deeper question. Why have we embraced an approach to policing that results in the deaths of so many civilians, white as well as black? European police typically kill a fraction of the number of people per capita that American cops do. World Population Review calculated that American cops kill at a rate of 28.4 per 10 million people annually, compared with a rate of 3.8 in France, 1.3 in Germany and 0.5 in the United Kingdom. In Norway, Denmark and Iceland, the number of people killed by police in a typical year is zero. In Iceland, cops don’t even carry guns.
Last year in Norway, after an eight-hour standoff, police shot a man wielding a machete and a chain saw. His was the first police fatality of the year. Norway Today noted that police had fatally shot only five people in 15 years. In all such cases, the person was armed.
When I asked a Norwegian journalist about the difference in American and Norwegian statistics, she replied, “Police violence has never been an issue here. Actually, we mostly regard the U.S. handling of so many things as both extremely uncivilized and immature.”
There is a rich irony in our current reality, which finds us governed by the most dishonest, least grown-up president in history as we finally face some difficult truths — and perhaps take some tenuous steps toward maturity.
****
Ellis Cose is the author of “Democracy, If We Can Keep It: The ACLU’s 100-Year Fight for Rights in America” (from which parts of this article are drawn) and “The Short Life and Curious Death of Free Speech in America,” both due out this year. https://elliscose.com/ Twitter: @EllisCose.
Tulsa Race Massacre / The Tulsa World Library
See all of the coverage of the race massacre in this special report.
Tulsa World editorial: This is the wrong time and Tulsa is the wrong place for the Trump rally
Donald Trump addresses a crowd during his rally at the Mabee Center in Tulsa on Jan. 20, 2016.
IAN MAULE/Tulsa World
President Donald Trump is coming to town this week for a campaign rally.
It will be his first since such events were suspended earlier this year because of the COVID-19 shutdown.
We don’t know why he chose Tulsa, but we can’t see any way that his visit will be good for the city.
Tulsa is still dealing with the challenges created by a pandemic. The city and state have authorized reopening, but that doesn’t make a mass indoor gathering of people pressed closely together and cheering a good idea. There is no treatment for COVID-19 and no vaccine. It will be our health care system that will have to deal with whatever effects follow.
The public health concern would apply whether it were Donald Trump, Joe Biden or anyone else who was planning a mass rally at the BOK.
This is the wrong time.
Tulsa and the nation remain on edge after the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Trump, a divisive figure, will attract protests, the vast majority of which we expect to be peaceful. But there may also be confrontation and inappropriate behavior from some. His 2016 Tulsa rally provoked a heated response for some, and his ability to provoke opponents has only grown since then.
Again, Tulsa will be largely alone in dealing with what happens at a time when the city’s budget resources have already been stretched thin.
There’s no reason to think a Trump appearance in Tulsa will have any effect on November’s election outcome in Tulsa or Oklahoma. It has already concentrated the world’s attention of the fact that Trump will be rallying in a city that 99 years ago was the site of a bloody race massacre.
This is the wrong place for the rally.
When the president of the United States visits your city, it should be exciting. We think a Trump visit will be, but for a lot of the wrong reasons, and we can’t welcome it.
Larry Kudlow Vows End To $600 Unemployment Aid As 'Disincentive' To Work
THE REAL DISINCENTIVE TO WORK IS THE FAILURE OF EMPLOYERS TO PAY A LIVING WAGE
Mary Papenfuss, HuffPost•June 14, 2020
President Donald Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Sunday vowed an end to an extra $600 a week in unemployment payments for the jobless, calling it a “disincentive to work” — assuming there is work.
Kudlow’s dismissive attitude about the payments amid massive unemployment amid the COVID-19 pandemic was a dramatic contrast to his defense of the Payment Protection Plan for businesses, which can use the forgivable public loans to pay exorbitant executive salaries.
He insisted to Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the extra unemployment aid “might have worked for the first couple of months,” but “it’ll end in late July.”
Kudlow insisted that “almost all businesses ... understand” that the $600 additional benefit is “a disincentive” to work. “I mean we’re paying people” without jobs “not to work,” he added. “It’s better than their salaries would get.”
He said the Trump administration is considering a “reform measure” that might provide an incentive to return to work — but that it won’t be as much.
The extra aid is in addition to regular unemployment payments that can be as low as an average of $250 a week in some states.
Kudlow’s comment assumes there will be jobs for everyone now collecting on unemployment, even though many experts predict jobless numbers will remain in the double digits at least until year’s end.
Tapper said he has a “tough time really believing that people don’t want to go back to work.” He also pointed out that some workers’ jobs aren’t coming back, which Kudlow called a “fair” point.
“I personally agree with you; I think people want to go back to work,” Kudlow added, undercutting his own claim.
The mediocre aid to the average worker came up as Kudlow staunchly defended the Trump administration’s refusal to reveal the recipients of some $500 billion in PPP aid to business owners — even though Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin promised the massive taxpayer aid would be “transparent.”
PPP loans become grants if the money is spent on particular costs, such as rent, utilities and payroll — including salaries up to $100,000. Only 9% of Americans earn $100,000 a year or more, leaving the 91% of taxpayers who earn less to subsidize the top rate covered by public PPP funds.
Tens of millions of PPP dollars are going to prop up wages in wealthy publicly traded corporations and companies owned by wealthy Trump donors.
The Heroes Act passed by the House would extend the $600 additional weekly unemployment benefit for workers through the end of January 2021. No similar legislation has been passed by the Senate.
THE REAL DISINCENTIVE TO WORK IS THE FAILURE OF EMPLOYERS TO PAY A LIVING WAGE
President Donald Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Sunday vowed an end to an extra $600 a week in unemployment payments for the jobless, calling it a “disincentive to work” — assuming there is work.
Kudlow’s dismissive attitude about the payments amid massive unemployment amid the COVID-19 pandemic was a dramatic contrast to his defense of the Payment Protection Plan for businesses, which can use the forgivable public loans to pay exorbitant executive salaries.
He insisted to Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the extra unemployment aid “might have worked for the first couple of months,” but “it’ll end in late July.”
Kudlow insisted that “almost all businesses ... understand” that the $600 additional benefit is “a disincentive” to work. “I mean we’re paying people” without jobs “not to work,” he added. “It’s better than their salaries would get.”
He said the Trump administration is considering a “reform measure” that might provide an incentive to return to work — but that it won’t be as much.
The extra aid is in addition to regular unemployment payments that can be as low as an average of $250 a week in some states.
Kudlow’s comment assumes there will be jobs for everyone now collecting on unemployment, even though many experts predict jobless numbers will remain in the double digits at least until year’s end.
Tapper said he has a “tough time really believing that people don’t want to go back to work.” He also pointed out that some workers’ jobs aren’t coming back, which Kudlow called a “fair” point.
“I personally agree with you; I think people want to go back to work,” Kudlow added, undercutting his own claim.
The mediocre aid to the average worker came up as Kudlow staunchly defended the Trump administration’s refusal to reveal the recipients of some $500 billion in PPP aid to business owners — even though Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin promised the massive taxpayer aid would be “transparent.”
PPP loans become grants if the money is spent on particular costs, such as rent, utilities and payroll — including salaries up to $100,000. Only 9% of Americans earn $100,000 a year or more, leaving the 91% of taxpayers who earn less to subsidize the top rate covered by public PPP funds.
Tens of millions of PPP dollars are going to prop up wages in wealthy publicly traded corporations and companies owned by wealthy Trump donors.
The Heroes Act passed by the House would extend the $600 additional weekly unemployment benefit for workers through the end of January 2021. No similar legislation has been passed by the Senate.
Monday, June 15, 2020
No justice, no peace: Why SOME*** Catholic priests are kneeling with George Floyd protesters
Anna L. Peterson, Professor of Religion, University of Florida,
The Conversation•June 15, 2020
Fr. Joseph Rahal of Washington, D.C. honors George Floyd on Friday, June 5, 2020. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Liberation at any cost BUT NOT LIBERATION THEOLOGY
Pope Paul’s rhetoric echoed a core principle of liberation theology, a Catholic movement that was emerging from Latin America around the same time.
Liberation theologians see violence not as an individual flaw but as a feature of unjust social or political structures. This “institutionalized violence,” as the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez termed it, is the root cause of all violence – including government repression and popular uprisings against that repression.
The best way to avoid violence, as the Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador wrote in 1979, is “to guarantee a truly democratic state, one that defends the fundamental rights of all its citizens, based on a just economic order.”
Under Romero’s leadership, large sectors of the Salvadoran Catholic Church backed the popular uprising against the country’s oppressive military regime in what became the Salvadoran Civil War. Catholic leaders and laypeople also supported opposition movements in Nicaragua, Brazil, Chile and other Latin American countries.
Romero, who was assassinated in 1980, became a Catholic saint in 2018.
Not ‘both sides’
Liberation theologians believe that those seeking change should employ peaceful methods whenever possible. But when nonviolent protests and legislative channels prove fruitless or are met with violence, new tactics might be necessary.
“The church cannot state, in a simplistic fashion, that it condemns every kind of violence,” Romero wrote.
Romero criticized Salvadoran “moderates” who saw violence on both sides of the country’s civil war as equally wrong, implying a moral equality between those who uphold injustices and those who challenge them. The church, he insisted, must side with the victims of institutionalized violence.
This principle, known as the “preferential option for the poor,” guided Bishop Seitz’s decision to protest in El Paso.
“When religion becomes stagnant, we can forget that the Word always comes to us crucified and powerless,” Seitz told the National Catholic Reporter on June 4 to explain his silent protest. In Christian tradition, “the Word” refers to Jesus, the word of God incarnate.
Seitz then cited the prominent midcentury theologian James Cone, who said U.S. Christians must fight for racial justice because, “In America, the Word comes tortured, black and lynched.”
This isn’t the first time Seitz has sided with society’s most marginalized. In March 2019, he apologized to migrants for their treatment at the U.S.-Texas border.
“To say…that black lives matter is just another way of repeating something we in the United States seem to so often forget,” Seitz continued: “That God has a special love for the forgotten and oppressed.”
[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.
Anna L. Peterson, Professor of Religion, University of Florida,
The Conversation•June 15, 2020
Bishop Mark Seitz and priests from his diocese knelt for 8 minutes and 46 seconds to honor George Floyd, El Paso, June 1, 2020. Courtesy of Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters, CC BY-ND
Two days after the Catholic bishop of El Paso, Mark Seitz, knelt with a dozen other priests in a silent prayer for George Floyd holding a “Black Lives Matter” sign, he received a phone call from Pope Francis.
In an earlier era Seitz, the first known Catholic bishop to join the anti-racism protests spurred by Floyd’s killing, might have expected censure from the Vatican, which is often associated with social conservatism.
Instead, Steitz told the Texas news site El Paso Matters, the pope “thanked me.”
Days earlier Pope Francis had posted a message to Americans on the Vatican’s website saying he “witnessed with great concern the disturbing social unrest” in the United States and calling Floyd’s death “tragic.”
“My friends,” he wrote, “we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life.”
Francis is seen as a progressive pope, but these are not isolated examples of his personal values. As a scholar of religion and politics, I recognize that both Steitz’s actions and the pope’s approval reflect a distinctive commitment to social justice that has entered the Catholic mainstream over the past 50 years.
Two days after the Catholic bishop of El Paso, Mark Seitz, knelt with a dozen other priests in a silent prayer for George Floyd holding a “Black Lives Matter” sign, he received a phone call from Pope Francis.
In an earlier era Seitz, the first known Catholic bishop to join the anti-racism protests spurred by Floyd’s killing, might have expected censure from the Vatican, which is often associated with social conservatism.
Instead, Steitz told the Texas news site El Paso Matters, the pope “thanked me.”
Days earlier Pope Francis had posted a message to Americans on the Vatican’s website saying he “witnessed with great concern the disturbing social unrest” in the United States and calling Floyd’s death “tragic.”
“My friends,” he wrote, “we cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life.”
Francis is seen as a progressive pope, but these are not isolated examples of his personal values. As a scholar of religion and politics, I recognize that both Steitz’s actions and the pope’s approval reflect a distinctive commitment to social justice that has entered the Catholic mainstream over the past 50 years.
Changing social role
This commitment has transformed a millennia-old Catholic tradition of valuing peace over justice.
Writing in the chaos surrounding the fall of the Roman Empire, the prominent fifth-century theologian St. Augustine asserted that peace was the greatest good humans can attain on Earth. While both peace and justice are valuable, Augustine believed, peace – meaning civil order – takes priority. He thought justice could not be sustained amid violence.
Many bishops, priests and theologians since Augustine have used similar arguments to criticize social changes and legitimize the status quo, insisting that the faithful should bear worldly injustices and seek their reward in heaven. This moral theology provided justification for the church to ally with economic, political and military elites, from medieval kings to Latin American dictators.
That began to change with the Second Vatican Council of 1962 to 1965, which brought together bishops from around the world to reevaluate the church’s role in modern society. The council’s final document sided firmly with social justice.
Inverting Augustine’s thinking, Catholic bishops asserted that peace cannot “be reduced to the maintenance of a balance of power between enemies.” The only way to achieve lasting peace, they asserted, was to address the sources of unrest.
As Pope Paul VI stated in 1972: “If you want peace, work for justice.”
This commitment has transformed a millennia-old Catholic tradition of valuing peace over justice.
Writing in the chaos surrounding the fall of the Roman Empire, the prominent fifth-century theologian St. Augustine asserted that peace was the greatest good humans can attain on Earth. While both peace and justice are valuable, Augustine believed, peace – meaning civil order – takes priority. He thought justice could not be sustained amid violence.
Many bishops, priests and theologians since Augustine have used similar arguments to criticize social changes and legitimize the status quo, insisting that the faithful should bear worldly injustices and seek their reward in heaven. This moral theology provided justification for the church to ally with economic, political and military elites, from medieval kings to Latin American dictators.
That began to change with the Second Vatican Council of 1962 to 1965, which brought together bishops from around the world to reevaluate the church’s role in modern society. The council’s final document sided firmly with social justice.
Inverting Augustine’s thinking, Catholic bishops asserted that peace cannot “be reduced to the maintenance of a balance of power between enemies.” The only way to achieve lasting peace, they asserted, was to address the sources of unrest.
As Pope Paul VI stated in 1972: “If you want peace, work for justice.”
Fr. Joseph Rahal of Washington, D.C. honors George Floyd on Friday, June 5, 2020. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesLiberation at any cost BUT NOT LIBERATION THEOLOGY
Pope Paul’s rhetoric echoed a core principle of liberation theology, a Catholic movement that was emerging from Latin America around the same time.
Liberation theologians see violence not as an individual flaw but as a feature of unjust social or political structures. This “institutionalized violence,” as the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez termed it, is the root cause of all violence – including government repression and popular uprisings against that repression.
The best way to avoid violence, as the Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador wrote in 1979, is “to guarantee a truly democratic state, one that defends the fundamental rights of all its citizens, based on a just economic order.”
Under Romero’s leadership, large sectors of the Salvadoran Catholic Church backed the popular uprising against the country’s oppressive military regime in what became the Salvadoran Civil War. Catholic leaders and laypeople also supported opposition movements in Nicaragua, Brazil, Chile and other Latin American countries.
Romero, who was assassinated in 1980, became a Catholic saint in 2018.
Not ‘both sides’
Liberation theologians believe that those seeking change should employ peaceful methods whenever possible. But when nonviolent protests and legislative channels prove fruitless or are met with violence, new tactics might be necessary.
“The church cannot state, in a simplistic fashion, that it condemns every kind of violence,” Romero wrote.
Romero criticized Salvadoran “moderates” who saw violence on both sides of the country’s civil war as equally wrong, implying a moral equality between those who uphold injustices and those who challenge them. The church, he insisted, must side with the victims of institutionalized violence.
This principle, known as the “preferential option for the poor,” guided Bishop Seitz’s decision to protest in El Paso.
“When religion becomes stagnant, we can forget that the Word always comes to us crucified and powerless,” Seitz told the National Catholic Reporter on June 4 to explain his silent protest. In Christian tradition, “the Word” refers to Jesus, the word of God incarnate.
Seitz then cited the prominent midcentury theologian James Cone, who said U.S. Christians must fight for racial justice because, “In America, the Word comes tortured, black and lynched.”
This isn’t the first time Seitz has sided with society’s most marginalized. In March 2019, he apologized to migrants for their treatment at the U.S.-Texas border.
“To say…that black lives matter is just another way of repeating something we in the United States seem to so often forget,” Seitz continued: “That God has a special love for the forgotten and oppressed.”
[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.
*** THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE AMERICAN CARDINALS OR ARCHBISHOPS WHOSE REIGN IS IN THE MATERIAL WORLD RUNNING VATICAN CORPORATE AND BANKING INTERESTS.
Reconsider reparations. We need them morally and economically, and we can afford them.
Ross K. Baker, Opinion columnist,
USA TODAY Opinion•June 14, 2020
I attended recently a rally in my town that should have left me filled with hope. I heard a policeman telling a neighbor that he estimated the crowd to be more than a thousand people — that’s about 10% of the town’s population.
Even more inspiring was the abundance of young people in the throng. But their signs and placards bore slogans that I’ve seen for years in demonstrations, and the chants and slogans sounded all too familiar: “Black Lives Matter,” “No Justice, No Peace,” “I Can’t Breathe.” And as I thought about this outpouring of grief for the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police, what first came to mind is how little lasting influence demonstrations such as this one have had beyond letting people vent some steam and make others feel virtuous. What remains of them is a lot of debris to clean up but no serious changes in public policy.
I’m not an inveterate demonstration attendee, but having taught at a university for 50 years, I’ve seen my share of them. Yet I have come to question whether anyone out there is listening. The Vietnam War ended when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger wanted it to end, not because of public indignation over the uprisings after the Kent State or Orangeburg massacres.
Black Americans need real progress
The results of the demonstrations following the deaths of black Americans at the hands of police, for all of their grief and passion, have left this 13% of America pretty much where it has always been: poor, sick, living in substandard housing and viewed by many whites as either pitiable or ominous. So much of what has afflicted this community can be ascribed to one burden that they bear disproportionately: poverty, and without the wherewithal to advance economically.
Across generations, for example, African Americans have been paying rent to landlords to keep a roof over their heads. Only about 40% of black Americans own their homes compared to about 70% of whites. The simple inability to purchase a house and benefit from its appreciation in value has deprived so many of them access to a tangible asset.
In Over-the-Rhine, Ohio, on June 7, 2020.
Homeownership gives all people a stake in their community and a proprietary interest in its safety and prosperity. And it doesn’t have to be a three-bedroom home on a quarter-acre lot, it could be a person’s very own space in a high-rise with the wherewithal to trade up to something bigger and better.
Solutions are obvious: Pandemic and police killings reveal brutal status quo. We can fix this. Why won't we?
For those who have been critical of the rioting and looting in the aftermath of the deaths of African Americans, it is useful to note that people who demonstrate in the aftermath of these killings may get angry but if they have a stake in the system are less inclined to vandalism and arson. Having a job is another stake, and in 2018, black unemployment was almost double that of whites and creates a pool of people with nothing to lose. While the only systematic study of why people loot is 50 years old, as University of Michigan political scientist Christian Davenport told The Atlantic, “The best way to prevent looting is to provide people with a living wage, provide for their basic needs, treat them with human dignity, and facilitate a life that is about thriving.”
Reparations don't seem extravagant
I once thought that reparations were a terrible idea, as likely to generate resentment among whites as to be welcomed by Black people. Money alone can never be sufficient atonement for slavery; it is a crime for which no living person can be made whole. But the possibility of a single endowment for tens of millions of people no longer seems extravagant at a time when the federal government is shoveling trillions of dollars out the door to sustain a crippled economy.
A targeted investment in a group of our fellow citizens who are descendants of those who endured a monumental injustice can certainly be justified. And it would be a shot in arm to the economy by boosting the purchasing power of tens of millions of Black Americans.
America's overdue reckoning with white supremacy: 'We have allowed evil to flourish'
The recipients should be those who can trace their roots to an enslaved ancestor. That should not be difficult to establish given the explosion of genealogical services, such as Ancestry.com. Skin color alone should not qualify. The compensation would not go to recent immigrants from Somalia or anyone whose ancestors emigrated from Africa of their own free will, although it would include the offspring of such people who married the descendants of the formerly enslaved.
There is an obvious precedent for reparations to black Americans in the legislation that compensated Japanese Americans for their internment during World War II. The principles are identical. The only difference would be the scope of the indemnification; $1.6 billion was paid in reparations to over 82,000 Japanese Americans.
Bills to study how a reparations program might work are pending in the Senate and House, and gathering Democratic co-sponsors. Perhaps the indignation unleashed by the killing of George Floyd will prompt more members from the other side of the aisle to support efforts to right a historic wrong.
Ross K. Baker is a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter: @Rosbake1.
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Reparations would help right a historic wrong and we can afford them
Homeownership gives all people a stake in their community and a proprietary interest in its safety and prosperity. And it doesn’t have to be a three-bedroom home on a quarter-acre lot, it could be a person’s very own space in a high-rise with the wherewithal to trade up to something bigger and better.
Solutions are obvious: Pandemic and police killings reveal brutal status quo. We can fix this. Why won't we?
For those who have been critical of the rioting and looting in the aftermath of the deaths of African Americans, it is useful to note that people who demonstrate in the aftermath of these killings may get angry but if they have a stake in the system are less inclined to vandalism and arson. Having a job is another stake, and in 2018, black unemployment was almost double that of whites and creates a pool of people with nothing to lose. While the only systematic study of why people loot is 50 years old, as University of Michigan political scientist Christian Davenport told The Atlantic, “The best way to prevent looting is to provide people with a living wage, provide for their basic needs, treat them with human dignity, and facilitate a life that is about thriving.”
Reparations don't seem extravagant
I once thought that reparations were a terrible idea, as likely to generate resentment among whites as to be welcomed by Black people. Money alone can never be sufficient atonement for slavery; it is a crime for which no living person can be made whole. But the possibility of a single endowment for tens of millions of people no longer seems extravagant at a time when the federal government is shoveling trillions of dollars out the door to sustain a crippled economy.
A targeted investment in a group of our fellow citizens who are descendants of those who endured a monumental injustice can certainly be justified. And it would be a shot in arm to the economy by boosting the purchasing power of tens of millions of Black Americans.
America's overdue reckoning with white supremacy: 'We have allowed evil to flourish'
The recipients should be those who can trace their roots to an enslaved ancestor. That should not be difficult to establish given the explosion of genealogical services, such as Ancestry.com. Skin color alone should not qualify. The compensation would not go to recent immigrants from Somalia or anyone whose ancestors emigrated from Africa of their own free will, although it would include the offspring of such people who married the descendants of the formerly enslaved.
There is an obvious precedent for reparations to black Americans in the legislation that compensated Japanese Americans for their internment during World War II. The principles are identical. The only difference would be the scope of the indemnification; $1.6 billion was paid in reparations to over 82,000 Japanese Americans.
Bills to study how a reparations program might work are pending in the Senate and House, and gathering Democratic co-sponsors. Perhaps the indignation unleashed by the killing of George Floyd will prompt more members from the other side of the aisle to support efforts to right a historic wrong.
Ross K. Baker is a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers University and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter: @Rosbake1.
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Reparations would help right a historic wrong and we can afford them
John Cleese Jabs At Fox News’ Monty Python Ignorance After Anchor Confuses ‘Holy Grail’ Line With Seattle CHAZ Report – Update
Bruce Haring June 15, 2020
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Click here to read the full article.
Update, with John Cleese response Monty Python co-founder John Cleese has taken note of Fox News’ Python cluelessness, tweeting, “BREAKING: No one @FoxNews has ever seen @montypython & The Holy Grail. #runit #goodjournalism #factchecking.”
See the Cleese tweet below.
More from Deadline
Bruce Haring June 15, 2020
WE ANARCHO-SYNDICALISTS LOVE THIS MOVIE
View photos
Click here to read the full article.
Update, with John Cleese response Monty Python co-founder John Cleese has taken note of Fox News’ Python cluelessness, tweeting, “BREAKING: No one @FoxNews has ever seen @montypython & The Holy Grail. #runit #goodjournalism #factchecking.”
See the Cleese tweet below.
More from Deadline
Fox News Apologizes For Infographic That Showed Stock Market Gains After Martin Luther King Assassination, Other Moments Racial Unrest
Previous, Sunday Fox News confused a social media post quoting a line from the film Monty Python & The Holy Grail with a report about in-fighting in the Seattle Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ).
On Friday, Fox’s Martha MacCallum reported on the network’s show The Story that there was evidence of problems between the leaders of the Seattle protest camp.The CHAZ is a six-block area in Seattle where Black Lives Matter protesters have taken over.
MacCallum’s report showed an image of a Reddit post that was headlined, “I didn’t vote for Raz.” Fox apparently thought it was a reference to Raz Simone, a rapper who has been identified as an unofficial leader of the CHAZ.
Accompanying the image was the suggestion that “infighting among some of the occupiers and some signs of rebellion against Raz Simone.”
Unfortunately, the post was not a reference to the CHAZ, but was a quote from the 1975 comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
In the film, Terry Jones and Michael Palin say they are members of ‘an autonomous collective.’
‘We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune,’ says Palin’s character.
Fox and MacCallum also did not report on the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.
BREAKING: No one @FoxNews has ever seen @montypython & The Holy Grail. 😂 #runit #goodjournalism #factchecking pic.twitter.com/46sKRh4qQi
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) June 15, 2020
Previous, Sunday Fox News confused a social media post quoting a line from the film Monty Python & The Holy Grail with a report about in-fighting in the Seattle Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ).
On Friday, Fox’s Martha MacCallum reported on the network’s show The Story that there was evidence of problems between the leaders of the Seattle protest camp.The CHAZ is a six-block area in Seattle where Black Lives Matter protesters have taken over.
MacCallum’s report showed an image of a Reddit post that was headlined, “I didn’t vote for Raz.” Fox apparently thought it was a reference to Raz Simone, a rapper who has been identified as an unofficial leader of the CHAZ.
Accompanying the image was the suggestion that “infighting among some of the occupiers and some signs of rebellion against Raz Simone.”
Unfortunately, the post was not a reference to the CHAZ, but was a quote from the 1975 comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
In the film, Terry Jones and Michael Palin say they are members of ‘an autonomous collective.’
‘We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune,’ says Palin’s character.
Fox and MacCallum also did not report on the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.
BREAKING: No one @FoxNews has ever seen @montypython & The Holy Grail. 😂 #runit #goodjournalism #factchecking pic.twitter.com/46sKRh4qQi
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) June 15, 2020
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