Apple tells workers they have right to discuss wages, working conditions

Julia Love
Sat, November 20, 2021,


FILE PHOTO: Apple logo at an Apple store in Paris


By Julia Loe

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple delivered a message to employees on Friday that was striking given its reputation for secrecy: a reminder that workers may discuss wages, hours and working conditions.

The notice came as some employees have been pushing Apple to do more to ensure there are no unfair gaps in pay across the company.

In a post on an internal site, Apple said its policies do not preclude employees from "speaking freely" about working conditions, according to a copy of the message viewed by Reuters.

"We encourage any employee with concerns to raise them in the way they feel most comfortable, internally or externally," the post states.

A spokesperson for Apple declined to comment.

Apple's business conduct policy already included language stating that workers were not restricted in their ability to discuss wages, hours and working conditions, which is generally protected under U.S. law.

But employees who have spoken out in recent months have faced resistance, said former Apple program manager Janneke Parrish.

Parrish, who was fired after playing a leading role in employee activism, said she is hopeful that Apple's message will ease the path for others.

"The first step is making sure people are aware of their rights," she said.

Apple has previously said it does not discuss specific employee matters and is "deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace."

The move comes amid a broader push by Silicon Valley workers to speak out about their working conditions and the impact of technology on society.

Earlier this week, another prominent activist, Apple software engineer Cher Scarlett, wrote on Twitter that she is leaving the company.

Scarlett filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that Apple halted discussions of pay among employees. Her lawyer, Aleksandr Felstiner, said the matter had been settled and the charge would be withdrawn. Scarlett said she could not comment.


Scarlett and Parrish worked together on "#AppleToo," a group through which current and former employees have been sharing stories of what they call harassment and discrimination.

Apple is known for its secretive culture, intended to keep details of new products under wraps. Employees sometimes are unaware of their right to speak about topics such as pay and working conditions, Parrish said.

Ashley Gjovik, a senior engineering program manager who was fired by Apple in September after raising concerns about harassment and workplace safety, has filed NLRB charges in which she alleges that Apple policies violate the National Labor Relations Act.


(Reporting by Julia Love; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

A Florida school board member filed a police report over a Black and LGBTQ memoir, igniting a debate over banning books



Skyler Swisher, Orlando Sentinel
Sun, November 21, 2021, 6:01 PM·4 min read

ORLANDO, Fla. — A memoir that explores race and sexuality has ignited a contentious debate over book banning with a Flagler County School Board member filing a criminal complaint that accused the district of breaking obscenity laws.

“All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto” is generating national controversy because of its sexual content. The memoir features author George M. Johnson’s reflections on growing up Black and queer.

School Board member Jill Woolbright filed a criminal complaint, telling a deputy that she thought it was “a crime to have the book in the [district’s] media centers” and demanding that the people who put it there be held “accountable.”

The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office dismissed the complaint Friday, but the community remains embroiled in a heated debate over whether the book should be available in school libraries. It has sparked hours of back-and-forth discussion at school board meetings.

Johnson, who uses the pronouns they/them, said the memoir is geared toward 14- to 18-year-olds. While the work includes descriptions of oral sex, anal sex and masturbation, Johnson said they are in the context of consent, sexual abuse, gender identity, toxic masculinity, emotional trauma and other important issues facing teenagers.

Johnson said the book gives teenagers a road map for recognizing and dealing with trauma and abuse, as well as avoiding mistakes the author made growing up.

“My book is 320 pages, and everyone is pigeonholing it based on two excerpts,” Johnson said. “It is important that people realize that this book has a wealth of additional information that young adults will deal with and go through. This is a learning tool introducing heavy topics.”

School libraries should reflect the entire community, including the experiences of LGBTQ and Black youth, Johnson said.

“I am trying to communicate to young adults that I too have been in their shoes,” Johnson said. “I am hoping my book and my words give them the agency to name the things they have been through and prepares them for the things they are going to go through.”

The book was removed from circulation at Flagler-Palm Coast and Matanzas high schools, and a panel is being assembled to review its contents, said Jason Wheeler, a spokesperson for Flagler County Public Schools. The book was also briefly on the shelves at Buddy Taylor Middle School but was pulled following an internal review that predated Woolbright’s complaint filed with law enforcement, he said.

“We do not currently have a specific date as to when the review process will be complete,” Wheeler said. “All I can say is that a review team is in the process of being assembled and then they will begin their work.”

Investigators with the Sheriff’s Office determined that Woolbright’s complaint did not meet the “threshold of a criminal offense,” Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said in a prepared statement. Florida law specifies that materials must “lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value” when taken as a whole to be considered obscene.

“The Sheriff’s Office does not determine what material is appropriate for the students of Flagler County,” Staly said.

“All Boys Aren’t Blue” has been challenged for its descriptions of sex, but it’s also garnered literary praise, landing on best books of the year lists compiled by Amazon, the New York Public Library and the Chicago Public Library.

Instead of harming teenagers, books with heavy topics give them the tools to understand issues they will face in life, Johnson said.

“It is not that young adults won’t experience this,” Johnson said.

Woolbright did not respond to a phone message and email seeking comment on Friday. She told deputies she raised her concerns about the book with the school superintendent on Nov. 2. In a school board workshop on Tuesday, Woolbright said she notified law enforcement because she didn’t think the matter was being adequately handled by school officials and felt “statutorily” responsible to report what she considered to be a crime.

“In my opinion, and I am not an attorney, it qualifies as obscenity, and if it qualifies as obscenity, it is prohibited,” Woolbright said during the meeting.

Earlier this month, Orange County Public Schools yanked another controversial book from its shelves called “Gender Queer: A Memoir” amid concerns over sexual images.

Johnson said efforts to ban books are only drawing more people to read them.

“Once you tell someone this is forbidden, it only tempts them more to want to read it, to taste the forbidden fruit,” Johnson said. “Their attempts to ban it are only tempting more people to want to read the book.”

THE RIGHT ATTACKED RUBY FRUIT JUNGLE FOR THE SAME ISSUES

RITA MAE BROWN WAS AN AFRICAN AMERICAN LESBIAN WRITER

Rubyfruit Jungle - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubyfruit_Jungle

Rubyfruit Jungle is the first novel by Rita Mae Brown. Published in 1973, it was remarkable in its day for its explicit portrayal of lesbianism. The novel is a coming-of-age autobiographical account of Brown's youth and emergence as a lesbian author. The term "rubyfruit jungle" is a term used in the novel for the female genitals.

North Carolina's lieutenant governor said straight people are 'superior' to gay people


North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson speaks at a Senate Education Committee hearing on July 14, 2021 in Raleigh, North Carolina.

AP Photo/Bryan Anderson.

Sinéad Baker
Sun, November 21, 2021,

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson said straight people are "superior" to gay people.

He made the comment during a church sermon arguing it was because two gay men could not conceive a child.

He previously called homosexuality "filth" and said teaching children LGBTQ facts is "child abuse."

Mark Robinson, lieutenant governor of North Carolina, said straight people are "superior" to gay people as he gave a sermon at a church.

Robinson was speaking at a church in the city of Winston-Salem on November 14 when he made the remarks captured on video, The Charlotte Observer reported.

He said that a gay man once asked him: "So, you think your wife and you — you think your heterosexual relationship is superior to my husband and my homosexual relationship?"

And he told the crowd that he told the man yes.

He said this was because two men could not conceive a child together.

"These people are superior because they can do something these people can't do," he said. "Because that's the way God created it to be. And I'm tired of this society trying to tell me it's not so."

Watch him speak here, in a video recorded from the church:


He also questioned the "purpose" of homosexuality, saying: "If homosexuality is of God, what purpose does it serve? What does it make? What does it create? It creates nothing."

He is rumored to be preparing a bid for governor and was introduced in the church as the state's "next governor."

Footage leaked earlier this year of Robinson calling homosexuality "filth" and calling teaching children LGBTQ facts "child abuse."

He said that "there's no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality -- any of that filth."

"And yes, I called it filth. And if you don't like that I called it filth, come see me and I'll explain it to you," he said.

He was speaking in another church at the time.

He refused to resign after he was criticized for his comments by lawmakers and the White House.

USA

Videos appear to show police using Tasers and pepper spray on high school students during an on-campus protest against sexual assault

Alia Shoaib
Sat, November 20, 2021, 

High school students in Texas staged a walkout over their school's handling of a sexual assault allegation.


Videos show police arriving at the school and appearing to use pepper spray and Tasers on students.


Parents have raised concerns about the use of excessive force on students.

Police in Texas appeared to use Tasers and pepper spray on high-school students who staged a walkout to protest against the administration's handling of a sexual assault allegation.

On Friday, students at Little Elm High School carried out a planned demonstration, which authorities said caused some students to behave in a way that "caused a major disruption."

District officials said that police were called to "calm things down."

Videos posted on social media show police arriving at the school and appearing to use pepper spray and Tasers on students.

In one video, police appear to Taser a student, who can be seen falling to the ground and briefly convulsing before lying still.

As other students approach while shouting, the police officers can be seen shoving them away.

Another student later told NBC 5 that he was also Tasered.

"He pushes me away, he pulls out his Taser and pushes me with the Taser, and he's like, 'Hey, you need to back off.' I'm like, 'He's not breathing, we need to do something about this,'" junior Kaden Throckmorton told the outlet.

"And he ends up putting the Taser to my stomach, he Tases me, one of the other officers pushes me on the shoulder, he actually rips my shirt."

Later in the video, one of the police officers grabs a female student by her hair and forces her to the ground.

Four students were arrested for assaulting police officers.


Anna de Luna, a mother who was dropping lunch off for her son, told NBC 5 that the scenes inside the school were chaotic.

"There were students being arrested and manhandled on the floor. There were children crying and screaming. People were banging on the doors, police were pushing the children around," De Luna said.

Little Elm's Independent School District posted on their Facebook page that the sexual assault allegations were unfounded and based on a misleading social media post.

Police said in a Facebook statement that the students' demonstration "was a result of a social media post the day before that contained inaccurate information regarding an incident that happened a month ago."

Maria Vaca, who said her daughter was pepper-sprayed during the incident, told local outlet WFAA that she believes there's a culture of inaction and sexual harassment at the school.

"She got pepper-sprayed. Pepper sprayed for something she should stand up for anyway," said Vaca.

"What was the purpose of the walkout? Sexual harassment. They were telling administrators, they were telling counselors, nobody is doing anything about it," she said.

Parents said they would be attending a school board meeting on December 13 to get answers as to why police used non-lethal weapons on students, CBS 11 reported.

A Little Elm police department spokesperson told Insider, via email, "our department reviews all incidents post-event." Any further statements would be published on the department's Facebook page, she said.

Anarchists target cop-friendly Queens neighborhood after Rittenhouse acquittal, smashing windows and spray-painting cars

Nicholas Williams, Thomas Tracy and Larry McShane, New York Daily News
Sat, November 20, 2021,

NEW YORK — A horde of black-clad anarchists ran wild through southwestern Elmhurst, Queens after the Kyle Rittenhouse acquittal, targeting the middle-class area over its support of the New York Police Department, incoming mayor Eric Adams and local officials charged Saturday.

“These are outside agitators that have one desire, and that is to destroy our city and create conflicts and tensions between New Yorkers,” Adams said at news conference in Elmhurst Park, once the location of the Elmhurst gas tanks.

“It is imperative that we send a loud and clear message that this will not happen in our community,” Adams said.

Adams was joined local by the local congressman, Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi, and City Councilman Bob Holder, who described a scene where 40 to 50 people stormed the area late Friday while flipping garbage cans, tearing down American flags, smashing car windows and blocking traffic.

Police made five arrests, with Holder recounting how some in the crowd were armed with hatchets and hammers.

“We are targeted because we support the police here, we want more police,” said Holder, whose statement was echoed by ex-cop Adams. “I voted against defunding the police ... This again wasn’t a protest, these weren’t protesters. They were rioters.”

The Queens violence, with “f--- you” spray-painted on the back of one car, came hours after the Friday acquittal of Rittenhouse, 18, who was accused of using an AR-style semi-automatic rifle to kill two men and wound a third in Kenosha, Wis. during protests after a white Kenosha police officer shot and wounded a Black man.

Rittenhouse said he fired in self-defense.

Adams, who takes over from Mayor Bill de Blasio on Jan. 1, agreed that Holden and the neighborhood were singled out “merely because (of their) belief in their law enforcement officers who are living in this community.”

A local woman recounted how she was followed by a car with a female driver and four anarchists who randomly targeted her with shouts of “white b-----s like you need to die” as she walked toward her home. One tossed a cup of unspecified liquid at the woman as they drove past.

“That was scary,” said the woman, whose name was Caitlin. “They just wanted to get into a fight, get into an altercation.”

Adams offered an apology to the woman before adding the rioters were “attempting to create violence between our communities.”

The Rittenhouse verdict led Hawk Newsome, co-founder of the city’s Black Lives Matter chapter, to declare the jury’s not guilty decision put the lives of anti-racism protesters at immediate risk.

“What going to happen now is racist people ... feel like they can go out there, pick a fight with you while you protest, and kill you and get away with it,” Newsome said in an Instagram post.

“This sets precedent ... You can go out there and you can kill (a protester), and you can get away with it.”

Rittenhouse escaped accountability; society escapes common sense.

Kyle Rittenhouse (L) at a Kenosha protest before he fatally shot two unarmed men. 

(Photo: Adam Rogan/The Journal Times via Associated Press)

James Abernathy
Sat, November 20, 2021, 

Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges on Friday. Some are celebrating the verdicts as a victory for freedom and the right to bear arms. Others find it one more example of injustice as human lives are devalued amidst the clamor for ever-expanding gun rights. From my perspective, there is nothing to celebrate here. A then 17-year-old boy brought a semi-automatic weapon to a protest event, ostensibly in support of law officers, using the weapon to kill two men and wound another. His lawyers argued self-defense. I guess I would argue that he should never have been in that position in the first place.

Across this country, it has somehow become acceptable for civilians to brandish such weapons in the public square, as we have seen not only on the streets of cities but also on the grounds of our state capitols. In my own state of Kentucky, citizens are allowed to carry weapons, either openly or concealed, into the state capitol. In an article in the Lexington Herald dated January 10, 2020, it was revealed that teachers gathering at the capitol to address educational and pension issues were not allowed to bring signs “on sticks into the building ‘because they were concerned the sticks could be used as dangerous weapons.’” Sticks in the hands of educators are deemed too dangerous. An automatic weapon in the hands of a 17-year-old boy, however, seems a reasonable accessory in an environment of protest.

This is where the argument often deteriorates into the usual talking points about Second Amendment rights vs. responsible gun control. The positions are so well documented and predictable that we seem to have lost interest in the dialogue. As with many such arguments these days, the extremes dominate these conversations, with common sense and human decency shouted down in the cause of personal rights. With the proliferation of weapons manufactured to bring carnage on a scale that seems to shock us less and less comes continuing opportunities for violence in places where such weapons and such violence were once prohibited. As long as we continue to shout at each other, however, instead of listen … as long as we continue to see truth not as the verification of facts but the malleable tool of personal and political opinion … as long as we allow ourselves to be pitted one against another by voices less interested in respect and the consideration of the greater good … as long as fear is weaponized and allowed to indiscriminately find acceptance on our streets and in places of public governance … as long as we relegate those different than us to an “other” status that devalues human life, we will find ourselves on a self-destructive path as the ideals of freedom and hope birthed in the guiding documents of our nation are cast aside.

It seems that 17-year-old boys are welcome to bring semi-automatic weapons into the arena of differing ideas, discharging those weapons without accountability. Kyle Rittenhouse should never have been in that position. I doubt he will be the last.

Dr James Abernathy is a retired minister, having served churches in Kentucky and Virginia, now living in Lexington.

'Chilling' Rittenhouse Verdict 'Emboldens' Vigilantes, Warns Wisconsin Newspaper


Mary Papenfuss
Sun, November 21, 2021

A Wisconsin newspaper on Saturday attacked the verdict to acquit shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, saying the decision is “sure to embolden militant people who seek to take the law into their own hands.”

Rittenhouse is “no hero, as some of his defenders pretend. He behaved like a vigilante and didn’t deserve to walk free, given his recklessness,” the Wisconsin State Journal declared in an editorial. “Yet the law, unfortunately, skews in favor of shooters who claim self-defense. That needs to change.”

Rittenhouse, then 17, traveled from his home in Illinois to Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year during protests there against the police shooting of local Black resident Jacob Blake.

Rittenhouse “wasn’t making anyone safer by parading through crowds of angry people with a semiautomatic rifle strapped to his chest and, according to prosecutors, pointing it at people before the conflict escalated,” the newspaper noted.

When the night was over, Rittenhouse had fatally shot two unarmed men, and injured a third man who had a firearm.

“Much of the case” against him “hinged on whether Rittenhouse had provoked the others. If carrying an AR-15 down a crowded street isn’t provocative, what is?” the newspaper asked.

What “Rittenhouse and other gun-toting, self-appointed ‘protectors’ of Kenosha needed to hear from our court system is that they are not the judge and jury when things go awry,” the editorial added.

The newspaper also raised an interesting puzzle: If “two people openly carry guns and point them at each other, whose self-defense claim takes priority?”

The state should be focused on “discouraging standoffs with guns, rather than encouraging more people to arm themselves out of fear or revenge,” the editorial concluded.

Read the entire Wisconsin State Journal editorial .
.

Kyle Rittenhouse’s Lethal Pursuit of Happiness is America’s Legacy

Barrett Holmes Pitner
Sat, November 20, 2021,

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

Kyle Rittenhouse is a free man today and the explanation for this resides in America’s troubling interpretation of “freedom” that has always relied on division.

Thomas Jefferson’s credo of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” has inspired Americans for centuries, but the philosophy that inspired Jefferson’s words actually deprives people of freedom.

Jefferson’s language derived from the work of British philosopher John Locke, who articulated the trinity of “Life, Liberty, and Property” as the bedrock of civilization and democracy—and while these words may appear innocuous, they result in calamitous outcomes.

Kyle Rittenhouse’s Future Looks Hideously Bright

By attaching life and liberty to property, Locke undermined the importance of life and liberty within public and shared spaces, making them exist within the items and territory that someone owned. In America, ownership was the precursor to freedom.

It should surprise no one that Locke’s words were embraced by colonizers who implemented genocide to take indigenous land, and ethnocide to erect American chattel slavery. Locke’s dystopian interpretation of freedom also resulted in property and ownership becoming an extension of white identity. White people came to the New World for the freedom that property and ownership would allegedly provide, and with the understanding that destruction of property or the denial of ownership would threaten white freedom.

In Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, his chapter “Of Property” that explains the role of property in society is directly preceded by the chapter “Of Slavery” that attempts to justify the institution

Locke’s convoluted and nonsensical attempt at doing that basically consists of saying that it is impossible for a human being to knowingly agree to be a slave. Therefore, if an oppressive relationship appears to be slavery, according to Locke, it is instead an agreement between one person or a group of people to submit and obey another person or group. To Locke, slavery is not slavery but a “compact” between a “lawful conqueror and a captive.”

Jefferson was one of America’s most influential slaveowners and politicians, and his personal freedom and wealth derived from both the land and the hundreds of people he owned. Locke’s words justified his immoral way of life, and unsurprisingly, he instilled Lockean ideals into the fabric of the United States.

Jefferson’s and Locke’s concept of freedom was dependent upon depriving other people of freedom, yet despite Jefferson’s embrace of Locke’s ideals, he understood that the trinity of life, liberty, and property would not inspire the American people. An emphasis on property could alienate the many Americans who did not own property, so replacing it with “the pursuit of happiness” sounded more inclusive and democratic. With this amended language, the Americans without property—those of them who were not considered property—could feel comforted by the promise of being able to pursue property.

Due to America’s Founding Fathers embracing Locke’s absurd ideas, the United States has professed an understanding of freedom that normalizes division and makes all of us less safe. America articulates that property is a requirement for freedom, and that it is acceptable to deprive other people of freedom in order to acquire property.

America’s First Newspapers Were Financed by the Slave Trade

Now it is easy to disregard the present-day impact of ideals forged in the 1600s and 1700s, but the prevalence of Americans justifying the taking of human life to protect property demonstrates that these ideals still impact our society today.

Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal is just one of many examples; the killing of Ahmaud Arbery is another example since three white men attacked and killed an unarmed Black man because they suspected that he had broken into white-owned property.

Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time, travelled across state lines with an illegally obtained AR-15-style rifle that he did not have a license to carry because he said he wanted to protect property and businesses during the riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin that erupted following the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by Kenosha police officers.

These facts are not even up for debate, and the only controversy related to the facts that preceded Rittenhouse’s unwarranted and deadly presence in Kenosha pertain to his friend Dominick Black. Since Rittenhouse was only 17, he was not old enough to buy his gun therefore he gave Black money and had him buy the gun instead. Black now faces felony charges for distributing a gun to a minor.

Since Wisconsin is an “open carry” state that allows minors to carry guns, so long as it is not a short-barreled shotgun or rifle, Rittenhouse was perfectly within his rights to walk around in public with an illegally obtained Smith & Wesson AR-style semi-automatic rifle strapped to his chest.

Also, the increased prevalence of guns and “open carry” states in America derives from the court case Nunn v. State of Georgia in 1846 that effectively turned the slaveholding state of Georgia into an “open carry” state.

Basically, in 1837 Georgia banned certain guns and weapons, but since nearly half of Georgia’s population was made up of enslaved people, white Georgians still needed guns to deny freedom to the humans they considered to be their property.

The illegality of guns in Georgia and the constant need to terrorize enslaved Black Americans created a dangerous black market of guns and a new culture of concealing guns when you carry them. Conceal carry resulted in white Georgians killing a lot of other white Georgians, but since removing guns was not an option for a slaveholding state, the Georgia Supreme Court effectively banned concealed carry and embraced open carry in order to protect white freedom and life.

In the 2008 Supreme Court decision in Heller v. District of Columbia that overturned Washington, D.C.’s weapons ban, former Justice Antonin Scalia referenced Nunn and stated that it protected the “natural right of self-defense.” Following this decision, “open carry” laws have spread across America.

Unsurprisingly, Scalia’s analysis overlooked the enslaved person’s right to self-defense and freedom.

By most accounts, it appears that Rittenhouse did not arrive in Kenosha with the intent to kill anyone, but he was definitely prepared to use lethal force if necessary, in order to protect property. Rittenhouse probably does not even own any property, but his happiness and his dangerous concept of freedom consists of using deadly force in pursuit and protection of property. America’s legal system considers Rittenhouse’s murders in defense of property an act of self-defense.

Since the founding of the United States, this nation has encouraged white Americans—in the name of freedom—to behave the same as Rittenhouse. When Rittenhouse, and the countless other Rittenhouses from the colonial days to the present, kill and terrorize people in defense of property and “freedom” our society has always said their actions are okay.

For centuries, America has called these senseless killings “the pursuit of happiness.”

David Cook: Opinion: Who gets to carry guns in America? And who doesn't?


David Cook, Chattanooga Times Free Press, Tenn.
Sat, November 20, 2021, 

Nov. 20—He was 17. A child, essentially.

Kyle Rittenhouse couldn't vote.

Couldn't legally buy cigarettes.

Was barely old enough to buy a ticket for an R-rated movie.

Yet last year, as a 17-year-old, he and others around him thought it appropriate for him to carry an AR-15-style rifle into public protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. That day, young Kyle Rittenhouse killed two people.

I have only begun to process his not-guilty verdict, announced Friday afternoon.

There is so much suffering, so many reasons to mourn.

Rittenhouse may be legally innocent, but blood will remain on his hands, his heart, possibly for the rest of his life. The people I know who have killed others say such actions — firing a gun at another human being, watching the body drop, the blood spill from wrecked flesh, the breath stop — will distort and haunt for time immeasurable.

Self-defense, his lawyers claimed.

Would such a claim apply for every American?

Consider local history. Ed Johnson facing a white lynch mob, the Cherokees facing forced removal, five Black women shotgunned by the Klan in 1980 — if they had armed themselves and shot their white attackers in self-defense, would the courts have set them free?

It is hard for me to imagine a present-day Black teenager carrying an AR-15 to our city's next protest, shooting three white people, claiming self-defense and receiving the same treatment and verdict as Rittenhouse.

The criminal justice system seems more schizophrenic than blind; it has ruthlessly eaten up the lives of so many, while bending over backwards to allow and sustain others' freedom.

I think of Tony Oliver.

Oliver is a Black Chattanooga businessman; during COVID-19, he helped deliver some 20,000 meals to our city's homeless and poor.

He owns TNT Cleaning. Mentors both youth and adults. A husband, father, believer.

"I want to keep growing my business so I can help others in my community," he says.

Growing up, he made bad decisions. He robbed, fell into addiction, eventually serving some 17 years in prison.

In 2007, he became sober. Started working full-time. Fell in love.

Released from prison on probation, Oliver transformed his entire life.

In 2017, he was working the late-shift at a local manufacturing plant. His wife, home alone at night. Their home had been twice burglarized, so she bought a handgun.

Kept it in her bedside table.

For self-defense.

With weeks remaining on his probation, authorities visited their home. Found the gun — properly secured, on his wife's side of the bed.

For self-defense.

But Oliver was a felon on probation; he is prevented from possessing a firearm.

With his daughter watching, Oliver was cuffed and sent back to prison.

Why?

His wife owned a gun.

For self-defense.

(A judge later dismissed the charges, yet Oliver says his parole officer still forced him back to prison to finish his probation; he lost his job in the process.)

This fall, I read Carol Anderson's "The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America."

"This book should be required reading for every elected state representative and senator as well as those in Congress," emailed the reader who recommended this to me. "Ms. Anderson's book delves into the real reasons framers of the Constitution included the Amendment — mainly the threat from armed slaves and free Blacks."

"The eighteenth-century origins of the 'right to bear arms' explicitly excluded Black people," writes Anderson, a decorated, best-selling professor at Emory University. Elsewhere, she writes: "The Second Amendment ... was designed and has consistently been constructed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable."

Can you think of any time in American history when Black people collectively armed themselves against white violence ... and received full support of the Constitution, police officers, judges and politicians for doing so?

Philando Castille. Alton Sterling. Tamir Rice. John Crawford. All Black. Each carrying or possessing a gun. (Rice, 12, was playing with a toy gun. Crawford was carrying a BB gun he'd picked up off the Walmart shelf.)

They were all shot and killed by police.

Who gets to carry guns in this country?

And who doesn't?

I don't write this out of reckless emotion, wanting to make a painful situation worse. I, too, own multiple guns. But if my Black brothers and sisters can't carry their guns in the same way I can — or Rittenhouse — then what role does the Second Amendment play in this country?

David Cook writes a Sunday column and can be reached at dcook@timesfreepress.com.

IOC: President Thomas Bach held video call with Peng Shuai amid concern about Chinese tennis star's safety

Jason Owens

Sun, November 21, 2021,

The International Olympic Committee announced that president Thomas Bach spoke with Peng Shuai on a video call on Sunday amid concerns about the Chinese tennis star's safety. 

The announcement included an image of Bach speaking with Peng on a video screen alongside a statement from the IOC athletes' commission chair Emma Terho, who was also on the call with Chinese IOC member Li Lingwei.

“I was relieved to see that Peng Shuai was doing fine, which was our main concern," Terho said, per the statement. "She appeared to be relaxed. I offered her our support and to stay in touch at any time of her convenience, which she obviously appreciated.”

The announcement didn't include a statement from Peng or video of the call. Per the IOC, Peng told Bach that she is "safe and well" and was living at her home in Beijing. She prefers to "have her privacy respected at this time" and plans to "continue to be involved in tennis," according to the statement. 

Peng Shuai. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Chinese media videos claim to show Peng in public

Sunday's IOC statement arrives amid a flurry of videos from Chinese state-run media purporting to show Peng having dinner with her friends Saturday night and appearing at a youth tennis match on Sunday. 

The videos haven't been independently verified and didn't provide evidence that they were taken recently. Women's Tennis Association CEO Steve Simon cast doubt on their veracity.

“I am glad to see the videos released by China state-run media that appear to show Peng Shuai at a restaurant in Beijing," Simon's statement reads. "While it is positive to see her, it remains unclear if she is free and able to make decisions and take actions on her own, without coercion or external interference. This video alone is insufficient. As I have stated from the beginning, I remain concerned about Peng Shuai’s health and safety and that the allegation of sexual assault is being censored and swept under the rug. I have been clear about what needs to happen and our relationship with China is at a crossroads.”

Peng's disappearance after allegation sparked international outcry

Peng hadn't been seen in public since accusing retired Chinese vice premier Zhang Gaoli of pressuring her into sex while she was a guest at his and his wife's home for dinner around three years ago. She leveled the accusation on a Nov. 2 post on Chinese social media outlet Weibo. According to the post that was quickly deleted, she eventually agreed to an ongoing affair that Zhang insisted on keeping secret. Mentions of the allegation were scrubbed from Chinese-run social media. 

The WTA called for an investigation into her allegations and her whereabouts on Nov. 14. Since then, members of the international tennis community including Naomi Osaka, Novak Djokovic, Serena Willams and Chris Evert joined the call for answers about Peng. The White House and the United Nations both called for proof on Friday of Peng's safety and for an investigation into her sexual-assault allegation.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian has repeatedly denied that the government knows anything about the situation. 

The IOC is under pressure to address the situation with the Winter Olympics scheduled to take place in Beijing in February. President Joe Biden said on Thursday that the United States was considering a diplomatic boycott of the Olympics amid a history of human-rights concerns in China.  

Sunday's IOC statement was the first to address Peng's safety independent of Chinese media. It didn't include statements directly from Peng nor address her sexual assault allegation or why she hasn't spoken publicly since making her accusation. 

2 Fox News employees resigned over Tucker Carlson's January 6 documentary, citing concerns it may incite violence
Morgan Keith

Tucker Carlson speaks during the Mathias Corvinus Collegium 

Feszt on August 7, 2021 in Esztergom, Hungary. Photo by Janos Kummer/Getty Images

Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes joined Fox News as contributors in 2009.

Both Goldberg and Hayes resigned over tensions between Fox News coverage and their own publication.

In a statement, the pair said the misinformation pushed by "Patriot Purge" is dangerous.

Fox News contributors Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Hayes have resigned following the release of Tucker Carlson's documentary on the January 6 Capitol insurrection, "Patriot Purge," citing concerns about the documentary's potential to incite violence and the cable news outlet's direction of coverage in the post-Trump era, The New York Times reported.

Goldberg and Hayes joined Fox News as contributors in early 2009 while also working for conservative political magazines. In 2019, they worked together to found The Dispatch, a conservative online publication with nearly 30,000 paying subscribers, according to The New York Times.

Ultimately, the release of "Patriot Purge" brought the pair to an impasse, which they said forced them to choose between running their own publication and remaining loyal to Fox News, according to a statement about their resignation.

The "Patriot Purge" documentary baselessly suggested that the January 6 insurrection was a "false flag" plot by President Joe Biden to conduct an ideological purge and persecute conservatives.

"This is not happening. And we think it's dangerous to pretend it is. If a person with such a platform shares such misinformation loud enough and long enough, there are Americans who will believe — and act upon — it," Goldberg and Hayes said in a statement. "This isn't theoretical. This is what actually happened on January 6, 2021."

The duo were not the only Fox News employees to publicly condemn the documentary. One of Carlson's colleagues, Geraldo Rivera, called the false flag theory pushed in the documentary "bullshit."

Insider has reached out to Goldberg, Hayes, Carlson, and Fox News for comment.

Scholar elaborates on marked contrast of changing living standards between China, US

Xinhua, November 22, 2021

The Chinese people have seen great improvement in their standards of living over the past 40 years, while the average income of the bottom half of Americans has remained almost stagnant for decades, a renowned Singaporean scholar has said.

China is humanity's oldest continuous and one of its greatest civilizations, Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, said in a recent interview with Xinhua, highlighting factors for China's successful development today.

China's willingness to learn from the rest of the world is a huge asset, said Mahbubani, adding that four decades of peace has also been a key element.

Mahbubani has served as the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore, and Singapore's ambassador to the United Nations. He was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.

Chinese civilization has proven itself to be one of the strongest and most resilient civilizations in history, he said in his book Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy, released last year.

If there is an index to measure the relative strength and resilience of different civilizations based on their real performance over more than 2,000 years, the Chinese civilization could rank number one, he added.

"The United States is the only society, only developed society where the average income of the bottom 50 percent has basically remained stagnant for three decades," he told Xinhua.

"Today in America, the middle class has been shrinking in significant ways," he said, adding that "the equality of opportunity that used to exist in the United States has been eroded in recent decades."

In the area of social and economic rights, Mahbubani said "it's clear that the bottom 50 percent, bottom 30 percent, bottom 10 percent have seen a deterioration in their standard of living and that's an area where the United States is not doing well."

The biggest challenge facing the United States today is that it has become a plutocracy, he said.

The U.S. political system is moving from being a democracy to becoming a plutocracy, betraying the ideals of its founding fathers, Mahbubani said in the book, adding that the U.S. system has effectively created a new moneyed aristocracy.

He noted that the priority of the U.S. government should be taking care of its bottom 50 percent. However, many American governments have deployed resources to fighting illegal wars overseas instead.

The United States is facing severe political, economic and cultural challenges, he said in his book, adding that it appears that the United States today lacks "spiritual vitality," an idea raised by one of the wisest U.S. strategic thinkers George Kennan.

When Kennan was advising the United States on how to manage its competition with the former Soviet Union, he noted a country has four limbs: an awareness of its own situation, coping successfully with its internal problems, a sense of global responsibility, and having a spiritual vitality.
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Living Ghosts: 

THE DEVASTATING IMPACT OF ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES IN PAKISTAN

Pakistan: New briefing documents far-reaching impact of enforced disappearance on families of the vanished

NEWS

November 22, 2021 12:01 am

The Pakistani authorities must end their abhorrent use of enforced disappearance, said Amnesty International, in a new briefing today detailing the practice’s devastating impact on the families of those vanished.

The briefing, Living Ghosts, documents how enforced disappearance–a crime under international law in which state agents deny holding an individual or refuse to provide information on their fate or whereabouts–not only violates the human rights of the individuals who are disappeared, but also impacts affected families’ mental and physical health, financial status, and security, as well as leading to stigma and social isolation.

Although cases have been documented as far back as the mid-1980s, the practice has been routinely used by Pakistan’s intelligence services since the inception of the so-called “War on Terror” in 2001, to target human rights defenders, political activists, students, and journalists, with the fate of hundreds of victims still unknown. A proposed amendment to outlaw enforced disappearance has been mired in the legislative process for more than two and a half years and the current iteration does not conform with international human rights law and best practices.

Enforced disappearance is a cruel practice that has caused indelible pain to hundreds of families in Pakistan over the past two decadesRehab Mahamoor, Amnesty International’s Acting South Asia Researcher

“Enforced disappearance is a cruel practice that has caused indelible pain to hundreds of families in Pakistan over the past two decades. On top of the untold anguish of losing a loved one and having no idea of their whereabouts or safety, families endure other long-term effects including ill-health and financial problems,” said Rehab Mahamoor, Amnesty International’s Acting South Asia Researcher.

“It’s a punishment without end that Pakistan’s authorities must consign to history. As well as expediting the criminalization of enforced disappearance through legislation in line with international human rights law, the authorities must immediately disclose the fate and whereabouts of all victims to their families and release those still being held.”

Amnesty International is also calling for all those suspected of criminal responsibility for committing an enforced disappearance to be brought to justice in fair trials before ordinary civilian courts and without recourse to the death penalty.

Amnesty International spoke to the family members of 10 people whose fate remains unknown after they were abducted by Pakistan’s security services. Each of them described resultant stress-related health issues including high blood pressure, cardiac conditions, and gastro-intestinal illnesses.

Affected families also suffer financial consequences, as the disappeared are invariably the main breadwinner. In three cases documented by Amnesty International, the children of those disappeared had been forced to drop out of school due to the loss of family income or stigma.

Sultan Mahmood, whose two brothers were abducted in 2014 and 2021 respectively, told Amnesty International that losing two sources of family income, combined with the legal costs of trying to secure the return of his brothers, had left him in debt of 2.5 million PKR (approx USD 15K), forcing him to sell all of his assets, including his home.

In another case, the younger sister of Sammi Baloch, a prominent activist against enforced disappearance whose father was disappeared by the authorities in 2009, was prevented from sitting exams at a college in Balochistan managed by the army, after officials became aware who she was related to.

The families of those forcibly disappeared often face an impossible choice between staying silent in the aftermath of an abduction or risking the loss of their loved one forever. Intimidation and harassment from the authorities can follow them for years after a disappearance has taken place and sometimes continues after the person is returned. This can be in the form of heavy-handed surveillance, threatening calls from blocked numbers and even phishing attacks on personal devices.

Amnesty International also interviewed victims of enforced disappearance, including Inaam Abbasi, who was held for 10 months following his abduction in August 2017. The physical torture he was subjected to has left him with a host of health issues, including chronic joint pain, high blood pressure and suspected post-traumatic stress disorder, which can be triggered by events such as a doorbell ringing. “I believe that someone has come to take me away again,” he told Amnesty.

Last month, Amnesty International criticized a range of proposed reforms to the amendment to the Penal Code of Pakistan to end the practice of enforced disappearance, which does not currently conform with international human rights law and best practices.

On 8 November, the Minister of Human Rights, Dr Shireen Mazari, tweeted that the National Assembly had passed the proposed legislation. According to her tweet, one of the controversial sections in the proposed amendment, which sought to protect state officials, department heads or heads of institutions from being held accountable for disappearances, had been removed. The legislation remains in contravention of international human rights law and standards.

November 22, 2021Index Number: ASA 33/4992/2021

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC DISAPPEARANCES

Living Ghosts, documents how enforced disappearance – in which state agents deny holding an individual or refuse to provide information on their fate or whereabouts – impacts affected families’ mental and physical health, financial status, and security, as well as leading to stigma and social isolation. Amnesty International spoke to the family members of 10 people whose fate remains unknown after they were abducted by Pakistan’s security services.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ASA3349922021ENGLISH.pdf