Climate Change Litigants Argue Human Rights, Consumer Harm in Suing Oil Firms

By Matthew Green, Valerie Volcovici and Emma Farge | July 6, 2020
INSURANCE JOURNAL



LONDON/WASHINGTON/GENEVA — Climate change may be having its day in court.

With the slow pace of international climate negotiations, lawyers from Switzerland to San Francisco are increasingly filing lawsuits demanding action.


And they are getting creative — using new legal arguments to challenge companies and governments before a judge.

Two decades ago, only a handful of climate-related lawsuits had ever been filed worldwide. Today, that number is 1,600, including 1,200 lawsuits in the United States alone, according to data reported Friday by the London School of Economics.

“The courts are an increasingly important place for addressing the problem of climate change,” said Hari Osofsky, the dean of Penn State Law and the School of International Affairs.

Already, climate campaigners are seeing glimmers of success.

In the Netherlands in December, the country’s Supreme Court upheld a ruling in favor of the Urgenda campaign group’s demand that the Dutch government move faster to cut carbon emissions.

And in January, a judge in Switzerland acquitted a dozen climate protesters from trespassing charges, filed after the group staged a tennis match within a branch of Credit Suisse in 2018 to draw attention to the bank’s fossil fuel loans. Defense lawyers had argued that the protesters’ actions were necessitated by the “imminent danger” posed by climate change. The ruling was met in court with a standing ovation.



“It was an exceptional ruling,” one of the defense lawyers, Aline Bonard, told Reuters. Given that the protesters admitted to trespassing, “the infraction is undeniable.”

U.S. cities and other parties are challenging the fossil fuel industry for its role in causing climate change and not informing the public of its harms.

But cases like these suggest a shift in how people are understanding the role of the judiciary in mediating cases related to the warming climate. Now, “there is bound to be a new wave of legal proceedings using a similar line of argument,” Bonard said.

NEW LEGAL TACTICS

As rulings that compel governments to cut emissions remain rare, lawyers still see promise in targeting large, polluting companies. Such cases in the past tended to accuse coal-fired power stations or government of failing to limit emissions. Cases now are being fought on arguments such as consumer protections and human rights.

This shift been especially pronounced in the United States, where more than a dozen cases filed by states, cities and other parties are challenging the fossil fuel industry for its role in causing climate change and not informing the public of its harms.

Last month, both Minnesota state and the District of Columbia filed lawsuits alleging that oil majors had misled consumers on how using their products involved releasing carbon emissions and contributing to climate change.

Those cases followed another filed in October by Massachusetts, which also used consumer protection arguments in suing Exxon Mobil Corp. All three accused the oil companies of engaging in deceptive practices and false advertising.

“As awareness of climate change grew in the general public to the extent that their disinformation campaigns were no longer acceptable, there was a pivot to greenwashing,” Kate Konopka, Washington D.C.’s deputy attorney general, told Reuters.

In each case, most of the companies denied the allegations. BP Plc declined to comment.

Exxon said the Washington D.C. lawsuit was part of a “coordinated, politically motivated” campaign against energy companies and was without merit. Chevron Corp also dismissed the D.C. case, saying the litigation “distracts” from its efforts to address climate change.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc said it was “committed to playing our part” in addressing climate change, but that lawsuits “impede the collaboration needed for meaningful change.”

But companies appear to be worried. The National Association of Manufacturers formed a group in 2017 to push back against “activist lawyers” for trying to scapegoat energy manufacturers.

The group, called the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project, applauded a December ruling in New York clearing Exxon Mobil of securities fraud charges, after it was accused of failing to inform investors about what it knew about climate change.

“Courts are rejecting this misguided and misleading narrative, with a federal judge already calling them ‘hyperbolic’ last year when New York’s attorney general brought claims based on essentially the same allegations,” said Phil Goldberg, a lawyer representing the group.

PRESSURE CAMPAIGN

On the human rights front, there were only five lawsuits using these arguments before 2015. Since then, there have been 40 more, said LSE report co-author Joana Setzer, an assistant professor at the London School of Economics’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

The climate cases could work toward weakening the lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry.

Not all of these new tactics have worked out, though.

In a high-profile decision in January, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco dismissed “Juliana v. United States,” in which 21 youths had accused the federal government of infringing on their rights to life and liberty by perpetuating an economic system fueling dangerous climate change. Judge Andrew Hurwitz said he had “reluctantly” concluded that the issue was a matter for the executive and legislative branches.

Whether or not a judge rules in favor of climate interests, legal experts say the momentum of having so many cases before courts is serving to underline the urgency of the climate issue for both the public and policymakers.

“We need massive government intervention to get us out of the hole that we’re in, which makes government a primary target,” said Tim Crosland, director of British climate litigation charity Plan B.

The group was part of a campaign that successfully sued to block a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport, with Britain’s Court of Appeal agreeing in February that the plan had failed to consider the country’s commitments under the 2015 Paris climate accord. That decision is now awaiting a final appeal.

Richard Wiles, executive director of the D.C.-based Center for Climate Integrity, a non-profit organization supporting climate litigation, said the tumble of climate cases would work toward weakening the lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry.

“Just as you wouldn’t expect tobacco companies to be at the table when we’re deciding pubic heath policy, the notion that the oil industry would dictate climate policy doesn’t hold water,” Wiles said. “They are just not going to have the same ability to dictate climate policy that they did in the past.”

(Reporting by Matthew Green in London, Valerie Volcovici in Washington and Emma Farge in Geneva; Editing by Katy Daigle and Lisa Shumaker)


Copyright 2020 Reuters.

Measuring the Moment: How Will George Floyd’s Death Matter to Insurance Industry?
By Andrew G. Simpson | June 10, 2020
INSURANCE JOURNAL


The marches and protests across the globe sparked by the death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police are presenting the country with opportunities to confront the racism and inequality that African-Americans confront every day.

As executive director of the National African American Insurance Association, Margaret Redd works every day to create and expand opportunities for African-Americans in the insurance business.

According to Redd, the “significant amount of attention being given to the plight of African Americans” across the globe is unprecedented.

“There’s never been a moment like this. I think most people would agree with that. And so what we do at this moment is yet to be seen,” commented Redd.

Redd is impressed that it is not just African-Americans calling for change but a “very diverse group and audience of people” embracing the need for change.

The attention may be historic but will it matter to the insurance industry?

Redd sounds like a person with doubts. For while she is quick to praise honest intentions and efforts, she is also critical of the scarcity of tools for measuring what is happening that could reveal if real progress is indeed being made for blacks.

She asks why more corporations don’t treat increasing black employment like they treat other strategic goals by obtaining C-suite and board buy-in, setting measurable objectives, and holding people accountable.



And she has witnessed how some corporate diversity and inclusion efforts tout progress on hiring and promoting more women but are silent on blacks.

Margaret Redd

According to 2016 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, African-Americans make up 11.9% of the country’s total workforce and 11.1% of the insurance workforce. Blacks fare a bit better in the claims area—15.1% of adjusters are African-American— but a bit worse in underwriting— 9.6% of underwriters are African-American.

In banking, 11.5% of the workforce is African-American, 10.4% in real estate, 10.4% in professional services, 14.3% in food manufacturing, 12.3% in retail, 20.1% in transportation/utilities and 15.1% in education and health, according to the same BLS data.

According to a 2018 study from the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, only 2% of established agencies have at least one African-American principal. However, about 13% of agencies established within the last five years have at least one. Overall just 4% of all independent agencies have an African-American principal or senior manager— compared to the 88% with white agency leadership.

“There’s never been a moment like this. I think most people would agree with that. And so what we do at this moment is yet to be seen.” –Redd

Journey to 2018

In the spring of 2018, global insurance broker Marsh commissioned a research project to examine the experiences of African-Americans working in the insurance industry. The main goal was to understand how to get more blacks employed in the insurance industry.

The research was conducted by Dr. Leroy Nunery III, a human resources, education and management consultant and founder of Plus Ultre. The project was under the direction of Alex Amonett, Global Inclusion, Diversity & Colleague Experience Leader for Marsh.

The resulting report, “Journey of African-American Insurance Professionals,” reflected participation by members of Redd’s NAAIA group. The primary research included 312 online survey responses, 25 interviews, and seven focus groups conducted over a six-month period prior to its publication in September 2018.

When asked if there are greater obstacles for African-Americans in the insurance industry compared to those for other minorities, 70% of those surveyed for the report either strongly agreed or agreed.

Participants ranked the key barriers to entry into the insurance business by African-Americans as: lack of exposure to the industry; lack of networks; lack of experience; racial bias; lack of educational preparation and gender bias.

“Anecdotally, I don’t think the dial has moved very much.” –Redd

Race would often be a factor in hirings, promotions and new assignments, as well as in whether they were included in key meetings, social events or opportunities with customers, according to those surveyed.

The report included comments from African-Americans in the industry talking about their experiences with racism and racial bias, both overt and subliminal, and talking about how race has affected their individual career journeys.

Alex Amonett

“I believe the level of unconscious bias that exists for African-Americans leads more people to react adversely towards this particular race of people,” said one participant. “We are often starting from way below benchmark before we even begin to engage with a business partner, client, or colleague, and therefore have to spend a lot of energy disproving their bias before we can even get down to the business of what we came here to do.”

“Rarely do I encounter overt racism,” said another participant. “Most of the time it’s people’s implied biases that hold African Americans, females, and people of color back. Usually, the top of the house (senior management) says all the right things, but it doesn’t get practiced at the middle management level.”

“Tell You What I See’

Flash forward from 2018 to the death of George Floyd in 2020, a time of heightened racial tensions along with, until recently, a strong economy with high employment figures (before the pandemic hit).

“I think the bigger picture here is this is not something that’s going to disappear tomorrow or in a couple of weeks, months or even years.” — Amonett

Did the 2018 report help? Do the people involved in it think there has been any progress towards the goal of increasing the number of African-Americans in insurance?

While she values the 2018 study and the support that Marsh has given her organization, NAAIA’s Redd questions whether real progress has been made in attracting more African-Americans into the industry.

“When we look for quantifiable measures, I just don’t think that we can give you that,” she said candidly. “Anecdotally, I don’t think the dial has moved very much.”

She said she does not see progress when she looks for African-American diversity in the C-suite, when she looks at insurance executives and leaders. “I don’t think the dial has moved very much and, in some cases, it might have moved back a bit.”


Further Strategic Thoughts

Becoming more technology-focused may help attract more blacks to the insurance industry.

“We have a larger diversity demographic within our tech side of the business,” said Marsh’s Amonett.

NAAIA’s Redd said her group has been holding national talent competitions to show off the technology side of the business. They choose subject matter that is “interesting, whether it’s drone technology or the internet of things or cyber threats. It’s the stuff that you hear about all over, not just in relation to insurance.”

Redd thinks the trend toward more remote work, accelerated due to the pandemic, may also open some doors. “I think that that is an opportunity in general” but not one that is necessarily “going to make a specific difference within the African American community,” she said.

She thinks in general the flexibility of remote work could make a difference for companies in terms of their ability to attract and retain employees. Employers with greater flexibility are going to appeal to a greater number of people, she suggested.

Amonett is cautious about the effect of remote working on recruiting blacks, maintaining that networking has been a challenge for African-Americans in the industry and “virtual networking” may make things even more difficult. It will require employers to have more deliberate processes to connect diverse talent to the organization, he said.

*********

The 2018 report commissioned by Marsh, “Journey of African-American Insurance Professionals,” offered strategies for blacks interested in working in the industry. These included being willing to take on risks of new assignments, pursuing professional development licenses and certifications, developing relationships within and outside of the industry and being their own career manager and advocate.

The participants recommended that African-Americans take advantage of mentorships, on-the-job training, leadership development programs and membership in professional organizations in order to progress from trainee to executive level positions.

The report also offered strategies and recommendations for employers interested in improving the presence and experience of African-Americans in the industry. These included moving beyond conventional recruiting activities, obtaining a commitment from senior management, developing employee resource groups, implementing formal mentorship and sponsorship programs for blacks, and diversifying their supply chain with African-American owned companies.

She acknowledges that she has no real numbers to back up her gut feeling. “I can just tell you what I see,” she said.

Given the lack of hard metrics, Redd said she “grabs at other ways of measuring progress.”

She believes that more dialogue is happening and that NAAIA’s interaction with industry partners is stronger than it’s ever been. However, that doesn’t mean the numbers have changed. “It’s a measure; not the measure but it’s a measure,” the NAAIA executive said.

At the same time, Redd feels African-Americans still find themselves in the same place year over year over year.

NAAIA was founded in 1997 on the recognition that African-Americans weren’t represented very strongly in this industry and that there was no strong network for those who were in the industry to get to know and support one another. “The basis for which this organization was founded, that issue still persists today,” Redd said.

Marsh’s Amonett said the 2018 report has been used as a consulting tool, as a strategic guide for employers and as material for NAAIA workshops and events focused on deep discussions around systemic racism and bias and better practices around hiring black candidates. It has helped NAAIA foster better dialogue, additional engagement and attract partnerships.

He acknowledged that diversity and inclusion don’t always move at the pace he and others would like but believes that the George Floyd protests can serve to “refuel that spark in recognizing we need to be moving a lot faster than we are, and we need to be putting aside different red tape and politics that are currently getting in the way of some of the challenges.”

At the Top

Among its observations, the 2018 report stressed that if there is to be real change in diversity of the workforce, the effort must have support at the top.

Carrier Management reported on a number of insurance executives that have spoken out against police brutality and in support of the racial equality. Since the death of George Floyd. Marsh & McLennan CEO Daniel Glaser was among the first. So did CEOs of American Family, Allstate, AIG, Chubb, CSAA, Hartford, Progressive, Erie, Zurich North America, State Farm, Utica National… the list goes on.

Jack Salzwedel, chair and CEO of American Family Insurance, said society must take action on multiple levels and in new ways. “It also requires people of privilege—white people—to stand up for and stand with our communities like we never have before,” he said. “I’m privileged. I have a voice. I want to use it for good.”

“We all have to make a difference by standing with those who are being prejudiced. We need to participate in honest dialogue that bridges understanding and arrives at shared actions and responsibilities,” Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg said in an email to the insurer’s U.S. employees.

“These times are a stark reminder that our society still suffers from far too many cases of distrust, hatred and racism. This is not the world we should accept as a society,” State Farm said. “We must push ourselves to influence change and create compassion.”

Of course, not all insurance leaders heeded the message that they should have a message at times like this.

“For anyone who chooses to let this moment pass as if it’s just a fleeting thought, I think they’re totally missing the mark. It will be an unfortunate consequence to them and the business that they serve,” said Redd. She said that’s “not a threat, it’s a reality.”

“I think the bigger picture here is this is not something that’s going to disappear tomorrow or in a couple of weeks, months or even years,” said Amonett.

Amonett said he believes this moment requires firms that support real change to boost their commitment. “They have to be willing to invest the time, the money and the resources to address these issues,” he said.

The Marsh executive said that for those CEOs not speaking out, there are consequences to being silent. “You lose engagement, you lose the trust you have built with clients, with colleagues, with the community,” he said, suggesting those who do not speak out come across as being “apathetic” to what is going on.

Redd said she is encouraged by the insurance CEOs and those from companies like Uber who are speaking out and including in their messages “very specific steps” that they are taking to make a difference for the long term.

“For anyone who chooses to let this moment pass as if it’s just a fleeting thought, I think they’re totally missing the mark. It will be an unfortunate consequence to them and the business that they serve.” — Redd

“That to me is the kind of reaction that we need more of across this industry,” she said.

Plotting Progress

Counting the CEOs who speak out is perhaps not the best way to measure the commitment to change of an industry or a company. But in the real world of promoting blacks in insurance, one problem is that there are not many metrics available, according to Redd.

While some insurers may track numbers privately, a few insurance organizations do reveal more than intentions in their efforts to increase African-American representation within their ranks. American International Group is one — AIG’s website has a “percentages report” that breaks out employment by minority categories (10.4% of AIG associates are African-Americans).

Progressive Insurance reports the minority percentage of its new hires and current employees. In 2018, 27% of Progressive’s new hires were African-American, compared to 17% for current employees. It also reports on promotions by race, ethnicity and gender.

Allstate’s Prosperity Report discusses diversity and shares that 17.2% of employees are African-American.

Zurich publishes an extensive human resource factbook that explores the company’s employment by gender, generation and geography but not race.

The Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers has a task force on diversity and the organization researches and reports on the status of minority employment, including for African Americans, in insurance agency ranks. “Many agencies continue to struggle to convince an already limited talent pool that insurance is a promising career option,” wrote Alex Dopazo, chair of the IIABA Diversity Council, last February. Progress in the agency system has been “driven mostly by newer agencies that have been established within the past five years,” Dopazo added, noting (as reported above) 13% of new agencies have at least one African-American principal.

More and more employers including insurers and brokers are promoting diversity and inclusion within their organizations. They often include employee support groups for blacks and other minorities as well as supplier diversity initiatives. These efforts show a lot of movement around hiring women, gays and lesbians, disabled citizens and veterans. The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation hosts a high-profile Woman in Insurance Conference with regional forums. While the global Festival for Diversity and Inclusion (DIVE), now in its sixth year, addresses a range of diversity issues including race and culture, gender equality is a main focus.

Insurance Journal asked if these and other D&I campaigns with women and other constituencies have resulted in blacks being overlooked compared to other minority groups.

Redd was shaking her head yes before the question was completed.

“We can track the way that we hire, the way that we promote.”– Amonett

“I would say that that’s a fact and I think that a lot of the stats would speak to that,” she said. She suggested that some companies have realized their minority goals through the selection of women rather than blacks to higher positions.

“I’m certainly happy for women but it doesn’t address the issue of African-Americans,” Redd said.

She said the support for women has come about more easily and sooner than the “the real measurable support that we need to see for African-Americans.”

Buy-In from Above

Redd wonders about commitment to African-American recruitment and support at the top. She said whenever a company is starting a new division or setting new goals, the initiatives need approval from the C-suite and the board. “They’ve got that buy-in at the top. They have a strategy, they have a plan, they have measurable objectives, they have accountability,” she said. They do what they need to do and track the results to succeed, she said.

So, Redd asked, why is a goal of hiring more African-Americans any different? “That’s my question. We struggle year over year with: how do we do it, how do we make it happen?” she said. She thinks companies should use the same mentality they would for any strategic initiative that is considered critically important to the organization.

Amonett agreed that every strategy needs measurement, adding that “sometimes you have to get creative about it.” He maintained that there are internal labor market data that can track growth with respect to diversity. “We can track the way that we hire, the way that we promote,” he said.

Whether the diversity development program helped people get promoted can be measured. Organizations can also use engagement and pulse surveys, he said.

“You should have targets in place and goals in place over a strategic amount of time,” Amonett said.

He said it can sometimes get complicated when companies equate targets with quotas. He said the challenge is to educate employers on what a true meritocracy offering equal opportunities really is within organizations where existing performance evaluation and promotional systems are rife with white male bias. People of color and women are often promoted based on performance versus potential, according to the Marsh diversity officer. However, the company then ends up with a lot of white men being seen as higher potential because they match the personalities of their white male leadership team.

Setting targets helps “knock down some of those barriers” for diverse communities, Amonett added.

Missing Reputation

It’s no secret that the insurance industry ‘s reputation has been an obstacle for recruitment among certain generations and communities. “We’re not going to be thought of off the top as a sexy, interesting industry,” admitted Redd.

But she said she doesn’t think the reputation is any worse in the black community than it is elsewhere, although years ago when redlining was occurring it probably was. The problem with insurance and the black community is not that the industry has a bad reputation but that it doesn’t have much of a reputation at all in the black community.

“We’re not going to be thought of off the top as a sexy, interesting industry.” –Redd

“If you don’t know the game, you can’t play the game,” Redd said, suggesting that African-Americans are largely unaware of the opportunities in insurance.

The industry remains a secret even though, according to the 2018 report, the overwhelming majority of blacks who have enjoyed successful insurance careers would recommend the industry to others.

Redd was asked if some of these African-American insurance professionals might feel differently today.

No, she said, because what has been on the national news is “not a wake-up call for black America” as it is for the rest of the nation. “We’ve lived this and understood this and been part of this all of our lives,” the NAAIA executive director said.

Photo: Protesters gather at a memorial for George Floyd where he died outside Cup Foods on East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, Monday, June 1, 2020, in Minneapolis. Protests continued following the death of George Floyd, who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on May 25. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

American Companies Facing Pressure to Reveal Data on Diversity of Employees

By Ross Kerber and Simon Jessop | July 6, 2020
INSURANCE JOURNAL

American companies are coming under increasing pressure from investors to publicly disclose information about diversity among employees in the wake of nationwide protests against racial discrimination.

Many executives have pledged to champion equality in response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the United States and beyond.


The goal of global investors increasingly focused on social and governance issues is to gain a common metric on racial diversity to compare companies and hold them to account on their pledges, building on a drive to improve gender equality.

The good news, they say, is that U.S. firms with more than 100 employees already gather such data for the federal government annually via a form known as the EEO-1, along with gender information.

However, the data is confidential and companies are not required to publicly release it, with some arguing it does not accurately capture the structure of their businesses.



Only 32 companies in the Russell 1000 make the information public, according to researcher Just Capital, either via the form itself or through detailed summaries.

“The EEO-1 is not the holy grail, but it’s an excellent starting point,” said John Streur, chief executive of Calvert Research and Management, an investment firm pressing executives to publicly disclose the data.


Once companies began releasing information, it would create competition to improve diversity, he added.

This was echoed by Mirza Baig, Global Head of Governance at London-based Aviva Investors, part of insurer Aviva.

“We think it’s inevitable that those data points will be disclosed and we think companies should get ahead of it.”

UNDERREPRESENTED

Companies that file the EEO-1 form, to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), record the number of workers they have of each race and gender across 10 job categories, including senior officials, sales workers and technicians. The latest filings are for 2018, as the 2019 deadline was deferred to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The data reveals some very unequal pictures.

For instance, of 290 executives and top leaders at Uber Technologies Inc, one of the companies to publicly release the information, seven were Black and nine were Hispanic or Latino in the payroll period covering the last two weeks of 2018.

Both figures represented only around a 3% share of top positions, well below the two groups’ proportion of the U.S. population, of about 13% and 19% respectively.

At Bank of America Corp., in another example, Black people held 5% of 4,197 top-level roles as of last year, and Hispanic or Latino people held another 4%.

Measuring the Moment: How Will George Floyd’s Death Matter to Insurance Industry?

While some insurers may track numbers privately, a few insurance organizations do reveal more than intentions in their efforts to increase African-American representation within their ranks. American International Group is one — AIG’s website has a “percentages report” that breaks out employment by minority categories (10.4% of AIG associates are African-Americans). Progressive Insurance reports the minority percentage of its new hires and current employees. In 2018, 27% of Progressive’s new hires were African-American, compared to 17% for current employees. It also reports on promotions by race, ethnicity and gender. Allstate’s Prosperity Report discusses diversity and shares that 17.2% of employees are African-American. Zurich publishes an extensive human resource factbook that explores the company’s employment by gender, generation and geography but not race. The Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers has a task force on diversity and the organization researches and reports on the status of minority employment, including for African Americans, in insurance agency ranks. Read more.

The figures are broadly in line with aggregated EEOC data showing that of the roughly 900,000 people holding those top jobs across the country, about 3% were Black and 4% were Hispanic in 2018.

Companies that disclose the data, like Uber and Bank of America, show a more serious effort to improve minority representation, said Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, a University of Massachusetts professor who studies workplace diversity.

“Transparency is a prerequisite for both goal-setting and accountability,” he added.

An Uber spokeswoman said the company “is committed to investing in long-term strategies to create a sustainable pipeline of talent from historically underrepresented communities.”

Bank of America says on its website it is “focused on attracting, retaining and developing diverse talent.”

‘WALK THE WALK’

There has been a marked shift in attitudes since the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

Companies have collectively pledged hundreds of millions of dollars and to remake their own workforce profiles.

However firms voicing support for racial equality should back up their talk by releasing their EEO-1 data, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer says in letters being sent to 67 companies in the S&P 100.

“We’re asking companies that condemned racism to walk the walk,” Stringer, who oversees some $206 billion in retirement assets, told Reuters.

Activist investors say efforts to make diversity data public are gathering momentum, partly since this can be easier than reforms like adding social metrics to CEO pay programs or naming new board members.

For instance, at cybersecurity company Fortinet Inc’s annual meeting on June 19 – the “Juneteenth” U.S. holiday marking the end of slavery in 1865 – 70% of shares voted backed a resolution to report on its workforce diversity.

Kristin Hull, CEO of resolution sponsor Nia Impact Capital, said the vote tally – a record high among similar resolutions at U.S. companies according to the Sustainable Investments Institute – reflected the current discussion about race in corporate America.

Update: Lloyd’s of London Apologizes for Its ‘Shameful’ Role in Atlantic Slave Trade

Lloyd’s grew to dominate the shipping insurance market, a key element of Europe’s global scramble for empire, treasure and slaves, who were usually in the 18th Century included in insurance policies in the general rate for ship cargo.

Some Facts About London’s Role in Insuring the Atlantic Slave Trade

Slaves were seen as cargo by the insurance market of the time and generally included in the general insurance rate.

Lloyd’s Statement on Its Role in Slave Trade

At Lloyd’s we understand that we cannot always be proud of our past. In particular, we are sorry for the role played by the Lloyd’s market in the eighteenth and nineteenth Century slave trade – an appalling and shameful period of English history, as well as our own. In acknowledging our own history, we also remain committed to focusing on the actions we can take today to shape our future into one that we can truly be proud to stand by. Read more

A Fortinet spokesman said it planned to release its EEO-1 data.

MATCHING THE WORKFORCE

However to date, most companies have shied away from public disclosure of EEO-1 data. Executives say privately they worry about legal liability, bad publicity and attracting rivals’ recruiters if they employ many minorities.

Some argue the form’s categories such as “craft workers” or “laborers” aren’t relevant to their businesses.

Even some of the activists do not give out their data. “We have not historically published the EEO-1 forms, but we are reviewing that approach,” said Robyn Tice, spokeswoman for Calvert parent Eaton Vance Corp.

Some companies do disclose data, but on their own terms.

Just Capital counted 204 companies that disclosed some information on the gender and ethnicity of their employees as of August 2019, often in non-standard ways.

In a report on its website, for example, Starbucks Inc states that 17.5% of its executives ranked at senior vice president or higher are “People of Color.”

A Starbucks spokeswoman said it was reviewing whether to release its EEO-1 data publicly.

Others disclose little data currently, like Snapchat parent Snap Inc.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said in a CNBC interview on June 11 that, while it was working on providing more details, it was worried that disclosures “have actually normalized the current composition of the tech workforce,” which has few minorities.

A Snap spokeswoman said the company planned to disclose a breakdown of its employees by race and gender as the EEO-1 form outlined, but would likely use different job categories that better matched its workforce. It also plans to show additional data such as hiring rates, she added.

For an interactive version of the graphic, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2Nq8D62.

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

Calvert’s Streur mentioned Home Depot Inc as an example of a company that could expect more pressure to release its full EEO-1 data.

Nearly every year since 2005, shareholder activists have put a resolution on the idea to a vote at the retailer’s annual meeting – an uncommonly long run.

The company has opposed the resolutions. In its notice for this year’s meeting, held on May 21, it noted it began releasing certain diversity data annually in 2018.

In 2018, 48% of shares cast backed a resolution calling for the EEO-1-level disclosure. A similar resolution got 36% support at this year’s meeting, held four days before Floyd’s death.

A Home Depot spokeswoman said it was “committed to diversity and equal opportunity.” She cited a company diversity report, which states minorities made up 44% of its workforce in 2018.

American Century’s Sustainable Equity Fund was one backer of the resolution this year, according to Guillaume Mascotto, vice president for the fund manager.

He said the national conversation about race would make more shareholders likely to back calls for disclosure in the future.

“More and more investors, especially those that have a long-term horizon are going to want to see how companies are approaching this.”

(Reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston and Simon Jessop in London; Editing by Pravin Char)


Copyright 2020 Reuters.

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Mon 6 Jul 2020
 

Demonstrators hold placards in front of the UN headquarters in New York during a protest against racial inequality in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. Photograph: Jeenah Moon/Reuters

The global push for racial justice following the death of George Floyd in the US has resulted in a flurry of solidarity statements from within the international aid industry, including the UN.

After a shaky start, where its secretary general, António Guterres, was forced to backtrack on a note to staff that suggested they shouldn’t participate in Black Lives Matter (BLM), UN People of African Descent (Unpad) launched a survey to “allow staff to provide data, including on the extent of perceptions of systemic inequality inside the UN, its manifestations, and the responsiveness of the organisation to reports of incidents of systemic racism”.

The survey made me reflect on my experience during a short stint at a UN agency several years ago. I was on a consultancy contract (like so many young people) to formulate and drive social media campaigns. I carried my idealism to the job, and during that time worked on humanitarian crises in the Mediterranean, in west Africa during the Ebola outbreak, and in emergencies in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Nigeria, South Sudan and Burundi.


'What does the UN stand for?': anger follows memo on anti-racism protests

But far from the rosy image of an industry “doing good”, I felt I was treated as a token black woman in a largely white male institution. I witnessed the racist treatment of black staff who were seen as diversity hires.

One case I’m aware of involved a new recruit from a conflict country who was tasked with producing a key document for the unit – a big ask for someone coming from outside the organisation. A few days in, a supervisor, a European white man, said: “If she doesn’t have my strategy by the end of the day I will put her on the next plane back.” She had literally fled that country, bullets raining, and survived as a refugee before joining the organisation.


I and others tried to use the internal system to report the abuse. We were informally advised that since we were on a consultancy contract such complaints would hurt our future opportunities.

Several years after I left the agency, the #MeToo movement drew the world to the struggle against structural sexism and the persistent unequal power that enables and sustains sexual abuse. Then #AidToo emerged, targeted at aid agencies that allowed abuse of power, sexual misconduct, sexual exploitation and a toxic environment for both aid workers and the women and girls they worked with. The revelations exposed the lack of oversight and systems of accountability in the sector.

At the time, black women and many from the global south asserted that it was disingenuous to speak about the exploitative aid sector without probing the systemic racism. Black people and people of colour, both in the industry and in the countries where most of the aid work is carried out, experience an amalgamation of abuse of power, systemic sexism and white supremacy.

But little, if anything changed, in the sector. Until George Floyd’s death, which saw an outpouring of solidarity statements with BLM. The very agencies that silenced us now tweet about diversity.

Seeing the new tone from the agencies, I shared my experience of racism in the sector, and several former and current UN employees got in touch.

“They wanted my contribution but not my voice at the table because they wanted me to act like I don’t see the injustice,” said a Haitian former colleague.

“I was the department help and made to feel that I must feel grateful to be sitting at the table. The department’s toxic culture eventually got me fired because I refused to act grateful and demanded to be treated equally and to be heard. Eventually, I was no longer allowed at the table and was silenced,” said a former colleague from southern Africa.

“There have been several reports against these white men in positions of power, but they only rotate them, nothing is done … A white intern can become your supervisor in the blink of an eye, and they will always tell you ‘budget’, but the same budget is not an issue for white people,” said a current employee.

A woman of colour who recently resigned cited among other issues “preferential treatment, bias recruitment and the obvious structural racisms”.

The “deep and sincere discussion” about racism Guterres seeks must recognise the historic marginalisation and exploitation of black people and people from the global south within its agencies.

In its 75th year, it is time for the UN to dismantle the unequal power at its heart. It’s an enormous challenge. So enormous that the UN must open itself up to outside scrutiny. Self-reflection is not enough of an intervention.

• Rosebell Kagumire​ is a writer and award-winning blogger

CULTURAL GENOCIDE

Israel Must Question Itself Over Bid To Erase Arab Identity – OpEd
July 6, 2020 Arab News 

By Arab News

By Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib*

The streets of Tel Aviv have seen a series of recent protests aimed at stopping a project by the municipality. The project in Jaffa consists of excavating historic Muslim graves in order to build a homeless shelter for Jewish Israelis. It is part of a plan by the right-wing Israeli government to erase Arab heritage. Most importantly, it represents a blunder in attempts to encourage peaceful coexistence between Jews and Palestinians in Israel.

The Netanyahu government is pushing the Arab community into a corner by denying its rights and constantly attacking its heritage. It is emboldened by the Donald Trump White House, which basically rubber stamps all of Netanyahu’s wishes and whims, from unilaterally declaring Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel to acknowledging the annexation of the Golan Heights and proposing giving Israel a large swath of land in the heart of the West Bank, making a Palestinian state an impossibility. Though efforts to change street names have been going on for a while, they have accelerated recently. Netanyahu wants to seize the opportunity of having Trump in office and would like to set a precedent that will be difficult to reverse.

Jaffa’s contested Al-Isaaf cemetery, located next to the Ottoman clock tower, covers only 800 square meters. However, the Israeli authorities have made concerted efforts to remove the graves in a sign of defiance to the Palestinian community.

In 2018, the Israeli antiquity authorities excavated the area and found the 18th century cemetery. After the discovery, the authorities were urged to stop the excavation. In October of the same year, the Muslim community renovated the graves, reburied the bodies and added tombstones, only for them to be demolished shortly after by the municipality. Last year, the community appealed to the courts in a bid to stop the demolitions and end the project. However, a January ruling fell in favor of the municipality. Last month, the municipality, accompanied by soldiers, started the process of demolishing the cemetery. This sparked protests by the Palestinian community. Muslims and Christians alike gathered in rejection of the decision, forcing an Israeli court to halt the work until a hearing on July 22.

A delegation representing the Greek Orthodox Church visited the cemetery, with Bishop Atalla Hana saying: “Our roots run deep in this land and any assault on an Islamic cemetery is also an assault on a Christian cemetery.” The protesters were also joined by Jewish activists, including Rabbi Eliyahu Kaufman. He issued a statement in which he called on peace and human right activists to join the protest and show solidarity with the Arab community in order to preserve the cemetery.

The Jaffa project comes as part of a larger plan by the Netanyahu government to erase Israel’s Arabic history. It is an attempt to Judaize Jaffa and erase its Islamic heritage. It is an attempt to finish off Jaffa as a city and make it part of Tel Aviv. According to Arab Member of the Knesset Sami Abu Shehadeh, the issue of Al-Isaaf extends beyond the premises. Following the 1948 Nakba, Israel confiscated sacred Islamic places such as cemeteries and mosques, as well as commercial shops. Israel deals with the land and buildings it has confiscated as its own property. The issue is not whether it can afford to or has the space to relocate the project; rather it is that Israel does not want to create a precedent that would open the door for the Arab community to make more claims in historic Palestine.

Abu Shehadeh says Al-Isaaf is not the first cemetery that has been turned into a real estate project. Abdel Nabi cemetery was destroyed to make way for the Hilton Tel Aviv hotel and the authorities used the cemetery of Moanes to build an extension for Tel Aviv University. The problem is that Israel’s governments, especially since Netanyahu came to power, look at Arab citizens as enemies, viewing any claims to their heritage as an infringement on the Jewish identity of the land that, from their perspective, extends over the entirety of historic Palestine. Therefore, Palestinian citizens of Israel can never expect justice or equality in a system that does not accept them as Arabs or as Palestinians. They use the courts for technical issues, but the courts do not acknowledge their claims to the land as indigenous people — hence, they can never seriously use the system as a source of justice.

The Al-Isaaf issue is more than a reflection of the struggle between Muslims and Jews or Arabs and Israelis. It is a reflection of the struggle between people who believe in coexistence and people who want to eliminate the other. More than being a danger for the Palestinian community in Israel and its heritage, it is a danger to Israel’s leaders themselves, who one day will have to look in a mirror and ask themselves: Who are we? The other question is: Can we go on like this?

The world is witnessing a revolution that many have described as the end of the post-colonial era. People are demanding equality. The world will no longer accept Netanyahu’s apartheid style of government. Though the actions of the Israeli government are horrendous and do not signal any attempts at peace, the support offered by the Israeli Jews who refused such actions represent a ray of hope that change is possible inside Israel. The country’s policymakers should look at the changes in the world and see them from a pragmatic point of view. It is better for them to change now and relinquish their efforts to subjugate the Palestinian community inside Israel and in Palestine than be forced to do so by the international community sometime in the near future.
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She holds a PhD in politics from the University of Exeter and is an affiliated scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

 Israel Must Question Itself Over Bid To Erase Arab Identity – OpEd

Arab News

Arab News is Saudi Arabia's first English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1975 by Hisham and Mohammed Ali Hafiz. Today, it is one of 29 publications produced by Saudi Research & Publishing Company (SRPC), a subsidiary of Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG).

UNITED FRONT
Israel TV: Hamas, Fatah cooperation against deal of the century a 'dangerous development'July 4, 2020

The national and Islamic forces and factions in Gaza, including Hamas and Fatah, reach an agreement on a unified national plan of action to confront the US' 'deal of the century' and Israel's annexation plans on June 28, 2020 [Mohammad Asad / Middle East Monitor]

July 4, 2020 

The ongoing cooperation between the two Palestinian rival groups, Hamas and Fatah, to topple the US deal of the century and Israel’s annexation is a “dangerous development”, Israeli Channel 12 reported on Friday.

Channel 12 disclosed that such a possibility was expected, but Israeli security did not expect that it would happen in such a short time-frame, adding: “It is a dangerous development because of the very short time they needed to reach this unity which surprised the Israeli security services.”

On Thursday, Deputy Hamas Chief Saleh Al-Arouri appeared with Senior Fatah Leader Jebril Al-Rajoub in a joint press conference, declaring their unity against the deal of the century and the Israeli annexation plan.

“The press conference is not important, but what is happening on the ground is very important, mainly the detention of Hamas members by the Palestinian Authority (PA),” Al Watan Voice reported the Israeli channel stating.

Read: Hamas, Fatah to unify efforts against annexation plan

Meanwhile, former Israeli Communication Minister Ayoob Kara stated that the Hamas and Fatah cooperation “raises concerns” as Fatah’s leader confirmed that his movement would let Hamas work in Gaza, Israeli Channel 7 reported.

Rajoub announced in the press conference that he was “confident about Hamas’ intentions,” noting that the Palestinians have been waiting for this conference to be the starting point of national unity.

The Black Lives Matter movement’s stand with Palestinians has a history

July 1, 2020 

A protestor holds up a "Palestine 4 Black Lives" placard at the Black Lives Matter protests in London, UK on 7 June 2020 [Lauren Lewis/Middle East Monitor]


Asa Winstanley@AsaWinstanley
July 1, 2020

It is common to think of Black Lives Matter as a single group when it isn’t; it is a movement. Indeed, it is a movement for Black liberation which first erupted in response to police brutality in 2014, following the killing of two African Americans: Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City.

The demonstrations which followed those two killings drew on the social media hashtag #BlackLivesMatter which had originated the year before, with the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Black teen Trayvon Martin in Florida.

In 2014 and 2015, Black Lives Matter became a national phenomenon in the US, with demonstrations all over the country. Solidarity protests then began to spread around the world. This global expansion has taken on a new dimension with the latest major wave of protests after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in May.

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Black people in the centres of former European colonial powers – London, Paris and Brussels – have taken to the streets. Along with their friends and supporters, they have protested against police violence, structural racism and the legacy of imperialism.

Although Black Lives Matter is a movement rather than a single organisation, there are also specific groups which call themselves “Black Lives Matter”, or some variation thereof. This can sometimes be a little confusing.

The group called Black Lives Matter UK was launched in 2016 and first came to national attention in September of that year with the disruption of London City Airport. They tweeted that the “climate crisis is a racist crisis.” Seven out of ten of the countries most affected by climate change are in sub-Saharan Africa, the protesters pointed out.

The movement has always had a strong internationalist dimension. This is not a break with history but is very much in the tradition of the Black liberation struggle, which saw Malcolm X stand against Zionism, and Black Panther Party leaders express their solidarity with Palestinian resistance fighters.

Last weekend, BLM UK continued in this tradition by posting a series of tweets condemning the Israeli annexation plan for the West Bank and demanding the right to criticise Zionism. “British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism, and Israel’s settler-colonial pursuits,” the group said.


As Israel moves forward with the annexation of the West Bank, and mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism, and Israel’s settler colonial pursuits, we loudly and clearly stand beside our Palestinian comrades.

FREE PALESTINE.
— #BlackLivesMatterUK (@ukblm) June 28, 2020


The pro-Israel lobby then proved BLM UK’s point, by trying to gag them. They were smeared as anti-Semitic for saying that criticism of Zionism gets you smeared.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews called the tweet an “anti-Semitic trope” and attacked BLM UK as “a supposedly anti-racist organisation”. Members of the Jewish Labour Movement’s leadership smeared them as a “fake” group which was engaging in a “hurtful fantasy”.

However, in stark contrast to the cowardly backsliding of left-wing Labour Party MPs and media outriders, BLM UK did not back down in the face of such dirty slanders. Instead, the group posted a powerful tweet which included a quote from Angela Davis.


One more time for those at the back.

From the British Black Panthers to Black Lives Matter, solidarity and learning from Palestinians in the fight against systemic racism has always been part of our shared struggle, and shared strength. pic.twitter.com/DlwBydqqNe
— #BlackLivesMatterUK (@ukblm) June 28, 2020


In 2016, the Movement for Black Lives in the US endorsed BDS, the movement for a boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. The group went even further, condemning US complicity “in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people” and describing Israel as “an apartheid state”.

No wonder, then, that Israel and its lobby considers Black Lives Matter to be a major “strategic threat” to their apartheid regime which oppresses the Palestinians. By lashing out in such an underhanded and censorious fashion, though, Israel and the pro-Israel lobby are only making more enemies and creating more long term problems for themselves. They are sticking their fingers in the increasing number of holes in the dam. All obfuscation aside, at the end of the day, they are arguing against equality for all people in the land of Palestine, and yet still claim that Israel is a democracy.

As Ali Abunimah explained recently, “Zionism is the belief that Palestinians can and must be expelled from their homeland so that settlers can take their place. Zionism is the belief that Palestinian refugees cannot return to their homeland, to the towns and villages from which they were expelled, solely and exclusively because they’re not Jewish.”

That is why it is such an outrage when pro-Israel lobby groups like the Jewish Labour Movement want to crush all dissent when the topic under discussion is Zionism, and when despicable individuals like John Mann want any critical reference to Zionism to be “outlawed” in British political life. They do this because Zionism is indefensible on its own terms and cannot stand up under the close scrutiny of open and free debate. Its proponents are thus reverting increasingly to closing down such debate. Their efforts are underhand and distinctly undemocratic. Very much like Zionism, in fact.

Portrait of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed black man who was killed after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, is painted on Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on 8 June, 2020 [Wisam Hashlamoun/Anadolu Agency]
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them.

Protests Started Over A Month Ago, But The Fight For Black Lives Rages On

ELLY BELLE UPDATED 6 JULY 2020,

PHOTO: AL SEIB/LOS ANGELES TIMES/SHUTTERSTOCK.

It's been over a month since Black Lives Matter protests started after the police killed George Floyd in May. Since then, protesters in Minneapolis were able to push the city council to disband the police department and begin to reimagine what their security systems will look like. But the protests — and the actions that have come out of them — are not isolated to the city where George Floyd was suffocated and killed: Across America, protesters have continued to demand that officials defund and abolish police forces and change the country's systemised racism altogether.

But one month of civil unrest later and it doesn't seem that the movement to take action is slowing down by any means. On Monday 29th June, Democrats in Congress proposed legislation that aims to end excessive use of force by police, and get rid of protections that shield police officers who are accused of misconduct from being prosecuted.

While laws that protect police officers have already been undone in places like New York, a federal law would be an expansive intervention in the way policing works across the country. In cities like Portland and Minneapolis, student-led campaigns have pushed public school boards to cut ties with the police and take officers out of schools. For Portland schools, that means freeing up $1 million (£850,000) to be used on much-needed social services and more.

Despite individual wins and federal policy proposals, protesters and organisers in most cities are still fighting for officials to take real action around the main demand from protesters: defunding police departments and reallocating the funds to underfunded services like education and housing.

In Seattle, New York, Baltimore, Portland, and elsewhere, budgets remain in the high millions and billions even after cuts that might seem substantial at first glance. In Seattle, for example, protesters rejected a recent proposal by Mayor Jenny Durkan to cut the police budget by $20 million, which would only be a 5% reduction in funding. And in Los Angeles, council members approved a budget cut of $150 million to LAPD's $1 billion (£800m), still a small slash.

Advocates are also asking for real change, rather than symbolic gestures. While officials like DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have named plazas in honour of Black Lives Matter and had “BLACK LIVES MATTER” murals and words painted on streets, activists have said and shown that they want much more than PR stunts that don’t provide any material change. Still, the ever-growing size of the movement has continued to ignite people's passion to keep protesting and organising for real justice.
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Most recently, protests have taken the form of staged sit-ins at government buildings in response to moves for reforms and adjusted budgets rather than defunding plans. In New York, protesters have camped out at City Hall, waging Occupy City Hall for more than a week, in an attempt to pressure de Blasio and other officials in charge of the budget to cut NYPD funds by at least $1 billion (£850m), and reallocate it to social services.

On top of cutting the police budget, the #DefundNYPD campaign also demanded the city not increase NYPD budget lines in 2021, that no new policing-related initiatives are created, and more budget transparency. On the day of the budget vote, June 30, those occupying City Hall in Manhattan stayed the whole night watching the budget meeting from screens outside, with many disappointed in the budget outcome that failed to cut the $1 billion (£850m) demanded, provided $13 million to the NYPD (£10m) for "Special Expense," and further defunded necessary services like healthcare, affordable housing, and more.

"The City Council failed New Yorkers today. Instead of shrinking policing, the Council moved cops from the NYPD to other agencies, refused to institute a hiring freeze on police and failed to take meaningful steps to shrink the NYPD’s massive and abusive presence in our communities," Communities United for Police Reform said in a statement released on 1st July after the budget vote. "We will continue to fight for true justice for our communities, and for a budget that provides New Yorkers with the resources and services that we deserve.”

In Philadelphia, protesters have similarly asked city officials to reallocate police budgets into community services, homeless services, and libraries by holding a sit-in at the Municipal Services Building. This came as a last-ditch effort after weeks of protests achieved only a 4.3% reduction in the Philadelphia Police Department’s proposed 2021 budget.

Philadelphia has already proposed cutting the city's $19 million (£15.2m) increase to the police budget to $14 million (£11.2m). But according to Flan Park, an organiser in Philadelphia, this falls far short of what organisers demanded. Park said that allies called for at minimum, a $120 million (£96m) reduction to PPD — an amount equivalent to the total increase to police operating budgets since the current mayor began his first term in office, while other coalition organisations called for things like a 50% reduction and immediate abolition of the police department.

“Groups like Philly for Real Justice, Black Lives Matter Philly, and Black and Brown Workers Cooperative have been organising around the connections between police brutality and economic injustice toward Black Philadelphians for years before this summer," Flan says. "Their leadership has been pushing these issues for a long time. I don’t think that even a flat or no increase budget for the PPD would have happened this summer without years of groundwork coming to fruition as people rapidly mobilised. But this fight far from finished.”

The protests and demands won’t be dying down anytime soon. Over the last month, there have been protests in every state in America, with protests in major cities spanning Seattle to New York continuing each day since May 29. What started as individual protests to call for justice for those killed by police — including George Floyd, Tony McDade, and Breonna Taylor — has quickly shifted into a nationwide movement to fundamentally end policing and transform communities.

Kandace Montgomery, an organiser with MPD150 in Minneapolis, who has been pushing to defund the police for years, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that this moment feels different from the early days of Black Lives Matter, as more people are joining the cause. “Folks in a very decentralised way are mobilising to the streets to demand justice. Organisers have been clear on this forever, but the general public is more clear that we need to eradicate systemic racism and abolish the police, and that is what feels different now.”

How Black Lives Matter fits into the long history of American radicalism

“Any movement that goes to the root of things is radical.”

By Sean Illing@seanillingsean.illing@vox.com Jul 2, 2020

Community organizations and activists demanding police accountability gathered for a rally and march at the clock in Grand Central Terminal on August 8, 2019, to commemorate the five-year anniversary of Mike Brown’s death by Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson. Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

Black Lives Matter was created in 2013 by three Black women — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman. Over the last seven years, it has evolved into something much bigger: a broad multiethnic liberation movement focused on criminal justice reform, racist policing, and adjacent causes.

During the course of this shift, the movement has not only expanded but become more radical in its demands for equality across the board. And yet, surprisingly, this has increased, rather than diminished, its appeal.

BLM had little support across the country as recently as 2017. But it has become steadily more popular, and in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, its popularity has surged to the point that it’s now supported by a majority of Americans. By any measure, that suggests BLM is succeeding — culturally and politically.

But how should we think of Black Lives Matter as a historical phenomenon? Is it the sort of radical social movement we’ve seen before in this country? Or is it something new, something different, without any precursors?

To get some answers, I reached out to Michael Kazin, a professor of history and American social movements at Georgetown University and also the co-editor of Dissent magazine. We discussed how BLM fits into the long tradition of American radicalism, what its proponents can learn from previous eras, and why he thinks BLM is both a political and a cultural struggle.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.
Sean Illing

As someone who studies the history of social movements in America, how do you view this moment?
Michael Kazin

It’s a remarkable moment in some ways, because we have a very unpopular right-wing president and a set of popular social movements on the left. Which is surprising, because usually social movements on the left get more popular when you have a liberal or progressive president in office. This is what happened in the ’30s and ’60s, for example. I think we might be witnessing the end of a conservative era.
Sean Illing

What does the end of a conservative era mean?
Michael Kazin

Well, we’ve had Democratic presidents in this era, Clinton and Obama, but the guiding ideas of the time have been conservative ideas about government and labor and race. And now that could be changing in a very radical way.

If Democrats are able to win the presidency and tip both houses of Congress, then you could see another major vault to the left in American history, the kind of vault we saw during Reconstruction and during the progressive eras in the ’30s and ’60s and early ’70s. But all of this energy doesn’t always translate to big legislative revolutions. For laws to pass, it’ll take a combination of left-wing social movements and politicians who are willing to accommodate those movements in important ways.
Sean Illing

The Black Lives Matter movement is at the forefront of this leftward push. Do you consider BLM a radical social movement, or does it just seem that way to those who are more invested in the current order?
Michael Kazin

Like all large social movements, it has its radical aspects and its more reformist aspects. That was true of the labor movement in the ’30s, which had a lot of communists and socialists in it. It was true of Reconstruction too, in which you had more radical Republicans like Thaddeus Stevens, who wanted to confiscate the land of anybody who had fought for the Confederacy and give it to African Americans, to freed slaves. We saw it in the ’60s as well, when the Black Freedom Movement had its reformist side pushing for integration of institutions and the Voter Rights Act, Civil Rights Act, and you had the Black Panthers and other Black Power groups who wanted one big revolution.

So you see this dynamic in every mass social movement. It’s hard to say what will become of BLM. You’ve got the different aspects to it. People can unite around some moderate demands like passing laws that will handcuff the police in terms of their capacity to use violence. The more radical aspects, like abolishing the police altogether, go much further. And there are conversations about reparations and restructuring the economy to ensure not just equal opportunities but equal outcomes.

As the movement gets larger, you’ll see more differences within it. But no single one of those manifestations will define the movement as a whole.
Sean Illing

What makes a “radical” movement radical? Is it more about the nature of the demands? Or how those demands are perceived by the power structure?
Michael Kazin

That’s a very good question. The power structure, of course, often perceives any movement that wants to change the fundamentals of how the country operates as radical. Martin Luther King Jr. was perceived to be a radical — and I think he was. But the demands he was making publicly, until the end of his life, really weren’t that radical. He simply wanted the 14th and 15th Amendments to be applied to Black people.

Any movement that goes to the root of things is radical. An anti-capitalism movement is radical. A movement which calls for reparations for African Americans is radical. There’s a radical ethics that diagnoses something wrong about the basic organization of society and seeks to undo that wrong, and conservative figures in power have always viewed these efforts as existential threats.

The New Deal was perceived as radically socialist by a lot of people in business and in the power structure, but in retrospect it was really just reformist.
Sean Illing

The shifting perception of these movements is fascinating to me, especially in this moment. In the case of Black Lives Matter, it’s remarkable to see just how popular it has become. In the last two weeks alone, I believe, support for BLM has increased as much as it has in the last two years.

What does that signal to you?
Michael Kazin

It signals that racial attitudes in America, which began to change after World War II and then took a big step forward in the 1960s with the success of the Black Freedom Movement and the Civil Rights Act, have really evolved. This has been a very long and hard road, with moments of backlash along the way, but this is what you’d expect because racism is so deeply woven into that fabric of American history and culture. Obviously, the horrific killing of George Floyd was a catalyst, but I think we’re seeing the results of young people coming of age and being much more open to racial equality than previous generations.
Sean Illing

And BLM, whatever one thinks of it, strikes me as the continuation of some of the most successful social movements in American history.
Michael Kazin

I think that’s right, and two of those movements, the Abolitionist movement and the Black Freedom Movement, were also organized around the demands of equality for African-Americans. Of course, you could say this is all part of one long movement, but it had various phases to it. I think what we’re seeing now is very much part of the Black Freedom Movement, which has had its ups and downs throughout its history. But the thread tying all of it together has always been the push for fundamental equality at every level of society and in every major institution.

What’s interesting about BLM is that it could be a catalyst to a reform movement in the same way the labor movement in the ’30s was essential to moving the Democratic Party to the left. A lot of people don’t know this, but it was really in the ’30s that the Democrats began to move away from Jim Crow. It took a long time, obviously, but that’s when it started, and it was because labor was interracial and labor was crucial to the success of the Democrats in the ’30s and ’40s.
Sean Illing

How were these previous movements greeted when they emerged? I ask because the goals seem, in retrospect, so sensible and obvious, but I imagine at the time they were seen as extremist and threatening.
Michael Kazin

Definitely. The great Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci talked about how social movements can change the common sense of society. What we all take to be normal or moral in society can change pretty quickly, and it changes because of the force and success of social movements. Black Lives Matter has been enormously successful in this respect. Any movement pushing for this level of change will be opposed by people who don’t support those changes — that’s just an axiom of politics. What’s astonishing about this movement is that it’s not provoking more backlash — at least not yet.
Sean Illing

Well, I wonder about the “not yet” part. I worry about movements like Black Lives Matter or “abolish the police” becoming so sprawling and disjointed that they lose their focus, or get overwhelmed by revolutionary spasms that may undercut the key goals.

Are there important lessons from the past on this front?
Michael Kazin

I was a New Leftist in the late ’60s. I was one of those people who went too far. I think I undermined some of my goals, even though in the end we were successful in winning our main demands, which were to fight for racial equality and an end to the Vietnam War. But along the way I did some stupid things.

I think one big lesson is that mass lawbreaking undermines a movement. As MLK used to say, you want the other side to be seen as the violent side, you want the other side reacting to your civil disobedience, to your respect for order. You don’t want to be seen as running amok without leadership, without discipline, because you’re trying to bring about change and people are scared of change. You don’t want people to be scared of you at the same time they’re scared of change. That’s one lesson.

Another lesson is the importance of building alliances. One of the reasons why I keep saying that leftists should support Biden and ally with Pelosi and Chuck Schumer this year is that we have to get as many Democrats as possible elected because only then will there be the political space to go further than they would like to go. There are limits to what a movement can create on its own. Eventually, you’ve got to get laws passed, and a movement can’t pass laws by itself.
Sean Illing

Is it better to view BLM or “abolish the police” less as political projects and more as cultural movements that shift the zeitgeist and therefore pave the way for political changes in the future?
Michael Kazin

It’s a great question, and I think it’s both for me. As I said before, it’s obviously helped to change the attitudes of a lot of white Americans and that’s a cultural change in consciousness. Without that change in consciousness, we can’t get real political changes because there would be too much resistance to them, and politicians are averse to doing things which are unpopular.

So it’s important to demand immediate change but also wise to not expect it to happen that fast. These things take a long time. If activists don’t have a longterm strategy, they’re going to fail. This isn’t easy, of course. On the one hand, you want movements to build on a sense of urgency when outrage happens, the way it did with George Floyd and with other Black Americans killed by the police. But at the same time, you can’t let that sense of urgency impede you from organizing for the long-term.
Sean Illing

My sense is that we’re still very much in the beginning of whatever this is, and so there’s a lot of symbolic activism and a lot of enthusiasm but not necessarily a clear strategy for seizing power. What do you think a movement like this can do to channel all this energy and goodwill into enduring, concrete changes?
Michael Kazin

I think it has to find ways to work with other movements on the left. The change these activists seek is one of economic equity as well as an end to racist treatment by the cops. That was true for the Black movement in Fredrick Douglass’s day as well as the freedom movement led, in part, by MLK in the 1960s. The fight to have the power over how the police treat you is necessarily a fight to gain more power and resources on the job, in one’s neighborhood, and in education. But Black people can’t win that fight by themselves. It will take allies from other races and a demand for universal programs in health care, the environment, housing, etc. — and interracial institutions like labor and, yes, the Democratic

AMERICA FIRST IS A KKK SLOGAN
The Logo On Trump's "America First Tee" Looks A Lot Like A Nazi Emblem
This isn’t the first time in recent weeks that Trump’s campaign has promoted imagery rooted in anti-Semitism.

By Johanna Silver
Published on 7/2/2020 

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is selling a T-shirt with a logo that many have condemned for its striking resemblance to Nazi imagery.

The “America First Tee” is available for $30 on the apparel section of Trump’s re-election campaign website, along with the description “Show your support for re-electing President Donald J. Trump! Let everyone know who you are voting for in 2020.”

“We finally have a President that puts AMERICA first,” the description continues.

Many people and groups, including a progressive Jewish organization and The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican PAC, were quick to flag the shirt’s logo. The imagery features an eagle with outspread wings holding a circular American flag in its talons, baring a stark resemblance to the national insignia of Nazi Germany.

The President of the United States is campaigning for reelection with a Nazi symbol. Again.

On the left: an official Trump/Pence “America First” tee.
On the right; the Iron Eagle, the official symbol of the Nazi party.
⁰It’s not an accident. Bigotry is their entire brand. pic.twitter.com/mSOBxwf7Wa— Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (@jewishaction) July 1, 2020


”America First” as a phrase has its roots in 1920s Klan history, but also in a 1930s pro-Nazi movement in America promoted by Charles Lindbergh.

Trump’s website is selling a tee shirt with the phrase on a graphic disturbingly similar to a Nazi symbol. pic.twitter.com/LCIZLeMLqk— Man With a Dog In the City (@meerkatrodeo) July 2, 2020



Come. On. pic.twitter.com/VtfgrM8hIW— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 2, 2020


This isn’t the first time in recent weeks that Trump’s campaign has promoted imagery rooted in anti-Semitism.

In June 2020, Facebook deactivated dozens of ads from President Trump’s reelection campaign against antifa and “far-left groups," that included a symbol that Nazis used in concentration camps to designate political prisoners.



Trump campaign runs ads with marking once used by Nazis to designate political prisoners via @isaacstanbecker https://t.co/iJDJidG2dD— Brandy Zadrozny (@BrandyZadrozny) June 18, 2020


In May, President Trump praised prominent anti-Semite Henry Ford for his “good bloodlines” during a visit to a Ford motor plant in Michigan, which many Jewish groups immediately condemned.

Trump has a history of making anti-Semitic remarks himself, as well as comments about eugenics. He infamously praised neo-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 as “very fine people,” discussing a “Unite the Right” rally in which a young woman named Heather Heyer was killed when a driver purposely plowed into a group of counter-protesters.

Other items for sale in Trump’s campaign shop include a “Defend The Police” T-shirt. A graphic on the shirt crosses out the word “defund,” which protesters across America have chanted in the streets in recent months. Another shirt bares the text “#YouAintBlack - Joe Biden,” referencing presumptive Democratic rival Biden’s comments in May to Charlamagne tha God about voting for him versus Trump on radio show “The Breakfast Club.” Biden later apologized for the remarks.