Hello June 1st! There is so much to read in the news, #BlackLivesMatter and this horrible virus that many are calling a hoax (or let's just reopen the country - to heck with the vulnerable population). Do any lives matter? I am linking some articles I have read, and a copying a few Facebook posts, so that I remember this month, how racist and how cruel our America is. I don't know how to understand all this mess! I understand that America stands for freedom, life, liberty and justice for all. Where is this for ALL Human Beings?
I am at a loss of words, emotions and am so disgusted with America. We talk the good talk at home, we share discussions with our 13 year old about racism (she's Chinese/Asian). We stay in our little white bubble. We are drained.
This has turned so crazy: Meet Christian Cooper the Black man that was threatened in Central Park by white woman Amy Cooper. He is a Harvard University graduate, a writer, former Marvel editor and current biomedical editor for Health Science Communications, Board member @Audubon Society who happens to love bird watching. Not a criminal.
And this: CNN had tweeted Friday morning that "A CNN reporter & his production team were arrested this morning in Minneapolis for doing their jobs, despite identifying themselves — a clear violation of their First Amendment rights. The authorities in Minnesota, incl. the Governor, must release the 3 CNN employees immediately." CNN noted that Jimenez is black and Latino. "A black reporter from CNN was arrested while legally covering the protests in Minneapolis. A white reporter also on the ground was not. MN State Patrol· May 29, 2020. In the course of clearing the streets and restoring order at Lake Street and Snelling Avenue, four people were arrested by State Patrol troopers, including three members of a CNN crew. The three were released once they were confirmed to be members of the media. Ava DuVernay: That’s not what happened. This is a lie. We all saw it. This spin is erroneous and disingenuous. You do your organization a disservice by even trying this nonsense. Stop tweeting and learn how to do your jobs properly. Start with reading the constitution.
A Jamaican writing about her "White Friends - Let's Talk about Race".
Let's Talk about Riots by Rafi.
And what is ANTIFA - What do they oppose? Neo-Nazis, Neo-fascism, white supremacists and racism, and these days the movement that encapsulates some of those ideas: the alt-right. A group in Oregon, said they come from a variety of political backgrounds but they were united in their opposition to fascism, and they have an anti-government streak. They said they see creeping authoritarianism in the current American administration that they are looking to build "a movement that really insulates us from the policies of Donald Trump". "It's not just resisting the federal administration but also resisting moves that can lead to fascism," one member told us, "and those happen locally whether from local officials or from local alt-right movements." Its followers acknowledge that the movement is secretive, has no official leaders and is organized into autonomous local cells. It is also only one in a constellation of activist movements that have come together in the past few years to oppose the far right. Antifa members campaign against actions they view as authoritarian, homophobic, racist or xenophobic. Between 2010 and 2016, 53 percent of terrorist attacks in the United States were carried out by religious extremists — 35 percent by right-wing extremists and 12 percent by left-wing or environmentalist extremists, according to a University of Maryland-led consortium that studies terrorism.
From 2016: White Supremacist in police uniforms.... "But even if there aren’t hard statistics, the problem of racial bias among police isn’t new. In fact, it’s been a concern of the FBI for at least a decade. Exactly 10 years ago this week, the FBI warned of the potential consequences — including bias — of white supremacist groups infiltrating local and state law enforcement, indicating it was a significant threat to national security. In the 2006 bulletin, the FBI detailed the threat of white nationalists and skinheads infiltrating police in order to disrupt investigations against fellow members and recruit other supremacists. The bulletin was released during a period of scandal for many law enforcement agencies throughout the country, including a neo-Nazi gang formed by members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department who harassed black and Latino communities. Similar investigations revealed officers and entire agencies with hate group ties in Illinois, Ohio and Texas.
What do we do? So, just “getting it” is good, but it’s not enough. White people have to get fucking mad! White. People. We have to start challenging people - starting with our own families - to face the consequences of their passive tolerance of racism, and the injustice and cruelty that results from it. (A. Padgett).
How bad does it get when Police do this? Tanya Kerssen May 30, 2020. Share widely: National guard and MPD sweeping our residential street. Shooting paint canisters at us on our own front porch. Yelling “light em up” #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #JusticeForGeorge #BlackLivesMatter
Not much on the news about COVID-19 anymore. With some businesses opening up, people who want everything to go "back to normal" are running around without masks, kids in stores, groups of kids going to slumber parties, summer camps resuming, nothing has changed. Grandparents are physically distancing due to the high risks, price to pay if we catch the coronovirus.
With the health scare, really thought people would change and realize something has to be done to prevent from happening again. Some of the problem was not enough testing, not knowing it you had it, if you were exposed to it. And then how to protect you and your family with the correct sanitizing routine and having the PPE needed. With so many employees without sick time (or without a form of paid time) most people went to work sick, just like when the regular flu season came around, we always had people who went to work sick if they didn't had a paid leave. What can businesses do to protect the economy in the future and not sacrifice lives?
Back to Trump: What about other pressing issues a real president would be addressing? The House has passed nearly 400 bills this term, including measures to reduce climate change, enhance election security, require background checks on gun sales, reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and reform campaign finance. All are languishing in McConnell’s inbox. Trump doesn’t seem to be aware of any of them.
There is nothing inherently wrong with golfing, watching television and tweeting. But if that’s pretty much all that a president does when the nation is engulfed in crises, he is not a president. Trump’s tweets are no substitute for governing. They are mostly about getting even. When he’s not fomenting violence against black protesters, he’s accusing a media personality of committing murder, retweeting slurs about a black female politician’s weight and the House speaker’s looks, conjuring up conspiracies against himself supposedly organized by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and encouraging his followers to “liberate” their states from lockdown restrictions. He tweets bogus threats that he has no power to carry out – withholding funds from states that expand absentee voting, “overruling” governors who don’t allow places of worship to reopen “right away”, and punishing Twitter for factchecking him. And he lies incessantly.
In reality, Donald Trump doesn’t run the government of the United States. He doesn’t manage anything. He doesn’t organize anyone. He doesn’t administer or oversee or supervise. He doesn’t read memos. He hates meetings. He has no patience for briefings. His White House is in perpetual chaos. America must listen to its wounds. They will tell us where to look for hope
His advisers aren’t truth-tellers. They’re toadies, lackeys, sycophants and relatives.
Since moving into the Oval Office in January 2017, Trump hasn’t shown an ounce of interest in governing. He obsesses only about himself. But it has taken the present set of crises to reveal the depths of his self-absorbed abdication – his utter contempt for his job, his total repudiation of his office. Trump’s nonfeasance goes far beyond an absence of leadership or inattention to traditional norms and roles. In a time of national trauma, he has relinquished the core duties and responsibilities of the presidency. He is no longer president. The sooner we stop treating him as if he were, the better.
Someone who is sane: We just watched/listened to NY Gov Cuomo give the most heart felt, compassionate speech recognizing and thanking all the frontline heroes in every scenario. So impressed with his leadership. Amazing what a leader can do without tweeting 24/7 during such threatening times.
“What we’re seeing here is the ways in which the vicious legacy of white supremacy manifests in organized hatred, greed and corruption,” Harvard Divinity School professor Cornel West said. “We’re witnessing the collapse of the legitimacy of leadership, the political class, the economic class, the professional class, that’s the deeper crisis.”
This sounds like 2020: "Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention" - Martin Luther King Jr. - Stanford University 1967.
I stick by my respect to Obama, voted for him, he understood politics and did his best to get America to recovery after the great recession. Where will we be in 2021?
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