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Category: Society

Policing is doing what it’s meant to do — and that’s the problem

Policing is doing what it’s meant to do — and that’s the problem

Todd May and George Yancy write: On June 6, one of us attended a memorial vigil for George Floyd. The opening speaker first thanked the local Police Department for keeping the vigil safe and then went on to distinguish between the majority of police officers who do their job helping and protecting people and the few who are racist and violent. His remarks echoed those made by Barack Obama on May 29, in his public statement on the killing of…

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In American journalism, objective truth is decided almost exclusively by white reporters and their mostly white bosses

In American journalism, objective truth is decided almost exclusively by white reporters and their mostly white bosses

Wesley Lowery writes: It was a brief interaction, during the first weeks of my career. There had been a stabbing, and I’d been dispatched to a block in Roxbury, a predominantly black section of Boston, to snag quotes from anyone who might know anything about what had happened. “Who are you with?” inquired the first person I had approached, a black man in his 50s. “The Globe?” he exclaimed after hearing my response. “The Globe doesn’t have black reporters. What…

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CHOP’s legacy: ‘This has been a life-changing experience. For all of us’

CHOP’s legacy: ‘This has been a life-changing experience. For all of us’

The Seattle Times reports: On a sunny Monday morning, after a weekend that saw two nighttime shootings, the streets and fields of CHOP (Capitol Hill Organized Protest) were mostly deserted. Just a few days ago, the 24/7 protest, which occupies several blocks around Cal Anderson Park and a recently abandoned police precinct, had been bustling with life: activists; rubberneckers; reporters; volunteer security guards, some openly carrying guns; masked medics. But after two bursts of gunfire on successive nights — two…

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Trump vows to quash potential ‘autonomous zone’ in D.C.

Trump vows to quash potential ‘autonomous zone’ in D.C.

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Tuesday vowed to stamp out any protesters seeking to establish a so-called “autonomous zone” in the nation’s capital, echoing conservative outrage over the prospect of police-free enclaves cropping up in major American cities. “There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “If they try they will be met with serious force!” The president’s social media post comes after U.S. Park Police officers…

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Slave resistance brought about the end of slavery

Slave resistance brought about the end of slavery

Jamelle Bouie writes: Neither Abraham Lincoln nor the Republican Party freed the slaves. They helped set freedom in motion and eventually codified it into law with the 13th Amendment, but they were not themselves responsible for the end of slavery. They were not the ones who brought about its final destruction. Who freed the slaves? The slaves freed the slaves. “Slave resistance,” as the historian Manisha Sinha points out in “The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition,” “lay at the…

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Rising Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations underscore the long road ahead

Rising Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations underscore the long road ahead

STAT reports: The U.S. is now confronting what public health experts have been warning about but many in the public had not absorbed: the coronavirus pandemic will be with us for many months, and lapses in vigilance will lead to more sickness and death. The country as a whole is tacking on about 20,000 new Covid-19 cases to its 2.1 million infection tally each day, a clip that’s been steady for weeks, according to STAT’s Covid-19 Tracker. But cases are…

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Facebook groups are destroying America

Facebook groups are destroying America

Nina Jankowicz and Cindy Otis write: The Covid-19 “infodemic” has laid bare how vulnerable the United States is to disinformation. The country is less than five months away from the 2020 presidential election, and Americans by the thousands are buying into conspiracy theories about vaccines containing microchips and wondering about the healing powers of hair dryers. Where does all this come from? Let’s not be too distracted by a fear of rumormonger bots on the rampage or divisive ads purchased…

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Sweeping change in U.S. views of police violence, poll shows

Sweeping change in U.S. views of police violence, poll shows

The Associated Press reports: A dramatic shift has taken place in the nation’s opinions on policing and race, as a new poll finds that more Americans today than five years ago believe police brutality is a very serious problem that too often goes undisciplined and unequally targets black Americans. The new findings from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research suggest the death of George Floyd and the weeks of nationwide and global protests that followed have changed perceptions…

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People of color account for majority of coronavirus infections, new CDC study says

People of color account for majority of coronavirus infections, new CDC study says

Yahoo News reports: African-Americans and Latinos are vastly overrepresented when it comes to coronavirus infections, according to an analysis released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday morning. The findings provide additional confirmation that, as the CDC’s own report says, black and brown communities have been “disproportionately affected” by the pandemic. African-Americans account for only 13.4 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Census Bureau, but the CDC says they accounted for 22 percent of coronavirus…

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To understand who’s dying of Covid-19, look to social factors like race more than preexisting diseases

To understand who’s dying of Covid-19, look to social factors like race more than preexisting diseases

STAT reports: While early studies of who was dying of Covid-19 identified risks such as obesity and having diabetes, there is a growing realization that those initial conclusions might have been misleading, obscuring a more significant explanation. As researchers pull back their lens from individuals to population-level risk factors, they’re finding that, in the U.S., race may be as important as age in gauging a person’s likelihood of dying from the disease. The higher the percentage of Black residents in…

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Brutality and dehumanization are deeply embedded in many police departments

Brutality and dehumanization are deeply embedded in many police departments

David Brooks writes: It’s one of the most remarkable poll results of the current moment. From May 29 to June 2, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll asked voters whether they were more troubled by the actions of the police and the death of George Floyd, or by protests that had turned violent. By a more than two-to-one margin, they said they were more troubled by the actions of the police. This is not how Americans reacted to the riots…

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‘Black Lives Matter Foundation’ has raised millions, but it’s not affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement

‘Black Lives Matter Foundation’ has raised millions, but it’s not affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement

BuzzFeed reports: When Elena Iliadis searched for “Black Lives Matter” on GoFundMe, the popular online fundraising platform, she didn’t do much research on the first verified foundation that popped up. Inspired to help the cause, the 19-year-old Georgetown University sophomore and her a capella group, the Phantoms, raised nearly $1,100 for what they thought was the global movement to bring racial justice and defund the police. It wasn’t until she was contacted by BuzzFeed News that the student learned her…

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Scant evidence of antifa shows how sweeping the protests for racial justice have become

Scant evidence of antifa shows how sweeping the protests for racial justice have become

The Washington Post reports: In the two weeks that saw an uprising against racial injustice and police brutality spread from the streets of Minneapolis to cities across America, the specter of violent, left-wing militants invoked by President Trump and a chorus of conservative voices has yet to materialize. Instead, multiracial crowds have appeared in every corner of the United States, as the president sent more than a dozen tweets blaming clashes with police on antifa, the label associated with anti-fascist…

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John Lewis to Black Lives Matter protesters: ‘Give until you cannot give any more’

John Lewis to Black Lives Matter protesters: ‘Give until you cannot give any more’

Jonathan Capehart writes: John Lewis stood with his backpack over his shoulders and his hands in the pockets of his trench coat. The 25-year-old’s eyes were fixed on the line of Alabama state troopers with billy clubs in their hands and gas masks covering their faces. The date was Sunday, March 7, 1965. Lewis and the 600 other African Americans with him set out to march from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery, the state capital, to demand the right to vote….

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Racial justice groups flooded with millions in donations in wake of Floyd death

Racial justice groups flooded with millions in donations in wake of Floyd death

The New York Times reports: The killing of George Floyd and the ensuing nationwide wave of protests are generating a record-setting flood of donations to racial justice groups, bail funds and black-led advocacy organizations across America, remaking the financial landscape of black political activism in a matter of weeks. Money has come in so fast and so unexpectedly that some groups even began to turn away and redirect donors elsewhere. Others said they still could not yet account for how…

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Black leaders regularly fail to rise to the challenges that confront young people

Black leaders regularly fail to rise to the challenges that confront young people

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes: Young black people have exploded in rebellion over the grotesque killing of George Floyd. We are now witnessing the broadest protest movement in American history. And yet the response of black elected officials has been cautious and uninspired. The Congressional Black Caucus offered a familiar list of the kind of police reforms that have failed for decades to end police violence. After protesters vandalized CNN’s headquarters and set a police car on fire in Atlanta, the mayor,…

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