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Category: Society

Minneapolis City Council member: We must disband the police

Minneapolis City Council member: We must disband the police

Steve Fletcher writes: When I ran for the Minneapolis City Council in 2017, I knew that the Police Department had a decades-long history of violence and discrimination. I ran on a platform of police reform informed by my experience seeing police persistently harass young black canvassers that I worked with as a community organizer, and by the police shooting of Jamar Clark in 2015, which prompted weeks of protest outside the fourth precinct. In 2017, the police shooting of Justine…

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Protesters ‘defund the police’ rallying cry is gaining traction among public officials

Protesters ‘defund the police’ rallying cry is gaining traction among public officials

The New York Times reports: After more than a week of protests against police brutality and unrest that left parts of the city burned, a growing chorus of elected officials, civic leaders and residents in Minneapolis are urging the city to break up the Police Department and reimagine the way policing works. “We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department,” Jeremiah Ellison, a member of the City Council, said on Twitter this week. “And when we’re done, we’re not…

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Police tactics during protests threaten public health across America

Police tactics during protests threaten public health across America

Politico reports: Mass arrests of protesters across the country — many held for hours in vans, cells and other enclosed spaces — are heightening the risk of coronavirus spread, according to public health experts and lawsuits filed by civil rights groups. As tens of thousands of people take to the streets to protest police brutality after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the arrest and detention of thousands further jeopardizes the health of demonstrators — and that of police…

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Buffalo police serve and protect each other

Buffalo police serve and protect each other

The Daily Beast reports: A video of Buffalo police officers shoving an elderly peace activist to the ground, then walking by him as a pool of blood collected around his head, shocked the nation. Their colleagues? Not so much. All members of the Emergency Response Team resigned from the unit on Friday in support of the officers who were suspended without pay for their aggression toward Martin Gugino, 75. “Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of…

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The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968

The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968

The Washington Post reports: As Black Live Matter protests grow across the nation over policing, the deep economic inequalities that African Americans face are coming to the forefront. In many ways, the gap between the finances of blacks and whites is still as wide in 2020 as it was in 1968, when a run of landmark civil rights legislation culminated in the Fair Housing Act in response to centuries of unequal treatment of African Americans in nearly every part of…

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The U.S. military must stand up for its soul in this moment

The U.S. military must stand up for its soul in this moment

Admiral James Stavridis (Ret.) writes: We need to get our active duty military out of the line of fire of domestic politics and off the streets, and turn this mission over to the men and women trained for it. I am old enough to remember the protests of 1968, the destructive energy that ripped through this nation in those days under the twin burdens of racism (and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.) and the country’s enormous protests against…

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Bryan Stevenson: There’s a direct line from lynching to George Floyd

Bryan Stevenson: There’s a direct line from lynching to George Floyd

  Addressing the root causes of racial injustice in America is fundamental to achieving lasting change. Bryan Stevenson has dedicated his life to doing just that. As a leading civil rights lawyer, Stevenson made his name saving dozens of wrongfully convicted inmates from execution through his Equal Justice Initiative. He speaks with Walter Isaacson about solutions, from a change in the culture of policing to an embrace of truth and reconciliation.

As the protests continue, let’s be clear about who is engaged in violence

As the protests continue, let’s be clear about who is engaged in violence

Rebecca Solnit writes: The word “violence” is going to be used a lot to describe the events in US cities over the weekend and all this week. So it’s going to be important to be clear about who is violent and what violence is. Property destruction and harming human beings are profoundly different actions, and with a few exceptions (seemingly interlopers in the protests) virtually all the violence visited on human beings during this round of civil unrest across the…

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I cannot remain silent

I cannot remain silent

Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007-2011, writes: It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel—including members of the National Guard—forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump’s leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent. Whatever…

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Trump’s war against Americans

Trump’s war against Americans

Kevin Baron writes: President Donald Trump finally got the war he wanted. It isn’t in Afghanistan, or Iraq, Syria, or North Korea. It’s right here in Washington, D.C., where on Monday the president claimed moral and Constitutional authority and ordered federal law enforcement and the U.S. military to turn against Americans who opposed him. After warning over the weekend that out-of-line rabble-rousers across the street from the White House would face “vicious dogs,” Trump instead sicced police, troops, and U.S….

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White supremacist group, Identity Evropa, posing as Antifa, called for violence on Twitter

White supremacist group, Identity Evropa, posing as Antifa, called for violence on Twitter

NBC News reports: A Twitter account claiming to belong to a national “antifa” organization and pushing violent rhetoric related to ongoing protests has been linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evropa, according to a Twitter spokesperson. The spokesperson said the account violated the company’s platform manipulation and spam policy, specifically the creation of fake accounts. Twitter suspended the account after a tweet that incited violence. As protests were taking place in multiple states across the U.S. Sunday night, the…

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How to make this moment the turning point for real change in America

How to make this moment the turning point for real change in America

Barack Obama writes: As millions of people across the country take to the streets and raise their voices in response to the killing of George Floyd and the ongoing problem of unequal justice, many people have reached out asking how we can sustain momentum to bring about real change. Ultimately, it’s going to be up to a new generation of activists to shape strategies that best fit the times. But I believe there are some basic lessons to draw from…

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Worse than 1968

Worse than 1968

Julian Zelizer writes: Trump thrives in a partisan world that is in many ways more dysfunctional than what we saw in 1968. Whereas the tensions of that year revolved around specific issues, like the war and civil rights, we now live in a partisan world where our institutions perpetuate constant red-blue divisions over almost every issue, no matter how large or small they might be. Everything — even wearing masks to prevent a contagious, potentially deadly disease from spreading —…

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America must listen to its wounds. They will tell us where to look for hope

America must listen to its wounds. They will tell us where to look for hope

Reverend William Barber writes: No one wants to see their community burn. But the fires burning in Minneapolis, just like the fire burning in the spirits of so many marginalized Americans today, are a natural response to the trauma black communities have experienced, generation after generation. No one wants the fires – even activists on the ground have said this. But they have also shared how their non-violent pleas and protests have gone unnoticed for years as the situation has…

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The U.S. has opposite systems of justice – one for white people, one for people of color

The U.S. has opposite systems of justice – one for white people, one for people of color

Paul Butler writes: On Friday the CNN journalist Omar Jimenez was arrested on live television as he covered protests of police brutality in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Jimenez identifies as African American and Hispanic, and when the cops confronted him, he did just what minority parents tell their kids to do. Jimenez cooperated; he was respectful, deferential even. He said: “We can move back to where you like … We are getting out of your way … Wherever you want us, we…

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Police violence escalates unrest across America

Police violence escalates unrest across America

Slate reports: The ongoing protests following the killing of George Floyd were caught up in violence again on Saturday, as police all over the country tear-gassed protesters, drove vehicles through crowds, opened fire with nonlethal rounds on journalists or people on their own property, and in at least one instance, pushed over an elderly man who was walking away with a cane. Here are some of the ways law enforcement officers escalated the national unrest. Share widely: National guard and…

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