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Category: Society

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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Police are deliberately targeting journalists during George Floyd protests

Police are deliberately targeting journalists during George Floyd protests

Bellingcat reports: Bellingcat has identified and collected multiple instances of US law enforcement deliberately targeting journalists during the protests against the killing of George Floyd. The arrest of a CNN crew in Minneapolis while broadcasting live on air on May 29th was a shocking event, especially in a country with such strong protections on freedom of speech. However as of the time of writing we have identified at least 50 separate incidents where journalists have been attacked by law enforcement….

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Will protests spark new outbreaks of Covid-19?

Will protests spark new outbreaks of Covid-19?

The Daily Beast reports: The word “unprecedented” has been used ad nauseam in recent months, but when public health authorities tried on Sunday to predict the potentially catastrophic effect of nationwide police brutality protests amid a deadly pandemic, it seemed hard to find a suitable alternative. After months of diligent social distancing to curb COVID-19 transmission, Americans in major cities all over the country took to the streets in huge crowds this week to protest the death of George Floyd—and…

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Gripped by a pandemic, unemployment and outrage at the police, America plunges into crisis

Gripped by a pandemic, unemployment and outrage at the police, America plunges into crisis

The Washington Post reports: A global pandemic has now killed more than 100,000 Americans and left 40 million unemployed in its wake. Protests — some of them violent — have once again erupted in spots across the country over police killings of black Americans. President Trump, meanwhile, is waging a war against Twitter, attacking his political rivals, criticizing a voting practice he himself uses and suggesting that looters could be shot. America’s persistent political dysfunction and racial inequality were laid…

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Far-right extremists are hoping to turn the George Floyd protests into a new civil war

Far-right extremists are hoping to turn the George Floyd protests into a new civil war

Vice News reports: Far-right extremists are showing up, with guns, to the protests against police brutality that have exploded across the country. Others are egging on the violence from behind their computers, urging followers to carry out acts of violence against black protesters with the goal of sparking a “race war.” Their presence makes an uneasy addition to the escalating unrest, which was triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who was choked to death by a…

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White supremacy as the economic engine of American history

White supremacy as the economic engine of American history

Nicholas Lemann writes: Before the Civil War, Southern slaveholders used to claim that their labor system was more humane than “wage slavery” in the factories of the industrializing North. They didn’t win that argument, but the idea took root that the South, during and after slavery, did not have a true capitalist economy. In 1930, twelve Southern writers (all white men) published a collection of essays, titled “I’ll Take My Stand,” that opened with a declaration that they “all tend…

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