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Category: white supremacy

Africa’s ancient scripts counter European ideas of literacy

Africa’s ancient scripts counter European ideas of literacy

D Vance Smith writes: Four different writing systems have been used in Algeria. Three are well known – Phoenician, Latin and Arabic – while one is both indigenous to Africa and survives only as a writing system. The language it represents is called Old Libyan or Numidian, simply because it was spoken in Numidia and Libya. Since it’s possible that it’s an ancestor of modern Berber languages – although even that’s not clear – the script is usually called Libyco-Berber….

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It’s time to abandon the intellectual narcissism of cold war Western liberalism

It’s time to abandon the intellectual narcissism of cold war Western liberalism

Pankaj Mishra writes: The late Tony Judt, born in 1948, once spoke of the “pretty crappy” generation he belonged to, which “grew up in the 1960s in Western Europe or in America, in a world of no hard choices, neither economic nor political.” In Judt’s view, too many of his intellectual peers moved from radical postures into the “all-consuming business of material accumulation and personal security” in the 1970s and 1980s as the postwar consensus in favor of the welfare…

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White supremacy is ‘most lethal threat’ to the U.S., DHS draft assessment says

White supremacy is ‘most lethal threat’ to the U.S., DHS draft assessment says

CNN reports: White supremacists will remain the most “persistent and lethal threat” in the United States through 2021, according to Department of Homeland Security draft documents. The most recent draft report predicts an “elevated threat environment at least through” early next year, concluding that some US-based violent extremists have capitalized on increased social and political tensions in 2020. Although foreign terrorist organizations will continue to call for attacks on the US, the report says, they “probably will remain constrained in…

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More than ever, Trump casts himself as the defender of white supremacy

More than ever, Trump casts himself as the defender of white supremacy

Peter Baker writes: After a summer when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets protesting racial injustice against Black Americans, President Trump has made it clear over the last few days that, in his view, the country’s real race problem is bias against white Americans. Just days after returning from Kenosha, Wis., where he staunchly backed law enforcement and did not mention the name of Jacob Blake, the Black man shot seven times in the back by the…

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Michael Cohen: Trump held ‘low opinions of all Black folks’

Michael Cohen: Trump held ‘low opinions of all Black folks’

The New York Times reports: President Trump routinely referred to Black leaders of foreign nations with racist insults. He had an abiding admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin’s willingness to treat Russia like a personal business. And he was consumed with hatred for President Barack Obama. Those are the descriptions that Michael D. Cohen, a former personal lawyer and self-described fixer for Mr. Trump, lays out in his book, “Disloyal: A Memoir,” which paints the president as a sordid, moblike…

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‘Reign of terror’: A summer of police violence in Los Angeles

‘Reign of terror’: A summer of police violence in Los Angeles

The Guardian reports: Los Angeles police officers have continued to kill civilians at alarming rates and under questionable circumstances in the last three months, despite a summer of unprecedented activism and growing political pressure from lawmakers. Most recently, two deputies with the Los Angeles sheriff’s department (LASD) fatally shot a bicyclist, 29-year-old Dijon Kizzee, who was fleeing after officers tried to stop him for an alleged “vehicle code” violation. The killing on Monday of yet another Black man in South…

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Overt racism remains entrenched within law enforcement across America, report says

Overt racism remains entrenched within law enforcement across America, report says

The Guardian reports: White supremacist groups have infiltrated US law enforcement agencies in every region of the country over the last two decades, according to a new report about the ties between police and far-right vigilante groups. In a timely new analysis, Michael German, a former FBI special agent who has written extensively on the ways that US law enforcement have failed to respond to far-right domestic terror threats, concludes that US law enforcement officials have been tied to racist…

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The racism of Republican agenda is on display at the RNC

The racism of Republican agenda is on display at the RNC

Thomas B. Edsall writes: The center-right political coalition in America — the Republican Party as it stands today — can be described as holding two overarching goals: First, deregulation and reductions in corporate and other tax liabilities — each clearly stated on the White House website — and second, but packing a bigger punch, the preservation of the status quo by stemming the erosion of the privileged status of white Christian America. For those who want confirmation of Republican accomplishments…

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Former counterterrorism chief: Trump defeat may prompt right-wing terror attacks

Former counterterrorism chief: Trump defeat may prompt right-wing terror attacks

Yahoo News reports: The former head of the National Counterterrorism Center said he would not be surprised if right-wing domestic terrorist groups stage attacks in the United States around this November’s presidential election. “It certainly wouldn’t surprise me, particularly if the administration loses,” said Russ Travers, who was the center’s acting director when he was fired by President Trump’s hand-picked acting director of national intelligence. Trump, who is behind in all national polls, has repeatedly claimed that the expected widespread…

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Black like Kamala

Black like Kamala

Jamelle Bouie writes: Black American identity within the United States emerges from the interaction between structures of oppression — slavery, the slave trade and race hierarchy — and the needs and goals of those enmeshed within them. Slavery bound African captives together into a group; the desire to assert their personhood — to build community, to find respite, to resist — was cause to adopt a common identity. In turn, that common identity gave those individuals and their descendants a…

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After the civil rights era, white Americans failed to support systemic change to end racism. Will they now?

After the civil rights era, white Americans failed to support systemic change to end racism. Will they now?

Will white people’s participation in Black Lives Matter protests yield real change? Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images By Candis Watts Smith, Pennsylvania State University The first wave of the Black Lives Matter movement, which crested after the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, had the support of less than half of white Americans. Given that Americans tend to have a very narrow definition of racism, many at that time were likely confused by the juxtaposition of Black-led…

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The racial underpinnings of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

The racial underpinnings of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

Elaine Scarry writes: This past Memorial Day, a Minneapolis police officer knelt on the throat of an African-American, George Floyd, for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Seventy-five years ago, an American pilot dropped an atomic bomb on the civilian population of Hiroshima. Worlds apart in time, space, and scale, the two events share three key features. Each was an act of state violence. Each was an act carried out against a defenseless opponent. Each was an act of naked racism….

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Focusing on charging Amy Cooper lets white people off the hook

Focusing on charging Amy Cooper lets white people off the hook

Christian Cooper writes: On May 25, when I was birding in the Ramble section of New York’s Central Park, I asked a woman whose dog was off his leash to please put him back on, as the area’s rules require. She refused — and, as shown in a video that went viral, she was soon calling the police and telling them an “African American man” was “threatening” her. Now Amy Cooper has been charged by the Manhattan district attorney with…

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Racist violence in Wilmington’s past echoes in police officer recordings today

Racist violence in Wilmington’s past echoes in police officer recordings today

Crystal R. Sanders writes: In Wilmington, N.C., three city police officers were fired Wednesday after being caught on camera making racist and disparaging comments about a fellow black officer, a black magistrate and a black arrestee. As the officers discussed the nationwide protests sparked after George Floyd’s killing, one remarked that he believed a civil war was on the horizon. He went on to admit that he planned to buy a new assault weapon because “we are just going to…

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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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Four years embedded with the alt-right

Four years embedded with the alt-right

Daniel Lombroso writes: White nationalists have always been able to find one another in America, but the recent resurgence of the white-nationalist movement—and the extent to which its ideas have seeped into the mainstream alongside Donald Trump’s political ascent—is stunning. In November 2016, I captured footage of Trump supporters throwing Nazi salutes in celebration of his presidential victory, a moment that became an explosive story in the days that followed, and set the tone for the Trump presidency. In the…

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