One of Malcolm X’s daughters says new details show federal and state agencies covered up crucial evidence
The family of Malcolm X has filed notice that they plan to sue the FBI, New York police and other agencies over his death.
The civil rights leader was 39 when he was assassinated on 21 February 1965, at an auditorium in the Washington Heights neighbourhood.
Continue reading...Civil rights stalwart Colin Prescod says term risks avoiding real conversation about racism and systemic behaviour
The outgoing chair of the Institute of Race Relations has decried the widespread use of “nonsense” unconscious bias training, claiming it is an obvious sidestepping of tackling racial injustice.
The civil rights stalwart Colin Prescod, who is stepping down after 43 years, likened the modish phrase to the 1970s term “racial awareness”.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch also demands trial for ‘appalling colonial crime’ of expulsion – and continuing ill treatment – of Chagossians
The UK should pay full and unconditional reparations to generations affected by its forcible displacement of Chagos Islands inhabitants in the 1960s and 70s, an action that constituted a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch has said.
The NGO said that individuals should be put on trial for the expulsion of Chagossians when the UK retained possession of what it refers to as British Indian Ocean Territory, or BIOT, after Mauritius gained independence in 1968.
Continue reading...Group gathered outside Arizona stadium to protest the team’s name and the insulting gesture and chant performed by its fans
The Kansas City Chiefs may have won the Super Bowl in an epic game, but for some there will be no victory until the football team changes its name and symbol and its fans stop performing an insulting gesture and chant.
A small but loud group protested outside the stadium hosting the Super Bowl in Arizona on Sunday, aggrieved that the team from the city that straddles the Kansas-Missouri border continues to refuse to drop its name and arrowhead symbol, which Native American leaders class as a racist mascot and symbol that devalues Native traditions.
Continue reading...Research finds that Black students have lowest completion rates for post-secondary education than any other group
Black students have lower six-year completion rates for any kind of degree or certificate program than students in any other racial or ethnic group, a new study has found.
According to the study by Gallup and Lumina Foundation, which was released on Thursday, Black students must contend with various challenges to completing post-secondary programs including high costs and racial discrimination.
Continue reading...Collette Bell says she thought ‘you don’t care’ when told of partner’s death by Ch Supt Garry McEwan
A chief superintendent shrugged his shoulders when confronted over whether Sheku Bayoh had been killed by police officers, the inquiry into his death in custody has been told.
Bayoh’s partner, Collette Bell, alleged that Ch Supt Garry McEwan, who has now retired, told her that the father of her baby had died during a “forceful arrest” using sprays and batons, and that she responded furiously: “So you battered him to death?”
Continue reading...Migrants from Africa and Haiti reportedly cannot utilize app to accept their photos, which is now required to apply for asylum
The US government’s new mobile app for migrants to apply for asylum at the US-Mexico border is blocking many Black people from being able to file their claims because of facial recognition bias in the tech, immigration advocates say.
Non-profits that assist Black asylum seekers are finding that the app, CBP One, is failing to register many people with darker skin tones, effectively barring them from their right to request entry into the US.
Continue reading...Suits that say beauty companies knew products contained dangerous chemicals to be consolidated in Chicago court
Nearly 60 lawsuits claiming hair relaxer products sold by L’Oréal and other companies cause cancer and other health problems will be consolidated in a Chicago federal court, according to a Monday order from the US judicial panel on multidistrict litigation.
At least 57 lawsuits have been filed in federal courts across the country over the products, which use chemicals to permanently straighten textured hair, court records show. The lawsuits allege the companies knew their products contained dangerous chemicals but marketed and sold them anyway.
Continue reading...Fernando Báez Sosa, son of Paraguayan immigrants, was attacked outside nightclub in what family see as racially motivated attack
Eight amateur rugby players have been found guilty over the murder of an aspiring law student in Argentina, in a case that has outraged the public and shone a harsh light on racist attitudes in the country.
Five of the attackers were sentenced to life in prison – which in Argentina is a maximum of 35 years – for their part in the murder of Fernando Báez Sosa, 18, the only son of two Paraguayan immigrants.
Continue reading...Civil rights veteran who gave eulogy at Tyre Nichols’ funeral says racism in UK policing could produce similar tragedies
The Rev Al Sharpton has warned that racially charged incidents such as the brutal death of Tyre Nichols in the US will also occur in the UK without far-reaching police reforms.
On the eve of a two-day visit to the UK, the US civil rights veteran said that “systemic racism” and a “culture of policing that produces brutality” must be addressed.
Continue reading...Appeals court submission exposes racial toxicity in case of Black man John Balentine, sentenced to death for 1999 triple murder
In April 1999, John Balentine, a Black man on trial for murder in Amarillo, Texas, sat before an all-white jury as they deliberated whether he should live or die.
Should he be given a life sentence, in which case he would likely end his days behind prison bars? Or should they send him to death row to await execution?
Continue reading...The Rev Al Sharpton delivers passionate eulogy at church service to Black man, 29, who died at hands of police in January
Thousands of mourners on Wednesday attended the funeral of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died three days after Memphis police officers beat him following a traffic stop last month.
Nichols’ beating shocked many in the US after being captured on camera, and triggered yet another bout of soul-searching over racism and police brutality. The five officers involved have been charged with murder and other crimes.
Continue reading...Attendant repeatedly dismissed Rose Wakefield as she attempted to get his service and told her, ‘I don’t serve Black people’
An Oregon woman has been awarded $1m by a jury after facing racist discrimination at a gas station where the attendant told her: “I don’t serve Black people.”
A jury in Multnomah county reached the decision after a four-day-trial in a case where Rose Wakefield from Portland claimed an attendant at the gas station had refused to serve her because of her race.
Continue reading...Insurrection: A Work in Progress by Peter Brathwaite will highlight folk traditions as a form of resistance
A leading British opera singer is developing a work based on the music of his enslaved ancestors in Barbados as a way of examining complex historical events and highlighting forms of resistance.
Peter Brathwaite and the Royal Opera House (ROH) will present Insurrection: A Work in Progress to audiences in March, inviting feedback from the public that will shape the opera’s next stages.
Continue reading...A Kenyan DJ’s post of being denied transit through Amsterdam has put the spotlight on airlines’ alleged racist policies
Emma Nzioka, a Kenyan performer and DJ known as Coco Em, was looking forward to the Terra Sagrada festival in Cape Verde for nearly a year. Some of her favourite African artists, such as Boddhi Satva, would be playing.
But Nzioka did not make it to the festival last month, or out of the country, for that matter. At the check-in counter in Kenya, she was told she could not board her flight unless she bought a return ticket with the same airline (she had one with another airline) to “prove” she would return home. Although Nzioka was going to Cape Verde, she was transiting through Amsterdam.
Continue reading...MPs and peers say draft mental health bill must go further to strengthen patients’ choices
Ministers must use legislation to address an “unacceptable and inexcusable” failure to address racial disparity in the use of the Mental Health Act, MPs and peers have said.
The joint committee on the draft mental health bill says the bill does not go far enough to tackle failures that were identified in a landmark independent review five years ago, but which still persist and may even be getting worse.
Continue reading...Wages, incarceration rates and unemployment benefits access worse when compared with states allowing the procedure
Wages, employment security, incarceration rates and access to unemployment benefits are all worse in US states where abortion is restricted or banned, compared with those where it is protected, a new report has found.
The report by the Economic Policy Institute also found that minimum wages are, on average, $3.75 an hour lower in abortion restrictive states compared with protective states ($8.17 compared with $11.92); and that restrictive states incarcerate people at 1.5 times the rate of protective states.
Continue reading...Census data analysis shows growth of ‘rainbow’ towns and cities, as more people live with neighbours of different backgrounds
Ethnic segregation in England and Wales is on the wane as more people live alongside neighbours of different backgrounds, creating “rainbow” towns and cities, research reveals.
Neighbourhood diversity more than doubled nationally between 2001 and 2021, with huge transformations in some places. There was close to a tenfold increase in diversity in Boston, Lincolnshire, albeit from a low base; Barking and Dagenham recorded a ninefold increase, while diversity in Watford and Reading increased fourfold.
Continue reading...Dance company Marrugeku has put together a blistering Australian take on the hit song and video, taking in our colonial past and our treatment of refugees
When Childish Gambino’s song This s America was first released in 2018, its elaborately choreographed and racially loaded film clip inspired a storm of speculation as people tried to decode what likely became the most talked-about music video of all time. Which of the dance moves were based on Jim Crow caricatures? Is the shooting of the gospel choir a rejection of spiritual upliftment? Is the last shot a reference to Get Out? And just what did the galloping horse mean?
Then remakes began to stream in from around the world. This Is Iraq, This Is Sierra Leone, This Is Nigeria, This Is Barbados, This Is Malaysia: all tackling racial injustice, human rights abuses, political hypocrisy and greed through dance and song.
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Continue reading...President gave sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and spoke about the need to protect democracy
Joe Biden marked what would have been Martin Luther King Jr’s 94th birthday with a sermon on Sunday at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, celebrating the legacy of the civil rights leader while speaking about the urgent need to protect US democracy.
Biden said he was “humbled” to become the first sitting president to give the Sunday sermon at King’s church, also describing the experience as “intimidating”.
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