Category Archives: Race

‘Tipping point’: Greta Thunberg hails Black Lives Matter protests

Posted on by

People are realising ‘we cannot keep looking away from these things’, says climate activist

Greta Thunberg has said the Black Lives Matter protests show society has reached a tipping point where injustice can no longer be ignored, but that she believes a “green recovery plan” from the coronavirus pandemic will not be enough to solve the climate crisis.

Reflecting on the protests that have swept the globe in recent weeks, the Swedish climate activist told the BBC: “It feels like we have passed some kind of social tipping point where people are starting to realise that we cannot keep looking away from these things. We cannot keep sweeping these things under the carpet, these injustices.

Continue reading...

There weren’t enough stories about people who looked like me. So I wrote my own | Coco Khan

Posted on by

My contribution to The Good Immigrant prompted a stream of apology emails: forgive me, ethnic friend, for I have sinned

Four years ago, I wrote an essay that appeared in a collection called The Good Immigrant. The story, based on an episode from my life, opens with a South Asian girl waking up in the bed of a (white) stranger after a one-night stand in the dark. Dawn is breaking, and as the light fills the room she notices something: he has flags. Union jack flags hanging all around the room. I won’t spoil the story, but if you’re beginning to panic, don’t. No hate crime occurs (well, not there anyway), and the piece is a comedy.

My reason for writing it was relatively simple. At the time, Britain was in the midst of a campaign to leave the EU. For us – the writers, the children of immigrants – it was urgent to counter the xenophobic rhetoric that reduced people who love, hurt, bleed and dream to £-signs.

Continue reading...

Juneteenth: rallies and celebrations across America commemorate end of slavery – live

Posted on by

In Oakland, thousands rallied with members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), whose workers arranged a strike at 29 ports up and down the West Coast.

I was there, earlier today. The union workers were joined by a motorcycle brigade, a car caravan, a fleet of cyclists, and thousands on foot. Activist and scholar Angela Davis and filmmaker Boots Riley addressed the crowd.

pic.twitter.com/ggfrz1bV9Q

In Wisconsin, governor Tony Evers called on the state legislature to ban police chokeholds, among reforms that he unveiled today.

The Democratic governor did not ask for a special legislative session to take up the policy as soon as possible, as the Brack Legislative Caucus had requested.

Our country promises the opportunity of justice and equity and in the wake of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the calls for justice across our state and nation, and as we celebrate Juneteenth today, we are called to deliver on that promise.

Continue reading...

‘No justice, no peace’: protesters mark Juneteenth across US – video

Posted on by

Thousands of people have taken to the streets across the US to mark Juneteenth, the holiday marking the end of slavery and those who fought for it. Combining the words “June” and “19th”, the holiday commemorates the anniversary of the day in 1865 when the Union army major general Gordon Granger read out Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to remaining enslaved African Americans on a plantation in Galveston, Texas.

Continue reading...

Brazilian mayor censured over ‘racist’ coronavirus ban

Posted on by

Fredson de Silva, mayor of Pau d’Arco, issued decree locking down only indigenous people

Local authorities in the Brazilian Amazon have been accused of racism after locking down a string of indigenous villages and banning indigenous people from entering a local town because of a coronavirus outbreak.

Federal prosecutors on Friday called for the mayor of Pau D’Arco in the Amazon state of Pará – population 6,000 – to revoke the decree, which he said had been issued to protect public health.

Continue reading...

Police officers shoot and kill Los Angeles security guard: ‘He ran because he was scared’

Posted on by

Sheriff’s deputies chased and shot dead Andres Guardado, 18, a security guard at an auto repairs shop

After sheriff’s deputies chased and shot dead a security guard at an auto repairs shop in Los Angeles on Thursday evening, family members have identified the dead man to local media as Andres Guardado, 18.

The killing came amid national protest and unrest over the deaths of African Americans, and other people of color, at the hands of law enforcement.

Continue reading...

On eve of Trump visit, Tulsa still haunted by memory of white supremacist massacre

Posted on by

The president prepares to hold a rally in a city where, in 1921, up to 300 people were murdered in one of the most horrific acts of racist violence in US history

Brenda Alford stood at the spot where her grandfather’s business was burned to the ground.

Related: Why is Trump's comeback rally in Tulsa: the site of a massacre?

Continue reading...

‘White faux feminism’: Women Deliver investigate internal racism allegations

Posted on by

Move follows previous and current staff complaining of toxic working environment at global advocacy group

The global advocacy group for gender equality Women Deliver has launched an investigation into allegations of racism and discrimination within the organisation.

Its CEO, Katja Iversen, a G7 advisor on gender equality, has issued an apology and taken a leave of absence until the conclusion of the investigation.

Continue reading...

Is this the end for colonial-era statues? – video

Posted on by

Statues of colonialists and brutal leaders have been toppled by protesters or removed by governments in recent weeks as campaigns to bring down monuments to historical figures tainted by racism and slavery spread around the world.

In Belgium, during Black Lives Matter protests, numerous statues of King Leopold II, whose brutal rule of Congo caused an estimated 10 million deaths through murder, starvation and disease, were defaced and covered in red paint. While in the UK, Oxford University’s Oriel College voted in favour of removing its statue of the Victorian imperialist Cecil Rhodes.

In response to the latest action, the historian David Olusoga looks at the significance of these statues and examines the impact they have had on the victims of colonialists and imperialists, as well as the cost borne by their descendants

Continue reading...

Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds among UK banks that had links to slavery

Posted on by

Many bank directors received compensation after slavery was made illegal in 1833

The slave trade was abolished in the British Empire in 1807 but it was not until 1833 that the Slavery Abolition Act finally banned the ownership of other human beings. However, 46,000 slave owners continued to benefit financially as the subsequent Slave Compensation Act provided £20m in payments – a sum worth billions in 2020 terms. Despite the name of the act, the former slaves were not compensated.

University College London’s Legacies of British Slave Ownership project shows that 10% to 20% of Britain’s wealthy can be identified as having had significant links to slavery. The amount of money borrowed to pay off slave owners was so large that the government only repaid it fully in 2015. Companies with links to slavery in their past include:

Continue reading...

Raab betrays his ignorance of the origin and meaning of taking a knee

Posted on by

Linking to Game of Thrones disregards Colin Kaepernick’s protest and what it inspired

The foreign secretary Dominic Raab’s assertion that the act of taking a knee appears to be “a symbol of subjugation and subordination” that originates from the TV show Game of Thrones showed a startling level of ignorance of the genesis of the protest adopted by the Black Lives Matter movement.

When the then NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the US national anthem before a game on 1 September 2016 to highlight racism, it began a protest that would reverberate around the world.

Continue reading...

What is Juneteenth – and should it be a federal holiday in the US? – video explainer

Posted on by

Every 19 June for more than 150 years African Americans across the US have celebrated freedom from slavery. Guardian US reporter Kenya Evelyn explores the significance of Juneteenth, how celebrations have evolved over the years and looks at whether it is time for the holiday to receive federal recognition

Continue reading...

What made a pastor want to describe white privilege as ‘white blessings’? | Poppy Noor

Posted on by

Louie Giglio said his choice of words was poor, but his attempt to rebrand white privilege should also grab our attention

On Monday evening, Atlanta megachurch pastor Louie Giglio apologized for calling slavery a blessing. In an online church service, he was apparently aiming to have an “honest conversation around how racism has plagued our city for generations”.

Then he said: “We understand the curse that was slavery, white people do, and [we] say ‘that was bad’. But we miss the blessing of slavery, that it actually built up the framework for the world that white people live in and lived in.”

Continue reading...

Trump administration sues former adviser John Bolton to block his book – live

Posted on by

The lawsuit filed by the US against John Bolton aims to stop the former administration official “ from compromising national security by publishing a book containing classified information.”

But it states that “on or around” 27 April, Ellen Knight, who was reviewing Bolton’s manuscript, “had completed her review and was of the judgment that the manuscript draft did not contain classified information”.

Bolton’s book The Room Where It Happened will be a critical account of the Trump administration, according to the publisher.

Bolton “shows a president addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends, and was deeply suspicious of his own government”, according to Simon and Schuster.

Continue reading...

Gunshots heard after demonstrators try to topple conquistador statue in New Mexico – video

Posted on by

A man was shot after a scuffle broke out when demonstrators tried to remove a bronze sculpture of a Spanish conquistador outside a museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A group of armed men had tried to protect the statue of Juan de Oñate. The injured man was in a critical but stable condition, police said.

Authorities later announced the monument would be removed until the next step could be determined

Continue reading...

Boris Johnson’s racism inquiry: have previous ones changed anything?

Posted on by

The PM’s commission will be the latest in a line of initiatives examining race inequalities

Boris Johnson has announced a “cross-governmental commission” into racial disparities in education, health and criminal justice. It is the latest of a series of reports into ethnic injustices over recent years.

Continue reading...

The aid sector must do more to tackle its white supremacy problem

Posted on by

Racism is embedded in structures and power dynamics, so we should logically conclude that we are not immune

As events unfold in the US and across the world, colleagues in the aid sector are closely watching, and sharing their solidarity. After all they are allies and educators of human rights.

Yet as various institutions grapple with their failure to address discrimination, there has been a disappointing lack of self-reflection in our sector. If we understand that racism is embedded in structures, that it is part of engrained power dynamics, we should logically conclude that we are not immune.

Continue reading...

Beyoncé demands justice for Breonna Taylor in letter to Kentucky attorney general – live

Posted on by

Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been defaced yet again during Sunday afternoon’s Black Lives Matter protest in Los Angeles, although these days it might qualify as bigger news if the former reality TV host’s terrazzo-and-brass totem went longer than a week unmolested.

Trump’s star was defaced during today’s Hollywood protest march. #blm #hollywoodprotest #JusticeForGeorgeFlyod #hollywoodboulevard #hollywoodblvd #protests pic.twitter.com/UI3SOIZSiV

Hundreds of demonstrators have gathered at the Montana State Capitol building in Helena in protest of the killing of George Floyd and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Helena Independent Record reports Sunday’s protest is the largest of a number of demonstrations that have been held in Montana’s capital city in recent weeks amid the nationwide backlash to police-related violence against black and brown people.

The protest for George Floyd in Helena, MT is... huge. pic.twitter.com/LLwdiHMwxZ

Continue reading...