Category Archives: Race

Trump claims victory as US nears 130,000 coronavirus deaths – live

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Houston mayor Sylvester Turner has appeared on CBS’s Face The Nation to discuss the Covid-19 outbreak in his city. He says staffing at the city’s hospital is a particular problem.

“If we don’t get our hands around this virus quickly, in about two weeks our hospital system could be in serious, serious trouble,” he says. “... We can always provide additional beds, but we need the people, the nurses and everybody else, the medical professionals to staff those beds. That’s the critical point right now.”

New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, has appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press. New Jersey has been one of the worst-hit states in the US during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, and he says a national strategy is needed to combat Covid-19.

“This thing is lethal,” he says. “New Jersey’s paid an enormous price. We’ve [had] 13,000 confirmed fatalities from Covid-19. We’re starting to see small spikes in reinfection from folks coming back from places like Myrtle Beach and as well as in Florida, other hotspots.

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Seattle: police seek motive after driver hits protesters, killing one

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  • I-5 freeway protest hit by car early on Saturday, driver arrested
  • Authorities say road will now be closed to protesters

One person died and one remained in serious condition after a car drove into protesters on a freeway in Seattle.

Summer Taylor, 24, of Seattle, died on Saturday evening at Harborview Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg said.

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Two women injured as car drives through Seattle protest crowd

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  • Both women in critical condition, hospital says
  • Driver in custody after incident on Interstate 5

Two women were struck and injured by a car whose driver sped through a protest-related closure on a freeway in Seattle, authorities said on Saturday.

Related: US under siege from 'far-left fascism', says Trump in Mount Rushmore speech

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Trump claims US on way to ‘tremendous victory’ over Covid-19 as cases surge – live

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The White House is set to host its largest event since the start of the coronavirus pandemic with tonight’s Salute to America. Hundreds of chairs and tables have been set up on the South Lawn, where Trump will deliver a speech he says will celebrate American heritage. An administration spokesperson says social distancing “will be observed” and face masks will be offered but not mandatory.

Trump was first inspired to stage a mass display of pop and power on America’s birthday when attended the Bastille Day military parade as the guest of French president Emmanuel Macron back in 2017. An initial 2018 push to stage a parade that would have seen soldiers marching and tanks rolling down the streets of Washington was scuttled amid accusations that he was politicizing an important holiday, emulating displays in authoritarian countries and wasting taxpayers’ money.

President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, along with the Department of Interior, will host the 2020 Salute to America on the South Lawn of the White House and Ellipse on Saturday, July 4. In addition to music, military demonstrations, and flyovers to honor our Nation’s service members and veterans, the President will deliver remarks that celebrate our independence and salute our amazing heritage. The evening will culminate with a spectacular fireworks display over the National Mall.

For 4 July, in the summer of protests over the killing of George Floyd, a picture gallery from Jameelah Nuriddin and Erin Hammond.

The eight images capture a giant 200-year-old flag, a young black woman with a giant afro, and various postures combining the pledge of allegiance and black power poses. They are accompanied by a manifesto that mirrors the preamble to the US constitution, written by Nuriddin, who is also the model in the series:

Related: Imagine a 'New America': reclaiming the American flag – in pictures

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Police smash car window of man on way home from C4 interview about police racism

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Ryan Colaço had been driving home from interview and was wrongly accused of concealing drugs

When an officer smashed in the window of Ryan Colaço’s car, after he was wrongly accused of concealing drugs, they did not know he was driving home from a TV interview in which he told of institutional racism in the police after being stopped and searched the week before.

In the original incident, in Northumberland Park, north London, at 11am on 23 May, Colaço said he was stopped after being “aggressively tailgated” by the Metropolitan police, with officers then running to his car and banging on his window. They later said they had been able to smell cannabis from his car.

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Earl Cameron, ‘Britain’s first black film star’, dies aged 102

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Bermudian-born actor rose to prominence in the 1950s in films such as Pool of London and Sapphire, as well as appearing in the 007 film Thunderball

Earl Cameron, who with his debut role in the 1951 film Pool of London, became one of the first significant black actors in British cinema, has died aged 102. His agent confirmed the news to the Guardian, saying “he passed away peacefully at home surrounded by his wife and family” on Friday in Kenilworth in Warwickshire.

Cameron’s significance to the current generation of black British actors was underlined by tributes on social media. David Harewood described him as “a total legend”, while Paterson Joseph wrote: “His generation’s pioneering shoulders are what my generation of actors stand on. No shoulders were broader than this gentleman with the voice of god and the heart of a kindly prince.” Historian David Olusoga added: “A remarkable and wonderful man. Not just a brilliant actor but a link to a deeper history.”

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Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid branded ‘racist fish’ in graffiti attack

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Expert on Hans Christian Andersen says it is ‘hard to see what is racist’ about fairytale

The statue of the Little Mermaid in the entrance to Copenhagen harbour has been daubed with the words “racist fish”.

The 107-year-old statue has often been vandalised by protesters, ranging from pro-democracy activists to anti-whaling campaigners. As recently as January, “Free Hong Kong” was scrawled on the rock on which the 1.65-metre bronze sits.

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Vivica A Fox: ‘Black Lives Matter is going to be Trump’s demise’

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The actor has pushed the envelope for portrayals of black women and been up close with the president and Harvey Weinstein. “You come at me crazy, it’s gonna be on like popcorn,” she warns

It is 8am and Vivica A Fox, the star of two Independence Day films, two seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, both parts of Kill Bill and, latterly, two Sharknado movies, has been awake for hours. She sprang out of bed at 4am, pottered around and “did a little social media post” about her podcast, Hustling with Vivica A Fox. It’s a spin-off from Every Day I’m Hustling, her memoir-cum-self-help manual which contains health tips (“Hydrate, girl!”), social media advice (“Use hashtags to join big conversations”) and underwear secrets (“I’m a G-string type of gal”). Once the podcast was online this morning, she explains, “I said to myself: ‘Let’s get some coffee on. It’s showtime!’”

First on the agenda is the droll new thriller Arkansas, in which she plays the mysterious “Her”, who works as go-between in a drugs ring and is first seen in curlers, toe separators and a jazzy kaftan; Liam Hemsworth, Vince Vaughn and John Malkovich struggle in vain not to be outshone. Down the line from her villa in the San Fernando Valley, where she has a spectacular living room view of the Santa Susana mountains, Fox talks through the various traits of Her: the character’s serenity (“That came from my mother, who’s religious”); her cool control (“I brought in a presidential thing there”); her no-nonsense efficiency (“A lil’ bit of my gangsta style”). But we are done with Arkansas in under five minutes, which is roughly the combined length of her scenes in the film.

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How one neighbourhood in London lost 36 residents to Covid-19 – podcast

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Guardian reporter Aamna Modhin meets residents from Church End, a small, deprived neighbourhood in Brent, north London. She examines how housing pressures, in-work poverty and racial inequalities contributed to the deaths of 36 residents from Covid-19

The Guardian journalist Aamna Modhin tells Rachel Humphreys about reporting from Church End, a small neighbourhood in Brent, north London, which has a large Somali population. In early March, residents began to fall ill from coronavirus, eventually resulting in 36 deaths. Locals believe the cluster, which is the second worst in England and Wales according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, does not account for the true scale of the devastation, as it does not factor in people who work in Church End but live nearby.

Aamna met Rhoda Ibrahim, a 57-year old community leader who has been left devastated by the deaths of so many people she knew. The virus thrived on the structural inequalities that Ibrahim has spent much of her life fighting against. It flourished in a housing crisis that was 40 years in the making, stark in-work poverty that left many struggling to put food on the table, and deeply entrenched racial inequalities. The council leader, Muhammed Butt, believes the government’s failure to provide tailored support to communities such as those in Brent worsened the situation, and that the country should have gone into lockdown earlier.

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From Muhammad Ali to Colin Kaepernick, the proud history of black protest in sport

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NFL players kneeling in the US and Premier League stars speaking out in the UK is nothing new: sportsmen and women have always been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights

We may never know why Jake Hepple, a now unemployed welder from Burnley, thought it was a good idea to hire a plane and have it trail a banner reading “White Lives Matter Burnley” across the skies over Manchester’s Etihad Stadium. What we are assured is that Hepple – who has been pictured with his arm wrapped round the shoulder of the English Defence League’s former leader Tommy Robinson, and whose girlfriend was sacked from her job last week, accused of posting racist material on social media (her mother has said her daughter did not write the posts) – was not motivated by any form of racism. After all, he told reporters: “I’ve got lots of black and Asian friends.”

The phrase “white lives matter” is, of course, an attack on the phrase “black lives matter” and the movement that coalesced around it. But while one is a plea for equality, the other, along with the phrase “all lives matter”, was created by those who engage in the pantomime of pretending that anyone is suggesting only black lives matter. These people belong to the same demographic as those who think structural racism doesn’t exist, or that black people should “get over” slavery. And to that demographic, top-flight football’s support of Black Lives Matter really rankles.

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‘Decolonise and rename’ streets of Uganda and Sudan, activists urge

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Campaigners target statues of slave owners and roads named after imperial armies as protests spread to Africa

Campaigners have asked Uganda’s parliament to order the removal of monuments to British colonialists and to rename streets commemorating imperial military forces.

Uganda gained independence in 1962 after almost 70 years as a British protectorate, and more than 5,000 people have signed a petition to “decolonise and rename” the dozens of statues and street names which remain.

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Kanye West: Wash Us in the Blood review – an intensely potent study of race and faith

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This new track sees Kanye at his very best, corralling his anger with masterful focus into an apocalyptic vision of America

America, divided along racial and political lines and led by its own Herod, faces an invisible plague and a public reckoning against its history of violence. It’s against this Biblical backdrop that Kanye West imagines the next apocalyptic event, in one of his most focused and arresting tracks for years.

Wash Us in the Blood sees the rapper call for a blood rain to deliver black America from evil. We’re at the point, perhaps, where normal water won’t wash; an emergency where we need something stronger. That sense of alarm is amplified by the two-note siren motif, a flattened-out version of the feedback sound on The Life of Pablo’s Feedback or Yeezus’s Send It Up, another of his warnings that puts the listener on alert. It gets your blood up.

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Woman sues police for telling her to cover up anti-Boris Johnson T-shirt

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Jessie-Lu Flynn told her ‘Fuck Boris’ slogan was in breach of Public Order Act at Black Lives Matter protest

A woman who was challenged by police officers for wearing an anti-Boris Johnson T-shirt at a Black Lives Matter demonstration is launching legal action against them over the right to free speech and political debate.

Jessie-Lu Flynn, an actor who is also the founder of the immersive theatre company Wide Eyes, estimates that she has attended more than a dozen demonstrations wearing the “Fuck Boris” T-shirt without being challenged by the police.

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How hate speech campaigners found Facebook’s weak spot

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The social network’s crisis has been a long time in the making and shows no sign of going away

It took less than two hours for Facebook to react and it did so for good reason.

At 5pm on Friday, Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, with a portfolio of products that ranges from Marmite to Vaseline, suddenly announced it was pulling all adverts from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the US.

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Trump retweets video of white St Louis couple pointing guns at protesters

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Clip shows man and woman pointing weapons at people staging protest against US city’s mayor

Donald Trump courted controversy on Monday – and perhaps sought to deflect attention from reports about Russia placing bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan – by retweeting news footage of a white couple in St Louis, Missouri, who pointed guns at protesters marching for police reform.

Related: Trump deletes tweet of supporter shouting ‘white power’ after outrage

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Mississippi lawmakers vote to remove Confederate emblem from state flag

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Governor Tate Reeves has indicated he will sign the bill to replace the state flag and create a commission to design a new one

Mississippi legislators have voted to replace the state flag, the last in the nation to feature the Confederate battle emblem, which has been condemned as racist.

The state House and the Senate voted to remove the current flag on Sunday and create a commission that will design a new flag that cannot include the Confederate symbol and that must have the words “In God We Trust”. Mississippi governor Tate Reeves has signalled he will sign the measure in the coming days.

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Police release images of 15 people over toppled Colston statue

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Avon and Somerset police say they have no choice but try to trace individuals due to criminal damage

Detectives have released images of 15 people they want to trace over the Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol in which the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was toppled and thrown into the harbour.

Avon and Somerset police published the images of the men and women, arguing that in law, a crime – criminal damage – had been committed and it had no choice but to investigate. The force also said it had consulted with the Crown Prosecution Service about its investigation.

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Trump deletes tweet of supporter shouting ‘white power’ after outrage

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Deputy press secretary claims Trump had not heard the racist language of video he tweeted that was posted for nearly four hours

Donald Trump has deleted a tweet he sent featuring video of a Trump supporter shouting, “White power! White power!” after an outpouring of grief and outrage at racist language flowing directly from the White House once again.

The tweet was deleted after it drew fierce criticism from across the political spectrum, including from Tim Scott of South Carolina, the sole African American Republican in the Senate.

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Bernie Ecclestone says black people are often ‘more racist’ than white people

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  • Former F1 chief says the sport is ‘too busy’ to deal with racism
  • Ecclestone also questions Lewis Hamilton’s experiences

Bernie Ecclestone has claimed black people are “more racist” than white people and said Formula One has been “too busy” to deal with racism in an astonishing television interview.

The former chief executive of Formula One and a name synonymous with the sport said in an exchange with CNN that racism “makes me so upset”. He also said he did not think Lewis Hamilton’s experiences of racism had affected the driver. Hamilton, the six-times world champion, recently said he had felt the “stigma of racism” throughout his F1 career.

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