Racism campaigners call for police watchdog to be abolished

Black families whose relatives have died in police incidents demand end to systemic racism

Black families in the UK whose loved ones have died in incidents involving the police have called for the abolition of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which investigates the police, and the immediate suspension of officers involved in deaths as part of a new plan to address systemic racism and unlawful killings.

The United Families & Friends Campaign (UFFC), which supports family members of those who have died following police incidents, has drawn up an eight-point plan calling for fundamental changes to the way deaths involving the police are dealt with. A disproportionately high number of these deaths involving the police are black and the UFFC said that failing to successfully prosecute police sends the message that the state can act with impunity.

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Rayshard Brooks: police body-cam footage shows buildup to fatal shooting – video

Footage from Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan shows the officers approaching Rayshard Brooks in his car, which was parked in a Wendy’s drive-in lane, and asking him to move it. They question him and make him take a breathalyser test. The officers then attempt to arrest and handcuff Brooks, leading to a scuffle, which culminates in his shooting. The interaction lasted about 45 minutes. The footage in this video has been edited for length

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Milan mayor refuses to remove defaced statue of Italian journalist

BLM protesters targeted monument to Indro Montanelli, who admitted buying 12-year-old Eritrean girl

Milan’s mayor has rejected calls to remove a statue from a public park of an Italian journalist who acknowledged having bought a 12-year-old Eritrean girl to be his wife during Italy’s colonial occupation in the 1930s.

Giuseppe Sala said in a Facebook video that he was perplexed by “the lightness” with which Indro Montanelli had confessed to buying the child from her father, in a widely circulated video of a 1969 talkshow appearance, but said “lives should be judged in their totality” and he believed the statue should stay.

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Rayshard Brooks: protesters set fire to Wendy’s after black man shot dead by police – video report

Demonstrators set fire to a fast food restaurant in Atlanta on Saturday where Rayshard Brooks, 27, was shot dead by a police officer the previous night. Police were called to the restaurant over reports that he had fallen asleep in the drive-through line.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the shooting, said Brooks failed a field sobriety test and then resisted officers' attempts to arrest him.

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Charity supporting Grenfell victims accused of racism and bullying

Tutu Foundation claims Westway Trust, which manages 23 acres in north Kensington, is ‘suppressing’ final version of critical report

A charity set up 50 years ago to compensate families living in the shadow of London’s A40 flyover has been branded “institutionally racist” and “unethical”, according to a leaked landmark report.

The Westway Trust, which manages the land under the flyover and works on a range of projects with the local people, appointed the respected Tutu Foundation to investigate persistent allegations of racism against the diverse community of north Kensington. Following the Grenfell fire, the charity provided support for victims, who today commemorate the third anniversary of the disaster in which 72 people died.

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Why Trump loves the US military – but it doesn’t love him back

The president’s West Point speech went smoothly but protests have focused a harsh light on his use of the military

Donald Trump attempted to solidify his bond with the US army on Saturday, delivering the graduation speech to cadets at the United States Military Academy and boasting of a “colossal” $2tn rebuilding of American martial might.

Related: Top US military general Mark Milley apologizes for Trump church photo-op

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Rightwing protesters clash with police in central London

Arrests made as ‘guard our monuments’ demonstrators chant ‘Eng-ger-land’ and throw bottles

At least five people have been arrested in clashes between protesters and police in central London at a demonstration against perceived slights to British national heritage.

Scotland Yard said that as of 5pm on Saturday, they had arrested five people for offences including violent disorder, assault on police, possession of an offensive weapon, being drunk and disorderly and possession of class A drugs.

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Riot police fire teargas on anti-racism protesters in Paris

Peaceful protest erupts into skirmishes as anger at death of George Floyd resonates in France

Riot police fired teargas to prevent thousands of anti-racism protesters marching through central Paris on Saturday, as a wave of anger continued to sweep the world following the death of African-American George Floyd.

The protesters gathered in Place de la Republique, where the crowd chanted “No justice, no peace” and some climbed the statue of Marianne, who personifies the French Republic. Police refused organisers permission to proceed to the Opera House.

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Can Anna Wintour survive fashion’s reckoning with racism?

While Condé Nast has said the Vogue editor-in-chief will not be stepping down, turmoil has been mounting as employees past and present speak out

For decades she has stood astride the fashion industry, micro-managing the look and content of US Vogue, marshaling a significant part of the global fashion industry to her worldview, and presiding over a annual gala which, at $25,000 a head, paying guests and favored courtiers mounted lavishly-carpeted steps of Metropolitan Museum of Art to symbolically kiss the ring.

But for Anna Wintour this has been her annus horribilis. New York fashion week has been written off, the Met Gala has been cancelled, magazine advertising revenues are plummeting and there are scarcely any frocks to shoot since the coronavirus barged its way into the European fashion shows in February.

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‘He just doesn’t get it’: has Trump been left behind by America’s awakening on racism?

The killing of George Floyd has been a turning point for for everyone but the president – who has seldom been so isolated from his own party and the public

Longtime observers of Donald Trump have often compared him to an old man sitting at the end of a bar, holding forth with crazed opinions, overwhelming self-assurance and taboo-busting shock value guaranteed to draw a crowd.

Now, perhaps for the first time, it seems the US president may have lost the room.

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Trump says ‘concept of chokeholds sounds innocent’ as states move to ban practice – live

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Lois Beckett, will be taking over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

The Trump administration has finalized a rule rolling back Obama-era protections for transgender Americans under the Affordable Care Act’s non-discrimination policy.

According to the new version of the policy, the department of health and human services will be “returning to the government’s interpretation of sex discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word ‘sex’ as male or female and as determined by biology.”

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Boris Johnson ‘stoking fear and division’ ahead of BLM protests

Critics say PM’s claim that George Floyd protests ‘hijacked by extremists’ is dangerous

Boris Johnson was accused of “stoking fear and division” ahead of a weekend of Black Lives Matter demonstrations after he unequivocally condemned the removal of historic statues and claimed the protests had been “hijacked by extremists intent on violence”.

As statues – including of Winston Churchill – were boarded up to protect them ahead of planned marches, the prime minister tweeted his opposition to those calling for memorials with links to slavery and racism to be torn down.

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Five-year-old’s fatal plunge provokes hard questions about Brazil’s racism

Miguel Otávio Santana da Silva fell nine storeys after being left alone by his mother’s employer, one of many richer white Brazilians employing black domestic workers

Mirtes Santana weeps when she remembers finding her son dying on the pavement outside the luxury seaside apartment block where she worked in north-eastern Brazil.

“I can’t bear it,” said the 33-year-old domestic worker. “It breaks my heart.”

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Racism is at the heart of fast fashion – it’s time for change | Kalkidan Legesse

The fashion industry makes huge profits from the exploitation of black and brown women. Now is the time to call it out

Of all the shocks that the past few weeks and months have brought to all our lives, one of the biggest for me as a black woman working in the fashion industry is that finally people are realising that racism is more than calling someone a derogatory name.

The killing of George Floyd while in police custody and the global outrage and protest that followed is bringing a dawning collective understanding that white supremacy relies on the exploitation of black and brown people. 

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Harry Enfield says blacking up as Mandela was ‘so wrong it was right’

On Radio 4’s Today programme, the comedian justified decision to portray former South African president in blackface

Harry Enfield has defended the use of blackface on television in an interview broadcast on Radio 4’s Today programme. In conversation with host Nick Robinson and fellow guest Ava Vidal, the comedian aimed to justify his decision to portray Nelson Mandela, describing it as “so wrong that it was right”.

Enfield, known for playing characters including Loadsamoney and Kevin the Teenager on television, said he had also used makeup to play an Indian soldier in a BBC programme, a decision he also deemed appropriate.

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Donald Trump to hold rally in Oklahoma, first since coronavirus pandemic began

President announces rally in Tulsa, city with a history of deadly racial violence, even as Covid-19 cases continue to rise

Donald Trump will hold a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, next Friday – his first since since states began shutting down in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 110,000 lives in the US.

Related: Trump would 'not even consider' renaming bases with Confederate links

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What black America means to Europe

Many have attempted to claim that ‘things are better here’ for black people than in the US. This ignores both Europe’s colonial past and its own racist present. By Gary Younge

In September 1963, in Llansteffan, Wales, a stained-glass artist named John Petts was listening to the radio when he heard the news that four black girls had been murdered in a bombing while at Sunday school at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

The news moved Petts, who was white and British, deeply. “Naturally, as a father, I was horrified by the death of the children,” said Petts, in a recording archived by London’s Imperial War Museum. “As a craftsman in a meticulous craft, I was horrified by the smashing of all those [stained-glass] windows. And I thought to myself, my word, what can we do about this?”

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Trump to hold first rally in months in Tulsa, a city with history of deadly racial violence – live

Hallie Golden reports for The Guardian:

Governor Jay Inslee of Washington has ordered a new investigation into the death of Manuel Ellis, an African American man who died more than three months ago in police custody, following questions over the independence of the investigation.

Related: Washington governor orders new investigation into police custody death

Lane was released after posting bond. His bail was set for $1m.

Lane was one of the officers — including Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao and J. Alexander Kueng — who stopped George Floyd while responding to a call about the alleged use of a counterfeit $20 bill.

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Toppling Edward Colston’s statue is unlikely to be enough to stop public anger

Few imperial icons, including Churchill, will escape the need to reappraise Britain’s past

The toppling of slaver Edward Colston’s statue has electrified a longer term – and already deeply polarised – debate among British historians and academics, with some celebrating a “moment of history” as others warned of dark consequences for society.

Inaction over figures such as Colston had bred anger that would be felt “all over Britain”, said Andrea Livesey, a historian specialising in the study of slavery and its legacies and who described the events in Bristol as “wholly justified”.

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Fox News host talks race by calling out the real enemy: Sesame Street’s Elmo

In response to a family-oriented CNN town hall on racism Tucker Carlson launched an attack on the much-loved furry red muppet

The rightwing Fox News host Tucker Carlson launched an unprecedented attack on the beloved Sesame Street puppet Elmo on Tuesday night, after Elmo and his father, Louie, discussed racism in a one-off town hall episode on rival channel CNN.

Related: Ocasio-Cortez condemns 'white supremacist sympathizer' Tucker Carlson

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