Conservatives have launched inquiry into alleged racist incidents in local party
Portsmouth’s major political parties are struggling to contain claims they have racially discriminated against local minority ethnic council candidates.
The Conservatives have launched an inquiry into alleged racist incidents in the local party. A leaked letter shows a former council candidate for the party has claimed he was marginalised, bullied and racially abused.
Continue reading...Defoe’s book has inspired novels, Hollywood movies and games – but the shipwrecked slave-trader should never have become a role model
In February 1719, two months before the publication of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe proposed in the Weekly Journal that the South Sea Company – founded just eight years earlier to manage the national debt and awarded a contract to supply the Spanish colonies in Latin America with several thousand African slaves per year – should oversee the founding of a British colony at the mouth of the River Orinoco on the coast of present day Venezuela. The government would be required “to furnish six Men of War, and 4000 regular Troops, with some Engineers and 100 pieces of Cannon, and military Stores in Proportion for the maintaining and supporting the Design”, but “the Revenue it shall bring to the Kingdom will be a full amends”. Defoe chose to locate the fictional island on which Crusoe is stranded around 40 miles from the mouth of the Orinoco, and furnish it with a kindlier climate than that of the actual island on which Alexander Selkirk, the presumed model for Crusoe, was marooned. His book (no one was calling it a “novel” at the time) was a prospectus for potential investors, lacking only glossy photos of beaches and palm trees.
Bribery and insider dealing combined with public credulity to drive the share price of the South Sea Company unsustainably high, and in 1720 the bubble burst, causing widespread financial ruin. Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe – which recounts, in addition to Crusoe’s diligent labours on the island, his skirmishes with cannibals and a crew of English mutineers, his rescue and a perilous overland journey from Lisbon to bring home the fortune that has been accumulating during his absence – would have been a better investment. By late summer 1719 the book had been reprinted three times and Defoe had published a sequel, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. A third volume, Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, followed in 1720. By the end of the 19th century, the original Crusoe had been reissued in several hundred editions and the book had come to resemble, as Virginia Woolf wrote, “one of the anonymous productions of the race rather than the effort of a single mind”. During the 20th century, Defoe’s original template was turned upside down and inside out – by, among many others, HG Wells, Jean Giraudoux, William Golding, JG Ballard and Julio Cortázar – in ways that reflected changing attitudes to race, gender, imperialism, rationality and the environment.
Continue reading...Indigenous musicians in Canada are at one another’s throats over the Cree artist Cikwes’s use of a traditional Inuit singing technique
Another week, another row over cultural appropriation. But this one is different. It’s not a white artist being accused of appropriating the cultural forms of a minority community but an Indigenous Canadian artist being condemned for using the musical style of another Indigenous community.
Connie LeGrande, who performs under the name Cikwes, was nominated at the Canadian Indigenous Music awards in the best folk album category. LeGrande is a Nehiyaw, or Cree, one of Canada’s First Nations. On her album Isko, she uses katajjaq, a style of throat singing culturally and historically linked to Inuit groups. First Nations are Indigenous groups south of the Arctic Circle, Inuits those who live in the Arctic.
Continue reading...Mural was created in 1991 to commemorate France’s abolition of slavery in 1794
Two French academics have launched a petition to remove a parliament mural commemorating the abolition of slavery, which they said was a racist, humiliating and dehumanising depiction of black people.
Mame-Fatou Niang, associate professor of French at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and Julien Suaudeau, who lectures in Pennsylvania, said the vast mural which has hung in a corridor of a building at France’s National Assembly for 28 years should be taken down. It was created in 1991 by French artist Hervé di Rosa to commemorate France’s first abolition of slavery in 1794.
Continue reading...Rapper cancels headline slot at Snowbombing hours before he was due to go on stage
Stormzy has pulled out of his headline slot at Snowbombing festival just hours before he was due to perform, after accusing its staff of racially profiling his manager.
The Brit award-winning rapper, 25, said his friends had been targeted by security at the event in Mayrhofen, Austria, on Thursday looking for someone carrying a weapon, “despite no one [in their party] fitting the description”.
Continue reading...As part of our Shades of Black series, we invited eight women to talk about their experience of colorism in their relationships, careers and everyday life
Black women in the US marry less than others - and the numbers are even lower for darker skinned black women. Is colorism – favoring lighter skin – to blame? Dream McClinton puts herself on the line to report
I take a deep breath and ready my fingers. I admonish myself for being theatrical about something so mundane. Another deep breath.
“Here we go,” I mutter, pressing enter.
Continue reading...Hungarian singers allegedly signed paper to bypass stipulation of all-black cast
The Hungarian State Opera has come up with a dubious way around a stipulation that George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess be performed by an all-black cast: it is allegedly asking its white, Hungarian singers to sign a paper saying they identify as African-American.
The company first put on the opera a year ago, leading to a spat with the Gershwin estate, which stipulates the opera should only be performed by a black cast.
Continue reading...Lori Lightfoot’s historic win as the first black woman to be elected mayor of Chicago – and the first openly lesbian – is only the latest victory for African American women in cities across the country
Continue reading...While the election of Lori Lightfoot made history, many fear her reign will simply maintain the status quo
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Continue reading...FBI Director Chris Wray has described white supremacist extremism as 'a persistent, pervasive threat' during a House committee appropriations hearing. According to congressman Jose Serrano, Wray did not mention the issue by name in his budget request to the House, but Wray reiterated the significance of the issue, describing the shift from organised white supremacist groups towards un-coordinated lone actors. His comments were in contrast to those of Donald Trump who, after the Christchurch shooting, said he 'didn't really' see white nationalism as a growing threat around the world but instead a 'small group of people with serious problems'.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell will say sorry for 1891 killing of 11 Italian Americans after some were acquitted of murdering police chief
The mayor of New Orleans is to apologise to Italian Americans for the historical lynching of 11 Italian immigrants in what is considered the nation’s worst such incident.
“This has been a longstanding wound,” said Michael Santo of the Order Sons and Daughters of Italy. Santo said that when the city was asked earlier this year for an apology, Mayor LaToya Cantrell embraced the idea, appointing Human Relations Commission head Vincenzo Pasquantonio as liaison.
Continue reading...Instructions not to sell tickets were reportedly received before last year’s Naidoc Week AFL game
Box office staff at the Adelaide Oval were reportedly directed to stop selling tickets to Aboriginal people while fans gathered before last year’s Naidoc Week AFL match celebrating Indigenous culture.
The box office and Oval management said a supervisor “misinterpreted” an instruction from the police and security not to sell tickets to a specific group of people who were intoxicated and had been refused entry.
Continue reading...Labor senator says those who ‘see political or commercial advantage in heightening cynicism’ are diminishing civic life
Penny Wong will say that “racism is a threat to our democracy” in a speech taking aim at those who see “political or commercial advantage” in increased cynicism towards public institutions.
The Labor senator is set to warn that hate speech and extremist views in parliament and a “lack of unity in response to these” have harmed democracy, pointing the finger in part at the Coalition for its tardy response to condemn One Nation in the 45th parliament.
Continue reading...Protesters picket French university, which says actors were wearing masks according to ancient theatre practices
A row over alleged racism and attacks on freedom of expression has erupted in France after students prevented a Greek tragedy featuring actors using black masks from being performed at the Sorbonne, claiming it was “Afrophobic, colonialist and racist”.
Demonstrators who picketed the prestigious Paris university to stop actors entering the theatre said the play, The Suppliants by Aeschylus, was being performed with blackface and was offensive.
Continue reading...ACLU hails ‘sweeping changes’ after company criticized over ad targeting based on race, gender and age
Facebook is taking steps to block discriminatory ads for housing, employment and credit by preventing advertisers from targeting users based on race, gender, age and zip code.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other rights groups, which sued Facebook for violating civil rights laws with its ad practices, announced the “historic settlement” on Tuesday, saying “sweeping changes” would restrict illegal and discriminatory ad targeting.
Continue reading...NSW Labor leader says ‘no offence’ meant after video surfaces of him saying ‘our kids are moving out and foreigners are moving in’
The New South Wales opposition leader, Michael Daley is under sustained pressure over his comments in a 2018 video in which he said young Sydneysiders were leaving and being replaced by workers from Asia.
Despite repeatedly apologising “if anyone took offence” Daley insisted his comments were not racist or dogwhistling and were about housing affordability in Sydney.
Continue reading...Any 28-year-old has grown up in a time when racism was ratcheting up in the public culture
The worst terror attack in New Zealand’s modern history took place on Friday, and the alleged perpetrator is an Australian.
Appropriately, this calamity has started a process of deep reflection in the man’s home country. Everywhere, decent Australians are asking, how did we get here? Do we own him?
There has been extensive, international discussion about the role of the online subculture of the far right in these events – the codes, memes and signals of internet-mediated white supremacy.
Related: To prevent another Christchurch we must confront the right’s hate preachers | Jonathan Freedland
Continue reading...How is it right that in our parliament it is OK to call Islam a ‘disease’, it is OK to refer to a ‘final solution’, it is OK to ridicule our religious attire?
Dear Mr Morrison and Mr Shorten,
I am an Australian Muslim woman. I am highly educated and hold a professional job. In fact, I spend a great deal of my working life with the Australian legal system. I am a wife. I am a mother. And tonight I am frightened, anxious and so very sad.
The tragedy that has occurred in Christchurch has pierced a hole in my heart that I cannot actually close. The grief is deep – these innocent people were simply praying when massacred by a man who had a deep disdain and hatred for them, not because they said or did anything but simply because they were Muslim.
Watching the images and hearing the eyewitness accounts is beyond traumatic. We have shed tears and expressed our hurt, but most of us have something in common – as hard as it is to say this, we are not surprised or shocked.
Why? Because we have lived with this fear for a long time now. Genuine fear that our lives are at risk simply because we are Muslim.
Related: 'We love you': mosques around world showered with flowers after Christchurch massacre
Continue reading...President downplays hate surge after white supremacist, who mentioned Trump in a manifesto, attacked New Zealand mosques
Donald Trump said he did not view white nationalism as a rising threat around the world, as New Zealand is reeling from a white supremacist attack on two mosques that killed 49 people.
Asked by a reporter on Friday if he saw an increase globally in the threat of white nationalism, the US president responded: “I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems. I guess, if you look at what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s a case. I don’t know enough about it yet.”
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