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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?”
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.
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.
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”.
Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, described the pain of watching the video of his brother's murder - which showed a police officer kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes - during his opening remarks at a House judiciary committee hearing on police brutality. 'I can’t tell you the kind of pain you feel when you watch something like that,' he said: 'When you watch your big brother, who you’ve looked up to your whole life, die. Die begging for your mom'
The New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb captured best the sense of wonder at what is happening on the streets of America. He posted a tweet from Mitt Romney, the Republican senator from Utah, which showed the former presidential candidate marching alongside demonstrators under the banner Black Lives Matter.
“Ladies and gentleman,” Cobb remarked. “This is what you call uncharted territory.”
Protesters in New York have been unnecessarily arrested and detained for as long as 48 hours in “abysmal” conditions without access to masks, food and water, according to legal experts.
Since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis just over two weeks ago, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of New York City in protest over police brutality.
The Rev Al Sharpton gave an emotional eulogy at George Floyd's memorial service in Houston, Texas, on Tuesday. The civil rights activist celebrated the protests that have spread across the country and around the world in response to the police killing of Floyd. 'All over the world I've seen grandchildren of slave masters tearing down slave master statues,' Sharpton said and specifically referenced the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, England, which was torn down and thrown into Bristol harbour by Black Lives Matter protesters
I grew up facing attack after attack on myself and others. Today each of us has a role in the fight for Black lives
I was nine when I was first called a n---- while walking to my mom’s car after school.
Ten when I watched the savage beating of Rodney King by the Los Angeles police department on television. Eleven when I saw the flames and ashes of a city burning after four police officers were found not guilty.
The Guardian’s Vivan Ho reports from Houston, Texas:
Supporters of George Floyd stood outside the church in the punishing Houston humidity, waiting for the procession to Floyd’s final resting place.
Joe Biden expressed support for the Buffalo protester who was shoved to the ground by police officers, after Trump suggested the 75-year-old man might be an Antifa plant.
My Dad used to say there's no greater sin than the abuse of power.
Whether it's an officer bloodying a peaceful protester or a President defending him with a conspiracy theory he saw on TV.
I'm a Catholic – just like Martin. Our faith says that we can't accept either.
Exclusive: father of Stephen Lawrence says police’s promises to change have not been met
The father of Stephen Lawrence has said black people are still treated as second-class citizens in Britain, with police breaking promises to change made two decades ago after being shamed by the failure to find his son’s racist killers.
Secretary general has clarified staff are ‘not banned’ from demonstrations after previous guidance warned support for action on George Floyd killing risked reputational damage
The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, sought to defuse a row over guidance to staff suggesting they should not participate in protests triggered by the police killing of George Floyd. He clarified that staff were “not banned” from joining anti-racism demonstrations, as long as it was in an “entirely private capacity”.
In a letter to staff that followed public pushback from the UN’s own special rapporteur on freedom of assembly, Guterres insisted that a memo from its ethics board did not mean that staff were required to “remain neutral or impartial in the face of racism”.
A crowd of up to 200 people peacefully marched through Mathare slum in Nairobi on Monday to protest against police brutality and an increase in extrajudicial killings in the Kenyan capital.
The march was organised by three grassroots organisations from the area in response to a rise in the number of police killings since a dusk-till-dawn curfew was enforced in March to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. It was also organised to show solidarity with movements worldwide to protest against police brutality.
Mutual obligations for welfare recipients return today.
There are now about 1.6m people receiving the unemployment benefit jobseeker.
Mutual obligations return today & will be gradually phased in.
We are in Phase 1 meaning there are no financial penalties for not meeting activity requirements.
We don't have a timeline of each "phase" but I will keep following up with the Minister for more clarity.
The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian was giving a press conference just now. She was pressed on comments from her police minister, David Elliott, who said yesterday that police would not approve future permit protests that did not comply for the health guidelines.
On Saturday night, 23-year-old Erik Salgado was shot and killed by California Highway Patrol officers in Oakland. His pregnant girlfriend was also injured in the shooting, NBC Bay Area reported.
Last night in East Oakland CHP officers shot and killed Eric Salgado during a traffic stop on the 9600 block of Cherry St. His family is out here mourning. Police have not released much information about the incident. pic.twitter.com/e4JxH7Xjln
This is the block where the CHP shooting happened last night. Eric’s family is out here. Witnesses, including neighbors say the police shot upwards of 20 rounds into the car. pic.twitter.com/po1C3kFNbF
There’s thousands here. And they keep coming. CHP isn’t getting away with this. We’re putting an end to cops killing with impunity.
The force of furious national protests over racist policing is rippling through many different industries now, as workers speak up about racist practices and racist bosses in culture industries like fashion, publishing, and media.
The editor-in-chief of beloved cooking brand Bon Appetit announced today that he is stepping down after photographs of him in “brown face” were recirculated on social media, and an editor spoke out about the “systemic racism” she had experienced at Bon Appetit and its parent company Conde Nast, including alleging that “currently only white editors are paid for their video appearances.” (A company spokesperson told Variety that was not true, but did not offer details.)
Condé Nast’s Bon Appetit Allegedly Pays Only White Editors for Videos, Image of EIC Adam Rapoport in Brown Face Surfaces https://t.co/vleRO9UvWN
Surely Alex Hawke must realise that he represents Australia to a region of largely black and brown Indigenous peoples
On Friday, as the world was gripped by Black Lives Matter protests, Alex Hawke, Australia’s minister for the Pacific criticised those who attended the protests in Australia, because of health concerns due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
“No one should risk the good position Australia is in, especially to attend a self indulgent ‘protest’ about matters in other countries,” he tweeted.
Keir Starmer condemns ‘criminal damage’ but says we can’t have ‘a slaver on a statue’
The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, sparked unease among some on the left of his party on Monday, as he condemned as “completely wrong” the tearing down of the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol at the weekend.
Starmer and the shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, said they shared the sense of injustice that had brought more than 100,000 people out on to the streets of the UK to join Black Lives Matter protests in recent days.
Force of history demands re-evaluation of colonial statues and street names
Cities have always been about apportioning and memorialising power; about writing force into space. Britain’s colonial and imperial past is inscribed into the bricks and mortar of every city and town in the country. Mostly this hidden text of power relations and wealth acquisition lies dormant in the half-forgotten significance of street names, in the knotty iconography of grand facades, in the barely read inscriptions on memorials and sculptures, in the nomenclature of grand public buildings. Forming the backdrop of lived lives, these omnipresent clues are rarely fully decoded. The most monumental of sculptures has a habit of fading away to near invisibility if it is sufficiently familiar.
At times, though, such associations are activated and become urgent. So it has been in the case of the long-running affair of Edward Colston, who made his fortune in the 17th century from the enslavement of thousands of Africans.
Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, led House and Senate Democrats in a moment of silence at the Capitol's Emancipation Hall after reading the names of George Floyd and others killed in police custody. They kneeled for 8 minutes and 46 seconds - the length of time prosecutors say Floyd was pinned under a white police officer’s knee before he died
Eyewitness video shows a man driving his car into a crowd of protesters, then shooting and wounding a demonstrator who confronted him as he came to a stop in Seattle on Sunday.
The suspect, who was later arrested by police, was seen in the video exiting his car as protesters began to surround it. He brandished what appeared to be a gun, dashed through the crowd and turned himself over to police.
The injured protester, named as Daniel, 26, was taken to hospital and is in stable condition. He said he had punched the man in the car in an attempt to disarm him after he drove into the crowd of demonstrators
In a virtual commencement address, the former president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle discuss Covid-19 and the issue of race in the US and say young people should build the society they wish to see