![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdSome good history in here too, particularly going over the 1919-1921 racial purges of Blacks by whites.
----- 1 -----
Tennessean apologizes, launches investigation after 'horrific' ad runs in print editions
Nashville Tennessean
21 June 2020
https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2020/06/21/tennessean-investigating-how-indefensible-ad-ran-print/3233003001/
The Tennessean is investigating how a paid advertisement from a fringe religious group was published on Sunday in violation of the newspaper’s long-established standards.
The ad featured a bizarre, pseudo-religious “prophecy,” including the declaration of an impending nuclear attack in Nashville by “Islam.”
The ad was immediately ordered to be pulled from future editions by sales executives and the investigation launched. A similar ad, one that did not mention Islam but also contained an end-times prophecy, published in the newspaper on June 17.
The newspaper’s advertising standards clearly forbid hate speech. Advertisements that do not meet the paper’s standards are routinely rejected for publication.
Kevin Gentzel, President of Marketing Solutions and Chief Revenue Officer for Gannett, parent company of The Tennessean, forcefully repudiated the advertisement in a tweet on Sunday.
“Two ads ran this week in the Tennessean that clearly violate our advertising standards,” Gentzel wrote. “We strongly condemn the message and apologize to our readers. We are immediately investigating to determine how this could have happened.”
The Tennessean’s local sales leader also issued an apology.
“The advertisement that was placed within the Tennessean is not what we condone or stand for within our advertising department guidelines and procedures,” said Ryan Kedzierski, vice president of sales for Middle Tennessee.
“This advertisement should not have been published within The Tennessean and we are sincerely sorry that this mistake took place. We are extremely apologetic to the community that the advertisement was able to get through and we are reviewing internally why and how this occurred and we will be taking actions immediately to correct. Again, we are saddened this took place and apologize to our community.”
Earlier in the day, The Tennessean’s editor expressed frustration over the pain the advertisement had caused in Nashville and beyond.
“Clearly there was a breakdown in the normal processes, which call for careful scrutiny of our advertising content,” said Michael A. Anastasi, vice president and editor, noting that news and sales divisions operate independently.
“The ad is horrific and is utterly indefensible in all circumstances. It is wrong, period, and should have never been published. It has hurt members of our community and our own employees and that saddens me beyond belief. It is inconsistent with everything The Tennessean as an institution stands and has stood for and with the journalism we have produced.”
----- 2 -----
Senior MPs and LGBT+ activists brand BBC News ‘institutionally transphobic’ in scathing letter to its editorial director
Vic Parsons June 22, 2020
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/06/22/bbc-news-institutional-transphobia-kamal-ahmed-crispin-blunt-trans-media-watch/
Senior MPs have branded the BBC News “institutionally transphobic” for a news article about cross-party opposition to alleged Tory plans to take away trans rights.
Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, deputy leader of the SNP in Westminster Kirsty Blackman and Stewart McDonald MP are among 150 people who have signed a letter to the BBC expressing “serious concerns” about its coverage of trans issues.
Last Friday, the BBC’s LGBT+ correspondent, Ben Hunte, wrote an article about an unprecedented show of support for trans equality that saw the LGBT+ groups of seven major political parties in the UK join forces to condemn Tory equalities chief Liz Truss for her statements on trans rights.
----- 3 -----
Spek
twitter.com/spekulation
20 June 2020
https://twitter.com/spekulation/status/1274572671515193346
[THREAD]
After watching video and talking to medics and other folks on the scene, I have a more clear picture of the shooting last night. Early reports of white nationalists were untrue, it turns out to be a fight that escalated.
What happens next is unnerving and endlessly frustrating.
[NEXT]
After shots are fired, the victim is moved to the medic tent. They call 911 to request an ambulance. The kid who was shot had a pulse for about 2 minutes, then medics started CPR.
The first SFD vehicles don't hit the scene until more than 13 minutes later, parking a block away.
[...]
From what I've been told, the decision was made by medics to keep the patient on site until SFD arrives. Because they had an established relationship with SFD, and had recently worked with them to move barriers to give them access, they had no reason to think SFD wouldn't come.
[NEXT]
When the SFD ambulance shows up, they don't go to the previously established rendezvous point (Harvard & Pine), instead they park on 10th & Pine, but refuse to enter the barricade or even acknowledge the person literally begging them to help.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 4 -----
Hong Kong national security law: suspects could be held in special detention facilities
Suspects could be held for as long as authorities see fit, source tells the Post
The centres could function similar to ‘white house’ British colonial government once used to hold people suspected of political crimes, insider says
SCMP Reporters
Published: 8:50pm, 22 Jun, 2020
Updated: 8:25am, 23 Jun, 2020
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3090131/national-security-law-hong-kong-suspects-may-be-held
Suspects arrested under Hong Kong’s national security law
may be detained in special holding centres for as long as authorities see fit, the Post has learned.
Although Beijing has yet to specify the penalties for offenders, it has promised to uphold presumption of innocence and other rights safeguards.
The detention facilities could function similar to the former “white house” the British colonial government used during the last century to hold people suspected of political crimes. It was operated by Royal Hong Kong Police Force’s Special Branch, an arm that worked in conjunction with Britain’s MI6 security service in the city, before being disbanded in 1995.
According to an outline of the new legislation reported by state media at the weekend, the Hong Kong government will set up a commission to safeguard national security chaired by the city’s leader and which will include an adviser appointed by Beijing.
----- 5 ------
How J.K. Rowling helped kill a proposed American LGBTQ civil rights law
The author was cited on the Senate floor as an attempt to pass the bill was spiked by Republicans.
By Bil Browning Friday, June 19, 2020
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/06/j-k-rowling-helped-kill-proposed-american-lgbtq-civil-rights-law/#.Xu6RBwJyWZE.facebook
After the historic Supreme Court ruling that LGBTQ people are covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Democrats tried to use the momentum to bring the Equality Act to a vote in the Senate. The proposed law would make it illegal to discriminate in employment, housing, health care, and other areas.
Two Republican senators quickly spiked the move, with one of them citing British Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling to claim that the bill didn’t have enough “empathy” for those who want to discriminate.
Rowling has caused controversy lately with a string of anti-transgender tweets and a long rambling essay on her website that attempts to justify her callous position that transgender women aren’t women. Rowling’s excuses amounted to little more than red herrings, complaints, and a solid dose of female fragility tropes.
Actors from the Harry Potter movies quickly lined up to denounce Rowling’s views and support trans people after the author doubled down in the essay.
It was the essay that Senator James Lankford (R-OK) cited in his lament for the religious right.
“We don’t want anyone to be discriminated against, anyone, but we can do this in a way that accommodates everyone, and that we can actually work towards agreement,” Lankford said.
“To say in the words of J.K. Rowling this past week where she wrote, ‘all I’m asking, all I want is for similar empathy, similar understanding to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats or abuse.’ Let’s work together to get equality. This bill does not do it in this form.”
The Equality Act would specify that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination – the same reasoning the Supreme Court used in its decision this week. It would apply to employment, education, housing, jury service, public accommodations, federal programs, and credit.
The law would also declare that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1994 law meant to protect religious liberty, can’t be used as a license to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
----- 6 -----
David Neiwert
twitter.com/DavidNeiwert
27 November 2019
https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1199779549803794432
[EDITOR: YES IT'S OLD. BUT IT'S STUNNINGLY INFORMATIVE OF THE HORRORS OF 1919-1921.]
1) This year, 2019, marks an important centennial anniversary in America—but it is one that not only are we not celebrating, it’s also a significant moment most of us aren’t even aware of: the 100th anniversary of the Red Summer of 1919.
----- 7 -----
Head of UBC board of governors resigns after liking racist, far-right comments on Twitter
Michael Korenberg liked tweets disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement
CBC News
Jun 20, 2020
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/michael-korenberg-resigns-ubc-1.5621268
The chair of the University of British Columbia's board of governors has resigned after liking racist and conspiracy theory posts on Twitter, including tweets disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement.
Michael Korenberg's resignation comes after UBC Students Against Bigotry posted recent photos of his Twitter account that showed tweets he liked included praise for U.S. President Donald Trump, references to protesters as "violent looters," and a conspiracy theory that compared the Black Lives Matter protests to Adolf Hitler's paramilitary tactics.
In a statement Saturday night, the university said Korenberg would be stepping down from his position on the board of governors immediately.
"The Board of Governors and Mr. Korenberg would like to recognize that this has been deeply hurtful to members of our community and that UBC has zero tolerance for racism and recognizes that real harm is created from both overt and structural racism," the statement said.
----- 8 -----
Trump’s toxic torrent of environmental rollbacks impedes social justice
By Laura Watson
Special to The Times
June 19, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-trump-administrations-toxic-torrent-of-environmental-rollbacks-impedes-social-justice/
At this point, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the White House is pursuing a massive rollback of our nation’s environmental protections. Given everything going on in the world today, many people probably don’t realize that the most critical — and most egregious — of these rollbacks has been finalized just in the last three months.
To put it bluntly, while our country wrestles with a devastating disease outbreak, a debilitating economic crisis, and an outpouring of anger and grief over racial injustice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies have quietly burned the midnight oil to complete a march of policies certain to worsen our health, damage our environment and leave a toxic legacy for our children.
What’s worse is that underserved and overburdened communities will pay the greatest price for these reckless actions, including the Black community and other people of color — just as they have with the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the director of the Washington Department of Ecology, I don’t say this lightly. My agency needs the partnership of federal agencies to do its job. We continue to do what we can, but the administration’s repeated moves to freeze states out of crucial decisions has made it virtually impossible.
----- 9 -----
Aaron Rupar
twitter.com/atrupar
23 June 2020
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1275125736899317760
Kayleigh McEnany denies that Trump’s racist “Kung Flu” remark is racist
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
----- 10 -----
Justice Alito’s jurisprudence of white racial innocence
Alito gets very upset if you suggest that racism exists.
By Ian Millhiser Updated Jun 23, 2020
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/23/21228636/alito-racism-ramos-louisiana-unanimous-jury
Earlier this term, the Supreme Court held, 6-3, in Ramos v. Louisiana that criminal defendants in state court may be convicted only by a unanimous jury.
The practical impact of Ramos is small — until recently, only two states, Louisiana and Oregon, permitted a non-unanimous jury to convict a defendant. And Louisiana recently amended its constitution to eliminate this practice. But advocates saw in the ruling a big symbolic change in favor of racial justice. As the Court’s lead opinion pointed out, non-unanimous juries are a practice rooted in white supremacy.
One justice took umbrage with that invocation of racism: Justice Samuel Alito. His dissent was the latest in a string of opinions bristling at the idea that racism still shapes many policymakers’ decisions today, and that the legacy of past racism still affects people of color. In the most noteworthy of those opinions, 2018’s Abbott v. Perez, Alito convinced a majority of his colleagues to write such a strong presumption of white racial innocence into the law governing racial voter discrimination that it is now virtually impossible for voting rights plaintiffs to prove that state lawmakers acted with racist intent.
Alito does not appear driven by broad skepticism of racial issues. While he has repeatedly lashed out at the mere suggestion that white policymakers may have been motivated by racism, he took a drastically different tone in Ricci v. DeStefano (2009). In that case, Alito wrote a lengthy concurring opinion suggesting that a cohort of mostly white firefighters were denied promotions due to a conspiracy between New Haven Mayor John DeStefano and a local black preacher.
In other words, when black or brown people have been on the receiving end of allegedly racist treatment, Alito preaches that we shouldn’t jump to such conclusions; yet in a case where white people were allegedly harmed, he wasn’t so cautious.
----- 11 -----
The Myth of the Kindly General Lee
The legend of the Confederate leader’s heroism and decency is based in the fiction of a person who never existed.
Story by Adam Serwer
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/
The strangest part about the continued personality cult of Robert E. Lee is how few of the qualities his admirers profess to see in him he actually possessed.
Memorial Day has the tendency to conjure up old arguments about the Civil War. That’s understandable; it was created to mourn the dead of a war in which the Union was nearly destroyed, when half the country rose up in rebellion in defense of slavery. This year, the removal of Lee’s statue in New Orleans has inspired a new round of commentary about Lee, not to mention protests on his behalf by white supremacists.
The myth of Lee goes something like this: He was a brilliant strategist and devoted Christian man who abhorred slavery and labored tirelessly after the war to bring the country back together.
There is little truth in this. Lee was a devout Christian, and historians regard him as an accomplished tactician. But despite his ability to win individual battles, his decision to fight a conventional war against the more densely populated and industrialized North is considered by many historians to have been a fatal strategic error.
But even if one conceded Lee’s military prowess, he would still be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in defense of the South’s authority to own millions of human beings as property because they are black. Lee’s elevation is a key part of a 150-year-old propaganda campaign designed to erase slavery as the cause of the war and whitewash the Confederate cause as a noble one. That ideology is known as the Lost Cause, and as the historian David Blight writes, it provided a “foundation on which Southerners built the Jim Crow system.”
There are unwitting victims of this campaign—those who lack the knowledge to separate history from sentiment. Then there are those whose reverence for Lee relies on replacing the actual Lee with a mythical figure who never truly existed.
In the Richmond Times Dispatch, R. David Cox wrote that “for white supremacist protesters to invoke his name violates Lee’s most fundamental convictions.” In the conservative publication Townhall, Jack Kerwick concluded that Lee was “among the finest human beings that has ever walked the Earth.” John Daniel Davidson, in an essay for The Federalist, opposed the removal of the Lee statute in part on the grounds that Lee “arguably did more than anyone to unite the country after the war and bind up its wounds.” Praise for Lee of this sort has flowed forth from past historians and presidents alike.
This is too divorced from Lee’s actual life to even be classed as fan fiction; it is simply historical illiteracy.
White supremacy does not “violate” Lee’s “most fundamental convictions.” White supremacy was one of Lee’s most fundamental convictions.
----- 12 -----
Katy Montgomerie
twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie
23 June 2020
https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1275549211052986377
Absolute trainwreck. They're still totally happy to have a transphobic, homophobic, racist as "honorary vice president". Total joke
[QUOTED TWEET]
The Booker Prizes
twitter.com/TheBookerPrizes
23 June 2020
https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1275549211052986377
Read the statement on behalf of the Booker Prize Foundation: https://bit.ly/385fuvv
[LINKS TO: statement]
[RETRIEVED BY EDITOR]
Statement on behalf of the Booker Prize Foundation
Submitted by The Booker Prizes on Tue, 2020-06-23 14:54
2020
The Trustees of the Booker Prize Foundation wish to point out that the views expressed by Baroness Nicholson on transgender issues are her own personal views.
Baroness Nicholson has herself recently said that she retired as a Trustee of the Foundation in 2009, and was then made an honorary vice president. She has no role in the governance or operations of the Foundation. She is not involved in selecting the judges nor in choosing the books that are longlisted, shortlisted and win.
- Tennessean apologizes, launches investigation after 'horrific' ad runs in print editions
- Senior MPs and LGBT+ activists brand BBC News ‘institutionally transphobic’ in scathing letter to its editorial director
- After watching video and talking to medics and other folks on the scene, I have a more clear picture of the shooting last night.
- Hong Kong national security law: suspects could be held indefinitely without trial in special detention facilities [EDITOR: These are functionally black sites.]
- How J.K. Rowling helped kill a proposed American LGBTQ civil rights law
- A history of violent white racist purges of Black people between 1919-1921
- Head of UBC board of governors resigns after liking racist, far-right comments on Twitter
- Trump’s toxic torrent of environmental rollbacks impedes social justice
- Kayleigh McEnany denies that Trump’s racist “Kung Flu” remark is racist
- Justice Alito’s jurisprudence of white racial innocence
- The Myth of the Kindly General Lee
- Booker Prize Foundation to retain virulently anti LGBT Baroness Nicholson as "honorary vice president."
----- 1 -----
Tennessean apologizes, launches investigation after 'horrific' ad runs in print editions
Nashville Tennessean
21 June 2020
https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2020/06/21/tennessean-investigating-how-indefensible-ad-ran-print/3233003001/
The Tennessean is investigating how a paid advertisement from a fringe religious group was published on Sunday in violation of the newspaper’s long-established standards.
The ad featured a bizarre, pseudo-religious “prophecy,” including the declaration of an impending nuclear attack in Nashville by “Islam.”
The ad was immediately ordered to be pulled from future editions by sales executives and the investigation launched. A similar ad, one that did not mention Islam but also contained an end-times prophecy, published in the newspaper on June 17.
The newspaper’s advertising standards clearly forbid hate speech. Advertisements that do not meet the paper’s standards are routinely rejected for publication.
Kevin Gentzel, President of Marketing Solutions and Chief Revenue Officer for Gannett, parent company of The Tennessean, forcefully repudiated the advertisement in a tweet on Sunday.
“Two ads ran this week in the Tennessean that clearly violate our advertising standards,” Gentzel wrote. “We strongly condemn the message and apologize to our readers. We are immediately investigating to determine how this could have happened.”
The Tennessean’s local sales leader also issued an apology.
“The advertisement that was placed within the Tennessean is not what we condone or stand for within our advertising department guidelines and procedures,” said Ryan Kedzierski, vice president of sales for Middle Tennessee.
“This advertisement should not have been published within The Tennessean and we are sincerely sorry that this mistake took place. We are extremely apologetic to the community that the advertisement was able to get through and we are reviewing internally why and how this occurred and we will be taking actions immediately to correct. Again, we are saddened this took place and apologize to our community.”
Earlier in the day, The Tennessean’s editor expressed frustration over the pain the advertisement had caused in Nashville and beyond.
“Clearly there was a breakdown in the normal processes, which call for careful scrutiny of our advertising content,” said Michael A. Anastasi, vice president and editor, noting that news and sales divisions operate independently.
“The ad is horrific and is utterly indefensible in all circumstances. It is wrong, period, and should have never been published. It has hurt members of our community and our own employees and that saddens me beyond belief. It is inconsistent with everything The Tennessean as an institution stands and has stood for and with the journalism we have produced.”
----- 2 -----
Senior MPs and LGBT+ activists brand BBC News ‘institutionally transphobic’ in scathing letter to its editorial director
Vic Parsons June 22, 2020
https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/06/22/bbc-news-institutional-transphobia-kamal-ahmed-crispin-blunt-trans-media-watch/
Senior MPs have branded the BBC News “institutionally transphobic” for a news article about cross-party opposition to alleged Tory plans to take away trans rights.
Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, deputy leader of the SNP in Westminster Kirsty Blackman and Stewart McDonald MP are among 150 people who have signed a letter to the BBC expressing “serious concerns” about its coverage of trans issues.
Last Friday, the BBC’s LGBT+ correspondent, Ben Hunte, wrote an article about an unprecedented show of support for trans equality that saw the LGBT+ groups of seven major political parties in the UK join forces to condemn Tory equalities chief Liz Truss for her statements on trans rights.
----- 3 -----
Spek
twitter.com/spekulation
20 June 2020
https://twitter.com/spekulation/status/1274572671515193346
[THREAD]
After watching video and talking to medics and other folks on the scene, I have a more clear picture of the shooting last night. Early reports of white nationalists were untrue, it turns out to be a fight that escalated.
What happens next is unnerving and endlessly frustrating.
[NEXT]
After shots are fired, the victim is moved to the medic tent. They call 911 to request an ambulance. The kid who was shot had a pulse for about 2 minutes, then medics started CPR.
The first SFD vehicles don't hit the scene until more than 13 minutes later, parking a block away.
[...]
From what I've been told, the decision was made by medics to keep the patient on site until SFD arrives. Because they had an established relationship with SFD, and had recently worked with them to move barriers to give them access, they had no reason to think SFD wouldn't come.
[NEXT]
When the SFD ambulance shows up, they don't go to the previously established rendezvous point (Harvard & Pine), instead they park on 10th & Pine, but refuse to enter the barricade or even acknowledge the person literally begging them to help.
[THREAD CONTINUES AT LINK]
----- 4 -----
Hong Kong national security law: suspects could be held in special detention facilities
Suspects could be held for as long as authorities see fit, source tells the Post
The centres could function similar to ‘white house’ British colonial government once used to hold people suspected of political crimes, insider says
SCMP Reporters
Published: 8:50pm, 22 Jun, 2020
Updated: 8:25am, 23 Jun, 2020
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3090131/national-security-law-hong-kong-suspects-may-be-held
Suspects arrested under Hong Kong’s national security law
may be detained in special holding centres for as long as authorities see fit, the Post has learned.
Although Beijing has yet to specify the penalties for offenders, it has promised to uphold presumption of innocence and other rights safeguards.
The detention facilities could function similar to the former “white house” the British colonial government used during the last century to hold people suspected of political crimes. It was operated by Royal Hong Kong Police Force’s Special Branch, an arm that worked in conjunction with Britain’s MI6 security service in the city, before being disbanded in 1995.
According to an outline of the new legislation reported by state media at the weekend, the Hong Kong government will set up a commission to safeguard national security chaired by the city’s leader and which will include an adviser appointed by Beijing.
----- 5 ------
How J.K. Rowling helped kill a proposed American LGBTQ civil rights law
The author was cited on the Senate floor as an attempt to pass the bill was spiked by Republicans.
By Bil Browning Friday, June 19, 2020
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/06/j-k-rowling-helped-kill-proposed-american-lgbtq-civil-rights-law/#.Xu6RBwJyWZE.facebook
After the historic Supreme Court ruling that LGBTQ people are covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Democrats tried to use the momentum to bring the Equality Act to a vote in the Senate. The proposed law would make it illegal to discriminate in employment, housing, health care, and other areas.
Two Republican senators quickly spiked the move, with one of them citing British Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling to claim that the bill didn’t have enough “empathy” for those who want to discriminate.
Rowling has caused controversy lately with a string of anti-transgender tweets and a long rambling essay on her website that attempts to justify her callous position that transgender women aren’t women. Rowling’s excuses amounted to little more than red herrings, complaints, and a solid dose of female fragility tropes.
Actors from the Harry Potter movies quickly lined up to denounce Rowling’s views and support trans people after the author doubled down in the essay.
It was the essay that Senator James Lankford (R-OK) cited in his lament for the religious right.
“We don’t want anyone to be discriminated against, anyone, but we can do this in a way that accommodates everyone, and that we can actually work towards agreement,” Lankford said.
“To say in the words of J.K. Rowling this past week where she wrote, ‘all I’m asking, all I want is for similar empathy, similar understanding to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats or abuse.’ Let’s work together to get equality. This bill does not do it in this form.”
The Equality Act would specify that anti-LGBTQ discrimination is a form of sex discrimination – the same reasoning the Supreme Court used in its decision this week. It would apply to employment, education, housing, jury service, public accommodations, federal programs, and credit.
The law would also declare that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1994 law meant to protect religious liberty, can’t be used as a license to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
----- 6 -----
David Neiwert
twitter.com/DavidNeiwert
27 November 2019
https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1199779549803794432
[EDITOR: YES IT'S OLD. BUT IT'S STUNNINGLY INFORMATIVE OF THE HORRORS OF 1919-1921.]
1) This year, 2019, marks an important centennial anniversary in America—but it is one that not only are we not celebrating, it’s also a significant moment most of us aren’t even aware of: the 100th anniversary of the Red Summer of 1919.
----- 7 -----
Head of UBC board of governors resigns after liking racist, far-right comments on Twitter
Michael Korenberg liked tweets disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement
CBC News
Jun 20, 2020
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/michael-korenberg-resigns-ubc-1.5621268
The chair of the University of British Columbia's board of governors has resigned after liking racist and conspiracy theory posts on Twitter, including tweets disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement.
Michael Korenberg's resignation comes after UBC Students Against Bigotry posted recent photos of his Twitter account that showed tweets he liked included praise for U.S. President Donald Trump, references to protesters as "violent looters," and a conspiracy theory that compared the Black Lives Matter protests to Adolf Hitler's paramilitary tactics.
In a statement Saturday night, the university said Korenberg would be stepping down from his position on the board of governors immediately.
"The Board of Governors and Mr. Korenberg would like to recognize that this has been deeply hurtful to members of our community and that UBC has zero tolerance for racism and recognizes that real harm is created from both overt and structural racism," the statement said.
----- 8 -----
Trump’s toxic torrent of environmental rollbacks impedes social justice
By Laura Watson
Special to The Times
June 19, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-trump-administrations-toxic-torrent-of-environmental-rollbacks-impedes-social-justice/
At this point, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the White House is pursuing a massive rollback of our nation’s environmental protections. Given everything going on in the world today, many people probably don’t realize that the most critical — and most egregious — of these rollbacks has been finalized just in the last three months.
To put it bluntly, while our country wrestles with a devastating disease outbreak, a debilitating economic crisis, and an outpouring of anger and grief over racial injustice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies have quietly burned the midnight oil to complete a march of policies certain to worsen our health, damage our environment and leave a toxic legacy for our children.
What’s worse is that underserved and overburdened communities will pay the greatest price for these reckless actions, including the Black community and other people of color — just as they have with the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the director of the Washington Department of Ecology, I don’t say this lightly. My agency needs the partnership of federal agencies to do its job. We continue to do what we can, but the administration’s repeated moves to freeze states out of crucial decisions has made it virtually impossible.
----- 9 -----
Aaron Rupar
twitter.com/atrupar
23 June 2020
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1275125736899317760
Kayleigh McEnany denies that Trump’s racist “Kung Flu” remark is racist
[EMBEDDED VIDEO]
----- 10 -----
Justice Alito’s jurisprudence of white racial innocence
Alito gets very upset if you suggest that racism exists.
By Ian Millhiser Updated Jun 23, 2020
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/23/21228636/alito-racism-ramos-louisiana-unanimous-jury
Earlier this term, the Supreme Court held, 6-3, in Ramos v. Louisiana that criminal defendants in state court may be convicted only by a unanimous jury.
The practical impact of Ramos is small — until recently, only two states, Louisiana and Oregon, permitted a non-unanimous jury to convict a defendant. And Louisiana recently amended its constitution to eliminate this practice. But advocates saw in the ruling a big symbolic change in favor of racial justice. As the Court’s lead opinion pointed out, non-unanimous juries are a practice rooted in white supremacy.
One justice took umbrage with that invocation of racism: Justice Samuel Alito. His dissent was the latest in a string of opinions bristling at the idea that racism still shapes many policymakers’ decisions today, and that the legacy of past racism still affects people of color. In the most noteworthy of those opinions, 2018’s Abbott v. Perez, Alito convinced a majority of his colleagues to write such a strong presumption of white racial innocence into the law governing racial voter discrimination that it is now virtually impossible for voting rights plaintiffs to prove that state lawmakers acted with racist intent.
Alito does not appear driven by broad skepticism of racial issues. While he has repeatedly lashed out at the mere suggestion that white policymakers may have been motivated by racism, he took a drastically different tone in Ricci v. DeStefano (2009). In that case, Alito wrote a lengthy concurring opinion suggesting that a cohort of mostly white firefighters were denied promotions due to a conspiracy between New Haven Mayor John DeStefano and a local black preacher.
In other words, when black or brown people have been on the receiving end of allegedly racist treatment, Alito preaches that we shouldn’t jump to such conclusions; yet in a case where white people were allegedly harmed, he wasn’t so cautious.
----- 11 -----
The Myth of the Kindly General Lee
The legend of the Confederate leader’s heroism and decency is based in the fiction of a person who never existed.
Story by Adam Serwer
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/
The strangest part about the continued personality cult of Robert E. Lee is how few of the qualities his admirers profess to see in him he actually possessed.
Memorial Day has the tendency to conjure up old arguments about the Civil War. That’s understandable; it was created to mourn the dead of a war in which the Union was nearly destroyed, when half the country rose up in rebellion in defense of slavery. This year, the removal of Lee’s statue in New Orleans has inspired a new round of commentary about Lee, not to mention protests on his behalf by white supremacists.
The myth of Lee goes something like this: He was a brilliant strategist and devoted Christian man who abhorred slavery and labored tirelessly after the war to bring the country back together.
There is little truth in this. Lee was a devout Christian, and historians regard him as an accomplished tactician. But despite his ability to win individual battles, his decision to fight a conventional war against the more densely populated and industrialized North is considered by many historians to have been a fatal strategic error.
But even if one conceded Lee’s military prowess, he would still be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in defense of the South’s authority to own millions of human beings as property because they are black. Lee’s elevation is a key part of a 150-year-old propaganda campaign designed to erase slavery as the cause of the war and whitewash the Confederate cause as a noble one. That ideology is known as the Lost Cause, and as the historian David Blight writes, it provided a “foundation on which Southerners built the Jim Crow system.”
There are unwitting victims of this campaign—those who lack the knowledge to separate history from sentiment. Then there are those whose reverence for Lee relies on replacing the actual Lee with a mythical figure who never truly existed.
In the Richmond Times Dispatch, R. David Cox wrote that “for white supremacist protesters to invoke his name violates Lee’s most fundamental convictions.” In the conservative publication Townhall, Jack Kerwick concluded that Lee was “among the finest human beings that has ever walked the Earth.” John Daniel Davidson, in an essay for The Federalist, opposed the removal of the Lee statute in part on the grounds that Lee “arguably did more than anyone to unite the country after the war and bind up its wounds.” Praise for Lee of this sort has flowed forth from past historians and presidents alike.
This is too divorced from Lee’s actual life to even be classed as fan fiction; it is simply historical illiteracy.
White supremacy does not “violate” Lee’s “most fundamental convictions.” White supremacy was one of Lee’s most fundamental convictions.
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Katy Montgomerie
twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie
23 June 2020
https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1275549211052986377
Absolute trainwreck. They're still totally happy to have a transphobic, homophobic, racist as "honorary vice president". Total joke
[QUOTED TWEET]
The Booker Prizes
twitter.com/TheBookerPrizes
23 June 2020
https://twitter.com/KatyMontgomerie/status/1275549211052986377
Read the statement on behalf of the Booker Prize Foundation: https://bit.ly/385fuvv
[LINKS TO: statement]
[RETRIEVED BY EDITOR]
Statement on behalf of the Booker Prize Foundation
Submitted by The Booker Prizes on Tue, 2020-06-23 14:54
2020
The Trustees of the Booker Prize Foundation wish to point out that the views expressed by Baroness Nicholson on transgender issues are her own personal views.
Baroness Nicholson has herself recently said that she retired as a Trustee of the Foundation in 2009, and was then made an honorary vice president. She has no role in the governance or operations of the Foundation. She is not involved in selecting the judges nor in choosing the books that are longlisted, shortlisted and win.
