Mostly focusing on how systemic racism plays out every day, I rarely write about what may seem like an outdated example of racism—that crystal clear version many people have of a hooded klansman calling a Black person the N-word and demanding that he go back to Africa. Count on YouTube commenter Steven Crowder, however, to remind us all that depiction isn’t so outdated after all.
A Louisiana State Patrol trooper, reportedly caught bragging in text messages about beating a suspect, was arrested with two other troopers on excessive force allegations. Troopers Dakota DeMoss, Randall Dickerson, and George Harper were arrested on February 8 on criminal charges associated with not only excessive force but allegedly trying to hide their actions, the media site Sound Off Louisiana reported.
Both Georgia business leaders and top Republican officials in the state are opposing proposed legislation to restrict voting rights after the GOP suffered a well-earned triple loss in state Senate runoffs as well as the presidential election.
A Texas mother is reportedly facing threats after she went public about allegations her son was bullied for more than a year, targeted because of his race, and tricked into drinking urine at a sleepover. Summer Smith told NBC DFW she allowed her 13-year-old Black son, a student at Haggard Middle School, to attend the sleepover in mid-February without knowing his bullies, former football teammates, would be there.
President Joe Biden would not be where he is without Black voters. Fittingly, he’s made some pretty weighty promises in his plan for Black America. We’re keeping track of them all in a biweekly series.
Whereas we normally keep track of how the president’s actions match up with his campaign promises, as of late, it’s the promises themselves that are causing Biden problems.
It’s difficult to gauge the success of any movement aimed at affecting widespread and systematic change. That’s especially true for the Black Lives Matter movement, which has what can feel like the insurmountable aims of eradicating white supremacy and fighting police brutality in Black communities. But as difficult as it is to quantify the movement’s success, it’s just as difficult to ignore its impact.
A Wisconsin school board member is responding to a petition from about 1,200 people pushing for a Black history curriculum with complaints Black History Month doesn’t include other races. New Berlin Board of Education clerk Jeffrey Kurth voiced his disappointing opinion at a closed school board meeting on Monday discovered initially by ABC-affiliated WISN.
Newly released police video shows a Black Chicago officer grabbing the neck of another Black man, slamming him against a brick wall, and forcing him onto the pavement, allegedly for looking shocked to see officers. That’s right. Officers claimed in an incident report ABC 7 Chicago obtained that they approached Leroy Kennedy IV on Aug.
Civil rights activist Malcolm X died on Feb. 21, 1965, 56 years ago, and decades after his death an undercover cop still didn’t feel safe to reveal details of the assassination plot that left the late spokesman for the Nation of Islam shot to death at 39-years-old inside Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom.
A white South Carolina sergeant is accused of using minor traffic infractions to harass 21 Black residents, and the city’s mayor is attempting to explain away the sergeant’s actions. A woman told the Lancaster City Council on February 9 that Sgt. Pete Beck pulled over her son multiple times in a few weeks, according to Fox 46.
Families are boycotting the Publix Supermarkets chain weeks after The Wall Street Journal reported that an heiress to the chain had a hand in funding the rally former President Donald Trump used to incite the deadly Capitol attack. Julie Jenkins Fancelli, who the journal identified as “a prominent donor to the Trump campaign,” paid $300,000 of the total $500,000 rally, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Los Angeles police are investigating an officer’s complaint that a photo of George Floyd is being passed around with the words “You take my breath away” in a Valentine’s Day message that is beyond saddening. “Our investigation is to determine the accuracy of the allegations while also reinforcing our zero tolerance for anything with racist views,” Chief Michel Moore told the Los Angeles Times on Saturday.
While Black Lives Matter protesters experienced a downpour of immediate arrests in Minnesota following the death of George Floyd, the mostly white crowd that ascended on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 experienced something more akin to a sprinkle.
More than 350 congressional staff members signed an open letter Wednesday to the Senate, urging legislators to convict former President Donald Trump for inciting an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. “As Congressional employees, we don’t have a vote on whether to convict Donald J. Trump for his role in inciting the violent attack at the Capitol, but our Senators do,” the staffers said in the letter.
A Black teen who did little more than observe an alleged crime at a California Target store was pushed against a counter and thrown into a police car, with a sheriff’s deputy closing the door on his feet, the child’s mother told The Los Angeles Times.
At least 31 law enforcement officers in 12 states are being investigated after being linked in some way to the attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, according to an Associated Press review. Nine of the law enforcement officers are from a Pennsylvania police department; three are Los Angeles police officers; and one is a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy.
CNN anchor Don Lemon obviously didn’t have time for the usual Fox News claims of President Donald Trump’s superiority on Monday, less than a week after Trump instigated an attempted coup at the Capitol because he lost an election.
After years of targeted efforts to suppress the Black vote in Georgia, the state’s Republicans are looking to give new life to President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, this time by changing state law when the legislative session starts Monday.
It turns out New York police have caught up with the 22-year-old woman shown on video tackling the teen son of Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Keyon Harrold.
Video shows a Black U.S. Army veteran questioned by Virginia police when a white resident came to the racist conclusion that a Black man sitting in his car must be committing a crime. Marlon Crutchfield was instead working as a real estate photographer when the nosy neighbor’s complaint attracted the attention of three cop vehicles on Dec. 21, 2020, Crutchfield said in the video he shot of Arlington County Police officers questioning him.
An Ohio cop shot and killed an innocent Black man and it occurred to officers on the scene to handcuff the dying man before they even tried to get him help, according to body camera video Columbus police released Thursday. Officers “hung crime scene tape, searched for shell casings and shined flashlights into a garage” on the Oberlin Drive scene as Andre Hill laid on the ground dying without aid for more than 10 minutes, The Columbus Dispatch reported.
Entrepreneur turned hip-hop mogul Percy “Master P” Miller and former NBA All-Star Baron Davis are in talks to acquire an athletic-wear company that has long profited off of Black entertainers and athletes popularizing the brand. That company, Reebok, which is owned by Adidas, is valued at around $2.4 billion. Miller told ESPN he and Davis are “prepared financially” after months of negotiations with the business.
Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has been making the media rounds Monday to encourage voters to turn out in support of Democratic Senate hopefuls Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock ahead of the state’s runoff election.
A city oversight agency pretty much found that the New York City Police Department handled anti-police brutality protests as horribly as viral videos implied.
In the true spirit of GOP service, Sen. Marco Rubio, of Florida, showed his support for vaccinating Florida’s most vulnerable residents by scoring one of those vaccinations in short supply himself. “I know I looked away from the needle And yes, I know I need a tan But I am so confident that the #Covid19 vaccine is safe & effective that I decided to take it myself,” he said in a tweet Saturday.
Texas teachers Paul Blackwell and Rose Mary Blackwell were married for 30 years before they died holding each other’’s hands and that of their children Sunday. They contracted COVID-19 about a week before Thanksgiving and spent two weeks in intensive care with the virus, NBC News reported.
A Black teen convicted of murder when Sen. Amy Klobuchar was a Minnesota prosecutor was released from prison Tuesday after spending 18 years in prison. A pardon board determined the sentence for Myon Burrell, 34, was inappropriate for a child, the Star Tribune reported. Dressed in an Islamic thobe, he told supporters who had gathered outside of Stillwater prison to celebrate his release that he can’t express his gratitude.
Of all people, I expect more from Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the first Black woman to lead the city and the first LGBTQ person to do so as well. She, however, is being accused of actively trying to cover up the horrific injustice that left Anjanette Young, a Black social worker, naked with police body-cameras rolling in her own home, the wrong home in a horribly botched city raid on Feb. 21, 2019. “I was terrified.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s decision Thursday and ruled 8-0 that there is no statute of limitations on rape in the military, according to a Supreme Court opinion. The decision followed an appellate court’s ruling that made it more difficult for rape victims in the military to obtain justice. In the case, a sergeant in the U.S.
Antwion “Busta” Ball, 43, was the kind of teacher who altered the course of his students’ lives. “He told Black boys you can be somebody,” his sister, Shavone Ball, told The Baltimore Sun. “He told them, once you have an education, it can’t be taken away.