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Posted: Jul 22, 2020 1:53 PM CDT

by Alabama News Network Staff

As the nation puts a spotlight on problems plaguing Black communities, some families and doctors are calling for medical disparities to be part of the Black Lives Matter conversation.

African American women are three to four times more likely to die due to pregnancy complications, says Dr. Emmary Butler, an OBGYN in Indiana. Dr. Butler, as well as many doctors and families, says its a systemic problem that must be fixed.

Conditions like pulmonary embolism, preeclampsia, and hypertension are avoidable if treated early in pregnancy, but Black mothers are dying from these problems.

Dr. Butler says, African Americans are more often not insured or they have poor access to quality care. However, these same studies also show that even with these resources, African Americans are not receiving the standard of care. Advocate for yourself, advocate for your family members, if you feel that youre having medical issues, please sound an alarm until someone actually listens.

Bruce McIntyre is a single father raising his three-month-old son Elias. His girlfriend Amber Isaac died during an emergency C-section in April. All I can do is think about Amber while Im with him, you know, he has her smile, her eyes, and it just kills me sometimes when I just stare at him because I think about what should have been.

The 26-year-old mothers death in a New York City hospital came just days after she tweeted that she was not receiving proper care. McIntyre calls it neglect. Amber developed a serious complication during pregnancy, but McIntyre says doctors didnt catch it until it was too late.

McIntyre is taking action. I cant sit around. Amber would not want me to sit around, he says. Hes organizing a march to raise awareness and hopefully save lives.

Read more:
Doctors Calling for Medical Disparities to be Part of Black Lives Matter Movement - Alabama News Network

President Donald Trump recently called Black Lives Matter a symbol of hate in response to New York Citys plan to paint Black Lives Matter on Fifth Avenue. Many view this as Trumps latest attempt to exploit racial tensions in order to appeal to his base.

But he isnt the only one. Walmart recently received backlash for selling T-shirts that included the phrases All Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, Irish Lives Matter and Homeless Lives Matter.

It is curious why such a simple, affirmative and humane phrase would become so emotionally provocative and politically divisive.

The exploitation of Black Lives Matter, whether for political or economic gain, is another manifestation of what Black studies scholar kihana ross argues is anti-Blackness, societys disdain, disregard and disgust for Black existence.

The Black Lives Matter phrase is intended to affirm the humanity of all Black people in the midst of deadly oppression in a country where long-standing racial disparities would suggest that Black lives really have not mattered. Take for example the following health and criminal justice data:

African Americans have the highest mortality rate for all cancers combined compared with all races, are 50 percent more likely to have a stroke compared with whites, and are twice as likely to die from diabetes as whites. African Americans have more than twice the infant mortality rate as whites, and Black mothers are more than twice as likely as white mothers to receive late or no prenatal care.

When it comes to criminal justice disparities, young unarmed nonsuicidal male victims of fatal use of force are 13 times more likely to be Black than white. Nearly half of the people serving life sentences are African American, and Black people make up 42% of death row inmates while making up 12% of the population.

These racial disparities and many more exist across education, housing, wealth and poverty. So it should be understandable that the phrase Black Lives Matter is said with such urgency. This is why it is so disturbing when certain elected leaders refuse to even say the words.

When Vice President Mike Pence was asked why he wont say Black Lives Matter, he indicated that he disagrees with what he characterizes as the radical left agenda, insisting he believes that all lives matter. In his mind, simply saying Black Lives Matter is a tacit endorsement of rioting and looting, rather than acknowledgement of the racism and anti-Blackness inherent in the lived experiences of Black people.

Pences rationalization is unconvincing given that Mitt Romney, a Republican, is willing to march with protesters and say Black Lives Matter. Sadly, the politicization of the words Black Lives Matter has even reached children.

As my 11-year-old was grieving after watching the video of the police officer with his knee pressed into the neck of George Floyd, we had to have the talk one of the most emotional conversations a Black father could have with his Black son. Later, while playing the video game Fortnite with his white friends, one of them mentioned that there were protests on Fortnite related to George Floyds murder. When my son said that Black Lives Matter, one of his friends countered by saying, All Lives Matter. For reasons that my son was not able to fully articulate, his friends words upset him very much.

After helping him to understand why he was feeling upset, my wife contacted his friends parents to express our anger and disappointment that their son would say this to our son. The parents were mortified, and after talking with their son, they wanted to talk with us. They apologized and explained that they had never said those words to their son, and when talking with him, it became apparent that he did not understand how those words could serve to negate or minimize the message of Black Lives Matter.

While a childs utterance of All Lives Matter may likely be uttered in youthful naivete, I do not extend the same considerations to corporations such as Walmart or politicians such as Pence. The refusal to even say the words Black Lives Matter is a blatant disregard of the pain experienced by Black people and suggests a racial skepticism that will never heal the racial divisions in this country.

Kevin Cokley is the Oscar and Anne Mauzy Regents Professor of Educational Research and Development, professor of African and African Diaspora Studies, and director of the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Distinguished Psychologist member of the Association of Black Psychologists.

A version of this op-ed appeared in USA Today.

Read the original:
Don't Exploit 'Black Lives Matter' - UT News - UT News | The University of Texas at Austin

A protester holds up a sign at a demonstration against Whole Foods Markets clothing policy. outside Whole Foods on Gilman Street in Berkeley on July 17, 2020. Photo: Nancy Rubin

About 200 people gathered at the intersection of Gilman and Ninth streets Friday afternoon to protest a Whole Foods Market policy of not letting employees wear masks or T-shirts reading Black Lives Matter.

They came out to support Jordan Baker, who wore a Black Lives Matter face mask to work at the Gilman Street Whole Foods on July 15 and was asked to remove it within five minutes of arriving at work, according to her Instagram account.

I honestly dont want to work for a company who only supports a movement when it makes them look good, or makes them money, she wrote.

Her post was liked more than 40,000 times and many people at the rally said they had seen it and had turned up to support her.

Baker declined to talk to Berkeleyside during the rally. She said she has quit her job at Whole Foods.

The companys dress policy prohibits workers from wearing clothing with visible slogans, according to a spokesperson who sent the following statement:

In order to operate in a customer-focused environment, all Team Members must comply with our longstanding company dress code, which prohibits clothing with visible slogans, messages, logos or advertising that are not company-related, reads the statement. Team Members with face masks that do not comply with dress code are always offered new face masks. Team Members are unable to work until they comply with dress code.

But a woman who works at the Gilman store disputed that characterization. She said people wear clothing with slogans all the time and management does nothing about it. It was only when Baker wore a Black Lives Matter mask that they complained.

I wear logos every day and its never a problem, she said.

The woman, who did not want to give her name, said workers at the Gilman store are upset about the company policy. A number have quit. The woman, who has worked there for about a year, said she intended to quit soon. Others at the rally said word about what happened to Baker had spread among workers at the Berkeley and Oakland stores.

This is not the first large company to run into trouble when its employees wanted to wear Black Lives Matter merchandise. Starbucks, after tweeting on June 1 that it stood in solidarity with our Black partners, customers and communities, told its employees they could not wear BLM merchandise because its dress code, like Whole Foods, prohibited political or religious slogans, according to Buzz Feed. Starbucks later reversed its position.

The crowd, which started gathering at 3 p.m., soon swelled to more than 200. Protesters stood on the sidewalk and hoisted signs in the air. Many cars and trucks tooted horns in solidarity.

One woman, who used to work at the Whole Foods in Oakland, said the corporation was hypocritical because it said it supports social justice issues and has no tolerance for racism. But when an employee wears a Black Lives Matter face mask, she is told those words are prohibited.

Its tone-deaf, she said. Its super inconsiderate. Theyre performative. Its lip service.

A number of people at the rally said the concept of Black Lives Matter was no longer controversial after the mass movements prompted by the police killing of George Floyd, but instead expressed a demand for basic human rights.

This is not a political issue, the woman said. It is a human rights issue. This is not a controversial statement. Its a human rights statement.

Others at the rally said they were there to demand societal changes.

What I like to see is people participating, making social change, said Michael Ware, who works down the street at Berkeleys transfer station. Its our time, not only for Blacks but for whites to come together. This is an opportunity to unite for the better of all people.

The rally didnt seem to affect Whole Foods business much. As cars tried to turn into the parking lot, protesters would plead with the drivers to go elsewhere. A few turned around.

Inside, people continued with their shopping, seemingly unaware of the protest outside. However, three young women walked around the store and stopped customers to suggest they leave. They stopped this reporter and explained that Amazon was the true owner of Whole Foods, that it didnt pay its employees well, and that is a corrupt company. They encouraged customers to shop at Berkeleys independent markets, including Berkeley Bowl, Monterey Market and the Berkeley Natural Food Company.

The rest is here:
After being told to remove her "Black Lives Matter" face mask, Whole Foods employee quits in protest. - Berkeleyside

The first word, Black, was designed by Tijay Mohammed, a Ghanaian-born artist, and used vibrant Kente fabric design and Adinkra symbols, which represent concepts like royalty, unity and legacy.

Sophia Dawson, a Brooklyn-based visual artist, took the second word, lives. The L contains the faces of the mothers who have lost their children to police killings. The I uses imagery inspired by Emory Douglas, an artist for the Black Panther Party; the V highlights the culture of the African diaspora; the E contains faces of Black Panther Party members who are currently in prison; and the S carries a passage from the Bible.

The street painting at Foley Square resembles many that have been done around the country in its word choice and placement, but part of what has been lost in the national debate over the art and the political statements they make is the logistical care, intentional placement and artistry that went into the creation of many of them.

While some like those at Trump Tower and near the White House are primarily stencil work in the blazing yellow paint typically used for road markings, and are known largely for their challenging placement, others have been fully realized works of art that went through rigorous processes of design and planning.

This month, the Foley Square street art in Lower Manhattan and the one in Harlem were unveiled, with the multicolored letters of Black Lives Matter replete with imagery related to Black people who were killed by the police, as well as vibrant symbols of freedom, hope and joy.

In Cincinnati, the art appears in the red, black and green of the Pan-African flag, with silhouettes, phrases and textured designs filling the letters. In Jackson, Mich., it was designed it in a graffiti-style font. In Portland, Ore., the letters contained a timeline of historical injustices in the state.

The purpose of the Fifth Avenue project at Trump Tower was clear: to rile up the president, who called it a symbol of hate. The street painting was intended to get the message up quickly; the stenciling and outlining was done by the Department of Transportation, and roughly 60 volunteers helped lay down 100 gallons of traffic paint.

The other artworks in Manhattan were intended not as a political statement meant for President Trump to see but as an opportunity for local artists, community togetherness and discussions about race and policing. The outlines of the enlarged Black Lives Matter letters are filled with intentionally placed symbols and colors.

I wanted the design to embody our experience as a whole as a Black community and what we strive for, said Patrice Payne, one of the artists involved with the work at Foley Square.

Justin Garrett Moore, the executive director of the citys Public Design Commission, said that there is a clear difference between the street paintings borne from mayoral decision making, which serve as an acknowledgment that public officials have heard the calls of racial justice protesters, and the community-driven murals, where theres a deeper connection to the space and the message.

These are Black communities that are really wanting to have an expression for this historic moment that were in, he said.

It happened to be a work near the White House, spearheaded by the mayor of Washington, Muriel E. Bowser, that set the groundwork for the countrywide spilling of paint on the ground.

After the Washington painting made the news, an organization representing small business owners in Harlem, called Harlem Park to Park, started discussing what their version of a Black Lives Matter artwork would look like.

There was a certain expectation that Harlem, known as the epicenter of Black culture, needed to take the trend a level up, said Nikoa Evans-Hendricks, the groups executive director. The result was two sprawling sets of words on either side of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, between 125th and 127th Streets. On the northbound side, eight artists had creative control over two letters each. The southbound side was painted red, black and green by a collection of community groups.

We wanted to make sure the mural didnt just represent words on the street but embodied the Harlem community, Ms. Evans-Hendricks said.

The artists were chosen by LeRone Wilson, the artworks curator, who also designed the first two letters. The B that he designed depicts the Ancient Kemetic goddess Maat, with feathered wings reaching across the curves of the letter, and the bird deity Heru, welcoming the spirits of those who have died at the hands of police into the universe.

Within the L, he painted the names of 24 Black people killed by the police, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown and Amadou Diallo.

Within the outlines of several other letters, the artists painted images associated with the outrage over the treatment of Black people by the police: The faces of Ms. Taylor and Sandra Bland and Mr. Floyds daughter occupy the two Ts in the word matter. The I in lives contains the badge numbers of the four police officers charged in connection with Mr. Floyds death.

The artists received advice from the citys Department of Transportation on what materials to use on the asphalt. They took the agencys recommendation of using road line paint used for markings on streets and sidewalks, which many artists right now are doing to make the street art more durable.

The act of painting the work in Harlem was designed as a community event, with catering from local restaurants and help painting from the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem and Harlem Little League.

Every day we were out there, hundreds of people wanted to be involved, Mr. Wilson said.

And after the unveiling, the space became a gathering place for people, as well as a space to appreciate art at a time when museums are shut because of the pandemic.

The creators are hoping that the city agrees to a request to keep the street closed to traffic until the end of the summer, as the city did with a street painting in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, which was created with the yellow traffic paint and contains the names of Black people killed by the police.

The location for the Harlem work was chosen because it was at the heart of a Black community. In Lower Manhattan at Foley Square, it was because of a nearby cherished national monument: It draws meaning from its proximity to the African Burial Ground, which contains the remains of New York Citys colonial African-American community.

Amina Hassen, an urban planner with WXY, an architectural and urban design firm that worked on the project, said that the location along Centre Street, near the state and federal court buildings, was also significant because of its connection to the policing and incarceration of Black people.

As with the Harlem work, the artists of the Foley Square project had control over the designs within the outline of the Black Lives Matter letters, but the city still had to review the designs to make sure they complied with safety standards. (This time the artists were chosen by the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the project was shepherded by Gale A. Brewer, Manhattan borough president, and Black Lives Matter of Greater New York.)

They first blocked out the artwork in 3-D software, carefully avoiding any street features that the Department of Transportation said they couldnt paint over, said Jhordan Channer, the architectural designer for the project. When it came time to install the 600-foot-long painting, they first painted a white canvas and a drop shadow to make sure the letters stood out. Tats Cru, a group of professional muralists in the city, executed the artists designs with heavy-duty traffic paint, exterior-grade enamel paint and spray paint. They were assisted by youth from Thrive Collective, an arts mentoring program that works with New York public schools.

For the last word, matters, Ms. Payne started in the M with the image of a Black woman as an ancestral figure and nurturer. The design progresses to images of broken shackles, a raised fist, a sun peeking out behind storm clouds, with a tattered American flag at the forefront.

Since the first street painting was unveiled in Washington, some segments of the Black Lives Matter movement have criticized them as being purely symbolic gestures from politicians at a time when activists are calling for the defunding of police departments.

The artists and designers behind the community-driven works say that there are important uses for this symbolism, like education and providing meaningful public art commissions by Black artists.

Ms. Evans-Hendricks remembers seeing a mother walking her son down the letters of the Harlem street art, which run between 14 and 16 feet wide, and explaining the meaning of each word.

It has come alive in a way that the community really needed, she said.

But they also recognize the limits of the works and hope that the solidarity coming from politicians goes beyond paint on the street.

Im very interested in the art going up and taking my child to visit it and discuss it, Ms. Dawson said. But Im more interested in the tangible change that must come from this.

See original here:
The Black Lives Matter Street Art That Contain Multitudes - The New York Times

Advertisings unique ability to persuade by creating the appearance of change through rhetoric, symbols and events has helped corporations and existing power structures conceal and protect white gains and Black losses behind the scenes for generations.

So as Black Lives Matter gained mainstream acceptance in June, brands eager to stay on trend turned to ad agencies to help them join the movement through woke messaging. And though we'd seen similar efforts backfire before Pepsis infamous protest ad with Kendall Jenner in the midst of protests against police shootings in 2017 come to mind long-standing public pressure campaigns to end commercial monuments to white supremacy (ranging from corporate mascots of happy Black servitude to racist NFL trademarks) were, in fact, finally successful this time.

While these hard-won victories are worth savoring, they are still largely symbolic because it's hard to ascribe them to any true change of attitude; the people spoke, but it was really that money talked. So, when Proctor & Gamble tells its consumers that Now is the time to be Anti-Racist, one has to wonder whether the companies and the agencies that produced the ad got the memo, too.

Because, when it comes to feigning change while continuing to marginalize Black lives and maintain white power, advertising has a long record as a repeat offender. And nothing demonstrates that more clearly than the ongoing, striking lack of diversity in the advertising industry itself.

In 2019, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics surveyed advertising and promotion managers in the United States, and found that less than one percent (0.7 percent) were Black a stark contrast to the 13.4 percent of the U.S. population that is Black. Perhaps more troubling, the number had actually gotten worse: In 2010, the percentage was 0.8 percent.

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To find out why, I conducted field work through internship programs at three major New York City advertising agencies. I found three related problems that likely contribute to the problematic, and ongoing, lack of Black advertising managers.

First, white nepotism runs rampant: At the agencies I studied, all 24 of the interns referred to as "must-hires" (which means interns with family connections) were white. In most cases, must-hires are a well-kept but open secret at an organization; their connections are subject to an implicit don't ask, don't tell policy. (Except, this time, I did ask and my anonymous sources told.) And since they are white, their race conceals them like a cloaking device they aren't subject to questions about whether they got their jobs due to "affirmative action" policies even though "must hire" policies are exactly that.

Second, the qualifications for entry-level positions in advertising can be loose and subjective; it comes down to whether a candidate feels like a "culture fit" rather than objective skills or experiences. As one human resources manager told me, the interview process for such positions feels more like rushing for a fraternity or sorority than interviewing for a firmly conceived job. As a result, colorblind whites cant (or choose not to) see that they are consistently hiring people that look like or come from the same backgrounds, because those are the people with whom they feel the most comfortable.

Third, advertising employees often refer their friends for open positions, which may save the agency the expense of a headhunter and provide the added bonus of a familiar officemate, but also makes for a racially homogenous workplace. Sociologists have long documented how the powerful and well-connected use this kind of opportunity hoarding as a means to conserve power within familial (and thus racial) lines.

All of which puts Black applicants in a tough spot. While Latinos and Asians are also underrepresented in advertising, Blacks stand out in an agency setting as one of the interns in my study put it like "freckles." This presents serious obstacles to mentoring and makes Black employees particularly vulnerable to white backlash.

For instance, over half of the white "must-hires" in my study opposed affirmative action, even though they got their own spots through just such a program; these white hires nevertheless complained that Black interns got in "only because" of their race. (Meanwhile, though a smattering of diversity initiatives offered competitive scholarships for minority interns, the must-hires in my study still outnumbered them by a ratio of more than 2 to 1.)

My research only begins to scratch the surface of a deeply entrenched problem but don't take my word for it. Watch Travis Wood's short SXSW film "Affurmative Action," which mocks how creative companies Meet the Team pages often feature plenty of dogs ... but no Black people. Or read this open letter from 600 & Rising, a coalition of 600+ Black advertising professionals calling for urgent action from agency leadership the most important of which being "transparency on diversity data.

In order to dismantle white supremacy inside advertising, more data is needed to hold ad agencies accountable and yet, despite decades of problems and numerous requests, as of last year neither major industry group not the 4A's nor the American Advertising Federation even bothered to track diversity statistics in their industry.

The Pledge for 13 has, in fact, offered to establish a a hub that tracks the performance and progress of agencies throughout the industry on diversity goals and instructing participating agencies to commit to achieving 13 percent African American leadership by 2023.

The pressure seems to be working: On the eve of Juneteenth, June 19, 600 & Rising announced that 30 agencies agreed to publicly share their internal diversity data on an annual basis, broken down by gender identity, race/ethnicity, seniority and department. The 4As signed on as a co-sponsor and agreed, for the first time, to conduct an annual diversity survey to create industry benchmarks.

But, of course, weve been here before.

In 2009, the NAACP launched the Madison Avenue Project and released a damning (if not surprising) report exposing the widespread and systematic under-hiring, under-utilization, and under-payment of Black people across the advertising industry. Not only was racial discrimination 38 percent worse in the advertising industry than in the overall U.S. labor market, but the discrimination divide had gotten twice as bad as it had been 30 years before. Months after the reports release, Adland's own Dan Wieden who coined Nike's catch phrase "Just Do It" criticized his own agency for hiring white kids to sell Black culture, asking a room of industry insiders, "How many Black faces do you see here?"

All this pressure didnt stop the 2011 CLIO Awards advertising's Oscars from their tone-deaf promotion campaign featuring a bunch of white guys dressed up like characters from AMC's "Mad Men." (The show seemed more aware of the problems within the industry than the industry: The fifth season of AMCs award-winning drama, premiering in 2012, opened with three white ad men hurling insults and water bombs onto the heads of Black civil rights protesters an event that actually happened at Young & Rubicam.)

Meanwhile as protests continue and brands jump on the bandwagon majority-white advertising agencies, among the hipster trappings of a progressive workspace, are still hiring predominately white people on the basis of favors, "fit" and friendship. And they're all working to convince us how "woke" our favorite brands are, so that we don't look too hard behind the curtain at how white the people in control of those brands and the messaging around them remain.

Read more from the original source:
Corporate ads said Black Lives Matter. But the industry creating them is nearly all white. - NBC News