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In American Trial: The Eric Garner Story, black activist Netta Elzie says, I dont even know what the probable cause was for Eric Garner being arrested.

Whatever the reason for his apprehension, the July 17, 2014, altercation between a team of NYPD officers and Garner, a 350-something pound, asthmatic African American, resulted in his death.

There never was a criminal trial for officer Daniel Pantaleo, who a federal grand jury decided not to indict in December 2014, even though a departmental hearing found him guilty of applying a chokehold on Garner in violation of NYPD regulations. The police force fired Pantaleo for these transgressions in August 2019, more than five years after the fact.

I cant breatheGarners dying wordsbecame a protest chant for the Black Lives Matter movement. And now the Garner family is finally having its day in courtsort of.

Producer/director Roee Messingers 101-minute motion picture synthesizes elements of nonfiction and fiction to depict the case against Pantaleo. Messinger uses news and archival footage as well as original interviews with experts, innovatively intercut with a staged jury trial of Pantaleo.

The media clips include footage of Pantaleo and other NYPD officers as they swarmed Garner and wrestled him face down to the pavement on a Staten Island street. He had been selling loosiesuntaxed, individually sold cigarettes.

American Trial includes testimony from Reverend Al Sharpton, President Barack Obama, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. LeBron James appears in court with other Los Angeles Lakersincluding the late Kobe Bryantin T-shirts bearing Garners last words, I cant breathe, in an act of solidarity.

The media clips include footage of Pantaleo and other NYPD officers as they swarmed Garner and wrestled him face down to the pavement on a Staten Island street. He had been selling loosiesuntaxed, individually sold cigarettes.

Elzie and fellow organizer DeRay McKesson, who both emerged out of the protests at Ferguson, Missouri, following the police killing of Michael Brown, another unarmed black man, less than a month after Garners death. And attorney Alan Dershowitz, who recently defended President Trump during his Senate impeachment trial, appears to say that the matter involving Garner was so trivial he never should have been arrested. The offense he committed was worthy of a ticket, at most, Dershowitz opines.

The most compelling personality in American Trial is Garners widow, Esaw Snipes-Garner, who was married to Garner for twenty-six years; the couple had four children. Snipes-Garner plays herself during the films courtroom sequences, chafing at limitations on her ability to tell her own version of events on the witness stand. In real life, she ended up settling a lawsuit over her husbands death out of court. Keep your eyes peeled during the credits sequence, revealing how she is still traumatized by the tragedy her family has endured.

The legal proceedings, shot inside what appears to be an actual courtroom, are entirely fictionalized, as Pantaleo never stood trial. Nevertheless these scenes have a feeling of authenticity. Onscreen, Pantaleo is tried for second-degree manslaughter and first-degree strangulation as the film probes whether or not the officer killed Eric Garner with a chokehold prohibited by NYPD rules.

Yet in what the press notes call an unscripted courtroom drama, there are no histrionics before the bench, such as witnesses confessing their guilt on the stand, a la Perry Mason. But aficionados of television procedurals will likely enjoy the usual objections, whether sustained or overruled.

Taking a page from Italian Neo-Realism, the prosecutors in the film are played by people with civilian and military prosecutorial experience; the defense counsels are played by actual lawyers; and the expert witnesses called to testify are played by real-life medical examiners. The judge is an attorney in real life.

The film has only one accredited actor, Bronx-born Anthony Altieri, who portrays Pantaleo.

Other What if? trials that never happened have been staged for the screen, including several imagining Lee Harvey Oswalds court drama for the assassination of JFK. But American Trial is unique in that, while twelve non-actors sit in the movies jury box, the verdict is interactively decided by viewers watching at home.

As the unfolding tragedies of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor indicate, six years after Garner's death, American Trial: The Eric Garner Story remains all too relevant. That should choke us all up, and spur on the struggle against racism and police brutality.

More:
What if They Were Held Accountable? - Progressive.org

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Since Black voters in South Carolina propelled Joe Biden to a comeback victory a few months ago, there has been a big looming question: How can Biden increase his appeal to young progressive Black votersparticularly womenwho overwhelmingly backed rivals like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren?

In an unprecedented op-ed published Friday in the Washington Post, seven Black women, including Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, and comedian and cultural commentator Amanda Seales, start to answer that question. Vice President Biden, You need us, you owe us, they bluntly state, before going on to demand that Biden select a Black woman as his running mate, promise to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court if hes elected in November, and come up with a comprehensive plan to combat the over-policing of Black communities.

We have been the Democrats most reliable voting bloc since passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the op-ed reads. Bidens only path to victory is through black women and the voters we know how to energize.

Alongside the op-ed, the women published a moving video to make their case:

While his impressive showing in South Carolina showed that Biden still had the hard-earned support of older and more moderate Black voters, his appeal to younger and first-time Black voters is shakier. Progressive Black women lined up behind Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, arguingthat Bidens treatment of Anita Hill and his support of the 1994 crime bill outweighed his serving in the administration of the first Black president.

Biden seems at least receptive to these demands. Hes already promised to pick a woman as his vice presidential running mate. Elizabeth Warrenwho was endorsed by several prominent progressive Black women, including Garzaseems to be the favorite. But Stacey Abrams would be a popular choice, and shes making a very public push to join the ticket. Kamala Harris has stayed relatively quiet recently, but is another favorite in Bidens camp. Amy Klobuchar is reportedly still in the mix, though the op-ed explicitly agues against Biden picking her as his number two:

Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, does not need help winning white, working-class voters he serves that function himself.A choice such as Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), who failed to prosecute controversial police killingsand is responsiblefor the imprisonment of Myon Burrell, will only alienate black voters. These are the same voters who may be forced this fall to take personal risks to line up and vote in many states, especially where Republican efforts to suppress mail-in voting are successful. This is a lot to ask amid a coronavirus pandemic that is disproportionately more deadlyto black people.

While campaigning in a pandemic presents a whole host of new problems for any candidate, whats clear is that Joe Biden is going to have to do a lot more than show up in his basement studio if he wants to bring new or non-regular voters to the polls. Hell have to come up with a plan to energize voters, particularly Black women, around what he can do, not just on what he saw get done as vice president. A new New deal, which New York Magazine reported is his plan if elected, is necessary. Biden also needs to court dealmakers. Luckily, theyre telling him just how to do it.

Excerpt from:
Joe Biden Needs Black Women Voters. They Have a New Message for Him. - Mother Jones

Its a sure sign youve reached maturity in life when you stop trying to have it both ways. As an adult, you probably shouldnt expect to be able to eat all the ice cream in the fridge every night and still avoid the long-term health effects of a poor diet. And yet, when it comes to COVID-19, its as if many in the black community who suffer disproportionately from comorbidities expect the entire country to remain closed until they are no longer at risk of COVID-related illnesses.

Such was the substance of the heated rants of a Rutgers University professor who last week blamed Trump supporters and state officials in Georgia, Utah and Florida who are beginning to lift the restrictions on commerce and social isolation put in place as emergency measures to stem the tide of the virus. Brittany Cooper, a tenured professor in the dubiously named Womens and Gender Studies Department, blamed it all on the white man, stating in a rage-filled Twitter rant, Not only do white conservatives not care about Black life, but my most cynical negative read of the white supremacists among them is that they welcome this massive winnowing of Black folks in order to slow demographic shifts and shore up political power.

By massive winnowing of Black folks Cooper was referring to the fact that as many as 80 percent of the reported hospitalizations from COVID-19 in Georgia occurred among African Americans. But at a reported total of 1,035 deaths thus far in Georgia attributed to COVID-19, even if all of them were African American (they are not), that would hardly constitute a winnowing of the black population. Georgias African American population is roughly 3.5 million, and the leading cause of mortality for African Americans in Georgia is heart disease. In 2017, nearly 18,000 Georgians died of heart disease, and African Americans, at roughly 31 percent of the Georgia population, accounted for nearly half of those deaths or 9,000. In other words, heart disease by itself is 10 times more likely to kill African Americans in Georgia than COVID-19.

And yet, not one of those prognosticators would even think about advocating closing down businesses offering fried foods, confectionary items or barbecue because black people are at higher risk of contracting deadly heart disease from poor dietary habits. In fact, when in 2019 neighbors in a Houston suburb formed a coalition to petition the city to shut down the black-owned Turkey Leg Hut because of concern over noxious fumes emanating from the establishments meat smokers, local black leaders protested that the voiced health concerns of the (mostly white) neighbors masked a racist vendetta against the Huts black business owners.

Again, as a mature adult, you tend to learn you cant have it both ways. And yet, Ms. Cooper persists. As if suppressing a glint of self-awareness as in awareness of the preventable underlying condition that increases not only all-cause morbidity, but also the comorbidity associated with increased rates of critical infection and death from COVID-19 Ms. CooperTwitter-shouts: Black Lives Matter. Black Lives with hypertension, diabetes, and asthma matter ... All Black Lives Matter. Fat Black Lives matter.

But she doesnt really seem to believe that. If she did, perhaps she would sue fast-food restaurants to prevent them reopening in black neighborhoods until there is, say, a 70 percent reduction in diabetes, hypertension and obesity among black folks. That form of protest would seem to be more congruent with her self-righteous contention that black lives actually matter. But the glint of self-awareness quickly dims in the opportunity for political invective.

Professor Cooper is hardly alone in spilling her misplaced ire into the Twitter-sphere. When U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, a black man, advised African Americans this month to take preventative measures to address the COVID-19 threat including, horror of horrors, avoid[ing] alcohol, tobacco and drugs he was widely criticized for pandering to African Americans. Adams was excoriated by PBS NewsHours White House correspondent, Yamiche Alcindor, for offending African Americans because he used informal and idiosyncratic speech, urging people of color: We need you to do this, if not for yourself, then for your abuela. Do it for your granddaddy. Do it for your Big Mama. Do it for your Pop-Pop.

It made no difference that Adams himself has acknowledged on several occasions that he, too, suffers from underlying conditions, including asthma and high blood pressure, which he attributes to a legacy of growing up poor and black in America.

It would be absolute pandering of the most cynical variety for health officials to fail to advise African Americans of their increased susceptibility to COVID-19 given disproportionate rates of comorbidity factors among blacks. And it would be downright criminal for a responsible surgeon general to fail to suggest practical means of strengthening our health in the midst of this pandemic. But that would be true only if fat black lives really mattered.

Armstrong Williams (@ARightSide) is the owner and manager of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the Year. He is the author of Reawakening Virtues.

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Why fat black lives must not really matter | TheHill - The Hill

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I almost started this post with the words Studs Terkel. And then I wanted to punch myself in the face. Studs Terkelthe irreverent, leftist, legendary oral historianmay be well-known and beloved, but the idea that theres a great man of oral history is totally antithetical to the entire concept of populist history that he supposedly represents. In fact, there are hundreds of people, many using she/her pronouns, who are working feverishly to collect audio recordings, videos, photographs, and written accounts about what peoples lives look like during this pandemic.

One of them is Meral Agish, the community coordinator for Queens Memory, a community archiving partnership between Queens Public Library and Queens College CUNY.

On March 16, the Queens Public Library closed all 65 its branches to slow down the spread of the coronavirus. Within the next two weeks, central Queens emerged as the epicenter within the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 7,260 cases recorded within a 7-square-mile radius. It felt like we need to do whatever we can to record what life is like in Queens right now, Agish told me.

Queens Memory has been collecting oral histories, photographs, and home videos from Queens residents since 2010. On the day the library closed, Agish and the Queens Memory team discussed creating a large crowdsourced campaign, the likes of which theyd never done before, to collect the stories of daily life in Queens during the pandemic. I was familiar with the work of Queens Memory, and I gave them some tips on a workflow for the first season of their podcast. But I havent been involved in their oral history collection.

As COVID-19 rages around the world, archivists, librarians, oral historians, and activists have spun up oral history projects to document their communities everyday experiences during an extraordinary social, political, cultural, and historical moment. Documenting the Now, for example, an initiative born out of documenting Ferguson and the Black Lives Matter movement, has collated a crowdsourced Google document of #doccovid19 projects. So far there are 103 such initiatives on the list, ranging from community archiving projects at public libraries to the coronavirus subreddit.

Our whole goal is to empower people who arent necessarily professional historians to identify stories that should be in their public librarys local history collections, said Natalie Milbrodt, director of the Queens Memory Project at Queens Public Library. They work with us to capture those stories and digitize photos and give future researchers a really accurate depiction of life in contemporary Queens, New York City.

Two weeks after the Queens Memory team started talking about a COVID-19 project, they launched it.An online submissions page and toll-free number went live on April 9, thanks to fast work from the Urban Archive team and a broad coalition of Queens Memory staff and volunteers. As of this week, theyve received about 200 submissions, ranging from highly edited videos to short audio clips to written accounts. We are living through history right now, and you wonder, how are we going to look back at this time? said Agish.

While everyone is susceptible to a virus, the coronavirus has not in fact been the great equalizer. An investigation by my colleagues Edwin Rios and Sinduja Rangarajan showed that black and brown communities have disproportionately higher rates of infection and fatality. In the neighborhoods in Queens hardest hit by the coronavirus, 38 percent of the working population are employed in the service sector, such as food delivery, child care services, and janitorial services, compared to 18 percent citywide according toCenter for an Urban Future, a nonpartisan policy organization focusing on economic mobility and inequality.These numbers partly explain how this borough became the epicenter. But they dont tell the whole story. Its just coming across as statistics, but we knew that for every healthcare worker, every delivery person, it was having a real human impact that was not necessarily being recorded very well, said Milbrodt.

By capturing a broad swath of stories from the borough of Queens, Agish hopes to document how the pandemic has been affecting the community in uneven ways.

This pandemic experience is casting such a harsh light on how unequal our life in our borough is, said Agish. Theres a tendency to think about the pandemics effect in numbers, percentages, rates, these abstract measures that of course tell a particular story about the pandemic, but they completely lose the human aspect of what this experience is like.

In a time of crisis, chronicling the truth can feel like a form of resistance. As any dictator will tell you, destroying the archives and a common history has been one of many reliable techniques for subjugating a population. Theres a large overlap between the community archiving techniques deployed at Queens Memory and the work of organizations like WITNESS, whichcrowdsources the documentation of human rights violations. At a time when the escapism of celebrity culture feels a little less benign, its comforting to know that the lives of the rich and famous arent the only ones that willendure when future historians reflect on the pandemic of 2020.

We find that people coming into our local history collections are very interested in daily lives of people who lived 100 years ago, said Milbrodt. We want to make sure that were capturing the stories of people who dont necessarily think of themselves as important historical players. We do a lot of convincing people that their stories are important.

Just like Studs Terkel did.

Link:
How Are We Going to Look Back on This Time? Oral Historians Record Daily Life During COVID-19. - Mother Jones

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) The tsunami of news about the current coronavirus outbreak and now the shelter-in-place can be overwhelming. To help you navigate through what you need to know KPIX.com/KPIX 5 News/CBSN Bay Area will be publishing a news roundup each morning of the top coronavirus-related stories from the last 24 hours so you can start your day with the latest updated developments.

Good News Neighbors Helping Neighbors

Donor Says Thank You To Santa Cruz Hospital Employees With $1 Million DonationSANTA CRUZ Its become a common practice in the San Francisco Bay Area for first responders and others to gather outside local hospitals and cheer health care workers during shift changes. One individual has taken that appreciation a step further. An anonymous thank you note left Dominican Hospital came with a $1 million donation with a request that the money be used for bonuses to the facilitys staff. Thank you for standing up (and staying up!) to care for our community, the note said. This humankindness is what makes you heroic. Read More

Antioch Woman Who Served in World War II Gets Rolling Thunder Surprise on 100th BirthdayANTIOCH The coronavirus has been spoiling a lot of parties these days but the celebration of Teresa Conleys 100th birthday wasnt one of them. For her centennial, Teresa thought she would have a quiet brunch with her daughter and son-in-law at their Antioch home.In fact, I was about to take a nap and my daughter said, you cant, theres something going to happen outside,' Conley told KPIX. Thats when her normally quiet life got a little louder as an honor guard of firefighters, police and veterans on Harley Davidson motorcycles rolled by outside. Conley served in World War II mostly in Alameda and achieved the rank of a Navy chief petty officer. That is most of what her family knows about her service. Read More

For Uplifting Stories Of Neighbors Helping Neighbors Visit Our Better Together Section

Coronavirus Headlines

Virus May Have A New Symptom What Is COVID ToeSAN FRANCISCO Swollen, inflamed, and puffy red toes are common when exposed to cold and damp conditions, but doctors are noticing a spike at the wrong time. In the past two weeks Ive seen more toes in my clinic than I have in the rest of my entire career combined, said Dr. Ester Freeman, the Director of Massachusetts General Hospital Global Health Dermatology Director. We are seeing something that is a real trend and tells us about the prevalence of infection in our communities, said Dr. Lindy Fox, a dermatologist at UCSF. Read More

Bay Area J. Crew Stores Future In Doubt; Company Files For Chapter 11SAN FRANCISCO The owner of J.Crew is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a financial casualty of the coronavirus outbreak and the fate of its five San Francisco Bay Area stores remains in jeopardy. Some reports Monday said the fashion retailer may not be reopening some stores that have been shuttered since mid-March. J. Crew has stores in San Francisco, Emeryville, Corte Madera, Walnut Creek and Palo Alto. Throughout this process, we will continue to provide our customers with the exceptional merchandise and service they expect from us, and we will continue all day-to-day operations, albeit under these extraordinary COVID-19-related circumstances, said Jan Singer, Chief Executive Officer, J.Crew Group. Read More

Experts Expect A Slow Return Of International Visitors To San FranciscoSAN FRANCISCO International tourism will not resume its normal pace until 2023, according to a new report by Tourism Economics, a data and consulting firm. In the Bay Area, the coronavirus shutdown is costing jobs and livelihoods. Business is all gone right now, Fishermans Wharf is a ghost town, said Joseph Amster, a San Francisco tour guide who has been laid off one of his jobs. He still runs his own walking tour portraying Emperor Norton, but he hasnt been working at all The last time I gave a tour was March 7th and half the people canceled that day, Amster said. So Im making it, but its difficult. Its definitely difficult. Read More

New Modifications To Shelter in Place Start MondaySAN FRANCISCO Gov. Gavin Newsom said that hell be able to announce some new modifications to the shelter-in-place order as early as this week if statewide case and hospitalization numbers continue to show progress. On Sunday, in a virtual town hall from inside the Lincoln Memorial, President Trump said struck a note of urgency to reopen the nations economy. He said repeatedly, a vaccine to prevent the coronavirus will be available by the end of the year. The doctors would say, no you shouldnt say that. I say what I think, said Trump. Over the weekend, there were more protests to re-open state economies. Read More

Golfers Counting Down The Hours Before San Francisco Bay Area Links ReopenWALNUT CREEK Boundary Oaks golf course general manager Mike Ash hasnt seen anything quite like the rush for tee times starting early Monday morning. But there hasnt been anything quite like the coronavirus stay-at-home order that has idled his greens for more than two months. The ban on golf is lifted as of Monday morning with players still required to maintain social distancing during their round. Ashs course fielded calls for a record 300-plus tee times for a single day. Its gonna be something like weve never seen before, he said. Read More

Business Owners Eager to Get Back to Work With Lockdown Rules Set to Ease MondayLAFAYETTE Monday the state and counties will begin cautiously relaxing some of the shelter-in-place orders, allowing some businesses and activities to resume. For some of them it may be just in the nick of time. Nese and Edward Ganch, who own Floral Arts flower shop in Lafayette, picked up their first load of fresh flowers in weeks. Theyre excited that the stay-at-home orders will allow their store to be open for business in time for Mothers Day. For florists, Mothers Day is actually the busiest week of the year, Nese explained. Its busier than Valentine because everyone has a mom, you know! Read More

San Francisco Police Chief Bans Thin Blue Line Face CoveringsSAN FRANCISCO San Franciscos police chief Bill Scott said the citys rank and file will wear neutral face coverings to defuse a controversy that was sparked when officers sent to patrol a May Day protest wore masks adorned with the thin blue line flag. The police union ordered and distributed the masks emblazoned with black-and-white American flag with a blue stripe across the middle. The symbol is associated with the Blue Lives Matter movement, a display of unity among police officers in response to the national Black Lives Matter movement. Read More

Protests, Open Defiance Test Newsoms Resolve as California Counties Push to ReopenSAN FRANCISCO People in Northern and Southern California ignored closures at public parks and beaches on Sunday, defying stay-at-home orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus as pressure to reopen parts of California continues to build. Santa Cruz County began on Saturday to close all beaches between 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. to let residents visit the beach in the early morning or sunset hours and keep day-trippers away. Beaches are just the latest focus for frustrations over Gov. Gavin Newsoms six-week-old order requiring nearly 40 million residents to remain mostly indoors. Read More

Marin County Health Officials Opening Test Site In San Rafaels Canal NeighborhoodSAN RAFAEL In the latest expansion of coronavirus testing facilities, Marin County health officials have announced they will be opening a site on Monday in San Rafaels Canal neighborhood. Testing will be free and by appointment only, with priority for essential workers and people experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. There will be multilingual staff available to assist with appointment booking and testing. The testing site is a partnership between federal health services contractor OptumServe, the State of California, Marin County Public Health and community organizations. Read More

Coronavirus Robs The Spotlight From The Worlds Ugliest Dogs PETALUMA Call it the polar opposite in the dog world spectrum from the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, but annually the Sonoma-Marin Fair has cast a spotlight on pooches only their owners can love. No best of breed, regal trots across the stage or litany read of a pedigree. The fair has given a brief spotlight to what it terms are the ugliest dogs on the planet. But this year, the coronavirus has turned off that spotlight. Sonoma-Marin Fair CEO Allison Keaney has announced the fair, scheduled for the last week in June, has been cancelled because of fears of spreading the coronavirus. Read More

Defiant Vacaville Barber Becomes Symbol Of Stay At Home ResistanceVACAVILLE A defiant barber in Vacaville is becoming the voice of the shelter-in-place resistance and stirring up controversy. Hes opening up his business way before the Governor is saying its okay. Hes been making national headlines on CNN and Fox News getting both support and visceral hate messages on social media. The former CHP officer says he has faith in leaders trying to open up the economy, but he has to hustle to make ends meet now. Juan Desmarais is a single father who has a son and two daughters. Read More

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Coronavirus Roundup: Golfers Flock To Reopened Links; What Is COVID Toe; Thin Blue Line Face Coverings Controversy - CBS San Francisco