Archive for the ‘Black Lives Matter’ Category

David Starkey in bizarre claim that left-wing wants to replace Holocaust with BLM – The Independent

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Left-wing activists are jealous of the Holocaust and want to replace it with slavery, a leading historian has said in a bizarre speech at the National Conservatism conference in London.

David Starkey claimed that groups such as Black Lives Matter were attempting to destroy white culture and do exactly what was done to German culture because of Nazism and the Holocaust.

He said: The determination is to replace the Holocaust with slavery. In other words, this is why Jews are under such attack from the left, theres jealousy, fundamentally. There is jealousy of the moral primacy of the Holocaust and a determination to replace it with slavery.

The historians comments brought swift condemnation, with Daniel Sugarman, public affairs director at the Board of Deputies of British Jews, tweeting that they were pathetic attempts to drive a wedge between communities that will not work.

Dr Starkey, an expert on Tudor history, has previously been criticised for comments on slavery and the Black Lives Matter movement, including during coverage of the coronation on GB News when he was accused of racism for claiming that Rishi Sunak was not fully grounded in our culture.

He later denied his comments were racist, saying he was referring to the prime minister being a typical international liberal with no interest in British values.

I fear, indeed I loathe, the unforgiving, inhumane impatience of utopian perfectionists, whether they are Maoists or agents of Islamic State or progressive twittering social justice warriors.

Nigel Biggar, professor emeritus, Oxford University

In his speech to the National Conservatism conference on Wednesday, Dr Starkey renewed his criticism of Black Lives Matter, denying that the movement cared about black lives at all.

To applause from the audience, he said: Movements like critical race theory and Black Lives Matter are not what they pretend to be.

They are attempts at destroying the entire legitimacy of the Western political and cultural tradition.

The idea that they are there to defend black lives is a preposterous notion. They do not care about black lives, they only care about the symbolic destruction of white culture. We have to be absolutely clear about this.

He added: The narrative of Black Lives Matter is that Western culture and Anglo-American culture in particular are fundamentally morally defective, they are characterised by the mark of Cain and their strategy is to do exactly what was done to German culture because of Nazism and the Holocaust.

Downing Street said Mr Sunak did not agree with the remarks but said the attendance of ministers Michael Gove and Suella Braverman was a matter for them.

He wouldnt agree with those comments but with regard to the specific ministerial attendance, that would be a matter for them, a No 10 spokesman said.

During the conferences morning session, the audience also heard from Nigel Biggar, a professor emeritus of theology at the University of Oxford, who argued that the British Empire had a mixed moral record and denied there was any reason to pay reparations to former colonies.

He said: As a Christian, Burkean conservative I dont expect perfection in any human affairs. Those who rule, just like those who are ruled, are creatures and sinners, finite and flawed.

Even as I recognise the duty to repent and improve, I expect even the noblest of human efforts to be marred by limited power, moral obtuseness and culpable failure.

And so I fear, indeed I loathe, the unforgiving, inhumane impatience of utopian perfectionists, whether they are Maoists or agents of Islamic State or progressive twittering social justice warriors.

He added: Much of what our forebears achieved was extraordinary. We need to remember it, we need to admire it, we need to conserve it, and we need to build on it.

Prof Biggar also criticised Scottish nationalism as based on a false Braveheart version of history.

He said: When too many Scots, in my view, align themselves with Scottish independence they do it, most of them, not because theyve analysed policies.

They do it in large part because they inhabit imaginatively a vision of the past that is false, a Braveheart past that excites unjustified nationalist indignation and resentment against the English and against Britain today.

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David Starkey in bizarre claim that left-wing wants to replace Holocaust with BLM - The Independent

Congress should fund the BLM (no, not that one) – The Economist

A MEMORABLE scene in season one of HBOs hit series The White Lotus shows Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) asking her date how he got involved with the BLM, and why he decided to devote his life to activism. Greg Hunt (Jon Gries) is bewildered. Tanya, like many Americans, assumes that the initials stand for Black Lives Matter, an anti-racism group. Black Lives Matter? Im not involved in that, he replies. Now it is Tanyas turn for bewilderment. Finally, Greg reveals that he works for a distinctly different BLM: Americas Bureau of Land Management.

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The Bureau of Land Management (the BLM from here on) is not one of Americas better-known federal agencies. It is just one of 11 bureaus within the Department of the Interior, and is responsible for managing 10% of Americas lands, or more than 245m acres, mostly in the western states. It issues permits for development on the countrys public lands. For a long time, that meant approving oil and gas drilling.

But under President Joe Biden, it increasingly means granting permits for renewable-energy projects. The Biden administration aims to approve at least 25 gigawatts of solar, wind or geothermal energy on federal lands by 2025, and so the BLM finds itself at the very centre of Americas clean-energy transition. But the bureau will struggle to thrive in the limelight. When asked about the state of the BLM, current and former staffers describe an underfunded agency tormented by an increasingly difficult mission and hobbled by staffing shortages.

In 1976 Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, or FLPMA. The agency was tasked with balancing extraction, recreation and conservation, in perpetuity. Land-use conflicts are multiplying as the agency tries to deploy renewables, protect critical habitat, respect tribal sovereignty and manage a boom in outdoor recreation all at the same time. Ive been in a lot of angry public meetings, says Linda Price, the BLMs field manager in Salmon, Idaho. They dont get any more angry than when theres renewable energy involved.

Idaho is a case in point. The proposed Lava Ridge Wind Project in the states Magic Valley, near a Japanese prison camp from the second world war, has united greens, history preservationists, tribes, local officials, ranchers and farmers in opposition. Not only are locals sceptical of these specific turbines; some reject the idea that renewables belong on public lands at all.

The BLM is used to getting beaten up at public meetings. But the listening tours needed to solicit local input and dispel disinformation take time. That is something America does not have in abundance if it wants to decarbonise fast enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Last month, for example, the BLM approved the construction of a high-voltage transmission line from Wyomings High Plains to southern Nevada. The project was first proposed in 2007, but was delayed by a legal battle over whether the line could traverse ranchlands that were also protected habitat for the ever-imperilled sage grouse.

The bureaus broad mission also makes it vulnerable to big political swings. The Trump administration, for example, prioritised fossil-fuel development over other land uses. The last administration didnt want you to even think about conservation, says Mary Jo Rugwell, who retired as the BLMs Wyoming boss in 2019. Its hard for employees to make that pivot all the time, she adds wearily.

The second reason the BLM is struggling is because the agency was crippled by President Donald Trumps efforts to drain the swamp. In 2019 Mr Trump announced that the agencys headquarters would move from Washington, DC, to Grand Junction, Colorado, ostensibly so the BLMs bureaucrats would be closer to the lands they managed. More than 300 jobs were reassigned to western field offices. Just 41 people moved and only three ended up in Grand Junction. The rest quit or retired.

Baby-boomer retirements and a national labour shortage arent helping things. Tracy Stone-Manning, the agencys director under Mr Biden, argues that too few people, and the loss of expertise that accompanied the headquarters move, explain the BLMs inefficiency, not an over-onerous permit process. When your correspondent asked which projects had suffered for lack of bodies, Ms Stone-Manning was not picky. Id point to 120 projects that are waiting in line, theyre literally sitting on desks, she said. Its hard to say to a company See you in two years.

It is not hard to find specific examples of pain caused by the labour crunch. Agents working on the Lava Ridge wind-farm proposal say the controversial project is sucking up all their time and resources. They want to hire more people to focus entirely on renewables. Farther north in Salmon, Ms Price is trying to prioritise. If you doubled my staff, we would not run out of things to do, she says.

The BLM is dreaming of a bigger budget, too, and has asked Congress for more funding to hire nearly 500 employees. Its headquarters is moving back to the Beltway. But some of the bureaus far-flung agents think the agencys redemption will happen in the valleys and the mountains of the West, rather than in Washington. The number and diversity of conflicts is growing, says Ms Price. On the ground, in the little immediate field offices, we try to work through them one by one.

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Congress should fund the BLM (no, not that one) - The Economist

MPD Lieutenant Charged with Obstruction of Justice and False … – Department of Justice

DefAllegedly Leaked Law Enforcement Information to Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio

WASHINGTON A District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Lieutenant was arrested today on an indictment charging that he obstructed an investigation into the December 12, 2020 destruction of a Black Lives Matter (BLM) Banner and made false and misleading statements to federal law enforcement about having done so, including that he leaked to Enrique Tarrio, the leader of The Proud Boys, the fact thatlaw enforcement had an arrest warrant for him related to that offense.

Shane Lamond, 47, of Stafford, Va., was indicted by a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on one count of obstruction of justice and three counts of making false statements. Lamond will be arraigned today before the Honorable Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and Special Agent in Charge Wayne A. Jacobs of the FBI Washington Field Offices Criminal and Cyber Division.

According to the indictment, Lamond worked as the supervisor of the Intelligence Branch of MPDs Homeland Security Bureau. Beginning in July 2019 and continuing to at least January 2021, Lamond and Tarrio were in regular contact regarding Proud Boys planned activities in the District of Columbia.The indictment alleges that, as early as at least July 2020, Lamond began using Telegram to provide information to Tarrio about law enforcement activity relating to Proud Boys activities in Washington, D.C.

For instance, the indictment alleges that beginning on December 18, 2020, Lamond gave Tarrio confidential law enforcement information into the investigation of the December 12, 2020 burning of a banner that read #BLACKLIVESMATTER. As set forth in the indictment, Tarrio would then pass this information along to other Proud Boys members and take action based on the sensitive information. On or about January 4, 2021, following the issuance of an arrest warrant for Tarrio in connection with the burning of the BLM banner, while Tarrio was on a flight from Miami, Florida to Arlington, Virginia, Lamond, using Telegram, sent Tarrio a notification that a warrant had been signed for his arrest in the District of Columbia. After arriving in Arlington, Virginia and driving in to the District of Columbia, Tarrio was arrested on the warrant and subsequently pleaded guilty to one count of destruction of property in connection with the burning of the banner.

As the indictment alleges, on June 2, 2021, during an interview with federal law enforcement, Lamond made false and misleading statements regarding his communications and contacts with Tarrio. These false and misleading statements related to: (1) the methods by whichLamond and Tarrio would communicate; (2) whether Lamond had provided Tarrio with sensitive law enforcement information; (3) whether Lamond had notified Tarrio about the status of the MPD investigation into the banner burning; (4) whether Lamond notified Tarrio about his pending arrest warrant; and (5) the content and extent of Lamonds discussion with Tarrio prior to and after January 6.

The obstruction of justice charge carries a statutory maximum of 30 years in prison. Each charge for making a false statement carries a statutory maximum of 5 years in prison. The maximum statutory sentence for federal offenses is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes. The sentencing will be determined by the court based on the advisory Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

This case is being jointly investigatedby the FBIs Washington Field Office and the United States Attorney's Office Criminal Investigations Unit. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Rothstein, of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia.

An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

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MPD Lieutenant Charged with Obstruction of Justice and False ... - Department of Justice

I’m a Couples Therapist. Something New Is Happening in … – The New York Times

Questions of guilt hovered over another couple I worked with. He had recently cheated on his wife. They were generally deeply supportive of each other, but after she found out about his transgression, she was terribly upset and also confused. Their attempts to talk about what happened were halting. #MeToo rhetoric was woven into their discussions, functioning as a superego, shaping and inhibiting what they could even think. She said that she felt that the lessons of the movement were telling her not to forgive but to leave him Especially now, if a woman is being wronged, you get out. It was hard for her to know how she actually felt about it all. Early on, he couldnt separate remorse from fear. He was terrified of getting into trouble, and guiltiness prevailed. His voice was hushed while he scrutinized me intently, worried about how he would be perceived: There are a lot of men in this business right now who have taken positions of power and use them to have sex with people.

They were both white and understood their privilege and were apologetic about it. She often undid her own complaints I levitate out by having the thought, Oh, poor cis white woman. He was uncomfortable, too. He talked about reading the news about another Black or brown person being killed. And its just like I feel a little well, I feel guilty, to be honest, to be sitting here. The lessons of the Black Lives Matter movement initially can provoke such paralyzing guilt and shame that people become defensive and stop fully thinking. Yet over time, Ive found, the ideas can inspire deep psychological work, pushing people to reckon with the harm that has been done, the question of whom should be implicated, and the difference between virtue signaling and deeper concerns. These are tough and important lessons that can carry over into intimate relationships. In this case, the husband described a new understanding about the ways he exercised power at work: Hold on. Have I been an ally? Has it just been optics? These insights extended even to his way of speaking about his transgression. He had been rationalizing his behavior by saying that his wife was not giving him the attention he needed. But moving beyond what the couple called optics, now he was asking himself for a more thorough accounting of what his cheating was really about, and how it affected his wife. He explained how lonely he was if she traveled; he felt left behind and discarded, a feeling deeply familiar to him from early childhood. Acknowledging his vulnerability was hard for him, but it opened up a series of honest conversations between them. I convinced myself she does not desire me, he said. Im not the popular guy. Im not the strong guy. He linked those feelings to insecurities he felt as a teenager, when he suffered chronic teasing from kids at school for being perceived as effeminate.

This new, nondefensive way of talking made it possible for her to understand how his transgression hit her where she felt most insecure, and he could see it, generating remorse and forgiveness between them. She described how it had become easier for both of them to check themselves for their impact on the other person, and quickly notice or apologize. In one session she said, smiling: You were a jerk to me yesterday, and then you apologized a couple hours later. You recognized that you took out your frustration there on me because I was an easy target. He realized that he stopped skimming over ways he caused others pain: I actually was just thinking therapy and the Black Lives Matter movement have made me keenly aware of the words that just came out of my mouth, and the understanding that she reacted adversely to that, instead of me just going, We move on, because thats awkward. Theres a need now to address it. He continued: Did I just upset you? What did I do to just upset you?

Couples work always goes back to the challenge of otherness. Differences can show up around philosophical questions like what is important to devote a life to, or whether it is ethical to have babies with a climate crisis looming; or it can be closer to home, like whether having a sexual fantasy about a person who is not your partner is acceptable; or even as seemingly trivial as the correct way to load a dishwasher. Whatever the issue, differences can become a point of crisis in the relationship. Immediately the question of who is right, who gets their way or who has a better handle on reality pops up. Narcissistic vulnerabilities about self-worth appear, which then trigger an impulse to devalue the other. Partners try to resolve such impasses by digging in and working hard to convince the other of their own position, becoming further polarized.

The challenge of otherness may be easiest to see when we think of racial differences. This was certainly true for James and Michelle. Michelle was a calm, gentle, somewhat reserved African American social worker, and James, at the time a police officer, was a slight, wiry white man whose face did not reveal much feeling. They came in with classic conflicts around division of labor and differing parenting styles, and then the pandemic hit. Quarantined, working remotely and home-schooling their 3-year-old son, they started fighting about Covid protocols. Michelle was aware of the way that Covid was devastating Black communities and wanted to be careful. James, along with his fellow police officers and his conservative parents, thought the concern was overblown. Discussion about how race shaped James and Michelles experiences and ideas routinely dead-ended. If Michelle tried to bring up the topic, James would insist, I dont see color, and say he didnt know what she was talking about. In our sessions, Michelle sounded hopeless: She wanted him to understand how traumatizing Covid had been for Black people. But she was frustrated by his inability to acknowledge real difference, as if everyone was the same race. Hes of the mind-set that I dont see color. She continued setting out his thinking: I dont want to hear what you have to say because thats not how I think. That point of view obviously angers me, she said. James would shrug, expressionless. Michelle was describing the infuriating experience of trying to break through a barrier: Her husband wasnt consciously aware that whiteness was a perspective that was constricting what he could imagine or comprehend.

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I'm a Couples Therapist. Something New Is Happening in ... - The New York Times

PARTING SHOT: Don’t move off the sidewalk. – University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

When I first came to the University in 2019, never did I imagine that I would start writing for a student newspaper. English was always my favorite subject in school, but as I settled into being an Architecture student, that love took a backseat. It was not until I failed calculus my first fall and had an ENWR class in the spring that I realized I might be meant for something more. Writing became my refuge and English became my minor. During the summer of 2020, when people across the nation were protesting in support of the Black Lives Matter movement at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, writing became my form of protest. The second half of 2020 was a time of immense anger and confusion that not only signified the next phase in my life, but also served as the catalyst for what would become a three-year dedication to making more space for Black students at the University.

Everything shifted for me when I joined the Cavalier Daily staff in 2020. I was not particularly raised to protest and fight back against racism and inequality. I was, however, taught to always speak up for myself and do what is right. Joining the newspaper was one of many avenues I took to bring awareness to the adversities marginalized people face. This dedication also manifested itself as taking up more space in the communities in which I was already involved. I became a more active member of the School of Architecture Student Council, on which I was the only Black member until this past academic year, and my academic design projects have all focused on social justice and investing in diverse communities. I lived in Hereford Residential College for three years and led the Student Senates Social Awareness Committee, not only organizing events that raise awareness of the adversities of others but also completing two research projects one of which is an overview of race and racism at the University.

The three years I have spent as an Opinion Columnist for the Cavalier Daily have been a rollercoaster, to say the least. The first year was the most tumultuous and resulted in my columns about the Black Lives Matter protests, the 2020 presidential election and the following insurrection at the Capitol. At the beginning of my journey as a writer, I received many words of encouragement from friends and family but simultaneously found many hate comments under my columns and in The Cavalier Dailys social media comment sections. What the people leaving those comments did not know was that they made me want to write even more. Those comments let me know I was reaching my target audience people who feel extreme discomfort when Black people talk about their struggles.

Its important to highlight that, even though I was partially writing for people who could relate to me and my opinion, I was mainly writing to reach people who dont go out of their way to hear the voices of marginalized people. Though I have received much criticism for my work, I know that I opened up space for more Black students to find comfort in their presence at the University and disrupt the comfort of everyone else. Unfortunately, most people do not care about issues that do not affect them. And so, when Black Lives Matter was no longer trending on social media and on the news, I continued to write not only to keep bringing attention to the issues that harm Black students at the University, but also to encourage other marginalized students to do so as well.

I know that if I were to go back in time to the summer of 2020 and see the advertisement for The Cavalier Daily applications, I would do it all the same again. I would not change a single thing that I have done or said. My only regret is not having said more. I am proud that the Cavalier Daily now has a much more diverse staff than when I first joined. I am proud to have been the first Black student to write about my experiences with such raw vigor and vulnerability. I am proud to have spent this past semester as the longest-running staff member. And I am so proud to see the freedom with which other students of color now wield their opinions, and I can feel good knowing that they may continue when I am gone.

And so, a message to Black students you know that moment when you are walking down the street and a group of people coming in the opposite direction looks like they are unwilling to move over and make space for you? I would like to offer you a sentence of encouragement that a Black graduating student offered to a group chat of students of color during graduation weekend a few years ago. Do not move off the sidewalk. Do not waver. Do not step into the street to get out of their way. Stay on the sidewalk and take up the space you deserve. I urge all students of color not to allow the pressures of the University community to keep them from being themselves and expressing their truth. Im rooting for you.

Aliyah White was an Opinion columnist for the 131st, 132nd and 133rd terms of The Cavalier Daily.

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PARTING SHOT: Don't move off the sidewalk. - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily