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The Black Lives Matter organization only creates division that leads to violence. ORACLE GRAPHIC/OLIVIA SCHENKMAN

With the House Bill 999 revising Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at universities, some USF faculty and students are considering leaving the state, according to an April 20 article by The Oracle.

Some professors are considering leaving because HB 999 limits what they can teach at Florida universities. Under this bill, the university would have to remove courses on critical race theory, queer theory, intersectionality and radical gender theory, and they would not be allowed to allocate funds to DEI efforts.

Yet, despite the popular concern for diversity and equality, the phrase All Lives Matter is viewed as divisive and wrong, according to a 2020 CBS article. It is, however, socially correct to say Black Lives Matter (BLM) despite the organization only creating more division.

Saying All Lives Matter should not be demonized when the BLM movement is the one that has caused so much conflict and violence.

The BLM movement started in 2013. After George Floyd, an African American man, was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota during an arrest made in May 2020, BLM grew even bigger, according to a 2020 article by Brookings. On May 28, 2020, the Black Lives Matter hashtag was used 50,000 times. By June 3, that number skyrocketed to 1 million.

With the spike of the BLM movement came the increase in DEI statements by companies across the country. These statements advocate that a particular organization is inclusive, according to an Oct. 4, 2022 article by Diversity Resources.

BLM started in order to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities, according to BLMs page.

The movement has even received support from several organizations at USF like the Humanities Institute.

We condemn the violence against members of the black community and support the work of organizations like Black Lives Matter, states the groups website.

A public university should not be supporting such a divisive group. Even the founder acknowledged that she does not see all races as equal.

White people are the genetic defects of black people, BLM co-founder Yusra Khogali stated in a 2016 tweet.

The tweet has been deleted, but not before news outlets like iHeart reported on it and included an archived version of the Tweet.

Plz Allah give me strength to not cuss/kill these men and white folks out here today. Plz plz plz, Khogali stated, according to a 2016 article by CBC.

The leader of this organization, which is supposedly focused on equality, suppresses another race by stating they are lesser and casually states her desire to kill them.

Pushing down one race to uplift another only creates division. In order to truly bring justice, leaders and everyday citizens need to uphold the same moral and ethical standards, no matter their race. BLM advocates also need to follow this, as two wrongs dont make a right.

Creating groups strictly based on the color of ones skin merely categorizes people by their race and not who they are.

During the George Floyd BLM riots that occurred from May 26 to June 8, 2020, many buildings were destroyed by BLM members. The destruction cost $1-$2 billion dollars in property damages, according to a 2020 article by Axios.

The protest also resulted in 19 deaths which included a police officer being shot down by protesters and a man being run over by a FedEx truck, according to a 2022 article by Forbes.

BLM protests in Tampa also occurred. A total of 40 stores on Fowler Avenue, 15th Street, Busch Boulevard, Nebraska Avenue and 30th Street were looted on May 30, 2020, according to a June 1, 2020 article by the Tampa Bay Times. Hundreds of rioters eventually caused Fowler Avenue to be shut down, according to a May 30, 2020 article by WUSF. Champs Sporting Goods was also completely burned down.

Some believe that promoting BLM also means promoting the notion that all lives matter, and by saying All Lives Matter, Black lives are excluded, according to a 2020 CBS News article.

And if we are committed to a world where all lives matter, we are called to support the very movement that inspired and activated so many more. That means supporting and acknowledging Black lives, said co-founder of the movement, Alicia Garza in a 2014 article she wrote for The Feminist Wire.

However, when one racial group is lifted higher by bringing down another, it clearly shows that all lives do not matter and that some are more important than others.

Even though BLM isnt the only racial organization and other organizations such as Native Lives Matter, Asian American Pacific Islanders Lives Matter and White Lives Matter stand, creating groups based on the color of ones skin will only continue to split the country by dividing people based on their race.

People should combat this by simply using All Lives Matter. This phrase should not be demonized. Rather, it should be embraced.

If all lives truly matter, then using an inclusive term should not be a bad thing. This type of division leads to violence and death, making no life matter at all.

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OPINION: All lives matter The Oracle - The Oracle

A Michigan man who tried to intimidate Black Lives Matter supporters by leaving nooses and threatening notes around his community and making racist phone calls in the summer of 2020 has been sentenced to 10 months in federal prison and a year of supervised release, the U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday.

The man, Kenneth D. Pilon, 62, pleaded guilty in December to two misdemeanor counts of willfully intimidating and attempting to intimidate citizens from engaging in lawful speech and protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, according to federal prosecutors.

On June 14, Mr. Pilon, a retired optometrist, made nine phone calls to Starbucks stores in Michigan in which he told the employees who answered to make racist slurs toward their colleagues who wore Black Lives Matter T-shirts, prosecutors said. He also told one employee that he planned to lynch a Black person, they added. Two days earlier, Starbucks had announced that it would send Black Lives Matter T-shirts to its stores after it had initially banned workers from wearing apparel with the phrase because it could amplify divisiveness.

The following month, Mr. Pilon also left five nooses across Saginaw, Mich. four of them in parking lots, and one in a 7-Eleven store together with handwritten notes that read: An accessory to be worn with your BLM t-shirt. Happy protesting! the Justice Department said.

Four other charges relating to separate, but similar, episodes were dropped, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

A noose is a symbol of hatred that evokes the darkest days of our countrys past, Dawn N. Ison, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said in a statement. Its placement is meant to terrorize a part of our community, but we will not tolerate these race-based threats.

Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Departments civil rights division, noted in a statement that such threats had no place in civilized society.

Mr. Pilons lawyer, Barry A. Wolf, could not be immediately reached on Wednesday evening for comment, but in a sentencing memorandum earlier this month, he told the court that Mr. Pilon was deeply remorseful and embarrassed by his actions.

Mr. Pilon had never previously been convicted of a crime, but in 2020, during a perfect storm of physical pain, social isolation and untreated mental health problems, he became consumed by news of the civil unrest and lashed out with racist and intimidating conduct, Mr. Wolf said in the memorandum. He understands the seriousness of these offenses.

Regina Simon, whose husband at the time found one of the nooses in his car in Saginaw, said in an interview on Wednesday that the sentencing showed that the court was moving in the right direction in terms of taking the rights of the marginalized seriously. She added, however, the contention that Mr. Pilot had suffered while watching news reports about political demonstrations was not a good enough excuse.

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Man Sentenced to 10 Months for Leaving Nooses and Racist Notes - The New York Times

A ground mural depicting a portrait of Breonna Taylor is seen at Chambers Park in Annapolis, Md., on July 6, 2020. Julio Cortez/AP hide caption

A ground mural depicting a portrait of Breonna Taylor is seen at Chambers Park in Annapolis, Md., on July 6, 2020.

Myles Cosgrove, a former Louisville police officer who shot and killed Breonna Taylor in March 2020, became a law enforcement officer again in a nearby county, according to various local media outlets.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Office, which is about an hour drive northeast of Louisville, recently hired Cosgrove, Chief Deputy Rob Miller told The Courier Journal on Saturday.

"We think he will help reduce the flow of drugs in our area and reduce property crimes," Miller said. "We felt like he was a good candidate to help us in our county."

This photo released by the Louisville Police shows Louisville Police Det. Myles Cosgrove after a narcotics raid on March 13, 2020. Louisville Police/AP hide caption

This photo released by the Louisville Police shows Louisville Police Det. Myles Cosgrove after a narcotics raid on March 13, 2020.

Miller added that Cosgrove had nearly two decades of experience in the police force. The Carroll County Sheriff's Office declined NPR's request for comment.

The hiring has garnered scrutiny in both Louisville and Carroll County.

Chanelle Helm, the lead organizer of Black Lives Matter Louisville, said Cosgrove's return to the police force showed the impunity often afforded to law enforcement.

"The way in which he can go and get a job in the same field should be illegal. For a typical citizen, we aren't able to re-enter certain fields, if we're fired from them. That carries with you," she told member station WFPL.

Cosgrove was one of seven officers involved in the deadly raid inside Taylor's apartment in the middle of the night. Police, who came to serve a no-knock search warrant, barged in startling Taylor, a 26-year-old ER technician, and her boyfriend. Believing the officers were intruders, Taylor's boyfriend fired a single shot at them. Officers returned 32 shots, half of which were fired by Cosgrove. Two of his rounds struck Taylor.

An FBI ballistics report later showed that it was Cosgrove's bullets that killed her, according to WFPL.

In January 2021, the Louisville Metro Police Department fired Cosgrove for violating department procedures on the use of deadly force by failing to properly identify a threat when he fired his weapon. Cosgrove also violated LMPD policy by not wearing a body camera during the raid.

In Cosgrove's termination letter, the interim LMPD Chief Yvette Gentry wrote: "The shots you fired went in three different directions, indicating you did not verify a threat or have target acquisition."

Gentry added, "In other words, the evidence shows that you fired wildly at unidentified subjects or targets located within the apartment."

Cosgrove appealed his case to get his job back in November 2021, but ultimately the court upheld the department's decision to terminate, local media outlets reported.

The officer has not faced any criminal charges in connection to the killing. Four officers were formally charged by the Justice Department with civil rights violations but Cosgrove was not one of them.

In 2022, the Kentucky Law Enforcement Council voted to allow Cosgrove to keep his police certification, making him eligible to work for other police departments in the state, WFPL reported.

Cosgrove is not the first officer to be removed from a police department after misconduct only to be hired elsewhere. The phenomenon known as "wandering cops" has been an issue for decades in the U.S. in part because there is a lack of national coordination to keep track of officers with a history of misconduct.

Taylor's death fueled racial justice protests across the country in the summer of 2020. That year, Louisville's city council unanimously voted to ban no-knock warrants.

Link:
Louisville officer who killed Breonna Taylor hired by police force in ... - NPR

Art

He rose to fame in the Thatcher era with his lyrical films about race, sex and politics. As he stages a major retrospective, the artist talks about Aids, migration, and Black Tory MPs

Mon 24 Apr 2023 11.00 EDT

Isaac Juliens canalside London studio was designed by David Adjaye at the same time the architect was working on his National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC; its library space, where we talk, is warm, luxurious and boat-like. Adjayes team has also designed Juliens imminent career retrospective at Tate Britain, which will display the artist and film-makers exploration of migration, history, sexuality and culture through composite multiscreen installations that can make you feel as if youre actually inside the work.

Weve made a radical intervention into the museum, Julien promises, and I understand immediately what he means. His most famous works, the 1989 short film Looking for Langston and the 1991 feature Young Soul Rebels, are both landmarks of the Black queer experience and youth culture. Looking for Langston was shown at the Barbican in 2020, and it was startling when Todd Terrys 1988 acid house classic Can You Party? thumped into the space at full volume a spontaneous queer rave in response to a police raid. Wherever you were in the gallery, you would turn to see where the music was coming from; it was a provocative intervention in the summer of Black Lives Matter.

When I mention it, Julien recalls the 2001 Turner prize private view, where an attender told him, Your works quite loud. Do you think you could turn it down? I wanted to invade the museum, he says. Thats the whole reason Im making my work. There will be a cacophony of sound. Im interested in turning habits of how we want to meditate on art inside out.

Before he arrives, dressed glamorously in black Issey Miyake pleats, his assistants show me his latest film, the relatively quiet Once Again (Statues Never Die), an immersive five-screen installation. Sheltered from a deadening snowfall, Alain Locke, a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance (played by Moonlights Andr Holland), strolls through the halls of a museum to the mournful soprano tones of jazz singer Alice Smith, and gazes up at statues of Aristotle, Hippocrates, Joseph Priestley and Roger Bacon to a lyrical narration in Creole, a language not meant to be understood by the white master, a language of resistance, Julien explains. Locke then encounters Albert C Barnes, an early 20th-century collector of African art, and they debate its place stolen, often violently, from its custodians in the modern museum.

Once Again interpolates several scenes from Looking for Langston, in which Locke is also depicted; a full-circle moment. Ive been looking at conversations connected to modernisms in the early 20th century that have come back to haunt the early part of the 21st century, the role of African art in a museum collection and who has the power to interpret it, Julien says. We went back to the out-takes and found elements that we could suture back together, bringing the Alain Locke character back to life in a different kind of way.

It also includes shots from a 1970 short by Ghanaian film-maker Nii Kwate Owoo called You Hide Me, in which an African student uncovers a hoard of African artefacts held in the British Museum archive. Julien lived next door to the British Museum for several years, wondering how it could call itself the British Museum when its more of a colonial project. You had film-makers like Kwate who were calling this into question half a century ago.

Julien was born in London in 1960 to parents who had migrated from St Lucia. In 1979, he made a student film focusing on how gay men are stereotyped in the media. His tutor encouraged him to think about how Black gay men are stereotyped, and this question indirectly led to Looking for Langston. By then, he had graduated from Central Saint Martins and co-formed Sankofa Film and Video Collective, whose best known work, The Passion of Remembrance, Julien co-directed with Maureen Blackwood. Restored by Julien and set for release this month by the BFI, it depicts the diversity of the Black British experience through one family.

In the mid-1980s, Julien was mentored by the very generous Derek Jarman, whose films, such as Edward II and Caravaggio, inspired the visual language Julien would develop in Looking for Langston. I was part of a movement where younger queer film-makers could intervene through facilitators like Channel 4 and as part of a general fightback within gay subcultures against such oppressions as section 28 and Thatcherism.

The 80s were a rich decade for Black British cultural alliances, with the emergence of, among others, the Theatre of Black Women, the Black Audio Film Collective and the Blk Art Group. Like most of the artists connected to these groups, Julien was involved in community activism. This year marks the 40th anniversary of his debut film Who Killed Colin Roach?, which documented the protests that followed Roachs death by gunshot wound at the entrance of a police station, which the police claimed was a suicide (a claim that was later upheld by an inquest). Rediscovered prints Julien took on the day of the protest form a collage along a wall of the studio.

Julien was also a member of the Gay Black Group before the Aids crisis began to wreak disproportionate havoc among Black gay men. Youre dealing with your friends dying and that whole question of mortality becomes very close to how you live, he says. Your sensitivity is heightened. I didnt know if Id live on until the 90s. A lot of my friends didnt, so why would I?

Like much of his work, Young Soul Rebels set in 1977, and so pre-Aids and Looking for Langston refocus the gaze away from that of the dominant media and into the custody of those at its subjective centre. In Looking for Langston, the queer African American poet Essex Hemphill narrates his poem If His Name Were Mandingo to shots of Robert Mapplethorpes portraits of Black men, as a means of critiquing the fetishistic gaze Mapplethorpe had enabled.

Juliens films poeticise Black acts of resistance around issues of sexuality, migration and modern slavery. His 2007 work Western Union: Small Boats meditates on the wave of migration from northern Africa to southern Europe, while referencing Luchino Viscontis 1963 film The Leopard. Julien decided to make the five-screen installation after holidaying in Italy regularly with his mother, and gradually feeling less welcomed by the locals. Peoples looks started to change slightly when African populations began to grow within these vicinities, he notes.

When Julien first started researching Western Union: Small Boats, his initial idea was to juxtapose the movement of people from Africa to Europe with the Chinese cockle pickers who tragically drowned at Morecambe Bay in 2004. I wanted to allegorise these movements and to that end we looked at different mythologies.

He became acquainted with the fables of Mazu, a 15th-century deity from the Fujian province, from where the cockle pickers had also travelled. He and his researchers were able to find prints in the British Museums colonial archive, of all places of The Tale of Meizhou Island, a fable in which Mazu loses her power and is no longer able to save sailors from danger at sea, but brings them to Meizhou, the island of safety.

I wanted to translate that myth to the present day and to look at Mazu as someone whose powers are waning; she wasnt able to save the cockle pickers, he explains. People from that province had been migrating for thousands of years. Through Mazus gaze, I could look to Chinese culture as a way of saying that the question around migration is a provincial, European conversation or problem.

Ten Thousand Waves, featuring Maggie Cheung as Mazu, is a collaboration with the Chinese poet Wang Ping, whom Julien met in 2006 and brought to Morecambe Bay; she produced a poem that became instructional of the work. Julien worked with a team of more than 100 Chinese cast and crew. This Black-Asian collaboration appears particularly topical, given, he says, the Black-Asian collaboration we have in current government who are repudiating people of Black and Asian backgrounds in this debate for instance the successive home secretaries Priti Patel and Suella Braverman, who have targeted migrants of colour in their anti-immigration policies; or Kemi Badenoch, who as education secretary said that schools should not openly support the anti-capitalist Black Lives Matter group, a movement Kwasi Kwarteng, Britains first Black chancellor, accused of a cartoon-like view of the past.Whether its about technological development, or where a capital is located, bodies tend to follow, Julien says, reminding me of Ian Sanjay Patels Were Here Because You Were There, a study of how the legacies of empire continue to affect migration. I dont know how successful this current government will be in stopping those global movements taking place, because theyll happen whether we like it or not. Through a holistic exploration of place, memory, migration and identity within a decolonial museum project, Juliens oeuvre is a compelling, sensual, critically sound riposte to such divisive views.

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Artist Isaac Julien: I didnt know if Id live on until the 90s. A lot of my friends didnt - The Guardian

WASHINGTON A Michigan man was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington to 10 months in federal prison and one-year supervised release for a series of hate crimes he committed in June and July of 2020.

According to court records, Kenneth D. Pilon, 62, previously pleaded guilty to willfully intimidating and attempting to intimidate citizens from engaging in lawful speech and protests in support of Black Lives Matter. Specifically, Pilon admitted to calling nine Starbucks stores in mid and southeast Michigan and telling the employees answering his calls to tell Starbucks employees wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts that the only good n***er is a dead n***er. Pilon also admitted to telling one employee, Im gonna go out and lynch me a n***er. Additionally, over the course of the next month, Pilon left four nooses in parking lots and a fifth noose inside of a 7-Eleven store. Pilon attached each noose to a handwritten note, reading: An accessory to be worn with your BLM t-shirt. Happy protesting!

The nooses, the threat letters, and the calls to Starbucks were all intended to terrorize the targeted victims solely because of their race, said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division. The Civil Rights Division will always stand up to race-based threats of violence, which have no place in civilized society.

A noose is a symbol of hatred that evokes the darkest days of our countrys past. Its placement is meant to terrorize a part of our community, but we will not tolerate these race-based threats. Our office stands ready to vigorously investigate and prosecute criminal violations of our civil rights laws, said U.S. Attorney Dawn N. Ison for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Pilons hateful conduct, motivated by racial intolerance, was intended to intimidate the victims as well as create fear within the African-American community, said Special Agent in Charge James A. Tarasca of the FBI Detroit Field Office. The FBI and our law enforcement partners will ensure that if a crime is motivated by bias, it will be investigated as a hate crime and the perpetrators will be held accountable for their actions.

The FBI Detroit Field Office investigated the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Turkelson for the Eastern District of Michigan and Trial Attorney Tara Allison of the Civil Rights Divisions Criminal Section prosecuted the case

The rest is here:
Michigan Man Sentenced to 10 Months in Federal Prison for Hate ... - Department of Justice