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ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Black History Month which is meant to celebrate achievements made within the African-American community has morphed into the Black Lives Matter movement in many public schools.

Earlier this month, the entire school district in Rochester, New York, designated a Black Lives Matter day to celebrate the citys diversity.

We want people to acknowledge and respect one item, one part of what makes America great, which is the black community, Van White, the Rochester school board president, told the local Time Warner Cable News. The whole idea is to understand the struggles that black folks have in this country. If people dont respect your life as an African-American, Latino, Italian, that will raise obstacles for you.

Mr. White and the school board maintained their decision to celebrate the day had no affiliation with the national Black Lives Matter movement, yet by merely naming the day Black Lives Matter, it is politically charged that western society systemically and institutionally discriminates against people of color. That lady justices scale is tipped against them, and shes not blind.

In Illinois, 220 students at DeKalb High School, decided to stay at home after a Black History Month assembly led to racially charged exchanges and rumors about threats against the school, according to the Daily Chronicle.

Two sophomores recited the poem Angry Black Women, at the assembly, which includes racially charged lines like Im mad because the system is built for the white man. Im mad because white women fetishize our black men or refuse to acknowledge our Black Lives Matter and Mad because Black Lives Matter is corrected to All Lives Matter by White America who feels threatened by us.

Parents were only notified of the performance after it went viral, and school Superintendent Doug Moeller admitted the school shouldve been more diligent in reviewing what content was presented. A rap song titled I cant breathe was also performed.

I dont think [the high school administration] did their due diligence in terms of reviewing the skits and the songs that were going to be presented, Mr. Moeller told the Chronicle after the uproar. Again, I didnt find them offensive, but I can understand how some of our students might find them offensive, just given the race relationships in this town.

In North Texas, a Black History Month performance also took a political tone, offending the towns police chief.

During an assembly this month, students held up signs reading Black Lives Matter, I cant breathe, and The whole system is guilty.

Allowing this only promotes the discontent and hatred for police to continue. Its a bad day, Police Chief Mike Broadnax told his local CBS News.

According to the local television station, Principal Michael Bland emailed the schools staff and called the highly politicized message an unfortunate event.

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Black History Month morphs into Black Lives Matter month in many public schools - Washington Times

Mashable

A YA tale inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement should be the next book you read Mashable It may be early in the year, but the best YA novel of 2017 is likely already in stores. The Hate U Give, the debut novel of author Angie Thomas, hit shelves today and is the buzziest non-sequel to hit the YA world in some time. Inspired by the Black ... This Young Adult Novel That Tackles Black Lives Matter Is Exactly What We NeedRefinery29 all 3 news articles »

Excerpt from:
A YA tale inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement should be the next book you read - Mashable

A new musical work by pianist and composer Jon Jang, and in collaboration with poet performer Amanda Kemp, "Can't Stop Cryin' for America! (Black Lives Matter)," will make its world premiere this year as part of the 30th anniversary season of Asian Improv aRts.

The work memorializes African Americans "killed by the police and/or white supremacists" in 2014 and 2015, according to Jang, while making connections to the history of legal lynching, institutional racism, and African American and Asian American alliances.

"As a U.S. artist and citizen, I support Black Lives Matter and the rights of immigrants of color to live a life of equality in our country," Jang told NBC News. "We need to reject confusing statements such as 'All Lives Matter' and 'We Are Immigrants' because [they do] not address the history of institutional racism and exclusionary laws that have destroyed or nearly destroyed families of color in our country."

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One vignette, "More Motherless Children," is based on the African-American spiritual, "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," and memorializes the six women and three men killed in 2015 by an avowed white supremacist at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Another vignette, "Say Her Name: Sandra Bland!" expresses the defiance of the young woman who was found hanging in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, after she was pulled over for a traffic stop.

Others remembered in the work include Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and Emmet Till.

Recalling the early support of African-American legislators for Japanese-American redress and reparations in the 1980s, Jang continued, "It is important to continue to support black/Asian alliances with other people of color and white progressives to form a broad coalition as we celebrate Black History Month and memorialize Day of Remembrance [Feb. 19, the anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066] for Japanese Americans."

The Jon Jangtet will perform Jon Jang's "Cryin' for America! (Black Lives Matter)" for its world premiere, June 2017. Photo by Bob Hsiang

Following performances last year of "Cryin' in America" as a work in progress, the world premiere will be performed by Jang, Kemp, and the Jon Jangtet Jang's music group at the Joe Henderson Lab at the SFJAZZ Center on June 18.

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Composer Jon Jang 'Can't Stop Cryin' for America' in New Black Lives Matter Tribute - NBCNews.com

Small screen, big issues: Sanaa Lathan in Shots Fired, left, and Austin P McKenzie in When We Rise. Composite: Fox via Getty images/Allstar/Warner Bros

On a reputable college campus, a young undergrad comes forward and names multiple star football players as her rapists. A scandal instantly erupts, complete with media dressing down the university administration, coaches confessing to cover-ups, and the survivors name dragged through the muck. Its a regrettably familiar story, but for once, its not the latest above-the-fold headline from the daily news; its called Controversy, and it may appear on Foxs programming schedule sometime soon.

Fox ordered the pilot just last month and cast Whiplash actor Austin Stowell last week, marking the latest in a string of big four network series with concepts built around hot-button issues. This week sees the premiere of When We Rise on ABC, a well-pedigreed docudrama series about the fight for queer rights from Milk writer and LGBT advocate Dustin Lance Black, with additional star power from Guy Pearce and Whoopi Goldberg, to name just two of the ensemble. Fox tackles Black Lives Matter and the police violence epidemic next month with Shots Fired, a 10-part miniseries about a North Carolina town rocked by a racially charged shooting. ABCs Black-ish has consistently engaged with the uglier aspects of the black experience in America, and touched a nerve last year with an episode that also dealt with police brutality on black bodies. In an era of safe spaces, network TVs preparing for some difficult discussions.

Ever since HBO declared themselves separate from TV, premium cable has been the province of the bold and the envelope-pushing. Its not as if the major networks are only waking up to the notion of socially conscious writing now Norman Lear built an empire around shows willing to speak to the most pressing matters of his day, from race relations on Sanford and Son to abortion on Maude. But without the content restrictions of the major networks and their fickle advertisers, shows on HBO and Showtime could more freely explore such thorny subjects. On networks, they were usually constrained to very special episodes, where they could be handled in a contained, often overtly preachy capacity. Law and Order: SVU, for instance, has made a habit of ripping their plotlines from headlines. When they ran their Black Lives Matter episode in October 2015, however, audiences reacted negatively to the shows cursory treatment of its sensitive material.

In this era of social unrest, audiences have begun to demand art that speaks more frankly and directly to major concerns. Programs such as When We Rise and Shots Fired, as well as some shows infiltrating basic cable (Ryan Murphy recently announced that the next season of American Horror Story would detail the waking nightmare of the 2016 presidential election), foreground their issues instead of writing around them. As much as network offerings have touched upon the major crises of their time, thats been the full extent touching upon, and little more. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter about Black-ishs Black Lives Matter episode, creator Kenya Barris said: Well, my hopes are that it starts a great conversation and, at the same time, makes people laugh and think. My fear is: I dont what to piss anyone off. I dont want to politicize the show Its politically adjacent.

With a run time beyond a single episode and a firmer commitment to their causes, this upcoming wave of issue-driven series will be able to actually have the conversations that other shows aim to start. Any subject worth delving into contains far more complexity and nuance than could be conceivably squeezed into a half-hour, and these new shows can cover a wider breadth of discourse. Dustin Lance Black expressed the heightened ambition of When We Rise in a recent interview with the New York Times, saying: We did not create this series for half a nation. I believe that most Americans, including Americans who voted for Donald Trump, will fall in love with these real-life families and absolutely relate to their stories when they tune in We are in a period of backlash right now. I would give anything for this to be less topical. But this series shows [queer] history is a pendulum, not a straight line.

Partisan times call for television unafraid to make a principled stand, and the box-office success of politically charged films such as Hidden Figures suggests that there may be a little money in it too. What executives once considered too touchy for the broad platform of network TV, viewers have now declared too vital to go unremarked upon. Perhaps audiences have grown more daring, or theyre just tired of the mealy-mouthed talk-arounds filling their airwaves. Either way, network TV the most popular, readily accessible art form has doubled down on its utility as a public forum. Bring the burning questions of the day home, and they can no longer be ignored.

Visit link:
From gay rights to Black Lives Matter: why network TV suddenly got serious - The Guardian

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV)

Police called to break up a bus brawl are now being condemned by activists more than a week after a video of the confrontation spread through social media.

Those with the Black Lives Matter group voiced their concerns at the Charleston County School Board meeting Monday night. They said its an issue they wont see quietly fade away.

They questioned the need for police interference when schools already have resource officers and administration.

How officers are supposed to de-escalate fights between children, we would like to know if officers are even trained to work with school-aged children, said one protester.

Any bus incident that I had been in attendance to growing up never resulted in police interference, said one woman who used to ride the school bus.

The School Board heard their voices.

Questions and answers about the roles of both the resource officers in our schools and police officers when it comes to the safety of our children, need to be addressed and its very healthy to have that dialog, said Dr. Gerrita Postlewait.

School Board Chair Kate Darby said district resource officers are trained to de-escalate and handle incidents with children. But since the school bus fight was off-campus,North Charleston police were called to the scene.

The bus driver did what the bus driver thought they needed to do to keep the safety of the children on the bus, said Darby.

Darby said the school board has no authority over this particular matter, but said they welcome the input.

What we can do is we can make recommendations on how we handle things within the schools, how we work with the school resource officers, what kind of training we want resource officers to have, Darby said.

Last week,leaders with the National Action Network came out in support of law enforcement after reviewing the bus video. Mayor Keith Summey also said he stands by the officers' actions.

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Black Lives Matter confront school board over bus brawl incident in North Charleston - ABC NEWS 4