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Justin Gomez, a Bay Area native and creator of the Black Lives Matter mural that gained national attention in Martinez, spoke to Diablo Valley College students on Mar. 7 about the events that led to the mural, how it went viral across the internet and how the experience affected his personal life.

In 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement surged in popularity following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, along with other police killings of Black people. Protests erupted across the nation, but Gomez wanted to do something different to make his voice heard.

I had found myself needing to do something, he said. Theres just a feeling of hopelessness and anxiety. And as someone who is a person of color, [I was] thinking about what this moment means for me.

Those feelings prompted him to send a text message call-to-action to 12 people, suggesting they speak out against police brutality and shut down the Martinez Farmers Market with a peaceful protest. More than 300 people showed up for the protest. But that was just the beginning.

White supremacy recruitment flyers were soon posted around Martinez in the weeks following the protest. Seeing the flyers made Gomez upset, but it also motivated him to do something more than just protest, he said. So he reached out to the City of Martinez, which co-signed an agreement to establish a temporary Black Lives Matter mural. On the 4th of July, communities came together and painted a block-long mural that read Black Lives Matter on the streets of Martinez.

But not even one hour after the murals completion, a Trump-supporting couple began to paint over the BLM mural with black paint. The couple hurled verbal abuse at the people who were recording their actions with cell phones, telling them to stop. The mural would be restored by the end of the day, but tensions didnt stop there. The video of the couple went viral, as celebrities and mainstream news outlets reposted the clip. As a result, the District Attorneys office charged the couple with a hate crime.

Within 48 hours I was on the phone with the New York Times and the Washington Post, which felt very surreal, Gomez said. For several days I was on standby with producers from CNN to do a story with Don Lemon.

As the creator of the mural, Gomez also came under direct attack from angered residents. He received many threats some 33 in all including from people photographing his residence. After I started getting all these screenshots sent to me, Im looking at my two small children and my partner and we dont feel safe at our home our home address was published online, he said. Some of Gomezs neighbors experienced harassment as well.

Gomez went online and told people what was happening to him and his family. Close friends and the community then came together to spend time with his family, watching out for them to make sure they remained safe. Finally, to lighten the weight of events and to show that the community would not be intimidated, Gomez helped organize another peaceful protest in the city.

In the aftermath, Gomez said, he felt the City of Martinez had failed in its duty to protect his family despite the numerous threats he was receiving. In terms [of] the city council, there was a complete, total failure of the elected leadership, said Gomez.

The pair of vandals that targeted the BLM mural were ultimately charged and chose to go to trial, but the case has been delayed due to the pandemic. The couple faces other charges as well.

The mural, which was always intended to be temporary, has since been removed. Now, Gomez said, Martinez city officials are trying to come up with a similar project that can be permanent to spread the same message of racial justice.

Theres definitely a desire to recreate something like that somewhere in city space where we can affirm the identities of community members of color here in Martinez.

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How a Black Lives Matter Mural in Martinez Went Viral and Changed Justin Gomez's Life - The Inquirer

The London Metropolitan Police have come under fire under they strip-searched a 15-year-old Black student at her school.

The incident took place at her school in Hackney, East London. Child Q was accused by a teacher of having marijuana in her possession. The teacher reported her and police then strip-searched her without an appropriate adult being present or her mother being contacted.

She was menstruating at the time. No contraband was found in her possession.

Someone walked into the school, where I was supposed to feel safe, took me away from the people who were supposed to protect me and stripped me naked, while on my period, Child Q, said in a statement via her attorney. I cant go a single day without wanting to scream, shout, cry or just give up. I dont know if Im going to feel normal again. But I do know this cant happen to anyone else, ever again.

So theyre doing a March for #ChildQ but theyre marching for black boys and black girls. This is what irritates me. Im not denying what black boys go through in schools, but Child Q is a black girl. And what happened to her is gendered issue rooted in misogynoir.. [cont.] pretty black cute (@afrorckprincess) March 17, 2022

Her attorney also released her own statement: It is unlikely that Child Q would have been treated in this humiliating and degrading way had she not been Black. Child Q and her family are hopeful that the recommendations of the review panel will be carefully considered and implemented so that another child is not exposed to a similar traumatic experience.

Before the strip-search, officers searched the childs bag, blazer, scarf and shoes.

The Independent Office is investigating the case for Police Conduct (IOPC). All three officers are under investigation for potential disciplinary offenses over how Child Q was treated.

My heart breaks for Child Q and her family. Shame on her school and the @metpoliceuk who failed her, abused her & traumatised her. Wishing healing for her and FULL accountability of every adult responsible for this trauma inflicted upon her.

A spokesperson for Black Lives Matter UK expressed its disgust over the incident: Once again, we are reminded of the fact that the police are the perpetrators and there are no lengths they wouldnt go to inflict harm on vulnerable people.

The horrific strip search of a Black girl at school is a clear example of why police should not be in places of education. While politicians have recently called for more police officers to be stationed in schools across the capital, children are being traumatized in spaces that should be safe.

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'Black Lives Matter' Condemns Police After 15-Year-Old Black Girl Is Strip-searched at School: 'Children Are Being Traumatized in Spaces That Should...

The Met alone accounted for 5.2m of the 18m spend over six years nearly a third of the entire national total.

The findings have sparked alarm among campaigners, who point to the Mets history of using undercover cops to target peaceful activists groups, some of whom have formed romantic relationships and even had children with the people they are surveilling.

Police in Wales were secretly recorded last year trying to recruit a Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist to be an informant.

Lowri Davies, who was one of the organisers for Swansea BLM group, accused the police of grooming to entice me into being an informant, adding: I was asked to be an informant under manipulative false pretences, and asked questions that made me fear for my safety as well as the safety of my loved ones. Last month, Swansea BLM group decided to close down, citing the attempted recruitment as one of the reasons.

Last July, a former police officer turned environmental campaigner claimed the Met tried to recruit him to spy on Extinction Rebellion.

And in January, a tribunal ordered the Met and the National Police Chiefs Council to pay 229,000 in compensation to an environmental activist who was deceived into having a sexual relationship with an undercover officer. An inquiry into undercover policing is ongoing.

Using FOI requests, openDemocracy asked the UKs 48 police forces how much they had spent on informants since 2015, including on informants within BLM and green groups.

Of the 32 police forces that disclosed figures, Kent Police, Thames Valley Police, West Midlands Police, Police Scotland and Police Service of Northern Ireland were among the biggest spenders.

Kevin Blowe from the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) told openDemocracy: Policing's knee-jerk response to any question about its intelligence capabilities is always to 'neither confirm nor deny'. However the detail behind these figures matter

We know national units are particularly interested in new and emerging campaigns and there is evidence this has recently included Black Lives Matter campaigners, not least because the policing's own inspectorate body has said so.

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Police refuse to say if Black Lives Matter targeted as forces spend 18m on informants - Open Democracy

Over the past 20 years, historians interest in Black Power has grown. However, many historiographical gaps remain. A new research group, which will officially start in May, aims to bridge some of them. To better understand its influence on Americas democracy and the values associated with it, the researchers want to take a fresh look at the Black Power movement.

The 1960s and 1970s had profound implications for debates on race and democracy and continue to do so today. In this context, we want to examine the lesser known Black Power groups as well as neglected topics and, in this way, illustrate the struggle between competing ideals of US democracy and their long-term ramifications, explains Professor Simon Wendt. The prime intention is to combine gender, social, intellectual and political history. What effect did the Black Power movements anti-racist struggle have on interpretations of what constitutes a just and democratic society?

The research group is primarily composed of three doctoral projects. One of these projects focuses on the tensions between the Black Power and Gay Liberation movements and how they collaborated. To what extent did different perceptions of what constitutes a just and democratic nation help or hinder the two movements quest for full equality? Another project investigates the arguments of critics of the Black Power movement in the 1960s and 1970s to find out how debates about racism left their imprint on various social groups understanding of US democracy. The third project is the first study of the history of the National Black United Front (NBUF), an African American organisation that was founded in 1980 in New York by former Black Power activists. The central question here is whether and how the understanding of US democracy and the tactics of the African American freedom struggle have evolved following the demise of the Black Power movement. Two additional studies complement the three subprojects: an ongoing doctoral dissertation looks at how religion shaped the Black Power movement. The second study aims to condense the deluge of post-1945 historical studies on African American activism into a general history of the Black Power movement. Were expecting to have five monographs by the end of the funding period, all of which will make important contributions to the study of the Black Power movement and US democracy, says Wendt. Only by knowing the history of this movement, he adds, can we understand Black Lives Matter today.

The research group will receive funding of around 180,000 from the Gerda Henkel Foundation up until 2025.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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The roots of #BlackLivesMatter - EurekAlert

Candace Owens just doesnt know when to quit.

The professional troll took to Twitter last week to cry about the way Russians are being treated in America over their Invasion of Ukraine.

In her moronic tweet, she called out leaders and government officials who have been critical of Putin and his agenda in Ukraine. Owens then actually had the nerve to draw comparisons with Russian outrage to the Black Lives Matter movement calling it hysteria.

Absolutely appalling the way Russians are being treated in America and abroad, tweeted Owens. That our leaders and government institutions are allowing forand at times calling for this discrimination following their global black lives matter hysteria is quite telling.

Russian lives matter.

Really, Russian lives matter? So Owens is just going to keep misappropriating that phrase years later after shes been told thousands of times how destructive it is? Arent Black lives devalued enough?

First off, keep Black Lives Matters name out of your mouth. Using a war in Ukraine as a sad excuse to continue to take jabs at BLM is disgraceful. The lives of black men, women, and children have no place in right-wing talking points to serve a fascist point of view.

BLM has nothing to do with Owens well-documented pro-Russian stance. Just last month she took to Twitter to criticize America for the conflict in Ukraine.

I suggest every American who wants to know whats *actually* going on in Russia and Ukraine, read this transcript of Putins address, she tweeted. As Ive said for a month NATO (under direction from the United States) is violating previous agreements and expanding eastward. WE are at fault.

Its funny conservatives will claim to be American First but blame America for a Russian invasion that has been on Putins agenda for decades.

Its obvious Americans are on the side of Ukrainians. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken the day before Russian invaded Ukraine found that 69% of Americans polled believed the United States should continue economic sanctions against Putin and Russia. Once again, Ms. Owens is spinning a false narrative from the wrong side of history.

With death tolls climbing in Ukraine, there is no telling how far Putin will take this war. But one thing is for sure, Candace Owens will use any opportunity imaginable to troll from the dark side.

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Pro-Russian Troll Candace Owens Uses Ukraine Invasion To Take Jabs At Black Lives Matter - NewsOne