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The Army has reversed a reprimand a Colorado National Guard officer received after attending a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. Capt. Alan Kennedy, a white ally to the movement, wore civilian clothing as he filmed police tear gassing crowds in Denver. Later, he wrote op-eds about his experiences and was disciplined by commanders.

In a letter dated Jan. 3, 2022, the Army Suitability Evaluation Board sided with Kennedy and ordered that the reprimand and associated disciplinary documents, which can be a barrier to career advancement, be removed from his records.

It shouldn't take a year and a half, but this is a tremendous victory for the First Amendment and the right to protest and the right to write op-eds, Kennedy told KUNC Wednesday.

The Army board noted that Kennedy was not in uniform or on duty when he protested.

After his op-ed accusing police of firing tear gas without provocation appeared in The Denver Post, Kennedy was summoned before commanders and told that he was flagged for an investigation. Later, he was reprimanded because he did not receive approval for the wording of a disclaimer that appeared at the bottom of the commentary.

Kennedy, a military attorney, citing documents that showed commanders complaining about much more than the disclaimer, appealed, but the Colorado National Guard declined it, adding concerns, like what if Kennedy had been arrested while protesting or accused of rioting.

Kennedy then turned to the Army board and made a series of arguments, including that the language of Colorado National Guard officers during the process showed bias. One general described Black Lives Matter protests as "inherently violent, while a colonel characterized protests as something that "begin peacefully and devolve into violent clashes with the police." Kennedy argued that such statements were evidence commanders were seeking to restrict his freedom of expression.

The Army board concluded Kennedy provided clear and convincing evidence to show reprimands were inaccurate, unjust, or otherwise flawed.

The reason I feel so strongly about this is because it is because you don't lose all of your constitutional rights simply because you take an oath to support and defend the Constitution, Kennedy said.

Kennedy said the Army boards decision bodes well for his larger fight a lawsuit in Denver federal court that is seeking to overturn the portion of Defense Department Instruction 1325.06 that his commanders cited in his reprimand. Enclosure 3, Paragraph 6 (d) bars troops from participating in off-base demonstrations for several reasons, including whether violence is likely to result. Kennedy is adamant that the violence he filmed in Denver in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protest came from police.

Despite this decision, it is still in effect, Kennedy said. So it's really important that the case continues because the Department of Defense has not withdrawn this regulation.

The Army boards decision also opens the door for Kennedy to be considered for promotion in the Colorado National Guard. That is now a moot point as Kennedy has moved to Virginia, where he works as a lecturer in public policy at William & Mary, and is in the process of transferring to the Army Reserve as a captain.

Others in the military have spoken out about race after the death of George Floyd, including Charles Q. Brown, at the time a top Black general who later became the Air Forces chief of staff.

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Army sides with Colorado National Guard officer reprimanded for attending Black Lives Matter protests - KUNC

Zac Kriegman had the ideal rsum for the professional-managerial class: a bachelors in economics from Michigan and a J.D. from Harvard and years of experience with high-tech startups, a white-shoe law firm, and an econometrics research consultancy. He then spent six years at Thomson Reuters Corporation, the international media conglomerate, spearheading the companys efforts on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced software engineering. By the beginning of 2020, Kriegman had assumed the title of Director of Data Science and was leading a team tasked with implementing deep learning throughout the organization.

But within a few months, this would all collapse. A chain of eventsbeginning with the death of George Floyd and culminating with a statistical analysis of Black Lives Matters claimswould turn the 44-year-old data scientists life upside-down. By June 2020, as riots raged across the country, Kriegman would be locked out of Reuterss servers, denounced by his colleagues, and fired by email. Kriegman had committed an unpardonable offense: he directly criticized the Black Lives Matter movement in the companys internal communications forum, debunked Reuterss own biased reporting, and violated a corporate taboo. Driven by what he called a moral obligation to speak out, Kriegman refused to celebrate unquestioningly the BLM narrative and his companys diversity and inclusion programming; to the contrary, he argued that Reuters was exhibiting significant left-wing bias in the newsroom and that the ongoing BLM protests, riots, and calls to defund the police would wreak havoc on minority communities. Week after week, Kriegman felt increasingly disillusioned by the Thomson Reuters line. Finally, on the first Tuesday in May 2021, he posted a long, data-intensive critique of BLMs and his companys hypocrisy. He was sent to Human Resources and Diversity & Inclusion for the chance to reform his thoughts.

He refusedso they fired him.

I spoke with Kriegman just before Thanksgiving via Zoom. He dialed in from a small, cluttered room in his Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts home, where he lives with his wife and three children. He described his feeling of alienation, then frustration, then moral outrage, as he watched his Reuters colleagues behavior following the death of George Floyd. He described the company as a blue bubble, where people were constantly celebrating Black Lives Matter, where it was assumed that everyone was on board.

Like many corporations in the United States in 2020, Reuters went through a quiet revolution in human resources and diversity and inclusion. The company launched a series of lectures and training programs, ranging from a study of Kimberl Crenshaws intersectionality theory to an interactive panel called Lets Talk About Race to a keynote presentation on unlocking the power of diversity. In honor of Floyd, the company asked employees to participate in a 21-Day Racial Equity Habit-Building Challenge, which promoted race-based reparations payments, academic articles on critical race theory, and instructions on how to be a better white person.

Some of the materials were patronizing and outright racist. One resource told Reuters employees that their black colleagues are confused and scared, barely able to show up to work, and feel pressured to take the personal trauma we all know to be true and tuck it away to protect white people, who cannot understand anything beyond their own whiteness. The proper etiquette, according to a subsequent lesson, is for white employees to let themselves get called out by their minority colleagues and then respond with automatic contrition: I believe you; I recognize that I have work to do; I apologize, Im going to do better. The ultimate solution is for whites to admit complicity in systemic racism and repent for their collective guilt. White people built this system. White people control this system, reads a module from self-described wypipologist Michael Harriot. It is white people who have tacitly agreed to perpetuate white supremacy throughout Americas history. It is you who must confront your racist friends, coworkers, and relatives. You have to cure your country of this disease. The sickness is not ours.

Kriegman came to believe that the companys blue bubble had created a significant bias in the companys news reporting. Reuters is not having the internal discussions about the facts and the research, and theyre not letting that shape how they present the news to people. I think theyve adopted a perspective and theyre unwilling to examine that perspective, even internally, and thats shaping everything that they write, Kriegman said. Consequently, Reuters adopted a narrative that promotes a nave, left-wing narrative about Black Lives Matter and fails to provide accurate contextwhich is particularly egregious because, unlike obviously left-leaning outlets such as the New York Times, Reuters has a reputation as a source of objective news reporting.

A review of Reuters coverage over the spring and summer of 2020 confirms Kriegmans interpretation. Though early articles covering the first days of the chaos in Minneapolis were straightforward about the violenceProtests, looting erupt in Minneapolis over racially charged killing by police, reads one headlineReuterss coverage eventually seemed like it had been processed to add ideology and euphemism. Beginning in the summer and continuing over the course of the year, the newswires reporting adopted the BLM narrative in substance and style. The stories framed the unrest as a a new national reckoning about racial injustice and described the protests as mostly peaceful or largely peaceful, despite widespread violence, looting, and crime. More than 93% of recent demonstrations connected to Black Lives Matter were peaceful, Reuters insisted, even as rioters caused up to $2 billion in property damage across the country. The companys news reporters adopted the syntax of BLM activists. A May 8 story opened with the familiar say their names recitation, ignoring the fact that the first named individual, for example, had attacked a police officer, who was subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing: Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Freddie Gray. Their names are seared into Americans memories, egregious examples of lethal police violence that stirred protests and prompted big payouts to the victims families. Even as Seattles infamous Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone descended into lawlessness and saw the brutal murder of two black teenagers, the newswires headlines downplayed the destruction, claiming that the Seattle protests were diminished but not dismantled.

Reuterss data-based reporting and fact checks were also biased, always in favor of the BLM interpretations. One of the wire services special reports claims that a growing body of research supports the perception that police unfairly target Black Americans. They are more likely to be stopped, searched and arrested than their white compatriots. They also are more likely to be killed by police. In the 4,600-word story, Reuters gives only two short paragraphs to a dissenting viewpoint, then quickly dismisses it to advance the argument. In other stories, Reuters claims without evidence that Supreme Court protection of qualified immunity is rooted in racism, hosts an exclusively left-leaning panel on criminal-justice reform that uncritically promotes policies such as defund the police, and suggests that hundreds of unjustified police killings of black men fail to win victims any redress, without providing facts to substantiate the claim.

The companys data reporting consistently re-contextualized accurate information about racial violence and policing in order to align with Black Lives Matter rhetoric. In a fact check of a social media post that claimed whites are more likely to be killed by blacks than blacks are to be killed by whites, Reuters concedes that this is factually accurate but labels the post misleadingin part because it doesnt show that police kill black people at a higher rate than their share of the overall population, a completely unrelated claim. Likewise, when President Donald Trump accurately pointed out that police officers kill more white people than black people each year, Reuters immediately published a story reframing the narrative. Though the report admitted that half of people killed by police are white, the writers pushed the line that Black Americans are shot at a disproportionate rate and then used a quotation from the American Civil Liberties Union to paint the president as a racist.

Kriegmans decision to question his companys narrative wasnt sudden or impulsive. As he watched the riots and the news coverage unfold, he found himself increasingly filled with doubt and anxiety. He decided to take two monthsleave from Thomson Reuters in order to grapple with the statistical and ethical implications of the companys reporting on the riots and the Black Lives Matter movement. I did look through Reuterss news, and it was concerning to me that a lot of the same issues that I was seeing in other media outlets seemed to be replicated in Reuterss news, where they were reporting favorably about Black Lives Matter protests without giving any context to the claims that were being made at those protests [and] without giving any context about the Ferguson effect and how police pulling back on their proactive policing has been pretty clearly linked to a dramatic increase in murders, Kriegman told me. At a certain point, it just feels like a moral obligation to speak out when something thats having such a devastating impact is being celebrated so widely, especially in a news company where the perspective thats celebrated is having such a big impact externally.

During his leave, Kriegman used his skills as a data scientist to conduct a careful statistical investigation comparing BLMs claims on race, violence, and policing with the hard evidence from a range of academic and governmental sources. The result: a 12,000-word essay, titled BLM is Anti-Black Systemic Racism, that called into question the entire sequence of claims by the Black Lives Matter movement and echoed by the Reuters news team. I believe the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement arose out of a passionate desire to protect black people from racism and to move our whole society towards healing from a legacy of centuries of brutal oppression, Kriegman wrote in the introduction. Unfortunately, over the past few years I have grown more and more concerned about the damage that the movement is doing to many low-income black communities. I have avidly followed the research on the movement and its impacts, which has led me, inexorably, to the conclusion that the claim at the heart of the movement, that police more readily shoot black people, is false and likely responsible for thousands of black people being murdered in the most disadvantaged communities in the country. Thomson Reuters, Kriegman continued, has a special obligation to resist simplistic narratives that are not based in facts and evidence, especially when those narratives are having such a profoundly negative impact on minority or marginalized groups.

Kriegmans essay focuses on debunking what he sees as the three key claims of BLM activists and their media supporters: that police officers kill blacks disproportionately, that law enforcement over-polices black neighborhoods, and that policies such as defund the police will reduce violence. First, Kriegman writes that the narrative about police officers systematically hunting and killing blacks is not supported by the evidence. For instance, in 2020 there were 457 whites shot and killed by police, compared to 243 blacks. Of those, 24 of the whites killed were unarmed compared to 18 blacks, he writes, citing the Washington Post database of police shootings. And though the number of blacks killed might be disproportionate compared with the percentage of blacks in the overall population, it is not disproportionate to the level of violent crime committed by black citizens. Depending on the type of violent crime, whites either commit a slightly greater (non-fatal crimes) or slightly smaller (fatal, and serious non-fatal crimes) percentage of the total violent crime than blacks, but in all cases roughly in the same ballpark, Kriegman writes. However, according to the Justice Departments National Crime Victimization Survey data, there are many more whites killed by police, even though whites account for a similar absolute number of violent offenders. Thus, if the number of potentially violent encounters with police reflects the violent crime rates, then the raw statistics suggest that there is actually a slight anti-white bias in police applications of lethal force. To round out his case, Kriegman concludes with a study by Harvards Roland Fryer, which, according to Fryer, didnt find evidence for anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparity in police use of force across all shootings, and, if anything, found anti-White disparities when controlling for race-specific crime.

Next, Kriegman takes up over-policing. Black Lives Matter activists and Reuters reporters had pushed the idea that police officers focus disproportionate attention on black neighborhoods and, because of deep-seated racial bias, are more likely to stop, search, and arrest black Americans than their white compatriots. While this might be true on its face, Kriegman writes, it misses the appropriate context: black neighborhoods are significantly more violent than white neighborhoods. If police want to reduce violent crime, they must spend more time in the places where violent crime occurs. Kriegman points out to his colleagues in Thomson Reuterss Boston office that the reason that police have more confrontations in predominantly black neighborhoods in Boston is because that is where the great bulk of violent crime is occurring, with nearly all the annual murders happening in predominantly black neighborhoods such as Dorchester and Roxburyfar from the homes and offices of his colleagues in the professional-managerial class at Reuters. And Boston is hardly an outlier. According to Kriegman, the most rigorous statistical analyses demonstrate that violent-crime rates and policing are, in fact, highly correlated and proportionate. He quotes a Justice Department report which found that for nonfatal violent crimes that victims said were reported to police, whites accounted for 48% of offenders and 46% of arrestees. Blacks accounted for 35% of offenders and 33% of arrestees. Asians accounted for 2% of offenders and 1% of arrestees. None of these differences between the percentage of offenders and the percentage of arrestees of a given race were statistically significant.

Finally, Kriegman addresses the policy implications of de-policing. Contrary to Reuterss sometimes glowing coverage of the defund the police movement, Kriegman makes the case that de-policing, whether it occurs because of the Ferguson Effect or because of deliberate policy choices, has led to disaster for black communities. His argument, building on the work of City Journals Heather Mac Donald, follows this logic: after high-profile police-involved killings, such as those involving Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Black Lives Matter movement and the media have demonized police departments and caused many officers to reduce proactive policing measures and to pull back from situations out of fear that they might need to use force. The result, according to data from a range of academic literature, is an increase in crime and violence. Kriegman again cites Fryer, who concluded that the Ferguson Effect led to 900 excess murders in five cities he considered, and the University of Utahs Paul G. Cassell, who found that the Minneapolis Effect led to 1,520 excess murders in the United States. Thus, BLMs signature policy solutiondefund the policewould likely lead to incredible carnage in black communities.

Kriegman hoped that his essay would help his colleagues move beyond the blue bubble and see how devastating Black Lives Matter has been to black communities, which would in turn help them to do more accurate and responsible journalism. Returning from leave, he was ready to share his research with his colleagues at Thomson Reuters. I didnt know what to expect going into it, but I expected the reaction to be intense, Kriegman says. And it was. The essay dropped like a bomb on Reuterss internal discussion forum, called The Hub. According to Kriegman, content moderators immediately took down the post and called in a team of HR and communications professionals to manage the situation. They told Kriegman that they were reviewing the document but, according to Kriegman, failed to provide specific objections to what he wrote. The essay, while challenging the dominant left-wing culture at Thomson Reuters, made a reasoned, dispassionate case based on rigorous evidenceprecisely what a hard news organization should prioritize internally. Finally, after Kriegman inquired multiple times about the companys decision to remove the post, senior human resources director Melissa Budde told him that the post was too antagonistic and provocative and that he needed to work with Cristina Juvier, head of diversity and inclusion, if he wanted to pursue the matter further.

Over the next two weeks, Kriegman went through a gauntlet of calls, meetings, and chat conversations, hoping that he could revise the essay to the satisfaction of the various parties. In all these conversations, Kriegman maintains, the human resources and diversity-and-inclusion employees never offered substantive critique of his piece; they always retreated to vague concerns about tone and the belief that it would offend BLM supporters within the company. The transcripts of the calls and emails from May 4 and May 27, 2021, show a steady escalation of hostilities. Kriegman insisted that he be allowed to repost the essay. Two of his colleagues warned him that he was potentially heading toward disaster; another, according to Kriegman, screamed that he should fucking do [his] job instead of spending time fighting about Black Lives Matter. (None of the Reuters employees returned a request for comment.)

On May 28, after incorporating some of the feedback on tone from human resources, Kriegman reposted his essay under a new title: BLM Spreads Falsehoods That Have Led to the Murders of Thousands of Black People in the Most Disadvantaged Communities. This time, the moderators at The Hub let it stay up. Kriegman considered this a victoryand then the comments started flooding in. They began politely, but soon descended into open hostility. Wow, this is incredibly inappropriate for a professional website, wrote commercial transactions intern Kasia Guzior. Your premise in the what about both sides sort of question youre asking here is that its a political question. That premise is incorrect; its a human rights issue . . . Statistics and facts have been used to support racist actions for at least all of US history, said tax analyst Abbie Gentry. The FBI put out an article (look it up) a couple of years ago, stating that Law Enforcement organizations have been infiltrated by white supremacists the likes of the KKK. If some law enforcement officers are white supremacist Klan members, is it a surprise when they target and kill disadvantaged black people? asked another commenter. As a white person I am embarrassed and ashamed for you. We, as white folks, should NEVER presume to speak for people of colorwhich is what youve chosen to do, concluded premier digital marketing strategist Joanne Fleming. White folks trying to help by whitesplaining how and why a movement that does not belong to us is harming people of color only does further harm.

Five days later, Thomson Reuters made the decision permanently to remove the post from the companys internal servers. Kriegman accused his colleagues of creating a hostile work environment and attempted to complain to that effect on the discussion board; he was then suspended from The Hub and locked out of email and other communications platforms. In a final, grand, and perhaps self-immolating gesture, Kriegman personally emailed Thomson Reuterss top executives, complaining about the companys bias and hostility toward his criticism of Black Lives Matter. And then they went ahead and fired me, Kriegman told me. I was expecting it. It didnt come as a great surprise that they ended up firing me. The final email from Melissa Budde hit with a thud: The manner in which youve conducted yourself in recent weeks does not align with our expectations for you as a leader within Thomson Reuters, she wrote. It was over. Six years as a data scientist, dozens of high-profile projectsall set ablaze out of a deep frustration about the falsehoods Kriegman felt were ruining the newsroom.

More than half a year after his firing, Kriegman is reflecting. He assures me that he and his family are in a comfortable financial situation, thanks to some early investments in Bitcoin and tech stocks. I have three kids, and Ill be completely honest. I would not have headed down this road if I thought it was going to have a devastating impact on my family. I was expecting that this would be one of the possibilities. . . . I was hoping for a different possibility, but I certainly knew that this was a chance. Through a Zoom window, he comes across as rational, intelligent, and mathematically minded, if somewhat lacking in social graces. Perhaps he was nave to believe that data and evidence would convince his colleagues that they were in the grip of a false narrative; perhaps he failed to understand that politics is not a rational science and that his colleagues would perceive his essay as a flagrant transgression. When I ask him how he feels after the ordeal, he laughs: You want me to talk about my emotions? I cant even talk about my emotions to my wife.

Still, Kriegman is genuine in his concern and sees a broader lesson in his experience. Im extremely disturbed by whats happening in our country, he says. Its absolutely clear that in our major news organizations, people are not discussing these issues openly. They cant afford to. Theyll be fired. He believes that critical race ideologies, adopted wholesale by the professional-managerial class, have become entrenched within American institutions. He tells me that the new racial orthodoxy is slowly creeping into every aspect of daily life, from the Reuters newsroom to his sons elementary school classroom, which has been teaching a book called Race Cars, a story depicting a committee of white race cars that conspires to make sure no black cars win the big race. Its absolutely poisonous to the country, he says.

Was it worth it? I feel proud of what I did, but I dont feel satisfied that I had a big impact within the company, Kriegman says. I dont think that it changed anything. He lost his job at Reuters, but more than that, he lost almost all his friends there, too. My closest friends have abandoned our friendships, he says. Only two of the people that Id actually worked with reached out to me and said, How are you doing? And neither of them were the people that I was closest with. Kriegman is now contemplating his next steps. He can afford to take some time away from work, but he fears that his once-golden rsum has sustained damage. I suspect that if Im honest about how I left my last job, it would be difficult to ever find another job, he tells me.

Kriegman follows in the footsteps of people like James Damore, Bari Weiss, Nellie Bowles, Jodi Shaw, and Paul Rossi, who found themselves unable to live honestly within the confines of Americas elite institutions. Like those other dissenters, he has immense talents that he could apply to the cultural and political problems facing our country. I hope that he does so. I also hope that one day, his former colleagues at Reuters see that, while Kriegman might have been a little abrasive, he was ultimately right. If the wire services continue to promote myths about race, violence, and policing, they will inflict grave harm on their reputations for fairness; they will also help unleash a new wave of destruction in Americas poorest and most vulnerable neighborhoods.

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Sign up for his newsletter here.

Link:
BLM, Reuters, and the Price of Dissent - City Journal

CHICAGO Pastor Corey Brooks asked a question many are too afraid to ask: "What has Black Lives Matter done for our community?"

On the 44th day of his 100-day rooftop vigil, the pastor was visited by Dumisani Washington, CEO of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, and Darwin Jiles Jr., former ethnic vice chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.

The men discussed Black Lives Matter and the organizations impact on the Black community in America, especially in areas of high crime like the South Side of Chicago.

"I've been questioned about my not-for-profit doing what we do right here on O-Block in Chicago," the pastor said. "The one question that stands out in my mind that I woke up thinking about is: What has Black Lives Matter done for our community?"

ELI STEELE: WORKING AMERICAN FIGHTS PANDEMIC, SUPPLY CHAIN AND INFLATION TO KEEP BUSINESS ALIVE

Washington jumped in to answer the pastors question.

"You can use the issue of bringing some awareness to some of these very high-profile situations, like in Ferguson, that type of thing, but as a whole, my answer to that question is not very much," he said. "Not only that, there has been some detriment where the Black community is concerned."

The pastor then turned to Jiles and asked: "Do feel like Black Lives Matter has used the Black community?"

"A slogan is good, but wheres the results?" Jiles responded. "What have you really impacted? What crisis issues have you helped solve?"

"I believe there are individuals who are very honest in their intentions, who are a part because, yes, they want to stand in solidarity with the Black community," he said, referring to BLM supporters.

"I think for Black people, we demand not only justice, but accountability for people who have used our struggle and our pain to profit and gain and politicize, but they're not helping criminal justice reform, they're not helping attack the issues of mass incarceration, the illiteracy issues in California," Jiles said. "We need real justice for us and accountability."

Brooks brought up a statement he heard from Shelby Steele, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, on the topic of Black Lives Matter.

"[Steele] said that Black Lives Matter sells a brand, a brand of innocence," Brooks said. "And they sell that brand of innocence to Whites."

That pastor reflected on what he and project H.O.O.D. sold to the public.

"I thought about that and I thought, Well, we sell hard work. We sell that the individual has to take responsibility and accountability for their life. We sell that racism is not the biggest problem that we face. We sell that capitalism is extremely important for us getting out of poverty.' That's what we sell," he said.

"Which brand do you think is more effective for what we're doing and needing in our community today?" he asked the two men.

Washington said: "Clearly it's the one that you just underscored at the end. That independent, that entrepreneurial, that industrial one."

"History has taught us that, more so than political power political power is fine to have but what's even more powerful is the capital, is the economic power," he continued. "Because economic power can dictate political power."

"But you can have political power and have no economic power, and you get vacuums in situations like we see all over the country right where politics is the issue Whats happening on the ground other than these positions that are being held?" Washington said.

Jiles added: "There's a proposal to eliminate a certain amount of school loan debt, and I understand, and I support that."

"But what is better?" he continued. "You being able to have enough money to not only pay off your own debt, but start a business and invest and you own and take full authority and control over your destiny or just basically let the government give you something that's going to cancel your debt but never actually put you in a position to give you free-market enterprise solutions?"

Brooks returned to the issue of Black Lives Matter.

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"From where I'm standing, there's a brand that tries to make White people feel guilty, tries to make them feel as if they need to support something so that they don't feel like they are racist," he said. "Im gonna tell you right off the bat, that's not my brand."

"I believe capitalism works. I believe individual responsibility works," the pastor continued. "I believe the dignity for having work, works. I believe that government will never solve our problems and come in and save us."

The pastor concluded by asking the public to help bring attention to the violence being perpetuated in Chicagos South Side and aid him in his effort to build a new community center he said will "help these young people transform their lives and transform this community."

DISCLOSURE: Shelby Steele is Eli Steele's father.

Follow along as Fox News checks in Pastor Corey Brooks each day with a new Rooftop Revelation.

For more information, please visitProject H.O.O.D.

Eli Steele is a documentary filmmaker and writer. His latest film is"What Killed Michael Brown?" Twitter:@Hebro_Steele.

Camera by Terrell Allen.

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Rooftop Revelations: What has Black Lives Matter done for our community? - Fox News

Editors Note: Caesar Alimsinya Atuire is a Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy and Classics Department at the University of Ghana, Legon. He is also a 2020 Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford. Dr. Atuires work draws from African and European philosophical traditions to reflect on normative issues in bioethics, health, and intercultural relations. He is co-editor of the volume Bioethics in Africa: Theories and Praxis. He has also lectured and published on epistemic decolonization in academia. Originally published as 21: INQUIRIES INTO ART, HISTORY, AND THE VISUAL #2-2020, pp. 449467 https://doi.org/10.11588/xxi.2020.2.76234

The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests have been accompanied by calls for the removal of statues of racists from public space. This has generated debate about the role of statues in the public sphere. I argue that statues are erected to represent a chosen narrative about history. The debate about the removal of statues is a controversy about history and how we relate to it. From this perspective, the Black Lives Matter movement is not a drive to remove or topple statues, but a call for an honest examination of systemic racism and the residual effects of slavery. This call can be a kairos to engage in a constructive dialogue about the societies we aspire to live in. The result of this dialogue, which includes a re-examination of dominant narratives, will decide which statues and monuments can occupy public space and represent our societies.

Premise

I begin this paper with a confession. I cannot be neutral in the Black Lives Matter conversation because mine is a black life and I would like it to matter. Nevertheless, as an academic philosopher, I can only try to be rational and possibly dispassionate.

The residual effects of the North Atlantic slave trade and its essentially racist framework have always been present in my life. My ethnicity, the Bulsa of Northern Ghana, is linked to the slave trade. The unity of the Bulsa as a distinct ethnic group came about when various clan and village leaders united to defend themselves and their families from the frequent attacks of slave raiders. The Feok Festival, celebrated by the Bulsa every year in December, affirms the Bulsa identity by commemorating and reenacting the defeat of Baabatu, the last notorious slave raider of the Upper East region of Ghana.1 The architecture of the Bulsa homes also bears witness to defence against human and livestock raiders. All domestic animals are kept within the courtyard of walled compounds, where, amidst the thatched roofs, there is always a flat-roofed terrace which serves among other things as an observation tower.

Growing up in the northern territories of Ghana, I was quite oblivious of racism. This changed when I left Ghana for the UK at the age of seventeen to continue my education. It was only then that I was made to become conscious of the weight of being black. Yet, apart from a few isolated incidents of being verbally and physically attacked because of the colour of my skin, the weight has been present principally in two subtle forms. First is a sort of burden of proof that I am a normal law-abiding, honest person and an intellectual. If we consider that onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat (the burden of proof lies with the one who affirms and not the one who negates), this is tedious. When a burden of proof is needed for such basic human characteristics, there is an implicit assumption that by claiming to possess these qualities I am making an affirmation that requires proof because it is not the accepted view about persons like me. The qualities which have often been assigned to me gratuitously and generously, such as being a good dancer, an athlete, a party freak, and possessing joints or being able to procure them, are qualities which I unfortunately do not possess. The second aspect of this weight is alienation. Even though I have lived, studied and worked in the UK, Ireland, Spain and Italy, and I speak four modern European languages fluently (whereas I can barely get by with two African languages), I have always been considered a foreigner in Europe, an outsider. I do not really belong. With hindsight, I realize how this has conditioned some of my reactions, especially on those occasions when I should have spoken up. The feeling of alienation, accompanied by the burden of justification, has made me think speaking out is counterproductive or pointless. I have been perhaps more fortunate than other persons of African descent born in Europe and America, since I always have a home to return to in Africa, whereas for them it must be more difficult because the only home they have and they know is the one that alienates them.

When I returned to Ghana after living in Europe for twentynine years, I chose to settle in a small fishing town on the Atlantic coast called Apam. There are three things I notice whenever I am returning home to Apam: the distinct smell of fish as I drive by the port; the Apam skyline, which is an endless series of bamboo sticks, none perfectly perpendicular to the ground, holding up TV antennas from low-rise rusting roofs; and, above all, the imposing structure of slave Fort Lijdzaamheid (Fort Patience), built by the Dutch from 1697 to 1702, standing on top of the promontory overlooking the town. It is an indelible and jarring reminder of the North Atlantic slave trade and its racist agenda.

It is with this baggage that I write about Black Lives Matter and the removal of statues of racists.

Next week

Introduction. Una passeggiata estiva romana (A Roman summer walk)

Excerpt from:
Black Lives Matter and the Removal of Racist Statues - Insight News

A history book featuring Black Lives Matter on the cover will be distributed to schools by the Welsh Government, as the teaching of ethnic minority histories becomes compulsory.

History Grounded, written by historian and former teacher Dr Elin Jones, is aimed at eight to 12-year-olds and charts a history of Wales from the Neolithic up to the Transatlantic slave trade, as well as the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The protest movement features on the cover of the book endorsed by the Welsh government, which is set to be issued to schools ahead of curriculum changes - as Wales moves to become the first UK nation to make the teaching of minority ethnic history compulsory.

Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, publisher of History Grounded, has described the book as a game changer, adding: Representing Wales history in all its rich diversity was central to the work.

During the past year, we have gained a new appreciation of the importance of learning the history of marginalised communities, as well as an appreciation of education as a tool to fight against racism and all other forms of prejudice.

The book features sections on various movements in Wales, with the LGBT and Black Lives Matter banners featuring on the cover, alongside the Red Flag of Merthyr - the first red flag raised as a symbol of working class revolt.

The volume also outlines Wales connections to the slave trade, including the importing of sugar, and features a map detailing the names of about 40 families who received compensation following the abolition of slavery in 1833.

The Welsh government has said that the book will be provided to schools in early 2022, as part of plans to support the teaching of Wales history in the new curriculum beginning at the start of the 2022/23 academic year.

In 2020, the Welsh government launched a 500,000 project to develop teaching materials for a new curriculum which would inspire their learners to become ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world.

On the new History Grounded book, Jeremy Miles, the minister for education and the Welsh language, said: We want to ensure all pupils leave school with an understanding of our nations history not just the major events, but through the lives and experiences of people and communities from all over Wales.

History Grounded really helps bring Wales rich history to life and will be a fantastic teaching resource for our new curriculum.

History Grounded was not commissioned nor paid for by the Welsh government.

See original here:
History book with Black Lives Matter banner on the front to be given to Wales schools - Telegraph.co.uk