Mediaboss Marketing

In the world we live in, there are certain people who will always have a leg up on you, they will always have an advantage. Those people who we consider to have more of an advantage in society, are what we call privileged people. Is it fair no, but is it true yes?

So what is privilege?

Privilege is when ones social class, age, size, race and ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation give a person a special advantage or entitlement in life, where they are benefited over others based on these factors.

But there is a specific type of privilege that Im sure we all have heard before, white privilege.

In the wake of recent racial injustices, such as the murder of George Floyd, that occurred in the year 2020, white privilege became a discussion that some people were willing to talk about and address, while others not so much.

But white privilege existed well before the year 2020, it has always been around for generations and will continue to stay if the people who benefit from white privilege refuse to admit that it's a real thing.

Research conducted in 2015 by L. Taylor Phillips, a Ph.D. student at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Brian Lowry, a Ph.D. senior associate dean at Stanford Universitys School of Business, found that many white Americans deny they have benefited from white privilege when shown evidence of racial privilege.

From my personal experiences as a black woman in my 20 years of living, I can say that despite what anyone tries to deny, white privilege is most definitely real. I have witnessed it with my own eyes. Some of the people I know have confessed that they realized some of the things they have in life are due to their privilege. While many on the other hand that I know and have seen, still do not attribute any of their successes in life to white privilege.

Oftentimes I hear statements such as my life wasnt easy or I worked hard for everything I got from some white people. This is very true, by no means does being white mean you havent faced a fair share of hardships or that life is easy for you, it just means that those hardships werent met because of race and racism.

For those who dont believe in white privilege and try to downplay the seriousness of it, here is a breakdown of some of the things white people benefit from, that people of color do not.

1. Privilege of knowing you will be represented

When turning on the television, say to watch a movie, show, or cartoon, nine times out of ten, white people will see individuals who look like them on the screen. They dont have to worry about not being represented. This is not the case for black people. A 2020 study by the National Research Group found that two in three African Americans say they dont see themselves or their culture represented in movies or television. But this lack of representation goes for all aspects of life.

When my father would take me to the store to pick out a new Barbie doll when I was younger, I struggled to find a doll that looked like me because the aisle was filled with white Barbies. In my 6th-grade art class, we were assigned to do a self-portrait. While my white classmates found paint and crayons that matched their skin color, I did not.

Another example of white privilege is not having to put black girl behind a statement you google online. When I google wavy hairstyles immediately hundreds of images of white women show up. In order for me to find a hairstyle that represents my hair texture and style online, I always have to put black girl because online systems cater to white people rather than blacks. White people have the privilege of knowing and are reminded that they are the beauty standard in society.

White privilege is as simple as knowing you dont have to worry about not finding something, somewhere that represents you.

2. Privilege in the classroom

White students do not have to worry that their history will or wont be taught in the classroom, because it is not an elective. A majority of the curriculum throughout the school year is white history and teachers sometimes touch on black history during Black History Month, while others choose not to. White students have the option of choosing not to learn about black history.

In February, at Maria Montessori Academy, a predominantly white school in North Ogden, Utah, parents of students asked if their children could opt-out of the Black History Month curriculum and the school allowed it. After facing backlash, the school went back on its statement and required all students to participate in the Black History Month curriculum. This is a prime example of privilege, and even blatant ignorance and racism. Black parents will never get the opportunity to ask if their children can opt-out of white history.

Not only is curriculum a problem, but so are stereotypes in a classroom. White students walk into a classroom knowing their teachers or professors wont think less of them because of their skin color. Black students walk into a classroom knowing they have to prove themselves to their peers and their instructors that they are intelligent despite what stereotypes say about them.

Many times teachers, administrators, and principals look at black students as troublemakers, disproportionately more than white students due to their own bias. Researchers say that black students are more likely to be disciplined than their white counterparts for the same behavior. According to data from the U.S. Department of Educations Office For Civil Rights, in the 2015-2016 school year black students were more likely to be suspended from school compared to white students.

Ahmed Mohammed, Sudanese, was arrested in 2013 for bringing a homemade clock to school that was mistaken for a bomb. Kiera Wilmont, black, was also arrested in 2013, for bringing a volcano-like science project to school that was mistaken as a bomb. It is no doubt that race played a factor into the two arrests.

Lastly, white children are more likely to receive a better education than students of color. A study in 2020 by the Economic Policy Institute, found that black children are more than twice as likely as white children to attend high-poverty schools. In high poverty schools, there is less funding and allocation of necessary resources, resulting in black children falling behind compared to white students, who attend predominantly white schools with better resources.

3. Privilege of knowing race wont stop you from landing a job

White people have the privilege of knowing their race will not be a reason they dont get a job offer from employees. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor, white people have the lowest unemployment rate at 5.1%. Asian Americans rate is at 5.5%, Hispanics' rate is at 7.3%, and African Americans, being the highest unemployment rate, is at 9.1% in 2021. This is because black people are denied jobs due to their race more than their white counterparts.

A Northwestern University study found that white applicants are 2.5 times more likely to get hired. Applicants from a majority group were 53% more likely to get a call for an interview than minority applicants.

The study found that hiring managers are likely to reject people of color who are qualified applicants, simply because how they dress or come across is different from white candidates.

White people also dont have to worry about trying to accommodate their resumes when applying for a job. Many studies throughout the years have shown that resumes with names that come across as ethnic are less likely to get called for an interview. Because of this many people of color try to make their race appear less on an application in hopes of trying to get a job. In a 2016 study, it was found that African Americans and Asian Americans who whiten'' their resumes, were more likely to get a callback from employers than if they did not whiten the resume.

This is just something that white people probably dont even think about when applying for jobs, and thats a privilege.

4. Privilege of knowing you will get approved for housing

Being able to own a home is one of the biggest successes in life. Being a homeowner is a major way Americans build upon their wealth. However, in 2020 a report by Redfin found that 73.7% of white households own their home, while only 44% of black households own their home. This is because it is statistically proven black people are denied loans for housing solely because of their skin color.

According to data from the 2020 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, lenders deny mortgages for African American applicants at a rate 80% higher than white applicants. White people have the privilege of knowing they most likely will get approved for a loan to buy a house. They have the privilege of knowing their race will not set them back financially.

5. Privilege of not fearing the police

White privilege is not having to worry about run-ins with the police turning deadly. Yes, it is normal for anyone of any race to be scared of getting in trouble with the police, but white people know they can get in trouble or have a run-in without losing their life.

People of color, specifically black people grow up watching people who look just like them get murdered and receive no justice, over and over. Watching Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and so many others murdered at the hands of police, doesnt make me or any black American comfortable around police officers, who appear to have no regard for black life.

White people, on the other hand, have the privilege of knowing police officers have their back. In 2015, Dylann Roof walked into a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and shot and killed nine African Americans. After a 16 hour manhunt, police arrested Roof and took him to Burger King to get something to eat.

On January 6, police once again showed how white people are able to trust them more than black people. On the day many of us will never forget, hundreds of Trump Loyalists stormed the Capitol. On that day it was shown that many cops let the insurrectionists into the building and were even seen taking selfies with the rioters.

But, Tuesday marked a year since peaceful protesters, demanding justice for George Floyd in Philadelphia, were tear-gassed by police. The simple difference is, white people have the privilege of knowing police really will protect and serve them, black people do not.

6. Privilege of not having to be associated with negative stereotypes or be negatively portrayed

White people have the privilege of not worrying about negative stereotypes that are associated with race. Black and Hispanic Americans for example are stereotyped to be criminals, unintelligent, or lazy. With those stereotypes, people of color constantly being looked at as that. While white people can walk in a room knowing no one thinks less of them or that they are a danger to society.

When black people, like myself, enter a store just to shop, we are followed around by employees because they assume we will steal. White people are not. In 2019, R&B singer SZA, went into Sephora hoping to buy some of R&B singer Rihannas Fenty Beauty products. While shopping, an employee assumed she was stealing and called security on her.

This happens too many times, as you can see to celebrities and regular day people. Reasoning behind why some people look at us this way could be because of the media. The media portrays and highlights black people and other people of color in such a negative light compared to white people.

In a study by Color of Change, it was found that 37% of black family members were represented as criminals in the media, but only 26% of family members were actually arrested for criminal activity. White family members represented 28% of criminals in the media but made up 77% of those arrested for criminal activity.

Privilege is also demonstrated when white criminals get more sympathy from the media than black victims do. Whenever there is a mass shooter and the shooter is white the media will portray him as a kind human being who suffered from mental illness. However, when a black man is killed by the police, the media will have a field day digging up their criminal history.

Eric Bellucci, white, who murdered his parents, was described in a headline as Son in Staten Island murders was brilliant, athleticbut his demons were the death of his parents in the media. Trayvon Martin, black, who was killed by security officer George Zimmerman was described in a headline as Trayvon Martin was suspended from school three times in the media as if that had anything to do with his murder. Another example is when Georgias Sheriff Captain Jay Baker described shooter Robert Aaron Long, who killed eight people, including six Asian American women at a spa, as having a bad day back in March.

White privilege is knowing that because of your skin color, you will almost always be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to how you are portrayed.

White people have the privilege of not dealing with any aspect of racism, and they benefit from that. They have the privilege of seeing how racism works, but never actually experiencing it. The privilege of ignoring all racial issues presented because it doesnt affect them.

There are even more privileges that white people benefit from such as the entire notion of racial inequality and the racial wealth gap. This is just a shortlist of privileges, the list could go on and on. These factors are something my grandparents, my parents, and I have had to deal with. That's three generations of no change. Change is only made with recognition.

Every white person shouldnt be to blame for how white privilege works. It is just an element of how racism continues to function so well in this society. The goal now is for everyone to recognize their privilege and own up to it because ignoring it only does more damage and gaslights those who are underprivileged. The goal is to stop racist systems from allowing this privilege for some, to prevail.

View post:
White Privilege: What You Benefit From, That Others Do Not - The Pavlovic Today

Provided by Mercury News frankKTVU announced this week that anchor Frank Somerville will take an indefinite leave of absence to focus on his health after the veteran newsman was seen slurring and stumbling over his words during a May 30 newscast on Channel 2.

Though station management has said it will welcome Somervilles return when he is ready, in the interim KTVU must scramble to fill the void left by one of the Bay Areas most visible journalists a man who co-anchored the 5, 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts.

KTVU will take an all-hands-on-deck approach while Somerville is away, relying on several newsroom regulars to fill in. Heres a quick look at some of the people we can expect to see more of in the coming days and weeks:

Julie Haener, a Danville resident, goes way back with KTVU viewers. She has been at the station since 1997 and was on the desk the night Bay Area news icon (and Somervilles predecessor) Dennis Richmond tearfully signed off in 2008. A consummate pro, she long has co-anchored KTVUs 5, 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts with Somerville and figures to do a lot of the heavy lifting in the coming days. (She finished the May 30 newscast alone after Somerville disappeared from the desk, without explanation, 15 minutes into the program).

Heather Holmes, a Texas native, has been at KTVU since 2006, when she started as a weekend anchor. She currently anchors the 4 and 7 p.m. news at KTVU, but has filled in for Somerville several times already this week. Holmes has a strong social media presence, with 34,000 followers on Facebook and 14,000 followers on Twitter, where she claims to forever be in pursuit of a good story and fabulous shoes.

Mike Mibach grew up in the Bay Area and attended St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco (Class of 94) and College of Marin. He arrived at KTVU in 2005 as a general assignment reporter. Since then, he has helped launch the weekend editions of Mornings on 2, co-anchoring with Claudine Wong. He mainly anchors in the mornings, but expect to see more of him in the evening hours.

Alex Savidgenormally anchors the 4 p.m. newscast on KTVU and the 7 p.m. news on KTVU Plus. But the Berkeley native, USC alum and lifelong Warriors fan will likely see a lot more camera time at the desk in the coming days and weeks.

Andre Senior is a relative newcomer to KTVU, having arrived in 2018 after anchoring and reporting in Hampton, Virginia and Tampa Bay, Florida. A native of Jamaica, he grew up in Miami. One of the biggest stories he ever worked was the trial of George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin. He has filled in this week alongside Holmes.

Follow this link:
With Frank Somerville away, who will KTVU turn to? - Reverb MSN Music

Israel has become a deep gash for progressives. While the far-left wing falselyaccusesthe Jewish state of human rights violations, a dwindling, less irrational rump tries to hedge continued support for our democratic ally with restrictions limiting Israels ability to defend itself.

What some consider to be thefourth mini-warsince 2008 between the state of Israel and Hamas started weeks ago when Hamas resumed lobbing missiles into nearby Israel.

Even though the U.S. State Department has designated Hamas as a terrorist group, it should surprise absolutely nobody that the main Black Lives Matter organization, a group founded and led by Marxists, is taking the side of Hamas in the current troubles.

The main BLM group, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, supports a primary objective of Hamas: the annihilation of the Jewish state. On its officialTwitterpage, the group proclaimed:

Black Lives Matter stands in solidarity with Palestinians. We are a movement committed to ending settler colonialism in all forms and will continue to advocate for Palestinian liberation. (always have. And always will be).#freepalestine

The New York Post quickly reported on BLMs support for the terrorists in the current conflict,pointing outthere is nothing new in this. Virtually since its founding in July 2013, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the half-Peruvian man who shot Trayvon Martin, BLM has been anti-Israel.

Almost exactly two years after its founding, one of its three main founders, Patrisse Cullors, demonized Israel while touring the country.

This is an apartheid state. We cant deny that, and if we do deny it we are a part of the Zionist violence.There are two different systems here in occupied Palestine, Cullors toldEbony Magazine. Two completely different systems. Folks are unable to go to parts of their own country. Folks are barred from their own country.

President Joe Biden spoke the truth when hesaid on Friday, The United States fully supports Israels right to defend itself, against indiscriminate rocket attacks from Hamas, and other Gaza-based terrorist groups that have taken the lives of innocent civilians in Israel.

The hard left of his party, however, agrees with BLM. Rep. Ilan Omar, a Muslim who represents a Minnesota district, joined with another Muslim, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana to issue astatementsaying that the Israeli governmentplans to move forward with forced evictions in the predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah were in direct violation of international law, the Geneva Convention,and basic human rights.

This statement grotesquely twisted the factsfanning the flames of antisemitism while in actuality denying the rights of Jews to lawfully possess property in their own homeland.

So we must ask: What about the long-standing Arab-Israeli government has made the American left, which has BLM at the forefront, take sides against one of Americas staunchest allies?

Some clues, though not all, can be found in BLMs tweet.

By settler colonialism, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation was alluding to a concept from global social theory, a subset of the critical theory that underpins all the woke movements.

According toglobalsocialtheory.org, settler colonialism is a distinct type of colonialism that functions through the replacement of indigenous populations with an invasive settler society that, over time, develops a distinctive identity and sovereignty. Settler colonial states include Canada, the United States, Australia, and South Africa, and settler colonial theory has been important to understanding conflicts in places like Israel, Kenya, and Argentina.

As with many of these concepts, this one dissolves upon scrutiny. What makes Canada a settler colonial state, but keeps mostly white Argentina at length? Or why not Cuba, where the Spaniards almost completely replaced the Tainos they found in but a few decades? Or, for that matter, why not identify the Tainos themselves as a settler culture, since they replaced theGuanahatabeyeswhen they arrived from South America a couple of hundred years before the 1511 conquest of Cuba by Spain?

Are Anglo-Saxons a settler culture that pushed the native Celts west and north in the British Isles in the 400s? Or the Visigoths, who did the same to the Romanized Celt-Iberians of Spain around the same time period? Or, how about theSudanese empireof Mali in the 1250s?

It seems that settler state, a term found everywhere in the BLM lexicon, just describes the entire world and its history of cruel invasions. And it is a particularly poor explainer of the founding of the Jewish state in the historic land of the Jews, on the heels of the Holocaust.

Anyone who has studied BLM (and I am publishinga bookon this movement in September) will know that its animus is against Western culture, which it wants to dismantlenot the long history of invasion, of which it appears to know little.

The heart of the West is Christianity, and Judaism is at the heart of Christianity. Christ was a practicing Jew, as were Mary, Joseph, andlikelyall the apostles, who worshipped at the Jewish temple along with Jesus. Anyone who truly wants to dismantle the West, to problematize it in critical race theory lingo, will want to start there first.

Israel is not fighting the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank; Israels battle today is with Hamas. By siding against Israel, BLM is siding with Hamas. Saying that has become ascontroversialas saying that BLMis Marxist, but only because the press corps is intent on covering for BLM. Both statements are true.

The reasons BLM takes the side of Hamas, however, may have little to do with postcolonialism, and much more to do with its desire to bring down the United States and the entire West.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal.

Read the original here:
Why Black Lives Matter Sides With Hamas Against Israel - Heritage.org

Over the past year, American museums have been forced to consider how they might address anti-Black violence and center marginalized voices, especially when their collecting, exhibitionary, and outreach practices have historically abetted rather than challenged the social reproduction of white supremacy. While any number of institutions have made statements or proposed changes, the exhibition Promise, Witness, Remembrance at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentuckyorganized in honor of Breonna Taylor, whose murder at the hands of Louisville police on March 13, 2020 eventually spurred nationwide protestsoffers a timely, local, and pointed curatorial response to some of the most pressing questions facing cultural institutions today. To better understand how museums might reframe notions of audience, value, and the politics of belonging from an intersectional perspective, Artforum invited contributing editor Huey Copeland and the exhibitions curator, Allison Glenn, to speak about the shows emergence and ambitions a few weeks before its June 6 closing.

HUEY COPELAND: Allison, I thought Id start by asking how you came to organize this exhibition: In what ways did the process of making it demand a rethinking of your approach to curatorial practice and your understanding of the roles museums can play within contemporary cultural discourse?

ALLISON GLENN: This is a really great question. I was invited by the director of the Speed Museum, Stephen Reily, who sent me an email outlining the project as he saw it and letting me know that if I took this on, Id be working closely with [Breonna Taylors mother] Tamika Palmer as a key stakeholder. That made it clear to me that the museums priorities were in line. I had a few meetings with Stephen and the team at the Speed, and it became clear very quickly that the museum had a lot of ambition for the project.

An exhibition is one moment. Its temporal, and it cannot hold everything. So I wanted to align with Tamika Palmer and understand what she thought the exhibition could do, what it could mean for her and her daughters legacy. And Ms. Palmer is very clear. She is very generous. She is very kind, and she is very clear on what she wants. I developed the exhibitions three sections from a text message she sent me. She didnt say, Promise, witness, remembrance, but I inferred those terms from her message, and they became the title of the exhibition and the curatorial framework.

At the same time, I began building a national panel of advisers. I knew I needed a kind of cabinet of people I could trust, whom I could be vulnerable with, who could point out blind spots, and who knew me and my practice. I was very sensitive to the fact that I dont live in Louisville. Im not from Louisville. And I wanted to create this framework of solidarity. The national panel was a way of saying, We, on a national level, stand in solidarity with you. I respect the city and what its gone through so much that Im not going to show up as just me. Im going to stand in concert with a group of people who have dealt with these issues before. I invited artists Theaster Gates and Hank Willis Thomas, as well as La Keisha Leek, whose cousin is Trayvon [Martin]. We had worked together on some projects in Chicago when La Keisha was working through her understanding of Trayvons murder and how to respond to it. And then I asked a friend in town, Raymond Green, whose cousin is Alton Sterling, to join. And it just kept building.

So I had a combination of artists who had responded to the intersecting pandemics of gun violence and police brutality and private citizens who lost loved ones to those epidemics. Arguably, George Zimmerman is an extension of the state. So that is state-sanctioned violence against Black people. And I wanted an art historian who has a history with critical race studies and art of the Global South.

HC: So thats how Allison Young came on.

AG: Yes.

HC: Its interesting to hear how the project unfolded, and revelatory in terms of thinking about what the key components of this kind of exhibition are. One being: There has to be institutional will from the get-go. And then there has to be a real understanding and engagement with the communities and the people impacted by the events or issues the show explores. I really love the way you insist not only on your alignment in solidarity with Ms. Palmer, and this community of activists and thinkers, but also the way you emphasize producing another kind of collective through this advisory panel, which is brought into conversation with other kinds of discursive networks and groups that youre building on the ground. So in many ways, Promise, Witness, Remembrance seems to model, in both form and content, a Black feminist ethos of care in cultural production. I wonder if you would situate this show within that tradition?

AG: Absolutely. Its important to note that the entire exhibition was led by Black women: me; the Speeds community engagement strategist, Toya Northington; Tamika Palmer; her lawyer, Lonita Baker. Amy Sherald has been a very important force. The coacquisition of her portrait of Breonna Taylor by the Speed and the Smithsonian will have a positive impact on the Louisville community. And of course, Breonna Taylor herself is at the center of this conversation. And the Louisville protests were led by Black women.

There is definitely a culture of care. The reason we worked so closely with the Louisville steering committee and the national panel and Ms. Palmer is that theres too much at stake. There were too many ways to get it wrong, and we needed to get it right. And I would say that situating it within this larger framework is a radical act of decentering that not only decenters the institution, but also decenters my voice. So through this act of creating community, of calling people in, you in fact center them. A great example of this is de-installing the Dutch and Flemish collection, the collection the museum is known for internationally. There was one artist on the Louisville steering committee who is probably of my mothers generation. And she said she used to go to the Speed Museum in the original building, before they built the contemporary wing. She said she never saw art by people who look like her, and that she didnt feel that work by people who look like her or of people who look like her was valuable, because it wasnt in the space. Thats the impact of decentering.

Another example: When I presented my exhibition proposal to Tamika Palmer for consideration, I told her I knew that we needed to include a time line of her daughters life to tie the exhibition together. And I said, Im not the person to write it, and she said, Oh, Ill write it. She wrote a text on the walls of the gallery in which Amy Sheralds portrait is installed and therefore became the authorial and the authoritative voice in that space. During installation, there were discussions regarding whether or not we should include a label to contextualize the tone of the time line, as the institutional voice is very different than a mothers voice about her daughters life. There were good points for and against didactics. I felt strongly that we did not need to put up a label to tell people why weve given space to Tamika Palmer. That is not decentering. Decentering is giving the space. The team ultimately understood the importance and impact and agreed.

HC: I think its so important that the decentering also enables and is accompanied by a kind of revaluation, a shifting of how we understand economies of value, particularly within the context of the museum. And I think in making this kind of collectivethat is democratized, that is led by Black women, and that gives Black women priority in terms of their position in relationship to Breonna and this history and this momentit seems to me that it really starts to question how we think about the processes of valuation and devaluation that the museum represents, and how we can disrupt those by doing this work of decentering. That also involves the centering of different kinds of voices. I love that the show includes this range of contributors, from local activists to internationally renowned artists. And, of course, Ms. Palmer. Theres also this huge variety of contemporary visual modes, from street photography to abstract painting. So I wonder: How did your ambitions for the show shape the selection of works?

AG: I knew that I wanted the exhibition to take up spaceI knew I was interested in works that had a sense of scale. We were dealing with twenty-two-foot ceilings, terrazzo floors, marble doorways, these kind of regal spaces. And I wanted to think about what it might be to occupy that space physically with, for example, Terry Adkinss sculpture Muffled Drums (from Darkwater) [2003]. I also knew that many people who saw the show would be visiting the museum for the first time. And itd be people who probably didnt feel very welcome in institutionalized spaces. If youre not going to those spaces regularly, youre going to feel uncomfortable because theyre not legible. Theyre in fact quite illegible and inaccessible. I wanted people to feelno matter their relationship to museums and exhibition spacesthat they knew where they were going. And if they got lost, theyd have an anchor. Thats what led to the decision to hang the portrait of Breonna so that its directly in your line of sight when you turn the corner after entering the museum. Although its the first thing you see when you enter the exhibition space, its part of the shows closing section, Remembrance, which memorializes those lost to police brutality and gun violence.

But let me back up a little bit and talk about the Promise section. What I wanted to do there was provide a framework through which to understand the rest of the exhibition. That section is meant to drive home the truth we all know: that the United States was founded on horrible inequities, and the inefficacies of our system are inherently indebted to that founding.

I wanted to borrow from these tropes of nationalism because I think were in a moment where were dealing with a lot of tropes of nationalism and democracy yet still living in a space that does not feel democratic. There are works by Hank Willis Thomas in both the Promise section, where we installed 15,433 (2019) and 19,281 (2020) [both 2021], two flags whose stars represent those killed by gun violence in American in 2019 and 2020, and in the Remembrance section, which includes his neon sculpture Remember Me [2014]. So thats how Promise unfolded.

I wanted to create a historical framework of a century of protests for Black lives and to highlight the impact of these protests nationally and globally. AG

Artists help us understand the contemporary moment. In the Witness section, youll see a mixture of works that are timely yet enduring. Were in the midst of a global pandemic. Breonna Taylors family has not gotten the justice they seek. This section was also an opportunity to present the work that had happened during the protest, which was really important to Ms. Palmer. These galleries include artworks that respond to this moment, as well as other moments of conflict, change, and unrest in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The steering committee built this incredible spreadsheet of photographers who had been at the protest. I chose five. Breonna Taylors story includes all of these people around it, and I wanted to honor them, including the many who were lost to gun violence, such as Tyler Gerth, one of the five photographers. He was shot and killed at the protest. The show was the first posthumous exhibition of his pictures. I worked with his sisters to select the images. Jon Cherry, a local photographer, had a portrait in the show of Travis Nagdy, a young man who found his voice in the movement. As I understand it, he was meeting with elected officials and had found his path through organizing. He was shot and killed in an unrelated incident. Of course, I wanted to include a Black woman photographer. T. A. Yero took some very powerful photographs.

I hung the photographs in a linear way to create this tight time line. The first is from the day after what would have been Breonnas twenty-seventh birthday. The last is the portrait of Travis Nagdy. And its on the same plane as the portrait of Breonna. So you stand in the second gallery, and you see Travis, and you see Breonna kind of in the distance. It was very intentional to pair those two portraits. I also chose to hang the photographs tight and horizontally, knowing that Muffled Drums was going to have such height. I wanted to have the horizontal time line of photographs intersect with it. Muffled Drums commemorates [W. E. B.] Du Boiss organizing of one of the first Black-led protests for Black lives.

HC: The silent protest parade in 1917.

AG: Exactly. He organized it with the NAACP. I wanted to create a historical framework of a century of protests for Black lives and to highlight the impact of these protests nationally and globally.

HC: In the context of this national and global quote-unquote reckoning, which has brought such scrutiny to modern cultures ongoing expropriation and waste of Black lives in these spectacular ways, many institutions are finding themselves at a crossroads. Some are planning exhibitions like Promise, Witness, Remembrance. Of course, those shows and the decolonial gestures they stand for are temporary, even though what this kind of exhibition does is open a radically new, expansive framework for museums to understand what they do. And I guess one question is: How does that then become something that is institutionalized as part of the museums identity and your understanding of your own curatorial practice?

AG: I realized that this project reaffirmed for me that I am most successful working close to the ground with diverse publics. Thats not only where my strength is, thats also where my heart is. Thats where the work feels rewarding. Its challenging institutions to radically rethink the way they present ideas through exhibitions, through solo projects, through conversations, and continuing to imagine worlds where this kind of terror doesnt exist.

HC: Maybe we can close by discussing what your understanding of success is, because I think its so telling and useful for thinking about what it is that we want the space of the aesthetic and the museum and the cultural to be.

AG: Well, when you are working in consultation and conversation and collaboration, oftentimes success exists outside commonly held registers. I think for any project that seeks to bring people in, theres going to be a collective imagining and redefining of what success is. For me, the most important thing, the successful moment in this exhibition, was that Tamika Palmer was pleased. She said she felt the exhibition was a blessing and that she felt peaceful walking into the space and seeing Breonnas portrait and her time lineIm paraphrasing her. She felt seen and she felt heard. That, to me, was the greatest success.

Huey Copeland is a contributing editor of Artforum and BFC presidential associate professor of history of art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Allison Glenn is an associate curator of contemporary art at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, and its satellite space the Momentary.

Excerpt from:
Huey Copeland and Allison Glenn on Promise, Witness, Remembrance - Artforum

Clarence CrossJr.changed his route after police pepper-sprayed an Army lieutenant on the same highway he often traveled.

Teia Brown feared for her daughtersafter Sandra Bland was pulled fromher car by police and days later ended up dead in a jail cell.

Donya Collins worried about her safety after Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighborhood watchman on his way back from the store.

USA TODAY talked to Black Americans across the country about moments ofviolence that resonated with them and had a lasting impact. For some, the death of George Floyd at the hands of police one year ago on May 25, 2020,was one of those moments. There were many others.

The moments reminded them, they said, how vulnerable people of color are and how justice hasn't always been served. These high-profile attacksleft them fearful of police, suspicious of othersand worried for their lives and the safety of their loved ones.

Boots On The Ground: The Black community in Minneapolis finds peace after George Floyd

The Black community in Minneapolis, connected through trauma, is activated by the Derek Chauvin verdict in the ongoing battle for justice.

Jarrad Henderson and Harrison Hill, USA TODAY

What binds all this together is the false promise of civil rights in this country for Black Americans, said Jason Williams, assistant professor of justice studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey. The reason why police can pull us over, discriminate against us and kneel on our beings is because they understand that this country still doesn't take our citizenship, our rights, our positionality in this country seriously.

Racial violence in the United Statesisnt new.

The country has a long history of violence against Black people, from the torture of enslaved Africans to lynchingsduring the Jim Crow era to the brutal beatings and killings of protesters during the civil rights movement. Some veterans of the civil rights movement say it was Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy murdered in Money, Mississippi, in 1955 after being accused of flirting with a white woman, that spurred them into action.

Watching the death of Floyd and other Black men and women exacerbates existing fears about encounters with police, Williams said. And with social media offering unfiltered views, more people can witness state-sanctioned deaths right before their eyes, he said.

The smokescreens are now annihilated, Williams said. For Black Americans, it's like, Well, this is what we've been living our entire 400-and-plus years here.

After Blands death, Brown worried more about driving alone or through a white neighborhood where she said you can feel the eyes on you.

Bland, a Black woman, was found dead in a Texas cell in 2015 three days after a traffic stop by a white state trooper.

At the time, Brown sat on the edge of her bed and watched the newscast. It made her nervous, fearful and sad. She prayed Blands family would find peace. She prayed white police officers would stop killing Black people.

How could she have been thought of as a threat? Brown, now 59, wondered. Why are they pulling her out of the car? What is she doing? She's a woman. Stop! That could be my daughter. It could be me.

Years later, Brown, a retired information assistant in Camp Springs, Maryland,doesnt watch the videos posted on social media of unarmed Black men and women being shot or killed by police. She worries her husband, Rob, could be next.

She still gets angry remembering clerks who followed her in stores. Im like dude, I have a pocket full of cash ... Why are you doing this to me?

Sisters Sandra Bland, left, and Sharon Cooper in 2015, the year Bland died in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas, after a routine traffic stop.Family photo

The mother of two daughters called it absolutely frightening that one day her children will no longer live in her house and may encounter danger.

How do I protect them or keep them from being victims? she said.

She doesnt understand why some people feel threatened by her brown skin and why they dont understand Black people are trying to strive and thrive just like everybody else.

When will they get it? she said. What is it about my blackness or our blackness that scares you so much?

More: Derek Chauvin trial in George Floyd death compared to Rodney King case 30 years later

More: 'A form of terrorism': Ahmaud Arberys murder is just the latest painful reminder of Georgia's dark history of lynchings

Cross takes a different route now when he drives from his home in Washington, D.C., to visit family in North Carolina. And as a Black man, he said he wont dare take another trip alone across the country.

Clarence Cross, Jr., a retired Veterans Affairs hospital chaplain, said he wouldn't travel alone across the country anymore because as a Black man he feels it's too risky. (Photo courtesy of Clarence Cross, Jr.)Courtesy of Clarence Cross, Jr.

It would be too risky, said Cross, 73, a retired VA hospital chaplain. Im fearful of what could happen.

Cross overhauled his road trip habits after he watched the video of Army Lt. Caron Nazario being pulled over by local police in December, pepper-sprayed, then ordered to lie on the ground at a gas station in Virginia.

It made Cross relive his own experience when he was also stopped along the U.S. Route 460 by a local officer about three years ago while he was traveling home after visiting family in North Carolina.

Cross remembered the officer approached his car and immediately unsnapped his holster. Cross said he was so upset by that move he angrily questioned the officer.

I thought that was over the top, recalled Cross, who said he didnt realize the speed limit in the small town had changed from 55 mph to 35 mph. I said, Why are you doing that? I'm not a threat to you.'

He said his friends later scolded him, calling him crazy for challenging the police officer and warning he could have been shot. Cross said he was issued a ticket for reckless driving. His lawyer challenged the ticket, which he said was reduced to a lesser offense.

Watching Nazarios encounter earlier this year stirred up that anger again. You realize it could have been you, he said.

Cross, who served two years as a policeman in the Army, said he knows in his heart of hearts that not all policemen are bad. But he was trained to tell people why they were being stopped. That didnt appear to happen with Nazario.

I know that we are treated differently and the potential is always there to get harassed or whatever, unnecessarily, he said.

More: Police killings of Black men in the U.S. and what happened to the officers

Anastassia Doctor was planning an outing with girlfriendswhen a news alert popped up on her cellphone that Philando Castile had been killed by a police officer in Minnesota. The day before on July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling had been fatally shot by a policeman in Louisiana.

It was like I had just woken up from the Matrix, recalled Doctor, who at the time was stationed at an Army base in Hawaii. It was like, Where have I been?'

She texted her friends. Many of them had Black sons. You know they killed another Black man, right?

Anastassia Doctor joined a rally in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, last summer after the death of George Floyd.Courtesy of Anastassia Doctor

Doctor, 46, was bothered that her friends werent more upset. She never spoke to them again.

I was like, Wow, they could just hunt us down and kill us and nobody's going to say anything? she said.

Doctor joined chapters of Black Lives Matter and the NAACP when she moved to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, two years later.

While Doctor recounted police shootings of other Black people, she said the deaths of Castile and Sterling are burned into her memory in part because they were caught on video.

Sterling, who was selling CDs outside a store in Baton Rouge, was shot by a policeman six times, including three times in the back. Police said Sterling was found with a gun. One of the officers was fired in 2018 after an excessive force investigation.

Castiles girlfriend captured part of the encounter on Facebook when an officer shot him in a car in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. Her daughter was in the back seat.

It was more traumatizing, recalled Doctor, who now lives in Springfield, Virginia.

She said Floyds death also made her angry. A video showed Derek Chauvin, a former police officer, kneeling on Floyds neck for more than nine minutes.

All of us felt powerless, she said.

The trauma, said Doctor, is made worse when focus shifts to the history of the person killed.

There's never a perfect victim when you're talking about Black people, she said. They're going to find something, some reason why you deserve to die.

Nicholas Gibbs was in the middle of a piano lesson in Los Angeles when his mother abruptly sent his teacher home. News broke that the white police officers who beat Rodney King had been acquitted and the city was burning.

Gibbs sheltered at home for days. He remembers the fire, the anger.

Gibbs was about 11 years old when he watched the video of King being beaten. Even at that age, he knew it was wrong.

It was about him being Black, he said. It was on camera and it was obviously unnecessary.

Soon after, Gibbs learned that a Black girl in Los Angeles not much older than him, 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, had been killed by a Korean store owner, Soon Ja Du.

Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, but instead of jail time she was placed on five years' probation with 400 hours of community service, a $500 restitution and funeral expenses.

The feeling at the time was that our lives didnt matter, recalled Gibbs, 40. Things could happen to us and nothing would happen to the perpetrators.

After the acquittals in Kings case, his mom, an immigrant from Belize, explained what he needed to do so that what happened to King wouldnt happen to him: Be calm, follow the officers directions, dont do anything that could give police a way to assassinate your character.

On May 1, 1992, Rodney King pleads for the end of rioting and looting that plagued Los Angeles after the verdicts in the trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused of beating him.David Longstreath, AP

She did make me feel like because youre Black you have to be better, Gibbs said.

The lessons sunk in when he started driving as a teenager. They are lessons Gibbs, a teacher in Texas, still uses to ensure he makes it home to his family each night.

You just hope your game plan works, he said.

The day before her eighth birthday, Kadiatou Tubman saw her name on the television for the first time. A woman also named Kadiatou was onthe news because her son, Amadou Diallo, had beenshot to death by police. Diallo had immigrated to New York City from Guinea, just like Tubmans mother.

Four white officers said they feared for their lives because Diallo drew an object that looked like a gun. It was a wallet. All four were charged with second-degree murder amid protests and later acquitted in the Feb.4, 1999, shooting.

Tubman, 30, said it wasnt until she had her first encounter with police a few years later that the pain Diallos death caused her community became personal.

On a warm, almost-summer day, Tubmans mother rushed her and her siblings home from school in a panic. When they arrived at their fifth-floor Brooklyn apartment, their landlord was standing at the door with a police officer. They were being evicted.

The eviction and the five years her family spent in the shelter system inspired Tubman to become a housing advocate. Tubman, who works at a Black history and culture research library, teaches students about less talked about ways policing affects them, including eviction.

Seeing what I saw on the news with police brutality and then coming home to have police officers remove us from our home, it just awakened something in me, said Tubman, who still lives in Brooklyn. I was like: OK, I am Black. This is what its like to be Black in America.

In 2013, K.W. Tulloss helped organize a rally in Los Angeles after a jury thousands of miles away in Florida acquitted George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon.

That was even more of a slap in the face, Tulloss recalled.

Tulloss, who then headed the western region of the National Action Network, a social justice group, had tracked the 2012 case since he saw news reports that Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman in Sanford, Florida, had shot and killed Trayvon, who was 17 and Black.

Trayvon had gone to the store for Skittles and was walking home when he was confronted by Zimmerman. During an altercation, Zimmerman shot Trayvon, who was unarmed.

This was literally the moment that really opened up my eyes to the ugliness of hatred in our country, said Tulloss, 43, pastor of Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Racism was still alive and well. It was just in a new form. … People werent afraid to shoot no more. They were hiding behind the law of justice, justifying profiling.

Zimmerman was acquitted of charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter the next year.

Tulloss said like many he had been hopeful race relations had improved, particularly after the country elected Barack Obama its first Black president. But Zimmermans acquittal showed otherwise, he said.

Jaylen Reese, 12, of Atlanta, marches to downtown during a protest of George Zimmerman's not guilty verdict in the 2012 shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin, Monday, July 15, 2013, in Atlanta.AP Photo/David Goldman

Many of us were optimistic that this was a post-race society, Tulloss said. Well, it seemed like, no, this was the coming-out party for racism.

And it's coming back out, he said.

Tulloss said Floyds death and the protests that followed came as many people were already in a moment of righteous indignation about the police shootings of other unarmed Black people.

Enough is enough, he said. We have to turn our anger into passion. We have to really change laws.

More: More work to be done: Derek Chauvin murder conviction brings relief, resolve to keep fighting for justice in George Floyd's name

Collins stormed out of the house, sat in the yard and cried. A jury had just acquitted Zimmerman of all charges, and it felt as if a stone had been dropped onto her stomach.

Her mother held her to her chest. How am I going to go to school and live my life? she asked her mother.

Youre going to pray before you go out every day that youll be able to come home, her mother told her.

Collins saw herself in Trayvon.

It set in that they could really kill me and get away with it, said Collins, a 20-year-old Black woman from Indianapolis. I realized Im not safe anymore. I realized that the people I love arent safe. ... I will remember that moment until the day I die.

Eight years later, Collins worst fears came true when she saw her childhood friend staring back at her on the news.

In May 2020, an Indianapolis police officer shot and killed 21-year-old Dreasjon Reed during a pursuit captured on Facebook Live.

Opinions on news, race & identity from a panel of diverse Gen Z hosts

Collins mom used to work with Reeds. She has known him since she was 7 years old. He bought her fries when she forgot her lunch money. When they were older, they babysat their younger siblings and played video games.

It hurts in a way I never knew I could hurt, she said. Your heart cracks, and it breaks you. I watched my friend die.

Collins prayed for Black people not to be killed. She prayed for God to take the world out of peoples hands and fix it. She prayed for a miracle that I know will never come.

She lives with the trauma of that moment.

Every day I live in some sort of fear, she said. Every time I see a cop car, I get a pit of anxiety in my stomach.

Continue reading here:
George Floyd. Trayvon Martin. Sandra Bland. For many Black Americans, these deaths and others have caused lasting trauma - USA TODAY