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A close second to the coverage of COVID-19 in 2020 has been the systematic racism in law enforcement and this has been so widely accepted, the mentioning of anything else is considered heresy but that is exactly what Attorney General William Barr said on Tuesday during an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee.

When asked by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas whether the Department of Justice is committed to ending systemic racism in law enforcement, Barr said:

I dont agree theres systemic racism in the police department, generally, in this country.

As an American citizen, one would think that an issue this important being raised by some of the most powerful politicians in our country would come with some some sort of evidence but unfortunately none of that occurred.

For instance, when Barr pointed out that more unarmed whites were shot and killed by law enforcement this year, Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond joined Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas by invoking the tired and ridiculous demographic parity claim.

Noting that the disparity was glaring because blacks make up just 15% of the population.

Despite resounding scientific evidence contrary to systematic racism, this has long been the only argument used to prove it.

Never mind that law enforcement doesnt encounter an exact replica of racial demographics, but rather criminals and crime is very much the epitome of disparity with blacks committing the majority of violent crime in America but there is no need for these politicians to mention that.

And after the failed demographic parity argument, there is only one thing left for politicians to do in order to prove their case that policing in America is racist.

LIE.

And lie did they ever and to our knowledge, not one media outlet pointed any of it out.

For instance, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, discussed the talk that black mothers give to their children and mentioned Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice and Michael Brown in her statement discussing police violence.

Think about it.

Police racism is such a problem that the very examples given fall about as short as Muggsy Bouguesa 53 former NBA basketball player.

Trayvon Martin wasnt killed by law enforcement so that example is stupid, although the civilian George Zimmerman was exonerated as the jury determined Martin was the aggressor and the shooting justified as self-defense. Neither was Ahmaud Arbery killed by police, so that is equally stupid.

Tamir Rice was described as just a kid playing with a toy gun.

That is a lie.

Yes, the gun was a toy, with the orange tip removed and was being used to point at citizens before the police were called and it was pointed at them. The gun is pictured below. You decide if that appears to be just a toy gun.

And then there is the Gentle Giant, Michael Brown.

Can we just stop and realize how incredibly desperate this all sounds.

Seriously, using Michael Brown, a robbery suspect that attacked a police officer with almost 100 witnesses siding with law enforcement and where Officer Wilson was cleared by President Obamas Department of Justice of any wrongdoing as an example of systemic racism?

This is all so ridiculous but this is the world we live in today. Where those we trust to be honest about important issues continue to lie and lie and lie.to the point where cities are burning, athletes are kneeling and everyone seems to be losing their mind.

Are there problems in law enforcement? Of course, but by lying and manipulating, these elites will never be of any help.to anyone.

You can watch the full hearing below:

Law Officer is the only major law enforcement publication and website owned and operated by law enforcement. This unique facet makes Law Officer much more than just a publishing company but is a true advocate for the profession.

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If Cops Are So Racist Then Why Do Politicians Need To Keep Lying About It? - LawOfficer.com

On July 24, Taylor Swift celebrated the launch of his latest production, Folklore, which has broken download figures on Spotify and Apple Music; However, the taste has not lasted for a long time, as she now faces a lawsuit that accuses her of plagiarizing the albums logo. This has led her to redesign the merchandising of the album.

The lawsuit has come from the owner of The Folklore brand, Amira Rasool, who accused the pop singer of usurping the logo of her brand with a forceful message via Twitter: Wait a minute, Taylor Swift. Its one thing to use the name Folklore, but youre also stealing black womens logo.

He also wrote: Based on the similarities in design, I think the merchandise designer tore off my company logo, he wrote. I am sharing my story to shed light on the trend of big business or celebrities copying the work of minority-owned small business owners. I will not let this blatant robbery go unchecked, he questioned.

As the message began to circulate and go viral, Taylor Swift replied to Rasool: Amira, I admire the work you are doing and am happy to be able to make a contribution to your company and support the Black without Fashion council with a donation.

Amira Rasool, in turn, recognized Swifts message and did not hesitate to mention that the singer has always been an advocate for women.

I commend the Taylor team for recognizing the damage the merchandise caused to my company brand The Folklore, he wrote Tuesday. I recognize that she has been a great advocate for women who protect their creative rights, so it was good to see that her team is on the same page, she said.

She is an entrepreneur and freelance writer who distributes her residence between New York and Cape Town. He collaborates for prestigious publications such as TIME, Vogue, Teen Vogue, i-D Magazine, PAPER Magazine, Glamor, V Magazine and WWD. It also has a YouTube channel and a personal blog. Also, as weve already seen, she owns the Folklore online retail store. Read more about her on her website.

This situation occurs in a context where the African American community increasingly raises its voice to demand its rights. The Black Lives Matter movement, which emerged after the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the death of African-American teenager Trayvon Martin from a shooting. Later it gained strength with the death of the citizen George Floyd at the hands of a policeman in the city of Minnesotta.

This movement has had a significant impact worldwide and many brands have had to rethink their strategies, speeches or even their graphic identity to avoid falling for messages that promote racial discrimination, as was the case with the NFL team Washington Redskins, that eliminated the nickname with which they have historically made themselves known as being racist.

The American agricultural cooperative Land OLakes has also pledged to change its packaging and remove the image of a Native American woman from its packaging early next year.

Another case that had a lot of impact was that of the Aunt Jemima brand, products of mapple honey and flour mix to make hot cakes of the Quaker Oats brand and owned by Pepsico. This product stated that it would change its graphic identity and even the name when considering that they promoted a racist message against people of color.

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Taylor Swift is sued for plagiarizing the logo of her new album, Folklore - Explica

Christian Reed-Ogba and husband Uchennaya Ogba are founders of Ech Public Relations. They've used their platform to help other black entrepreneurs with marketing long before the death of George Floyd sparked a national human rights/social justice movement. The recent Black Lives Matter movement has forced companies to respond to its customers on where it stands. Local companies are all navigating how to show support to the Black community, while some others remain silent. Either way the brands risk alienating some customers in the middle of an economic downturn.

Christian Reed-Ogba and husband Uchennaya Ogba are founders of Ech Public Relations. They've used their platform to help other black entrepreneurs with marketing long before the death of George Floyd sparked

Photo: Kin Man Hui, San Antonio Express-News / Staff Photographer

Christian Reed-Ogba and husband Uchennaya Ogba are founders of Ech Public Relations. They've used their platform to help other black entrepreneurs with marketing long before the death of George Floyd sparked a national human rights/social justice movement. The recent Black Lives Matter movement has forced companies to respond to its customers on where it stands. Local companies are all navigating how to show support to the Black community, while some others remain silent. Either way the brands risk alienating some customers in the middle of an economic downturn.

Christian Reed-Ogba and husband Uchennaya Ogba are founders of Ech Public Relations. They've used their platform to help other black entrepreneurs with marketing long before the death of George Floyd sparked

Looking to protect their brands, corporations largely embrace Black Lives Matter

In the hours after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, many businesses were faced with a decision about how to respond to what was quickly becoming a national reckoning.

With carefully crafted brands to protect, should they respond directly to its Black customers by acknowledging and condemning systemic racism? By doing so, would they risk alienating other customers in the midst of a major economic crisis?

Americans weary from weeks of government-mandated stay-at-home orders turned their attention to video of Floyds killing on their smartphones, laptops and TV screens. No amount of TikTok videos or Netflix shows could lessen the shock.

Early on, many executives recognized it would ignite social unrest and demands for change, in unpredictable ways that could affect their bottom line.

H-E-B, Whataburger and the San Antonio Spurs denounced racism on social media platforms, and pledged funds to fight racial injustice.

USAA CEO Wayne Peacock penned a letter to the insurance and financial services companys 12 million members saying that despite efforts to create a diverse and inclusive workplace, there is more work to do. Peacock, who took the reins at USAA in February, wrote that the killings of Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor stand as stark reminders of the injustice still prevalent in our country.

El Paraiso Ice Cream, a paleta parlor on Fredericksburg Road, invoked Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail in an Instagram post, quoting its most famous line, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Public relations firms said companies almost immediately reached out seeking advice.

For those that did take a strong position, it was, and is, important that it was for the right reasons and not seen as capitalizing on a sensitive issue, said Katie Harvey, CEO of KGB Texas, a San Antonio firm.

On ExpressNews.com: Weathered Souls Brewery's Black is Beautiful stout raises awareness to racial injustice

Marcus Baskerville, co-owner of Weathered Souls Brewery, located near Bitters Road and U.S. 281, started an initiative in which he encouraged brewmasters to create their own Black is Beautiful beer. The concept caught on, and more than 1,000 breweries are producing batches of the beer in all 50 states and 20 countries.

Small retailers like Feliz Modern, which has a location in The Pearl, opted in the days following Floyds death to promote online a Black-owned San Antonio soapmaker called Organically Beauty Inc.

Anamaria Suescun-Fast, executive vice president at the DeBerry Group, said the firm told its clients that the most important thing, if they decided to put out a statement, was to be authentic.

Sometimes that means listening instead of having a knee-jerk reaction, she said. Determine if what you have to say brings value to the movement in an impactful way. Now is not the time to get your brand out there.

Nationally, some of the biggest brands YouTube, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Disney and Uber have pledged millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter.

One of the most generous donors was Adidas, which pledged $120 million, or less than half a percent of its gross revenue from 2019, according to data compiled by Latonas, a mergers and acquisitions broker specializing in web-based businesses.

Last summer, the German sports apparel giant faced criticism when Black employees complained about what they described as the companys discriminatory workplace practices at its North American headquarters in Portland, Ore.

Recently, theres been a shift in which brands consumers are willing to financially support, said Karla Broadus, a professor who will teach a class this fall on the Black Lives Matter movement at University of Texas at San Antonio.

I think consumers and the general public have the Im tired of all of this attitude, she said. People are angry at so many things right now.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio school districts still struggle with the citys segregated past

Broadus is director of the African American Studies program in UTSAs Department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality Studies a program that the university didnt recognize as a minor until last fall.

She first taught a course on the movement at UTSA in 2017.

She said Black Lives Matter and its social media hashtag first appeared in July 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida.

This feels different for me this time, said Broadus, who lived in Los Angeles during the 1992 riots, which followed the acquittal of police officers who beat Rodney King in custody.

At 47.8 million strong, the countrys Black population wields $1.3 trillion in buying power, on par with many countries gross domestic product, according to a consumer report compiled by Nielsen.

But companies arent just eyeing Black customers. Several polls have shown that a majority of Americans support the BLM movement, which is centered on protests against racism and police brutality.

Corporations have responded to the turn in public opinion.

Quaker Oats Co., a subsidiary of PepsiCo Inc., dropped the Aunt Jemima image and name it used for 130 years on its pancake syrup bottles, saying in a June 17 statement its origins are based on a racial stereotype.

After decades of controversy over its team name, the Washington Redskins last month dropped it after corporate sponsors demanded a new moniker. Other professional sports teams depicting Native Americans are considering taking a similar action.

Christian Reed-Ogba and her husband, Uchennaya Ogba, founded Ech Public Relations in 2011, and its one of a handful of Black-owned marketing operations in the city.

Their storefront on Broadway features a hand-written poster that reads Support Black Businesses and another one in the shape of a heart painted with the phrase Si Se Puede SA!

Reed-Ogba, CEO of the firm, has shared her bad experiences working in professional circles in San Antonio. She said her firm has been primarily considered for projects on the East Side, was told to hire someone to speak for her and has been blacklisted for speaking up.

She hosts weekly Zoom sessions mentoring up-and-coming entrepreneurs who likely will face similar hurdles.

Reed-Ogba has watched recently as companies expressed solidarity with the Black community, but she hopes that it also spurs introspection and change within companies.

She tells her corporate clients that consumers are watching to see whether theyre working to recruit and support people of color. They want to know if a company is establishing retraining programs for its staff, and will be looking for signs that the firm is treating its employees with respect.

If not, their brands could suffer.

This is not a moment to lay low, she said. If businesses try to side-step the upheaval, I'm taking that as doing absolutely nothing.

Laura Garcia covers the health care industry in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Laura, become a subscriber. laura.garcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @Reporter_Laura

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Looking to protect their brands, corporations largely embrace Black Lives Matter - mySA

It was within days of the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, at the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement and national outrage sparked by the killing, that they started appearing. Facebook posts on my feed of friends and friends of friends joining the All Lives Matter bandwagon.

It was part dj vu and not at all surprising. This counter movement had happened before, when Black Lives Matter first began and large portions of the white American populace took it as a direct disregard for their lives.

Only this time, the posters on my feed were not white. They were South Asian, many of them Bangladeshis, like me, either part of the diaspora in the United States or living in Bangladesh. Their extreme grievance had all the outrage and indignation of the original coiners of All lives matter. How dare their lives be left out! Some of the posts sounded as though they were personally harmed by the mere utterance and existence of Black Lives Matter. They scolded and they issued clarifications of why Black Lives Matter struck such a nerve.

A Muslim lives matter post appeared. And another, in its indignant inclusivity, added Police lives matter. In the real world, police across America were teargassing lawful protestors, beating them with batons, and firing rubber bullets and pepper-spray pellets at Americans decrying systemic racism and demanding justice.

Heres a refresher: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi created Black Lives Matter in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martins murderer, George Zimmerman. Martin was a 17-year-old Black man and Zimmerman, a 28-year-old man of mixed race. Zimmerman shot and killed Martin in 2012, claimed self-defense, and was acquitted. The following year, Michael Brown was murdered by police in Ferguson, Missouri. Eric Garner died the same year in New York, unable to breathe in a police chokehold, for selling loose cigarettes outside a convenience store.

Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Breanna Taylor, Tony McDade Black men and women dead at the hands of racist cops, not one of whom were charged with murder. Black Lives Matter is a specific and direct response to this. In the early days of the movement, posts and memes went around telling BLM and its supporters to get over themselves. Projection, anyone?

My fellow South Asians and Bangladeshis who were and are so hair-trigger prompted to lash out against Black Lives Matter neglect a crucial aspect of what theyre latching onto as a consequence, however inadvertently or unintentionally: White supremacy. No, this doesnt mean theyre chanting White Power and hurling racial slurs. Neither does it mean that just because they have Black friends and co-workers whom they love and respect that they cant be racist.

White supremacy is a multilayered, multifaceted system, not limited to the Ku Klux Klan or fringe outfits like the Boogaloo Boys. In its most insidious forms, it exists silently and comfortably in mainstream American life at schools, at workplaces, in finance, in real estate, in police departments, the military and, closer home, in my community, with those South Asians and Bangladeshis who have opted for white-adjacency.

Anti-black racism seems to come easy for too many in my community, easier than accepting Black Lives Matter. The roots of this are complex, ingrained in our attitudes toward skin color which favours fair over dark. Deplorable ads for a skin-lightening product named Fair and Lovely play across channels throughout the subcontinent. The ones that I saw in Bangladesh featured prominent Bollywood actors whose skin color is shown in time-lapse going from an undesirable dark to a cleansed and palatable fair after they used Fair and Lovely as directed over a period of time.

South Asians and Bangladeshis talk of bad neighborhoods in Chicago and New York and Detroit and Los Angeles with the same underlying suggestion as the white people from whom theyve inherited the racist whistle: those neighborhoods are predominantly, if not entirely, Black.

South Asians and Bangladeshis have largely fared better in America. Education, upward mobility, wealth. They assimilated, which meant what it has always meant: blending and disappearing as model minorities within white society, not sticking out, not calling attention to themselves, being grateful for a shot at the American Dream, being okay and silent in a system rife with inequality and oppression because it doesnt affect them.

The post-Black Lives Matter backlash saw Blue Lives Matters. Suddenly, there not only needed to be a movement calling for cop killers to be brought to justice but it had to use, of all the other choices of words and phrases, the one that hit home the hardest.

In June, a Dallas bar-owner, one of several suing the Texas governor over re-imposed restrictions because of Covid-19 spikes, organised a Bar Lives Matter concert and protest. On July 5, a news report out of Branson, Missouri showed Black Lives Matters protestors facing off with counter-protestors of the predominantly white town waving Confederate flags, wearing MAGA hats and Trump 2020 t-shirts. One man wore a black t-shirt that said White Lives Matter, and at least one other man had no problem with the Swastikas tattooed on his neck being shown, in close-up, on national TV.

Am I suggesting that my fellow South Asians and Bangladeshis are the same as those racists? No, not literally.

But what do I make of them using the tactics of White supremacy without a thought, and defending their use of it? What do I make of them seeing the validity of a racist backlash over the legitimacy of a movement for lives that have repeatedly not mattered?

If were going to be allies, the only permission we have is to say Black Lives Matter. If were not going to be allies, fine. What we cannot do is to appropriate, to disregard specifics and be ignorant of oppression were enabling and supporting.

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South Asians chanting All lives matter are feeding the rise of White supremacy - Scroll.in

Our July 2020 pick for the PBS NewsHour-New York Times book club is Claudia Rankines Citizen. Become a member of the Now Read This book club by joining our Facebook group, or by signing up to our newsletter. Learn more about the book club here.

The first lines of Claudia Rankines essay, In Memory of Trayvon Martin, start with an invocation of the history of mass incarceration of African Americans.

My brothers are notorious. They have not been to prison. They have been imprisoned, Rankine wrote.

To Rankine, it was a nod to Michelle Alexanders book The New Jim Crow, which lays out how the war on drugs helped shape a criminal justice system that today systematically disfavors communities of color, and Black men in particular. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow, Alexander wrote. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.

In crafting her elegy for Martin, the Black teen who was gunned down in Florida in 2012 by George Zimmerman, Rankine told the PBS NewsHour she sought to draw on the larger narrative of terrorization, violence and murder that Black Americans have faced throughout history, tracking the years of passage, plantation, migration, of Jim Crow segregation, of poverty, inner cities, profiling.

Read more of Rankines insight about the essay in the passages below.

My brothers are notorious. They have not been to prison. They have been imprisoned. The prison is not a place you enter. It is no place. My brothers are notorious. They do regular things, like wait. On my birthday they say my name. They will never forget that we are named. What is that memory?

The days of our childhood together were steep steps into a collapsing mind. It looked like we rescued ourselves, were rescued. Then there are these days, each day of our adult lives. They will never forget our way through, these brothers, each brother, my brother, dear brother, my dearest brothers, dear heart

Your hearts are broken. This is not a secret though there are secrets. And as yet I do not understand how my own sorrow has turned into my brothers hearts. The hearts of my brothers are broken. If I knew another way to be, I would call up a brother, I would hear myself saying, my brother, dear brother, my dearest brothers, dear heart

On the tip of a tongue one note following another is another path, another dawn where the pink sky is the bloodshot of struck, of sleepless, of sorry, of senseless, shush. Those years of and before me and my brothers, the years of passage, plantation, migration, of Jim Crow segregation, of poverty, inner cities, profiling, of one in three, two jobs, boy, hey boy, each a felony, accumulate into the hours inside our lives where we are all caught hanging, the rope inside us, the tree inside us, its roots our limbs, a throat sliced through and when we open our mouth to speak, blossoms, o blossoms, no place coming out, brother, dear brother, that kind of blue. The sky is the silence of brothers all the days leading up to my call.

If I called Id say good-bye before I broke the good-bye. I say good-bye before anyone can hang up. Dont hang up. My brother hangs up though he is there. I keep talking. The talk keeps him there. The sky is blue, kind of blue. The day is hot. Is it cold? Are you cold? It does get cool. Is it cool? Are you cool?

My brother is completed by sky. The sky is his silence. Eventually, he says, it is raining. It is raining down. It was raining. It stopped raining. It is raining down. He wont hang up. Hes there, hes there but hes hung up though he is there. Good-bye, I say. I break the good-bye. I say good-bye before anyone can hang up, dont hang up. Wait with me. Wait with me though the waiting might be the call of good-byes.

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In writing about Trayvon Martin, this poet saw the history of systemic racism - PBS NewsHour