There’s something happening here . . ,

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear

There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down


There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down


What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs

Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep

It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down


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QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
NASCAR bans display of Confederate flag from all events

NASCAR just became the latest organization to prohibit the display of the Confederate flag from all events and properties, effective immediately.

The auto racing organization released a statement on the matter Wednesday following nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice. The ban applies to fans, competitors, and anyone else involved in the industry.

Prior to the announcement, driver Bubba Wallace, the first full-time African-American driver in the top-flight Cup series since 1971, had called for NASCAR to get the Confederate flag "out of here," saying there is "no place" for it in the sport.

Source:
NASCAR


???NASCAR???
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator


"There's something different here" - Former U.S. president Barack Obama looked back at protests in the 1960s, saying the current demonstrations are far more representative of American society.
 

muckraker10021

Superstar *****
BGOL Investor


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QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Mississippi state legislature passes bill to remove confederate symbol from state flag in historic vote


By Paul LeBlanc, CNN
Mon June 29, 2020


article video



(CNN)The Mississippi state legislature on Sunday passed a bill to remove the Confederate emblem from their flag in a historic referendum on the only remaining state flag to feature the Confederate insignia.

The bill will now go to Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, who has said he would sign it into law.

The legislation -- which cleared the state House in a 91-23 vote and the state Senate with a 37-14 vote -- comes as Mississippi lawmakers have been weighing a change to their flag for weeks amid ongoing racial justice protests across the country. The flag, first adopted in 1894, has red, white and blue stripes with the Confederate battle emblem in the corner.


The bill establishes a commission to develop a new flag design without the Confederate emblem that includes the phrase "In God, We Trust." Mississippi state voters would then vote on the new design this November.

State Rep. Jeramey Anderson, a Democrat from Moss Point, applauded its passage Sunday as a "historic moment."

"I thank those who came before us, who with courage and resolve nurtured the Civil Rights Movement that helped bring us to this day," he tweeted. "What a beautiful moment of unity."

That message was echoed by Democratic state Rep. Zakiya Summers, who tweeted, "I just through the deuces to the state flag that's at the entrance of the house chamber!"

And NAACP president Derrick Johnson told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Sunday evening, "This is a long time coming."

"Finally, Mississippi decided to be one of the 50 states, and not the one state standing alone still bearing the emblem of a segregated society," he said.

Sunday's vote came after the Mississippi House and Senate passed a resolution on Saturday to begin the process of changing the flag.

Following those votes, Jefferson Davis' great-great-grandson, Bertram Hayes-Davis, agreed with the potential change of the Mississippi flag, saying that the "battle flag has been hijacked" and "does not represent the entire population of Mississippi."

"It is historic and heritage-related, there are a lot of people who look at it that way, and God bless them for that heritage. So put it in a museum and honor it there or put it in your house, but the flag of Mississippi should represent the entire population, and I am thrilled that we're finally going to make that change," Hayes-Davis told CNN's Ana Cabrera on "Newsroom" Saturday.

The flag of the Confederacy, its symbols and the statues commemorating Confederate leaders have long divided the country. Critics call the flag a symbol that represents the war to uphold slavery, while supporters call it a sign of Southern pride and heritage.

The symbols have increasingly become a rallying call for white supremacists.

In recent weeks, the death of George Floyd has led to the removal -- by protesters in some cases and city leaders in others -- of contentious statues and Confederate symbols that have upset some residents for decades, if not longer.


 

QueEx

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. . . there's something happening here; what it is ain't exactly clear . . .

A global push for racial justice in the climate movement


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For years, mainstream environmental movements around the globe have excluded people of color.

Environmental sociologist Dorceta Taylor remembers being the only Black person in her environmental science class at Northeastern Illinois University in the early 1980s. When she asked her white professor why there weren't more Black students, he quickly told her that it was "because Blacks are not interested in the environment," she said.

This assumption ran counter to everything she knew. She had grown up in Jamaica, where people from all backgrounds were passionate about the environment and loved nature.

"We gardened, we hiked the mountains, we did all of those things," she said.

Today's global Black Lives Matter protests have amplified calls for institutions of all kinds — including environmental groups — to challenge and dismantle centuries of systemic racism that have excluded people of color.

Taylor, until recently a professor of environmental racism at the University of Michigan, found that underrepresentation exists at environmental organizations across the United States. In 2014, just under 16 percent of people of color were represented in a survey of hundreds of organizations, compared to about 35 percent of the population, she said. In the early 1990s, only about 2 percent of the staff of environmental nongovernmental organizations were people of color.


In the U.K., the environmental sector is one of the least diverse sectors of the economy.

Yet, people of color are disproportionately impacted by environmental degradation and climate change, and environmental organizations are being called to focus more than ever before on environmental justice.

In the past few weeks, big international green groups including Greenpeace and 350.org have responded with statements, videos and op-eds supporting Black Lives Matter and calling for racial justice.

But environmental activist Suzanne Dhaliwal is skeptical this will translate into real inclusion, particularly in the U.K., where she lives and works. Dhaliwal, who identifies as British Indian Canadian Sikh, grew up partly in Canada and spent much of her 20s working alongside big environmental nonprofits in the U.K.

"We're in a very difficult moment where it looks diverse, you know, our pictures are used," she said. "But in terms of access to resources and having a say on the strategies that are used, and the support that we experience, I think it's an all-time low."

She says she grew frustrated when she couldn't generate interest at her organizations to partner with Indigenous communities and focus on how environmental issues intersect with colonial legacies.

So, Dhaliwal started her own environmental nonprofit, U.K. Tar Sands Network, which works alongside Indigenous communities and organizations to campaign against U.K. companies investing in oil extraction in Alberta, Canada.

"Now, what I call for is direct funding of Black and Brown and Indigenous organizations and leadership training," said Dhaliwal. "We need research money so that we can research new strategies."

Other environmentalists are trying to change environmental organizations from within.

Samia Dumbuya just started a job with the European branch of international nonprofit Friends of the Earth, working on climate justice and energy issues. She lives in the U.K.

As a Black person whose parents are refugees from Sierre Leone, talking about racial justice issues within the environmental movement is personal for her. She says she sees how climate change is affecting her parents' home country with increasingly bad flooding and landslides.

"I like to talk to people about the role of colonialism and how the West exploits the lands of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and specific islands where they basically degraded the environments and those lands — and it left people with nothing," Dumbuya said. "And now, the West is saying we all need to be more environmentally conscious. And they look down on the 'Global South,' which is very hypocritical."

Dumbuya thinks big environmental organizations can work together with smaller, newer groups as well as with the global Black Lives Matter movement, about how to use social media better to connect with younger, more diverse supporters.

"We don't have to stick to these old traditional methods of activism — like, things are changing," she said.

Valuing and nurturing people of color within the mainstream environmental movement has always been an issue, says Joe Curnow, professor at the University of Manitoba in Canada who researches social movements.

"I have seen a lot of BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] folks feel like there's not space for them in these mainstream organizations," she said. "There are a lot of the tensions there and who is getting recognized and who is getting celebrated as being a leader."

Curnow said while it's true that the hard work of anti-racist activists is having a positive effect on environmentalism by amplifying links between environmental degradation, colonialism, and racism, pushing those ideas forward can take its toll.

"It can cost a lot for those people who choose to do it, emotionally and professionally," Curnow said.

It's been almost 40 years since Taylor's professor told her that Black people didn't care about the environment.

As she watches the protests for racial equity across the world, she sees young people changing the environmental movement — pushing forward ideas that draw connections between race and the environment.

"They're connecting the dots: Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and all these names, they immediately connect them with environmental justice, with climate, with health," Taylor said. "Because they see it going toward the same neighborhood. Older people are still saying, 'What does race have to do with the environment? I don't see how it's connected.' Young people see it."

Across the globe, the urban spaces that are overpoliced and lack public investment also have the worst air quality and contaminated drinking water. The environmental movement will grow stronger with more diverse representation, but also by making these connections, Taylor said.

"Environmentalists all over the country are really taking note that they need to think of the environment now as not just the trees and the birds and the flowers, but the human relationships that are in them — and how these are really threatening some people way more than they're threatening others."

This article originally appeared at PRI's The World.




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