It’s Day 1 of Black History Month and We Whites Are All Going to STFU and Listen.

At least here at Death to Squirrels, we are. Because (1) listening to (and boosting) Black voices is important, and (2) no one learns anything while they’re busy talking. Or blogging. Whatever. You know what I mean.

Today, I share with you a powerful piece from the January+February 2022 Issue of Mother Jones by Lori Teresa Yearwood, titled “I Escaped the Trauma of Homelessness—Only to Face Your White Savior Complex.” [CONTENT NOTE: sexual assault and other egregious violations of autonomy; police, pastors and others behaving cruelly; homelessness: mental health (mis)diagnoses and stigma; trauma.]

photographic image of Lori Teresa Yearwood standing in front of a pond or strem with birds around it. She is wearing a beautifuolly embroidered red sweater and smiling.Lori Teresa Yearwood
(image: Niki Chan Wylie via Mother Jones)

I hope that you will read it, and if it makes you uncomfortable, that you will sit with that discomfort, and learn everything you can from it.

MLK Day 2022: A Different Voice.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, a federal holiday.

As longtime readers may recall, it has long been my tradition to post one of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s lesser-known speeches: Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. He spoke these words at Manhattan’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated at the age of 39. If you are not familiar with it, you can read the speech here, along with some of my thoughts on why it is so important, and still very relevant today.

Go ahead. I’ll wait here…

Oh good! You’re back! (I love you people. ♥)

This year, I thought I’d do something different. I would like to post instead some of the words of Bernice Albertine King.

Bernice A. King, Chief Executive Officer of the King Center and daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, in Austin, Texas on April 9, 2014. She is pictured reading a quote from her father, before remarks by former President Bill Clinton.Bernice A. King, lawyer, minister, CEO of The King Center in Atlanta and daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.
She is pictured here reading a quote from her father before remarks by former President Bill Clinton, in Austin, Texas on April 9, 2014.
(Photo: Eric Draper, via LBJ Foundation under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)

Bernice King is the youngest child of the Reverend Doctor and Coretta Scott King. She was 5 years old when her father was killed. Her activism has followed in the footsteps of both of her formidable.

Bernice King is a Christian minister, like her father. Also like her father, she tethers the religious ideas in her speeches to secular ideas of justice, compassion and love. And as I’ve noted before, this practice functions to bolster arguments for the religious-minded, but it neither negates nor replaces secular ones.

Speaking as a die-hard atheist, I believe without a doubt that I have more in common with the values of Beatrice King than I do with many prominent atheists. (If you’re a regular reader on this network, as especially if you’re a longtime fan of PZ’s, you know likely know exactly who I’m talking about. And if you don’t, consider yourself fortunate.) I also believe in the critical importance of boosting Black voices, particularly Black women’s voices.

See if you don’t agree that Bernice King’s voice speaks as powerfully to the Social Justice Warrior in you as it does to me.

[Read more…]

White supremacists and white nationalists are having a bad day.

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Spencer, Kessler, Cantwell and other white supremacists found liable in deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville

The jury did not reach a verdict on two federal conspiracy charges, but did find that every defendant was liable for civil conspiracy under Virginia law. The jury then awarded $500,000 in punitive damages against all 12 individual defendants, and $1 million against five white nationalist organizations on that conspiracy count. Other damages followed on further counts.

Read More (Washington Post)

Good.

Of course, due to some inexplicable random glitch The System™ did not work as intended, as it did in the Rittenhouse case. That’s why we have appeals courts, I suppose.

Still, I just wanted to spread a little sunshine. You all know me – I’m all Suzie Sunshine up in here!

dancing snoopy

 

Facebook knows better. Let’s make it DO better.

Via email from Color of Change (all emphasis in original):

color of change's facebook campaign image: pile of facebook's iconic thumbs-up "like" icons turned upside-down, with text "IT'S BEEN A YEAR. FACEBOOK DO SOMETHING."

Dear Iris:

One year ago, in response to Facebook doubling down on their refusal to remove calls to violence against Black protestors, we launched our “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign. Together, with our partners and Color Of Change members like you, we successfully compelled an unprecedented 1,200 business partners to withdraw millions of dollars in advertising from Facebook for failing to protect Black users and community stakeholders.1 The boycott increased the pressure we placed on Facebook to respond, resulting in them agreeing to some of our long standing demands, including creating a senior role to oversee civil rights at the company and a dedicated team to study algorithmic racial bias.2 Despite these important changes, Facebook continues to fall far short of adequately addressing the harms they cause our communities. [Read more…]

BREAKING: Derek Chauvin sentenced to 270 months for murder of George Floyd.

It’s a ten-year upward departure from the state’s sentencing guidelines for the crime of second degree murder. The victim impact statements were fucking heartbreaking and incredibly moving, especially the appearance of Floyd’s 7 year old daughter Gianna, who spoke via video link. It’s just a fact that there can never be any real justice for her. Floyd’s brother just aches to understand why. I don’t think he will ever get any kind of answer either, at least not a satisfactory one.

The judge said the upward sentencing departure was based on four aggravating factors, one of which was cruelty. No one who has seen the video of Floyd’s murder could deny that. Nevertheless, the defense argued for a sentence of “probation and time served.” And Chauvin’s mother got up there to proclaim Chauvin’s innocence, and assured her son that many other people believe in his innocence, too. That the Floyd family sat quietly through all of that is a testament to their extraordinary strength of character. I’m sure I couldn’t do it.

Now the world will bear witness to Chauvin’s endless appeals, as well as the additional trial on federal charges. I will be paying attention, because George Floyd matters.

Graffiti artist Eme Freethinker kneels in front of his portrait of George Floyd, which he painted on one of the last remaining sections of the Berlin Wall. “I remember when I came in [to paint it], some guy told me, ‘You have to do it with the police over his neck,'” Freethinker says, “and I was like: ‘No, man. Not like that. No.'”

Juneteenth: Boosting Black Voices.

Today, this Whitey McWhiteperson yields (most of) this space to BIPOC.*

Following are messages I received from two congresspersons I admire deeply. (I helped elect both to Congress by donating as generously as I could during their primary campaigns – where cash really counts – and in the latter case, also by providing intel and oppo research to him and his campaign peeps throughout his successful run to unseat a 16-term incumbent and darling of the Democratic Party.)

First up, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (MN-5) (emphasis in original):

via email:

Iris,

156 years ago today, Black southerners in Galveston, Texas, finally learned the news of their freedom from enslavement — nearly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed — now known as Juneteenth.

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