All Posts Tagged as 'Equality'

One name that goes conspicuously unmentioned by those self-proclaimed champions of racial justice such as Black Lives Matters is an internationally acclaimed American hero who lived his life for racial equality. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life for it, too. King’s quest for equality and his legacy are inconvenient for today’s vigilantes, because his efforts contrasted sharply with theirs—both with regard to their goal and means.

While today’s self-righteous violent protesters have left vulnerable inner-city neighborhoods devastated and residents in tears of anguish, King staked all he had on a belief in the unifying power of passive resistance and nonviolence, as did others who brought about worldwide change, from Mahatma Gandhi to Nelson Mandela.

Today’s racial-grievance opportunists portray blacks as impotent victims, unable to move forward or upward under the weight of a legacy of slavery and the all-purpose villain of institutional racism. In their agenda, equality of opportunity makes no difference. Instead, their proclaimed goal is to demand equality of outcome by monetizing the suffering of their ancestors as reparations—checks that would be handed to them. The demand for reparations ignores problematic issues of who should pay for and who should receive remuneration and the situation of the descendants of blacks who owned slaves and of those who arrived on our nation’s shores—penniless but filled with hope—long after the end of slavery. The accounts of sports superstars of the NFL and NBA who were once millionaires but ended up bankrupt can serve as cautionary tales regarding the inconsequential impact of cash payouts in the absence of qualities such as delayed gratification, personal restraint, and foresight.

In contrast with today’s racial justice vigilantes, King did not advocate lowering the bar for standards of behavior and ethical values among those he represented. The most aspirational element of his famous Dream was that his children would one day be judged by the content of their character. The history of the black community is replete with evidence that, even against the greatest odds and oppression, moral qualities of personal responsibility, determination, integrity, and mutual assistance were sufficient to empower men and women to achieve success.

A fast food employee in Florida was called anti-gay slurs as he was allegedly beaten by a mob of customers, left bruised and injured.

Later that same day, after he filed a police report, the victim was fired.

A Black Facebook employee is accusing his employer of racial discrimination.

In a complaint filed Thursday with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Oscar Veneszee Jr. said the social network does not give Black workers equal opportunities in their careers.

"We have a Black people problem," Veneszee told NPR. Veneszee is a Navy veteran who recruits other veterans and people of color as part of diversity initiatives at Facebook's infrastructure division. "We've set goals to increase diversity at the company, but we've failed to create a culture at the company that finds, grows and keeps Black people at the company."

Veneszee, who has worked for Facebook since 2017, filed the employment discrimination charge along with Howard Winns, Jr., and Jazsmin Smith — both of whom Veneszee recruited — who said they applied to work at Facebook but had not been hired, they alleged, because they are Black. The claim, they said, was filed on behalf of "all Black Facebook employees and applicants to Facebook."

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, when strip clubs across the country were shuttering and dancers found themselves abruptly out of work, the Portland, Oregon strip club the Lucky Devil Lounge started a food-delivery service called Boober Eats in order to provide some of its employees work. The concept went viral (and was, in fact, covered by this publication), but local black dancers noticed something odd: its Instagram featured relatively few black dancers.

This wasn’t surprising to some black dancers in Portland, like Cat Hollis and Brianna Cistrunk, who say the club has a reputation for almost exclusively hiring white dancers. “They say they’re a ‘rock ‘n roll club’ [which means] they only hire a certain aesthetic,” Cistrunk says. “It’s an unspoken thing but it’s very well-known among most girls.” This perception was magnified a few weeks later, following the death of George Floyd, when the club posted a (now-deleted) photo on Instagram of #BlackLivesMatter flags festooning the stage. “There was a huge argument that happened in the comments,” says Hollis. She commented: “There are more #BlackLivesMatter signs than there have ever been black butts on that stage.” (Shon Boulden, owner of the Lucky Devil Lounge, tells Rolling Stone the controversy stemmed from “a lot of misconceptions of how our club operates,” though he acknowledged that only two or three of the club’s 30 dancers are black.”If there ever was the idea that we weren’t open to hiring all ethnicities, I guess I’d just want say, yes of course we do,” he says. “In our hiring, maybe it didn’t look like we were.”)

Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King said that it is permissible to tear down the statues of Jesus Christ that show him with European features because they support white supremacy.

"Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been," King tweeted on Monday.

"In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went? EGYPT! Not Denmark. Tear them down," he added.

"Yes. All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down," he explained in a second tweet.

Michael Render, better known as Killer Mike, is an Atlanta-based activist and half of the rap duo Run the Jewels.

Growing up on Atlanta’s west side, my grandparents raised me from a truthful place. I was never given the illusion that the world was good or right or fair. I was given the reality that you had to be happy and hopeful as a choice, and you had to do for yourself and for your community in the immediate, because that’s all you had.

As a teenager, that meant splitting my time between being an aspirational weed dealer and a social organizer, mediating conflicts between boys from rival high schools. The boys got trades and became photographers, U.S. servicemen, lawyers and, as I did, rappers and businesspeople. Nobody died, even as guns and crack swept through Atlanta. Because we were active in organizing, we developed a deeper sense of morality and responsibility to the community.

A social media network that is a combination of Facebook, Craigslist, and neighborhood watch, Nextdoor is a platform known for its "Karen problem," and hosting busybodies more worried about property than Black people, as one VICE story showed.

Jenn Takahashi, a public relations professional, started Best of Nextdoor in 2017 when she was living in the quiet neighborhood of Glen Park in San Francisco. At the time, she was working for a PR agency and found the job very stressful. For some reason, she told VICE, browsing the silliness on Nextdoor brought her peace.

"I had this one neighbor that would complain about someone rearranging her lawn gnome every single day at 4 p.m. on the dot," she remembered. Nonsense like this, she said, "was a reminder for me to not sweat the small stuff." Later, she'd start Best of Nextdoor, a Twitter account and website meant to capture moments like these. When submitting, users are reminded to keep the subject matter light and funny. But after Takahashi saw Nextdoor's initial statement supporting Black Lives Matter, she felt a responsibility to comment.

Friends of the Earth tweeted #BlackLivesMatter, and the head of the NRDC promised “to be fully and visibly committed to the fight against systemic racism.”

I was walking home late one night recently when I ran into them. I froze, swore out loud and backpedaled.

A group of my neighbors had taken their house party to the street. Streams of smiling people without face masks spilled into the cul-de-sac ahead of me, blocking my only route home. Never mind that we live in a viral hotspot -- predominately black DeKalb County, which has the second-highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Georgia. They partied on as I waited for a path to clear.

I've been thinking about those neighbors as I read stories with civil rights advocates saying black people and brown people are facing harsher treatment by law enforcement officers for violating coronavirus safety orders.
But there's a question I never see addressed in any of those stories:

Why isn't there any moral outrage directed at those same black or brown people who refuse to take precautions that would protect their community?

As the U.S. moves closer to the November election, the number of Asian American eligible voters will hit a record high, a new report from the Pew Research Center revealed Thursday.

The report examines the Asian American electorate, which is made up of more than 11 million eligible voters. Among the significant findings, the research noted that the number of those voters ballooned by 139 percent in the past 20 years, making Asian Americans the fastest-growing demographic of eligible voters compared to all other major races and ethnicities. In contrast, the white electorate grew by 7 percent in the same period.

Christine Chen, executive director of the civic engagement nonprofit APIAVote, said the group has amassed enough influence to have a profound impact in some races and, in some cases, swing districts.