Breaking News! History in the Making

Rep. Adam Schiff: It’s time to end racial bias in our health care system
U.S. Rep. Schiff has introduced the Equal Health Care for All Act, a civil rights approach to bringing equity to health care. The past few months have seen an outpouring of demands for change and an end to structural and systemic racism that has been emblematic of our nation for far too long. But even as we work collectively on issues like police brutality and income inequality, we can’t turn our attention away from another form of injustice – inequality in health care and patient outcomes.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Cars have hit BLM demonstrators 104 times since George Floyd protests began
There have been over 100 incidents of people driving vehicles into protests from May 27 through Sept. 5, including 96 by civilians and eight by police, according ta terrorism researcher at the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Threats.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Website helps people with illnesses and disabilities participate in BLM protests
The website, Public Public Address helps people with illnesses and disabilities participate in these protests and make their voices heard without putting their lives at risk.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – New survey says white support for BLM has slipped. Some historians say they’re not surprised.
Earlier this summer thousands of Americans spilled into the streets over the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and sparked an outcry against racism not seen in this country for decades. But recent polling suggests white support for the Black Lives Matter movement has slipped.

Lizzo on Hope, Justice, and the Election
Lizzo says, … “I want to make music that helps. ’Cause that’s the way that I help. I’m not a doctor, I’m not a lawyer, I don’t work in the government. I make music.”

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – CA city announced $4 million settlement over police shooting of mentally ill Black man
Walnut Creek, California announced a $4 million settlement of a federal lawsuit with the family of Miles Hall, a 23-year-old Black man who was shot by police last year while having a mental health episode.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Threats To Pull Federal Resources From Cities Because Of BLM Protests Are Damaging
Making threats to pull federal resources from cities does nothing to help those communities impacted by police violence, and could be especially harmful to the safety of these communities which are already facing budget deficits due to COVID-19.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Has the skin lightener industry learned from Black Lives Matter?
Black Lives Matter has jolted the skin lightener industry. Manufacturers of skin lighteners joined other corporations in voicing support for the racial justice movement. Critics quickly pointed out the hypocrisy of voicing such support while continuing to sell skin whitening products globally.

Working to restore voting rights to returning citizens ahead of the general election
The voting rights for people with some felony convictions have been restored in the state of Alabama. However, many in the Black community still face many barriers to voting. Alabama did not inform citizens of the new 2017 law, so those affected are not aware of their right to vote. This is happening in other states as well.

Internalizing White Supremacy: What We Can Learn From Liberia
The country of Liberia has an interesting history that has insitutional parallels with the United States in terms of institutional racism. The impact of white supremacy on African-American culture is shown through Liberia’s history of ethnic suppression.

Samuel Jackson Traces the History of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
Samuel L. Jackson hosts a six-part docuseries, “Enslaved,” that premiered last Monday on Epix. The series traces Mr. Jackson’s journey across the globe as he uncovers elements of the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The story also follows Diving With a Purpose, an offshoot of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers, as they search for wreckage of slave ships along the ocean bottom.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Statement on the Death of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The BLM Movement salutes Justice Ginsburg as a woman of resilient courage, strength and character. She was determined to change the trajectory of inequalities in communities often forgotten. Even to the end of her life, she remained committed to BLM’s mantra: that none of us are free, until we are all free.

‘MLK/FBI’ Review: The FBI’s Clownish Surveillance Of A Civil Rights Icon Is More Relevant Than Ever
In MLK/FBI, well-known documentary filmmaker Sam Pollard brings a Martin Luther King Jr. story never before seen on-screen. Using archival footage and interviews with those close to King and the situation, his new film shows how FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover spent years targeting King and the Civil Rights Movement.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – The policing reforms in the Breonna Taylor settlement, explained
From revised search warrant protocols to contracting social workers, the policy changes are a start but could go much further.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Breonna Taylor’s Family to Receive $12M Settlement From Louisville
In the aftermath of the botched police raid in which Ms. Taylor was killed, the city also agreed to institute changes aimed at preventing future killings by officers.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Documents Reveal How the Police Kept Daniel Prude’s Death Quiet
A Black man, Daniel Prude, died of suffocation in March after police officers had placed his head in a hood and pinned him to the ground. The public had never been told about the death, but that would change if police body camera footage of the encounter got out. A mass of city documents released on Monday show how prominent Rochester officials did everything in their power to keep the troubling videos of the incident out of public view.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Black lives matter in children’s books, too.
“When a child sees themselves reflected in the books that they read, when the books are a mirror to them, they feel valued.” Black main characters are slowly growing more prominent in children’s books research shows. The Roseman’s Young, Black & Lit is making certain free books that feature black characters reach children.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Black Lives Matter but slavery isn’t our only narrative
Our historical understanding of Blackness is most commonly shaped by the story of the Atlantic slave trade, in particular to the Americas. But this is a linear narrative that is dominated by American voices. It’s not just potentially exclusory; it doesn’t adequately take into account the diversity of black people worldwide. Aretha Phiri asks Michelle M. Wright about her work in disrupting the slavery narrative.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Interview with Frank Nitty on Showtime’s ‘The Circus’
In an episode of Showtime’s The Circus entitled “Law And Disorder,” the show visited Kenosha, WI, the site of civil unrest after the shooting of Jacob Blake. Watch this gripping interview with Activist Frank Nitty.

The Exception to Exceptionalism: Why marginalized communities feel a collective guilt in America
When the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed in 1995, the authorities and all media outlets immediately blamed it on “Islamic terrorists.” Members of the Muslim community around the country were attacked, verbally and physically. When Black people protest and one sets a building on fire, all Black people are blamed collectively.For White people the rules are generally the opposite.