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      in US Politics

      Derek Chauvin trial begins as jury hears of 'excessive force' that took George Floyd's life – live

      by

      Key events

      Show

      5.45pm EDT
      17:45

      “Faded away like a fish in a bag” – witness in Chauvin trial

      4.30pm EDT
      16:30

      Today so far

      3.40pm EDT
      15:40

      CDC study shows Pfizer and Moderna vaccines highly effective in preventing Covid infections

      2.41pm EDT
      14:41

      Biden calls on states to reinstate mask mandates as coronavirus cases rise

      2.24pm EDT
      14:24

      Biden to announce 90% of US adults will be vaccine eligible by April 19, White House confirms

      2.05pm EDT
      14:05

      Georgia sued again over elections law

      1.48pm EDT
      13:48

      Biden to announce big vaccines boost – reports

      Live feed

      Show

      5.45pm EDT
      17:45

      “Faded away like a fish in a bag” – witness in Chauvin trial

      Joanna Walters

      Blistering eye-witness testimony happening now in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin over the death of George Floyd.
      Prosecution witness Donald Williams, 33, a mixed martial arts fighter, was close to the back of the police vehicle next to which, on May 25, 2020, now-former police officer Derek Chauvin had Floyd pinned to the concrete by his neck.
      Williams told the court that he could hear and see Floyd in distress and his martial arts experience indicated to him that Chauvin was choking out Floyd as he kneeled on his neck.
      The jury, and the public watching in court or around the world by live stream, was shown some devastating clips of Chauvin allegedly “shimmying” in what Williams said was a martial arts move, altering his position very slightly so that it put more pressure on – as a fighter does when they have someone in a hold.
      Williams heard Floyd talking about how much pain he was in, his distress as he said he couldn’t breathe, apologized to the officers and begged for his life.
      “The more that the knee was on his neck, and the shimmying going on, the more you see him [Floyd] slowly fade away. His eyes rolled to the back of his head,” Williams said.’
      He described Floyd dying “like a fish in a bag” and said he saw “blood coming ouot of his nose”, adding “he had no life in him any more.”
      Williams described the knee-position as a dangerous “blood choke” intended to cut Floyd’s airway. Williams has previously been heard but unseen shouting angrily at the police from the sidewalk, calling Chauvin a “bum” and accusing him of enjoying what he was doing, as Floyd suffers and begs.

      whudat
      (@whudat)
      On convenience, God works in his ways. For Donald Williams to go to the store and witness George Floyd being murdered with a move he’s well informed of from his MMA fighting. That’s supposed to happen. Testimony: Derek Chauvin looked at him when he said that’s a Blood Choke move. pic.twitter.com/zFqdD43CDK

      March 29, 2021

      5.08pm EDT
      17:08

      By the end of this work-week, all adults – and some teens – will be eligible to get a Covid vaccine in Colorado, Associated Press reports.
      Governor Jared Polis announced the expansion of the vaccine program onMonday, adding that everyone in the state will be able to get a dose by mid to late May. Over 1 million Coloradans have already been fully vaccinated.

      Governor Jared Polis
      (@GovofCO)
      COVID-19 VACCINE UPDATE!Starting Friday, April 2, all Coloradans 16 and up will be eligible to receive the Pfizer vaccine and those 18 and up will be eligible for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccine. This is a huge step towards Building Back Stronger here in Colorado. pic.twitter.com/w9uicase56

      March 29, 2021

      “Every day we’re getting closer to ending the pandemic, but it’s not over yet,” Polis said during a news conference.
      Across the US, roughly 95 million people have gotten at least one shot, and close to 53 million have been fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
      But even as new daily records for numbers of vaccines administered continue to be set, and states continue to ramp up their rates, public health officials have called for continued vigilance. Covid cases are again creeping up in some areas of the country.
      Biden called on states to reinstate mask mandates on Monday, saying that “reckless behavior” was threatening progress made in containing the pandemic.

      Updated
      at 5.38pm EDT

      4.46pm EDT
      16:46

      Hello everyone! I am Gabrielle Canon, signing on to take you through the news for the next few hours.
      First up — Donald Trump jumped on an unusual opportunity to share his feelings about the state of affairs since he’s left office, taking over the microphone during a wedding being held at his Mar-a-Lago resort over the weekend,.
      Celebrity tabloid site TMZ first released the video of the former-president’s rambling toast, where he aired complaints about Biden’s policies and rehashed fabricated accusations of election fraud, before congratulating the happy couple.

      The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly has the story:

      “Y’know,” the tuxedoed former president began, standing in front of a waiting band, “I just got, I turned off the news, I get all these flash reports, and they’re telling me about the border, they’re telling me about China, they’re telling me about Iran – how’re we doing with Iran, how do you like that?”

      Read the rest of the story here:

      4.30pm EDT
      16:30

      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague Gabrielle Canon will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      The trial of Derek Chauvin in connection to the killing of George Floyd started in Minneapolis. Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, is facing charges of murder in the second and third degree and manslaughter.
      Prosecutors played the video showing the final moments of Floyd’s life. In the video, Chauvin kneels on Floyd’s neck as Floyd repeatedly says, “I can’t breathe.” Bystanders are also heard urging Chauvin to stop kneeling on Floyd’s neck for several minutes.
      Joe Biden announced that 90% of American adults will be eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine by April 19. By that date, 90% of Americans will live within five miles of a vaccination site, the president said. Biden also announced his administration is expanding its pharmacy vaccine program and spending nearly $100 million to vaccinate vulnerable communities.
      The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expressed a feeling of “impending doom” as coronavirus cases rise in the US. During the White House coronavirus response team’s briefing today, Dr Rochelle Walensky said, “We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope, but right now I’m scared.” The CDC director urged Americans to continue wearing masks and socially distancing to limit the spread of coronavirus as vaccinations ramp up. Biden echoed Walensky’s concerns and asked states to reinstate mask mandates if they have rescinded them.
      A CDC study showed the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were highly effective at preventing coronavirus infections in real-world conditions. According to the study, the risk of infection was reduced by 90% two weeks after study participants received the second dose of a vaccine.

      Gabrielle will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      Updated
      at 4.35pm EDT

      4.15pm EDT
      16:15

      Amudalat Ajasa

      Protesters outside the Minneapolis court house where former police officer Derek Chauvin is on trial for the murder of George Floyd today were acutely aware of the significance of the case and well as the precariousness of the outcome.
      Jason Brown, 40, a vice president of a tech company and the president of Minnesota’s Arc of Justice advocacy group, who is Black, told the Guardian: “I wish for once America would stand up for us. … If [Chauvin] meant to do this or if he didn’t mean to, it happened.”
      Brown is concerned that the jury, which is majority white, may not convict.
      “The jury? I don’t think a Black man could get fair justice in America anywhere,” he said.
      People are braced for the defense to try to tear down Floyd’s character and conduct on the day.
      “[Floyd is] a Black man who’s not really on trial – but he is on trial. He died, but he’s on trial,” Brown said.
      The city has emphasized that peaceful protest is encouraged, despite the heavily-protected court building and the deployment of National Guard troops.
      But there is no doubt that if Chauvin is acquitted or even if convicted on the least serious charge, manslaughter, resulting protests could escalate and spin out of control.
      “If they don’t get it right, we will get it right. The younger generations don’t have patience for nonsense,” Brown said.
      Another protester, who identified only by her artistic moniker of Aesthetic Ash, said she left her home in California last May and has been participating in protests across the country since.
      “I’m here to make sure the community knows that people genuinely care about George Floyd, they care about Breonna Taylor and they care about all the whose lives have been stolen too early,” she said.
      Minnesota has only one previous recorded murder conviction of a police officer in the course of his duty – an officer of color.

      4.01pm EDT
      16:01

      Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver a speech on his proposed infrastructure package on Wednesday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
      According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the president will speak in the same union hall where he campaigned for Democratic congressional candidate Conor Lamb in a 2018 special election.
      Lamb won that special election and has since won two re-election races to remain in the House of Representatives.

      Jonathan Tamari
      (@JonathanTamari)
      Joe Biden is planning to launch his infrastructure pitch in the same Western PA union hall where he campaigned for Conor Lamb in the 2018 special election

      March 29, 2021

      Updated
      at 4.20pm EDT

      3.40pm EDT
      15:40

      CDC study shows Pfizer and Moderna vaccines highly effective in preventing Covid infections

      Richard Luscombe

      In case you missed it: a new CDC study provided “strong evidence” that the two mRNA vaccines approved for use in the US, produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are highly effective in preventing infections in what the agency called “real-world conditions” among healthcare personnel, first-responders and essential workers.
      “This study shows that our national vaccination efforts are working,” said Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
      “These findings should offer hope to the millions of Americans receiving Covid-19 vaccines each day and to those who will have the opportunity to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated in the weeks ahead.”
      Nonetheless, many experts fear a fourth wave of Covid-19 in the US as variants of the deadly virus continue to circulate in numerous states, many of which have almost fully reopened, and Americans prepare for the summer travel season.
      Despite more than 2.5m vaccinations being administered per day and a shrinking death toll, Walensky believes a fourth wave is imminent.
      “I’m going to lose the script, and I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom,” she said. “We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now I’m scared.”
      Walensky’s concern appears to be backed up by statistics. The US recently passed 30m cases of Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University, and the seven-day average of hospital admissions has risen to 4,800, up 200.
      The daily average of new cases has also risen, by 10% in a week, to about 70,000, far higher than the 40,000 to 50,000 daily cases of a few weeks ago.

      3.18pm EDT
      15:18

      Martin Pengelly

      In Michigan, the Associated Press reports, a judge has ordered three men to stand trial regarding a foiled plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer over her coronavirus restrictions.

      Jackson county district court Judge Michael Klaeren ruled there was enough evidence and bound over Paul Bellar, Joe Morrison and Pete Musico to circuit court to stand trial.
      Arguments were heard by Klaeren about whether the men should face trial following three days of testimony. They are accused of aiding six other men charged in federal court with conspiring to kidnap Whitmer. Five more people are also charged in state courts.
      The FBI in October said it broke up a plot to kidnap Whitmer by anti-government extremists upset over her coronavirus restrictions.
      Klareen said there was enough evidence for trial on charges of providing material support for terrorist acts, gang membership and using a firearm during a felony. The judge dismissed a charge of threat of terrorism against Musico and Morrison. Bellar did not face that charge.

      Here’s some further reading…

      2.55pm EDT
      14:55

      As he walked away from the podium, a reporter asked Joe Biden if he believed some states should pause their reopening efforts because of the rise in coronavirus cases across the US.
      “Yes,” the president replied.

      Aaron Rupar
      (@atrupar)
      REPORTER: Do you believe some states should pause their reopening efforts?BIDEN: Yes pic.twitter.com/64ggT1WuYG

      March 29, 2021

      A number of states have relaxed some of their coronavirus-related restrictions in recent weeks, as vaccinations have increased.
      But the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Rochelle Walensky, warned of “impending doom” in connection to the recent rise in cases.
      “We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope,” Walensky said during this morning’s briefing from the White House coronavirus response team. “But right now I’m scared.”

      2.47pm EDT
      14:47

      Joe Biden confirmed that 90% of American adults will be eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine by April 19. By that date, 90% of Americans will also live within five miles of a vaccination site.
      Biden noted that the final 10% of American adults will be eligible to receive the vaccine by May 1, as he previously announced.

      President Biden
      (@POTUS)
      I’m proud to announce that three weeks from today, 90% of adults will be eligible to get vaccinated — and 90% of Americans will live within 5 miles of a place to get a shot.

      March 29, 2021

      The president also announced his administration is expanding its pharmacy vaccination program to 20,000 more local pharmacies, and the federal government is investing nearly $100 million to get vulnerable communities vaccinated.
      “We still are in a war with this deadly virus, and we’re bolstering our defense, but this war is far from won,” Biden said.
      The president concluded his comments by asking Americans to continue to wear masks, socially distance and wash their hands to limit the spread of the virus.

      Updated
      at 3.04pm EDT

      2.41pm EDT
      14:41

      Biden calls on states to reinstate mask mandates as coronavirus cases rise

      Joe Biden is now speaking at the White House to deliver an update on the distribution of coronavirus vaccines in the US.
      The president noted the country has administered a record number of shots in recent days, with 10 million doses being delivered over the three days of this past weekend.
      “That would have been inconceivable in January,” Biden said. “My fellow Americans, look at what we have done over the past 10 weeks.”
      But Biden emphasized that the country’s work to get the virus under control is far from over. Echoing comments from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Biden asked Americans to continue wearing masks and socially distancing to limit the spread of coronavirus.
      At the White House coronavirus response team’s briefing this morning, the CDC director, Dr Rochelle Walensky, noted coronavirus cases have been on the rise in recent days.
      “We’re giving up hard-fought, hard-won gains,” Biden said.
      The president asked states that have rescinded their mask mandates to reinstate those public health orders.
      “Mask up, mask up. It’s your patriotic duty,” Biden said. “It’s the only way we’ll get back to normal.”

      2.24pm EDT
      14:24

      Biden to announce 90% of US adults will be vaccine eligible by April 19, White House confirms

      The White House has confirmed that Joe Biden will announce today that 90% of American adults will be eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine by April 19.
      By that date, 90% of Americans will also have a vaccination site within five miles of where they live, the White House said in a new statement.
      According to the statement, Biden will announce his administration is expanding the federal pharmacy vaccination program to 20,000 more local pharmacies across the US.
      The president will also announce nearly $100 million in funding to help vaccinate vulnerable and at-risk communities, as well as Americans with disabilities.
      Finally, Biden will announce his administration is going to establish a dozen more federally-run mass vaccination sites across the country. The White House said earlier today that two such sites will be set up in Gary, Indiana, and St Louis, Missouri.
      Biden is expected to start speaking any moment, so stay tuned.

      2.05pm EDT
      14:05

      Georgia sued again over elections law

      Sam Levine

      Georgia now faces two federal lawsuits over its sweeping new election law, both alleging state Republicans designed the measure to discriminate against Black and other minority voters.
      A suit filed on Sunday by a coalition of civil rights groups, including the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, says the law is intentionally discriminatory and violates the 14th and 15th amendments of the constitution as well as the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
      The measure, signed into law on Thursday by Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, implements a number of changes to Georgia election law. It requires voters to show identification information both when they request and return a mail-in ballot. It also shortens the period in which voters can vote by mail, prohibits providing food and water to voters in line at the polls, limits the availability of absentee ballot drop boxes, requires county boards of elections to hear voter challenges within 10 days, and creates a pathway for Republicans in the legislature to meddle in local elections,
      The law “is the culmination of a concerted effort to suppress the participation of Black voters and other voters of color by the Republican state senate, state house and governor,” lawyers representing the groups wrote.
      “Unable to stem the tide of these demographic changes or change the voting patterns of voters of color, these officials have resorted to attempting to suppress the vote of Black voters and other voters of color in order to maintain the tenuous hold that the Republican party has in Georgia.”
      The complaint is the second lawsuit filed challenging the provisions. On Thursday, almost immediately after Kemp signed the measure, the New Georgia Project and Black Voters Matter, two civic action groups, filed their own suit challenging the law.
      Joe Biden said on Friday that the US justice department, charged with enforcing the Voting Rights Act, was also “taking a look at the Georgia measure”. The department did not file any major voting rights cases under Donald Trump.
      Several more lawsuits challenging the Georgia law are expected. The suits will likely face an uphill battle among an increasingly conservative federal judiciary, especially at the appellate level that has looked skeptically on claims of voting discrimination in voting recently.

      1.48pm EDT
      13:48

      Biden to announce big vaccines boost – reports

      Martin Pengelly

      Shortly after CDC director Rochelle Walensky spoke about her “sense of doom” about rising Covid case numbers, the White House trailed some altogether more optimistic words to come from Joe Biden this afternoon.
      As Bloomberg News reports it:

      President Joe Biden plans to announce that 90% of US adults will be eligible to get a Covid-19 vaccine in three weeks, and that his administration will more than double the number of pharmacies where shots are available, officials familiar with the matter said.
      Biden will make the announcement on Monday afternoon at the White House, marking 19 April as a new milestone in the vaccination effort. He’ll also say that nearly all US adults will be able to get a shot within five miles of their homes, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

      Of course, the two lines of comment are not remotely mutually exclusive. Great strides are indeed being made in vaccinations across the US, with New York ready to vaccinate everyone over 30 and soon all adults, said Andrew Cuomo also on Monday, but case numbers are also rising, virus variants are dangerous and many states are pursuing reopening policies dangerously fast.
      Here’s our current news lead, leading on Walensky’s remarks but “wrapping”, as they in the news business, other developments too:

      1.30pm EDT
      13:30

      Today so far

      The White House press briefing has now concluded. Here’s where the day stands so far:

      The trial of Derek Chauvin in connection to the killing of George Floyd started in Minneapolis. Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, is facing charges of murder in the second and third degree and manslaughter.
      Prosecutors played the video showing the final moments of Floyd’s life. In the video, Chauvin kneels on Floyd’s neck as Floyd can be heard repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe.” Bystanders are also heard urging Chauvin to stop kneeling on Floyd’s neck for several minutes.
      The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expressed a feeling of “impending doom” as coronavirus cases rise in the US. During the White House coronavirus response team’s briefing today, Dr Rochelle Walensky said, “We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope, but right now I’m scared.” The CDC director urged Americans to continue wearing masks and socially distancing to limit the spread of coronavirus as vaccinations ramp up.

      The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned. More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Georgia's governor signed 'Jim Crow' voting bill under painting of a slave plantation

      by

      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterAs a photo of the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, circulated around the internet, showing the politician signing the sweeping voting restrictions bill while surrounded by other white, male politicians, some Twitter users homed in on a previously undetected detail.The Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch created a Twitter thread about a painting of a Georgia plantation that is hanging behind Kemp in the photograph. Writing about the history of the Callaway plantation in Wilkes county, Georgia, Bunch said the place depicted “thrived because of the back-breaking labor of more than 100 slaves who were held in cruel human bondage”.The columnist, who later published an op-ed about the discovery, said the symbolism of Kemp signing a bill that Joe Biden has referred to as “Jim Crow in the 21st century” is no coincidence.The 98-page Election Integrity Act of 2021 has garnered criticism for the additional ID requirements it has added to absentee voting, and making it a crime for many volunteers to hand out water or food within 150 feet of polling precincts.The practice of handing out food and water became popular as a method of keeping exhausted voters in line at precincts where wait times can span hours. The law also places drop boxes inside voting sites. These drop boxes, which have been in place since last year, will only be accessible during early voting hours instead of 24/7.1. You’ve probably seen this picture of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and his gaggle of white men signing the state’s voter suppression law — the new, new Jim Crow. But there’s a shocking angle to this story that you haven’t heard. Sit down for this one… pic.twitter.com/edHPmyeoiu— Will Bunch Sign Up For My Newsletter (@Will_Bunch) March 26, 2021
      “Brian Kemp and his white henchmen have created an image for our times, in working to continue a tradition of inhumanity and white supremacy that now spans centuries, from the human bondage that took place behind the placid scenery of Brickhouse Road in Wilkes county, to the suppression now hidden behind a phony facade of ‘voter integrity’. This legacy is a crime against humanity, and it cannot stand,” Bunch tweeted.The imagery garnered outrage from other people on Twitter, too.The signing of the Georgia Voter Suppression law yesterday was done under the backdrop of Callaway Plantation in Georgia. Having a bunch of white men under a plantation signing a massive voter suppression bill lets everyone know EXACTLY what they want to have happen. https://t.co/QeXMoPqXQj— ProfB (@AntheaButler) March 26, 2021
      Mounted behind white enslavers’ descendants signing a law to make it hard for Black people to vote is Callaway Plantation, a concentration camp where Callaways forced 319 Black Georgians to work free and build southern wealth that gave these men power they’re trying to maintain. pic.twitter.com/kSvFmOF1gM— Uju Anya (@UjuAnya) March 26, 2021
      Thursday’s signing of the law also garnered criticism after a Democratic representative, Park Cannon, was arrested for knocking on the office door as Kemp signed the bill in a closed-door ceremony. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      The Republican party's problem with race: Politics Weekly Extra

      by

      This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Michael Steele, a former chair of the Republican national committee. The pair discuss why he chose to campaign for a Joe Biden victory, and how the Republicans are getting it wrong when it comes to Black and minority voters

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Michael Steele was the first Black chairman of the GOP, but in 2020 he decided to join the Lincoln Project, a group of disaffected Republicans who grouped together to campaign against Donald Trump winning a second term. Still a Republican, he believes his party needs to abandon its recent populist rhetoric and widen the net of potential voters beyond older white Americans. As he explains in this fascinating interview with Jonathan, if it doesn’t do so, the party could rue the decision for years to come. Send us your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Black farmers speak out against the 'festering wound' of racism in agriculture

      by

      For the first time in US history, members of the House agriculture committee heard from Black farmers on the impact of systemic discrimination by the department of agriculture (USDA).Thursday’s hearing came on the heels of $5bn being allocated to socially disadvantaged farmers of color earlier this month as part of the coronavirus relief and economic stimulus package. The funding – $4bn for debt forgiveness, $1bn for other forms of support – is meant to account for generations of mistreatment of farmers of color by the USDA.“This festering wound on the soul of agriculture must be healed,” said congressman David Scott of Georgia, who was born on a farm in South Carolina owned by his grandparents and now serves as the first ever Black person to chair the committee. Black farmers offered familiar testimonies of racism in the industry and from the USDA. Sedrick Rowe, an organic peanut farmer in Georgia, spoke of crop buyers telling him they are done buying peanuts for the day when he shows up. PJ Haynie of the National Black Growers Council told of Black farmers getting by on non-irrigated land while their white neighbors used USDA assistance to irrigate theirs.Once making up about 14% of US farmers, Black farmers make up less than 2% today. Many were forced out by racist lending practices by the agriculture department that led to vast losses of land, income, profits and generation wealth. That wealth cannot be regained. Black farmers will never get the land they lost back. But the USDA seems to be trying to foster a renewed trust in the department.In addition to Scott’s landmark appointment in December, the USDA, perhaps as an acknowledgment of Tom Vilsack’s second term as agriculture secretary being met with disappointment by many Black farmers and leaders, named Dewayne Goldmon, former executive director of the National Black Growers Council, as the USDA’s first-ever senior adviser for racial equity. And, if confirmed, Jewel Bronaugh will be the first Black woman to serve as deputy secretary for the department.Still, Black farmers remain skeptical. “That’s all very much good intention. But the foundation of the USDA is crooked,” said Michael Carter, a Virginia farmer, of the seemingly reactive diversity efforts. “You can’t put a new roof on and expect the foundation to be straight again.”Scott asked Vilsack on Thursday how much of his time will be devoted to getting the $5bn in stimulus funds in the hands of Black farmers. Vilsack responded that he has no doubt his staff understands this is at the top of his list in terms of priorities.“This is a meeting I’ve been advocating for for 30 years,” said John Boyd Jr . “On behalf of every Black share cropper and Black farmer we thank you for finally hearing our cries.”But as president and founder of the National Black Farmers Association, Boyd said his phones were ringing off the hook with farmers asking when they will get the relief. By the end of the four and a half hour hearing, that rollout was still not clear. Boyd, who has advocated on behalf of Black farmers and brought issues of inequality to the forefront for decades, urged swift movement to implement this debt relief.“This should’ve been doing in the first place,” he said over the phone. Reminded of his own advocacy towards Thursday’s hearing, he remained resolute. “You don’t think about it. You got so many hurdles, so many fights,” More

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      in US Politics

      'We all know hate when we see it': Warnock rejects FBI chief's view of Atlanta shootings

      by

      Law enforcement officials including the director of the FBI have said the shootings in Atlanta in which eight people were killed do not appear to have been racially motivated, but the Georgia senator Raphael Warnock said on Sunday: “We all know hate when we see it.”Six women of Asian descent, another woman and a man were killed on Tuesday, in a shootings at spas in the Atlanta area.Robert Aaron Long, a 21-year-old white man, was charged with the murders. He told police his actions were not racially motivated, and claimed to have a sex addiction.Speaking to NPR on Thursday, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, said: “While the motive remains still under investigation at the moment, it does not appear that the motive was racially motivated.”But such conclusions are rejected by protesters who see a link to rising attacks on Asian Americans in light of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China, and racially charged rhetoric from former president Donald Trump and others.Warnock, a Democrat, took office in January as the first African American elected to the US Senate from Georgia. On Saturday he and his fellow Democratic senator Jon Ossoff spoke to protesters near the state capitol in Atlanta.“I just wanted to drop by to say to my Asian sisters and brothers, ‘We see you, and, more importantly, we are going to stand with you,’” Warnock said, to cheers.On Sunday, he told NBC’s Meet the Press: “I think it’s important that we centre the humanity of the victims. I’m hearing a lot about the shooter, but these precious lives that have been lost, they are attached to families. They’re connected to people who love them. And so, we need to keep that in mind.“Law enforcement will go through the work that they need to do, but we all know hate when we see it. And it is tragic that we’ve been visited with this kind of violence yet again.”Warnock also cited a Georgia hate crimes law passed amid outrage over the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a young African American man, and which prosecutors may decide to use against Young.“I’ve long pushed for hate crimes laws here in the state of Georgia,” Warnock said. “It took entirely too long to get one on the books here. But thankfully, we do have that law on the books right now.”Calling for “reasonable gun reform”, Warnock also linked official responses to the Atlanta shootings to efforts by Republicans to restrict voting among minority groups.“This shooter was able to kill all of these folks the same day he purchased a firearm,” Warnock said. “But right now, what is our legislature doing? They’re busy under the gold dome here in Georgia, trying to prevent people from being able to vote the same day they register.“I think that suggests a distortion in values. When you can buy a gun and create this much carnage and violence on the same day, but if you want to exercise your right to vote as an American citizen, the same legislature that should be focused on this is busy erecting barriers to that constitutional right.”Young bought a 9mm handgun at Big Woods Goods. Matt Kilgo, a lawyer for the store, told the Associated Press it complies with federal background check laws and is cooperating with police, with “no indication there’s anything improper”.Democrats and campaigners for gun law reform said a mandatory waiting period might have stopped Young acting on impulse.“It’s really quick,” Robyn Thomas, executive director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, told the AP. “You walk in, fill out the paperwork, get your background check and walk out with a gun. If you’re in a state of crisis, personal crisis, you can do a lot of harm fairly quickly.”According to the Giffords Center, studies suggest purchase waiting periods may bring down firearm suicides by up to 11% and homicides by about 17%.David Wilkerson, the minority whip in the Georgia state House, said Democrats planned to introduce legislation that would require a five-day period between buying a gun and getting it. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Atlanta spa shootings: Georgia hate crimes law could see first big test

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      A hate crimes law passed in Georgia amid outrage over the killing of Ahmaud Arbery could get its first major test as part of the murder case against a white man charged with shooting and killing six women of Asian descent at Atlanta-area massage businesses this week.Prosecutors in Georgia who will decide whether to pursue a hate crimes enhancement have declined to comment. But one said she was “acutely aware of the feelings of terror being experienced in the Asian American community”.Until last year, Georgia was one of four states without a hate crimes law. But lawmakers moved quickly to pass stalled legislation in June, during national protests over racial violence against Black Americans including the killing of Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was pursued by several white men and fatally shot while out running in February 2020.The new law allows an additional penalty for certain crimes if they are motivated by a victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender or mental or physical disability.Governor Brian Kemp called the new legislation “a powerful step forward”, adding when signing it into law: “Georgians protested to demand action and state lawmakers … rose to the occasion.”The killings of eight people in Georgia this week have prompted national mourning and a reckoning with racism and violence against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. The attack also focused attention on the interplay of racism and misogyny, including hyper-sexualized portrayals of Asian women in US culture.Many times Asian people are too silent, but times changeRobert Aaron Long, 21, has been charged with the murders of six women of Asian descent and two other people. He told police the attacks at two spas in Atlanta and a massage business near suburban Woodstock were not racially motivated. He claimed to have a sex addiction.Asian American lawmakers, activists and scholars argued that the race and gender of the victims were central to the attack.“To think that someone targeted three Asian-owned businesses that were staffed by Asian American women … and didn’t have race or gender in mind is just absurd,” said Grace Pai, director of organizing at Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Chicago.Elaine Kim, a professor emeritus in Asian American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said: “I think it’s likely that the killer not only had a sex addiction but also an addiction to fantasies about Asian women as sex objects.”Such sentiments were echoed on Saturday as a diverse, hundreds-strong crowd gathered in a park across from the Georgia state capitol to demand justice for the victims of the shootings.Speakers included the US senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff and the Georgia state representative Bee Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American in the Georgia House.“I just wanted to drop by to say to my Asian sisters and brothers, we see you, and, more importantly, we are going to stand with you,” Warnock said to loud cheers. “We’re all in this thing together.”Bernard Dong, a 24-year-old student from China at Georgia Tech, said he had come to the protest to demand rights not just for Asians but for all minorities.“Many times Asian people are too silent, but times change,” he said, adding that he was “angry and disgusted” about the shootings and violence against Asians, minorities and women.Otis Wilson, a 38-year-old photographer, said people needed to pay attention to discrimination against those of Asian descent.“We went through this last year with the Black community, and we’re not the only ones who go through this,” he said.The Cherokee county district attorney, Shannon Wallace, and Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, will decide whether to pursue the hate crime enhancement.Wallace said she could not answer specific questions but said she was “acutely aware of the feelings of terror being experienced in the Asian-American community”. A representative for Willis did not respond to requests for comment.The US Department of Justice could bring federal hate crime charges independently of state prosecutions. Federal investigators have not uncovered evidence to prove Long targeted the victims because of their race, two unnamed officials told the Associated Press.A Georgia State University law professor, Tanya Washington, said it was important for the new hate crimes law to be used.“Unless we test it with cases like this one, we won’t have a body of law around how do you prove bias motivated the behavior,” she said.[embedded content]Given that someone convicted of multiple murders is unlikely to be released from prison, an argument could be made that it is not worth the effort, time and expense to pursue a hate crime designation that carries a relatively small additional penalty. But the Republican state representative Chuck Efstration, who sponsored the hate crimes bill, said it was not just about punishment.“It is important that the law calls things what they are,” he said. “It’s important for victims and it’s important for society.”The state senator Michelle Au, a Democrat, said the law needed to be used to give it teeth.Au believes there has been resistance nationwide to charge attacks against Asian Americans as hate crimes because they are seen as “model minorities”, a stereotype that they are hard-working, educated and free of societal problems. She said she had heard from many constituents in the last year that Asian Americans – and people of Chinese descent in particular – were suffering from bias because the coronavirus emerged in China and Donald Trump used racial terms to describe it.“People feel like they’re getting gaslighted because they see it happen every day,” she said. “They feel very clearly that it is racially motivated but it’s not pegged or labeled that way. And people feel frustrated by that lack of visibility and that aspect being ignored.” More

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      White people, black authors are not your medicine | Yaa Gyasi

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      In 2018, two other novelists and I were being driven back from a reception in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, to our hotel in downtown Detroit, when we saw a black man getting arrested on the side of the road. The driver of our car, a white woman who had spent the earlier part of the drive ranting about how Coleman Young, Detroit’s first black mayor, had ruined the city, looked at the lone black man surrounded by police officers with their guns drawn and said: “It’s good they’ve got so many on him. You never know what they’ll do.”
      Two years before, I had published my first novel, Homegoing, a book that is, among other things, about the afterlife of the transatlantic slave trade. The book thrust me into a kind of recognition that is uncommon to fiction writers. I was on late-night shows and photographed for fashion magazines. I did countless interviews, very little writing. The bulk of my work life was spent touring the country giving various readings and lectures. I spent about 180 days of 2017 either at an event, or travelling to or from one. By the time that car ride in Michigan came around, I was exhausted, not just by the travel but by something that is more difficult to articulate – the dissonance of the black spotlight, of being revered in one way and reviled in another, a revulsion that makes clear the hollowness of the reverence.
      The next morning, I delivered my address to a room full of people who had gathered for a library fundraiser, an address where I insisted, as so many black writers, artists and academics have before me, that America has failed to contend with the legacy of slavery. This failure is evident all around us, from our prisons to our schools, our healthcare, our food and waterways. I gave my lecture. I accepted the applause and the thanks, and then I got into another car. It was a different driver, but it was the same world.
      I was thinking about that driver’s words again last summer as news poured in about the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. I was thinking about the way in which white people, in order to justify their own grotesque violence, so often engage in a kind of fiction, an utterly insidious denialism that creates the reality it claims to protest. By which I mean an unwillingness to see the violence that is actually happening before you because of a presumption of violence that might happen, is itself a kind of violence. What exactly can a man with a knee on his neck do, what can a sleeping woman do to deserve their own murder? To make room for that grotesqueness, that depraved thinking, to believe in any murder’s necessity, you must abandon reality. To see a man with several guns aimed at him, his hands on his head, as the problem, you must leave the present tense (“It’s good they’ve got so many on him”) and enter the future (“You never know what they will do”). A future, which is, of course, entirely imagined.

      I make my living off my imagination, but this summer, as I watched Homegoing climb back up the New York Times bestseller list in response to its appear­ance on anti-racist reading lists, I saw again, with no small amount of bile, that I make my living off the articulation of pain too. My own, my people’s. It is wrenching to know that the occasion for the renewed interest in your work is the murders of black people and the subsequent “listening and learning” of white people. I’d rather not know this feeling of experiencing career highs as you are flooded with a grief so old and worn that it seems unearthed, a fossil of other old and worn griefs.
      When an interviewer asks me what it’s like to see Homegoing on the bestseller list again, I say something short and vacuous like “it’s bittersweet”, because the idea of elaborating exhausts and offends me. What I should say is: why are we back here? Why am I being asked questions that James Baldwin answered in the 1960s, that Toni Morrison answered in the 80s? I read Morrison’s The Bluest Eye for the first time when I was a teenager, and it was so crystalline, so beautifully and perfectly formed that it filled me with something close to terror. I couldn’t fathom it. I couldn’t fathom how a novel could pierce right through the heart of me and find the inarticulable wound. I learned absolutely nothing, but some minor adjustment was made within me, some imperceptible shift that occurs only when I encounter wonder and awe, the best art.
      To see my book on any list with that one should have, in a better world, filled me with uncomplicated pride, but instead I felt deflated. While I do devoutly believe in the power of literature to challenge, to deepen, to change, I also know that buying books by black authors is but a theoretical, grievously belated and utterly impoverished response to centuries of physical and emotional harm. The Bluest Eye was published 51 years ago. As Lauren Michelle Jackson wrote in her excellent Vulture essay “What is an anti-racist reading list for”, someone at some point has to get down to the business of reading.
      And it’s this question of “the business of reading”, of how we read, why we read, and what reading does for and to us, that I keep turning over in my mind. Years ago, I was at a festival with a friend, another black author, and we were trading stories. She said that the first time she did a panel with a white male author she was shocked to hear the questions he was asked. Craft questions. Character questions. Research questions. Questions about the novel itself, about the quality and the content of the pages themselves. I knew exactly what she meant. More

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      This is the Fire review: Don Lemon's audacious study of racism – and love

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      Don Lemon’s new memoir is an audacious and improbable book by a remarkable man. “We must summon the courage to love people who infuriate us, because we love the world we share,” he writes, near the start.

      Relatively young, a short 20 years ago, the CNN anchor was almost unknown. How then, without seeming arrogant or pompous, does he place his life and his experience beside the best-known champions from the pantheon of Black freedom fighters? Invoking the zeal and courage of Dr King and Sojourner Truth, portraying even the proscribed accomplishments of Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen in the same light of heroic survival, his is a voice as essential for our time as Ta-Nehisi Coates and as compelling as Caroline Randall Williams.
      Lemon was initially a Republican, he tells us, from a time in his Louisiana homeland when Republicans were still pro-civil rights. He has taken a circuitous route to ardent Black activism. He revealed three sensational secrets in a 2011 memoir, Transparent, and seemed destined to become a media star akin to Oprah Winfrey. But his nightly broadcasts as the only African American anchor in prime time, his Zoom chats and podcast on racism have been calculated towards his rise. Affectingly, he appeals to a growing fanbase by relating that success notwithstanding, his was a life as troubled as their own.
      For one thing, his parents hadn’t been legally wed. His mother, working for his dad as a legal secretary, was married to another man, his father to another woman. His dad died when Lemon was nine and his divorced mom remarried. His family were loving and even his relationship with his stepfather was good. But he realized he was a “double negative” – gay and Black – living in the south, undoubtedly confused by childhood sexual assaults at the hands of a friend of his mother. He overcame all of this but one media instructor later told him: “I don’t know why you’re here. You’ll never be a newscaster.”
      But he was, and he took off. And then, around 2014, he seemed to change. Out of the blue, he was hectoring Black youth on air to “pull up their pants!” Denouncing a rebel fashion which endures on account of its effectiveness at pissing off old people, particularly old white authority figures? One wondered, was he embracing Bill Cosby’s “respectability” political stand? Admonishing youth about the importance of being married before starting a family, even endorsing the value of New York’s discriminatory stop-and-frisk policing, many reasoned Lemon must be trolling for ratings from the enemy. Some denounced him as an “Uncle Tom”.
      The change of Lemon’s disappointing trajectory began before Trump. Certainly the threat the former president posed helped to radicalize someone who often seems happiest finding and presenting both sides. Trump’s recurring slur of “stupid”, alternating with, “the stupidest!”, was consistently met with good-natured laughter and ever more incisive analysis. Trump was Lemon’s trial by fire. White-hot, through it he was refined. From a mere Black pundit he was transformed into a tested, un-cowed combatant in the struggle for civil rights.
      Beginning with a cautionary letter to his nephews and nieces with his white fiance, Tim Malone, Lemon purposefully emulates his hero, James Baldwin. Explaining the killing of George Floyd, Lemon deliberately imitates a letter Baldwin wrote to his nephew in 1963. It is a preamble to a plea to learn all one can about the past. He warns of the omnipresence of patriarchal white supremacy, the west’s original sin.
      “Racism is a cancer that has been metastasizing throughout the land ever since Columbus showed up,” he states, making an excellent argument for replacing all memorials to Columbus with tributes to Frank Sinatra.
      Elucidating on the extent to which the wealth and might of America was derived from land appropriated from Native Americans and labor coerced from red, brown and especially enslaved Black Americans, he notes that even enterprises not directly involved in slavery benefited from the exploitative system. More