Social Movements & the Law

“I can’t breathe” — that’s what George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, repeatedly told a white Minneapolis police officer who pinned him to the ground Monday with a knee to his neck. Video of the police attack went viral. Now four officers have been fired. This comes as another video went viral of a white woman calling the cops on a Black man in New York City’s Central Park and falsely accusing him of “threatening her life” after he asked her to leash her dog. We discuss these developments and more with Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University and National Book Award–winning author of “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” and “How to Be an Antiracist.”

If you’re taking to the streets to demand justice for the victims of police brutality and homicide, you may want to leave your phone at home. No matter how peaceful your behavior, you are at risk of getting arrested or assaulted by police. Cops might confiscate your phone and search it regardless of whether or not they’re legally allowed to, or they might try to break it, especially if it contains photos or video of their violent or illegal actions. At the same time, it’s a good idea to bring a phone to a protest so you can record what’s happening and get the message out on social media. Filming police is completely legal and within your rights, and it’s one of the few tools we have against police brutality. It’s also important to be able to communicate with others in real-time or to find your friends in case you get separated. To reconcile this tension — between wanting to protect your privacy and wanting to digitally document protests and police misdeeds — the safest option is to leave your primary phone, which contains a massive amount of private information about you, at home and instead bring a specially-prepared burner phone to protests. The Intercept's Micah Lee discusses how to do this at length in the video above. Read the article at theintercept.com

In a Juneteenth special, we mark the federal holiday that commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. We speak to the writer and poet Clint Smith about Juneteenth and his new book, “How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.” “When I think of Juneteenth, part of what I think about is the both-handedness of it,” Smith says, “that it is this moment in which we mourn the fact that freedom was kept from hundreds of thousands of enslaved people for years and for months after it had been attained by them, and then, at the same time, celebrating the end of one of the most egregious things that this country has ever done.” Smith says he recognizes the federal holiday marking Juneteenth as a symbol, “but it is clearly not enough.”

The Working Group is an Oakland-based nonprofit that combines documentary and multimedia with outreach and organizing. Our efforts have started dialogue and sparked civic engagement in hundreds of communities nationwide, starting with the 1995 public television broadcast of Not In Our Town. This documentary followed the story of the citizens of Billings, Montana who joined forces to resist anti-Semitic and racist bigotry in their town. After an unprecedented national outreach campaign, communities around the country began to use the story as a model for anti-hate work. Today, NIOT is one of the country's leading resources for community organizing to prevent and respond to hate crimes. Please note that comments that include profanity or personal attacks, disrespectful language, hate speech, or other inappropriate material will be removed. Learn more: niot.org Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/notinourtown twitter.com/notinourtown

As the Sikh community in Indianapolis and across the United States is in mourning after a gunman killed eight people at a FedEx facility last week, where four of the victims are Sikh, we speak with Simran Jeet Singh, scholar, activist and senior fellow for the Sikh Coalition, which is calling for a full investigation into the possibility of racial or ethnic hatred as a factor in the killings in Indianapolis. A majority of the workers at the warehouse are Sikh, and while authorities have not shared evidence Brandon Hole was targeting Sikh workers when he attacked the FedEx facility, police revealed Monday they previously found evidence that Hole had browsed white supremacist websites. The mass shooting took place as more than 15 states across the U.S., including Indiana, mark April as Sikh Awareness and Appreciation Month. “This community, in Indianapolis, all around the world, is really devastated,” says Singh. “Given the pattern of violence against Sikhs, we are demanding a full investigation into the possibility of bias and racism in this attack.”

"Video for Change is packed with real-life stories from the fray, how-to guidance, and easy-to-use exercises. Clear and accessible, it provides a crash course in the basics of social justice video documentation and advocacy. The authors cover every aspect of filmmaking from technical guidance to strategic and ethical issues, making it indispensable for both amateur and professional filmmakers.;Readers are shown how to plan, film, edit and distribute; they are shown how to adopt an effective strategy so that their video makes a difference. The book is unique in that it also covers the practical ethics and responsibilities of social justice video-work and offers a global range of real-life stories to learn from."--Pub. desc.

CNN spoke to six people around the US who are helping protect and uplift Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Here are their stories.

Political acts are encoded in medial forms -- feet marching on a street, punch holes on a card, images on live stream, tweets -- that have force, shaping people as subjects and constituting the contours of what is sensible, legible, visible. Thus, these events define the terms of political possibility and create terrain for political actions. Sensible Politics: The Visual Culture of Nongovernmental Activism considers the constitutive role played by aesthetic and performative techniques in the staging of claims by nongovernmental activists. Attending to political aesthetics means focusing not on a disembodied image that travels under the concept of art or visual culture, nor on a preformed domain of the political that seeks subsequent expression in media form. Instead, it requires bringing the two realms together into the same analytic frame. Drawing on the work of a diverse group of contributors, from art historians, anthropologists, and political theorists to artists, filmmakers, and architects, Sensible Politics situates aesthetic forms within broader activist contexts and networks of circulation and in so doing offers critical insight into the practices of mediation whereby the political becomes manifest. Contributors include: Barbara Abrash, Negar Azimi, Ariella Azoulay, Amahl Bishara, Judith Butler, Eduardo Cadava, Jonathan Crary, Ann Cvetkovich, Faye Ginsburg, Sam Gregory, Zeynep Devrim Gürsel, Roger Hallas, Andrew Herscher, Sandi Hilal, Kirsten Johnson, Liza Johnson, Thomas Keenan, Carrie Lambert-Beatty, Jaleh Mansoor, Yates McKee, Meg McLagan, Alessandro Petti, Hugh Raffles, Felicity D. Scott, Kendall Thomas, Leshu Torchin, Eyal Weizman, Benjamin J. Young, Huma Yusuf, and Charles Zerner.

USING ACTIVE LISTENING, EMPATHY, AND PERSONAL STORYTELLING TO PROMOTE RACIAL EQUITY

"The ABA Legal Education Police Practices Consortium aims to contribute to the national effort examining and addressing legal issues in policing and public safety including conduct oversight and the evolving nature of police work. The Consortium will leverage the ABA's expertise and that of participating ABA accredited law schools to collaborate on projects to develop and implement better police practices throughout the United States. "

Developed by Karla J. Strand, DPhil, MLIS Gender and Women’s Studies Librarian University of Wisconsin System 2019 This bibliography is number 89 in […]

On May 31 and June 1, 1921, mobs of white residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses in the city's Greenwood District, also known as Black Wall Street. The attacks from the ground and private aircraft killed an unknown number of Black people, estimated to be between 75 and 300, and injured and displaced hundreds more. The massacre was largely undiscussed in local, state, and national histories, even after a state commission on the event published its final report in 2001 but gained increased public awareness when it was featured in the HBO series Watchmen in 2019 and Lovecraft Country in 2020.

"Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative a human rights organization in Montgomery Alabama. Under his leadership EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing exonerating innocent death row prisoners confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults."

JSTOR releases the first books in Path to Open, a program to support the open access publication of new books in the humanities and social sciences.

CCBC Library

"The SPLC is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation education and other forms of advocacy the SPLC works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality."

We asked some of our regular book critics what soon-to-be-published titles they are most looking forward to reading this summer. Here's what they said.

The recent, well-publicized tragic deaths of African Americans at the hands of police officers have generated a public debate about race and policing. This is not the first time police violence against African Americans has been the predicate for a nationwide conversation about race. Likely, it won’t be the last.

As anti-Asian attacks continue, three victims come forward to share their experiences and the change they hope to inspire.

Our communities stand united against racism. Hate against Asian American Pacific Islander communities has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, we can stop it. Support Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay Visit our Act Now page for more information. × Dismiss alert Act Now Latest News Latest Reports

In these captivating books about immigration, authors recount deeply personal stories of migration, starting over, and learning to adjust to life in a foreign world.

By Jennifer Mendez What is Latinx (or Hispanic) Heritage Month? Each year, Americans observe National Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15, by celebrating the histories, c…

EJI challenges racial and economic injustice and provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in jails and prisons. Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy, EJI is a private 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

There’s no shortage of talented Latinx writers with all kinds of stories to tell. Let’s make space for them.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has asked the state Court of Appeals to overturn his conviction for the 2020 murder of George Floyd, according to an appeal filed Monday.

Implicit racial bias remains widespread, even among individuals who explicitly reject prejudice. One reason for the persistence of implicit bias may be that it is maintained through structural and historical inequalities that change slowly. We investigated the historical persistence of implicit bias by comparing modern implicit bias with the proportion of the population enslaved in those counties in 1860. Counties and states more dependent on slavery before the Civil War displayed higher levels of pro-White implicit bias today among White residents and less pro-White bias among Black residents. These associations remained significant after controlling for explicit bias. The association between slave populations and implicit bias was partially explained by measures of structural inequalities. Our results support an interpretation of implicit bias as the cognitive residue of past and present structural inequalities.

Hack The Gates: Radically Reimagine Admissions aims to critically examine current structures and gatekeeping functions in college admissions, and to propose innovative solutions to dismantle barriers to access and participation in higher education for low-income and students of color. Through partnership, we have brought together practioneers and researchers to rethink higher education from multiple perspectives. In addition, Hack the Gates facilitates urgently needed honest conversations among college admissions stakeholders about the roles we play as gatekeepers to opportunity, perpetrators of race and class inequities, and transformative leaders in designing equitable college access and enrollment processes. Through online learning, creative brainstorming, and policy analysis, Hack the Gates: Radically Reimagine Admissions will be a catalyst for a complete transformation of the college admission process.

There's a Book for That: U.S.- Mexico Border #InsidePenguinRandom

J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, two of the former Minneapolis Police officers convicted of federal charges in the fatal arrest of George Floyd, were sentenced to 3 years and 3.5 years in prison, respectively, on Wednesday.