WaPo:
Congressional Democrats to unveil police reform package next week
Justice in Policing Act of 2020 includes measures aimed at boosting accountability, changing police practices and curbing racial profiling
The above is important not only for the subject content, but because Republicans have nothing to suggest or offer. Zero. Nada. No initiatives, other than hiding behind the same fence that Trump cowers behind. They are all prisoners of their emptiness. Not for the pandemic, not for the jobs loss, not for the racial injustice.
The November election is less than 5 months away. 148 days, more or less (early voting is sooner). Be there.
We are a bit twitter heavy today because of fast moving news.
Mitt Romney marching for Black Lives Matter is more important politically than Colin Powell announcing he’s voting for Biden.
Which of these things surprises you the most? They all happened.
See also Inside the Revolts Erupting in America’s Big Newsrooms (NY Times), a huge story about black reporters in an older white-run newsroom.
This is not the Onion.
I don’t know why it is so hard for people to accept: a lead that big nationally means a solid lead in e.g., MI (see below).
The polls are telling us something. Listen to what they say.
NY Times:
Pandemic Within a Pandemic’: Coronavirus and Police Brutality Roil Black Communities
The current civil unrest is deeply connected to the racial disparities exposed by the coronavirus crisis. “I’m just as likely to die from a cop as I am from Covid,” one organizer said.
As protests over police brutality continue to roil cities, this is an extraordinary moment of pain for the nation, especially for black Americans who are bearing the brunt of three crises — police violence, crushing unemployment and the deadliest infectious disease threat in a century — that have laid bare longstanding injustice. Public health experts, activists and lawmakers say the triple threat requires a coordinated response.
HuffPost:
Teen Girls Organized A 10,000-Person Black Lives Matter Protest In Nashville
Six teenagers pulled off the region’s largest protest against racism and police brutality in recent memory, local news reported.
The young women quickly bonded over their shared outrage over the death of George Floyd — the Black man who died last week in Minneapolis after a white police officer knelt on his neck.
“That’s what really opened people’s eyes to what’s been going on in our country,” Fuller told local news channel WSMV of the disturbing footage that’s led to worldwide protests.
Soon after meeting online, the young women began FaceTiming one another and decided to form the coalition Girls 4 Change, which is backed by Black Lives Matter Nashville. Their rally soon followed.
The kids are all right.
NY Times:
Why Most Americans Support the Protests
Never before in the history of modern polling has the country expressed such widespread agreement on racism’s pervasiveness in policing, and in society at large.
Driven by the Black Lives Matter movement, this shift has primed the country for a new groundswell — one that has quickly earned the sympathy of most Americans, polling shows. As a result, in less than two weeks, it has already forced local governments and national politicians to make tangible policy commitments.
In a Monmouth University poll released this week, 76 percent of Americans — including 71 percent of white people — called racism and discrimination “a big problem” in the United States. That’s a 26-percentage-point spike since 2015. In the poll, 57 percent of Americans said demonstrators’ anger was fully justified, and another 21 percent called it somewhat justified.
Black women, you say? 🤔 Wonder if that has any implication for who the next VP will be? 🤔🤔
Brian Resnick/Vox:
What public health experts want critics to know about why they support the protests
“For black folks, their cost of not doing something is a lot greater than potentially getting a virus.”
“I was definitely a little nervous,” about catching Covid-19 in the crowd, says Blake, a researcher at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. But showing up and speaking out was more important to her in this moment: “I have a vested interest in the protection of black and brown people, not only professionally, but personally,” she says. She felt like she could no longer prioritize her personal safety from the coronavirus.
Blake works with public health professionals and ER doctors every day, and knew joining a crowd was dangerous — for both herself and the community. But she made a careful calculation: Covid-19 is a huge risk, and to her, the protests were worth it.
Wear a mask if you protest, folks, We are still in the middle of a pandemic.
Jacob T Levy/Niskanen:
The Defense of Liberty Can’t Do Without Identity Politics
There’s a hypothesis afoot that identity politics or “political correctness,” particularly on the left, generated a backlash that elected Trump. This backlash is sometimes understood as a self-conscious turn to white identity politics, and sometimes as just sheer middle-[white-]American irritation with cultural elites and an attraction to Trump’s willingness to ignore their taboos and pieties. Part of the claim about identity politics is that it is self-undermining and so needs to be discarded, regardless of its substantive merits. In the language of political philosophy, the claim is that attention to the concerns of minorities violates a requirement that norms or ideals demonstrate stability when acted upon. Given the prominence of this idea in post-election commentary, I think it’s important to show that it’s wrong before turning to the actual merits of identity politics.
Throughout I’ll be using the contemporary language of “identity politics,” but building on arguments I developed using the different language of “multiculturalism” in The Multiculturalism of Fear and of “intermediate group pluralism” in Rationalism, Pluralism, and Freedom.
Just Security:
The Strength of America’s Apolitical Military
Statement by Former U.S. Ambassadors, Military Officers, Senior Officials
First published on June 5, 2020. Most recent update: June 6, 2020 at 10:43 PM ET.
Retired members of the U.S. diplomatic corps, many of whom had seen first-hand in non-democratic countries the use of the military as a tool to suppress public protest, were alarmed this week at what seemed steps in that direction on the streets of Washington. The following letter expresses their concern at such measures and their support for the U.S. military’s proud tradition of staying outside of politics. It is addressed to national, state, and local leaders, and has been endorsed by 436 former officials from the diplomatic, military, and other services, as listed below.
For others who want to add their names to the list, please send a message to this email address.
It all adds up for November. This adds up, too, since they started saying the quiet part out loud:
Larry Schooler/USA Today:
After Floyd killing, we need a truth and reconciliation commission on race and policing
These commissions often accomplish what courts can't, such as public accountability and admissions of wrongdoing, and impetus for reforms and progress.
Most commissions lack subpoena authority or the power to punish, except with words. Some even offer amnesty in exchange for the truth. They produce painstakingly detailed accounts of past eras and events, along with a slew of recommendations. In Canada, nearly three out of every four “calls to action” from its commission have been carried out or are in process. Based on recommendations from its commission, Greensboro’s local government issued a long-awaited apology for its part in the shooting deaths of five demonstrators at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, passed a recommended living wage for municipal employees, and finally approved a marker near the site of the shootings that used the word “massacre” to describe the incident.
Politico:
Protests after Floyd’s death reach rural America
Growing minority communities are finding their voice in speaking up for social issues.
Demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd have spread well beyond major urban centers to cities and towns across rural America.
In Boise, thousands of people attended a peaceful vigil this week honoring Floyd, the black Minnesota man who died after a white police officer pinned his neck for almost nine minutes, and others who lost their lives to police abuse. Demonstrations after the Tuesday evening vigil lasted until 2:30 a.m. for the third day in a row.