Police Have a License to Kill Provided by the Supreme Court

An excerpt from USA Today - 

Police act like laws don't apply to them because of 'qualified immunity.' They're right.

There's a legal obstacle that's nearly impossible to overcome when police officers and government officials violate our constitutional and civil rights.

By Patrick Jaicomo and Anya Bidwell

On Monday, May 25, Minneapolis police killed George Floyd. While two officers pinned the handcuffed Floyd on a city street, another fended off would-be intervenors, as a fourth knelt on Floyd’s neck until — and well after — he lost consciousness.

But when Floyd’s family goes to court to hold the officers liable for their actions, a judge in Minnesota may very well dismiss their claims. Not because the officers didn’t do anything wrong, but because there isn’t a case from the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court specifically holding that it is unconstitutional for police to kneel on the neck of a handcuffed man for eight minutes until he loses consciousness and then dies.

And such a specific case is what Floyd’s family must provide to overcome a legal doctrine called “qualified immunity” that shields police and all other government officials from accountability for their illegal and unconstitutional acts.

The Supreme Court created qualified immunity in 1982. With that novel invention, the court granted all government officials immunity for violating constitutional and civil rights unless the victims of those violations can show that the rights were “clearly established.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/05/30/police-george-floyd-qualified-immunity-supreme-court-column/5283349002/

Love Her!

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#justiceforgeorgefloyd #blacklivesmatter

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"I Just Wanna Live"

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just singing what’s on my heart...hope this blesses someone🙏🏾❤️ @sdhtoronto thanks for this dope shirt!!🔥🔥 #ijustwantolive #blacklivesmatter #ijustwannalive #equality #black #blackexcellence #racism #justice @mstinalawson

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Black Girl Magic @ MIT

An excerpt from CNN - 

MIT elects first black woman student body president in its 159-year history

By David Williams

Danielle Geathers will be the president of the Undergraduate Association at MIT 

where about 6 percent of the graduates are black and 47 percent women, according to the school.

Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have elected a black woman as president of the Undergraduate Association for the first time in the school's history.

Danielle Geathers and running mate Yu Jing Chen won the student government election earlier this month.

Geathers just finished her sophomore year at MIT and is majoring in mechanical engineering. She served as the diversity officer last year.

"In terms of coming from that diversity space and being focused on promoting equity across MIT, it would kind of be important to have someone in the President's role who's focused on that," she said.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/mit-black-woman-student-president-trnd/index.html

The Added Burden of Keeping Up Appearances

An excerpt from Medium - 

Maintaining Professionalism In The Age of Black Death Is….A Lot

I just witnessed the lynching of a black man, but don’t worry Ted, I’ll have those deliverables to you end of day.

By Shenequa Golding

Between Amy Cooper’s Oscar worthy Central Park performance, Ahmaud Arbery shooting death in Georgia, Breonna Taylor’s assassination inside her Louisville home, and the Minneapolis murder of George Floyd, black people in America are running on fumes.

We’re tired, angry, confused and yet, this space is familiar to us. This place of torment and trauma has become a home of sorts. The cycle begins in the far corners of Twitter with rumblings of a killing. Then a recording of the victim’s last moments pop up and shortly after, we finally learn the person’s name.

A new name to add to a growing list no one wants to be part of.

Sparks of outrage, disgust and bewilderment soon follow. Maybe a protest happens, and in the case of Floyd, uprisings. Men and women ballooned with righteous anger take to the streets to make their presence known; to scorch earth and shout from the pits of their belly to the top of their lungs that their lives matter. Whether the powers that be hear or acknowledge their chants is one thing, but it’s the community formed by the injustice of another black death that acts as a temporary solve.

And while some of us take to the streets, the rest of us have to hide these shared feelings behind professionalism.

https://medium.com/@shenequagolding/maintaining-professionalism-in-the-age-of-black-death-is-a-lot-5eaec5e17585

NETFLIX Supports BLM

To be silent is to be complicit.
Black lives matter.

We have a platform, and we have a duty to our Black members, employees, creators and talent to speak up.

— Netflix (@netflix) May 30, 2020

STARZ Supports NAACP & ColorOfChange

.@NAACP @ColorOfChange pic.twitter.com/R8v1XMjzlv

— STARZ (@STARZ) May 31, 2020

HULU Supports Black Lives

We support Black lives. Today, and every day. You are seen. You are heard. And we are with you.

— Hulu (@hulu) May 31, 2020

Pushed to the Edge

An excerpt from the LA Times - 

Op-Ed: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge

By Kareem Abdul-Jabar

What was your first reaction when you saw the video of the white cop kneeling on George Floyd’s neck while Floyd croaked, “I can’t breathe”?

If you’re white, you probably muttered a horrified, “Oh, my God” while shaking your head at the cruel injustice. If you’re black, you probably leapt to your feet, cursed, maybe threw something (certainly wanted to throw something), while shouting, “Not @#$%! again!” Then you remember the two white vigilantes accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery as he jogged through their neighborhood in February, and how if it wasn’t for that video emerging a few weeks ago, they would have gotten away with it. And how those Minneapolis cops claimed Floyd was resisting arrest but a store’s video showed he wasn’t. And how the cop on Floyd’s neck wasn’t an enraged redneck stereotype, but a sworn officer who looked calm and entitled and devoid of pity: the banality of evil incarnate.

Maybe you also are thinking about the Karen in Central Park who called 911 claiming the black man who asked her to put a leash on her dog was threatening her. Or the black Yale University grad student napping in the common room of her dorm who was reported by a white student. Because you realize it’s not just a supposed “black criminal” who is targeted, it’s the whole spectrum of black faces from Yonkers to Yale.

You start to wonder if it should be all black people who wear body cams, not the cops.

What do you see when you see angry black protesters amassing outside police stations with raised fists? If you’re white, you may be thinking, “They certainly aren’t social distancing.” Then you notice the black faces looting Target and you think, “Well, that just hurts their cause.” Then you see the police station on fire and you wag a finger saying, “That’s putting the cause backward.”

You’re not wrong — but you’re not right, either. The black community is used to the institutional racism inherent in education, the justice system and jobs. And even though we do all the conventional things to raise public and political awareness — write articulate and insightful pieces in the Atlantic, explain the continued devastation on CNN, support candidates who promise change — the needle hardly budges.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-05-30/dont-understand-the-protests-what-youre-seeing-is-people-pushed-to-the-edge

Murdered by Police

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Say my name.

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We Keep Reliving the Same Nightmare

I've included a snippet, but this article is too good to cherry-pick.  I hope you'll have the time to read it in its entirety.

An excerpt from Salon - 

A lynching without a rope — and in America, that’s nothing new

It used to be racist mobs. Now it’s racist cops. Watch Donald Trump pivot from 100,000 dead to "law and order"

By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV

Today, in 2020, it's George Floyd in Minneapolis, killed by a police officer kneeling on his throat during an arrest for the alleged offense of "forgery." Cell phone cameras captured the whole thing. Images of a handcuffed black man lying face-down on the street, under the knee of a white police officer, quickly flew around the world. Rioting broke out on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Stores were looted. Buildings burned. Early on Friday morning, fires burned at the Third Police Precinct in Minneapolis, where the four officers present at the death of George Floyd were assigned.

But long before there were cell phone cameras, there were black men and black boys, and there were cops who beat them or killed them, and there were riots in the streets of cities where the killings took place. What followed was as predictable as it was pathetic. Governors issued lamentations and called for "understanding" and "unity." Stores and buildings destroyed during the rioting were rebuilt. Occasionally, official "commissions" were empaneled to "study" the cause of the violence, and lame pledges were made that we've got to do better. 

https://www.salon.com/2020/05/30/a-lynching-without-a-rope--and-in-america-thats-nothing-new/

How Much Time Do You Want?

How much time do you want, for your progress pic.twitter.com/zq7edBylnc

— Qasim Rashid for Congress (@QasimRashid) May 29, 2020

She Did It!

An excerpt from People - 

Yale Student Who Grew Up Homeless Reveals How She Achieved Goals: 'Keep Your Eyes on the Prize'

Chelesa Fearce's mother experienced a health battle that led to a series of financial difficulties

By Susan Young 

It’s a big leap from homeless teen to Yale medical school student, but perseverance paid off Chelesa Fearce of Clayton County, Georgia.

“Just keep your eyes on the prize,” Fearce, now 24, tells PEOPLE. “You can’t get stuck in the moment and worry about the right now."

"You always have to think about your future and what inspires you," she adds. "That’s helped me get through.”

Fearce was a fourth grader when her mom, early childhood education teacher Reenita Shephard, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. That began a financial spiral for the mother of four.

“People don’t realize it can happen to anybody,” Fearce says.

She and her family moved in and out of shelters, hotels and even the family car.

https://people.com/human-interest/yale-student-who-grew-up-homeless-reveals-how-she-achieved-goals/

Radio Silence From College Football Coaches

An excerpt from USA Today - 

Opinion: College football coaches scared to speak, stand with players in conversations on racism, police brutality

By Dan Wolken

The profession that sells leadership and toughness as if it were a TED Talk was largely silent on Friday.

The profession that relies on the talent of young African-American men to keep millions of dollars flowing to lavish athletics budgets and bloated salaries took a pass on the national conversation around racism, police brutality and unequal treatment before the law.

The profession that drones on and on about becoming a man and doing the hard things decided to sit this one out.

On a day where athletes across many sports were speaking out, just a few prominent college football coaches tackled this painful moment.

The murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests that have brought us — again — to this miserable place as a country is apparently too hot for most coaches to handle. The pressure to take a public stand about how we need to change as a society, as a culture, was left to the young people, many of whom are grieving and scared. The guys making millions of dollars? They were mostly sending tweets about recruiting, as if the entire concept of George Floyd wasn’t something that was hitting home at that very moment with every black player they recruited and promised to fight for. 

Where’s their fight now? Where’s the truth? It certainly wasn’t on social media, where hardly any head coaches even acknowledged that something was desperately wrong in America.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/columnist/dan-wolken/2020/05/29/college-football-coaches-silent-george-floyd-and-police-brutality/5287206002/

Liberal Redneck - Minnesota Burning

Am I Next?

Coco Gauff - Tennis Phenom

           

George Floyd, Minneapolis Protests, Ahmaud Arbery & Amy Cooper | The Dai...

Michelle Obama Responds

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Like so many of you, I’m pained by these recent tragedies. And I’m exhausted by a heartbreak that never seems to stop. Right now it’s George, Breonna, and Ahmaud. Before that it was Eric, Sandra, and Michael. It just goes on, and on, and on. Race and racism is a reality that so many of us grow up learning to just deal with. But if we ever hope to move past it, it can’t just be on people of color to deal with it. It’s up to all of us—Black, white, everyone—no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out. It starts with self-examination and listening to those whose lives are different from our own. It ends with justice, compassion, and empathy that manifests in our lives and on our streets. I pray we all have the strength for that journey, just as I pray for the souls and the families of those who were taken from us. Artwork: @nikkolas_smith

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For once, Don’t Do It | Nike

Hmmmmm?

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White supremacy is a system of structural and societal racism which privileges white people over everyone else, regardless of the presence or absence of racial hatred. White racial advantages occur at both a collective and an individual level. We just updated this chart, which presents *some* of the ways people practice and reinforce white supremacy that they may not be aware of, or even think of as “white supremacy”. If you are unsure of what any of these terms mean, please feel free to look them up. There is an abundance of scholarship and research on each of these things. Image Source: Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence (2005). Adapted: Ellen Tuzzolo (2016); Mary Julia Cooksey Cordero (@jewelspewels) (2019); The Conscious Kid (2020). #AntiRacism #AntiRacist #TeachersOfInstagram #WhitePrivilege

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