thenation--2020-06-25--‘We Can’t Be Duped by Petty Reforms’: A Q&A With a Black Panther

For the past three weeks , Kent Ford has hit the streets of Portland , Ore. , to protest police brutality and fight for racial justice .
Ford , 77 , knows more than his fair share about both police repression and political activism .
Fifty-one years ago , he founded the Portland chapter of the Black Panther Party .
After being released from jail , where he had been held for two weeks on riot charges , Ford walked onto the steps of the old city police station in downtown Portland and publicly launched the chapter , stating , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these fascist tactics , we ’ re going to defend ourselves.
” It was June 1969 and the chapter was already abuzz with activity in private .
After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. , Ford started meeting with a group of like-minded African American activists for weekly political education classes where they would read and discuss texts like Kwame Nkrumah ’ s Neo-Colonialism : The Last Stage of Imperialism , Mao Zedong ’ s Little Red Book , and Huey Newton ’ s pamphlet , Executive Mandate Number One .
Soon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Malcolm X Dental Clinic and the Fred Hampton People ’ s Free Health Clinic .
Violence and erasure are both part of state repression , and it ’ s vital to keep the histories of suppression alive .
When dissent is crushed or goes underground , there can be a certain thinning of the threads that latch one generation to the next .
Ford is determined to thicken those threads , working with a younger generation of activists to spread the lessons of protests past while keeping the horizon open for new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ register is a sort of ferocious kindness .
To discuss his experiences as an activist and his thoughts on the present political conjuncture , I spoke with Ford at numerous protest events and did two formal interviews in June .
ules oykoff : A recent spate of police killings of African Americans—including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor—has galvanized people across the country to take to the streets in protest .
How does your own repression connect to what ’ s happening today ?
ent ord : Back in the day , the community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is now .
The police were always on us , stopping us for minor infractions .
A license plate light here , a turn signal there .
Jaywalking .
Just real petty stuff .
My own run-ins with police brutality go back to the late ’ 60s , when cops snatched me out of a police car and roughed me up .
I was handcuffed just like George Floyd was .
They claimed I was swallowing something even though I wasn ’ t .
They slammed me onto the ground , just beating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in my mouth , and I bit down on it .
He started hollering , “ He bit me .
He has my finger.
” When they stopped beating on me , I let his finger loose .
They charged me with riot and inciting a riot , and they took me to jail .
I promised God that night that if I lived through this , I would struggle against the system as long as I lived .
I was acquitted , by the way , and a federal judge awarded me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Black Panther Party ’ s 10-Point Platform read , “ We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.
” That was written in 1966 !
This is 2020 , and it ’ s relevant as ever .
When the police in Minnesota killed George Floyd , it was murder , a public lynching plain and simple .
Same for Breonna Taylor .
Practically every city across America has similar stories .
Here in Portland , there ’ s Keaton Otis , Aaron Campbell , Kendra James @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Portland Police , only months after they dusted Aaron Campbell .
I go to a vigil for Keaton Otis every month .
I try to connect what ’ s happening in Portland with what ’ s happening in other places .
You can ’ t understand what happened to George Floyd without talking about Palestine .
Palestinians have lost their homelands to Zionists .
You can ’ t understand what ’ s going on in this country if you don ’ t talk about the US war machine abroad .
A line @ @ @ @ @ @ @ admit , I drank a bit of the Kool-Aid that under Obama things would get better .
But let ’ s not forget , Black Lives Matter got started under a black president .
It ’ s bigger than Obama .
It ’ s a system , a racist system .
JB : Please talk about the Black Panther Party ’ s mutual-aid programming in Portland .
KF : Our survival programs were the core of our daily activities .
By 1970 we had two health clinics running strong .
At the Malcolm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patients on Monday , Wednesday , and Friday evenings .
The Fred Hampton Memorial People ’ s Health Clinic had more than two dozen volunteer doctors , around 50 nurses , and was open five nights a week , from 7 to 10 pm .
The clinics offered free care to everyone—it didn ’ t matter what your race was .
I can tell you that the community needed this .
The clinics were bustling , man .
We Need Police Out of Our Schools—Now ‘ Starve the Beast ’ : A Q @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Defunding the Police The free breakfast program was one of the Black Panther Party ’ s signature programs .
In Portland , our free breakfast program served up to 125 children a day .
We were getting up at 5 o ’ clock in the morning , and we were loading up the trunk with weapons of mass destruction : bacon , eggs , pancake mix .
And that was one of the biggest and baddest things that we did .
We were often shorthanded , but by the grace of God we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up to me today and say , “ Mr .
Ford , you used to feed us at the church when we were kids.
” It ’ s just beautiful .
The city had completely written off this area of Portland .
It was a no-man ’ s land .
The people in the area loved us .
They knew we had their backs , and they had ours .
JB : And you had political education programming , too .
KF : Yes , we were big into political education , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back in the day .
We had a requirement for each party member to read for two hours a day .
We also had a reading group where we discussed the writings of Kwame Nkrumah , James Baldwin , Angela Davis , Malcolm X , Harold Cruse , Mao .
Frantz Fanon ’ s The Wretched of the Earth was like a Bible for us .
We held political education classes every Wednesday and Sunday night to talk about what was going on at the local , national , and international levels .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the empire : militarism , capitalism , and racism .
Sometimes we would have lawyers come to the PE classes to explain the law to us—the basics about demonstrations , about minor driving infractions that police would use against us to keep a cap on the political situation .
JB : And you remain an avid reader today .
KF : You can go a long way in understanding politics if you read Arundhati Roy , Malcolm X , and then fill in the details with Cornel West , Angela Davis , Assata @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Younge is one of the top minds in the world—I would put him up there with Malcolm .
There ’ s also Michelle Alexander ’ s book The New Jim Crow .
There ’ s The Holocaust and the Nakba : A New Grammar of Trauma and History , edited by Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg .
There ’ s A More Beautiful and Terrible History : The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History , by Jeanne Theoharis .
You read it , you process it , you take it into your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the streets .
JB : In the media we ’ ve been seeing a lot of good protester/bad protester coverage .
What are your thoughts on that ?
KF : I know better than to fall for that shit .
Back in the day , we were the “ bad protesters ” in the local newspapers .
We are all out there for the same thing : to fight against police brutality and the harassment of people of color , of black folks .
We are all cut from the same cloth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bad , and these guys are good is meant to be a wedge that divides us .
Look how long they ’ ve been telling us to just be peaceful—remember , Malcolm and Martin met the same fate .
Trump talks about big bad antifa as some kind of terrorists , but I want to thank antifa for saving Dr. Cornel West ’ s life in Charlottesville .
I want to tell antifa that they are welcome at our rallies—let ’ s get our heads together .
And don ’ t come at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been looting black communities forever .
JB : Portland is known as a white city , in part because the Oregon State Constitution made it illegal until the mid-1920s for black people to settle in Oregon .
What has it been like working with white allies in a predominantly white city ?
KF : That ’ s what we had to work with , and so we went with it .
We made alliances with Students for a Democratic Society , the Peace and Freedom Party , the Communist Party , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Peace and Freedom .
We always had the support of a bunch of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist groups .
Even Bill Walton from the Portland Trail Blazers would show up for activist events and protests now and then .
Many of these allies provided bail money when we needed it .
They even set up a bail fund for us , no questions asked .
When I was held on riot charges and had $ 80,000 bail , white people paid it .
A radiologist named Morris Malbin paid half and Penny Sabin , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , put up potato-chip stocks for the other half .
Malbin held fundraisers for us .
All the doctors in the clinics were white .
I have seen people come together—black people , white people , Native people—and that keeps me in the struggle .
JB : Gary Younge recently said , “ When people refer to the destructive nature of the riots and rebellions , they first have to contemplate the destructive nature of what went before but also the possibilities that are generally opened up by these moments.
” KF : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Portland are powerful , they have big hearts .
They are bringing the right messages to the people .
They tell people about their legal rights .
I was talking to a couple of them on the phone the other day , and I told them to keep taking it to the streets .
That ’ s where it ’ s going to be solved .
They are going to get pressure to start making concessions .
We can ’ t be duped by petty reforms .
We have an opportunity to think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to end homelessness , to get full employment .
Right now we ’ re seeing the spirit in the streets all over the United States , even in the small cities and towns .
Here in Oregon , there are protests in towns that don ’ t usually see protest , places like Klamath Falls .
This is the real rainbow coalition that Fred Hampton was talking about back in the 1960s before the police dusted him and Mark Clark [ a Black Panther member killed by police alongside Hampton ] .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a real chance to make things better for our grandbabies .
It ’ s a shame that we had to see that horrible eight minutes and 46 seconds to wake people to the reality of the situation .
We have to watch each other ’ s back , look out for each other .
I ’ m 77 years old now , and who knows , I might not be here today , tomorrow , or the next day .
But I can rest assure one thing : So long as people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the murder of black people , I ’ ll be there .
I ’ m on the back nine , but I feel like I ’ m just starting the front nine .
We ’ ve been here before , but this time let ’ s take it to its conclusion .
Let ’ s start over and get it right .

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For the past three weeks, Kent Ford has hit the streets of Portland, Ore., to protest police brutality and fight for racial justice. Ford, 77, knows more than his fair share about both police repression and political activism. Fifty-one years ago, he founded the Portland chapter of the Black Panther Party. After being released from jail, where he had been held for two weeks on riot charges, Ford walked onto the steps of the old city police station in downtown Portland and publicly launched the chapter, stating, “If they keep coming in with these fascist tactics, we’re going to defend ourselves.”
It was June 1969 and the chapter was already abuzz with activity in private. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Ford started meeting with a group of like-minded African American activists for weekly political education classes where they would read and discuss texts like Kwame Nkrumah’s Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book, and Huey Newton’s pamphlet, Executive Mandate Number One. Soon they would have two health clinics: the Malcolm X Dental Clinic and the Fred Hampton People’s Free Health Clinic.
Violence and erasure are both part of state repression, and it’s vital to keep the histories of suppression alive. When dissent is crushed or goes underground, there can be a certain thinning of the threads that latch one generation to the next. Ford is determined to thicken those threads, working with a younger generation of activists to spread the lessons of protests past while keeping the horizon open for new tactics and techniques.
Ford’s register is a sort of ferocious kindness. To discuss his experiences as an activist and his thoughts on the present political conjuncture, I spoke with Ford at numerous protest events and did two formal interviews in June.
—Jules Boykoff
J ules B oykoff: A recent spate of police killings of African Americans—including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor—has galvanized people across the country to take to the streets in protest. How does your own repression connect to what’s happening today?
K ent F ord: Back in the day, the community was a tinderbox, just like it is now. The police were always on us, stopping us for minor infractions. A license plate light here, a turn signal there. Jaywalking. Just real petty stuff. My own run-ins with police brutality go back to the late ’60s, when cops snatched me out of a police car and roughed me up. I was handcuffed just like George Floyd was. They claimed I was swallowing something even though I wasn’t. They slammed me onto the ground, just beating on me. One stuck his finger in my mouth, and I bit down on it. He started hollering, “He bit me. He has my finger.” When they stopped beating on me, I let his finger loose. They charged me with riot and inciting a riot, and they took me to jail. I promised God that night that if I lived through this, I would struggle against the system as long as I lived. I was acquitted, by the way, and a federal judge awarded me a $6,000 settlement. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
Point 7 of the Black Panther Party’s 10-Point Platform read, “We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people.” That was written in 1966! This is 2020, and it’s relevant as ever. When the police in Minnesota killed George Floyd, it was murder, a public lynching plain and simple. Same for Breonna Taylor. Practically every city across America has similar stories. Here in Portland, there’s Keaton Otis, Aaron Campbell, Kendra James. Keaton Otis got shot 23 times by Portland Police, only months after they dusted Aaron Campbell. I go to a vigil for Keaton Otis every month.
I try to connect what’s happening in Portland with what’s happening in other places. You can’t understand what happened to George Floyd without talking about Palestine. Palestinians have lost their homelands to Zionists. You can’t understand what’s going on in this country if you don’t talk about the US war machine abroad. A line runs straight through. I got to admit, I drank a bit of the Kool-Aid that under Obama things would get better. But let’s not forget, Black Lives Matter got started under a black president. It’s bigger than Obama. It’s a system, a racist system.
JB: Please talk about the Black Panther Party’s mutual-aid programming in Portland.
KF: Our survival programs were the core of our daily activities. By 1970 we had two health clinics running strong. At the Malcolm X Dental Clinic, volunteer dentists saw patients on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. The Fred Hampton Memorial People’s Health Clinic had more than two dozen volunteer doctors, around 50 nurses, and was open five nights a week, from 7 to 10 pm. The clinics offered free care to everyone—it didn’t matter what your race was. I can tell you that the community needed this. The clinics were bustling, man. The Q&A We Need Police Out of Our Schools—Now Jesse Hagopian When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE Mark Engler ‘Starve the Beast’: A Q&A With Alex S. Vitale on Defunding the Police Zachary Siegel
The free breakfast program was one of the Black Panther Party’s signature programs. In Portland, our free breakfast program served up to 125 children a day. We were getting up at 5 o’clock in the morning, and we were loading up the trunk with weapons of mass destruction: bacon, eggs, pancake mix. And that was one of the biggest and baddest things that we did. We were often shorthanded, but by the grace of God we got it done. Kids will come up to me today and say, “Mr. Ford, you used to feed us at the church when we were kids.” It’s just beautiful. The city had completely written off this area of Portland. It was a no-man’s land. The people in the area loved us. They knew we had their backs, and they had ours.
JB: And you had political education programming, too.
KF: Yes, we were big into political education, or “PE” as we called it back in the day. We had a requirement for each party member to read for two hours a day. We also had a reading group where we discussed the writings of Kwame Nkrumah, James Baldwin, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Harold Cruse, Mao. Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth was like a Bible for us. We held political education classes every Wednesday and Sunday night to talk about what was going on at the local, national, and international levels. Our readings focused on three evils of the empire: militarism, capitalism, and racism. Sometimes we would have lawyers come to the PE classes to explain the law to us—the basics about demonstrations, about minor driving infractions that police would use against us to keep a cap on the political situation.
JB: And you remain an avid reader today.
KF: You can go a long way in understanding politics if you read Arundhati Roy, Malcolm X, and then fill in the details with Cornel West, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, and Gary Younge. Gary Younge is one of the top minds in the world—I would put him up there with Malcolm. There’s also Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow. There’s The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History, edited by Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg. There’s A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History, by Jeanne Theoharis. You read it, you process it, you take it into your heart, and then you take it to the streets.
JB: In the media we’ve been seeing a lot of good protester/bad protester coverage. What are your thoughts on that?
KF: I know better than to fall for that shit. Back in the day, we were the “bad protesters” in the local newspapers. We are all out there for the same thing: to fight against police brutality and the harassment of people of color, of black folks. We are all cut from the same cloth. The ideas that these guys are bad, and these guys are good is meant to be a wedge that divides us. Look how long they’ve been telling us to just be peaceful—remember, Malcolm and Martin met the same fate. Trump talks about big bad antifa as some kind of terrorists, but I want to thank antifa for saving Dr. Cornel West’s life in Charlottesville. I want to tell antifa that they are welcome at our rallies—let’s get our heads together. And don’t come at me about looting. The United States has been looting black communities forever.
JB: Portland is known as a white city, in part because the Oregon State Constitution made it illegal until the mid-1920s for black people to settle in Oregon. What has it been like working with white allies in a predominantly white city?
KF: That’s what we had to work with, and so we went with it. We made alliances with Students for a Democratic Society, the Peace and Freedom Party, the Communist Party, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. We always had the support of a bunch of anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist groups. Even Bill Walton from the Portland Trail Blazers would show up for activist events and protests now and then. Many of these allies provided bail money when we needed it. They even set up a bail fund for us, no questions asked. When I was held on riot charges and had $80,000 bail, white people paid it. A radiologist named Morris Malbin paid half and Penny Sabin, the heiress of Blue Bell Potato Chips, put up potato-chip stocks for the other half. Malbin held fundraisers for us. All the doctors in the clinics were white. I have seen people come together—black people, white people, Native people—and that keeps me in the struggle.
JB: Gary Younge recently said, “When people refer to the destructive nature of the riots and rebellions, they first have to contemplate the destructive nature of what went before but also the possibilities that are generally opened up by these moments.”
KF: Exactly. People running the protests in Portland are powerful, they have big hearts. They are bringing the right messages to the people. They tell people about their legal rights. I was talking to a couple of them on the phone the other day, and I told them to keep taking it to the streets. That’s where it’s going to be solved. They are going to get pressure to start making concessions. We can’t be duped by petty reforms. We have an opportunity to think big: to decrease police budgets, to end homelessness, to get full employment.
Right now we’re seeing the spirit in the streets all over the United States, even in the small cities and towns. Here in Oregon, there are protests in towns that don’t usually see protest, places like Klamath Falls. This is the real rainbow coalition that Fred Hampton was talking about back in the 1960s before the police dusted him and Mark Clark [a Black Panther member killed by police alongside Hampton]. We are on the move now. We have a real chance to make things better for our grandbabies. It’s a shame that we had to see that horrible eight minutes and 46 seconds to wake people to the reality of the situation. We have to watch each other’s back, look out for each other. I’m 77 years old now, and who knows, I might not be here today, tomorrow, or the next day. But I can rest assure one thing: So long as people are out on the streets struggling against the murder of black people, I’ll be there. I’m on the back nine, but I feel like I’m just starting the front nine. We’ve been here before, but this time let’s take it to its conclusion. Let’s start over and get it right.


thenation--2020-06-25--Black Lives Matter Protests Are Everywhere, Even in the Unlikeliest Places

Timberly Vogel felt jaded about marches .
As the president of the Black Student Alliance at the University of Wyoming in Laramie , Vogel had led and participated in her fair share .
They struck her as quiet and contained within the student community , never affecting the rest of the town , which is roughly 90 percent white .
So when local residents started to organize protests in the wake of George Floyd ’ s killing by a police officer in Minneapolis , Vogel worried they would be another disappointing flash in the pan .
But the last few @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Vogel could have imagined .
In early June , she and hundreds of others protested for 10 days straight , filling the streets and blocking intersections in the small city , population 32,711 .
“ We ’ ve never really seen an outpouring like this.… These marches have really crossed the usual demographic boundaries that have usually stifled these sort of movements in Laramie , ” said Vogel .
“ The diversity of these demonstrations across race , across age , across socioeconomic status , it ’ s mind-blowing and I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see and know that people in this tiny town care.
” Two years ago , a Laramie sheriff ’ s deputy shot and killed a resident named Robbie Ramirez , who struggled with schizophrenia , on the block where Vogel lives .
The same officer previously killed a 15-year-old while employed with the Las Vegas police department ; he was later fired from that department after being accused of assaulting a videographer .
Vogel , who graduated this year , wrote her thesis on Ramirez ’ s death and the way it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took it as a random incident , ” she said , rather than evidence of deeper problems .
Now , Floyd ’ s death has reinvigorated efforts by a community group to hold the officer accountable for Ramirez ’ s killing and to implement more significant reforms .
Vogel , who grew up in Tennessee , planned to leave Laramie after graduating , but yje coronavirus and the protests have changed that .
“ I ’ ve basically told myself I have 365 days to change the face of Wyoming , and of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of thousands of communities across the country where protests sparked by Floyd ’ s killing have upended business as usual .
While massive crowds and violent police crackdowns rocked New York , Philadelphia , Los Angeles , and other major cities , countless other demonstrations occurred out of the spotlight in small and midsize cities , in rural towns , and in remote unincorporated communities—in all 50 states , even in white , conservative areas with little to no history of protest .
The scale of the movement is unprecedented and , weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was still rippling across the country , spreading and blooming like scattered seeds .
The nature of the demonstrations has been as varied as the communities they ’ ve occurred in .
In Millerton , N.Y. , a solitary white woman sat beside a road with a Black Lives Matter sign .
In Leavenworth , a Bavarian-themed village in Washington ’ s Cascade Mountains , 1,300 people showed up at a march—more than half the town ’ s population .
A huge group blocked off a thoroughfare in Fort Myers , Fla. , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1,654 in the southwestern mountains of North Carolina , 450 people went silent for eight minutes and 46 seconds , the length of time former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd ’ s neck .
( Buzzfeed News writer Anne Helen Petersen tracked many of these protests on Twitter . )
Many demonstrations have been led by teens , college students , and first-time activists .
On a hot evening in early June a thousand people followed five teenagers down Main Street in Ada , Okla. For two of the teens @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Seals , the video of Floyd ’ s killing was horribly familiar : One of their relatives died last fall during an encounter with an Ada police officer that was filmed by a bystander .
“ Anthony was our unknown George , ” said Seals , 18 , referring to her cousin Anthony Meely .
“ It really hit home for us.
” Both recall being the target of racist comments in school , and said they received threats as they organized the march .
“ A lot of people say racism doesn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does , just like any place , ” said Seals .
The sweep of the protests corresponds with profound changes in public opinion about race and policing .
Support for the Black Lives Matter movement leapt in the two weeks following Floyd ’ s death , growing nearly as much it did in the preceding two years .
In a Monmouth University poll released in the first week of June , 76 percent of Americans , including 71 percent of white people , described racial discrimination in the United States as “ a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from 2015 .
In that poll and another conducted by CBS , 57 percent of Americans said that police treat white people better than black people .
More than 60 percent of white respondents in a recent CNN poll said they felt the justice system is biased in their favor ; just five years ago , only 42 percent of white respondents felt that way .
“ In my 35 years of polling , I ’ ve never seen opinion shift this fast or deeply , ” Republican pollster Frank Luntz wrote on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different country today than just 30 days ago.
” Veteran activists have never seen anything like it either , and they ’ re scrambling to harness the energy and direct it toward long-simmering local struggles over police reform , civil rights , and historical memory .
Twelve hundred miles from Laramie in Florence , Ala. , Camille Bennett and the organization that she founded , Project Say Something , have advocated for years to relocate or contextualize a Confederate monument that stands at the Lauderdale County Courthouse .
Their campaign has struggled to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there seems to be an awakening that ’ s never been quite this intense before , ” said Bennett .
“ I ’ ve never seen people dig so deep.
” A march of hundreds of people through Florence on a recent Sunday ended at the courthouse , where participants listened to an activist read George Floyd ’ s final words .
A few days later , county commissioners , who have jurisdiction over the fate of the monument , had to move their meeting to a larger room to accommodate the crowd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the relocation , all but one in favor of it .
The commission failed to agree even to hold a vote on the matter , but they haven ’ t heard the last of it : Project Say Something is now organizing protests five days a week at the courthouse .
The US Needs to Be Treated Like the Racist Pariah State It Is The Violence Didn ’ t Start With the Protests More in this series Bennett sees this eruption of dissent , anguish , and solidarity as a consequence of overlapping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , led in many places by black women .
“ Starting in 2014 , if we look at Ferguson…we ’ ve seen a trend which is that black bodies are murdered and then you see a push for activism , but it ’ s short-lived , ” said Bennett .
“ This moment , I think it ’ s a combination of the coronavirus and how it disproportionately affects black people , and then you have these concentrated events ” —the killings of Ahmaud Arbery in South Carolina , Breonna Taylor in Kentucky @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As a black woman , I ’ m mourning , right ?
I ’ m mourning these deaths and these lynchings of our people .
You want to stay there and deal with that , ” she continued .
“ And then you see that you ’ ve been working on something that is [ suddenly ] a national issue and it ’ s time to go.
” On TV and on social media , the protest movement sweeping the country often looks grim and explosive , a montage of rubber bullets and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , low-flying military helicopters , broken store windows .
When protests first started popping up in small towns across the country , some residents could only imagine they were the work of interlopers .
Rumors whipped through dozens of rural and suburban communities about busloads of anti-fascist activists on their way to wreak havoc .
In Snohomish , Wash. , where Mayor John Kartak promoted unsubstantiated rumors that “ an tifa ” was planning to riot , peaceful demonstrators were met for several days in a row by dozens of men , some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chief Keith Rogers described the atmosphere as “ festive.
” But some of the counter-demonstrators carried Confederate flags and had ties to far-right groups .
One punched a teenager who was marching down the street in front of a bridal shop .
After a public outcry , Rogers was reassigned .
For people living in small towns , the dissonance between the dark fantasy of antifa marauders and the actual nature of local protests—many of which have included kids , dogs , and elderly people—has been hard to miss .
In addition to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , widespread protests are upending stereotypes about what the Black Lives Matter movement is and who supports it .
Frederick Brigham , who lives in Klamath Falls , Ore. , said that on June 1 , the first day of protests there , the main street was lined with counter-protesters , many of them carrying weapons .
Walking past them down the street felt “ like being a prisoner of war .
You could just feel the heat on you .
I ’ m one of two black males that are out there… @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at me , ” said Brigham , a musician who goes by the stage name Wreck the Rebel .
Although he ’ s lived in Klamath Falls for several years , Brigham said that he was accused of having come up from San Francisco to rile up the community .
But after that first protest , the armed counter-demonstrators largely disappeared .
“ They have been made to look kind of silly .
You should have seen how they showed up .
It was like a war—these people showed up for an enemy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brigham .
Meanwhile , people continued to gather in town for Black Lives Matter rallies during the first two weeks of June .
“ I think it ’ s very important because it shows people , you know , a different side of things , ” Brigham said .
“ It ’ s happening in these smaller towns with little to no black population .
That shows people this is a human thing , and that there ’ s a lot of us out there who care about each other and want to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you know , change can happen from anywhere.
” Some protests offered at least a temporary reclamation of public space in communities long defined by segregation and legacies of brutal racism—places like Vidor , Texas , a former Ku Klux Klan haven that Texas Monthly described as the state ’ s “ most hate-filled town ” during a struggle over court-ordered desegregation of public housing in the early 1990s .
When a 23-year-old woman named Maddy Malone started promoting a racial justice rally in Vidor earlier this month , many people responded skeptically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Monthly : “ This is a set up , ” someone wrote on Twitter .
“ Texas people know if you ’ re black you don ’ t even stop for gas in Vidor.
” But Malone was for real , and ultimately some 150 to 200 people showed up at the June 6 demonstration .
“ I ’ ve never seen so many white people give a darn about black people , ” said Mildred Henderson , a 78-year-old woman and veteran activist who was interviewed by The Southern Illinoisan at a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In 1909 , mobs drove black residents out of Anna after a lynching in a nearby town ; for decades , Anna was known as a sundown town , where black people were not welcome after dark .
Although Anna was originally named for a woman , the town ’ s racist history has given it an unofficial acronym : “ Ain ’ t No [ N-words ] Allowed.
” Kevin Jackson , who also attended the protest in Anna , told the Belleville News-Democrat that it was the first time he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Main Street despite having worked at a hospital there for seven years .
“ I probably wouldn ’ t do it again without my white brothers and sisters , ” Jackson said .
For years , Jasmine and Crystal Hayter have put up with various forms of discrimination in Dallas , Ore. , a modest city of 17,000 about 15 miles west of Salem , the state capital .
“ We ’ re a lesbian couple and an interracial couple and we get it from all sides , ” explained Jasmine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because they don ’ t feel welcome , and they recently stopped going to a bowling alley after someone working the cash register there refused to take a debit card out of Jasmine ’ s hand .
“ I have never experienced more racism in my town than [ I have ] now , ” said Jasmine , who has lived in the area for more than a decade .
The first protest in Dallas after Floyd ’ s death was small—about 25 people , Crystal guessed .
A few days later 400 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It was really beautiful to see , ” said Crystal .
There has been some ugliness , too ; the couple said they ’ ve received a number of threatening messages recently .
“ I ’ ve been trying to ignore the negativity as best I can , ” said Jasmine .
“ I ’ m glad that I get to get my story out , because I ’ m tired of sitting and being quiet.
” Like many others , they are already thinking about what happens next .
After we spoke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other people in their county who had organized demonstrations , to strategize about what kind of policy changes they wanted to see in their communities .
“ The point first was to make noise…and now we want to do something beyond that , ” said Crystal .
Back in Laramie , Timberly Vogel was also preparing for a meeting , this one with the city manager .
She and other organizers in Laramie have called for a number of changes , including the reallocation of some of the police department ’ s budget @ @ @ @ @ @ @ records public .
Ultimately , she would like to see Laramie become a “ blueprint ” for police reform in small cities .
She ’ s gotten so used to marching that when she paused for a few days to work on the policy demands , she missed it .
“ It ’ s been so powerful , ” Vogel said .
“ This has totally consumed my whole life .
”

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Timberly Vogel felt jaded about marches. As the president of the Black Student Alliance at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Vogel had led and participated in her fair share. They struck her as quiet and contained within the student community, never affecting the rest of the town, which is roughly 90 percent white. So when local residents started to organize protests in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by a police officer in Minneapolis, Vogel worried they would be another disappointing flash in the pan.
But the last few weeks in Laramie have been like nothing Vogel could have imagined. In early June, she and hundreds of others protested for 10 days straight, filling the streets and blocking intersections in the small city, population 32,711. “We’ve never really seen an outpouring like this.… These marches have really crossed the usual demographic boundaries that have usually stifled these sort of movements in Laramie,” said Vogel. “The diversity of these demonstrations across race, across age, across socioeconomic status, it’s mind-blowing and I’m still every day shocked to feel and see and know that people in this tiny town care.”
Two years ago, a Laramie sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a resident named Robbie Ramirez, who struggled with schizophrenia. The same officer previously killed a 15-year-old while employed with the Las Vegas police department; he was later fired from that department after being accused of assaulting a videographer. Vogel, who graduated this year, wrote her thesis on Ramirez’s death and the way it was covered by local media. “People took it as a random incident,” she said, rather than evidence of deeper problems. Now, Floyd’s death has reinvigorated efforts by a community group to hold the officer accountable for Ramirez’s killing and to implement more significant reforms. Vogel, who grew up in Tennessee, planned to leave Laramie after graduating, but yje coronavirus and the protests have changed that. “I’ve basically told myself I have 365 days to change the face of Wyoming, and of Laramie in particular.”
Laramie is one of thousands of communities across the country where protests sparked by Floyd’s killing have upended business as usual. While massive crowds and violent police crackdowns rocked New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and other major cities, countless other demonstrations occurred out of the spotlight in small and midsize cities, in rural towns, and in remote unincorporated communities—in all 50 states, even in white, conservative areas with little to no history of protest. The scale of the movement is unprecedented and, weeks after Floyd’s death, it was still rippling across the country, spreading and blooming like scattered seeds.
The nature of the demonstrations has been as varied as the communities they’ve occurred in. In Millerton, N.Y., a solitary white woman sat beside a road with a Black Lives Matter sign. In Leavenworth, a Bavarian-themed village in Washington’s Cascade Mountains, 1,300 people showed up at a march—more than half the town’s population. A huge group blocked off a thoroughfare in Fort Myers, Fla., and in Murphy, a town of 1,654 in the southwestern mountains of North Carolina, 450 people went silent for eight minutes and 46 seconds, the length of time former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck. (Buzzfeed News writer Anne Helen Petersen tracked many of these protests on Twitter.) Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Many demonstrations have been led by teens, college students, and first-time activists. On a hot evening in early June a thousand people followed five teenagers down Main Street in Ada, Okla. For two of the teens, Is’Abella Miller and Delanie Seals, the video of Floyd’s killing was horribly familiar: One of their relatives died last fall during an encounter with an Ada police officer that was filmed by a bystander. “Anthony was our unknown George,” said Seals, 18, referring to her cousin Anthony Meely. “It really hit home for us.” Both recall being the target of racist comments in school, and said they received threats as they organized the march. “A lot of people say racism doesn’t happen here, but it does, just like any place,” said Seals.
The sweep of the protests corresponds with profound changes in public opinion about race and policing. Support for the Black Lives Matter movement leapt in the two weeks following Floyd’s death, growing nearly as much it did in the preceding two years. In a Monmouth University poll released in the first week of June, 76 percent of Americans, including 71 percent of white people, described racial discrimination in the United States as “a big problem,” up 25 points from 2015. In that poll and another conducted by CBS, 57 percent of Americans said that police treat white people better than black people. More than 60 percent of white respondents in a recent CNN poll said they felt the justice system is biased in their favor; just five years ago, only 42 percent of white respondents felt that way. “In my 35 years of polling, I’ve never seen opinion shift this fast or deeply,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz wrote on June 8. “We are a different country today than just 30 days ago.” Current Issue View our current issue
Veteran activists have never seen anything like it either, and they’re scrambling to harness the energy and direct it toward long-simmering local struggles over police reform, civil rights, and historical memory. Twelve hundred miles from Laramie in Florence, Ala., Camille Bennett and the organization that she founded, Project Say Something, have advocated for years to relocate or contextualize a Confederate monument that stands at the Lauderdale County Courthouse. Their campaign has struggled to gain traction, but now, “there seems to be an awakening that’s never been quite this intense before,” said Bennett. “I’ve never seen people dig so deep.”
A march of hundreds of people through Florence on a recent Sunday ended at the courthouse, where participants listened to an activist read George Floyd’s final words. A few days later, county commissioners, who have jurisdiction over the fate of the monument, had to move their meeting to a larger room to accommodate the crowd of residents who wanted to comment on the relocation, all but one in favor of it. The commission failed to agree even to hold a vote on the matter, but they haven’t heard the last of it: Project Say Something is now organizing protests five days a week at the courthouse. A Nation in Protest The US Needs to Be Treated Like the Racist Pariah State It Is Elie Mystal The Violence Didn’t Start With the Protests Kali Holloway Minneapolis Public Schools Abolished Their Police First Mary Retta
Bennett sees this eruption of dissent, anguish, and solidarity as a consequence of overlapping crises and years of racial justice organizing, led in many places by black women. “Starting in 2014, if we look at Ferguson…we’ve seen a trend which is that black bodies are murdered and then you see a push for activism, but it’s short-lived,” said Bennett. “This moment, I think it’s a combination of the coronavirus and how it disproportionately affects black people, and then you have these concentrated events”—the killings of Ahmaud Arbery in South Carolina, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, and Floyd in Minnesota. “As a black woman, I’m mourning, right? I’m mourning these deaths and these lynchings of our people. You want to stay there and deal with that,” she continued. “And then you see that you’ve been working on something that is [suddenly] a national issue and it’s time to go.”


thenation--2020-06-25--Racist IOC President Avery Brundage Loses His Place of Honor

As part of the national uprising against police violence and for black lives , monuments to white supremacy are coming down all over .
Some activists have taken matters into their own hands , yanking down statues of slaveholders and colonizers .
At other times , institutions have decided that the time is right to face their own history and remove problematic memorials .
Recently , the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco announced that it would remove its own bust of Avery Brundage—whose massive collection is displayed in the museum—from its prominent location and place it in storage to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president of the International Olympic Committee from 1952 to 1972 .
In Olympic circles , Brundage is infamous for his racism , sexism , and anti-Semitism .
Time and again , he took positions that placed him on the wrong side of history .
The removal of Brundage ’ s bust is long overdue .
His toxic concoction of -isms and his perma-frown belong in the dustbin of history .
We received comment from Dr. Jay Xu , director and CEO at the Asian Art Museum .
He said that the museum had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spring , but then the pandemic hit .
Even though we are still immersed in that public health nightmare , museum officials believed that the recent protests for black lives showed it was time to act .
“ Examining the record , asking hard questions , and rewriting the story are what a museum does , ” Dr. Xu told us .
“ It ’ s why we all feel motivated by this moment.
” Brundage clung to the belief that politics and the Olympics should never mix , famously proclaiming , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the Olympic movement and are adamant against the use of the Olympic Games as a tool or as a weapon by any organization.
” His legacy remains in IOC policy .
Earlier this year , the committee explicitly prohibited “ gestures of a political nature , like a hand gesture or kneeling.
” In the late 1960s , Brundage was known as “ Slavery Avery ” for his anti-black racism .
When athletes and their allies formed the Olympic Project for Human Rights in 1967 , they listed a series of demands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ali ’ s boxing title and the exclusion from US athletic events of all-white sports squads from South Africa and Rhodesia .
They also singled out “ Slavery Avery , ” calling for the “ removal of the anti-Semitic and anti-black personality Avery Brundage from his post as Chairman of the International Olympic Committee.
” Brundage did not take kindly to John Carlos and Tommie Smith ’ s iconic act of political dissent on the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics , when they thrust their black-gloved fists into the Mexico City sky @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Brundage played a key role in getting the athletes booted from the Olympic Village .
Weeks later , in response to people who wrote him letters chastising Carlos and Smith , Brundage offered a range of castigations from “ The boys were sent home , but they should not have been there in the first place ” to “ As a matter of fact , people of that kind should not have been on the Olympic team at all .
This was not a schoolboy prank , as some seem to think… @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to our country.
” When it came to women and sports , Brundage was a reactionary .
Another nickname , “ Avery Umbrage , ” captured his feelings about the participation of women athletes at the Olympics .
In 1957 , setting the tone as president of the International Olympic Committee , Brundage wrote in a letter to fellow members of the IOC , “ Many still believe that events for women should be eliminated from the Games , but this group is now a minority .
There is still , however , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are not truly feminine , like putting a shot , or those too strenuous for most of the opposite sex , such as distance runs.
” At the time , around 20 percent of Olympic athletes were women .
Brundage was also anti-Semitic .
In the early 1930s , as momentum built to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics because of Hitler ’ s increasingly alarming attacks on Jewish people , Brundage came to the Germans ’ defense .
As head of the American Olympic Committee , Brundage traveled to Germany to investigate anti-Jewish @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was fine and dandy .
He told The New York Times , In private , Brundage stripped away the varnish .
In one letter to IOC power broker Sigfrid Edström , he complained , “ The New York newspapers which are largely controlled by Jews , devote a very considerable percentage of their news columns to the situation in Germany .
The articles are 99 % anti-Nazi.
” He reasoned , After Hitler ’ s Olympics , Brundage poured on the praise , revealing his alarmingly retrograde politics .
“ We can learn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ We , too , if we wish to preserve our institutions , must stamp out communism .
We , too , must take steps to arrest the decline of patriotism.
” In his personal notes , he even concluded , “ An intelligent , beneficent dictatorship is the most efficient form of government .
Observe what happened in Germany for six or seven years in the 1930 ’ s. ” San Francisco ’ s Asian Art Museum is doing the right thing .
To be sure , the museum has become @ @ @ @ @ @ @ original collection , making his largesse far less essential to the museum ’ s mission .
Dr. Xu says , “ In more recent years , especially in the context of our 50th anniversary in 2016 , our research yielded new insights into Brundage ’ s views , as well as the perspective that Brundage was in fact only part of the museum ’ s origin story : The people of San Francisco played a much larger role in raising the funds necessary to bring his collection ‘ home ’ than is typically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some of the most virulent strains of right-wing hate .
The removal of his bust from the San Francisco Asian Art Museum is a righteous decision .
There is much to learn from Brundage .
He should be studied .
His “ contributions ” to Olympic history need to be understood .
But he has long forfeited a place of honor and respect .

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As part of the national uprising against police violence and for black lives, monuments to white supremacy are coming down all over. Some activists have taken matters into their own hands, yanking down statues of slaveholders and colonizers. At other times, institutions have decided that the time is right to face their own history and remove problematic memorials.
Recently, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco announced that it would remove its own bust of Avery Brundage—whose massive collection is displayed in the museum—from its prominent location and place it in storage to collect dust. Brundage was the ironfisted president of the International Olympic Committee from 1952 to 1972.
In Olympic circles, Brundage is infamous for his racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism. Time and again, he took positions that placed him on the wrong side of history. The removal of Brundage’s bust is long overdue. His toxic concoction of -isms and his perma-frown belong in the dustbin of history.
We received comment from Dr. Jay Xu, director and CEO at the Asian Art Museum. He said that the museum had planned to remove the bust in the spring, but then the pandemic hit. Even though we are still immersed in that public health nightmare, museum officials believed that the recent protests for black lives showed it was time to act. “Examining the record, asking hard questions, and rewriting the story are what a museum does,” Dr. Xu told us. “It’s why we all feel motivated by this moment.”
Brundage clung to the belief that politics and the Olympics should never mix, famously proclaiming, “We actively combat the introduction of politics into the Olympic movement and are adamant against the use of the Olympic Games as a tool or as a weapon by any organization.” His legacy remains in IOC policy. Earlier this year, the committee explicitly prohibited “gestures of a political nature, like a hand gesture or kneeling.”
In the late 1960s, Brundage was known as “Slavery Avery” for his anti-black racism. When athletes and their allies formed the Olympic Project for Human Rights in 1967, they listed a series of demands, among them the restoration of Muhammad Ali’s boxing title and the exclusion from US athletic events of all-white sports squads from South Africa and Rhodesia. They also singled out “Slavery Avery,” calling for the “removal of the anti-Semitic and anti-black personality Avery Brundage from his post as Chairman of the International Olympic Committee.”
Brundage did not take kindly to John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s iconic act of political dissent on the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics, when they thrust their black-gloved fists into the Mexico City sky to promote black freedom and human rights. Brundage played a key role in getting the athletes booted from the Olympic Village. Weeks later, in response to people who wrote him letters chastising Carlos and Smith, Brundage offered a range of castigations from “The boys were sent home, but they should not have been there in the first place” to “As a matter of fact, people of that kind should not have been on the Olympic team at all. This was not a schoolboy prank, as some seem to think…. it left international repercussions very harmful to our country.” Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
When it came to women and sports, Brundage was a reactionary. Another nickname, “Avery Umbrage,” captured his feelings about the participation of women athletes at the Olympics. In 1957, setting the tone as president of the International Olympic Committee, Brundage wrote in a letter to fellow members of the IOC, “Many still believe that events for women should be eliminated from the Games, but this group is now a minority. There is still, however, a well grounded protest against events which are not truly feminine, like putting a shot, or those too strenuous for most of the opposite sex, such as distance runs.” At the time, around 20 percent of Olympic athletes were women.
Brundage was also anti-Semitic. In the early 1930s, as momentum built to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics because of Hitler’s increasingly alarming attacks on Jewish people, Brundage came to the Germans’ defense. As head of the American Olympic Committee, Brundage traveled to Germany to investigate anti-Jewish discrimination for himself and concluded that everything was fine and dandy. He told The New York Times,
The fact that no Jews have been named so far to compete for Germany doesn’t necessarily mean that they have been discriminated against on that score. In forty years of Olympic history, I doubt if the number of Jewish athletes competing from all nations totaled 1 per cent of all those in the games.
(This number, pulled from the dark recesses of Brundage’s mind, wasn’t close to being accurate.)
In private, Brundage stripped away the varnish. In one letter to IOC power broker Sigfrid Edström, he complained, “The New York newspapers which are largely controlled by Jews, devote a very considerable percentage of their news columns to the situation in Germany. The articles are 99% anti-Nazi.” He reasoned,
As a result, probably 90% of the populace is anti-Nazi. The Jews have been clever enough to realize the publicity value of sport and are making every effort to involve the American Olympic Committee. Boycotts have been started by the Jews which have aroused the citizens of German extraction to reprisals. Jews with communistic and socialistic antecedents have been particularly active, and the result is that the same sort of class hatred which exists in Germany and which every sane man deplores, is being aroused in the United States.
After Hitler’s Olympics, Brundage poured on the praise, revealing his alarmingly retrograde politics. “We can learn much from Germany,” he wrote. “We, too, if we wish to preserve our institutions, must stamp out communism. We, too, must take steps to arrest the decline of patriotism.” In his personal notes, he even concluded, “An intelligent, beneficent dictatorship is the most efficient form of government. Observe what happened in Germany for six or seven years in the 1930’s.”
San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum is doing the right thing. To be sure, the museum has become far less dependent on Brundage’s original collection, making his largesse far less essential to the museum’s mission. Dr. Xu says, “In more recent years, especially in the context of our 50th anniversary in 2016, our research yielded new insights into Brundage’s views, as well as the perspective that Brundage was in fact only part of the museum’s origin story: The people of San Francisco played a much larger role in raising the funds necessary to bring his collection ‘home’ than is typically known.”
Avery Brundage consistently threaded together some of the most virulent strains of right-wing hate. The removal of his bust from the San Francisco Asian Art Museum is a righteous decision. There is much to learn from Brundage. He should be studied. His “contributions” to Olympic history need to be understood. But he has long forfeited a place of honor and respect.


thenation--2020-06-25--The Rule of Law Is Being Gutted Because ‘Moderate’ Republicans Stayed Silent

Non-MAGA Republicans , be they George Conway–style “ Never Trumpers ” or Mitt Romney–style conservatives who support 90 percent of Trump ’ s policies but don ’ t like wearing hats , like to try to distance themselves from the most brazen lawlessness of the Trump regime .
They furrow their brows or snark at the president on Twitter when he or one of his henchmen lies or commits crimes .
But those Republicans , the seemingly well-meaning ones , are never there to support the rule of law when their support could make a difference .
They only show @ @ @ @ @ @ @ laws have been broken or ignored , after Trump ’ s henchmen are in positions from which they can do real damage .
When Trump nominates these people—people who will only help him avoid or evade the law—these so-called “ good ” Republicans are nowhere to be found .
Michael Flynn , William Barr , and Neomi Rao ( the Clarence Thomas acolyte plucked to fill Brett Kavanaugh ’ s seat on the D.C. court of appeals ) are all part of the same rot .
They all believe that achieving the supremacy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deceit and corruption .
Now that those three have conspired to vitiate the rule of law , Never Trumpers appear concerned , again .
But the prominent Republicans who are concerned today said nothing when these obvious bad actors were nominated to their positions .
The consequences of allowing these particular people to gain power are now evident .
Michael Flynn lied to FBI investigators about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak .
I know that to be true , because Flynn admitted to lying and took a plea deal .
People @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to go to jail .
But after Barr helped to short-circuit the Robert Mueller investigation , Flynn withdrew his plea deal .
Normally , withdrawing a guilty plea causes prosecutors to rain down hellfire : The legal system doesn ’ t function well when people go back on their plea deals .
But Barr went in the opposite direction and decided to drop the government ’ s case against Flynn .
It was a corrupt move , and district court judge Emmet Sullivan demanded briefing and an explanation from the government for its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Sullivan refused to dismiss the case against Flynn until the government provided a non-corrupt reason for dismissing the case .
Yesterday , Sullivan ’ s request for more information was overruled by a three-judge panel on the US Court of Appeals for the D.C .
Circuit .
Neomi Rao wrote the decision for the majority ( which included judge Karen Henderson , a George W. Bush appointee ) .
Her ruling is unprecedented : She has essentially ordered Judge Sullivan to rule that Flynn should win his motion to dismiss before Judge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ motion .
It ’ s like Rao handed out a speeding ticket to somebody sitting in a parked car because she didn ’ t like the way they turned on the engine .
Rao ’ s decision is not grounded in legal precedent .
She dismissed the core of Judge Sullivan ’ s argument in a footnote reference to a legal treatise , not an actual court case .
That would be like somebody citing this article as “ evidence ” that it ’ s legal to place Rao on an ice floe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if you ’ re listening… ) .
Her entire opinion is written for an audience of one : Donald Trump .
Rao knows that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 87 years old , and Rao wants her job .
This opinion is an open audition for a nomination to the Supreme Court , should an opening become available .
The opinion is gross and , frankly , a little cloying and desperate , but totally on-brand for Rao .
She exists to put Trump ’ s worst impulses and arguments in legalese , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defense attorneys instead of an actual judge .
Rao , it ’ s worth remembering , was the lone dissenting vote in the Trump taxes case ( now before the Supreme Court ) and wrote an opinion that was so extreme that one of her fellow judges warned that it would “ reorder the very structure of the Constitution.
” The only way that dissent could have sounded more Trumpian was if she had shouted it while mispronouncing common words .
Anybody paying attention to Rao ’ s career could have seen her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In fact , many people did see it coming .
Sheldon Whitehouse , Democratic Senator from Rhode Island , knew how Rao would rule , and why .
As soon as Rao was named to the panel that would hear this case , Whitehouse tweeted : Whitehouse tweeted that out a month ago .
You ’ d think that by May 2020 , everybody would have figured out what Whitehouse saw so clearly .
But check out some of the replies Whitehouse received to that tweet .
Brother got ratioed .
Republican after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats ) criticized Whitehouse for saying something that anybody honest should say about any case assigned to Rao .
She has never hidden the ball on her radical , anti-Democratic views .
But somehow , critics took issue with Whitehouse ’ s mere attempt to point out the cartoon villainy of her judicial approach , not with Rao ’ s “ Look at me , Donald .
It ’ s all for you !
” modus operandi .
The mendacity of Flynn , Barr , and Rao was obvious before they got their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did not join the effort to stop them from getting those jobs in the first place .
These same Republicans were of no help when Trump announced Flynn ’ s appointment as national security adviser , despite his clear conflicts of interest and the fact that he was drummed out of his post as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration .
William Barr was confirmed as attorney general with 51 Republican votes ( and three Democrats , because we live in hell ) , despite his history of pardoning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his open letter all but promising to prematurely end Robert Mueller ’ s investigation .
Neomi Rao was confirmed to the US Court of Appeals for the D.C .
Circuit with 53 Republican votes ( no Democrats this time ) , despite her radical intellectual record as a date-rape apologist and executive-power sycophant .
Rao supports dwarf-tossing .
If you can ’ t get Never Trump Republicans to stand against a person who is in favor of throwing other human beings for sport , then what good are Never Trump Republicans ?
Donald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Courts America ’ s Racist Police Won ’ t Be Dismantled by 2 Weeks of Protests The Question Isn ’ t Whether Trump Will Go Full Authoritarian—It ’ s How We ’ ll Respond We are where we are because allegedly good people “ on both sides ” continue to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt , despite all evidence that they don ’ t deserve it .
Delivering conservative judges is one of the things that so-called good Republicans have sacrificed everything else to achieve .
Yesterday the Senate confirmed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cory Wilson , a guy who ’ s called the Affordable Care Act “ illegitimate ” and “ perverse ” and thinks voter suppression laws are a good way to go .
Only one Republican voted against him , and none of the Never Trump talking heads raised a fuss about him .
When will people learn ?
You can ’ t stop the Neomi Raos of the world after they ’ ve been gifted lifetime appointments .
You can ’ t fight a person like Bill Barr after he ’ s in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal prosecutors work for him now .
What the hell are we supposed to do , dress up like a bat and punch corruption in the face ?
The only way to stop these people is to prevent them from getting their grubby Republican hands on the levers of power in the first place .
But there are never enough people around willing to have that fight when it matters .
And so the cycle will continue .
Democrats are now mobilizing to block Jay Clayton , Trump ’ s apparent pick to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Southern District of New York , which has jurisdiction over Trump ’ s family business .
Clayton and Trump are reportedly golfing buddies .
Democrats are doing what they can do from their position in the minority , but the Republican legal establishment once again refuses to stand up for the rule of law .
In an interview with Politico , Federalist Society law professor J.W .
Verret defended Clayton ’ s appointment : “ Either Clayton works it out with Schumer to recuse from Trump-related cases , or Clayton withdraws @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jay ’ s moral compass will keep him out of trouble.
” The Republican moral compass is always broken .
It only points the way toward more power .
And by the time the best of them get around to trying to fix their compass , it ’ s always too late .

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Non-MAGA Republicans, be they George Conway–style “Never Trumpers” or Mitt Romney–style conservatives who support 90 percent of Trump’s policies but don’t like wearing hats, like to try to distance themselves from the most brazen lawlessness of the Trump regime. They furrow their brows or snark at the president on Twitter when he or one of his henchmen lies or commits crimes.
But those Republicans, the seemingly well-meaning ones, are never there to support the rule of law when their support could make a difference. They only show up after the fact: after the laws have been broken or ignored, after Trump’s henchmen are in positions from which they can do real damage. When Trump nominates these people—people who will only help him avoid or evade the law—these so-called “good” Republicans are nowhere to be found.
Michael Flynn, William Barr, and Neomi Rao (the Clarence Thomas acolyte plucked to fill Brett Kavanaugh’s seat on the D.C. court of appeals) are all part of the same rot. They all believe that achieving the supremacy of the Republican agenda justifies any means—including deceit and corruption. Now that those three have conspired to vitiate the rule of law, Never Trumpers appear concerned, again. But the prominent Republicans who are concerned today said nothing when these obvious bad actors were nominated to their positions.
The consequences of allowing these particular people to gain power are now evident. Michael Flynn lied to FBI investigators about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. I know that to be true, because Flynn admitted to lying and took a plea deal. People who lie to the FBI are supposed to go to jail.
But after Barr helped to short-circuit the Robert Mueller investigation, Flynn withdrew his plea deal. Normally, withdrawing a guilty plea causes prosecutors to rain down hellfire: The legal system doesn’t function well when people go back on their plea deals. But Barr went in the opposite direction and decided to drop the government’s case against Flynn. It was a corrupt move, and district court judge Emmet Sullivan demanded briefing and an explanation from the government for its decision to not prosecute an admitted liar. Sullivan refused to dismiss the case against Flynn until the government provided a non-corrupt reason for dismissing the case.
Yesterday, Sullivan’s request for more information was overruled by a three-judge panel on the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Neomi Rao wrote the decision for the majority (which included judge Karen Henderson, a George W. Bush appointee). Her ruling is unprecedented: She has essentially ordered Judge Sullivan to rule that Flynn should win his motion to dismiss before Judge Sullivan has issued a ruling on the motion. It’s like Rao handed out a speeding ticket to somebody sitting in a parked car because she didn’t like the way they turned on the engine. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Rao’s decision is not grounded in legal precedent. She dismissed the core of Judge Sullivan’s argument in a footnote reference to a legal treatise, not an actual court case. That would be like somebody citing this article as “evidence” that it’s legal to place Rao on an ice floe and set her adrift (Russia, if you’re listening…). Her entire opinion is written for an audience of one: Donald Trump. Rao knows that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 87 years old, and Rao wants her job. This opinion is an open audition for a nomination to the Supreme Court, should an opening become available. Current Issue View our current issue
The opinion is gross and, frankly, a little cloying and desperate, but totally on-brand for Rao. She exists to put Trump’s worst impulses and arguments in legalese, as if she’s one of his defense attorneys instead of an actual judge. Rao, it’s worth remembering, was the lone dissenting vote in the Trump taxes case (now before the Supreme Court) and wrote an opinion that was so extreme that one of her fellow judges warned that it would “reorder the very structure of the Constitution.” The only way that dissent could have sounded more Trumpian was if she had shouted it while mispronouncing common words.
Anybody paying attention to Rao’s career could have seen her opinion in the Flynn case coming.
In fact, many people did see it coming. Sheldon Whitehouse, Democratic Senator from Rhode Island, knew how Rao would rule, and why. As soon as Rao was named to the panel that would hear this case, Whitehouse tweeted:
Where you see Neomi Rao, you can expect a lot of Trumpy dirt to follow. She’s a cartoon of a fake judge. Watch this space.
Whitehouse tweeted that out a month ago. You’d think that by May 2020, everybody would have figured out what Whitehouse saw so clearly. But check out some of the replies Whitehouse received to that tweet. Brother got ratioed. Republican after Republican (and some “institutionalist” Democrats) criticized Whitehouse for saying something that anybody honest should say about any case assigned to Rao. She has never hidden the ball on her radical, anti-Democratic views. But somehow, critics took issue with Whitehouse’s mere attempt to point out the cartoon villainy of her judicial approach, not with Rao’s “Look at me, Donald. It’s all for you!” modus operandi.
The mendacity of Flynn, Barr, and Rao was obvious before they got their jobs, but the moderate Republican wing did not join the effort to stop them from getting those jobs in the first place. These same Republicans were of no help when Trump announced Flynn’s appointment as national security adviser, despite his clear conflicts of interest and the fact that he was drummed out of his post as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration.
William Barr was confirmed as attorney general with 51 Republican votes (and three Democrats, because we live in hell), despite his history of pardoning people responsible for the Iran/Contra scandal and his open letter all but promising to prematurely end Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Neomi Rao was confirmed to the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit with 53 Republican votes (no Democrats this time), despite her radical intellectual record as a date-rape apologist and executive-power sycophant. Rao supports dwarf-tossing. If you can’t get Never Trump Republicans to stand against a person who is in favor of throwing other human beings for sport, then what good are Never Trump Republicans? More from Mystal Donald Trump and the Plot to Take Over the Courts Elie Mystal America’s Racist Police Won’t Be Dismantled by 2 Weeks of Protests Elie Mystal The Question Isn’t Whether Trump Will Go Full Authoritarian—It’s How We’ll Respond Elie Mystal
We are where we are because allegedly good people “on both sides” continue to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt, despite all evidence that they don’t deserve it. Delivering conservative judges is one of the things that so-called good Republicans have sacrificed everything else to achieve. Yesterday the Senate confirmed Trump’s 200th federal judge, Cory Wilson, a guy who’s called the Affordable Care Act “illegitimate” and “perverse” and thinks voter suppression laws are a good way to go. Only one Republican voted against him, and none of the Never Trump talking heads raised a fuss about him.
When will people learn? You can’t stop the Neomi Raos of the world after they’ve been gifted lifetime appointments. You can’t fight a person like Bill Barr after he’s in power. The FBI and all the federal prosecutors work for him now. What the hell are we supposed to do, dress up like a bat and punch corruption in the face?
The only way to stop these people is to prevent them from getting their grubby Republican hands on the levers of power in the first place. But there are never enough people around willing to have that fight when it matters.
And so the cycle will continue. Democrats are now mobilizing to block Jay Clayton, Trump’s apparent pick to replace Geoffrey Berman as the head prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, which has jurisdiction over Trump’s family business. Clayton and Trump are reportedly golfing buddies. Democrats are doing what they can do from their position in the minority, but the Republican legal establishment once again refuses to stand up for the rule of law. In an interview with Politico, Federalist Society law professor J.W. Verret defended Clayton’s appointment: “Either Clayton works it out with Schumer to recuse from Trump-related cases, or Clayton withdraws. Either way I have faith in Jay’s moral compass will keep him out of trouble.”
The Republican moral compass is always broken. It only points the way toward more power. And by the time the best of them get around to trying to fix their compass, it’s always too late.