democracynow--2020-06-24--How Black Lives Matter Protests Are Shifting Racial Justice Dialogues in Professional Sports

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Juan González , as we turn to look at the fight for racial justice in sports .
The FBI said Tuesday NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace was not the target of a hate crime and that a noose found in his garage had been there since last year .
NASCAR described the item as a , quote , “ garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose ” and says it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stall was assigned to Wallace .
NASCAR launched an investigation after a crew member discovered the noose Sunday at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama .
Bubba Wallace , who is the only African American driver in NASCAR ’ s elite Cup Series , tweeted the , quote , “ act of racism and hatred leaves me incredibly saddened.
” On Tuesday night , he told CNN he stands by what he said .
AMY GOODMAN : So , that ’ s Bubba Wallace .
On Sunday , a plane circled over the track @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flag and a banner reading “ Defund NASCAR , ” to push back against the decision of NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag at its raceways .
Meanwhile , Dustin Skinner , the son of former NASCAR driver Mike Skinner , apologized Tuesday for writing a Facebook post saying that Bubba Wallace should be dragged around the pits with the noose .
Well , from NASCAR to NFL , where Commissioner Roger Goodell now says he encourages teams to sign quarterback Colin Kaepernick , we ’ re joined by Etan Thomas , athlete @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the NBA , co-host of the weekly podcast The Collision : Where Sports and Politics Collide , with Dave Zirin .
His latest book , We Matter : Athletes and Activism .
It ’ s great to have you with us , Etan .
Let ’ s start with what ’ s going on in NASCAR .
Absolutely astounding what Bubba Wallace has accomplished , pushing hard for the Confederate flag to be banned from the raceways , and NASCAR finally did comply , and to see , before the FBI said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been there for months , all of the elite car drivers — Bubba Wallace is the only African American elite NASCAR car driver — walking with him in a Black Lives Matter-like protest .
And , of course , right before that , Bubba Wallace had unveiled his racing car , which was black with bold white letters , “ Black Lives Matter , ” and he wore a T-shirt that said “ I can ’ t breathe.
” Talk about what ’ s happening in NASCAR .
ETAN THOMAS : I mean @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , thanks for having me on .
And I think it ’ s amazing , what ’ s happening in NASCAR , to be honest with you .
I had a chance to interview Brad Daugherty , who is a team owner in NASCAR , a former NBA player , yesterday for another show that I have , Center of Attention on Twitch .
And he told me about the culture of NASCAR .
And I have to — admittedly , no , I ’ m not an avid watcher of NASCAR .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the time .
But he talked about how all of the different drivers rallied around Bubba Wallace , and that show of solidarity , and how he said that , in his words , “ that wouldn ’ t have happened 20 years ago.
” Now , getting all to the particulars of the noose , and the FBI have called it a noose many times .
They didn ’ t say that it wasn ’ t a noose .
They didn ’ t say — well , they called it a noose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no matter when it was placed there .
And why Bubba Wallace was given that particular garage , you know , I don ’ t know .
But they did call it a noose .
But the part that was really impressive to me is , number one , the way that NASCAR immediately rallied around Bubba Wallace .
They did more in 48 hours than the NFL did for Colin Kaepernick for four or five years , or however long it ’ s been .
But the show of solidarity around NASCAR @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which is different than the fans .
So the fans had one reaction .
You saw a lot of it — I mean , I ’ ve even seen it in Twitter mentions .
I posted my support for Bubba Wallace , and I just saw the mentions after me .
Like , there ’ s a certain demographic that is in NASCAR , and that ’ s undeniable .
But the drivers don ’ t match that demographic .
And that ’ s one thing that I didn ’ t know @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you know , I thought they were one and the same .
But the show of solidarity is something that we ’ re seeing all across the country , I think , what we saw in NASCAR with that .
Right now at this time , since George Floyd ’ s murder , I ’ ve seen more white people who have been protesting , who have been rallying around as allies , who want to be allies , than I have ever seen in my lifetime , to be honest with you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can ’ t worry about where were you , where have you been all this time .
You know , like , you ’ re late to the party .
OK , that ’ s fine .
We don ’ t have to worry about that .
But you ’ re here now .
So now is time for you to use your privilege to be able to push for things to actually change .
And I think that ’ s a reflection of where we are in the society .
And those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the culture of NASCAR to change .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Etan Thomas , I wanted to ask you about the other sports .
Obviously , Major League Baseball is trying to salvage its season .
The NFL is in a quandary about what to do .
And the NBA now is seeking to restart , to get into the playoffs , but there are battles between the players themselves .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving recently posted on his Instagram account , “ It ’ s clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indigenous Black Folk when it is beneficial for their agenda and pockets , so be aware of the truth in plain sight.
” So , Kyrie is at least saying that the players should consider not participating , while LeBron James , obviously the biggest star in the NBA and probably in American sports , is saying , “ No , let ’ s play and make our statements through our playing.
” I ’ m wondering your perspective on the battle among the NBA players about the way forward .
ETAN THOMAS @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it has to be a battle .
I think there ’ s two different approaches to be able to reach one common goal .
We ’ re going back to the '68 Olympics , and I had the chance to be able to interview both John Carlos and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in my book , We Matter : Athletes and Activism , and we talked about this very topic .
And Kareem Abdul-Jabbar elected not to go to the ’ 68 Olympics .
He did n't go .
And John Carlos , of course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and did the Black Power salute during the — on the podium , and that reverberated to even today .
Now , both of them deserve respect .
And that ’ s my issue with how — and my approach to hearing Kyrie and hearing LeBron .
When I turn on the news and I ’ m looking at Stephen A. Smith and Charles Barkley and even Michael Wilbon , and the inflammatory language that they use when describing Kyrie and Dwight Howard and Avery Bradley , who have said that maybe this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us to be worrying about basketball , maybe there ’ s other things that are — a movement that is going on right now that we should be focused on , and the words that they chose to use , like “ stupid ” and “ dumb ” and “ ridiculous ” and — I would ask Stephen A. Smith , “ Would you call Kareem Abdul-Jabbar foolish for not going to the ’ 68 Olympics ?
” I don ’ t think that ’ s — there ’ s room for both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a civil debate in both of these approaches .
Now , on one hand , we have precedent .
We have the WNBA , who did go , and they went to their — as an entire league a few years ago , and I was able to interview Swin Cash and Tamika Catchings about it in my book .
AMY GOODMAN : This is the women ’ s league .
ETAN THOMAS : And what they did — what ’ s that ?
ETAN THOMAS : The women ’ s league , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they did a few years ago , after the back-to-back murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling , was they , as an entire league , made a statement .
So , every single game , what they did was they had an actual media blackout .
So they would answer like two questions from the game , and then , after that , every question would be dealing with what the topic was right there , which was police brutality and the police accountability and what they could do to change things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They had white players , foreign players that ain ’ t even from here .
They didn ’ t even know what was going on .
But they educated them on it , and they saw their sisters that were hurting , and they did it together .
Yes , that ’ s one approach .
AMY GOODMAN : Etan , I wanted to get your comment on the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver speaking about the league ’ s responsibility in addressing racial inequality .
AMY GOODMAN : That ’ s the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wondering what you think has to happen right now .
He was talking alongside Magic Johnson in a virtual conversation .
And then we ’ ll move on to the NFL , very quickly .
ETAN THOMAS : Well , I think that that ’ s just a reflection of who he is .
He is very different than his predecessor .
And people have to always remember , his predecessor — under his predecessor , David Stern , you know , Craig Hodges and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf were whiteballed from the league .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ I had a — I ’ m not just name dropping , but I interviewed him for my book , as well .
And I have another interview that I had of Adam Silver , as well .
And I asked him , you know , “ Would you punish someone who took a stand for something that you disagree with ?
” And he said , “ No.
” I asked him if he would punish Craig Hodges and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf under his watch , and he said no .
So he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over again that he appreciates the athlete voice .
Now , Roger Goodell is different .
And we could go right and pivot right to Roger Goodell , because , all before , he said one thing .
Now , now he ’ s trying to kind of slowly turn over a new leaf .
And he first made the press conference to say now he wants to embrace NFL players protesting and using their voices , but he left out Colin Kaepernick ’ s name , which you can ’ t really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the one person who you whiteballed from the league , you know , for doing exactly what you ’ re saying that you ’ re apologizing for now .
But then he tried to come back with this , and he wants to encourage teams .
I don ’ t know if it ’ s little — you know , too little , too late for all of that , you know , too little , too late type of a thing .
But , again , we can ’ t worry about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s finally noticed it , if he ’ s finally woken up , and he ’ s finally said , “ OK , I was wrong , and I want to change my ways , ” OK. Now let ’ s see you put action to that .
It ’ s OK to say that , use the words and use statements and things of that nature , but now you have to put action by it .
And so , I have to see real , actionable policy change in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first , it has to be with bringing back Colin Kaepernick , because he is the symbol of you trying to squash the athlete voice .
It ’ s not just about one person .
It ’ s about what you whiteballing the one person means to the entire culture .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , Etan , I want to thank you so much for being with us and end with the words of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , who wrote in the Los Angeles Times , “ Racism in America is like dust @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — even if you ’ re choking on it — until you let the sun in .
Then you see it ’ s everywhere .
As long as we keep shining that light , we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands .
But we have to stay vigilant , because it ’ s always still in the air.
” Those are the words of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , the basketball legend .
Etan Thomas , I want to thank you so much for being with us .
The podcast that you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ WPFW , the Pacifica station in Washington , D.C .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we turn to look at the fight for racial justice in sports. The FBI said Tuesday NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace was not the target of a hate crime and that a noose found in his garage had been there since last year. NASCAR described the item as a, quote, “garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose” and says it had been there for months before the stall was assigned to Wallace. NASCAR launched an investigation after a crew member discovered the noose Sunday at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. Bubba Wallace, who is the only African American driver in NASCAR’s elite Cup Series, tweeted the, quote, “act of racism and hatred leaves me incredibly saddened.” On Tuesday night, he told CNN he stands by what he said.
BUBBA WALLACE: The image that I have and I have seen of what was hanging in my garage is not a — is not a garage pull. I’ve been racing all my life. We’ve raced out of hundreds of garages, that never had garage pulls like that. So, people that want to call it a garage pull and put out old videos and photos of knots being in their — as their evidence, go ahead. But from the evidence that we have and that I have, it’s a straight-up noose. The FBI has stated it was a noose over and over again.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Bubba Wallace. On Sunday, a plane circled over the track at the Talladega Superspeedway towing a Confederate flag and a banner reading “Defund NASCAR,” to push back against the decision of NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag at its raceways.
Meanwhile, Dustin Skinner, the son of former NASCAR driver Mike Skinner, apologized Tuesday for writing a Facebook post saying that Bubba Wallace should be dragged around the pits with the noose.
Well, from NASCAR to NFL, where Commissioner Roger Goodell now says he encourages teams to sign quarterback Colin Kaepernick, we’re joined by Etan Thomas, athlete and activist, who spent 11 years in the NBA, co-host of the weekly podcast The Collision: Where Sports and Politics Collide, with Dave Zirin. His latest book, We Matter: Athletes and Activism.
It’s great to have you with us, Etan. Let’s start with what’s going on in NASCAR. Absolutely astounding what Bubba Wallace has accomplished, pushing hard for the Confederate flag to be banned from the raceways, and NASCAR finally did comply, and to see, before the FBI said they discovered that this noose-like rope had been there for months, all of the elite car drivers — Bubba Wallace is the only African American elite NASCAR car driver — walking with him in a Black Lives Matter-like protest. And, of course, right before that, Bubba Wallace had unveiled his racing car, which was black with bold white letters, “Black Lives Matter,” and he wore a T-shirt that said “I can’t breathe.” Talk about what’s happening in NASCAR.
ETAN THOMAS: I mean, I think — first of all, thanks for having me on.
And I think it’s amazing, what’s happening in NASCAR, to be honest with you. I had a chance to interview Brad Daugherty, who is a team owner in NASCAR, a former NBA player, yesterday for another show that I have, Center of Attention on Twitch. And he told me about the culture of NASCAR. And I have to — admittedly, no, I’m not an avid watcher of NASCAR. I don’t watch NASCAR all the time. But he talked about how all of the different drivers rallied around Bubba Wallace, and that show of solidarity, and how he said that, in his words, “that wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago.”
Now, getting all to the particulars of the noose, and the FBI have called it a noose many times. They didn’t say that it wasn’t a noose. They didn’t say — well, they called it a noose, just to make that clear, no matter when it was placed there. And why Bubba Wallace was given that particular garage, you know, I don’t know. But they did call it a noose.
But the part that was really impressive to me is, number one, the way that NASCAR immediately rallied around Bubba Wallace. They did more in 48 hours than the NFL did for Colin Kaepernick for four or five years, or however long it’s been. But the show of solidarity around NASCAR, around the drivers — you know, which is different than the fans. So the fans had one reaction. You saw a lot of it — I mean, I’ve even seen it in Twitter mentions. I posted my support for Bubba Wallace, and I just saw the mentions after me. Like, there’s a certain demographic that is in NASCAR, and that’s undeniable. But the drivers don’t match that demographic. And that’s one thing that I didn’t know. I just thought all the — you know, I thought they were one and the same.
But the show of solidarity is something that we’re seeing all across the country, I think, what we saw in NASCAR with that. Right now at this time, since George Floyd’s murder, I’ve seen more white people who have been protesting, who have been rallying around as allies, who want to be allies, than I have ever seen in my lifetime, to be honest with you. And, you know, we can’t worry about where were you, where have you been all this time. You know, like, you’re late to the party. OK, that’s fine. We don’t have to worry about that. But you’re here now. So now is time for you to use your privilege to be able to push for things to actually change. And I think that’s a reflection of where we are in the society. And those drivers in NASCAR, they are pushing for the culture of NASCAR to change.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Etan Thomas, I wanted to ask you about the other sports. Obviously, Major League Baseball is trying to salvage its season. The NFL is in a quandary about what to do. And the NBA now is seeking to restart, to get into the playoffs, but there are battles between the players themselves.
ETAN THOMAS: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving recently posted on his Instagram account, “It’s clear White Supremacy and Corporations use us Native Indigenous Black Folk when it is beneficial for their agenda and pockets, so be aware of the truth in plain sight.” So, Kyrie is at least saying that the players should consider not participating, while LeBron James, obviously the biggest star in the NBA and probably in American sports, is saying, “No, let’s play and make our statements through our playing.” I’m wondering your perspective on the battle among the NBA players about the way forward.
ETAN THOMAS: I don’t see that it has to be a battle. I think there’s two different approaches to be able to reach one common goal. We’re going back to the '68 Olympics, and I had the chance to be able to interview both John Carlos and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in my book, We Matter: Athletes and Activism, and we talked about this very topic. And Kareem Abdul-Jabbar elected not to go to the ’68 Olympics. He didn't go. And John Carlos, of course, went to the ’68 Olympics and did the Black Power salute during the — on the podium, and that reverberated to even today. Now, both of them deserve respect.
And that’s my issue with how — and my approach to hearing Kyrie and hearing LeBron. When I turn on the news and I’m looking at Stephen A. Smith and Charles Barkley and even Michael Wilbon, and the inflammatory language that they use when describing Kyrie and Dwight Howard and Avery Bradley, who have said that maybe this isn’t the best time for us to be worrying about basketball, maybe there’s other things that are — a movement that is going on right now that we should be focused on, and the words that they chose to use, like “stupid” and “dumb” and “ridiculous” and — I would ask Stephen A. Smith, “Would you call Kareem Abdul-Jabbar foolish for not going to the ’68 Olympics?” I don’t think that’s — there’s room for both discussions. There’s room for a civil debate in both of these approaches.
Now, on one hand, we have precedent. We have the WNBA, who did go, and they went to their — as an entire league a few years ago, and I was able to interview Swin Cash and Tamika Catchings about it in my book.
AMY GOODMAN: This is the women’s league.
ETAN THOMAS: And what they did — what’s that?
AMY GOODMAN: The women’s league.
ETAN THOMAS: The women’s league, yeah, the WNBA. And what they did a few years ago, after the back-to-back murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, was they, as an entire league, made a statement. So, every single game, what they did was they had an actual media blackout. So they would answer like two questions from the game, and then, after that, every question would be dealing with what the topic was right there, which was police brutality and the police accountability and what they could do to change things. And they had the entire league. They had white players, foreign players that ain’t even from here. They didn’t even know what was going on. But they educated them on it, and they saw their sisters that were hurting, and they did it together. Yes, that’s one approach.
AMY GOODMAN: Etan, I wanted to get your comment on the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver speaking about the league’s responsibility in addressing racial inequality.
ADAM SILVER: The NBA can have a — almost an unparalleled voice in this conversation because of what we stand for, because we represent, frankly — I mean, when you think about our players, some of the best-known Black people in the entire world are part of the NBA and now part of the WNBA. So we know we can have a very important voice. … Let’s make sure that in returning to basketball, a larger, broader message about social equality, racial issues are not somehow lost in the discussion.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. I was wondering what you think has to happen right now. He was talking alongside Magic Johnson in a virtual conversation. And then we’ll move on to the NFL, very quickly.
ETAN THOMAS: Well, I think that that’s just a reflection of who he is. He is very different than his predecessor. And people have to always remember, his predecessor — under his predecessor, David Stern, you know, Craig Hodges and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf were whiteballed from the league. So he is very different. And I had a — I’m not just name dropping, but I interviewed him for my book, as well. And I have another interview that I had of Adam Silver, as well. And I asked him, you know, “Would you punish someone who took a stand for something that you disagree with?” And he said, “No.” I asked him if he would punish Craig Hodges and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf under his watch, and he said no. So he is somebody who has said over and over again that he appreciates the athlete voice.
Now, Roger Goodell is different. And we could go right and pivot right to Roger Goodell, because, all before, he said one thing. Now, now he’s trying to kind of slowly turn over a new leaf. And he first made the press conference to say now he wants to embrace NFL players protesting and using their voices, but he left out Colin Kaepernick’s name, which you can’t really do without, you know, mentioning the one person who you whiteballed from the league, you know, for doing exactly what you’re saying that you’re apologizing for now. But then he tried to come back with this, and he wants to encourage teams. I don’t know if it’s little — you know, too little, too late for all of that, you know, too little, too late type of a thing. But, again, we can’t worry about when people get there. If he’s finally noticed it, if he’s finally woken up, and he’s finally said, “OK, I was wrong, and I want to change my ways,” OK. Now let’s see you put action to that. It’s OK to say that, use the words and use statements and things of that nature, but now you have to put action by it. And so, I have to see real, actionable policy change in the way that he conducts it. And first, it has to be with bringing back Colin Kaepernick, because he is the symbol of you trying to squash the athlete voice. It’s not just about one person. It’s about what you whiteballing the one person means to the entire culture.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Etan, I want to thank you so much for being with us and end with the words of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands. But we have to stay vigilant, because it’s always still in the air.” Those are the words of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the basketball legend. Etan Thomas, I want to thank you so much for being with us. The podcast that you started, again, is started on WPFW, the Pacifica station in Washington, D.C.


democracynow--2020-06-24--Palestinian Scholar Noura Erakat: Israeli Forces Killed My Cousin on His Sister's Wedding Day

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman in New York .
Juan González joins us from New Brunswick , New Jersey , from his home during this time of the coronavirus .
Hi , Juan .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : Hi , Amy .
And welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , we ’ re going to begin today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israeli officers on Tuesday shot dead a Palestinian man at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank as he was on his way to pick up his sister , who was set to be married last night .
A warning to our viewers : This story contains graphic footage .
The video from the scene shows 27-year-old Ahmed Erekat bleeding , but still alive on the street where he was shot .
He ’ s the nephew of senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat , the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ murdered in cold blood , ” and wrote in a tweet that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is responsible for his death .
Ahmed Erekat ’ s family said he was killed while on his way to a beauty salon to pick up his sister and his mother , but Israeli authorities claim he tried to run over an officer at a checkpoint in the Palestinian village of Abu Dis , east of Jerusalem .
His family rejects the allegations , is calling for Israeli authorities to release security footage .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ married soon .
His killing comes nearly a month after another Palestinian man was killed in similar circumstances near Ramallah , also in the West Bank , and as Netanyahu plans to start annexing nearly a third of the occupied West Bank next month .
For more , we ’ re joined by Ahmed Erekat ’ s cousin , Noura Erakat , who ’ s a Palestinian human rights attorney and legal scholar , assistant professor at Rutgers University , author of Justice for Some : Law and the Question of Palestine .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ your family .
This is such a terrible time for you .
We so deeply appreciate you ’ re able to join us .
This is just hours after your cousin was killed .
Can you describe the circumstances under which you understand he died ?
NOURA ERAKAT : Thank you , Amy .
Thank you , Juan , and to the viewers .
I haven ’ t had a chance to speak to his parents , so I want to start out by saying [ speaking Arabic ] .
We understand the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ahmed was on his way , from Abu Dis to Bethlehem , to pick up his sister from a hair salon for her wedding .
Her mom was there with her .
You know , on the way to the hair salon , he passed through a checkpoint separating Bethlehem from Abu Dis through a known roadway , back roadway , a dangerous one known as Wadi Nar , or Valley of Fire .
There is a steep decline between this checkpoint on the road .
And what we understand is that Ahmed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confused while he was in his car .
That was all it took to have a knee-jerk reaction , for the car to jerk a little bit and immediately to cause the soldiers to open fire on him multiple times .
Note that these soldiers , who are fully armed at this checkpoint , are behind barriers , are not actually out in the open , and then left Ahmed to bleed for one-and-a-half hours .
We also understand that his father , Abu Faisal , was there pleading with the Israeli soldiers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We also know that the Palestinian Red Crescent , the equivalent of the Red Cross , was not allowed access .
And for one-and-a-half hours , as you saw in that inexplicable video , Ahmed was left writhing and bleeding out , without the ability to care for him .
And what is very obvious is the ease and the callousness with which this happened , the way that it ’ s normalized completely .
And there ’ s a Palestinian — there ’ s a line , a queue , of Palestinian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was praying over Ahmed as he ’ s dying .
It should remind us that even those Palestinians who are bearing witness to this are subject to a state of forced helplessness .
They are not even allowed to help Ahmed in that moment .
I want to just bring up something , Amy , to the audience before I address Israel ’ s vicious , dangerous and disgusting allegations that this was a car ramming , and raise three questions for the audience that ’ s paying attention right now .
Right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dis , where Ahmed and my family is from , so severely underdeveloped that he has to travel outside to one of the big Palestinian cities in order to get his sisters from a hair salon ?
What is the cause of that underdevelopment ?
Number two , I want to ask the audience to think about the biggest Palestinian city and commercial center to Abu Dis is Jerusalem .
Abu Dis is a suburb of Jerusalem and has been cut off from it by the apartheid wall .
Why can ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ family get to Jerusalem , and instead have to travel to Bethlehem ?
And number three , and so importantly , why is there a checkpoint between Bethlehem and Abu Dis , two Palestinian cities ?
Why are there checkpoints anywhere ?
Just think about those questions as we answer this broader question of the context that Ahmed was killed in .
JUAN GONZÁLEZ : And , Noura , that last point that you — first of all , my deepest condolences to you and your family .
But I wanted to precisely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ checkpoints that are within Palestinian territory , that apparently are not even near any Israeli settlements ?
How many of them are there ?
And what is the justification for them from Israel ’ s perspective ?
NOURA ERAKAT : Thank you for that question .
The Palestinian checkpoint — the checkpoints that divide Palestinians from one another and that separate them from their homes are an invention of the peace process .
In 1995 , the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza were separated into three jurisdictions — A , B and C @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civil and military control and what was under some shared control .
Note that Area C , or 60 % of the West Bank , is the largest area .
It is what is now being marked for annexation , and it is what came under full Israeli civil and security control .
The checkpoints that are erected are meant to police Palestinians from traveling from amongst their cities and with one another .
And they are placed precisely to divide Palestinians from one another in order to delimit and to quell any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They are also set up because they are policing Palestinians , who are not to travel next to settlements , around settlements , through settlements , which are all built on confiscated Palestinian lands .
And you ask — you know , sometimes these checkpoints are built around places where there are no settlements , but there will be .
But there will be .
All of Palestinian territory is marked for Israeli settlements and is marked for the removal of Palestinians .
Palestinians have been steadily removed from their homes .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them for Israelis only .
Settlements are built on top of them .
And Palestinians are ever contained into smaller and smaller tracts of land , that the Trump administration just revealed , in January , will become their permanent Bantustans or reservations , where they will be able to practice autonomy , which — or derivative sovereignty , but never a form of freedom , and they will be forever dominated .
I want to switch really quick , because this is the concern of the family .
In the aftermath of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ started a propaganda campaign blaming Ahmed for his own death and alleging that he tried to ram his car into the checkpoint .
This is a lie .
This is a incredibly hurtful lie , but it ’ s a systematic lie that Israel tells as it kills Palestinians and blames them for their own death .
What we know is that Israel has done this systematically .
We know that they have used this .
As people have said , this is prepared and ready argument .
We know that from May @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Palestinians in Gaza who were unarmed .
That was supported by the Israeli military establishment , its political establishment , and it was rubber-stamped , rubber-stamped as a shoot-to-kill policy by the Israeli High Court .
We know among those murdered was paramedic , 21-year-old Razan al-Najjar , who had her hands up , was wearing a paramedic vest , and was shot in the back .
When she was killed , the Israeli military released a doctored video claiming that Razan said , “ I am a human shield.
” What they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Razan ’ s clip , where she said , “ I am a human shield here on the line being a protective human shield saving the injured.
” But the Israeli military doctored that video to say that she was a human shield for Hamas .
And guess what .
The entire world stops asking questions the moment you say Hamas , the moment you say Palestinian violence , the moment you say Palestinian resistance .
It ’ s as if we expect that to be a carte blanche to kill as many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Razan .
They did it with Iyad el-Hallak .
They did it with Ahmed yesterday .
And right now the family is demanding that Ahmed ’ s body , his corpse , be returned .
It is being withheld as a form of collective punishment .
We are also demanding that the home be protected , because Israel has a policy of demolishing homes of Palestinians they consider alleged assailants , without , of course , any kind of trial .
We are demanding that the footage be released , and atone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It bears to note that in 2017 the Human Rights Council at the U.N. examined the cases of Israel ’ s systematic killings of Palestinians and concluded , quote , “ that Israel often used lethal force against Palestinians on mere suspicion or as a precautionary measure.
” Israeli soldiers kill Palestinians as precautionary measure .
And the rest of the world accepts this because of how used to the loss of Palestinian lives we have become numb to .
This is normalized .
This amount of killing is normalized .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now , his family , is fighting for justice in his name and is also mourning his life at the same time .
AMY GOODMAN : Noura Erakat , as you describe Ahmed , he was picking up his mom and his sister .
His sister was going to be married last night .
He was picking them up from the salon .
His sister Eman fainted when she heard what had taken place ?
And he himself was going to be married in just a few weeks ?
NOURA ERAKAT : Indeed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the story that doesn ’ t add up , and , frankly , one of the things about this is — you ’ re telling us these details , Amy , right ?
And so , most listeners would think , naturally , “ Why would a young man , 27 years old , with his own T-shirt business , who ’ s incredibly happy and smiling on the day of his sister ’ s wedding , plan an attack against an Israeli checkpoint , which is basically a suicide mission ?
Why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Normal people will ask that .
And normal , empathetic people will say it is impossible .
And yet , because of the dehumanization of Palestinians and the racism with which our stories are cloaked , there are some who might say , “ Yeah , it ’ s possible .
Palestinians are driven by a hatred for Jews and are basically born in order to kill.
” As former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said , Palestinian mothers should be killed because they birth snakes ?
This is the discourse of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not of the random extremists , but of its representatives , who represent them to the world , this so-called only democracy .
And yes , Ahmed was incredibly proud of the home he had furnished and prepared for his wife-to-be — they had shared pictures of him in his home — and had so much to live for and deserved to live and deserves justice and deserves our support in demanding justice , in demanding accountability .
This is not about one bad Israeli soldier , just as it ’ s not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a system .
It is an apartheid system .
It is a settler colonial system that enshrines Jewish Israeli supremacy as a matter of law and policy on an international scale .
And it is one that marks Palestinians for removal , exile or death .
And it is done with the full , unequivocal , diplomatic , financial , military support of the United States and with the complicity of the international community .
So it bears upon us to respond in this moment by supporting the Palestinian call for freedom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can by engaging in boycott , divestment and sanctions for Ahmed , for Razan , for Iyad , to oppose the annexation , to oppose apartheid , to fight for freedom .
AMY GOODMAN : Noura Erakat , we want to thank you for being with us .
Again , our condolences to your family .
Noura is a Palestinian human rights attorney , legal scholar , colleague of Juan ’ s over at Rutgers , assistant professor at Rutgers University and author of Justice for Some : Law and the Question of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have written a letter opposing Israel ’ s plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank .
Also , the final tweet — one of the tweets of Noura Erakat , our guest , after Ahmed died , “ They left him to bleed out like this .
For 1.5 hours .
His name is Ahmed .
He deserved to live .
He deserved to dance tonight w his family to celebrate his sister .
He deserved to dance at his wedding , to nurture family .
To live .
This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel ’ s ugliness , ” she wrote .
When we come back , we look at the fight for racial justice in sports with Etan Thomas , former NBA player , co-host of the podcast The Collision : Where Sports and Politics Collide .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman in New York. Juan González joins us from New Brunswick, New Jersey, from his home during this time of the coronavirus. Hi, Juan.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Hi, Amy. And welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to begin today in Israel and the West Bank. Israeli officers on Tuesday shot dead a Palestinian man at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank as he was on his way to pick up his sister, who was set to be married last night. A warning to our viewers: This story contains graphic footage. The video from the scene shows 27-year-old Ahmed Erekat bleeding, but still alive on the street where he was shot. He’s the nephew of senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, who said his nephew was, quote, “murdered in cold blood,” and wrote in a tweet that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is responsible for his death.
Ahmed Erekat’s family said he was killed while on his way to a beauty salon to pick up his sister and his mother, but Israeli authorities claim he tried to run over an officer at a checkpoint in the Palestinian village of Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem. His family rejects the allegations, is calling for Israeli authorities to release security footage. Ahmed himself was also due to be married soon.
His killing comes nearly a month after another Palestinian man was killed in similar circumstances near Ramallah, also in the West Bank, and as Netanyahu plans to start annexing nearly a third of the occupied West Bank next month.
For more, we’re joined by Ahmed Erekat’s cousin, Noura Erakat, who’s a Palestinian human rights attorney and legal scholar, assistant professor at Rutgers University, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine.
Noura, our condolences to you and your family. This is such a terrible time for you. We so deeply appreciate you’re able to join us. This is just hours after your cousin was killed. Can you describe the circumstances under which you understand he died?
NOURA ERAKAT: Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Juan, and to the viewers. I haven’t had a chance to speak to his parents, so I want to start out by saying [speaking Arabic].
We understand the circumstances to be what people know. Ahmed was on his way, from Abu Dis to Bethlehem, to pick up his sister from a hair salon for her wedding. Her mom was there with her. You know, on the way to the hair salon, he passed through a checkpoint separating Bethlehem from Abu Dis through a known roadway, back roadway, a dangerous one known as Wadi Nar, or Valley of Fire. There is a steep decline between this checkpoint on the road. And what we understand is that Ahmed lost control of his car or was confused while he was in his car. That was all it took to have a knee-jerk reaction, for the car to jerk a little bit and immediately to cause the soldiers to open fire on him multiple times.
Note that these soldiers, who are fully armed at this checkpoint, are behind barriers, are not actually out in the open, and then left Ahmed to bleed for one-and-a-half hours. We also understand that his father, Abu Faisal, was there pleading with the Israeli soldiers to let him access his son. We also know that the Palestinian Red Crescent, the equivalent of the Red Cross, was not allowed access. And for one-and-a-half hours, as you saw in that inexplicable video, Ahmed was left writhing and bleeding out, without the ability to care for him.
And what is very obvious is the ease and the callousness with which this happened, the way that it’s normalized completely. And there’s a Palestinian — there’s a line, a queue, of Palestinian cars. And the one filming this was praying over Ahmed as he’s dying. It should remind us that even those Palestinians who are bearing witness to this are subject to a state of forced helplessness. They are not even allowed to help Ahmed in that moment.
I want to just bring up something, Amy, to the audience before I address Israel’s vicious, dangerous and disgusting allegations that this was a car ramming, and raise three questions for the audience that’s paying attention right now.
Right now, one, why is Abu Dis, where Ahmed and my family is from, so severely underdeveloped that he has to travel outside to one of the big Palestinian cities in order to get his sisters from a hair salon? What is the cause of that underdevelopment?
Number two, I want to ask the audience to think about the biggest Palestinian city and commercial center to Abu Dis is Jerusalem. Abu Dis is a suburb of Jerusalem and has been cut off from it by the apartheid wall. Why can’t Palestinians, why couldn’t my family get to Jerusalem, and instead have to travel to Bethlehem?
And number three, and so importantly, why is there a checkpoint between Bethlehem and Abu Dis, two Palestinian cities? Why are there checkpoints anywhere? Just think about those questions as we answer this broader question of the context that Ahmed was killed in.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Noura, that last point that you — first of all, my deepest condolences to you and your family. But I wanted to precisely ask that question. What are these checkpoints that are within Palestinian territory, that apparently are not even near any Israeli settlements? How many of them are there? And what is the justification for them from Israel’s perspective?
NOURA ERAKAT: Thank you for that question. The Palestinian checkpoint — the checkpoints that divide Palestinians from one another and that separate them from their homes are an invention of the peace process. In 1995, the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza were separated into three jurisdictions — A, B and C — demarking what was under full Israeli civil and military control and what was under some shared control. Note that Area C, or 60% of the West Bank, is the largest area. It is what is now being marked for annexation, and it is what came under full Israeli civil and security control.
The checkpoints that are erected are meant to police Palestinians from traveling from amongst their cities and with one another. And they are placed precisely to divide Palestinians from one another in order to delimit and to quell any kind of national cohesion and uprising. They are also set up because they are policing Palestinians, who are not to travel next to settlements, around settlements, through settlements, which are all built on confiscated Palestinian lands.
And you ask — you know, sometimes these checkpoints are built around places where there are no settlements, but there will be. But there will be. All of Palestinian territory is marked for Israeli settlements and is marked for the removal of Palestinians. Palestinians have been steadily removed from their homes. They are demolished. Roads are built over them for Israelis only. Settlements are built on top of them. And Palestinians are ever contained into smaller and smaller tracts of land, that the Trump administration just revealed, in January, will become their permanent Bantustans or reservations, where they will be able to practice autonomy, which — or derivative sovereignty, but never a form of freedom, and they will be forever dominated.
I want to switch really quick, because this is the concern of the family. In the aftermath of Ahmed’s murder, Israel immediately started a propaganda campaign blaming Ahmed for his own death and alleging that he tried to ram his car into the checkpoint. This is a lie. This is a incredibly hurtful lie, but it’s a systematic lie that Israel tells as it kills Palestinians and blames them for their own death. What we know is that Israel has done this systematically. We know that they have used this. As people have said, this is prepared and ready argument.
We know that from May to October 2018, Israel killed 267 Palestinians in Gaza who were unarmed. That was supported by the Israeli military establishment, its political establishment, and it was rubber-stamped, rubber-stamped as a shoot-to-kill policy by the Israeli High Court. We know among those murdered was paramedic, 21-year-old Razan al-Najjar, who had her hands up, was wearing a paramedic vest, and was shot in the back. When she was killed, the Israeli military released a doctored video claiming that Razan said, “I am a human shield.” What they failed to play was the rest of Razan’s clip, where she said, “I am a human shield here on the line being a protective human shield saving the injured.” But the Israeli military doctored that video to say that she was a human shield for Hamas.
And guess what. The entire world stops asking questions the moment you say Hamas, the moment you say Palestinian violence, the moment you say Palestinian resistance. It’s as if we expect that to be a carte blanche to kill as many Palestinians as possible. They did it with Razan. They did it with Iyad el-Hallak. They did it with Ahmed yesterday.
And right now the family is demanding that Ahmed’s body, his corpse, be returned. It is being withheld as a form of collective punishment. We are also demanding that the home be protected, because Israel has a policy of demolishing homes of Palestinians they consider alleged assailants, without, of course, any kind of trial. We are demanding that the footage be released, and atone and apologize and address the systematic violence.
It bears to note that in 2017 the Human Rights Council at the U.N. examined the cases of Israel’s systematic killings of Palestinians and concluded, quote, “that Israel often used lethal force against Palestinians on mere suspicion or as a precautionary measure.” Israeli soldiers kill Palestinians as precautionary measure. And the rest of the world accepts this because of how used to the loss of Palestinian lives we have become numb to. This is normalized. This amount of killing is normalized. And this is the context in which Ahmed now, his family, is fighting for justice in his name and is also mourning his life at the same time.
AMY GOODMAN: Noura Erakat, as you describe Ahmed, he was picking up his mom and his sister. His sister was going to be married last night. He was picking them up from the salon. His sister Eman fainted when she heard what had taken place? And he himself was going to be married in just a few weeks?
NOURA ERAKAT: Indeed. So, the other part of the story that doesn’t add up, and, frankly, one of the things about this is — you’re telling us these details, Amy, right? And so, most listeners would think, naturally, “Why would a young man, 27 years old, with his own T-shirt business, who’s incredibly happy and smiling on the day of his sister’s wedding, plan an attack against an Israeli checkpoint, which is basically a suicide mission? Why? Why would he do that?” Normal people will ask that. And normal, empathetic people will say it is impossible.
And yet, because of the dehumanization of Palestinians and the racism with which our stories are cloaked, there are some who might say, “Yeah, it’s possible. Palestinians are driven by a hatred for Jews and are basically born in order to kill.” As former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said, Palestinian mothers should be killed because they birth snakes? This is the discourse of the highest people in office in Israel, not of the random extremists, but of its representatives, who represent them to the world, this so-called only democracy.
And yes, Ahmed was incredibly proud of the home he had furnished and prepared for his wife-to-be — they had shared pictures of him in his home — and had so much to live for and deserved to live and deserves justice and deserves our support in demanding justice, in demanding accountability.
This is not about one bad Israeli soldier, just as it’s not about one bad cop ever. This is a system. It is an apartheid system. It is a settler colonial system that enshrines Jewish Israeli supremacy as a matter of law and policy on an international scale. And it is one that marks Palestinians for removal, exile or death. And it is done with the full, unequivocal, diplomatic, financial, military support of the United States and with the complicity of the international community.
So it bears upon us to respond in this moment by supporting the Palestinian call for freedom, by doing the little that we can by engaging in boycott, divestment and sanctions for Ahmed, for Razan, for Iyad, to oppose the annexation, to oppose apartheid, to fight for freedom.
AMY GOODMAN: Noura Erakat, we want to thank you for being with us. Again, our condolences to your family. Noura is a Palestinian human rights attorney, legal scholar, colleague of Juan’s over at Rutgers, assistant professor at Rutgers University and author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Over a thousand European MPs have written a letter opposing Israel’s plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. Also, the final tweet — one of the tweets of Noura Erakat, our guest, after Ahmed died, “They left him to bleed out like this. For 1.5 hours. His name is Ahmed. He deserved to live. He deserved to dance tonight w his family to celebrate his sister. He deserved to dance at his wedding, to nurture family. To live. This is not a picture of Ahmed but of Israel’s ugliness,” she wrote.
When we come back, we look at the fight for racial justice in sports with Etan Thomas, former NBA player, co-host of the podcast The Collision: Where Sports and Politics Collide. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-06-24--The Next AOC? Progressive Insurgent Jamaal Bowman Takes Big Lead Over Rep. Eliot Engel in NY Primary

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : We begin today ’ s show here in New York , where Jamaal Bowman , an African American former middle school principal , appears headed to pull off one of the biggest political upsets of the year .
Though the race has not yet been called , Bowman is leading by 25 percentage points over 16-term Congressmember Eliot Engel , the powerful chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee , in the Democratic primary for the 16th Congressional District in Westchester County @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reports 92 % or precincts have reported results , but it ’ s not clear how many absentee ballots still need to be counted .
Jamaal Bowman ran on a Green New Deal , Medicare for All platform and joined recent protests demanding an end to racism and police brutality .
He spoke at a campaign party late Tuesday .
JAMAAL BOWMAN : I ’ m a Black man in America , you know , raised by a single mom , you know , spent some time in the housing projects , lived @ @ @ @ @ @ @ schools my entire life , grew up during the crack cocaine epidemic , which hurt and ravaged many parts of my family , as well as my friends ’ families , as well .
You know , my best friend , who ’ s here tonight , I ’ ll never forget the night he called me , when I was out partying at a club , and told me his brother was shot and killed .
And at a very young age as a Black man in America , you get to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and how it impacts not just you individually , but your community and the rest of the country .
And it was these experiences that led me to being an educator in the first place .
And I served in that role as an educator with pride and passion and dignity , and tried my best to do everything I could to uplift the lives of every child that I taught and every child that I served , and to do everything I could to make sure families had what they needed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power of their voices .
Unfortunately , as we all know , we live in a country where , despite our financial wealth , we have tens of millions of children still living in poverty .
And as an educator working for the Department of Education for 20 years , I ’ ve seen the impact of poverty on the lives of our kids each and every day .
And poverty is not a result of children and families who don ’ t work hard .
Our children and families work as hard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political design , and it ’ s rooted in a system that has been fractured and corrupt and rotten from its core from the inception of America , especially over the last several decades .
So , poverty and the impact of poverty on our children , and dealing with issues of institutional racism and sexism and classism and xenophobia and everything that keeps the majority of us oppressed , is what we designed this campaign to fight against .
So , tonight , as we celebrate , we don ’ t just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ celebrate this movement , a movement designed to push back against a system that ’ s literally killing us .
It ’ s killing Black and Brown bodies disproportionately , but it ’ s killing all of us .
… Eliot Engel — and I ’ ll say his name once — used to say that he was a thorn in the side of Donald Trump .
But you know what Donald Trump is more afraid of than anything else ?
A Black man with power .
That is what Donald Trump is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ results continue to bear out as they are bearing out this evening and we get to Congress , it will be our job to hold Donald Trump accountable and to hold every elected official accountable that continues to be beholden to corporate interests , that continues to be beholden to the wealthy and is not fighting for the poor and is not fighting for the working class in our country , because , America , if we are truly powerful , we should use that power to create peace all over the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this planet and to make sure we have housing and jobs and fully funded schools and infrastructure and healthcare that ’ s exemplary and humane immigration reform and a humane restorative justice system that reinvests in communities that have been historically neglected .
AMY GOODMAN : Jamaal Bowman , speaking last night , a Black middle school principal from the Bronx who ’ s taken a strong lead over 16-term Congressmember Eliot Engel , chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs , in the Democratic primary for 16th Congressional District in Westchester @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our interview with Jamaal Bowman , you can go to democracynow.org .
This is Democracy Now !
When we come back , a Palestinian man is gunned down by the Israeli military in the West Bank .
We ’ ll speak to his cousin , the well-known scholar Noura Erakat .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show here in New York, where Jamaal Bowman, an African American former middle school principal, appears headed to pull off one of the biggest political upsets of the year. Though the race has not yet been called, Bowman is leading by 25 percentage points over 16-term Congressmember Eliot Engel, the powerful chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in the Democratic primary for the 16th Congressional District in Westchester County and the Bronx. The Associated Press reports 92% or precincts have reported results, but it’s not clear how many absentee ballots still need to be counted. Jamaal Bowman ran on a Green New Deal, Medicare for All platform and joined recent protests demanding an end to racism and police brutality. He spoke at a campaign party late Tuesday.
JAMAAL BOWMAN: I’m a Black man in America, you know, raised by a single mom, you know, spent some time in the housing projects, lived in rent-stabilized apartments, went to public schools my entire life, grew up during the crack cocaine epidemic, which hurt and ravaged many parts of my family, as well as my friends’ families, as well. You know, my best friend, who’s here tonight, I’ll never forget the night he called me, when I was out partying at a club, and told me his brother was shot and killed. And at a very young age as a Black man in America, you get to learn about death and homicide and suicide, and how it impacts not just you individually, but your community and the rest of the country.
And it was these experiences that led me to being an educator in the first place. And I served in that role as an educator with pride and passion and dignity, and tried my best to do everything I could to uplift the lives of every child that I taught and every child that I served, and to do everything I could to make sure families had what they needed and that they understood and leveraged the power of their voices.
Unfortunately, as we all know, we live in a country where, despite our financial wealth, we have tens of millions of children still living in poverty. And as an educator working for the Department of Education for 20 years, I’ve seen the impact of poverty on the lives of our kids each and every day. And poverty is not a result of children and families who don’t work hard. Our children and families work as hard as anyone else. Poverty is by political design, and it’s rooted in a system that has been fractured and corrupt and rotten from its core from the inception of America, especially over the last several decades.
So, poverty and the impact of poverty on our children, and dealing with issues of institutional racism and sexism and classism and xenophobia and everything that keeps the majority of us oppressed, is what we designed this campaign to fight against. So, tonight, as we celebrate, we don’t just celebrate me as an individual. We celebrate this movement, a movement designed to push back against a system that’s literally killing us. It’s killing Black and Brown bodies disproportionately, but it’s killing all of us. …
Eliot Engel — and I’ll say his name once — used to say that he was a thorn in the side of Donald Trump. But you know what Donald Trump is more afraid of than anything else? A Black man with power. That is what Donald Trump is afraid of.
So, if the results continue to bear out as they are bearing out this evening and we get to Congress, it will be our job to hold Donald Trump accountable and to hold every elected official accountable that continues to be beholden to corporate interests, that continues to be beholden to the wealthy and is not fighting for the poor and is not fighting for the working class in our country, because, America, if we are truly powerful, we should use that power to create peace all over the world, to become a humanitarian leader on this planet and to make sure we have housing and jobs and fully funded schools and infrastructure and healthcare that’s exemplary and humane immigration reform and a humane restorative justice system that reinvests in communities that have been historically neglected.
AMY GOODMAN: Jamaal Bowman, speaking last night, a Black middle school principal from the Bronx who’s taken a strong lead over 16-term Congressmember Eliot Engel, chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, in the Democratic primary for 16th Congressional District in Westchester County and the Bronx. To see our interview with Jamaal Bowman, you can go to democracynow.org.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, a Palestinian man is gunned down by the Israeli military in the West Bank. We’ll speak to his cousin, the well-known scholar Noura Erakat. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-06-24--Headlines for June 24, 2020

Headlines for June 24, 2020

Dr. Fauci ’ s remarks came as the confirmed U.S. death toll from COVID-19 topped more than 121,000 — though @ @ @ @ @ is likely a significant undercount .
His testimony came as Trump contradicted claims by his @ @ @ @ @ “ kidding ” when he said he had urged White House officials to slow down @ @ @ @ @ Trump being questioned by CBS ’ s Weijia Jiang .
Weijia Jiang : “ Mr @ @ @ @ @ rally , when you said you asked your people to slow down testing , were @ @ @ @ @ do you have a plan to slow down testing ?
” The White House is @ @ @ @ @ for coronavirus testing at the end of the month .
In Texas , lawmakers are @ @ @ @ @ consequences ” if Trump follows through on his plans , which would end diagnostic testing @ @ @ @ @ hundreds of people a day .

Dr. Fauci’s remarks came as the confirmed U.S. death toll from COVID-19 topped more than 121,000 — though he acknowledged the official figure is likely a significant undercount. His testimony came as Trump contradicted claims by his press secretary that he was “kidding” when he said he had urged White House officials to slow down coronavirus testing. This is Trump being questioned by CBS’s Weijia Jiang.
Weijia Jiang: “Mr. President, at that rally, when you said you asked your people to slow down testing, were you just kidding, or do you have a plan to slow down testing?”
President Donald Trump: “I don’t kid. Let me just tell you. Let me make it clear.”
The White House is set to end federal support for coronavirus testing at the end of the month. In Texas, lawmakers are warning of “catastrophic cascading consequences” if Trump follows through on his plans, which would end diagnostic testing at seven sites that screen hundreds of people a day.


democracynow--2020-06-25--Repair & Revive: Rev. William Barber on Fighting Racism, Poverty, Climate Change, War & Nationalism

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Nermeen Shaikh .
Hours before President Trump spoke Saturday at his rally in Tulsa , Oklahoma , the Poor People ’ s Campaign offered a counterpoint with a mass digital gathering , where the campaign unveiled a policy platform to spur “ transformative action.
” In minute , we ’ ll be joined by one of the key organizers , Reverend Dr. Barber , co-chair of the Poor People ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Breach , but first we turn to a part of his speech on Saturday , watched by millions .
AMY GOODMAN : That ’ s Reverend Dr. William Barber , co-chair of the Poor People ’ s Campaign .
We welcome you to Democracy Now !
You were speaking there on Saturday .
He ’ s joining us now from Raleigh , North Carolina , where COVID-19 cases are surging .
Governor Roy Cooper has issued an executive order for people across North Carolina to wear masks or other face coverings in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And President Trump has moved the Republican convention from North Carolina to Florida because he didn ’ t want any limitations or requirements that masks be worn at the convention or that there be social distancing .
Reverend Barber , welcome back to Democracy Now !
If you can start off by talking about where you go from here ?
What was this mass march on Washington , virtually , that you held , and what you ’ re demanding now ?
REV .
WILLIAM BARBER II : Well , thank you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you know , you opened with that song , that was written and designed by Ms. Yara Allen , one of our theomusicologists , and it really tells a story .
For more than three years , we ’ ve been moving across this country organizing the Poor People ’ s Campaign : A National Call for a Moral Revival .
We now have 45 coordinating committees , more than 200 partners .
We have more than 19 religious denominations and various groups that are part of this effort , and many others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we had planned to be in D.C. on Pennsylvania Avenue , but because of COVID-19 , we couldn ’ t .
But our people said , “ We have to still do this.
” And so we did .
And when you heard me , for instance , speaking there , that was after 50 people , at least 50 people , impacted people from across this country , poor and low-wealth , had told their stories and made their demands .
More than 2.5 million people turned out for the Mass Poor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Washington , a digital affair — 2.5 million just on Facebook .
Now , that doesn ’ t include what happened on other networks and CNN — I mean , excuse me , C-SPAN and radios across this land .
What it was , was people , poor and low-wealth people , counterintuitively — coal miners from Kentucky , with poor folk from Alabama , white women from West Virginia standing with Black women from Mississippi , and so forth and so on , farmers from Kansas standing with fast-food workers from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five issues that we have to address : systemic racism in all of its form , Black people — how it affects Black people , Brown people , First Nation people ; systemic poverty ; ecological devastation , the war economy ; and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism .
And we must do it out of our deepest moral traditions , constitutionally , religiously .
We must do it with deep love , but also with deep truth .
And they decided , “ We want to tell our story .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ We want to put a face on these issues .
And then we want to put the facts around these issues .
And then we want to put forward an agenda.
” And so , that ’ s what we did on Saturday , and it was overwhelmingly , beyond our expectations , received .
One of the things our agenda says to people is , “ Do you realize that when voter suppression is put in place , that it suppresses the vote , targets the Black vote , but what it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get elected who then block healthcare and block living wages ?
” And that hurts all of us , regardless of your race , your creed , your color .
Our agenda also says , “ Do you realize , if we took 1 million — if we took one military contract , we could fund every state that has refused to accept the Affordable Care Act , the insurance there ?
” Just one military contract could give preschool to all the children we need .
If we just took the money @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could have had a green grid for our country to deal with new kinds of energy .
Do you realize that if we spent $ 15 — we raised the living wage to $ 15 , 40 million people could come out of poverty and low wealth ?
If we had a housing wage , 83 million people could come out of poverty and low wealth .
That ’ s the focus of this agenda , to say the choices we are making are bad choices .
That ’ s why we have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country , and 62 million people who work every day without a living wage , and 80 million people without insurance or underinsured .
And it doesn ’ t have to be this way .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Well , Reverend Barber , I want to ask — you ’ ve just said that there were five demands , which you ’ ve listed , of things that need to happen .
I ’ d like to turn to a lengthy piece for The New York Times Magazine headlined “ What Is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who lays out the case for reparations , saying , most notably , that it is wealth , and not income , that is a “ means to security in America .
… But wealth is not something people create solely by themselves ; it is accumulated across generations.
” She goes on to say that American history has systematically robbed African Americans of this possibility and that the racial wealth gap is about the same today as it was in the 1950s .
She says that reparations are the only means through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inequality that have made it all but impossible for African Americans to achieve anything like the financial security that white Americans take for granted .
She cites a Yale University study , which found that in fact most Americans have absolutely no idea of the extraordinary scale of this racial inequality .
The report finds that Americans are under the impression that Black households hold $ 90 in wealth for every $ 100 held by white households , but the truth is that Black households have only $ 10 for every $ 100 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you respond to that and whether you support the idea that there should be reparations ?
REV .
WILLIAM BARBER II : Well , what our dear sister is saying to us is that we have to deal with the reality of this country and how much inequality was sown into the very foundations — the economic foundations , social foundations — of this country .
Yes , we need to deal with the issue of reparations .
And yes , she ’ s exactly right that it ’ s about wealth , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But what that says to me is that ’ s why we can ’ t just talk about people having a job , because just having a job , if it ’ s a low-wage job , it does not allow you to deal with wealth .
It does not allow you to accumulate wealth .
She ’ s also right that you can not fix these inequalities , say , by just having Black businesses in the community or just by saying people pull themselves up by their own bootstrap .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policies , that created disenfranchisement , that stole wealth , that built this country on the backs of people without them having to pay anything .
You think about it , 250 years of free labor .
It ’ s no wonder that America has the greatest gross domestic product and is the wealthiest nation in the country .
Two hundred fifty years of free labor and , on top of that , a hundred years of segregation , and now we still pay people less than a living — we pay people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that means it ’ s taken us 400 years to get to $ 7.25 an hour , if you work a minimum-wage job , because we started off at zero in slavery .
Well , you can ’ t wait another 400 years .
What we do in the Poor People ’ s Campaign , though , is we also want to show that you — if you want to talk about reparations , you ’ ve got to talk about it for our First Nation brothers and sisters .
You can not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leave those people out who were the victims of genocide , as well , even before slavery .
And you have to show how all of these systems have undermined so much possibility for people .
That ’ s why we ’ re dealing with people in Appalachia , poor folk in Appalachia .
And so , we point out that while there are 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this country , 66 million of them are white , 26 million are Black .
Now , the 26 million Black are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Our campaign says we can not deal with these issues separately .
So , just like we fight for reparations for African Americans , we also have to fight for the same thing for First Nation people , our Native American brothers and sisters .
And we also have to show everybody else that racism is targeted at Black people and people of color , but it ends up undermining this democracy .
And one of the things we pointed out on Saturday is that every regressive policy has what I call a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a death measurement on the down low .
When we talk about , for instance , the death of George Floyd , which we have to , and police violence , but police violence is only one part of racism that kills and classism that kills .
For every 500,000 people that are denied healthcare , 2,800 people die .
Seven hundred people die every day from poverty , even before COVID .
And we know we ’ re headed toward poverty going probably plus-50 % in this economic downturn .
Every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the down low .
And we ’ ve got to bring those things out .
We even have to show people that racist voter suppression has a death measurement , because when people are allowed to get elected through racist voter suppression , and then , once they get elected , they block healthcare , they block living wages , they block reparations , they in fact are blocking policies that could cause people to live .
And in blocking them , people die .
The first declaration this country made — we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fully — is the declaration to life — life , liberty and the pursuit of happiness .
Life .
In far too much of our regressive policies , we have never dealt with the issue of life , because we ’ ve never dealt with how so many policies create death .
Racism has always had death in it .
Classism has death in it .
And so , yes , we have to repair and revive .
That has to be a part of if we ’ re truly going to ever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on paper .
AMY GOODMAN : You co-wrote , Reverend Barber , a piece in The Appeal headlined “ American Democracy Can not Breathe.
” In it , you link anti-police , antiracism protests to low-income work in America , writing , “ [ I ] t is no coincidence that George Floyd was Black , nor that he was an unemployed restaurant worker.
” Let ’ s end there .
We just have 30 seconds .
As we speak in this historic election year of 2020 , at the moment , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trying to deny absentee ballots automatically going out , what do you think needs to happen by November ?
REV .
WILLIAM BARBER II : Well , what has to happen is our lawyers have to get in the courts immediately now this summer and fight for more opportunities to vote .
We have to make sure we overwhelm the system by registration and participation .
We also have to make sure our people know about mail-in ballots and early voting .
We have to fight for all those things .
We ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And we ’ re going to have to keep doing what the protesters are doing and we are doing , and that is breathing , refusing to allow anyone to suffocate this democracy .
I think that ’ s all what we ’ re seeing in the streets , is people are trying to breathe , justice is trying to breathe , truth is trying to breathe .
And we have to make sure that at the ballot box there is — all of us are there , and we vote and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revived and love is revived .
AMY GOODMAN : We have to leave it there .
We thank you so much , Reverend Dr. William Barber , co-chair of the Poor People ’ s Campaign .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Nermeen Shaikh .
Stay safe .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Hours before President Trump spoke Saturday at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Poor People’s Campaign offered a counterpoint with a mass digital gathering, where the campaign unveiled a policy platform to spur “transformative action.” In minute, we’ll be joined by one of the key organizers, Reverend Dr. Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, president of Repairers of the Breach, but first we turn to a part of his speech on Saturday, watched by millions.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: In recent weeks, we’ve heard the media ask, “When will the protests stop?” Since we’ve launched this campaign, people have asked, “What one demand is your top priority?” Well, we say, when you decided to do COVID response, you gave $2.5 trillion, nearly $3 trillion, to the banks and the corporations. If they can have 3 trillion things, don’t ask us what is our one thing.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Reverend Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign.
We welcome you to Democracy Now! You were speaking there on Saturday.
He’s joining us now from Raleigh, North Carolina, where COVID-19 cases are surging. Governor Roy Cooper has issued an executive order for people across North Carolina to wear masks or other face coverings in public to fight the spread of COVID-19. And President Trump has moved the Republican convention from North Carolina to Florida because he didn’t want any limitations or requirements that masks be worn at the convention or that there be social distancing.
Reverend Barber, welcome back to Democracy Now! If you can start off by talking about where you go from here? What was this mass march on Washington, virtually, that you held, and what you’re demanding now?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, thank you so much, Amy. And, you know, you opened with that song, that was written and designed by Ms. Yara Allen, one of our theomusicologists, and it really tells a story. For more than three years, we’ve been moving across this country organizing the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival. We now have 45 coordinating committees, more than 200 partners. We have more than 19 religious denominations and various groups that are part of this effort, and many others.
And what happened on Saturday, we had planned to be in D.C. on Pennsylvania Avenue, but because of COVID-19, we couldn’t. But our people said, “We have to still do this.” And so we did. And when you heard me, for instance, speaking there, that was after 50 people, at least 50 people, impacted people from across this country, poor and low-wealth, had told their stories and made their demands. More than 2.5 million people turned out for the Mass Poor People’s Assembly, Moral March on Washington, a digital affair — 2.5 million just on Facebook. Now, that doesn’t include what happened on other networks and CNN — I mean, excuse me, C-SPAN and radios across this land.
What it was, was people, poor and low-wealth people, counterintuitively — coal miners from Kentucky, with poor folk from Alabama, white women from West Virginia standing with Black women from Mississippi, and so forth and so on, farmers from Kansas standing with fast-food workers from North Carolina — saying that there are five issues that we have to address: systemic racism in all of its form, Black people — how it affects Black people, Brown people, First Nation people; systemic poverty; ecological devastation, the war economy; and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism. And we must do it out of our deepest moral traditions, constitutionally, religiously. We must do it with deep love, but also with deep truth.
And they decided, “We want to tell our story. We want to show America herself. We want to put a face on these issues. And then we want to put the facts around these issues. And then we want to put forward an agenda.” And so, that’s what we did on Saturday, and it was overwhelmingly, beyond our expectations, received.
One of the things our agenda says to people is, “Do you realize that when voter suppression is put in place, that it suppresses the vote, targets the Black vote, but what it does, it also allows people to get elected who then block healthcare and block living wages?” And that hurts all of us, regardless of your race, your creed, your color.
Our agenda also says, “Do you realize, if we took 1 million — if we took one military contract, we could fund every state that has refused to accept the Affordable Care Act, the insurance there?” Just one military contract could give preschool to all the children we need. If we just took the money that we spent since 9/11, we could have had a green grid for our country to deal with new kinds of energy. Do you realize that if we spent $15 — we raised the living wage to $15, 40 million people could come out of poverty and low wealth? If we had a housing wage, 83 million people could come out of poverty and low wealth.
That’s the focus of this agenda, to say the choices we are making are bad choices. That’s why we have 140 million people poor and low-wealth in this country, and 62 million people who work every day without a living wage, and 80 million people without insurance or underinsured. And it doesn’t have to be this way.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Reverend Barber, I want to ask — you’ve just said that there were five demands, which you’ve listed, of things that need to happen. I’d like to turn to a lengthy piece for The New York Times Magazine headlined “What Is Owed” by reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, who lays out the case for reparations, saying, most notably, that it is wealth, and not income, that is a “means to security in America. … But wealth is not something people create solely by themselves; it is accumulated across generations.” She goes on to say that American history has systematically robbed African Americans of this possibility and that the racial wealth gap is about the same today as it was in the 1950s. She says that reparations are the only means through which to compensate for the structures of inequality that have made it all but impossible for African Americans to achieve anything like the financial security that white Americans take for granted. She cites a Yale University study, which found that in fact most Americans have absolutely no idea of the extraordinary scale of this racial inequality. The report finds that Americans are under the impression that Black households hold $90 in wealth for every $100 held by white households, but the truth is that Black households have only $10 for every $100 in white households. So, could you respond to that and whether you support the idea that there should be reparations?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, what our dear sister is saying to us is that we have to deal with the reality of this country and how much inequality was sown into the very foundations — the economic foundations, social foundations — of this country. Yes, we need to deal with the issue of reparations.
And yes, she’s exactly right that it’s about wealth, and income, in some degree. But what that says to me is that’s why we can’t just talk about people having a job, because just having a job, if it’s a low-wage job, it does not allow you to deal with wealth. It does not allow you to accumulate wealth.
She’s also right that you cannot fix these inequalities, say, by just having Black businesses in the community or just by saying people pull themselves up by their own bootstrap. It was policies, government policies, intentional policies, that created disenfranchisement, that stole wealth, that built this country on the backs of people without them having to pay anything.
You think about it, 250 years of free labor. It’s no wonder that America has the greatest gross domestic product and is the wealthiest nation in the country. Two hundred fifty years of free labor and, on top of that, a hundred years of segregation, and now we still pay people less than a living — we pay people $7.25. For African Americans, that means it’s taken us 400 years to get to $7.25 an hour, if you work a minimum-wage job, because we started off at zero in slavery. Well, you can’t wait another 400 years.
What we do in the Poor People’s Campaign, though, is we also want to show that you — if you want to talk about reparations, you’ve got to talk about it for our First Nation brothers and sisters. You cannot leave them out. You cannot leave those people out who were the victims of genocide, as well, even before slavery. And you have to show how all of these systems have undermined so much possibility for people. That’s why we’re dealing with people in Appalachia, poor folk in Appalachia. And so, we point out that while there are 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this country, 66 million of them are white, 26 million are Black. Now, the 26 million Black are 61% of all African Americans. Our campaign says we cannot deal with these issues separately. So, just like we fight for reparations for African Americans, we also have to fight for the same thing for First Nation people, our Native American brothers and sisters. And we also have to show everybody else that racism is targeted at Black people and people of color, but it ends up undermining this democracy.
And one of the things we pointed out on Saturday is that every regressive policy has what I call a DM on the DL — that is, a death measurement on the down low. When we talk about, for instance, the death of George Floyd, which we have to, and police violence, but police violence is only one part of racism that kills and classism that kills. For every 500,000 people that are denied healthcare, 2,800 people die. Seven hundred people die every day from poverty, even before COVID. And we know we’re headed toward poverty going probably plus-50% in this economic downturn. Every regressive policy has a death measurement on the down low. And we’ve got to bring those things out. We even have to show people that racist voter suppression has a death measurement, because when people are allowed to get elected through racist voter suppression, and then, once they get elected, they block healthcare, they block living wages, they block reparations, they in fact are blocking policies that could cause people to live. And in blocking them, people die.
The first declaration this country made — we’ve never lived up to it fully — is the declaration to life — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Life. In far too much of our regressive policies, we have never dealt with the issue of life, because we’ve never dealt with how so many policies create death. Racism has always had death in it. Classism has death in it. And so, yes, we have to repair and revive. That has to be a part of if we’re truly going to ever be the democracy we claim to be on paper.
AMY GOODMAN: You co-wrote, Reverend Barber, a piece in The Appeal headlined “American Democracy Cannot Breathe.” In it, you link anti-police, antiracism protests to low-income work in America, writing, “[I]t is no coincidence that George Floyd was Black, nor that he was an unemployed restaurant worker.” Let’s end there. We just have 30 seconds. As we speak in this historic election year of 2020, at the moment, in the midst of this pandemic, Georgia trying to deny absentee ballots automatically going out, what do you think needs to happen by November?
REV. WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, what has to happen is our lawyers have to get in the courts immediately now this summer and fight for more opportunities to vote. We have to make sure we overwhelm the system by registration and participation. We also have to make sure our people know about mail-in ballots and early voting. We have to fight for all those things. We’re going to have to have protection. And we’re going to have to keep doing what the protesters are doing and we are doing, and that is breathing, refusing to allow anyone to suffocate this democracy. I think that’s all what we’re seeing in the streets, is people are trying to breathe, justice is trying to breathe, truth is trying to breathe. And we have to make sure that at the ballot box there is — all of us are there, and we vote and vote and vote, until justice is revived and love is revived.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. We thank you so much, Reverend Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Stay safe.