COVID and George Floyd: The CDC and Colleges Must See Institutional Racism as a National Disease – Evanston RoundTable

After witnessing yet another inhumane murder of a Black man at the hands of police, rage permeated across the country. Smoke plumed over city streets populated by peaceful protestors, looters with varied motives, news media, and law enforcement. Mayors of Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, New York and more, stood staunchly behind the right to protest and the need to contain COVIDs spread.

Just two weeks earlier, and in some of the very same cities that saw protest as a result of George Floyds murder, throngs of protestors, a significant majority of them White and middle-to-upper class, poured onto steps of city halls to voice their desire that businesses re-open for the sake of the economy. These campaigns and protests appeared to take shape under the guise of an economic necessity.

In Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, Washington, and more, some reopen protestors waved Confederate flags and held signs emblazoned with Swastikas. These protests were found to have been catalyzed, in part, by The Proud Boys, a racist yet savvy group of White nationalists operating in new ways to move the country toward a racist agenda.

It is hardly a stretch to see the images of looting displayed across the nations television and computer screens on May 30, 2020, as reactions to the same extreme white nationalists present at some of the reopen events. For it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who noted: We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed; and later, after noting that white complacency toward oppression is the singular most dangerous threat to American society that a riot is the voice of the unheard. His point was not that rioting is justified, but the inevitable outcome of a society that continuously oppresses.

What King also noted and that is becoming more and clearer and dangerously true is that oppression occurs even by well-meaning people and institutions if they are not actively seeking anti-racist agendas. For instance, on May 29, 2020, The Centers for Disease Control hosted a nation-wide phone call with presidents and vice presidents of academic institutions focused on best practices to bringing students back to campuses while reducing the risk of spreading COVID-19. While the presentation itself was helpful, the majority of it focused on concerns that would be central to residential colleges, not community or vocational colleges.

The worries about protests leading to COVID outbreaks, bringing students back to schools are similar in their problematic frames. They not only see COVID and institutional racism as separate issues, but they also see a return to normal from a perspective that continues to dismiss the importance of focusing on those areas and institutions that serve communities that have consistently been attacked by institutional racism.

For instance, there is every reason for community colleges to be the foremost concern about CDC guidelines and federal funding from CARES act. For the students at community colleges overwhelmingly work day-to-day at jobs and live in neighborhoods of close proximitythey are particularly vulnerable to COVID. As a result, is clear when we consider the intersection of education, poverty, and housing, COVID responses need to consider race a lens that assists in prioritizing action.

But it is an American tradition not to consider African-American bodies and experiences as a point of focus. We know this from the simple fact that the killing of Black men by people in authority is a centuries-old practice. We know this because reopen protestors are voicing an opinion that puts African-American bodies more at risk. One has to wonder how many reopen protests would have occurred if COVID affected those using computer screens more than any other population.

Education, business, politics, COVID and the economy cannot continue to be discussed as separate entities. A common nexus unites all of them in an apparatus so strong and forceful, that we, an American culture, are loath to accept its reality: That nexus is a new form of White nationalism that is permeating the structures and thoughts of society more and more.

White nationalism has for a long while been, and can no longer be, misunderstood as a movement that is visible and carried out only by those with white hoods.The face of White nationalist activism is changing in the twenty-first century. And it is changing so quickly and significantly that the county is at a tipping point where it must decide whether or not it will 1) allow its inertia to continue and become further normalized; or 2) resist it fully in aspirations of delivering on the American ideals that most of us proclaim we believe in.

This moment of June 2020 is dangerous, because the activists of White supremacy are changing. White nationalist activists are permeating the very political system we rely on to progress us toward justice. June 2020 also represents a dangerous moment because, as my first book,Sports in the Aftermath of Tragedy,illustrated, Americans of the twenty-first century have short attention spans. Protesting equates to activism. But true activism requires sustained work. We are in a dangerous moment, because groups like the Proud Boys are infiltrating the power structure in a pervasive and long-term way while, as Yeats once wrote, it is the tendency for the best [to] lack all conviction, once the protests end.

Additionally, many Americans want to resist the truth that White nationalism is baked into the origin of every single institution in Americafrom higher education to politics to sports to media.

This is a truth that means White nationalism cannot be eradicated without intentional and ongoing attacking of it in a pervasive way. It has to be attacked in the same way cancer is in the body. Learning about racism does not eradicate it. Long-term, committed action does.

Institutional racism is eradicated though intentional, systemic obliteration of the norms that have made poor and African-American voices silenced over the centuries. Instead of thinking about how to bring students back to college campuses in the context of COVID, higher education and the CDC need to consider institutional racism as a disease, one that literally threatens African-American lives.

The questions about colleges in the context of COVID should not be how to bring the same students back to the same campuses. No, the question should be how higher education institutions place in the American imagination need to be recast to change the truth that race so often dictates living conditions and subsequent health outcomes.

The nexus of our social, economic, political, and education institutions in White nationalism is clear when we consider that the worries people express about COVID spreading as a result of protests throughout the nation are focused on the immediate rather than the underpinning history and long-term future. Those worries should be reframed to ask why the same bodies that are dying at the hands of police officers have a COVID death rate 250% that of Whites according to the CDC.

Although many of the people making decisions about and responsible for the manner in which policies are being made may be well-meaning, if they are not forthrightly and intentionally addressing the perpetuation of poverty and racism, the normal they will reinforce after these riots and COVID come to closure, will be the same one that has always threatened Black bodies while minimizing the risk for Whites. The institutions and mindsets will, in short, continue the work of the New White Nationalism.

Now is a fundamentally important moment. For politics. For businesses. For education. And for the American nation.

Now is a time we must transform how education is situated and thought about in terms of its ability to disrupt intergenerational poverty and the inertia of White nationalism.

Now is a time that we must work to disrupt the inertia of geographical separation of races and the conditions that lead to high death rates among African-Americans because of diseases like COVID or murderers like Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd.

It is moments where we, as a country, are responsible for disrupting the inertia of institutional racismwrote James Baldwin in Sonnys Blues. One of the most poignant scenes of this story is when his narrator is travelling through Harlem noticing the housing projects he grew up in and escaped from, but which many of his peers did not.

It is through real transformation of how we use higher education at the national level, through funding those institutions that serve people like those boys Baldwins narrator witnessed, that we can begin the true work of an anti-racist agenda.

It is through truly disruptive thinking that the normal we eventually return to can be one that begins the long-term work of obliterating racism.

Dr. Michael H. Gavin is vice president for learning at Anne Arundel Community College. He grew up in Evanston and is a graduate of Evanston Township High School.

This article was posted on June 18 in diverseeducation.com.

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COVID and George Floyd: The CDC and Colleges Must See Institutional Racism as a National Disease - Evanston RoundTable

Burke: Snohomish dodged tragedy and lawsuits by hair trigger – The Daily Herald

By Tom Burke / Herald columnist

Now that the dust has settled and rationality can reassert itself, lets take a dispassionate view of what happened in the city of Snohomish on the weekend of May 30 and 31.

Guns, beer, fear and rumor are a dangerous mix. Throw in some white-power extremists looking to stir the trouble-pot and a diverse group of people advocating for Black Lives Matter and protesting racism, chanting, No Justice, No Peace, and youve crafted the perfect recipe for disaster. (And lawsuits.)

I mean what could go wrong with folks enjoying, as described by a high-ranking police official, a night of tailgating and celebratory festivities while open-carrying AR-15s and other small arms?

What could go wrong with folks protecting the downtown business area from alleged terrorists, and among the protectors were a contingent of the Three Percenters, a far-right anti-government militia; the Proud Boys, an organization whose members engage in violence at events it attends (and which the Southern Poverty Law Center calls an alt-right fight club); and other identifiable right-wing extremists?

What could go wrong with a hundred-or-so heavily-armed folks, some waving Confederate flags and others with hate group symbols on their military-style web gear, completely untrained, totally unelected, totally unappointed, legally unaccountable, nakedly uninsured, obviously unorganized, and armed to the teeth with black rifles ready to dole out some sort of lethal, ad hoc justice?

What could go wrong?

Well, a young man could get beaten. And one was.

Town residents could have been terrified by more than 100 armed vigilantes And they were.

The threat of a terrorist invasion could have been a total hoax, perpetrated by right-wing groups hoping to sew discord. And most probably was, based on similar threats in other cities.

And, according to a prominent local attorney whos been on both sides of self-defense cases, what the mayor and sheriff allowed in Snohomish was a potential slam-dunk, multi-million dollar lawsuit-loss-debacle for local government.

In Snohomish, over that weekend, nothing went too wrong, thank God. But it could have, massively.

Protecting property from antifa was the stated purpose of the posse. Washington states open-carry law was the justification for the blatant display of firepower. And because authorities allowed it was the reason the group hung around.

But that said, lets consider something more terrifying: the right of the protesters even the alleged antifas to bear arms, open carry, drink beer and enjoy their version of a night of tailgating and celebratory festivities just like the vigilantes. What would have happened if protesters had shown up, also armed to the teeth, as had the vigilantes? Does the term fire-fight come to mind and do pictures of blood in the streets flash before your eyes?

So lets talk about liability, something the Snohomish City Council has on its radar among the plethora of items needing discussion.

Now if someone had been shot and filed a suit against local government for allowing people carrying AR-15s to patrol while drinking, thats a for-sure loss for the city, the sheriff and the county, said the attorney; because authorities should have reasonably anticipated a bad ending to a mixture of booze, guns, demonstrators and raging rumor.

Further, while Washington law permits the use of force, even deadly force, to protect ones life, property and the lives and property of others, its focus is protection against a threat or perceived threat of serious bodily injury or death. Importantly the law says one may not use more force than is necessary to defend ones property. Plus the defender cant be the initial aggressor. (And, the counsellor opined, standing in the street with drawn weapons would likely be determined an aggressive action by a jury.)

And shooting someone (dead) for throwing a brick or a chair through a window is hardly proportional, the attorney noted. (Actual break-in rioters nationwide were not shot dead by their local police, who actually understand the law and arent wanna-be mall ninjas. Looting is not a crime punishable by summary execution.)

I am a firm believer in the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.

But I am vehemently opposed to anarchy, vigilantes and the crap so-called militias spew about sovereign citizens. Armed militia, randomly walking the streets of our cities, towns and villages, dressed for a combat patrol in Fallujah, and apparently ready to shoot, is something from an alt-right website. It isnt the action of knowledgeable, responsible citizens, especially when police flooded the area with a lot of law enforcement.

The people with the guns were just random folk albeit untrained, unelected, unappointed, legally unaccountable, uninsured and obviously unorganized responding to the heat of the moment (and getting to dress up in all that gear and guns gathering dust in a closet or gun safe). I get that.

But had they seriously considered what would happen next if they shot someone (besides 10,000 lawyers descending on Snohomish to sue)?

The reality is that peoples lives were absolutely, 100 percent in the hands of the least responsible, least stable, drunkest, most trigger-happy person in the crowd. Every armed citizen was on their own, reporting to no authority, with no legal standing, and under no supervision to make a life and death decision or let off a 30-round magazine of a .223.

Everyone, especially responsible gun-owners, should be appalled by what happened in Snohomish. The vigilantes werent protecting the streets of Snohomish, they were putting themselves, the police, and the city in the cross-hairs of mayhem and financial destruction.

Tom Burkes email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.

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Burke: Snohomish dodged tragedy and lawsuits by hair trigger - The Daily Herald

Domestic Threats in the Era of Nationalism – The National Interest

As the Trump administration spotlights the anti-fascist group Antifa as the source of chaos and anarchy engulfing the countrywide protests for equal rights and justice, little, if any, has been said about White nationalists who have infiltrated the protests with the objective of creating a popular pandemonium. Surely, Antifas looters and anarchists, among others, should face justice; nevertheless, underestimating or turning a blind eye to the premeditated actions of White nationalists is a recipe to promote violence on a national and global scale. In fact, White nationalism as a movement has become a transnational crusade as ideologically and operationally dangerous as the Salafi-Jihadi Islamic State.

Recently the social media giant Facebook removed multiple account networks connected with White nationalist Proud Boys and America Guard, designated as extremist hate groups bythe Southern Poverty Law Centerandthe Anti-Defamation League (ADL). These groups encouraged their members to bring guns to the Black Life Matters-led protests suffusing the United States. Among the many charges facing those arrested by federal authorities, the most serious charge involved three men in Nevada linked to a far-right extremist group Boogaloo advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government. These individuals and groups, though loosely affiliated, are an integral part of the White nationalist ideology that has transcended national borders and is expressed in civilizational terms.

According to the ADL, White nationalism is a term that originated among White supremacists as a euphemism for White supremacy. Eventually, some White supremacists tried to distinguish it further by using it to refer to a form of White supremacy that emphasizes defining a country or region by White racial identity and that seeks to promote the interests of Whites exclusively, typically at the expense of people of other backgrounds.

The ADL adds that over time, White supremacists of whatever sort adhere to at least one of the following beliefs:1) Whites should be dominant over people of other backgrounds; 2) Whites should live by themselves in a Whites-only society; 3) White people have their own culture that is superior to other cultures; and 4) White people are genetically superior to other people.

Anti-Semitism is also paramount for White nationalists, most of whom believe that Jews constitute a distinctive race infused with parasitic and evil roots, bent on destroying Western civilization. These defining traits of White nationalists, who apprehensively operated on the margins of European and American societies, gradually developed into a transnational ideology congealing around their sacrosanct right of survival.

The central theme of their ideology can be traced to Renaud Camuss Le Grand Remplacement [The Great Replacement] in which he argues that the flood of black and brown immigrants into the European continent will eventually amount to an extinction-level event of White native Europeans. Witnessing the impact of rising immigration to France, the emergence of subcultures, and failure of multiculturalism as an integrationist policy, Camus believes that Western societies are variably subject to ethnic and civilizational substitution. The act of replacement, for him, is civilizational.

Although he denied any genetic conception of races, his literature has been appropriatedby far-right and White nationalist groups throughout Europe and the English-speaking world. However, these groups added to Camuss central theme of Great Replacement a variation of concepts meant not only to widen the popular base of White nationalism but also to infuse it with an actionable immediacy. For example, Richard Spencer, a public face of White nationalism, embraced Camuss arguments, though identifying himself as an Identitarian. Although the term has also French roots in the work of Alain de Benoist, Spencers ilks used the term in a utilitarian fashion to deflect racial superiority and underscore the differential right in diversity. In other words, Identitarians claim the exclusive right to their own culture and territories in the face of what they perceive the gradual act of civilizational replacement.

The intellectual defense against this existential identity threat had been expounded by French journalist Guillaume Fayes Archeofuturism: European Visions of the Post-Catastrophic Age (2010 in English); The Colonisation of Europe (2016); and Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance (2019). Faye lambasts Western liberalism and unrestrained immigration, which has taken a form of massive colonization settlement of the West by peoples from the Global South. He harshly criticizes European leaders for helping bring the demise of Europe and asserts that Islam is carrying out a hostile takeover both of France and Europe.

Fayes arguments, complementing those of Camus and Benoist, have become an infallible script of White nationalism. Spencer, along with Greg Johnson, has been promoting Fayes arguments and open about the influence of Faye on his thinking as an identitarian. References to Faye and Benoists appeared regularly in the alt-right andpro-Donald Trump forums on Redditand4chan. Steve Bannons alt-right Breitbart has promoted their work, too. According to Southern Poverty Law Center, there has been an observable shift at Breitbart.com to an outright embrace ofWhite-nationalist Identitarian movementsacross the continent. And that, in turn, has meant that propaganda from these movements has been transmitted whole to its readers across all its platforms, including the U.S. and elsewhere.

Thanks to this cross-pollination of ideas going back to the history of slavery White nationalism has transformed into a malleable global ideological crucible in which radical movements and slogans are churned out to stop this Great Replacement. Today the most referred slogan for White nationalists is the 14 Words. The slogan states: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children. The other widespread slogan that has become a rallying cry and a catchphrase on fliers is: You Will Not Replace Us.

During the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, organized by Richard Spencer, Mike Enoch, Jason Kessler, Augustus Invictus, Baked Alaska and others, demonstrators chanted Jews will not replace us. The event was ostensibly asserting the legitimacy of White culture and supremacy.

One of the earliest violent manifestations of White nationalism was carried out by the Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik who perpetrated Norways biggest massacre since World War II. Hours before the deadly attack in January 2017, Breivik e-mailed a 1,500-page manifesto to 5,700 people, titled2083A European Declaration of Independence. In the document, Breivik, proclaiming himself a savior of Christianity, attacks multiculturalism and the threat of Muslim immigration to Norway. In October 2018, Robert Bowers opened fire during Shabbat services, at Pittsburghs Tree of Life synagogue, killing eleven and wounding seven. This was the deadliest act of anti-Semitic violence in American history on a Synagogue known for helping immigrants.

Similarly, the March 2019 Islamophobic attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, amounted to the deadliest mass shooting in the countrys history. The perpetrator Brenton Tarrant was reportedly radicalized when he traveled to Europe. He felt taken aback by the omnipresence of immigrants, their crimes and the paralysis gripping the dispirited native populations, who, he considered, are dying out. He also issued a manifesto entitled The Great Replacement.

Steeped in anti-Islam, the manifesto refers to nonWhites as invaders who threaten to replace White people. Tarrant confessed to using guns so as to frighten people and create conflict, especially in the United States over gun laws, as well as balkanizing the United States into warring racial factions. Significantly, he argued in the manifesto that:

The radicalization of young Western men is not just unavoidable, but inevitable. It should come as no shock that European men, in every nation, and on every continent are turning to radical notions and methods to combat social and moral decay of their nations and the continued ethnic replacement of their people. Radical, explosive action is the only desired, and required, response to an attempted genocide.

Tarrants manifesto is unequivocally a testament to the transnational spread of White nationalisms ideology and the urgency to stop the act of civilizational replacement. This act of terror was followed by another attack on an American synagogue in Poway, California. On April 27, 2019, John Timothy Earnest entered theChabad of Powaysynagogueon the last day of the Jewish holiday ofPassover. Approximately one hundred people were inside the synagogue. Earnest shot and killed one person and wounded the Rabbi of the congregation before his rifle jammed. A massacre was avoided. Earnest issued a manifesto that blended historical anti-Judaism, anti-Semitism and racism. Wrapping himself in the mantle of Christianity, Earnest faulted the Jews for their endless crimes against God and humanity and for committing a genocide against the European race. He wrote: It is unlawful and cowardly to stand on the sidelines as the European people are genocided around you. I did not want to have to kill Jews. But they have given us no other option.

No sooner, in August 2019, Patrick Crusius, twenty-one years old, entered the Cielo Vista Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and opened fire on shoppers at a packed Walmart store, killing and wounding scores of people. The El Paso shooting was one of the most brutal assaults on Hispanics in U.S. history. Crusius also issued a manifesto The Inconvenient Truth explaining his act of terror. Confessing his support of the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto, Crusius asserted that this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas . . . They are the instigators, not me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion. . . . Actually the Hispanic community was not my target before I read the Great Replacement.

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Domestic Threats in the Era of Nationalism - The National Interest

Letters to the Editor: June 19, 2020 – TCPalm

Treasure Coast Newspapers Published 4:00 a.m. ET June 19, 2020

Again and again, on and on we have witnessed what it can mean to simply be a person born of color. This time in an image so disturbingly graphic that anyone with a conscience cannot but be shaken to the core. We viewed a lynching, but of a different order! This time the "rope" was the knee of a white cop pressing a Black man's neck against the pavement, while pleas of "I can't breathe, I can't breathe" were ignored not only by the perpetrator but by three other cops, two of whom were pressing on his back. For over eight long minutes this cruelty lasted, more time even than necessary to end the life of one George Floyd.

As obviously intentional and horrible this act was, we all possess the potential for cruelty, but fortunately restrain ourselves from going to such lengths. However our restraint does not excuse any of us who harbor racial prejudice and who, actively or not, intentionally or not, fertilize the social/political ground where such acts take place.

For those of us who continue to be haunted by this horrific time lapse (and may it so continue) what will be our response? Will we do essentially nothing as we have done in the past or will we examine our own conscience for conformity with what is truly right and wrong? Will we demand police reform and effective legislation for racial equality by our politicians or simply allow them to do nothing? Will we finally recognize and confront the hypocritical underbelly of our culture that gives lip service to our Constitution and Bill of Rights but continues to ignore the very meaning and hope they embody?

Norman Payne, Port St. Lucie

Members of the Proud Boys and other right-wing demonstrators march across the Hawthorne Bridge during an "End Domestic Terrorism" rally in Portland, Oregon, on Aug. 17, 2019. Proud Boys are designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They have white nationalist ties and call themselves "chauvinistic."(Photo: Noah Berger, AP)

I appreciate the diverse political commentary offered by Treasure Coast Newspapers. It is important to read thoughtful, divergent viewpoints because it gives us a broader understanding of the issues at hand.

There are, however, commentators such as Michelle Malkin, whose sole purpose is to offer platitudes and give support to groups whose only purpose is to further divide our already polarized nation. Her June 7 column is a good example of this tendency. In it she expresses her support of the Proud Boys, a far-right, neo-fascist organization who justify physical violence as a means to further their goal of western chauvinism. Their policies are so extreme that the conservative group Young Americans for Freedom cut all political ties with the Proud Boys, stating that there is no room in mainstream conservatism or at YAF for Holocaust deniers, white nationalists, street brawlers, or racists.

I urge you to research this extremist group before coming to a conclusion about their role as, in Malkins words, lone citizen soldiers .

Wil Cunningham, Vero Beach

I stopped buying the Treasure Coast newspapers many years ago. Recently, my wife asked me to pick up a paper for the crossword puzzles. I was surprised that the opinion pages had some balance. Two excellent articles appeared on Sunday, June 7, one by Ken Carodine, the other by Michelle Malkin.

Then there was the usual drivel, Voting is the best way to change communities, by Merchon Green. The cities have been controlled by Democrats and their special-interest lobbyists for decades. Much more is needed.

John Gallagher, Vero Beach

A 77-year-old black man, David Dorn, was shot and killed by a 24-year-old violent black protester in St. Louis. Dorn, a retired police captain, was protecting his friends pawn shop. The shooter has been charged with first-degree murder. This was caught on video and posted on Facebook.

What is the difference between the David Dorn tragedy and the George Floyd tragedy?

George Floyd was killed by a rogue police officer, who has been charged with second-degree murder. Floyd has become a national hero of sorts and all types of protests, both violent and peaceful, have been started In the United States and Europe. All the politicians have used this as a vote-getting political weapon with public funerals, calls to defunding the police, etc.

Where is the outcry for David Dorn? Does not his Black life matter?? The only thing I can figure is the politicians, the black activists and Antifa cannot figure how to publicize this tragedy to their advantage.

This is a tragedy in itself, tearing down America to benefit themselves. Defund the police, change all the laws, put new rules and regulations in the police departments.

Where were all these outcries in Chicago, New York, California, all governed by Democrats, before Floyds death, and why are they all quiet about a true hero, a retired dedicated police officer? These people should be kneeling in shame, not sorrow.

David H. Reilly, Vero Beach

Gamble(Photo: Gamble)

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Letters to the Editor: June 19, 2020 - TCPalm

Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year Celebration Moves Online – Tucson Local Media

As the pandemic continues to cancel many summer events, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Tucson is moving online to host their first ever virtual Youth of the Year celebration. The festivities will showcase the 2020 Mark Irvin City of Tucson'' award winner and 10 other remarkable teen club members. In addition to the broadcast, small viewing parties with the honorees will be hosted in their respective BGC clubhouses.

According to BGCT CEO Debbie Wagner, hundreds of people normally attend this Steak & Burger Dinner event every year in support of the honorees.

Weve been doing it for many years, and its really our most mission-focused event that we do at Boys and Girls Club to celebrate our young people, Wagner said. Its highlighting the youth that have really persevered to have success in school, in the community.

Limited groups of family and club members are able to join the honorees to watch the airing at their clubhouse location and sit down for the traditional steak and burger meals, which will be catered by the Flores familys Charro Steak and Del Rey restaurant. Afterwards, the honorees will receive laptops from Comcast and scholarships funded by various donors. University of Arizona basketball coaches Sean Miller and Adia Barnes will also make an appearance in the show to congratulate them.

Its really exciting and we are really trying to replicate the best we can, Wagner said.

The top honoree this year is Jasimiair Roebuck from the Steve Daru Clubhouse, and a recent graduate of Tucson High School. Roebuck has participated in BGC activities since she was 7- or 8-years-old, and she says this award will be her biggest accomplishment.

Last year when I ran for Youth of the Year, I was runner-up and I was determined that the next year I would be the actual Youth of the Year, Roebuck said. I had to put a lot of time and hours in typing my essays, getting my transcripts and letters of recommendations. It was a lot, but for me when you put in hard work that is my greatest achievement.

Roebuck said she looks forward to celebrating the event at the club that nominated her and with people who had helped her along the way.

I definitely enjoyed the staff for sure, they always made me feel welcome and always supportive of my decisions with the things I wanted to do, she said.

Roeback is planning to attend the University of Arizona and major in criminal justice studies in the fall. She considered pursuing a career in law enforcement, but said she might redirect herself towards law school.

I dont know what I want to do yet, but I want to make a difference in the world, Roebuck said. Hopefully in five or six years, I will graduate from the U of A and maybe start on my masters. I want to build a family and a home. I want to help out in my community... make a change in my community.

Roebuck says her self-drive and passion came from the grandmother who raised her.

The reason why I decided to go forward and pursue a higher education is not only because I got all these scholarships, she said. I did it because I had a purpose, and my purpose was to be successful to make a difference and also to make my grandma proud.

The youth of the year award recipients are chosen by their grades, letters of recommendation, essays and public speeches in front of local and then regional judges.

They really go through a lot to become a Youth of the Year, Wagner said. Some of them come from backgrounds where they really had to overcome a lot personally or family situations or environmental situations. So we think its really important that these special individuals are recognized and encouraged.

Wagner said she is very appreciative and humbled by the generosity given to be able to make the event happen this year, especially during the pandemic.

It's a team effort, were really grateful for the community supporting us and to be able to recognize the kids in a really special way, Wagner said. Its going to mean so much to them and their families, and be really inspiring to them. Some of them are graduating this year not only from Boys and Girls club but also high school, so this is going to be like their last big hurrah.

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Tucsons Youth of the Year Celebration is broadcasting on KVOA News 4 and COZI-TV on June 28 at 4 p.m. For more information, visit bgctucson.org/programs/youth-of-the-year/

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Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year Celebration Moves Online - Tucson Local Media

BREAKING: Gavin McInnes banned from YouTube – The Post Millennial

Gavin McInnes, the Canadian-British comedian and founder of Censored.TV, The Proud Boys, and Vice Magazine, has been kicked off of YouTube following "severe violations of [YouTube's] Community Guidelines."

According to the video streaming giant, McInnes had posted content on YouTube "glorifying or inciting violence against another person or group of people." McInnes is now banned from "accessing, possessing, or creating any other YouTube accounts."

A screenshot of the banning notification was posted to McInnes' Telegram account, as he has already been banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

McInnes told The Post Millennial that he believes the move was a pre-emptive one, as the platform may have been fearing that McInnes would somehow mobilize a gang to attack the Seattle-based Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), a leftist Antifa compound set up in the heart of the city.

"I hadnt uploaded there for over a week so it wasnt anything I said. I think theyre petrified Im going to mobilize some kind of army and go attack CHAZ, seriously," McInnes told The Post Millennial.

McInnes also told The Post Millennial that he believes Big Tech and the deep state were holding the left and the right to two different standards.

"Insiders told me the FBI have begun monitoring my phone for that same reason," he explained. "They (Big Tech, the media, deep state, etc.) are so focussed on potential danger from the right, they are totally blind to radical leftists burning their country down."

McInnes recently filed a lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Centre due to their designation of the Proud Boys has a hate group.

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BREAKING: Gavin McInnes banned from YouTube - The Post Millennial

How many people will be killed as a result of Trumps unhinged re-election campaign? – AlterNet

The Economistspredictive modelcurrently gives Donald Trump a 2 percent likelihood of winning more votes than Joe Biden in November, but a one-in-eight chance of winning a second term via the Electoral College. With four months to go before voters cast their ballots, his campaign has so far failed to coalesce around a theme. So far they have flailed from Keep America Great to Make America Great Again, Again to promising a Transition into Greatness. According toPolitico, Trumps team built a comprehensive 2020 reelection plan around winning a slice of black and Hispanic voters, which is not going well.

The contours of the rights campaign to retain its grip on the White House are not difficult to discern. Trump is setting up a claim of massive fraud via mail-in balloting. Attorney General Bill Barr hinted over the weekend that John Durhams investigation into the Russia probe will yield fruits this summer. And Senate Republicans are pursuing their investigation into the conspiracy theories surrounding Hunter Bidens work in Ukraine.

But the primary thrust of the campaign will be chaos. The campaign, the conservative press and sundry social media trolls are all relentlessly pushing a messageto white conservatives that American cities are in flames as violent leftists riot, their history is being erased, cops are being targeted by fast-food employeesand in the end,these monsters will be coming for them and their families.The New York Times reports that thanks to social media amplification, residents in at least 41 U.S. cities and towns became alarmed by rumors that the loose collective of anti-fascist activists known as antifa was headed to their areaIn each case, it was foran enemy that never appeared.

Statues of Jesus are next. It wont end. Pray for the USA

Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) June 22, 2020

Obviously, none of this is new. Trump launched his 2016 campaign blathering about Mexican rapists, gave a bizarre inaugural address with the theme of stopping American carnage and insisted that hes the law and order president before having protesters brutally cleared from Lafayette Square so he could take a photo op with an upside-down bible outside St. Johns Cathedral.

What is new is the context. Weve lost over 120,000 people to Covid-19 and we have the highest levels of unemployment since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans have been cooped up in their homes with minimal human contact for months. And above all, these sustained protests for Black Lives and renewed efforts to rid our public spaces of monuments to white supremacy pose the greatest threat to a segment of white Americas sense of their position in this society since the election of a black man with a funny name to the White House. Fear and stress dominate and were about to enter a long, hot summer.

We have gotten a taste of whats in store during the months ahead. Police say a far-right boogaloo boi was responsible for killing two police officers and wounding five others in two separate attacks in California. Three of his fellow extremists who were armed with Molotov cocktails to target police attemptedto cause riots in Las Vegas. A right-wing militia member shot a protester attempting to remove a statue of a brutal Conquistador in Albuquerque; an armed, off-duty airport cop was arrested for taking a snipers position above a statue of Robert E. Lee in Virginia. David Neiwert reports that Proud Boys and other extremists are hanging around the Seattle Capitol Hill Organized Protest, beating people up on side streets when they can. Two weeks ago, the brother of a Seattle police employee drove his car into a crowd of protesters and then shot one of them who tried to block his path. That wasnt an isolated incidentas of a week ago, at least 19 people had driven vehicles into protesters, according to The Washington Post,including a white supremacist who fatally struck a black protester in California. (And while police say multiple black men found hanging in public spaces were victims of suicide, the widespread skepticism about those speedy conclusions is understandable.)

There is a reticence in the mainstream press to connect these assaults to the rhetoric coming from the White House and the conservative media, but while most people will shrug off their hyperbole, it only takes a few unstable and heavily armed people to wreak havoc. Less than two years ago, Magabomber Cesar Sayoc attempted a murder spree inspired by Trumps many conspiracy theories and several acts of murder and terror have been connected to the QAnon craziness.

The reprise of Trumps American carnage campaign is bad politics. While the data suggest that James Comeys 11th-hour announcement that the FBI was reopening its investigation into Hillary Clintons emails was responsible for Trumps narrow 2016 victory, his take-away was that the demagoguery worked. He tried to reprise it by fear mongering over MS-13 and an invading caravan of refugees in 2018, only to see his party handed its biggest midterm defeat in history.

The problem is that its the only play in his playbook, hes being beaten badly at this point and neither he nor his movement cares about whether people get killed as a result of their unhinged rhetoric.

then let us make a small request. AlterNets journalists work tirelessly to counter the traditional corporate media narrative. Were here seven days a week, 365 days a year. And were proud to say that weve been bringing you the real, unfiltered news for 20 yearslonger than any other progressive news site on the Internet.

Its through the generosity of our supporters that were able to share with you all the underreported news you need to know. Independent journalism is increasingly imperiled; ads alone cant pay our bills. AlterNet counts on readers like you to support our coverage. Did you enjoy content from David Cay Johnston, Common Dreams, Raw Story and Robert Reich? Opinion from Salon and Jim Hightower? Analysis by The Conversation? Then join the hundreds of readers who have supported AlterNet this year.

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How many people will be killed as a result of Trumps unhinged re-election campaign? - AlterNet

David McGlown steps down as boys basketball coach at Waterford Mott – The Oakland Press

WATERFORD The David McGlown era at Waterford Mott was short, but glorious.

McGlown, 40, left his post as the Corsairs boys basketball coach this week to move with his wife to Atlanta for her new job. As a player, he starred out of the backcourt at Pontiac Notre Dame Prep in the 1990s.

In three seasons as their coach, McGlowns Mott teams won three straight LVC titles and averaged 18 wins per season (54-10). His 2020 club was 20-2 and ready to play for a Division 1 district championship when the campaign was canceled due the COVID-19 pandemic two games into the state tournament.

The fast-breaking Corsairs had beaten district host West Bloomfield 68-61 in the district semifinals the night before the tournament was scrapped and were preparing to take on No. 1 in the state Orchard Lake St. Marys for the district crown. The squad was led by blue-chip senior forward Isaiah Jackson, headed to Kentucky in the fall.

These last three years were the best time of my coaching life, it was just very special in a lot of different and meaningful ways, McGlown said. I was proud to see the program flourish. Everyone, from my players, to my staff, to the administration and community, was great. I have so much love for the Mott Corsairs, they treated me like family.

The fact that Mott never got the chance to face St. Marys in the district finals back in March is still hard to swallow.

It will be one of those lasting questions, what could that game have been like, how would that matchup have gone down? he said. Well never know, but I liked our chances. Our guys were confident. We were playing our best basketball at the time you want to be playing your best basketball, the postseason. Thats all you can ask for.

Jackson was out of the lineup for the first two games of the 2020 season because of an ankle tweak and the Corsairs went 0-2. Once he returned in late December, they were off and running and wouldnt lose again the rest of the way.

McGlown was the head coach at Berkley from 2010 to 2016. As a player, he was an All-Catholic League point guard at NDP, captaining the Fighting Irish to a Catholic League championship and an appearance in the Class C quarterfinals during his senior year in 1998.

Mott has a solid nucleus returning for the upcoming season. The Corsairs attack will be triggered by vets Trayale Solomon (guard), Juan Claudio (guard) and Zeke Price (forward).

Pontiacs annual state of the city address will be held online this year through a Facebook Live event.

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David McGlown steps down as boys basketball coach at Waterford Mott - The Oakland Press