The Tension Between Competition and Tech Are Gaining Global Attention – JD Supra

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Antitrust concerns with big tech companies are gaining global attention. Antitrust laws protect consumers by promoting fair competition and preventing businesses from taking over or manipulating a market. In the digital world, companies can use the vast amount of data shared and leverage its value for competition purposes, which then raises concerns about antitrust violations. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) have been looking into big techs influence on competition for quite some time, particularly narrowing in on search engines, social media, and retail markets. Unsurprisingly, how these companies are treating consumer privacy through data collection and distribution is a huge focus. The FTCs most recent probe reviewed acquisitions that several big tech giants made of smaller organizations in the last nine years.

Both U.S. agencies are reviewing the situation and seeking ways to change antitrust policies to regulate big tech more tightly. Potential changes could include increasing FTC regulations on mergers and price fixing. However, there is currently nothing concrete in the works and the DOJ seems to want to avoid any major renovation of antitrust laws. The only thing that is certain is that the FTC plans to issue new guidelines on digital platform enforcements and horizontal mergers.

Since other countries across the globe have started to speak out more forcefully about antitrust issues in the technology industry, many countries plan to rework their anti-competition laws and policies to account for big techs dominant effect on data and the larger market. Some have even formally proposed changes. The primary areas of concerns that regulators are seeking to address is that tech giants will (1) gain so much power that they control big data, (2) implement anti-competition algorithms, and (3) restrict competitors through unfair terms and/or mergers. Below are a few examples of global reactions to the impending antitrust crisis in the tech industry.

The EU has already used enforcement powers under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to police tech companies over consumer privacy issues. Now, the EU is taking swift action to combat competitive behavior. Germany has proposed amendments to the countrys antitrust laws that would more firmly regulate big tech and focus on any business practices that would give them control over a significant amount of data. For example, the new law could prohibit a company from blocking data access to a market competitor. They are awaiting approval and, if all goes well, hope to implement the amendments later this year. Other EU member countries are making similar moves.

Australia is creating a committee specifically designed to monitor and review advertising that big tech companies use that could be deemed anti-competitive behavior.

Additionally, China recently proposed changes to their Anti-Monopoly Law. These changes include increasing fines if companies act inappropriately during a merger or fail to implement binding anti-competitive agreements.

So, what does this all mean for big tech and antitrust issues? First, it is important to remember that matters like this can take time, even when it seems like a global crisis. History demonstrates that some countries move faster than others do when it comes to responding to regulatory issues and implementing new laws. For example, the U.S. has been contemplating a comprehensive federal privacy law for years and has yet to draft one. The DOJ has expressed this is still the way they wish to regulate big tech, so there will likely not be a big antitrust overhaul in the states like there will probably be in other countries. For now, the biggest change in the U.S. will be how the FTC investigates and levies penalties for violations.

Regardless, the global uproar about big tech and antitrust violations will have both short-term and long-term effects. Similar to recent privacy upsets, the biggest issue will be that there is no global uniformity. Even though everyone wants to address the same behavior, each countrys legal system operates differently. They will have different laws or policies that regulate the same conduct yet vary in execution. The differences in policymaking are what makes global data regulation so tricky and keeps big tech on their toes. Also, the fear that lack of uniformity will allow tech giants to continue to get away with anti-competitive actions remains present. One additional worry is that companies may pull business from nations where they think antitrust regulation is too restricting.

The rise in big tech has also placed international data privacy in the realm of antitrust enforcement. There will be more overlap between privacy and antitrust than ever before. Privacy concerns will continue to intensify as the presence and growth of tech giants threaten market dominance. It is crucial for organizations to utilize providers that have sufficient privacy safeguards in place because of increased privacy regulations and the threat of data breaches, companies can use this to their advantage. For example, tech companies can cite consumer privacy protection as a reason not to share data with a competitor and, as a result, continue to gain advantage in the market.

In the modern era, almost everyone needs access to data and the latest technology for both business and personal reasons. Because of this, individuals may continue to use certain services even if privacy is compromised. When a provider dominates the market, it has the ability to skimp on privacy protections and users will have no comparable competitors available. All of this makes policing big tech extremely difficult, as regulators have to balance privacy and competition issues. Deciding which issue should have more weight seems like an impossible task.

Global antitrust policy changes will also affect many other markets, including the legal industry. Access to data is necessary for eDiscovery compliance. Law departments must ensure they utilize providers who have a global presence. Provide must have key capabilities like the capacity to collect data anywhere in the world and distinguish between several languages. However, there may be some roadblocks to international data collection as policies change. If companies pull their business from certain countries due to tighter regulations, it will be more difficult to collect data from that provider if it originated in that country prior to the change. An action like this invokes data preservation concerns and can greatly disrupt the litigation process.

Additionally, litigation and enforcement actions about data privacy may increase. If a company is not allowed to shield data from competitors because it would face antitrust violations, consumer privacy may be at risk and could then increase privacy actions or trigger a decline in business. On the other side, if a company cites consumer privacy as a reason not to disclose data to a competitor and that data becomes subject to litigation, this would interfere with collection. All of this shows that regulators will need to work towards finding a balance between privacy and antitrust issues if they want to regulate big tech successfully.

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The Tension Between Competition and Tech Are Gaining Global Attention - JD Supra

The Information’s Takeover Target List – The Information

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The season for M&A may soon be upon us. The pandemic has squeezed many businesses and made funding harder to get. Weve already seen Postmates sell to Uber and Grubhub sell to Europes Just Eat Takeaway, accelerating a long-awaited consolidation of the food-delivery market. Meanwhile, EW Scripps, grappling with a downturn in advertising, sold a high-growth businesspodcasting firm Stitcherto raise badly needed cash.

Many more deals are possible. One of the most unlikely just a few weeks ago, ByteDance selling TikTok, now seems quite possible. Its also easy to imagine Jeffrey Katzenberg throwing in the towel and trying to sell Quibi, his short-video app designed for phones. The pandemic and the intensely crowded streaming market have marred Quibis launch. The challenge for this kind of high-profile consumer internet firm will be on the buyer side: The antitrust scrutiny already focused on big tech firms like Facebook, Amazon or Apple likely limits their ability to make big acquisitions.

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The Information's Takeover Target List - The Information

My Turn: How racism thrived after the war – Concord Monitor

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In a recent and valuable My Turn, Katy Burns wrote about the Souths Lost Cause campaign launched several decades after the Civil War. Its efforts to glorify slavery and the Confederacy included the erection of most monuments currently targeted by the rapidly emerging Black Lives Matter movement.

The column speaks of northerners going home to work after the war while southerners sulked for years until launching their campaign, but this jumps over some important matters and I want to describe two of them.

First, the home that northerners returned to was highly racist. The war, after all, was fought over chattel slavery, not over racism, and most northerners shared the racial stereotypes of southerners. Recently I looked at an event in Indiana, the state where I grew up, and it illustrates my point. In 1850, Indiana held a constitutional convention. At it, delegates adopted Article 13 that prohibited Black people from moving to Indiana and also created a fund to remove free Black Indiana residents to Liberia.

Almost every speech during the five-day debate on the Article referred to Black inferiority and white supremacy in terms nearly identical to those of southern defenders of slavery. In 1851, the electorate adopted the new constitution overwhelmingly. Article 13 was voted on separately and adopted 113,828 to 21,873. At least five other northern states adopted equivalent constitutional amendments of legislation at about that time.

My second point is that the South didnt sulk after the war. Its planter elites immediately set out to snatch what victories they could from the jaws of defeat, and they had substantial success. For example, they sought and obtained the return to planters of 850,000 acres of land confiscated by the Union Army, preventing its redistribution to freed men. Planters frustrated the implementation of another land redistribution act, the Southern Homesteading Act.

Their efforts helped curtail the life of the Freedmens Bureau, a remarkable Reconstruction program that helped many ex-slaves gain education, the vote, and work. The program lasted only four years (and its schools an additional three years).

The South lobbied to remove northern troops and end Reconstruction, something it accomplished in a dozen years.

But the biggest challenge to the planter elite was regaining their earlier wealth. Before the War, the South was the richest region in America primarily because of King Cotton. In 1860, for example, cotton accounted for $191 million of the nations $333 million of exports. England, textile capital of the world, bought 80% of its cotton from the South.

Cotton was also vital domestically. For example, the 1860 Census reported that New Hampshire had investments of $23 million in 150 types of industries including over half ($12.5 million) in cotton goods manufacturing. Cotton alone accounted for 12,700 of the states 32,000 manufacturing jobs.

The planters key roadblock to regaining their prior wealth was, of course, the loss of the machines that had made that wealth possible slaves. Yet by 1870, just five years after the end of the War, cotton was again the nations largest export and would remain so until the Great Depression. This amazing victory from the jaws of defeat occurred because the South found an immediate cheap labor substitute for slaves ex-slaves. The story of how this happened is important.

In the decades leading to war, northern abolition efforts intensified; e.g. rapid growth of the Underground Railroad and attacks on slavery such as Uncle Toms Cabin. But during that same period, southern defenses of slavery escalated. Traditional defenses based on God, Nature, prosperity, science, and Christian humanity became more aggressive, but most importantly, the South devised a major, new defense.

It characterized the emerging system of industrial capitalism in the North as wage slavery, criticized it harshly, and argued that its own economic system of chattel slavery was superior and far more humane. The argument was pointed and its rhetoric often acerbic as seen, for example, in these excerpts from early southern sociologist George Fitzhugh. The northern system gives license to the strong to oppress the weak (and creates) the grossest inequalities of condition. Fitzhugh saw the strong as vulgar landlords, capitalists and employers psalm-singing regicides, these worshippers of Mammon (who) think they own all the property (and that) the rest of mankind have no right to a living except on the conditions they may prescribe.

The weak were wage slaves such as women and children (who) drag out their lives (in) the bowels of the earth [i.e. in mines] harnessed like horses. pallid children (who work in) some grand, gloomy and monotonous factory fourteen hours a day, and go home at night to sleep in damp cellars, the same cellars where aged parents too old to work are cast off by their employer to die.

Industrial capitalism created such evils as income ceases if a worker gets sick; laborers are at war with one another; child labor is common; retailers take advantage of ignorance and charge enormous profits; underbidding (by workers) never ceases resulting in wages too low to subsist and ending by filling poor-houses and jails and graves. Frequent riots and strikes were other problems as was widespread begging. One writer noted that you meet more beggars in one day in any street of the city of New York, than you would meet in a lifetime in the whole South.

The imagery of the wage-slave defense is as stark as Harriet Beecher Stowes attacks on slavery, and the arguments are ones that any socialist or union organizer would have made. In fact, these arguments would soon mobilize a progressive challenge to big industrial capitalism in the North beginning in the Gilded Age (1880 1910).

But what is most interesting about this southern attack on wage slavery is that, when the war ended chattel slavery, the South immediately adopted wage slavery in its place. Under slavery, slaves were property controlled by owners. In the new order, ex-slaves were freemen (free employees, sharecroppers, or tenants) controlled by contract.

The new scheme was possible because emancipated slaves deprived of promises of land desperately needed a way to survive and were readily exploited through contractual arrangements. Heres a simple example signed weeks after the wars end:

I, the within-signed woman of color, do hereby bind myself with E. W. Reitzell as laborer on his plantation from this the 1st day of August, 1865, to the 1st day of January, 1866. I further agree and bind myself to do all the work he may require of me, to labor diligently and be obedient to all his commands, to pay him due respect, and do all in my power to protect his property from danger, and conduct myself as when I was owned by him as a SLAVE.

These labor contracts, together with various techniques that forced freed men to renew them, confined millions of black farmworkers to southern plantations for two or three generations beyond the war until the Great Depression and after.

(Paul Levy lives in Concord.)

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My Turn: How racism thrived after the war - Concord Monitor

Poor working conditions ‘afflict 10000 people in Leicester’ – Personnel Today

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As many as 10,000 people could be working in conditions commonly associated with modern slavery in textile factories in Leicester, an investigation by Sky News has alleged.

Leicester City Council believes there to be about 1,500 textile factories across the city. Most are small businesses, essentially workshops that are housed in ageing, dilapidated buildings, such as the citys old Imperial Typewriter factory.

The east Midlands city was put under renewed lockdown restrictions on 30 June and it is thought that working conditions at many of the textile works may have contributed to the localised outbreak of Covid-19.

It is widely suspected that many of the businesses do not pay workers the 8.72 national minimum wage.

Deputy city mayor Adam Clarke called for government action and added that the working conditions in the workshops was not so much an open secret as just open.

Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe told Sky News she had been contacted by anonymous workers who were too scared to speak out publicly because many were fearful of losing their jobs.

Machinists are being paid 3 an hour, packers are being paid 2 an hour. That is what seems to be the standard, she said.

North West Leicestershire MP Andrew Bridgen told the broadcaster there was a conspiracy of silence that had allowed factories in the city to continue to exploit workers over many years.

The internet retailers have flourished during the Covid crisis because their competition has been shut down. So weve seen a huge extra demand for the products, said Mr Bridgen. He added that there had been a systemic failure of all the protections in Leicester that would prevent this from happening.

The governments Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is investigating allegations some factories forced people to work in unsafe conditions during lockdown.

Modern slavery took many forms, said Brigden, much of it hidden, but this type of exploitation people being paid well under the minimum wage, having to work in unacceptable conditions that sort of abuse has to be stamped out, it has to be examined, we have to follow the evidence and prosecute wherever possible.

Clarke made the point that enforcement of anti-slavery laws was made more difficult by the complex network of bodies involved. He said: There are just too many organisations, HMRC [HM Revenue & Customs], the GLAA [Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority], the HSE and others have enforcement responsibilities. There needs to be one enforcement body and that needs to be set up as quickly as possible.

This is a systemic issue that is borne out of poor regulation, poor legislation and exploitation at every level, he added. You have to ask yourself who actually has the power to change this? And that buck stops with government.

A Home Office spokesperson said: The National Crime Agency and others are looking into the appalling allegations about sweatshops in Leicester and the home secretary has been clear that anyone profiting from slave labour will have nowhere to hide.

We have regulations but they are not being policed properly. Its also the responsibility of consumers if you buy an incredibly cheap t-shirt then you know someone has been exploited Cherie Blair, campaigner and barrister

Fast-fashion firms based in the UK have come in for increased scrutiny as sales have boomed during the lockdown amid allegations over working conditions. Quiz said it had suspended a supplier after claims that a factory in Leicester offered a worker just 3 an hour to make its clothes.

It followsa report in the Timesthat an undercover journalist was told by a factory making Quiz clothes she would be paid below the minimum wage.

Quiz said if the claims were accurate, they were totally unacceptable.

Last week, Boohoo faced criticism after a report that workers at a factory supplying goods for one of its brands could expect to be paid as little as 3.50 an hour. Boohoo has stated it is investigating its supply chain to establish where points of vulnerability exist.

The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) is one of the bodies trying to ensure regulations were being followed in factories in Leicester, initiating its investigation following concerns about how some businesses in the city have been operating before and during the localised lockdown.

It said multi-agency visits involving officers from the GLAA, Leicestershire Police, Leicester City Council, National Crime Agency, Health and Safety Executive, Leicestershire Fire and Rescue and Immigration Enforcement had been carried out within the past few weeks.

So far, it said, no enforcement had been used during the visits and officers had not yet identified any offences under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

GLAA Head of Enforcement Ian Waterfield said: We would also encourage the public to be aware of the signs of labour exploitation and report their concerns to us, by calling our intelligence team on 0800 4320804 or emailing intelligence@gla.gov.uk.

According to campaigners the Medaille Trust, there are about 136,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK.

Leading human rights barrister and campaigner for womens and workers rights Cherie Blair told Sky News today that not only were workers being exploited but so were taxpayers, because of the benefits paid to low paid workers. She said the Modern Slavery Act of 2015 was groundbreaking but there had been a failure to police it and toughen it up, with the government failing to give it real teeth after a review of the Act last year made 80 proposals to give it more muscle. She said since 2010 there had only been seven prosecutions of people not paying the minimum wage.

She added: There have also not been anything like as many factory inspections as there should have been. We have regulations but they are not being policed properly. Its also the responsibility of consumers if you buy an incredibly cheap t-shirt then you know someone has been exploited. It is also the responsibility of companies buying products from these factories. Boohoo [which denies it has broken any law], for example, has a very nice glossy modern slavery statement but the reality of the industry is different.

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Poor working conditions 'afflict 10000 people in Leicester' - Personnel Today

Modern Slavery is Never Out of Fashion: Child Labour in the Clothing Industry – Byline Times

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As part of his regular series on modern slavery, James Melville looks at how many of the garments we wear rest on a supply chain of child exploitation and misery

The received wisdom about slavery is that it is a thing of the past; a crime against human rights but a relic from an imperialist colonial era. But slavery still exists in many forms today and still affects millions of victims.

Fast fashion giant Boohoo is facing an investigation into accusations of modern slavery after it emerged clothing workers at factories in Leicester, UK, were being paid just 3.50 an hour. An investigation carried out by The Sunday Times last week claimed that textile workers producing clothes for Boohoos suppliers were being paid far below the UK minimum wage (9.30) while working in unsafe conditions.

Labour extracted through force, coercion, or threats produces some of the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the mobile phones that we hold

Even in the present day, men, women and children all over the world remain victims of modern slavery. They are bought and sold in public markets, forced to marry against their will and provide labour under the guise of marriage, working inside unfit-for-purpose factories on the promise of a salary that is often withheld, or toiling under threats of violence. They are forced to work on construction sites, in stores, on farms, or in homes as maids. Labour extracted through force, coercion, or threats produces some of the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the mobile phones that we hold.

There are an estimated 40.3 million people more than three times the number of victims of the transatlantic slave trade who are living in some form of modern slavery, according to the latest figures published by the United Nations International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Walk Free Foundation. Children make up 25% of this total and account for 10 million of all the slaves worldwide.

Around 260 million children are in employment around the world, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Of them, the ILO estimates that 170 million are engaged in child labour, defined by the UN as work for which the child is either too young work done below the required minimum age or work which, because of its detrimental nature or conditions, is altogether considered unacceptable for children and is prohibited.

The ILO estimate that there are 6 million children are in forced labour.

We are all unwittingly consuming products that have their origins in slavery. Consumers are often unaware that its hidden in the supply chains of everyday products, such as smartphones, laptops, shoes, chocolate, makeup, coffee and the supply chains of western clothing brands.

According to the Global Slavery Index, the fashion industry is one of the biggest promoters of modern slavery in the world. Clothing is the second-highest product at risk of being made by modern slaves. G20 countries imported $127 billion fashion garments identified as at-risk products of modern slavery. Slavery in the fashion world can appear in a variety of forms from harvesting the cotton for a t-shirt, spinning the fibre to yarn, sewing the garment and modelling the final product to satisfy the demand of consumers in Europe, the US, and beyond.

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Many large fashion brands and companies do not have full control over their supply chains, thus making illegal work practices possible (including sweatshops, trafficking and servitude).

As the Guardian reported in 2015 in a Unicef sponsored article Child Labour: Fixing Fashion mass-production fashion has engendered a race to the bottom, pushing companies to find ever-cheaper sources of labour. That cheap labour is freely available in many of the countries where textile and garment production takes place.

Corporations often build their factories in developing countries to keep their costs low, which leads not only to the use of slave labour but also the use of child slave labour. In countries like India, where textile and garment production occurs, childrens small hands are better suited for picking cotton, and sewing cheap garments for the fast fashion industry only requires a minimal amount of skill.

Children work at all stages of the supply chain in the fashion industry: from the production of cotton seeds in Benin, harvesting in Uzbekistan, yarn spinning in India, right through to the different phases of putting garments together in factories across Bangladesh.

In the cotton industry, children are employed to transfer pollen from one plant to another. They are subjected to long working hours, exposure to pesticides and they are often paid below the minimum wage.

75% of 219 brands surveyed did not know the source of all their fabrics and inputs

As Josephine Moulds wrote in the Guardian : One of the biggest challenges in tackling child labour in the fashion supply chain is the complex supply chain for each garment. Even when brands have strict guidelines in place for suppliers, work often gets sub-contracted to other factories that the buyer may not even know about. Sofie Ovaa, global campaign coordinator of Stop Child Labour, told Moulds that companies that sell their products in Europe and the US have no clue where the textiles are sourced.

In 2019 the National reported on how the garment supply chain is infamous for its complexity. A Behind the Barcodes report in 2015 documenting that 75% of 219 brands surveyed did not know the source of all their fabrics and inputs, and only half could trace where their products were cut and sewed, explained reporter Sass Brown.

Tackling child labour is further complicated by the fact it is just a symptom of larger problems. Where there is extreme poverty, there will be children willing to work cheaply and susceptible to being tricked into dangerous or badly paid work.

Fundamentally, our rampant consumerism continues to drive slavery. Servitude happens as a result of brands seeking to lower their production costs. Until there is a concerted attempt by governments and brands to tighten up regulations in the suppy chains, modern day slavery and the exploitation of millions of cheap labourers will continue.

This article was amended on 15/02/2020 to properly attribute a Unicef sponsored piece by Josephine Moulds in the Guardian and an article by Sass Brown in the National

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Modern Slavery is Never Out of Fashion: Child Labour in the Clothing Industry - Byline Times

Modern slavery laws could be updated to tackle ‘sweatshops’ amid Boohoo allegations – iNews

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Priti Patel is believed to be considering new laws on modern slavery in light of new revelations about illegal working conditions at fast fashion suppliers, citing concerns that existing legislation is not fit for purpose.

According to The Sunday Times, the Home Secretary reportedly believes that cultural sensitivities are preventing police and councils from confronting illegal sweatshops for fears of being labelled racist.

Fashion company Boohoo has appointed Alison Levitt QC to lead an independent review into allegations that their factories were paying staff below minimum wage and not complying with safety rules.

Its board was said to be shocked and appalled by the allegations.

The move follows an undercover investigation by The Times last week that revealed workers in a Leicester factory were being paid as little as 3.50 per hour.

Shares in Boohoo, which also owns fast-fashion brands Nasty Gal and PrettyLittleThing, plummeted nearly 40 per cent following the report, while Asos, Next and Zalando all dropped the fast-fashion brand from sale.

Poor working conditions are reported to be widespread for textile industry employees, who are largely of Asian descent.

Raj Mann, the police contact for Leicesters Sikhs, said some factory owners were cliquish and shared information about cheap workers and approaching raids and inspections.

The local authorities have known these sweatshops exist for decades but theyve been loath to do anything about it for fear of being accused of picking on immigrant or refugee communities, as a lot of the exploited workers are of Indian background, he said.

Within the Asian community people generally turn a blind eye to workers in the community who are on less than the minimum wage. They see it as being better than earning nothing at all.

Sara Thornton, the independent anti-slavery commissioner, said financial challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic make workers more susceptible to exploitation.

As people have lost their jobs, they are increasingly desperate and will take exploitative work because at that point its the most rational option for them.

On the other side is that if employers are feeling desperate about getting their businesses back on track, they might also feel that they want to cut corners, she said.

At the moment the home secretary can injunct a company and require them to make a modern slavery statement. Thats never happened in five years but thats as powerful as it ever gets at the moment and I think it should be more.

Additional reporting by Press Association

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Modern slavery laws could be updated to tackle 'sweatshops' amid Boohoo allegations - iNews

Challenging American Apartheid, Championing American DecolonizationWith Love, and More – Idaho Press-Tribune

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Part I

My first name is Ris, given by my mother in honor of her favorite opera singer, Ris Stevens. At age three, an older male relative nicknamed me Sapphire. I thought it was for my September birthstone. No. It was after a negatively stereotypical battle axe character the wife of Kingfish, a scheming man whod do anything for a buck on the Amos n Andy television show. Originally, Amos n Andy was a radio program created and acted by two white men who were familiar with minstrel traditions. Later, it was one of the first black sitcoms on white-run television. My mother disallowed the nickname. Several years thereafter, I began a 40-year boycott of television due to its denigration of black people.

White supremacy is the belief in the superiority of the white race, and that it should therefore dominate other racesespecially the black race. It is the ideology of supremacy and the practices resulting therefrom. White people were and are the colonial power of America. American Apartheiddiscrimination by white people against others allegedly due to racewas and is born of white supremacy. It said that such discrimination is about race. But it is really about dominanceparticularly economic dominanceheartless power, soulless greed. It is time to decolonize America.

At four years old, I preened in the mirror as I recited my first poem:

"Ohhh, looka there

Isnt that little colored girl pretty and fair"

The darker the skin tone, the more nefarious the racism, internalized racism, and colorism. Given this, it was a feat of my brilliant mother that I considered my young dark and incandescent self fairas in beautiful. White beauty was the societal beauty standard. Already, I was setting my own.

Repeatedly, white people say to me, You and I have different perspectives. I havent had your experience. Right. In an Apartheid system, different groups of people do have a different experience and a different perspective. This is because of racismthe structural discrimination, institutional discrimination, systemic discrimination that has been built in, driven in, and that is held in place by power, policy, and practice. That is the issue. And, due to American white supremacy and the resulting Apartheid, discrimination has, so far, bled into and through my black American life. Racism is so normalized in American culture that it is seemingly unnoticeable to many white people. Now is the time for systemic American Apartheid to be brought to light of day, flushed out, cleared out, rooted out. It will take work.

As a 5-year-old in Texas, I was fascinated by the countertop of the tall meat case in the neighborhood black-owned grocery store. Upon it stood several clear three-gallon glass jars. One was stuffed with fat-filled pink pickled pig feet; in the second, pink pickled pig ears fanned wide; in the third twirled clustered pink pickled pig tailsall for sale to eat.

The razor tang of salt, brine, and grease remains in my memory.

In the refrigerated lower section of the meat case lay thick rolls of bologna, summer sausage, blocks of electric-orange American cheese, piles of ox tails, cow tongues, and folds of bloody liver. More intriguing were the large, quivering squares of gelatin and fat-filled hog head cheese, pork neck bones, hog maws, and odiferous grey chitlins. Slave food, Mama said.

Historically, the person who owned the slaves owned the pigs. The owner ate the pork chops, pork roast, and the ham; the enslaved ate the appendageshead, ears, neck, stomach, intestines, tails, and feet. When black folks got a pork butt, we were said to be eatin high off the hog. I shimmied my jejune hips and sang along with Bessie Smith, Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer.

How might 250 years of a slave diet rendered traditionwe were enslaved for a century longer than weve been freecontribute to underlying health concerns that cause black people to be more susceptible to contracting and dying from COVID-19? And, what part might 150 years of Apartheid-induced poverty post enslavement play?

In the 1950s, I lived in Houstons Fifth Ward, a segregated black community. Next door to my house was the abiding neighborhood black-owned Deans Grocery Store. Across the street was the Kelly Courts housing projecta city block of bright orange unrelieved brick cubes of prison cell-like apartments, with tiny square windows built by the white-run government for Negroes after the war. Years later, a new Asian store opened kitty-corner to Mr. Deans store and competed for the business of the black people in the projects. At that time, to my knowledge, Asians didnt live in our neighborhood and, wherever they did live, it was doubtful that blacks owned businesses there. They were rude to us. They didnt hire us or socialize with us, except to undersell low quality food to poor black people. Their store threatened to put Mr. Deans store out of business. However, after a time, they mustve become friendlier because there were a few dark-skinned Amerasian children playing in the projects, apparently being parented by single mothers. It is particularly painful when one oppressed group colludes in the further oppression of another oppressed group. Predatory capitalism is economic Apartheid. Stop.

Just beyond our front yard fence, in the wide muddy ditch that ran the length of our house, red-whiskered crawfish swam. There were no sidewalks. Under an unforgiving sun on those mean Fifth Ward streets, tar boiled up and stuck to my shoe bottoms in long black strands like hot bubblegum.

Last week I read that racist government policies have contributed to the Fifth Ward neighborhood now being one of Houstons cancer clusters. It has a 48% cancer rate. White politicians relegated segregated black neighborhoods to areas where incinerators, landfills, waste sites, and industry were placed. How might longstanding housing injustice and environmental Apartheid contribute to African Americans having underlying health conditions that leave us more susceptible to contracting and dying from COVID-19?

To date, my life has been lived within a system built on white supremacy and bolstered by American Apartheid. If you are an American, so has yours. How palatable your experience has or hasnt been is dependent, in large measure, upon whether or not you were born with white or near-white skin. White supremacy and Apartheid are foundational to our nation. It looks like an issue of race when, in fact, it is an issue of hegemony. It is time for this to be faced and acknowledged. It is time for it to end.

Because weve had 401 years of unequal relationships, weve also had 401 years of unequal experiences though weve lived in the same land. There were 250 years of slavery; the post-Civil War promise of 40 acres and a mule that were to be given to former slaves that was revoked; Jim Crow laws and then Black Codesendless white supremacist practices regulating the places where blacks could and could not gather or be seen at night, which jobs we were and were not allowed to do, how much or little we were paid, our economic advancement and security or lack thereof, where we could and could not live, the air we breathed, the food we ate, the water we drank. Today, in Flint, Michigan, a predominately black area, even after several years, clean water is barely a human right. I doubt it would have taken three years or more to remove lead from the drinking water in Santa Barbara, Aspen, or Sun Valley. Moreover, there have been decades of mass incarceration and no-wage to low-wage prison labor. Time up. No more prisons. Create jobs. Build homes.

If one is white, whether or not ones family owned slaves, one benefits from white privilege resulting from historic and enduring racism. Though I am not enslaved, historic and enduring racism have been and continue to be to my detriment. Today, after 401 years of economic injustice, the wealth of black families is one tenth of the wealth of white families, though blacks did two and a half centuries of the countrys heavy lifting. Reparationsa means to balance income inequality and wealth inequityare a national debt, a governmental duty. To be just, we must militate for reparations, to include providing no-cost to low-cost education, and unbiased healthcare to African Americans.

Please read: Beloved, by Toni Morrison, and The Book of Negroes, by Canadas Lawrence Hill. This same book was published in the U.S. as Someone Knows My Name.

Please read: The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic.

See Ris Kevalshar Collins' conversation with Marcia Franklin, host of Idaho Public Television'sThe 180.

***

In the last week of June 2020, I hope for a time without further murder of black people by white people, and without further murder of black people by the police. I long for time to sit in sunshine in my patio garden overstuffed with potted plants, tree roses, raised vegetable beds, and lilies. I am holding space to decompress, time to watch red gladiolus bloom in memory of my mother; time to see hummingbirds drink deeply from hanging fuchsia baskets; time with the dogs, cat, birds, squirrels, deer. Time to just be, and to remember.

I recall my mother, an innately elegant woman, saying, I may have been penniless, but I have never been poor. I remember it being said of a woman who was much like my mother: Shes got silk tastes and a sows purse. Neither of them had, but deserved to have had, opportunity equal to thatnot only of white womenbut of white men.

Before I started school, my mother made a request of me. She said, Ris, promise Mommy you will never be a maid. She was planting seeds of aspiration higher than those preordained for me by an Apartheid society.

Growing up, some may not have questioned, but I did question why black people often had so little, why white people often had so much, how they got it, and why they didnt share. Later, I began connecting the intergenerational dots. Those who owned the people and the pigs ate the pork chops and the ham. Those who owned the people and the pigs also owned the houses and the land. Those who owned the people, the pigs, the houses, and the land ran the institutions and made the laws. Those who owned the people, the pigs, the houses, the land, who also ran the institutions and made the laws, then passed their people, their pigs, and their profits down to their heirs; and they promoted policies, practices and laws that they created in their own favor, and in favor of those who looked like them so that they could forever secure what they had gained.

Those who were owned, owned nothing; they ate what their owners threw away; they passed down their love, their pain, and their purpose.

Whether or not all white Americans recognize it, or want it to be so, systemic structures of supremacy and Apartheid, implicit and explicit, remain in place. First we become aware. Then we divest.

Read this: Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Prof. Ibram X. Kendi.

***

White people in Bonners Ferry, in Boise, and elsewhere say to me, Its so sad, but it happened in the past, how long should we feel bad?

The White Lion, the first slave ship, landed in America in 1619. In the 1700s, armed whites organized themselves as slave patrols to monitor and discipline black slaves, and to capture enslaved runaways. These slave patrols were forebears of the modern police force. In 2020, police brutality toward black people remains a source of social terror.

Too often, in interacting with blacks, police officers still operate as slave catchers for a justice system that sends "just us" into a prison system that still operates as a plantation system where black men still provide no-wage to low-wage labor.

In St. Maries and in Boise I hear white riffs on this white refrain: I dont feel any shame, carry any guilt, bear any blame for what my forefathers did.

Per the NAACP, between 1882 and 1968, nearly 4,743 people were lynched in the U.S. Of those, 3,446 were black, and most lynchings took place in the south. Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas, respectively, had the highest numbers of lynchings. Although Franklin D. Roosevelt denounced lynching in the mid-1930s, he did not sign an anti-lynching bill. In 1939, Billie Holiday sang Strange Fruit. In 1964, Nina Simone sang Mississippi Goddam. In 2018, the U.S. Senate passed the first anti-lynching act. In 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act. Still, to my knowledge, no anti-lynching legislation has yet been signed into law. In 2020 a Washington, D.C., football team, under corporate pressure, is at long last poised to change its culturally offensive name. In 2020, Mississippi is after so long a time set to remove the Confederate emblem from its flag. Traditions die hard. But, unlike in 2019in 2020, NFL players will take a knee on the field before the flag during the national anthem in protest of injustice.

Concerning police brutality in America, a Boise neighbor asks, Do things like that still happen?

In the first six months of 2020, modern-day lynchings of American black people remain commonplace. An unarmed black man was shot-gunned down by a white father and son as he jogged and as another white man filmed the act; an unarmed black man was twice shot in his back by a white policeman as the black man, fearful of being arrested for drinking and then falling asleep in his car, ran; an unarmed black woman was shot dead in her bed by white no-knock police as she slept; a black man died, unarmed and bound, lying face down in the street with his neck under the weight of a white mans knee.

In Boise white people repeatedly say: Your viewpoint and experience are different from mine.

In an Apartheid system whites and blacks do have a different experience. Our viewpoint and experience differ depending on which side of colonialism and racial discrimination we land. Those who look like the colonizer have a softer landing. Whites were not enslaved for 250 years. No. Whites reserved that special suite in hell for blacks. White men are not incarcerated at five times the rate of black men who, after being disproportionately imprisoned, and after being given greater time for lesser crimes, are not, without compromise, restored to their right to vote. Blacks dont seek to gain or to maintain political power over whites by suppressing the white right to vote. Whites havent had to fight for all of their civil rights. Per the Economic Policy Institute, in 2019, black unemployment was at least twice as high as white unemployment in 14 states. Black unemployment is roughly 50% higher than that of whites. White men earn more money than white women, and white women earn more money than black women. Whites are safe to sleep in their beds, to leave the doors to their homes unlocked and open, to walk on their streets, to jog around their neighborhoods, to drive in their cars, to park at public rest stops, to camp alone in the woods, to pray in their churches, to have an encounter with a police officer and live to see another day. Blacksnot so much.

***

When conversing with a Dutch friend with whom I share mutual affectionpossibly about Dutch descended Afrikaners long rape and rule of the black South African people, their resources, and their land with impunity, and likely about pervasive American racism which European immigrants absorb, and from which they benefitshe said, You hate me because Im white!

No, I said, I hate you because youre stupid.

Often, when addressing white racism, white people forfeit common sense. Like my friend, many otherwise intelligent white people suddenly go dense, deaf, dumb, blind, amnesiac, and numb when it comes to acknowledging and dismantling ongoing white supremacy and Apartheid.

Theres work to do. Part of the work is being willing to look for our blind spots with humility and with integrity. It starts with looking at the self where supremacist ideology is internalized, where racism has been socialized. Part of the work is to educate oneself and to inform others. Part of the work is to hold ones own feet to fire.

Please watch: Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay.

Please read: Nelson Mandelas autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander; and Are Prisons Obsolete? by Prof. Angela Davis, and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

***

Like my maternal great grandmother, maternal grandmother, mother, and sister, I too have lived under the duress of navigating multiple layers of bedrock racism. Living life within a system of white control, systemic injustice, and social terror targeted at African Americans takes a toll. The enduring stress of job, food, housing, and healthcare insecurity that are driven by racism, as well as ongoing social terror, can affect a persons health. They have affected mine.

I am near the age my mother was when, in 1998her illness exacerbated by a lifetime lived in the bit and under the bridle of political, economic, and social bias and constraintshe died after refusing an operation that might have saved her life. Due to Americas palpable history of medical Apartheid, our family code was and is: Barring a life-threatening illness, we dont have surgery.

In America, in the mid-1800s, Alabama surgeon Dr. James Marian Sims, known as the Father of Modern Gynecology, developed his trailblazing surgical techniques and his pioneering tools by research experiments conducted on enslaved black women without anesthesia. It was believed that black people did not feel as much pain as white people. This was white supremacy and medical Apartheid. Lionizing James Marian Sims condones medical Apartheid.

The Public Health services, now associated with the Center for Disease Control, conducted The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment from1932 until 1972a 40-year Study of Untreated Syphilis in African American Men. For 40 years many people colluded with and contributed to this study of untreated syphilis in impoverished black men, notwithstanding its effect on the black mens black wives, and on their black children. This was white supremacy and medical Apartheid. Participating in white supremacy and medical Apartheid is white supremacy and medical Apartheid.

In 1951, while Henrietta Lacks, a black woman, was being treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins, doctors took extra cervical samples from her without her knowledge and without her consent. She died at Johns Hopkins at the age of 31. Her cells, named HeLa cells, revolutionized the medical field. Billions of dollars in profit have been made from the research of the cells, and none of it has been shared with her family. Collusion with white supremacy and medical Apartheid is white supremacy and medical Apartheid.

Proponents of Eugenicsthe application of principles of genetics and heredity to improve the human racepushed for and won legislative policy in its support. The Eugenics Movementbased, in part, on a belief in white racial superioritywas funded by corporate foundations and underwritten by federal programs. For several decades, ending in about 1973, the Eugenics Movement targeted African American women on which to perform coerced and forced sterilizations and hysterectomies. This was also done on Hispanic and Native American women. It was used as a means of controlling undesirable populations that not only included people of color, it further included people with mental illness, people with disabilities, uneducated people, and poor people. (Conversely, in the 1950s in Idaho, some white women needed the consent of their husbands in order to have their tubes tied.) This was white supremacy and medical Apartheid.

Historical trauma caused by slavery, passed down through generations, and triggered by ongoing injustice is distressing. Because of medical distrust, I have postponed and/or avoided certain medical treatments for many years. Recently, I changed my Primary Care Physician in part because, though Im old enough to have been her mother; though I asked her multiple times not to do so, though I explained to her the negative cultural implicationsmy young white female physician couldnt managein a professional settingto stop calling me girl. Bias at worst, stupiditya lack of common senseand insensitivity at best. Theres work to do. Part of dismantling white supremacy: Safe, quality, unbiased healthcare for African Americans.

Please read this: Just Medicinea Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care by Dayna Bowen Matthew, and Black and Blue: The Origins and Consequences of Medical Racism by Prof. John Hoberman.

***

Historically, blacks were not allowed to learn to read or write. Education threatened the institution of slavery; education challenges white supremacy; education helps to dismantle Apartheid. My mother began teaching me to read and write early. My commitment to education is lifelong. Virginia Woolf said, A woman must have money and a room of her own... I say: A modern woman needs a degree; most women of color need two; a black woman needs three.

I was alive during Brown vs. the Board of Education, when the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. I bussed across Houston and was one of a few who integrated a wealthy white high school. We learned almost nothing about the contributions of people of color in my history class. Many Americans dont know our American history because American white people wrote, whitewashed, and published our textbooks. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has produced a documentary, Black Patriots: Heroes of the Revolution, which highlights some of the black patriots who helped to establish America, yet who were minimized, marginalized, written out of our history. We must seek to learn our true American history, so that we can reckon with it, and correct for our future.

For the past two years at Boise State University, where I am a student in the Creative Writing Program, Ive taken one class, during one semester, with one other black person. In two years I know of no black or indigenous adjunct, lecturer, professor, or administrator in the Department of Theatre, Film, and Creative Writing. I am aware that the extraordinary Dr. Mamie Oliver was a professor in the Department of Social Work at Boise State, that she was the first African American professor at Boise State, and that she taught there from 1972 to 1988. But, during the past two years, Ive briefly met only one black instructor on the university campushe was in the music department. In two years' time, Ive met only one black administrator at Boise State. She, a veteran, was the Director of Equity and Inclusion. A month later, she was gone.

American structural oppression is standard; its mainstream. Last year, in one of my classes, I was introduced to a film that is foundational to the American film industryTheBirth of a Nationoriginally titled, The Clansman. It was the first movie screened in the White House. Seen there by Woodrow Wilson in 1915, he declared, Its like writing history with lightning. This film is taught in American cinema courses, influenced American society, inspired the revival of the KKK, is rabid with racism, debases black people, and glorifies white supremacy. I, the only black person in the class, chose to watch the film in its entirety. Afterwards, I was ill for two days. Although technically significant, and chosen by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry, the film is damaging. Gone with the Wind, another American film classic, is rife with classic white supremacy and classic American racism.

Im not sure that I want to read arguable racism in the works of novelists such as Mississippian William Faulkner, or that I need to read anti-Semitism in the works of poets such as Idahoan Ezra Pound. But if such work must be taught, the benefit should far outweigh the offense, and it would be wise to consider who makes that determination, and how such works are taught. The Pieces I Am, a 2019 documentary on the life and work of black American Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison, offers a view into American literary Apartheid, as well as a view into Morrisons workaround.

White supremacy and Apartheid have been the American standard. Broadway theatre started in 1750. The first play written by an American black woman that debuted on Broadway in its over 200-year history was A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry in 1959. Nearly 20 years thereafter, from 1976 until 1978, I acted in the second play written by a black American woman to be performed on Broadwaythe original Broadway production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange.

For educators and administrators there is much work to do to decolonize our educational system. I place faith in my Millennial and Generation Z adjunct instructors, and graduate student teaching assistants. I am particularly inspired by peersthe astute and generous Caitlin McGowan and Jacob Robartsboth of whom write, and both of whom will teach. I believe that they will continue to educate themselves on white supremacy and on racism, and that they will do their part, in their spheres of influence, to decolonize the classroom. After we verbalize anti-racism sentiment, and write anti-racism statements, we must take anti-racism action, and maintain it in existence over time. Because of Caitlin and Jacob, and others like them, I take heart.

Please read this: Racism and EducationCoincidence or Conspiracy? by Professor David Gillborn.

I, Ris Kevalshar Collins, am committed to love, to equity, and to justice. For those who stand for equal justice, there is work to do.

Here is the original post:

Challenging American Apartheid, Championing American DecolonizationWith Love, and More - Idaho Press-Tribune

Leicester lockdown unveils the truth about its fast fashion industry – Euronews

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Fast fashion and a lockdown boom in online ordering has exacerbated poor working conditions at a UK factory and could have helped fuel a local spike in COVID-19 cases, it has been claimed.

The organisation Labour Behind The Label (LBTL) says a company which supplies online retail giant Boohoo has been found to be exploiting workers, paying illegal wages and failing to safeguard its employees against COVID-19.

Workers told Euronews that the factories have not been made COVID safe: "it was as normal as before [coronavirus]. No gloves, no masks, no social distance, nothing at all," says Nick Sakhizadah, a textile factory worker.

During an interview with our correspondent, some of the factory owners attempted to intimidate Sakhizadah and the other workers for "telling the truth", which he says is part of the problem.

Colin Whyatt, regional organiser for trade union GMB in Leicester, believes around two thousand factories employ illegal workers which he says could mean tens of thousands of illegal employees who are vulnerable to trafficking and modern slavery.

Whyatt added that at an ethical trade conference he attended four years ago, auditors admitted to turning a blind eye to these poor conditions because of a loss in revenue if the factory was forced to close.

Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe told Euronews that the government could have stepped in earlier. She says: "I just wonder, if this was a different community whether help would have been provided much sooner so that workers weren't exploited in this way".

The campaign group say Boohoo accounts for 80 per cent of Leicester's capacity and they have for years set garment producers in competition against each other to drive prices down.

LBTL found a very recent order from Boohoo for 1 million pairs of cycling shorts to be produced in Leicester for 1.80 per pair (unit) including packaging, labelling, factory overheads, labour costs and delivery. These shorts have been reportedly sold on Boohoo and its sister site Pretty Little thing for between 3-10.

At the same time, Sakhizadah says he has been paid considerably less than minimum wage during lockdown. He says: "I'm working for free and taking this big risk".

Megan Lewis from LBTL says: "Brands like Boohoo make a huge profit by pushing prices as low as they can, and this is why they have allowed the situation to go on like this.

She adds: "For too long, brands have distanced themselves from their suppliers, when they know that exploitation is an inevitable outcome from their poor purchasing practices demanding low prices and fast production times.

Susan Harris, Director of Legal Services at GMB, says it is not compulsory for an employer to admit a trade union into the premises. In addition, Harris says there is often mistrust and a reluctance from workers in this industry to join a trade union:

If people were encouraged to join unions, if we had the right to visit workplaces and have access to workers to question if there was any failure by the employer to comply with legislation - whether that relates to Health and Safety, wages etc - then this type of exploitation would be reduced or eliminated.

Data from the campaign group details that around a third (33.6%) of workers in Leicester's garment industry are born outside of the UK and most of the workers come from minority backgrounds.

Workers who are not born in the UK are more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation due to their immigration status or language skills.

"If people don't know their rights, they don't know that they can complain or know how to complain. And if you then factor into that lack of knowledge with the fact that many of these workers will not have English as their mother tongue then the conditions exist for unscrupulous people to exploit workers," outlines Harris.

We need better legislation and regulation within the industry and the government must step up to make these changes," says Lewis from LBTL. "The government must also take responsibility for the wider economic and racial inequalities that leave workers vulnerable to such exploitative labour."

LBTL are now calling on Boohoo to commit to transparency and to take more responsibility of their supply chain.

"Boohoo must commit to paying living wages for all workers in their supply chain and crucially, they should commit to supply chain transparency. Other brands have published lists of factories and workshops where their clothes are made, and Boohoo must do this too.

Excerpt from:

Leicester lockdown unveils the truth about its fast fashion industry - Euronews

The Pandemic of Racism in America – IDN InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Viewpoint by Dr Alon Ben-Meir

The writer is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

NEW YORK (IDN) The rage, desperation, and determination which continue to bring tens of thousands of Americans to the streets in protest against racism and injustice hopefully will be just the beginning.

They are sick and tired of systemic racism against Black people, of bigotry at the top, crude discrimination, police brutality, a prejudiced criminal justice system, economic disparity, and societys robbing black people of experiencing real freedom and equality. Hypocritically, white people blame the victims of racism for their own plight, claiming that Black people would do better in life if they were only willing to work harder.

We are now reaping the harvest of the seeds of racism and discriminationthe devaluation of black life. The whole socio-economic and cultural system is lopsided, as it lacks the fundamentals of justice and equality. The pandemic provided the wakeup call that pointed out the ugly tradition of subjugation of the Black community, which sadly did not stop with the end of slavery, but continued in the wanton indifference to their pain and agony, our uncanny negligence, and our failure to understand what they are really experiencing.

Ingrained Racism

The fact that Black people were slaves, and the carefully cultivated myth that slaves were always obedient and happily served their white masters, left an indelible imprint on white people that has lasted generations. They maintain that African Americans were born to servitude and hence they do not qualify for equal treatment, equal opportunity, and equal status.

Films such as D.W. Griffiths immensely influential Birth of a Nation (1915), which helped to reestablish the Ku Klux Klan, also reinforced the racist stereotype that Black men are unintelligent and an inherent danger to the white communityspecifically white women. When on May 25 (the same day George Floyd was killed) a white woman, Amy Cooper, called the cops on a Black man, Christian Cooper, who was birdwatching in Central Park, she was tapping into the long history of that racist trope. To put it plainly, Black lives are simply not valued the way white lives are, as white people consciously or subconsciously view Black man as both sub- and supra-human, threatening, and expendable.

Thus, due to this entrenched prejudice, any activity, however innocent, in which a Black man is engaged in invites suspicion, alarm, and often puts the life of Black men in danger such as 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot and killed by white residents of the suburban Georgia neighborhood he was jogging in. The mayor of Minneapolis bluntly said Being black in America should not be a death sentence. Racism, to be sure, is so ingrained it flows in the veins of many Americans without notice.

The insidious, learned biases pitting white against Black Americans directly leads to the treating of Black Americans as second-class citizens and suppression by white Americansa necessary ingredient that satisfies their ego and elevates their self-worth. Although the majority of white Americans may not be white supremacists, they certainly hold onto their privileges in all walks of life as they view their relation with Black people (and other people of color) as a zero-sum game, as if a Black mans gain invariably chips away at a white mans privileges.

Wanton discrimination

Racial prejudice in America takes a heavy toll on African Americans, which translates to discrimination in all walks of life, including education, job opportunities, professional advancements, and medical treatment, especially maternal health. Black workers receive 22 percent less in salary than whites with the same education and experience; Black women receive even less34.2 percent.

According to a University of Chicago/Duke 2016 study, when factoring in all African American and white men (inclusive of those incarcerated or otherwise out of the workforce), the racial wage gap is the same as it was in the 1950s. Even where racial discrimination should not occur, in medical treatment, when Black patients access medical care, doctors regularly prescribe fewer pain medications and believe Black patients feel less pain than white patients, even among veterans seeking care.

Whereas Black men have served in the military and fought and died alongside white soldiers in every war since the Revolutionary War (when 5,000-8,000 Black soldiers fought against the British), they had to face the revulsion of discrimination and segregation while still serving in the military, hardly recognized for acts of bravery. Indeed, until 1948after the end of WWIIthe US military was entirely segregated. While the top brass of the military, who are mostly white, like to claim that military institutions are colorblind, the reality is that racism and discrimination remain extensive problems even in the U.S. military.

Police brutality

Although police brutality against Black men in particular, which instigated the current protests, is a known phenomenon, police killings of Black men continue unabated. It can and has taken different forms historically including harassment and intimidation, assault and battery, torture and murder, and even complicity with the KKK. Often, police officers approach any situation connected to a Black man with apprehension and fear. White police officers see threats where they do not exist; they are too quick to draw and as quick to fire to kill.

Here are just a few glaring examples: a Black man taking a nap in a car in a parking lot was shot dead. Another pulled over in a traffic stop was shot and killed in front of his girlfriend and her daughter. A Black man sitting in his home eating ice cream was shot dead by his neighbor, an off-duty white police officer. A Black woman playing video games with her nephew was shot and killed through her window. A Black woman (and EMT) sleeping in her home was shot eight times when officers entered her apartment executing a no-knock warrant.

It is rare for a prosecutor to decide to charge a police officer, especially because they often know each other and have developed close working relationships. Even Internal Affairs divisions of police departments, which ostensibly exist to investigate and report misconduct among officers, have widely conducted sub-standard investigations and failed to identify problem officers who commit wanton abuse.

This cultural pattern enables police officers like Derek Chauvin, Daniel Pantaleo, and Nathan Woodyard to commit the heinous crime of slowly squeezing the life out of George Floyd (MN), Eric Garner (NY), and Elijah McClain (CO). As troubling is the fact that police officers have been known to give false testimony in court, whether to avoid punishment for their own criminal and/or unconstitutional actions, to ensure a conviction, or for other reasons.

Disproportionate incarceration

Although the US judiciary is considered to be just and impartial, in most court hearings race is present albeit it is not spelled out. It is as though Black men inherently have no equal rights and to this day, 230 years since the constitution was written, injustices still exist in both federal and state courts.

Blacks are incarcerated at more than five times the rate of whiteswhile they are 13 percent of the total US population, they constitute 40 percent of the total male prison population. The mass incarceration of African Americans in this country has created what sociologist Becky Pettit, citing the novelist Ralph Ellison, calls invisible menthe millions of black men in the American penal system. Prison inmates are not included in most data-collecting national surveys, so these men are effectively invisible to social institutions, lawmakers, and most social science research. It is almost as if they do not exist, they do not count; their reality is ignored, neglected, and brushed aside.

A staggering 75 percent of young Black men will be imprisoned at some point in their lives. These statistics can only begin to convey the enormity of the injustice that is being compounded day after day. Pettits book reveals that penal expansion has generated a class of citizens systematically excluded from accounts of the American populace. This exclusion raises doubt about the validity of even the most basic social facts and questions the utility of the data gathered for the design and evaluation of public policy and the data commonly used in social science research. As a consequence, we have lost sight of the full range of the American experience.

Economic disparity

Economic disparity between white and Black Americans is glaring, and reverberates through generations of Black families. Economic exclusion is the source of inequality. It is caused by a confluence of factors, beginning with nearly 250 years of chattel slavery (during which Black families were torn apart, let alone able to accumulate wealth), to sharecropping and unrestrained lynchings, to 90 years of Jim Crow laws, to redlining neighborhoods on demographic lines.

All of these factors are manifested today in hiring decisions, property valuation, mortgage applications, interest charges, and even how credit scores are tabulated. The average white familys net worth is more than ten times greater than a Black family. Economic disparity, to be sure, is the mother of all evil in the lives of Black people.

A poor Black man cannot pay for decent housing, cannot pay for health care, and cannot afford to send his kids to higher education, which directly impacts his social standing and professional competency. Thus, he has to settle for menial jobs, low wages, and little or no prospect of ever climbing out of the vicious cycle. The saddest thing of all is that he is blamed for his own dilemma, as if the conditions and lack of opportunities in which he lives has nothing to do with his sorry state of affairs.

The bigotry of the leadership

During the past four years, racism in America has been on the rise and in no small measure Trump, the Racist-in-Chief, has made race a campaign issue from the very start. He began his political campaign by branding Hispanics as rapists; in his presidency he banned Muslims from entering the US, cruelly separated children from their parents at the borders, described white supremacists in Charlottesville as very fine people, and celebrated this 4th of July by defending Confederate statues.

Trumps racism against Blacks in particular is nothing new. It was there in 1973 when Trump Management Inc. was sued by the Department of Justice for housing discrimination against African-American renters. We could see it in 1989, when he took out a full-page advertisement in four New York City newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty over the Central Park Five, who were wrongfully convicted and sent to prison.

Trump refuses to apologize for that, even though, as Innocence Project founder Barry Scheck said, by calling for the reinstitution of the death penalty, it contributed to an atmosphere that deprived these men of a fair trial. He also refused to apologize for his persistent perpetuation of the birther lie that Obama was not born in the US.

Trumps Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore was laden with racially divisive and partisan rhetoric, but that makes no difference to many conservative Republican leaders and his misguided supporters who follow him blindly. They wrap themselves with the flag as a sign of American patriotism, when in fact their patriotism is defined by their racism and intolerance of people of color.

Although some Republican leaders disagree with him on race, they are fearful of his anger to say anything publicly, lest they risk losing their power or position. Sadly, their silence suggests consent, which only reinforces Trumps racism. With Trump, as with much of the country, racism is deeply ingrained, something he refuses to admit.

Although racism did not start when Trump came to power as it is imbued into Americas history and culture and it will not end with his departure from office, his overt racism brought to focus racism in America. The persistent protests reveal the deep sense of frustration with a president who fans the flame of racism, who sees the country as his own enterprise, who does whatever he wants to serve his own interests. He is cruel, cunning, and careless about the pain and suffering of Black America; he cannot count on their political support and hence completely rejects their outcry.

Unlike any other protests in the past against racism, this years protests have had a greater impact in part due to the spread of the coronavirus and its disproportionate impact on Black people, who are being infected and dying at higher rates than whites. That, and in conjunction with a presidential election, provides a rare opportunity to start a process of mitigating racism in earnest.

What will be necessary, however, is for the protests to persist through Election Day in the hopes that the Racist-in-Chief will be ousted. Only then we stand a better chance that a new day will dawn and a new administration will commit to relentlessly addressing the plight of Black people for the sake of all Americans, especially because the day when America will have a majority of people of color is fast approaching.

Although there are scores of measures that must be taken and many years and huge financial resources to make a discernible change for the better in the life of Black Americans, we have no choice but to start, regardless of how insurmountable the obstacles and the culture of resistance to change. It will take the collective efforts, determination, and consistency of local, state, and federal authorities to begin this process if we ever want to reach a modicum of equality.

The work to change the culture of innate racism in America will be long and hard, but we must not shy away from it. As a small start, the immediate focus should be on educating students about Black history, changing the police culture and training, investing in housing in black neighborhoods, offering educational support for young Black boys and girls starting at elementary age, up to providing free education for them to attend college or professional schools, and providing job opportunities and equal pay to give them the chance to climb up over time the social ladder.

The continuing demonstrations throughout the country suggest not only the obviousthat Black lives matterbut that racism is consuming America from within, that injustice affects the perpetrators just as much as the victims, that enough is enough. [IDN-InDepthNews 16 July 2020]

Photo credit: Black Lives Matter

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Black Country Festival founder on the meaning of the Black Country flag – expressandstar.com

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First of all, let me say that the Black Country name is nothing to do with race or ethnicity. And the imagery or colours of the Black Country flag are not intended to be linked to slavery.

But that doesnt mean questions can not be asked of the Black Country region or the symbolism behind the Black Country flag. We shouldnt blindly beat our chest in defence of both the flag or the region without knowing its history.

The Black Country is a region of England which today covers the metropolitan boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.

The region was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and its landscape was dominated with coal mines, iron foundries, glass factories, brick works and many small industries for as far as the eye could see.

Chimneys of factories, furnaces and small home forges bellowed out smoke and soot to heavily pollute the air.

The pollution filled the sky and the region which was described as 'Black by Day' and 'Red by Night' by Elihu Burritt became known as the Black Country.

In 1712 the Black Country changed the world when it became the first place to harness the power of steam with the Newcomen Engine.

In 1828 the working class people of the region built the Stourbridge Lion which was the first steam locomotive to run in the USA, they made the glass and iron for the Crystal Palace and its great exhibition in 1851 and also forged the anchors and chains for great ships like the Titanic.

The hard work by Black Country people changed the world and shaped the modern world we see today but that is not to say that the region and its work force did not produce items for the slave trade, or that we should dismiss the regions links to the enslavement.

African men and women were undoubtedly shackled and chained on the Atlantic crossing with items that were produced in the Black Country. Once they reached their destination, they would be held captive with Black Country made products of various descriptions.

There is evidence of Black Country products marketed specifically for the slave market with items listed as Negro Collars and African Chains. Enslavement was big business and rich men capitalised on that industry to make as much money as possible.

The rich people who marketed these products did not care about the slaves that their products were used on and they did not care about the people who made the products either.

The working-class people of the Black Country were extremely poor. Life expectancy in the region in 1841 was 17 years old. People worked from the age they could walk, and some died before they became adults. There was no luxury for our ancestors and there was no profit. They worked hard in hope they would live a little longer than the people dying around them. If cholera didnt kill them then hard work would.

The working class people of the Black Country never profited from the slave trade, in fact there is little evidence to suggest that they even knew what their products were used for.

When modern Black Country folk show pride for the history of our region, it is the working-class people we are proud of. We dont take pride in the starvation wages that our ancestors were paid or the squalid conditions they were forced to work in or the rich who profited from the slave trade. We celebrate their hard work and the fight they put up to ensure the first ever minimum wage, we respect the courage shown by people uniting and laying down of their tools to ensure women were paid equally.

This is not a case of pitting the plight of our Black Country ancestors against the horrendous treatment of the people who were enslaved. It is saying that in many cases working class Black Country people and black slaves were victims of the very same people who profited from their labour.

To cause offence intention is important and there is no intention to offend anyone with the Black Country flag. If I am honest most people I speak to are not offended.

The Black Country flag was designed by 12-year-old Gracie Sheppard in 2012. It features a glass cone to represent the glass industry of the Black Country. The cone is flanked by black and red panels inspired by Elihu Burritts famous description of the area black by day and red by night, and the chain across the centre represents the chain industry in the region but is also to symbolise the linking up of the different communities.

I believe we should all take time learn about the remarkably interesting history of our region and it should be open for discussion.

Each year we celebrate Black Country Day on July 14th. We have a Black Country anthem and Black Country flag.

I am not an expert, just someone who loves the Black Country and exploring our history.

I am proud to fly the Black Country Flag.

Steve Edwards

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Black Country Festival founder on the meaning of the Black Country flag - expressandstar.com

‘Haiti Betrayed’ Reveals Reality Behind Canada’s Reputation as Peacekeeper | Fringe Arts – The Link

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Fringe Arts by Mzwandile Poncana Published July 17, 2020 |

In one of the opening scenes of Haiti Betrayed, a Haitian man stands alone outside of the Canadian embassy in the arid landscape of Port-au-Prince, yelling out in frustration.

His cries are clearly directed towards the Canadian government and its presence in Haiti.

With his back towards the camera, he screams: We dont have anything against Canada! Why are you against us? Why do you hate Haitians?

This is a pinnacle moment, as the film spends its entire length tackling these questions.

Cinema Politica is a non-profit media organization, founded in 2003, that regularly screens political, alternative and radical films at Concordia. At the screening for the film Haiti Betrayed, one of the researchers involved in the making of the film, Nik Barry-Shaw, mentioned it was created within an eight-year process.

That broad time-period is unsurprising, as the film effortlessly weaves together various moments in 21st century Haitian history.

The film is calmly narrated, yet abrasiveand centres Canadas responsibility over Haitis current political-state as something that has been historically ignored, but now cannot be turned away from.

Director Elaine Brire said the film began accidentally. Whilst on a photography project in Haiti in 2009, she had been taking photos in Cham Mas, a major square in Port-au-Prince, when a poor man approached her. The man mistook her for a journalist, and told her she didnt know what was really happening in Haiti. There had been UN soldiers patrolling the area, so she neared him so they could speak more discreetly.

They are killing us! he told her. We are poor people. Tell them to stop. And then he began to cry and walked away. Brire said this moment shook her to the core, and her film was consequently a response to this mans plea.

As the film recounts, Haiti began as a slave colony and became the worlds first Black republic after the Black Haitian slave armies defeated Napoleons French army in 1804. Encountering freedom in a world that was still riddled with slavery, Haiti was shut out of the worlds economy.

As Brian Concannon, the executive director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, mentions in the film, if Haiti was allowed to succeed, it would have proven to the world that Black people were competent enough to run their own country.

Because the West feared slave revolts in their own nations, they attempted to discredit Haiti by either ignoring or exploiting itFrance demanded Haiti pay it 150 million francs in exchange for its freedom, and America only acknowledged Haiti as a state 58 years after its independence.

Then, on top of still dealing with the extreme debt Haiti was paying to the French government, Haiti was obliterated by discriminatory foreign practices in the early 21st century.

This included the U.S. invasion of the country from 1915-1920, where U.S. marines gained control over Haitis national bank and customs operations. This also included the Haitian Massacre by the Dominican Republic in 1937where the racist Dominican president, Rafael Trujillo, massacred up to 35,000 Haitian immigrants at the border because he saw them as racially and culturally inferior, and therefore an inhibitor to the growth of the Dominican economy.

After the massacre, Trujilio was ordered by the U.S. to pay Haiti reparationsbut not all of it was paid, and, due to corruption by the Haitian government, not all of the funds paid reached the families of victims.

Courtesy Elaine Brire

The documentary is conscious of this broader history of Haiti, whilst it specifically centres on Canadas involvement in Haitis political state. The film is particularly concerned about how Canada helped to topple Haitis first democratically elected government.

The elected administration was the political organization, Lavalas and it was headed by President Jean-Paul Aristide, who won the election in 1991. In the film, Patrick Elie, Haitian Secretary of State for Public Security from 1994 to 1995, with stars in his eyes, describes the Lavalas administration as one that wasnt pursuing greater political power for its own interests, but as one that consistently pushed forward what the people of Haiti truly wanted.

Haiti at this time had an impoverished majority, and Aristide was mostly popular because he spent his career advocating for this group.

One of his main priorities was to redistribute the nations wealth in a more equitable way.

The Lavalas administration had numerous successesHaitian literacy rate increased by 20 per cent, malnutrition dropped by 12 per cent and 138 new secondary schools were built in 14 years.

Its shameful that the treatment of Haiti is disguised as helping Haiti. Elaine Brire.

During this time, there was an extreme power imbalancethis inequality was due to the country being mostly controlled by a small group of wealthy families, according to the film.

These families, backed by multinational corporations, opposed the Lavalas government and its dedication to forcing tax collections from the rich.

The disapproval eventually led to the forced removal of the Lavalas administration from office, twicethe first time with the help of the Haitian army in 1991, and then, again, with the help of the U.S., France, and Canada in 2004.

As well as France and the U.S., Canada had pernicious reasons for supporting the 2004 coup that led to the ousting of the Lavalas government, according to the film. (France had felt threatened by Aristide in 2003after he gave a speech demanding that France pay Haiti reparations of 21 billion US dollarsthe modern day equivalent of the 150 million francs that Haiti was forced to pay France after the end of slavery.) Canada has since used the coup as a way to further exploit Haiti.

An example of this exploitation is the Canadian company Gildan, whose workers in Haiti made less than a dollar a day whilst the company gained millions. The Aristide government attempted to double the minimum wage but this was not seen as popular to some of the rich elites. The exploitation of Haitian workers by Canadian multinational corporations therefore continued.

In the film, the revelations of Canadian complicity hit viewers like a brick, and whenever its done, its accompanied with an ominous audio back-track that rouses feelings of suspiciousness and unease. Its similar to the music youd hear in true crime dramas; its as if the film is sonically replicating the clandestine, stealthy nature of Canadian foreign policy.

Another repeated feature that permeates the film is its fearless attitude towards the presentation of violence. Images of brutal attacks against Hatians, lifeless mutilated bodies lying in the streets, burning vehicles; these are all casually shown without warning, in a bland, understated and emotionless manner. This seems strategic, as it mirrors the indifference foreign nationals express towards the suffering of Haitihow ignorance has become more normalized than intervention.

Brire said she was selective about the violence she chose to include. It was imperative to include an accurate example of the brutality without being too gratuitous, she said.

Because the film focuses mainly on events around the Aristide administration, it doesnt completely extend to Canadas current complicity in Haitis political state. The Mose administration came into power in 2016. The poor majority have largely protested his regime for its fuel hikes, corruption, high rates of unemployment, spiking inflation, currency devaluation, and extrajudicial killings by government officials.

Ottawa, however, supports the government and its repressive police force. Canadian officials have blamed any violence on protesters, and have told them to resort to ballot-boxes and voting instead of protesting. This is ironic, as Canadian officials took part in election interference when they raised funds in order to exclude the Lavalas party from running in the 2010 Haitian elections.

The Mose administration itself was brought into power through voter suppression. One in five eligible voters votedhe therefore only received 600,000 votes in a country made up of 10 million citizens. After protests arose due to his election, Canada released a statement defending him.

Canada has repeatedly ignored the violence of the Mose administration. Perhaps the most egregious example of this violence is in November 2018, when the U.N. confirmed involvement by the Haitian government in a massacre that left up to 71 people dead in Saline, a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.

According to an article in Ricochet, Canadian police have also provided support and training to the violent forces that have maintained Moses rule, and have remained silent on it.

When asked if the film resonates with the current turbulence around the Black Lives Matter movement, Brire agrees there is a relation, as Canada has become a full-fledged member of the club that keeps the boot on Haitis neck and doesnt let them breathe. She acknowledges how the histories of Haiti and Black Lives Matter are both rooted in colonialism, and how Haitis suffering is rooted in its existence as the worlds first Black republic.

Its shameful that the treatment of Haiti is disguised as helping Haiti, said Brire.

I wonder when we are going to let go of punishing Haiti every time they try to bring a modicum of social justice to their long-suffering people.

At the end of the film, were circled back to the man yelling outside the Canadian embassy, in the dusty, open terrain of Port-au-Prince.

We are tired, he chants. The Haitians arent against you! Why are you against the Haitians? Why do you support the forces against the people? he asks.

The film ends thereleaving the audience, together with the man, begging for an answer.

*The film Haiti Betrayed is available for rent through the Cinema Politica On Demand Service. It can be accessed here.

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'Haiti Betrayed' Reveals Reality Behind Canada's Reputation as Peacekeeper | Fringe Arts - The Link

How Deaf Youth of Bangalore stepped up in a time of crisis – The Hindu

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As the pandemic and resulting crises of unemployment and mass migration of labourers in Bengaluru began escalating, so did the harrowing incidents of starvation and deprivation. Moved by the plight of migrants stranded around the city, Siddharth J Menon (22) and his friend Avinash Jalari (23), decided to do something to help.

As persons with hearing impairment themselves, the duo could relate to the predicament of fellow sufferers. Putting on their prior experiences of volunteering for various NGOs to use, they began rounding up such aid as they could in terms of cash and kind from family and friends and formed Deaf Youth of Bangalore (DYB).

After collecting about 2.5 lakh in a weeks time, the DYB team made a room in Siddharths home their base of operations and began packing provisions of rice, flour, pulses and oil they had collected, into parcels for distribution. Mindful of lockdown protocol the team would sanitise themselves and wear masks while stepping out. By word of mouth and contacts within their group, the team began delivering these essentials, says Jayshankar A V, Siddharths father.

However, once they got started, they realised they could not turn a blind eye to other migrant workers, street dwellers and daily wage earners who were also suffering and they began to provide for them too, he adds.

Eventually, the group moved to making and packing biryani as meal packets that they distributed to those camped at KSTRC bus stations, police stations and other areas. For over a fortnight, the DYB team went about the city offering whatever relief they could, in whichever way they could, despite a lack of skilled training in social work.

Looking forward, the DYB team hope to register their NGO and diversify their sphere of aid for the needy.

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COVID-19 Pandemic: KIIT & KISS Rise to the Occasion – Kashmir Observer

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SRINAGAR: Following the traditions set by its founder Prof Achyuta Samanta,Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) and its sister institution Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS),hasresponded swiftly tothe raging pandemic by helpingreduce the suffering of people.

Soon afterthe outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic,the institutionreachedout to the worst-affected, touching the lives of patients, stranded migrant workers, people living in containment areas and even starving animals.

Predicting the challenges that lay ahead, KIIT & KISS initiated an action plan to help the worst-hit sections of the society. It was the first mover in creating awareness on the disease even before the State reported its first coronavirus case. Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), the medical wing of KIIT, organized alecture on CoronaVirus A Global Threaton 1stFebruary, 2020 in which standardinfection control strategies to prevent the spread of coronavirus was discussed. Subsequently, Kalinga Institute of Nursing Sciences (KINS) and KIIT School of Public Health also joined the awareness effort.

The student community is one of the worst affected groups in the present crisis. Examinations, admissions and academic sessions all remain disrupted. KIIT Deemed to be University, which has been recognized as an Institution of Eminence by the Govt. of India, has 30,000 students from all parts of India and over 50 countries. Another 30,000 underprivileged students study in KISS, the worlds largest fully-free fully-residential institute exclusively for tribal students. Anticipating the problem early, all the students of KIIT and KISS were safely sent back to their homes well before India declared the nationwide lockdown.

But for KIIT and KISS students, being away from the campus did not mean academic loss. KIIT is the first University to have begun online classes for 30,000 students. Encouragingly, about 95% of the students are attending the online classes, conducted through Zoom, regularly. Not only online classes, but there is good participation in the one-day academic seminars conducted online, with overwhelmingly positive feedback from the students. As such, KIIT has been able to maintain the academic calendar perfectly so far. If the crisis persists for a longer time, KIIT has made all preparations to conduct online examinations also. Similarly, 30,000 tribal students of KISS are in constant touch with their teachers through WhatsApp groups. KISS has taken initiative to start e-Learning classes for them through Kalinga TV.

While in their homes in various districts of Odisha, KISS students are actively engaged in creating awareness on social distancing and respiratory hygiene in their areas.Involving the students of the institute, KISS launched Project Uday, a massive awareness campaign on social distancing, proper use of mask, hand washing andrespiratory hygiene in six aspirational districts of Odisha: Rayagada, Malkangiri, Koraput, Kandhamal, Balangir, and Gajapati. Under Project Uday, students are carrying out door-to-door campaigning and organizing awareness camps at market places. More than 500 volunteers are involved in the project covering 220 villages.

In one of the most significant measure in Odishas war against Covid-19, Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) set up Indias first standalone COVID-19 hospital, a 500-bedded ultramodern facility including 50 critical care beds, with the support of the Govt. of Odisha.This Covid Hospital is functioning from a dedicated block of KIMS with an exclusive team of doctors, nurses, paramedicsand housekeeping staff.The quick turnaround time in setting up of the state-of-the-art dedicated Covid Hospital received much praise. Today, KIMS is the go-to hospital for any suspected coronavirus patient in the capital city of Bhubaneswar.

The vision of Shri Naveen Patnaik, Honble Chief Minister of Odisha in tackling the pandemic has been proactive and ahead of any other Indian state. The MoU with KIMS takes that vision one step further. KIMS will definitely put in all possible effort to justify the Chief Ministers faith and fulfill his vision, and serve the people of the state in a better and bigger way. I hope that this partnership will bear fruit and we can soon have a COVID-19 free Odisha, said Prof. Achyuta Samanta, Founder, KIIT & KISS.

In anticipation of the possible spike in positive cases in districts, KIIT has also set up three 200-bedded COVID-19 hospitals, one each in Kandhamal, Balangir and Mayurbhanj districts, with the support of the respective district administration. In Balangir and Mayurbhanj, the facility functions from the satellite campuses of KISS, which were inaugurated recently. All three District COVID-19 Hospitals, already operational from the mid of April, are managed by KIMS and provides round the clock services following WHO and ICMR guidelines.The Covid Hospital in Kandhamal, a district having no railway connectivity, is a boon for the local people, who are yet to be exposed to the world of high speed internet connectivity. Besides Covid Hospital, KIIT & KISS are providing groceries and cash for miscellaneous expensesto over 40 orphanages, old age homes and leprosy centres in Kandhamal district.

Another constituent of KIIT,KIIT-Technology Business Incubator (KIIT-TBI) under KIIT School of Biotechnology, has been recognised as a Centre for Augmenting War with COVID-19 Health Crisis (CAWACH) by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India, along with other eminent institutes in India, including IITs. KIIT-TBI is responsible for implementing this program in East & NE.

The Covid-19 pandemic is not only a global health emergency, it have also caused a grave humanitarian crisis due to prolonged lockdowns and loss of livelihoods for millions. KIIT and KISS have been trying to identify and reach out to various groups facing hardship due to the extended lockdown. It distributed family survival packets comprising of essential food items like rice, pulses, cooking oil, etc. to the disadvantaged people living in various slums in Bhubaneswar. The survival packets were giventhrice a week for the first month during lockdownto40,000 people in the slum areas of Bhubaneswar.

We are doing our bit to ensure that vulnerable sections of the population around do not face starvation. We are augmenting the efforts of the State Government, which has robust policies for such sections, in a humble way, Prof. Samanta said, while urging every citizen to do whatever best they can individually and to support the local administration in these challenging times.

KIIT also took initiative to deliver cooked food to police personnel on duty, who were diligently enforcing the lockdown. Lunch was provided every day to more than 2000 police personnel across Bhubaneswar as well as adjoining cities of Puri and Cuttackto honour their work to make people aware about Covid-19.

The institution is working closely with the Govt. of Odisha to provide all support from its available resources like logistics, infrastructure, healthcare, human resources, etc. It provided temporary shelter and cooked meals to migrant labourers, who were stranded in Bhubaneswar, after the lockdown was announced.More than 1000 migrant workers were helped in this initiative.After some areas in Bhubaneswar were marked as containment zones, it distributed food and essential items to the people of the zone. KISS worked closely with the American Embassy in the evacuation of personnel who were stuck in Odisha and other adjoining areas. It also distributed feminine hygiene products to women and girls in all the districts of Odisha.

Other community outreach activities include provision of one month supply to the Tibetan population in Chandragiri and Padmasambhava Monastery in Jiranga, a Tibetan settlement area in Eastern Odisha; adoption of two old age homes in Chandragiri.KIMS is also supporting a hospital in Jiranga and has provided PPE to the health workers.

Reaching the unreached, KIIT & KISS extended a helping hand to the red light areas in Bhubaneswar. Groceries and other essentials were provided to the needy. KIIT, KISS, Sakha and Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives came together to distribute ration and essential items for the transgender community in Bhubaneswar, Rayagada and a few other districts of Odisha.

KIIT and KISS even set up a team to source and distribute fruits, vegetables, biscuits and other food materials to animals like monkeys, cattle and dogs, in and around the campus. It has adopted 140 peacocks in Bhubaneswar is taking care of these beautiful birds and providingfinancial assistance to more than 10 Goshalas in Puri, Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. I wish to remind everyone that while we need to be kind to every other human through social distancing, we must not forget about these animals who are so much dependant on us. Show some kindness, bring a smile to everyone in this difficult time, says Prof. Samanta.

COVID-19 pandemic is the most serious global health crisis of our times and also the toughest humanitarian challenge. It has extracted a huge human toll, besides causing big setbacks to the economy. Our efforts are a drop in the ocean and aim to bring smiles on the faces of as many people as we can touch. But, I am sure, together, we will overcome this crisis also, he added.

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COVID-19 Pandemic: KIIT & KISS Rise to the Occasion - Kashmir Observer

Eicha – the question that reverberates throughout history – The Jerusalem Post

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It is a fundamental principle of Judaism that events in our lives not only on a global or national level but on a personal level as well do not occur randomly. We believe that God is both timeless and transcendent; He takes an active part in the shaping of history and guides the world through its every moment. The Talmud succinctly expresses this concept when it says: No one so much as cuts his finger in the world below, unless it is ordained in the world above.We are now in the midst of the Three Weeks Bein Hamtzarim as we commemorate the dreadful events which resulted in the destruction of both the first and second Temples, along with numerous other tragedies, such as the Inquisition. Yet these misfortunes did not occur haphazardly, in a vacuum. As we recite annually in the prayers of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot, Because of our sins, we were exiled from our land. These sins are cataloged in numerous talmudic tractates, and they include the neglect of Jewish education, the lack of respect for elders and scholars, and, of course sinat chinam, baseless animosity toward our fellow Jews.All the accumulated flaws in our collective behavior combined to create Tisha Beav, the Black Fast that is considered the low point of our calendar year.I want to suggest that the underlying causes of the destruction can be summarized in just one little word: Eicha. This is the title of the book known as Lamentations in English that we read in its entirety on the night of 9 Av. Fittingly, it is the only one of the five megilot that is read exclusively at night, as we turn down the lights and sit mournfully in semi-darkness. But the question eicha? is not reserved for Tisha Beav alone; it reverberates throughout history.It appears when an overwrought Moses laments to the people: Eicha how can I alone bear your struggles? (Deuteronomy 1:12). Moses was never one to shirk from work or challenge, but he recognizes that, in the final analysis, it is ultimately the nation that must carry the burden, and not the individual. While we are fond of saying great leaders make great nations, Moses, in his unparalleled wisdom, knew the truth is quite the opposite: A great people will invariably cause great leaders to arise.We failed as a people when we allowed our national institutions to become self-serving, engaging in constant corruption and endless even brutal competition and conflict with one faction against the other. We failed when we neglected to call out the evil-doers and demand a high moral standard from our leaders; when we practiced rigidity rather than flexibility in the law and, of course, when we awash in our seemingly endless good fortune showed cynical disdain for the other. Only when a nation as a whole fails so miserably, says Moses, can a disaster as great as Tisha Beav occur.Later, the prophet Isaiah wails (1:21), Eicha how has this faithful city [Jerusalem] become as a prostitute! Lusting after the practices of the nations, desperate to be loved, a harlot sells out her principles to the lover who offers the highest bid. A prostitute has no intrinsic identity; she is a body (politic) for hire, her passions directed solely by those who pay her fee. Isaiah bemoans that in spurning our true benefactor, our eternal soul-mate, Israel compromised its relationship with God, leading to our destruction.HE IMPLIES that as a nation, we must remain loyal to who we are; we must not allow our desire to find acceptance in the world at large cloud our historic vision and pervert our unique character. To be a leader as Abraham the Ivri epitomized you must sometimes stand on the other side of the divide, determined to represent a truth and a mission to which the entire world may object. Finally, Jeremiah, the prophet of the destruction, cries out in Eichas opening verse: Eicha how did Jerusalem become so alone, so like a widow? Just as a woman who has lost her husband feels abandoned, deserted, defenseless, we left ourselves vulnerable to the insidious neighbors surrounding us. With the demise of our relationship with God and our unwillingness to repent and so rekindle that sacred union we became prey to our enemies. They sensed that we no longer had our partner to guard and protect us, and so we were decimated.There is an expectation on the part of the nations that we will be a light, a guide to a more perfect world. That often creates a double- or even triple-standard, but like it or not, that is the creed we live by. If we have skewed all the graphs and survived throughout the ages against all odds, it is precisely due to our adherence to a higher (read: holier), calling.This year will undoubtedly be known as the Year of Corona. But it should also be called the Year of the Protest. Even under the ominous cloud of the virus, there have been massive demonstrations in Israel and worldwide, railing against all forms of hardship and injustice, real or presumed.This, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. The right to protest, along with the right to speak ones mind and hold ones own opinion, no matter how unpopular, is a fundamental right of all people.Yet along with blaming others for our problems, we also have to look inward, at our own behavior. Using the same letters of Eicha (Genesis Rabba 4:10), God calls out to Adam, and to humankind in every generation: Ayeka, where are you?!That first Adam replied, And I hid. But we know that we cannot escape or hide; we must look in the mirror and confront our actions, recognize our failings, and commit to correcting the national sins that resulted in our dispersion and degradation.The Talmud (Taanit 29a) records that on the eve of the Temples destruction, young priests ascended to the roof with the keys to the Temple in their hands. Master of the Universe, they cried, we did not merit to be faithful keepers of Your house, and so we are handing you back the keys. They threw the keys up in the air, and a heavenly hand reached out and took them.It is only when we realize that we hold the keys to our own destiny and the ability to right the wrongs of our society that the dark countenance of the Black Fast will turn into a great and shining light. The writer is director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Raanana.jocmtv@netvision.net.il

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The seed that is sown | Community And Lifestyles – atchisonglobenow.com

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Last Sunday, we heard a reading from the Matthew 13: 1-23, in which Jesus tells the parable of the man who went out to sow seed. Some fell in places where it failed to grow and some into good soil where it yielded a rich harvest. I began to think about the life of seeds. I heard a sister ask another sister, The package says these seeds are from 2019. Will they still grow? How long will a seed last? The other sister assured her, Yes, they will grow.

This reminded me of a discovery by a doctor in Israel named Sara Sallon. She got a disease when working in India that was cured by traditional herbal remedies. This planted a seed in her mind, and so she pursued obtaining ancient seeds like those from the famous date plantations along the Dead Sea 2,000 years ago as described by Pliny and by the first-century historian Josephus. Most people would say that those places are not there anymore, and that their dates have just vanished. Sallon realized, though, that seeds from those trees still existed. They had been recovered from archaeological sites. So she went to the archaeologists and proposed planting some of those seeds to see if they would grow again. It didnt go well at first. They thought I was mad! she says. They didnt think that this was even conceivable. But she planted one and it grew. Then she went to another site, where there were seeds that were found in the place where the Dead Sea scrolls had been found and she planted more. Now that there are both female and male plants growing, she hopes that they will be pollinated and can then produce dates of the same kind that Jesus ate as he was walking around on earth. Imagine 2,000 year old seeds producing fruit!

We have an amazing seed too, that is, the seed that is planted in our hearts by God. These seeds can last forever but are of no use if we do not use them. They live in us and wait to be heard. The spiritual writer Richard Rohr says, When weve ignored a thousand invitations, theres still another one waiting.

In the gospel, Jesus goes on to explain the parable to his listeners. The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word but doesnt understand and it is lost. The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who initially hears the word with joy, but when trouble comes, falls away.

The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears but then is distracted by anxiety or riches and bears no fruit. But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears, understands and bears fruit. Jesus uses the word hear 14 times in this one teaching.

I recently had a hearing test where I had to repeat a sentence I was listening to while there were other competing voices on the recording. We are always hearing voices competing with the voice of God. Sometimes they are good voices, speaking words that go with Gods words, like voices we hear about racism or care of creation or abortion and other life issues. Sometimes they are voices that try to drown out the voice of God, as with those who say that their personal rights and freedom are more important than the common good.

There is a saying from the Jewish Talmud that says, We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are. Jesus teaches us that we have to attend to the message of the word with the ear of our heart in order to be penetrated by what God planted and bear fruit.

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The End of Anti-Semitism – Aish

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We need to stand up and speak out.

On April 11, 1944, a young Anne Frank wrote in her diary:

Who has made us Jews different from all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly until now? It is God Who has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again. Who knows it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason alone do we now suffer. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or representatives of any other country for that matter. We will always remain Jews.

Anne Frank was on to something. The Talmud asks, from where did Mount Sinai derive its name? After offering a few alternatives, the Talmud suggests that Mount Sinai comes from Hebrew word sinah which means hatred, because the non-Jews hatred of the Jews descended upon that mountain when the Jewish people received the Torah there. Torah demands a moral and ethical lifestyle, an attitude of giving rather than taking, a life of service rather than of privilege, that has revolutionized the world.

The Jewish people have been charged to be the moral conscience of the world, a mission they have not always succeeded at, but that nevertheless drew the ire, anger and hatred of so many. For two thousand years the Jews were bullied and persecuted simply because of their Jewishness and all that stands for.

After the Holocaust, the world gave the Jews a reprieve from their hatred, becoming instead beneficiaries of their pity. But looking at events around the world, it is rapidly becoming clear that the last 75 years was an aberration. We have witnessed the rise of anti-Semitism around the world as the world reverts back to its ageless pattern and habit.

The Midrash (Eichah Rabbah 1) teaches that three prophets used the term eichah o how! In Deuteronomy, Moses asks: "Eichah, how can I alone bear your troubles, your burden and your strife?" (Deut. 1:12) In the Haftorah for Shabbos Chazon, the Prophet Yeshayahu asks: "Eichah, how has the faithful city become like a prostitute?" Lastly, Yirmiyahu begins the Book of Eichah: "Eichah, how is it that Jerusalem is sitting in solitude! The city that was filled with people has become like a widow..." Eicha How? How is it that anti-Semitism persists? Why must they rise up against us in every generation?

On Tisha BAv we will sit on the floor and wonder aloud, eicha? How could it be Jews have to fear for their lives yet again? Eicha how could it be that today, with all the progress humanity has made, more than a quarter of the world is still holding anti-Semitic views?

Rabbi Soloveitchik tells us that though the Midrash identifies three times the word eicha is used, in truth there is a fourth. When Adam and Eve fail to take responsibility, God calls out to them and says ayeka, where are you? Ayeka is spelled with the same letters as eicha, leading Rabbi Soloveitchik to say that when we dont answer the call of ayeka, when we dont take personal responsibility for our problems and blame others, we will ultimately find ourselves asking eicha, how could it be?

We can ask eicha, how could all of these terrible things be, but we may never have a definitive answer. Our job is to make sure we can answer the call of ayeka, where are you? Are you taking responsibility? We may not be able to fully understand why anti-Semitism exists, but we can and must remain vigilant in calling it out, confronting it and fighting it. We must remain strong in standing up for Jews everywhere. We must confront evil and do all we can to defeat it.

And, we must do all that we can to take personal responsibility to fulfill the Jewish mission to bring Godliness into the world. If individual Jews were hated for being the conscience of the others, all the more so does a Jewish country generate hate for being the moral conscious of the whole world, held to higher moral standards than any other country or state.

Our job is not to be discouraged by asking eicha, o how! but to ensure that we can answer the call of ayeka, where are you. Anti-Semitism will not come to an end by assimilating and retreating. It will come to an end when we can positively answer the question that the Talmud tells us each one of us will be asked when we meet our Maker: did you long for the redemption and did you personally take responsibility to do all that you can to bring the redemption? Did you truly feel the pain of exile and feel the anguish of the Jewish condition in the world? Do you truly and sincerely care? Did you anxiously await every day for Moshiach to herald in an era of peace and harmony, an end to anti-Semitism and suffering?

It is not enough to long for Moshiach, we must bring him. It is not enough to hope for redemption, we must be the catalyst for it. It is not enough to be tired of eicha, we must answer ayeka. If we want to get up off the floor and end the mourning, if we want to finally end anti-Semitism, it is up to us to do what is necessary to heal our people, to repair the world, to love one another, and to earn the redemption from the Almighty.

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Q & A: Making Up For What We Missed (Part XIII) – The Jewish Press – JewishPress.com

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Question: The Covid-19 pandemic has put an end to almost all public gatherings; hence, much of Jewish congregational ritual has come to a halt. Is there a way to make up for everything we missed?

M. Goldman

Answer: Last week, we quoted extensively from Kaddish: Its Origins, Meanings and Laws by the gaon HaRav Dovid Assaf, ztl. We begin this week with another quote from his work:

A stubborn and rebellious son ben sorer umorer (Deuteronomy 21:18) is stoned to death at the entrance of his fathers houseas though to say (Ketubot 45a), See what he has reared! All the more so in the case of a sonwho refuses to recite Kaddish altogether, whom the Rabbinical court is not obligated to force.

Nevertheless, if at all possible, one must certainly try to persuade him. It is written (Leviticus 1:3), yakriv oto lirtzono lifnei Hashem he shall offer it willingly before Hashem. He shall offer it this implies coercion. Yet it says (infra 1:4) vnirtza lo lchaper alav it shall become acceptable for him, to atone for him, which implies a voluntary action! How to reconcile these two contradictory statements?

The Talmud (Kiddushin 50a) explains the concept of voluntary coercion, that it is really for the persons own good: every Jew, deep down, wishes to fulfill the commandments of the Torah; however, he is occasionally prevented from doing so by his evil inclination. Some initial coercion, however, has the effect of bringing his will to the fore.

The idea that every Jew, deep down, is righteous is evident in the following unusual Talmudic ruling: [If one approached a woman and said, You are betrothed to me] on condition that Im righteous, the woman is betrothed even if he is [known to be] surely wicked because we suspect he had a hirhur teshuvah [i.e., he mentally decided to repent].

The author continues: In my book Yalkut Das vaDin, I printed a letter that I received from my friend Rabbi Yaakov Chai Zerihan, zl, who was the Chief Rabbi and Av Beit Din of the holy city of Tiberias. In short, he agrees with me that a son cannot be forced to recite Kaddish for his father, and differs with Rabbi Tukaccinsky, zl, on this matter. He reiterates the point made above that in any case the Kaddish of a wicked son [who is forced to recite Kaddish for his father] would do more harm than good.

It is obvious that both Rabbi Assaf and Rabbi Zerihan are discussing the distressing case of a son who refuses to allow himself to come under the influence of the rabbis. But Kiddushin 50a, which Rabbi Assaf cites, teaches us that there really is no wicked son, only a wayward son, who with some initial coercion can be brought back to the straight path.

Indeed, most would view such a son saying Kaddish as a step, even if only a small one, up the ladder for his own neshama as he offers nachat ruach (tranquil satisfaction) to the soul of his parent as well.

We have cases of anus rachmana patrei of heaven absolving a person if he is prevented from fulfilling a mitzvah (in this case, saying Kaddish) due to matters beyond his control, but how will the soul receive the nachat ruach from Kaddish for which it desperately awaits in such circumstances?

(To be continued)

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Music streaming platform, Audiomack expands to Nigeria; Afrobeats seems to be the catch – Techpoint Africa

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Global free music streaming platform, Audiomack recently announced its expansion to Nigeria, specifically in Lagos.

To this effect, three Nigerians that have been on the team were selected to oversee the operations. Adeyemi Adetunji was appointed as head operations and commercial partnerships; Charlotte Bwana on business development and media partnerships; and Olive Uche on content strategy. This makes Nigeria the 55th country to have Audiomacks presence.

Before now, Audiomack has been showing interest in Africa for a while. According to this report, the company claims its plays have grown more than 1,600% over the past 14 months in Africa, while it has been a sponsor for Afrochella and Afronation in the past year.

Apparently, the free streaming platform has been favourable towards Nigerian artists in particular. And this is deduced from Techpoint Africas chat with Omoregie Osas Reggie! a Nigerian rap artist. He says Audiomacks choice of Nigeria is not surprising because many Nigerian artists perform a genre it generally supports Afrobeats.

Audiomack is one of the few streaming platforms that recognises Afrobeats as a genre. So, they have playlists, chart countdowns, and many more dedicated to the genre.

For Reggie!, this is simply another global platform recognising Nigeria as a major hub for Afrobeats. And he thinks its only right they start there, he says.

Interestingly, the attention on the Nigerian music industry lately has been encouraging. While the likes of Apple Music, Deezer, and Shazam have been in the green-white-green space for a while, Google-owned YouTube Music only joined in March.

Reggie! attests to how Audiomack has improved engagement and followership on his content even though he only joined the platform about a year ago.

Being a free platform, artists can simply upload their content on Audiomack website, conversely, theres the option to upgrade to premium so that they can get paid.

Reggie! surmises that an artists choice depends on what they want from the platform. For him, his presence there is for generating followership and engagement.

It is quite clear that the Nigerian entertainment industry is still plagued with IP-related violations. Hence, using free streaming platforms to generate attention while in the process of creating content they would like to get paid for seems like a good shot.

While keeping in mind how this global attraction might be affecting African streaming platforms like Boomplay and MusicTime!, it still remains that music consumers in the country seem to know where to look for their preferred content.

Photo by Zarak Khan on Unsplash

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Music streaming platform, Audiomack expands to Nigeria; Afrobeats seems to be the catch - Techpoint Africa

Flight review: Finnairs business class on the Airbus A350 from Hong Kong to Helsinki – The Points Guy UK

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Flight review: Finnair business on the A350, Hong Kong - Helsinki

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How to create an Airbnb listing and list your home or apartment on the platform – Business Insider – Business Insider

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Creating an Airbnb listing can take a while to accomplish since you need to provide a lot of information.

However, in general the process can be broken down into three main steps: provide your basic listing information, add photos and any other additional information about your listing, and establish your rates and rules.

Here's an in-depth overview of how to set up an Airbnb listing.

1. Go to the Airbnb listing creation page on your Mac or PC.

2. Fill out your basic listing information, like what kind of listing you want to create (house or apartment, for example), whether the guests would have the place to themselves or if they'd be sharing the space with you, and if the property is primarily for guests or if you keep your stuff there. Click "Next" when done.

Fill out your listing's basic information. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

3. Fill out your guest accommodations, like how many people can stay and the number of beds and bedrooms available. Add the number of bathrooms your space has available for guest use.

Fill out your listing's accommodations. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

4. Fill out the address for your listing. Drag the pin on the map to the correct location, if needed, then click "Yes, that's right" to continue.

Confirm your listing's location. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

5. Add the amenities you will offer guests by ticking the corresponding boxes.

6. Decide which spaces in particular will be available for guest use and then click "Finish" when ready.

7. Click "Continue."

Click "Continue" to move on to the next set of steps. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

8. Upload your photos, or select "Skip for now."

Upload photos or choose to do it later. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

9. Add your listing description, as well as any other information you want to include, like information about your availability or the neighborhood.

10. Add your listing's title.

Choose a name for your listing. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

11. Click "Continue" under "Get Ready for Guests."

Click "Continue" to move on. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

12. Review Airbnb's guest requirements, and add any of your own, if desired.

13. Create your house rules.

Create rules for your listing. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

14. Review your house rules and guest requirements, and click "Edit" or "Review" if you're unsure, otherwise click "Next."

15. Review how guests will book your place. You can click "I want to review every request," if desired.

Click "Next." Devon Delfino/Business Insider

16. Tick the box next to, "Got it! I'll keep my calendar up to date."

17. Say whether you've rented your place out before, and how often you want to have guests.

18. Decide how much notice you want for bookings as well as check-in information.

19. Add how far in advance guests can book your place.

20. Create your minimum and maximum nights' booking requirements.

21. Add your availability to your calendar.

Fill out your calendar settings. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

22. Decide your various pricing information.

Decide your pricing. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

23. Decide if you want to offer a deal to first-time guests.

24. Add desired discount information for longer stays. Click "Next."

25. Review your local laws and tax information, then click "Finish."

Click "Finish" to finish setting up your listing. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

Keep in mind that you may also be required to register your listing with your city before it can be published.

Axel Springer, Insider Inc.'s parent company, is an investor in Airbnb.

Insider Inc. receives a commission when you buy through our links.

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