Monthly Archives: July 2020

To Drive Financial Inclusion, Businesses and Nonprofits Must Come Together, Says This Executive – Triple Pundit

Posted: July 5, 2020 at 10:03 am

For Theresa Bedeau, senior manager for community development banking at Capital One, the racial wealth gap is not some distant concept its personal.

I grew up in New York City, in the Bronx, and I understood the impact of lack of financial inclusion in my own community, she says. My neighbors lack of economic mobility was not due to any individual shortcomings, but the reality in which we had to navigate our world, which had unequal access to opportunity. Her firsthand knowledge of how financial barriers can limit peoples prospects has made Bedeau a champion of driving financial inclusion among communities that often go underserved.

Indeed, the racial wealth gap has limited opportunities for people of color in the U.S. for generations and it persists even as other socioeconomic gaps narrow. The wealth gap between black and white families grew from about $100,000 in 1992 to $154,000 in 2016 and research indicates it could grow even wider in the wake of COVID-19.

A May study from the International Monetary Fund examined how past pandemics, such as SARS, H1N1 and Ebola, affected wealth disparities. They found that these pandemics raised income inequality overall and hurt employment prospects for those without advanced degrees. This is consistent with recent findings from the National Bureau of Economic Research: Within the bottom fifth of U.S. income earners, who are more likely to be black or Hispanic, 35 percent lost their jobs during the first two months of the pandemic, compared to 9 percent in the top fifth of earners.

Along with holding communities of color back from opportunity, McKinsey estimates the racial wealth gaps dampening effect on consumption and investment will cost the U.S. economy $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion between 2019 and 2028 or 4 to 6 percent of the projected GDP by the end of this decade.

Those numbers are real, Bedeau says. By acknowledging that, we can see that we have a lot of work left to do. Conversations around racial equity can be hard to have, but theyre necessary.

Businesses, particularly those in the financial services sector, have a clear role to play in delivering financial inclusion and empowering more people economically, but they cant go it alone. To drive maximum impact, companies must not only partner with nonprofit organizations and community groups, but also listen to them and value their guidance as experts in what their neighborhoods need, Bedeau says.

Financial inclusion is so much more than owning a bank account. Its about being active participants in the wider financial community and how people want to manage their financial lives, she explains. Part of the way we build trust between a financial institution like ours and the community is to partner with community groups. We have a shared commitment, working with organizations that support entrepreneurship and business ownership. Financial inclusion also begins with savings and a journey toward financial independence and wealth generation for communities that are generally underserved.

A 2017 survey from the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.)showed that 20 percent of households are underbanked or underserved, and 40 percent of Americans cant cover a $400 emergency expense. As COVID-19 continues to disrupt lives and livelihoods, these issues are becoming even more pronounced. Nearly half of Americans are worried about the pandemics impact on the economy and their financial lives, and 53 percent of lower-income adults reported having trouble paying some of their bills in April.

A wide variety of people might face barriers to financial empowerment from students uncertain about how they will fit into the modern workforce, to seniors struggling to understand online and mobile banking, to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to bootstrap their businesses.

The focus of Capital Ones nonprofit partnerships is to reach all of these groups. We have strong, deep relationships with community organizations, Bedeau says. What I love is that we work with these organizations in our daily work. Connecting with them helps ensure that our products and tools are meeting the needs of the community and addressing the challenges they face.

Building greater capacity for financial inclusion is essentially about a commitment to economic justice, she continues. Take, for example, Capital Ones work with the Long Island Community Foundation to close the racial wealth gap in the borough, with the potential to add a $24 billion boost to the local economy. The partnership is community-led so that it can be responsive to local needs. That is really reflective of the way we approach our community partnerships, Bedeau says.

Founded in Queens, New York, in 2008, Grameen America builds on the legacy and proven model of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus. His revolutionary but simple idea is that all people can lift themselves out of poverty through their own entrepreneurial spirit.

Grameen America, a longtime Capital One partner, provides microloans starting at no more than $2,000, along with financial training and support, to its members. As part of the program, members open free savings accounts with commercial banks, including Capital One, and make weekly deposits.

The target population is women who live below the federal poverty line, for whom the mainstream financial system is often out of reach. The women Grameen serves previously had few options for accessing capital, and most lacked bank accounts and had little to no credit history.

Grameen Americas programming has expanded to 15 U.S. cities, disbursed $1.42 billion in loans and served 129,000 women. For more than a decade, Capital One has been supporting Grameen Americas microloan programs in New York City, Houston, Miami and New Jersey, along with technology and capacity-building initiatives to help scale and empower more low-income women entrepreneurs. And theres a huge demand for that support, with an $87 billion gap in financing for small businesses.

The women in Grameen Americas program use their microloans to launch a wide range of small businesses everything from selling empanadas out of a shopping cart to a full-fledged restaurant and business storefront, says Alethia Mendez, vice president of operations and program strategy for Grameen America.

A key part of Grameens approach is its peer-to-peer lending model. A cohort of five women, who are known to each other through friends and the community, make lending decisions collectively, forming a trust network, Mendez explains. This helps encourage responsible financial practices and repayment.

The more than 99 percent repayment rate is a testament to the power of the cohort and those individuals who society might not consider credit-worthy, she says. One of the biggest influencers is that they dont want to let each other down. These are women who are friends, trusted individuals from their community, so in a sense they have created a bond of accountability.

For Bedeau, what makes Grameen America so impactful is that they listen to what people on the ground say they need.

Their recipe is quite simple: Meet the women where they are [and] connect them with the right financial products and services, she says. "At the core of what they do is understanding peoples needs and how they want to live their lives. For many of these women, it might be the first time theyve opened a savings account. Working with Grameen America presents a great opportunity for us to build a relationship with these women and support them in their goals to build wealth for themselves, their families and their communities.

There is a huge demand for more solutions like these. The number of women running businesses has doubled over the past two decades. But in the U.S., women are the recipients of only 4 percent of all small business loans, and the lending gap is even wider for women of color, as TriplePundit has previously reported.

Fundamentally, we believe that both the private and public sectors have a responsibility to do more and to be intentional about this type of support, Mendez says. Capital One has been a strong partner and supporter, from a programmatic as well as a philanthropic and funding perspective. These partnerships advance financial inclusion for the women they serve and also build our own capacity as an organization, so we can be strong for the hundreds and thousands of women we work with.

This article series is sponsored by Capital One and produced by the TriplePundit editorial team.

Image credit:Christina @ wocintechchat.com via Unsplash

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NON-FICTION: WANTING TO BE UNWED – DAWN.com

Posted: at 10:03 am

Lets clarify at the outset that Single by Choice: Happily Unmarried Women! is not as some would immediately assume a book of angry rants spewing venom against men. Instead, this anthology of essays, edited by Kalpana Sharma, is about that bizarre concept unthinkable in our part of the world: freedom of choice as applied by women to their own lives.

Nowhere are women more limited for choice than on the subject of marriage. From a very early age, marriage is pushed as the end goal for almost every girl, as the defining moment when she can start to experiment with, and experience, life. Want to wear make-up (for many of my generation, at least)? Do it after marriage. Want to travel? After marriage, with your husband. Want to live on your own? Heres hoping you can after marriage.

Its not surprising then that, for most of the essayists, remaining single was a choice they made after experiencing a little bit of life. As they dove headfirst into fulfilling careers and enjoyed the financial independence it brought, as they grew more mature and observant, as their parents eased up with what will people say?, the pot simmering with marital possibilities kept getting pushed to yet another backburner, until it eventually fell off the stove altogether.

Sports journalist Sharda Ugra gets it spot on. Having built a comfortable life, with her own apartment and freedom to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, she asks a very pertinent question of Marriage itself: What is it you offer me in exchange for turning away from this life?

Standard answers pour in: security (not always; married women are routinely threatened with eviction by husbands and in-laws), companionship (husbands do die, even the most loving ones), and children to safeguard against loneliness in old age (until they move away). Social validation is a very important factor: marriage is seen as an achievement, cementing the fact that a woman was pretty enough, desirable enough and valuable enough to be acquired by a man.

A book of essays presents the other side of the story, heart-warming and funny accounts of women evading the pressures of settling down

Fairly weak arguments, really, but alas, so deeply rooted.

As for counterarguments, the first would probably be that women who choose to remain single must have some raging vendetta against men. The actual case is far different. Several writers mention wanting or having had long-term relationships with kind, caring and sincere men, but almost all are aware that once marriage is formalised, the dynamics of a relationship change. This is not hostility towards men, but towards typified gender roles which are strengthened within the institution of marriage.

It is not a question about domesticity either, of mad, career-driven harpies who refuse to cook and clean. These women cherish their homes and speak of the joy they get from cooking and taking care of their houses, their families and their friends. Perhaps it is an aversion to having their domesticity dictated by someone else. They must exchange how they want to live, with how they must live.

For men, it would be similar to being a seth, as opposed to working for a seth. As Laila Tyabji, chairperson of an NGO for womens empowerment, writes in Being Single is Not Being Solitary: life on my own terms seemed increasingly delightful and, gradually, the compromises and adjustments of marriage seemed more and more claustrophobic. She goes on to point out that this does not mean celibacy, adding, My idea of bliss became a lover who lived down the lane.

The second argument would be placing the greater good above individual choice. The pursuit of individual choice is often considered detrimental to the fabric of society and, more often than not, is not expected of women. Journalist and author Freny Manecksha writes in Happily Unmarried Ever After about campaigns in the Parsi community, encouraging marriages and procreation. The goal was to raise the numbers of a dwindling community, and it involved denouncing single Parsi women as selfish for not wanting to become baby-making machines. The women towards whom these campaigns were aimed rightfully laughed in the campaigners faces.

Most of the 13 essays in the book are heart-warming and funny accounts of young women evading the pressures from family of settling down. In Slouching Towards Singledom, magazine editor Aditi Bishnoi sketches a hilarious image of her parents creating a marriage profile for her. Others write of finding one tactic or the other to delay or avoid meetings, keeping at it long enough to limbo-dance their way out from under the marriageable age bar that grows comfortingly closer with each passing year.

But, as human rights activist Asmita Basu writes in Im Not in Transit, the point is not to glorify a single life or denounce all marrieds. Each state has its unique advantages and disadvantages. And so, Single by Choice presents the other side of the story, too, with several essays taking note of the pitfalls of never having been in a conscious coupling.

There is, of course, social ostracisation at a wedding celebration, Manecksha is not allowed to participate in a Parsi fertility ritual of planting a mango sapling. There are workplace issues, where a single woman is not given the same considerations as married women who have husbands and children and so can claim social legitimacy.

Then, most importantly, there is the difficulty of finding a place to live and being allowed to live there in peace. In Single And Free, copy editor Sherna Gandhy writes of single women having to endure suspicious glances from watchmen, neighbours, and of being seen by the censorious as being fast a sentiment echoed by Tyabji as well as doctor and professor Vineeta Bal, whose every visitor to her university campus housing man, woman, young, old is scrutinised, the implication, again, being that the lady of the house has by virtue of being unmarried no virtue to speak of. In Dalit writer Bamas essay Uphill Flows the River, being a single woman in her village is such an anomaly that her neighbours advertise to all and sundry that I live alone, and by doing so, put my safety in jeopardy.

Essentially, what it all boils down to is this: women are tired of being told how to live and some of them are finding the courage to do something about it, by not doing what is expected. They have nothing against marriage, but they dont see it as the right option for them. And thats all they ask, for the freedom to live as they please.

The reviewer is a member of staff

Single by Choice: Happily Unmarried Women!Edited by Kalpana SharmaWomen Unlimited, IndiaISBN: 978-9385606229152pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, July 5th, 2020

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Gendered Perspective on Access to Justice in Myanmar’s Refugee Community during COVID-19 | Towards Global Goals 2030 – OneWorld.net

Posted: at 10:03 am

New Delhi: COVID-19 pandemic cannot be viewed solely as a health and economic crisis. Besides inhuman conditions people live in even as they fight the pandemic, there is an upswing in gender-based violence. According to a report by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) titled Gender-based violence and COVID-19[1], gender-based violence (GBV)increases during every type of emergencybe it economic crisis, conflict or disease outbreaks.

Another report titled, WHO Warns of Surge of Domestic Violence in Europe, a six-month lockdown could see an increase of GBV cases by 31 million worldwide.Dr Hans Kluge, the Regional Director for Europe for the World Health Organization (WHO), the UNFPA has warned that there could be an extra 31 million cases of gender-based violence if lockdowns were to continue for six months, he said.

To cite an instance, the Rohingya community in the Cox Bazaar area of Myanmar live in unplanned, unsanitary refugee camps with little financial and humanitarian aid, let alone medical facilities. But this pandemic has a fiercer impact on the women in the area who not only face the above mentioned threats but are now also silent victims of a deeper structural menace of gender-based inequality and violence.

The formal justice system in Myanmar to protect women in poorer regions such as Rakhine has failed to deliver. The problem lies not only in the administrative backlogs like corruption but also with the capillarity of structural patriarchy that runs through the entire system. Reporting of gender abuse and domestic violence would not only entail shame in the community and probably the risk of losing out on the economic safety net provided by the patriarch in the family. Cultural values and norms which reinstate patriarchal attitude within the communities also stigmatise women who are divorcees. Thus, formal authorities are likely to treat issues of domestic abuse as marital discord rather than actual acts of criminal violence. This has created a norm of reluctance in reporting cases of GBV. Only nine cases of domestic violence and two cases of sexual assault were recorded through a questionnaire given to 1,252 households[2].

While formal mechanisms of justice were always out of reach for women who were impacted by GBV, the informal means of justice through communitarian and self-help groups has been reduced significantly due to COVID-19-induced lockdown. Thus, NGOs and humanitarian workers can do little. Additionally, safe spaces and other non-essential services have been forced to cease operations, amputating any recourse mechanisms for GBV victims.

Further, poverty and lack of financial independence amongst women in the Rohingya community has led to inadequate access to internet and mobiles, especially during the time of a pandemic. This has impacted womens access to information on crucial issues like safety shelters, self-help groups, justice missions and basic knowledge regarding maternal healthcare and sanitation.

Many NGOs and self-help groups like Myanmar Womens Affairs Federation and UNICEF Safe Spaces in Cox Bazaar have started a policy of door-to-door information dispensation and gender-based sensitization.[3] However, this is a less effective measure as in-home activities do not solve the vulnerability of women who continue to struggle within the four walls and share the same restricted space with their oppressor/s.

This issue, therefore, needs to be looked at from a holistic point of view to guarantee women access to increased informal means of justice coupled with self-confidence building measures to battle structural prejudices associated with domestic violence. However, these should also be accompanied with tangible efforts towards economic self-sufficiency by increasing skill training and jobs for women. Labour force participation in Myanmar is disparate at 51.3 percent for women against 79.9 percent for men.[4] In order to reduce reversal of progress made in realising SDG 5 for Gender Equality and SDG 16 for a more equal and inclusive society, the government of Myanmar and UN Womenneed to adopt and adapt to the new normal imposed by the pandemic conditions. Collective sensitization of society and informal conduits of justice needs to be strengthened through a bottom-up approach to challenge deep-rooted patriarchal power structures that are bulwarks against women achieving justice and gender equality.

(Tamanna Dahiya is an intern with OneWorld Foundation India)

References:

[1] Gender-based violence and COVID-19. UNDP, United Nations, https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/womens-empowerment/gender-based violence-and-covid-19.html

[2] Consolidated Summary Report Access to Justice and Informal Justice Systems: UNDP in Myanmar. UNDP, United Nations , http://www.mm.undp.org/content/myanmar/en/home/library/democratic_governance/Consolidated_Summary_Report_Access_to_Justice_and_Informal_Justice_Systems.html.

[3] Preventing a Silent Crisis for Rohingya Women and Girls during COVID-19 Pandemic. UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/coronavirus/preventing-silent-crisis-rohingya-women-and-girls-during-covid-19-pandemic.

[4] Human Development Reports. | Human Development Reports, hdr.undp.org/en/composite/GII.

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New Zealands other pandemic political correctness – Spiked

Posted: at 10:03 am

Post-BLM, even a popular ice-cream brand name can be deemed a source of racial oppression.

Alongside Covid-19, it seems another debilitating infection has returned to New Zealand: the pandemic of political correctness.

Political correctness is, of course, an opportunistic affliction, something that most on the left carry asymptomatically. The problem for everyone else is that were all potentially exposed to its chronic stupidity.

The new outbreaks latest victim? Ice-cream.

The humble Eskimo Pie, an ice-cream treat beloved of Kiwis for generations, is to be renamed in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the globe. That it wasnt an indigenous circumpolar person killed by a police officer in Minneapolis makes no difference. Its now just not cool to call Inuit people all 183,000 of them Eskimos.

Times change but its still a chilling move, if youll excuse the pun. No one of Inuit descent has complained about the brand name Eskimo Pies, though in 2009 an Inuit visitor from Canada, Seeka Lee Veevee Parsons, did say she was shocked by the sale of Eskimo lollies another Kiwi favourite in New Zealand.

Nevertheless, the maker of Eskimo Pies, Tip Top, has decided to drop the name so as to be part of the solution on racial equality. How changing the name of an ice-cream sold for decades in a country more than 12,000 kilometres from even the closest Inuit native is part of the solution to racial equality remains unclear.

And no word yet on what the ice-creams new name might be, but one presumes it wont be Inuit Pie or Yupik Sandwich. Odds on itll be something as inoffensive as possible perhaps something catchy like frozen, smooth, semi-solid vanilla foam coated in cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Itll likely have to be zero-sugar and low-fat, too.

One person who presumably wont be eating whatever Eskimo Pies become, though, is New Zealand Herald reporter Siena Yates. Yates, an entertainment reporter, wrote an op-ed explaining why shes decided to have weight-loss surgery.

Were all fatphobic apparently. And, as it turns out, racist and a bit sexist. Thats why Yates, a person of colour, is overweight and now in need of surgical intervention. Fatphobia is all related to anti-blackness, says Yates, quoting US academic and author Sabrina Strings who, in her book Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, said that during times of colonisation and slavery, overfeeding and fatness were evidence of savagery and racial inferiority.

Sure, journalism these days is a tough gig, but its not yet slavery as far as I know. And this diagnosis will likely come as a surprise to the huge numbers of non-slaves also suffering from obesity around the world.

Heres a simple piece of weight-loss advice, Siena: lay off the (Eskimo) pies.

John Mitchell is a writer based in New Zealand.

Picture by: Sarah Cohen-Rose and Chris Cohen, published under a creative-commons licence.

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Trump’s political NDAs are an abomination to the First Amendment. – Slate

Posted: at 10:03 am

President Donald Trump in the White House press briefing room on Thursday.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Donald Trump has long revealed himself to be a bully, one who punches down yet screams bloody murder when someone else so much as taps him. Nowhere is this trait more manifest than in his free speech hypocrisy. Throughout his political campaigns and his presidency, Trump has routinely decried the scourge of political correctness, slammed the weakness of snowflakes who cant handle his telling it like it is, and demanded the right to publish factual misstatements without correction on private social media platforms. Yet Trump has wielded the extraordinary powers and privileges of the presidencyusing everything from the presidential bully pulpit to the classification system to his leverage over executive branch personnelto threaten, intimidate, and punish those whose words embarrass or anger him.

Lest the advantages of his office not fully protect him from unwelcome speech, Trump also continues to employ a technique that he has long used in his private life, his business life, and his political life: contracts featuring nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses, or NDAs. At the moment, Trump is engaged in litigation to stop the publication of a book by his niece, Mary Trump, which reportedly contains damaging revelations about him. Because Mary once signed an NDA, Trump has declared that she is not allowed to write a book. On Wednesday, a New York Supreme Court appellate judge lifted a temporary restraining order on publication of the book. Given the heightened public interest in information about the president and the strong presumption against prior restraints on publications of any kind, the interests at stake are on Mary Trumps side.

Of course, though, Trumps penchant for NDAs goes well beyond his own family. More troubling still is his practice of requiring campaign staffers and White House employees to sign sweeping NDAs that bar them from criticizing Trump, his family members, or any Trump organizations for the rest of the signers lives. A recently filed case, now pending in federal district court in Manhattan, offers a fresh look at Trumps use of NDAs to muzzle former campaign staffers.

In Denson v. Donald J. Trump for President Inc., Jessica Denson, who worked on the 2016 campaign, seeks a judgment declaring that the form NDA that the campaign required its employees, contractors, and volunteers to sign is unenforceable. When Denson filed a previous state-court lawsuit against the campaign raising claims related to her employment, the Trump campaign sought to enforce the NDA against Denson through arbitration, claiming she violated the NDA by filing the lawsuit. Although an arbitrator initially granted damages to the campaign, a New York state appellate court vacated the award on the grounds that public policy prohibits parties from using NDAs to punish individuals for filing lawsuits. The court did not weigh in on the validity of the NDA itself, noting that any challenge to the campaigns NDA would have to be presented to the arbitrator in the first instance. While the campaigns arbitration proceedings were pending, Denson filed a federal lawsuit seeking to have the NDA declared invalid. The federal court agreed with the Trump campaign that Denson had to resolve her claim through arbitration. When Denson sought to initiate her own class arbitration challenging the NDA, however, the campaign asserted that it could itself choose to bypass arbitration, and insisted that the plaintiff file her purported claims in court. In her current lawsuit, filed last month, Denson does just that.

The NDA that Denson challenges is breathtaking in its scope. Its nondisparagement clause prohibits campaign workers, for the rest of their lives, from demean[ing] or disparag[ing] publicly the campaign, Donald Trump, Trump family members, or Trump companies. The nondisclosure clause forever bars campaign workers from revealing confidential information or using such information in any way detrimental to Mr. Trump, his family, or any Trump businesses. Confidential information includes any information with respect to the personal life, political affairs, and/or business affairs of Mr. Trump or any Family Member. On the off chance that the definition leaves some kernel of information unshielded, it extends as well to all information of a private, propriety or confidential nature or that Mr. Trump insists remain private or confidential (emphasis mine).

Denson argues that the NDA is invalid on multiple grounds, including the First Amendments speech and press clauses and New York state contract law. Among Densons contract law arguments is the notion that any benefit from enforcing the contract is outweighed by the public interest in the free exchange of ideas. At the heart of each legal claim are two key insights about free speech in a democratic system. First, the right of the people to criticize and to share information about government officials is essential to democracy and the rule of law. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has extolled our profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. Second, speech that scrutinizes government officials is as vulnerable as it is valuable. One need not be a hardened cynic to fear that those who wield power will use it to suppress their critics. This commonsense insight is manifest in numerous aspects of First Amendment law, including the presumption against content-based restrictions on speech and the high bar that public figures must surmount to win damages against speakers who defame them.

The Trump campaigns sweeping NDA affronts these foundational principles. This would be so even if Trump had not won the presidency and were merely an influential politician. That he is now the president of the United States makes starker still the NDAs insult to free speech and democratic discourse.

Finally, although the courts may not need to reach Densons First Amendment claim, given the strength of her state law positions, it is important to put to rest the notion that the campaigns NDA is a purely private instrument, and that the First Amendment therefore does not apply. It is true that the campaign organization technically is a private and not a governmental entity. However, the NDAs terms extend well beyond the time of Trumps candidacy and pertains to all information and views about Trump the president as well as Trump the candidate and private citizen. It seeks to stifle any unapproved utterance, from thousands of individuals throughout the course of their lives, about the president of the United States. The First Amendment would mean little if its protections could be circumvented so easily.

Trump has made clear that he values free speech only for himself and his supporters. The Constitution and the laws of New York state are not, thankfully, so selective.

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Brenda Bussiere: What is going on? – The Bethel Citizen

Posted: at 10:03 am

Defund the police? Someones breaking into my home. Lets see, who do I call?

The school board, the mayor?

Does anyone even truly consider this?

Lets think about our public school system. No God, no Pledge of Allegiance, no morals, no respect for authority, only political correctness.

The Left and most Democrats believe only their opinion can be heard. They would do away with American history, our forefathers monuments, documents, the Constitution, the flag itself. And no more history without revision.

So, if you are a Christian, a believer of anything good in this country, love the flag and patriotism, you are called a racist.

George Floyd was murdered by a police officer. The law and justice must be done. Racism does not excuse looting, rioting, burning a church, destroying cities and businesses many owned by Black people.

Anarchy will serve no one. What do you bet they try to defund and disarm the military next.

Oh, wait. Obama and the Democrats already did that in the last presidency.

Brenda Bussiere, Turner

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An Uncomfortable Guilt: The excuse of politics is not why people avoid talking about systemic racism – Milwaukee Independent

Posted: at 10:03 am

You can run, but you cant hide. American idiom

They are just angry because the truth you speak contradicts the lie they live. Steve Maraboli

White people who are afraid of the truths exposed about racism in recent weeks and months as a result of the resurgence of expressions of Black Lives Matter have cleverly hidden from the conversations by claiming they are too political.

This is a method deployed to avoid having conversations that are too hard to handle by far too many whites in this country. As they have continued to deny the presence of systemic racism, conversations have been stifled by those who claim they are too political.

Politics is defined as: of, relating to, or concerned with politics; of, relating to, or connected with a political party. If a particular political party chooses to ignore these conversations it is their choice. Dont let so-called politics be your excuse. Be honest and say you dont want to talk about it. Be honest and say it brings up too much guilt.

When white people have been mistreated in this country they have had free rein to express their displeasure, standing behind the First Amendment argument of free speech. Dont we as people of color have freedom of speech as well? Or is our freedom of speech limited by what white people want to hear? Wasnt this country founded by white people who were expressing their displeasure with the King of England?

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natures God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separationThe history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these StatesIn every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Declaration of Independence (July 1776)

As the nation celebrates Independence Day on the anniversary of the independence of white colonists from a despotic King, I look and ask when our Independence Day is coming. When will these words in the Declaration of IndependenceWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happinessapply to people of color?

Were celebrating two hundred years of white folks kicking a$$. Richard Pryor on the July 4th 1976 bicentennial celebration

As people of color, particularly Blacks, struggle to have our voices heard, we get constant pushback, repudiation, snubs, rebukes, rejection, spurning, repulsion, and refusals to listen by uncomfortable white people. Why are they so uncomfortable hearing our side of the story? Because it conflicts with the lies they tell, believe, perpetuate, carry on, maintain, sustain, eternalize and believe to the depths of their souls.

One of my favorite words in the English language is obfuscate. It means, to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy; to make obscure or unclear. We are in the midst of some of the most profound obfuscation in the history of this still fairly young nation. Many older people of color will tell you they miss the old days when racism was clearly expressed by white people. They dont say this because they enjoyed it. Its because its better than people lying to your face saying they are not racist all the while they are committing racist acts. It does not really matter if the biases are unconscious or conscious, they cause the same pain.

When I hear white people say they are uncomfortable talking about racism I think to myself, how do you think we feel being victimized by racism? Many white people are uncomfortable talking about something that we cant stop talking about because it is our lived experience every day of our lives whether white people see it, believe it, admit it, understand it, consider it, give credence to it, or deny it. It does not go away because white people are all of a sudden woke. Most white people have been sleeping like Rip Van Winkle, except he only slept for 20 years.

Now one of the tools of obfuscation is the good ole trick of changing the narrative. Some white people work really hard to convince us that we are delusional, and that we keep bringing up the past indiscretions of white people to make them feel guilty. If a white person feels guilt its on them. We did not cause it. Their actions and the actions of their ancestors caused it. Are we to simply forget what happened to us? Should we just stop talking about it? Do some people prefer that we live in the future instead of the past and present?

The truth is still the truth, even if no one believes it. A lie is still a lie even if everyone believes it.

When I hear that we are bringing up old things like slavery, and Jim Crow segregation, Im reminded that slavery and Jim Crow segregation are not responsible for the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. We dot have to go back very far to find white indiscretions. They happen every day. Here are a few recent headlines to remind you.

Colorado Police Officers Under Investigation For Photos At Elijah McClain Memorial

Two Florida officials fired for erasing faces of Black firefighters from city mural

University of North Carolina Wilmington professor behind vile racist and sexist tweets to retire

Woman Yells You Live Off White People in Racist Rant at BLM Protesters

NC Hampton Inn Employee Fired After Calling Police on Black Guests Using the Pool

Trump shares video of white couple pointing guns at protesters in St. Louis

Target employee says N.Y. customer demanded she remove Black Lives Matter mask

Austin schools suspend Black students nearly 5 times as often as white students

A Black man tried to cash his first paycheck. The teller called 911.

All of these headlines happened within about a week. Racism has not gone dormant during the protests, in fact its rearing its ugly head on a consistent basis if you pay attention.

Some accuse the protestors of politicizing race. Lets explore what that looks like historically. Politicians are also known as lawmakers. Lets take a look at some laws they have written in this country.

ALABAMA

ARIZONA

FLORIDA

GEORGIA

NEW MEXICO

OKLAHOMA

WYOMING

These laws were all written by white politicians. So I guess in this way race is about politics. Yet when we bring up this type of politics, white people in many instances get mad, and storm out of the room. They accuse people of color of using the race card. White people created the race card. They hold all the trump cardsno pun intendedin the deck.

One of my least favorite phrases in the English language is political correctness. So I guess if people whove been called spics, niggers, chinks, and such, begin to demand that people use terms that are not demeaning, then they are asking people to be politically correct. No they are not! They are telling you that they dont want to continue to be called racial epithets just because white people love those words so much. People who complain about political correctness are people who dont have a problem with schools around the country being named after Confederate generals, or sports teams like The Washington Redskins. In their way of seeing the world, people of color are being overly sensitive and are revisionists historians, trying to destroy the beauty of America.

Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monumentsthe beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced! President Donald J. Trump, tweet 17 August 2017

Back in the early years of the twentieth century a battle was being waged by some leaders in the Black community. They were trying to get white people to capitalize the word negro. They saw it as a sign of respect if the word was capitalized. White people continued to use the lower case version.

While many white people have turned books like So You Want to Talk About Race and How to Be an Antiracist into bestsellers, other white people wont even say the phrase Black Lives Matter out loud. Some white people want to learn and some are apparently not ready to budge on issues of racism. What can we do?

Take advantage of the moment. Appreciate that some white people are woke right now. Invite them to learn, and talk about racism before it falls out of vogue. We know this momentum wont last forever. Get the conversations in while you can. Understand that some people will never shift their position and move in the direction of being either non-racist or actively anti-racist.

Use your influence to get as many white people to the table to talk as you can now. Understand the tremendous peer pressure many white people feel from family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers to not talk about racism. And finally, stop calling it political when it has nothing to do with politics, its about human decency and respect. Its time to learn and unlearn. One does not work without the other. Lets follow the example of the post-Apartheid South Africa.

To provide for the investigation and the establishment of as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human rights committed during the period from 1 March 1960 to the cut-off date contemplated in the Constitution, within or outside the Republic, emanating from the conflicts of the past, and the fate or whereabouts of the victims of such violations; the granting of amnesty to persons who make full disclosure of all the relevant facts relating to acts associated with a political objective committed in the course of the conflicts of the past during the said period; affording victims an opportunity to relate the violations they suffered; the taking of measures aimed at the granting of reparation to, and the rehabilitation and the restoration of the human and civil dignity of, victims of violations of human rights; reporting to the Nation about such violations and victims; the making of recommendations aimed at the prevention of the commission of gross violations of human rights; and for the said purposes to provide for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. South African Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act 34 of 1995

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An Uncomfortable Guilt: The excuse of politics is not why people avoid talking about systemic racism - Milwaukee Independent

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Guest opinion: Cory Carroll: Helmigs work has saved lives – The Daily Camera

Posted: at 10:03 am

By Cory Carroll

I read with interest Katie Langfords June 19 story regarding Dr. Detlev Helmig. I was drawn to this since I have not only used Dr. Helmigs research in my work, but also presented with him to audiences along the Front Range.I do not want to discuss guilt or innocence. I want to point out the draconian actions by the University of Colorado Boulder on a professor with a proven track record of accurate, unbiased, and critically relevant research.

If Dr. Helmig is guilty of monetary improprieties, as implied by the university, I will guarantee it was a mistake. My assertion is that Dr. Helmigs work revealed the health hazards from fracking, and those wells are owned by an extremely powerful group (the oil and gas industry), and that group wanted him silenced.

As a family physician and chair of Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado, I want to know as much as possible about seen and unseen hazards that harm my patients, and the citizens of Colorado. The pollutants that Dr. Helmig measures harm people. Prior to his work, there were incomplete assessments on these toxins, but his continuous monitors showed shocking findings.

As a consummate scientist, Dr. Helmig looked at the data and presented the results without bias or political correctness, which created enemies. Some of the pollutants he measured are from the usual sources in cities, exhaust from autos and buildings. However, some of the toxins are unique to the oil and gas activity, mainly fracking, that has proliferated along the Front Range, with a large concentration in Weld County.

What Dr. Helmig showed is that air toxins, from these sites, is transported to the population centers via prevailing winds and is exposing millions of unsuspecting people.

Prior to his work, the reports from the oil and gas companies and the less accurate measurement done by the state indicated there were no dangerous levels. Dr. Helmigs research painted a different picture. A recent paper from February of this year entitled, Air quality impacts from oil and natural gas development in Colorado, and prior publications were a big problem for oil and gas corporations. With the changing Legislature in Colorado and focus to change the regulations over the oil and gas industry, bad publicity was the last thing the industry wanted.

But they had a problem. Dr. Helmig is a respected researcher who has published more than 290 papers and his work has been cited by more than 8,000 other researchers. His work is full of integrity and value.

I do not know of the connections the oil and gas corporations have with CU Boulder, but the decision of the college to terminate a well-respected professor who has ongoing research with outside funding for at least a year is extremely strange, to say the least. When you add that the firing came over a phone call, out of the blue, without any details or opportunity for an appeal, and in one hour all the locks were changed at his lab, his website taken down, phones and emails disabled, it only makes sense that the oil and gas industry has influence at CU Boulder.

The years of work Dr. Helmig provided the university, the value he has provided the local communities, his academic excellence, all destroyed in a day.

Interruption of the valuable research that Dr. Helmig has been doing will cost lives. I have several colleagues in surrounding states who have used Dr. Helmigs work to fight polluters and create healthier communities. We need more professors like Dr. Helmig who are willing to publish the truth and not back down to powerful interests. If we allow the silencing of ethical scientists by unethical institutions, we are doomed as an advanced society.

Dr. Cory Carroll is a board-certified family physician actively practicing in Fort Collins since 1992 and current chairperson for Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado.

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My View: Political Correctness and Other Forms of Insanity Times Square Chronicles – Times Square Chronicles

Posted: at 10:03 am

Its the perfect antidote for our current state of affairs. Stand Up Comedian Steve Solomons latest book (Political Correctness & Other Forms Of Insanity) is loaded with belly-laughs.meaningful (painfully funny) discussions about his: ex-wife, therapist, cats, dogs, and a hundred hilarious topics we all (except Steve) deal with in our day to day struggle with humanity and iPhones.

You will read about the little things that drove Steve into therapy: Press one for english, Dad and Mom entering the digital age, Steves personal urologist, Millennials and last but but certainly not least family dinner; where if youre under 60, you have to stay at the childrens table.

Available on Amazon

To say that an evening spent with Steve Solomon is like being with a dear, funny friend, is an understatement. In truth, an evening with Steve is more like being with dozens of hilarious friends and eccentric members of your own family.

Steve has taken the art of impersonation and honed it into a science. He masterfully weaves different dialects and crazy characters into his stories. These tales take on a life of their own as Steve recounts memorable moments from his past and makes hysterical observations of the things we all relate to.

A native of Brooklyn, Steve grew up in the multi-ethnic neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay. This was the perfect training ground for a dialectician. As the class clown and as a very authentic sounding Chinese restaurant delivery boy, Steve learned at an early age how to use his gift for imitating accents to his advantage.

He also realized that he was a prolific writer of jokes; real jokes. And, blinded by the glitz of show business, he submitted dozens of his stories to periodicals, friends and stand up comics he knew in the business.

His previous book, three-time award winning:My Mothers Italian, My Fathers Jewish & Im In Therapy met with rave reviews and great audience acclaim throughout the country; and became one of the longest running one-man shows in Broadway history.

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Editorial: Gundy and freedom of speech – Tulsa Beacon

Posted: at 10:03 am

Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy is not a racist.

As a college football coach for decades, it would have been impossible for Gundy to hide prejudice if he had even one ounce of it.

Now, the liberal media is feeding the frenzy that Gundy is a racist because he wore a T-shirt with initials of a conservative news network that had the audacity to be critical of Black Lives Matter.

Black lives do matter but all lives should matter.

And free speech should matter.

Universities used to teach that debate and differences of opinion could be tolerate because they promoted intellectual growth and freedom of expression.

But no. Gundy sinned by wearing a T-shirt that with the initials of a network that dared to challenge political correctness.

The term racist has no meaning now because it has been so misused and abused. A racist is someone who hates someone of another race. The media definition now is that you are a racist if you disagree with any part of their leftist ideology.

So Gundy is a bad person because he liked some of the stuff he saw on TV. And the players at OSU now are in control of what coaches should and shouldnt do or wear.

OSU President Burns Hargis quickly abandoned his football coach because even though he pretends to be a conservative Republican, he prefers being liked by ultra-liberal professors to following common sense.

Mike Gundy is a good person and the best coach OSU has ever had. Its a shame that his good name is being dragged through the mud because of a disrespect for freedom of speech.

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