Monthly Archives: August 2021

A two-week exhibition which aims to provoke conversation about race and technology is taking place in Leicester next month.

Identity 2.0, a creative studio exploring digital identity, is launching This Machine is Black, at the LCB Depot.

The exhibition, which explores the relationship between technology and race in a unique interactive space inspired by a garden, will run from August 13 to 30.

It is supported by Leicester City Council and De Montfort University, following the naming of Identity 2.0 as winners of the Smart Leicester City Challenge.

READ MORE: 'Uncover the Story' campaign launched to promote Leicester and Leicestershire as fascinating destination

The space, designed like a garden, is split into four themes: Deep Fakes, Surveillance and Privacy, Afrofutirsm and Abolition. Each contains unique art pieces, created by Identity 2.0 or work from one of 11 commissioned designers, artists and researchers, from a black, Asian or underrepresented ethnic group.

Jada Bruney is a London-based illustrator and graphic designer who has produced work for Adidas, Tate Collective and been commissioned by Merky Books to reimagine The Story of Tracy Beaker in an alternative universe.

Now for This Machine is Black, her work, The Return to the Motherland explores the concept of a retro futuristic second Windrush Generation.

Her bold work including elements of animation and typography, joins the anime, manga and Japanese culture inspired work of Midlands-based artist, Tobi Uzumaki as well as Danielle Williams who hails from Nottingham.

The latter is a 3D artist and Creative Designer who will celebrate Black beauty, pride and raised fists in a work depicting Nina Simone as an ethereal afrofuturist warrior, serving up Black joy through the power of song.

The exhibition will include even more international influences as the Netherlands data scientist and AI artist, Ahnjili explores the human mind and the machine with algorithms to create modular, additive art systems that decay over the course of a day.

This range of commissions are partly funded thanks to the Leicester City Council. This Machine is Black is one of the winners of the Smart Leicester City Challenge, a competition run by Leicester City Council and designed to kick-start innovative projects. The exhibition is also supported by De Montfort University.

Assistant City Mayor for jobs and skills, Cllr Danny Myers, said: Im really pleased that Smart Leicester could support Identity 2.0 through our Smart Leicester City Challenge. It sounds like they will be bringing a really innovative and fascinating piece of work to the LCB Depot, our hub for creative businesses in the heart of Leicesters Cultural Quarter. Im really looking forward to going.

I also look forward to supporting many more opportunities like this through the ongoing work of our Smart Leicester initiative, so that Leicester becomes known as a smart city, focused on using technology for the good of everyone who lives, works or visits here.

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The creators of This Machine is Black, Identity 2.0, have previously produced a range of moments and spaces which aim to push the conversation about digital identity into the mainstream.

Past work includes a digital exhibition (CTRL+U) which reached more than 3,500 people internationally, a self-published zine, a web series and creative workshops. They have been supported and praised by MIT Tech Review Download, Soho House and Airbnb.

The founders, Arda Awais and Savena Surana are two award-winning London based creatives, who work in the creative-tech world, and have been named Web Champions 2021 by Sir Tim Berners Lee.

Talking about the exhibition, Arda and Savena said: Were so excited to bring an important topic to one of the most diverse cities in the UK. Being women of colour, this is a topic which directly affects us, and we want more people to engage with it. We love creating spaces for people to explore what it means to exist online and in a technological world - and using art means that more people can get involved in this important fight for our future.

"We infuse humour, surprises and everyday language to make sure that this is a non-intimidating environment to explore technology. We also hope that this will encourage more artists to think critically about the tech they use in their practices!

Tickets to the exhibition, which cost 3 (or are free to some groups) can be found here.

See more here:

Immersive exhibition exploring relationship between technology and race coming to Leicester's LCB Depot - Leicestershire Live

I want to celebrate the success of the citys Holistic Emergency Alternative Response Team program passing through the City Council. This was an example of the incredible success that can come from community support when we follow the leadership of community members most affected by an issue and support their proposed solution. The Heart program is sitting with the city manager, awaiting final-stage approval and implementation.

As a member of Showing Up for Racial Justice Boston, I have had the chance to be a collaborator and supporter of the Heart program and the incredible leadership of The Black Response Cambridge. It has been powerful to see how our community can come together to work toward a safer Cambridge for all, choosing alternatives to our current policing and carceral system.

Thanks to Cambridge Day for reporting on Heart passing and including the nuances of the councils vote andthe process with the current city manager (Alternative policing proposal for Heart unit passes City Council with hopes for fast action, June 8). This reporting missed the opportunity to name how this program could support us all over us! It decided to focus on the fear of increased violence with this program rather than the immense opportunity to invest in communities, provide differentiated services and allow for people within communities to be trained to care for each other.

I am a passionate advocate for mental health care, community support and relationship building, and I have benefited from these services in my life. I am excited to see Heart bring these services and more to our community. These services will help people in need during a crisis, and on a larger scale, they will build community education, relationships and investment. For example, Heart will offer conflict resolution through Transformative Justice Practices, as well as aftercare support and nonviolent public responses should incidences arise. Heart will also offer community-based skill training, a resource database of other service providers; and mutual aid services to provide access to food, material goods, community and more.

I am eager to see the Cambridge we can build together a Cambridge that is better and stronger for all of us, that centers our most affected community members and that listens deeply to their voices. As Ruth Wilson Gilmore, director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics and a prison abolitionist and prison scholar says, abolition is about presence, not absence. Its about building life-affirming institutions. The Heart program is the affirmation of life and community that we are building together.

Please take the time to talk to your loved ones about Heart and a future without policing and surveillance that would allow us to build and sustain community. Im very supportive and excited to have the Heart program in my community, and hope you are too.

Ellie Carver, Reed Street

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Holistic Emergency Alternative Response Team shows how a community can work well together - Cambridge Day

EDITORS NOTE: Hear Us is a column series that features experts of color and their insights on issues related to the economy and racial justice. Follow us here and at #HearUs4Justice.

After police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, national attention was drawn to the unjust and racist practice of how local governments disproportionately levy criminal and traffic fines and fees on members of Black and Brown communities to generate revenue. Indeed, the subsequent Justice Department investigation and report found that the issues in Ferguson were systemic, and notes that officers appear to see some residents, especially those who live in Fergusons predominantly African American neighborhoods, less as constituents to be protected than as potential offenders and sources of revenue.

While advocacy organizations and policymakers across the country have since moved forward with fines and fee reform in recent years, we must tell the story like it is community members were and continue to be ahead of the game. Back in 2009, the Youth Justice Coalition in Los Angeles County released a report on the pervasive impact of charging fees to the families of young people who were ordered to juvenile detention facilities. They rightly called for the only solution that would provide meaningful relief the complete abolition of fees.

Abolishing criminal fees and writing off current debt is the only systemic, permanent solution to this form of racialized wealth extraction, and it is a solution our communities want and deserve. And its what we say is the solution, as Black and Brown people who ourselves, and whose loved ones, continue to be subjected to targeted policing, hyper surveillance, disproportionate arrests and unjust punishment.

While that rationale alone should be sufficient, fee abolition is also by far the most fair and efficient process to address this issue. Instituting an ability to pay mechanism a process by which a determination is made on whether a person can afford to pay a fee may seem beneficial. But ability to pay is a less effective policy that places high bureaucratic burdens on individuals to prove their economic circumstance; it relies on the discretion of judges or other entities of power (almost never a good thing for BIPOC communities), and it does not address the racism and bias baked into the criminal legal system that inevitably will obstruct the process. As we see from the recent failure of the PPP program to reach Black and Latinx business owners, the last thing that will help Black and Brown communities is a complicated application and administrative process thats required to access relief.

Abolition is the most honest tool at our disposal. It at once validates how inherently broken the system is, and it demands more progressive, pragmatic and restorative visioning of the future. The only way to stop racialized wealth extraction is to stop racialized wealth extraction, not to make it more administratively onerous to dismantle.

In recognition of this reality, last year, through the work and advocacy of the Debt Free Justice California Coalition, California became the first state to abolish more than 20 different criminal fees through the Families Over Fees Act, providing an estimated $16 billion in relief to people across the state. This year, the Governor and the Legislature have the opportunity to continue this work through the Finish the Fees Act, which would eliminate the more than 60 remaining fees that can still be charged to Californians.

The Legislature has included in its budget the elimination of additional criminal fees, including the unjust and economically disastrous $300 civil assessment fee for failure-to-pay and failure-to-appear violations. Abolishing this unnecessary and ineffective fee is a tremendous step towards creating a more fair and equitable California. But the state has another opportunity to further ameliorate policies that only serve to entangle individuals deeper within the criminal legal system. Namely, the issuance of bench warrants.

Advocates and affected communities are sounding the alarm that a collateral consequence of eliminating civil assessment fees could be an uptick in judges relying on the penalty of bench warrants when, for example, a person fails to appear in court. This practice effectively makes an infraction that was never meant to be punishable by jail time - such as a traffic violation one that could land someone in jail.

People fail to appear in court for numerous reasons: lack of transportation or childcare; fear of losing employment for missed work; medical issues; or they simply never received the court notice in the first place. Issuing a bench warrant is unnecessary and egregious, particularly when another highly punitive tool is already in place trial by absentia. Trial by absentia is where the court proceedings move on without the individual present; these proceedings often yield a guilty verdict, a harsh penalty in itself.

Despite this reality, current California law contains numerous provisions that allow for the issuing of bench warrants for traffic and other infractions. In abolishing civil assessments, the state should also amend the penal and vehicle code to remove the possibility of bench warrants for these violations, which only serves to wield and increase police power for infractions that by definition are neither crimes, nor punishable by jail time. A recent story from LA highlights the potential dangers of not eliminating this practice.

California is trailblazing on fines and fee reform with the passage of the Families Over Fees Act last year and now the Finish the Fees Act. But if bench warrants stay within the traffic and vehicle code, we erase the gains we are making toward racial and economic justice. Lets not be short-sighted in our actions. Other states are watching and learning from what we are doing. We hope that Governor Newsom and the Legislature builds on this momentum and that they support what our communities say they need fee abolition and an end to bench warrants. This is a racial and economic justice issue that has been heightened by COVID, and these actions fall in line with the governors own priorities to curb child poverty in California and to commit to racial justice. California has always been a leader in progressive change. Now is not the time to back away from that history, but to lean into it so that other states can learn from us, and follow our lead on fines and fee reform within our legal system.

All three authors sit on the Steering Committee of Debt Free Justice California.

Jhumpa Bhattacharya is the VP of Programs and Strategy at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development.

Stephanie Campos-Bui is the Deputy Director in the Policy Advocacy Clinic at Berkeley Law.

Brandon Greene is the Director of the Racial and Economic Justice Program at the ACLU of Northern California.

Go here to see the original:

Hear Us: California Is Trailblazing the Path to Debt-Free Justice. Other States Should Follow. - Next City

The Sri Lankan public school teachers online learning strike has now entered its third week. Teachers are demanding a salary increase, abolition of existing salary anomalies and withdrawal of the Kotelawala National Defence University Act (KNDUA).

Over 200,000 teachers across the country are involved in the strike, called by the Ceylon Teachers Union (CTU), Ceylon Teacher Service Union, United Teachers Union and several other unions.

The teacher unions were forced to call the online learning strike after police brutally suppressed a protest against the KNDUA on July 8. Several participants, including CTU General Secretary Joseph Stalin, were arrested and detained at an Air Force-controlled quarantine centre.

The KNDUA has been presented to parliament by the defence ministry and will be debated in early August. If passed, it will give the military-controlled tertiary institution, which was originally established to train senior officers, the same powers as other universities, under the University Grants Commission, including to establish more private fee-paying courses. The transformation of the university is part of the governments moves towards the privatisation of education and the militarisation of society. Teacher union officials and others were released in the face of widespread anger over the police crackdown. The unions have been compelled to continue the national strike, because teachers are determined to win their long-standing demands.

The Teacher-Student-Parent Safety Committee (TSPSC) and Socialist Equality Party (SEP) warn that the teachers national strike is at a critical turning point. Despite the governments intransigence and threats, the unions continue to insist that pressure will force it to bow to teachers demands. They are deliberately limiting industrial action, in preparation for shutting down the struggle.

On July 22, over 2,000 teachers marched to the presidential secretariat in central Colombo. Teacher union leaders were summoned to a meeting with senior officials, with Education Minister G.L. Peiris participating via telephone.

Following the talks, CTU General Secretary Stalin told teachers that discussions would be held on Tuesday with the minister and officials, regarding a cabinet paper on their demands. This would be followed by a discussion with President Gotabhaya Rajapakse on July 30.

A similar cabinet paper was prepared by the minister when teachers held a one-day sick leave strike in January 2020. The union bureaucracy hailed this as a victory, but later admitted there would be no change in teachers wages or conditions.

The unions have called for the elimination of salary anomalies, comparing teachers wages with the salaries of other state employees. But instead of uniting all workers in a common fight for decent living wages, the unions are dividing the workers. Likewise, the different unions among teachers are dividing the latter and stoking grievances over grade differences.

The unions are also demanding that teachers service be classified as a separate closed service, meaning that employees can only be transferred within the education sector, not to other public sectors. The unions make the empty claim that this would improve wages and conditions. Closed services in other state sectors, such as the railways and the postal services, have produced no improvements for workers.

The teacher unions leadership now boasts that the unions have never been more united, that they are better able to pressure the government and win their demands. Since 1997, teachers have heard this rhetoric constantly, at protests over the past 24 years, when the unions first called for abolition of salary anomalies.

Teachers must reject union claims that increased pressure will shift the government. In fact, the Rajapakse government, which confronts a profound economic crisis, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, is preparing to unleash even greater attacks on the working class.

On July 24, Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena told the media that the government spends 86 percent of its revenue on state employees salaries and a teachers wage rise was impossible, given the depth of the economic crisis induced by the pandemic.

If the government granted teachers salary demands, it would have to increase taxes and burden the people, he declared, in an attempt to pit other workers and the poor against teachers.

The Rajapakse government, however, has already increased taxes on the masses, while granting huge tax concessions and cheap capital to big business.

Last week, Basil Rajapakse, the newly-appointed finance minister, directed officials to prune state-sector expenditure and not hire new workers. Colombo has slashed imports and forced employees to work in dangerous pandemic conditions, in a desperate attempt to earn foreign exchange to pay huge external debts.

The education budget has also been slashed this year to 126 billion rupees ($US630 million), down from 166 billion rupees in 2019. Only about 1.2 percent of gross domestic product is being allocated to education spending.

In recent months, thousands of health, postal and plantation workers have taken industrial action against government and big business attacks on living and social conditions. Other sections of the population, including poor peasants and fishermen, have protested, demanding financial support from the government.

These struggles are part of a wave of working class resistance unfolding around the world. Like its international counterparts, the Rajapakse administration has responded to the rising social opposition with anti-democratic measures and moves towards a presidential dictatorship.

Help the WSWS expand our coverage on the class struggle!

The trade unions have responded to the rising opposition by doing their utmost to prevent workers coming into struggle. When forced to call industrial action, they treacherously work to contain and then scuttle it, betraying their members demands.

The unions fully backed Rajapakses demand for a reopening of the economy, amid the ongoing pandemic, thus placing workers and their families in harms way. The teachers unions, likewise, have supported the reopening of schools in unsafe conditions.

On May 27 and June 2, President Rajapakse imposed the essential public services act, which bans any strike action and protests by workers in 12 public sector entities. While the government continues to renew this repressive measure every two weeks, it has not been opposed by a single union, including the teachers unions.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, Samagi Jana Balavegaya, the Tamil National Alliance and pseudo-left groups, such as the Frontline Socialist Party, have supported this anti-democratic attack. The Socialist Equality Party is the only organisation to oppose it and call on workers to prepare for struggle to defeat it.

The struggle against Colombos attacks, and the defence of living and social rights, requires a political struggle against the government and the entire capitalist system. The unions are utterly hostile to such a fight.

Teachers cannot allow their strike to remain under the control of the unions. They must take their struggle into their own hands.

We urge teachers to build independent Teacher-Student-Parent Safety Committees at every school, to rally parents, students and other sections of the working class, as well as the oppressed, to defend public free education with the following demands:

This is the program advanced by the SEP in Sri Lanka, as part of the International Committee of the Fourth Internationals fight to develop the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.

The TSPSC will hold an online public meeting on the program for teachers struggle on Friday, July 30 at 7 p.m. We urge teachers, students and workers to participate in this meeting and discussion. Please register for the meeting here.

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A program of struggle for the teachers' wage strike in Sri Lanka - WSWS

It will also have implications for councillors who in May 2022 will have to stand for election to a new unitary authority serving the entire county.

But above all, it will be the around 10,000 council staff across North Yorkshire who will be the most affected by the changes.

When the new authority launches in April 2023 following the abolition of North Yorkshire County Council and the district and borough councils in Harrogate, Scarborough, Selby, Craven, Ryedale, Hambleton and Richmondshire, most staff will be transferred across but some duplicated roles will inevitably be at risk of redundancy.

It is not yet known how many jobs will be affected - and there are also the questions of whether staff will be relocated and what happens to office buildings including Harrogates new civic centre headquarters.

North Yorkshire County Council - which is behind the single council plans and will act as the continuing authority when reorganisation happens - has said those at risk of redundancy will be mostly senior staff and that the transferring of workers will be a simple process.

However, some union officials are not fully convinced.

David Houlgate, branch secretary at Unison Harrogate, which supported rival plans for two new councils split on a east/west basis, said: Whilst we saw merits in both proposals there was a concern that district and borough council roles were at greater risk with the North Yorkshire County Council proposal. It would be safe to say that concern remains.

Staff are also concerned about possibly having to relocate though at this time we have no idea what is likely to happen.

On the other hand, Wendy Nichols, secretary of the North Yorkshire branch of Unison, which supported the single council plans, said reorganisation should be welcomed by all staff who she hopes will work together to deliver a stronger future for everyones benefit.

She said: Many thousands of staff will now simply transfer to the new council as part of the process of setting it up.

Our priority is to make sure that staff experience the least possible disruption so they can get on with their jobs and continue to deliver high quality and reliable public services.

The aim of reorganisation is to unlock the door to a devolution deal with the government which could see millions of pounds and decision-making powers handed down from Whitehall to North Yorkshire.

The county could also get a mayor similar to those seen in South Yorkshire, the Tees Valley and Greater Manchester.

But a key part of the plans is saving money and a large part of this will come from a reduction in staff.

For example, there are currently eight council chief executives across North Yorkshire earning around 100,000 a year.

The new council will just have one - and the same will most likely be said for other top roles including directors.

A spokesperson for North Yorkshire County Council explained: With the exception of a handful of the most senior managers, all staff will simply carry on doing what they are currently doing.

After April 2023 when the new authority is in place some services may want to review their structures and arrangements especially if there is duplication of work and roles or more efficient new ways of delivering services which have been brought together.

The expectation is that whilst over time for some services there will be changes to staffing structures and need for reductions in posts this will be able to be managed by removing vacancies.

For a small number of the most senior managers there will be a need to reduce posts at an early stage when eight senior management teams become a single new management team.

The coming months and as more details emerge about the new authority will undoubtedly be a nervy time for some staff.

Until it starts to take shape, there will be many unanswered questions about exactly whose jobs are at risk and what the new staffing structure will look like.

But officials have insisted staff will play a key part in the process and that they hope workers wont quit local government due to the uncertainties ahead.

The county council spokesperson added: There is a wealth of talent across district, borough and county council staff and it is very much hoped that everyone will see this as a huge opportunity to build a new, ambitious and exemplar council for everyone in North Yorkshire.

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Around 10,000 public sector staff to 'keep doing their jobs' when North Yorkshire district councils are abolished - but unions aren't convinced - The...

Hello, friends.

The second half of the 2021 season remains a fun one for Orioles fans. With a 5-2 win over the Tigers on Saturday, the Os improved to 9-4 coming out of the All-Star break. Thats a fun run of baseball. Its probably not a coincidence that its come when four of the five series theyve played have been against teams out of a race, but hey, wins are wins. Check out Harrisons recap of the game for the lovely totals, and dont forget to vote in the MBP poll.

The last two wins have come with no thanks whatsoever to reliever Tanner Scott, whos done a lot to show why he didnt get traded. Scott faced three batters without recording an out on Friday, and faced three more batters without recording an out on Saturday as well. That included two walks and a hit by pitch; Scott has now walked or hit 19.1% of the batters hes faced this year. Its not great!

Following Saturdays game, manager Brandon Hyde told reporters that Scott has been battling a sore knee that may end up landing him on the injured list, though thats not certain yet. Someones coming off the active roster today, as Keegan Akin will be activated from the COVID injured list and head into the bullpen.

This recent good stretch of Os baseball has shifted their current position in the 2022 draft standings. At 37-66, the Orioles have dropped below the Texas Rangers, recent losers of 12 straight. The Rangers blew a late lead but then won a walkoff in extra innings last night and are now 37-67. This puts the Os in line for the #3 pick. The Orioles are now on pace for a 58-104 record on the season. I think Id enjoy if they could somehow avoid crossing the 100 loss mark, but I certainly wont be holding my breath.

After todays 1:10 finale against the Tigers, the Orioles will play four of their next five series against teams who are contending in the 2021 season. Early August will be the exact opposite in opponent quality compared to the start of their second half. I hope youve been able to enjoy what you could of the last couple of weeks while you could.

Orioles quiet trade deadline signals that return to contention might not be so far away: I think its getting closer (The Baltimore Sun)Some people, including those in the Orioles beat writer class, are drawing inferences from Paul Fry and Tanner Scott not being traded prior to the deadline that I would not draw.

Whats left to look forward to after the trade deadline? (School of Roch)Rochs list of questions for the second half of the Orioles season is so thorough that he even wonders if people will keep mixing up Shaun Anderson and Shawn Armstrong.

What Galviss departure means for Urias and Martin (Baltimore Baseball)Ramn Uras is going to be the shortstop for the next little while, and Richie Martin is going to play in Norfolk once hes through with his rehab. Next!

Phillies tug at heartstrings with Freddy Galviss return (Fangraphs)The lone Orioles trade prior to the deadline wasnt among the more earth-shaking ones made. Fangraphs has some nice things to say about the prospect they got in return, though.

Tyler Alexander, Spenser Watkins face off as ex-teammates (Orioles.com)Todays Orioles and Tigers starting pitchers were teammates at four different levels in the Tigers minor league system. Pretty neat that they are going to be starting pitchers in the same big league game.

Today in 1994, Cal Ripken Jr. played in his 2,000th consecutive game. The Orioles won a 1-0 game over the Twins as Arthur Rhodes pitched a complete game shutout. Rhodes followed with a CGSO in his next game as well, then the strike hit after that. Ripkens streak paused at 2,009 during the strike.

In 2003, the Orioles traded Sidney Ponson to the Giants for three players: Kurt Ainsworth, Ryan Hannaman, and Damian Moss. This trade felt important at the time and ultimately didnt matter at all.

There are several former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2008-18 outfielder Adam Jones, 2002-03 pitcher Travis Driskill, 1975-77 first baseman/outfielder Tony Muser, and 1959 three-game pitcher George Bamberger.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: explorer William Clark (1770), anthem writer Francis Scott Key (1779), writer Herman Melville (1819), fashion figure Yves Saint Laurent (1936), rapper Chuck D (1960), and rapper Coolio (1963).

In 1798, the British fleet launched a surprise night attack against the French navy at Aboukir Bay. When the battle wrapped up two days later, the British had achieved a decisive victory, sinking two French ships of the line and capturing another nine. British admiral Horatio Nelson was made a baron following the Battle of the Nile.

In 1834, Britains Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 came into effect, abolishing slavery in the British Empire, though it lingered through the British East India Company territory for another decade.

In 1914, the conflict we now know as World War I escalated significantly as the German Empire declared war on the Russian Empire.

In 1965, Frank Herberts Dune was first published. The title is recognized as the worlds best-selling work of science fiction. A new movie adaptation is set for release on October 22.

In 1981, MTV went on the air for the first time. The first music video played on the channel was The Buggless song Video Killed The Radio Star.

**

And thats the way it is in Birdland on August 1. Have a safe Sunday. Go Os!

Read more here:

The Orioles are undefeated since the trade deadline and 9-4 in the second half - Camden Chat

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When the Biden administration retreated twice this month from its attempts to shoehorn critical race theory into K-12 classrooms, it showed two things: The first is that a strategy of exposure and pressure works, the second is that the American people can never let up.

The second is particularly vital. President Joe Biden has surrounded himself with committed ideologues who themselves have appointed mid-level managers devoted to far-leftist causes, and they are determined to impose these ideas on the rest of us.

If anything, this is a "teachable moment." Conservatives often remind themselves that personnel is policy, but when it comes to filling out administrations, they sometimes buckle under to the wishes of the left-of-center entrenched federal bureaucracy.

Example A is the Department of Educations hasty decision to eliminate a radical CRT outfit from its recommendations to schools on how to open up in the fall after the lengthy COVID-19 shutdown, and how to spend moneys allocated in the American Rescue Plan.

CRITICAL RACE THEORY TO FACE FIRST MAJOR POLITICAL TEST IN VIRGINIA

The guidance, called the "Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting all Students Needs," had promoted theAbolitionist Teaching Network, a grifting outfit that (sadly) is fairly typical of companies that offer "anti-racist" trainings programs or curricula.

The network itself says it is gearing toward building "abolitionist teachers requires students, families, and educators who disrupt Whiteness and other forms of oppression."

The "roadmap" called for the elimination of "all punitive or disciplinary practices that spirit murder Black, Brown, and Indigenous children." And it included calls to "remove any and all police and policing from schools" and institute "reparations for children of color stolen by the school-to-prison pipeline."

WHAT IS CRITICAL RACE THEORY?

According to Fox News, Bettina Love, co-founder of ATN and chair of its board, said during a welcome webinar, "If you dont recognize that White supremacy is in everything we do, then we got a problem." Love added, "I want us to be feared."

All of this is ugly stuff, but average fare for the outfits that suck tax dollars out of hard-strapped communities with their "Social Emotional Learning" (SEL) programs. The outrageous posturing of these trainers and "educators" has helped convinced parents across the country to resist CRT.

The thinking is also classic Critical Race Theoryeven though now that a natural resistance to CRT has built up, those practicing these divisive concepts deny that they are part of CRT. They cant hide, however; defining deviancy down, and decriminalizingcrime, is at the heart of the writings of Regina Austin, Angela Harris and Paul Butler, undeniable CRT academics.

MARK BRNOVICH: TO DEFEAT CRITICAL RACE THEORY, HOLD TIGHT TO CONSTITUTION, DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

And, it is important to note as well that the use of the term "abolitionist" is not meant to associate this effort with the actual abolition of slavery, the work of Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, or the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.

No, abolition in this sense is a Marxist term.

In his book,"The Devil and Karl Marx," Grove City Colleges Paul Kengor reminds us that, "The word abolition is omnipresent throughout Marxs writings. As [Marx scholar] Robert Payne noted, the word almost seems to jump off every page of the Manifesto. And after he has "abolished" property, family, and nations, and all existing societies, Marx shows little interest in creating a new society on the ruins of the old."

ANTI-CRT GROUP TARGETS VIRGINIA INDEPENDENTS WITH MASS TEXTS ABOUT MCAULIFFE'S CONSPIRACY COMMENT

In fact, in a video that Black Lives Matter founder Patrisse Cullors cut in February, she praised her intellectual guru, Angela Davis, as one of her "favorite abolitionists." Lest we forget, Davis ran twice for VP on the Communist Party ticket and received the Lenin Peace Prize from the ruthless East German leader Erich Honnecker. She fills auditoriums at universities today where she informs her clueless audience that "I am now and have always been a Marxist."

So its not really surprising that almost as soon as Fox News had reported that the administration was recommending ATN materials, a spokesperson said the whole thing had been"an error."A rushed-outstatementsaid, "The Department does not endorse the recommendation of this group, nor do they reflect our policy positions."

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The department may not officially endorse the abolitionist teaching network, but some of its top appointees already know the network well.

Cindy Marten, newly appointed Deputy Secretary at education, hosted Love when she was superintendent of the San Diego unified public school system, where Love conducted SEL trainings in 2020, according to investigative journalist and Manhattan Institute fellow Chris Rufo. Love was paid $11,000 for her work, according to Fox News.

And Love spoke at a national education association event last year when Donna Harris-Aikens, now an acting assistant secretary, was senior director at the far-left teachers union.

The episode over the abolitionist teaching network was but the second time the Department of Education leads with its CRT fist, and then folds when America punches back.

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Earlier this year, Secretary Miguel Cardona recommended a rule that would prioritize grants to educational institutions that practiced CRT. Over 30,000 Americans wrote mostly negative comments on the departments website, including The Heritage Foundation.Cardona appears to have folded. He said in astatementlast week that "this program, however, has not, does not, and will not dictate or recommend specific curriculum be introduced or taught in classrooms."

Americans are faced with an administration that pretends to be moderate, and which a fawning media portrays as moderate, but which appoints people who attempt to impose fringe ideas onto impressionable minds. Parents and taxpayers must remain vigilant.

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Mike Gonzalez: Critical race theory, Team Biden and our schools 2 big lessons conservatives must learn - Fox News

JULY 31, 2021

YOU WAKE UP surrounded by empty bottles, no memory of the previous night, no memory of your own name. You climb out of bed, retrieve pants and a shirt from the floor, a tie from the ceiling fan. Your head pounds. You make your way to the bathroom, splash water on your face, then stare into the mirror. The face you confront is mottled and raw. Youre not sure whats happened, but you have the nagging sense that theres some crime for which you must atone. You retreat from the toilet, back into the remains of a hotel room. You scuttle out the door, make your way downstairs, creep to the angry-looking individual behind the counter. In the course of your conversation with Garte, the hotel and caf manager, you realize several things: you owe a not insignificant sum of money for damages to your hotel room, you are a police officer a detective here to investigate a case, and a dead body hangs from a tree behind the hotel its been there for at least a week. You still dont remember your name, though.

This is the opening scene of Disco Elysium: The Final Cut, the newly released version of the 2019 computer roleplaying game from Estonian developers ZA/UM. Amnesia is a well-worn trope, especially in video games, where it offers players a clean slate for building their own character. Disco Elysium makes up for this tired clich by introducing the fascinating post-revolutionary city of Revachol and the peculiar stories embedded in it. Like the best detective fiction, the games murder case is really an excuse to dig up the social, political, and personal secrets that led to there being a corpse in the first place. The body hanging from a tree turns out to have been a mercenary, working for a shipping company (Wild Pines) thats currently trying to break the local dockworkers strike. The mercenary may or may not have been killed by a band of union dockworkers. Drug trafficking may be involved, or it may just be a distraction. There are plenty of characters directly involved in the conflict between the company and the union, but theres also a broad spectrum of individuals caught in the conflicts orbit: an old royalist soldier gripes about how the revolutionaries of yesteryear paved the way for the decadence of the present. A red-headed boy spews obscenity, throws rocks at the mercenarys corpse, and prays for the city to burn. A woman in a wheelchair reminisces about a moment in her youth when she spotted the Insulindian Phasmid, an otherworldly creature that uses psychic powers to conceal itself as a thicket of reeds.

Most digital roleplaying games feature a gameplay loop alternating between combat and dialogue. Sometimes conversation is integral to the game, opening up branching story lines, but usually conversation is simply a means to an end: you get a quest in a dialogue, that quest sends you after an object, you fight creatures to acquire said object, and you return to the aforementioned quest giver (for a reward, of course). Your character grows through this experience, but most of that growth revolves around combat, not only because you earn experience points through combat but also because those points get funneled back into combat skills. All of which is to say that all too often video games turn the richest fantasy worlds into stages of destruction.

In contrast, Disco Elysium has almost no combat. Instead, it has an incredibly complex conversation system. The conversation system ZA/UM designed doesnt simply communicate dialogue between characters, it also expresses the inner conflict of your protagonist. Skills in the game take the form of distinct voices. These voices contribute to conversations, opening up different dialogue options, but they also present ideas, observations, and opinions to the player. In other words, even when hes not speaking with another character, your detective talks to himself, a crowd of voices thrumming in his head. The Inland Empire skill a nod to David Lynchs film of the same name channels surreal visions of your surroundings and hunches about mysterious goings on. (It makes you sound an awful lot like Agent Dale Cooper during the first season of Twin Peaks.) Empathy lets you understand others feelings, opening up conversation paths in which characters confess their inner turmoil, while Suggestion trades in charm to persuade others to your point of view. Even skills that lack obvious application to conversation, like Visual Calculus (used for reconstructing crime scenes) or Interfacing (for picking locks and operating machines), still play out as conversation. Instead of the lockpicking mini-games found in so many roleplaying games, Disco Elysium narrates the experience of picking the lock, as if you were overhearing the grumblings of a grizzled locksmith.

Disco Elysium is the roleplaying game as interactive novel, a sustained exercise in eschewing the flashy graphics of big-budget games in favor of dense prose. This prose appears in a dedicated window on the right side of the screen, a box that appears every time you converse with a character or interact with an object in the world. This means that more often than not time spent playing Disco Elysium consists of reading text as it cascades down the screen. When youre not reading, youre navigating your character across a two-dimensional representation of the Revachol, sometimes entering a specific location like an abandoned church or a down-on-its-luck bookstore. In some respects, the game does little more than revise the conventions of 1990s computer roleplaying games like Baldurs Gate and Planescape: Torment, pushing them back toward their origins in pen-and-paper roleplaying games. The games descriptions resemble the notes of a skilled dungeon master (DM) coordinating a session of Dungeons & Dragons (though in much more detail than your typical DM). That isnt to say the game is lacking in the graphics department. Aleksander Rostovs art direction is a brilliant blend of steampunk fantasy illustration, the realist painting of Gustave Courbet, and the disfigured portraits of Francis Bacon: character portraits tend toward the grotesque; landscapes are detailed and realistic, with nuanced shades of grays, browns, and blues; and the nonhuman object world is littered with fascinating and fantastic junk, like radio computers with their own version of the internet.

What distinguishes Disco Elysium from other recent retro roleplaying games like Divinity: Original Sin or Pillars of Eternity? In part, its the games setting. There are fantastic and sci-fi elements in the world of Elysium, but theyre incorporated into the mundane affairs of working-class life. There are no roaming monsters, errant knights, or dank dungeons. Instead, youll find a maintenance worker perpetually sweeping the floors of an apartment building, a street artist working on a mural and sneering at the police, and a fisherwoman stoically mourning her husbands loss to the sea. To describe the overall tone by analogy, its as if David Lynch had directed the second season of The Wire, blending its depiction of labor struggles in the Port of Baltimore with a mysterious air of otherworldly corruption. I wont get into the otherworldly elements of Disco Elysium it ventures into spoiler territory except to say that they tend toward the apocalyptic, with hints that the world is far less stable than the citys concrete structures suggest.

But what truly distinguishes Disco Elysium from most recent video games and a great deal of contemporary culture is its unflinching approach to the politics of capitalism, revolution, and policing. Revachol is haunted by the ghosts of a failed revolution a communal uprising that established an alternative to empire and capitalism, only to be violently put down by an international military alliance. The people of Revachol dont just remember the revolution, they relive its conflicts. They hash out the questions it raised about the dignity of work, what constitutes real democracy, how much autonomy folks should have, and much more. As a detective, youre a lightning rod for these political conversations, in part because of your inquisitive nature, but even more so because you represent political reaction: like it or not, your amnesiac protagonist is the police, and the police almost by definition preserve the status quo. The developers of ZA/UM could have had you play a private investigator, a conventional move in noir fiction which makes the protagonist more sympathetic by virtue of their exemption from a (usually) corrupt police force. Instead, Disco Elysium takes every effort to remind you of your complicity, to gesture toward the fact that solving the mystery might mean abetting a multinational corporation in shutting down a worker rebellion. That isnt to say you cant make political choices. You can, for example, choose to learn Mazovian Socio-Economics the science of revolution! becoming a socialist cop who vows to push history to its ultimate conclusion: the abolition of capitalism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Of course, socialist characters in the game will be more than a little suspicious of you. Perhaps youre really just trying to infiltrate radical political groups in order to undermine them from within.

There are other political paths players can choose, too. In my first playthrough, I drifted toward my own proclivities, choosing every anti-capitalist piece of dialogue available. In contrast, in my second playthrough, I ignored my political instincts to become an ultra-liberal, which essentially meant I was Milton Friedman with a badge, praising the creativity of entrepreneurs and decrying the barbarism of socialism. The game also allows you to role-play a moralist a humanitarian centrist and a fascist all right-wing diatribes against race-mixing and decadence. No matter the political orientation you play toward, the game introduces friction into your internal dialogue, as well as your conversations with other characters. One character might mock you for believing that resistance to capitalism is possible at all, while another will not so subtly call you out for being a tool of the bourgeoisie. When you choose enough dialogue options that correspond to one of the games political orientations, it offers you a thought that not only introduces even more dialogue options of the same type but also rewards you for choosing them. Crucially, the game doesnt suggest that the different political positions are equal in value. The majority of the characters lean to the left. Theyre more than happy to insult you for your chosen profession as an officer of the law. Even if theyre not revolutionaries, you get the sense that they would have rooted for the communards during the revolution. After all, it wasnt the revolutionaries who shelled their neighborhood.

The fantasy offered by so many roleplaying games is that of being a hero, a savior, the last hope of a besieged civilization. Disco Elysium turns that entire paradigm on its head. Civilization is already fucked, and not because of monsters but because of the impersonal machinations of capitalism and empire. You arent a hero; youre a cop, a detective. You might be able to introduce a measure of justice into the world, but that might come at the cost of perpetuating the violence thats built into the social system. The strength of Disco Elysium is that it manages to raise these questions in a manner thats blunt but not didactic or when it is didactic, its with a wink and a sly grin. Its a game that makes the difficult matters of politics, ethics, religion, love, and loss into a pleasurable conversation, but its a conversation without victory or resolution. If theres hope, the game suggests, its in reckoning with our own complicities and in learning the lessons of political history.

Christian Haines is an assistant professor of English at Penn State University and a managing editor of Gamers with Glasses.

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Roleplaying a Communist Cop in the Ruins of Revolution - lareviewofbooks

For the hundreds of thousands of Africans who were enslaved around the world as part of the British Empire, August 1, 1834 marked a watershed moment. That was the day Britain passed the Slavery Abolition Act, signaling the end of slavery in Canada and the countrys other colonies.

As momentous as emancipation was for those enslaved individuals, relatively little national attention has been paid in Canada to this historic milestone likely down, in part, to how scarcely slavery itself has been acknowledged in the countrys history until recent years.

Finally, in March of this year, the Government of Canada officially designated every August 1 as Emancipation Day across the country after unanimous support in the House of Commons.

The Honourable Wanda Thomas Bernard is a Canadian senator for Nova Scotia, a social worker and a professor emeritus at Dalhousie who has been pushing for years for federal recognition of Emancipation Day. We spoke to her about the long road to recognition and the possibilities it offers to raise awareness about and overcome anti-Black racism, one of slaverys toughest legacies.

You and others have been pushing for some time to get the Canadian government to recognize Emancipation Day, even introducing a private member's bill in 2018. Then this year, the House of Commons and Senate both came out in support of national designation. Why did it take so long and what changed to make it finally happen?

The reality is that community advocates and activists have been working on this for over 25 years. We just celebrated the 25th anniversary of the motion that was introduced by the Honourable Jean Augustine to have Black History Month nationally recognized in Canada. There have been several attempts since then to have Emancipation Day nationally recognized.

It is quite likely that Canada wasnt ready to accept this because accepting Emancipation Day to be nationally recognized in Canada in essence means that Canada is finally owning its past, its full history. Owning the history of the enslavement of African people here in Canada as well. Part of the Canadian narrative has been the comparison to our neighbours to the south, the idea of Canada being better the place where African American slaves seeking freedom escaped to. Weve not acknowledged and recognized that full history. Yes, the Underground Railroad was an important part of our history, but it was not the full history.

How were you first introduced to Emancipation Day and what does the day mean to you?

I first learned about Emancipation Day as an undergraduate student and my engagement in the civil rights movement. When I think about Emancipation Day, I see it as being a marker. Its a day to honour our ancestors and honour the legacy of their resilience, resistance and hard work. Its also honouring those who didnt survive. Its also a time to reflect. Reflecting on the full history and on how that history informed the anti-Black racism we are still dealing with today.

I also see Emancipation Day as a time to think about what actions we need to do individually, collectively across systems to effect systemic change so that we are truly emancipated. Although emancipation happened in 1834, the groundwork for anti-Black racism took root through the institution of enslavement, which has been allowed to flourish in this country and around the world. By marking Emancipation Day, were saying we need to heal from trauma of the violent past, but also make systemic changes so that things are better for future generations.

What are some more specific opportunities you see arising out of federal recognition for Emancipation Day?

This federal recognition is a signal across the country that its time for us to bring more awareness to the contributions of Black Canadians. To bring a fuller appreciation to the fact that Black Canadian history is indeed Canadian history. I see it as an opportunity to remind all of Canada that Black history extends beyond the month of February and that we really need to be embracing and integrating Black history into our everyday practices.

I see an incredible opportunity for education systems at all levels to create meaningful space for teaching about the contributions of Black Canadians, our struggles, and about the survival. Then I also see an opportunity for allies to join the struggle and become part of the solution to bring about systemic change everywhere.

See also: Raising the African Nova Scotian flag on Emancipation Day

How do you suggest people spend their first Emancipation Day?

On this first year of this national recognition, I would encourage people to begin with learning more and to be open to understanding why Emancipation Day is important to this country and why it should be important to individuals and families and organizations. A recognition of the significance of this day and why we must acknowledge this day. This first year, I really see it setting the tone for future years.

One of the things that has been happening for years in Toronto on July 31 is the Emancipation Day Underground Freedom Train Ride, organized by Itah Sadu owner of A Different Booklist. This year, they are doing it virtually. Ive participated in that a few times in Toronto and it is such a spiritual moment because it puts you in touch with the journeys of our ancestors. When I think about what our ancestors had to endure, part of me wants to weep and then another part of me wants to go into an absolute rage. Fortunately, the more reasonable Wanda Thomas Bernard emerges and is propelled to action to do more, to do whatever I can to make a difference. I take that responsibility very seriously, partly because my birthday is on Emancipation Day. I was literally born minutes after midnight on August 1, so I was meant to be born on Emancipation Day and not on July 31. It feels like a mission.

Dr. Bernard will be speaking this weekend during a free Emancipation Day event on August 1 in the Grand Parade in downtown Halifax. Visit the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia on Facebook for information on more events.

Link:

Ask an expert: Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard on why Emancipation Day is crucial in fighting antiBlack racism - Dal News

After the Government announced it would back its version of a new super authority to run the county from 2023 with the possibility of an elected super mayor to follow, North Yorkshire County Council pledged Harrogates interests would not be left behind in LGR (Local Government Reorganisation).

North Yorkshire County Council leader Coun Carl Les said: We are not just talking about devolving powers down from Whitehall to the county, we are talking about a double devolution of new powers coming to town and parish councils.

Harrogate is going to be hugely important in this.

LGR may not be the worlds sexiest acronym but its impact on how council tax payers in Harrogate live their lives is likely to be felt in some way for decades.

But the reaction in the town to the news has been muted with Harrogate council saying it will work to carry on its existing projects and support a smooth transition to the new local government system.

Wallace Sampson OBE, chief executive of Harrogate Borough Council said: We are disappointed that Government has chosen to form one council across the whole of North Yorkshire.

Despite the outcome, Harrogate Borough Council will continue to exist until 2023 and we have no plans to sit back until this time.

But business and community groups say there are more practical implications for important parts of Harrogate life than is visible at first glance, with a long list of questions which need to be addressed.

Among the important issues they are raising now include:

What will happen to existing council staff?

Who will now have responsibility over the Stray?

What happens to Harrogate councils support in the arts and leisure sector such as Harrogate Theatre?

What happens to Harrogate Convention Centre?

What happens to the councils headquarters at Harrogate Civic Centre, built recently at a cost of 13million.

What happens to the councils former headquarters at Crescent Gardens?

Who will stand in elections to the new super authority?

What will happen to Harrogate councils support for homeless projects?

Will a Harrogate Town Council have to be created?

Despite the upheaval involved with transferring all current council services and powers to a new single unitary council based in Northallerton, including the abolition of Harrogate Borough Council, all concerned are emphasising that things will carry on largely as normal.

North Yorkshire County Council leader Coun Carl Les welcomed the news Northallertons bid had won over a rival plan by the countys seven district councils, including Harrogate, by saying it would not not only save an estimated 25million every year in efficiencies but it was a natural fit for residents in terms of delivering services.

As the elected body already handling 80 per cent of all services, North Yorkshire says it is ready for its new, bigger role even if it admits there are many decisions about policy and strategy to be made before April 2023.

Harrogate Borough Council says it is disappointed at losing out but it, too, is keen to work for a smooth transition to the new authority in 2023.

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Harrogate Borough Council will be abolished but what happens next to town's public assets - Harrogate Advertiser