American Gangsters
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It is extremely important that major events are covered by the Black Media from a Black perspective. In Atlanta at the first debate between Biden and Trump, CNN issued a press statement on Thursday; less than 24 hours after outrage grew on social media amid reports that the Black media wasn’t being granted access to the debate.
“The vast majority of my people are in refugee camps or in apartheid villages, struggling every day just to make a living… They deserve to have a bio-graphy, not someone like me, living in Canada with a decent job in the government,” said Raïss Tinmaung. Tinmaung is Rohingya and when we met last month in a Toronto cafe, we discussed if I should tell his story or not. We agreed that I should, but only if I made it clear that he has more privilege than most people from his community.
They Not Like Us: White Female Attacks on Black Women
Instead, Campaign Nonviolence rallies hundreds of groups and organizations who use nonviolent action and promote nonviolent solutions. Sandy Hook Promise trains thousands of schoolchildren in how to counter social isolation – a factor in mass shootings – with Start With Hello Week. The Nobel Prize winning International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) coordinates hundreds of actions to move money out of nukes. The Global Silent Minute synchronizes thousands of people for a moment of prayerful silence for peace on the International Day of Peace (Sept 21). Nonviolent Peaceforce and Cure Violence use de-escalation techniques in conflict zones worldwide to prevent attacks.
And so even though we slaughter scores of innocent civilians, including so many children that it is the number one cause of death for certain age groups of minors in the US (according to the New England Journal of Medicine), the gun rights groups use that Second Amendment to make it perpetually allowable.
Living — and Dying — in the Moment
Trump, as the AFL-CIO noted, targeted Medicare and Medicaid for $1 trillion in funding cuts, eroded the Affordable Care Act (thereby increasing the number of Americans lacking health insurance coverage by 7 million), and “made workplaces more dangerous by rolling back critical federal safety regulations.” Trump’s administration not only refused to publicly disclose fatality and injury data reported to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), but slashed the number of federal workplace safety inspectors and inspections to the lowest level in that agency’s 48-year history. According to one estimate, with these depleted numbers, it would take 165 years to inspect every worksite in the United States.
America also depends on two types of vultures, the turkey, and the black, which help keep the planet clean and healthy. The government imposes a fine of up to $15,000 and imprisonment of up to six months for capturing or killing a black vulture without a permit. As the 2024 presidential election approaches, who will ensure Democracy’s survival? As the late Paul Harvey famously stated, “And now for the rest of the story.”
– Vice President Kamala Harris has the vision, the intellect and the heart to lead a conversation about how to preserve American democracy. As a country, we are still struggling to make this “A more perfect union.” We are an incredibly unique and beautifully diverse nation, blessed in so many ways. However, our history of cultural cleavage and racial unrest still plagues us. At times, the ideological divide seems to be an unbridgeable chasm. There are those who would use political power to exploit our differences and undermine the very democratic institutions that have held us together as a nation.