News — Black lives matter

Retired NFL player Brett Favre recently weighed in on the circumstances surrounding the death of George Floyd, saying he finds it “hard to believe” former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin meant to kill Floyd.

Floyd, 46, passed away after Chauvin knelt on his neck for over nine minutes despite repeatedly telling him he couldn’t breathe. The incident also happened in the full glare of bystanders who could be heard pleading with Chauvin to remove his knee from Floyd’s neck and also offer him some medical assistance. However, Chauvin and his other colleague officers did not budge.

“I find it hard to believe, and I’m not defending Derek Chauvin in any way, I find it hard to believe, first of all, that he intentionally meant to kill George Floyd,” Favre said on the Bolling with Favre podcast on Wednesday, according to New York Post.

“That being said, his actions were uncalled for. I don’t care what color the person is on the street. I don’t know what led to that video that we saw where his knee is on his neck, but the man had thrown in the towel.”

On Tuesday, a jury found Chauvin guilty of murder and manslaughter in the May 25 death of the African-American father. Favre’s recent comment comes after he was criticized last week for saying athletes who kneel during the national anthem to protest against racial injustice have “created more turmoil than good.”

“It’s really a shame that we’ve come to this,” the retired quarterback said on The Andrew Klavan Show on April 11, USA Today reported. “Something has to unify us, and I felt like the flag, standing patriotically — because Blacks and whites and Hispanics have fought for this country and died for this country. It’s too bad.”

The 51-year-old doubled down on his sentiments and responded to the criticism on Wednesday’s podcast, saying: “I just gave my opinion. I’m certainly not a racist in spite of what some people might think, and you know, I’m for unity and I just feel like there’s a better way to unify our country. That being said, there’s a lot of things that need to stop.”

A young 21-year-old Albany native is on a mission to creating the perfect “Man-Making Machine.” King Randall is elevating The “X” for Boys program into a school to give troubled teenage boys a chance at finding their purpose and excelling in life.

In 2019, Randall started The “X” for Boys program at the age of 19 in Albany, Georgia with 20 boys in his home during a summer camp. Through the self-funded program, he taught these boys essential life skills like repairing and maintaining cars, cooking, and how to handle firearms. “Doing different workshops teaching young men how to do different skill trades, we’re also doing a book club and teaching them how to read because 93 percent of the children I come into contact with can’t read,” explained Randall.

The success rate of his book club showed an 86% improvement rate in comprehension skills of the boys aged 1 to 17. Hence, Randall felt it was time to expand his facilities by opening a school that can handle large group intake and change lives.

He is set to transform the former Isabella School into the New Life Preparatory School for Boys, according to WALB News 10. In the school, Randal and his team will provide trade skills such as auto-repair and welding.

Troubled teens have reached out to Randall wanting to take the high road in life. The 21-year-old has helped delinquents stay out of trouble, especially those who need to “escape from undesirable living conditions” and adult life of criminality.

“Giving them space where they’re around a lot of other young men and around other men trying to mold you and train you. I’ve had kids come find me at my house and come knock and ask to join The “X” for Boys. I’ve had kids message me on Instagram, gang members, you name it,” said Randall.

The motto of the school is “Let Us make a man” because Randall believes that it takes a village to groom these young men into responsible men. So for The Life Preparatory School for Boys, he is raising funds from his community and beyond to give these young boys a chance at a better future. “This is what the City of Albany needs! Let’s do this for our boys!
We will Make Men Great Again!” he said on his Facebook page.

Whilst a handful of Oklahomans were probably sleeping in the early hours of Wednesday, Republican lawmakers in the state’s House passed a bill that would protect drivers who knock down protesters.

Per House Bill 1674, drivers in the state who hurt or kill protesters without malice while “fleeing from a riot” are immune from both civil and criminal prosecution, The Oklahoman reported. This bill reportedly adds to other Republican-backed legislations that are tailored at clamping down on protests in the state.

The legislation, which was reportedly approved after midnight, comes in the wake of the largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in the United States over the summer following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. During that period, there were a number of reports of people plowing their cars into crowds of protesters who had taken over the streets.

In the city of Tulsa, a man drove his pickup into a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters who had gathered on a street, seriously injuring multiple people. The driver in question was not charged by the Tulsa County district attorney as the former claimed his vehicle was attacked, The Oklahoman reported.

The recent bill was, however, criticized by legislative Democrats who accused their Republican counterparts of unfairly targeting protesters instead of rather addressing their grievances in what has been a period of racial reckoning in the United States. Rep. John Waldron, D-Tulsa, also called out the Republican majority for deliberately passing the bill in the wee hours of the day to ward off public opinion.

Another lawmaker, Rep. Monroe Nichols, told the house the bill rather missed the bigger picture – that is introducing reform to address what the protests have been about, The Oklahoman reported. “Maybe the way to prevent something like this [the Tulsa incident] from ever happening again is to make reforms on the broader systemic issue,” Nichols said, adding that he’ll have a hard time having to tell his pre-teen son that the Oklahoma House “made it so that folks who may advocate for people who look like him can be run over with immunity.”

The approved legislation by the house will subsequently be tabled before the Senate – which is also Republican-majority. Besides the immunity to drivers, the bill also proposes misdemeanor charges for protesters who “unlawfully obstruct” vehicular traffic.

The family of a Black deceased Allen Parish Sheriff’s Office deputy were left astonished when an employee at a Louisiana cemetery told them they couldn’t be allocated burial space because it’s a Whites-only cemetery.

According to KPLC, the Oaklin Springs Cemetery had a 1950s Jim Crow-era by-laws that prohibited non-Whites from being buried there. The by-laws in question have since been amended by the cemetery’s board members to make it all-inclusive following the incident.

“It was in their by-laws that the cemetery was ‘whites only,’” Deputy Darrell Semien’s widow, Karla, told the news outlet. “I just kinda looked at her and she said ‘There’s no coloreds allowed.’”

Deputy Semien passed away last week after suffering from cancer. Prior to his death, he told his family he wanted to be buried at the cemetery as it was near their home. That wish, however, could not come to pass.

“Just blatantly, with no remorse: ‘I can’t sell you a plot for your husband,’” Kimberly Curly, Semien’s daughter recalled.

In the aftermath of the incident, the president of the Oaklin Springs Cemetery Association, Creig Vizena, issued an apology to the family, although he admitted their initial cemetery contract permitted only “white human beings” to be buried there. He said he was unaware of that clause.

“It never came up,” he said. “I take full responsibility for that. I’ve been the president of this board for several years now. I take full responsibility for not reading the by-laws.”

The deceased’s family told KPLC the incident exacerbated their grief and left them disappointed as Semien selflessly served the community as a law enforcement officer. “There was nothing none of us could do, but we did it,” Karla said. “And to be told this is like we were nothing. He was nothing? He put his life on the line for them.”

Curly added: “Everybody dies. They bleed the same. You die. You’re the same color. Death has no color, so why should he be refused?”

Vizena tried making amends by offering the family a plot at the cemetery for his burial but they declined. “I even offered them, I can’t sell you one, but I can give you one of mine,” he said. “That’s how strongly I feel about fixing it.”

Semien was rather buried at the Sonnier Cemetery in Oberlin on Saturday, January 30, according to NBC News.

Controversial sports journalist Jason Whitlock raised some eyebrows during his January 20 appearance on the Tucker Carlson Tonight show on Fox News when he likened the Black Lives Matter movement and Antifa to KKK, claiming they’re no different from the White Supremacist hate group.

During the interview, the 53-year-old claimed the BLM were more of like the Democratic Party’s “enforcement arm.”

“Well, I compare Black Lives Matter to the KKK. I really do,” he said. “And some people don’t understand it, but if you go back to the 1860s, after the Emancipation Proclamation, the KKK was started, and it was the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party. And what’s the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party right now? Black Lives Matter and Antifa. They will come to your home and violate your home, try to intimidate the people in your home if they disagree with you politically.”

The Black Lives Matter movement was birthed on social media in 2013 following the acquittal of George Zimmerman – the White man who fatally shot Black and unarmed 17-year-old high school student, Trayvon Martin, the year prior. Since its formation, the organization has held largely peaceful anti-racism and anti-police brutality protests against Blacks and other people of color. Whitlock, however, said they propagate negative values.

“Black Lives Matter [is] a Marxist organization. Marxism is hostile toward religion; that’s why I’m glad you went there today. These are atheist values being expressed from our leaders, demonizing individual citizens here in America, branding them as white supremacists because they decided, because we disagree with their opinion about something. This is lunacy, and it’s dangerous.”

Whitlock doubled down on his stance in another email he sent to the IndyStar, calling the movement a “cleverly marketed slogan that provides cover for extremists to undermine racial progress and bully American citizens to support Democrat politicians.”

“Despite the sweet-sounding name, Black Lives Matter acts as a racial divider, no different from the KKK,” he said.

He also compared how similar the KKK’s nightly shenanigans was similar to the Black Lives Matter movement’s activities, claiming the latter also uses violence and stokes intimidation.

“Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests have primarily terrorized and destroyed property in (B)lack communities at night,” he said. “BLM and Antifa have attempted to intimidate white Republicans. BLM protests have been violent and caused the assassination of law enforcement officers and other citizens.”

A professor and historian at the University of Notre Dame, Richard Pierce, however, labeled his comments as “provocative, inflammatory screed”, telling the IndyStar he did not want to delve too deep into proving why Whitlock is wrong.

“Nonetheless, I will say this. The KKK rioters commonly wore hoods to camouflage their identity and mimicked confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest’s marauding practices honed during the Civil War. Their very anonymity added to their intimidation,” Pierce said. “Protesters, prior to COVID-19 safeguard measures, were mostly unmasked. I’ve never seen a hooded Black Lives Matter protester.”

Despite the objections, however, an adamant Whitlock shared a follow-up op-ed further justifying his sentiments.

After the widely publicized video of a white woman falsely accusing a Black teenager of stealing her iPhone, went viral, the Manhattan District Attorney office is reportedly “thoroughly investigating” the incident. According to CNN, the white woman who is seen on video as the aggressor is claiming she was the one who was assaulted, and, after her rambling account, says she is willing to speak to police, however, has not done so as of yet.

Jazz musician Keyon Harrold posted the video clip of the incident on his Instagram account. Harrold and his son are now being represented by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who posted a message on Twitter calling for the district attorney to bring charges against the unnamed white woman.

“As this year of racial awareness is drawing to a close, it’s deeply troubling that incidents like this one, in which a Black child is viewed as and treated like a criminal, continue to happen. Compounding the injustice, the hotel manager defaulted to calling on 14-year-old Keyon to prove his innocence, documenting that we have two justice systems in America and that Black people are treated as guilty until proven innocent. We strongly urge Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. to bring assault and battery charges against this woman to send the message that hateful, racially motivated behavior is unacceptable. This is what it will take to drive change. We also call for a civil rights investigation into the Arlo Hotel for its implicit bias in its treatment of Keyon.”

The New York Police Department told CNN that a complaint about harassment at the Arlo SoHo hotel has been filed. They stated that after viewing a surveillance video of the incident at Arlo SoHo Hotel, investigators are prepared to consider charging the white woman with assault and possibly grand larceny or attempted robbery, according to Rodney Harrison, chief of detectives for the NYPD.

CNN reported that the white woman, who says she is 22, spoke to them by phone and has disputed Harrold’s description of what took place. She claimed that she requested to see the surveillance video from hotel staff to try to figure out who took her phone, which, by the way, was left in an Uber returned to her shortly after this incident.

She then claims she approached someone else in the hotel lobby to “empty their pocket,” before she falsely accused Keyon Harrold Jr. “That’s when everything got a little bit more serious,” the woman said referring to the interaction.

The unnamed white woman claims she is willing to speak to investigators but has yet to do so. She stated she had evidence to present but when asked to provide it, she didn’t respond to numerous follow-up calls.

Officials in Philadelphia on Wednesday agreed to pay $9.8 million to an exonerated Black man who spent 28 years of his life in prison after he was convicted for a murder he did not commit. Prior to his conviction, Chester Hollman III had no criminal record.

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Hollman, then a 21-year-old armored-car driver, was driving around Center City in 1991 when he was pulled over and arrested for allegedly fatally shooting a student from the University of Pennsylvania in a botched street robbery. Hollman was, however, exonerated last year at the age of 49 after a judge ruled the evidence the police and prosecutors used was based on fabricated statements from witnesses they coerced. They also reportedly withheld evidence that could have likely implicated those who committed the crime.

“There are no words to express what was taken from me,” Hollman said in a statement, according to The Inquirer. “But this settlement closes out a difficult chapter in my life as my family and I now embark on a new one.”

Hollman’s settlement – which is one of the largest ever for an exonerated person in the city’s history – comes in the wake of other seven-figure settlements authorities have had to pay for acts of misconduct committed by the city’s police between the late 1980s and 90s. Since 2018, they have had to fork out over $35 million of taxpayers’ money to settle over a dozen people who were wrongfully convicted. City officials agreed to Hollman’s settlement even before he filed a lawsuit.

Speaking with The Inquirer, Hollman’s attorney, Amelia Green, said authorities were forced to swiftly resolve his case due to the weight of the evidence proving his innocence. City officials and the police have, however, not admitted any wrongdoing.

“There was irrefutable evidence that Chester was innocent, is innocent and has always been innocent and would never have been wrongfully convicted aside from extraordinary police misconduct,” Green said.

Hollman’s attorneys also said their client – who always maintained his innocence while incarcerated – was racially profiled by the police just because the car he was driving matched the description of the assailants. The two witnesses who confirmed Hollman as the shooter at the trial, also recanted, saying they were coerced by the detectives handling the case.

Detectives also allegedly ignored crucial tips and evidence that strongly linked likely suspects to the murder because they were already building their case around Hollman, the Conviction Integrity Unit revealed, according to The Inquirer. Prosecutors also failed to present that evidence – which would have vindicated Hollman – to the defense during the trial.

Meanwhile, the detectives behind the many wrongful conviction cases the city has had to settle, have either retired or are still with the force and have risen up the ranks. “You don’t have this many exonerations from one cohort of detectives unless it was a pervasive culture,” Green said. “There’s no way that the highest ranks weren’t aware.”

A Black resident in a Jacksonville neighborhood in Florida has filed a federal lawsuit against his local homeowners’ association after he was told to remove a Black Lives Matter flag he hung from his house.

But Antoine Mickle claims his neighbors also displayed paraphernalia with politically-charged themes including some in support of President Donald Trump as well as Blue Lives Matter flags, the Florida Times-Union reported.

In a press conference on November 24, Mickle, who has been a resident in the Kernan and Atlantic boulevards neighborhood for almost 19 years, detailed how the association as well his neighbors, have subjected him to harassment during his stay.

“I felt lonely and just all by myself that I couldn’t do anything against this powerful force, an HOA that has attempted to take my home away from me before,” Mickle said. “I have been threatened by the HOA. I have been threatened by particular neighbors who stand in front of my yard and gawk until I would leave. I’ve had harassment for the last 20 years or so from things like I don’t have red mulch in my yard when others [also] don’t have it.”

Responding to the allegations, the River Point Community Association board released a statement claiming that “unfortunately, the homeowner took offense to a letter sent to him that would have been sent to any other homeowners not following Association guidelines that have been in place for some time.”

The association claimed the disagreement did not stem from the Black Lives Matter flag in question, but rather had to with Mickle mounting it on his house instead of on a flagpole below the American flag, the Florida Times-Union reported.

In the letter to Mickle to take down the flag, the board said his flying of the Black Lives Matter flag was in contravention of a “nuisance clause” which prohibited “noxious or offensive activities.” They also claimed flags and other signs that are displayed on properties should be “seasonal in nature”, adding that “flags flying underneath the American flag on a flagpole are subject to enforcement under the state statutes, and not subject to enforcement by the Association.”

Meanwhile, Mickle’s lawsuit reportedly provided several photos of residents hanging flags – including a Blue Lives Matter flag, a Thin Blue Line flag and a host of other Trump flags – the same way he hung his, which is on his house instead of a flagpole.

In their statement, the board announced they weren’t going to pursue the case any further, claiming they were just doing their job.

“Unfortunately, this is a politically charged time and the timing was ill-advised. We were obviously not thinking about that and just simply doing our job as we would have with any other type or flag or sign outside of the guideline,” the statement said.

A representative from the HOPE Fair Housing Center in Miami, Keenya Robertson, however, told the Florida Times-Union Mickle’s lawsuit was justified as his case was a “modern-day version of discrimination and tactics that are meant to harass and intimidate someone who lives in their community.”

Lawyers for the plaintiff also told the news outlet they want the association to amend its policies and partake in training.

“Homeowners associations have a lot of power,” attorney David Cronin said. “They have a lot of power in Jacksonville. They can, as we saw in the housing crisis, take your home away from you.”

Another attorney, Matt Dietz, added: “These folks need to understand and know that this is wrong and by doing this you’re not only harming Mr. Mickle, you’re harming everybody’s right to live in an integrated community.”

Police and protesters clashed for a second night in Philadelphia following the police shooting death of 27-year-old Black man Walter Wallace Jr. Footage of the shooting shows Wallace being shot at several times by the police on Monday after they yelled at him to drop a knife.

Wallace had a mental health crisis before his killing, and his family had called for an ambulance to seek help for their son, according to their lawyer, Shaka Johnson. The lawyer said the officers were aware of Wallace’s mental health crisis since they had been to the family home on about three occasions before he was shot.

Hundreds of people who gathered in a West Philadelphia park on Tuesday night started marching through the neighborhood in protest of Wallace’s killing. The march turned violent when the group came across some police officers near a police station and started throwing bricks, rocks and light bulbs at them, according to reports. Others looted shops amid reports of arrests in other areas of the city Tuesday around 9 p.m.

During Monday night’s protests, some 30 police officers were injured and about 90 people were arrested. Philadelphia Police Department tweeted, “A large crowd of appx 1000 is looting businesses,” and advised residents to remain indoors as the police and the National Guard were deployed.

Wallace’s family has meanwhile condemned the violence and looting. “Stop this violence and chaos,” Wallace’s father, Walter Wallace Sr., said outside of the family’s home on Tuesday, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “People have businesses. We all got to eat.”

Police commissioner Danielle M. Outlaw said an investigation into the shooting is underway, adding that all issues in the video would be addressed. District Attorney Larry Krasner also released a statement saying his office would conduct a joint investigation of the shooting along with the police department’s Officer-Involved Shooting Investigation Unit.

Police spokesperson Tanya Little said the shooting happened before 4 pm Monday after officers received a call about a man screaming and holding a weapon. Officers arrived at Cobbs Creek, a predominantly Black neighborhood in west Philadelphia where they found Wallace holding a knife, Little said. The officers ordered Wallace to drop the knife; he refused and rather “advanced toward” them, according to Little.

Both officers then fired “several times” at Wallace, who got hit in the shoulder and chest. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital the police drove him to. The officers involved have so far been taken off street duty pending further investigation.

A bystander shot a video of the incident, which was shared on social media by civil rights attorney Ben Crump. Wallace’s death is the latest killing of a Black person by police in the U.S. after months of protests against racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of the death of unarmed man George Floyd.

For whatever reason, the fear has never been quite overcome by the Nigerian people even after President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military leader of that country, referred to himself as a “converted democrat”.

After he was kicked out of power in 1985 in the same way he had militantly grabbed it, Buhari tried under the new democratic dispensation to become Nigeria’s president. He was fourth time lucky in 2015, thanks to the support from the hugely revered Olusegun Obasanjo and top-dollar advice from a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, David Axelrod.

On assuming power, Buhari was mindful of what he had to prove and the background against which he would be measured – the steps were careful and the tone, ear-friendly. There were the Boko Haram menace and an economy that required impetus but the president understood that his democratic credentials were under perpetual forensic audit by the over 190 million in Nigeria and observers from afar.

But the complexity of the multitudes in a democratic society revealed his shallow temperance in good time. This year, the vibrant #EndSARS movement of young protesters who sought to disband the notorious unit of the Nigerian police service came knocking for positive change and the door held by no hinges, caved in.

The Special Anti-Robbery Squad had terrorized Nigerians for decades, and the widely-held feeling was that the unit was not fit for purpose. As the days rolled on, the concerns of the protesters did not necessarily evolve but expanded. And that was the most annoying thing for Nigeria’s ruling elite – to be called out to do their jobs in that very global manner by young people.

But what happened with the movement was simultaneously the best opportunity Buhari was presented to cement his name in the pantheon of converted democrats. But Nigeria’s president allowed himself to be undone by the temptations of not aspiring to respectable immortality.

The source of Buhari’s first temptation goes back to 2019 after he sealed the deal for a second term. There are now no more elections for him to win and that means there is very little reason to go further and seek better. The nature of Nigeria’s politics means that Buhari is not necessarily hurting the chances of whoever in the All Progressives Congress (APC) is considered heir apparent to the president.

Alfred Akawe Torkula in The Culture of Partisan Politics in Nigeria: An Historical Perspective illustrates how Nigerian politics is not particularly ideological as it is populist, and not strongly partisan as it is about ethnic identities. Buhari himself was the presidential candidate of three different parties in four different elections.

The second temptation was the president treating the cries of concerned citizens like noises of petulant children. Falling to this temptation was as African as they come, with the nearly 78-year-old adult dismissing the dismissable children who should be seen and not heard. Throughout the time the protesters were on the street of Nigeria’s major cities, Buhari only spoke twice to their problems, and he did not hide his condescension on either occasion.

In the first speech that came days after the protests had begun, he reiterated the disbandment of SARS and virtually said there was no more reason for protesters to be on the street. SARS had previously undergone reformations and disbandment that left the unit neither reformed nor disbanded.

The second time Buhari spoke to Nigerians, he threatened that the federal government will not be dared by troublemakers “who have hijacked and misdirected the initial, genuine and well-intended protest”. When people with power frame language in this way, it leaves very little doubt that the state security apparatus takes it upon itself to choose whosoever fits a predetermined description of a troublemaker.

Effectively, this threat was not lost on the youngsters who had already seen some of their colleagues killed. The speech also came two days after protesters were killed by soldiers in Lekki, Lagos, an event Buhari failed to acknowledge as if that day had not even happened.

Buhari even reserved some of the sensational disrespect of his second speech for Ghana’s Nana Akufo-Addo who the Nigerian president diplomatically told to mind his business after the leader of Nigeria’s West African neighbors had, in his capacity as the head of the regional body ECOWAS and in neighborly spirit, spoken about the unrest in Nigeria.

The final temptation Buhari surrendered to was the rotting Nigerian democratic culture. The attitudes that preserve the sanctity of democracy seems lacking among Nigeria’s political class and the young people know this all too well. The young in Africa’s most populous nation know the systemic dream-shattering efficacy of the Nigerian experience.

This is the culture where political office holders who felt insulted by an electorate asking them to do better unleash numerous faceless henchmen to clash with protesters.

For a while, protesters were not even against the national security forces in the streets but against a collection of machete and club-wielding young men whom no one has been able to identify. And who can forget the mysterious jailbreaks in two states that were blamed on #EndSARS protesters?

In the beginning, it was even hard for politicians to sympathize with protesters and those who even did hoped they were allowed to turn this one into an anti-Buhari campaign. There were those who definitely saw the #EndSARS movement as an anti-Hausa and anti-northern Nigeria masses who had coalesced around an exaggerated police problem.

Now, the leadership that could not be reached but through the force applied by international pressure is thinking of regulating social media, the tool by which they were exposed.

What reared its head in the two weeks that the #EndSARS campaign was alive was the leader with authoritarian tendencies. The poor protesters could not get through to him and he would not even tell them to eat cake or Agege bread.

Certainly, the unwritten leader’s transcendental calling as one who should rise above the usual and lead the people into some semblance of sense is the ground upon which Buhari’s refusal to lead shocked many. He did not want to bring light to the darkness but took to the nightshade like the black panther.

In the last two weeks more than any time during his presidency, Buhari epitomized the fears that never went away. Every bit of his moral abstinence said clearly to the young who come tomorrow: Hope? That’s for losers!