Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Documents Reveal How the Police Kept Daniel Prude’s Death Quiet

A Black man, Daniel Prude, died of suffocation in March after police officers had placed his head in a hood and pinned him to the ground. The public had never been told about the death, but that would change if police body camera footage of the encounter got out. A mass of city documents released on Monday show how prominent Rochester officials did everything in their power to keep the troubling videos of the incident out of public view.

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Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Black Lives Matter but slavery isn’t our only narrative

Slave memorial in Zanzibar

Our historical understanding of Blackness is most commonly shaped by the story of the Atlantic slave trade, in particular to the Americas. But this is a linear narrative that is dominated by American voices. It’s not just potentially exclusory; it doesn’t adequately take into account the diversity of black people worldwide. Aretha Phiri asks Michelle M. Wright about her work in disrupting the slavery narrative.

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The Exception to Exceptionalism: Why marginalized communities feel a collective guilt in America

When the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed in 1995, the authorities and all media outlets immediately blamed it on “Islamic terrorists.” Members of the Muslim community around the country were attacked, verbally and physically. When Black people protest and one sets a building on fire, all Black people are blamed collectively.For White people the rules are generally the opposite.

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Court blocks DeVos from diverting COVID-19 relief from public schools

A federal court ruled that Secretary of Education DeVos violated the language of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act – by siphoning off relief funds to private schools, to the detriment of underserved children in public schools, including children from low-income families, children with disabilities, children of color and English language learners.Now public schools will receive the full federal emergency aid to which they are entitled.

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Faces of Power: 80% Are White, Even as U.S. Becomes More Diverse

The most powerful people in the United States pass our laws, run Hollywood’s studios and head the most prestigious universities. They own pro sports teams and determine who goes to jail and who goes to war. A review by The New York Times of more than 900 officials and executives in prominent positions found that only about 20 percent identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, multiracial or otherwise a person of color.

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The Oscars’ New Diversity Rules Are Sweeping but Safe

#OscarsSoWhite hashtag became a rallying cry, the academy began taking great strides to diversify a membership that had been largely white and male for nine decades. This week, the academy unveiled an even more ambitious diversity initiative with the intention of reshaping not just how movies are rewarded, but also who’s hired to make them in the first place.

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