Tag: supremacy

Misogyny And White Supremacy Slip Through ‘Enforcement Gap’ On TikTok
IN OTHER NEWS, TECHNOLOGY

Misogyny And White Supremacy Slip Through ‘Enforcement Gap’ On TikTok

TECHNOLOGY A new report shows how extremists use profiles, hashtags and other effects that violate the platform’s community guidelines. Amanda Becker Originally published by The 19th This article has been updated. Violent extremists, neo-Nazis and other white supremacist groups are able to easily spread racist, misogynistic and anti-LGBTQ+ content on TikTok that runs afoul of the social media platform’s own terms of service, according to new research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). The ISD report examines how extremists use profiles, hashtags, music and other effects on TikTok. Researchers identified a sample of 1,030 videos from 491 accounts, or about eight hours of content, that seemingly violated TikTok’s community guidelines. At least 312 of those videos promoted...
African Americans have long defied white supremacy and celebrated Black culture in public spaces
LIFESTYLE

African Americans have long defied white supremacy and celebrated Black culture in public spaces

From Richmond to New York City to Seattle, anti-racist activists are getting results as Confederate monuments are coming down by the dozens. In Richmond, Virginia, protesters have changed the story of Lee Circle, home to a 130-year-old monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It’s now a new community space where graffiti, music and projected images turn the statue of Lee from a monument to white supremacy into a backdrop proclaiming that Black Lives Matter. This isn’t a new phenomenon. I’m a historian of celebrations and protests after the Civil War. And in my research, I have found that long before Confederate monuments occupied city squares, African Americans used those same public spaces to celebrate their history. But those African American memorial cultures have often been o...
Urban planning as a tool of white supremacy – the other lesson from Minneapolis
SOCIAL JUSTICE

Urban planning as a tool of white supremacy – the other lesson from Minneapolis

The legacy of structural racism in Minneapolis was laid bare to the world at the intersection of Chicago Avenue and East 38th Street, the location where George Floyd’s neck was pinned to the ground by a police officer’s knee. But it is also imprinted in streets, parks and neighborhoods across the city – the result of urban planning that utilized segregation as a tool of white supremacy. Today, Minneapolis is seen to be one of the most liberal cities in the U.S. But if you scratch away the progressive veneer of the U.S.‘s most cyclable city, the city with the best park system and sixth-highest quality of life, you find what Kirsten Delegard, a Minneapolis historian, describes as “darker truths about the city.” As co-founder of the University of Minnesota’s Mapping Prejudice project, Deleg...
Protestantism’s troubling history with white supremacy in the US
IN OTHER NEWS

Protestantism’s troubling history with white supremacy in the US

In the long-overdue discussions taking place over the legacy of slavery and racism in the United States, few appear to be addressing the relationship between religion and racism. This comes despite notions of white supremacy being entwined with the history of religion in the United States. As a scholar specializing in issues of religion and identity, I argue for a deeper introspection around how white supremacy permeates all parts of American society, including its religious institutions. Race and religion In 1835, French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville described the character of the U.S. as the result of “the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty,” which he argued, “elsewhere have often been at war but in America have somehow been incorporated into one another and marvelously c...
How White Supremacy Intensifies Summer Heat
IN OTHER NEWS

How White Supremacy Intensifies Summer Heat

“Like racism, violence and white supremacy, heat is inextricable from the Black American experience.” July arrived steamier than ever with potentially deadly heat waves. The month was followed by equally high August temperatures—and, alas, the heat of Augusts past, which generations of African Americans have yet to escape. Historically, racism has aggravated the summer heat with mayhem, trauma, and even death for Black people. The onslaught of slavery is but one calamity of note. Enslaved Black bodies—considered and treated as property—performing fieldwork from the dawn of day till the sun receded, on meager sustenance, with unsuitable provisions, beneath the crack of a whip was only the beginning. All else that followed forced servitude was par for the course, so muc...
White Supremacy and Artificial Intelligence
TECHNOLOGY

White Supremacy and Artificial Intelligence

Developing technology that doesn’t perpetuate racism demands putting social values before profit. In her new book Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, Ruha Benjamin breaks down the “New Jim Code,” technology design that promises a utopian future but serves racial hierarchies and racial bias. When people change how they speak or act in order to conform to dominant norms, we call it “code-switching.” And, like other types of codes, the practice of code-switching is power-laden. Justine Cassell, a professor at Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, creates educational programs for children and found that avatars using African American Vernacular English lead Black children “to achieve better results in teaching scientific concepts...
Why isn’t the US dealing with the rising threat of white supremacy?
POLITICS, VIDEO REELS

Why isn’t the US dealing with the rising threat of white supremacy?

  Despite growing white nationalist violence worldwide, US conservatives are pushing for antifa to be designated a "terrorist" group. Twenty people are dead in a weekend shooting at an El Paso Wal-Mart. The incident is being called one of the worst attacks on Latinos in US history. The suspected shooter is in police custody, and posted an anti-immigrant manifesto online before the attack. Authorities are charging him with “domestic terrorism .” Around the country, calls are growing for the US to starting taking white nationalism seriously. In July, FBI director Christopher Wray said the majority of the 100 "domestic terrorism" arrests made by the bureau this year involved white supremacists. And white supremacists were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks in the...
White Supremacy Has Always Been Terrorism
Journalism

White Supremacy Has Always Been Terrorism

And Donald Trump is fanning the flames by encouraging the violent ideology. White terroristic activity has been around since the nation’s birth. But the failure to acknowledge the escalation as a result of President Trump’s continual hateful rhetoric is itself aiding and abetting its proliferation. In moments like this, the script is sadly predictable. Some will blame everything from mental illness to video games for the carnage. Others will self-righteously claim that this is not the time to “play politics.” But speaking truth about this president is far from a political game. It is peddling in a sobering reality. There are no “both sides” here. There is only right and wrong. Never forget, this is a president who described himself multiple times as a “nationalist.” This...
Journalism

White Supremacy Thrives, Even in Progressive Places

As a Black woman, I know we were never living in a post-racial paradise. But I still have hope for a society that cares for us all. Native Bay Area Black folks like myself are all too familiar with a form of NIMBYism that lives in progressive places. This strand of parochialism is less about the ills of urban development (although that certainly exists), than the dogged belief that this region has somehow escaped the litany of “isms” that plague the rest of the country. Over the years, friends, colleagues, and even random strangers have earnestly assured me that prejudice and discrimination do not exist in _____, fill in the city or the organization or the industry; that my experiences of bias, unequal treatment, or disrespect were isolated events or misunderstandings—on my part; and ...