Sunday, May 7, 2017

Jordan Edwards, Uber, Bernie Sanders and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List April 30 - May 7



This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.



This list covers the week of April 30 - May 7. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.

1) Black Lives Matter Toronto wants police officers out of GTA schools

Chris Glover, CBC News

Black Lives Matter Toronto wants to eliminate the School Resource Officer Program, which stations uniformed officers in Toronto-area schools, as part of six changes targeting anti-black racism in the education system.

See the full article. 

2) Bernie Sanders and The Entire US Senate Unanimously Endorse Israel’s Occupation

Hussain, Eoinhiggans.com

In a move that confirmed the bipartisan support the US political class offers towards Israel, all 100 Senators signed a letter decrying the UN’s supposed unfair treatment towards Israel.

Read the full article. 

3) Silent as the grave: Edmonton police refusal to name homicide victims a wilful misreading of FOIP

Paula Simons, Edmonton Journal

Up until this January, it was standard practice for the Edmonton Police Service to release the names of all homicide victims.

But in January, there was a troubling change in policy. So far this year, we’ve had 17 confirmed homicides. Of those 17 cases, police refused to release the dead person’s identity in eight of them. Six of those cases were domestic homicides. That’s particularly problematic, given the high rate of family violence in Edmonton. And it feels so arbitrary. Sometimes police release the name, and sometimes they don’t — with little apparent rhyme or reason.

Read the full article.

4) Edmonton judge relied on rape 'myths and stereotypes,' Crown argues

 Janice Johnston, CBC News

An Edmonton superior court judge has been accused of relying on rape "myths and stereotypes" to acquit a 55-year-old man of sexually assaulting his stepdaughter.

Read the full article.

5) The alt-right hates women as much as it hates people of colour

Matthew N Lyons, The Guardian

One hundred days on from Donald Trump entering the White House with its help, what will the alt-right do next? The small, loosely organised movement, which has helped to revitalise far-right politics in the United States, has made skilful use of internet activism and has a receptive ear in Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon, who as former head of Breitbart News once proclaimed his network “the platform of the alt-right”. More than shaping White House policy, however, the alt-right’s greatest impact may come from its efforts to shift the political culture.

Read the full article.

6) Barack Obama's $400,000 speaking fees reveal what few want to admit

Steven W Thrasher, The Guardian

The reason many of us have been critical of Barack Obama’s outrageous $400,000 speaking fee is that it robs us of a fantasy: that sooner or later, the first black president was going to use his considerable powers, in or out of office, to help the economic ravages of the poor, who are disproportionately black.



Laura Kane, The Canadian Press

Jan knew she had to leave.
It was 1973 and her husband spent most days drinking and seething with rage.
One afternoon, he smacked her on the back of the head, knocking her to the floor and nearly cracking her skull on a wall.



Hadley Freeman, The Guardian

Noah Pozner was reluctant to go to school that day. A mischievous little boy, who had celebrated his sixth birthday three weeks earlier, he stayed in bed too long and dragged his feet getting ready. “I said to him: ‘Come on, Noah, we gotta get moving,” his father, Leonard (also known as Lenny) recalls, having thought about the morning of 14 December 2012 so often he can almost talk about it mechanically. But the drive was fun: Noah, his twin sister, Arielle, and older sister, Sophia, listened to Gangnam Style, one of Noah’s favourite songs. Noah always sat in the back seat and Leonard tickled his ankle as he drove along. At school, Noah jumped out, his backpack in one hand, his jacket in the other. He was wearing a Batman shirt and Spider-Man trainers. “I said: ‘I love you, have a great day,’ and that was the last thing I ever said to him,” says Pozner. After all, he adds, “Not even Batman could have stopped an AR-15.”



Harry Lyles Jr., SBNation

Colin Kaepernick still hasn’t signed a contract with an NFL team this offseason, but he’s been plenty busy with charitable work.



Tina Lovgreen, CBC News

The parents of a teenage girl are demanding an apology from Surrey RCMP, after their daughter was handcuffed and taken to the ground in what they say is a case of mistaken identity.



Stefan Kipfer, Socialist Project

C'est grave,” (things are serious) said the monsieur who sells me the papers every morning. A resident of Mantes-la-Jolie (a working class town at the western edge of the Paris region), he laments a lack of clarity on the dangers of the Front National (FN) not only among colleagues and neighbours but also parties and politicians.



John Nichols, The Nation

When Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, NAACP president Cornell Williams Brooks, and actor Danny Glover joined thousands of Mississippians in marching for labor rights two months ago, economic and social justice activist Chokwe Antar Lumumba was in the thick of it. “I stand for workers’ rights,” Lumumba said, as the marchers converged on a Nissan plant where workers have been organizing for union protections. “[The] struggle does not cease and so we’re constantly in the battle of how we create self-determined lives for people. And we believe in human rights for human beings and you cannot support human rights if you’re not prepared to support workers’ rights. And so, we live in a world where you have so many with so little and so few with so much. And so, we’re trying to change that dynamic right here [in Mississippi]—we want to change the order of the world.”



Wendy Gillis and Jennifer Yang, The Toronto Star

Racial profiling is alive and well in Ontario, according to a new survey by the province’s human rights commission — with more than 1,500 Ontarians reporting experiences of being racially profiled not just by police, but also at their workplaces, schools, hospitals and shopping malls.



Shaun King, New York Daily News

"Our teenage sons can't sleep at night. They are either sleeping in the bed with us or sleeping with all the lights on. When they fall asleep they are having night terrors of seeing their brother murdered right there in front of them."



Shaun King, New York Daily News

On Saturday, Charmaine and Odell Edwards buried their baby boy. In a private funeral for friends and family, through tears, sobs and wails, loved ones recounted their memories of a young man who was universally loved by all.



Avi Asher-Schapiro, The Intercept

IN 2012, SHORTLY AFTER Uber started operating in Los Angeles, Rachel Galindo bought a new car and signed up as a driver. She had worked as a journeyman carpenter, but contractors who used to hire her stopped calling after she transitioned her gender. Driving for Uber, Galindo hoped to avoid transphobia — after all, the company’s own billboards made the tantalizing promise: “Be your own boss.”
The harassment began almost immediately.


Desmond Cole, Cole's Notes

This week I met with Andrew Philips, the Toronto Star’s editorial page editor, who has essentially served as my boss at the newspaper. Phillips called me in regarding my political disruption of the April 20 meeting of the Toronto Police Services Board. Phillips said this action had violated the Star’s rules on journalism and activism. He didn’t discipline me or cite any consequence for my actions—Phillips said he just wanted me to know what the Star’s rules are.



Luke Gordon Field, The Beaverton

It has long been the policy of the Toronto Star that black journalists not take public stands on public issues or become the news. By exercising his right to free speech and protest in a public forum on police discrimination Mr. Cole put himself in a firestorm of controversy that upwards of one blog and our newspaper were writing about. This was unacceptable to the editorial board of the Toronto Star and, as the public editor they trot out to cover their asses at times like these, I concur with their decision.


19) Desmond Cole's decision to leave the Toronto Star suggests a double standard on activism

John Miller, Rabble

This is a tale of two columnists, and how they were treated very differently by Canada's largest newspaper.
All they have in common is that neither is still writing there.

Read the full article.

20) There are diseases hidden in ice and they are waking up

Jasmin Fox-Skelly, BBC News

Long-dormant bacteria and viruses, trapped in ice and permafrost for centuries, are reviving as Earth's climate warms.



Russell Mokhiber, Counterpunch

Last month, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) promised single payer activists that he would introduce his single payer bill in the Senate within the next couple of weeks.
Now, according to Sanders’ staff, it’s not going to happen.



Clive Hamilton, The Guardian

After 200,000 years of modern humans on a 4.5 billion-year-old Earth, we have arrived at new point in history: the Anthropocene. The change has come upon us with disorienting speed. It is the kind of shift that typically takes two or three or four generations to sink in.
Our best scientists tell us insistently that a calamity is unfolding, that the life-support systems of the Earth are being damaged in ways that threaten our survival. Yet in the face of these facts we carry on as usual.

Read the full article.

There is also an article from the last period that we missed at the time that is worth including in this round-up:

23) Losing my religion for equality

Jimmy Carter, The Age

Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.

Read the full article.

See also: Carding, Streaming, Police in Pride and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List April 23 - 30

See also: The British and French Elections, The West Wing and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List April 16 - 23


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