Tag: George Floyd

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

George Floyd Book Event at Whitehaven High Squeezed By Tennessee Law

Students at Whitehaven High School in Memphis attended an assembly with the authors of “His Name Is George Floyd,” but restrictions associated with Tennessee law prevented them from hearing excerpts of the book. (Courtesy of Memphis Shelby County Schools)

Students at Memphis’ Whitehaven High School got a chance last month to hear from journalists Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, authors of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on George Floyd — his life, his brutal killing by police in 2020, and its aftermath. 

But the students didn’t get to hear any excerpts from His Name Is George Floyd, and they weren’t allowed to take home copies of the book from school. The authors had to give their presentation without going too deep into the book’s main theme of systemic racism. 

Who determined the restrictions and why is unclear. The organizers of the event, a local partnership called Memphis Reads, said their instructions to the authors were based on guidance from the school district on complying with Tennessee law that requires that books used in school be “age appropriate.”

Memphis-Shelby County Schools officials disputed their account, but repeatedly declined to answer questions about what they told the organizers or how they interpreted the law. In an email to the authors after the event, district communications chief Cathryn Stout said MSCS did not run the book through its review process before the visit. 

In the end, the authors told Chalkbeat, the students who gathered at Whitehaven that day were shortchanged by restricted access to the book and a censored experience. 

“Neither Tolu nor I know who to cast blame on,” Samuels said. “I’m not sure we could, or we should.”

But the ambiguous restrictions in this and other Tennessee laws have caused concern at the local level about compliance, Samuels said, resulting in “messy, potentially explosive debates between entities that usually get along.”

Floyd was killed during an arrest in May 2020, when a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for several minutes. An onlooker’s video recording of the event went public, triggering a huge outcry and calls for and policing reform. The officer was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder.

Samuels and Olonnuripa’s book, written while both were reporters at the Washington Post, looks not just at the incident but also at how pervasive racism in education, criminal justice, housing, and health care systems shaped Floyd’s life. “We learned about the man himself … and much more than how he died,” Samuels said during a forum at Rhodes College.

They also wrote about what happened afterward: a season of demonstrations, dialogue, and unrest during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by what they call a “burgeoning backlash” to the racial justice movement, resulting in state laws across the country that stifled classroom discussions on race.

Tennessee was among the first states to legislate what public school students can — and cannot — be taught about race, gender, and bias. And the penalties are steep. Educators who violate the law may have their teaching licenses suspended or revoked. Districts can be fined for repeat offenses.

MSCS officials and the Memphis Reads organizers did not specifically cite this law as a factor in what ultimately happened at Whitehaven, but the law nonetheless hangs over educators’ decisions about what topics are appropriate for classroom discussion. Two Memphis teachers are among five in Tennessee challenging the law in federal court.

Tennessee’s Age Appropriate Materials Act, meanwhile, requires schools to publish a list of what’s in their library collections online and develop policies to review and remove books that aren’t appropriate — a term that the law leaves undefined. 

MSCS has leeway to interpret this law, but longstanding tensions between the majority-Black, Democratic-led city and the mostly white, GOP-dominated state government mean the district can ill afford to risk a fight with the state over the nuances of race and books.

Christian Brothers University runs the Memphis Reads program in partnership with other community groups. In communication with Chalkbeat, CBU cited the Age Appropriate Materials law as the reason it understood that books and materials couldn’t be distributed at the Whitehaven event and said that the guidance came from the Memphis school district.

CBU and other Memphis Reads partners “were under the instruction of MSCS leadership when completing the formatting and regulations concerning the Age-Appropriate Materials Act,” Justin Brooks, the CBU community engagement director who heads Memphis Reads, wrote in an email to Chalkbeat. 

MSCS officials wouldn’t confirm that to Chalkbeat, or explain whether Tennessee’s law regulating classroom conversations about race influenced any restrictions.  

In the email to the authors after the event, shared later with Chalkbeat, Stout wrote that time constraints prevented the district from going through its own process to approve the book. Stout wrote that the district regretted that their “experience was anything less than welcoming.”

“Given the new, more detailed process, it will take some time to coordinate, but please know that ‘His Name Is George Floyd’ is now under consideration to be added to the Whitehaven High School library collection,” Stout wrote to the authors, “and we look forward to having conversations with other school communities as requests arise.”

Separately, Stout shared with Chalkbeat a copy of a description from library book distributor Baker & Taylor that categorizes the book as “adult” and among the American Library Association’s “Notable Books for Adults.”

Stout also wrote in a public social media comment explaining the district’s position that the American Library Association labeled His Name is George Floyd as “adult literature (18 and older).”

ALA spokesperson Raymond Garcia told Chalkbeat that the group “does not rate books” for age appropriateness. 

Booklist, a book review magazine published by the ALA — and listed among resources for librarians in an MSCS manual — uses its “adult” label not to be restrictive but to signal that a book would be of interest primarily to adults, Garcia said. 

His Name is George Floyd is also categorized as “nonfiction” and “social sciences.” 

If the label was a factor in the decision not to allow Memphis Reads to distribute the books at Whitehaven, then that’s an “inaccurate understanding” of the purpose of such book labels, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association.  

“We can think of any kinds of works of literature that would have been originally rated as of interest to an adult reader that are absolutely fine for young people to read, and it’s not too controversial,” Caldwell-Stone told Chalkbeat, citing “To Kill a Mockingbird” as an example.

Nonetheless, the ambiguity in Tennessee’s standard of “appropriateness” creates gray areas and heightens the stakes for local districts concerned about avoiding a violation, Caldwell-Stone said. 

If a person or district cannot risk breaking the law, “then you’re going to be very thoughtful about what books you offer,” she said, “and thereby limit the opportunities to learn and engage with all kinds of ideas, even controversial or difficult ideas.”

A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Education says MSCS did not reach out to the state for guidance, and MSCS didn’t respond to a question from Chalkbeat about that issue.

Thanks to a donation from the publisher, Viking Books, students who want a free copy of the book will be able to get one from Respect the Haven, a community development group in Whitehaven that’s part of Memphis Reads.

Whitehaven High School serves some 1,500 students and is known among Memphis for its school pride and focus on students’ post-secondary scholarship achievements. Almost all of its students are Black, and about half of them are from low-income families.

“This event basically got censored out of fear of violating some law,” said Jason Sharif, head of Respect the Haven. “With us being a predominantly Black city, a predominantly Black school district, you cannot keep books like this or stories like this from being told to Black students.”

By the time Samuels and Olorunnipa arrived at Whitehaven High School for the event on Oct. 26, they knew some of the restrictions they would have to operate under. The two reporters were prepared to tell students about the journalistic work that went into writing the book, but to avoid going into depth about many of the issues it raised.

Brooks, from Memphis Reads, had told them they wouldn’t be able to read directly from the book, or talk about the book’s discussion of how systemic racism created many barriers for Floyd, long before his arrest and killing. MSCS was involved in setting these restrictions, Brooks said. The district did not comment on its role. 

Instead of an open question-and-answer period, five students were pre-selected to ask Samuels and Olorunnipa prepared questions, which was different from the open conversations at the two other panels that Memphis Reads organized. This was in line with MSCS protocol for events, Brooks said.

Brooks said it was CBU’s call to keep the event closed to media, out of concern for student safety. A Chalkbeat reporter attended two similar events at the college level.

Stout said Brooks and Sharif had created a narrative about the event that is “inconsistent” with the district’s point of view and its own initiatives. She highlighted a Memphis school integration curriculum and a social emotional learning curriculum involving the death of Tyre Nichols, a Black man who was fatally injured by Memphis police after a traffic stop in early 2023. 

MSCS told Chalkbeat that it was glad Whitehaven students had the opportunity to hear the journalists speak, as did CBU in its own communication. 

And Samuels and Olorunnipa, who had early doubts about being part of an event with restrictions on their speech, said they were grateful for the opportunity, too. They were approached at the end of the event by a Whitehaven high schooler with a notebook full of questions who said he wanted to be a journalist. The authors relished the chance to expand what the student imagined for his future. 

“Even through this period of backlash, we think it’s important to continue to push forward and continue to make a pathway for people who are caught up in the back and forth,” Olorunnipa said during another forum. 

“A lot of these kids have nothing to do with the politics,” Olorunnipa added. “They are just trying to make it. They’re just trying to live their best lives. And sometimes they become pawns in our political fights.” 

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

“From Protest to Progress” Certifies Staffing Agencies

Credit: Greater Memphis Chamber

A new, only-in-Memphis certification will be given to staffing agencies for fairness and equity, the first concrete result from the Greater Memphis Chamber’s program called From Protest to Progress.  

That program brought together about 50 Memphis activists, clergy members, and business leaders 10 days after the city’s first protest of the public killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. The overarching goal for the From Protest to Progress plan is for a more positive Black economic impact in Memphis.

The new Gold Standard Certification is a direct response from the group concerned with staffing agencies, the Chamber said, and “addresses concerns about equitable hiring practices and fair treatment of people finding work through staffing agencies.”

Chamber president and CEO Beverly Robertson said, “The Gold Standard Certification was created to address the real need of people in our community to know which staffing agencies will treat them fairly, equitably, and with the dignity they deserve.”

Five companies will get the designation each year. This year the certification was given to CTD Staffing, LLC; Prestigious Placements, Inc.; Prologistix; Staffline, LLC; and Summerfield Associates, Inc.

To be eligible for certification, staffing agencies must operate in Memphis or Shelby County for three or more years, demonstrate a commitment to ethical and professional standards, submit letters of support from an employee client and business client, and support the success of all of their employee clients.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

I Showed Up in Boots …

I’m old enough to remember the great Levitt Shell tagging. It was last week, I think. Memphis woke up to the news that political slogans, including “Black Lives Matter,” “Save the Children,” “Eat the Rich,” and various epithets had been spray-painted on the Shell. The images were all over social media by mid-morning, at which point we also learned that presumably the same taggers had defaced the Great Wall of Graceland with similar slogans.

It was a Rorschach test. Confirmation biases kicked in. Some were outraged by the vandalism itself; others were outraged by the fact that people were more upset by graffiti than by the loss of Black lives. Many were convinced that the tagging was done by right-wing agitators looking to smear BLM and start unrest. There was something for everyone.

Steven Askew

Here’s the thing: If you don’t know who did something, you don’t know why it was done. You’re just making noise on social media. By the next day, the paint had been removed, and the brouhaha quickly disappeared, lost in the perpetual churn of the outrage cycle.

There was another story last week that you probably overlooked, and that’s too bad. It was well-reported in The Commercial Appeal by reporter Sarah Macaraeg. A Memphis Police Officer named Matthew Dyess was outed for several racist posts on Facebook. Dyess praised the Kenosha shooter with a meme that read: “Blame it all on my roots, I showed up in boots, and ruined their Black Lives affair.” Another meme Dyess posted read, “Damn, that kid can shoot!” and was tagged with a comment, “Me, watching the news.” And there was more. From the CA story: “A 2017 picture in uniform and the Facebook groups which Dyess follows remained publicly accessible Friday. The groups ‘(F—-) the Organization Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Memphis Brigade, Sons of Confederate Veterans’ were listed among them.”

So, Matthew Dyess is a racist Memphis cop. That’s bad enough. But it gets much, much worse. And it gets personal. You see, Matthew Dyess and his then-partner Ned Aufdenkamp are the cops who shot and killed Steven Askew in 2013. Steven was the son of Sylvia Askew, my wife’s legal assistant at the Federal Public Defender’s office. I went to Steven’s funeral. I know his father and mother. He was a fine young man, an auto mechanic, not a criminal. He was assassinated by two MPD officers. If this had happened in the past year or two, instead of in 2013, Memphis would be an epicenter for protest. Steven Askew’s name would be known as well as George Floyd’s and Breonna Taylor’s. His death was that egregious. MPD and the DA would not be able to bury this story in 2020.

Here’s what happened: Aufdenkamp and Dyess were patrolling an apartment complex on foot, responding to a noise complaint. They noticed the 24-year-old Askew asleep in his car. He was waiting for his girlfriend, who lived in the complex, to get off work. But Steven never got to tell his story. That’s because, when Aufdenkamp and Dyess woke him (with guns drawn), they got spooked and fired 22 rounds at Askew — from behind. Nine bullets struck Steven in the back and neck, and he died. The cops first told investigators that Askew had shot at them but changed their stories when it turned out that a gun on the floorboard (which Askew had a permit for) had not been fired, and didn’t even have fresh fingerprints on it.

Aufdenkamp and Dyess needlessly shot and killed a man who committed no crime. He wasn’t resisting arrest. He wasn’t speeding. He hadn’t even run a stop sign. He was sleeping in his car and probably awoke with a start when officers tapped the window, a response that cost him his life — killed for the crime of sleeping in his car while Black.

Of course, the incident was “investigated,” but even after the lies the officers told investigators were revealed, District Attorney Amy Weirich declined to press charges, saying it would be too difficult to prove the officers committed a crime.

Right. A civil court saw it differently and awarded Askew’s parents $587,000 in damages. But no crime was committed. Nope. Just a teensy mistake by a couple of hard-working MPD officers.

Aufdenkamp had, at the time, a checkered incident history, with several run-ins with the public. Now we learn that Dyess, seven years after pumping numerous bullets into an innocent Black man, is a racist who posts white supremacist crap on Facebook. He needs to be relieved of duty immediately — which is unfortunately seven years too late for Steven Askew.

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

RNC 2020: The Masque of the Red Party

You have to give Donald Trump this: He has good taste in music to close out with. It’s hard to beat the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” with which he ends his rallies. (Against the wishes of the Stones, it should be noted.) And singer Christopher Macchio’s renditions of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma,” Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” and the traditional “Ave Maria” (delivered from the Truman Balcony at the White House) were certainly powerful codas to the President’s climactic address at the Republican National Convention Thursday night, outdoing even an extended round of fireworks that filled the sky over the nation’s Capital.

That the White House, historically known as “the People’s House,” was able to be employed as a backdrop to the events and festivities of the four-day RNC affair was a consequence, in a way, of the deadly coronavirus pandemic that had made planned arena extravaganzas in Charlotte, North Carolina, and, later, Jacksonville, Florida, impossible. Invoking the protocols of the Hatch Act, Democrats had complained about their rivals’ appropriation of national structures and symbology for such partisan purposes, but, as in so much else, Trump just does what he wants and gets away with it.

Give him this, too: Though the pandemic had caused the RNC to uproot and move its venue, twice, Trump remained intent on flaunting his so far successful penchant for gambling. He wanted crowds? He got crowds — upwards of 1,500, packed in tight on the south lawn of the White House to hear him speak. Masks? We don’t need no stinking masks! No social distancing, either. It was Tulsa writ smaller but grander, and, if the late GOP African-American eminence Herman Cain had been a casualty of that earlier wager, Trump’s own luck, and that of his family and entourage, seemed to be holding.

Masks? We don’t need no stinking masks!

Once again, the president had hurled a defy to the fates. No one — or no one so prominent — has so obviously and so consistently moved unprotected amid tight groups of people during the six months so far of medical emergency. And in his RNC address, he sort of laid it on the line to the country: “Joe wants to shut down, to surrender to the virus,” he declared of Democratic nominee Biden, who had spoken of intensified health-safety actions, including a national mask mandate. Trump’s own preference? “The states have to be opened up — back to work, back to school.” All Americans are involved in Trump’s parley — and its consequences.

“Let’s Pretend”
If the situation required a bit of rhetorical let’s-pretend, so be it. Speaker after speaker at the convention either ignored the pandemic or treated Trump like a triumphant Horatio at the gate. Early on, he had clearly minimized the threat and procrastinated in dealing with the virus, which has so far resulted in 6 million cases and 180,000 American lives, a full quarter of the world’s total. But this week in others’ telling, and in his own, he would seem — by the simple act of incomplete and temporary halts on traffic to and from China and Europe —to have stopped Covid-19 cold. On the convention’s second night, Trump’s economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, put the whole pandemic thing in the past tense. It’s over, folks.

In a convention only selectively attentive to realities, that was par for the course. On the convention’s first night, Andrew Pollack, whose daughter, sadly, had been among those slain in 2018 by a gunman at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, took the stage to praise President Trump, whom he’d met with after the shooting, as a “great man and good listener” and blamed the massacre on the emphasis on “restorative justice” by “far left Democrats.” Guns themselves and their ready prevalence in the land remained unmentioned.

Two nights later, logger Scott Dane contended that “crazy environmentalists” had somehow been responsible for the sporadically raging forest fires on the west coast and praised President Trump for his idea (so far unelaborated on) of “managing the forests.” Throughout the convention, in fact, “environmental extremists” were the villains of disparaging testimonies, right up there with “radical socialists” and “looters.” Those latter two categories were conflated, to the extent possible.

The McCloskeys

The McCloskeys, a couple from the St. Louis area who had brandished weapons at protesters of George Floyd’s murder, warned that the suburbs themselves were under direct attack. And ongoing events in Kenosha served, in both spoken and unspoken ways, to reinforce the sense of peril for Trump’s base. Never mind that the only deaths in that Wisconsin city had been those of Jacob Blake, an unarmed black man shot by police, and two protesters gunned down by a right-wing vigilante.

In all fairness, though, there had been martyrs of out-of-control mobs, and several of these were spoken to — notably, retired St. Louis police captain David Dorn, shot and killed by looters of a pawn shop he was trying to provide security for during a post-Floyd disturbance. There was a telling bit of having-it-both-ways during the emotionally moving description of the tragedy by Dorn’s widow, a white woman. The portrait of the late captain on a mantel behind her, was out-of-focus in such a way as to make his fact of his race indeterminate. Black viewers could see — and grieve for — one of their own, while those whites who chose to do so could remain uncertain about the matter.

In any case, for the RNC-ers, Kenosha was the ill wind from which some benefit could be derived. The concept of the Democratic nominee as “Sleepy Joe” had seemingly been mined for all it’s worth — and, on the evidence of Biden’s performance at the DNC convention, debunked. Now Biden was being described, by Trump and the president’s surrogates, as a “Trojan Horse,” a hapless government time-server for 47 years (a span alluded to over and over) who was now in the clutches of sinister elements to the point that an early RNC speaker had professed to be “terrified of Joe Biden coming after everything we’re building.”

Pam Bondi, former Florida attorney general, made bold to reprise the discredited slander of “Biden family members” as Ukrainian grifters, but mainly focused on the Bidens in China, a country so repeatedly referred to in the RNC convention as a super-specter, the gravest menace to America. (Russia went unmentioned and, on the evidence of this convention, might have ceased to exist on maps of the planet.)

Ironies Abounding
It was a convention in which extremes, exaggerations, and ironies abounded — one in which Tennessee’s high-intensity junior Senator, Marsha Blackburn, mustering every word slowly and carefully, came off as a relative moderate, although she still could breathe some fire: “Democrats] close our churches, but keep the liquor stores and abortion clinics open. They say we can’t gather in community groups, but encourage protests, riots, and looting in the streets. If the Democrats had their way, they would keep you locked in your house until you become dependent on the government for everything.”

Senator Tom Cotton

Question: How is it possible that Kimberly Guilfoyle, now Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, who had, in a memorably screechy address, proclaimed of Trump Sr., “He liberates you. He lifts you up,” could have earlier been married to the laid-back Gavin Newsom, California’s currently serving Democratic governor?

The gaunt and ultra-grim-looking Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, meanwhile accused Biden of “coddling communist dictators” and failed to mention the exchange of love letters, as they were characterized by the President himself, between Trump and Kim Jung Un of North Korea.

In his 70-minute finale of a teleprompter address, Trump would recap all of the calumnies directed at Biden, declaring outright that, if the Democrat were elected, “China would own our country.” He characterizes himself as “the People’s President,” and the claim reflects a reelection strategy based less on foreign issues than on day-to-day concerns in the population. In that sense, the threat from China is presented as primarily economic (though, just in case, Trump credits himself with rebuilding the nation’s military).

Democrats note correctly that the nation’s economic recovery from the 2007-8 crash began under the “Obama-Biden” presidency (as Republicans now choose to characterize it), but Trump’s argument that his administration accounted for the most robust economy in American history still has legs. The President notes the addition of “9 million new jobs” in the last three months, while Democrats counter with the fact that some 21 million were lost just previously, in the coronavirus shutdown.

The president’s taking point remains, and the outcome of the election depends at least partly on the continuing viability of it vis-a-vis the ever-looming threat of the virus. In the either/or of things, the two tickets are each emphasizing a different side of the dichotomy.

“Family Values”
Then there are domestic factors — matters of tranquility, racial fairness, gender equity among them — to be reckoned with. It was no accident that the Republican convention featured an unusual number of women and African Americans to serve as proponents of the president. As identity groups, blacks and women are being counted on by Democrats, with some degree of confidence, as anchors of the Biden-Harris ticket. Trump and the GOP nevertheless are seeking such inroads there as are possible.

Though the LGBTQ community is overwhemingly Democratic, there are clearly a certain number of its members who opt for the GOP, and Republicans are not so foolish as to entertain the strategy of gay-bashing.The one issue on which there is no likelihood whatsoever of the twain’s meeting amicably on the battlefield of this election is abortion. There would seem to be no middle ground between being anti-abortion and being pro-choice. The Democratic platform opts for the latter and the Republican platform, such as it is, for the former.

For all the vau

The Rev. Franklin Graham

nting during the convention of his family members (all of whom appear to have been on hand, save those who have denounced him publicly), Donald Trump is not, and will never be, a symbol of “family values.” Nevertheless, his brand encapsulates issues of that sort as well as spokespersons for them (cases in point being the Rev. Franklin Graham and various smaller fry), and social conservatism is one of the cards Republicans are certain to play.

The exact power of that constituency is hard to estimate, though, as a voting bloc, it is arguably more dependable than are those forces galvanized so strongly right now by Black Lives Matter and other movements to redress historic wrongs. Assessments of strength and staying power in such matters are notoriously difficult to assess in polls.

Que sera sera, and, as a friend of ours is so fond of saying, events are in the saddle. Covid-19, George Floyd, and Kenosha have all reminded us of that. In any event, the Democrats and the Republicans have each had their show now, and, a little more than two months from now, (Postmaster General DeJoy willing) the Nielsen ratings will come in — with dramatic consequences, either way.

Categories
News News Blog

Protest Crackdowns Central to Legislative Session

CREDIT: State of Tennessee

State of Tennessee

Four protestors testified via Zoom during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday.

“Well, what did she write?”

That was a question from Sen. Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma), who is white, to Sen. Brenda Gilmore (D-Nashville), who is African-American. It was the first question Bowling asked when Gilmore told of a 14-year-old girl who had been arrested at a Nashville protest for writing on a sidewalk with chalk.

The exchange came in the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting Tuesday. It was one of several hearings during a special session of the Tennessee General Assembly called by Governor Bill Lee.

The session was called by Lee under the auspices of tackling COVID-19 liability issues for businesses and organizations. But the session also carries a major dose of possible trouble for protesters across the state. The final legislation against protestors is expected to be proposed by Lee, and would bring harsher sentences for vandalism and blocking a highway or street, and would allow officers to collect the personal belongings of those gathered (camping) on state property between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.

The protest legislation is in response to the two-month, nearly round-the-clock protest on Legislative Plaza, just across the street from the Tennessee State Capitol. Protestors there are calling for reforms in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd.

Gilmore brought a bill to the Senate committee that would guarantee the right to peaceful protest in Tennessee. Though several lawmakers pointed out that the U.S. Constitution already guarantees this right, Gilmore said the legislation would have clarified the point in Tennessee law and reminded protestors here of their legal right to assemble.
[pullquote-1-center] However, the discussion was overshadowed by actions of some protesters in Nashville Monday. Sen. Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) said he was surrounded by a group of protestors as he left his legislative office and walked to a restaurant two blocks away. Roberts said the protestors yelled at him and called him names but did not touch him nor threaten him with violence. He said the scene made it “hard to sympathize” with protestors and hard to have a conversation about issues.

Bowling said demonstrators blocked the exit to the garage where lawmakers park their cars.
[pullquote-2-center] “There was loud talking, signs, and all sorts of things until troopers came and made a safe passage for us to get out,” Bowling said. “There were fists put in our (faces) and people screaming at us, and people getting in the street as we were trying to leave.”

Bowling said she and others were kept safe but forced to stay in the garage for half an hour. This was difficult, she said, because the garage is “not a pleasant place to be” and can get hot and stuffy.

(Floyd was handcuffed, held on the ground and murdered on a Minneapolis street as a one police officer knelt on his neck for nearly eight minutes. Two other officers restrained him while another held the crowd at bay. Floyd begged for his life repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe.” The arrest and murder came after a store clerk accused Floyd of passing a counterfeit $20 bill.)

“Civility is what we’re losing,” Bowling argued. She said Lee’s legislation, which is expected to be finalized Wednesday, will help “get rid of bad apples” in the protest movement.

Four protestors testified via Zoom during the committee hearing, speaking to Lee’s expected legislation. Justin Jones hoped legislators would address the symptoms of the protests — racial inequality — instead of further criminalizing the protests themselves. He called Lee’s legislation “morally reprehensible.” Lindsey Edwards said protestors have been unable to speak directly with Lee. If they had, she said the protest and the legislation could have been avoided altogether.

Sen. Sara Kyle (D-Memphis) said protestors are frustrated because they are literally locked out of the capitol building, their voices silenced from any decision-making process. She suggested finding an appropriate place for citizens to speak with lawmakers.

In response to Bowling’s question, Gilmore told her she could not remember what the 14-year-old girl wrote. It wasn’t profanity, she said, “it was whatever a 14-year-old girl would write to express herself.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Week That Was: Virus Ride, Police Reform, and Nathan Bedford Forrest

Virus Ride
Shelby County’s virus numbers started low and rose steadily throughout the week.

Last Sunday’s total new cases were crazy low with only 19 new cases reported that day, for a total positive rate of 2.9 percent. Monday’s cases put the county over 6,000 total cases at 6,119 and a positive rate of 6.6 percent. Positive rates by Wednesday jumped to 9 percent.

Thursday’s positive rate spiked to 13 percent, and a record number of virus patients were being treated in area hospitals. Friday and Saturday totals found virus rates stabilized to around 7 percent but rose again on Sunday to 9 percent.

Curfew Lifted
In maybe the briefest of news briefs of all time, the city of Memphis announced Monday morning (June 8th) that … well, you can read it up there, but “Memphis curfew has been lifted.”

The lift came after nearly a week of curfew issued from Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland to stem protests here after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Poor People’s Campaign Against Racism
A couple dozen people gathered in Downtown Memphis last Monday to rally for justice and an end to systemic racism.

The demonstration, organized by the Poor People’s Campaign, took place in Army Park, where a historical marker stands commemorating the Memphis Massacre of 1866. The massacre lasted three days, over which a white mob led by law enforcement killed approximately 46 black people, raped several black women, and burned churches, schools, and other black establishments.

After reading the words from the historical marker, Rev. Edith Love with the Poor People’s Campaign said violence by white people toward black people has not stopped, but that “it has merely evolved.”

Braking on Back to Business
Shelby County and its cities should not open more economic and social activities until at least June 15th, the Shelby County Health Department said last week.

On Monday afternoon, the health department issued its recommendation on moving into Phase III of the county’s Back to Business plan. Health officials here delayed moving to the next step last week. Also, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland pushed the city’s move to Phase III to Tuesday, June 16th.

“The recommendation comes after careful analysis of data since the move to Phase II on May 19th, 2020,” reads a statement from the health department. “We have seen an increase in daily case numbers, particularly after the Memorial Day weekend. For that reason, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and the Shelby County Health Department have decided to maintain the current COVID-19 response level at this time.”

Floyd Fund Created
Shelby County Schools (SCS) superintendent Joris Ray and University of Memphis president M. David Rudd committed to the creation of the George Floyd Memorial Scholarship fund as a means of fighting the systemic racism and racial inequality faced by African Americans in education.

The fund will provide college scholarship support for African American Male Academy members, as well as college-readiness preparation. The African American Male Academy is a partnership between SCS and the university, aimed at improving graduation rates throughout Memphis.
Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home/Facebook

Lawmakers Refuse to Remove Forrest Bust
An all-white House committee voted down two proposals from a black House member to remove the bust of slave trader Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Tennessee State Capitol.

Rep. Rick Staples (D-Knoxville) brought his ideas on removing the bust back to lawmakers after the Tennessee General Assembly broke earlier this year on COVID-19 concerns.

Staples’ original resolution sought to remove the bust of the KKK founder and replace it with two African-American Tennesseans — Anne Davis, who worked to establish Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and William F. Yardley, the first African American to run for governor in Tennessee. Staples broadened his original resolution with an amendment that would have allowed the bust to be of any Tennessean who worked for racial equality in the state.

The all-white House Naming, Designating, and Private Acts Committee debated the proposals for more than an hour. The debate touched on protests around the state focused on racial injustice, removing other busts and statues around the capitol building, and one lawmaker’s concern that Staples’ bill would exclude white lawmakers like her from having a bust in the capitol one day.

Staples said he was not trying to erase history, as many lawmakers have worried about over the hours and hours of debate on this topic. Instead, he said he was trying to celebrate a different figure that “touches us all in a positive way.”

Council Moves on Police Reform
A Memphis City Council committee advanced three items that focus on police reform during an online meeting last week.

One aims to increase the transparency of the complaint process for the Memphis Police Department (MPD).

The council also advanced a joint resolution between the council and the Shelby County Commission requesting that MPD and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department adopt the “8 Can’t Wait” use-of-force reduction policy. The policy was created by Campaign Zero, an anti-police-brutality advocacy group, to be implemented by law enforcement agencies in order to reduce and prevent violent encounters.

The last resolution recommended for approval, sponsored by Michalyn Easter-Thomas, calls for Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland to form a community task force to assist in the selection of a new MPD director. Rallings announced last year that he plans to retire in April 2021.

All the resolutions were scheduled for a vote this week.

Strickland Opposes Move to Defund Police
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said last Wednesday he is against defunding the Memphis Police Department, a suggestion floated by many protesters.

As the national conversation about defunding police departments heats up, Strickland released a statement:

“I’m opposed to defunding our police department,” Strickland said. “Over the last four and a half years, we’ve increased funding to libraries, community centers, made summer camps free, created Manhood University, W.O.W.S, and the Public Service Corps for those who need second chances, and came up with a way to fund universal needs-based pre-K, but we still have more work to do.”
[pullquote-1] County in Virus ‘Marathon Mode’
Shelby County is now in COVID-19 marathon mode and could be for “many months to come, if not a year.”

That was the description of the current situation from Shelby County Health Department director Dr. Alisa Haushalter during Thursday’s update of the Memphis and Shelby County Joint COVID Task Force.

“On the joint task force, we realize we’re in a marathon,” Haushalter said. “For any one of you who have run a marathon, you know you have to plan ahead for the distance, knowing there will be difficult times ahead. We know we will have to make changes along the way to meet the end goal to end COVID-19 in our community.”

“Marathon mode” means many things. Officials will continue to urge citizens to wear masks when they leave home, wash their hands, and social distance for the foreseeable future. Specifically, some of the outdoor testing facilities will be moved indoors to escape the summer heat, according to city of Memphis Chief Operating Officer Doug McGowen.

Despite three days of higher-than-average case numbers last week, Haushalter said the community was ready to enter Phase III of the Back to Business Plan, which would open capacity at more stores and restaurants and allow for more social mingling. Some of the highest new case numbers came last week, with 125 cases reported for Wednesday and 129 cases reported for Monday. Haushalter said the county has averaged 65 new cases since the pandemic began here and any number over 100 is a “significant” increase from day to day. However, she said the county has only had six days over 100 new cases in the duration.

“Now, we are seeing a slight increase after we headed into Phase II but not anything that alarms me or anything that says we shouldn’t or couldn’t move into Phase III,” she said.

Corrections Inmates, Employees Virus Tested
Surge testing of 700 inmates and 120 employees at Shelby County Division of Corrections facilities found six inmates and 13 employees who were positive for COVID-19.

The figures put the positivity rate among inmates at about .8 percent. The positive rate for employees, though, is about 10.8 percent.

Results of the testing were shared Friday morning by Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris.

No deaths were reported among inmates or employees. No inmates have been hospitalized, though none of them have yet recovered from the virus. Only one of the employees has not yet recovered.

Memphis Gets Bike Friendly
Memphis has shown a strong commitment to improving its bike network and encouraging residents to ride, according to a report released last week.

PeopleForBikes evaluated 550 U.S. and Canadian cities for the report. Memphis ranked 60th overall with a score of 2.5 out of 5.

However, in the acceleration category Memphis snagged fifth place. The acceleration score assesses how quickly a city is improving its biking infrastructure and how successful it is at encouraging residents to ride bikes. Memphis scored 4.2 in this category.

For fuller versions of these stories and more local news, visit The News Blog at memphisflyer.com.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

No Domestic War Zones

My scariest moment in a war zone was only two weeks after getting to Afghanistan.

I was in a convoy of six vehicles going to pick up some new arrivals. On our way back to the base, the vehicle I was driving had a transmission failure. This happened in what was considered a particularly dangerous part of the city. We dismounted our vehicles and took our protective positions, as one of the senior soldiers more familiar with the vehicle did troubleshooting.  

Corey Strong

We were vulnerable and exposed, and I experienced real fear despite the training I had received. While on my knee with my long rifle at the ready, I saw families walking back and forth in their community. I can tell you with confidence that a dozen armed men in armed vehicles made them just as afraid of us as we were of them.

Black Americans know that fear all too well. The deaths of George Floyd and countless others have made the country come to grips with this tragic reality — the reality that police forces all over the country for over 30 years have purchased $6 billion worth of equipment with a specific military purpose from the federal government. Along with the equipment, police have incorporated militaristic tactics to enforce racist policies targeted at black communities, such as the failed War on Drugs.

With 17 years of experience with military equipment, I can tell you that most police departments don’t have the experience and level of training needed to operate this equipment properly, which is a waste of our public dollars.

More importantly, this military armament is not the right equipment for policing in our communities. A 2017 study in Research and Politics has shown purchase of military equipment through the DOD 1033 program leads to higher levels of violence by law enforcement agencies — as well as against them.

This is not surprising to me. Even with the most powerful and well-trained military in the world, General Petraeus knew we and our NATO allies could not restore faith in a country with force, but instead would have to go about “winning hearts and minds.” That is what I did during my two tours in Afghanistan, and that is what our elected leaders and police should focus on here. The first step in winning back trust in our communities is to stop buying this equipment and discontinue using military-style tactics on civilians.

The dollars we spend on that equipment can be used to fund a long list of data-based solutions that will reduce violent interactions with the police, increase trust in those public servants, and reduce crime overall. We could create a Mental Health First Responders corps as an alternative to police, when 911 is used. We can invest in nonprofits that focus on crime and community life. A 2017 study in the American Sociological Review shows that for every 10 nonprofits funded there is an appreciable drop in the murder, violent crime, and property crime rates. We could fund the Shelby County Crime Commission to perform predictive policing to predict and intervene with officers who have a high risk of violent encounters.

Finally, we could invest in job training programs and growing industries that offer higher paying jobs so that members of our community reach their full potential and never have to consider a life of crime. The $650,000 mine-resistant vehicle Memphis Police Department purchased in 2016 could have funded these solutions and many others.

So, when you hear the terms “defund” and “demilitarize” in reference to the police, instead of fearing some lawless world without police, embrace a real future where our public dollars are used effectively to keep our communities safe and serve all people safely.

Corey Strong is an educator, commander in the Naval Reserves, and congressional candidate.

Categories
News News Blog

SCS and U of M Partner to Found George Floyd Memorial Scholarship

CREDIT: University of Memphis

University of Memphis

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, local educators have banded together to create a new opportunity for Memphis-area students.

Shelby County Schools (SCS) superintendent Joris Ray and University of Memphis president M. David Rudd have committed to the creation of the George Floyd Memorial Scholarship fund as a means of fighting the systemic racism and racial inequality faced by African Americans in education.

The fund will provide college scholarship support for African American Male Academy members, as well as college-readiness preparation.

The African American Male Academy is a partnership between SCS and the university, aimed at improving graduation rates throughout Memphis. The academy targets middle-school-aged African-American boys with the goal of creating a hub of inclusive excellence that exposes middle-school boys to African-American professors and staff. The first class of 50 was inducted into the program on Sunday, June 7th.

“I’m proud to join my good friend, Dr. Rudd, in this work of putting a laser-like focus on the empowerment of young men of color in middle schools across the city,” said Ray. “Through this memorial scholarship, we’ve set out to ensure that George Floyd did not die in vain, and that his final cries for breath will forever be ingrained in our consciousness.”

Rudd granted that this was “only one small step” toward productive change and that the U of M would be continuing to make “concrete changes and reforms” in the coming months.

More information about the African American Male Academy can be found here.

Categories
News News Blog

TommyTypo: A Protest Story of Sharpies, Cash Cab, Getting Arrested & Released

CREDIT: @tommytypo/Twitter

@tommytypo/Twitter

Memphis Twitter user @tommytypo won the internet this week with a series of tweets about being detained during a day of protest.

TommyTypo: A Protest Story of Sharpies, Cash Cab, Getting Arrested & Released

TommyTypo: A Protest Story of Sharpies, Cash Cab, Getting Arrested & Released (2)

TommyTypo: A Protest Story of Sharpies, Cash Cab, Getting Arrested & Released (3)

The tale was brief but riveting. I wanted to know more. So, I asked him.

Memphis Flyer: All right. Can you start at the beginning and tell me what happened? How did you get there? What were you doing?

@tommytypo: When I was informed that there were going to be protests for George Floyd and the many other black bodies that were unarmed and murdered, I had to show up. I was hesitant to show up because of corona, but the first night I arrived, everyone had masks and they were also giving away masks.

MF: What happened when the cop detained you?

TT: The night I got arrested, I arrived with my roommate and our friends. Everyone had written numbers in Sharpie on their arms just in case they got arrested. Me, an intellectual, thought that was silly.

We arrived at Lorraine Motel and were met with a divided crowd. [The] majority of the crowd wanted a peaceful protest, but there was a smaller group wanting to incite violence. Everyone was confused and a good chunk of people left. I vocalized that I wanted to as well but my friends Charley and Chase were determined to stay with no intention of being violent. Inciting violence is just another reason for the right wing to feel justified in their ignorance, in my opinion.

We finally catch up with a crowd of protesters and joined them. At this point, the leader of the peaceful protest, [DeVante Hill], left after being confronted for being a suspected informant. So, the lack of leadership at some point literally divided the crowd, leaving the people I arrived with stranded.
[pullquote-4] After a while, we met up with a crowd of at least 200 people. We marched from the Lorraine toward the Pyramid. We were met with a line of cops with shields and full gear.

This is were the divide between violence and peace became apparent. Most of the frontline wanted to have a stare-off, for lack of a better word. Some were livid that we weren’t taking action. Someone on our end of the crowd set off a fire extinguisher. No one knows who or for what.

Once we gathered back to the line — realizing it wasn’t tear gas — there was some pushing between the protesters and cops in gear. I instinctively pushed back then realized I was on the other side alone.
[pullquote-1] As soon as I realized it was just me, I saw three cops shoot tear gas into the crowd clear over my head like fireworks. I instantly put my hands up. A cop asked me to go back. I asked him what law I was breaking. He said obstruction of an interstate.

Even though I wasn’t even attempting to go toward the interstate, I stood on the grass so he didn’t have a reason to arrest me. The cop was black and could tell he didn’t really want to arrest me. I asked, “Are you scared?” And he said no. I clarified by saying, “I meant are you scared for me?” He couldn’t find words to respond and that’s when a cop yelled to just arrest me.

At least five cops swarmed me, putting cuffs on me. I yelled “help” and one of the white cops told me to shut the fuck up.

MF: Tell me about your conversation with the other person who was detained.

TT: They placed me in the cop car with a girl I’ve never met and we started talking about our situation and our prior experience with the police.

We were talking about how the white cops were listening to Travis Scott and other black artists on the radio but trying to silence black voices by being a cop against the movement. We cracked jokes on how the camera made us feel like we were on Cash Cab. We were still waiting to get processed and talked so much that the cops thought we were trying to get their attention.

TommyTypo: A Protest Story of Sharpies, Cash Cab, Getting Arrested & Released (5)

When we got to the station, they let her out of cuffs, for whatever reason. We asked for water and they handed us one cup. Instead of drinking it, she put it up to my mouth so I could drink while still handcuffed.
[pullquote-2] MF: You said the cops asked if you were in a gang.

TT: It was around this time when they casually asked me if I was in a gang. It threw me off because I think I’m an obviously queer man. So, I just gave them a puzzled look and shook my head. Eventually, [I and the girl I was detained with] had to part since she had to go to the women’s jail and we kept telling each other how much easier it was being arrested together. After she left, the police officer asked if I knew her before getting arrested and was shocked when I said no.

MF: How did they finally let you go?
[pullquote-3] TT: When being processed, I was told that I would likely be out in 12 hours. I sat there for a while watching other familiar faces from the protest all pile into the holding area. Around the 12-hour mark, instead of letting me go, they made me put on the jail uniform and put me in a closet-sized cell with another stranger. I stayed there for another six hours without any updates until they let me out with the other protesters. Turns out, at least two of them were kept in there for another day at least.

When I got out, I found out my friends have been waiting for me to be released all day! My phone was filled with messages of people checking up on me, including my friend I made in the cop car. The next day I saw her in court and we shared a moment.

MF: And y’all are going to do some community service work together?

TT: We both ended up needing 20 hours of community service. So, we’re going to be working at an animal shelter together. We ended up staying, waiting for others to get released from prison as a sign of solidarity.

Categories
News News Blog

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland made a surprise visit, speaking out against racism and police treatment of blacks Wednesday at the start of the eighth night of protest here.

In the I Am A Man Plaza near Clayborn Temple, a site pivotal during the 1968 sanitation workers strike, Strickland said he is “committed” to fixing the racist tendencies within the Memphis Police Department (MPD).

“As we jump start reconciliation and solutions to our problems, I think it’s important that first, we define that problem,” Strickland said. “Racism has been built into our system from the very get-go of this country. And although I think we’re the greatest country in the world, we were based on racism. It is literally in our United States Constitution. For 400 years, we’ve sinned. Now we need to fix it.”

Strickland was surrounded by local African-American clergy and community leaders, who the mayor said have started a conversation with him, to “open my eyes and teach.” Strickland said he did “a lot of listening today.”

“I don’t have all the answers and frankly, as a white man, I don’t know that I have all the questions,” the mayor said. “I was an adult and had friends my age before I even knew that black parents had to teach their children, or have the ‘police talk’ because if a black person, particularly a young black male, is pulled over by police, there is a much greater likelihood that something tragic happens than if somebody like me is pulled over. That’s wrong. It’s built into our system. It’s in our hearts. It’s in our subconscious. And we have to fix that. And I want you to know, as mayor, I am absolutely committed to that problem of how the police deal with black people.”

[pullquote-1]

Strickland said he will hold a series of discussions with community leaders over the next few weeks that he hopes will lead into “concrete actions. It’s not just a philosophical discussion. We will have concrete actions to make it better.”

The number one goal, Strickland said, is to fix the problem that “our police department and every police department across the country has and that’s how they treat black people differently than white people.”

“George Floyd was not the start of this problem, but I want to make him a start of the solution,” Strickland said, met with applause from those standing behind him. “We all saw the video and were horrified by it. But I guess I want to talk to the white people in Memphis like me. Quite frankly, it didn’t resonate with us quite like black people because while we saw horrific action against a human being. They saw someone that could have been their brother, or their son, or uncle.

“Because they’ve seen these stories, facts. They’ve lived it. Their family members have lived it and we need to be able to open our ears and listen to the facts. We can see with our eyes and our hearts, and actually the data that black people are treated differently than whites. And it has tragic consequences sometimes. I want to commit to you that we are going to do everything we can to fix that problem.”

Strickland said the plan is to generate action-oriented goals and have specific steps to implement.

One group said it has been left out of the discussion with the mayor, after sending him a letter on Tuesday asking for a meeting. The Memphis Interfaith Coalition of Action and Hope (MICAH) sent a letter asking Strickland to meet with the group within 48 to 72 hours to listen to the “concerns, needs, and demands for change.”

Wednesday Stacy Spencer, MICAH president said Strickland declined a meeting with the organization “by saying he was already meeting with ‘other activists and clergy.’”

Spencer said it is “troublesome that he is only working together with those who his administration has hand-selected.”

“Mayor Strickland represents all of Memphis, not just the ‘necessary,’ and he represents them all of the time, not just when the occasion arises,” Spencer said. “MICAH has asked for a meeting. Clergy of all faiths and backgrounds gathered together, stood in solidarity and asked for a meeting with their mayor. Do not allow the mayor to dismiss MICAH, its 63 partner organizations and the thousands of people they represent.”

Others responded with both support and disdain for the mayor’s statement, noting he is leaving some groups out.

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices (9)

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices (10)

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices (8)

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices (7)

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices (6)

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices (4)

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices (3)

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices (2)

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices

Strickland Speaks to Protesters, Commits to Addressing Racist Police Practices (5)