#discrimination against minorities leads to that spreading to the workplace and getting their legal rights stripped away it leads to things

[pallases]

“discrimination is totally wrong until it’s against white heterosexual males, it’s such a double standard […] and the thing is the last thing you wanna do is piss off white males bc they’re the majority and the strongest” regina george voice so you agree you recognize that you’re the ones in power and therefore “discrimination” poses no danger or threat to you

[agatapacho]

70 strategies that white people in the UK can adopt to fight racial injustice

“Washing one’s hands off the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.” — Paulo Freire  

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” — Alice Walker

To help to turn ideas of equality, justice and safety for all into practice, I’ve listed 70 strategies that white people can adopt in their lives to take a stance. Anti-racism is a verb. "I'm not a racist" disclaimer has never saved lives or contributed to greater equality in the workplace. We need direct action, online & offline. We need continuous efforts.

Fight for racial justice is an international and intersectional struggle. The strategies can be adapted or linked to others, which are more appropriate for different contexts.

**Note that this article is continually updated on agatapacho.wordpress.com

Action against police brutality & violence against immigrants

1. Follow and support The United Families & Friends Campaign (UFFC), a coalition of those affected by deaths in police, prison and psychiatric custody, supports others in similar situations. Participate in marches and demonstrations they organise, donate, spread the word.

2. Go to protests and demonstrations. When faced with the police, go to the front - you are less likely to be arrested and more likely to be treated with dignity.

3. When media outlets arrive to interview protesters, let POC speak. Don’t try to be the voice of the movement, be the ally.

4. Use your phone to record police arrests, racist attacks and racist behaviour. It will be easier to make a complaint afterwards. Make sure that the victim is ok with you sharing the recording with others.

5. Follow and support the work of organisations that monitor police, defend the right to protest and campaign for justice for those affected by police violence. You can find a list of organisations here.

6. Join Movement for Justice By Any Means Necessary, set up in 1995, following the murder of Stephen Lawrence, to tackle racism in institutional and established forms. Join demonstrations, which they organise against detention centres and deportations.

7. Support No Borders UK, a network of groups and individuals who fight against borders and immigration controls.

8. Download the Y-Stop app on your phone. The app is a tool for you to monitor how police stop and search is conducted. It helps you film and collect your own evidence and share it with Y-Stop, no longer having to rely on police records. It makes it easier for making a complaint about what happened and, for the victim, to access support and advice. Y-Stop is a project run by Release in partnership with StopWatch.

9. Attend trails to show support to POC. Remember that discrimination and white supremacy are institutionalised in the legal system and legal institutions.

10. Learn about the Windrush scandal and donate to The Windrush Justice Fund.

Out & about and AWARE

11. Don’t be shy to talk about white supremacy online and offline. Start with your friends, family and colleagues. Tell them that you care about racial justice and explain why it’s important to you. Invite them to the discussion, share articles and tweets that challenge problematic views.

12. Never be silent about that racist joke or remark. Calling people out gets more comfortable with time.

13. Challenge all forms of racism, from the use of N-word to those seemingly more innocent ones, for example, claims to colour-blindness.

14. Prepare yourself to tackle the usual racist arguments, such as ‘black on black crime’. See how others are doing it, learn about the origins of the racist remarks to be able to unpack them skilfully until the person understands the wrongness of them.

15. Support Black women. Promote their work and support their businesses. Challenge colourism (discrimination faced by darker-skinned black people) and jokes or negative comments about natural hair.

16. Attend active bystander training. Learn how to intervene when you witness a racist attack. Putting yourself at risk is not going to be useful. It’s safer to call out behaviour if you’re in a group. If this is not an option, report it to others who can act. Focus on the victim, ask if they need your help and what kind of help. When intervening, remember the four Ds: direct, distract, delegate, delay. Do not aggravate the situation - stick exactly to what has just happened. Distract by interrupting and starting a conversation with the perpetrator - this will help the victim to escape the situation. Delegate: find someone who can help and make sure that the help is offered to the victim. Delay: if it is too dangerous to challenge the attacker, help the victim to get them away to safety. You can report the situation later - this will be easier if you or someone else record the situation.

17. If you notice that you are being served first at a bar even though a POC was there before you, challenge the bar staff. Make a complaint and say that you won’t be visiting them again.

18. Blackface is never ok. It can always be avoided. That includes using Snapchat and Instagram filters to make your skin darker and using non-white emojis.

Online activism

19. Do not dismiss symbolic action. Use hashtags (#blm #blacklivesmatter #blackhistory #blackhistorymonth #nojusticenopeace), add frames to your FB profile picture. Gary Younge, professor of sociology at Manchester University, writes: “No one can claim a causal connection between #MeToo and the historic number of women that were elected to the US Congress a year later. But the contextual relationship between the two is hard to dismiss.”

20. Every time you witness, hear or read on social media about an instance of racism, complain. Contact the organisation, company, or an institution involved to express your disappointment. Share the story with others together with the contact details to encourage wider protests. The company might have initiated the event or failed to protect a POC from harm done by a third party. They need to hear from us. If you are dealing with a company that relies on customers, say that you will not spend money there. And stick to it!

21. Be vocal on social media about the misrepresentations and racist agenda in media. Do not accept them as a status quo.

22. Also, be critical of tokenism (Tokenism is the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups, especially by recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of racial or sexual equality within a workforce).

Decolonize your mind & your ways

23. Be a part of the decolonisation movement. If you are a student, demand that your curriculum includes a diverse list of writers of colour and their voices are considered not exclusively on topics of race and racism. If you are an educator, make sure that you introduce works written by POC. Encourage your colleagues to do the same. Encourage your students to let the school/university know diverse curriculum is important to them.

24. Find out how history is being taught at your child’s school and advocate that it is taught correctly when it comes to the topics of the British Empire, slavery and immigration. Naznin Rahman, Teacher of Sociology and Religious Studies, says that even younger non-white pupils may be aware that the statistics tend to portray them as under-achievers and, as a result, feel disempowered. At the same time, the way in which the curriculum is  delivered has an impact on how they see themselves. Decolonised curriculum may be a tool of empowerment.

25. Scrutinise popular heroes and role models. Remain critical towards those cherished by the establishment. This article on Gandhi should do as a warning.

26. If you attend a cultural event that lacks diversity, challenge the organisers on that during a Q&A, or by contacting them afterwards. Share your disappointment on social media. Bad publicity may inspire change.

27. Visit institutions and attend events that promote artists of colour. Subscribe, purchase a membership and spread the word. If you are based London, check these out: Iniva, Black Cultural Archives, Autograph, Rich Mix, Royal African Society, 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning.

28. Join a group/society that engages with art produced by POC. If you can’t find one near you, start one.

29. Buy books and choose films and tv shows written and directed by non-white artists. Consider that when buying gifts for family and friends.

30. Decolonise your bookshelf. Make sure that, if you enjoy literature, you read authors of colour.

31. Avoid cultural appropriation. gal-dem explains: “At a basic level, cultural appropriation is the process of adopting certain elements of another culture, such as practices, ideas, or symbols, and removing them from their original cultural context. It is considered inappropriate for many reasons, such as the profiting off the intellectual property of other cultures, disrespecting spiritual or religious figures and practices, and the double-standards involved when a dominant culture adopts aspect of a culture they have historically oppressed.”

32. Do not buy from brands that appropriate non-western traditional attires profit with no recognition of the heritage behind them. This article explains the harm of cultural appropriation.

33. Always be critical of the media you consume and the information you encounter. Investigate who funds particular platforms, who are the intended audiences and who profits from certain representations of racial groups and events. It has been documented that stereotypes, myths and racist ideologies promoted in media have led to violence against POC. Claudia Rankine writes: “because white men can’t police their imagination, black men are dying”.

34. Watch films and tv series that have POC playing lead characters and that show full humanity of those characters.

35. There has been a reported renewal of interest in eugenics with London Conference on Intelligence meetings on eugenics secretly held at University College London. If you happen to hear about similar events, report them to the authorities and the University and College Union.

36. Be mindful of the pornography you consume and avoid racist content. The porn industry is affected by racism like any other industry.

Learn

37. Know British history. Learn about non-European history. Check out the work of David Olusoga who is one of the UK's foremost historians and an expert on the history of the British Empire.

38. Campaign to increase the visibility of soldiers of colour who fought for Britain. Share their histories on social media on Remembrance Day.

39. Explore BFI’s collection Black Britain on Film and the National Theatre’s Black Plays Archive.

40. Follow accounts that provide commentary on current events and issues: Gary Younge, Emma Dabiri, Akala, Reni Eddo-Lodge, Nikesh Shukla, Handsworth Revolution, Cyndi Handson Ellesse.

41. Follow Black Lives Matter UK, gal-dem, Media Diversified, S.M.I.L.E-ing Boys Project, Blacxellence.

42. Read ‘The Good Immigrant’ and follow authors who contributed to the collection.

43. If you are an educator, read bell hooks’ ‘Teaching to Transgress’ and ‘Teaching Community’ to learn about diverse strategies and work towards anti-racist education.

44. Educate yourself about the history of activism of POC in the UK.

45. Educate yourself about the long history of contributions made by academics of colour to how we understand the world today.

At work

46. Campaign to hire more POC at your workplace, especially in managerial positions.

47. Whenever you can, speak against the Prevent Strategy.

48. Challenge your workplace if they exclusively make allowances for Christian festivals. Check if there is an accessible multi-faith prayer room. If there isn’t one already, campaign for setting it up.

Economic impact

49. Support business owned by POC. This website offers a list of independent Black British businesses. Choosing where you spend money is one of your most powerful weapons. Take away £££ from racist businesses and support POC.

50. Don’t support businesses that use prison labour. This article explains why prison labour is problematic.

51. Be aware of where your favourite brands choose to advertise - do they fund white supremacist media?

52. Always credit artists whose work you use to make your social media accounts interesting and pretty. Also, never claim credit for work you have not done. If you steal from a POC, the offence is even bigger.

53. Support artists of colour by investing in and purchasing their work. Don’t stream illegally.

54. Understand how the area where you live is affected by gentrification. Think about the impact of those changes on POC living there. Join local efforts against gentrification and support business that are at risk.

55. Buy makeup from brands that cater to everyone. Boycott those that don’t offer enough shades and inform them on social media about your decision.

Hold your MPs accountable

56. Vote for those who are committed to racial justice. Put pressure on your local MPs to specify how they are planning on tackling racism. Continue writing to them.

57. Keep yourself updated on changes to legislation. Write to your local MPs if you are concerned that new amendments can affect the lives of POC negatively. Start a petition and share your worry on social media. Let them know they are being watched.

58. Support the legalisation of the recreational use of cannabis. This is not because POC use it more frequently but because they are arrested for possessions more often.

Know how to be a part of the debate

59. Know that POC do not have the responsibility to share their experiences with you, educate you about racial inequality or even discuss it. That also refers to the conversations you have with those who are your friends or partners.

60. At the same time, appreciate when they do share their knowledge and experiences and advise you on how you can help.

61. When attending events organised by POC, focus on listening and learning. Don’t question speakers’ experiences of racial discrimination, do not compare their experiences to yours, do not assume that you know already. Appreciate that you’re allowed into that space and remain respectful.

62. When told about someone’s experiences of racism, never ask for evidence or challenge them. Don’t suggest waiting out - you are asking them to continue to suffer.

63. Do not rush to share videos of police brutality with your friends/colleagues/partners who are POC. Accept that they are affected to a far greater extent than you are. Also, do not tell them how to grieve or how to cope with the trauma. Be there to listen and care.

64. It’s ok if you’re not welcomed to all spaces. Respect the right of POC to exclude you from the conversation. Reni Eddo-Lodge cites her friend who advocates the need for creating spaces exclusively for black women. That’s how she describes participating in mixed feminist groups: “Even if you’re really confident and really vocal, there is still a holding back that you have to do. Because as a normal human being, you kind of don’t really like confrontation. And there’s an element of just speaking the truth of what it means to be a black woman in the UK that it would be ridiculous, as a white person, to not read that as implication you.”

65. When a POC complaints about racism to you, don’t take it personally. Unless they are specifically referring to your actions, it is not about you. They talk about the systematic racism, which you have the responsibility to fight. Listen to the complaints and learn from them how you can do better.

66. Don’t whitesplain. Ever. No, you do not know better. Ever.

67. Don’t play devil’s advocate in debates about racism. You’re only restating and reinforcing the status quo, disrespecting others’ critical thinking skills and positioning your thought process as superior and more valuable than someone’s lived experience. As a consequence, you are more likely to shut down the conversation rather than add to it or learn from it.

68. Make sure that you know the difference between well-meaning and consequences. Having good intentions isn’t enough. Always consider the potential consequences of your actions on the lives and well-being of POC.

Final thoughts

69. Do not feel demotivated if your efforts are not recognised. Keep doing the work when no one is watching. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie famously said, “'Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.”

70. Support other allies who put themselves in dangerous situations to fight for racial justice. The Stansted 15, a group of non-violent human rights activists who took action to stop a deportation flight leaving from Stansted Airport were spared jail after campaigns in their defence.

This post has been inspired by Corinne Shutack’s article.

[orbemnews]

Businesses Seek to Help Women Caregivers Return to Workforce: Live Updates A homebound resident in the Bronx, N.Y., receives a dose of coronavirus vaccine. A new initiative is pushing for federally funded family and medical leave, and affordable child care and elder care.Credit…James Estrin/The New York Times JPMorgan Chase, Spotify, Uber, McDonald’s and almost 200 other businesses have formed a coalition focused on ensuring that women are not held back in the labor force because they bear the brunt of caregiving in the United States. The new Care Economy Business Council, the creation of which was announced on Wednesday, portrays the effort in stark economic terms, arguing that fixing the crumbling child and elder care systems is essential to the economic recovery. Led by Time’s Up, the advocacy organization founded by powerful women in Hollywood, the council aims to bring executives together to share ways to improve workplace policies and to pressure Congress to pass policy changes that would help people — particularly women — get back to work. The council will push for federally funded family and medical leave, affordable child care and elder care, and elevated wages for caregiving workers. “What I’m seeing now that I have not seen in the many years I’ve been working on this constellation of issues is a realization by employers that they have a stake in this,” Tina Tchen, the chief executive of Time’s Up, said. The pandemic laid bare the faults in caregiving in the United States, particularly the problems with child care. Many child-care centers either shuttered or cut back on hours to save on costs, leaving parents without reliable and safe places for their children while they worked. The lack of child care support was a major reason that hundreds of thousands of women left the work force in the past year, bringing female labor participation rate to its lowest level since 1986. Companies scrambled to cobble together solutions, from flexible work hours to additional child care stipends. But for many executives, the crisis made it clear that the entire system needed an overhaul. The issue is “bigger than something we can solve on our own,” said Christy M. Pambianchi, the chief human resources officer at Verizon, which is part of the council. President Biden’s two-part infrastructure plan proposes pumping $425 billion into expanding and strengthening child-care services and an additional $400 billion to help expand access for in-home care for older adults and those with disabilities. His plan also offers businesses a tax credit for building child-care centers in their workplaces. Members of Congress have also introduced three separate but similar child-care bills. Rudolph W. Giuliani, a lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump, disputing the results of the election won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times Fox News Media, the Rupert Murdoch-controlled cable group, filed a motion on Tuesday to dismiss a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought against it in March by Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology company that accused Fox News of propagating lies that ruined its reputation after the 2020 presidential election. The Dominion lawsuit and a similar defamation claim brought in February by another election company, Smartmatic, have been widely viewed as test cases in a growing legal effort to battle disinformation in the news media. And it is another byproduct of former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless attempts to undermine President Biden’s clear victory. In a 61-page response filed in Delaware Superior Court, the Fox legal team argues that Dominion’s suit threatened the First Amendment powers of a news organization to chronicle and assess newsworthy claims in a high-stakes political contest. “A free press must be able to report both sides of a story involving claims striking at the core of our democracy,” Fox says in the motion, “especially when those claims prompt numerous lawsuits, government investigations and election recounts.” The motion adds: “The American people deserved to know why President Trump refused to concede despite his apparent loss.” Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox News presented the circumstances in a different light. Dominion is among the largest manufacturers of voting machine equipment and its technology was used by more than two dozen states last year. Its lawsuit described the Fox News and Fox Business cable networks as active participants in spreading a false claim, pushed by Mr. Trump’s allies, that the company had covertly modified vote counts to manipulate results in favor of Mr. Biden. Lawyers for Mr. Trump shared those claims during televised interviews on Fox programs. “Lies have consequences,” Dominion’s lawyers wrote in their initial complaint. “Fox sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process.” The lawsuit cites instances where Fox hosts, including Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, uncritically repeated false claims about Dominion made by Mr. Trump’s lawyers Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell. A representative for Dominion, whose founder and employees received threatening messages after the negative coverage, did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday night. Fox News Media has retained two prominent lawyers to lead its defense: Charles Babcock, who has a background in media law, and Scott Keller, a former chief counsel to Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. Fox has also filed to dismiss the Smartmatic suit; that defense is being led by Paul D. Clement, a former solicitor general under President George W. Bush. “There are two sides to every story,” Mr. Babcock and Mr. Keller wrote in a statement on Tuesday. “The press must remain free to cover both sides, or there will be a free press no more.” The Fox motion on Tuesday argues that its networks “had a free-speech right to interview the president’s lawyers and surrogates even if their claims eventually turned out to be unsubstantiated.” It argues that the security of Dominion’s technology had been debated in prior legal claims and media coverage, and that the lawsuit did not meet the high legal standard of “actual malice,” a reckless disregard for the truth, on the part of Fox News and its hosts. Media organizations, in general, enjoy strong protections under the First Amendment. Defamation suits are a novel tactic in the battle over disinformation, but proponents say the strategy has shown some early results. The conservative news outlet Newsmax apologized last month after a Dominion employee, in a separate legal case, accused the network of spreading baseless rumors about his role in the election. Fox Business canceled “Lou Dobbs Tonight” a day after Smartmatic sued Fox in February and named Mr. Dobbs as a co-defendant. Jonah E. Bromwich contributed reporting. Handy Kennedy, a farmer in Cobbtown, Ga., and founder of a cooperative of Black farmers. Debt relief approved by Congress in March aims to make amends for decades of financial discrimination against Black and other nonwhite farmers.Credit…Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images The Biden administration’s efforts to provide $4 billion in debt relief to minority farmers is encountering stiff resistance from banks, which are complaining that the government initiative to pay off the loans of borrowers who have faced decades of financial discrimination will cut into their profits and hurt investors. The debt relief was approved as part of the stimulus package that Congress passed in March and was intended to make amends for the discrimination that Black and other nonwhite farmers have faced from lenders and the Department of Agriculture over the years. But no money has yet gone out the door. Instead, the program has become mired in controversy and lawsuits. In April, white farmers who claim that they are victims of discrimination sued the U.S.D.A. over the initiative, writes The New York Times’s Alan Rappeport. Now, three of the biggest banking groups are waging their own fight and complaining about the cost of being repaid early. Their argument stems from the way banks make money from loans and how they decide where to extend credit. By allowing borrowers to repay their debts early, the lenders are being denied income they have long expected, they argue. The banks want the federal government to pay money beyond the outstanding loan amount so that banks and investors will not miss out on interest income that they were expecting or money that they would have made reselling the loans to other investors. Bank lobbyists have been asking the Agriculture Department to make changes to the repayment program, a U.S.D.A. official said. They are pressing the U.S.D.A. to simply make the loan payments, rather than wipe out the debt all at once. And they are warning of other repercussions. In a letter sent last month to the agriculture secretary, the banks suggested that they might be more reluctant to extend credit if the loans were quickly repaid, leaving minority farmers worse off in the long run. The intimation was viewed as a threat by some organizations that represent Black farmers. The U.S.D.A. has shown no inclination to reverse course. Source link Orbem News #businesses #Caregivers #Live #return #Seek #Updates #Women #Workforce