Quandra Prettyman, who developed some of the country’s first courses in Black women’s literature as the first Black full-time faculty member at Barnard College, died Oct. 21 at her home in the New York City borough of Manhattan. She was 88.

Her sister, Waltyn Prettyman, said the cause was cancer.

Prettyman arrived at Barnard, with its all-female student body, in the early ’70s, and her willingness to present literary classics in ways that made them accessible to students, particularly those of color, quickly made her one of the most popular professors on campus.

“She presented literature like it belonged to all of us,” writer Edwidge Danticat, who took Prettyman’s freshman English course and remained close friends with her, said in a phone interview.

At first, Prettyman taught introductory survey classes, but in 1972 she introduced a new course, on Black women writers, including authors like Harriet Jacobs, author of “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” published in 1861.

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It wouldn’t be the first course at Barnard to focus on Black literature; a few had been offered in the 1960s. This one, though, would be different: It brought together perspectives from the emerging field of feminist literary studies with a study of Black writers, what was then an underappreciated area of American literature.

The course was an immediate hit, and over the decades, Prettyman added others that explored different aspects of the Black literary experience, including some of the first courses in the country on slave narratives and the Harlem Renaissance.

She also edited “Out of Our Lives: A Selection of Contemporary Black Fiction” (1975), which presented readers with works by then-emerging writers like Louise Meriwether, Ernest J. Gaines and Alice Walker.

“She was pushing the canon open, not just at Barnard, but far beyond,” Sian Beilock, the president of Barnard, said in a phone interview.

Prettyman struggled with accusations, often subtle but not always so, that she was a token hire. Two years before she joined Barnard, hundreds of its students had crossed Broadway to join Columbia University students in protests over, among other things, their schools’ failure to attract Black students and faculty, despite a promise in 1964 to do so.

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Whenever Black speakers came to the campus, Prettyman was asked to introduce them, and she worried that her presence at some Barnard gatherings created an illusion of diversity at the college, which was predominantly white.

“There was a time when I stopped going to parental events, so as to not give a false sign of Black presence,” she said in a 2014 interview with Monica Miller, another Barnard professor, in the college’s alumnae magazine.

But she also embraced her role as a voice and mentor for Barnard’s Black students, especially those who did not come from elite backgrounds.

Among them was Danticat, who was born in Haiti and graduated from a public school in Brooklyn. She remembered Prettyman as an inspiration, even though she got a C on one of her first papers, for an essay on “Jane Eyre.”

“When we finished the class, and we had dinner at her apartment, I felt like I had been launched on my career,” said Danticat, now a much-honored author of novel and short stories.

Quandra Erlyn Prettyman was born in Baltimore on Jan. 19, 1933. Her parents, Lloyd Eugene Quandred Prettyman and Buena Vista (Gray) Prettyman, were teachers in the city’s public schools. Her father also played bass and French horn in a big-band jazz ensemble and counted singer and bandleader Cab Calloway among his circle of friends.

Quandra took to literature at an early age; in high school she fell in love with the works of Gwendolyn Brooks and decided to be a poet. In the late 1940s, she and a biracial group of friends took a road trip to Mexico, a journey, she later said, that was more dangerous than she had realised at the time, traveling through parts of the country where a Black person seen in the company of white people might get arrested, or worse.

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She attended Antioch College, in Ohio, graduating in 1954 with a degree in history. A year later she began graduate studies in English at the University of Michigan, and in 1957 she moved to New York to work in publishing and teach literature at the New School.

She married John Stadler in 1963; they later divorced. She married William L. Smith in 1984. Along with her sister, she is survived by her daughter, Johanna Stadler, and her stepson, Sean Smith.

Prettyman joined Barnard in 1970 after a friend had arranged a meeting for her with Barry Ulanov, the chairman of its English department. She was still writing her dissertation for a doctorate at the time, but Ulanov asked if she could start teaching that fall, as an instructor. She never finished her Ph.D.

Before and after joining the Barnard faculty, Prettyman traveled widely, and frequently to Amsterdam and Paris, where she befriended James Baldwin.

She never gave up her childhood love of poetry, both reading and writing it, and published several poems over her career. As her career lengthened, she became especially interested in cookbooks written by Black women — her kitchen shelves were lined with them, Danticat recalled.

Prettyman said that many such volumes, though presented as cookbooks, were more like memoirs, offering powerful insights into the lives of Black families in the South.

“One in search of the Afro-American woman’s story is well-advised to consider cookbooks along with the more conventional autobiographies,” she wrote in a 1992 essay in the journal Southern Quarterly.

She reveled in Edna Lewis’ “The Taste of Country Cooking” (1976), with its rich details about Lewis’ family going back generations, to a time before the onset of sharecropping and Jim Crow.

“The frightful loss of Black-owned farms gives this work a poignant, somewhat tragic sense,” she wrote. “Taste&nbsp;may be apolitical, but it is not ahistorical.”

Quandra Prettyman, who developed some of the country’s first courses in Black women’s literature as the first Black full-time faculty member at Barnard College, died Oct.

Quandra Prettyman, who developed some of the country’s first courses in Black women’s literature as the first Black full-time faculty member at Barnard College, died Oct. 21 at her home in the New York City borough of Manhattan. She was 88. Her sister, Waltyn Prettyman, said the cause was cancer. Prettyman arrived at Barnard, with its all-female student body, in the early ’70s, and her willingness to present literary classics in ways that made them accessible to students, particularly those of color, quickly made her one of the most popular professors on campus. “She presented literature like it belonged to all of us,” writer Edwidge Danticat, who took Prettyman’s freshman English course and remained close friends with her, said in a phone interview. At first, Prettyman taught introductory survey classes, but in 1972 she introduced a new course, on Black women writers, including authors like Harriet Jacobs, author of “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” published in 1861. Also read | Sharks spotted! London's River Thames no longer 'biologically dead' It wouldn’t be the first course at Barnard to focus on Black literature; a few had been offered in the 1960s. This one, though, would be different: It brought together perspectives from the emerging field of feminist literary studies with a study of Black writers, what was then an underappreciated area of American literature. The course was an immediate hit, and over the decades, Prettyman added others that explored different aspects of the Black literary experience, including some of the first courses in the country on slave narratives and the Harlem Renaissance. She also edited “Out of Our Lives: A Selection of Contemporary Black Fiction” (1975), which presented readers with works by then-emerging writers like Louise Meriwether, Ernest J. Gaines and Alice Walker. “She was pushing the canon open, not just at Barnard, but far beyond,” Sian Beilock, the president of Barnard, said in a phone interview. Prettyman struggled with accusations, often subtle but not always so, that she was a token hire. Two years before she joined Barnard, hundreds of its students had crossed Broadway to join Columbia University students in protests over, among other things, their schools’ failure to attract Black students and faculty, despite a promise in 1964 to do so. Also read | This country has made it illegal for bosses to call employees after office hours Whenever Black speakers came to the campus, Prettyman was asked to introduce them, and she worried that her presence at some Barnard gatherings created an illusion of diversity at the college, which was predominantly white. “There was a time when I stopped going to parental events, so as to not give a false sign of Black presence,” she said in a 2014 interview with Monica Miller, another Barnard professor, in the college’s alumnae magazine. But she also embraced her role as a voice and mentor for Barnard’s Black students, especially those who did not come from elite backgrounds. Among them was Danticat, who was born in Haiti and graduated from a public school in Brooklyn. She remembered Prettyman as an inspiration, even though she got a C on one of her first papers, for an essay on “Jane Eyre.” “When we finished the class, and we had dinner at her apartment, I felt like I had been launched on my career,” said Danticat, now a much-honored author of novel and short stories. Quandra Erlyn Prettyman was born in Baltimore on Jan. 19, 1933. Her parents, Lloyd Eugene Quandred Prettyman and Buena Vista (Gray) Prettyman, were teachers in the city’s public schools. Her father also played bass and French horn in a big-band jazz ensemble and counted singer and bandleader Cab Calloway among his circle of friends. Quandra took to literature at an early age; in high school she fell in love with the works of Gwendolyn Brooks and decided to be a poet. In the late 1940s, she and a biracial group of friends took a road trip to Mexico, a journey, she later said, that was more dangerous than she had realised at the time, traveling through parts of the country where a Black person seen in the company of white people might get arrested, or worse. Also read | 'Unprecedented': Speed of global warming at its fastest pace since ice age She attended Antioch College, in Ohio, graduating in 1954 with a degree in history. A year later she began graduate studies in English at the University of Michigan, and in 1957 she moved to New York to work in publishing and teach literature at the New School. She married John Stadler in 1963; they later divorced. She married William L. Smith in 1984. Along with her sister, she is survived by her daughter, Johanna Stadler, and her stepson, Sean Smith. Prettyman joined Barnard in 1970 after a friend had arranged a meeting for her with Barry Ulanov, the chairman of its English department. She was still writing her dissertation for a doctorate at the time, but Ulanov asked if she could start teaching that fall, as an instructor. She never finished her Ph.D. Before and after joining the Barnard faculty, Prettyman traveled widely, and frequently to Amsterdam and Paris, where she befriended James Baldwin. She never gave up her childhood love of poetry, both reading and writing it, and published several poems over her career. As her career lengthened, she became especially interested in cookbooks written by Black women — her kitchen shelves were lined with them, Danticat recalled. Prettyman said that many such volumes, though presented as cookbooks, were more like memoirs, offering powerful insights into the lives of Black families in the South. “One in search of the Afro-American woman’s story is well-advised to consider cookbooks along with the more conventional autobiographies,” she wrote in a 1992 essay in the journal Southern Quarterly. She reveled in Edna Lewis’ “The Taste of Country Cooking” (1976), with its rich details about Lewis’ family going back generations, to a time before the onset of sharecropping and Jim Crow. “The frightful loss of Black-owned farms gives this work a poignant, somewhat tragic sense,” she wrote. “Taste may be apolitical, but it is not ahistorical.”

Quandra Prettyman, champion of black women’s literature, dies at 88

The Justice Department announced an $88 million settlement on Thursday with victims of a white supremacist who shot dead nine Black churchgoers in South Carolina in 2015.

The settlement stems from allegations that the FBI was negligent when it failed to prohibit the sale of a gun by a licensed firearms dealer to the shooter, Dylan Roof, the Justice Department said.

Roof, 27, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, is facing the death penalty for the massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.

"The mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church was a horrific hate crime that caused immeasurable suffering for the families of the victims and the survivors," Attorney General Merrick Garland said, announcing the settlement.

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"Since the day of the shooting, the Justice Department has sought to bring justice to the community, first by a successful hate crime prosecution and today by settling civil claims."

The Justice Department said the settlement resolves claims from the families of the nine victims of the shooting and from the five survivors who were inside the church at the time of the shooting.&nbsp;

It said the settlements range from $6 million to $7.5 million for relatives of the nine victims and $5 million each for the five survivors.

The families of the "Emanuel Nine" and the survivors sued the government for wrongful death and physical injuries.

They claimed the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Checks System failed to discover in a timely manner that Roof was prohibited by federal law from possessing a firearm.&nbsp;

The Justice Department announced an $88 million settlement on Thursday with victims of a white supremacist who shot dead nine Black churchgoers in South Carolina in 2015.

The Justice Department announced an $88 million settlement on Thursday with victims of a white supremacist who shot dead nine Black churchgoers in South Carolina in 2015. The settlement stems from allegations that the FBI was negligent when it failed to prohibit the sale of a gun by a licensed firearms dealer to the shooter, Dylan Roof, the Justice Department said. Roof, 27, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, is facing the death penalty for the massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. "The mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church was a horrific hate crime that caused immeasurable suffering for the families of the victims and the survivors," Attorney General Merrick Garland said, announcing the settlement. Also read | France seizes British trawler in post-Brexit row over fishing rights "Since the day of the shooting, the Justice Department has sought to bring justice to the community, first by a successful hate crime prosecution and today by settling civil claims." The Justice Department said the settlement resolves claims from the families of the nine victims of the shooting and from the five survivors who were inside the church at the time of the shooting. It said the settlements range from $6 million to $7.5 million for relatives of the nine victims and $5 million each for the five survivors. The families of the "Emanuel Nine" and the survivors sued the government for wrongful death and physical injuries. They claimed the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Checks System failed to discover in a timely manner that Roof was prohibited by federal law from possessing a firearm.

US reaches $88 million settlement with Black victims of white supremacist

Archaeologists believe they have uncovered the original brick foundation of one of the nation’s oldest historically Black churches, known as the First Baptist Church.

The church, at Colonial Williamsburg, the historical site and museum in Virginia, was formed in 1776 by free and enslaved Black people who met in secret in defiance of laws that forbade the congregation of African Americans, according to the museum.

“The early history of our congregation, beginning with enslaved and free Blacks gathering outdoors in secret in 1776, has always been a part of who we are as a community,” the Rev. Reginald Davis, pastor of the First Baptist Church, said in a statement Thursday.

He added that “to see the actual bricks of that original foundation and the outline of the place our ancestors worshipped brings that history to life and makes that piece of our identity tangible.”

Jack Gary, director of archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, who is overseeing the excavation, said the team “always hoped this is what we’d find.”

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In an interview Thursday, he said it was “very powerful” to be able to tell visitors and members of the community “that you are standing in the place where the oldest Black Baptist church had congregated.”

He added: “The resilience of that group and the fact they remain today is really an American story.”

Since September 2020, archaeologists have been digging at the site of the church’s original structure, near the intersection of Nassau and Francis streets at Colonial Williamsburg, an open-air museum that, using actors in period costume, re-creates life in the colonial era in Williamsburg.

The archaeologists are looking for burials and seek to better understand the experiences of the church’s early congregants. The project is being supported by leaders of the church, whose members include descendants of those who attended services centuries ago.

Free and enslaved Black people met in secret to found the First Baptist Church around the start of the American Revolution.

Tax records show that, by 1818, the congregation was gathering on the site in a building known as the Baptist Meeting House. In 1834, a tornado destroyed it.

A second church structure, a brick building, was built in 1856 and stood there for nearly a century until it was purchased by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 1956.

That building was torn down that year as part of Colonial Williamsburg restoration efforts, and a parking lot was built on the site. The congregation relocated to another building blocks away.

The museum on Thursday said the newly identified brick-building foundation, which measures 16 feet by 20 feet, sits alongside a brick paving and on top of a layer of soil that dates to the early 1800s.

Artefacts found under the paving included a coin from 1817 and a straight pin that appeared to suggest the foundation was built sometime in the first quarter of the 19th century, according to the museum.

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In addition to the original structure, archaeologists have discovered at least 25 human burials at the site.

The excavation of the Nassau Street site will continue “as part of a multiyear project” to learn more about the earliest version of the church, according to the museum.

Officials said they would hold a community meeting Oct. 30 for descendants to discuss the burial sites and possible next steps.

Connie Matthews Harshaw, a member of First Baptist Church and president of the Let Freedom Ring Foundation, which helps to preserve the history of the church, said “the discovery of the original site of our church is such a beautiful reminder of the power of public history to tell stories that inspire and unite us.”

Jody Lynn Allen, an assistant professor of history at William &amp; Mary, said Colonial Williamsburg “has made serious efforts since the late 1980s to include the African American experience.”

She said “with the addition of First Baptist Church, Christianity, a key component in the lives of Black people, is now included.”

Archaeologists believe they have uncovered the original brick foundation of one of the nation’s oldest historically Black churches, known as the First Baptist Church.

Archaeologists believe they have uncovered the original brick foundation of one of the nation’s oldest historically Black churches, known as the First Baptist Church. The church, at Colonial Williamsburg, the historical site and museum in Virginia, was formed in 1776 by free and enslaved Black people who met in secret in defiance of laws that forbade the congregation of African Americans, according to the museum. “The early history of our congregation, beginning with enslaved and free Blacks gathering outdoors in secret in 1776, has always been a part of who we are as a community,” the Rev. Reginald Davis, pastor of the First Baptist Church, said in a statement Thursday. He added that “to see the actual bricks of that original foundation and the outline of the place our ancestors worshipped brings that history to life and makes that piece of our identity tangible.” Jack Gary, director of archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, who is overseeing the excavation, said the team “always hoped this is what we’d find.” Also read | Since 1950, 3,000 paedophiles operated in French Catholic Church, says report In an interview Thursday, he said it was “very powerful” to be able to tell visitors and members of the community “that you are standing in the place where the oldest Black Baptist church had congregated.” He added: “The resilience of that group and the fact they remain today is really an American story.” Since September 2020, archaeologists have been digging at the site of the church’s original structure, near the intersection of Nassau and Francis streets at Colonial Williamsburg, an open-air museum that, using actors in period costume, re-creates life in the colonial era in Williamsburg. The archaeologists are looking for burials and seek to better understand the experiences of the church’s early congregants. The project is being supported by leaders of the church, whose members include descendants of those who attended services centuries ago. Free and enslaved Black people met in secret to found the First Baptist Church around the start of the American Revolution. Tax records show that, by 1818, the congregation was gathering on the site in a building known as the Baptist Meeting House. In 1834, a tornado destroyed it. A second church structure, a brick building, was built in 1856 and stood there for nearly a century until it was purchased by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 1956. That building was torn down that year as part of Colonial Williamsburg restoration efforts, and a parking lot was built on the site. The congregation relocated to another building blocks away. The museum on Thursday said the newly identified brick-building foundation, which measures 16 feet by 20 feet, sits alongside a brick paving and on top of a layer of soil that dates to the early 1800s. Artefacts found under the paving included a coin from 1817 and a straight pin that appeared to suggest the foundation was built sometime in the first quarter of the 19th century, according to the museum. Also read | Archaeological discovery in Egypt 'rewrites history' as we know it! In addition to the original structure, archaeologists have discovered at least 25 human burials at the site. The excavation of the Nassau Street site will continue “as part of a multiyear project” to learn more about the earliest version of the church, according to the museum. Officials said they would hold a community meeting Oct. 30 for descendants to discuss the burial sites and possible next steps. Connie Matthews Harshaw, a member of First Baptist Church and president of the Let Freedom Ring Foundation, which helps to preserve the history of the church, said “the discovery of the original site of our church is such a beautiful reminder of the power of public history to tell stories that inspire and unite us.” Jody Lynn Allen, an assistant professor of history at William & Mary, said Colonial Williamsburg “has made serious efforts since the late 1980s to include the African American experience.” She said “with the addition of First Baptist Church, Christianity, a key component in the lives of Black people, is now included.”

Archaeologists unearth foundation of historic black church formed in 1776

According to a new report, black and minority ethnic girls in England are more than twice as likely to be excluded from school as their white counterparts. Few alarming findings show that the number of girls excluded from education is growing at a significantly higher rate than boys.

Agenda, an alliance of more than 50 charities campaigning for the most excluded women and girls, uncovered data through a freedom of information request to the Department for Education.&nbsp;

It shows that black Caribbean girls were permanently excluded from school at a rate double that of white British girls during the academic year 2019-20. Also, during this period, girls from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities faced rates of permanent exclusion that were four times higher than those of white British girls.

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The report comprises first-hand accounts of how girls and young women were often excluded from education after having experienced unaddressed sexual harassment and abuse, poor mental health, and racism.&nbsp;

The report suggests that negative stereotypes attached to black girls and young women, and those from minority ethnic backgrounds, play a critical role in their exclusion.

A Department for Education spokesperson was quoted by The Guardian as saying, "We back headteachers to suspend or permanently exclude pupils where this helps maintain calm classrooms that bring out the best in every child, but this should only be used as a last resort. We expect staff to consider any underlying causes of poor behaviour before making this decision".

According to a new report, black and minority ethnic girls in England are more than twice as likely to be excluded from school as their white counterparts. Few alarming findings show that the number of girls excluded from education is growing at a significantly higher rate than boys.

According to a new report, black and minority ethnic girls in England are more than twice as likely to be excluded from school as their white counterparts. Few alarming findings show that the number of girls excluded from education is growing at a significantly higher rate than boys. Agenda, an alliance of more than 50 charities campaigning for the most excluded women and girls, uncovered data through a freedom of information request to the Department for Education. It shows that black Caribbean girls were permanently excluded from school at a rate double that of white British girls during the academic year 2019-20. Also, during this period, girls from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities faced rates of permanent exclusion that were four times higher than those of white British girls. Also read | AI used by scientists to discover a treatment for childhood cancer The report comprises first-hand accounts of how girls and young women were often excluded from education after having experienced unaddressed sexual harassment and abuse, poor mental health, and racism. The report suggests that negative stereotypes attached to black girls and young women, and those from minority ethnic backgrounds, play a critical role in their exclusion. A Department for Education spokesperson was quoted by The Guardian as saying, "We back headteachers to suspend or permanently exclude pupils where this helps maintain calm classrooms that bring out the best in every child, but this should only be used as a last resort. We expect staff to consider any underlying causes of poor behaviour before making this decision".

England: Black girls more likely to be excluded from schools as white girls

United Kingdom's cut to its aid budget comes to about £4 billion a year. 
Such a massive reduction is a blow to many. However, the most affected will be the local organisations who perpetually find themselves last in line for funding.

A new research by the Vodafone Foundation has revealed that too often, only a small proportion of philanthropic funding earmarked for African development reaches local, African-led civil society organisations. This is because most development funding favours intermediaries in the global north and international organisations.

Fundings that make it to Africa are distributed among locally registered international NGO counterparts. After that, they are allocated to African-led organisations on a project basis.&nbsp;

This limits the scope and flexibility of activities on the ground and promotes aid reliance, instead of durable, transformative change.

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In a Guardian report by Kennedy Odede, he said that a year after Geoge Floyd's death, the report on funding is a reminder that the racial bias and microaggressions experienced as an African leader and CEO are deeper, more pernicious and prevalent.

He highlights that racial bias needs to be replaced with trust, redistribution of power, acknowledgement of a global anti-black bias, and flexible funding.

The report talks about how during COVID-19, the power of local actors to effectively respond to the pandemic and protect marginalised communities have failed.

This means, in some ways, COVID-19 has erased the boundaries between humanitarian aid, as it is traditionally known, and long-term development work.

United Kingdom's cut to its aid budget comes to about £4 billion a year. Such a massive reduction is a blow to many. However, the most affected will be the local organisations who perpetually find themselves last in line for funding.

United Kingdom's cut to its aid budget comes to about £4 billion a year. Such a massive reduction is a blow to many. However, the most affected will be the local organisations who perpetually find themselves last in line for funding. A new research by the Vodafone Foundation has revealed that too often, only a small proportion of philanthropic funding earmarked for African development reaches local, African-led civil society organisations. This is because most development funding favours intermediaries in the global north and international organisations. Fundings that make it to Africa are distributed among locally registered international NGO counterparts. After that, they are allocated to African-led organisations on a project basis. This limits the scope and flexibility of activities on the ground and promotes aid reliance, instead of durable, transformative change. Also read | US and EU pledge 30 per cent cut in methane emissions In a Guardian report by Kennedy Odede, he said that a year after Geoge Floyd's death, the report on funding is a reminder that the racial bias and microaggressions experienced as an African leader and CEO are deeper, more pernicious and prevalent. He highlights that racial bias needs to be replaced with trust, redistribution of power, acknowledgement of a global anti-black bias, and flexible funding. The report talks about how during COVID-19, the power of local actors to effectively respond to the pandemic and protect marginalised communities have failed. This means, in some ways, COVID-19 has erased the boundaries between humanitarian aid, as it is traditionally known, and long-term development work.

UK aid cuts make it important to address anti-black bias in funding

A county in South Carolina agreed Tuesday to pay $10 million to the family of a Black man who died in January after sheriff’s deputies used pepper spray and Tasers on him in a jail cell as he told them, “I can’t breathe,” officials said.

In a unanimous vote, the Charleston County Council approved the settlement in the death of Jamal Sutherland, 31, who had been taken from a mental health facility to the county jail at the time.

His death on Jan. 5 has drawn protests and comparisons to the killing of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis.

The settlement came as many Americans paused Tuesday to remember Floyd one year after his death, which became a catalyst for a nationwide reckoning on police brutality and systemic racism.

It followed the firing May 17 of the two deputies involved in Sutherland’s death, an encounter that was shown in graphic video footage that was released this month by the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office. One of the deputies placed a knee on Sutherland’s back.

Before the settlement was approved, the county and the Sutherland family had been engaged in mediation talks in an effort to avoid formal litigation, the television station WCSC reported. The council’s finance committee earlier recommended that the full council approve a $10 million settlement, according to local news media outlets.

Councilman Teddie E. Pryor Sr. said during the meeting that he had promised the Sutherland family that he would look into what reforms to public safety could be enacted.

“This should never happen to anyone ever again,” Pryor said. “Ever.”

A lawyer for Sutherland’s family did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday night.

The payout adds to a list of eight-figure settlements in several high-profile killings of Black people involving law enforcement officers. In March, Floyd’s family reached a $27 million settlement with the City of Minneapolis. This month, officials in Columbus, Ohio, agreed to pay $10 million to the family of Andre Hill, a Black man who was fatally shot by a police officer in a garage in December.

C. Brantley Moody, a member of the Charleston County Council, said during the group’s meeting Tuesday that he had grappled with whether to support the settlement. He acknowledged that “globally, this race to the courthouse” troubled him.

“What was done was a terrible injustice,” Moody said. “But how do you settle it? I don’t know what the answer is.”

The local prosecutor is expected to decide in June whether the deputies, Sgt. Lindsay Fickett and Detention Deputy Brian Houle, will face criminal charges in Sutherland’s death. The prosecutor, Scarlett A. Wilson, the 9th Circuit solicitor, said this month that she was reviewing the results of an investigation into the deputies’ actions conducted by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

Fickett and Houle had been placed on administrative leave before their firing was announced May 17 on Twitter by Kristin Graziano, the Charleston County sheriff.

The deputies had been trying to remove Sutherland from a cell at the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center, the county jail, to take him to court for a bond hearing Jan. 5 when the deadly encounter took place.

In the video footage released by the sheriff, the deputies were seen using pepper spray in Sutherland’s cell two times before firing Tasers at him. Sutherland had been hit with the Taser six to eight times, Houle later said in the video.

The video showed Sutherland writhing on the ground before he eventually lost consciousness. Soon after, he was declared dead, with a pathologist ruling that the manner of his death was “undetermined.” The pathologist stated that Sutherland had died “as a result of excited state with pharmacotherapeutic effect during subdual process.”

Officials would not discuss the autopsy results further and said that the post-mortem examination report would not be released because it was not a public document.

Sutherland was taken to the jail from a mental health facility, Palmetto Lowcountry Behavioral Health, where he had been arrested Jan. 4 after a fight broke out. Workers at the mental health center told responding officers that Sutherland had assaulted a staff member. He and another patient were charged with third-degree assault and battery, according to The Post and Courier of Charleston.

On the day of his arrest, a video showed Sutherland in distress. He screamed “Let go of me” at officers and spoke of conspiracies, including references to the Illuminati, groups — real and fictitious — dating back centuries and said to have special knowledge.

A county in South Carolina agreed Tuesday to pay $10 million to the family of a Black man who died in January after sheriff’s deputies used pepper spray and Tasers on him in a jail cell as he told them, “I can’t breathe,” officials said.

A county in South Carolina agreed Tuesday to pay $10 million to the family of a Black man who died in January after sheriff’s deputies used pepper spray and Tasers on him in a jail cell as he told them, “I can’t breathe,” officials said. In a unanimous vote, the Charleston County Council approved the settlement in the death of Jamal Sutherland, 31, who had been taken from a mental health facility to the county jail at the time. His death on Jan. 5 has drawn protests and comparisons to the killing of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis. The settlement came as many Americans paused Tuesday to remember Floyd one year after his death, which became a catalyst for a nationwide reckoning on police brutality and systemic racism. It followed the firing May 17 of the two deputies involved in Sutherland’s death, an encounter that was shown in graphic video footage that was released this month by the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office. One of the deputies placed a knee on Sutherland’s back. Before the settlement was approved, the county and the Sutherland family had been engaged in mediation talks in an effort to avoid formal litigation, the television station WCSC reported. The council’s finance committee earlier recommended that the full council approve a $10 million settlement, according to local news media outlets. Councilman Teddie E. Pryor Sr. said during the meeting that he had promised the Sutherland family that he would look into what reforms to public safety could be enacted. “This should never happen to anyone ever again,” Pryor said. “Ever.” A lawyer for Sutherland’s family did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday night. The payout adds to a list of eight-figure settlements in several high-profile killings of Black people involving law enforcement officers. In March, Floyd’s family reached a $27 million settlement with the City of Minneapolis. This month, officials in Columbus, Ohio, agreed to pay $10 million to the family of Andre Hill, a Black man who was fatally shot by a police officer in a garage in December. C. Brantley Moody, a member of the Charleston County Council, said during the group’s meeting Tuesday that he had grappled with whether to support the settlement. He acknowledged that “globally, this race to the courthouse” troubled him. “What was done was a terrible injustice,” Moody said. “But how do you settle it? I don’t know what the answer is.” The local prosecutor is expected to decide in June whether the deputies, Sgt. Lindsay Fickett and Detention Deputy Brian Houle, will face criminal charges in Sutherland’s death. The prosecutor, Scarlett A. Wilson, the 9th Circuit solicitor, said this month that she was reviewing the results of an investigation into the deputies’ actions conducted by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Fickett and Houle had been placed on administrative leave before their firing was announced May 17 on Twitter by Kristin Graziano, the Charleston County sheriff. The deputies had been trying to remove Sutherland from a cell at the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center, the county jail, to take him to court for a bond hearing Jan. 5 when the deadly encounter took place. In the video footage released by the sheriff, the deputies were seen using pepper spray in Sutherland’s cell two times before firing Tasers at him. Sutherland had been hit with the Taser six to eight times, Houle later said in the video. The video showed Sutherland writhing on the ground before he eventually lost consciousness. Soon after, he was declared dead, with a pathologist ruling that the manner of his death was “undetermined.” The pathologist stated that Sutherland had died “as a result of excited state with pharmacotherapeutic effect during subdual process.” Officials would not discuss the autopsy results further and said that the post-mortem examination report would not be released because it was not a public document. Sutherland was taken to the jail from a mental health facility, Palmetto Lowcountry Behavioral Health, where he had been arrested Jan. 4 after a fight broke out. Workers at the mental health center told responding officers that Sutherland had assaulted a staff member. He and another patient were charged with third-degree assault and battery, according to The Post and Courier of Charleston. On the day of his arrest, a video showed Sutherland in distress. He screamed “Let go of me” at officers and spoke of conspiracies, including references to the Illuminati, groups — real and fictitious — dating back centuries and said to have special knowledge.

County reaches $10 million settlement in jailed Black man’s death

Police shooting of Black man sparks fresh protests in US

A US army lieutenant was subjected to excessive force by two police officers of the Virginia police department at a traffic stop.

The army officer, Caron Nazario, was stopped by the two Virginia police officers for not have permanent license plates in his new Chevrolet Tahoe on December 5, 2020. The army officer, however, claims he did have cardboard temporary plates taped to the inside of the rear window.

Nazario, who is Black and Latino, was dressed in his uniform and tried to find a well-lit area to stop when he was asked to pull over by Daniel Crocker, a Windsor police officer. Crocker, however, claims he thought Nazario was "eluding police" and he considered it a "high-risk traffic stop".

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Army officer LT. Caron Nazario who’s Afro-Latino was pulled over in his car. 
 
When told to get out of the car he said, “I’m honestly afraid to get out.” 
 
Officer said, 
“Yeah, you should be!” 
 
This is how U treat soldiers of color who defend this country? 
 
<a href="https://t.co/E9CoUVjBqp">pic.twitter.com/E9CoUVjBqp</a>
— KID VICIOUS🔪 (@kirkacevedo) <a href="https://twitter.com/kirkacevedo/status/1380858745677258755?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2021</a></blockquote>
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The army officer said he wanted to stop in a well-lit area "for officer safety and out of respect for the officers," as per a report of the court filing.

Cocker was joined by Joe Gutierrez, who was passing by the same area when he heard his colleague’s call.

However, the lawsuit reports that the license plate was well-visible by the time the two officers reached the SUV.

Upon arriving near the SUV, which had been stopped by Nazario at a gas station, the officers drew out their guns and pointed them at Nazario, attempting to pull him out of his car.

"I don’t even want to reach for my seatbelt, can you please ... My hands are out, can you please – look, this is really messed up," the US army officer could be heard saying.

However, the officers continued yelling and assaulting the officer, while making racist remarks.

"These cameras captured footage of behavior consistent with a disgusting nationwide trend of law enforcement officers who, believing they can operate with complete impunity, engage in unprofessional, discourteous, racially biased, dangerous and sometimes deadly abuses of authority," the lawsuit says.

Nazario has now sued the two officers, demanding $1 million in compensatory damages as he believes the officers violated his rights guaranteed under the First and Fourth Amendments.

A US army lieutenant was subjected to excessive force by two police officers of the Virginia police department at a traffic stop. The army officer, Caron Nazario, was stopped by the two Virginia police officers for not have permanent license plates in his new Chevrolet Tahoe on December 5, 2020.

A US army lieutenant was subjected to excessive force by two police officers of the Virginia police department at a traffic stop. The army officer, Caron Nazario, was stopped by the two Virginia police officers for not have permanent license plates in his new Chevrolet Tahoe on December 5, 2020. The army officer, however, claims he did have cardboard temporary plates taped to the inside of the rear window. Nazario, who is Black and Latino, was dressed in his uniform and tried to find a well-lit area to stop when he was asked to pull over by Daniel Crocker, a Windsor police officer. Crocker, however, claims he thought Nazario was "eluding police" and he considered it a "high-risk traffic stop". Army officer LT. Caron Nazario who’s Afro-Latino was pulled over in his car. When told to get out of the car he said, “I’m honestly afraid to get out.” Officer said, “Yeah, you should be!” This is how U treat soldiers of color who defend this country? pic.twitter.com/E9CoUVjBqp — KID VICIOUS🔪 (@kirkacevedo) April 10, 2021 × The army officer said he wanted to stop in a well-lit area "for officer safety and out of respect for the officers," as per a report of the court filing. Cocker was joined by Joe Gutierrez, who was passing by the same area when he heard his colleague’s call. However, the lawsuit reports that the license plate was well-visible by the time the two officers reached the SUV. Upon arriving near the SUV, which had been stopped by Nazario at a gas station, the officers drew out their guns and pointed them at Nazario, attempting to pull him out of his car. "I don’t even want to reach for my seatbelt, can you please ... My hands are out, can you please – look, this is really messed up," the US army officer could be heard saying. However, the officers continued yelling and assaulting the officer, while making racist remarks. "These cameras captured footage of behavior consistent with a disgusting nationwide trend of law enforcement officers who, believing they can operate with complete impunity, engage in unprofessional, discourteous, racially biased, dangerous and sometimes deadly abuses of authority," the lawsuit says. Nazario has now sued the two officers, demanding $1 million in compensatory damages as he believes the officers violated his rights guaranteed under the First and Fourth Amendments.

Police officers use excessive force on US army officer of Black-Latino origin

On an unseasonably warm day in February, two men working with a local community group went door to door in an ethnically diverse neighbourhood to persuade people to sign up for COVID-19 vaccinations.

It was just after 11 a.m. when they encountered the first person reluctant to get a shot. Two doors down and 30 minutes later, it happened again. For nearly an hour, they stood on a front lawn with George Rodriguez, 67, chatting about the neighbourhood, the pandemic and the available vaccines.

“I see all this stuff online, about how it’s going to change my DNA. It does something to your DNA, right?” asked Rodriguez, who is Hispanic. “There is just too much stuff out, too much conflicting information. And then I hear that even if you get the vaccine you can still get sick. Why would I get it, then?”

Black and Hispanic communities, which were hit harder by the pandemic and whose vaccination rates are lagging that for white people, are confronting vaccine conspiracy theories, rumours and misleading news reports on social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter and in private online messaging, health authorities and misinformation researchers said.

The misinformation varies, like claims that vaccines can alter DNA — which is not true — and that the vaccines do not work, or that people of colour are being used as guinea pigs. A good part of this incorrect information comes from friends, family and celebrities, bubbling up in communities that have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic and facing other hurdles to getting vaccinated.

Foreign news outlets and anti-vaccine activists have also aggressively tried to cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of vaccines made in the United States and Europe.

Misinformation has complicated efforts by some states to reach out to Black and Hispanic residents, particularly when health officials have provided special registration codes for vaccine appointments. Instead of a benefit, in some cases, the codes have become the basis for new false narratives.

“What might look like, on the surface, as doctors prioritizing communities of colour is being read by some people online as ‘Oh, those doctors want us to go first to be the guinea pigs,’” said Kolina Koltai, a researcher at the University of Washington who studies online conspiracy theories. “I’ve seen people on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Clubhouse — you name it — saying the codes are a way to force the vaccine on communities of colour as an experiment.”

Research conducted by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation in mid-February showed a striking disparity between racial groups receiving the vaccine in 34 states that reported the data.

The state figures vary widely. In Texas, where people who identify as Hispanic make up 42% of the population, only 20% of the vaccinations had gone to that group. In Mississippi, where Black people make up 38% of the population, they received 22% of the vaccinations. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the vaccination rate for Black Americans is half that of white people, and the gap for Hispanic people is even larger.

While researchers say a lack of easy access to vaccine sites could be the biggest driver of that shortfall, misinformation is playing a role.

The belief that doctors are interested in experimenting on certain communities has deep roots among some groups, Koltai said. Anti-vaccine activists have drawn on historical examples, including Nazi doctors who ran experiments in concentration camps, and the Baltimore hospital where, 70 years ago, cancer cells were collected from Henrietta Lacks, a Black mother of five, without her consent.

“The thing about misinformation is that it works best when it is built around a kernel of truth. In this case, many communities of colour don’t trust the medical establishment because they don’t have the best history with it,” said Shireen Mitchell, founder of Stop Online Violence Against Women, a group that supports women of colour who are harassed online.

An experiment conducted in 1943 on nearly 400 Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, is one of the most researched examples of medical mistreatment of the Black community. Over four decades, scientists observed the men, whom they knew were infected with syphilis but did not offer treatments so that they could study the disease’s progression. When the experiment came to light in the 1970s, it was condemned by the medical community as a major violation of ethical standards.

Researchers who study disinformation followed mentions of Tuskegee on social media over the last year. While Tuskegee averaged several hundred mentions a week on Facebook and Twitter, there were several noticeable spikes that coincided with the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, according to Zignal Labs, a media insights company.

The final week of November, when pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer announced promising results in their final studies on the safety of their COVID-19 vaccines, mentions of Tuskegee climbed to 7,000 a week.

There was another lull until mid-December when the Food and Drug Administration announced it had given emergency approval to the vaccines. Mentions of Tuskegee climbed to nearly 5,000 that week, according to Zignal, with some of the most viral tweets calling the coronavirus vaccines “the New Tuskegee study.”

Doctors say they are battling vaccine hesitancy in other demographic groups, as well. Last month, a poll by the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 23% of Republicans said they would “definitely” not get vaccinated, while 21% said they “probably” would not get a coronavirus vaccine.

Native American groups have been battling vaccine fears in their communities, and doctors have reported that some of their Chinese American patients have been bringing in articles in Chinese-language media outlets questioning vaccines made in the U.S.

Many Black and Hispanic people were already struggling to make appointments and reach vaccination sites that are often in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods. And officials in some cities say that people from those neighbourhoods also have been flooding vaccination appointment systems and taking supply intended for poorer Black and Hispanic residents.

Misinformation about who is allowed to receive the vaccine, when it is available and how it was safety tested has added even more difficulty, Mitchell said.

At a mass vaccination site at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California, on a recent Friday afternoon, before 68-year-old Anthony Jones agreed to get his shot last month, there was just one last thing he wanted to look up on Facebook. He pulled out his phone and started to tap, waving off his grandson, who had driven him to his appointment.

“I read something about a woman who died from this thing, and I want to know if she was Black,” said Jones, who after several minutes of scrolling could not find the Facebook post he was looking for. “You see a lot of stuff on the internet which makes you think, as a Black man, you should not be taking this vaccine.”

Jones eventually gave up. As he was walking in for his shot he remembered the article he had seen was on WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, and from a website, he did not recognize.

“My grandson tells me not to believe everything I read on the internet,” he said. “I like to believe my grandson.”

The next day, Daniel Lander, 38, was canvassing a neighbourhood in San Jose with Armand Mateos, 28. For the last five months, Lander has been going door to door in a program managed by Working Partnerships USA, a community organization based in Silicon Valley. The group is working with local county officials to help dispel misinformation about the pandemic and vaccines.

“We hear people say that they saw this or that celebrity sharing something on Twitter or Instagram that made them think the vaccine was a bad idea. People value the opinion of people they look up to, and these celebrities have a lot of influence,” Lander said.

As they chatted with Rodriguez, a muscular man and an enthusiastic talker, Lander and Mateos said they sympathized with his concerns. They said they had a lot of the same questions, and explained their decision to get the vaccines themselves. Rodriguez asked where they got their shots and how it made them feel.

Mateos reflexively touched his left arm, where he had received the vaccine in recent weeks. It hurt, he said, and he wasn’t going to sugarcoat it. But he was convinced that it was safe and that it would keep him and his loved ones from getting sick.

“They’ve read all this stuff online, from different news sources, which is confusing. But then they meet me, as someone who has had the shot, and I can give them some real answers,” Mateos said. He added that many people cited articles in the Spanish-language versions of Russian state-backed media networks, Sputnik and Russia Today. “They are very down on the American vaccines. People read those stories and don’t want to get the shot.”

As the two men were leaving, Rodriguez yelled out that he would get the shot that week. They made sure he had the phone number and websites he needed to register, and continued down the street.

“I think I will get it later this week,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t make promises, but I think that they’ve convinced me.”

On an unseasonably warm day in February, two men working with a local community group went door to door in an ethnically diverse neighbourhood to persuade people to sign up for COVID-19 vaccinations.

On an unseasonably warm day in February, two men working with a local community group went door to door in an ethnically diverse neighbourhood to persuade people to sign up for COVID-19 vaccinations. It was just after 11 a.m. when they encountered the first person reluctant to get a shot. Two doors down and 30 minutes later, it happened again. For nearly an hour, they stood on a front lawn with George Rodriguez, 67, chatting about the neighbourhood, the pandemic and the available vaccines. “I see all this stuff online, about how it’s going to change my DNA. It does something to your DNA, right?” asked Rodriguez, who is Hispanic. “There is just too much stuff out, too much conflicting information. And then I hear that even if you get the vaccine you can still get sick. Why would I get it, then?” Black and Hispanic communities, which were hit harder by the pandemic and whose vaccination rates are lagging that for white people, are confronting vaccine conspiracy theories, rumours and misleading news reports on social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter and in private online messaging, health authorities and misinformation researchers said. The misinformation varies, like claims that vaccines can alter DNA — which is not true — and that the vaccines do not work, or that people of colour are being used as guinea pigs. A good part of this incorrect information comes from friends, family and celebrities, bubbling up in communities that have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic and facing other hurdles to getting vaccinated. Foreign news outlets and anti-vaccine activists have also aggressively tried to cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of vaccines made in the United States and Europe. Misinformation has complicated efforts by some states to reach out to Black and Hispanic residents, particularly when health officials have provided special registration codes for vaccine appointments. Instead of a benefit, in some cases, the codes have become the basis for new false narratives. “What might look like, on the surface, as doctors prioritizing communities of colour is being read by some people online as ‘Oh, those doctors want us to go first to be the guinea pigs,’” said Kolina Koltai, a researcher at the University of Washington who studies online conspiracy theories. “I’ve seen people on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Clubhouse — you name it — saying the codes are a way to force the vaccine on communities of colour as an experiment.” Research conducted by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation in mid-February showed a striking disparity between racial groups receiving the vaccine in 34 states that reported the data. The state figures vary widely. In Texas, where people who identify as Hispanic make up 42% of the population, only 20% of the vaccinations had gone to that group. In Mississippi, where Black people make up 38% of the population, they received 22% of the vaccinations. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the vaccination rate for Black Americans is half that of white people, and the gap for Hispanic people is even larger. While researchers say a lack of easy access to vaccine sites could be the biggest driver of that shortfall, misinformation is playing a role. The belief that doctors are interested in experimenting on certain communities has deep roots among some groups, Koltai said. Anti-vaccine activists have drawn on historical examples, including Nazi doctors who ran experiments in concentration camps, and the Baltimore hospital where, 70 years ago, cancer cells were collected from Henrietta Lacks, a Black mother of five, without her consent. “The thing about misinformation is that it works best when it is built around a kernel of truth. In this case, many communities of colour don’t trust the medical establishment because they don’t have the best history with it,” said Shireen Mitchell, founder of Stop Online Violence Against Women, a group that supports women of colour who are harassed online. An experiment conducted in 1943 on nearly 400 Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, is one of the most researched examples of medical mistreatment of the Black community. Over four decades, scientists observed the men, whom they knew were infected with syphilis but did not offer treatments so that they could study the disease’s progression. When the experiment came to light in the 1970s, it was condemned by the medical community as a major violation of ethical standards. Researchers who study disinformation followed mentions of Tuskegee on social media over the last year. While Tuskegee averaged several hundred mentions a week on Facebook and Twitter, there were several noticeable spikes that coincided with the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, according to Zignal Labs, a media insights company. The final week of November, when pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer announced promising results in their final studies on the safety of their COVID-19 vaccines, mentions of Tuskegee climbed to 7,000 a week. There was another lull until mid-December when the Food and Drug Administration announced it had given emergency approval to the vaccines. Mentions of Tuskegee climbed to nearly 5,000 that week, according to Zignal, with some of the most viral tweets calling the coronavirus vaccines “the New Tuskegee study.” Doctors say they are battling vaccine hesitancy in other demographic groups, as well. Last month, a poll by the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 23% of Republicans said they would “definitely” not get vaccinated, while 21% said they “probably” would not get a coronavirus vaccine. Native American groups have been battling vaccine fears in their communities, and doctors have reported that some of their Chinese American patients have been bringing in articles in Chinese-language media outlets questioning vaccines made in the U.S. Many Black and Hispanic people were already struggling to make appointments and reach vaccination sites that are often in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods. And officials in some cities say that people from those neighbourhoods also have been flooding vaccination appointment systems and taking supply intended for poorer Black and Hispanic residents. Misinformation about who is allowed to receive the vaccine, when it is available and how it was safety tested has added even more difficulty, Mitchell said. At a mass vaccination site at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California, on a recent Friday afternoon, before 68-year-old Anthony Jones agreed to get his shot last month, there was just one last thing he wanted to look up on Facebook. He pulled out his phone and started to tap, waving off his grandson, who had driven him to his appointment. “I read something about a woman who died from this thing, and I want to know if she was Black,” said Jones, who after several minutes of scrolling could not find the Facebook post he was looking for. “You see a lot of stuff on the internet which makes you think, as a Black man, you should not be taking this vaccine.” Jones eventually gave up. As he was walking in for his shot he remembered the article he had seen was on WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, and from a website, he did not recognize. “My grandson tells me not to believe everything I read on the internet,” he said. “I like to believe my grandson.” The next day, Daniel Lander, 38, was canvassing a neighbourhood in San Jose with Armand Mateos, 28. For the last five months, Lander has been going door to door in a program managed by Working Partnerships USA, a community organization based in Silicon Valley. The group is working with local county officials to help dispel misinformation about the pandemic and vaccines. “We hear people say that they saw this or that celebrity sharing something on Twitter or Instagram that made them think the vaccine was a bad idea. People value the opinion of people they look up to, and these celebrities have a lot of influence,” Lander said. As they chatted with Rodriguez, a muscular man and an enthusiastic talker, Lander and Mateos said they sympathized with his concerns. They said they had a lot of the same questions, and explained their decision to get the vaccines themselves. Rodriguez asked where they got their shots and how it made them feel. Mateos reflexively touched his left arm, where he had received the vaccine in recent weeks. It hurt, he said, and he wasn’t going to sugarcoat it. But he was convinced that it was safe and that it would keep him and his loved ones from getting sick. “They’ve read all this stuff online, from different news sources, which is confusing. But then they meet me, as someone who has had the shot, and I can give them some real answers,” Mateos said. He added that many people cited articles in the Spanish-language versions of Russian state-backed media networks, Sputnik and Russia Today. “They are very down on the American vaccines. People read those stories and don’t want to get the shot.” As the two men were leaving, Rodriguez yelled out that he would get the shot that week. They made sure he had the phone number and websites he needed to register, and continued down the street. “I think I will get it later this week,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t make promises, but I think that they’ve convinced me.”

Black and Hispanic communities grapple with vaccine misinformation

A 22-year-old woman from California, who wrongly accused a Black teenager of stealing her phone and tackled him at a New York City hotel in a widely seen video, was charged after returning to the city.

Miya Ponsetto was charged with attempted robbery, grand larceny, acting in a manner injurious to a child and two counts of attempted assault, according to city police.&nbsp;

Ponsetto's confrontation with 14-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr on December 26 was posted online. It showed an agitated woman demanding the teenagers phone, claiming he stole it. The phone was found soon afterward in an Uber.

The charges follow more than a week of intense media coverage of the hotel lobby encounter and demands by the teens family and activists that she face criminal charges.

Ponsetto apologised but defended herself in a television interview conducted before she was arrested in California.

"I dont feel that that is who I am as a person. I dont feel like this one mistake does define me," she said in a 'CBS This Morning' interview that aired on Friday.&nbsp;

"But I do sincerely from the bottom of my heart apologise that if I made the son feel as if I assaulted him or if I hurt his feelings or the father's feelings."

A 22-year-old woman from California, who wrongly accused a Black teenager of stealing her phone and tackled him at a New York City hotel in a widely seen video, was charged after returning to the city.

A 22-year-old woman from California, who wrongly accused a Black teenager of stealing her phone and tackled him at a New York City hotel in a widely seen video, was charged after returning to the city. Miya Ponsetto was charged with attempted robbery, grand larceny, acting in a manner injurious to a child and two counts of attempted assault, according to city police. Ponsetto's confrontation with 14-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr on December 26 was posted online. It showed an agitated woman demanding the teenagers phone, claiming he stole it. The phone was found soon afterward in an Uber. The charges follow more than a week of intense media coverage of the hotel lobby encounter and demands by the teens family and activists that she face criminal charges. Ponsetto apologised but defended herself in a television interview conducted before she was arrested in California. "I dont feel that that is who I am as a person. I dont feel like this one mistake does define me," she said in a 'CBS This Morning' interview that aired on Friday. "But I do sincerely from the bottom of my heart apologise that if I made the son feel as if I assaulted him or if I hurt his feelings or the father's feelings."

Woman in widely seen hotel confrontation charged in New York

Despite being at much greater risk of the disease people from minority ethnic backgrounds or with lower incomes are significantly less likely to take the coronavirus vaccine, research suggests.&nbsp; 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/four-trial-volunteers-who-got-pfizers-covid-19-vaccine-developed-bells-palsy-348547">Also read: Four trial volunteers who got Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine developed Bell's palsy</a>

A study commissioned by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) found that three in four (76 per cent) of the British public would take a COVID-19 vaccine if advised to do so by their doctor, with just 8 per cent stating they would be very unlikely to do so. 
 
<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/next-four-to-six-months-could-be-worst-of-coronavirus-pandemic-bill-gates-349593">Also read | Next four to six months could be worst of coronavirus pandemic: Bill Gates</a> 
 
The UK has covered nearly 138,000 people in the first week of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine rollout across the country.

However, it found that only 57 per cent of respondents from BAME backgrounds (199 respondents) were likely to accept the vaccine, compared to 79 per cent of white respondents.

Confidence in vaccines was found to be lowest among respondents of Asian ethnicity, of whom only 55 per cent were likely to say yes, the study says.

"We have known for years that different communities have different levels of satisfaction in the NHS (National Health Service) and more recently we have seen anti-vaccination messages have been specifically targeted at different groups, including different ethnic or religious communities," said Christina Marriott, Chief Executive of RSPH.

"But these are exactly the groups which have suffered most through COVID. They continue to be most at risk of getting ill and most at risk of dying. So, the government, the NHS and local public health must rapidly and proactively work with these communities. And their most effective ways of working will be with the local community groups," she said.

Earlier studies have shown that COVID-19 has a more adverse impact on minority ethnic groups in the UK, with working and living conditions largely believed to be behind the disparity of higher death rates among BAME groups.

Comorbidities such as blood pressure, obesity and diabetes are also believed to play a part in making those of South Asian ethnicity more susceptible to serious illness from the deadly virus.

These findings are not surprising in light of past experience of the reach of vaccines to BAME communities, but they appear to be particularly worrying as it suggests the COVID vaccine may not reach communities that have been disproportionately impacted," Jabeer Butt, Chief Executive of the UK's Race Equality Foundation, said in reference to the latest survey.

"It is imperative that the NHS uses trusted channels like BAME-led voluntary organisations to reach and address concerns of BAME communities and ensure that the disproportionate impact of COVID is not exacerbated," he said.

The RSPH report highlighted the encouraging finding that BAME respondents who were not willing to be vaccinated were receptive to offers of further health information from their general practitioner (GP).

Over one third (35 per cent) said they would likely change their minds and get the jab if given more information by their GP about how effective it is, almost twice as many as the 18 per cent of White people who were initially unwilling.

The RSPH said the latest findings build on a study earlier this year which found that parents in minority ethnic groups were almost three times more likely to reject a COVID-19 vaccine for themselves and their children than White parents.

The polling also revealed significantly more hesitancy among lower-income groups, with just 70 per cent of lowest earners likely to say yes to the jab compared to 84 per cent of the highest earners.

Last week, the UK began administering the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in a phased manner, starting with the elderly and frontline workers as categories at the highest risk of death from coronavirus.

With a number of other vaccines, including the Oxford University vaccine being produced by AstraZeneca, in the pipeline, the government is keen to get the message out for widespread uptake of the jabs as a means to emerge out of the current cycle of lockdowns to control the spread of infections.

The UK's regulatory body, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), has repeatedly stressed that any vaccines will be cleared for mass rollout only after "rigorous" safety tests despite the process being speeded up due to the urgency of finding an effective vaccine against the pandemic which has wreaked havoc around the world.

(With inputs from agencies)

Despite being at much greater risk of the disease people from minority ethnic backgrounds or with lower incomes are significantly less likely to take the coronavirus vaccine, research suggests.

Despite being at much greater risk of the disease people from minority ethnic backgrounds or with lower incomes are significantly less likely to take the coronavirus vaccine, research suggests. Also read: Four trial volunteers who got Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine developed Bell's palsy A study commissioned by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) found that three in four (76 per cent) of the British public would take a COVID-19 vaccine if advised to do so by their doctor, with just 8 per cent stating they would be very unlikely to do so. Also read | Next four to six months could be worst of coronavirus pandemic: Bill Gates The UK has covered nearly 138,000 people in the first week of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine rollout across the country. However, it found that only 57 per cent of respondents from BAME backgrounds (199 respondents) were likely to accept the vaccine, compared to 79 per cent of white respondents. Confidence in vaccines was found to be lowest among respondents of Asian ethnicity, of whom only 55 per cent were likely to say yes, the study says. "We have known for years that different communities have different levels of satisfaction in the NHS (National Health Service) and more recently we have seen anti-vaccination messages have been specifically targeted at different groups, including different ethnic or religious communities," said Christina Marriott, Chief Executive of RSPH. "But these are exactly the groups which have suffered most through COVID. They continue to be most at risk of getting ill and most at risk of dying. So, the government, the NHS and local public health must rapidly and proactively work with these communities. And their most effective ways of working will be with the local community groups," she said. Earlier studies have shown that COVID-19 has a more adverse impact on minority ethnic groups in the UK, with working and living conditions largely believed to be behind the disparity of higher death rates among BAME groups. Comorbidities such as blood pressure, obesity and diabetes are also believed to play a part in making those of South Asian ethnicity more susceptible to serious illness from the deadly virus. These findings are not surprising in light of past experience of the reach of vaccines to BAME communities, but they appear to be particularly worrying as it suggests the COVID vaccine may not reach communities that have been disproportionately impacted," Jabeer Butt, Chief Executive of the UK's Race Equality Foundation, said in reference to the latest survey. "It is imperative that the NHS uses trusted channels like BAME-led voluntary organisations to reach and address concerns of BAME communities and ensure that the disproportionate impact of COVID is not exacerbated," he said. The RSPH report highlighted the encouraging finding that BAME respondents who were not willing to be vaccinated were receptive to offers of further health information from their general practitioner (GP). Over one third (35 per cent) said they would likely change their minds and get the jab if given more information by their GP about how effective it is, almost twice as many as the 18 per cent of White people who were initially unwilling. The RSPH said the latest findings build on a study earlier this year which found that parents in minority ethnic groups were almost three times more likely to reject a COVID-19 vaccine for themselves and their children than White parents. The polling also revealed significantly more hesitancy among lower-income groups, with just 70 per cent of lowest earners likely to say yes to the jab compared to 84 per cent of the highest earners. Last week, the UK began administering the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in a phased manner, starting with the elderly and frontline workers as categories at the highest risk of death from coronavirus. With a number of other vaccines, including the Oxford University vaccine being produced by AstraZeneca, in the pipeline, the government is keen to get the message out for widespread uptake of the jabs as a means to emerge out of the current cycle of lockdowns to control the spread of infections. The UK's regulatory body, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), has repeatedly stressed that any vaccines will be cleared for mass rollout only after "rigorous" safety tests despite the process being speeded up due to the urgency of finding an effective vaccine against the pandemic which has wreaked havoc around the world. (With inputs from agencies)

Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups reluctant to take Covid-19 vaccine jab: UK study

Four police officers have been charged for beating and racially attacking a Black music producer,&nbsp;Michel Zecler, in his studio in Paris.

The incident came to light after video footage of Zecler being beaten by Paris Police was shared on social media platforms, which attracted a lot of criticism and raised concerns about growing&nbsp;institutionalised racism against the Black community and Arabs.

These videos had led to several protests in the city demanding justice for Zecler, and the demonstrations had led to violence and clashes between the locals and the police officials.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/macron-shocked-to-hear-black-music-producer-being-beaten-by-french-police-officers-detained-345812">Macron 'shocked' to hear Black music producer being beaten by French police; officers detained</a>

After the numerous protests, two of the involved police officers were kept behind bars and the other two were put on conditional release. Three of the officers were charged with "willful violence by a person holding public authority" and "forgery".

The&nbsp;Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz has demanded the officers to be charged specifically with racial abuse — a growing concern that the French government wants to end on the root level.

Four accused have also been subjected to questioning by the National Police Inspectorate General (IGPN). The lawyers of the police officers have refused to comment in the media.&nbsp;

Meanwhile, the government is urging locals to exercise caution and keep faith in the country's judicial system instead of rallying on the streets which has resulted in several people getting injured, including a 24-year-old, <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/paris-wounded-photographer-says-protests-brought-back-syria-memories-346312">award-winning Syrian photojournalist, Ameer al-Halbi.</a>

"We are shocked by the injuries suffered by our colleague Ameer al-Halbi and condemn the unprovoked violence," said Phil Chetwynd, AFP's global news director.

Four police officers have been charged for beating and racially attacking a Black music producer, Michel Zecler, in his studio in Paris. The incident came to light after video footage of Zecler being beaten by Paris Police was shared on social media platforms, which attracted a lot of criticism and raised concerns about growing institutionalised racism against the Black community and Arabs.

Four police officers have been charged for beating and racially attacking a Black music producer, Michel Zecler, in his studio in Paris. The incident came to light after video footage of Zecler being beaten by Paris Police was shared on social media platforms, which attracted a lot of criticism and raised concerns about growing institutionalised racism against the Black community and Arabs. These videos had led to several protests in the city demanding justice for Zecler, and the demonstrations had led to violence and clashes between the locals and the police officials. Also read| Macron 'shocked' to hear Black music producer being beaten by French police; officers detained After the numerous protests, two of the involved police officers were kept behind bars and the other two were put on conditional release. Three of the officers were charged with "willful violence by a person holding public authority" and "forgery". The Paris prosecutor Remy Heitz has demanded the officers to be charged specifically with racial abuse — a growing concern that the French government wants to end on the root level. Four accused have also been subjected to questioning by the National Police Inspectorate General (IGPN). The lawyers of the police officers have refused to comment in the media. Meanwhile, the government is urging locals to exercise caution and keep faith in the country's judicial system instead of rallying on the streets which has resulted in several people getting injured, including a 24-year-old, award-winning Syrian photojournalist, Ameer al-Halbi. "We are shocked by the injuries suffered by our colleague Ameer al-Halbi and condemn the unprovoked violence," said Phil Chetwynd, AFP's global news director.

French police charged for racially attacking Black music producer

BERLIN — In June, when Jelisa Delfeld joined a Telegram channel to help organize a silent demonstration against racism in Stuttgart, Germany, she was one of fewer than two dozen members. The next day, that number grew to 100, and the following, about 1,000 people had joined the channel where the protest was being planned.

“When the video of George Floyd being killed came out, it was also shocking in Germany,” said Delfeld, 24. “Even though it happened in the U.S., it’s a Black man, and we’re Black. If there’s pain in our community, you can feel that pain everywhere.”

Over five days of Zoom meetings, calls and texts, this group of young strangers, most of whom had little experience in activism, organized a demonstration that brought between 7,000 and 10,000 people into the streets of Stuttgart, a city of roughly 620,000, on June 6.

The same day, thousands more people across Germany protested against racism and in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, with police estimates of crowds reaching as high as 15,000 in Berlin, 25,000 in Munich and 14,000 in Hamburg. The numbers reflected an international galvanizing of protesters after the death of George Floyd.

Despite the overwhelming public show of solidarity in June and July, many activists in Germany said that Germans seemed more eager to support Americans than to look inward.

In recent years, Germany has been criticized by the United Nations and the European Union for racial profiling and police violence. While the country is known for its “culture of remembrance” around the Holocaust, German textbooks and mainstream history narratives largely ignore its colonial history. Many Black people in Germany say that they do not feel a sense of belonging, and that their presence here has been rendered practically invisible.

“The assumption is that if you’re Black, you are not, nor will you ever be, German,” said Angelo Camufingo, 28, an organizer of the group Black Lives Matter Berlin.

Part of it, many Black Germans say, has to do with a culture of denial around racial discrimination. “There was solidarity with the protesters,” said Julia Wissert, 36, the artistic director of the Dortmund Theater in western Germany, who, with a lawyer, developed an anti-racism clause for theater contracts in 2018. “At the same time, there is the imagined idea of racism being an American problem because America always had issues with racism due to slavery.”

Wissert described racism in Germany as a mist. “You can’t really see it if you stand in it, but you experience it if you stand in it because it makes you hyper-visible and invisible at the same time,” she said.

&lt;strong&gt;‘We Are Here’&lt;/strong&gt;

Though Germany doesn’t maintain data on racial demographics because of the atrocities of the Nazi era, it does document where migrants arrive from. By that count, about 1 million of the country’s residents have roots in Africa, though the actual number is likely higher. Organizations that research Germany’s colonial history have traced the presence of people from the African continent as far back as the early 1700s.

“Black communities in Germany are so diverse,” said Siraad Wiedenroth, 33, who sits on the board of the Initiative for Black People in Germany, in a phone interview. “There are Black people here in the second, third and fourth generations. There are people who arrived 10 years ago via guest worker visas or to study, Black people here who sought refuge.”

Artists have worked to bring visibility to Germany’s nonwhite populations. Last year, working together with local youth, Wissert created a play in Bochum called “2069: The End of Others.” Experiences with racism came up repeatedly through stories her teenage collaborators told about their lives. “They know something is wrong, that they’re being treated differently,” she said.

Rhea Ramjohn, 36, one of the founders of Black Brown Berlin, a digital platform that connects Black and brown people, said: “The history of Black people in Europe and Germany is often a narrative that they were never here. We were never here. We just arrived here. We are all refugees.”

The platform showcases Black-owned businesses and produces anti-discrimination events. One of its projects is a series of portraits of Black and brown people along with their interpretation of the phrase “We Are Here.”

(BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM.)

This summer, cultural institutions reached out to Black artists to commission work in response to the global unrest. Black Brown Berlin was approached in July by Haus der Kulturen der Welt, a prominent museum in the capital, to produce a piece for a digital series on racism during the pandemic.

The result was a short film that pairs a spoken-word poem with visuals of dancers performing spontaneous movement in the Grunewald forest in Berlin, where Audre Lorde would walk with mentees and friends, including activist May Ayim, during the years Lorde lived in Berlin. The poem includes references to the “mothers of the movement,” those whose Black children were killed by police, and “I can’t breathe,” a phrase that has taken on sharper significance during the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately affected people of color.

Femi Oyewole, 31, one of Black Brown Berlin’s founders, said that many of Germany’s demonstrations suggested that racism was “an American issue. Like, ‘Germany’s fine, we don’t have this issue.’ But people here were tired. What about people here in Germany who suffered at the hands of the police?”

(END OPTIONAL TRIM.)

&lt;strong&gt;Policing, Profiling and Far-Right Violence&lt;/strong&gt;

“When I was growing up and thinking about being Black, it was so shaped by the U.S.,” said Ciani-Sophia Hoeder, 30, a founder of RosaMag, an online lifestyle magazine for Black women in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

“Anti-Black racism was always something people thought the U.S. or U.K. or France have, but not Germany,” Hoeder said. “We don’t talk about police brutality.”

Some monitoring bodies have been trying to change that. In 2017, the United Nations’ Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent reported that while the German constitution guarantees equality and prohibits race-based discrimination, “it is not being enforced.” The report also said that the lives of people of African descent “are marked by racism, negative stereotypes and structural racism” as well as “racist violence and hate crimes.”

The report lists examples of racial discrimination and violence that were not properly investigated, including the death of Oury Jalloh, an asylum-seeker from Sierra Leone who burned to death while tied to a bed in police custody in Dessau in 2005.

(BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM.)

Since 2005, a group of friends and family has uncovered various inconsistencies in the police version of events surrounding his death. For example, Jalloh did not have a lighter with him when he was admitted, but one was found later in the fire rubble bag. An independent examination of Jalloh noted that he had fractures all over his body. The mattress he was tied to was fire resistant.

In 2018, the state parliament in Saxony-Anhalt tasked two investigators with re-examining the details of Jalloh’s death. This summer, Der Spiegel reported on the resistance the investigators have run into.

(END OPTIONAL TRIM.)

The report from the U.N. also described racial profiling in Germany as “endemic.” A report from the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance last year emphasized that in Germany, “though there is strong evidence for extensive racial profiling, numerous police services and representatives are unaware of or do not admit its existence.”

“We have no racism problem in the police here,” Thomas Blenke, the interior minister for the state of Baden-Württemberg said in a news release. Some politicians say that racial profiling does not exist in Germany because discrimination is banned by the constitution. But rules of police conduct allow police officers to stop and search people without suspicion in trains or train stations or in “criminal hot spots.”

According to Die Zeit, Horst Seehofer, the interior minister, canceled a planned study on racial profiling because there is “no need” for it. (A spokesperson for the minister said that he commissioned a study on “right-wing extremism in security authorities” that will be completed this month.)

Seehofer recently criticized a new law in Berlin that allows people who have been discriminated against by representatives of “the state,” such as police officers, teachers and judges, to seek damages and compensation, calling it “basically madness,” in an interview with German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. He added that “there is no justification for questioning the integrity of our police officers in such a structural way.”

This summer, Seehofer, who is on a new government committee against right-wing extremism and racism, threatened to file a criminal complaint against Hengameh Yaghoobifarah, 28, a journalist who had written a satirical column that criticized the police after the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and abroad. Two German police unions filed lawsuits against Yaghoobifarah.

After pushback from various sources, including a petition signed by more than 1,000 people, Seehofer backtracked. Yaghoobifarah found out last week that 150 lawsuits that had been filed because of the column were being dropped.

Yaghoobifarah and Fatma Aydemir, 33, the editors of a recent book of essays on racism, spoke about the reluctance in Germany to address the root of the violence against Black people.

“On all the talk shows in which Black Lives Matter was discussed, there was a hesitation to talk about the German police,” Aydemir said. “And whenever a person did that on a popular or mainstream platform, they always invited someone from the police or a politician very close to the police, or three of them even, to destroy this argument.”

Yaghoobifarah said: “They would, for example, say the police training in Germany is way longer than in the U.S., so people are more skilled here, or they would say the history of the prison industrial complex and anti-Black racism in the U.S. is different than in Germany. And of course, it is different, but it doesn’t mean that Germany is doing well.”

(STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.)

The country has seen rising incidents of far-right violence; in 2019, more than half of politically motivated crimes in Germany were committed with right-wing motivation, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office.

“White German people can’t keep turning up only when someone dies in America,” said Diana Arce, 38, an organizer of Black Lives Matter Berlin. “They’re saying Black Lives Matter, but they still refuse to really fully investigate what happened to Oury Jalloh. There already is a history of violence here. There has always been a history of violence.”

&lt;strong&gt;Historical Revisionism&lt;/strong&gt;

In 1884, leaders of various European powers, including Germany, gathered in Berlin to carve the African continent into colonies. The German state of Brandenburg had held a slave-trading outpost in Ghana in the late 1600s and early 1700s.

While Germany maintained colonies in Africa, from 1884 to 1918, it committed what historians refer to as the first genocide of the 20th century against the Nama and Herero people of present-day Namibia.

German colonizers and troops created concentration camps, where they used forced labor, sexual violence and starvation to kill their prisoners in an early form of the horrific methods the National Socialists used during the Holocaust. During the Maji-Maji War, a large-scale rebellion against German colonial rule in present-day Tanzania, at least 100,000 resistance fighters were killed, historians estimate.

Since 2015, Namibia and Germany have been involved in negotiations over reparations. Germany has yet to formally apologize for its crimes. The country has returned some of the skulls of the victims of the genocide to Namibia, which were taken by scientists studying “racial purity,” but many still remain in museums and in hospitals. And for the most part, this history is glossed over in school.

“Young kids growing up in Germany don’t realize or remember that Germany had colonies, and there were, for example, predecessors to concentration camps prior to World War II in Namibia,” said Camufingo, of Black Lives Matter Berlin. “They don’t know about Germany’s participation in the slave trade. None of that is taught.”

Dekoloniale, a new organization that seeks to bring colonial history into the mainstream, will open its headquarters on Nov. 15, on top of the site where the 1884 Berlin conference took place. Anna Yeboah, 30, Dekoloniale’s project leader, and Christian Kopp, 52, a historian in charge of the group’s exhibitions, both recalled first learning about German colonialism in Africa on trips to the continent. “It wasn’t a known subject,” Kopp said. “It felt like a secret.”

“It’s weird that we as German people have to go to Ghana to learn about this,” Yeboah said, recalling a visit in her teenage years to a German fort in Ghana from which hundreds of thousands of enslaved people were transported across the Atlantic Ocean.

On a walking tour, Kopp pointed out a sign across the street from Dekoloniale’s office explaining how in 1919, a group of men from East and West Africa who lived in Germany submitted a document calling for “equal rights and independence.” Kopp said that one of the aims of Dekoloniale is to shed a light on the personal histories and resistance efforts of Black people in Germany over the centuries.

“Many people in Germany have not thought about anti-Black racism or could afford not to think about it,” Kopp said. “There has been a long history of oppression and repression here, and a struggle for equal rights.”

BERLIN — In June, when Jelisa Delfeld joined a Telegram channel to help organize a silent demonstration against racism in Stuttgart, Germany, she was one of fewer than two dozen members.

BERLIN — In June, when Jelisa Delfeld joined a Telegram channel to help organize a silent demonstration against racism in Stuttgart, Germany, she was one of fewer than two dozen members. The next day, that number grew to 100, and the following, about 1,000 people had joined the channel where the protest was being planned. “When the video of George Floyd being killed came out, it was also shocking in Germany,” said Delfeld, 24. “Even though it happened in the U.S., it’s a Black man, and we’re Black. If there’s pain in our community, you can feel that pain everywhere.” Over five days of Zoom meetings, calls and texts, this group of young strangers, most of whom had little experience in activism, organized a demonstration that brought between 7,000 and 10,000 people into the streets of Stuttgart, a city of roughly 620,000, on June 6. The same day, thousands more people across Germany protested against racism and in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, with police estimates of crowds reaching as high as 15,000 in Berlin, 25,000 in Munich and 14,000 in Hamburg. The numbers reflected an international galvanizing of protesters after the death of George Floyd. Despite the overwhelming public show of solidarity in June and July, many activists in Germany said that Germans seemed more eager to support Americans than to look inward. In recent years, Germany has been criticized by the United Nations and the European Union for racial profiling and police violence. While the country is known for its “culture of remembrance” around the Holocaust, German textbooks and mainstream history narratives largely ignore its colonial history. Many Black people in Germany say that they do not feel a sense of belonging, and that their presence here has been rendered practically invisible. “The assumption is that if you’re Black, you are not, nor will you ever be, German,” said Angelo Camufingo, 28, an organizer of the group Black Lives Matter Berlin. Part of it, many Black Germans say, has to do with a culture of denial around racial discrimination. “There was solidarity with the protesters,” said Julia Wissert, 36, the artistic director of the Dortmund Theater in western Germany, who, with a lawyer, developed an anti-racism clause for theater contracts in 2018. “At the same time, there is the imagined idea of racism being an American problem because America always had issues with racism due to slavery.” Wissert described racism in Germany as a mist. “You can’t really see it if you stand in it, but you experience it if you stand in it because it makes you hyper-visible and invisible at the same time,” she said. ‘We Are Here’ Though Germany doesn’t maintain data on racial demographics because of the atrocities of the Nazi era, it does document where migrants arrive from. By that count, about 1 million of the country’s residents have roots in Africa, though the actual number is likely higher. Organizations that research Germany’s colonial history have traced the presence of people from the African continent as far back as the early 1700s. “Black communities in Germany are so diverse,” said Siraad Wiedenroth, 33, who sits on the board of the Initiative for Black People in Germany, in a phone interview. “There are Black people here in the second, third and fourth generations. There are people who arrived 10 years ago via guest worker visas or to study, Black people here who sought refuge.” Artists have worked to bring visibility to Germany’s nonwhite populations. Last year, working together with local youth, Wissert created a play in Bochum called “2069: The End of Others.” Experiences with racism came up repeatedly through stories her teenage collaborators told about their lives. “They know something is wrong, that they’re being treated differently,” she said. Rhea Ramjohn, 36, one of the founders of Black Brown Berlin, a digital platform that connects Black and brown people, said: “The history of Black people in Europe and Germany is often a narrative that they were never here. We were never here. We just arrived here. We are all refugees.” The platform showcases Black-owned businesses and produces anti-discrimination events. One of its projects is a series of portraits of Black and brown people along with their interpretation of the phrase “We Are Here.” (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM.) This summer, cultural institutions reached out to Black artists to commission work in response to the global unrest. Black Brown Berlin was approached in July by Haus der Kulturen der Welt, a prominent museum in the capital, to produce a piece for a digital series on racism during the pandemic. The result was a short film that pairs a spoken-word poem with visuals of dancers performing spontaneous movement in the Grunewald forest in Berlin, where Audre Lorde would walk with mentees and friends, including activist May Ayim, during the years Lorde lived in Berlin. The poem includes references to the “mothers of the movement,” those whose Black children were killed by police, and “I can’t breathe,” a phrase that has taken on sharper significance during the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately affected people of color. Femi Oyewole, 31, one of Black Brown Berlin’s founders, said that many of Germany’s demonstrations suggested that racism was “an American issue. Like, ‘Germany’s fine, we don’t have this issue.’ But people here were tired. What about people here in Germany who suffered at the hands of the police?” (END OPTIONAL TRIM.) Policing, Profiling and Far-Right Violence “When I was growing up and thinking about being Black, it was so shaped by the U.S.,” said Ciani-Sophia Hoeder, 30, a founder of RosaMag, an online lifestyle magazine for Black women in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. “Anti-Black racism was always something people thought the U.S. or U.K. or France have, but not Germany,” Hoeder said. “We don’t talk about police brutality.” Some monitoring bodies have been trying to change that. In 2017, the United Nations’ Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent reported that while the German constitution guarantees equality and prohibits race-based discrimination, “it is not being enforced.” The report also said that the lives of people of African descent “are marked by racism, negative stereotypes and structural racism” as well as “racist violence and hate crimes.” The report lists examples of racial discrimination and violence that were not properly investigated, including the death of Oury Jalloh, an asylum-seeker from Sierra Leone who burned to death while tied to a bed in police custody in Dessau in 2005. (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM.) Since 2005, a group of friends and family has uncovered various inconsistencies in the police version of events surrounding his death. For example, Jalloh did not have a lighter with him when he was admitted, but one was found later in the fire rubble bag. An independent examination of Jalloh noted that he had fractures all over his body. The mattress he was tied to was fire resistant. In 2018, the state parliament in Saxony-Anhalt tasked two investigators with re-examining the details of Jalloh’s death. This summer, Der Spiegel reported on the resistance the investigators have run into. (END OPTIONAL TRIM.) The report from the U.N. also described racial profiling in Germany as “endemic.” A report from the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance last year emphasized that in Germany, “though there is strong evidence for extensive racial profiling, numerous police services and representatives are unaware of or do not admit its existence.” “We have no racism problem in the police here,” Thomas Blenke, the interior minister for the state of Baden-Württemberg said in a news release. Some politicians say that racial profiling does not exist in Germany because discrimination is banned by the constitution. But rules of police conduct allow police officers to stop and search people without suspicion in trains or train stations or in “criminal hot spots.” According to Die Zeit, Horst Seehofer, the interior minister, canceled a planned study on racial profiling because there is “no need” for it. (A spokesperson for the minister said that he commissioned a study on “right-wing extremism in security authorities” that will be completed this month.) Seehofer recently criticized a new law in Berlin that allows people who have been discriminated against by representatives of “the state,” such as police officers, teachers and judges, to seek damages and compensation, calling it “basically madness,” in an interview with German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. He added that “there is no justification for questioning the integrity of our police officers in such a structural way.” This summer, Seehofer, who is on a new government committee against right-wing extremism and racism, threatened to file a criminal complaint against Hengameh Yaghoobifarah, 28, a journalist who had written a satirical column that criticized the police after the peak of the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and abroad. Two German police unions filed lawsuits against Yaghoobifarah. After pushback from various sources, including a petition signed by more than 1,000 people, Seehofer backtracked. Yaghoobifarah found out last week that 150 lawsuits that had been filed because of the column were being dropped. Yaghoobifarah and Fatma Aydemir, 33, the editors of a recent book of essays on racism, spoke about the reluctance in Germany to address the root of the violence against Black people. “On all the talk shows in which Black Lives Matter was discussed, there was a hesitation to talk about the German police,” Aydemir said. “And whenever a person did that on a popular or mainstream platform, they always invited someone from the police or a politician very close to the police, or three of them even, to destroy this argument.” Yaghoobifarah said: “They would, for example, say the police training in Germany is way longer than in the U.S., so people are more skilled here, or they would say the history of the prison industrial complex and anti-Black racism in the U.S. is different than in Germany. And of course, it is different, but it doesn’t mean that Germany is doing well.” (STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.) The country has seen rising incidents of far-right violence; in 2019, more than half of politically motivated crimes in Germany were committed with right-wing motivation, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office. “White German people can’t keep turning up only when someone dies in America,” said Diana Arce, 38, an organizer of Black Lives Matter Berlin. “They’re saying Black Lives Matter, but they still refuse to really fully investigate what happened to Oury Jalloh. There already is a history of violence here. There has always been a history of violence.” Historical Revisionism In 1884, leaders of various European powers, including Germany, gathered in Berlin to carve the African continent into colonies. The German state of Brandenburg had held a slave-trading outpost in Ghana in the late 1600s and early 1700s. While Germany maintained colonies in Africa, from 1884 to 1918, it committed what historians refer to as the first genocide of the 20th century against the Nama and Herero people of present-day Namibia. German colonizers and troops created concentration camps, where they used forced labor, sexual violence and starvation to kill their prisoners in an early form of the horrific methods the National Socialists used during the Holocaust. During the Maji-Maji War, a large-scale rebellion against German colonial rule in present-day Tanzania, at least 100,000 resistance fighters were killed, historians estimate. Since 2015, Namibia and Germany have been involved in negotiations over reparations. Germany has yet to formally apologize for its crimes. The country has returned some of the skulls of the victims of the genocide to Namibia, which were taken by scientists studying “racial purity,” but many still remain in museums and in hospitals. And for the most part, this history is glossed over in school. “Young kids growing up in Germany don’t realize or remember that Germany had colonies, and there were, for example, predecessors to concentration camps prior to World War II in Namibia,” said Camufingo, of Black Lives Matter Berlin. “They don’t know about Germany’s participation in the slave trade. None of that is taught.” Dekoloniale, a new organization that seeks to bring colonial history into the mainstream, will open its headquarters on Nov. 15, on top of the site where the 1884 Berlin conference took place. Anna Yeboah, 30, Dekoloniale’s project leader, and Christian Kopp, 52, a historian in charge of the group’s exhibitions, both recalled first learning about German colonialism in Africa on trips to the continent. “It wasn’t a known subject,” Kopp said. “It felt like a secret.” “It’s weird that we as German people have to go to Ghana to learn about this,” Yeboah said, recalling a visit in her teenage years to a German fort in Ghana from which hundreds of thousands of enslaved people were transported across the Atlantic Ocean. On a walking tour, Kopp pointed out a sign across the street from Dekoloniale’s office explaining how in 1919, a group of men from East and West Africa who lived in Germany submitted a document calling for “equal rights and independence.” Kopp said that one of the aims of Dekoloniale is to shed a light on the personal histories and resistance efforts of Black people in Germany over the centuries. “Many people in Germany have not thought about anti-Black racism or could afford not to think about it,” Kopp said. “There has been a long history of oppression and repression here, and a struggle for equal rights.”

Black Germans say it’s time to look inward

The US Navy has welcomed its first Black female Tactical Aircraft pilot.

The Naval Air Training Command tweeted that Lt JG Madeline Swegle is the Navy's "first known Black female TACAIR pilot."

"MAKING HISTORY!" the US Navy tweeted in response to a post that Lt. J.G. Madeline Swegle had completed naval flight school and would later this month receive the flight officer insignia known as the "Wings of Gold."

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MAKING HISTORY! <a href="https://t.co/jKJONHvL7S">https://t.co/jKJONHvL7S</a>
— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) <a href="https://twitter.com/USNavy/status/1281362500978716673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 9, 2020</a></blockquote>
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She is assigned to the Redhawks of Training Squadron 21 in Kingsville, Texas.

Swegle's milestone comes more than 45 years after Rosemary Mariner in 1974 became the first woman to fly a tactical fighter jet, according to news outlets.&nbsp;

The US Navy has welcomed its first Black female Tactical Aircraft pilot. The Naval Air Training Command tweeted that Lt JG Madeline Swegle is the Navy's "first known Black female TACAIR pilot.

The US Navy has welcomed its first Black female Tactical Aircraft pilot. The Naval Air Training Command tweeted that Lt JG Madeline Swegle is the Navy's "first known Black female TACAIR pilot." "MAKING HISTORY!" the US Navy tweeted in response to a post that Lt. J.G. Madeline Swegle had completed naval flight school and would later this month receive the flight officer insignia known as the "Wings of Gold." MAKING HISTORY! https://t.co/jKJONHvL7S — U.S. Navy (@USNavy) July 9, 2020 × She is assigned to the Redhawks of Training Squadron 21 in Kingsville, Texas. Swegle's milestone comes more than 45 years after Rosemary Mariner in 1974 became the first woman to fly a tactical fighter jet, according to news outlets.

US Navy welcomes first Black female Tactical Aircraft pilot

The FBI has concluded the investigation on Tuesday on the noose found in the garage stalls of NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace and said that the rope was no evidence of racist hate crime but an object that had been there for months.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/sports/nascar-community-comes-together-for-bubba-wallace-as-fbi-investigates-noose-307830">NASCAR community comes together for Bubba Wallace as FBI investigates noose</a>

NASCAR released a statement which said: "The FBI has completed its investigation at Talladega Superspeedway and determined that Bubba Wallace was not the target of a hate crime."

NASCAR said Sunday night that a noose was found in the garage stall of black driver Bubba Wallace at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, and they have launched a probe of the "heinous" act.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/sports/outrage-as-noose-found-in-garage-of-black-nascar-driver-307621" hreflang="en">Outrage as noose found in garage of black NASCAR driver</a>

NASCAR released a statement, which read: "Late this afternoon, NASCAR was made aware that a noose was found in the garage stall of the 43 teams. We are angry and outraged, and cannot state strongly enough how seriously we take this heinous act."&nbsp;

Wallace took to Twitter to condemn this "despicable act of racism" against him. He wrote: "The despicable act of racism and hatred leaves me incredibly saddened and serves as a painful reminder of how much further we have to go as a society and how persistent we must be in the fight against racism."

Northern District of Alabama Attorney Jay Town and FBI Special Agent in Charge Johnnie Sharp, Jr. made a statement and announced that there will be no charges. The statement said: "The FBI learned that garage number 4, where the noose was found, was assigned to Bubba Wallace last week."

"The investigation also revealed evidence, including authentic video confirmed by NASCAR, that the noose found in garage number 4 was in that garage as early as October 2019."

"Although the noose is now known to have been in garage number 4 in 2019, nobody could have known Mr Wallace would be assigned to garage number 4 last week."

The FBI has concluded the investigation on Tuesday on the noose found in the garage stalls of NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace and said that the rope was no evidence of racist hate crime but an object that had been there for months.

The FBI has concluded the investigation on Tuesday on the noose found in the garage stalls of NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace and said that the rope was no evidence of racist hate crime but an object that had been there for months. Also read: NASCAR community comes together for Bubba Wallace as FBI investigates noose NASCAR released a statement which said: "The FBI has completed its investigation at Talladega Superspeedway and determined that Bubba Wallace was not the target of a hate crime." NASCAR said Sunday night that a noose was found in the garage stall of black driver Bubba Wallace at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, and they have launched a probe of the "heinous" act. Also read: Outrage as noose found in garage of black NASCAR driver NASCAR released a statement, which read: "Late this afternoon, NASCAR was made aware that a noose was found in the garage stall of the 43 teams. We are angry and outraged, and cannot state strongly enough how seriously we take this heinous act." Wallace took to Twitter to condemn this "despicable act of racism" against him. He wrote: "The despicable act of racism and hatred leaves me incredibly saddened and serves as a painful reminder of how much further we have to go as a society and how persistent we must be in the fight against racism." Northern District of Alabama Attorney Jay Town and FBI Special Agent in Charge Johnnie Sharp, Jr. made a statement and announced that there will be no charges. The statement said: "The FBI learned that garage number 4, where the noose was found, was assigned to Bubba Wallace last week." "The investigation also revealed evidence, including authentic video confirmed by NASCAR, that the noose found in garage number 4 was in that garage as early as October 2019." "Although the noose is now known to have been in garage number 4 in 2019, nobody could have known Mr Wallace would be assigned to garage number 4 last week."

'Bubba Wallace was not the target of a hate crime as per FBI investigation': NASCAR

NASCAR said Sunday night that a noose was found in the garage stall of black driver Bubba Wallace at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, and they have launched a probe of the "heinous" act.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/sports/formula-one-champion-lewis-hamilton-takes-part-in-anti-racism-protests-in-london-307551" hreflang="en">Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton takes part in anti-racism protests in London</a>

Wallace is the only black driver who races full-time in NASCAR's top Cup series.

"Late this afternoon, NASCAR was made aware that a noose was found in the garage stall of the 43 team," the popular stock car series said in a statement.

"We are angry and outraged and cannot state strongly enough how seriously we take this heinous act. We have launched an immediate investigation and will do everything we can to identify the person(s) responsible and eliminate them from the sport.

"As we have stated unequivocally, there is no place for racism in NASCAR and this act only strengthens our resolve to make the sport open and welcoming to all.”

Wallace, who has been outspoken about racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody on May 25, commented on the incident in a statement posted on Twitter, saying he was "incredibly saddened" by the "despicable act of racism."

"This will not break me," Wallace said. "I will not give in, nor will I back down."

Wallace was a strong advocate for NASCAR's decision to ban the Confederate flag from its properties on June 10.

The Confederate flag has been a staple at NASCAR tracks, particularly in the sport's southern US heartland that includes Talladega in Alabama.

But it remains a symbol of slavery and racism for many.

Sunday's race, which was to be NASCAR's first with fans since the coronavirus pandemic erupted, was postponed until Monday by thunderstorms.

Before the heavy weather moved in, a small plane flew above the track trailing a giant Confederate flag and a second banner that read "Defund NASCAR" -- its message widely spread on social media.

NASCAR executive vice president Steve O'Donnell was quick to condemn the display on Twitter, where he posted a picture of black and white hands clasped.

"You won't see a photo of a jackass flying a flag over the track here," O'Donnell wrote. "But you will see this... Hope EVERYONE enjoys the race today."

Sports leagues across the country are grappling with how best to tackle racism in their ranks and how to use their platforms to promote diversity.

This week, NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin's car featured not his usual FedEx sponsor logos but those of the National Civil Rights Museum.

The museum, which chronicles the history of civil rights in the United States, is located in Memphis, Tennessee, where FedEx is headquartered.

"Today you will see my #11 car will not carry the traditional paint scheme that you usually see," Hamlin said on Twitter. "FedEx and myself instead want to give that voice to the NCRM.

"I want to thank them personally for taking the time to educate me on so many topics."

NASCAR said Sunday night that a noose was found in the garage stall of black driver Bubba Wallace at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, and they have launched a probe of the "heinous" act.

NASCAR said Sunday night that a noose was found in the garage stall of black driver Bubba Wallace at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama, and they have launched a probe of the "heinous" act. Also read: Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton takes part in anti-racism protests in London Wallace is the only black driver who races full-time in NASCAR's top Cup series. "Late this afternoon, NASCAR was made aware that a noose was found in the garage stall of the 43 team," the popular stock car series said in a statement. "We are angry and outraged and cannot state strongly enough how seriously we take this heinous act. We have launched an immediate investigation and will do everything we can to identify the person(s) responsible and eliminate them from the sport. "As we have stated unequivocally, there is no place for racism in NASCAR and this act only strengthens our resolve to make the sport open and welcoming to all.” Wallace, who has been outspoken about racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody on May 25, commented on the incident in a statement posted on Twitter, saying he was "incredibly saddened" by the "despicable act of racism." "This will not break me," Wallace said. "I will not give in, nor will I back down." Wallace was a strong advocate for NASCAR's decision to ban the Confederate flag from its properties on June 10. The Confederate flag has been a staple at NASCAR tracks, particularly in the sport's southern US heartland that includes Talladega in Alabama. But it remains a symbol of slavery and racism for many. Sunday's race, which was to be NASCAR's first with fans since the coronavirus pandemic erupted, was postponed until Monday by thunderstorms. Before the heavy weather moved in, a small plane flew above the track trailing a giant Confederate flag and a second banner that read "Defund NASCAR" -- its message widely spread on social media. NASCAR executive vice president Steve O'Donnell was quick to condemn the display on Twitter, where he posted a picture of black and white hands clasped. "You won't see a photo of a jackass flying a flag over the track here," O'Donnell wrote. "But you will see this... Hope EVERYONE enjoys the race today." Sports leagues across the country are grappling with how best to tackle racism in their ranks and how to use their platforms to promote diversity. This week, NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin's car featured not his usual FedEx sponsor logos but those of the National Civil Rights Museum. The museum, which chronicles the history of civil rights in the United States, is located in Memphis, Tennessee, where FedEx is headquartered. "Today you will see my #11 car will not carry the traditional paint scheme that you usually see," Hamlin said on Twitter. "FedEx and myself instead want to give that voice to the NCRM. "I want to thank them personally for taking the time to educate me on so many topics."

Outrage as noose found in garage of black NASCAR driver

Members of Portugal's new parliament took up office on Friday, among them the country's first black women lawmakers who campaigned on promises to fight racism and inequality.

The three women, who all trace their origins to Guinea-Bissau, an impoverished former Portuguese colony in West Africa, won office in the October 6 general election when Prime Minister Antonio Costa's Socialists were re-elected but without an absolute majority.

A total of 89 women were elected, an unprecedented number in the 230-seat parliament,&nbsp;following a new gender parity law requiring that 40 per cent of elected lawmakers are female.&nbsp;

Portugal has a significant minority population from its former African colonies in Angola, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea Bissau, and Cape Verde as well as Brazil.

Campaigners complain of discrimination in areas ranging from education to housing, employment to the justice system and of a shortage of black faces in business, the media and politics, although progress has been made in recent years.

After taking office in 2015, Costa, who is of Indian descent, nominated Portugal's first black cabinet minister, appointing Francisca Van Dunem, who was born in Angola, as justice minister.&nbsp;

She is keeping the post in Costa's new cabinet which will be sworn in on Saturday.

The best known of the newcomers is Joacine Katar Moreira, 37, an anti-racism activist who moved to Portugal from Guinea-Bissau when she was just eight and headed a list of upstart eco-socialist party LIVRE, or "FREE", winning the new formation's first and only seat in parliament.

The others are Romualda Fernandes, a 65-year-old lawyer and migration expert who won a seat representing the Socialists and Beatriz Gomes Dias, 48, the president of anti-racism association Djass, who ran with the far-left Left Bloc party.

Djass has proposed a memorial honouring the millions of African slaves which Portuguese ships transported to the Americas. The project has become a lightning rod for debate about the country's colonial past.

Up until now the only black person to serve as a member of parliament since Portugal returned to democracy in 1974 was a man, Helder Amaral who represented the conservative CDS party between 2002 and 2019.

Moreira, who became a Portuguese national in 2003, vowed during her victory speech to become the voice of "anti-racism" and "leftwing radical feminism" in parliament.

Thousands of people have signed an online petition demanding that she not be allowed to take up her seat because, at her victory celebration, several people were seen waving flags from Guinea-Bissau instead of Portugal.

"This has always been a war for people like me," Moreira tweeted in response to the petition.

&nbsp;

Members of Portugal's new parliament took up office on Friday, among them the country's first black women lawmakers who campaigned on promises to fight racism and inequality.

Members of Portugal's new parliament took up office on Friday, among them the country's first black women lawmakers who campaigned on promises to fight racism and inequality. The three women, who all trace their origins to Guinea-Bissau, an impoverished former Portuguese colony in West Africa, won office in the October 6 general election when Prime Minister Antonio Costa's Socialists were re-elected but without an absolute majority. A total of 89 women were elected, an unprecedented number in the 230-seat parliament, following a new gender parity law requiring that 40 per cent of elected lawmakers are female. Portugal has a significant minority population from its former African colonies in Angola, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea Bissau, and Cape Verde as well as Brazil. Campaigners complain of discrimination in areas ranging from education to housing, employment to the justice system and of a shortage of black faces in business, the media and politics, although progress has been made in recent years. After taking office in 2015, Costa, who is of Indian descent, nominated Portugal's first black cabinet minister, appointing Francisca Van Dunem, who was born in Angola, as justice minister. She is keeping the post in Costa's new cabinet which will be sworn in on Saturday. The best known of the newcomers is Joacine Katar Moreira, 37, an anti-racism activist who moved to Portugal from Guinea-Bissau when she was just eight and headed a list of upstart eco-socialist party LIVRE, or "FREE", winning the new formation's first and only seat in parliament. The others are Romualda Fernandes, a 65-year-old lawyer and migration expert who won a seat representing the Socialists and Beatriz Gomes Dias, 48, the president of anti-racism association Djass, who ran with the far-left Left Bloc party. Djass has proposed a memorial honouring the millions of African slaves which Portuguese ships transported to the Americas. The project has become a lightning rod for debate about the country's colonial past. Up until now the only black person to serve as a member of parliament since Portugal returned to democracy in 1974 was a man, Helder Amaral who represented the conservative CDS party between 2002 and 2019. Moreira, who became a Portuguese national in 2003, vowed during her victory speech to become the voice of "anti-racism" and "leftwing radical feminism" in parliament. Thousands of people have signed an online petition demanding that she not be allowed to take up her seat because, at her victory celebration, several people were seen waving flags from Guinea-Bissau instead of Portugal. "This has always been a war for people like me," Moreira tweeted in response to the petition.

Portugal's first black women lawmakers take office

Teacher's Day Special: 7 Bollywood Films That Celebrate The Spirit Of Learning

Democratic congresswomen targeted in a xenophobic <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/donald-trump-defiant-as-lawmakers-blast-his-racist-attacks-on-four-congresswomen-236257">tirade by President Donald Trump</a> hit back Monday, saying he was trying to distract attention away from his policies with his "blatantly racist attack."

The president first <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/if-youre-not-happy-here-you-can-leave-trump-to-democratic-congresswomen-236251">attacked the four lawmakers</a> -- all but one of whom were born in America -- with a series of tweets on Sunday, saying they should "go back" to their countries of origin.

The four -- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts -- struck back at a news conference Monday and urged people not to "take the bait."

Trump was simply trying to distract with his "blatantly racist attack" on the four women of color, Omar said.

"This is the agenda of white nationalists," she said.

Pressley also urged the American people "to not take the bait."

"This is simply a disruption and a distraction from the callous chaotic and corrupt culture of this administration, all the way down," Pressley said.

The four lawmakers -- who have been nicknamed "The Squad" by some media -- said attention should instead be focused on healthcare and immigration and, in particular, the treatment of asylum seekers on the southern border.

"Weak minds and leaders challenge loyalty to our country in order to avoid challenging and debating the policy," said Ocasio-Cortez.

Trump "does not know how to defend his policies, so what he does is attack us personally, and that is what this is all about," she said.

Tlaib said Trump's tweets and remarks were "a continuation of his racist and xenophobic playbook."

"We cannot allow these hateful actions by the president to distract us from the critical work to hold this administration accountable to the inhumane conditions at the border that is separating children from their loved ones and caging them up in illegal, horrific conditions," she said.

Omar and Tlaib repeated calls for Trump to be impeached.

Watch: Congresswomen call Trump's attack an attempt to distract from his policies

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Trump doubles down

The president also came under fire from some members of his Republican party but remained unrepentant.

"All they do is complain," Trump told reporters at a White House event featuring products made in America.

"These are people that hate our country," he said of the four lawmakers.

"If you're not happy here, you can leave."

Trump also accused the four first-term congresswomen -- who are of Hispanic, Arab, Somali and African American origin -- of having "love" for US "enemies like Al-Qaeda."

Asked by a reporter whether he was concerned that many people saw his comments as racist, Trump said: "It doesn't concern me because many people agree with me."

'Destructive'

Trump's extraordinary attacks on the lawmakers prompted critical reactions from foreign leaders and outrage from Democrats.

Republicans were initially silent, but on Monday several of his party faithful began to speak up.

"My view is that what was said and what was tweeted was destructive, was demeaning, was disunifying, and frankly it was very wrong," said Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah.

"There is no excuse for the president's spiteful comments -- they were absolutely unacceptable and this needs to stop," said Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. "We must demand a higher standard of decorum and decency."

Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she disagreed with the policies espoused by the "far-left" Democratic lawmakers, but that Trump was "way over the line."

Texan Will Hurd, the only black Republican in the House of Representatives, told CNN that Trump's behavior was "unbecoming of the leader of the free world."

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern became the latest international leader to condemn Trump's tweets.

"I completely and utterly disagree with him," she told Radio New Zealand, noting that her country welcomed diversity in the corridors of power.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Britain's Theresa May also expressed disapproval.

'Cold, hard strategy'

Trump's comments appear to be aimed at galvanizing his mostly white electoral base ahead of the 2020 presidential vote -- while also stoking racial tensions and divisions among his political opponents.

"With his deliberate, racist outburst, @realDonaldTrump wants to raise the profile of his targets, drive Dems to defend them and make them emblematic of the entire party," said David Axelrod, who served as chief strategist for Barack Obama's two White House campaigns.

In his initial Twitter attack on Sunday, Trump -- who before becoming president pushed the racist "birther" conspiracy theory that Obama was not born on US soil -- said the congresswomen came from corrupt, poorly managed countries to which they should return.

Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley were all born in the United States while Omar arrived as a refugee from war-torn Somalia, which she fled as a child.

Former vice president Joe Biden, who is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, denounced Trump as the most "openly racist and divisive" president in US history.

"Go home to your country? It's sickening, it's embarrassing," Biden said.

Democratic congresswomen targeted in a xenophobic tirade by President Donald Trump hit back Monday, saying he was trying to distract attention away from his policies with his "blatantly racist attack.

Democratic congresswomen targeted in a xenophobic tirade by President Donald Trump hit back Monday, saying he was trying to distract attention away from his policies with his "blatantly racist attack." The president first attacked the four lawmakers -- all but one of whom were born in America -- with a series of tweets on Sunday, saying they should "go back" to their countries of origin. The four -- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts -- struck back at a news conference Monday and urged people not to "take the bait." Trump was simply trying to distract with his "blatantly racist attack" on the four women of color, Omar said. "This is the agenda of white nationalists," she said. Pressley also urged the American people "to not take the bait." "This is simply a disruption and a distraction from the callous chaotic and corrupt culture of this administration, all the way down," Pressley said. The four lawmakers -- who have been nicknamed "The Squad" by some media -- said attention should instead be focused on healthcare and immigration and, in particular, the treatment of asylum seekers on the southern border. "Weak minds and leaders challenge loyalty to our country in order to avoid challenging and debating the policy," said Ocasio-Cortez. Trump "does not know how to defend his policies, so what he does is attack us personally, and that is what this is all about," she said. Tlaib said Trump's tweets and remarks were "a continuation of his racist and xenophobic playbook." "We cannot allow these hateful actions by the president to distract us from the critical work to hold this administration accountable to the inhumane conditions at the border that is separating children from their loved ones and caging them up in illegal, horrific conditions," she said. Omar and Tlaib repeated calls for Trump to be impeached. Watch: Congresswomen call Trump's attack an attempt to distract from his policies × Trump doubles down The president also came under fire from some members of his Republican party but remained unrepentant. "All they do is complain," Trump told reporters at a White House event featuring products made in America. "These are people that hate our country," he said of the four lawmakers. "If you're not happy here, you can leave." Trump also accused the four first-term congresswomen -- who are of Hispanic, Arab, Somali and African American origin -- of having "love" for US "enemies like Al-Qaeda." Asked by a reporter whether he was concerned that many people saw his comments as racist, Trump said: "It doesn't concern me because many people agree with me." 'Destructive' Trump's extraordinary attacks on the lawmakers prompted critical reactions from foreign leaders and outrage from Democrats. Republicans were initially silent, but on Monday several of his party faithful began to speak up. "My view is that what was said and what was tweeted was destructive, was demeaning, was disunifying, and frankly it was very wrong," said Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah. "There is no excuse for the president's spiteful comments -- they were absolutely unacceptable and this needs to stop," said Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. "We must demand a higher standard of decorum and decency." Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she disagreed with the policies espoused by the "far-left" Democratic lawmakers, but that Trump was "way over the line." Texan Will Hurd, the only black Republican in the House of Representatives, told CNN that Trump's behavior was "unbecoming of the leader of the free world." New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern became the latest international leader to condemn Trump's tweets. "I completely and utterly disagree with him," she told Radio New Zealand, noting that her country welcomed diversity in the corridors of power. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Britain's Theresa May also expressed disapproval. 'Cold, hard strategy' Trump's comments appear to be aimed at galvanizing his mostly white electoral base ahead of the 2020 presidential vote -- while also stoking racial tensions and divisions among his political opponents. "With his deliberate, racist outburst, @realDonaldTrump wants to raise the profile of his targets, drive Dems to defend them and make them emblematic of the entire party," said David Axelrod, who served as chief strategist for Barack Obama's two White House campaigns. In his initial Twitter attack on Sunday, Trump -- who before becoming president pushed the racist "birther" conspiracy theory that Obama was not born on US soil -- said the congresswomen came from corrupt, poorly managed countries to which they should return. Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley were all born in the United States while Omar arrived as a refugee from war-torn Somalia, which she fled as a child. Former vice president Joe Biden, who is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, denounced Trump as the most "openly racist and divisive" president in US history. "Go home to your country? It's sickening, it's embarrassing," Biden said.

Democratic congresswomen hit back after Trump's 'racist' tirade

A white supremacist convicted of killing James Byrd Jr. in 1998 by dragging the 49-year-old black man behind a truck in one of the most notorious hate crimes in modern times is scheduled to be executed in Texas on Wednesday.

John William "Bill" King, 44, is scheduled to die at 6 pm&nbsp;(2300 GMT) by lethal injection at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville.&nbsp;

King along with Shawn Berry and Lawrence Brewer were accused of kidnapping Byrd while he hitchhiked in Jasper, Texas, on June 7, 1998.&nbsp;

Prosecutors said the men dragged him behind their 1982 gray Ford pickup truck for 3 miles (5 km) before dumping his body in front of an African-American church. A "KKK" engraved lighter was among the evidence police found at the scene, court documents showed.&nbsp;

The gruesome killing spurred the passing of the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, strengthening punishments for hate crimes in Texas. The murder, along with the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was beaten and left to die tied to a fence, was also the genesis of the federal hate crimes prevention act passed in 2009.&nbsp;

King was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1999. He was a member of a white supremacist gang and spoke of starting a race war while in prison for a previous crime. He also talked about initiating new members by having them kidnap and murder black people, court documents showed.&nbsp;

"WE HAVE MADE HISTORY"&nbsp;

"Regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history," King wrote in a letter to Brewer obtained by jail officials after they were convicted of killing Byrd, CNN reported.&nbsp;

"Death before dishonor. Sieg Heil!" the letter continued, using a Nazi salute.

King has always maintained his innocence, saying that he left the two other men before Byrd was killed. His lawyers filed an appeal to the US&nbsp;Supreme Court after a Texas appeals court denied a request to halt the execution on Monday.&nbsp;

Berry and Brewer were also convicted of murder. Berry was sentenced to life in prison while Brewer, also a white supremacist, was sentenced to death.

&nbsp;Some of Byrd`s family members have said they would have rather seen the men spend the rest of their lives in prison.

“You can’t fight murder with murder,” his son Ross Byrd told Reuters the night before Brewer`s execution in 2011.&nbsp;

King would be the third inmate in Texas and the United States to be executed in 2019, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.&nbsp;

A white supremacist convicted of killing James Byrd Jr. in 1998 by dragging the 49-year-old black man behind a truck in one of the most notorious hate crimes in modern times is scheduled to be executed in Texas on Wednesday.

A white supremacist convicted of killing James Byrd Jr. in 1998 by dragging the 49-year-old black man behind a truck in one of the most notorious hate crimes in modern times is scheduled to be executed in Texas on Wednesday. John William "Bill" King, 44, is scheduled to die at 6 pm (2300 GMT) by lethal injection at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville. King along with Shawn Berry and Lawrence Brewer were accused of kidnapping Byrd while he hitchhiked in Jasper, Texas, on June 7, 1998. Prosecutors said the men dragged him behind their 1982 gray Ford pickup truck for 3 miles (5 km) before dumping his body in front of an African-American church. A "KKK" engraved lighter was among the evidence police found at the scene, court documents showed. The gruesome killing spurred the passing of the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, strengthening punishments for hate crimes in Texas. The murder, along with the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was beaten and left to die tied to a fence, was also the genesis of the federal hate crimes prevention act passed in 2009. King was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death in 1999. He was a member of a white supremacist gang and spoke of starting a race war while in prison for a previous crime. He also talked about initiating new members by having them kidnap and murder black people, court documents showed. "WE HAVE MADE HISTORY" "Regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history," King wrote in a letter to Brewer obtained by jail officials after they were convicted of killing Byrd, CNN reported. "Death before dishonor. Sieg Heil!" the letter continued, using a Nazi salute. King has always maintained his innocence, saying that he left the two other men before Byrd was killed. His lawyers filed an appeal to the US Supreme Court after a Texas appeals court denied a request to halt the execution on Monday. Berry and Brewer were also convicted of murder. Berry was sentenced to life in prison while Brewer, also a white supremacist, was sentenced to death. Some of Byrd`s family members have said they would have rather seen the men spend the rest of their lives in prison. “You can’t fight murder with murder,” his son Ross Byrd told Reuters the night before Brewer`s execution in 2011. King would be the third inmate in Texas and the United States to be executed in 2019, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

White supremacist to be executed in Texas for dragging death of black man

Authorities in Cape Town have criticised a private security company that allegedly ordered black beachgoers to leave a fashionable South African beach over the Christmas holiday.

The city's mayor and a senior municipal official dismissed claims by the PPA security firm that it was working for the city authorities when patrolling the beach at Clifton, an upmarket coastal suburb.

Beaches, like many public areas, were segregated under white-minority apartheid rule, and have since been a flashpoint of racial tension in South Africa.

Beachgoers were told to leave Clifton beach by PPA guards last Sunday, two days before Christmas.

"The city has at no stage given any authority to PPA to enforce by-laws," Cape Town's director for safety and security Richard Bosman said in a statement on Thursday. "The city has acted swiftly to address the conduct of PPA staff."

On Friday Cape Town mayor Dan Plato reiterated that the security company "had no authority to ask anyone to leave Clifton beach", but added that "they asked people of all races to leave, and did not single out any race groups".

But local activist Chumani Maxwele alleged that the guards had targeted black people on the beach, which attracts huge crowds over the holiday season.

"These private security guards are hired by the Clifton (residents), they are actually briefed to not allow black people who appear to look like they are from the townships or criminals onto the beach," he told the News 24 website.

'Barbaric and racist'

National government has weighed-in in the row, with Environmental Affairs minister, Nomvula Mokonyane saying on Friday that the "alleged interference and racial profiling of beachgoers by private security firms" is "unconstitutional and illegal".

"South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and no spaces are for the exclusive use of any citizens based on their race, gender or creed," said Mokonyane in a statement.

A lawmaker Phillemon Mapulane who heads a parliamentary committee on environmental affairs, condemned the ejection of beachgoers as "barbaric and racist".

PPA chief executive Alwyn Landman said that the company's guards did not close the beach, but acted to protect local residents after alleged criminal activity caused "mayhem".

The city has launched an investigation and urged persons who may have felt threatened or intimated by the security guards to call its emergency hotline or report to the police.

Early Friday evening some protesters started gathering at the beach for a vigil. &nbsp;

In 2016, South African estate agent Penny Sparrow likened black beach-goers to monkeys in a social media post, triggering widespread outrage. She was fined 150,000 rand ($10,500, 9,050 euros).

In September, South African tourist Adam Catzavelos ignited another storm of protest after he used a racial slur in a phone video message from Greece, boasting that the beach had no black people on it.

Authorities in Cape Town have criticised a private security company that allegedly ordered black beachgoers to leave a fashionable South African beach over the Christmas holiday.

Authorities in Cape Town have criticised a private security company that allegedly ordered black beachgoers to leave a fashionable South African beach over the Christmas holiday. The city's mayor and a senior municipal official dismissed claims by the PPA security firm that it was working for the city authorities when patrolling the beach at Clifton, an upmarket coastal suburb. Beaches, like many public areas, were segregated under white-minority apartheid rule, and have since been a flashpoint of racial tension in South Africa. Beachgoers were told to leave Clifton beach by PPA guards last Sunday, two days before Christmas. "The city has at no stage given any authority to PPA to enforce by-laws," Cape Town's director for safety and security Richard Bosman said in a statement on Thursday. "The city has acted swiftly to address the conduct of PPA staff." On Friday Cape Town mayor Dan Plato reiterated that the security company "had no authority to ask anyone to leave Clifton beach", but added that "they asked people of all races to leave, and did not single out any race groups". But local activist Chumani Maxwele alleged that the guards had targeted black people on the beach, which attracts huge crowds over the holiday season. "These private security guards are hired by the Clifton (residents), they are actually briefed to not allow black people who appear to look like they are from the townships or criminals onto the beach," he told the News 24 website. 'Barbaric and racist' National government has weighed-in in the row, with Environmental Affairs minister, Nomvula Mokonyane saying on Friday that the "alleged interference and racial profiling of beachgoers by private security firms" is "unconstitutional and illegal". "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and no spaces are for the exclusive use of any citizens based on their race, gender or creed," said Mokonyane in a statement. A lawmaker Phillemon Mapulane who heads a parliamentary committee on environmental affairs, condemned the ejection of beachgoers as "barbaric and racist". PPA chief executive Alwyn Landman said that the company's guards did not close the beach, but acted to protect local residents after alleged criminal activity caused "mayhem". The city has launched an investigation and urged persons who may have felt threatened or intimated by the security guards to call its emergency hotline or report to the police. Early Friday evening some protesters started gathering at the beach for a vigil. In 2016, South African estate agent Penny Sparrow likened black beach-goers to monkeys in a social media post, triggering widespread outrage. She was fined 150,000 rand ($10,500, 9,050 euros). In September, South African tourist Adam Catzavelos ignited another storm of protest after he used a racial slur in a phone video message from Greece, boasting that the beach had no black people on it.

Race row breaks out in Cape Town after guards clear 'black visitors' from beach

A white Chicago police officer was found guilty of murder Friday for fatally shooting a black teenager and triggering months of protests in America's third largest city.

Jason Van Dyke fired 16 bullets into 17-year-old Laquan McDonald during the 2014 confrontation. The slaying was captured on police video that showed the knife-wielding teen appearing to walk away from officers when he was shot.

The 12-person jury reached a verdict just one day after beginning deliberations. They chose to dispense of first-degree murder charges, and instead convicted Van Dyke of lesser second-degree murder.&nbsp;

The officer was also found guilty of 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm -- for each bullet he fired -- and acquitted of one count of official misconduct.

"This is a victory for America," said McDonald's great-uncle and family spokesman Marvin Hunter.&nbsp;

"Laquan McDonald represents all of the victims that suffered what he suffered."

The city of Chicago had already reached a $5 million civil settlement with McDonald's family.

A jubilant crowd -- some of whom told local media that they were in shock over the outcome -- grew steadily in the city's downtown business district, demanding additional resignations of city officials and more police reform.&nbsp;

'Historic for Chicago'

"This is historic for Chicago," community organizer Janette Wilson told reporters.&nbsp;

"I would hope that the people of Chicago will really look at this case as a model for the nation."

The city had been on edge in advance of the verdict, since the case had already caused political upheaval and months of earlier protests.&nbsp;

City officials and business owners beefed up security as the trial neared an end, while thousands of police officers were deployed to the streets. &nbsp;

Lead prosecutor Joe McMahon said he hoped the verdict "begins a new chapter in the relationship between law enforcement and the community."

"It provides validation and a sense of justice for many residents," he said.&nbsp;

The jury reached its verdict after 10 days of testimony in which the officer claimed self-defense, while the prosecution accused him of making a rash and unjustified decision to shoot.&nbsp;

The trial had hinged on the video footage showing Van Dyke continuing to fire bullet after bullet -- even after the teen falls to the ground and lies motionless.&nbsp;

Crucially, Van Dyke is also seen taking steps toward McDonald before firing, even though he testified that he shot because the teen had gotten too close with his knife.&nbsp;

Several jurors told reporters under condition of anonymity that convicting had been straightforward -- although they went for the lesser second-degree murder verdict because they believed Van Dyke's claim that he felt threatened. &nbsp;

"Instead of escalating the situation, he should have de-escalated," one said, however.&nbsp;

'Sacrificial lamb'

Van Dyke was taken straight into custody. Under Illinois state law, he faces four to 20 years for the murder finding while aggravated battery with a firearm carries six to 30 years. &nbsp;&nbsp;

The head of Chicago's police union, which funded Van Dyke's defense, promised an appeal and criticized the jury for punishing an officer for simply doing his job. &nbsp;

Van Dyke's attorney Dan Herbert said the officer had been made into a "sacrificial lamb" by politicians who wanted to appease an angry public.

Van Dyke wasn't criminally charged until the day the video was made public -- which itself did not happen until a year after the shooting and only after a judge forced city officials to do so.&nbsp;

The shooting became emblematic of decades of police abuse in the Midwestern city -- often targeted at Chicago's African-American population. &nbsp;&nbsp;

There were months of protests and calls for resignations. Activists accused city officials of an attempted cover up.&nbsp;

Similar cases of deadly police encounters between police and African Americans have rarely been prosecuted. And when officers have been charged, they have rarely been convicted.&nbsp;

In Chicago, the aftermath of the McDonald shooting convulsed the city's politics and led to significant changes in its police department. &nbsp;&nbsp;

The city's police chief and lead prosecutor both lost their jobs.&nbsp;

The new police chief, Eddie Johnson, recommended that seven officers be fired for filing false reports about McDonald's shooting. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Three of the officers have been charged with conspiring to mislead about the threat McDonald had posed. They are awaiting trial.&nbsp;

A white Chicago police officer was found guilty of murder Friday for fatally shooting a black teenager and triggering months of protests in America's third largest city.

A white Chicago police officer was found guilty of murder Friday for fatally shooting a black teenager and triggering months of protests in America's third largest city. Jason Van Dyke fired 16 bullets into 17-year-old Laquan McDonald during the 2014 confrontation. The slaying was captured on police video that showed the knife-wielding teen appearing to walk away from officers when he was shot. The 12-person jury reached a verdict just one day after beginning deliberations. They chose to dispense of first-degree murder charges, and instead convicted Van Dyke of lesser second-degree murder. The officer was also found guilty of 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm -- for each bullet he fired -- and acquitted of one count of official misconduct. "This is a victory for America," said McDonald's great-uncle and family spokesman Marvin Hunter. "Laquan McDonald represents all of the victims that suffered what he suffered." The city of Chicago had already reached a $5 million civil settlement with McDonald's family. A jubilant crowd -- some of whom told local media that they were in shock over the outcome -- grew steadily in the city's downtown business district, demanding additional resignations of city officials and more police reform. 'Historic for Chicago' "This is historic for Chicago," community organizer Janette Wilson told reporters. "I would hope that the people of Chicago will really look at this case as a model for the nation." The city had been on edge in advance of the verdict, since the case had already caused political upheaval and months of earlier protests. City officials and business owners beefed up security as the trial neared an end, while thousands of police officers were deployed to the streets. Lead prosecutor Joe McMahon said he hoped the verdict "begins a new chapter in the relationship between law enforcement and the community." "It provides validation and a sense of justice for many residents," he said. The jury reached its verdict after 10 days of testimony in which the officer claimed self-defense, while the prosecution accused him of making a rash and unjustified decision to shoot. The trial had hinged on the video footage showing Van Dyke continuing to fire bullet after bullet -- even after the teen falls to the ground and lies motionless. Crucially, Van Dyke is also seen taking steps toward McDonald before firing, even though he testified that he shot because the teen had gotten too close with his knife. Several jurors told reporters under condition of anonymity that convicting had been straightforward -- although they went for the lesser second-degree murder verdict because they believed Van Dyke's claim that he felt threatened. "Instead of escalating the situation, he should have de-escalated," one said, however. 'Sacrificial lamb' Van Dyke was taken straight into custody. Under Illinois state law, he faces four to 20 years for the murder finding while aggravated battery with a firearm carries six to 30 years. The head of Chicago's police union, which funded Van Dyke's defense, promised an appeal and criticized the jury for punishing an officer for simply doing his job. Van Dyke's attorney Dan Herbert said the officer had been made into a "sacrificial lamb" by politicians who wanted to appease an angry public. Van Dyke wasn't criminally charged until the day the video was made public -- which itself did not happen until a year after the shooting and only after a judge forced city officials to do so. The shooting became emblematic of decades of police abuse in the Midwestern city -- often targeted at Chicago's African-American population. There were months of protests and calls for resignations. Activists accused city officials of an attempted cover up. Similar cases of deadly police encounters between police and African Americans have rarely been prosecuted. And when officers have been charged, they have rarely been convicted. In Chicago, the aftermath of the McDonald shooting convulsed the city's politics and led to significant changes in its police department. The city's police chief and lead prosecutor both lost their jobs. The new police chief, Eddie Johnson, recommended that seven officers be fired for filing false reports about McDonald's shooting. Three of the officers have been charged with conspiring to mislead about the threat McDonald had posed. They are awaiting trial.

White US cop convicted of murder for shooting dead black teen

Rani Mukerji with her effortless acting skills still remains to be one of the most celebrated actors of her time -- having delivered powerful performances in her 21 years of Bollywood career. Remember &#39;Black&#39;, &#39;Paheli&#39;, &#39;Aiyyaa&#39; and the list goes on.&nbsp;

Today, on March 21, as Rani celebrates her 40th birthday, she&nbsp;shared a heartfelt letter through&nbsp;Yash Raj Film&#39;s official Instagram page and talked about the problems a woman actor faces in the industry, her personal struggle to remain in the entertainment world after giving birth to a child and dealing with regular stigmas that an actress gets attached to after reaching a certain age.

<a href="http://www.wionews.com/photos/happy-40th-birthday-rani-mukerji-9-best-performances-of-bollywoods-queen-737" target="_blank">In Pictures:&nbsp;Happy 40th Birthday, Rani Mukerji; 9 best performances of Bollywood&#39;s &#39;Queen&#39;</a>

She wrote at length about &quot;sexist stereotypes&quot; and mentioned: &quot;As a woman, I must admit, it has not been an easy journey. I had to prove myself every day. Actresses have to prove themselves every day. A woman has a short career span, a married woman&rsquo;s equity dies, women are not bankable commodities at the box office, &lsquo;female-centric&rsquo; (I hate this word!) films are huge risks, a married actress who is also a mother is the final nail in the coffin of her dreams, ambitions and aspirations &ndash; these are some of the discriminatory stereotypes that we have to live with and try to overcome every single day.&quot;

This is the full post:&nbsp;

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<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BgkswGVh0_Z/" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">#RaniMukerji shares a heartfelt letter on her 40th birthday.</a>

<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/yrf/" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> Yash Raj Films</a> (@yrf) on <time datetime="2018-03-21T05:24:34+00:00" style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;">Mar 20, 2018 at 10:24pm PDT</time>
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Rani&nbsp;also said how she&#39;s working hard to change these notions by coming back to films after marriage and motherhood. She will now be seen in <a href="http://www.wionews.com/india-news/entertainment-hichki-trailer-rani-mukerji-is-back-with-a-bang-27185" target="_blank">Hichki </a>which releases this Friday and deals with a story about a woman who is passionate to teach but faces problems when the society discriminates against her owing to her illness. She is shown suffering from Tourette syndrome in the movie --&nbsp;&nbsp;a disorder in the nervous system.&nbsp;

Rani will next be seen in 'Hichki' -- in which she plays the role of a woman suffering from Tourette Syndrome, a disorder in the nervous system

Rani Mukerji with her effortless acting skills still remains to be one of the most celebrated actors of her time -- having delivered powerful performances in her 21 years of Bollywood career. Remember 'Black', 'Paheli', 'Aiyyaa' and the list goes on. Today, on March 21, as Rani celebrates her 40th birthday, she shared a heartfelt letter through Yash Raj Film's official Instagram page and talked about the problems a woman actor faces in the industry, her personal struggle to remain in the entertainment world after giving birth to a child and dealing with regular stigmas that an actress gets attached to after reaching a certain age. In Pictures: Happy 40th Birthday, Rani Mukerji; 9 best performances of Bollywood's 'Queen' She wrote at length about "sexist stereotypes" and mentioned: "As a woman, I must admit, it has not been an easy journey. I had to prove myself every day. Actresses have to prove themselves every day. A woman has a short career span, a married woman’s equity dies, women are not bankable commodities at the box office, ‘female-centric’ (I hate this word!) films are huge risks, a married actress who is also a mother is the final nail in the coffin of her dreams, ambitions and aspirations – these are some of the discriminatory stereotypes that we have to live with and try to overcome every single day." This is the full post: #RaniMukerji shares a heartfelt letter on her 40th birthday. A post shared by Yash Raj Films (@yrf) on Mar 20, 2018 at 10:24pm PDT × Rani also said how she's working hard to change these notions by coming back to films after marriage and motherhood. She will now be seen in Hichki which releases this Friday and deals with a story about a woman who is passionate to teach but faces problems when the society discriminates against her owing to her illness. She is shown suffering from Tourette syndrome in the movie -- a disorder in the nervous system.

Married actress who's also a mother is final nail in coffin of her dreams: Rani Mukerji on 40th birthday

Hollywood fraternity turned up in black to receive the awards in order to show support for Time's Up campaign against culture of forced sexual favours by those in power

Sunday night (Monday morning in India) opened to a glamorous awards show, a first of this year, with Hollywood walking the red carpet in black attire in support of victims of abuse and sexual harassment -- after it was exposed last year that the entertainment industry was one of the biggest ill-treating networks for women. Also Read: Golden Globes 2018 Updates: Dressed in black, Hollywood stars have a message Along with their attire, the award show saw celebs talk about abuse, harassment at work and how to find a solution for it to go away. The Golden Globe winners also gave strong statements in support of the #MeToo movement among other things. Also Read: 'LadyBird', 'Three Billboards' win top honours amid barbed comments on sexual harassment In the film categories, the big winner was Martin McDonagh’s "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" which took home four awards: Best Motion Picture — Drama, Best Screenplay, Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama (Frances McDormand ), and Best Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell). Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (@threebillboardsmovie) - Best Motion Picture - Drama. Photo by Ramona Rosales (@ramona_rosales). #GoldenGlobes A post shared by Golden Globes (@goldenglobes) on Jan 7, 2018 at 9:26pm PST × "Lady Bird", directed by Greta Gerwig, was also a notable winner as it took home two awards, for Best Motion Picture — Comedy and Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Comedy (Saoirse Ronan). Saoirse Ronan - Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy - Lady Bird (@LadyBirdMovie). Photo by Ramona Rosales (@ramona_rosales). #GoldenGlobes A post shared by Golden Globes (@goldenglobes) on Jan 7, 2018 at 9:25pm PST × In the TV categories, HBO’s "Big Little Lies" came out on top, winning four awards, for Best Television Limited Series, Best Actress in a Limited Series (Nicole Kidman), Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series (Laura Dern), and Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series (Alexander Skarsgard). Big Little Lies - Best Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television. Photo by Ramona Rosales (@ramona_rosales). #GoldenGlobes A post shared by Golden Globes (@goldenglobes) on Jan 7, 2018 at 8:22pm PST × "The Handmaid’s Tale" also made it big by winning Best Television Series — Drama and Best Actress in a Television Series — Drama. (Elisabeth Moss). The "Marvelous Ms. Maisel" rounded up the winners' list by winning Best Television Series — Comedy and Best Actress in Television Series — Comedy (Rachel Brosnahan). The complete list of 2018 Golden Globes winners is below: Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television Nicole Kidman, Big Little Lies Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series — Comedy Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series — Drama Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series — Drama Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us Best Television Series — Drama The Handmaid’s Tale, Hulu Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television Alexander Skarsgard, Big Little Lies Best Original Score — Motion Picture Alexandre Desplat, The Shape of Water Best Original Song — Motion Picture “This Is Me,” The Greatest Showman Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy James Franco, The Disaster Artist Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television James Franco - Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy - The Disaster Artist (@DisasterArtistMovie) and brother Dave Franco. Photo by Ramona Rosales (@ramona_rosales). #GoldenGlobes A post shared by Golden Globes (@goldenglobes) on Jan 7, 2018 at 9:11pm PST × Laura Dern, Big Little Lies Best Motion Picture — Animate Coco Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture Alison Janney, I, Tonya Best Screenplay — Motion Picture Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Best Picture — Foreign Language In the Fade (Germany/France) Best Performance By an Actor in a Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television Ewan McGregor, Fargo Best Television Series — Comedy The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Amazon The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (@maiseltv) - Best Television Series - Musical or Comedy. Photo by Ramona Rosales (@ramona_rosales). #GoldenGlobes A post shared by Golden Globes (@goldenglobes) on Jan 7, 2018 at 7:42pm PST × Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series — Comedy Aziz Ansari, Master of None Best Director — Motion Picture Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water Guillermo Del Toro (@RealGDT) - Best Director - Motion Picture - The Shape of Water (@shapeofwatermovie). Photo by Ramona Rosales (@ramona_rosales). #GoldenGlobes A post shared by Golden Globes (@goldenglobes) on Jan 7, 2018 at 8:36pm PST × Best Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television Big Little Lies, HBO Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird Best Picture — Comedy or Musical Lady Bird Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture — Drama Gary Oldman, The Darkest Hour Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Best Picture — Drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Golden Globes 2018: The complete list of winners

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