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St. Louis Jury Returns Not Guilty and Mistrial Verdicts for Police Officers Accused of Beating Black Cop Working Undercover at a Protest
As we watch with bated breath, and not a little bit of apprehension, for the outcome of the high-profile trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin in a case of brutality against a Black man, a St. Louis jury’s failure to return a guilty verdict for any of the officers charged with beating a fellow…
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9 Minutes and 29 Seconds: Prosecutor’s Opening Statement in Chauvin Trial Reveals Real Time Ex-Cop’s Knee Was on George Floyd’s Neck
In opening statements in the trial of former Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd, prosecutors took pains to explain the full horror of the officer’s subjugation of the Black man last summer by placing his knee on his neck. “The most important numbers you will hear in this trial are nine…
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The Data Proves It: Black People in America Are Not Even a Demographic Monolith
A new analysis of demographic population data collected during the most recent American Community Survey shows that the face of the Black community in the U.S. is more diverse than ever. The Pew Research Center recently released its breakdown of the 2019 results of the survey of over 3 million people across the country. The…
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Court Denies Request by Ex-Officer in Breonna Taylor Case to Move Trial Outside of Louisville
Let’s start by remembering that no one has been criminally charged for the horrific killing of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, a promising and ambitious young woman who police gunned down in her home in Louisville, Ky., in the middle of the night last spring. Of the three officers who entered Taylor’s apartment on that fatefully tragic…
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Sarah Obama, Paternal Step-Grandmother of Former President Barack Obama, Has Died at 99
Barack Obama’s paternal step-grandmother, Sarah Obama, has died at the age of 99. She died on Monday at a hospital in Kisumu, Kenya, a close relative confirmed, according to BBC News. The family did not reveal the cause of death but said she had been ill for a week and did not die from COVID-19.…
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Livestream: Watch Opening Arguments in the Derek Chauvin Trial
Opening statements in Derek Chauvin’s trial for the death of George Floyd are set to take place Monday morning in Hennepin County, Minn., marking a pivotal development in the case that launched national racial justice protests and a renewed uprising against police brutality in 2020. Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, was fired from his…
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Jacob Blake Sues Wisconsin Officer Who Shot and Paralyzed Him
Jacob Blake is taking legal action against the police officer who shot him in the back seven times last summer in Kenosha, Wis., paralyzing the 29-year-old Black man. Blake’s attorneys in the case, Ben Crump, Patrick A. Salvi and B’Ivory LaMarr, announced on Thursday that they had filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Kenosha…
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The Banality of Violence: Black Man Sues Chicago Police for Stopping Him Over 60 Times in 15 Years Due to Mistaken Identity
It can sometimes be tempting to dismiss the psychological and traumatic impact of racism, outside of the horrific inflection points of bigotry that directly result in the loss of life. But the story of 50-year-old Darren Cole, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, is a poignant reminder of the deleterious impacts on one’s quality of…
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Chicago Hospital Exec Resigns After Bragging About Vaccinating Eric Trump From Supply of COVID-19 Doses Meant for Underserved Residents
Anosh Ahmed, the chief operating officer at Loretto Hospital on the West side of Chicago, has resigned from his post following the revelatory reports that he had sent vaccine doses meant for residents of the majority-Black, low-income neighborhood to considerably richer and whiter people in Chicago—including Eric Trump. Ahmed’s resignation was announced on Wednesday by…
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Around the World and Black Again: U.K. University to Return Stolen Benin Sculpture to Nigeria
As Britain’s present-day racism continues to come to light in the context of the whole Meghan Markle debacle, a reckoning with the historical racism of the British Isles is also emerging. The University of Aberdeen in Scotland on Thursday announced that it plans to return a bronze statue depicting a ruler of the Kingdom of…
