Archive for June, 2021
BLACK PEOPLE O!-REPARATIONS FOR THESE BLACK PEOPLE O!
June 29, 2021BLACK BEAUTY SUPREME O! – MOTHER OF ALL BEAUTY!
June 28, 2021
RACISM SUFFERED BY BLACK CAMPUS POLICE O!
June 26, 2021
UW’s Black campus police officers file multimillion-dollar claims over ‘unbearable’ racism
June 22, 2021 at 3:02 pm Updated June 23, 2021 at 9:58 am
1 of 3 | Russell Ellis, a University of Washington police… (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times) More By Mike Baker The New York Times
SEATTLE — Earlier this year, as Officer Russell Ellis neared the end of his late shift at the University of Washington’s campus police department, one of his superiors offered him an energy drink. The sergeant was laughing, Ellis said, noting that the beverage was flavored like watermelon.
“I thought all you guys like watermelon and Popeyes chicken,” the senior officer said, according to Ellis, who is Black. A second Black officer described a nearly identical encounter with the same sergeant two years earlier.
Ellis, 49, said the exchange left him stewing privately with anger and humiliation. But he said it was far from the first time he had faced racial disparagement or discrimination during his years at the university, a sprawling lakeside campus in Seattle. The school touts diversity goals to the public, shares anti-racism resources with the student body and shapes the ideals of one of the nation’s most progressive — and one of the whitest — big cities.
All five Black rank-and-file officers in the university Police Department filed multimillion-dollar damage claims this week, describing a culture of entrenched racism that has included racial slurs, vicious comments about Black people and open hostility directed at them and at members of the public.
Dozens of incidents, ranging over the past several years through last month, are detailed in the filings. Officer Karinn Young said she sometimes found bananas placed in front of her locker, once with a note that referred to her as a “monkey” and said, “Here’s your lunch.” Officer Hamani Nowlen reported that a white supervisor hit him with a long, sticklike object and remarked, “You people should be used to being hit with these.” Officer Damien Taylor said he overheard white officers talking about the case of George Floyd, who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis last year, saying, “His Black ass got what he deserved.”
After a Black officer was placed on leave for an internal investigation, Officer Gabriel Golden reported, he heard three white colleagues talking, with one referring to the officer in question with a racial slur, and saying that he “better not show his face around here.”ADVERTISING
In a series of legal notices filed with the state, which are required ahead of a potential lawsuit, the five Black officers did not name the specific individuals who made the comments. The officers seek $8 million in damages for workplace conduct that they said has made their jobs “unbearable.” They said that supervisors in the department were well aware of the conduct, and some of them engaged in it themselves.
“I can’t sleep sometimes,” Ellis said in an interview. “This has affected me in ways that I couldn’t have imagined.”
As police forces across the country have worked to diversify amid concerns over racist policing, officers of color have often reported encountering hostility and discrimination. In Columbus, Ohio, Black officers have filed racial discrimination lawsuits, including allegations that they were subjected to racial slurs. In Prince George’s County, Maryland, more than a dozen officers of color complained that such officers faced stiffer punishments than other employees, as well as retaliation for raising complaints of discrimination. In Minnesota, eight correctional officers of color filed a complaint after they were barred from guarding Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who was eventually convicted of murder in Floyd’s death.
In Seattle, the descriptions of overt racism inside the campus Police Department stand out in a city that proudly touts its efforts to combat racism, and where Black Lives Matter signs can be seen in yards and windows all over town. Yet only 7% of Seattle residents are Black, one of the smallest concentrations among large U.S. cities. On the University of Washington’s campus in Seattle, the numbers are even smaller, with Black students making up about 3% of the student body.
With nearly 50,000 students enrolled at the Seattle campus, the university’s police officers investigate on-campus crimes, patrol areas around residence halls and help manage security for public events. The department, which employs 22 officers and 11 supervisors and commanders, has touted its own diversity efforts, saying “different viewpoints, experiences and backgrounds are central to meeting the unique needs of the community we serve.” Amid last year’s racial-justice protests across the country, some of them on the university campus, the department boasted about how it trains its officers to beware of implicit bias.
University officials said on Tuesday that they were “stunned” by the allegations outlined in the legal claims, and said administrators had not previously been made aware of them. “Any one of the incidents described here would prompt an immediate investigation and appropriate disciplinary action based on the investigation’s findings,” Victor Balta, a university spokesman, said in a statement.ADVERTISING
Ellis, who joined the campus police force in 2007, said that early in his life, he had not considering a career in policing. That changed during his junior year in high school in Sacramento, California, he said, when he got pulled over after football practice and a police officer pointed a shotgun at his head. The officer was searching for somebody else.
Ellis said he told one of his coaches, who also worked as a county sheriff’s deputy, what had happened.
“He said that to change law enforcement, sometimes you have to get involved,” Ellis said. “We don’t have very many Black police officers. That was a big part of me thinking I need to be in law enforcement to change the environment of law enforcement.”
He began a career in 1999, working as a correctional officer in Arizona and later as a law-enforcement officer for the Washington state Liquor Control Board. When he joined the University of Washington Police Department 14 years ago, he said, he noticed problems from the beginning. In 2008, several current and former employees filed a civil rights lawsuit against the university detailing complaints of discrimination and harassment against Black, Jewish and female officers. Ellis was not part of that lawsuit, and said he had not been not aware that it was in the works. He was new, sticking to himself, trying to fit in and avoid potential conflict.
A jury in 2011 sided with the university in that case, rejecting the discrimination claims.
Ellis left the department in 2012, in part because of the continuing atmosphere within the force. A few years later, after the department brought in new officers and new leadership, he returned.
But the problems persisted, he said, and other officers who joined the department later raised complaints of their own.
Golden, who joined the department in 2017, said he was shocked at an incident that occurred within a few weeks after he started. He had offered to grab a bag as a favor for a supervisor, who is white, but he said the officer responded by saying: “You kind of have to because I own you, don’t I?”
Golden said he did not know anyone in the department well enough to talk about the remark at the time, and, still on his probationary period, he feared losing his job if he complained. He also worried that people would assume he was “playing the race card.”
White colleagues at the time were openly criticizing the chief, John Vinson, for hiring too many Black officers, Golden said. Vinson, who is Black, was reassigned to a position in senior administration at the university in 2019 after some of the department’s other leaders accused him of creating an atmosphere of hostility, retaliation and unethical behavior.
Since then, the department has been without a permanent chief, with the search for a permanent replacement suspended during the pandemic. Randall West, a white deputy chief who has been serving as interim chief, did not return a call seeking comment on Tuesday.
The officers who are part of the legal claims described problems both before and after Vinson’s departure. Golden said he heard a white officer openly using a racial slur to describe a homeless person, while another white colleague used the same term while criticizing a Black colleague.
“It progressively got worse and worse,” Golden said. “I went from loving my job, loving going to work every day, to starting to dread going in to work because I didn’t know what would happen next.”
The five rank-and-file Black officers currently working in the department said in their filing this week that the long-standing culture has adversely affected their performance, advancement and mental health. Two Black managers with leadership roles in the department have not joined in the claims.
The legal notices filed on Monday are the first step in filing a lawsuit. The university has 60 days to pay or otherwise settle the claims, after which the plaintiffs can turn to the courts.
Balta, the university spokesman, said Tuesday that the school plans to initiate its own investigation into the allegations.
“The UW is committed to maintaining a fair, equitable and inclusive environment and provides employees with many avenues for reporting inappropriate or discriminatory behavior so they can be addressed immediately,” he said.
But the officers said they are convinced that senior officers have long been aware of racist attitudes within the department, and have repeatedly failed to take action.
“I really hope this can bring about the change that is needed,” Golden said. “There is so much that needs to be changed. I want people to be able to come here and not have to worry about these things.”This story was originally published at nytimes.com.
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RACISM AGAINST BLACK CAMPUS POLICE O!
June 26, 2021UW’s Black campus police officers file multimillion-dollar claims over ‘unbearable’ racism
June 22, 2021 at 3:02 pm |
Picture of Russell Ellis, a University of Washington police… (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)
By Mike Baker The New York Times SEATTLE — Earlier this year, as Officer Russell Ellis neared the end of his late shift at the University of Washington’s campus police department, one of his superiors offered him an energy drink. The sergeant was laughing, Ellis said, noting that the beverage was flavored like watermelon. “I thought all you guys like watermelon and Popeyes chicken,” the senior officer said, according to Ellis, who is Black. A second Black officer described a nearly identical encounter with the same sergeant two years earlier. Ellis, 49, said the exchange left him stewing privately with anger and humiliation. But he said it was far from the first time he had faced racial disparagement or discrimination during his years at the university, a sprawling lakeside campus in Seattle. The school touts diversity goals to the public, shares anti-racism resources with the student body and shapes the ideals of one of the nation’s most progressive — and one of the whitest — big cities. All five Black rank-and-file officers in the university Police Department filed multimillion-dollar damage claims this week, describing a culture of entrenched racism that has included racial slurs, vicious comments about Black people and open hostility directed at them and at members of the public. Dozens of incidents, ranging over the past several years through last month, are detailed in the filings. Officer Karinn Young said she sometimes found bananas placed in front of her locker, once with a note that referred to her as a “monkey” and said, “Here’s your lunch.” Officer Hamani Nowlen reported that a white supervisor hit him with a long, sticklike object and remarked, “You people should be used to being hit with these.” Officer Damien Taylor said he overheard white officers talking about the case of George Floyd, who was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis last year, saying, “His Black ass got what he deserved.” After a Black officer was placed on leave for an internal investigation, Officer Gabriel Golden reported, he heard three white colleagues talking, with one referring to the officer in question with a racial slur, and saying that he “better not show his face around here.” ADVERTISING Skip Ad Skip AdSkip Ad In a series of legal notices filed with the state, which are required ahead of a potential lawsuit, the five Black officers did not name the specific individuals who made the comments. The officers seek $8 million in damages for workplace conduct that they said has made their jobs “unbearable.” They said that supervisors in the department were well aware of the conduct, and some of them engaged in it themselves. “I can’t sleep sometimes,” Ellis said in an interview. “This has affected me in ways that I couldn’t have imagined.” As police forces across the country have worked to diversify amid concerns over racist policing, officers of color have often reported encountering hostility and discrimination. In Columbus, Ohio, Black officers have filed racial discrimination lawsuits, including allegations that they were subjected to racial slurs. In Prince George’s County, Maryland, more than a dozen officers of color complained that such officers faced stiffer punishments than other employees, as well as retaliation for raising complaints of discrimination. In Minnesota, eight correctional officers of color filed a complaint after they were barred from guarding Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who was eventually convicted of murder in Floyd’s death. In Seattle, the descriptions of overt racism inside the campus Police Department stand out in a city that proudly touts its efforts to combat racism, and where Black Lives Matter signs can be seen in yards and windows all over town. Yet only 7% of Seattle residents are Black, one of the smallest concentrations among large U.S. cities. On the University of Washington’s campus in Seattle, the numbers are even smaller, with Black students making up about 3% of the student body. With nearly 50,000 students enrolled at the Seattle campus, the university’s police officers investigate on-campus crimes, patrol areas around residence halls and help manage security for public events. The department, which employs 22 officers and 11 supervisors and commanders, has touted its own diversity efforts, saying “different viewpoints, experiences and backgrounds are central to meeting the unique needs of the community we serve.” Amid last year’s racial-justice protests across the country, some of them on the university campus, the department boasted about how it trains its officers to beware of implicit bias. University officials said on Tuesday that they were “stunned” by the allegations outlined in the legal claims, and said administrators had not previously been made aware of them. “Any one of the incidents described here would prompt an immediate investigation and appropriate disciplinary action based on the investigation’s findings,” Victor Balta, a university spokesman, said in a statement. ADVERTISING Skip Ad Ellis, who joined the campus police force in 2007, said that early in his life, he had not considering a career in policing. That changed during his junior year in high school in Sacramento, California, he said, when he got pulled over after football practice and a police officer pointed a shotgun at his head. The officer was searching for somebody else. Ellis said he told one of his coaches, who also worked as a county sheriff’s deputy, what had happened. “He said that to change law enforcement, sometimes you have to get involved,” Ellis said. “We don’t have very many Black police officers. That was a big part of me thinking I need to be in law enforcement to change the environment of law enforcement.” He began a career in 1999, working as a correctional officer in Arizona and later as a law-enforcement officer for the Washington state Liquor Control Board. When he joined the University of Washington Police Department 14 years ago, he said, he noticed problems from the beginning. In 2008, several current and former employees filed a civil rights lawsuit against the university detailing complaints of discrimination and harassment against Black, Jewish and female officers. Ellis was not part of that lawsuit, and said he had not been not aware that it was in the works. He was new, sticking to himself, trying to fit in and avoid potential conflict. A jury in 2011 sided with the university in that case, rejecting the discrimination claims. Ellis left the department in 2012, in part because of the continuing atmosphere within the force. A few years later, after the department brought in new officers and new leadership, he returned. ADVERTISING Skip Ad Skip AdSkip Ad But the problems persisted, he said, and other officers who joined the department later raised complaints of their own. Golden, who joined the department in 2017, said he was shocked at an incident that occurred within a few weeks after he started. He had offered to grab a bag as a favor for a supervisor, who is white, but he said the officer responded by saying: “You kind of have to because I own you, don’t I?” Golden said he did not know anyone in the department well enough to talk about the remark at the time, and, still on his probationary period, he feared losing his job if he complained. He also worried that people would assume he was “playing the race card.” Most Read Local Stories ‘Jaw-dropping’ forecast is warning sign of climate change’s future impact in Washington, scientists say Seattle is a lot more air-conditioned than it used to be Citing ‘dire conditions,’ 33 King County Superior Court judges urge immediate shutdown of Seattle’s City Hall Park Coronavirus daily news updates, June 25: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world VIEW New maps of King County, Seattle show how some communities are harder hit by heat waves White colleagues at the time were openly criticizing the chief, John Vinson, for hiring too many Black officers, Golden said. Vinson, who is Black, was reassigned to a position in senior administration at the university in 2019 after some of the department’s other leaders accused him of creating an atmosphere of hostility, retaliation and unethical behavior. Since then, the department has been without a permanent chief, with the search for a permanent replacement suspended during the pandemic. Randall West, a white deputy chief who has been serving as interim chief, did not return a call seeking comment on Tuesday. The officers who are part of the legal claims described problems both before and after Vinson’s departure. Golden said he heard a white officer openly using a racial slur to describe a homeless person, while another white colleague used the same term while criticizing a Black colleague. Sponsored Skip Ad “It progressively got worse and worse,” Golden said. “I went from loving my job, loving going to work every day, to starting to dread going in to work because I didn’t know what would happen next.” The five rank-and-file Black officers currently working in the department said in their filing this week that the long-standing culture has adversely affected their performance, advancement and mental health. Two Black managers with leadership roles in the department have not joined in the claims. The legal notices filed on Monday are the first step in filing a lawsuit. The university has 60 days to pay or otherwise settle the claims, after which the plaintiffs can turn to the courts. Balta, the university spokesman, said Tuesday that the school plans to initiate its own investigation into the allegations. “The UW is committed to maintaining a fair, equitable and inclusive environment and provides employees with many avenues for reporting inappropriate or discriminatory behavior so they can be addressed immediately,” he said. But the officers said they are convinced that senior officers have long been aware of racist attitudes within the department, and have repeatedly failed to take action. “I really hope this can bring about the change that is needed,” Golden said. “There is so much that needs to be changed. I want people to be able to come here and not have to worry about these things.” This story was originally published at nytimes.com. Read it here. The Seattle Times does not append comment threads to stories from wire services such as the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post or Bloomberg News. Rather, we focus on discussions related to local stories by our own staff. You can read more about our community policies here. Copyright © 2021 The Seattle Times |
UW’s Black campus police officers file multimillion-dollar claims over ‘unbearable’ racism | The Seattle Times
June 26, 2021HEALING O-A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PERSPECTIVE A single moment of INSIGHT CAN healing !
June 24, 2021HEALING O-A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PERSPECTIVE A single moment of INSIGHT CAN healing !
Healing is not a miracle reserved for a faithful few or a gift for a specially endowed elite. It is the outcome of fresh spiritual insights that are the divine right of everyone, right here and now. July 23, 2019 By Karen Neff One moment I was in agony, and the next there was complete and lasting relief! What had happened? Let me explain. I was on a business trip when I lost track of the time and of the angle of the sun while sitting by an outdoor pool. My legs were badly sunburned, and by that evening I could barely walk and had to shuffle along. Later that night I awoke in extreme pain from the burn. So, I did something I’d often found helpful before when I’d had a problem: I turned in prayer to God as my “very present help in trouble,” as the Bible says (Psalms 46:1). What Supreme Court’s jettisoning of precedent may mean for future As I did, a radical thought came to me: I was not trapped in a material body that had been badly burned. The idea that living in a material body was not the true state of existence was so contrary to what I was feeling at that moment that I felt convinced this was an inspired insight from God, coming to me as an answer to my prayer. And in that moment in which this idea was dawning on me, the heat, stiffness, and pain all went away. A fundamental shift had taken place in my thinking from the common conception that our true identity is in matter to a knowledge of what Christian Science teaches is our real, spiritual nature. And this had brought healing right away. The next day I was able to comfortably drive and attend meetings and enjoy some social time; there simply was no evidence of, or aftereffects of, sunburn. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. Sign up By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy. This was several decades ago, and in all the subsequent years, I’ve never had another sunburn, even after exposure to the sun. While I was overjoyed by this healing, it did not seem miraculous to me, but simply an example of the healing that results naturally when thought experiences a profound shift from a sense of life as material and mortal to an awareness that existence is spiritual, created and sustained by God, divine Spirit. (Accounts like this have been published in sister publications of this newspaper for well over a century. See, for instance, a testimony of healing my husband and I shared a while back in The Christian Science Journal.) Healings like this are not the result of willful maneuvering of thought, or the acrobatics of the human mind trying to convince itself it isn’t injured. Healings are a holy realization and experience of God being with us. They are the touch of the Christ – the light and love of God, which Jesus expressed, operating in human consciousness. Feeling this touch of Christ has the effect of freeing us from suffering. And it is possible for that freedom to come about in a single moment even if a problem has been around for some time. As the primary work by Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, puts it: “Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual, – neither in nor of matter, – and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 14). This statement explains what happened to me. In that single moment of reaching out to God, I suddenly realized so clearly that confinement in a material body subject to the effects of being badly burned just wasn’t the true “me.” No amount of human reasoning could have led me to that conclusion. God had revealed it to me – and I’ve come to understand that God is always revealing such spiritually insightful ideas to all of us. Our part is to open our heart to these ideas and accept the spiritual truth of our being. As the Bible says, “In him [divine Spirit] we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). And this understanding heals, sometimes so quickly that it actually takes longer to explain what happened than to experience it. Such healing is not the exclusive right of a faithful few or a gift for a specially endowed elite. It is a divine right that belongs to all. Anyone willing to turn to God for healing can begin to learn of their real spiritual nature as good, whole, and pure. It’s not a process of becoming something different, but awakening to what we actually are as God’s beloved children; it comes from striving to get the facts from God, divine Truth, and being willing to live from their basis. When we do that, we can each experience – even instantly – the freedom and harmony that are forever ours as God’s children.
Related stories A new view, a new life God’s promise of healing The truth that frees – and heals! Debilitating sickness quickly healed (JSH-Online) ISSN 2573-3850 (online) About Contact Us Subscribe Give a Gift Subscription Support Monitor Journalism Free Newsletters Social Media Reprints & Permissions Multimedia A Christian Science Perspective © The Christian Science Monitor. All Rights Reserved. Terms. Privacy Policy.
BLACK PEOPLE O!-REPARATIONS O! -LOS ANGELES O!
June 24, 2021April 19, 2020. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
By ERIN B. LOGANSTAFF WRITER JUNE 18, 2021 5:20 PM PT
— Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Friday announced the formation of an advisory commission that would develop and advocate for a pilot reparations program targeted at a cohort of Black Angelenos. The city had previously dedicated $500,000 to create a seven-person advisory committee to provide recommendations on how this group might be compensated and identify ways to fund it through public and private dollars. The commission will also identify an academic partner to help develop the pilot program. In a Friday interview with The Times, Garcetti said many private entities, including Open Society Foundations, a grant network founded by billionaire George Soros, had expressed interest in being involved in funding. Exactly who would benefit from a local reparations program and how any financial compensation would be made are details the commission would have to decide. Garcetti said he hoped corporations and banks would participate “to begin to make some amends and to push this movement forward.” ADVERTISEMENT This would not be an outlet for these institutions to “buy forgiveness but to reckon with a complicity that we saw in American capitalism, slavery and post-slavery racism,” Garcetti said. Council member Mark Ridley-Thomas said in a statement that reparations “will not undo the decades of historic injustices, but we cannot move forward unless we are intentional about identifying solutions to advance racial equity.” Garcetti’s announcement came one day after President Biden signed a bill that made Juneteenth a national holiday to commemorate the moment a Union general told enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas, that the Civil War had ended and emancipation was a reality. The commission members, which were named by Garcetti and Black City Council members, are Michael Lawson, a former ambassador and head of the Los Angeles Urban League; Khansa Jones-Muhammad, co-chair of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Assembly of American Slavery Descendants; Mandla Kayise, an expert on economic and land use development; Cheryl Harris, a leading scholar of critical race theory and systemic discrimination at UCLA School of Law; Katrina VanderWoude, president of Los Angeles Trade-Technical College; Charisse Bremond-Weaver, president and chief executive of Brotherhood Crusade; and Mark Wilson, founding executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Community Development. Garcetti said the L.A. advisory commission will not look at “all racism” but will “look specifically at reparations around where laws held back” Black Angelenos’ ability to build wealth. Garcetti also announced the creation of the National Coalition of Mayors Organized for Reparations and Equity. The 11 mayors from cities including Denver, Austin, Texas, St. Paul, Minn., and Sacramento committed to establishing advisory commissions in their own cities that would also explore the creation of pilot programs. Awarding reparations to people descended from American slaves has been heralded as a way to close the wealth gap that persists between Black and white Americans. In Los Angeles, white households have a median net worth of $355,000 while Black households have a median wealth of $4,000, according to “The Color of Wealth in Los Angeles,” a 2019 report jointly published by Duke University, the New School, UCLA and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development. ADVERTISEMENT Scholars blame this gap largely on racist federal and local policies that throttled Black people from accumulating wealth for decades. For example, homeownership is the primary way white middle-class Americans were able to accumulate and pass down wealth for decades. For decades, the Federal Housing Administration refused to insure mortgages for homes in Black neighborhoods and subsidized builders who mass-produced subdivisions for white buyers as long as developers promised to not sell newly built homes to Black families. Multiple efforts to award reparations for the descendants of American slaves have been unsuccessful since after the Civil War. Attention to the debate was renewed amid Black Americans’ disproportionate suffering amid the COVID-19 pandemic and after last year’s protests over the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd and centuries of systemic racism. This spring, Evanston, Ill., became the first city in the nation to approve reparations for some Black residents. The program awarded qualifying Black residents grants up to $25,000 for home down payments or repairs. Experts like William Darity, a professor of public policy at Duke University, called the Evanston initiative a housing voucher program, not reparations. In September, California became the first state to adopt a law to mandate a study and develop proposals for potential reparations to descendants of enslaved people and those affected by slavery. Garcetti acknowledged the cities’ pilot programs would not close the gap but said it would be a model for the federal government. The programs would “help the national government not just have an abstract conversation” about reparations but show “real quantitative and qualitative measures that come out of doing a pilot for a couple of years,” Garcetti said. Darity told The Times that cities should establish what the federal government can glean from a local pilot program that it cannot get from past reparations initiatives. In 1988, for example, the federal government paid reparations to Japanese Americans who were imprisoned during World War II. It could also look to Germany’s payments to Holocaust victims, Darity said. It’s a “good idea in principle, but Los Angeles will not be able to model, specifically, the effects of closing the racial wealth gap across its entire Black population,” Darity said. Reparations have also been done at the state level. Florida in 1994 paid reparations to those who survived the 1923 Rosewood massacre, in which white mobs destroyed a Black community and killed at least six people. Former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs, who is an emeritus member of the cities coalition, told The Times that an effort like this is important because “mayors help drive the national policy conversation and were willing to test this at a rate faster than Washington.” He highlighted universal basic income programs in Stockton, Compton and Los Angeles. In the last few years, Los Angeles launched a cannabis effort many initially heralded as a kind of reparations for the war on drugs that led to the desperate incarceration of Black people. The program has been criticized by advocates who said it ended up hurting hundreds of people who took financial risks trying to nab a limited number of licenses. L.A.’s reparations advisory commission will have to answer many questions surrounding funding and eligibility. ADVERTISEMENT Which Black people should be awarded reparations is fiercely debated. Some, like Darity, believe only African Americans, those who descend from people enslaved in the United States, should be given reparations because it was that group that was promised 40 acres and a mule after the Civil War. “That’s a promise that was never kept, and it’s had repercussions across generations,” Darity said. Others highlight that racist American policy has inhibited all Black Americans, regardless of ethnicity, from building wealth. This initiative is, however, leagues beyond what has happened in Washington. This spring, a measure that mandates a federal study of a reparations program moved out of a House committee but has not yet gotten a floor vote. Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Biden have expressed interest in studying the issue. Even if the measure passes the House, it has to pass the evenly divided Senate. No Republicans have co-sponsored the Senate version; 10 are needed to bypass the filibuster. CALIFORNIA Newsletter News Alerts Get breaking news, investigations, analysis and more signature journalism from the Los Angeles Times in your inbox. Enter email address SIGN ME UP You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Erin B. Logan Twitter Instagram Email Facebook Erin B. Logan is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Her work has been featured in the Washington Post, National Public Radio and the Baltimore Sun. She previously studied at Vanderbilt University and American University. Though based in Washington, she’s a true southerner at heart and is always on the hunt for authentic sweet tea. SUBSCRIBERS ARE READING TRAVEL The 40 best California outdoor experiences. Period. 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BLACK PEOPLE O!BLEACHING WILL KILL YOU O!
June 24, 2021Injections for skin-whitening treatment could kill you By FARRAH NAZ KARIN and ALIZA SHAH
December 24, 2016 @ 2:25pm
The demand for glutathione-laced products is on the rise. KUALA LUMPUR: HEALTH (in Asia) authorities have warned against the use of injectable skin-whitening products that contain glutathione — a chemical used in cancer treatment. Expressing concern over the current trend in the cosmetics and beauty industry, where glutathione is the ingredient of choice, they cautioned that unregulated use of the chemical can pose serious health risks, and to a certain extent, death. Doctors said the abuse of glutathione, commonly prescribed to cancer patients to help them cope with the side effects of chemotherapy, has been linked to several fatal skin disorders in many countries. Glutathione is a substance produced naturally by the liver, which can also be found in fruits, vegetables and meat. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told the New Straits Times Special Probes Team that the public should refrain from skin-lightening injections as they pose significant safety risks. The Philippines FDA said the alarming increase in the unapproved use of glutathione administered intravenously as a skin-whitening agent has resulted in several serious health cases. Hospital Kuala Lumpur dermatologist Dr Azura Mohd Affandi also cautioned against using the chemical, as improper and unsafe injection practices can lead to communicable diseases. “Those who administer these injections could be beauticians who are not trained in medical practice. “Worse still, the equipment used may not even be properly sterilised and can cause bacterial infections, hepatitis and even HIV.” She added that another major concern with the haphazard administration of glutathione into the body via injections is the creation of air embolism, where air bubbles enter the veins or arteries, causing a blockage that leads to shortness of breath, or worse, death. Sustained injections of glutathione into the body, she said, can also cause the liver to stop producing the substance naturally.
BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL! 