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A statue of former British prime minister Winston Churchill in London.

U.S. protests push Europe to face its own histories of injustice

By News & Current Affairs

By Ishan Tharoor with Ruby Mellen, Washington Post — Edward Colston was a 17th-century English merchant who rose to the position of deputy governor of the Royal African Co. His family became fabulously wealthy as a result, profiting from the company’s role in the British trade of African slaves to the New World. Under Colston’s watch, about 84,000 Africans were shipped to lives of bondage and misery. An estimated 19,000 of them perished during the…

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Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian

We are witnessing the birth of a movement — and the downfall of a president

By Commentaries/Opinions

We’ve reached a turning point in the Trump era. The 2020 campaign is in the streets and he’s losing. By Lucian K. Truscott IV, Salon — They almost always begin to right wrongs: illegitimate wars; decades of discrimination on the grounds of gender or racial or sexual identity; killings of innocents by police or gun-toting lunatics; oppression by governments wielding unequal laws; the deeply embedded legacy of centuries of racism.…

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Protests in Spain

Racism, Xenophobia and Police Brutality on the Rise in Spain

By News & Current Affairs

By Youssef Ouled, Rights International Spain — Rights International Spain and the Implementation Team of the International Decade for People of African Descent in Spain have published a report on racism and xenophobia during the COVID-19 state of alarm in Spain. The report examines manifestations of racism and xenophobia between March 15 and May 2 during the COVID-19 state of alarm in Spain. The investigation includes more than 70 racist…

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Dozens of people participate in a protest against Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 7, 2020.

Brazil Bans Release of COVID-19 Death and Infection Toll

By COVID-19 (Coronavirus), News & Current Affairs

By teleSUR — Brazil’s government stopped publishing the total accumulated COVID-19 deaths and infections, in an attempt to hide the real extent of the disease in Latin America’s largest country. After months of criticism of President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic, the government decided to withdraw a Ministry of Health website, which provided daily figures on deaths and infections. The site was launched a while later, but totals of…

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Demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd hold up placards up near the White House on May 31, 2020 in Washington, DC. - Thousands of National Guard troops patrolled major US cities after five consecutive nights of protests over racism and police brutality that boiled over into arson and looting, sending shock waves through the country. The death Monday of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis ignited this latest wave of outrage in the US over law enforcement's repeated use of lethal force against African Americans -- this one like others before captured on cellphone video.

Robin DiAngelo: How ‘white fragility’ supports racism and how whites can stop it

By Editors' Choice

The author of one of the best selling books on racism, Robin DiAngelo tells us about how “white fragility” contributes to racism, and how white people can stop it. By Sandee LaMotte, CNN — If you’re a white person in America, social justice educator Robin DiAngelo has a message for you: You’re a racist, pure and simple, and without a lifetime of conscious effort you always will be. You just…

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A new George Floyd mural in Kenya.

Africa’s literary community is lending its voice to calls for justice for George Floyd

By News & Current Affairs

While not at the same scale as in other countries, some street protests against police brutality in the US have also emerged across Africa. By Yomi Kazeem, Quartz Africa — In Africa, the protests of George Floyd’s murder have gone beyond US embassies and the African Union. For its part, Africa’s literary community is lending its voice to amplify the calls for justice after Floyd’s killing in the hands of a…

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A California bill proposes a reparations committee to redress the nation's past on slavery. Protesters march on East Santa Clara Street in San Jose on May 29, 2020, after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

What happens after George Floyd? California looks to reparations

By Reparations

By Adria Watson, CalMatters — The anger and frustration that flooded more than 20 cities in recent days will likely put pressure on the state to conduct a thorough examination of historic and continued discrimination of African Americans — even as civil unrest continues. Although racism — both institutional and cultural — is a national stain that bleeds hundreds of years deep, some suggest California should account for its share of mistreatment….

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