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An image taken from The Trial of Trayvon Martin play. Photo courtesy of Art Voice

The five-year anniversary of Trayvon Martins death recently passed back in February, and his story still resonates today. So much so that it is the basis for a recent play that is happening in Buffalo, NY.

As a part of the Subversive Theatres Black Power Play Series, the performance space is hosting a play titled The Trial of Trayvon Martin.

The play,directed by Gary Earl Ross, offers an alternate take on the confrontation that took place between Martin and George Zimmerman, with the latter dying and the former having to go to trial. A synopsis of the play is as follows:

This original Two Act play blends the urgency of protest theatre with the intensity of courtroom drama and the creative bite of historical fiction by asking a series of WHAT IFs. What if it was George Zimmerman who died that fateful night in Florida in 2012? What if it was Trayvon Martin who went on trial for murder? How would the same jury that acquited Zimmerman in real life react to the same stand-your-ground defense on the lips of a 17-year-old black man? How badly are the scales of justice tipped in this land? This hypothetical tale looks at the brutal reality of American racial injustice from a fresh and unrelenting angle.

The play is sure to be controversial but seems to be offering an interesting take on the incident, providing a commentary on the double standards Martin would have likely faced if he were the one that had survived. You can find out more information about the play here.

Trayvons mother, Sybrina Fulton,recentlyreflected on her sons deathat Western Michigan University, as a part of the schools Lyceum Lecture series.

I lived this average lifestyle until February 26, 2012, when my average lifestyle was interrupted, Fulton said. Theres a part of me that just wants to go just back to my old lifestyle and my old way of living and my old way of thinking, but from that day I can never go back.

In a public question-and-answer session that followed, Fulton took questions from the audience, one of which was how long it would take her to forgiveZimmerman.

Nobody can tell me how long its going to take to heal my heart, she said.

See original here:
This NY Play Imagines Trayvon Martin Surviving 2012 Shooting ... - Okayplayer (blog)

Credit: Alex Bergstrom

Robin DiAngelo grew up poor and white. But it was years before she realized that despite living in poverty, she still had privilege because she was white.

I had a very deep sense of shame and otherness growing up But I had never looked at how, where in my life did I have an advantage? And where might I have been actually benefiting from the oppression of somebody else? she says.

DiAngelo has been working on race and social justice issues for more than 20 years as a lecturer, consultant and trainer. Shes the author of the book, What Does It Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy.

She came to understand her advantage and privilege when she took a job as a diversity trainer. It was eye opening as she worked with mainly white clients who were uncomfortable with having to deal with the issue of race. It was through that work that she developed the concept of white fragility to explain why white people have such difficulty in talking about racism.

DiAngelo and I talked about her work and why it is important for white people to have a serious conversation about race in America today.

Here are some excerpts from our conversation.

Q: Lets talk about white fragility. What is it?

A: If you try to talk to white folks about race in a way that just allows them to assert their opinions and perspectives unchallenged, that tends to go pretty well. But if you push back on it, that tends to go really poorly.

I saw it so consistently in my work trying to talk to white people about race and racism and trying to guide them in self-reflection about What does it mean to be white? And it looked like a form of fragility. And fragility is not weak. I think that its weak in the sense of the difficulty to hold the discomfort, but it ends up functioning to block the challenge, to stop the conversation. Its actually quite powerful in its effectiveness. It really does block the conversation, protect our worldviews and allow us to continue on without really understanding

Q: Or doing anything about it.

A: Exactly.

Q: I moderated a town hall about race. It included Mark OMara, the attorney who represented George Zimmerman in the shooting death trial of Trayvon Martin. I asked why is it so difficult for white people to talk about race? And his take on it was that they dont have to.

A: Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, you could pretty openly come out as a white person and proclaim, Yes we are better. We deserve what we have because we are a fundamentally superior people. This is the great joke of Archie Bunker; his children were saying, You cant say that anymore Dad! So, post-civil rights, to be a good, moral person and to be complicit with racism were morally exclusive. So, if you suggest Ive done anything racist youve basically just suggested that Im for racismand, of course, that is a character insult to me. And now I need to defend my character. This makes it virtually impossible to talk to white people about the inevitable blind spots and assumptions and patterns that we have across race by virtue of living in the society that we live in.

Q: Sometimes, in talking to someone who is white about issues of race, they say, Im not racist. I think if you have to say that then maybe you have some tendency to be that way.

A: Im hoping all the white people listening right now just heard you say that. Its not convincing. So much of what we say, our claims, what we provide as evidence that we are not racist, its so problematic. Its so unexamined. And it just isnt convincing. What youre probably thinking is, Uh oh, Im probably interacting with someone who doesnt have a lot of self-awareness.

Q: And I get angry about it.

A: The person will say that youre too sensitive, right? Its like this maddening Catch-22.

Another classic is: I was taught to treat everyone the same. I think thats probably the number one white racial narrative. But thats not actually humanly possible. We make meaning of the world through the cultural framework we were socialized to make meaning of it through. And its infused with biases and assumptions.

Q: You got your Ph.D. at the University of Washington and your focus was on whiteness. Then you started doing diversity work. What was the aha moment?

A:We had to go through a five-day train the trainer and it was a very racially mixed group of people. For the first time, my racial worldview was being challenged in a sustained, consistent way. It was very intense and then we went out into the field. And we were in rooms filled primarily with white people who were so angry and hostile and so upset that they had to have this conversation.

And over time, because its so predictable and patterned, the sociologist in me kind of said, Okay, what are we doing? And so then I got better and better at speaking back to it. I do want to add that because I grew up poor, I had a very deep sense of shame and otherness growing up. And I could have told you all about it, and Im female and I could just tell you all the ways that I had never had an advantage. But I had never looked at how, where in my life did I have an advantage? And where might I have been actually benefiting from the oppression of somebody else? And so having that to draw from helped motivate me.

Q: So what is the responsibility of someone who is white on issues of race?

A: When we think about race, we think about asking you [people of color], whats it like? And for as long as weve been doing that, people of color have been saying, Well, actually why dont you look at yourselves? Is it possible that you might be our problem? And certainly, theres a relationship here. I do think that the way race has been set up in this country, it is a white problem. And if white people dont get involved in addressing it, we can only support and maintain it.

This interview has been edited and condensed. To hear the conversation in its entirety gohere.

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Why white people can't face up to racism - Crosscut

Nate Hamilton, the brother of Dontre Hamilton, who was killed by a Milwaukee police officer, talks with Milwaukee police during a Black Lives Matter rally in July 2016. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/Mike De Sisti)

A committee aiming to persuade the "peoples sheriff" to run for the U.S. Senate is raising money by highlighting the African-Americans inflammatory statements about Black Lives Matter.

Its no secret that Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., a Donald Trump supporter and nationally known conservative, has harshly criticized the group.

Yet, we wondered if he has gone as far as the Sheriff David Clarke for U.S. Senate draft committee says he has.

As reported by the liberal magazine Mother Jones, the committee sent a fundraising email on April 5, 2017 that suggested several reasons why Clarke would make a good senator -- starting with this one:

"Milwaukees conservative black Sheriff CORRECTLY says BLACK LIVES MATTER is a terrorist movement, a hate group, and calls it Black LIES Matter."

The committee also makes the statement on its website.

Lets look at each of the three parts.

The committee

Sheriff David Clarke for U.S. Senate is not a committee authorized by Clarke, but is registered with the Federal Election Commission as an official draft campaign.

It has attacked first-term U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, for being a lesbian as part of its effort to get Clarke to run against her in 2018. Clarke has not ruled out a run, but hasnt expressed strong interest, either, while a number of Republicans have.

For her part, Baldwin has said Clarke is "being groomed" to challenge her, and has raised campaign funds herself off his possible candidacy.

While a favorite of the right, Clarke has drawn criticism for his racial remarks as well as for his performance as sheriff as he increasingly spends time on national television and traveling the country on speaking engagements. He has also said virtually nothing about four inmate deaths in the jail he manages that are under investigation.

Now to the statement about what Clarke said.

Hate group

Black Lives Matter formed after a Florida jury in 2013 found George Zimmerman not guilty of murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teen. Describing its aim as rebuilding "the black liberation movement," the group has participated around the country in demonstrations, including some around Milwaukee, about police killings of black people.

Clarke called Black Lives Matter a "hate group" in a July 2016 opinion column he wrote for FoxNews.com and has made any number of similar references such as these:

"I wish the Southern Poverty Law Center would add them (Black Lives Matter) to the list of hate groups in America this hateful ideology of Black Lives Matter." -- Fox News "Americas News HQ," July 31, 2016

"Black Lives Matter are purveyors of hate. It is a hateful, violent ideology." -- Fox News "Hannity" show, July 17, 2016

Black Lies Matter

Clarke has used "Lies" instead of "Lives" in referencing the group many times, including in his memoir, released in February 2017, and on CNN and Fox in 2015.

In the Fox interview, he elaborated on why, saying:

"The whole thing is built on a lie, the whole premise is built on a lie. But its a conglomeration of misfits. You have Occupy movement, you have organized labor in on it now, you have criminals, you have black racialists, you have cop haters and anarchists have now formed together this faux movement, if you will."

Terrorist movement

Clarke hasnt used a terrorism reference nearly as often, but he does so twice in his book:

"In the five days surrounding the Dallas shooting -- which was the worst police massacre since 9/11, by the way -- there was even more Black LIES Matter-inspired violence (four attacks on police are listed).Let me guess. Youd never heard of these incidents. Thats because the media protect and lie about this insidious terror organization."

Clarke also predicted on Twitter in 2015 that Black Lives Matter "will join forces with ISIS to being (sic) down our legal constituted republic."

And in a July 2016 column he wrote for The Hill, he said: "We have several forces internal and external attacking our rule of law: ISIS, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street just the most recent iterations of the elements who brand themselves as unique but seek the same revolutionary aim: take down the West "

Our rating

The Sheriff David Clarke for U.S. Senate draft committee says that Clarke said Black Lives Matter "is a terrorist movement, a hate group and calls it, Black LIES Matter."

Clarke has repeatedly used Lies instead of Lives in labeling the group, and has repeatedly called it a hate group. In his memoir, he calls the group a "terrorist organization."

We rate the statement True.

Share the Facts

2017-04-17 20:39:31 UTC

1

1

7

True

Says Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. has said Black Lives Matter "is a terrorist movement, a hate group and calls it, Black LIES Matter."

Sheriff David Clarke for U.S. Senate

Draft committee

In a fund-raising email

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

2017-04-05

More here:
Pro-Sheriff David Clarke group says Clarke called Black Lives ... - PolitiFact

A photograph posted by the Italian Embassy in Tripoli on Twitter of an apparently fuel smuggler has sparked the anger of a broad spectrum of Libyans.

The Embassy tweeted the photo on Friday with the comment: " The future of Libya: its youth and its resources. One Libya."

The photo showed a young man standing on a fuel truck while flashing the victory sign with for sale written on the storage tank. Several social media users labelled the photo as an insult to the Libyan people because it does not reflect the tweet and could have a negative meaning.

The reactions to the tweet varied between those who demanded the Embassy to mind their own business and focus on their diplomatic work and others who said that the Embassy was busy tweeting on the Libyan issue, while no visa had been issued for the applications sent since it resumed its work from Tripoli.

Other users downplayed the tweet as a joke and viewed it from a different angle saying that it was not an irony of Libyans.

Link:
Italian Embassy tweet sparks anger in social networking sites - The Libya Observer

A new cybersecurity summer camp is giving middle and high school girls a head start at a career intech.

The program, called GenCyber, will be entirely free thanks to theNational Security Agency (NSA), which is footing the bill fortuition, boarding andregistration fees for all participants. The NSAs goal forthe campis to inspire young people to direct their talents toward cybersecurity careers they believe are critical to national and economic security.

Another goal is to increase diversity in tech. Currently, women earn only 28 percent of computer science degrees, own only fivepercent of startups and hold only 11 percent of executive positions at Silicon Valley companies.

With the shortage of women in technology fields, anything we can do to encourage young women to explore STEM careers can only be good, said Jose-Marie Griffiths, president of Dakota State University, which will beone of the camps two locations.The other host campus isSouth Dakota School of Mines & Technology. Both were launched inSouth Dakota as an effort by the universities, because itsbeen identified as one of the industry sectors with the highest potential inthe state.

Core sessions at the camps will focus on cybersecurity, programming, networking and robotics. Students also have a choice of electives including multimedia forensics, socket programming, password cracking, iRobot create, network forensics, web hacking and 3-D printing.

At the DSU camp, an FBI Computer Analysis Response Team (CART) will present ondigital forensics, and twospeakers from Google will discuss security and privacy.There will also be a cyber sleuth escape room, and Access Data, a leading forensics company, will be hostinghands-on labs with social media and web traffic.

The SD Mines camp features a collaboration with Black Hills Information Security (BHIS), a company focused on customized security solutions for their clients. Officials from BHIS will be involved in enhancing the curriculum alongside professors in Mines Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. There will be some fun opportunities to get off campus as wellfield trips toMt. Rushmore and the South Dakota Air and Space Museum

You can find out more about attending theMines and Dakota States GenCyber here and here.

Read the original here:
NSA Is Hosting a Free Cybersecurity Summer Camp for Teen Girls ... - Observer