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Swimming star Ellie Simmonds believes reality television and the Black Lives Matter movement have each contributed to improving the image of the Paralympics.

Simmonds is preparing to lead her country into Tokyo 2020 after being chosen as one of Great Britains flagbearers for Tuesdays opening ceremony alongside archer John Stubbs.

The 26-year-old, who has bone growth disorder achondroplasia, will compete at her fourth Games having already won eight medals, including five golds, across appearances in Beijing, London and Rio.

She feels the perception of disability has changed significantly during that time, citing mainstream exposure of Para athletes and the rise of protest campaigns demanding equality as major factors.

Even before Beijing, people thought I was going to special Olympics; the Paralympics and disabilities were still under wraps really, said Simmonds, who was just 13 when she made her debut in China in 2008. People didnt really know what it was.

Disabilities and especially the Paralympics were brought into height in London 2012 and the Paralympic movement and disability has just crept up and its just amazing to see its been showcased and its amazing.

Its not just achondroplasia or different disabilities in sport but its also now in other things: you had Jonnie (Peacock), you had Lauren (Steadman), you had Will (Bayley) in Strictly (Come Dancing), you had Hollie (Arnold) in Im a Celebrity (Get Me Out of Here).

Theres so many athletes out there with disabilities in reality TV and thats so good for all different disabilities.

And not just in those types of reality TV (programmes) but seeing it on TV, so kids growing up are more aware that there are so many different people.

I think also weve seen the rise about it being OK to be different, the likes of Black Lives Matter, the acceptance of all that, the change, the protest and the awareness of there are so many different people out there.

Simmonds arrived in Japan as defending champion in the 200m individual medley.

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The S6 swimmer will bid for a third-successive title in that event on Thursday and is also scheduled to enter the 100m breaststroke and 400m freestyle.

She admits even the prospect of joining the exclusive list of British flagbearers made her teary eyed before being left speechless on Sunday when she received confirmation from chef de mission Penny Briscoe.

My performance director Chris (Furber) rang me before coming out to the holding camp into the (athletes) village and asked if I would like to be nominated, because every sport normally nominates an athlete who they think would like to carry the flag, she said.

I was just like, Oh my gosh, yes. I was driving hands-free, of course but really a bit teary to be honest.

Equestrian star Sir Lee Pearson was ParalympicsGBs flagbearer at Rio 2016 (Adam Davy/PA)

I was just a bit emotional that I even got asked because in the past, Ive seen the greats like Chris Hoy carrying the flag in London 2012 and Lee Pearson in the Paralympics and all those amazing athletes, who are great athletes and who have carried the flags the best of the best.

(When it was confirmed), I was just in awe and just didnt have any words. Its been a challenging year and to be carrying the flag for absolutely everyone, its just a huge honour.

Simmonds has established herself as one of the countrys most recognisable Paralympians during the past 13 years.

However, despite her vast experience and hefty haul of medals, she says the burden of competing at elite level is greater than ever.

As an older woman now, I feel the pressure more, I feel all those different aspects, Im more aware of that, she said.

Whereas as a 13-year-old, as a 17-year-old, you just do swimming, youre just doing it as sport where you dont really think of all the outside bits.

Im more aware of those types of challenges now and I work with the psychologist really well.

For me, these Games are just about going out there, racing, enjoying it, doing the best I can and just being happy and soaking it all in.

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Ellie Simmonds: Reality TV and Black Lives Matter help with image of Paralympics - Yahoo Sports

The artist responsible for a Quebec City mural in honour of Black lives says the piece being vandalized in such a short time reinforces its importance and relevance.

Two new street art pieces a fresco reading "LaViedes Noire.e.s compte," or Black Lives Matter, stretching a full city block in the Saint-Roch neighbourhood, and a collage of photographs depicting people of several races standing in solidarity with Black people in the Saint-Jean Baptiste neighbourhood were inaugurated Monday.

By Wednesday, the collage was defaced with graffiti reading "kebe-quoi?" scrawled across it, with "quoi?" spelled as the French word for "what?"

"I found this particularly difficult for the people who were photographed," said artist Wartin Pantois. "For me it was an act of intolerance."

Michelle Osbourne, one of the people pictured in the mural, said she wasn't surprised the art was defaced. But she's still hurt by its message that people of colour aren't welcome.

"Some people might just see it as graffiti, but it's not," she said."It's tough waking up every day feeling hated for existing."

Osbourne, who's lived in Quebec City for seven years, says she's going to keep fighting, because she doesn't want her daughter, who she plans to raise in the city, see her give up.

"I'm disappointed because we sent a message of solidarity and justice," said Mba-Hadji Mbarewaye, the founder of a collective of five organizations that came together to create the two pieces.

Mbarewaye said he was surprised by how quickly the art was defaced, and that it sends the message that Black people in the city should shut up and suffer in silence, but they will not.

Quebec City police say they received a complaint about the vandalism around 7 p.m. Wednesday.Officers also found graffiti with the same wording on Parvis Street and Fleury Street.

The incidents are being investigated.

Osbourne said she was "humbled, honoured and grateful," to have been included in the project, especially because she sees it as ahistoric piece that would not have happened when she first moved to the city.

"As someone who's had a really difficult time being an anglophone in Quebec City, it makes me so proud," she said.

The collective Mbarewaye started came together in response to a lack of recognition from city officials and police officers of systemic racism.

"There is some concern about us here in Quebec City, especially about racial profiling," Mbarewaye said. "The police service and elected officials in Quebec City don't like to talk about this problem."

He said he's not blaming all police officers, but he's calling for systemic change.

Breakaway11:22Black Lives Matter art installations in Quebec City

In an email earlier this week, the Quebec City police service wrote it does not consider there to be a systemic racism problem within its ranks.

Spokesperson David Pelletier wrote there are hundreds of employees within the SPVQ, which reflects Quebec society, and the organization is paying attention to this issue.

He wrote that officers are trained in what they call a cultural context, which addresses racial profiling.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.

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Artist and organizers shocked as Black Lives Matter mural in Quebec City defaced in just 3 days - CBC.ca

Any large social movement is shaped by the technology available to it and tailors its goals, tactics, and rhetoric to the media of its time. On the afternoon of Sunday, March 7, 1965, when voting-rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, were run down by policemen at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the WATS lines were in heavy use. (Here come the white hoodlums, an activist said from a corner pay phone at 3:25 pm.) But the technology that was most important to the movements larger aims was not in activists hands at all: It was in a set of film canisters being ferried past police blockades on Highway 80 by an ABC News TV crew, racing for the Montgomery airport and heading to New York for an evening broadcast. That night, 48 million Americans would watch the scene in their living rooms, and a few days later Martin Luther King Jr. would lay bare the movements core media strategy. We will no longer let them use their clubs on us in the dark corners, he said. Were going to make them do it in the glaring light of television.

The tools that we have to organize and to resist are fundamentally different than anything thats existed before in black struggle.

It was a rare admission, writes media historian Aniko Bodroghkozy. King and other civil rights organizers seldom acknowledged their own self-conscious use of the mass media. Todays African-American civil rights organizers, by contrast, talk about the tools of mass communication all the timebecause their media strategy sessions are largely open to everyone on the Internet.

If youre a civil rights activist in 2015 and you need to get some news out, your first move is to choose a platform. If you want to post a video of a protest or a violent arrest, you put it up on Vine, Instagram, or Periscope. If you want to avoid trolls or snooping authorities and you need to coordinate some kind of action, you might chat privately with other activists on GroupMe. If you want to rapidly mobilize a bunch of people you know and you dont want the whole world clued in, you use SMS or WhatsApp. If you want to mobilize a ton of people you might not know and you do want the whole world to talk about it: Twitter.

And if, God forbid, you find yourself standing in front of the next Michael Brown or Walter Scott, and you know the nations attention needs to swerve hard to your town, your best bet might be to send a direct message to someone like DeRay Mckesson, one of a handful of activists who sit at the apex of social networks that now run hundreds of thousands strong. The thing about King or Ella Baker is that they could not just wake up and sit at the breakfast table and talk to a million people, says Mckesson, a former school district administrator who has become one of the most visible faces of the movement. The tools that we have to organize and to resist are fundamentally different than anything thats existed before in black struggle.

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How Black Lives Matter Uses Social Media to Fight the ...

A Black Lives Matter chapter founder in Minnesota has resigned, claiming that the organization isnt concerned about helping black communities or helping improve the education quality in Minneapolis, according to a video published last week.

Rashard Turner, the founder of a Black Lives Matter chapter in neighboring St. Paul, said he started the branch in 2015 but became disillusioned roughly a year after becoming an insider within the left-wing organization, according to a video released by TakeChargea group that rejects various provisions promoted by Black Lives Matter, including critical race theory-linked claims that the United States is inherently racist.

After a year on the inside, I learned they had little concern for rebuilding black families, and they cared even less about improving the quality of education for students in Minneapolis, Turner saidin the video.

That was made clear when they publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers union. I was an insider in Black Lives Matter. And I learned the ugly truth. The moratorium on charter schools does not support rebuilding the black family. But it does create barriers to a better education for black children. I resigned from Black Lives Matter after a year and a half. But I didnt quit working to improve black lives and access to a great education.

Representatives for Black Lives Matter didnt respond to a request for comment by press time.

Approximately a year after George Floyds death in Minneapolis, support for the group has plummeted in the United States, according to a recent poll from Morning Consult. Only 48 percent hold favorable views about the organization, down from 61 percent last May.

A USA Today survey found that 36 percent of Americans now would describe Floyds death as a murder, down from 60 percent last summer.

A poll in May conducted by the newspaper revealed that the Black Lives Matter call to defund the police has even less support, with only 18 percent of respondents supporting it.

It comes amid recent controversies surrounding Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the organization who resigned after a series of reports about her real estate portfolio and finances. Following the reports publication last month, Cullors asserted that she didnt misuse any donations to Black Lives Matter.

In a statement last week, Cullorsa self-described trained Marxistsaid, With smart, experienced, and committed people supporting the organization during this transition, I know that BLMGNF is in good hands The foundations agenda remains the sameeradicate white supremacy and build life-affirming institutions.

Cullors told The Associated Press that her departure was planned more than a year in advance and wasnt related to the reports about her finances and her multiple homes, claiming they were right-wing attacks meant to defame her character.

Excerpt from:
Black Lives Matter St. Paul Founder Says He Resigned ...

Black Lives Matter protests during the Democratic National Convention

Asa Khalif, an organizer for Black Lives Matter and a member of the Philly Coalition for Real Justice,

Video by Jasper Colt, USA TODAY

The Black Lives Matter movement is in the national spotlight again this month, following the high-profile killings of two black men by police and the killings of police officers by black men in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

With the movements attention comes a familiar refrain: Why doesnt Black Lives Matter focus onblack-on-black crime?

Its a question asked, in various forms, from Facebook to cable networks to comments on this site. The answer, one writer says, is Black Lives Matter isnt solely focused on the loss of black lives but also on a lack of justice.

When a civilian has committed a violent crime, theyre generally arrested, tried and then convicted, Franchesca Ramsey, a writer and activist who discusses race, explainsin the MTV series Decoded (which you canwatch here in full).

Conversely, theres a lot of evidence that its very rare to secure an indictment against a police officer for excessive force. And an indictment is just a trial; it isnt even a conviction.

Black Lives Matter isnt just about the loss of life, which is always terrible. Its about the lack of consequences when black lives are taken at the hands of police.

Police officers shot and killed nearly 1,000 people last year, according toaWashington Postdatabase.Eighteen officers faced chargesfor such shootings that year.

While nearly twice as many white Americanswere killed by on-duty officersthan blacks,thePosts updateddatashowed,black Americans remained 2.5 times as likely to die at the hands of police when adjusting for population.

And when unarmed, the data showedthat black Americans were five times as likely to be fatally shot as white ones.

Black Americans do find violence within the black community troubling: A YouGov poll from April shows a plurality of black Americans think its a bigger problem than racial injustice, as Voxs Victoria M. Massie notes.

"(The) survey underscores what the people in these communities have long argued that police brutality and crime are not mutually exclusive concerns for African Americans," she wrote.

Black Americans have launched anti-violence effortsin their communities (Ramsey mentions aPBS documentary about them,The Interruptors). Butmany in theBlack Lives Matter movementhave described"black-on-black" criticismsa diversionthat ignores underlying issues like poverty.

What we know is that gun violence absolutely presents tragedy every single day, said Brittany Packnett, a prominent voice in the movement,on PBS NewsHourin December. But if black life really matters to people who insist that black-on-black crime is the real issue, then pay attention to poverty."

Poor white Americansexperience violent crimes at rates virtually equalthat of poor black Americans,asMassie points outina2014 Department of Justice study.Black and white Americans kill members of their own races atsimilarrates, too.

According to2014 FBI data, 90% of African-American homicides were committed by African Americans. Similarly, 82% of white American homicides were committed by white Americanswhat we might, but dont, call white-on-white crime.

The difference:Morethan one in four black Americans livein areas of extreme poverty,according toa 2015 Century Foundation study. Only one in 13 whites live in such areas.

(h/ts Decoded, Vox)

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Why Black Lives Matter doesn't focus on black-on-black crime