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Pascale Diverlus is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto and together with her colleagues, they launched the COVID-19 Black Emergency Support Fundraiser through GoFundMe to help Black Canadians in the city as well as the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

The initiative began in mid-March, shortly after the city declared a state of emergency. The activist group realized many Black Canadians would become vulnerable to financial difficulties, as a result of the pandemic.

Initially, Diverlus says the groups intention was to help about 120 people once the application launched on Facebook. Within a few hours, the application was closed due to the unexpected high volume.

So many people filled it out and were requesting support, said Diverlus. So we increased the fundraising goal in order to meet [the needs] of all of those people who signed the form.

Black Lives Matter Toronto hasnt turned down a single applicants request for help. Theyve been answering all emails and direct messages.

So far, the group has managed to raise close to $60,000 due to generous donations theyve received in the past month, including a sum of $5,000 from The Centre of Women and Trans people at the University of Toronto.

Besides fundraising money, co-member of the activist group Syrus Ware says they are working on also providing items of need for Black Canadians in the community.

Were working on trying to figure out ways to support people getting access to good food, continuing to stay in touch with our community to figure out what they need and how we can respond, said Ware.

He says Black Lives Matter Toronto has also been greatly involved in supporting all calls for decarceration and prison abolition works in the city.

Were staying vigilant and trying to make sure that everybody emerges from this safe and with everything that they have, said Ware.

Originally posted here:
This is how Black Lives Matter is making a difference in Toronto during the pandemic - blogTO

All Lives Matter.

It makes sense on the surface: the idea that every single human life is worth saving. Its honestly an unimpeachable sentiment. Which is why it was so easy to be manipulated by racists to dispel a movement that actually stood for the protection of the most lives possible.

Heres how.

The Black Lives Matter movement and subsequent hashtag became a household idea during the protests in Ferguson. The #BlackLivesMatter movement was a rallying cry on social media and on the streets of Missouri. As with any movement that seeks to lift up Black folks, there will inevitably be white folks who want to shut it down. Thats how the idea of All Lives Matter was born.

The idea behind #AllLivesMatter was used to counteract #BlackLivesMatter by saying that fighting for Black lives somehow excluded white lives; that the sentiment implied some sort of Black superiority. This is the natural reaction a bastardization of Black demands for equality by conflating that demand into a quest for superiority. So white people screamed #AllLivesMatter from the rooftops as loudly as they could for the sole purpose of silencing a Black movement.

The truth of this all has never changed: All Lives Matter is anti-Black. It only exists to erase something built out of a desire to save Black lives. If you check Twitter, youll only see the hashtag being used to counter Black Lives Matter, never on its own merit. Black Lives Matter is all about uplifting all people by reminding them that nobody is safe until all marginalized people are safe. Black Lives Matter has done more for white people than All Lives Matter has done for everyone.

The All Lives Matter faux-movement sentiment has been pervasive in right-wing, alt-right and Trumpian circles despite or maybe because of the danger it presents to Black folks. Trump yelled out Youre going to hear it once, all lives matter, as protesters interrupted one of his rallies in Virginia in February 2016. Fox News, Candace Owens, Breitbart, Tomi Lahren and every Trump-adjacent ally in between has screamed out All Lives Matter at one point or another and only in response to shouting down Black Lives Matter. And all under the plausible deniability that this is all about concern for every human life. The dishonest defense is that nobody should be left behind. No life should ever be lost.

As weve learned in the past 60 days or so, every one of those attempted justifications for #AllLivesMatter rhetoric is grounded in pure bullsh*t.

In the face of a pandemic that is largely the result of Donald Trumps neglect, vindictiveness and incompetence, weve seen the truth. Neither Donald Trump nor his followers care about All Lives.

After all, it was Trump himself who, just a couple of weeks ago, stood in front of a chart and pointed to the idea of only 100,000 dead Americans being a massive victory for him and his administration. As weve seen a death toll across the country that is beyond the range of 9/11, he has touted things like his TV ratings and his chances of winning reelection. That would be vile enough, but Trump and his cronies have gone on record encouraging people to get back to work to boost the economy even if they die as a result. Which, they surely will. We know that jump-starting the economy will result in more Americans dead than if we kept Shelter In Place orders alive.

That doesnt matter to Trump. All Lives dont matter nearly as much as those of billionaires who would benefit from a rejuvenated economy (which, by the way, there isnt any indication that more dead Americans would boost any economy, anyway).

And as Donald Trump goes, so does his army of conviction-less minions. Rudy Giuliani quoted Candace Owens in a tweet comparing the coronavirus to the flu, as has been one of the staple arguments against saving lives. Approximately 7500 people die every day in the United States, he shared on March 26th. Thats approximately 645,000 people so far this year. Coronavirus has killed about 1,000 Americans this year. Just a little perspective. Of course, there are now more than 31,000 dead in the United States. But, beyond that, Giuliana himself had this to say about #AllLivesMatter: Its inherently racist, he said about Black Lives Matter in 2016. Number one, it divides us. All lives matter: White lives, black lives, all lives.

So how does one go from thinking that every life matters to suddenly thinking that 1,000 dead humans is a negligible amount? Easy. You simply dont care about all lives to begin with.

Texas Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick went on Fox News at the end of March and suggested that old people should be willing to sacrifice themselves for the economy. No one reached out to me and said, as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? Patrick said. And if thats the exchange, Im all in.

Bill OReilly, who has proclaimed that the Black Lives Matter movement was killing Americans, just went on record to say that many of the people dying from the coronavirus were on their last legs anyway.

All Lives Dont matter to these people. We knew this was true when they gaslit Black folks in Ferguson and every day since. We knew that All Lives Matter was just poorly-masked anti-Blackness. And now we are watching a Trump-led death cult justify avoidable deaths all for the pursuit of their own selfishness. These liars were able to hide behind cognitive dissonance and plausible deniability, but not anymore; especially as they are outwardly calling for lives to end. There is only one undeniable fact remaining: The only lives that ever mattered to Trump and his cronies are their own.

David Dennis, Jr. is a writer and adjunct professor of Journalism at Morehouse College. Davids writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Smoking Section, Uproxx, Playboy, The Atlantic, Complex.com and wherever people argue about things on the internet. Read more of his work on NewsOnehere.

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Link:
Team Trumps COVID-19 Response Is Proof That #AllLivesMatter Was Always A Lie - News One

Because America's coronavirus response must address racial inequities in order to be effective.

Check out a special edition of OZYs Black Women OWN the Conversation, bringing together real women and a curated panel of experts, professionals and thought seekers from across the nation with host Carlos Watson for a timely discussion on how we are living in this unprecedented time.The first special airs Saturday, April 18, at 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT and 10 p.m. PT on OWN.

Kailee Scales is managing director of Black Lives Matter Global Network.

For decades, we have been fighting to improve the material conditions of our lives. We have fought against and worked to overcome systemic racism, economic inequality and mass incarceration. Now, during a global pandemic, the impact of this bias is clearer than ever.

This virus is devastating to us. We are the essential workers who keep the country going; we are the mail carriers, delivery personnel, transportation providers and hospital workers. We cannot just #stayhome. Yet, we represent the vast majority of COVID-related deaths in Chicago, Louisiana and Michigan Black people are dying at rates that are two and three times our population share and that is only what we know right now. These numbers will increase as the virus continues to engulf our vulnerable communities.

We have never had access to adequate health care in our communities and many of us dont even know we have the preexisting conditions the coronavirus feeds on. Our children historically suffer in our education system and are now at risk of falling further behind due to a lack of access to virtual education programs. The prison population, which is disproportionately Black, has deplorable and unsanitary conditions in which people must serve their time. There is no protection plan for incarcerated people, and many of them lack basic sanitary supplies. On top of that, incarcerated people are fundamentally unable to practice social distancing. Adequate testing is nonexistent for us, so we dont know who has and can spread the virus.

We demand racial data on COVID-19 be collected, released and aggregated in order to provide essential information and resources targeted to our needs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that people with heart and lung conditions, asthma and other preexisting conditions are at high risk for contracting the coronavirus and the stats are staggering:

This is why we will keep fighting for the protection and provisions we need to live. We need every state and municipality to collect and release the demographic data on who is contracting and dying from this disease. The more we understand about the virus, the better equipped we will be to determine the resources and funding needed in communities hit hardest by the pandemic. We will continue to amplify and demand what we need in our communities. Specifically:

Thats why we have started a petition. We demand that racial data on COVID-19 be collected, released and aggregated in order to provide essential information and resources targeted to our needs. Please sign the petition.

We will continue to shine a spotlight on the inequalities that continue to upend our communities. We will continue to demand our communities receive the resources and support we need. We will continue to fight for our lives.

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The Pandemic Is Devastating to Black People. Here's What We Can Do About It - OZY

A coalition of activists is demanding that Washington, D.C. and federal officials immediately release all people confined in the citys correctional facilities.

A caravan of protestors drove through the city on Thursday, honking horns and carrying signs in support of releases that they say have taken on new significance because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The protest was staged to align with the anniversary of D.C. abolishing slavery in 1862.

Its important that our city officials understand were in a crisis and they need to release those folks and provide security to those residents as well, Jacob Smith, an organizer with the No New Jails coalition told The Appeal. Being that D.C. has a high incarceration rate, it seems like Black people are still being criminalized and are not free. (Statistics show D.C. has the highest incarceration rate in the world.)

The D.C. jail, in which the majority of its roughly 1,400 prisoners are held pre-trial, has become a hotspot for coronavirus infections. To date, 65 prisoners have tested positive for the disease.

On Wednesday, two independent inspectors, appointed as part of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C. and the D.C. Public Defender Service demanding the release of prisoners, gave a harrowing report of conditions within the jail. Incarcerated people are not being given the necessary supplies to protect themselves against the disease, they said, and those believed to be infected are not allowed to shower and must live in their soiled clothes, the Washington Post reported.

One in three inmates is held in either quarantine or isolation, D.C. officials said.

Last week, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser granted release to 36 prisoners in the jail but Smith said that action did not go far enough. At the end of the day we have not released enough people, he said.

Along with the jails, people are being held at the Hope Village halfway house and St. Elizabeths, a psychiatric hospital where some people are confined to restore competency for court proceedings. Four people have died at that facility because of coronavirus.

Two people have died at Hope Village, where the majority of people are sent to live for an average of six months as they transition from federal prison to the free world. Officials have said they did not die of coronavirus.

Last month, a Hope Village resident described a scary situation inside the home to The Appeal. He said that there was no way for residents to properly social distance, cleaning supplies were sparse, and that tensions had escalated after the facility was put on lockdown.

The coalition, which includes Black Lives Matter D.C., Black Youth Project 100 DC, and Life After Release, held a protest starting at the home last week that drew more than 100 vehicles.

Read the rest here:
Drive-By Protestors Demand Release Of All Prisoners In D.C. Amid Coronavirus - The Appeal

Bloomington City Council at its virtual meeting earlier this week. (Photo courtesy HOI ABC)

By HOI ABC

BLOOMINGTON A Bloomington City Council member is calling on the council to support using taxpayer dollars for direct aid to residents feeling economic hardships from the coronavirus pandemic.

According to our news partner HOI ABC, Jeff Crabill recommends spending at least $100,000 because aid administered by federal and state governments, as well as non-profit organizations, is limited, hard to access, subject to delay, and not available to all in the community.

Crabills request comes as a coalition of community activists demands increases in spending, secure housing, and the release of jail inmates who face increased risk of exposure to COVID-19, but cant afford to post bail required for their release.

We know there is a need, as there has been a significant increase in joblessness through the closing of nonessential businesses and a reduction in staff by restaurants, Crabill said in a document asking for the matter to be discussed at Monday nights committee-of-the-whole council meeting.

The council is being asked to decide if theres sufficient support to place the issue on the April 27 council meeting agenda.

At the council meeting this past Monday night, Mayor Tari Renner indicated local leaders will have to take action.

For some people, its more than an inconvenience, its really, really a crisis in terms of employment, in terms of housing issues, in terms of food, in terms of health care, the mayor said.

Theyre hitting our least advantaged citizens the hardest, and I think weve got to recognize that as we move forward, Renner also said.

The City of Bloomington Township would oversee any new funding. The city council acts as township trustees.

Direct local government aid to the needy is one of the demands from the Protect Our People coalition, which has been holding weekly meetings on Zoom to discuss the pandemics impact.

The group argues Bloomington and Normal governments have tens of millions of dollars available to help the poor.

Illinois Peoples Action, the Bloomington-Normal Democratic Socialists of America, and the local chapter of Black Lives Matter are organizing the coalition and its lobbying effort.

WJBC News can be reached at news@wjbc.com

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Bloomington council urged to boost aid to hardest hit in pandemic's fallout - WJBC News