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As a crowd gathered for a Thursday morning announcement on new parks and completed construction projects along the Ben Franklin Parkway at the Philadelphia Free Librarys Main Branch, activists seized the opportunity to have their voices heard at a gathering of the citys elected officials.

Just moments after a man dressed in a William Shakespeare costume helped announce the new Shakespeare Park at the library, Black Lives Matter activist Asa Khalif stepped to the front of the crowd in the lobby of the library, letting his voice echo across the building's marble floor.

Khalif and others came seeking answers in the fatal June 8 shooting of David Jones. Jones, who was reportedly armed, was killed by an officer of the citys 15th police district shotonce in the back and once in the buttock as he ran from a scuffle with the officer after being pulled over on his dirt bike.

The people must hold politicians accountable, said Khalif. His name was David Jones. His life mattered.

Khalif stole the spotlight for several minutes. When officers of the Philadelphia Police arrived and moved to confront the activist, Mayor Jim Kenney intervened, shaking his head "no" and motioning them away, in a move that Khalif said he appreciated.

Thank God we have a mayor who took a stand today and told that pig to get out, said Khalif, after the mayor moved officers away.

During the impromptu rally, Isaac Gardner, who has been the lead organizer of Justice for David Jones rallies and who described himself as a representative of Jones family, took Khalifs bullhorn to lament the lack of information that the dead mans family has gotten since the 30-year-old Jones was killed by a police officer.

He was shot twice in the back. Hes dead now, said Gardner. Let the family know they arent alone in this.

After a few moments, the activists left, but not before announcing that they will hold a listening session on Thursday night, which plans to include members of the family of David Jones and a representative of the Department of Justice. That event will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at 1414 S. Penn Sq.

After the men left the building, Mayor Kenney said that he appreciated the fact that we live in a country, and city, that supports a persons right to protest.

I think thats what makes this country what it is and what makes this city what it is, he said.

He also noted that the investigation into Jones death is ongoing.

A preliminary police report said a loaded 9mm was recovered from Jones. But one alleged witness to the shooting claims Jones was not armed when he fled, and that he had dropped the gun in the dirt near his feet before running. That account remains unconfirmed. The case is under review, and the department is not commenting on the shooting.

The activists continued to chant outside the library for several minutes before departing. Khalif described this event as the latest in a "week of rage," which has also seen Khalif and Gardner protest on Monday at the Managing Director's office and at the meeting of the Police Advisory Commission, as well as inside City Hall on Wednesday while candidates for interim district attorney were interviewed.

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Black Lives Matter activists interrupt city parks announcement - Metro US

Alicia Garza, one of the co-founders Black Lives Matter, tweeted Wednesday night in support of the Chicago Dyke Marchs decision to ask two Jewish LGBT women carrying Star of David flags to leave their march.

Shoutout to @DykeMarchChi for standing up for their principals when folks tried to take it over for their own agenda, Garza tweeted.

Garzas tweet drew critical responses from some quarters.

this makes me so damn sad, tweeted Talia Lavin, a food writer. im an earnest queer leftist who loves my jewish identity - i want to be able to display a magen david on my .

before or after they deleted their KKK esque tweet? responded Chloe Simone Valdary, a pro-Israel activist, referring to a tweet posted by the Chicago Dyke March that used an anti-Semitic epithet for Zionists popularized by David Duke.

Contact Ari Feldman at feldman@forward.com or on Twitter @aefeldman.

Excerpt from:
Black Lives Matter Leader Tweets Support Of Chicago Dyke March - Forward

NewsBusters (press release) (blog)

AP, NY Times Are Conveniently AWOL as Women's March, Black Lives Matter Praise 1970s Cop KIller NewsBusters (press release) (blog) That controversy has even pulled in the Black Lives Matter movement, which has also received consistent and undeserved favorable press treatment, also exposing BLM once again as consistently, violently radical. Now the AP and the Times aren't covering ... and more »

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AP, NY Times Are Conveniently AWOL as Women's March, Black Lives Matter Praise 1970s Cop KIller - NewsBusters (press release) (blog)

On Jan. 21 2017, the Womens March on Washington ledwhat many now believe wasthe largest single-day demonstration in recorded U.S. history. Organized by experienced women of coloractivists and organizers (Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, and Carmen Perez), the march called on women of diverse backgrounds, including immigrant, queer/trans, and Muslim women, to demonstrate a show offorce against the new regime of Donald Trump, which has so far been built almost exclusively on a platform of anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-Muslim and xenophobic rhetoric.

Despite the impressive critical massthat turned outon January 20th, however, there were substantial and substantiated criticisms of the march:notwithstandingits leadership by women of color, the march was largely white, cisgender, and middle-class in representation.

Amidst white womens calls that womens rights are humans rights, there was little discussion of the way in which white women have historically colluded with white patriarchy in the oppression of Black people to obtain their rights, nor was there discussion of white womens historical participation in thegenocide and oppression of Indigenous people. Not to mention that it was white women who, more than any other single group of people, voted Donald Trump into the presidential office by an overwhelming majority.

In addition, calls for solidarity among all women through the donning of the now infamous pink pussy hats sparked rightful cynicism and criticismfrom trans and gender non-conforming women,many of whom did not appreciate an outdated and exclusionary version of womanhood rooted in biology rather than identity, experience, and structural oppression. Not all women have vaginas, and not all womens parts are pink. For many trans women and/or women of color, the call tounite underasupposedly universal symbol of womanhood that was so blatantly rooted in a white, cisgender experiencemade it impossible to endorse.

Despite its many flaws and shortcomings, however, the Womens March was not a one-time occurrence, and it did not simply disband after the march.

Since Jan. 21, the Womens March has become a smaller but more focused contingent of activists that more pointedly centers issues affectingBlack, immigrant, and Muslim women. Most recently, the WM contingent, under the leadership of Palestinian-American Muslim activist Linda Sarsour,centrally took up the concerns of the Black Lives Matter Movement in a way that it should continue to do if it is to be a lasting force for change during the Trump presidency and beyond.

After news broke last month that the court had failed to indictthe police officer who murdered Philando Castile (a legal, licensed gun carrier in the state of Minnesota), co-chair of the Womens MovementTamika Mallorya Black woman who has spent many years advocating for gun controlissueda letter to the NRA (National Rifle Association) askingwhy it had not stood up for the rights of Philando Castile. Given that Castilewas a legal gun owner (as required by law, Castile informed the officer who pulled him over that he had a legal license to carry), she argued, the NRA logically should have rallied for his cause, since it allegedlysupports the rights of citizens to arm themselves.

In typical hypocrite fashion, however, it soon became clear that by citizens right to bear arms, the NRA didnot mean all citizens, but seeminglyonly white male citizens. Anyone elses right to bear arms, apparently, was not worth defending. Rather than responding to Mallorysletter directly, the NRA instead issued thisoffensive advertisement, and Mallory was deluged with death threats from NRA supporters.In response, Sarsour, Mallory, and the WM contingent led a march from the NRA headquarters to the Department of Justice in Washington D.C.to demand that the NRA be held accountable for its failure to address the infringement of Castiles second amendment rights, and for endangering the safety of Tamika Mallory.

The kind of work that the Womens March is now doingwork that directly and specifically addresses police violence against the Black community and the safety of Black women in particularisexactly the kind of work it should continue to do. In other words, the Womens March should take its cue from the Black Lives Matter movement by centering issues specific to Black women and their communities.If the womens movement is to make any kind of meaningful progress, it must first make Black lives matter.

This is true especially because the Womens March that took place on January 20th, 2017 had an important precedent, which has so far received little attention: the Womens March of 1997, which was entirely conceived and led by Black women. OnOct. 25, 1997, an estimated 750,000 Blackwomen gathered together to march down the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, in order to inspire Blackwomen across the nation to work for their own improvement as well as that of their communities. The Womens March should not only acknowledge its debt to this earlier iteration of the Womens March, conceived and ledtwenty years previous by Black women, but should continue to center the voices and issues of Black women which remain by and large unaddressed.

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The Women's March Joins Forces with Black Lives Matter - Wear Your Voice

In the Black Lives Do Matter letter in the Green Valley News, July 16, Georgia Hotton states that when your black, its almost like having a gun pointed at your face, which is from the movie Detroit, to be released next month.

Yes, Hottons claim is absolutely accurate since 93 percent of blacks who are murdered are killed by other blacks. In Chicago, more than 100 people were shot over the long 4th of July holiday, mostly in black neighborhoods, leaving at least 14 dead. The next weekend in Chicago, 40 people were shot, 10 dead. The fatalities included a community activist trying to curb street violence and a 9-year-old boy.

During the past 35 years, according to FBI crime stats, 324,000 (rounded off) blacks were murdered in the United States and 93 percent, or, 301,000, were murdered by blacks.

Hotton claims that blacks are asking for equal justice since a disproportionate number of blacks are imprisoned. We can fix this problem. Lets establish a new criminal statute that plea bargains a certain number of crimes by blacks down to the misdemeanor category, e.g. simple assault, with no state prison time, until the white prison population is equal to the black prison population. There, that took care of that problem.

Hotton further claims that blacks are only responsible for 36 percent of violent crimes while whites commit 42 percent. I will accept Hottons facts as accurate, taken from the book, Tears We Cannot Stop by Michael Dyson, a black activist and professor. What Hotton fails to point out is the disparity in population numbers. Since whites total 76 percent of the U.S. population of 325 million, and blacks represent only 13 percent, there are 173 million more whites available for criminal activity than blacks.

Activists and others who consistently alter and distort the facts in high-profile matters are bent on convincing others that law enforcement is to blame in so-called controversial incidents, usually a police shooting of a black person when the facts, even after a Department of Justice investigation, proved that the witnesses were lying. The shooting of Michael Brown in August 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked the Black Lives Matter movement nationwide and led to riots across the country. And to this day, many in the African American community still align themselves with the black activists who will not reverse their erroneous conclusions and advise their following of the facts. Why? Because that is what they surreptitiously believe and that is what they shout to their constituents.

In their minds it also justifies their destructive organization, whose platform not only encourages anti-police demonstrations, but openly promotes the killing of police officers. What frequently follows is the looting, burning and razing of their communities across the nation.

Georgia Hotton, you are either part of the problem or have been duped by anti-American fanatics on the extreme left whose focus is to instill hatred and blind allegiance to the destruction of the United States of America, as we know it, through lies, deceit and evil conspiracies.

In his book, Dyson ignores some of the root causes of the black communitys negative profile. He should shout to the gang bangers to stop their illegal activity, stop selling drugs, stop killing each other over turf disputes, advise fathers to assume personal responsibility for bearing children, to promote family values at home, and to advise communities to instill cooperation with law enforcement.

William Davis lives in Green Valley.

Editors note: The 93 percent statistic for black-on-black homicides comes from a 2010 Bureau of Justice Statistics report that looked at black homicide victims from 1980 through 2008. That report also concluded that 84 percent of white victims were killed by white offenders.

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IN MY VIEW: Do black lives matter to blacks? - Green Valley News