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How come you are silent?

It was supposed to be a moment of honor for Portland Police Chief Michael Sauschuck given on behalf of the city council and sponsored by Mayor Ethan Strimling for his service.

But during the mayors proclamation directly behind the chief stood members of the black lives movement with their hands raised over their heads.

Speaking out against the chief.

The mayor calling a recess.

City Councilor Jill Duson offering to talk to the protestors.

Well talk when

Saying this to the chief while leaving.

And good job murderer.

Continuing their protests on the steps of city hall as Chief Sauschuck left the building

Just a few hours earlier city councilors praising the chief standing in solidarity with him regarding a body camera pilot program for his department.

We have example after example of Police Chief Mike Sauschuck being an exemplary leader and police chief and really standing up for the community.

And a day after he addresses public concerns following the deadly force used by an officer against 22-year-old Chance Baker over the weekend.

Im troubled a great deal by anyone that would demean the actions of these Portland Police Officers and make it some kind of issue around body cameras which i do not believe is the case here in any way.

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Black Lives Matter Protesters Interrupt Ceremony Honoring Portland Police Chief - WABI

Rosa Alicia Clemente

In 1993, I was a student at the State University of New York-Albany when Dr. Marta Moreno Vega came to speak on our campus. Until that evening, I had never heard the term Afro-Latina. In fact, I had just learned what it meant when someone saidAfrican descendant. See, even though I had grown up in NYC and Westchester County, respectively, and completely embraced and understood that I was Puerto Rican, it was not until I went to college that I began to get to know who I TRULY was.

The year before, I had joined the Albany State University Black Alliance and, through my involvement with peers who were racially and politically conscious, I was exposed to the true history of mi gente (my people). This awakening of my racial consciousness would lead me to become an Africana Studies major and, to this day, I have been a scholar-activist in the field of Black studies. For me, it became clear that I was an African descendant, so I began to devour anything and everything I could, not only to learn the truth of who I was but also to confront the lies I had been told by my teachers, family and TV.

Although I began to identify as an African descendant, it was not until I joined the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in 2000 that I began to identify as Black, and identifying as such was not easy for me. In too many movement spaces, conscious gatherings and panels, I far too often was confronted and accused of selling out as a Latina. Without the mentorship of Marta and the late Richie Perez, as well as my comrades in the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and others, I could not have navigated conscious movement and personal spaces that sought to take away my Blackness. I have identified myself as a Black Puerto Rican woman since 2001 and to this day, it is not easy. Although many Latinx* people, especially younger ones, are now identifying as Afro-Latinx, I often wonder if it is easier to embrace cultural identifications as opposed to embracing Blackness not only as phenotype but also as a political signifier.

I cannot tell you how many times in the past few years I have been asked, Why are you here? You are not Black. Why are you here? You are a non-Black person of color. What many movement people, leaders, foot soldiers and woke folks fail to understand is that, in America, the binary of Black and white has always excluded Latinx people. One need only look at the media to see that, even in 2017, Blackness in America means African-American. Never are we as Black Latinx people represented in the media, and you will rarely find Africans and Black Caribbean people in dialogues and discussions about race.

Despite the growing numbers and growing racial consciousness of Afro-Latinx people, much of the prevailing discourse makes the assumption that we either have to subscribe to the dominant racial paradigm of African-American/white-American discourse or have to choose between our Black identity or our ethnic one. Going back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Pan-Africanism signaled for the first time an explicit, organized identification with Africa and African descendants and, more expansively, of nonwhite peoples at a global level. With the United States occupation of Cuba and Puerto Rico and the ever-growing migratory presence of both populations in New York and other northeastern cities, the central cultural concern of Afro-Latinx became their relationship with African-Americans and, more globally, with an African diasporic world. This Pan-Africanist ideology was embodied most prominently by Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, a Black Puerto Rican who took part in anti-Spanish liberation struggles. Schomburg, a collector and bibliophile of worldwide Africana experiences, contributed greatly to the burgeoning field of Black history. Schomburg lived his life on the color line. His direct knowledge and experience of racism, both in Latin America and the United States, and his alliances with other prominent African-American historians at the time was groundbreaking, and, at the end of his life, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg would identify himself as a Black man.

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As Black History Month ends, it is incumbent that we as Afro-Latinx people in the United States heed the work of Frantz Fanon, who wrote extensively about decolonizing the mind. It also is necessary that movement organizers, organizations and those that fight for social justice affirm and acknowledge a new generation of unapologetic Afro-Latinx, Black Latinxyoung people who are taking their rightful place in the Black radical tradition. As one of my favorite groups, the Welfare Poets, said on their album Project Blues:

Who we be? Who I be? Who we be? We be Isingular I, now the essence of los Africanos and that of lo Indio run within me. So, when you call me Spanish, all my purity seems to vanish because that is not who I be. So, dont refer to me with words that blur the trueness to my identity, defining me by a colonizers language, disregarding my family lineage, my ancestral heritage. Now, I be the rhythm of the Congo, played to an internal bomba, extending from Nigeria from a culture called Yoruba.

No one will ever stop my Blackness. It is who I be.

Rosa Alicia Clemente is a doctoral candidate at the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies at UMass-Amherst and was the 2008 Green Party vice-presidential candidate. You can read her groundbreaking article Who is Black?and much more at http://www.rosaclemente.net.

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Rosa Clemente: Can Latinos Say Black Lives Matter? - Atlanta Black Star

When you hear Civil Rights Movement, its easy to think of the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which stated that segregation in publics schools is unconstitutional. I think of Emmett Till who in 1955 was shot and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a white woman, of the student sit-ins in 1960 where college African American students would go into segregated parks, swimming pools, theaters, & libraries and sit in protest of segregation, or the 24th Amendment which abolished the poll tax that made it difficult for poor blacks to vote. Malcom X, Rosa Parks, Stokely Carmichael, and of course, the legendary Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were also prominent figures we think of who allow us to look back at the Civil Rights Movement in awe.

But what about when you hear Black Lives Matter? What do you think of?

When I hear it I think about people of color who are fighting for equality in America, said Jeremiah Harris, a sophomore communications major.

#BlackLivesMatter started in 2012 as a hashtag after Trayvon Martin, a 17-year old African American boy, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, who was acquitted for his crime. The founders of BlackLivesMatter are Alicia Garcia, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors. According to their website, BlackLivesMatter is, a call to action and a response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates our society.

The controversy of BLM is astounding and has become one of the biggest topics of debate in our nation. But if we were to compare it to The Civil Rights Movement, how would it stand?

According to Mic.com, 42% of young white Americans today say they dont support BLM and in 1964, 63% of Americans said civil rights leaders pushed too fast. Despite this, I think it is a lot more complicated than this statistic puts forward.

Lets look at three areas of comparison between the two movements.

1. Origins

During the Civil Right Movement the fight was against literal institutional racism that plagued our country. There were actual laws that oppressed blacks and other minorities during this time.

Segregation was a great example of this. Brown v. Board of Education found segregation unconstitutional and everyone could see what the issue was whether they agreed of disagreed because it was tangible evidence. Millions of black people were effected by laws like Jim Crow that allowed segregation or the poll tax that prevented poor blacks from voting.

With BLM and the rhetoric going on in our nation today, there is no tangible enemy to protest.

There is a heavy rhetoric in the general conversation that there is racism out there, but I have yet to see a law that is actually racist. Yes, there is inequality, specifically with blacks in our nation, but calling out institutional racism without real evidence does nothing for anybody.

When I compare BLM to the Civil Rights Movement, I see the evidence of disparity blacks faced in the U.S. 60-70 years ago, but it is extremely hard to say that for blacks today. There may be disparity that blacks face today, I believe there is, but the evidence is not being put forward like it should.

2. Protests

On Aug. 28, 1973, over 250,000 people came together for the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom in Washington D.C. It rallied thousands of Americans to come together and peacefully protest the injustices that blacks and minorities were facing at the time. For the event, internal Marshalls were trained to keep order within the event due to security reasons, but the marchers chose peace instead of violence. This day was most memorable for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s I Have a Dream speech.

Previous protest to this included the Montgomery bus boycotts, and the freedom riders. These were student volunteers that decided to test out the new laws that prohibited segregation, and were attacked by angry mobs while traveling across the country.

Today we see the destruction of private property, setting things on fire, throwing rocks at innocent bystanders, and much more.

Riots and violence did happen later in the Civil Rights Movement with The Black Panthers and other protest events in the late 60s, until that point the protests were very peaceful. After Dr.Kings death, there was much more violent sides of protests.

Today, it began with violence and continues with it.

3. Leadership

The start of the Civil Rights Movement formed off the death of Emmett Till and the stubbornness of Rosa Parks. It is a huge step down from Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin, in my opinion. We know without a shadow of a doubt that Emmett Till was killed due to blatant racism. We do not know that with Trayvon Martin. Rosa Parks literally fought against an institutionally racist law, but we dont know what the founders of BLM have fought against.

When I hear Civil Rights Movement I think of MLK, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers,Harris said. Its very hard for me to think of anyone prominent nowadays.

There is also no figure anywhere close to the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. today. The leadership of todays black movement is horrendous and lacking in integrity among other factors.

I think Dr. King was great, and I think the fact that he was a pastor played a huge role in his involvement, said Isaac Mowbray, an undeclared sophomore. I firmly believe that a major lack in todays fight for minorities is in the realm of faith. Faith in Christ and what He can do for those oppressed is not taken into strong consideration. The black church, which had been a staple since the times of the black slave, has dwindled into a poor excuse of what we now call the black church when compared to the historical practices of black christians back then, but that is another comparison for another time.

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Black Lives Matter vs. The Civil Rights Movement - The Clause

Former Attorney General Eric Holder will lead an internal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment at Uber.

Uber has hired former US Attorney General Eric Holder to lead an internal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment at the ride-hailing company.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick announced the appointment of Holder, who served as the nation's top law enforcement official in the Obama administration, in a memo to employees on Monday provided to CNET. The company also said it plans to begin publishing internal diversity numbers, a practice that has become more common among Silicon Valley companies.

The memo outlined a series of moves to address outrage that has erupted since a former Uber engineer described in a Sunday blog post how women in the company were sexually harassed by other employees and complaints were dismissed by HR.

"I believe in creating a workplace where a deep sense of justice underpins everything we do," Kalanick wrote in the memo. "Every Uber employee should be proud of the culture we have and what we will build together over time. What is driving me through all this is a determination that we take what's happened as an opportunity to heal wounds of the past and set a new standard for justice in the workplace. It is my number one priority that we come through this a better organization, where we live our values and fight for and support those who experience injustice."

Late Sunday, Uber promised to conduct an internal investigation into allegations made by Susan Fowler. A site reliability engineer at Uber from November 2015 to late last year, Fowler claims that one manager had inappropriately sexually propositioned many women, but Uber management repeatedly "refused" to punish him as he was a "high performer."

Fowler's blog post also claims there was a chaotic companywide culture of sexism and unprofessional business practices. This, Fowler said, had serious work-flow consequences, including the abandonment of projects and altered objectives.

Arianna Huffington, a member of Uber's board, joined Kalanick and Uber's head of human resources for a company meeting Tuesday to discuss the investigation. During the meeting, Kalanick reportedly apologized for Uber's lack of diversity and for not properly responding to employee complaints.

"Travis spoke very honestly about the mistakes he's made -- and about how he wants to take the events of the last 48 hours to build a better Uber," Huffington wrote in an Uber blog post. "It was great to see employees holding managers accountable. I also view it as my responsibility to hold the leadership team's feet to the fire on this issue."

Sexual harassment and a lack of gender diversity in Silicon Valley have become key concerns for many tech companies. Women make up around 30 percent of the workforce at major tech companies but fill only 15 percent of technical roles. In a 2016 survey of 200 women who had worked in Silicon Valley for over 10 years, 60 percent of respondents said they'd received unwanted sexual advances, 65 percent said those advances came from a superior and one of three said they were in fear for their personal safety.

The full memo sent by Kalanick is below:

Team,

It's been a tough 24 hours. I know the company is hurting, and understand everyone has been waiting for more information on where things stand and what actions we are going to take.

First, Eric Holder, former US Attorney General under President Obama, and Tammy Albarran -- both partners at the leading law firm Covington & Burling-- will conduct an independent review into the specific issues relating to the work place environment raised by Susan Fowler, as well as diversity and inclusion at Uber more broadly. Joining them will be Arianna Huffington, who sits on Uber's board, Liane Hornsey, our recently hired Chief Human Resources Officer, and Angela Padilla, our Associate General Counsel. I expect them to conduct this review in short order.

Second, Arianna is flying out to join me and Liane at our all hands meeting tomorrow to discuss what's happened and next steps. Arianna and Liane will also be doing smaller group and one-on-one listening sessions to get your feedback directly.

Third, there have been many questions about the gender diversity of Uber's technology teams. If you look across our engineering, product management, and scientist roles, 15.1% of employees are women and this has not changed substantively in the last year. As points of reference, Facebook is at 17%, Google at 18% and Twitter is at 10%. Liane and I will be working to publish a broader diversity report for the company in the coming months.

I believe in creating a workplace where a deep sense of justice underpins everything we do. Every Uber employee should be proud of the culture we have and what we will build together over time. What is driving me through all this is a determination that we take what's happened as an opportunity to heal wounds of the past and set a new standard for justice in the workplace. It is my number one priority that we come through this a better organization, where we live our values and fight for and support those who experience injustice.

Thanks,

Travis

First published Feb. 20, 4:50 p.m. PT. Update, Feb. 21 at 3:45 p.m. PT: Adds comments from Arianna Huffington.

Solving for XX: The industry seeks to overcome outdated ideas about "women in tech."

CNET Magazine: Check out a sampling of the stories you'll find in CNET's newsstand edition.

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Uber taps former AG Eric Holder to lead sexism probe - CNET

Uber has hired the former US attorney general Eric Holder to investigate allegations of sexual harassment after an engineer went public with claims that she repeatedly faced sexism and discrimination at the ride-sharing company.

In a staff email shared with the Guardian on Monday, Ubers CEO, Travis Kalanick, said Holder would conduct an independent review and also revealed that women made up only 15% of the companys workforce in engineering, product management and scientist roles.

The hiring of Holder, who was attorney general under Barack Obama, comes as the description of harassment from Susan Fowler, a former site reliability engineer, has gone viral, prompting women across Silicon Valley to share stories of facing misconduct and discrimination in the male-dominated tech industry.

Its been a tough 24 hours. I know the company is hurting, Kalanick said in his email. It is my number one priority that we come through this a better organization where we live our values and fight for and support those who experience injustice.

Fowlers lengthy account on her blog alleged that management and the HR department at the San Francisco-based company frequently dismissed documented cases of sexual harassment, protected a repeat offender and threatened to fire her for raising concerns.

Fowler, who declined to comment further on Monday, alleged in her post that a manager immediately propositioned her for sex when she joined in late 2015, and that a director explained the dwindling number of women in her organization by saying the women of Uber just needed to step up and be better engineers.

Fowler, who now works for technology company Stripe, said a manager harassed her with messages on the company chat system but did not face any consequences from HR despite her providing screenshots. She said she later learned that other women had complained about his inappropriate behavior.

Upper management told me that he was a high performer -- and they wouldnt feel comfortable punishing him for what was probably just an innocent mistake, she wrote.

In one anecdote, she said managers had promised staff leather jackets but ultimately decided not to order them for women because there were not enough women in the organization to justify placing an order.

Following her complaint about that incident, an HR representative asked if I had ever considered that I might be the problem, she said. Her manager also later told her she was on thin ice and that if she filed another report, she would be fired, according to her account. Although an HR official admitted that this threat was illegal, no action was taken, she said.

On Monday, Kalanick said Uber board member Arianna Huffington, founder of Huffington Post, would also assist in the investigation alongside Liane Hornsey, the companys newly hired chief human resources officer, and Angela Padilla, general counsel.

The harassment controversy comes as Kalanick struggles to move past the viral #DeleteUber campaign, which stemmed from his participation on Donald Trumps economic advisory council.

The company has long refused to release demographic data on its workforce, even though most major tech companies have in recent years begun disclosing data and publicly acknowledging their lack of diversity. Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter have all published staffing reports.

Kalanicks email only provided gender data, saying the 15% figure for women has not changed substantively in the last year. The email did not offer statistics on the number of women in senior roles, a key metric for diversity.

A spokeswoman declined to provide racial demographic data to the Guardian on Monday. The CEO said he and Hornsey would publish a broader diversity report in the coming months.

Fowler alleged that when she left Uber at the end of 2016, out of over 150 engineers in the site reliability engineering teams, only 3% were women.

This is not the first time a tech corporation has hired Holder in the wake of a discrimination scandal. In 2016, home-sharing startup Airbnb brought him in to investigate claims that users were refusing to rent their homes to black guests, a controversy that spread under the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack. The company subsequently implemented new staff and rules aimed at preventing discrimination, though some critics said the reforms were inadequate.

Image Credit: Uber (logo).

2017 Guardian Web syndicated under contract with NewsEdge/Acquire Media. All rights reserved.

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Uber Hires Eric Holder To Investigate Sexual Harassment Allegations - CIO Today