#ethnic minority MPs

[will-graham-coded]

I am a young adult who has never been more afraid for my life. I endured a childhood of abuse from my family and now I fear I will face a very brief chance at claiming my own life. Project 2025 WILL ruin innocent lives. If Tr*mp is elected, and Project 2025 is enacted, a country that already has its minorities terrorized will hand us all personalized death sentences. The Supreme Court is already making unconstitutional power grabs in favor of the man that elected them.

Project 2025 will ban abortion in all circumstances. Girls, not even the age of twelve, will face further indescribable trauma or death from pregnancies caused by r*pe. People will be forced to carry non viable or fatal pregnancies. Women are more than their bodies.

The queer community will be further suppressed. Queer people will lose all personal and working rights. An outstanding citizen will be labeled a pervert unable to raise a child because of who they rightfully love. We will lose our jobs and livelihoods. I will lose access to my education because of the removal of anti-discrimination laws.

Suicide rates will rocket. And maybe thats their plan--to place us all in conversion camps until we are beat to death or commit suicide.

The "American Dream" is bullshit. Queer people have always exist and varieties of races and ethnicities will continue to exist no matter the laws enacted. I will not go down quietly.

"If you don't like it here, just leave." With what money? How do abused children, teens, and young adults with no support and no hope escape? How could I somehow leave everyone i love behind, despite situations?

And what's next: travel bans, jail time, house arrest, golden stars pinned to "undesirable" people?

Environmental protection will cease to exist. Non Christians will lose rights to religious practice and working and personal rights. The education system will be destroyed. Kids will be indoctrinated into extremist beliefs instead of being given a non biased education during which they can make their own choices.

CHILDREN WILL DIE. from lack of physical and mental healthcare, support, and protection, kids will die. Children are our future, and we must protect and nurture them.

Read the polices and educate yourself. There are many more terrifying changes to American life that make me cry from reading them.

My life will not be worth some pages of your Bible. These are basic human rights that could be lost. Vote, because lives depend on it.

I am fucking terrified.

Good sources:

TDLR: fucking scroll back up and read at least a paragraph to understand that innocent lives are in danger.

[bulldogblues]

If you'd like some positive political news for a change, the new UK parliament forming as a result of this election is officially the most diverse of all time, including a record number of:

* Female MPs (264, around 40% of parliament)

* Black, Asian or other ethnic minority MPs (89)

* Not mentioned in this article, but LGBT MPs too (at least 60)

There's still further to go of course, but parliament is now closer than it's ever been to having demographics reflecting the people it serves. Let's hope that greater range of voices receive the attention they deserve.

[giyrut-girlie]

slayful australian greens party moment! so iconic when their mps refer to jews as having their “tentacles” in ethnic community groups for nefarious reasons!

“showing solidarity”?? huge if true! certainly wouldn’t be bc we actually want to stand with oppressed minority groups

(check out recent statements by greens mp jenny leong for context and try not to break something :,,))

[beardedmrbean]

The UK’s first professor of Black studies is facing a criminal investigation over a video in which he called right-wing commentator Calvin Robinson a “house n*gro”.

Professor Kehinde Andrews was visited by three police officers at his Birmingham home on Wednesday morning and invited to attend a voluntary interview.

In a video posted online in June, the academic argued that terms such as ‘coconut’, ‘house n*gro’, ‘c**n’ and ‘Uncle Tom’ are “vital expressions of Black political thought that should be celebrated and not policed”.

But the comment Prof Andrews made about former GB News host Mr Robinson in the video has prompted a complaint to West Midlands Police.

In the video, Prof Andrews went on to explain the origins of the term: “Malcolm X popularised the idea of the ‘house n*gro’: Those people who, because of their relative privilege, relative connection to the master, tend to be deluded into believing they’re not slaves,” he said.

“On the plantation, they live in the house... get slightly better conditions; they’re not catching hell from sunup to sundown. So, because of that, house n*gro starts to identify with the master... more than the master identifies with himself.

“The point of this is to say that house n*gro’s wrong. Because they’re treated slightly better, they’re missing the point they’re still slaves. This is ‘love teaching’ from Malcolm. He’s calling out, saying ‘you are still a slave, you are still suffering from racism (...)’.

“The whole point of it is to say we’re all in the same boat, we’re all catching the same hell but you can’t see that because you’ve got the house n*gro mentality.”

When approached by The Independent, Mr Robinson declined to comment about Prof Andrews’ video and the investigation.

However, he posted on X, stating he had filed a complaint against Prof Andrews, and saying that he believed the academic was racist.

West Midlands Police told The Independent: “We’ve received a report of racist comments being posted online and we’re carrying out enquiries. There is no place for hate crime and we’ll investigate any reports we receive.”

Prof Andrews, who teaches the UK’s first undergraduate Black studies course, described the police probe as “utterly ludicrous”.

“As I go to lengths to explain in the video, ‘house n*gro’ is a political critique and has never been used as a racial slur,” he told The Independent.

“The whole point is to remind those who think they have ‘made it’ (...) that we are all still ex-slaves, colonial subjects, who will experience racism no matter how much they embrace the ‘master’ (in modern times, this would be the nation, government, etc).

“Malcolm X uses it as an anti-racist metaphor to promote resistance, which is exactly what I did in the video. The fact this is a police issue just shows how little respect there is for Black political thought.

“The terms ‘house n*gro’ and ‘field n*gro’ have a decades-long history, with countless books including their use.

“It is deeply concerning that the police would want to haul in a professor to question me about my area of expertise. This would never happen if I were white or the work I do was given the respect it deserves.

“The police have a long history of criminalising Black and brown people, now we are seeing that converge with the wider attack on Black knowledge which is being erased from university, the closure of Black courses and more.”

The investigation follows a string of cases where Black and Asian people have faced prosecution for hate crimes after using specific language to criticise other people from ethnic minority communities.

In March, The Independent first reported on the case of a Black man who was acquitted of hate crime charges after sending a raccoon emoji to Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty on social media. A Black HR professional was interviewed under caution for sending a GIF of Daffy Duck tap-dancing to the same politician, as first reported by The Independent in May.

Prof Andrews has said he will attend a voluntary interview later this month. The CPS has been approached for comment.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our website

By Jean Shaoul

University College London (UCL) and Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK hosted a screening of The Unequal Pandemic, followed by a panel discussion, to launch the film about inequality during COVID.

The film is now available here: goodguysproductions.co.uk/the-unequal-pandemic/

Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK was formed in April 2020, because its two founders who had both lost close family members to COVID-19 believed that their loss could have been avoided if the government had made different decisions. They are determined to ensure that lessons are learned from their suffering and that others don’t have to go through the same horrible fate that they had. They want to ensure that the lessons learned from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, which their campaign had been crucial in setting up, are turned into legislation that saves lives in the future.

They were responsible for the creation of the National Covid Memorial Wall, a 500-metre-long mural with over 200,000 hand sized red hearts painted on it to mark each of the deaths suffered at that time in the UK from COVID-19, on the south bank of the Thames facing Parliament.

The Unequal Pandemic film, by Labour MP Debbie Abrahams and Good Guys Productions, highlights the vastly unequal impact of the pandemic on Britain’s poorest communities, often minority ethnic groups. The short film lays bare the long-term institutional, social and government failures that led to one of the highest excess COVID death rates in the developed world. Its testimonies from bereaved families and stark evidence contradict the then Conservative government’s cynical claim that “We are all in it together.” This was a reference to the now infamous statement of the Tory Chancellor George Osborne in 2012 falsely claiming that everyone, and not only the working class, was bearing the brunt of the savage austerity unleashed by his government.

COVID-19 both reflected and exacerbated all the social inequalities prevalent in Britain today.

Sir Michael Marmot, Professor of Epidemiology at UCL and director of the Institute of Health Equity, a leading authority on health inequalities and author of several landmark government reviews on poverty, introduced the film. He told the audience that the UK is a “poor country with a few rich people in it.”

The pandemic killed nearly 250,000 people in the UK, according to the official statistics, with the population suffering the sixth worst death rate in the world due to the homicidal policy of Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, summed up in his infamous outburst at the height of the pandemic, “No more fucking lockdowns, Let the bodies pile high in their thousands!” The number of people infected with the virus—and continue to be infected—is so great that over a million people are estimated to be suffering from the debilitating impact of Long COVID.

The government’s policies were driven not by the fight against a preventable disease to protect public health, but by the impulse to prevent the disruption of global supply chains and financial markets. The ruling class welcomed the death of the elderly and those in need of care as a means of reducing social spending.

The pandemic had a disproportionate impact on black, ethnic minority and migrant communities (BAME). They were more likely to contract the virus, have a higher death rate, less access to sick pay, with migrants having no access to sick pay, under conditions where sick pay rates in the UK are among the lowest in the developed world, less access to adequate support schemes, unequal vaccination coverage and more likely to have inadequate living space. These conditions had a devastating impact on their health and in turn helped to spread the virus throughout the country.

The film opened with Marmot saying, “People said it will be the great leveller. But that’s not the history of mass disease. It will expose the underlying inequalities and amplify them. Professor Clare Bambra, Professor of Public Health at Newcastle University, said her heart sank when she first heard about the new virus because of the knowledge of what happened in previous global pandemics and what it meant for different communities.

Marmot said that BAME communities suffered huge excess mortality rates, much of which could be attributed to where people lived and other socio-economic factors. But there was something else going on as well. Dr. Habib Naqvi, chief executive of the NHS Race and Health Observatory, explained that the reason typically given for why BAME workers suffered such high rates was they were more likely working on the front line in the pandemic, in health and social care, transport and retail. They were also more likely to have to use public transport to get to work, further exposing them to risk. But no one explained why that was the case in the first place, he said, indicating that racism was the unacknowledged factor.

However, the overwhelming weight of evidence presented demonstrates that it is the socio-economic factors detailed by the documentary that overwhelmingly determine the disparate impact of the pandemic, including on black and Asian workers.

Mortality rates were far higher in the north of England, the former industrial—and now poorer—area of the country, than in the south, and far higher in the more deprived areas, highlighting the north-south divide. According to figures produced by Food Aid Network and the Trussell Trust, “By 2019, prior to the pandemic, the UK had more food banks than McDonalds outlets.” Marmot said that health had been deteriorating prior to the pandemic. His earlier report in 2020, Marmot Review-10 years on, revealed that life expectancy had been stalling and health inequalities were widening. Socioeconomic inequalities played a major part in these adverse health conditions in the decade before 2020.

Marmot explained that the UK fared so badly because the government had disinvested in public services in the most regressive way, with the poorest areas bearing the brunt of the cuts. Local government slashed expenditure on adult social care. Healthcare spending failed to rise in line with demographic and historical patterns. There were cuts in public health funding as well as in welfare to families with children, in education spending per school student and the closure of children’s centres. Not only had public services been cut to the bone but the tax and benefit system had been recalibrated to the disadvantage of the lower income groups, with child poverty almost doubling to 4.2 million in 2022 since 2012.

Marmot noted that income inequality led to health inequality. Health had stopped improving, and there was a high prevalence of the health conditions that increase case fatality ratios of COVID-19. The unequal conditions into which COVID-19 arrived contributed to the high and unequal death toll from COVID-19.

Thus, that disinvestment set the UK to manage the pandemic very poorly.

Even after the first case of COVID-19 was announced in February 2020 and the virus was spreading rapidly, superspreader events such as a football match in Liverpool and the horse races at Cheltenham were allowed to go ahead, with the inevitable results. The government was complacent and ignored the lessons of previous pandemics, the healthcare specialists explained. They had totally inadequate protective clothing, masks that did not fit and personal protective equipment (PPE), if it was provided at all and in many cases it was not, was useless, leaving them exposed to COVID and terrified. One healthcare worker was told when she complained to buy her own from Amazon, at a cost of £300! Many hospital workers died as a result.

When the government did try to procure PPE, it turned to its friends to do so without even the pretence of going through the correct procedures for public procurement. As a result, much of it ended up in bonfires. As Marmot said, “Pub landlords might not be the best people to buy our PPE from. So the government’s absolute faith in the private sector led to an incredible waste—£38 billion for the government’s test and trace system. The government stopped funding public health, so we had no capacity. So then it says, ‘Let’s get some capacity, let’s put tens of billions into some new private sector organisation to do.’

“No, how about funding Public Health to do it? That’s what it is set up to do. To work with local government. To work with the voluntary organisations. Do I think that running Test and Trace through local public health services would have been better than the private sector? I don’t think it could have been worse.”

The film’s screenshots show Britain’s deprivation graphically. It gives voice to some of the people who lost family members. Francesca Michaels speaks about her mother, Billie Michaels, who grew up in a deprived, working class area of Liverpool in the north west of England. Billie brought up five children while on benefits and lost her life to the virus while parties were going on in Downing Street: “It was a conveyor belt of death. She was cremated in a body bag.”

Karren Frasier-Knight speaks about losing her twin sister, Paula Greenhough. “I lost half of me – half of me is gone,” she says through tears. Lobby Akinnola, one of the panellists in the discussion after the film, had a similar experience. He says: “When I got the call from my mum that dad was no longer with us, my world ended in that instant. I fell on the floor. Everything fell apart.”

In conclusion, Marmot said that many of the failings before and during the pandemic were clear to see. Poverty is something that “impedes freedom… Don’t get rid of environmental and social protections: get rid of poverty. That way, we will be better prepared to face the next pandemic.”

Following the film, there was a discussion chaired by Delanjathan Devakumar, Professor of Global Child Health and Director of the UCL Centre for the Health of Women, Children and Adolescents. The panellists included: Sir Michael Marmot, Naomi Fulop, Professor of Health Care Organisation and Management and Director of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, Oluwalogbon Akinnola, a campaigner from Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, Debbie Abrahams, Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth and Andrew Gwynne, Labour MP for Gorton and Denton and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care.

While the discussion centred on health care inequalities, none of the panellists addressed the central questions: how is social inequality to be eradicated or where is the much-needed funding for healthcare to come from? Much less did they challenge Abrahams and Gwynne over the Labour government’s plans for a budget with at least £40 billion in spending cuts and tax rises that will vastly accelerate the 14 years of brutal cuts already carried out by Conservative-led governments and the continued evisceration of the National Health Service. That this will fall hardest upon the most vulnerable was made clear by the Labour government’s first act—to abolish the winter fuel supplement for the elderly.

Ending social inequality can only be achieved by expropriating the billionaires’ wealth and imposing massive taxes on the super-rich, the financial institutions and the corporations to fund urgently needed social programmes for workers and young people. No solution can be found to any of the problems confronting working people except through the ending of the capitalist system and its replacement with socialism.

[upsettingandunfortunateclasshate]

And no doubt the highest amount of private schoolers if the trend continues. The middle and upper class of all ethnicities and genders are getting in on the act. And most of em are anti working class neolib shithouses like their white male counterparts who together are continuing the managed decline of people's lives. Literally nothing has changed for working class people despite this fact. It's an irrelevance for people struggling to eat more than a meal a day.

[mariacallous]

Since it gained semi-autonomous status in 1992, Iraqi Kurdistan has largely charted its own course, separate from the federal government in Baghdad. But in recent months, increasingly organized federal authorities have attempted to impose greater control over the region. And ethnic and religious minorities are caught in the middle.

Since the start of the year, Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court has eliminated seats in the Kurdistan Parliament that had been reserved for Christians, Turkmens, and Armenians. The Ministry of Displacement and Migration also announced that remaining camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Kurdistan Region, which house tens of thousands of Yazidis and Sunni Arabs, must close by the end of July.

The Kurdistan Region’s image on the world stage has long been one of exception; Kurdish leaders have carefully cultivated a reputation that, “whereas in the rest of Iraq and the Middle East, minorities are prosecuted for being Yazidi or Christian … in the Kurdistan Region, they are protected, they are given a shelter,” said Shivan Fazil, a researcher at the Institute of Regional and International Studies, housed within the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani.

On Easter last year, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) cited a “culture of coexistence and unity between the different communities.” The frequently invoked line is a central plank of the KRG’s pitch for political support and economic development aid to foreign partners and donors, including the United States.

The situation on the ground was never as rosy as Kurdish officials claimed, however. The KRG “might claim coexistence, brotherhood, and peaceful living together, but none of this is true,” said Toma Khoshaba, an official with the Assyrian political party Sons of Mesopotamia. “We still feel a lot of bias and prejudice.” Christian communities, for example, regularly complain that their land is taken without compensation. Last year, Yazidis were subjected to attacks and abuse online after baseless rumors circulated on social media that a mosque had been burned in Sinjar.

Now, Baghdad’s steps to dismantle vehicles for minority representation and protection could imperil the KRG’s global stature—and leave minorities in the Kurdistan Region even more vulnerable to discrimination. These communities are caught in the middle of a larger shift in Iraq’s federal system that empowers Baghdad at the expense of the KRG in Erbil.

When the Kurdistan Parliament was set up in 1992, it included five seats specifically for Christians. In 2009, the body added five additional spots for Turkmens and one for Armenians. The 11 seats for minorities—out of 111 total in the last parliament—enabled the KRG to claim that its institutions reflected its diverse constituency.

In recent years, however, the reserved seats became more and more controversial. Critics alleged that the representatives acted as de facto representatives of the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which has been accused of being increasingly undemocratic. By subsuming state institutions under party authority, the KDP has co-opted some legislators within the minority communities and allegedly gamed the electoral system to ensure loyalists win the reserved seats. Minority communities also complained that open voting lists allowed KDP-affiliated security forces and KDP supporters to dilute authentic minority participation. Some activists, like Khoshaba, feel that voting on these lists should have been legally restricted to members of the minority communities rather than to all voters. Many felt that the MPs failed to stand up for the interests of their communities once elected.

The Kurdistan Region’s other parties argued that the system provided the KDP with an unfair advantage in parliament by giving the party an 11-seat head start. Seeking to capture some of those positions for itself, the KDP’s rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), in May 2023 filed a lawsuit in Baghdad challenging the Kurdistan Region’s electoral law.

This intra-Kurdish division gave the authorities in Baghdad an opening to exploit. In a bombshell Feb. 21 ruling that went beyond what the PUK sought, the Federal Supreme Court abolished the seats entirely. It did not outline a specific logic in its decision. While opponents of the KDP celebrated the decision, Christian and Turkmen parties felt as if they had lost, even if they harbored complicated views about how the reserved seats worked in practice.

“By eliminating the reserved seats, they are eliminating our ethnic rights and our votes,” Khoshaba told Foreign Policy. He had hoped the court would reform the system rather than scrap it.

The KDP reacted furiously to the court’s decision, writing on X that the verdict violated “the principles of federalism and the principle of separation of powers enshrined in the Iraqi constitution.” But many consider the KDP’s protests political because the party so clearly benefited from the minority representation system.

“We are not even able to select a cleaner to work in our schools because the KDP selects them. The Kurdish authorities must select them. We do not have the right to select a mukhtar for any of our villages or in any Assyrian area because they are always selected by the KDP and the Kurds,” Khoshaba said. “We want to have authority. We want to be in a real partnership and not just to live and be safe and practice out religion.”

The Kurdistan Parliament could still pass a new, better electoral law to ensure authentic minority representation in the future, Fazil told Foreign Policy. “If they genuinely care about representation of those minorities, they can still salvage something,” he said. Instead, the KDP chose to boycott new regional legislative elections slated for June 10 in reaction to the court’s decision.

Baghdad is playing a bigger game. The court’s ruling is consistent with a pattern of decisions by Iraq’s federal government that undermine the Kurdistan Region’s ability to manage its own political and economic affairs—and instead boost the fortunes of the country’s ruling Shiite Coordination Framework, which came to power in 2022 after the election of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani. It is made up of a range of Shiite parties, many with strong ties to Iran.

While the Coordination Framework includes many major parties, some important factions like the Sadrists are not present in the current cabinet. Both the KDP and PUK have ministerial posts, but their presence is the result of Iraq’s sectarian power-sharing system rather than a reflection of their ability to drive policy. Reducing Erbil’s ability to govern its own affairs is key to rebalancing federal power toward Baghdad and centralizing decision-making across all of Iraq.

Minority communities are also significantly affected by Sudani’s order to close the remaining IDP camps in the Kurdistan Region, most of which were established in the 2010s. In January, Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration set a deadline of July 30 for the facilities to cease operations. Baghdad is also providing monetary incentives to tempt displaced families to go back to their homes in federal-controlled territory.

Fazil said that the government’s campaign to close the camps is partially an effort to move past a period defined by the Islamic State, but there is a clear political dimension to the decision as well. IDPs are a rich source of votes at election time, with the next round of federal parliamentary polls expected in 2025. The closure policy will likely push many IDPs back into disputed territories where they can be integrated into political patronage networks. Most IDPs are vulnerable and can be threatened or incentivized into voting a certain way. When they are located in the Kurdistan Region, the KDP can exert greater influence over IDPs’ voting behavior than if they returned to the disputed areas.

Asaad Barjas was a teenager when the Islamic State attacked his hometown in the Yazidi district of Sinjar in August 2014. He and his family escaped the militant group and have lived in the Kabarto IDP camp in the Kurdistan Region’s Duhok governorate for the last nine years. Life is hard in the camp and, like many others, Barjas hopes to return to Sinjar. But his village of Tel Azer lacks basic services, adequate housing, and jobs.

In January, there were an estimated 161,000 IDPs living in the 22 camps currently operating in areas controlled by the KRG, according to statistics published by the International Organization for Migration. It is not clear from publicly available data how many of those in the camps are members of minority groups, but it is likely to be a high proportion given the IDPs’ places of origin. Almost 90 percent of those living in the camps are originally from Nineveh governorate, which includes diverse areas like Sinjar, Mosul, and the Nineveh Plains. Shabaks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Yazidis, Kurds, Sunni and Shiite Arabs, Kaka’is, and Turkmens all call this area home.

“I think this is a political decision. If they really want people to return to their homes—it’s been 10 years—they could have done something about that earlier,” Barjas said. “This decision is not well-studied. It’s not right. It’s not the right time, and we don’t see it as something logical to do.”

International humanitarian actors and foreign governments are closely watching the camps’ impending closures. As part of a shift from emergency humanitarian assistance to development, they are also in the process of shifting programming for IDPs to the federal government and the KRG, who will be primarily responsible for providing services to this population once they leave the camps. Nevertheless, the question of what will happen to the IDPs and where they will go looms large.

The KRG’s Joint Crisis Coordination Centre, the local department in charge of the camps in the Kurdistan Region, did not return a request for comment.

Since November 2023, three camps have shut down in Sulaymaniyah governorate, which is run by the PUK. The most recent to close was the Tazade camp on March 19. But so far, no camps have ceased operations in areas where the KDP is in charge. Those facilities host 94 percent of the IDPs currently living in the Kurdistan Region’s camps. The Ministry of Displacement and Migration has filed a lawsuit to force the KRG to act.

“The federal government is pressuring the KRG, and the decision to push the IDPs to return is part of a broader campaign to reduce the KRG’s authority,” Fazil said.

But it is minority groups that will suffer amid this escalating conflict between Iraq’s federal government and the Kurdistan Region. “As long as this minority-majority mindset continues, we are going to be continuously persecuted,” Khoshaba said. “We will not have a bright future here and everyone will leave.”

[spider-xan]

Honestly, i've seen a lot of racism from white libs in general. Like them saying they hope the Latinos that voted for Trump get deported first. It's Disgusting, but not surprising.

Yeah, like, look, I will never defend POC who align with white supremacy, but as I have said before, the number of POC who voted for Tr*mp is a drop in the bucket compared to the overwhelming numbers of white people (including white women) who voted for him - but even the white liberals (and sadly libs of colour too, but again, it's far more whites) who know Tr*mp voters are to blame, not third party voters or non-voters, are singling out the POC while giving a pass to the many more white voters; it's especially ridiculous and anti-Black to go after Black voters when they make up only around 10% of voters and overwhelmingly voted for H*rris (yes, Black men too), but ofc they are getting scapegoated by racists for the fault of white people.

Even for the POC who did vote for Tr*mp, there are complicated forces at work here that are not monolithic to POC as a whole or even to specific races or ethnicities - like, why Latinos would vote for Tr*mp at that rate (Cubans in Florida being right wing) is different from why the Indigenous share of GOP votes may have gone up this time (as explained in a post, progressives staying at home to protest genocide, leaving more conservatives to vote), etc., and these issues are best dealt with by their own communities, not raging white racists who just want to punish everyone for the votes of a minority that didn't have enough numbers to tip the scale anyway.

[sparksinthenight]

Letter to Canadian Government Asking them to Help Myanmar

Our names are _____. We are from _____. We are writing to you today to ask that you send military aid to the brave revolutionaries fighting the Myanmar military and fighting for democracy and ethnic equality in the country.

The Myanmar military has suppressed the power of the people for decades. It has created a Myanmar where the people are poor and inequality is high. Civil rights, political rights, workers rights, economic rights, and human rights have all been repressed. There has been so much racism and prejudice baked into the institutions of the country by the military. There was some hope after the country supposedly transitioned into a democracy, but the military coup that gave all political power back to the military has killed this dream. The Myanmar military has also committed genocide against ethnic minorities.

People have joined peaceful protests for a long time, but those protestors were met with murder, torture, and arrest by the Myanmar military. They realized that the only way they can fight for the freedom, equality, and very survival of all the people in their country was by engaging in armed struggle. And so the people are engaging in armed struggle. Vast majority of the common people of Myanmar are either in armed conflict for their freedom, or they’re materially and logistically supporting the people who are in armed conflict for their freedom.

We need to support them as they fight for the rights of the common people, the rights of all ethnicities, and the rights of the future generations. If we give them military aid, then they will have an easier time fighting the military. If they have good, reliable, powerful military equipment, they will have a much easier time fighting their oppressors and they will have a higher chance of winning the revolution.

So please give them military aid so that they have an edge against the oppressive military.

Sincerely,

Send to:

Prime Minister Trudeau- justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca

Deputy Prime Minister Freeland- chrystia.freeland@parl.gc.ca

Minister of Foreign Affairs Joly- melanie.joly@parl.gc.ca

Find your MP here: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en

Minister of National Defence Blair- bill.blair@parl.gc.ca

Associate Minister of National Defence Taylor- ginette.petitpastaylor@parl.gc.ca

[planefood]

I don’t usually bring up NZ politics here cus I know most people following me aren’t from here but holyyyy shit the amount of fuck wits talking about “anti white racism” in light of fucking David Seymour and ACT asking other MPs why “ethnicity was a factor” in surgery waiting lists in one fucking city. (as in, making sure marginalised peoples have EQUAL opportunity for medical care when they’re so under represented, esp Māori, as pākehā. It’s NOT denying white people medical care because the government is “racist against white people”, think for a moment. It also includes area you live in and time waited on the list as well as other factors.) It’s such a slimey move to bring it up as well in the midst of the actually racist “stop co governance” rallies and meetings that have been popping up around the country.  Marama actually said so herself that Seymour bringing it up was to just spark racial discourse between the public and she got kicked out of the house of parliament for it??? because it was “too serious an accusation” WHEN NATIONAL LEADER LUXON ACCUSED HER OF BEING RACIST TO WHITE PEOPLE BACK DURING THE ANTI TRANS RALLIES FOR SAYING THAT WHITE CIS MEN CAUSED A LOT OF VIOLENCE IN THE WORLD when she was in hospital was hit by a fucking motorcycle for supporting trans people at the rally holy shit I am so angry. Nobody said anything about him bringing up “too serious accusations”  I think I’ll throw a missile at the next person who says anything about “anti white racism” the people that whine about that shit are awfully quiet when they’re shown rates of actual medical discrimination against Māori and Pasifika.  These people turning around and telling actual racial minorities that they’re “stuck in the past” and being “racist” against Pākehā when they’re the ones digging in their heels anytime there’s even a hint of racial equality in this country or ignoring actual racism. Fuck I thought those guys liked traditional values and wanted this country to be the same as it was back in the 1800s. I don’t want to live in a country governed by ACT or National that puts my actual life at risk as a marginalised person all because some dumbasses decided that they were being racially discriminated for being white. You wouldn’t survive a day facing actual discrimination you snotball  

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Jacob Freedland

Published: Jun 8, 2024

Non-white applicants to the BBC’s flagship journalism training scheme were almost two and a half times more likely to get in than their white counterparts.

Since 2022, an average of 22.5 per cent of applicants were classed as coming from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds (BAME).

However over that same two-year period, BAME individuals made up 41 per cent of participants on the scheme.

In contrast, whites made up an average of 77.5 per cent of applicants but only 59 per cent of participants, since 2022.

This means that non-white applicants were 2.4 times more likely to be given a place on the highly coveted scheme than their white counterparts.

The two-year scheme, referred to as the Journalism Advanced Apprenticeship, provides participants with training and a potentially permanent role at the Corporation.

Females also had stronger chance

The findings were released via the Freedom of Information Act. Female applicants also had a stronger chance of getting in than men, but by a lesser degree.

Since 2022, an average of 60.25 per cent of applicants were women. But in that same period, women made up 71 per cent of participants.

In contrast, men made up an average of 39.75 per cent of applicants but 29 per cent of participants, meaning that womens’ chances of getting onto the scheme were 1.6 times higher than their male counterparts.

Neil O’Brien, who until the election was the Conservative MP for Harborough, said: “Unlike previous BBC schemes which have stated they are BAME-only, this scheme markets itself as open to anyone. But in practice there is discrimination.

“These practices will go into overdrive if Sir Keir Starmer becomes prime minister.

“People are not being treated fairly. We need to get back to hiring the best person for the job rather than basing it on the colour of your skin.”

‘Offer places based on merit’

In April, the Telegraph revealed that one in three participants on the scheme identified as white British.

A BBC spokesman said: “Similarly to The Telegraph’s Newsroom apprenticeship scheme, our apprenticeship courses enable people from a range of backgrounds to enter the media industry. We always offer places based on merit.

“We’re committed to our recruitment processes being fair to everyone, and attracting applicants that represent all parts of the UK, and like the Telegraph Media Group we’re committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture at the BBC.

“The BBC runs many apprenticeship schemes, so it’s unclear what analysis can be determined from applications made to one course.”

==

DEI is systemic racism and systemic sexism, by definition.

[eaglesnick]

“Whoever debases others is debasing himself.” - JAMES BALDWIN

Over half a century ago Enoch Powell made his infamous "Rivers of Blood" speech wherein he alluded to a prophecy from Virgil’s Aeneid:

“As I look ahead", said Powell,” I am filled with foreboding: like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood'." (Enoch Powell: 20/04/1968)

As with any prophecy, if you wait long enough, it’s almost bound to come true in one form or another. But rather than a “river of blood” caused by irresolvable racial tension, Britain has, in the main, weathered the social changes that mass migration brings with it.

In true dog whistling tradition Powell avoided being overtly racist himself but “quoted” a constituents instead, one who allegedly said:

"In this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man"

As we all know this simply did not happen. By 1988 it wasn’t the "black man" who was the enemy of ordinary working people, it was Margaret Thatcher and her Tory government.

 It was Thatcher who raised interest rates and imposed huge spending cuts on the public services ordinary working people depended on. It was the Tory Government that drove unemployment up to 3 million, and it was Powell’s Conservative’s who waged war on trade unions and workers rights. It was Thatcher who was responsible for the deep recession in the early 1980’s and it was Thatcher who, by selling off council houses, kick-started the market trend towards unaffordable rents and house prices we see today.

The last 14 years of Tory government has seen a continuation of Thatcherite policies: public services starved of funding, massive rises in interest rates leading to unaffordable mortgages and rents, rising unemployment, and the resulting cost of living crisis.

Like Powell before him, Nigel Farage likes to blame immigrants for the countries ills and like Powell he is no stranger to the political art of dog whistling.  Talking on TV about the Southport murders he asked the “innocent” question:

“Why is it these days whenever something happens, we are told almost immediately it's a non-terror attack?" (Farage: 01/08/24)

Linking the horrendous murder of children in Southport to other, totally unrelated murders elsewhere in the country, he then answered his own question.

“Whenever these things happen there is a reluctance to tell us the full truth.”

There is the dog whistle. The authorities are withholding the truth about murders committed by non-whites. They are, for some reason known only to them, protecting ethnic minority killers and in all likelihood these murders are terror related. If only the police and the authorities would tell us “the truth” then the subsequent extreme right-wing led riots could have been prevented.

“Sometimes just tell the public the truth and you might actually stop riots happening” (Farage:01/08/24)

Light all bigots – left or right – it is only their version of the "truth" that they are interested in. Using the death of three innocent children to advance your own political ambitions is beyond contempt. Brandon Cox, husband of Labour MP Joe Cox who was murdered in a right-wing terror attack, had the measure of Farage when he described him as:

“nothing better than Tommy Robinson in a suit”

Mass immigration does present many problems but they are not problems that will be solved by whipping up hatred and bloodshed on Britain’s Streets. So far, Powell’s predictions have failed to materialise and his prophesy of violence and bloodshed have come to nothing.

Powell did get something right though.

In 1994 Farage wrote asking Powell to endorse him in his election campaign to become an MP. Powell refused. In the event, Farage came forth, with just 952 votes, only just ahead of the candidate for the Monster Raving Looney Party

If only today’s British electorate could see Farage for what he really is: a right wing, self-serving opportunist with not one shred of common decency.

[beardedmrbean]

Following the police killing of George Floyd in the US, the Black Lives Matter movement was largely imported into Britain, with a rapid expansion of our own grievance industrial-complex. This disastrous superstructure peddled the myth that the UK’s social, political, and economic systems are deliberately rigged against racial and ethnic minorities. This form of aggressive racial identity politics from the US – a comparatively youthful country struggling to get to grips with the legacy of slavery on its own soil and recent forms of segregation – fundamentally undermined the credibility of the British anti-racist cause. 

I issued a warning over this in an article for this paper back in June 2020. Promoting the concept of “white privilege” – in a country where some of the most materially-deprived and culturally marginalised communities predominantly belong to that race – was always going to lead to awful outcomes. Yet public-sector organisations such as the BBC and the NHS, two woefully underperforming behemoths funded by the British taxpayer, time and again provided a platform for pro-BLM radical activists to pour scorn on one of the most tolerant, anti-discriminatory and pro-equality countries on the planet. 

BLM-mania also saw a flurry of corporations taking the opportunity to deflect attention away from their own business practices by jumping on supposedly virtuous causes of “racial justice”. Across a variety of sectors, a class of DEI “professionals” was ushered in – often as unproductive as they are divisive. Companies announced a range of costly initiatives, donations and hiring sprees, with little scrutiny. 

In mainstream politics, we were greeted to a cringeworthy image of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and his deputy Angela Rayner “taking the knee” for a social movement that says it cares about young black lives but rarely flags the impact of gang-related knife crime in London. Labour MP Dawn Butler, no stranger to inflammatory language, weaponised Floyd’s death by calling for the Tory government to get its “knee off the neck of the Black, African Caribbean, Asian and minority ethnic community” in a House of Commons statement. All of this was a national embarrassment. 

Now, though, we seem finally to have come to our senses – and the BLM movement has been thoroughly discredited. Like many identitarian causes which are full-to-the-brim with rank opportunists, it has suffered from high-profile cases of fraud. In the UK, this includes Xahra Saleem – a high profile BLM activist. She was sentenced to two and a half years after it was found that she used her profile to raise money for young people in the St Paul’s area of Bristol and then spent it on herself. The judge said that money was used “not for their benefit but for your own, funding a lifestyle for yourself that you could not otherwise have afforded”. 

The prosecution said that, in the 15 months to September 2021, there were more than 2,500 payments made from Saleem’s account which included general shopping and bills, plus a new iPhone, hair and beauty appointments, clothes stores, Amazon purchases, taxis and takeaways.

Lessons must be taken on board from the era of BLM-mania. Attempts to coerce the wider public into believing that Britain should be ashamed of its history and appalled with its record on race relations should never be tolerated again. Because for all its flaws, Britain has contributed a magnificent amount to the advancement of humankind – and like many of my compatriots spanning a wealth of backgrounds, I am proud to call it home.

[zogdon]

Chechen leader threatens MPs with ‘blood feud’

Chechen leader threatens MPs with ‘blood feud’ https://www.rt.com/russia/605518-kadyrov-threatens-blood-feud-mps/

This is the last thing, the Russian Federation Parliament, as well as Putin's government want right now.. A "blood feud" between powerful Southern Russian Republics Law Makers.

In a huge country like the Russian Federation, where a number of powerful Southern Republics are all Muslims, and where the Northern Russian Federation Republics have large minorities of Jews, the Kremlin has had to always keep the proper internal and international politics in good, and proper balance, in order to achieve a peaceful society overall.. between all minorities, religious groups, and all other issues that split so many western states apart. And the Russian/Soviet state has always delivered very good results.

However now, the latest Israeli Genocide in Palestine, has challenged the official Russian Federation policy of many years, for two state solution, in the Mideast.

Russian Muslim are challenging the Putin government.. asking for much stronger response by the Russian Federation against Israelli occupation of Palestine, and waging yet another violent war on Lebanese society. And that is exactly what it is..it ain't some precisely targeted, precious war on Hezbollah and Hamas.. it's Full On Israelli War on unarmed Arab civilians. And Arab neighbours in the conflict area, are finding themselves with politicians, who collude with Israelli violence, for profit.

So, it's a complicated war, in which the Putin government has struggled to respond, as it's proper.. ie. Denouncing Israel at the UN Security Council with the strongest statements possible, demanding international action..real impactful action..not just words.. and confronting the supplier of all these deadly weapons to Israel, Washington.

Henceforth, it's exactly this lukewarm response against Israelli aggression, that has landed the Putin government in trouble with all the Russian Federation Muslim population.. and it's a large population. And one that's just as Russian and as committed to the Russian Federation, as any other ethnic group in Russia. That has been proven also on the battlefield in Ukraine and in Kursk, where Chechens in particular have been one the best Russian soldiers, liberating so much territory and populations from the Zelensky Nato regime.

But Putin has to keep the Russian jews, also in support. Many jews are in the Russian Federation Parliament, the Duma, making laws, drawing up local, foreign and international policies.

So, Putin has to walk a fine line.. between Russian Muslims and Russian Jews.

And perhaps the best advice that he can draw on, is the long Soviet experience with this balancing action. However, at the end of the day.. when balancing acts are so difficult to achieve.. the Best Way forward is:

Go with what Is Right, don't surrender your justice principals for the sake of balancing acts. And in the Mideast, that has meant for for so many years, since 1947..the start of Israeli occupation of Palestine...

That Palestine is in the Right, and Israel is in the wrong. It's as Simple As That!!!

So now, the Putin government must step in, and sort out all the issues of discontent, arising from the Mideast Israeli Genocide, and the very personal issues that have arisen between powerful Russian Muslim Law Makers, and big business in the Russian Federation.

[forensicated]

05x04 - The Mugging And The Gypsies

TW: Traveller racism.

Yorkie and June pull into a traveller camp and find a disturbance and a car that has been set on fire. The local residents are shouting at the Travellers that they are trespassing. June asks if the residents have specific complaints and the residents accuse them of local burglaries and crimes.

Yorkie asks the loudest man to move on because the Travellers have already said they will be leaving, but can't whilst the residents crowd them. He advises that they take up their complaints with their MP.

Bob is having a meeting with a Social Worker. One of the residents who lives nearby has spotted a Traveller repeatedly beating his daughter. Bob assigns Taffy who admits that he's aware of the complaint, a man came home after a drinking binge and laid into his 9-year-old. Unfortunately, when they tried to police it they got nowhere and couldn't get anything to stick. He said none of the children looked like they'd been assaulted. The social worker says the child seen being beaten is called Teresa and there's a place of safety order for her and she wants to enforce it.

Con O'Neill pops up as Ricky Denball. He's been arrested for forging a signature on a cheque. When searched he has a wallet full of credit cards in different names.

Taffy and the social worker are driven to the camp by Yorkie and June. The caravans are in the process of leaving as they arrive. "We're too late, it's the next divisions problem now." Yorkie claims. The social worker She spots the caravan in question leaving the pitch and asks them to stop them. They don't have to - the engine fails and the caravan is forced to stop.

Hello boom mike 🤣🤣

Taffy tells Mr Beecher that they have a place of safety order for their 9 year old daughter Theresa and they're going to have to take her whilst the case is looked into.

It's also June and Marie's first meeting. Melanie Hill guest stars as Mrs Beecher, Theresa's mother.🤣

Alec recognises Ricky Denball. Denball insists that he's got the wrong bloke. Ken brings through his previous - he's been arrested 6 times for mugging. He admits to forging the signature but claims he found the wallet in a bin and didn't steal anything. He insists his previous has nothing to do with it. He found the wallet and that's that.

June asks the social worker if she's sure it's not a wind-up because the travellers are unpopular. She admits that she can't be certain either way but the case has landed on her desk and she has to see it through. The Beechers disappear inside their caravan and won't come out to speak to the police. June is sent to direct the traffic as the caravans are blocking the road whilst Yorkie, Taffy and the Social Worker attempt to talk to the Beechers.

Ken rings the owner of the card that Denball was using. The victim claims he was mugged and the car stolen the night before. Denball insists he didn't mug him so Viv and Tosh are asked to visit the victim.

Mrs Beecher won't open the door, telling the Social Worker that Theresa is well-fed, clean and loved. She won't let her take her away. Theresa appears in the window and tells her that her parents love her and have never done anything bad to her. Mr Beecher tells Taffy he should be ashamed of himself because he's an Ethnic Minority too.

Mr Guthrie, the alleged mugging victim, tells Tosh and Viv that the attack came completely out of the blue and he doesn't remember much after he left the restaurant he'd been at for the evening with his wife. He claims he struggled to his feet, worked out where he was and then staggered home but kept falling over. His wife says she felt tired so returned straight home whereas her husband had decided to go 'for a stroll'. When he returned home she was shocked because he was covered in blood. She rang for the doctor who told her that Mr Guthrie had been punched and was suffering from concussion. They were just about to inform the police when Ken rang.

Taffy and Yorkie try to force the caravan's door open and fail. Taffy asks Mr Beecher to come and speak to him or they'll be arrested for obstruction. "Oh don't be ridiculous…" June sighs to Taff.

Viv tells the Guthrie's that the man they've arrested claims he found the cards in a litterbin approx 3pm that afternoon. Mrs Guthrie asks if the only link between the suspect and her husband is the cards and Tosh admits it is unless Mr Guthrie can remember anything else. "And you can't, can you love?" she asks with Mr Guthrie agreeing. Tosh asks him to attend the station for an ID parade to jog his memory and he and his wife both seem unsure.

The officers and social worker retire to the police car when it starts to rain and discuss what to do next. Yorkie suggests towing the caravan back to the station if they won't get out of it. "Oh, they're gonna love us…" June sighs before they agree that it's probably the only thing they can do.

Mr and Mrs Guthrie attend the station after Mrs Guthrie asks to attend so her husband is not 'talked into anything'.

In the station yard, Taffy, June, Yorkie and the social worker are watching the caravan. Alec and Tony are amused. Alec asks Mrs Beecher if she'll tell him his fortune. "You'll come to a bad end, you!" "I could have told him that!" Tony smirks before asking for some pegs. Mr Beecher tells them to leave them alone. The social worker claims they'll have to come out eventually to go to the toilet.

The Guthries are led inside the station whilst the Beecher family pleading with them for help and claim they're being held hostage by the police. Mrs Guthrie asks what they're doing there and Yorkie explains that the child has been abused and is being taken into protective custody. Mrs Guthrie clings onto the arm of her husband.

Denball is still insisting he didn't mug Mr Guthrie. Tosh tells Mr Guthrie to take as long as he needs and to point the man he suspects of attacking him out to the Inspector. Mrs Guthrie shouts that he mustn't go in and she pushes her husband against the wall to stop him. She accuses the police of telling him which man to recognise even if he doesn't. "I know you, you're weak and spiteful. You're preparing to frame someone!". Mrs Guthrie snaps back that it wasn't a man who did it - it was her. Mr Guthrie is as surprised as the officers and Tosh leads them up to CID to discuss what happened.

Mr Beecher and Theresa leap out of the caravan whilst Yorkie is petting the horses and June and the social worker are sat in the car. Taffy slams the gate shut just in time as the officers grab Mr Beecher and the Social Worker and June grab Theresa and Mrs Beecher.

Not the last time those two will be close. (I amuse myself!)

June, Yorkie and Alec discuss what they could charge The Beecher's with. June doesn't think it's worth wasting court time over as she doesn't think they've really done anything wrong outside of wasting police time. Yorkie says to slap their wrists and get shot of them. Alec agrees to let them go if they promise not to do anything like it again. He tells them that Theresa is currently at the hospital and, depending on what the hospital says, she may have to be put into care. They'll be allowed to see her tomorrow and the police mechanic has fixed their engine so they can drive it away with the caravan.

Tosh asks Mrs Guthrie to explain what happened. She says that her husband had been drinking and when he's drunk he starts making vicious remarks to her. He provoked a fight when they left the resturant and was shouting at her on the street, calling her a sterile cow. She admits hitting him but doesn't think it was as hard as he made out and she believed he was pretending to be out cold. She walked off home. Mr Guthrie accuses her of lying to him and the police. "I've been lying my whole life." She respond calmly. He continues to get angry and tells her that she's crazy and vicious. Mrs Guthrie insists she knows what her husband is capable of. Tosh tells her she could be charged with crimes and that they're going to have to make statements.

Denball admits finding Mr Guthrie unconcious on the ground and stealing his wallet. Alec charges him with theft.

Bob tells Yorkie, Taffy and June that the child at the hospital is not Theresa. It is infact Caroline Warne and The Beechers had substituted the child for another one. Taffy laughs and June points out that they won't be seeing them again as they legged it. Taffy and Yorkie remember unloading the scrap from the lorry so the likelyhood is they'll be back at the camp reloading it. They head out to aprehend them.