George Floyd murder protests continue

This 9 June 2020 video from Britain says about itself:

Who was Edward Colston, why was his statue toppled?

Anti-racism protesters in the US and the UK are demanding the removal of monuments to individuals linked to slavery and colonialism.

British protesters toppled the statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston and dumped it into Bristol Harbour this week.

Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee reports on some of the other statues that may become targets.

THE FALL OF AMERICA’S MONUMENTS TO RACISM Since a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, protesters have graffitied and toppled Confederate monuments across the American South, including in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy, and Birmingham, Alabama, in the still-beating heart of Dixie. Local leaders have backed efforts to remove statues in both cities, and in states like Kentucky, Indiana, and others that never left the Union. The U.S. Marine Corps banned its troops from displaying the Confederate battle flag, and on Monday, a U.S. Army official said the Pentagon may consider changing the names of military bases named for Confederate generals. [HuffPost]

MAN WHO DROVE TRUCK INTO PROTESTERS SAYS HE’S A WHITE SUPREMACIST A Virginia man who drove his pickup truck into a crowd of anti-racism protesters on Sunday is a self-described white supremacist, prosecutors said. Harry H. Rogers, 36, has been charged with assault and battery, attempted malicious wounding and felony vandalism after witnesses in Richmond said he drove onto a median, revved his engine and drove into a crowd of protesters. One person was injured. [HuffPost]

Stunning photos of newlyweds’ “first look” in the middle of a Black Lives Matter protest.

Why I protest.

Beyoncé’s powerful speech about Black lives and sexism is one we all need to hear.

WHITE HOUSE: ‘NO REGRETS’ ABOUT VIOLENTLY CLEARING PROTEST White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said President Donald Trump’s administration regrets nothing about police using violent force to clear peaceful anti-racism protesters outside the White House last week. Meanwhile, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said a member of the National Guard directly informed Attorney General William Barr that the anti-racist protesters were peaceful as Barr launched the violent police action against them. Plus, Barr has now contradicted Trump’s claim that he was in his bunker for an “inspection.” [HuffPost]

Trump is opposed to “kneeling in general,” raising hell with religious worship.

BIDEN ‘DOESN’T SUPPORT’ DEFUNDING THE POLICE Joe Biden does not support defunding police departments, despite nationwide protests against police brutality, his 2020 presidential campaign said. “As his criminal justice proposal made clear months ago, Vice President Biden does not believe that police should be defunded,” campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. [HuffPost]

BAIL FOR FORMER MINNEAPOLIS COP SET AT $1.25 MILLION A judge set bail for Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with George Floyd’s murder, at $1.25 million without conditions. Hennepin County District Judge Jeannice Reding also set a $1 million bail option for Chauvin with certain conditions that include no contact with Floyd’s family and no travel outside of Minnesota without permission. Chauvin, 44, made his first court appearance via video monitor from Oak Park Heights prison exactly two weeks after Floyd’s killing. [HuffPost]

MOURNERS IN MASKS PAY RESPECTS TO FLOYD IN HOUSTON Thousands of mourners lined up at a church in Houston to pay their respects to George Floyd, the Black man killed by Minneapolis police last month. At the public viewing, held at the Fountain of Praise church in Floyd’s hometown of Houston, crowds that largely consisted of Black people — all wearing masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus — stood in long lines, wearing T-shirts with illustrations of Floyd’s face or emblazoned with the phrases “Black Lives Matter” or “I can’t breathe.” Floyd’s funeral is today. [HuffPost]

WHY THE U.S. NEEDS TO MAKE REPARATIONS NOW Defunding the police is just part of the structural reform needed to root out racism in the U.S., says Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine. What’s truly needed is a big-picture rethink of U.S. policy at every level, she told HuffPost. In her 2017 book “The Color of Money,” Baradaran lays out how, over centuries, policymakers wrote Black Americans out of the economic system — and how policies blocking Black people from obtaining mortgages, land and credit created an immense wealth gap between Black and white Americans that persists to this day. [HuffPost]

Can Jews and African Americans rebuild their 1960s alliance?

Auschwitz survivor voices support for Chicago protesters.

TOP EDITOR RESIGNS AFTER BROWNFACE OUTCRY The editor-in-chief of Bon Appétit magazine has stepped down after a photo of him wearing brownface resurfaced and several of the magazine’s few staffers of color publicly called on him to resign as a reckoning on diversity, inclusion and representation sweeps the media industry. Adam Rapoport announced his exit after freelance food journalist Tammie Teclemariam unearthed a 2013 Instagram photo of him wearing brownface for Halloween and perpetuating negative stereotypes about Latinx people. [HuffPost]