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Opinion Black Lives Matter is Not 'Anti-Police' “Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now” B ernie F oster Founder/Publisher B oBBie D ore F oster Executive Editor J erry F oster Advertising Manager C hristen M C C urDy News Editor P atriCia i rvin Graphic Designer a rashi y oung D onovan M. s Mith Reporters M oniCa J. F oster Seattle Office Coordinator J ulie K eeFe s usan F rieD Photographers 2015 MERIT AWARDS WINNER The Skanner has received 20 NNPA awards since 1998 The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published each Wednesday by IMM Publications Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 E-mail: info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicit- ed. © 2015 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE- SERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED. To view The Skanner website on your mobile device, scan this QR code • Local news • Opinions • Jobs, Bids • Sports • Entertainment • Music reviews • Bulletin board • RSS feeds I t has been both interesting and unsettling to watch the attacks from the political right on the Black Lives Matter movement and the larger movement for Black lives. Specifically, the sug- gestion that Black Lives Matter activists are somehow terroristic and promote the killing of police is so outlandish that it’s not only difficult to believe that anyone would even take such allegations seriously, but it’s also hard to imagine someone mouthing such words in the first place. Let’s start by debunking a myth that is being promoted by the po- litical right. The political right and several police unions have suggested that there is a war against the police. The facts stand in contrast. The number of police killed has actu- ally decreased. Given this, why are we being led to believe otherwise? Simply put, promoting fear and suggesting that there is somehow a war against the police is a smokescreen to shift at- tention away from the actual war that has been underway, and that is a war against Black civilians by right-wing haters and out of con- Bill Fletcher Jr. The Global African trol police. This point cannot be empha- sized too strongly. Not only do the police than White young men. It is these statistics that the polit- ical right wishes us to ignore. As a result of the attention that folks in the Black Lives Matter movement and the movement for Black lives have brought to the phenomenon of police lynchings, they have found themselves the target of those who wish to sup- press any actual discussion of the discrepancy in police violence. Using the suggestion of terrorism is a time-honored technique to smash any open discourse. Promoting fear and suggesting that there is somehow a war against the police is a smokescreen to shift attention away from the actual war that has been underway facts demonstrate that there is no war against the police, but they also continue to demonstrate that young Black men are anywhere between seven and 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by the In the fall of 2001, shortly after the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the then attorney general of South Carolina wrote an op-ed suggest- ing that protesting dockworkers in Charleston who had been set up by the police were domestic ter- rorists. The allegation was completely outrageous and was quickly dis- avowed by sensible South Car- olinians. Nevertheless, the clear hope had been that such an allega- tion would lead to the defeat of a nation-wide campaign to free the five Charleston dockworkers. That scare tactic did not work. Today, such scare tactics are be- ing reissued and for the same gen- eral purpose. Rather than focus the attention of the country on the discrepancy in police violence and the larger negative differential in treatment experienced by African Amer- icans compared to Whites, the hope is that fear of chaos and fear of vigilante justice against police will lead the population to close its collective eyes and simply tol- erate whatever actions the police believe to be appropriate. It will not happen. Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the host of The Global African on Tele- sur-English. Follow him on Twit- ter, Facebook and at www.billf- letcherjr.com. Environmental Justice for People of Color T he Civil Rights Movement in the United States identi- fied a long list of issues that were broadly considered the his- torical and contemporary evidence of systematic racial discrimination and injustice. With the 2016 pres- idential election rapidly approach- ing, the critical importance of environmental justice for Black Americans, Latino Americans, Native Americans and for other people of color must be reasserted. As a young statewide coordina- tor for the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in my home state of North Carolina from 1963 to 1968, I saw first-hand how movements for change have to first define the issues from the perspective of the oppressed in order to have a chance of overcoming longstand- ing systems of racial injustice. Golden Frinks, the SCLC North Carolina State Field Secretary, once told me, “Son, you gotta use our own definitions about these massive racial inequities with- out getting the permission of the perpetrators.” The wisdom that I learned from my mentor Brother Frinks has helped to guide my ca- reer over the past decades. Thus, in 1982 during a game-changing civil rights pro- test led by the United Church of Christ’s Commission for Racial Justice in Warren County, N.C., I remembered what Golden Frinks had taught me. A devastating ra- cial injustice was taking place in the state and it needed to be chal- lenged. I was the first person to coin and define the term “environmen- tal racism.” This was in response to a decision by North Carolina to dump over 400 tons of can- cer-causing PCB (polychlorinated Page 2 October 21, 2015 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. NNPA President and CEO biphenyls) hazardous waste into a state-made landfill in the mid- dle of a Black American farming community in Warren County. Over 500 of us were arrested and jailed, but we were very success- low-income populations with the goal of achieving environmental protection for all communities.” Subsequently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opened up a full-time Office of Environ- mental Justice. President Barack Obama in 2014 issued a Presidential Procla- mation to observe the 20th anni- versary of the Clinton E.O. 12898. President Obama emphasized, “As we mark this day, we recall the ac- tivists who took on environmental challenges long before the federal government acknowledged their needs. We remember how Ameri- ‘... Americans — young and old, on college campuses and in courtrooms, in our neighborhoods and through our places of worship — called on a Nation to pursue clean air, water, and land for all people’ ful in bringing national and glob- al attention to another serious life-threatening manifestation of racial injustice. Environmental racism is defined as racial discrimination in the de- liberate targeting of ethnic and minority communities for expo- sure to toxic and hazardous waste sites and facilities, coupled with the systematic exclusion of people of color in environmental policy making, enforcement, and reme- diation. By 1994 President Bill Clin- ton had issued Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-In- come Populations “to focus fed- eral attention on the environmen- tal and human health effects of federal actions on minority and cans — young and old, on college campuses and in courtrooms, in our neighborhoods and through our places of worship — called on a Nation to pursue clean air, water, and land for all people.” Today, people of color are still facing the consequential horrors of exposures to environmental pollution that have led to dispro- portionate public health disparities and the unprecedented increase in cancer and asthma, as well as oth- er respiratory illnesses. There is an inextricable linkage between poverty, economic inequality and environmental injustice. But there is some good news about these challenges. Van Jones and a team of young, dedicat- ed environmental justice leaders and activists have established an effective national organization called Green For All. The mission of Green For All is to work “to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.” I have supported and admired Van Jones’ leadership in helping to bring people of color together to advance the cause of equal justice and sustainable de- velopment. It is also relevant to note The Guardian article titled, “Pollution isn’t colorblind: environmental hazards are killing more Black Americans,” that was co-authored by Congressman Keith Ellison and Van Jones. Ellison and Jones explained, “Thanks to people’s movements like Black Lives Mat- ter and the Fight For 15, the call for racial and economic justice is getting louder and stronger. But while we are out on the streets fighting for equality, our kids are being poisoned by the air they breathe. Environmental injustices are taking Black lives – that’s why our fight for equality has to include climate and envi- ronmental justice too.” I predict that one of the key po- litical issues in next year’s presi- dential election will be the issue of environmental justice. We have to keep on making progress. The health and quality of life of our communities are at stake. While people color now make up over 30 percent of the population of the United States, our issues, demands and interests cannot be triaged on the table of political expediency. Witnessing so many new young leaders and activists stepping for- ward to gain more ground makes me optimistic that 2016 will be the year of advancement for all peo- ple of color and for all those who stand for freedom and equality.
