National Gun Violence Survivors Week is about elevating our voices and stories, because after living through terrible tragedy, we have found the strength to speak out to help prevent others from experiencing the same pain. It is an emotionally intense week, and after reading and sharing so many stories, I hope you will continue to practice self care and explore resources with the Everytown Survivor Network.
I also wanted to share some of the incredible things you accomplished in the third year of National Gun violence Survivors Week.
Field Events: Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action volunteers organized close to 95 virtual events with more than 1700 in attendance, including the first ever NGVSW student summit. Thank you to all of you who organized and spoke at events to ensure survivor voices were heard across the country: from panel discussions to acts of service such as blood drives and book drives, it had a powerful impact.
A moving event lead by California Survivor Engagement Leads
Social Media: Thousands of survivor stories were shared on social media, including 55k mentions of the hashtag #GVSurvivorsWeek and related terms. I was honored to be a part of the Survivor Twitter team — a truly powerful force — who were sharing stories of survivors in the Network all throughout the week to reach more Americans with the urgent message that we must address our country’s gun crisis. If you haven’t already and would like to, you can join the Survivor twitter team here, which engages on campaigns throughout the year.
Federal, State, City Leaders: More than 370 survivors of gun violence released an open letter to the 117th Congress highlighting the shared life-changing trauma of gun violence, which we shared with elected officials and on social media and media during the week. Thank you to all of you who signed the letter.
Our partners in Washington responded by lifting up your voices through social media, virtual conversations, press releases, and floor speeches, including Ambassador Susan Rice, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA-03). The week was even featured during floor speeches in both chambers of Congress by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA).
Beyond the federal government, dozens of mayors and state officials from across the country shared your stories on social media and issued mayoral proclamations. Everytown’s research team also put together a fact sheet for local government leaders on “Community-Led Services for Survivors.”
Partnerships: Over 65 partners, including nearly every gun violence prevention organization, national membership groups, non-profit organizations, and faith partners across various issue areas, joined the effort to lift stories and facts about the impact of gun violence.
In the week leading up to Survivors Week, PEOPLE Magazine released People Features: Gun Violence Survivor Athletes, a virtual roundtable where members of the Everytown Athletic Council shared their personal experiences with gun violence.
Throughout the week, there were many media clips in which survivors spoke out about the impact of gun violence across the country. Here are just a few of them:
America’s extra vaccine doses could be key to global supply
Data: Duke Global Health Innovation Center. Chart: Michelle McGhee/AxiosThe Biden administration’s purchase of 200 million additional Pfizer and Modern doses means the U.S. could fully vaccinate 300 million people with just those two vaccines — and 355 million more people if four additional vaccines gain FDA approval, Axios World editor Dave Lawler reports.Why it matters: The White House says the U.S. will eventually donate excess doses to other countries, but it hasn’t released a plan to do so.Between the lines: Sources in the administration emphasize that despite the bulk orders, only two vaccines have been approved and supplies remain scarce.Most of the 1.2 billion doses of six vaccines currently on the books were purchased as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed.Keep reading.
Efforts to restrict facial recognition are gathering momentum around the country, including the investigation of the Capitol insurrection, Axios Future author Bryan Walsh writes.Why it matters: With dozens of companies selling the ability to identify people from pictures of their faces — and no clear federal regulation governing the process — facial recognition is seeping into the U.S.Driving the news: The Minneapolis City Council voted yesterday to bar its police department from using facial recognition technology, Axios Twin Cities’ Nick Halter reports.Minneapolis will join other cities that have restricted the technology, including Portland, San Francisco and Boston.Keep reading.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) greets Jason Miller, adviser to President Trump, at the Capitol yesterday. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty ImagesHistorians are already drawing lessons from Impeachment II, Axios managing editors David Nather and Margaret Talev report:The power of impeachment: That’s pretty much gone. Historian Douglas Brinkley says if former President Trump is acquitted, it’ll be clear impeachment is a political process, not a legal one.America’s changing demographics: Renee Romano, an Oberlin College professor who specializes in the field of historical memory, says that outcome would raise the question: “Can America ever truly be a multiracial democracy?'”Congress leaves the field: With a Trump acquittal, the Senate would have passed on two chances to hold a president accountable for undermining the authority of Congress, said Andrew Rudalevidge, expert on presidential power.Share this story.
En español | A nonprofit organization that specializes in teaching technology skills to older adults is uniting with AARP to offer its courses to even more older adults nationwide — for free.
Senior Planet and its parent organization, Older Adults Technology Services (OATS), have been working with AARP on projects for a decade or more, including a How to Use Zoom class early in the coronavirus pandemic that drew more than 10,000 participants, says Tom Kamber, executive director of OATS/Senior Planet. Now OATS has joined forces with AARP as an affiliated charity, like AARP Foundation, Legal Counsel for the Elderly and Wish of a Lifetime.
OATS will continue to offer its programs independently. AARP will support OATS in expanding its offerings and making them known to a wider audience through AARP’s new Virtual Community Center. The relationship with AARP allows both organizations to help more people learn the computer skills they need now more than ever because so many activities and events are available only online.
Before the pandemic, nearly three-quarters of adults in the United States had high-speed internet access at home, according to recent Pew Research Center data. But that number misses differences among age groups. About 4 of 5 adults ages 50 to 64 had high-speed internet then, higher than the U.S. average, but only 3 of 5 people 65 and older had the same access.
More than a quarter of people 65 and older told Pew researchers that they never went online. Past Pew studies have shown that online use drops even more among those 80 and older.
Tech anxiety transformed
In many cases, older adults lack confidence in their ability to use new devices and software designed to make their lives easier, the Pew researchers found. They watch from the sidelines as younger family members easily adopt new technology, potential employers use code words for age bias to target “digital native” job candidates, and the pandemic increases their isolationbecause of the COVID danger that meeting friends face to face may bring.
Jolynn Bailey, 67, a retired teacher who lives in Clifton, Texas, was a reluctant convert to technology. She had used a computer at work and for her grade books, but only because her school required it, she says. She used the computer her daughter bought her only to look at email and log on to Weight Watchers’ website.
Learn online
AARP has two places where you can sign up for free online classes and workshops:
Then the pandemic left her alone in her studio apartment with poor TV reception and a few DVDs — unable to go to the nearby gym, head to Weight Watchers meetings in Waco or meet with friends. Her daughter, who works for a tech company in California, found out about Senior Planet in April and suggested she try it. She waited three months, becoming more and more desperate for things to do.
“The first time I went on Senior Planet I was hooked,” Bailey says. “It gave me my world back and more than that, a whole new world.” Now she joins stretch or chair yoga classes to keep fit; participates in the virtual book club; and takes tech classes, even learning how to use an HDMI cable so she can watch YouTube videos from her computer on the bigger TV screen. She’s in Senior Planet discussion groups where she’s met people from across the country and often takes part in several workshops each day.
The idea for OATS/Senior Planet began when Kamber was working on part of the project to revitalize Lower Manhattan after 9/11. An 87-year-old woman in the area called him after learning about his website launch related to the project. But she didn’t have a computer and didn’t know about the internet.
Kamber ended up tutoring her in his office.
OATS was founded in 2004 in New York City as an outgrowth of those lessons. It now has Senior Planet physical centers in five additional cities: Palo Alto, California; Denver; Rockville, Maryland; Plattsburgh, New York; and San Antonio. Classes are entirely online during the pandemic, which allows anyone from across the country to participate, but in-person instruction will resume when it’s safe to do so.
Engagement erases isolation
Senior Planet programs are designed to teach adults 60 and older basic computer skills — including how to start, stop, mute, skip ads and enlarge a YouTube video — and more advanced options. Its interactive online classes, offered in English, Spanish and Chinese, are free to anyone of any age. About 50 classes are on the schedule each week.
“A lot of Latino adults aren’t up to date with technology. Some don’t even have internet access,” says Braulio “Brad” José Veloz Carvajal, a 73-year-old retiree in San Antonio who found out about the Senior Planet classes through his membership in the Pride Center San Antonio. He knew how to use a computer but retired from his job at the Pentagon in 2003, so he wanted to learn all about Google, Facetime and Zoom.
“With what I learned, I was able to talk to my family in Corpus Christi and San Antonio. That made me so happy.”— Brad Veloz, 73, of San Antonio
“With what I learned, I was able to talk to my family in Corpus Christi and San Antonio. That made me so happy,” he said after the months of lockdown because of the pandemic. “I hope Senior Planet teaches technologies that can provide a way to talk to other seniors in the Latino LGBT community and start support groups.”
Class participants can decide to just listen, speak up with questions or type comments in the chat area. Most sessions aren’t archived for future playback, although some how-tos are posted to Senior Planet’s YouTube channel, but popular courses are offered frequently.
“In some of our classes, we find that they come early and stay late to talk to each other,” Kamber says. “Our trainers seek out opportunities to engage people. They draw people out.” Follow-up with students has shown that participants are using their newfound knowledge.
Technology topics include a range of how-tos such as shopping on Amazon, using Google Maps and hosting a Zoom meeting. Some workshops focus on helping participants struggling with tech issues or learning how to keep their personal information secure. Better balance, chair yoga and stretching sessions are among Senior Planet’s fitness offerings.
“If I can Zoom, you can Zoom,” says Bailey, who decided to become a member of Senior Planet to go along with her 17-year AARP membership. “It’s not that complicated. You just need somebody to guide you through it. And that’s what Senior Planet knows how to do.”
Monica Bentivegna contributed to this story. Linda Dono is an executive editor for AARP. Previously, she served as a reporter and editor for USA Today, Gannett News Service and newspapers in four states, including The Cincinnati Enquirer.
The Virtual Community Center uses Zoom and a few other online platforms to allow users with common interests to learn together. As with Senior Planet’s offerings, these events are live and allow for interactivity — speaking or typing — with others in attendance. It’s not on-demand video.
“The Virtual Community Center is designed in many ways to be like an in-person community center. You sign up for a class and go to it” online, says Heather Nawrocki, AARP’s vice president of fun and fulfillment.
Events on a wide variety of topics, including books, fitness, history, music and screenings of AARP Movies for Grownups, are available now for signup. All are free, have no age restrictions and don’t require AARP membership to participate. Although the programs initially are in English, AARP is looking at expanding the signup platform as well as course offerings for Spanish speakers.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”
-Luke 15:20
Recently, the United Kingdom appointed a Minister of Loneliness to attend to the growing public health crisis of loneliness reported by 9 million people in their country. Our culture has mastered the art of relational distance. Too many of us are content to view one another from a long way off. Our past hurts, pains, disappointments and biases keep us so isolated and alone. But like this father who saw his son and became proximal to him, we are being nudged to close the chasm of difference and remember our shared humanity.
Pastor Michael McBride (known as “Pastor Mike”) is a native of San Francisco and has been active in ministry for over 20 years. Pastor McBride’s commitment to holistic ministry can be seen through his leadership roles in both the church and community organizations. A graduate of Duke University’s Divinity School, with a Master of Divinity with an emphasis in Ethics and Public Policy, Pastor McBride founded The Way Christian Center in West Berkeley, where he presently serves as the Lead Pastor.
Bestselling author Stephen King on Monday weighed in on President Trump’s recent warnings to the migrant caravan moving through Mexico toward the United States. King’s criticism came in response to a tweet Trump shared on Sunday stating that “full efforts are being made to stop the onslaught of illegal aliens from crossing our Souther (sic) Border.” “Jesus, man,” King said in response to the tweet. “You act like the Red Chinese army was invading.” “They’re just a bunch of scared and hungry people,” the author said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, addresses some of the greatest superbug threats—and what the agency is doing about them.
“It’s a long road from exciting things happening in the lab to getting through a clinical process to the patient’s bedside,” Kathy Talkington, director of Pew’s antibiotic resistance project, explains in a Chicago Tribune editorial.
For Men’s Health Month—June—get to know Chris Linaman. After his heartbreaking superbug experience, he’s working to help others avoid the trauma he endured.
Antibiotics are fundamental to modern medicine, essential for treating everything from routine skin infections to strep throat, and for protecting vulnerable patients receiving chemotherapy or being treated in intensive care units.
Pew’s antibiotic resistance project is working to ensure both the prudent use of existing drugs and a robust pipeline of new drugs in order to meet current and future patient needs.
You probably heard the great news – after a few years of progressive activism, FOX finally cancelled Glenn Beck’s show–but the Boycott Must Go On!!
Ten years ago, Media Matters launched with a revolutionary mission: to systematically monitor the U.S. media for conservative misinformation every day, in real time. We’ve been calling out right-wing lies for a decade — and we’re not done yet. Will you contribute now to help us raise $10,000 for our 10th anniversary?
For ten years, we’ve successfully fought back against the bad actors that poison our media with right-wing lies and smears. It’s been an amazing beginning, and we couldn’t have done it without your support.
Dear Kevin,
You probably heard the great news – after two years of progressive activism, FOX finally cancelled Glenn Beck’s show.
Beck was targeted after he slandered President Obama by saying, “This president has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture, I don’t know what it is… This guy, I believe, is a racist.”
Activists at ColorOfChange, Media Matters, StopBeck, FoxNewsBoycott, and of course Democrats.com responded with a boycott of advertisers on Glenn Beck’s show. Ultimately over 300 advertisers pulled their ads from Beck, costing FOX over $40 million.
Advertiser boycotts work! And it’s time to boycott all FOX News advertisers: http://www.democrats.com/boycott-proactiv
We’re starting our boycott of all FOX News with Proactiv, which sells acne medicine to teenagers and young adults. Why?
First, there are lots of other acne treatments. Second, young adults above all are hurt by FOX News, which promotes right-wing policies on race, education, healthcare, the environment, and war. Let’s get our future leaders to lead the fight against FOX News!
Sign the petition to Proactiv and enter the email address of every young adult over 18 you know: http://www.democrats.com/boycott-proactiv
Beyond President Obama, FOX regularly slanders nearly everyone: Democrats, unionized workers, the unemployed (including veterans and 99ers), environmentalists, feminists, blacks, Hiics, Jews, Muslims, progressives, scientists, and any other group it disagrees with.
FOX News broadcasts rightwing extremist slander, incitement to violence, political propaganda, and outright lies to promote its rightwing political agenda. This is not “news,” but rather a never-ending “war on news” – and it’s all documented in our petition.
Why would any decent company want to fund it? Tell Proactiv to stop advertising on FOX News: http://www.democrats.com/boycott-proactiv
Thanks for all you do!
Bob Fertik
GLEN BECK ADMITTED in 2007, “I Am RACIST and Barack Obama is very White” THIS MAKES Boycotting FOX NEWS needed NOW
By Kevin Stoda
Dear, American supporters of the Fascist Oddball Xenophobic (FOX) news networks.
AMERICANS are getting less tolerant of your racism and stronghold on our major media.
For example, we have noted that in his 2007 TV program from FOX (See on You-Tube), Glen Beck admitted he himself was racist. Further, Beck then, in contrast to 2009, called Barrack Obama much more white than black. (Apparently, Beck now he has other nonsense to mush men’s minds.)
Using a major news platform to promote racism and to tell people to disrespect a whole presidential administration through mixed truths, outright lies, and xenophobia, is not to be tolerated any more.
On Democracy Now today, Amy Goodman asked Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP what he thought of Wal-Mart’s pull-out from advertising on the Glen Beck program on FOX.
NOTE: Goodman had simply asked , “The whole attack by Glenn Beck that drove this (resignation)? In your response from the NAACP to Van Jones, it says, ´The only thing more outrageous than Mr. Beck’s attack on Van Jones is the fact that there are sponsors that continue to pay him to provide this type of offensive commentary.` Do you support the continued boycott of companies like Wal-Mart of Beck’s show on Fox?”
This is a particularly important point because Glen Beck´s HATE CAMPAIGN ON THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION led recently to a great American policy maker, Van Jones, quitting the government this week.
Mr. Jealous said, “We certainly support them (Walmart) choosing with their dollars who they’re going to support. I mean, it’s—Glenn Beck is somebody who’s told a seven-year-old girl, a seven-year-old black girl, that he would buy her a ticket back to Africa, that she needed to go back to Africa. And then he comes out, and he says that healthcare is the beginning of reparations. I mean, this guy plays the race card on a weekly basis. He does it very aggressive—you know, in a very hateful way.”
Recall, first, that Van Jones is one of the most important and thoughtful men in America—however, the FOX (Fascist Oddball Xenophobic) news network chose to support a man, like Glen Beck, rather than seeing that tens of millions of Americans need to get health care from promoters like Jones and that our America economy needs to move starting today to the kind of economy that its competitors worldwide are already doing.
Let’s quote the wisdom and influential words of Van Jones on the absolute necessity to green the American economy NOW!
“I think it’s really important to point out that we’re sort of at the end of an era of American capitalism, where we thought we could run the economy based on consumption rather than production, credit rather than creativity, borrowing rather than building, and also, most importantly, environmental destruction rather than environmental restoration.”
Jones continued, “We’re trying to make the case in this book that that era is over. We now have to move in a very different direction. And key to that will be basing the US economy not on credit cards, but based on clean energy and the clean energy revolution that would put literally millions of people to work, putting up solar panels all across the United States, weatherizing buildings so they don’t leak so much energy and put up so much carbon, building wind farms and wave farms, manufacturing wind turbines. We argue you could put Detroit back to work not making SUVs to destroy the world, but making wind turbines, 8,000 finely machine parts in each one, twenty tons of steel in each wind tower, making wind turbines to help save the world.”
Finally, Van Jones wisely noted, “So we think that you can fight pollution and poverty at the same time. We think that you can actually power our way through this recession by putting people to work, but we’re going to have to start building things here and re-powering, retrofitting, retooling America, and that that’s the way forward both for the economy, for the earth and for everyday people.”
Note: These statements came from a program on DN from October of last year:
Another way, is to demand that local radio and TV channels put better programming on, such as Democracy Now or news sources promoted by serious progressive journalists:
“[T]he John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is essential to the protection of democracy…. It is my profound hope we will honor the legacy of my late friend Congressman John Lewis and the lives of those lost in the fight for a more perfect union by enacting this critical legislation into law.”–Fair Fight Action Founder Stacey Abrams’ Testimony before the United States Senate on April 20, 2021
Earlier today, Fair Fight Action’s Founder Stacey Abrams testified before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee on voter suppression in Georgia and across the country and the need for federal voter protection legislation. During the hearing, Georgia U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff introduced Fair Fight Action’s new groundbreaking report, Georgia’s Enduring Racial Discrimination in Voting and the Urgent Need to Modernize the Voting Rights Act, into the congressional record.Leader Abrams’ testimony and Fair Fight Action’s report establish why federal voting rights legislation is so important and why Georgia must be subject to federal oversight once more.
You can watch the entire Senate Judiciary Committee hearing including Leader Abrams’ testimony and read FFA’s report, published this morning, here.The hearing and the introduction of our report into the congressional record also mark the launch of an exciting new chapter in Fair Fight Action’s fight for voting rights: a National Voting Story Collection campaign!So far this year, 47 state legislatures have introduced at least 361 bills that would make it harder to vote.
In response, Fair Fight Action is launching MyVotingStory.comand will be reaching out to voters in states across the country to document the obstacles they have faced while voting. Through voters’ stories, Fair Fight Action and our partners will demonstrate to Congress the urgent need for enhanced federal voting protections to ensure all eligible voters are able to cast their vote freely and make their voices heard, like those proposed in the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the For the People Act.
We look forward to your continued support — the fight for voting rights is only heating up, and we urgently need your help. Can we count on you to: ShareMyVotingStory.comand our phone bankingopportunities far and wide;Sign up for a shiftto call voters to document their stories;Join Leader Abrams on TOMORROW at 8:30pmET to discuss our right to vote, the federal legislation that can protect it, and how we can use our stories to encourage Congress to support the #ForthePeopleAct and the #JohnLewisVotingRightsAdvancementAct
Thank you for all you do to support Fair Fight Action in our fight for free and fair elections.In solidarity,Fair Fight ActionHabla Español? Vaya a MyVotingStory.com/esFair Fight Action
1270 Caroline Street, NE Suite D120-311 ATLANTA, GA 30307 United States
Dear Kevin, Together alongside the global labor, Dalit rights, and gender justice movements, we are inviting you to join us for the Justice for Jeyasre Global Vigil tomorrow, April 21st at 10am EST / 7:30pm IST / 2pm UTC. Registration closes tonight at midnight EST.Jeyasre Kathiravel was an Indian Dalit woman garment worker and union member organizing against gender-based violence and harassment at major Indian garment manufacturer that supplies to American and European fashion brands. As reported in the Guardian, Jeyasre faced months of sexual harassment by her supervisor before he murdered her in January. Since her death, twenty-five other women garment workers at the same factory have since come forward publicly describing a culture of gender-based violence & harassment at the particular unit where Jeyasre worked, Natchi Apparels.On this anniversary of her death, Jeyasre’s family, her union Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU), and allies from the global labor, Dalit rights, and gender justice movement are holding a global vigil to honour the life of Jeyasre and the other survivors of gender-based violence and harassment at Natchi Apparel. Please register to join us for the vigil here. We look forward to having you join us with over 135 organizations from 33 countries around the world in honoring Jeyasre’s life and standing in solidarity with her struggle to end gender-based violence and harassment. In Solidarity, Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum
Join National NOW, Global Labor Justice, International Labor Rights Forum, … at 10 a.m. EST as we hold a global vigil to honor the life of Jeyasre Kathiravel, …
Earth Month: Human Impact on the Environment Find classroom resources that explain the real-world effects of our actions on the environment. The collection supports teachers who wish to integrate environmental education into existing Life and Earth Science curricula.Explore the Collection
All About Sustainability: Teacher Guide Help teach your students about sustainability and repurposing by using this set of Teacher Guides from the PBS KIDS show Ready Jet Go!Download Your Guide
Teaching Environmental Activism Using PBS LearningMedia’s Celebrate Earth Day Resources Earth Day is a worldwide event celebrated annually on April 22 and established nearly fifty years ago in response to a series of environmental disasters. Find dozens of classroom resources, lesson plans and more for grades K-12 on PBS LearningMedia.Learn More
Next week’s learn at home theme is all about community helpers. Find more classroom resources in English and Spanish with these printable activity sheets designed for PreK-2 students. For media resources, access your copy of the free teacher planning kits for March through May by clicking here.
Authors Jason Reynolds, left, and Ibram X. Kendi spoke to students at a high school in Washington D.C. about their new book, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You.Elissa Nadworny/NPR
After his award-winning bookcame out in 2016, Ibram X. Kendi heard from people everywhere, telling him it opened their eyes to a new way of looking at history.
“They were coming up to me and saying, ‘It feels too late now. I wish I had read this in middle school,’ ” he says.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, follows five historical figures — like the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and the activist Angela Davis — and offers readers unwashed versions of who they were, and the role that racist ideas played in their lives.
Kendi, an author and historian at American University, says history books in schools today too often don’t offer students a deep enough perspective or account of who people were and what they did.
Which led him to take up the challenge of those people who wished they’d learned these lessons in middle school: Give young people access to this history by collaborating with a writer who could take his facts (the history) and write it for a younger audience.Article continues after sponsor message
In his mind there was only one person to do it: the children’s book author, Jason Reynolds. When he let Reynolds in on this plan, he got a surprising answer: No.
“History is not my thing. I’m a fiction writer!” Reynolds explains. But Kendi persisted, and eventually Reynolds caved. “I realized [Kendi] believed in me more than I believed in myself,” he says.
Their new book is called Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, and right from its first few pages the authors promise that, “this is not a history book.” Instead, they say, it’s a book that mixes past with present — in a way that young adults can relate to.
“History books are written with the idea of a student in mind, but not the idea of an actual young person themselves,” says Reynolds. So this book sets out to do just that, and Reynolds says it’s filled with “the things that I needed someone to say to me when I was 15 years old.”
In a high school in Washington D.C., NPR met with the two authors and a group of high school students who had read the book. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Jason, why were you hesitant to say yes to Kendi’s request?
Reynolds: I wasn’t sort of a top notch scholar, that I wasn’t a part of sort of my story, my journey. And so if a scholar comes to you and asks you to sort of make an adaptation or translation of work that they’ve poured themselves into, and you don’t necessarily see yourself in the same playing field, it can be a little intimidating.
Once you got to yes, then what? How do you write a remix of something that already exists?
Reynolds: History books are written with the idea of a student in mind, but not the idea of an actual young person, just the person themselves. School is for a few hours a day. But, like, there aren’t history books written for that kid when school is over, when the bell has rung. And so that’s sort of what I’m thinking about this particular book: ‘Can I make this something cool?’ Because there’s currency in cool. There always has been, there always will be. It matters to them. It mattered to me. It still matters to me, right? If it ain’t cool I’m probably not gonna rock with it. This is how I am. I’m still that person. So I wanted to try to figure out how to make this really complex thing that has all this information that he gave the world, how do I take it and make it feel like a fresh pair of Jordans.
Before you read this book, what did you know about the history of racist ideas or racism?
Emani James, 10th grade: I go back to like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and Malcolm X, we don’t ever learn about what happened before then. Who knew about the first person who was ever racist? Like, I didn’t learn about that. And I wouldn’t even think it was in the 1400s!
With history, people like to cut off certain parts that they don’t want to tell us. Like they’re not gonna tell us the deep, deep stuff. You know, like they just gonna tell us the deep stuff.
Do you feel like it’s because you’re young?
James: I mean it partly is because we’re young. But us being young, we still have a great mind.
So, Ibram, did you encounter folks who felt like students were too young to learn this history?
Kendi: There were times in which people would ask, ‘are young people ready for this history?’ And it was a shocking question because it’s so foreign to me that anyone could not recognize how we have so many young, brilliant minds who even, you know, in seventh grade, let alone 10th grade, can understand this history. Not only understand it, but apply it to their own lives. They start to get more clarity about their own lives, they are able to understand their country. And so for me, this getting deep, deep, deep, that really actually protects our young people. So we think we’re protecting them by not getting deep. We’re actually protecting them by getting deep, by allowing them to really understand this nation’s history.
In the book you have three categories that you put people and ideas in. What are those three categories and why use that approach?
Kendi: One of the things we’re trying to do with this book is provide people with the vocabulary of how to speak about and understand racism. Know what intimately racism is and how to identify it with language. What we’re trying to do is give people the ability to name what they see, what they experience, what they should be resisting.
So there are the segregationists, which Jason calls the haters.
Reynolds: The haters. Segregationists are the haters. Everybody knows what a hater is. All right. Haters. Especially when I was in school. And I know it’s no different for y’all. Haters are the people who hate you just cause you ain’t like them.
Kendi: And then there’s the assimilationist. Who are the likers.
Reynolds: Likers. Your fake friends. I mean, everybody, got ’em, everybody knows them too. Everybody knows the phonies. And they’re basically the ones who like you, but they like you because you are like them. You know, that is contingent upon you being like them.
Kendi: And then there’s the anti-racists, who are the lovers.
Reynolds: And the lovers. Those are your day ones, as we say. Our ‘ride or dies.’ The ones who love us for being like us. They love us for who we are, not for who they are, and not for who we are to them, but for who we are to us.
In the book, you apply these definitions to the ideas people have — and often, the same people write about or speak about a combination of the three, meaning people can evolve and change.
Kendi: If people say an assimilationist idea or anti-racist idea or segregationist idea, then you apply it, even if it’s somebody who’s your hero. I also think we should give people the ability to change. So W.E.B. Du Bois was born in 1868 and he died literally the night before the March on Washington in 1963. That’s nine decades. What he was saying, particularly in the 1890s, was more along the lines of assimilationist ideas. But by the time he was in the 1930s and 1940s, he had transformed and was largely articulating anti-racist ideas. This is what we hope for people. We want people to change and we have to give people that ability to change, but also recognize who they were at an earlier time.
Reynolds: I did have friends be like, ‘yo, so I don’t know, man. What you said about Dr. King kind of hurt! And I’m like, ‘first of all, it wasn’t me, blame it on Dr. Kendi. Those are my words, but that’s all his information.’
I do think it’s important that we are honest about even our heroes. It doesn’t make them any less heroes, nor does it make their contributions any less powerful. But it does help us sort of get into the nuances of it all. And it does also show how fluid some of that stuff was, and has been, and is, for a lot of us. But that we should always be aiming toward anti-racism.
James: Who is your target market for this? Is it really for everybody?
Reynolds: I never write void of the scope in which I’ve come. I was a young black person. It is natural for me to speak to young black people. The book is for everybody, but I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t sort of imagining [Emani’s] face. There’s certain things that I do want to say to black kids, right? Like that part in Chapter 6 when I write, “Africans aren’t savages.” Right. That’s for us. We’re not savages. That was specifically for you.
Amir Perkins, 11th grade: I was surprised there were black people who had racist ideas.
Kendi: Right, you’re talking about Leo Africanus. Just like you have black people today who tell white people what they want to hear in order to improve their standing among white people, black people were doing that back in the 1500s! For me, if anyone is saying that there’s something wrong with black people, they’re saying a racist idea and it doesn’t matter their skin color.
Amir: As educated black men, when you’re in a certain situation, do you sometimes feel as though white people are intimidated by your status?
Reynolds: The thing about anti-racism that to me that sits at the core of who I am is that I should never have to make myself small for everyone else to feel comfortable about my existence. Right. Why? I earned it like everybody else earns it. And I’m going to be proudly who I am in every space that I am, because I belong everywhere that I choose to go. Self-actualization is at the core of an anti-racist world.
Ibram X. Kendi says he can’t remember the first time he saw the infamous video of George Floyd dying while gasping for breath beneath a white policeman’s knee.
That’s because Kendi — already a respected authority on systemic racism in America, thanks to his books How to Be An Antiracist and Stamped From the Beginning — was almost immediately pulled into a whirlwind of commentary and public contemplation.
Author Ibram X. KendiStephen Voss/Courtesy of Ibram X. Kendi
Ignited by the killing of Black people like Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police, the international reckoning over civil rights and systemic racism led the world to look for authoritative voices who could explain it all. Kendi plunged into a blizzard of appearances and new opportunities, from starting a new Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University to discussing anti-racism with media queen Oprah Winfrey on her Apple TV+ show The Oprah Conversation.
“I feel like I was pulled into this tornado right at that time,” Kendi says. “[But], I’m a big, big basketball fan. And you know, [players] can’t really get tired during the NBA finals. And for those of us who are doing racial justice work, these last few months, it’s like we’ve been in the NBA finals the whole time.”
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As a response, Kendi has created a new companion book, Be Antiracist: A Journal for Awareness, Reflection and Action. Filled with over 150 questions, prompts and quotes from How to Be Antiracist – with room for readers to write down answers and thoughts — the book encourages others to take their own journey toward anti-racism.
As a journalist who writes often on the intersection of race, media and society, I was eager to speak with Kendi about why he created this new book, how he has weathered the deluge of attention, and what he has learned from standing at the center of such a massive civil rights reckoning. (The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.)
Penguin Random House
You got to sit down with Oprah; that’s a rare opportunity for a public intellectual. What was that like, to see your message delivered at once to so many people on such a massive platform?
Sitting in that chair talking to Oprah…I think that’s when it all really sort of hit me. [I realized] precisely what was happening all around me, in terms of other people who had decided to turn to my book; folks who were really looking for what they should be in this moment. [They] were aware that racism was a problem, but were really seeking to ask the question, “OK, what now? What should I be doing now? What should our country be doing now? What should I be striving to be now?”
When did race come for you? Describe in detail your earliest memory when you saw the world through a racial lens.
One of many prompts for self-reflection in Ibram Kendi’s new book, Be Antiracist
Which led to Be Antiracist. But you’ve already written a book called How to Be An Antiracist. What’s different about this one?
One of the ways [readers] were able to really relate to How To Be An Antiracist was how deeply vulnerable I was in terms of reflecting on how I, as an individual, was upholding the system of racism. The book really took them on a journey. That led us to think, well, maybe we should write a tool so people can do just that; so people can literally, systematically take their own journey, as I took.
You’re saying the key is sustained effort – like you might put into regular exercise or a healthy diet. But you have to put that effort towards making anti-racist choices every day.
I’m happy you used the term anti-racist choices, because that’s really what this is about. You know, life is about the choices that you make in any given moment. So, when you make a racist choice, you’re being racist. When you choose in a particular moment to be anti-racist and to challenge that racist idea or policy, you’re being anti-racist. But people have to have a clear sense of what a racist and an anti-racist choice is. And that doesn’t come naturally. The book allows people to essentially check themselves when they’ve made a racist choice. And, over time, make more and more anti-racist choices.
In How To Be An Antiracist, you reveal some sensitive things about yourself; your own racial biases, your homophobia. In Be Antiracist, you say you originally didn’t want to reveal that much. What were your worst fears about disclosing so much and did they come to pass?
It took me more than a year to write the first five chapters of How To Be An Antiracist because it was so difficult to bare some of the most shameful moments of my life. It was me stripping my history naked before all people in all of its ugliness. I knew, as somebody raised to believe that only white people can be racist, that there was also a tremendous amount of anti-Blackness within communities of color. And that was going to cause people to deny and strike down at the book because of their own denial, because they don’t want to look in the mirror. I was extremely concerned about that, because I knew everybody was going to come at the book.
I was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. I was told it was a disease that kills [close to 90%] of people in five years. When you’re facing death, the criticism of people didn’t really matter as much to me anymore….For the better part of my life, I was thinking Black people were the problem, as opposed to that system of racism. And for me to admit that as an individual, I was not challenging this larger system…I’m just going to write that and hopefully, every individual will then look in the mirror, no matter the color of their skin and ask themselves the same question: Have I been challenging the system of racism or white supremacy or have I been upholding it?
What do you think will be the most difficult question for readers of Be Antiracist?
How do you relate to your own identity? For me, it was very, very difficult for me to come to grips with my own anti-Blackness. So I can imagine somebody who is Asian struggling to deal with their anti-Asian feelings. Even for white people…it is going to be difficult for them, I suspect, to really recognize their whiteness. The connection of that whiteness to notions of superiority and even normality. [They] haven’t been able to really reckon with the ways in which [their] whiteness and connection to it have led [them] to be manipulated.
In this terrible summer where you’ve spent so much time talking about racism and anti-racism, have you learned anything new about the nature of racism?
That literally, racism is death. And anti-racism is life.
What do you expect the process of working through Be Antiracist will be like for most readers?
The book really begins with you seeing the outer layer of your own racist ideas. And, as the book goes on, you start getting a deeper sense of your own potential racist or even anti-racist ideas. The more clarity you gain [about yourself], when you come up for air and see our society, the better clarity you get [about everything]. You know, I used to wear glasses before I got Lasik surgery and I would never wipe my lenses. Every now and then, my wife would come around and clean them. And things [would be] so clear…I think, as people see themselves more clearly, they see society more clearly. And ideally, they also see what needs to be changed and get a very clear sense of how to make those changes.
Describe the most racist moment in your life. What should you have done or said differently?
One of many prompts for self-reflection in Ibram Kendi’s new book, Be Antiracist
One issue that I think isn’t talked about enough, is the notion that some people may enjoy the process of oppressing others. How do we deal with the possibility that some people are energized by oppressing other people?
I think it’s important for us to remember that there was a time in this nation’s history when plantations all over the South and plantation owners were looking for those very kinds of people to serve as [slave] overseers. And in many cases, the overseers were precisely those types of folks, because it was their job to regularly engage in terror and brutality. And those who did it – quote – “well” – were those who literally enjoyed watching black people in pain and brutalizing people. Plantation owners felt if they did not have these overseers, then their enslaved people would come and kill them because they feared them that much. And, you know, in many ways, if you’re brutalizing people consistently, that’s a legitimate fear to have. I mention that, because you have some Americans today who are just as happy for the existence of overseers as they were 200 years ago. They believe, if not for the police, these barbaric animals would just go run roughshod all over the country. And when a president or a politician calls for law and order, they feel they can sleep better at night.
This all seems so challenging. How do you find hope that people will embrace anti-racism?
You have to believe you can change in order to bring it about. I can’t engage in something when I think it’s impossible for that thing to actually happen. So I think, philosophically, that gives me hope.
The podcast version of this story was produced by Audrey Nguyen.
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A discussion about antiracism in higher education with Ibram X. Kendi (pictured), the award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller “How to Be an Antiracist.”Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
Radcliffe scholar details possible reforms in admissions, faculty representation
Ibram X. Kendi came of age in 1980s and ’90s America, when he said many considered Black youth “a menace,” “violent,” “dangerous,” and “super predators.” Around the year 2000, the celebrated antiracist scholar said he began to understand he harbored similar views.
“As a Black youngster, these ideas were directed toward me, and I didn’t realize fully how much I had come to even believe some of these ideas,” said Kendi, director of Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research and the 2020/2021 Frances B. Cashin Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. It served as a powerful insight into how broadly and deeply such attitudes had permeated American society.
Kendi delivered his remarks as part of an online conversation about antiracism in higher education co-sponsored by Radcliffe and Harvard College Everywhere, a program that seeks to connect students with activities and resources during the pandemic. During the hourlong discussion, Kendi fielded questions from moderator Radcliffe Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana, three College undergraduates, and some of the more that 2,000 viewers who tuned in.
In her introduction, Brown-Nagin said the events of the past year “have cast longstanding inequities and systemic racism into sharp relief.”
“These developments have prompted introspection in many quarters, and they’ve motivated powerful demands for change. The challenges we face can sometimes seem insurmountable, but we must remain engaged, and we can take heart that our program today is one of many discussions focused on combating racism and achieving equity that are taking place across the country.”
Kendi, whose books include “How to Be an Antiracist” and the National Book Award-winning “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America,” said his own story, and his career, has been focused on “trying to overcome this early conditioning that the problem is Black people and trying to unlearn those ideas that were showered onto me” and to help others do the same. With his comments, Kendi pushed for dismantling the racist policies and ideas that fuel systemic racism.“There is no destination, it’s a journey of really consistently ensuring that we’re supporting antiracist policies and policy-makers and that we’re articulating antiracist ideas, and we’re constantly unlearning this conditioning.”— Ibram X. Kendi
Brown-Nagin wondered how to apply Kendi’s antiracist framework to the work of creating diverse and inclusive college campuses. The author took aim at the college admissions process, noting that standardized tests advantage those who can afford expensive test prep courses. Black students also often can’t access advanced placement courses at their high schools, Kendi said, or are simply steered away from them by guidance counselors. “So how is that admissions factor race-neutral when Black students can’t even necessarily compete?”
One radical solution, Kendi said, would be to fundamentally rethink the concept of intelligence and academic potential so that applicants would be judged not by test scores but their desire to learn. “I would rather have in my class students who have a tremendous desire to know, rather than the kids who think they know it all,” said Kendi, adding that such a metric would cut across ethnicity, class, race, gender, and sexual orientation.
Efforts to achieve faculty diversity, another important step toward fostering antiracism on college campuses, said Kendi, should go well beyond compiling demographic data on professors. Institutions of higher education should be keeping close track of who is applying for positions and then who is getting interviews, campus visits, job offers, promotions, and tenure. And who is not. “All of that data that allows the university to have a baseline and then start instituting policies and practices, particularly at the points where the disparities are the worst,” said Kendi. Such work, he added, is never-ending.
In response to a student question about reparations, Kendi said not only does the U.S. government need to examine its historic role and seek to repair and eliminate the racial wealth gap it helped perpetuate through its support of slavery, so too do institutions like Harvard. “Because either you’re going to assume that you possibly did contribute, and then you’re going to do a serious study, and then you’re going to repair, or you’re going to assume somehow that you’re not racist, you never contributed, which is no different than a president who is contributed to racism and then turns around and says he’s the least racist person in the room.”
Gay restarts cluster hire, announces new dean of diversity and task forces
Turning from education to equality more broadly, Kendi said his work also examines the nature of human complexity and the idea that “people hold both racist and antiracist ideas and obviously support both racist and antiracist policies.” The key to remember, he said, is that “no one becomes an antiracist. It is only something we can strive to be … there is no destination, it’s a journey of really consistently ensuring that we’re supporting antiracist policies and policy-makers and that we’re articulating antiracist ideas, and we’re constantly unlearning this conditioning.”
Kendi held up the Black Lives Matter movement as an example of that ongoing work. As the number of African Americans being unjustly killed by police rose, some in the nation were “blaming those Black people for dying” while prosecutors were refusing to bring charges, said Kendi. In response the women who founded the movement embraced the antiracist value that black lives do matter. Those three words, he said, became “the defining three words of our time.”
Black Lives Matter “has been everything for me,” said Kendi. “I know it’s been everything for many people.”
Stress isn’t always a bad thing; it can be handy for a burst of extra energy and focus, like when you’re playing a competitive sport or have to speak in public. But when it’s continuous, it actually begins to change your brain. Madhumita Murgia shows how chronic stress can affect brain size, its structure, and how it functions, right down to the level of your genes. Check out the video here.
It is a war seemingly with out finish – 20 years of blood and sweat spilled in Afghanistan’s deserts has claimed tens of hundreds of lives, value a whole lot of billions of {dollars}, and achieved few of its goals.
The nation’s authorities is held collectively by a fragile power-sharing deal, it’s one of the least democratic and most-violent locations on earth, and half of its territory is both in Taliban arms or being contested by the Islamists.
Now, NATO leaders are meeting for talks this week are considered mulling withdrawal after President Trump pledged to have all US troops out by May.
While Biden could but reverse that promise, if he pushes forward then it’s unlikely that NATO forces will keep for much longer. Their withdrawal would carry an finish to one of the longest conflicts of fashionable instances.
So, after 20 years of war, was all of it price it? MailOnline examines…
NATO entered Afghanistan in December 2001, shortly after the US invasion, and on the peak of its mission in 2011 had 130,000 troops within the nation. That quantity now stands at simply 10,000 – with chiefs mulling a full withdrawal. The 20-year war has value the alliance not less than $825bn, seen 3,500 troops killed and has left huge swathes of the nation nonetheless in Taliban arms (left)
The human value
The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 on a counter-terrorism mission – in search of to seize or kill the Al Qaeda leaders who orchestrated the 9/11 terror assault, and to displace the Taliban authorities which sheltered the group.
NATO was not far behind, arriving within the nation two months later with a mission to safe Kabul province so the brand new authorities might be established there.
But the goals shortly modified – a brand new aim to rebuild Afghanistan as a steady and democratic nation throughout the Middle East emerged, and the war dragged on.
Military operations expanded to suit. In 2003, NATO’s mission prolonged throughout all the nation and troops grew to become extra concerned in day-to-day preventing alongside common US forces.
Coalition forces have lost 3,500 troops, the overwhelming majority of whom – round 2,400 – have been Americans, whereas tens of hundreds have been injured within the preventing. Around 110,000 Afghans are thought to have died, thought that’s seemingly an under-estimate
At its height, in 2011, the NATO pressure numbered roughly 130,000 males drawn from 50 international locations, earlier than declining quickly from 2013 as US forces pulled again.
In 2014, main duty for safety was handed over to the Afghan authorities and today, there are round 10,000 troops from 36 international locations stationed there in help and coaching roles.
Over that point, some 3,500 coalition troops have died preventing – the overwhelming majority, round 2,400, have been American.
The UK lost some 450 troopers – the second-highest complete – who have been largely killed in Helmand and Kandahar provinces after they took over fight operations from the Americans.
On the Afghan facet, it’s thought that greater than 110,000 have been killed together with not less than 31,000 civilians who have been largely hit by airstrikes.
At least 30,000 coalition troops have additionally been wounded within the preventing – the overwhelming majority American – whereas tens of hundreds of Afghans have additionally been wounded.
The monetary value
NATO prices are exhausting to estimate as a result of its troops are drawn from dozens of international locations which management spending individually via many separate budgets.
However, the revered Stockholm International Peace Research Institute beforehand estimated that mixed US and NATO fight prices in Afghanistan from 2001 and 2012 totalled round $725billion.
Researchers from the Development Initiatives basis then used that information to estimate that every soldier posted in Afghanistan prices roughly $450,000 per year.
Using that estimate together with common NATO troop figures between 2013 and final year, it’s potential to reach an a complete estimate for NATO fight operations of round $825billion over the course of the war.
NATO fight operations alone are thought to have value someplace round $825billion, although the associated fee of rebuilding the nation and supporting Afghan forces is much greater. Estimates of these prices stretch into the trillions of {dollars} (file picture, a gasoline plant burns within the metropolis of Herat)
However, this determine is prone to be an under-estimate as it solely covers boots on the bottom, with out factoring in support donations and money spent on the rebuilding.
NATO international locations individually fund Afghan safety forces to the tune of a number of billion {dollars} every year, with $3.4billion contributed in 2020-21.
On the US facet, estimates printed by the New York Times in 2019 put prices at nicely over $2trillion.
Some researchers have gone additional, with one paper from Brown University suggesting the true sum is nearer to $6trillion.
What has it achieved?
Osama bin Laden, the architect of the 9/11 bombings, is useless – whereas most of his co-conspirators are both locked in Guantanamo Bay or have additionally been killed.
The Taliban are now not in management of Afghanistan, which has held 5 units of elections since 2004 – the final being the 2019 presidential race.
That resulted in a disputed poll that narrowly handed victory to Ashraf Ghani over his rival Abdullah Abdullah – who arrange a parallel authorities.
The pair ultimately reached a power-sharing deal in May 2020 that noticed Ghani stay chief however granted Abdullah management of key ministries and put him in cost of negotiating with the Taliban.
However, it’s nonetheless ranked as one of the least-democratic locations on earth in line with The Economist’s 2020 rating, coming 139th of 167 international locations, alongside the likes of Cuba and Venezuela.
The Taliban (delegates pictured in Qatar final year) are formally in peace talks with the Afghan authorities, however there may be little signal of an settlement being reached. As US forces have withdrawn, assaults on official forces and civilians have elevated
It can also be riven with violence, with the Taliban waging a decided counter-insurgency towards the federal government.
As US forces have drawn down assaults by Taliban forces on civilians, Afghan safety forces and the armed forces have elevated.
Resolute Support, NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, reported 2,586 civilian casualties from October 1 to December 31 final year, with 810 killed and 1,776 wounded.
Attacks in northern Baghlan and southern Uruzgan provinces over two days in December final year killed not less than 19 members of the Afghan safety forces.
In Kabul, a roadside bomb struck a car, wounding two, and a lawyer was shot in a focused killing.
Meanwhile Taliban forces both management or are contesting greater than half of Afghanistan’s territory, in line with the Long War Journal.
A proposal printed by President Biden’s personal advisers warned not too long ago that it will take as little as 18 months for the group to regain management of the nation if the US withdraws in May, as scheduled.
‘We imagine a U.S. withdrawal will present terrorists a possibility to reconstitute, and that reconstitution will happen inside about 18 to 36 months,’ mentioned Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, a boss of the Joint Chiefs of Staff below Trump.
U.S. envoy for peace in Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad (centre) and U.S. Army General Scott Miller, commander of NATO and US forces in Afghanistan (proper), attend President Ashraf Ghani’s inauguration in Kabul final year
They have advisable preserving US troops within the nation till peace talks that are speculated to be going down between the Afghan authorities and Taliban attain an ‘acceptable consequence’.
But with talks successfully stalled there isn’t a assure that an ‘acceptable consequence’ will come quickly – if ever – whereas others warn preserving American troopers within the nation previous the deadline could make them the goal of assaults.
At least 30,000 Afghans have been wounded within the preventing, although
The talks come as President Joe Biden wrangles with whether or not to maintain Trump’s promise to withdraw all US troops by May this year, a transfer that will seemingly lead NATO to withdraw.
Biden’s advisers have urged him to push that deadline again, saying the Taliban could be in full management of the nation inside three years if the US departs now.
For the most part, the posts on Facebook have their history correct.
The Federal Communications Commission has long been charged with issuing broadcast licenses to radio and television stations that operate in the “public interest, convenience and necessity,” per its website.
In 1949, the FCC issued a report that established the duty of broadcast licensees to cover controversial issues in a fair and balanced manner. That obligation was termed the Fairness Doctrine.
Its basic requirements were that broadcasters “devote a reasonable portion of broadcast time to the discussion and consideration of controversial issues of public importance” and “affirmatively endeavor to make … facilities available for the expression of contrasting viewpoints held by responsible elements with respect to the controversial issues,” per a report by the Congressional Research Service.
“In practice, it required broadcasters to identify issues of public importance, decide to cover those issues, and then to afford the best representatives of the opposing views on the issue the opportunity to present their case to the community,” the report explains.
It also required broadcasters to allow individuals who were the subject of editorials or personal attacks to be granted an opportunity to respond, and established that candidates for public office are entitled to equal airtime, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
(The mandate of equal airtime for office seekers became federal law in 1959, when Congress amended the Communications Act.)
Most broadcasters complained that the Fairness Doctrine was overly burdensome and an inhibition to their coverage and free speech. They also argued that growth in the media industry rendered it obsolete.
The debate over the requirement peaked in the mid-1980s.
In June 1987, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and Senate passed legislation to preemptively codify the doctrine into federal law. Reagan vetoed it, per the Los Angeles Times.
It wasn’t until afterward, in August 1987, that the FCC voted to abolish the doctrine on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment and stifled the sort of democratic debate it was intended to promote, according to the New York Times.
(The decision had no impact on the rule that candidates for public office be offered equal airtime, since that had become law. It also left the editorial and personal-attack provisions, which were in effect until 2000.)
Though it had not been enforced since 1987, the Fairness Doctrine was not technically scratched from the books until 2011, per to the Washington Post.
Washington, March 18, 2021 … Jabara-Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality (NO HATE) Act, today called upon Congress to enact …
Apr 15 2021 … Jabara and Heather Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality Act (Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act). … “Hate crimes have no place in our society and this bill to improve reporting on the incidences in which …
Short Title(s) as Introduced. Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality Act of …
Posted: Mar 29, 2021 / 04:22 AM EDT / Updated: Mar 29, 2021 / 04:31 AM EDT … National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality, No Hate Act, that …
Tuesday, April 13, 2021 by Liz Carey … to Hate, Assault and Threats to Equality Act (Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act) would allow law enforcement agencies to …
Apr 8, 2021 — Protesters demand an end to anti-Asian violence on April 4, 2021 in New York … The bill, called the No Hate Act, would streamline the national …Missing: threats equality
April 8, 2021 … pass the Jabara-Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality (NO HATE) Act. The legislation was reintroduced today with …
To provide incentives for hate crime reporting, provide grants for State-run … National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality Act of 2019 … This bill was introduced on June 27, 2019, in a previous session of Congress, but it did not … introduced in the 116th Congress, which met from Jan 3, 2019 to Jan 3, 2021.
Tell Congress to pass the National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality (NO HATE) Act of 2019 in order to improve local and state hate crime …
As people of moral conscience we must come together and support a policy agenda that centers the needs of poor and low-income people. We know that in order to heal this nation we must lift up moral policy solutions that will benefit everybody. This is a reconstruction and restoration agenda that, when implemented, can repair and transform the lives of people of every race, ethnicity, age, sexual and gender orientation, who have been suffering unjustly, for far too long.
Inequality has cost us all too much and has hurt too many in this country. These costs are threats to genuine democracy in this country. The health, healing and well-being of the nation depends on concretely and expeditiously addressing policy-based systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of health care, militarism and the false narratives of religious and white nationalism.
On behalf of the 140 million poor and low-income people in the country, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival insists that the following policies from the Poor People’s Jubilee Platform take precedence during the first 50-100 days of the new administration and 117th Congress.
The 14 policy priorities include:
1. Enact comprehensive and just COVID-19 relief that provides free testing, treatment, vaccines and direct payments to the poor
2. Guarantee quality health care for all, regardless of any pre-existing conditions
3. Raise the minimum wage to $15/ hour immediately
4. Update the poverty measure
5. Guarantee quality housing for all
6. Enact a federal jobs program to build up investments, infrastructure, public institutions, climate resilience, energy efficiency and socially beneficial industries and jobs in poor and low-income communities
7. Protect and expand voting rights and civil rights
8. Guarantee safe, quality and equitable public education, with supports for protection against re-segregation
9. Comprehensive and just immigration reform
10. Ensure all of the rights of indigenous peoples
11. Enact fair taxes and targeted tax credits
12. Use the power of executive orders
13. Redirect the bloated Pentagon Budget towards these priorities as matters of national security
14. Work with the PPC to establish a permanent Presidential Council to advocate for this bold agendaTo learn more about the 14 policy priorities click here. Now is the time to center the needs of those impacted by poverty and demand a policy agenda that benefits everybody. The priorities above are Constitutionally consistent, morally defensible and economically sane. They come out of the lives, struggles, agency and insights of the 140 million and their moral, economic and legal allies. They embody a politics of love, justice and truth that can defeat the politics of death, heal the nation and bring us down the path towards genuine democracy.
As people of moral conscience we must come together and support a policy agenda that centers the needs of poor and low-income people. We know that in order to heal this nation we must lift up moral policy solutions that will benefit everybody. This is a reconstruction and restoration agenda that, when implemented, can repair and transform the lives of people of every race, ethnicity, age, sexual and gender orientation, who have been suffering unjustly, for far too long.
Inequality has cost us all too much and has hurt too many in this country. These costs are threats to genuine democracy in this country. The health, healing and well-being of the nation depends on concretely and expeditiously addressing policy-based systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of health care, militarism and the false narratives of religious and white nationalism.
On behalf of the 140 million poor and low-income people in the country, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival insists that the following policies from the Poor People’s Jubilee Platform take precedence during the first 50-100 days of the new administration and 117th Congress.
The 14 policy priorities include:
1. Enact comprehensive and just COVID-19 relief that provides free testing, treatment, vaccines and direct payments to the poor
2. Guarantee quality health care for all, regardless of any pre-existing conditions
3. Raise the minimum wage to $15/ hour immediately
4. Update the poverty measure
5. Guarantee quality housing for all
6. Enact a federal jobs program to build up investments, infrastructure, public institutions, climate resilience, energy efficiency and socially beneficial industries and jobs in poor and low-income communities
7. Protect and expand voting rights and civil rights
8. Guarantee safe, quality and equitable public education, with supports for protection against re-segregation
9. Comprehensive and just immigration reform
10. Ensure all of the rights of indigenous peoples
11. Enact fair taxes and targeted tax credits
12. Use the power of executive orders
13. Redirect the bloated Pentagon Budget towards these priorities as matters of national security
14. Work with the PPC to establish a permanent Presidential Council to advocate for this bold agendaTo learn more about the 14 policy priorities click here. Now is the time to center the needs of those impacted by poverty and demand a policy agenda that benefits everybody. The priorities above are Constitutionally consistent, morally defensible and economically sane. They come out of the lives, struggles, agency and insights of the 140 million and their moral, economic and legal allies. They embody a politics of love, justice and truth that can defeat the politics of death, heal the nation and bring us down the path towards genuine democracy.
Data: 
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) greets Jason Miller, adviser to President Trump, at the Capitol yesterday. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty ImagesHistorians are already drawing lessons from Impeachment II, Axios managing editors David Nather and Margaret Talev 
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