Implicit, explicit, and diagnostic bias in the Military and Veterans Healthcare Systems ensures limited treatment options and compensatory benefits for Wounded/Ill/Injured Black and Brown Uniformed Service Members relative to non-White Service Members, women relative to men, and Reserve Component (Reserve/ National Guard) Members relative to Active Duty (AD) Members . MILITARY DATA REVEALS DANGEROUS REALITY FOR BLACK SERVICE MEMBERS AND VETERANS by Zachary Cohen and Janie Boschma, CNN UPDATED 11:52 AM ET, SUN JUNE 14, 2020. A CNN review of data provided by the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs reveals the stark reality that black service members are less likely to become officers and, as a result, are MORE LIKELY TO BE SERIOUSLY INJURED SERVING THEIR COUNTRY THAN THEIR WHITE COLLEAGUES. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REPORT REVEALS MILITARY OCCUPATIONS WITH HIGHEST SUICIDE rates by Seth Robson | STARS AND STRIPES Published: April 28, 2020, The suicide rate for reservists was 22.9 deaths per 100,000 while the rate for the National Guard was 30.6 per 100,000, the report states. That compares with a suicide rates for American adults ages 17-59 of 18.2 per 100,000 in 2017, according to the report. PHYSICIAN BIAS AND RACIAL DISPARITIES IN VETERAN HEALTH: Shari Eli, Trevon Logan, Boriana Miloucheva 20 August 2019 The mortality gap between blacks and whites in the US has been well documented, but there is still considerable debate over why the gap has remained so large and why it has persisted over the last century. This column explores these questions using unique data on black and white Civil War veterans to measure one of the earliest known incidences of PHYSICIAN BIAS AGAINST AFRICAN AMERICANS. It shows that PHYSICIAN BIAS had large effects on INCOME AND LONGEVITY of blacks relative to whites and considers the ways in which doctor attitudes STILL CONTRIBUTE TO THE RACIAL MORTALITY GAP TODAY. The war in Congress over rape in the military, explained By Emily Crockett@[email protected] Jun 8, 2016, 11:10am. Sexual assault is a huge problem in the US military. And for many victims, the process of reporting their crime and seeking justice can be as traumatic as their assault. The US Senate is expected to vote this week on the Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA). Advocates, who have been pushing for the MJIA since 2013, say the reform would make the process of prosecuting sex crimes a lot easier and smoother for victims and help victims feel more empowered to come forward and report the crimes against them. On or about October 28, I spoke with yet another Black Woman Veteran that was not only the victim of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) while serving her country, but the victim of systemic retaliation after reporting her rape. She was involuntarily separated from the military and forced to repay all enlistment bonuses. Homeless female veterans: Out of sight, out of mind Angela M. Rogers, November 18, 2019 UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Female veterans are the fastest growing demographic among the homeless population in the United States and face a double hurdle of distance and invisibility in getting the health services they need from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, according to research conducted by Penn State graduate student and U.S. Air Force veteran Elizabeth Elsea. Physician implicit, explicit, and diagnostic bias in the Military and Veterans Healthcare Systems ensures limited treatment options and compensatory benefits for Black and Brown Wounded/Ill/Injured Uniformed Service Members relative to non-White Service Members, women relative to men,; and Reserve and National Guard Members relative to Active Duty (AD) Members . Black Veterans' Lives Matter! Women Veterans' Lives Matter SUPPORT ALL of THE TROOPS!

It’s happening again. Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) is expanding in Detroit and has only agreed to commit $8.8 million in “community benefits” for a plant they are receiving a whopping $420 million in public tax abatements to expand. The worst part? This multi-billion-dollar company has failed to follow through on even the smallest commitments it has made thus far to the majority-Black community it claims to want to support. As part of the community benefits agreement it signed in April 2019 in order to receive the tax abatements, Chrysler agreed to renovate nearly 60 homes on Beniteau, the street closest to the project. Most of these homes are owned by Black, elderly, long-time residents. To date, they have renovated fewer than 5 of those houses. We must be clear about what this means. Not only does Chrysler think it’s acceptable to set aside less than 3% of the public funding it is receiving from the government for the benefit of the community, but it is refusing to be accountable to even the paltry promises its leadership has made to our people. Now, it is time for Chrysler to step up and work in cooperation with the people of Detroit to negotiate community protections that reflect the real health and environmental risks to Black Detroiters that Chrysler’s expansion has brought with it. We’ve long known that pollution takes its greatest toll on the health of Black communities, who are often left with few resources or recourse. That has never felt clearer than in the middle of a global pandemic, as politicians, corporations, and the healthcare system alike continue to make decisions that mean that Black people are contracting and dying of COVID-19 at higher rates than almost every other group in the country. Chrysler’s leadership, which has managed to find a way to offset increased emissions in its suburban plant, but has failed to provide a clear plan for how it will handle the increase in emissions in a neighborhood that is majority Black, is no exception. A national study links long-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality. In the U.S., Black children suffer disproportionately from asthma, and are seven to eight times more likely to die of asthma than white children. Communities of color face nearly 40% more exposure to toxic air pollution than white communities. From Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ to the recently discovered cancer cluster in Houston’s Fifth Ward, we know why mega-companies like Chrysler feel comfortable making decisions that place Black people in close proximity to pollution and other environmental hazards. Chrysler is counting on environmental racism to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. We can’t let them. After George Floyd was murdered, Chrysler CEO, Michael Manley, sent an email to employees claiming that he “emphatically rejects the prejudice and hatred” Black Americans still face in this country. But the fact is, Chrysler bears a huge responsibility for the environmental violence, harm, and discrimination against Black people in Detroit, and is still actively profiting from that violence to this day. We deserve more than lip service from a company that has relied on us as both workers and funders for generations. We, the people, say NO to corporations and CEOs that claim Black lives matter in one breath while supporting our destruction in the next. Residents closest to the plant on Beniteau Street and others across the Eastside of the city, along with Detroit People's Platform have worked hard to bring these critical issues to the attention of local officials and Chrysler leadership with no success. Now, we need your voices to make sure Chrysler knows they must deal with the community in order to benefit from our public tax dollars. Sign our petition today and make sure Chrysler knows they must deal with the real Detroit if they want to keep building in our community.

UPDATE: On Tuesday, April 6th, the Manhattan Beach City Council voted against issuing a public apology to the Bruce Family for the unjust taking of their land in 1924 due to them being Black and bringing together Black patrons in Manhattan Beach. During a March 16th city council meeting, Mayor Suzanne Hadley said in response to the apology, “We do not want to ignore the past but we do not want it embroidered in a scarlet ‘R’ upon our chest,” later saying “I hear all of you who want an apology... I’m not litigious, I have not contributed to decades of case law around a single word. My hands are clean. But that word is a club that we can be handing to people to beat us with.” The majority of public comments and letters sent in during the council meeting showed support for a public apology. Still, the city council voted in favor of not apologizing, passing 4-1. Despite all of the voices who showed up to support the apology, despite the importance of an apology for reparative measures and true acknowledgment of harm done, the city of Manhattan Beach and its council members decided to recommit to racism and anti-Blackness with their own votes. When something as simple as an apology cannot be given, we have to ask ourselves “why?” And “who does this benefit?” We know that communities protect one another by voting in favor of repairing relationships and histories, yet Manhattan Beach refuses to condemn racism, to apologize for its racist past, or to acknowledge the ways in which racism and white supremacy continue to show up in Manhattan Beach today. Black joy, Black pain, Black experiences deserve a place in this community who has now, for almost 100 years, made intentional efforts to silence and erase us. We will stay put until the work is done. Until there is restitution for years of civil and human rights violations against the Bruce family, and restoration and return of their land. Original message: Manhattan Beach owes the Bruce family much more than an apology. Once the owners of one of the few thriving beach resorts that Black Angelenos were allowed to patronize in the early 1900s, Willa and Charles Bruce were not only subjected to escalating racist attacks from the city’s local Klu Klux Klan, but were eventually forced off their land by Manhattan Beach’s own Board of Trustees. Although the Board of Trustees claimed at the time that they needed the land to build a park, we know the real reason the Bruces lost their land. From Tulsa to Forsyth County, Black people’s attempts to build economic security for themselves in this country have been haunted by white terrorist violence. The land that the Bruces were forced off is no different, and represents just a tiny fraction of the nearly 11 million acres of land that Black people once had, but lost, due to fraud, deception and outright violence during the Jim Crow era. Now, after a recent acknowledgment from the Manhattan Beach City Council of the injustice the Bruce family has faced at the hands of the city for generations, some residents are proposing that a boutique hotel be constructed on the land as a form of restitution. That’s not right. That’s why Justice for Bruce's Beach is partnering with Black Lives Matter to let Manhattan Beach City Council know that if they want to rectify the harms of the past, they must meet the full demands of Manhattan Beach’s Black residents for restoration, restitution and reparations today. The Bruces’ land and business should have been the foundation of their family’s ability to build wealth, and to take care of themselves and each other. Instead, it became a source of riches for others. Not only did the city of Manhattan Beach take the Bruces’ land in order to preserve the neighborhood’s whiteness, but they vastly underpaid them and other Black property owners like them for the value of the land and the businesses that were taken from them. Today, with Manhattan Beach’s inflated and unaffordable housing, Black people make up just about 0.8% of the city’s population. That’s why the proposals for the construction of a boutique hotel that will likely remain out of the reach of most of its Black residents as a form of restitution for the city’s history of violence is a slap in the face. The fact is, Manhattan Beach won't be able to make amends for its racist past without restoring the land back to the Bruces, paying the Bruces restitution and paying reparations to its Black residents for blatantly discriminating against our community and making it impossible for us to own land in the area. Now more than ever, institutions like the Manhattan Beach City Council need to make good on their commitment to Black communities, and we’re starting by demanding that they meet our residents’ full demands for restoration restitution and reparations today. As protests against police violence continue, more and more institutions are coming out with statements to denounce racism. Many of those institutions are the exact same ones who have orchestrated the erosion of Black wealth and property for decades, if not centuries. Sign now to let Manhattan Beach City Council that fighting for racial justice is so much more than an anti-racism statement. It requires dedication and action behind those words. Declaring support of Black people isn’t enough and task forces and modified street signs won’t pacify us. If the city council truly believes Black lives matter, it must meet the full demands of its Black and Indigenous constituents for restoration, restitution and reparations in Manhattan Beach immediately. Thank you, Kavon Ward Founder, Justice for Bruce's Beach Chief Duane ‘Yellow Feather’ Spokesman and Historian for The Bruce Family Patrisse Cullors Co-Founder, Black Lives Matter Ronald Clinton Co- Founder, MBUSD Community Panel for Equity (MB4E)

In Hawthorne, California the police department takes 52% of the city budget. This means that the officers who do not live in our city take their average salary of $111,000/year, buy property in a whiter and wealthier neighboring city, and subsequently add more funding to the schools that already have the most resources. It is our personal responsibility to refuse enabling Hawthorne Police Department's violence through most of our city's funding. We must demand our city officials to invest in Hawthorne residents by defunding the police. Example(s): It was June 7th 2019 that a viral video brought disgrace- once again- to Hawthorne Police Department. On Prairie and El Segundo, across from Memorial Park where families gather and children play- almost a dozen officers draw their weapons on a young Black 24 year old. The brave woman livestreaming the traumatizing arrest sobs as she begs them not to shoot- and the nation, and our community, felt her pain and fear. That he could be anyone’s father, son, brother or friend, but as a Black man in America, he was a target of the oppressive forces of policing. We will never know what would have happened if she was not there, but one thing is certain. This type of escalation for someone Hawthorne Police admitted, “loosely matched” the description of an individual, was definitively not an isolated occurrence- but a product of a city, and country, that enables and militarizes first responders and rarely holds them accountable for the terror they wreak on BIPOC living in the communities they police. We encourage residents of Hawthorne to dig into the 2007 beating, and HPD’s fascination with shooting dogs. It is our personal responsibility to refuse to enable any more sociopathic behavior from the heavily funded HPD and demand our city leaders to a clear and understanding decision to invest in Hawthorne residents.

The Cultural New Deal for Cultural and Racial Justice is a call for us to transform our personal, institutional, and global thinking. We believe that culture moves before policy. We believe that culture endures beyond politics. We wrote this Call because our work in culture and arts is inextricably linked to larger social movements for change. We invite you to adopt and adapt this Call to your specific contexts to hold leaders, policy-makers, and institutions — and ourselves — responsible, accountable, and transparent in achieving equity and justice. In these unprecedented times, as justice movements converge, many of us have asked ourselves what the stakes are for the culture we want to advance. We concluded that we needed to change the conditions under which we artists and culture bearers labor and live. The Cultural New Deal for Cultural and Racial Justice points us toward new understandings of how we together can build a culture that is inclusive, sustainable, and leads us toward justice and freedom for all. We urge timetables that are immediate and demonstrate change that is not aspirational, but concrete, measurable and visible within 1-3 budget cycles. We offer this Call in the spirit of advancing accountability and collective responsibility, and urge you to activate these ideas within your work and our shared future. // El Nuevo Trato Cultural para la Justicia Cultural y Racial es una convocatoria para que transformemos nuestro modo de pensar personal, institucional y global. Creemos que la cultura cambia antes que la política. Creemos que la cultura perdura más allá de la política. Escribimos este llamado porque nuestro trabajo dentro de la cultura y las artes está inextricablemente entrelazado con los movimientos sociales para el cambio. Les invitamos a adoptar y adaptar este Llamado para sus contextos particulares para responsabilizar a líderes, creadores de políticas e instituciones, al igual que nosotres mismes, por lograr la equidad y la justicia de forma responsable y transparente. En estos tiempos sin precedentes, conforme convergen los movimientos por la justicia, muches de nosotres nos hemos preguntado qué está en juego para la cultura que queremos avanzar. Hemos concluido que tenemos que cambiar las condiciones bajo las cuales nosotres les artistas y portadores de cultura trabajamos y vivimos. El Nuevo Trato Cultural para la Justicia Cultural y Racial nos dirige hacia nuevos entendimientos sobre cómo, juntos, podemos crear una cultura que es inclusiva, sustentable y que nos lleva hacía la justicia y la liberación para todes. Exigimos cronogramas que son inmediatos y que demuestran un cambio que no es aspiracional y que, más bien, es concreto, medible y visible dentro de 1 a 3 ciclos presupuestarios. Ofrecemos este Llamado en aras de avanzar la transparencia y la responsabilidad colectiva y urgimos que activen estas ideas dentro de su trabajo y dentro de nuestro futuro compartido.

The most impressionable time for a student is during their years of mandatory education. These years should be centered and catered towards providing the absolute best educational experience that is based on accurate, factual information in a safe and comfortable learning environment. This cannot be accomplished with the use of police on campus and anti-Blackness systemically perpetuated in the curriculum. The removal of police officers from campus as well as reformed curriculum that addresses racism in its actuality will foster the growth necessary on FCUSD campuses. For more information, contact us at: Instagram: @genup.fcusd & @cordovahighbsu Facebook: GenUp FCUSD If you have a testimony in regards to your experience with racism, discrimination, or police on campus, don’t hesitate to leave a comment as you sign the petition.

PLEASE HELP THE BIPOC COMMUNITY BY SUPPORTING THEIR LIST OF COMMUNITY DEMANDS & PETITION TO HSDC & ITS BOARD TO ADDRESS SYSTEMIC RACISM THAT HAS EXISTED FOR YEARS WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION. THE BIPOC DEAF COMMUNITY NEEDS MORE EQUITY & A SAFE SPACE FOR THEM HERE IN SEATTLE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akp4PPlQGFc&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0wR2BD4ohF4BqqM30dERdb1L2sMSiHZEhTCuQdzHUHBrQYH0nYPl2rF-Q #EndSystemicRacism #Equity4DeafBIPOC

On January 19th our Love Without Reason (LaRayia’s Bodega) Community was heart broken to discover 3 year old Talia Cook, (known to our community as Bodega Baby T) was brutally murdered while in the care of Loraine Washington who is free walking the streets of Downtown Los Angeles. We are demanding that the department of mental health bring resources to this case, by placing Loriane Washington in a facility for treatment. Since the event, the police had questioned her, received multiple stories from what happened to Talia, shortly afterward they released her. She is a mother of three, not only does this put her children at risk, it’s also putting people experiencing homelessness and the rest of society in jeopardy.

Students are anxiously preparing to return to LMU, yet our academic, living, & social environments remain uncertain. LMU has firmly stated there will be no tuition adjustments for the upcoming academic year. As a result of LMU's indifference toward students' needs, we are forced to bear the financial burden of full-tuition amid an economic recession caused by a pandemic that inevitably restructures our educational experience. Students have unacknowledged concerns about the value of LMU’s ’20-’21 academic year. Despite students having expressed discomfort, disappointment, & anxiety about our fall semester, the university has dismissed our voices & neglected to make any adjustments to the exploitative price. Students & parents are left in a vulnerable position during this burdensome time. We are forced to choose between making a critical financial decision & staying on track with our degree and career paths. This burden is not reflected within tuition as it does not account for the hindered access to resources. There will be drastic alterations & limitations to student resources such as the ARC, in-person office hours, library resources (librarians, study rooms, WiFi, laptop rentals), Disability Student Services, Student Health Services, Student Psychological Services, on-campus jobs, admission to events on campus, club meetings, affinity groups, greek life, recreational facilities, transportation services, equipment/tools/technology, living conditions, dining options, & more. EVERYTHING IS CHANGING EXCEPT FOR THE PRICE TAG Loyola Marymount University has a responsibility to its student body to ensure that the term balance is reflective of the quality of education we receive. Regardless of in-person, online, or hybrid style classes, the current global pandemic will inevitably restructure the living & learning environment.

We, residents of Fremont, recognize that we are in a moment of uprising in support of the decades-long struggle for Black liberation. A clear mandate has emerged from your constituents: defund the police. Policing in this city, like policing everywhere in America, is an institution that descends directly from chattel slavery. It cannot be reformed, any more than the institution of slavery could be reformed, and any such call betrays a grave complicity with the suppression of Black liberation. Fremont residents are committed to enacting the changes to our systems to ensure that our city ceases to uphold institutions of white supremacy and violence, and moves toward care, safety, and liberation for all. We recognize that the end of policing is here. The people of Fremont are ready to meet this moment, and we call on our elected officials to take action to bring the change we need to see. None of us are free until all of us are free.

Because I am an African American male and my brothers friends are being over charged , indicted, over sentencing

Last week, Pinterest CEO, Ben Silbermann, released a statement expressing solidarity with his Black staff in light of the recent protests against the police brutality our community is facing, and committed to taking action to support them, saying that “our Black employees matter.” The problem? Under Silbermann’s watch, Pinterest has not only underpaid its Black employees, but it has retaliated against those willing to take a stand against them with racist threats, intimidation, and harassment. And when one white employee went as far as to doxx a Black co-worker for speaking up, the company failed to do enough to protect her. While it’s easy to appreciate the wave of corporations, brands, and celebrities who are seeing the importance of publicly affirming their stance against racism, Pinterest needs to do much more than issue a statement to meaningfully support Black people. Company values or statements mean nothing unless they’re backed up by the leadership, the payroll, and the operations. If he really believes his Black employees matter, Ben Silbermann owes his current and former Black staff an apology, an independent third party evaluation of employee pay by race and gender, and a commitment to giving them the back pay they are owed. Five years ago, “Black lives matter” was a controversial statement. Today, though structural white supremacy and racism persist, the leadership and political power of Black people have made the cost of failing to affirm this truth too high even for corporations like Pinterest to ignore. But we’ve seen how easily companies jump from diversity & inclusion messaging to underpaying their own Black workers, discriminating against Black customers, and harming Black users and community members. Pinterest is no exception. Ben Silbermann simply cannot claim to care about his Black staff without expecting us to examine the ways his actions contradict his words. Corporations that have anti-Blackness built into their business models need to follow up their statements against racism with concrete action. In this moment we are publicly interrogating the harms Black people face from the institutions like the police that claim to keep us safe. But the fact is that plenty of corporations also bear responsibility for violence, harm, and discrimination against Black people, whether they carry it out, enable it, or profit from it. We deserve more than lip service from the companies that rely on us as workers, creators, and cultural ambassadors. Tell Ben Silbermann to put his money where his mouth is. Tell Pinterest to issue an apology, hire an independent third party to evaluate employee pay by race and gender, and give its Black employees the back pay they are owed immediately.