By Regan Byrd

It is Black History Month, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it. This is usually a time for self-reflection on our nation’s deep history of anti-Black racism and hostility towards one of the demographics who built the country as it exists today. This is usually a time for the Black community to celebrate the ingenuity, resolve, beauty, and spirit of our ancestors. Sometimes, it is even a time to reflect on the future of the Black community in the United States, and where we see ourselves hundreds of years from now in, hopefully, a more liberated future. But I have seen precious few of those conversations happening today. Or yesterday. Or the day before.  What do I see instead?

Fear. Panic. Dejectedness. Sadness. More sadness. A lot of sadness. In short, a torrent of emotions that ironically, speak very deeply to the Black communities of the U.S. and beyond, especially during this month.

So many of us right now feel…lost.

Most of these emotions can be attributed to the election and inauguration of Donald Trump for the second time. January 20th, inauguration day,  was only the 3rd time in our nation’s history that an inauguration took place on Martin Luther King Jr Day. This federal holiday has only existed since 1983 (and has only been recognized in all 50 states since 2000), so maybe it isn’t that unusual. For it to happen now though, during this Presidency, during this time, feels like a cosmic joke to me.

Donald Trump, by any objective standard, has not been a friend to the Black community, other communities of color, or really, any community besides his own family for his entire adult life, I would argue. In 1973, he and his father were sued by the Justice Department (which he now controls) for their alleged refusal to rent apartments to Black tenants in buildings predominantly occupied by White tenants, even illegally labelling Black applicants as (C) for colored on applications.  In 1989, he called for New York State to reinstate the death penalty against the Exonerated Five, formerly known as the Central Park Five, five young Black and Mestizo teenagers who were dehumanized as animals and predators on a national scale, and wrongly convicted of rape with coerced confessions and dubious evidence. In the 1990s, he questioned the indigenous ancestry of tribes looking to build casinos that would compete with his. He claimed our first Black President can’t have been born in the United States and demanded to see a birth certificate, which was produced and promptly ignored. His former chief of staff quoted him as saying “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had” and “Hitler did a lot of good things” during his last term.

I could continue down this pathway, describing other incidents of racism, describing how shocking it is, yet still not surprising it is, that a man who has made repeated sexual comments about his own daughter, has been photographed with child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on multiple occasions, has been found liable for sexual abuse and assault in civil court, has incited an insurrection against the peaceful transition of power on January 6, 2021, has been convicted of felony falsification of business documents to hide an extramarital affair, has repeatedly personally profiteered off the office of the Presidency, including releasing a “meme coin” crypto scam to rob his supporters and the naive of millions of dollars immediately after beginning his second term, is our President.

Again.

And he won this Presidency, twice, against the only two women who have ever been in contention for the Presidency; two women who, to many of us, had every seeming advantage to earn the plurality of the votes, in terms of intellect, poise, and experience.

I could keep talking about that, but everyone already knows all of this. To many, it didn’t matter enough not to vote for him. To many others, they appreciate him for all or most of these facts.

I could keep talking about this, but I don’t want to anymore. And I don’t think we, those who oppose this administration, should anymore either.

adrienne marie brown, author of Emergent Strategy, says “what we pay attention to grows.” This administration thrives on attention, chaos, and dominating the news cycle at every turn. Donald Trump, the former reality TV star, has mastered media manipulation and getting free coverage from the 24 hour for-profit press and the social media moguls that love to make money on our fear, outrage, and frustration. Media that at the same time cowers before this new administration and seeks favor for company gains and government funds. You watched news articles and commentators lie directly to your face and refuse to call a Nazi salute a Nazi salute at this President’s inauguration. By continuing to feed into this media cycle, we grow and empower this administration, as well as profit-driven news and social media. Sadly, our anger and fear makes a lot of people a lot of money.

I ask instead: What is it we want to grow?

That is all easier said than done. The fact is, we have to pay attention, at least some of the time. Many communities are living in fear of ICE raids, stolen data from federal agencies, legislation dismantling fundamental rights, and the destruction of social safety nets. All these efforts must be tracked, opposed, defunded, organized against, and stopped. But still…

What world are we trying to create? What future are we trying to build? And what has gone wrong in that building process?

These are in fact the harder, much more profound questions we must ask ourselves in this moment. The “we” on the left are quite adept at examining, critiquing, deconstructing, and dismantling. We are much less practiced at envisioning, collaborating, building, and constructing. We speak far more about what needs to be stopped, torn down, and eliminated, and far less about what should exist, what we have yet to create, and who we need to partner with to create it.

I know what future I am trying to build with my fellow community, what future I want to live in.

I want more people, as many as possible, to live out their entire lives as they would see fit, without being murdered, enslaved, raped, or robbed of their time, resources, sanity, health, peace, or hope.

I want more people to have their basic needs met, like good food, clean water, reliable housing, and safe medicine, so they have more time and energy to build relationships, contribute to the collective community and collective good, and find their purpose and meaning in life.

I want to reduce harm as much as possible. I want to reduce suffering as much as possible.

I want to increase joy as much as possible. I want to increase love, community, and belonging, as much as possible.

I want to enjoy my time here, on this planet, as much as I can, before the next phase of my existence or non-existence, whatever that may be. I want others to have the same opportunity.

I don’t want to hate you. I don’t want you to hate me.

I want you to thrive. I want you to want me to thrive.

What is it we long for, for this world and each other?

These are the principles I always come back to, partially because they ground me, keep me centered in my own work and purpose, but also because I truly believe these principles are nearly universal. I think these ideas at least give us a starting point to discuss what it means to be human, what our vision for the future is or could be, and what common understanding and collective purpose as a species might look like.

Before us is not just a question of one administration, but an existential question about how long this is going to continue. How long are we going to kill each other, steal from each other, ignore crisis after crisis, including the ultimate crisis of catastrophic climate change, and keep making the same mistakes regarding how our societies are run?

The reason I became an anti-oppression trainer, consultant, activist and a proponent of diversity, equity and inclusion, is because I wanted to work on these problems. I want individuals and organizations to learn from the past, of previous individuals and organizations who perpetuated oppression, harm, and death. I want individuals and organizations to truly commit to harm reduction, not just lawsuit avoidance and performative activism. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is a subset of anti-oppression work, and it was always meant to be an organizational toolset to support more proactive harm reduction in workplaces, beyond bare minimum legal requirements that in practice permit a great deal of harmful actions and biased behavior. DEI is about what organizations and workplaces need to examine, create, and anticipate, in policy and practice, in order to prevent discrimination based on identity, and to enable the best work environment and employee support.

For those unaware, the origins of diversity, equity, and inclusion go all the way back to the concept of affirmative action, stemming from Executive Order 10925 from then President Kennedy in 1961. The term affirmative action comes directly from the executive order mandating that government contractors “will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.”  This order and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 led to the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce anti-discrimination laws.

Many organizations then and now continue to make the mistake of thinking that if they merely don’t actively discriminate, then fairness and equality naturally and neatly fall into place without any action on their part. This is simultaneously naive, incorrect, and harmful. Our organizations do not exist in a vacuum. They exist in a country and in a society that was and remains rampant with oppressive, unjust polices that have denied political, economic, social, and environmental resources to many historically marginalized groups, including communities of color, people with disabilities, women and people targeted by sexism, the queer community, and both documented and undocumented immigrants. Marginalized applicants and employees face barriers inside and outside the workplace that impact how they engage with employment and how they are perceived and treated by employers.

For example, according to a comprehensive study by the Economic Policy Institute in 2016, women at every single wage level and every single educational level earn less than their male counterparts. Women stand to lose between $500,000 to over $1 million during the course of their lifetime earnings due to the gender wage gap, and this is especially true for women of color. A significant portion of this gap can only be explained by gender discrimination. Meanwhile, my alma-mater, the University of Denver, was sued by the EEOC in 2016 for paying female law professors less than male law professors. It settled in 2018 for $2.66 million dollars being paid to the plaintiffs.

Like affirmative action, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives advise the proactive and intentional removal of bias, discriminatory practices, and harmful policies in areas like hiring, promotions, leadership structure, retirement, parental leave, etc. This is to ensure harm is not being caused to anyone based on their identity, and that employers are avoiding putting the extreme burden of suing for discrimination on employees seeking remedy, an already difficult, exhaustive, and fraught process.

Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are about the duty of organizations to do and be better. These basic principles and practices of fairness and justice have taken the U.S. hundreds of years to achieve. It has taken decades upon decades of constitutional amendments, legislation, story-telling, activism, relationship building, movement building, and resistance to oppression paid in real blood, sweat and tears to make even the smallest strides in the fight for human dignity, autonomy, and opportunity.

And now, here I sit, during Black History Month, watching the small progress we have made erode and erode, progress has been much smaller than many want to admit.

As we know, slavery in the U.S. didn’t actually end with the 13th amendment. It has merely warped and shifted into our for-profit prison industrial complex, where people can be compelled to work with no pay and under threat of punishment. People with disabilities and medical needs still die because health insurance companies deny care and treat all of us like an expense to avoid, not lives to be protected. Every day, working people are still destroying their bodies and spirits, losing nearly all their time for joy and connection, drowning in debt and doubt for the future, all for crumbs we call wages that barely meet basic needs.

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) efforts weren’t going to address all that. But they were and are a step towards better institutions, and a component of hundreds of years of justice and liberation work. It felt like the conversation was just beginning, just starting to shift the tides in a way not seen since the last Civil Rights movements of the 60s and 70s. And now this.

This past year, DEIA has been outlawed or banned across the country. This week, this administration directed the Department of Justice to target private sector DEIA initiatives for potential criminal investigation. Matt Walsh, the right wing anti-intellectual whom I had the misfortune of meeting during his pseudo-documentary style attack on DEI work (a story I will share more about in the coming months and that you can read more about here https://www.washingtoninformer.com/far-right-campaign-against-anti-racism/), said on X “We must also punish the people who imposed [DEI] on our country and our children. They must be humiliated, financially ruined, and left destitution…Destroy them. No mercy.”

I don’t think doing this work makes me worthy of being destroyed. In fact, I don’t think any human is deserving of destruction, even those who cause harm. I think treating people as monsters, as subhuman, as irredeemable, as garbage, as valueless, is always a lie, always a mistake, and always oppressive. I fear that these types of sentiments will only grow and expand in the present day, as more and more of us are intentionally painted as monsters to serve those that benefit from such a narrative.

I cannot say what is to come or what this administration will truly do. What I can say is that we have the benefit of all the knowledge and work of our ancestors. What I can say is that we have all the lessons learned from our past liberation movements. What I can say is that we must do the hard work of building real relationships and a base that cares about justice and liberation for all. What I can say is that if we don’t learn how to be in conflict with one another without destroying one another, we will be lost. What I can say is that if we do not learn to heal ourselves, our minds, our bodies, and our trauma, we will be lost. What I can say is that if we don’t strive for what we long for, what we really desire, we will be lost.

This month, I will be looking to the legacy of my ancestors, to the wisdom of Black scholars, philosophers, and writers, to the creations of Black storytellers and artists, and to the power of activism and resistance the Black community of this country pioneered and has baked into our very bones. Perhaps this month, with renewed vigor and values, with renewed connection and commitment, we may be found.

The post Black History Month appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Yellow Scene spoke with Dr. Rabaka about the recently opened CAAAS —Center for African & African American Studies — the first of its kind in the Boulder area. Dr. Rabaka is not only the Director of CAAAS, and also the Chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies, he still finds time to teach some of the most popular courses at CU Boulder. His infectious enthusiasm brought the conversation to new heights as we explored the nuances of liberalism and racial justice within the context of the Boulder community. Dr. Rabaka’s classes at CU are full of passion, energy, and contextualization that bring to life the songs, lyrics, and albums that have been illuminating the way towards liberation for decades.

Some questions have been paraphrased for clarity

Dr. Rabaka and students at the CAAAS. Photo provided by Dr. Rabaka

YS: Tell me about CAAAS

Dr. Rabaka: The whole point of my center is to build a bridge from the campus to the Boulder County community. There’s a part of this that is my profession, and there’s another part of it that is my passion. This gives my life meaning, this gives my life purpose.

YS: Whenever I talk to people about what their passion is, it inherently makes the interview much more interesting.

DR: I don’t think it’s possible for somebody like me to live a passionless life. And, again, because we’re just coming off Juneteenth, you might imagine that the majority of my ancestors didn’t get a chance, they didn’t get a choice. They couldn’t choose their profession, they were told what to do … Don’t get caught up in the system that will make you a consumer, make sure that you’re doing something that you actually love. I’ve had to do a lot of odd jobs but I was always working towards something, [you have to] set goals for yourself. And maybe that’s why 18 to 23 year olds keep vibing with me.

YS: How do you see the CAAAS expanding forward in the near future?

DR: Maybe that’s the humble contribution I’m making to the great State of Colorado, I want to make African American Studies accessible to as wide an audience as possible. It’s not just about do you vibe with this culture? Do you resonate with this culture? I’m a specialist in the Frankfurt School coming out of Germany. There was something about those brilliant Jewish-German folks and their critique of anti-semitism during the Nazi holocaust that that I resonate with. I’m not the only African American to vibe with this incredible critique of anti semitism. There’s a lot of anti-democratic tendencies that take place in these societies.

YS: You really capture the energy on campus. I see why students are vibing with you. You’re making connections with people that are young and you remain relevant, that’s really cool. What do you want to share about what you are teaching?

DR: African American Studies is open to folks’ cultural curiosity about the African American experience. For me, in K-12, I didn’t get any African American Studies. On top of that, I didn’t get any Native American, Mexican American or Asian American Studies. Some of these students are paying a lot to have access to African American Studies. I want to make it a space where if there is a legitimate sincere question that you may have about African American history, or culture, or the African American struggle, I want to do my humble best to answer that question. 

YS: How do you use music to relate to the struggle for equality?

DR: Every class I’m starting out with a piece of music that sets the tone for whatever we’re reading that day. Some of my students say ‘I realized I missed half of the lyrics on ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’ by Kendrick Lamar because I didn’t have this background in terms of African American history or culture. Now that I do, I can actually see that it’s a very BLM [Black Lives Matter] themed album.’ If you think about Beyonce’s “Lemonade,” or Childish Gambino’s “This is America,” I can just go on and on and on. You’re not gonna be able to understand that music if you don’t understand what’s happening in Black America at the time.

YS: You spoke about how moved you were with the communities that showed up in the Black Lives Matter movement.

DR: Many of us were very moved by the solidarity that many other non-white folks, and even many of our white allies, showed with BLM — which as you know, started 10 years ago. It reinvigorated me as a professor intellectually. I’m an artist, I’m not just an intellectual. African American Studies isn’t just for African Americans. It’s for anybody that wants to learn about the history of American culture … It seems to me that you hear some of the human experience, some of the human condition when you listen to Motown, or Aretha Franklin, or that new Beyonce. Teaching African American Studies in Boulder presents me with a lot of challenges, but it’s also rewarding. It’s kind of like George Clinton says, ‘funk is its own reward.’ African American Studies is its own reward, no matter who you are.  

YS: One of the things that resonated with me the most was how MLK Jr. touched on the white moderate being one of the biggest stumbling blocks in progress. There’s overt racism, and structural racism, but a lot of times it’s the people just content where they’re at, not wanting to stir up trouble, and not wanting to open their eyes, that are holding things back. How do we activate them, especially with people that say they’re on the liberal side of things, who are not actively fighting for racial progress?

DR: I want to start  by saying … there’s a certain kind of courage that it takes to ask somebody like me this question. I’ll start with the fact that in African American studies and in critical race theory we argue that in many vanilla environments — like Boulder — it is possible to be liberal when it comes to gender and sexuality, but conservative when it comes to race and class. We need to push people to define what they mean by their liberal positions if they’re not including race in a very culturally homogenous environment. We learned from the Black Women’s Liberation Movement that somebody could be a feminist and a racist. The fact of the matter is somebody could stand up for gender justice, but be complacent or silent with respect to racial justice.

YS: Is this where intersectionality comes in?

DR: My conception of intersectionality is actually insurgent. It’s become a buzzword to help people get tenure and go on TV and talk about intersectionality, when really, in Boulder, most times when people say intersectionality, they only mean gender and sexuality. Those are important, but that’s not what Kimberly Crenshaw was really articulating. [She’s] talking about the overlap of race, gender, class, sexuality, ability and disability, immigration status, religious affiliations, — or non-religious affiliation — if somebody is incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated.

YS: How can someone who is interested in racial justice but inexperienced in the knowledge or the history of the BLM movement begin to understand it?

DR: “The New Jim Crow” is one of the textbooks in my BLM class. That book drops in 2010. Three years later, we have a movement called BLM. So that’s a handbook, if you will, for the movement to help us understand the prison industrial complex. 

YS: I love how you connect across cultures, races, and classes to touch on these topics. How do you bridge that education, generation, and racial knowledge gap?

DR: This whole so-called “Hip Hop Generation,” those born after the March on Washington in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 … born after this landmark civil rights legislation, there’s a series of social movements in the 60s and the 70s that shaped our worldview. And so although we may not be in the same ‘race’ it sounds like you and I share culture. We share a particular world cosmology, a worldview we share because we are the first generation to come of age in an awkwardly integrated American society.

YS: I love how you bring the interdisciplinary connections and build bridges with everything you’re talking about, whether its music genres or social justice movements, we’re bouncing back and forth between it all, truly embodying intersectionality. I love that it’s not just a buzzword for you. You seem to be that bridge.

DR: I really appreciate you noting the interdisciplinarity part of my work. What makes my work different, [what makes] African American studies [different is that] as compared to an old school Black Studies course, where it was focused on straight Black male studies, only straight Black male studies, [we include]  all the views, from Black feminism, to Black queer studies, to Black trans studies, and so on and so forth. My thesis is that between 1967 and 1979 funk and disco are actually articulating something very powerful that’s going on.

YS: I think that music is such a perfect way to tap into culture. Music and food, I would say are the perfect way to start tapping into something that you’re unfamiliar with, and finding bits that are familiar but also challenging to yourself 

DR: I would only add literature.

YS: How did I miss that as a writer?

DR: It’s like pulling teeth to get people to read. It’s a dying art, maybe not dying, but we certainly need a renaissance. When I give my students “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin, or I give them the autobiography of Angela Davis, or the autobiography of Malcolm X, they begin to see, ‘wow, I can relate to this part of Angela Davis’s narrative’ or Malcolm X’s narrative or whoever it may be.

YS: What are some of your literary influences?

DR: I like reading widely, not just African American literature, but American, European and Latin American literature. That, to me, shows our shared humanity. There’s a “oneness.” Love connects all of us. That may be the theme of my life. I’m actually trying to remind people that we are relatives. We are cousins and kinfolk. I’d like to think at its best a democratic America will acknowledge our shared humanity.

YS: Your message resonates so strongly with me. I studied anthropology in college which says that, at our core, humans are humans. We can look at the differences, and the nuances, but to try to break it down into different hierarchies is where you run into problems. There’s no hierarchy. There’s different ways of doing things. And different ways to learn things. What I find, unfortunately, is that conversation stays in the academic world.

DR: I’m considered a public scholar. I tried to lecture as much in public as I do on the campus. I want folks like my family members who’ve never had a chance to go to a college or university to get a sample lecture so that they can see what I’m doing in these hallowed lecture halls at the University of Colorado Boulder. I want to make sure that I not simply fulfill my professorial obligations, but I’m also giving back to the community.

The post Building Bridges with CAAAS: A conversation with Dr. Rabaka appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

DENVER – The City and County of Denver this morning face another federal lawsuit seeking damages on behalf of 12 protestors over alleged unconstitutional assaults that Denver Police made on peaceful protesters and following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

 The new lawsuit comes in the wake of a $14 million verdict awarded to other protestors on March 25th by a federal jury in an earlier lawsuit filed by Loevy & Loevy, Fitouri, et al. v. City and County of Denver, No. 20-CV-1922-RBJ-MEH (consolidated with Epps v. City of Denver, No. 20-CV-1878-RBJ). Two attorneys who helped win the earlier suit, Elizabeth Wang and Makeba Rutahindurwa of Loevy & Loevy, are attorneys for the plaintiffs in the new suit as well.

Editor’s Note: Press Releases are provided to Yellow Scene. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

According to the new suit, police used “constitutionally unlawful crowd control tactics, including kettling, indiscriminate and unwarned launching of tear gas and flashbangs into crowds and at individuals, and shooting projectiles at protestors….DPD and its mutual-aid officers knowingly placed these protestors in physical danger through indiscriminate use of excessive force.”

Credit: KUSA

Besides the physical dangers posed by the police assaults, today’s suit charges that police used a variety of tactics to intimidate and deter people from ”exercising their First Amendment right to exercise freedom of speech, peaceably assemble, and petition for redress of grievances.”

The suit seeks damages for plaintiffs who include union organizers, a student, property manager, small business owner, restaurant server, software engineer, a law school graduate, and a case manager for a tax consultant group.

As if to prove the point of the protests themselves – opposing police violence – the lawsuit alleges that the DPD and its mutual-aid officers used violence on protestors opposing the police murder of George Floyd and other Black people.

The DPD used “less-lethal” weapons “indiscriminately and without any or adequate warning, even at times when the crowd was merely chanting, kneeling or standing with their hands up.”

“Despite being roundly condemned by a federal jury in the earlier suit, Denver’s policymakers continue to dig in their heels and refuse to admit any wrongdoing on the part of the officers they ultimately supervise,” said Wang. “This head-in-the-sand attitude is a recipe for further police violence and other serious civil rights violations. Denver’s absolute refusal to consider significant institutional and policy changes and disciplining of violent officers is irresponsible from both public safety and public finance perspectives.”

Loevy & Loevy is one of the nation’s largest civil rights law firms and has won more multi-million-dollar jury verdicts than any other civil rights law firm in the country. It has offices in Boulder, Chicago, Washington and Seattle.

A copy of today’s suit, Cousik, et al. v. City and County of Denver, case No. 22-cv-1213, can be found here.

The post More Protesters File Suit Against Denver Over Police Violence At 2020 Protests appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Denver, Colorado – March 29, 2022

To the Denver Community,

On Friday, March 25, a federal jury found that the Denver Police used excessive force against us in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments when they indiscriminately attacked massive crowds of peaceful protestors with tear gas grenades, Pepper Ball guns, flash bang explosives, 40mm projectile launchers, lead pellets fired from shotguns, and other so-called “less-lethal” munitions. The jury also found an individual officer culpable for shooting a plaintiff while she peacefully protested. While this verdict sets a strong precedent, it is one of many important steps in the fight against the injustice inherent in the system of U.S. policing, the very same injustice that called us to the streets in May 2020.

Following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, we joined thousands of our community members at the Colorado Capitol to mourn, commune, and demand an end to a racist policing system that continues to murder our Black and brown neighbors. We raised our voices to deliver a message, and for this we were repeatedly met with armed resistance by Denver Police and other agencies under their direction. After weeks of terror and pain at the hands of police, we were among many community members who sued to protect our rights to protest peacefully, free from violence and repression.

In testimony during this trial, we heard police leaders say that murders like George Floyd’s and Breonna Taylor’s would not have happened in Denver. We wish we lived in a world where this is true. In just the last decade, our metro area police departments have murdered dozens of people, many of them unarmed and of color. Justice will not come from verdicts or convictions, only from dismantling these systems of brutality. It is our desperate hope that we live to see the end of police violence here in Denver and in the rest of the country.

We will continue to remind the Denver Police Department and the people of Denver that this has happened here. We must build a world in which it NEVER happens again. It’s up to all of us.

Signed,

Epps Plaintiffs

Hollis Lyman

Maya Rothlein

Amanda Blasingame

Zach Packard

Ashleè Wedgeworth

Fitouri Plaintiffs

Sara Fitouri

Joe Deras

Jackie Parkins

Claire Sannier

Elle Taylor

Editor’s Note: Press Releases are provided to Yellow Scene. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

The post Protesters of George Floyd’s Murder Discuss the Landmark $14M Verdict v. Denver PD appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

PRESS RELEASE: Press Releases are provided to Yellow Scene. In an effort to keep our community informed, we are now publishing some press releases in whole.

“I wanted you to know that the people of color who walk in this community… walk around in another America – facing other trauma that you will never have to experience.” – Maurice Cox at a Black Lives Matter protest in Boulder, CO

Motus Theater is bringing JustUs: Stories from the Frontlines of the Criminal Justice System to the virtual stage in two companion performances. On November 19 the monologists will tell their own stories and on December 3, 2020 law enforcement leaders will read aloud these same monologues. Together, these companion performances feature the autobiographical monologues of formerly incarcerated leaders about the racism and injustice of the criminal justice system with the goal of mobilizing discussion and inspiring action toward true justice.

The first performance is Thursday, 11/19 at 7pm MST/ 9pm EST and features Motus Theater JustUs monologists Dereck Bell and Juaquin Mobley reading their own autobiographical monologues; and Maurice Cox, the teaching pastor from Ascent Community Church, standing in the shoes of JustUs monologist Daniel Guillory by reading aloud his story and reflecting on the brutality of prison and punishment. The reading will be followed by personal reflections from the monologists and readers, and a conversation and Q&A with Jessica Howard, the Racial Justice Campaign Coordinator for the ACLU of Colorado. Vocalist Jann Oldham will be offering musical reflections following each monologue.
 

REGISTER TO ATTEND!
 

*And DON’T MISS the second companion performance on 12/3 at 6pm MST/8pm EST featuring law enforcement leaders including Boulder County DA, Michael Dougherty; Lafayette Police Chief, Rick Bashor; and Captain Corey Pass of Estes Park Police Department reading aloud the stories of Motus Theater JustUs Monologists. Register for that performance, here. 

The post Motus Theater: Formerly Incarcerated Monologists in First of Two Companion Performances | Press Release appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

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I was in my office the other day, typing away as I’m wont to do, when my friend Britta sent me an Instagram link. It was to a picture of Senator Cory Gardner, currently in the death throes of a flailing campaign as former Colorado governor and current Senate candidate John Hickenlooper smashes Colorado’s historic fundraising records, with an absolutely hilarious caption across his face. I clicked through to @YeetCoryGardner and I found a treasure trove of amusement predicated on a very simple idea of how Colorado sees itself, how Coloradans see themselves, and I was hooked. I reached out for an interview and Yeet responde, saying, “you can email me at… So I’m not just like, aggressively working out my thumbs”. 

Yeah, Yeet, we can do that. And we did. A few quick notes before we get to the convo: She – yes, Yeet is a woman – is going by Yeet to avoid doxxing and remain safe and secure in her anonymity. To Yeet, according to the Urban Dictionary, means “to discard an item at a high velocity”. That is, Yeet wants to use the platform she built (over 15K followers in two weeks) to discard, throw away, and otherwise get rid of Cory Gardner. What could he have done to deserve this? Well…according to Yeet, he’s just not very Colorado.

For a self description, Yeet’s IG page says she’s, “Poorly serving the great state of Colorado in the United States Senate. (All posts intended as satire/Not affiliated with any political organization.)”.

Below is an edited version of our conversation. All images courtesy of @YeetCoryGardner

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFbIskdBWfy/

De La Vaca: Yeet! Thank you for talking to me. I’m sure you’ve had other people reach out to you as well. Such a weird account you have going on.

Yeet: It is bizarre.

De La Vaca: It’s bizarre. It’s a little juggernaut you have going on. You’re having fun. This is high level, social media, millennial, civic engagement, social activism. So let’s start at the beginning. Who are you and why are you?

Yeet: Why am I… At the end of the day, I’m just a girl who thinks she’s funny and I’ve always been on the periphery involved in politics in some capacity. When I was 15, I was really sad I couldn’t vote for Obama and so I went out and volunteered with his campaign and just convinced other people to vote for me. So I’ve always been interested and then I started working in marketing after college. I’ve kind of honed my craft that way. But at the end of the day, this is very deeply rooted in the fact that I’ve hated Cory Gardner. I was like, ‘he’s bad for Colorado. It’s very clear that he’s not a great fit’. 

I didn’t love him and so then I was watching Monday night football, two weeks ago now, my fantasy team was losing, everything was a bummer. I was texting one of my friends about how horrible Cory Gardner is and I was like, ‘I bet he goes to Casa Bonita for the food’ or something. And she was like, ‘you should put that on a shirt’. And I was like, ‘I should put that on the internet’. 

And I made the first few memes and I thought it would just be an account where I was sharing my jokes about Cory Gardner with 17 of my friends. And then it kind of snowballed into this thing that is not at all what I expected it to become, but it’s kind of hilarious and wonderful to have a surprise platform of people who are interested and do care and want better representation for their state.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF93i8wldkW/

De La Vaca: So when you say that he’s not a good fit for the state, are you talking about the state today? The future state you want? Or the past state? Because this is a state that is known for being purple and voted for Bush twice.

Yeet: Correct. I think Cory Gardner branded himself as a different kind of Republican. And that’s what the basis of his appeal was when he was running the first time. We’ve seen from the way he boasts, it’s 90% of the time with Trump, if not higher, that he’s not in fact a different kind of Republican, that he’s lining his pockets with money from the NRA, kind of selling out. I mean, his public lands thing is good, but it’s also kind of a last ditch effort after giving up on so much. It’s very clear that he prioritizes his party over his constituents, otherwise he would have made a statement about white supremacy and he probably wouldn’t be voting to confirm Amy Coney Barrett.

De La Vaca: Definitely. Talk to me about your sense of humor, because you started off by saying that you think that you are a girl that finds herself funny. And you’re also making jokes on the internet and, arguably, a lot of the things you’re saying about Cory Gardner aren’t implicitly political but just more ironic, or just calling into question his naturalness and fit as a Coloradan today. So, what’s the point of your jokes and how are you having a political impact making these up?

Yeet: Well, first of all, it is satire 100%. It is not intended as defamation or slander in any kind. I do want that to be on the record. So when I get my inevitable cease and desist… 

So, all of the jokes are very Colorado-focused and designed to appeal to the Colorado pride that so many people in the state have, while pointing out that maybe Senator Gardner isn’t exactly right for the state and using, not his political stances to point that out, but rather to just be like, this is a funny thing, but as a Coloradan you do or don’t identify with, and maybe he offers his own little D.C. land, kinda doing whatever. And I think the reality is probably he doesn’t go to Casa Bonita for the food or whatever. But when you can rally people around something positive and lighthearted in an election cycle that feels a little bit like a nightmare and can keep it important and good.

A lot of people have messaged me and said this is the first thing that has made them laugh in days or weeks. That means a lot. I think everybody’s kind of seeing what they want to see, but in the scariest manifestation of itself. And so to bring some lightheartedness to a political climate that feels anything but, that’s kind of the intention.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFgRAy5hk9N/

De La Vaca: It is definitely lighthearted. There’s an understanding that Colorado has of itself and Coloradans have of themselves. And you’re painting a picture of him outside of that box without saying, well, ‘his policies are destructive for our communities’ or, ‘he’s clearly a white supremacis’t and whatever, right. Like you’re not saying that explicitly, but you’re saying he’s not Colorado the way we’re Colorado. And we have to think about that.

Yeet: Correct. And I think people already know kind of where he lies policy wise and stuff, but just to appeal to something besides people’s fear or concern… I think it’s definitely an approach that feels very absent with election cycles.

De La Vaca: Is your project more anti-Cory Gardener or more pro-Hickenlooper? How do you feel about Hickenlooper?

Yeet: I like Hickenlooper and I think he’ll do a good job representing the state. I think it’s going to be really important for him if he is elected to not only focus on the metro areas. One thing Cory Gardner has going for him is that he is Yuma and he is the small town Colorado nice boy. And Hickenlooper is like… He was a businessman, he’s from Denver, he’s got the city thing down.

But the goal of the account was mostly just to not support Cory Gardner, but the flip side of that coin is that the true way to not support him is to vote for John Hickenlooper. And that’s the only way he’s going to end up out of office. You can’t not support Cory Gardner and not show up because you don’t want to vote. You have to take action.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFiXby7hQam/

De La Vaca: Sure. It feels like Colorado’s currently a very safe blue state. So then I think it’s fun to not necessarily point at Hickenlooper as some kind of savior or antithesis to Cory Gardner, which I don’t personally think he is, but instead to have a little fun at Cory Gardner’s expense. So…What happens after November 3rd?

Yeet: I’m still deciding. It has been… Because of the scale of it, and the responsibility that I kind of feel like I acquired now, it’s been a lot more work than I had anticipated to speak candidly. And part of me just kind of wants to walk away from it after November 3rd, like give the people what they want and then hopefully the people will vote for what they want and get what they want and my work will be done. If that doesn’t happen, I guess I’m doing it for six more years.

De La Vaca: That’s fair. The work you’re doing is squarely in line with the political comedians that started since Jon Stewart, for real. I mean, you’re doing a different thing, but it’s in the same vein and it might even-

Yeet: That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me

De La Vaca: Yeah? It’s the iteration, right? Like Trevor Noah does it, Lee Camp does it. There’s a lot more, right? And it’s important. Like you’re meeting people where they’re at, right? Young people are not necessarily politically engaged. Definitely not following a lot of the mainstream shows. I’m not a millennial but I don’t even have cable. I don’t watch that.

Yeet: Yeah, I don’t either.

De La Vaca: I catch a clip once in a while if somebody shares it. But they say all the young folks left Facebook and now they’re on Instagram and Tik Tok and whatnot.

Yeet: Yeah. The Tik Tok-

De La Vaca: So going to where they’re at, I think that’s that’s savvy and I think it’s crucial for the young vote. And so I applaud what you’re doing.

Yeet: Thank you.

De La Vaca: And I was going to ask…Do people automatically assume that a man that runs the account?

Yeet: Yeah. Everybody so far has thought that I’m a guy. Which, honestly, I’m not mad about it because I think just because of the world and whatever people are predisposed to think like men are funnier and now you’re like, ‘okay, well that sucks, but it’s true’. You can refer to me as Mr. Yeet if you want to. I think that’s great.

De La Vaca: I’ll be like, ‘Her name is Mr. Yeet. Not a real name, I just made it up’.

Yeet: Oh yeah. No, you can, you can just refer to me by pronouns. If you want to do she/her, that’s fine. I wouldn’t mind getting it out into the world that I’m not a dude. Just to clarify for the people who might be confused, but…

De La Vaca: Perfect I can do that. We’ll do that. I’ll just refer to you as Yeet. I’m calling you Yeet. Yeah.How many followers do you have right now?

Yeet: 15.2K

De La Vaca: Jesus Christ, man.

Yeet: Yeah, dude. It’s insane.

De La Vaca: And this is a two week old account.

Yeet: Yeah.

De La Vaca: Wow. That’s a testimony to both how funny you are and how relatable the content is, but also how much people dislike Cory Gardner.

Yeet: Yeah. I think it’s a testament especially to the second two things. And then I also think like Colorado as a state has done a really good job of branding itself. And I think giving people a joke to be in on, has been really important. I think that’s contributed to the virality of it a lot.

Well, Yeet, we love you. Thank you for the laughs and the activism and working to get our state out to vote. Hopefully you don’t have to do this another six years. Good luck and, for the record, your posts on my feed are my new Moment of Zen. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFfyn1-hSyt/

The post Meet Yeet: The Woman Behind @YeetCoryGardner appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Image by Alexander Pringle

In the end, a destination we haven’t reached and I’m not sure we ever will, history will remember this year, and these protests, in the same ways that history remembers the Civil Rights era of the 1960s.

In the end, as Martin Luther King, Jr said, “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice”. We are bending it towards justice because justice too long denied is intolerable, erodes the human spirit, spits in the face of ancestors, and willfully sows division and hatred for maintenance of power.

As we write this, the Civil War Soldiers Memorial at the State Capitol in Denver has been pulled down. Claims of mob rule and anarchy spread among right-wing and neoliberal circles, demanding history be remembered: “How could anyone claiming aboriginal ancestry cheer the erasure of that story from a monument to soldiers who died fighting for the Union (and against slavery)?” one man hurriedly typed on Facebook. 

Do you mean that same Union that profited off slavery and fought, in fact, to preserve the Union – not to end slavery? Do you mean a unit of soldiers that, while fighting for the Union, committed one of history’s most aggrieved acts of genocide, the Sand Creek Massacre? A state and an empire that applauds its most horrific members while stomping the breath out of lives screaming for justice is not one that should go unchallenged. For too long – too fu*king long – the citizenry has been pacified, contented, and lethargic with regard to the exercise of rights. That season appears to have passed.

The murder of Native and African Americans is as American as apple pie, age-old. I have to be clear that what began in 1619 was a new iteration of an older project. The first slavery, the first genocides began in 1493. Natives – which includes Chicanos, Latinos, and all peoples from Alaska and Canada to Argentina and Brazil, and all the islands on our costs – were the first slaves, the first hunted, the first to endure and survive genocide. We cannot ignore that, nor erase it. Be wary of anyone who does.

The murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd set off an American powder keg. Rightfully. Public, police executions of Black people have gone on for far too long. Police impunity is the problem. And yes, we know that each of you special snowflakes is a life that matters. Today we affirm that #BlackLivesMatter because, of all our houses, that is the house that is on fire today. More clearly: that is the house that is *still* being burnt down. 

We, along with the many thousands who took to the streets this summer, are fighting for a reimagining of the America we live in, because we live in an American that – in 2020 – has barely begun to take down racist, traitorous Confederate flags in our military institutions. It’s an America that has a constitutional ban on slavery, except if you’re in prison (Black and Indigenous bodies are locked up at the highest rates). It’s an America that smirks at Black lives lost at the hands of police, unless it’s caught on tape, shared enough times, and finds its way to a sympathetic jury. 

I wrote once that America deserves the unrest it is currently experiencing. It deserves its monuments to racists and murderers be torn down. It deserves its government building overrun with angry people, fighting for a just world. It deserves the vilification of its police and its complicit political class. 

The images in these pages were taken in Denver, Erie, Longmont, and Boulder, images of resistance and hope, of survival against militarized police, of love for Black lives in streets that for so long have buried whole communities of color. Our editor, De La Vaca, was shot three times, including a rubber bullet to the groin while covering the protests. Media and medics were targeted, beyond the targeting of peaceful protesters, leading to a federal restraining order against Denver Police Department. 

De La Vaca, Alexander Pringle, Kenneth Wajda, and Chelsea Campbell stood in the police violence of the streets, in the love of the streets, to capture and share these “Faces of Summer” with you today.  

Mother and Child at George Floyd Vigil. Generations present with a real chance for change.

Of Native American lineage cheering at the pedestal during the removal of the Civil War statue.

Protester with the only things he had to defend himself, but he still was there. Ironing board in one hand, and umbrella in the other.

Woman giving a flower during the sudden storm to a man chained to the Civil War statue.

Day of Saturday the 30th, police engaged with protesters during the day, pre-curfew. Swat firing peper spray at guy using fence section as shield

Night of Saturday the 30th, Saturday police engaged with protesters during the day. Protesters on bikes with masks.

SUV torched next to the MCnichols building. Multiple fires had been set that night.

The post Faces of Summer: Black Lives Matter Edition appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.