By Rising Up with Sonali | KPFK
Embed not found
FEATURING JODY ARMOUR – The killing of George Floyd has sparked mass protests in Minneapolis with thousands of people turning out onto the streets and police firing stun grenades, rubber bullets, and tear gas. America has witnessed through smart phone video documentation, yet another brutal murder of a black man at the hands of police and although there has been a demand for Black Lives to Matter for years now, will Floyd be yet another victim in the deadly toll of racist policing?
Floyd’s killing came to light at almost the same time as another incident unfolded in New York City’s Central Park which could have turned deadly but didn’t. A liberal white woman named Amy Cooper called police falsely claiming that a black man was threatening her. The man in question, Christian Cooper filmed the incident exposing her lie.
Tied to both incidents is the recent killing of a black jogger named Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia by a former police officer and his son, also captured on video. It is part of a deadly and disturbing pattern that echoes throughout American history.
Jody Armour, the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America. He is also a Soros Justice Senior Fellow of The Open Society Institute’s Center on Crime, Communities and Culture, and he is the Race and Criminal Justice Correspondent for Rising Up With Sonali.
-
What Are We Cheering For?
Every holiday, every weekend, every so-called American ritual came with a side of football. The game would be on, and we were supposed to care. I didn’t. Not really. Not until I almost did. For a brief stretch, when my dad worked with the Clippers during the Lob City era, I started to believe. Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan — it felt like swagger, like culture, like something to belong to. Then the trades came, the team got gutted, and the curtain dropped. It wasn’t family. It wasn’t culture. It was business. That moment stuck. The more I watched, the more the wires showed: how ritual gets packaged, sold, and weaponized. How meaning becomes merchandise. How attention becomes empire.
-
When AI Replaced Our Comics
When AI replaced hand-drawn comics in our newsroom, I saw more than ugly art — I saw the erosion of what makes journalism worth doing.
-
Farewell to Sister Assumpta Oturu, Champion of African Voices
Celebrating the life and legacy of Sister Assumpta Oturu, who amplified African stories and built bridges across continents through decades of fearless broadcasting.
-
Cary Harrison Explains The Truth Behind The Mar-a-Lago Raid
What would George Washington say? Secretly flying 35 filing cabinet drawers-worth of Pentagon secrets to your private hotel for favor-swaps was the straw to make all Presidents now raidable. Will this affect a future Trump 2024 run? What about Hunter and Hillary?
