Author: lafocus

Mark Hedin /Ethnic Media Services

Law enforcement knows that the top threat of deadly violence in the United States today comes not from “tree huggers” or Black Lives Matter activists, but from white supremacists and far-right extremists.

But in the eyes of the law, they’re all treated the same.

This was among the messages presented Tuesday to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “‘Metasticizing’ Domestic Terrorism.”

To “metasticize” is to dangerously spread and grow, like a cancer.

The hearing was held in response to the May 14 attack at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store that killed 10 shoppers and store security, mostly black.

Among those testifying was Michael German, a 16-year veteran of the FBI who cut his teeth working undercover, infiltrating white supremacist and right-wing militant groups in Los Angeles and Seattle in the ‘90s before resigning in protest over what he deemed misguided agency policies around counterterrorism in the post-9/11 era.

He now works at the Brennan Center for Justice, after publishing a book and working for the ACLU.

White supremacists the “most violent”

A first step law enforcement should take, he said, is simply to focus on who’s most violent.

“Congress has already done the work necessary to provide federal law enforcement with all the tools it needs,” he said.

“The FBI and Justice Department use their domestic terrorism authorities most aggressively against groups that are far less violent and rarely, if ever, commit fatal attacks, such as environmentalists, animal rights activists, peace activists, anti-racism activists, anti-fascists and, most recently revealed, Concerned Women of America,” he testified.

But “white supremacists are the most violent and deadly among the perpetrators the FBI categorizes as domestic terrorists,” he said — and the most deadly to law enforcement officers themselves.

“The problem is that the Justice Department and FBI choose not to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of white supremacist and far-right violence as a matter of policy and practice.”

Also, German noted, data on both the extent of white supremacist crimes and on how it’s being addressed are lacking.

Too often, German said, violent crimes are left to state and local authorities or other agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms or the Drug Enforcement Agency to prosecute, according to their varied rules and appetite for justice.

For example, German said, a murder that could be considered domestic terrorism might be prosecuted instead as a hate crime, or simply a violent crime, and referred to state and local authorities, some of whom don’t have hate crime laws.

Of the 230,000 hate crimes that occur on average per year, only 25 are prosecuted at the federal level, German said, while only 14% of police agencies even acknowledge that hate crime exists within their jurisdictions.

“These crimes demand extra attention because they pose a persistent threat to vulnerable communities, particularly communities of color, immigrants, LGBTQ people, women, the disabled, and religious minorities,” German said.

“At some point we must acknowledge that white supremacy is not an ‘extremist’ belief system, but instead far too mainstream,” German testified.

The Great Replacement Theory

But when leaders adopt these positions, German said, people understand them as authorization to act on those beliefs — which have also, alarmingly, taken root in law enforcement circles.

Like the killer of 23 people in El Paso, Texas in 2019, the 2018 synagogue attack in Pittsburgh that killed 11 and the Christchurch, New Zealand, killing of 50, the Buffalo gunman   justified his murderous targeting of black shoppers with the “Great Replacement Theory” that has cropped up repeatedly around the world in blaming an “other” — usually a racial or ethnic minority or religion, often immigrant — for usurping power and opportunity from a more privileged sector of the populace.

In 2022, such beliefs have been accepted by nearly a third of U.S. respondents — and 54% of Fox viewers, according to polling that German cited.

It’s not surprising, he commented. “Politicians and media pundits have long exploited racial resentments and public fears of demographic change to sway voters and build an audience.”

And too often, he continued, violent actors are portrayed and prosecuted as “lone wolves” without broader consideration of their fellow travelers.

This was the case with the Buffalo, N.Y., attacker, but closer examination turned up not only advance warnings of the scheme posted and seen online, but also that he described his plans openly to others, including at least one federal agent, and had help in choosing his weaponry.

When he was working undercover with white supremacists, German testified, “lone wolf tactics” were recommended by its leaders for those “committing criminal acts, as part of a broader ‘leaderless resistance’ strategy” to keep the group as a whole out of trouble.

Ever since 9/11, German said, too much emphasis has been placed on surveillance for terrorist recruiting and radicalization efforts — to little effect beyond the detriment of people’s privacy — and “see something, say something” campaigns that have been similarly ineffective and divisive.

More effective strategies, he testified, would be to focus on how the violent element operates within the white supremacist movement, focusing on the tactics used, and amassing data and successfully prosecuting all violent crime across the board.

German is the author of the 2008 book, “Thinking Like a Terrorist: Insights of a Former FBI Undercover Agent” and his reports on white supremacist groups and far-right militancy can be accessed online: “Fighting Far-Right Violence and Hate Crimes,” (2019), “Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism, White Supremacy and Far-Right Militancy in Law Enforcement,” (2020) and “How to Combat White Supremacist Violence? Avoid Flawed Post-9/11 Tactics” (2020).

Shantay Davies-Balch

      I don’t know a single pregnant woman or parent who doesn’t want a healthy baby. Unfortunately, far too many Black women and their babies experience poor health outcomes. In Fresno, for example, 14.9 percent of African American babies are born prematurely, compared to 8.4 percent of babies born to white women, and Black babies are more than three times more likely to die in their first year of life. This is the reality that the BLACK Wellness & Prosperity Center(BWPC) is working to change every day.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made achieving health equity even harder. That’s because of our community’s disproportionately low rates of vaccination against COVID-19, including pregnant women and parents with infants. Sadly, many remain unconvinced by the science that has demonstrated that vaccination does not cause male or female infertility. The vaccine is proven to be safe and effective for pregnant women and their babies — and women who get vaccinated during pregnancy pass that protection onto their newborns.

We’ve seen the devastating impact of COVID-19 on pregnant women, who face far higher risk of hospitalization and death when they are infected than women who are not pregnant. And when a pregnant woman gets COVID, her baby’s chances of being born early are 40 percent higher. Vaccination against COVID-19 provides a layer of protection that helps safeguard the health of the entire family. Even with efforts from trusted voices, distrust, hesitancy, and myths about the disease and the vaccine persist.

BWPC will continue to counter the misinformation and misunderstanding about vaccination with science-based evidence. Our goal is to respectfully encourage the communities we serve to make the decision to get vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19 based on the science.

Despite lingering vaccine hesitancy, we know that our pregnant women and new mothers and fathers want what is best for their babies.

Wearing a mask in most settings is a simple and effective way to protect ourselves and families. Although indoor mask requirements for most settings have eased in recent weeks, masks are still strongly recommended and remain an important tool against a disease that is still with us. This is especially true when we’re around our tiniest children who are unvaccinated and are more vulnerable to COVID infection, and any number of other circulating viral diseases like the flu, RSV and the common cold.

It’s also critical to remember to wear a mask around our older family members and friends, and those who may have pre-existing health conditions or are immune comprised. And if you have a new baby at home, consider limiting visitors or celebrating the birth virtually. When you are joining friends and family, encourage them to wear a mask and to keep six feet away from your new baby.

Our loved ones deserve to be protected. If you have children in public school, where masks are no longer required for students, remind them that masks are still strongly recommended and that no one should be told not to wear one if they feel safer doing so.

At BLACK Wellness & Prosperity Center, where the health and safety of our staff and communities we serve is paramount, we continue to wear masks. And we have created a simple guide to the most effective types of masks.

Remember, our babies are dependent on us for their care and protection. When we protect ourselves and children against COVID-19 with vaccination and wearing a mask we are giving them the best opportunity for a healthy beginning and fulfilling our promise to do what’s best.

About the author: Shantay Davies-Balch is Board Chair of the BLACK Wellness & Prosperity Center, a community-based organization dedicated to improving Black maternal and child outcomes, unite and elevate the Black voice, and build sustainable infrastructure to build Black capacity.

Staff

Nearly 90 percent of Black voters chose Biden in 2020, but according to a new poll, the numbers are not likely to be that high in 2024 should the president seek re-election.

A recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted online April 21 through May 2, 2022, has found support for President Joe Biden to be lagging among black voters.

The poll of 1248 Black voters found that while a 60 percent majority of those polled said that Biden was keeping his promises, but 37 percent say he is not and while 9 in 10 voted for him, just 7 in 10 approve of his job performance.

In fact, while 60 percent of Black voters viewed a possible Republican takeover of the Senate in the midterms as bad, 31 percent of Black voters felt it wouldn’t make that much of a difference. Upwards of 75 percent felt Biden had done little or nothing to reduce discrimination in the criminal justice system.

Of Biden’s unsuccessful attempts to curtail the rising gas prices and inflation, Myra Johnson observed, “I don’t know that I ever had a whole lot of faith in him to turn things around in the first place. I wasn’t all that thrilled about the Democratic candidates who were running and he [Biden] just seemed to be Black folks best shot at beating Trump. That’s why I voted for him.”

Johnson is among those who may not support Biden in 2024, unless as she puts it, “He is the only choice”.

Biden’s approval rating was even lower among younger Black voters.

The poll is one of several over the last year that have demonstrated decreasing support for Biden among Black voters. A CNN poll found that Biden’s support among black voters had dropped 20 points since last year.  A Pew Research poll released last September found a sharp drop in support among Blacks as well.

“What we must put in context is that the unusually high turnout among black voters in 2020 was at the height of the George Floyd movement…wanting to deal with policing issues, wanting to deal with how we were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and how it exposed the health deserts in our communities and all of that drove us to voting for Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket as well as the offensive nature of the Trump presidency,” Rev. Al Sharpton told Morning Joe in May.

“Now, that we have gotten two years in and we did not get the George Floyd Bill. We did not even get the John Lewis Voting Advancement Bill and we don’t have Trump there.”

Sharpton was quick to point out that the Biden/Harris team had made some advances in dealing with the impact of the pandemic in Black communities as well as investments in some black communities and the appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court

But, said Sharpton, “I think that a combination of their not having the right messaging machine for what they have done and not being realistic about the expectation of black voters is what has led to a decline.”

Despite a drop in support for Biden, the Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that Biden’s standing among blacks remains higher than other groups and that they remain supportive of the Democratic party even as gas prices soar and inflation strains the economy.