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“In the event that you are needlessly shot and killed, do not expect justice for your death. It does not matter if your death is caught on camera, and replayed over and over on the 24-hour-news-cycle to the morbid fascination and horror of the country.”
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“Your blackness will always be the main thing that makes you a threat.”
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“Debunking the myth of racial hierarchy, United Nations experts on racial discrimination today said that it is imperative to deconstruct, on a global scale, the ideological myth of a superior race and the resulting conviction of a superior culture. Addressing a special event at UN Headquarters on Confronting the Silence: Perspectives and Dialogue on Structural Racism against people of African Descent Worldwide, Mireille Fanon-Mendes, Chair of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said that the attacks on human dignity are elaborated due to ‘supposed hierarchy of races and cultures and do not concern only one or [another], but the entire international community.’…In her remarks, Ms. Fanon-Mendes said that in addition to historical consequences [people of African descent] had to face, they and Africans — with colonialism and economic migration or because of war — are the only ones subject to discrimination based on skin colour; a biological parameter that completely escapes the control of the victim of this ostracism. She added: ‘The hierarchy of races is scientifically false, morally condemnable, and socially unjust.'”
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“People of African descent, often the poorest and most marginalized in society, are among those set to be most adversely affected by climate change, yet they barely figured in the recent Paris climate summit, a United Nations expert group warned today, calling for their full inclusion. ‘Implementation of the Paris climate change agreement and future climate talks should focus on the needs and views of those most at risk, including people of African descent, and not be based on market forces,’ the Chairperson of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, Mireille Fanon Mendes-France, said in a statement in Geneva. Despite advances in tackling racism and racial discrimination, both direct and indirect, people of African descent are often among the poorest and most marginalized groups in society, often living in communities disproportionately affected for decades by environmental degradation such as air pollution and toxic waste. ‘They are now bearing, and are set to further bear, a disproportionately high burden of the consequences of climate change,’ Ms. Mendes-France added. ‘Given this, discussions on climate change must be framed in the light of environmental inequalities and take into account people of African descent and Africans living in all regions of the world, many of whom remain trapped in structural and institutional invisibility.'”
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“Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios has secured distribution for its seven cable channels across DirecTV and U-verse now that AT&T has settled a racial discrimination lawsuit filed in December 2014. DirecTV began carriage of Entertainment Studios’ Comedy.TV and Justice Central.TV on Monday. U-verse has added Comedy.TV, Recipe.TV, ES.TV, MyDestination.TV, Cars TV and Pets TV; U-verse already carried Justice Central.TV…The AT&T deal greatly enhances the distribution base and value of the lifestyle and entertainment channels, which are wholly owned by Allen, a comedian turned entrepreneur. DirecTV and U-verse together reach nearly 26 million domestic subscribers, with U-verse accounting for about 6 million subscribers.. Allen has a similar racial discrimination lawsuit pending against Comcast and Time Warner Cable. In the complaint against AT&T, the National Association of African-American Owned Media, an affiliate of Century City-based Entertainment Studios, claimed racial discrimination over the fact that Entertainment Studio had no luck securing a carriage deal with DirecTV after years of trying to engage executives in negotiations. The suit came as AT&T was vulnerable to PR concerns about its image in dealing with independent programmers and minority-owned businesses. The telco giant was in the midst of securing federal approval for its $48 billion takeover of DirecTV, which closed in July. Allen’s complaint blasted AT&T for having no carriage agreements with ‘100% African-American-owned media companies.’ It made a provocative reference to what it called the practice of African-American celebrities posing as ‘fronts’ for channels owned by ‘white-owned media,’ without naming names.”
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“New rules promising a ‘harmonized approach’ to disciplining New York attorneys have been adopted, the Office of Court Administration announced Tuesday.Disciplinary committees in each of the four Appellate Division departments will continue investigating reports of attorney wrongdoing, and justices will review recommended sanctions, including disbarment. Also, existing Rules of Professional Conduct will continue to act as the basic guidelines for acceptable attorney conduct and for when violations occur. However, common procedures will be used by the committees, so that charges of attorney misconduct will be investigated in a similar manner across the state, and sanctions for similar kinds of wrongdoing will be consistent, court administrators said.”
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“On Thursday, after steering the Third Branch for more than 25 years, Jonathan Lippman will step down as the leader of the state’s most powerful court, the Court of Appeals, and as the court system’s chief administrator, due to mandatory retirement rules.”
