A mix of news and views you may have missed.
Trump implies there are two sides to Aubrey murder
In an interview with Fox News regarding the Ahmaud Arbery case, President Donald Trump was asked: “What can you do to make sure justice is done and this doesn’t end up in a racial situation?”
Trump responded, saying, “Justice being done is the thing that solves that problem…There could be something that we didn’t see on tape.”
His remarks created a bit of a social media storm.
Marc Lamont Hill tweeted, “It took 74 days, a smoking gun video, and a national campaign to get an arrest in the Ahmaud Arbery case. And many of us, quite reasonably, have no faith that a trial will produce justice. Yet another example of how little Black life is worth to this country.”
Mike Pence caught on camera delivering empty boxes of PP
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, while not wearing a face mask, helped wheel a few boxes of PPE to a health care center. After dropping off the boxes, he was caught on a microphone saying he wanted to carry empty boxes into the center because he said it would look good for the camera.
Late Night Show host Jimmy Kimmel of Jimmy Kimmel Live, said the Vice Presidents performance was “the perfect metaphor for who he is and what he is doing—a big box of nothing delivering another box
of nothing.”
Players Coalition calls for Arbery investigation, celebrities express outrage
In a letter calling themselves, “a group of citizens, activists, and athletes who are committed to achieving a world in which all individuals are treated with dignity and equality….” the Players
Coalition called for a “robust federally led investigation” in the killing of Ahmaud Abery.
The letter said that an investigation is, “the only way to restore community trust that Mr. Arbery’s death will be fully investigated.” It was signed by Tom Brady, Mark Ingram, Cam Jordan, Steve Kerr and Players Coalition co-founders Anquan Boldin and Malcolm Jenkins.
A March and rally was held in Brunswick on May 8 to honor Arbery’s birthday and to demand that his killers be brought to justice. Arbery would have been 26 years old. Celebrities and stars including LeBron James, Taylor Swift, and Ava DuVernay have expressed outrage and called for justice.
Swift tweeted that she was “absolutely devastated and horrified by the senseless, cold-blooded, racially motivated killing of Ahmaud Arbery.”
DuVernay started a petition to have Waycross County District Attorney George Barnhill resign for making no charges or arrests.
Native health agency asks for COVID tests get body bags instead
“My team turned ghost white,” said Esther Lucero, chief executive officer of the Seattle Indian Health Board. “We asked for tests, and they sent us a box of body bags.”
The health board’s center—serving about 6,000 people a year in Seattle and King County—still has the package, which is filled with zippered white bags and beige tags that read “attach to toe.”
According to Abigail Echo-Hawk, the delivery of the body bags was indicative of the treatment of Native Americans in Seattle and around the country as the communities grapple with COVID-19 and a government that appears disinterested in helping.
l Echo-Hawk, the health board’s chief research officer, said she believes that the message it sends, even unintentionally, is resonating in Native American communities across the United States.
“The Navajo Nation is in a crisis with cases, and there are tribes and other Indian organizations across the country that are in similar crises and can use medical supplies and help instead of watching people die,” Echo-Hawk said. “This is a metaphor for what’s happening.”
St. Cloud and Stearns County one of the nation’s COVID hotspots
Last week the New York Times labeled St. Cloud as the top potential hot spot for COVID-19 in the country.
Most of the city of St. Cloud is in Stearns County, which recently had outbreaks at meat processing plants in Cold Spring and Melrose.
Stearns County has surpassed Nobles as the county with the second most confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state.
The Minnesota Department of Health says Stearns has 1,161 confirmed cases with four deaths. Nobles County has 1,153 confirmed cases.
Hennepin has reported the most cases with 2,962. County and state officials have said repeatedly that the number of confirmed cases in the county is going up because they are testing more, due to outbreaks at the Pilgrim’s Pride plant in Cold Spring and the Jennie-O Plant in Melrose.
Armed Black activists in Michigan escort lawmaker to the Capitol
A group of Black activists escorted Rep. Sarah Anthony into the Capitol building in Lansing, Michigan last Wednesday, following demonstrations against the state shutdown by protesters brandishing guns, Confederate flags, and Nazi symbolism.
Here’s video of that moment, courtesy of @CityPulse pic.twitter.com/AfQmGeoi4X
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 6, 2020
Anthony said she didn’t ask for activists’ protection, but embraced it because of the intensity and ugly racial undertones of the recent protests. “We were all just appalled by the lack of support and lack of security that I had, that other legislators had, and the fact that a lot of the demonstrators last week were adorning many racist, anti-Semitic signage,“ Anthony told City Pulse.
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