All things Racist...USA edition (1 Viewer)

[Farb]

I was looking for a place to put this so we could discuss but didn't really find a place that worked so I created this thread so we can all place articles, experiences, videos and examples of racism in the USA.

This is one that happened this week. The lady even called and filed a complaint on the officer. This officer also chose to wear the body cam (apparently, LA doesn't require this yet). This exchange wasn't necessarily racist IMO until she started with the "mexican racist...you will never be white, like you want" garbage. That is when it turned racist IMO

All the murderer and other insults, I think are just a by product of CRT and ACAB rhetoric that is very common on the radical left and sadly is being brought to mainstream in this country.

Another point that I think is worth mentioning is she is a teacher and the sense of entitlement she feels is mind blowing.

https://news.yahoo.com/black-teacher-berates-latino-la-221235341.html

 

[MT15]

Wasn’t that murder premeditated? In the sense that he posted that he was going to go shoot some protesters? How do they justify not only the pardon, but giving this dangerous sociopath guns again?

 

[DaveXA]

Wasn’t that murder premeditated? In the sense that he posted that he was going to go shoot some protesters? How do they justify not only the pardon, but giving this dangerous sociopath guns again?

Yeah, this whole thing is forking gross. If he goes and commits violence again, every one of those who were involved in freeing him should be strung up, and Abbott should be first in line.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Kay’Ana Adams, an Alabama firefighter, was fired after the department determined that her tattoo violates its policy. According to WKRG, Adams worked at the Mobile Fire Department Maryvale station in Mobile, Alabama for nine months before she was fired.

The firefighter got her tattoo in June, showing it off on the back of her head. Adams said she didn’t think she violated the fire department’s policy, which prohibits “tattoos on the face or neck.”

“Hiring people before, during and after me with neck tattoos more prominent than mine was also kind of impactful in that as well,” Adams told WKRG. “I figured mine could be done in decency and order. I could also, based off the rules, cover it up.”

Adams, however, found herself in trouble when when somebody put in a complaint about her ink.
“The next thing I knew I was being investigated for it, interrogated behind it, and then they made their decision that I was in violation of policy,” she said.

According to Adams, the city first gave her the option to grow her hair out and hide the tattoo. The firefighter said she did as she was told.

A few weeks later, however, Adams said there was another complaint about her hair being grown out and violating the city’s policy.

“We have different textures of hair,” said Adams, who is a Black woman. “So, you have no idea how long it takes for my hair to grow.”

According to Adams, the department changed the policy three months after she got her tattoo. The new policy prohibits head tattoos above the neckline.

When a captain at her station took a photo of the back of Adams’ head on Nov. 10, the terminated firefighter said her tattoo was no longer visible. Still, Adams said she was fired on the day the photo was taken.

“Definitely blindsided, I never thought it would come to this, especially considering I was in compliance. I’m not necessarily out here trying to be disobedient and I’m not breaking any laws or anything like that, it’s just a tattoo,” Adams said. “What’s behind me shouldn’t affect the work that’s in front of me.”

Adams said she wasn’t simply fired for her head tattoo and hair. The former firefighter, who filed one grievance about the tattoo complaint against her, believes she was terminated because she spoke up about her concerns at the workplace.

The Alabama woman also filed complaints about harassment and antagonization, including sexist statements she allegedly heard from two male firefighters at her station.

Adams once again raised concerns during a training session at the department.

“It was rope week and a decent amount of people and the other half of the classroom were discussing, trying to tie nooses,” she said.

“And, you know, instinctively, I guess I just kind of stood up and said, ‘you know, if you want to learn how to do that, I think that it’s best you do that on your free time’.”

Adams said she relayed her concerns to Captain Jason Craig and Captain Rodrick Shoots, who are members of the Black Progressive Firefighters Association.

The two captains were disciplined after defending Adams as she faced trouble for her tattoo. Craig was suspended and Shoots was fired.…….

Alabama Firefighter Fired After Getting Tattoo On The Back Of Her Head, Her Superiors Disciplined For Defending Her - Blavity

Kay’Ana Adams, an Alabama firefighter, was fired after the department determined that her tattoo violates its policy. According to WKRG , Adams worked at the Mobile Fire Department Maryvale station in Mobile, Alabama for nine months before she was fired.

blavity.com

 

[DaveXA]

Kay’Ana Adams, an Alabama firefighter, was fired after the department determined that her tattoo violates its policy. According to WKRG, Adams worked at the Mobile Fire Department Maryvale station in Mobile, Alabama for nine months before she was fired.

The firefighter got her tattoo in June, showing it off on the back of her head. Adams said she didn’t think she violated the fire department’s policy, which prohibits “tattoos on the face or neck.”

“Hiring people before, during and after me with neck tattoos more prominent than mine was also kind of impactful in that as well,” Adams told WKRG. “I figured mine could be done in decency and order. I could also, based off the rules, cover it up.”

Adams, however, found herself in trouble when when somebody put in a complaint about her ink.
“The next thing I knew I was being investigated for it, interrogated behind it, and then they made their decision that I was in violation of policy,” she said.

According to Adams, the city first gave her the option to grow her hair out and hide the tattoo. The firefighter said she did as she was told.

A few weeks later, however, Adams said there was another complaint about her hair being grown out and violating the city’s policy.

“We have different textures of hair,” said Adams, who is a Black woman. “So, you have no idea how long it takes for my hair to grow.”

According to Adams, the department changed the policy three months after she got her tattoo. The new policy prohibits head tattoos above the neckline.

When a captain at her station took a photo of the back of Adams’ head on Nov. 10, the terminated firefighter said her tattoo was no longer visible. Still, Adams said she was fired on the day the photo was taken.

“Definitely blindsided, I never thought it would come to this, especially considering I was in compliance. I’m not necessarily out here trying to be disobedient and I’m not breaking any laws or anything like that, it’s just a tattoo,” Adams said. “What’s behind me shouldn’t affect the work that’s in front of me.”

Adams said she wasn’t simply fired for her head tattoo and hair. The former firefighter, who filed one grievance about the tattoo complaint against her, believes she was terminated because she spoke up about her concerns at the workplace.

The Alabama woman also filed complaints about harassment and antagonization, including sexist statements she allegedly heard from two male firefighters at her station.

Adams once again raised concerns during a training session at the department.

“It was rope week and a decent amount of people and the other half of the classroom were discussing, trying to tie nooses,” she said.

“And, you know, instinctively, I guess I just kind of stood up and said, ‘you know, if you want to learn how to do that, I think that it’s best you do that on your free time’.”

Adams said she relayed her concerns to Captain Jason Craig and Captain Rodrick Shoots, who are members of the Black Progressive Firefighters Association.

The two captains were disciplined after defending Adams as she faced trouble for her tattoo. Craig was suspended and Shoots was fired.…….

Alabama Firefighter Fired After Getting Tattoo On The Back Of Her Head, Her Superiors Disciplined For Defending Her - Blavity

Kay’Ana Adams, an Alabama firefighter, was fired after the department determined that her tattoo violates its policy. According to WKRG , Adams worked at the Mobile Fire Department Maryvale station in Mobile, Alabama for nine months before she was fired.

blavity.com

Ugh, terrible. I don't understand people all too often.

 

[Optimus Prime]

When Larry Callies went to the movies as a boy in Rosenberg, Texas, the heroes riding horses and wearing 10-gallon hats were all white men.

But the real cowboys Callies knew were Black. His great-grandfather Lavel Callies was an enslaved cowboy who worked with horses professionally after emancipation. “We’re cowboys for three generations back,” says Callies, 71, who runs the Black Cowboy Museum.

Historians estimate that 20% to 25% of the people who settled the continental US west – a region from Washington state to Montana and New Mexico to California – were Black men and women. They moved cattle on horseback, settled towns, kept the peace and delivered the mail in the wild, wild west.

But Black cowgirls and cowboys have been pretty much invisible to most. For nearly 200 years, two separate cowboy narratives, one Black and one white, have trotted side by side in the US. The two have rarely crossed paths. Until now.

Today, it seems like modern Black cowboys and cowgirls are everywhere. Who could miss Beyoncé starring as a red-white-and-blue rodeo queen on the cover of her Cowboy Carter album? Her embrace of equestrian symbols shines a spotlight on those who have quietly kept the Black cowboy legacy alive: community equestrian clubs like Compton Cowboys and Chicago’s Broken Arrow Horseback Riding Club, modern Buffalo Soldier units, as well as local and traveling Black rodeos like the Bill Pickett invitational rodeo. Since 1984, the rodeo has crisscrossed the US, sharing the riding and roping talents of Black cowgirls and cowboys with audiences from New York to Florida and Dallas to Los Angeles.

It raises the question: why did it take so long? “It’s hard to wake up a nation to history,” says actor and activist Glynn Turman, who recently wrapped up filming on Kevin Costner’s new western film series Horizon: An American Saga. “There’s a history that has always been suppressed when it comes to our culture,” Turman says. “It’s an ongoing assault.”……..

‘A history that’s been suppressed’: the Black cowboy story is 200 years old

Historians estimate a quarter of settlers of the US west were Black, moving cattle on horseback, settling towns and keeping the peace

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

On the campaign trail, Brandon Johnson often talked about the asthma he suffered growing up just west of Chicago, connecting it to industrial pollution.

“For too long our communities have been seen as dumping grounds for waste and materials that no one seems to know what to do with,” the then mayoral candidate said at an event in the majority-Hispanic neighborhood of Pilsen.

When Johnson was sworn in last May, he inherited a city grappling with a host of environmental challenges.


In one of the nation’s most segregated cities, communities of color face disproportionate exposure to air pollution, lead and climate risks such as flooding. In 2022, federal investigators found Chicago violated residents’ civil rights by moving polluting industries into communities of color.

These disparities take a toll: residents of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods can expect to live 30 years longer than Chicagoans a few miles away……

Can Chicago’s mayor tackle environmental racism in one of the most segregated US cities?

Brandon Johnson promised to address the city’s longstanding inequities – advocates want to make the most of the moment

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

A viral video of staff confiscating a Native American student’s cap at a New Mexico high school’s graduation this week sparked an outpouring of anger as administrators apologized for failing to create a ceremony that was “inclusive of all graduates.”

Genesis White Bull, a senior at Farmington High School in Farmington, N.M., and a Hunkpapa Lakota of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, had adorned her dark green graduation cap with traditional Lakota decorations — ornate beadwork and a white feather plume.


But video posted on Facebook, previously reported by the Tri-City Record, shows two school staff members approaching White Bull shortly after the ceremony began on Monday. As the national anthem played, the staff handed White Bull a plain cap and walked away with her beaded, feathered one.


“That’s part of our traditions and culture,” Brenda White Bull, the student’s mother, said of the adornments in a video posted to Facebook on Thursday….

Farmington Municipal Schools wrote in a statement to families Thursday that staff returned Genesis White Bull’s cap and feather to her family after the ceremony. District protocol forbids students from altering their cap and gown, the district added.


But administrators the next day followed up with an apology.
“The intent, always, is to create a ceremony that is inclusive of all graduates and honors all of our students,” the district wrote in another statement.

“It is clear that what occurred detracted from that and had the opposite effect. We are confident that our staff intended no disrespect or to violate anyone’s cultural beliefs or practices.”


The expression of remorse came amid a flurry of criticism as video of the incident spread. The council of the Navajo Nation, which borders Farmington, called the school’s actions “demeaning” and said it stood in solidarity with tribal members’ right to honor their culture by wearing traditional attire at graduations.


“Tribal communities should not be subjected to the perpetuation of generational trauma through discriminatory actions, particularly during celebratory events like graduations,” the council said in a statement Friday.

Jasmine Blackwater-Nygren, the Navajo Nation’s first lady, said the beaded cap and a plume symbolize achievement for Native students and “the culmination of prayers and ceremonies done for them.”

“Our regalia reminds us of how far we’ve come as a people, it shows our pride in our culture, and how we chose to identify ourselves as Native people,” she wrote in a statement Wednesday.

“I am deeply disappointed that this happened at a school where we have many Navajo and Native graduates,” Blackwater-Nygren added. “I hope the school learns from this experience and can take corrective measures.”……..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/18/school-lakota-graduation-cap/

 

[zztop]

Marking 70 Years of White Flight From School Integration

Brown v. Board of Education’s vision of equality in public education has been frustrated by delays and evasions. But it should not be abandoned.

nymag.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

This could have gone in a few threads
============================
Hundreds of mourners and multiple media crews packed the funeral of Senior Airman Roger Fortson in a suburban Atlanta megachurch on Friday.

The huge crowd’s presence posed a simple question:

Does the Second Amendment apply to African Americans, or is it just for White people?


Fortson, 23, a Black, active-duty Air Force combat veteran, was at his apartment in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., on May 3 when someone began pounding forcefully on the door. Unsure who it might be, Fortson grabbed his handgun — which the decorated serviceman owned legally — and was pointing it toward the floor, not in the direction of the unexpected caller, when he opened the door.


The visitor turned out to be an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy, whose name still has not been released by the sheriff’s department. “Step back,” the deputy shouted, before immediately firing his weapon at Fortson, shooting him six times.

Only after Fortson lay mortally wounded did the deputy yell, “Drop the gun! Drop the gun!”
These facts are not in dispute. They are confirmed by the deputy’s body-camera footage, which Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden released.

“In America, before people see you as … an airman in the United States Air Force, they’ll see you as a Black man,” the Rev. Jamal Bryant, senior pastor of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, said at Fortson’s funeral. “We’ve got to call it as it is: Roger died of murder. He died of stone-cold murder. And somebody has got to be held accountable. Roger was better to America than America was to Roger.”………

Here’s my question: Why wasn’t Fortson’s death a cause célèbre at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Dallas last week? Why didn’t speaker after speaker denounce the killing as an assault on truth, justice and the American way?

After all, Fortson was guilty only of exercising his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Gun-rights advocates are always telling us that this is precisely why Americans need firearms: to protect themselves.

Fortson was the most solid of citizens, a military man with no criminal record. He was in his own home. He was handling the weapon in a safe manner, aiming it downward. The deputy shot him six times before ordering him to drop the pistol.

What am I missing?

It’s a trick question, of course. I’m pretending that law enforcement in this country is colorblind.


I’m pretending we didn’t learn how selective the Second Amendment’s protections are in 2016, when Philando Castile — a similarly upstanding, gun-owning Black man — was shot to death near Minneapolis in a traffic stop.

Castile told the police officer, Jeronimo Yanez, that he was legally in possession of a weapon. When Castile reached for his identification, as he had been ordered to do, Yanez shot him five times, killing him.


Yanez stood trial for second-degree manslaughter and dangerous discharge of a firearm — but was acquitted on all charges. Wrongful-death lawsuits brought by Castile’s girlfriend and family were settled for $3.8 million……..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/20/black-airman-shot-police-florida/

 

[Optimus Prime]

When it comes to baby food, international consumer goods boss Nestlé has the game on lock with parents around the world depending on the brand for their baby’s daily nutritional needs.

But a new investigation reveals a discrepancy in its infant formula and cereal that is having a dangerous impact on Black and Brown babies and toddlers globally.

An investigation conducted by Public Eye and the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) called “How Nestlé Gets Children Hooked on Sugar in Lower-Income Countries,” found that the company’s biggest baby food brands promoted in low- and middle-income countries contain high levels of added sugar, while the products sold in Europe have none.

What makes this dangerous discrepancy even worse is that Nestlé continues to market these products as essential to baby’s development.

Nigel Rollins, a scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), calls Nestlé’s actions inappropriate. “There is a double standard here that can’t be justified,” he said, adding that the discrepancy in added sugar levels “is problematic both from a public health and ethical perspective.”

A Dangerous Difference​

When they took a closer look at the ingredients in Nestlé’s infant cereals and formulas, Public Eye and the IBFAN found a glaring discrepancy in the amount of added sugar. Nestlé formulas for children aged 12 to 36 months sold in Germany, France and the U.K. have no added sugar. However, they found 5.3 grams of added sugar in its Nido powdered-milk product for kids the same age sold in Panama.

Meanwhile, its Cerelac wheat-based cereal for 6-month-olds sold in Germany and the U.K. has no added sugar, although the same product has more than five grams of added sugar per serving in Ethiopia and Thailand...............

Prepare to Be Angry: Baby Formula Giant Hooks Black and Brown Infants V. White Babies, Report Says

A new report shows a difference in the product ingredients sold around the world

www.theroot.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

People whose names get mangled by autocorrect have urged technology companies to fix the problem faster, with one person whose name gets switched to “Satan” saying: “I am tired of it.”

People with Irish, Indian and Welsh names are among those calling for improvements to the systems that operate on phones and computers as part of the “I am not a typo” campaign.

“It is important that technology becomes more inclusive,” said Savan-Chandni Gandecha, 34, a British Indian content creator whose name, which means monsoon moonlight, has been autocorrected to Satan.


“My name has also been corrected to Savant,” they said. “It is sometimes corrected to Savan, or the hyphen is not accepted by online forms and that irks me.

“Even in India my name gets corrected to ‘Sawan’, and it’s not just an English issue. It’s a multi-language thing.”

The campaign has estimated that four out of 10 names of babies born in England and Wales in 2021 were deemed “wrong” or “not accepted” when tested on Microsoft’s English dictionary.

Dhruti Shah, a journalist, has backed the campaign after seeing her name autocorrected to “Dirty” and “Dorito”.

She said: “My first name isn’t even that long – only six characters – but yet when it comes up as an error or it’s mangled and considered an unknown entity, it’s like saying that it’s not just your name that’s wrong, but you are.”

The campaign group – established by a group of people working in the creative industries in London – wrote an open letter to technology companies, which pointed out that between 2017 and 2021, 2,328 people named Esmae were born, compared with 36 Nigels. Esmae gets autocorrected to Admar, while Nigel is unchanged.


“There are so many diverse names in the global majority but autocorrect is western- and white-focused,” said Gandecha.

Facebook and Microsoft have been approached for comment.

Microsoft has previously launched an inclusiveness spellchecker in its Office 365 software, which can be enabled to prompt the user, for example, to switch “headmaster” to “principal”, “master” to “expert” and “manpower” to “workforce”.

Last year, People Like Us, a not for profit organisation, ran a billboard campaign highlighting autocorrect bias in favour of British heritage and linked the issue to the ethnicity pay gap.

Rashmi Dyal-Chand, a professor at Northeastern University in the US whose name is sometimes corrected to Sashimi, is supporting the latest campaign and said: “For people with names like mine, autocorrect is not convenient and helpful. It is unhelpful. And yes – it is harmful.”………

People with commonly autocorrected names call for tech firms to fix problem

‘I am not a typo’ campaign is calling for technology companies to make autocorrect less ‘western- and white-focused’

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Several posts in this thread about similar issues in medicine
========

My younger sister is an elite 400-metre sprinter who has competed internationally for Great Britain. In early 2020, she told me about some blood test results she had recently received – her creatinine level was a bit higher than normal – a potential indicator of a kidney problem.

That wasn’t particularly surprising; creatinine is a waste product produced by muscles and so athletes, who tend to be more muscular on average, commonly have higher-than-average levels of the compound in their blood without this being associated with kidney problems.

She had also shared her blood test results with a sports doctor. He confirmed that creatinine is derived from muscle metabolism and that levels are proportional to muscle mass. He also gave a list of factors that he said could be responsible for raised creatinine levels. One of those listed was “Afro-Caribbean race”. “Could my race be affecting my creatinine level?” my sister asked me.

I was about to stumble on an answer to my sister’s question. I was at the beginning of an investigation into what I now refer to as “race-based medicine” – the practice of adjusting medical tests based on a person’s race or ethnicity.

I had first learned about it in a 2015 Ted Talk by US academic and author Dorothy Roberts, but I had assumed it would be a thing of the past by now. I soon discovered that race-based medicine is alive and well.

My first clue came in 2021 via a US-based study that highlighted issues associatedwith a widespread practice of adjusting routine kidney test results based on a person’s race.

In brief: if a doctor wants to assess a patient’s kidney health, they will usually start with a test that measures the level of the waste product creatinine in their blood – the same blood test my sister had.

The medic conducting the analysis will then plug that blood test result into an equation that calculates the patient’s estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) – the rate at which the kidneys filter waste – an important indicator of how well the kidneys are functioning.

Broadly speaking, more creatinine in the blood suggests a lower filtration rate by the kidneys. If a patient’s eGFR is too low, that could be a sign of a kidney problem.

In the worst cases, when the kidneys aren’t functioning correctly, toxic waste products build up in the body – a condition that is fatal without treatment such as dialysis or a kidney transplant.


What I gleaned from the study was that the most widely used eGFR equations globally included a specific multiplier that was applied to increase eGFR values for Black people.

After the application of this adjustment, a Black patient would end up with a higher eGFR compared with a non-Black patient with the same blood test results. Not only that, but the study showed that the removal of the race adjustment could improve the accuracy of kidney failure risk prediction among Black adults.

I remembered that my sister had had a similar test done in the UK the previous year. She showed me some photographs of it. Printed in brackets above her results was the phrase: “If Black multiply result by 1.21.”

I had so many questions. Where did the Black race adjustment in eGFR come from? How many other countries have similar medical guidance? If race is a social construct, why is it being treated as a biological one?

Are there similar race adjustments still being used in other areas of medicine? Might this be causing harm to Black patients? What is the medical definition of “Black” anyway?…….

Is systemic racism in medicine putting Black people’s lives at risk?

Across the world, medical tests are being adjusted according patients’ skin colour – with shocking consequences

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

This month, the Texas state parole board unanimously recommended the pardon and release of convicted killer and former US army sergeant Daniel Perry, along with the restoration of his firearm rights.

Perry had been working as an Uber driver in July 2020 when he shot and killed Garrett Foster, a white man who was attending a Black Lives Matter protest with his Black fiancee. Perry was later indicted for murder, tried, convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison by an Austin jury.

Almost a year from the date of his sentencing, Perry’s pardon was granted by Texas governor Greg Abbott, and he now walks free.

As terrifying as the initial incident was, this pardon sends a chilling message: that politically motivated killing is OK, and that politicians are more focused on pandering to political pressure than protecting people’s lives.

During Perry’s trial, it emerged that in the weeks before he killed Foster, he had shared white-supremacist memes and talked about how he “might have to kill a few people” who were demonstrating outside his house in 2020.

He also compared the Black Lives Matter movement to “a zoo full of monkeys that are freaking out flinging their shirt”.

And days into nationwide protests sparked by George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer, Perry sent a text message saying: “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”

Perry described shooting Foster as an act of self-defense. Yet according to trial testimony about the day Foster died, Perry had seen the predominantly Black group of protesters gathered across the street from him, ran a red light and drove his car right into the middle of the protest.

When Foster – who was legally carrying a firearm but had not, according to some eyewitnesses, threatened Perry – approached Perry’s car, he shot him dead and sped away……

Texas’s pardon of a man who killed a Black Lives Matter protester is chilling | Tayo Bero

Governor Greg Abbott would have us believe this was a case of self-defense. Would he say that if the situation were reversed?

www.theguardian.com

 

[zztop]

How Residents in a Rural Alabama County Are Confronting the Lasting Harm of Segregation Academies

In Wilcox County, Alabama, many people say they want to bridge racial divides created by their segregated schools. But they must face a long and painful history.

www.propublica.org

 

[zztop]

Tiffany Jewell On Racism In Our Education System And Why She’s Hopeful For The Future

Tiffany Jewell, the author of Everything I Learned About Racism I Learned In School, describes her experience as an educator and a Black biracial woman, and the identity-framing impact of her own education.

www.romper.com

 

[MT15]

 

[MT15]

More:

 

[Optimus Prime]

Lilian Seenoi-Barr will make history on 3 June when she receives the chain of office at Derry’s guildhall and becomes Northern Ireland’s first black mayor.

It will be the culmination of a personal and political journey that began in 2010 when she arrived as a refugee from Kenya and became part of the region’s growing multi-ethnic identity.

The milestone has prompted pride in Northern Ireland and Kenya that a woman with Maasai roots will represent the city of John Hume and Derry Girls, but it has also raised concern about Seenoi-Barr’s safety.


Because not everyone is cheering. Far-right activists including the US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones have used her elevation to peddle the notion that Ireland, north and south, is being “invaded”. She has received death threats and racist abuse.

“To have your life threatened is not a good feeling when you genuinely just want to serve the people of your city,” the incoming mayor said in an interview. “People are absorbing populist information that is quite loud. It’s kind of like every single problem that exists in the north of Ireland or across Ireland has been caused by immigrants.”

Seenoi-Barr’s symbolic breakthrough at Derry and Strabane district council has coincided with a backlash against immigrants and refugees on both sides of the border and a row between London and Dublin over asylum seekers entering the republic via Northern Ireland.

“I don’t think I would have ever been elected in Derry if people were hostile but if you look at reports of hate crimes [across Northern Ireland] we do have racism,” she said. “If you talk about housing pressures, the scapegoat is immigrants. The collapsing NHS, the scapegoat is immigrants. Lack of school infrastructure, the scapegoat is immigrants.”……

Refugee braves racist abuse to become Northern Ireland’s first black mayor

Lilian Seenoi-Barr, who arrived from Kenya in 2010, will make history when she receives chain of office in Derry

www.theguardian.com