Social Justice
Diddy suggests alternative strategy to fight against systematic racism
Diddy called on his millions of followers to employ another strategy to fight against systematic racism and white supermacy.
Diddy called on his millions of followers to employ another strategy to fight against systematic racism and white supermacy.
If you haven’t been living under a rock, you know this country has been profilierated with conversations on race relations and other civil rights issues.
In response to police aggression, police brutality, and systematic racism, many individuals have fought for their voice to be heard through protesting.
Diddy opinions to fight systematic racism
After the recent tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, people across the nation have taken to the streets to protest systematic racism, while others have taken matters into their own hands by toppling down statues of Confederate leaders. Diddy, however, is offering another strategy to fight against racism and for equality.
“It’s very important that we know our history at this time,” the Bad Boy Records founder started off his series of tweets. “We have such a rich history!”
The music mogul, philanthropist, and entrepreneur noted the teachings of Marcus Garvey. Diddy called on his millions of followers to research the inspiring and influential activist.
Dubbed the “Negro Moses,” Garvey was a founder of the Pan-African philosophy, which inspired a global mass movement.
What are your thoughts?
“Our goal should be our economic independence!” Diddy continued. “Then we won’t need to worry about what anybody says!!!”
It’s very important that we know our history at this time. We have such a rich history!
— Sean Diddy Combs (@diddy) August 17, 2017
If you do not know who Marcus Garvey is, Google him. He’s somebody we should follow during these times.
— Sean Diddy Combs (@diddy) August 17, 2017
Our goal should be our economic independence! Then we won’t need to worry about what anybody says!!!
— Sean Diddy Combs (@diddy) August 17, 2017
I pray I can be apart of showing my people the way to this goal stay tuned! #BlackExcellence #WeAreKingsAndQueens #WeAintDoingNoMoreMarching
— Sean Diddy Combs (@diddy) August 17, 2017
The only way forward is unity!! #BlackExcellence #WeAreKingsAndQueens
— Sean Diddy Combs (@diddy) August 18, 2017
If you do not know who Marcus Garvey is, Google him. He’s somebody we should follow during these times.
— Sean Diddy Combs (@diddy) August 17, 2017
#teamLOVE #BlackExcellence #WeAreKingsAndQueens pic.twitter.com/to4hQslcPS
— Sean Diddy Combs (@diddy) August 18, 2017
Crime & Justice
Detroit man awarded $10 million after wrongful conviction
Alexandre Ansari was wrongfully serving a life sentence over claims that in 2012 he shot and killed Ileana Cuevas, a 15-year-old girl.
A Detroit man who was wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for over six years was awarded $10 million in damages by a jury.
$10 million for man wrongfully convicted
Alexandre Ansari was wrongfully serving a life sentence over claims that in 2012 he shot and killed Ileana Cuevas, a 15-year-old girl, and wounded two others in Detroit, according to a lawsuit filed by Ansari in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan Southern Division.
“Once I got the verdict back, my heart dropped. And I’m like, ‘Dang, I got to spend the rest of my life in here for something I didn’t do.’ And you know, I tried to kill myself,” Ansari told Linsey Davis on “ABC News Live Prime.”
“It felt like nobody didn’t put all the evidence together to see that I wasn’t the person in the first place. So things started getting overwhelming for me.”
Exonerated
Ansari, 39, was exonerated in 2019 by the Wayne County Circuit Court after it determined that Moises Jimenez, a former Detroit police detective withheld evidence for Ansari’s trial that would have implicated someone else as the shooter, according to the County of Wayne Office of the Prosecuting Attorney.
Jimenez received an anonymous tip that linked the shooter to the Mexican Drug Cartel, according to the complaint that released Ansari.
The officer withheld the evidence from Ansari’s 2013 trial, according to the lawsuit.
Jimenez’s attorneys told ABC News that the former detective claims that he provided all evidence he uncovered during his investigation and plans to appeal the $10 million lawsuit verdict.
There have been no reported arrests connected to the shooting since Ansari’s exoneration. Ansari was wrongfully arrested for the crime when he was 27 years old.
Black Excellence
Regina King stars as Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman in Congress
Shirley is will be released on Netflix March 22.
In the first trailer for the upcoming Netflix movie Shirley, Regina King stars as the first Black woman to be elected to Congress.
Regina King as Shirley Chisholm
Chisholm’s story will be chronicled, showing her uphill battle and obstacles to win a seat in Congress as the daughter of a Barbados-born maid and a Guyanese laborer, her struggles to navigate Congress alongside her White male colleagues, and her groundbreaking 1972 presidential campaign.
Movie production
Produced by Regina King and her sister Reina King, Shirley also stars the late Lance Reddick, Lucas Hedges, Terrence Howard, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Christina Jackson and more.
King, who spent 15 years producing the film, said the project was an incredible feat.
“It was always a little disheartening for Reina and I to have so many people over the years of our lives not know who Shirley Chisholm was,” King told Harper’s Bazaar.
“What she did was so pioneering. She was a true maverick and, you know, we use this term all the time, but she was a true first.”
King said they decided to release the film during an election year as they thought it would make for a more “impactful” release.
“As a team, we felt that is probably the best way we could possibly honor Shirley: to release her in a space that she created for herself.”
Regina King as Shirley Chisholm trailer
Shirley is will be released on Netflix March 22.
Police
Family of Black girls handcuffed by Colorado police, held at gunpoint reach $1.9 million settlement
The family of four Black girls who were wrongfully detained and held at gunpoint by Aurora, CO police have reached a settlement with the city.
Family of Black girls held at gunpoint reach settlement
Finalized on Monday, the families will collectively receive $1.9 million.
The settlement marks the latest payout the City of Aurora has been forced to make over officers’ excessive use of force.
In 2021, the city paid a $15 million settlement to Elijah McClain’s family, a 23-year-old Black man who died in 2019 after officers put him in a chokehold and paramedics injected him with ketamine.
The incident
In August 2020, four Black girls, ages 6, 12, 14 and 17, were held face down on the ground and put in handcuffs in a nail salon parking lot, crying and screaming, as officers towered over them.
Brittney Gilliam, the mother of the 6-year-old, was driving that Sunday morning with her relatives, because they were going to get their nails done together.
Wrongfully detained
But before they made it in the salon, Gilliam was detained after officers mistakenly thought she was driving a stolen S.U.V.
Police had mistakenly believed Gilliam was driving a stolen car.
And a simple second step police failed to take, resulted in the family being wrongfully detained.
Officers didn’t type in the plate number in a second database to show them the make of the vehicle. If they had, authorities said, the officers would have realized that the plate number was registered to a motorcycle in Montana.
Black girls and mother held at gunpoint traumatized
Dozens of bystanders watched the ordeal unfold, and video footage of the incident went viral, sparking protests over racial injustice, citing excessive force on Black Americans.
After the video went viral, Aurora police had apologized for their grave mistake, but the emotional trauma had already happened.
The Aurora Police Department said its officers are trained to draw their weapons before telling passengers to exit the vehicle and ordering them to lie on the ground, The Post reported.
Officers who held Black girls at gunpoint
One of the two officers who drew their guns and handcuffed members of the family was initially suspended.
However, he and the other officer that pulled his firearm remain on the police force, the New York Times reports.
To date, no officers were fired or charged in connection with the incident.
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