Tag Archives: racism

Google workers around world protest harassment, inequality

Workers stand outside the Google offices after walking out as part of a global protest over workplace issues in Dublin, Ireland, November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

By Graham Fahy and Angela Moon

DUBLIN/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Over 1,000 Google employees and contractors in Asia, Europe and the United States staged brief midday walk-outs on Thursday, with more expected to follow at California headquarters, amid complaints of sexism, racism and unchecked executive power in their workplace.

Hundreds of women and men filed out of Google’s office in New York City and silently walked around the block for about 10 minutes around 11:00 a.m. ET. A few held sheets of paper with messages including “Respect for women.”

Two blocks away, a larger crowd of people that appeared to number a thousand or more, including Google employees and New Yorkers not working for the company, filled a small park. Some held larger signs than those at the Google office, with more confrontational messages including “Time’s up Tech.”

“This is Google. We solve the toughest problems here. We all know that the status quo is unacceptable and if there is any company who can solve this, I think it is Google,” said Thomas Kneeland, a software engineer who said he has been at Google for three years.

Google employees have been getting a lot of emails from managers and colleagues to participate in the walkout recently, he said. Just around 11 a.m., people started forming groups to leave the building. “We had engineers on our team bring their pagers since they were on-call, but that’s how we thought of the walkout. It’s important.”

The demonstrations follow a New York Times report last week that said Google in 2014 gave a $90 million exit package to Andy Rubin after the then-senior vice president was accused of sexual harassment.

Rubin denied the allegation in the story, which he also said contained “wild exaggerations” about his compensation. Google did not dispute the report.

The report energized a months-long movement inside Google to increase diversity, and improve treatment of women and minorities.

In a statement late on Wednesday, the organizers called on Google parent Alphabet Inc to add an employee representative to its board of directors and internally share pay-equity data. They also asked for changes to Google’s human resources practices intended to make bringing harassment claims a fairer process.

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said in a statement that “employees have raised constructive ideas” and that the company was “taking in all their feedback so we can turn these ideas into action.”

GLOBAL ACTION

Hundreds more filed out of its European headquarters in Dublin shortly after 1100 local time, while organizers shared photographs on social media of hundreds more leaving Google offices in London, Zurich, Berlin, Tokyo, and Singapore.

Irish employees left a note on their desks that read: “I’m not at my desk because I’m walking out with other Googlers and contractors to protest sexual harassment, misconduct, lack of transparency, and a workplace culture that’s not working for everyone,” national broadcaster RTE reported.

Google employs 7,000 people in Dublin, its largest facility outside the United States.

The dissatisfaction among Alphabet’s 94,000 employees and tens of thousands more contractors has not noticeably affected company shares. But employees expect Alphabet to face recruiting and retention challenges if their concerns go unaddressed.

Much of the organizing earlier this year was internal, including petition drives, brainstorming sessions with top executives and training from the workers’ rights group Coworker.org.

Since its founding two decades ago, Google has been known for its transparency with workers. Executives’ goals and insights into corporate strategy have been accessible to any employee.

But organizers said Google executives, like leaders at other companies affected by the #metoo movement, have been slow to address some structural issues.

“While Google has championed the language of diversity and inclusion, substantive actions to address systemic racism, increase equity, and stop sexual harassment have been few and far between,” organizers stated.

They said Google must publicly report its sexual harassment statistics and end forced arbitration in harassment cases. In addition, they asked that the chief diversity officer be able to directly advise the board.

(Additional reporting by Padraic Halpin in Dublin, Paresh Dave in San Francisco, editing by Larry King and Nick Zieminski)

Memphis removes Confederate statues as King anniversary nears

A statue of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, stands in Memphis Park, formerly named Confederate Park, in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S., August 19, 2017.

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – Authorities in Memphis, a city steeped in civil rights history, removed two statues of Confederate leaders on Wednesday hours after the downtown parkland where they stood was sold to a private group.

Several U.S. cities have in recent months dismantled monuments to Confederate leaders, which have become focal points for a fraught national debate over race and politics.

The removal of the statutes of President Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest comes three months before Memphis marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination there of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Confederate General Forrest was a slave trader and a Ku Klux Klan leader.

Many Americans see such statues as symbols of racism and glorifications of the southern states’ defense of slavery in the Civil War, but others view them as important symbols of American history.

“The statues no longer represent who we are as a modern, diverse city with momentum,” Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said in a statement.

Earlier in the evening, the city council in Memphis voted unanimously to sell the land where the statues stood to a nonprofit organization called the Memphis Greenspace for $2,000 in order for the monuments to be removed, the Commercial Appeal newspaper reported.

“This is a fix, and a scam, and if the state has one hair on its ass then people will be charged with felonies,” the Sons of Confederate Veterans said in a post on Facebook opposing the sale of the land.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; editing by John Stonestreet)

Man arrested after threatening to kill ‘all white police’ at White House

Man arrested after threatening to kill 'all white police' at White House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Texas man suspected of traveling to Washington to kill “all white police” at the White House was arrested on Monday by Secret Service agents near the executive mansion, the agency said.

Michael Arega of Dallas, whose age was not listed by authorities, was arrested Monday afternoon after police in suburban Montgomery County, Maryland, issued an alert for the suspect in the Washington area, the Secret Service said.

“Secret Service personnel at the White House immediately increased their posture of readiness and began searching for Arega,” the agency said in a statement.

A little more than an hour after receiving the bulletin, agents spotted Arega on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue near Lafayette Square, a park across the street from the White House, and he was taken into custody without incident by uniformed Secret Service officers, the agency said.

Arega was not armed when he was arrested, and was under investigation for allegedly making felony threats, Secret Service spokesman Shawn Holtzclaw told Reuters by telephone.

U.S. President Donald Trump was on an overseas trip in Asia at the time.

Arega was handed over to the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, the Secret Service said.

In a report on the incident, police said Arega made threats on Facebook. It was not immediately known if Arega has an attorney.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Additional reporting and writing by Keith Coffman; Editing by Steve Gorman and Mary Milliken)

After protests, St. Louis mayor says address racism

Demonstrators continue to protest for a fourth day after the not guilty verdict in the murder trial of Jason Stockley, a former St. Louis police officer, charged with the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, who was black, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., September 18, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Lott

By Brendan O’Brien

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) – The legacies of racism, not only the violent protests that gripped St. Louis after a white former police officer was acquitted of murdering a black man, must be addressed, the city’s mayor said on Tuesday.

Mayor Lyda Krewson said she had listened and read the reaction of residents since the controversial verdict on Friday and was ready to find ways to move the city forward.

“What we are seeing and feeling is not only about this case,” Krewson told reporters.

“What we have is a legacy of policies that have disproportionately impacted people along racial and economic lines,” she added. “This is institutional racism.”

The city has been working to expedite existing plans to increase equity as well as develop new approaches, including changing how police shootings are investigated and granting subpoena powers to a police civilian oversight board, and expanding jobs programs, Krewson said.

“We, here in St. Louis, are once again ground zero for the frustration and anger at our shared legacy of these disproportional outcomes,” she said. “The only option is to move forward.”

Krewson said town halls scheduled for Tuesday night and later were canceled. As she spoke, dozens of protesters chanted outside her office.

Some activists had planned to voice complaints about police tactics used during protests after a judge found former officer Jason Stockley, 36, not guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of Anthony Lamar Smith, 24.

Largely peaceful protests during the day have turned violent at night with some demonstrators carrying guns, bats and hammers, smashing windows and clashing with police. Police arrested 123 people on Sunday, when officers in riot gear used pepper spray on activists.

The clashes have evoked memories of riots following the 2014 shooting of a black teenager by a white officer in nearby Ferguson.

Protesters have cited anger over a police tactic known as “kettling,” in which officers form a square surrounding protesters to make arrests. Some caught inside police lines Sunday said officers used excessive force, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

St. Louis police are also investigating whether some of its officers chanted “Whose streets? Our streets,” appropriating a refrain used by the protesters that one civilian oversight official said could inflame tensions.

“I wish that wouldn’t have been said,” Krewson said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri asked the city in a Tuesday letter to preserve video evidence ahead of what it said was a likely lawsuit challenging police tactics.

Complaints of police misconduct were being reviewed, but intimidation tactics would not be tolerated, Krewson said. Police had generally shown “great restraint,” she said.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning in Chicago; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Steve Orlofsky)

More than 80 arrested as riot police break up St. Louis protest over officer’s acquittal

Police detain protesters arrested for causing damage to local businesses during the second night of demonstrations after a not guilty verdict in the murder trial of former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley, charged with the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, who was black, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., September 16, 2017.

By Valerie Volcovici and Kenny Bahr

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) – More than 80 people were arrested on Sunday night as protests in St Louis over the acquittal of a white policeman who had shot a black man turned violent for a third night running.

Police in riot gear used pepper spray and arrested the demonstrators who had defied orders to disperse following a larger, peaceful protest.

After nightfall, a small group remained and the scene turned to one of disorder, following the pattern of Friday and Saturday. Protesters smashed windows and attempted to block a ramp to an interstate highway, police and witnesses said.

Officers tackled some protesters who defied police orders and used pepper spray before starting the mass arrests.

At a late-night news conference, Mayor Lyda Krewson noted that “the vast majority of protesters are non-violent,” and blamed the trouble on “a group of agitators.”

Acting police commissioner Lawrence O’Toole struck a hard stance, saying: “We’re in control, this is our city and we’re going to protect it.”

The protests in St Louis followed the acquittal on Friday of former police officer Jason Stockley, 36, of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith, 24.

The violence evoked memories of the riots following the 2014 shooting of a black teenager by a white officer in nearby Ferguson, Missouri.

Police reported confiscating weapons including handguns and recovered plastic spray bottles containing an unknown chemical that hit officers, who were then decontaminated.

“This is no longer a peaceful protest,” St. Louis police said on Twitter earlier.

Shopkeepers clean up shattered glass during the second night of demonstrations after a not guilty verdict in the murder trial of former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley, charged with the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, who was black, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., September 16, 2017.

Shopkeepers clean up shattered glass during the second night of demonstrations after a not guilty verdict in the murder trial of former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley, charged with the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, who was black, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., September 16, 2017. REUTERS/Lawrence Bryant

Protesters broke large ceramic flowerpots and threw chunks of the ceramic at storefront windows.

Sunday’s gathering was the largest of the three nights with more 1,000 protesters. Police in turn deployed their largest show of force, as officers in riot gear marched through the streets.

“Do they think this will make us feel safe?” said Keisha Lee of Ferguson, shaking her head.

Police ordered a group of news photographers to stand up against a wall. One, Kenny Bahr, was working on assignment for Reuters and posted the incident live on Facebook until he was placed in handcuffs when he turned off his video. The photographers were released after about 30 minutes.

Earlier in the evening a handful of demonstrators threw bottles in response to a police officer making arrests.

As people converged on an unmarked police car holding one suspect, an officer drove through the crowd in reverse to escape, police said. No injuries were reported.

The protests began on Friday shortly after the acquittal on Friday, when 33 people were arrested and 10 officers injured.

Violence flared anew on Saturday night when about 100 protesters, some holding bats or hammers, shattered windows and skirmished with police in riot gear, resulting in at least nine arrests. Sunday’s arrests again followed earlier peaceful, and far larger, protests.

Protesters participate in a "Die-In" on the third day of demonstrations after a not guilty verdict in the murder trial of former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley, charged with the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, who was black, outside police headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., September 17, 2017.

Protesters participate in a “Die-In” on the third day of demonstrations after a not guilty verdict in the murder trial of former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley, charged with the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, who was black, outside police headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., September 17, 2017. REUTERS/Lawrence Bryant

More serious clashes broke out in 2014 in Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, following the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a white police officer who was not indicted.

The Ferguson protests gave rise to Black Lives Matter, a movement that has staged protests across the United States.

An informal group known as the Ferguson frontline has organized the protests, focusing on what it describes as institutional racism that has allowed police to be cleared of criminal wrongdoing in several shootings of unarmed black men.

“Windows can be replaced. Lives can’t,” said Missy Gunn, a member of Ferguson frontline and mother of three including a college-age son. She said she feared for him every night.

Smith was shot in his car after Stockley and his partner chased him following what authorities said was a drug deal. Prosecutors argued that Stockley planted a weapon in Smith’s car, but the judge believed the gun belonged to Smith.

 

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici and Kenny Bahr in St Louis and Chris Michaud in New York; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Mary Milliken, Peter Cooney and Toby Chopra)

 

Anti-racism activists to march from Charlottesville to Washington

Participants of "Charlottesville to D.C: The March to Confront White Supremacy" begin a ten-day trek to the nation's capital from Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S. August 28, 2017. REUTERS/Julia Rendleman

By Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Anti-racism activists will begin a 10-day march on Monday from Charlottesville to Washington to protest against a far-right rally in the Virginia city and what they called President Donald Trump’s reluctance to condemn its white nationalist organizers.

The “March to Confront White Supremacy” is the latest demonstration following the Aug. 12 rally in Charlottesville, when one woman was killed after a man drove a car into a crowd of anti-racism counterprotesters.

Trump received fierce criticism from across the political spectrum after he first blamed “many sides” for the violence. Under pressure, he later condemned neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan by name, but that did little to appease his opponents.

March organizers said that about 200 people will begin walking on Monday evening from Charlottesville, a liberal-leaning college town that is home to the University of Virginia. That number is expected to rise as the march nears its end in Washington on Sept. 6.

“What we’re trying to do is unite the country,” one of the organizers, Cassius Rudolph of People’s Consortium for Human and Civil Rights, said. “We’re standing up to confront white supremacy.”

Other organizers include the Women’s March, which oversaw a massive anti-Trump demonstration in Washington in January, and the Movement for Black Lives, Rudolph said.

The march will begin at Emancipation Park, which was the focus of the Aug. 12 rally called by white nationalists to protest against the city’s plans to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

There were hours of clashes in the streets and a 32-year-old local woman, Heather Heyer, was killed when a car crashed into a group of counterprotesters. The alleged driver, 20-year-old Ohio man James Fields Jr., faces multiple charges including murder.

Charlottesville police charged two men over the weekend in connection with an Aug. 12 assault. Daniel Borden, 18, is in custody in Cincinnati, police said in a statement, while Alex Ramos, 33, is at large.

A third man, Richard Preston, 52, was charged with firing a weapon during the rally and is being held in Towson, Maryland, the police statement said.

 

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Alistair Bell)

 

U.N. experts condemn racist violence in U.S., urge investigations

Women sit by an impromptu memorial of flowers commemorating the victims at the scene of the car attack on a group of counter-protesters during the "Unite the Right" rally as people continue to react to the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. REUTERS/Justin Ide

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – United Nations human rights experts called on U.S. political leaders “at all levels” on Wednesday to combat rising racist violence and xenophobia and urged prosecution of perpetrators of hate crimes.

U.S. President Donald Trump insisted on Tuesday that both left- and right-wing extremists had become violent during a weekend rally by white nationalists in Virginia, reigniting a political firestorm over race relations in the United States and his own leadership of a national crisis.

After clashes between the two sides at Saturday’s rally, a car ploughed into opponents of the gathering, killing one woman and injuring 19 others. A 20-year-old Ohio man, James Fields, said to have harbored Nazi sympathies, was charged with murder.

“We are outraged by the violence in Charlottesville and the racial hatred displayed by right-wing extremists, white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups,” the independent U.N. experts said in a joint statement issued in Geneva.

“We call for the prosecution and adequate punishment of all perpetrators and the prompt establishment of an independent investigation into the events,” they said.

The legacy of slavery in America has left two “invidious” aspects, the “ongoing racial discrimination” and the notion of white supremacy, said Anastasia Crickley, chair of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, who is one of the three experts who issued the statement.

“This notion of white supremacy as far as many of us can see is being re-articulated from top to bottom in the USA at the moment,” she told Reuters.

“In looking to addressing racial discrimination, we have got to look to very clear, unequivocal statements from political leaders at all levels,” she added.

Crickley, asked whether Trump was providing leadership on the issue and whether she had concerns on his public statements, replied: “Already leaders across the political spectrum are calling for more political leadership from the White House and from the leadership spectrum. I think yes we do need that.”

The events in Virginia were the “latest examples” of increasing racism, racial discrimination, Afrophobia, racist violence and xenophobia “observed in demonstrations across the USA”, the U.N. experts said.

Recent incidents in California, Oregon, New Orleans and Kentucky had demonstrated “the geographical spread of the problem”, they added.

The statement was also issued by Sabelo Gumedze, chair of the U.N. working group of experts on people of African descent, and Mutuma Ruteere, U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Gareth Jones and Alister Doyle)

Accused gunman in Fresno shooting spree charged in motel murder

A road is blocked by police tape after a multiple victim shooting incident in downtown Fresno, California, U.S. April 18, 2017. Fresno County Sheriff/Handout via REUTERS

By Dan Whitcomb

(Reuters) – A suspect nicknamed Black Jesus who police say killed three white men during a racially motivated shooting spree in downtown Fresno, California, was charged on Thursday with the murder of an unarmed Motel 6 security guard days earlier.

Kori Ali Muhammad, 39, was also charged by Fresno County prosecutors with the attempted murder of a second security guard at the motel on April 13, five days before the shooting rampage.

A spokeswoman for the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office said Muhammad would be charged in connection with the fatal gun spree after police investigators submit final reports in the case.

Police have said Muhammad was bent on killing as many white men as possible when he gunned down the three men in downtown Fresno and fired at another, who was missed by the bullets.

Although Muhammad shouted: “Allu Akhbar” as he was taken into custody, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer has said the case did not appear to be an act of terrorism.

“Kori Muhammad is not a terrorist, but he is a racist, and he is filled with hate, and he set out this week to kill as many people as he could,” Dyer told reporters on Wednesday.

Dyer said at the news conference that Muhammad, who went by the nickname Black Jesus, opened fire in the parking lot of a Fresno-area Motel 6 because he felt disrespected after being asked to move out. Security guard Carl Williams was slain.

On Tuesday morning, he logged onto the internet at a Starbucks coffee shop and learned that police had identified him as the assailant in that crime.

“What he told our detectives last night was that once he saw he was wanted for murder, he was not going to go down for shooting a security guard for disrespecting him, but that he was going to kill as many white males as possible,” Dyer said.

Police say Muhammad opened fire 17 times at about 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday as he walked and ran along several blocks in Fresno, killing the three men in less than four minutes.

Fresno is an agricultural hub in California’s central valley, about 170 miles (275 km) southeast of San Francisco.

Muhammad faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted of the two charges filed against him on Thursday. He was expected to make an initial court appearance as early as Friday morning.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Peter Cooney)