Dialogic Cinephilia - June 2, 2020

Seller, Bakari. "'My Vanishing Country': Mass Protests Rise from 400 Years of Systemic Racism." Democracy Now (June 1, 2020) ["As mass unrest engulfs the U.S., we speak with attorney and political commentator Bakari Sellers, whose new memoir “My Vanishing Country” was just published. One of the central moments in the book is the Orangeburg massacre of 1968, when police opened fire on a crowd of students gathered on the campus of South Carolina State University to protest segregation at Orangeburg’s only bowling alley. When the shooting stopped, three Black students were dead, 28 students were wounded. The nine officers who opened fire that day were all acquitted. The only person convicted of wrongdoing was Bakari Sellers’s father, Cleveland Sellers, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known as SNCC. He was convicted of a riot charge and spent seven months behind bars. He was pardoned in 1993. We speak with Bakari Sellers about Orangeburg, 2020 and “400 years of systemic racism” in the U.S."]

Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. "A Class Rebellion: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on How Racism & Racial Terrorism Fueled Nationwide Anger." Democracy Now (June 1, 2020) ["In the largest nationwide uprising since the 1960s, protesters shut down cities across the United States over the weekend following the police killing of George Floyd, an African American man in Minneapolis. “These are not just repeats of past events,” says scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. “These are the consequences of the failures of this government and the political establishment … to resolve these crises.”"]

West, Cornel. "'America’s Moment of Reckoning': Cornel West Says Nationwide Uprising Is Sign of 'Empire Imploding.'" Democracy Now (June 1, 2020) ["As thousands from coast to coast took to the streets this weekend to protest the state-sanctioned killing of Black people, and the nation faces its largest public health crisis in generations and the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression, professor Cornel West calls the U.S. a “predatory capitalist civilization obsessed with money, money, money.” He also makes the connections between U.S. violence abroad and at home. “There is a connection between the seeds that you sow of violence externally and internally.”"]

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Good PBS Newshour on the last 24 hrs of protests.

Protests in 141 cities during that time. That is a massive movement of American citizens across the nation demanding justice.

President Trump has failed this country. Don't fall for his disinformation campaign that this is the work of outside agitators or his desperate photo ops trying to get us to think he is a good christian. On that last point check out Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde's comments around the 20 minute mark about Trump's photo-op in front of her church in which we can see a powerful message of what is important at this time and what a conscientious Christian is like.

Once again, this is a good snapshot of this period of time.