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Federal agencies bar Black History Month and other 'special observances' | NBC News
Federal agencies have begun to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive orders banning any programs that are perceived to be related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. This means all events and activities for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Black History Month, Juneteenth, LGBTQ Pride Month, and Holocaust Remembrance Day are either on their way to suspension or have been suspended at intelligence agencies, military agencies, and civilian departments.
Harvard shutters internal slavery research team amid controversy. | The Black Wall Street Times
The entire staff at Harvard University’s Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program (HSRP) have been laid off, including its director, Richard J. Cellini. This program was a crucial component in the “Legacy of Slavery” initiative, which the Ivy League school allocated $100 million to identify descendants of individuals enslaved by university affiliates. No reason for the layoffs were given.
This is another huge blow to the initiative as back in September, Cellini accused Vice Provost for Special Projects Sara N. Bleich, who oversees the project, of instructing the program to “not to find too many descendants.”
Right-wing group funded by Project 2025 launches ‘DEI Watchlist’ targeting mostly Black federal workers | The Grio
Recently published website ‘DEI Watchlist’, has targeted more than 60 former and current federal workers for “DEI offenses”. The so-called “dossiers” include personal information, professional information, political contributions to Democratic campaigns as low as $15, and their social media posts. The mostly Black former and current federal works are predominately from federal health agencies, such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).The website includes a tipline for users to report on any other bureacrats that the website has missed.
The website was created by the conservative nonprofit American Accountability Foundation, which is backed by the Heritage Foundation, the publisher of Project 2025. ‘DEI Watchlist’ includes a tipline for users to report on suggested individuals for dossiers or any additional information on the individuals who are already profiled.
Trump’s pick for counterterrorism called for arresting BLM leaders as terrorists | Mother Jones
“We need to treat antifa and BLM like terrorist organizations. We need to use the tools of the federal government, the FBI, the US Marshals—go after them like organized criminals and terrorists. So, when we start arresting these guys and charging them with federal terrorism charges, that’s going to take away a lot of the incentive to go out and riot.”
This 2021 statement came from Joe Kent, the pick from Donald Trump to lead the National Counterterrorism Center. If he is confirmed by Congress a large part of his job would be to coordinate information with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to disseminate to state and local law enforcement about potential terrorist threats.
Memory-Holing Jan. 6: What Happens When You Try to Make History Vanish? | ProPublica
The searchable database of all cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, have been removed from the U.S. Department of Justice. This comes two weeks after the DOJ released a 123-page report and spoke publicly on the 1921 racial massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, wherein several hundred Black people were murdered their historic thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood was left in smoldering ruins.
The facts of both of these two historic, violent events and the attempts to whitewash them are discussed in this article.
The Capitol rioters are free — but Ed Martin’s crusade against Jan. 6 prosecutors is just getting started | The Intercept
According to The Intercept, roughly 30 government attorneys that were hired to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters have been fired by the interim head of the federal prosecutor’s office in Washington, Ed Martin. Martin has advocated for years for January 6th defendants, including saying in December, 2023 that those who ordered the prosecutions should be jailed. Just a year ago, Martin said that he had “finally come around to reparations” for the January 6th rioters and stated that he believed “everyone who has been targeted on January 6, they should get a big pot of money, like the asbestos money we got for asbestos victims.”
The Corporate DEI Divide: From Target To Disney, Here Are The Companies Scaling Back And The Ones Doubling Down | AfroTech
Some companies in corporate America are following suit to the federal government’s DEI rollbacks and shrinking their own DEI programs, but there are still several who are doubling down.
Companies who are rolling back their DEI policies include Meta, Target, Disney, Walmart, Lowe’s, McDonald’s, Harley-Davidson, Boeing, and John Deere.
Companies who are affirming their commitment to DEI include Apple, Costco, Microsoft, Delta Airlines, Ben & Jerry’s, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Ancestry, Cisco, Mitre, and e.l.f. Beauty.
A forensics company tells cops it can use DNA to predict a suspect’s face. Scientists worry the tool will deepen racial bias. | The Intercept
Parabon NanoLabs says their DNA phenotyping system can “accurately” predict traits of someone’s face and can provide law enforcement with a sketch rendering of the predicted features - for a fee. Experts in the field have been sounding off warning bells though that this technology is not ready yet and raises many concerns around reinforcing racial stereotypes, increased over-surveillance of marginalized people, and privacy rights.
On the Bright Side…
Historic Black church given 'Proud Boys' trademark calls for stand against hate | NPR
A historic Black church has won in court against the Proud Boys after the far-right extremist group failed to pay on a $2.8 million judgement for damaging a Black Lives Matter sign outside the church. Their prize? The control of the Proud Boys trademark.
Cities where Breonna Taylor, George Floyd were killed vow to stay firm on police reform – with or without Trump | ABC News
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division secured agreements with the cities of Minneapolis and Louisville for police reform before President Trump took office and his administration ordered a freeze on those cases. Police and city officials in both cities have affirmed that they will honor those agreed upon civil rights reforms and move forward anyways, “with or without the oversight of the Trump administration.”