Diaspora News

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hours after President Donald Trump posed with a Bible and vowed to deploy the military to “dominate the streets,” American cities were engulfed in more violence and destruction, overshadowing peaceful protests demanding justice after generations of racism.

In New York City, nonviolent demonstrations were punctuated by people smashing storefront windows near Rockefeller Center and breaching the doors into the storied Macy’s store on 34th Street, littering parts of Manhattan with broken glass. A vehicle plowed through a group of law enforcement officers at a demonstration in Buffalo, injuring at least two.

Demonstrations erupted from Philadelphia, where hundreds of protesters spilled onto a highway in the heart of the city, to Atlanta, where police fired tear gas at demonstrators, to Nashville, where more than 60 National Guard soldiers put down their riot shields at the request of peaceful protesters who had gathered in front of Tennessee’s state Capitol to honor George Floyd.

Bystander Sean Jones, who watched as people ransacked luxury stores in Manhattan’s chic Soho neighborhood, explained the destruction this way: “People are doing this so next time, before they think about trying to kill another black person, they’re going to be like, ’Damn, we don’t want them out here doing this … again.’”

The unrest in Minneapolis appeared to stabilize on the same day Floyd’s brother made an impassioned plea for peace at the location where a white police officer put his knee on the handcuffed black man’s neck until he stopped breathing last week.

The death toll from the unrest began to mount, including two people killed in a Chicago suburb. The police chief in Louisville was fired after a beloved restaurant owner was killed by police and National Guard enforcing a curfew.

An officer was shot shortly before midnight near the Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas. Police had no immediate word on the officer’s condition. Four officers were shot in St. Louis, Missouri, where police said they were expected to recover.

Trump, meanwhile, portrayed himself as a hard-nosed, law-and-order president, with police under federal command forcing back peaceful demonstrators with tear gas so he could pose with a Bible outside a damaged church.

Emerging after two days out of public view, he threatened from the White House Rose Garden to deploy “thousands and thousands” of U.S. troops. Then he made a surprise walk across Lafayette Park to a house of worship known as “The Church of the Presidents.”

The photo op was condemned by Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde.

“The president just used a Bible and one of the churches of my diocese as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our church stands for,” she said.

For nearly a week since Floyd’s death, largely peaceful protests by day have turned to chaos at night. Many express frustration that after years of seeking reforms, minorities still suffer and die in police custody. With so many aspects of society and the economy disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, people are demanding fundamental changes, nationwide.

“We have been sitting on a powder keg for some time and it has burst,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said.

The president, seeking his second term in office, vowed to use more force to stop the violence.

If governors don’t deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers to “dominate the streets,” Trump said, the U.S. military would step in to “quickly solve the problem for them.”

“We have the greatest country in the world,” the president declared. “We’re going to keep it safe.”

As Trump spoke, tear gas canisters could be heard exploding.

A military deployment by Trump to U.S. states would mark a stunning federal intervention rarely seen in modern American history. It drew comparisons to 1968, when Richard Nixon ran as the law-and-order candidate in the aftermath of riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Minutes before Trump began speaking, police and National Guard soldiers began aggressively removing hundreds of peaceful protesters from the Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, where they were chanting against police brutality and Floyd’s death.

Five months before Election Day, the president made clear that he would stake his reelection efforts on convincing voters that his strong-arm approach was warranted to quell the most intense civil unrest since the 1960s. He made little effort to address the grievances of black Americans and others outraged by Floyd’s death and the scourge of police brutality, undermining what his campaign had hoped would be increased appeal to African American voters.

The scene in and around the White House appeared to be carefully orchestrated. As the crowd of protesters grew, Attorney General William Barr arrived in Lafayette Park to look over at the demonstrations and the swarm of law enforcement. Once his path was cleared, Trump, who rarely attends church, then walked through the park and held up a Bible, posing for photos with an all-white group of advisors.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Trump “used the military to push out a peaceful protest so he could have a photo op at a church.”

Federal law permits presidents to dispatch the military into states to suppress an insurrection or if a state is defying federal law, legal experts said. But officials in New York and other states asserted that the president does not have a unilateral right to send in troops against the will of local governments.

Earlier Monday, Trump told the nation’s governors in a video conference that they “look like fools” for not deploying even more National Guard troops. “Most of you are weak,” he said.

“You’ve got to arrest people, you have to track people, you have to put them in jail for 10 years and you’ll never see this stuff again,” Trump said.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, dismissed Trump’s comments as the “rantings of an insecure man trying to look strong after building his entire political career on racism.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, vowed to address institutional racism in his first 100 days in office. He met in person with black leaders in Delaware and also held a virtual meeting with big-city mayors.

Biden said hate emerges “when you have somebody in power who breathes oxygen into the hate.”

More than 5,600 people nationwide have been arrested over the past week for such offenses as stealing, blocking highways and breaking curfew, according to a count by The Associated Press.

Sullivan and Morrison reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press journalists across the U.S. contributed to this report.

A mini rally that was held by the Diaspora Coalition at the Ghanaian capital in adherence to restrictions on social gathering attracted more than the invited participants as a crowd gathered in front of the Diaspora Affair Forum in solidarity with protesting youth across the United States.

The W E B Dubois center was the scene of the first solidarity rally which was referred to by Ambassador Erieka Bennet as a funeral for all the people of African descent who have met their untimely death at the hands of American police. The crowd wore mostly black with red band on their wrist to symbolize the untimely death of all victims of police brutality.

In his speech at the event, the leader of the Diaspora Coalition Rabbi Kohan said when he left the United States in 1994 to relocate to Ghana, he was leaving behind a culture of police brutality on blacks but wondered why the most powerful nation on earth is still grappling with institutional racism 26 years later.

“We want to call out all the names of those who have fallen victim to remind them that we will never forget,” he said. Akwasi Agyemang, CEO of the Ghana Tourism Authority added that when we as a nation called our brothers and sisters home last year in the Year of Return, we were signaling that they have a home to return to, and that what injustices afflict them there we feel over here in Ghana.

The Founder and CEO of Diaspora Network Television (DNT) Jermaine Nkrumah on his part pointed out that we as a people would not receive the respect that we seek from others until we begin to respect ourselves. He proceeded to invoke a mantra that he called “Respect Your Race” as the first step to earning the respect of others that would eventually force them to value our lives.

After the round of speeches, a selected group of roughly seven people proceeded to deliver a petition that had been signed both online and at the rally to the United States Embassy just two blocks away.

In receiving the petition at the entrance of the Embassy on behalf of the Ambassador, deputy chief of Mission Christopher J. Lamora agreed with the delegation that what was happening in the United States was unfortunate. He assured the delegation that the Ambassador will receive the petition.

DNT News

The Diaspora Coalition has planned a peaceful protest march tomorrow to the United States Embassy in Accra to deliver both verbal and written condemnation of the rampant police brutality of people of African descent in America.

The march is planned to begin at 11:30am from the premises of the Diaspora Africa Forum (DAF) at the W. E Dubois Center in the Cantonments and end in front of the United States Embassy which is merely two blocks away.

Although the organizers are adamant at limiting participation to no more than 25 protesters in respect of social distancing, if the volume of participation in cities across America is anything to go by, a crowd would be inevitable.

Upon arrival, there will be speeches by the leader of the Diaspora Coalition Rabbi Kohan, AU Ambassador to Ghana and Diaspora Affairs Forum Dr. Erieka Bennet, and other Pan-African leaders.

“We will have to do this by invitation because the issue is so hot,” Kohan said in an interview with DNT. Another observer indicated that due to the ban on social gathering, it would be difficult to formally organize people to gather in a group hence the effort to limit participation.

But with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo scheduled to speak after a long period of restrictions on social gathering, it is possible that by the time the march begins on Monday, the ban on social gatherings would have been lifted.

Asked he thought the long practice of following every instance of police brutality with protests, then silence until another cycle begins constitute doing the same things and expecting different results, Kohan touched on some important pan-African themes while making some profound observations.

“This is all part of changing the narrative. The Year of Return last year was not only an attempt to increase tourism; it was meant for Africa to become a place of value to us. And if Africa becomes a place of value to us, Africans will be more valued.”

Kohan observed that for the first time, leaders on the African continent have issued statements against domestic instance of police brutality in America. “We’ve had the AU Chair and deputy Chair put out a statement.” Kohan said. “You cannot affect an African anywhere in the world without affecting Africans all over the world,”

DNT News

They work on average 18 hours a day, seven days a week, and 52 weeks a year. They have no exposure to the outside world besides communicating via social media. Many have not been paid since September 2019. And the agents who sent them there have turned their backs threatening them if they gave out their contacts to anyone. Meet the Ghanaian house help in Lebanon.

What about spending time with friends, DNT asked. “Since I arrived here I haven’t seen anyone besides the family I live with,” ‘Ama’ responded. What if you fall sick? “You still have to work.” Don’t they take you to the hospital? “ever since my arrival here when they took me to a hospital to check my health status, I have not seen a hospital in three years,” ‘Ama’ responded.

And now the almost 300 Ghanaian house helps who have been able to organize themselves mostly through social media have had it, and need the help of the Ghanaian government to return home. What about the money owed to you? “We prefer arriving back in Ghana with our lives even if we would have no money on us,” ‘Ama’ said, insisting that she speaks for all 300 or so women.

In one instance, one lady recounted a story where her madam and the family traveled out of their city for three days and she was locked inside the house for the entire duration with no way of exiting the house. Although there was food to eat, she would have been burned to death if the house had caught fire.

Most of these women resort to running away from their houses to live with friends whose hosts are reasonable. When you make the mistake of complaining about your pay, you are beaten to a pulp and still asked to continue working.

‘Ama’ herself was slapped so hard that one of her eyes swelled so largely that she could see from only one eye. Another one was given a watermelon to eat after which she began complaining about her health until she eventually died. No one knows what happened to her body although her family in Ghana was informed of her death.

And then there are the stories of sexual assaults. In some cases, the father would rape these house helps. Then the older sons would also do same. Ironically when the madam finds out, the house help is to blame and the punishment is usually very swift and severe.

Although some Ghanaian community leaders have stepped up to help with returning these women to Ghana, none was interested in speaking with DNT for fear of reprisals from the Lebanese people whose brothers and sisters live the good life here in Ghana.

As things stand, those who have managed to flee their homes are without their passports because their madams have seized them. ‘Ama’ for example has only an image of the information page of her passport in her mobile phone.

This may mean that any repatriation process would have to include near instant issuance of Travel Certificates because after having registered online, these women would literally have a few hours to leave their homes and dash to the Ghanaian Consulate and be issued their TCs before boarding. No room for errors.

Protests across Lebanon erupted on Oct. 17 after the government suggested it could raise revenue by taxing calls made through internet services like WhatsApp. For many Lebanese, it was insulting that the country’s leaders would try to use their calls to subsidize the state after decades of mismanagement and looting.

Michael Amponsah Reporting for DNT News

(DNT) TORONTO – A 29 year old woman believed be from Nova Scotia has fallen to her death from the 24th floor of a Toronto high rise building after an interaction with police. Regis Korchinski-Paquet fell off the balcony Wednesday evening at a High Park Avenue building.

Toronto police had been called to the apartment around 5 pm by Claudette Beals-Clayton, the mother of the deceased, due to a “domestic incident” between Regis and her brother.

Between five to eight officers responded and encountered the mother in the hallway who asked that her daughter be taken to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. While the mother and son were held in the hallway something happened which led to Regis falling from the 24th floor balcony.

The police claim suicide, but the family says she was pushed. The Special Investigations Unit has taken over the investigation into her death. The SIU is the police watchdog in charge of investigating incidents where a person is either harmed or killed with police present.

A march demanding justice was carried out today Saturday May 29th on the streets of Toronto.

Anthony Dwomoh – DNT News, Toronto

White Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin seen in a viral video pressing his knee on the George Floyd to cause his death was arrested on Friday and charged with third degree murder. A third degree murder is classified as causing the death “without intent to effect a death” of another, and is punishable by a prison sentence of up to 25 years.

The incident has sparked riots across cities in the United States especially in the Minneapolis/St Paul metropolis. Some have called in social media videos for the death penalty for the four officers involved. but with the charge of third degree murder, it is unlikely the police officers would face the gas chamber.

Hours before their final exams (at 10pm the previous evening), 19 final year foreign medical students in a Ukrainian university were expelled without prior notice. Four of the 19 students were expelled for academic debt but the remaining 15 comprising seven Africans and some Israelis were for arrears in tuition.

The institution, V.N Karazin Kharkov National University issued the expulsion notice to the final year medical students who were getting ready to take their state exams without the usual prior notice in spite of the general difficulty in the flow of commercial activities brought about by the pandemic.

Timeline

Sunday @ 10pm – University issues expulsion order with immediate effect just ten hours before final year medical students write their State Exams to become doctors. Students are thrown into pandemonium.

Monday @ 7am – The President of African Medical Students Association Hon Ezekwu Precious PK and a few other officers rush to the Rector’s office in an attempt to avert disaster but both the Rector and his vice are not available. The Assistant Director of International Students suggests that disaster can be averted by immediate payment of tuition arrears

Monday @ 10am – A few students pay their tuition arrears and a designated bank and bring their receipts to the Contract Office of the university but are told that it is too late because they have been expelled.

Monday @ 2pm – The President of African Medical Students Association meets with Vice Rector, Vice Dean of the Medical School, and Director of international students and are told that a notice had been issued in February to all students who owed tuition arrears to pay by the end of that month or face expulsion. Students say they were not aware of any such notice

Monday around 4pm – The President of the African Medical Students Association holds a separate meeting with Vice Dean of the Medical School and is told to tell the affected students to pay their tuition arrears and the university will deliberate on whether to reinstate them.

Tuesday @ 8am – National Union of Ghana Students Kharkov, Ukraine (NUGS Kharkov) participates in a protest in front of the university organized by final year medical students.

Wednesday @ 8am – NUGS participates in another protest in front of the school and consequently meets with authorities. They are told that all expelled students must pay their arrears in full before they will be reinstated; the university will treat the expelled students as a collective unit and not as individual students meaning unless every expelled student pays, even those who pay would not be reinstated.

As at press time the President of the African Medical Students Association had posted a message simply saying “I just received a message from the director of int’l students that the situation has been resolved” without giving any details.

Magdaline Nonkwia – DNT News, Kharkov, Ukraine

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Four Minneapolis officers involved in the arrest of a black man who died in police custody were fired Tuesday, hours after a bystander’s video provoked widespread outrage with footage that showed the man pleading that he could not breathe as a white officer knelt on his neck.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey tweeted about the firings, saying “This is the right call.”

The man’s death Monday night after he struggled with officers was under investigation by the FBI and state law enforcement authorities. It immediately drew comparisons to the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in 2014 in New York after he was placed in a chokehold by police and pleaded for his life, saying he could not breathe.

Frey apologized to the black community early Tuesday in a post on his Facebook page.

“Being Black in America should not be a death sentence. For five minutes, we watched a white officer press his knee into a Black man’s neck. Five minutes. When you hear someone calling for help, you’re supposed to help. This officer failed in the most basic, human sense,” Frey posted.

Police said the man matched the description of a suspect in a forgery case at a grocery store, and that he resisted arrest. The unidentified officer ignores his pleas. “Please, please, please, I can’t breathe. Please, man,” the man, who is handcuffed, is heard telling the officer.

After several minutes, one of the officers tells the man to “relax.” Minutes pass, and the man becomes motionless under the officer’s restraint. The officer leaves his knee on the man’s neck for several minutes more.

Several witnesses had gathered on a nearby sidewalk, some recording the scene on their phones. The bystanders became increasingly agitated as the man pleaded with police. One bystander told officers they need to let him breathe. Another yelled at them to check the man’s pulse.

The victim was identified as George Floyd by Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights and personal injury attorney who said he had been hired by Floyd’s family.

“We all watched the horrific death of George Floyd on video as witnesses begged the police officer to take him into the police car and get off his neck,” Crump said in a statement. “This abusive, excessive and inhumane use of force cost the life of a man who was being detained by the police for questioning about a non-violent charge.”

Charles McMillian, 60, of Minneapolis, said he saw police trying to get Floyd into the back of the squad car and heard Floyd tell them he was claustrophobic.

After having the officer’s knee on his neck, McMillian said, the man started calling his mother’s name, “and then he died.”

“It’s sad because it didn’t have to happen,” McMillian said.

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said the department would conduct a full internal investigation.

Experts on police use of force told The Associated Press that the officer clearly restrained the man too long. They noted the man was under control and no longer fighting. Andrew Scott, a former Boca Raton, Florida, police chief who now testifies as an expert witness in use-of-force cases, called Floyd’s death “a combination of not being trained properly or disregarding their training.”

“He couldn’t move. He was telling them he couldn’t breathe, and they ignored him,” Scott said. “I can’t even describe it. It was difficult to watch.”

The New York City officer in the Garner case said he was using a legal maneuver called “the seatbelt” to bring down Garner, whom police said had been resisting arrest. But the medical examiner referred to it as a chokehold in the autopsy report and said it contributed to his death. Chokehold maneuvers are banned under New York police policy.

A grand jury later decided against indicting the officers involved in Garner’s death, sparking protests around the country.

In Minneapolis, kneeling on a suspect’s neck is allowed under the department’s use-of-force policy for officers who have received training in how to compress a neck without applying direct pressure to the airway. It is considered a “non-deadly force option,” according to the department’s policy handbook.

A chokehold is considered a deadly force option and involves someone obstructing the airway. According to the department’s use-of-force policy, officers are to use only an amount of force necessary that would be objectively reasonable.

The police union asked the public to wait for the investigation to take its course and not to “rush to judgment and immediately condemn our officers.” The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, which would handle any prosecution of police on state charges, said in a statement that it was “shocked and saddened” by the video and pledged to handle the case fairly. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota declined comment.

The death came amid outrage over the death of Ahmaud Arbery, who was fatally shot Feb. 23 in Georgia after a white father and son pursued the 25-year-old black man they had spotted running in their subdivision. More than two months passed before charges were brought. Crump also represents Arbery’s father.

All body camera footage in the Minneapolis case was turned over to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and the agency asked to speak with anyone who saw the arrest or recorded video. The officers involved have been put on paid administrative leave, per department protocol. The agency said the officers’ names will be released after initial interviews with the people involved and witnesses.

The FBI is conducting a separate federal civil rights investigation, at the request of Minneapolis police, the BCA said. Messages left with the FBI were not immediately returned.

The American Civil Liberties Union was among many organizations calling for the officers to be held accountable.

“You can’t watch this appalling video posted by brave eyewitnesses on social media without seeing police officers’ callous disregard for a black man’s life,” ACLU of Minnesota Executive Director John Gordon said, calling the death “both needless and preventable.

Associated Press writers Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee and Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.

New Era Baptist Church is located in the West End section of Birmingham, one of the blackest areas in one of the blackest cities in America. The church is pastored by the Rev. Michael R. Jordan, who is known for his activism, which some people say borders on trolling.

Michael Jordan (yes, that’s his name) is now being accused of “reverse racism,” though that’s a hard sell in this case. It’s not that he’s opposed to racial integration. He actually has a compelling reason for making his statement: A new mostly-white megachurch, led by a black pastor, was coming to the community, and he’s worried that smaller mostly-black churches will suffer as a result. He’s also concerned that the new church will get support from the city (violating church/state separation, though that’s another issue), taking money away from black organizations in the community.

He explained all this to Al.com:

“Because of white flight and societal change where whites left the city, they did not want to be our neighbors, did not want their kids to go to school with our children,” Jordan said. “They left the churches too. They sold the churches to us. White folks don’t want to be our neighbors. If you don’t want to be our neighbor, why do you feel comfortable putting a white church in the inner city? Their response is we will have a black pastor. He’ll be a token. They’ll still control the sermons, they’ll still control the choir, the white administrative leadership will still run the church.”

“Blacks have flooded white churches and moved into white neighborhoods,” Jordan said. “It’s for status reasons. It’s a sense of self-worth. But 99 percent of whites won’t go to a black church.”

That’s a fair point. What does it say about the Christianity at large when black worshipers will attend a white church but it rarely happens the other way around?

For those reasons, the mayor of Birmingham, Randall Woodfin, was wrong to condemn Jordan’s sign as embodying the “spirit of racism.” Woodfin missed the whole point.

Government is on schedule to complete the construction to complete the new Kumasi international airport with a terminal building which will include a Traffic Control Tower, Fire Station, Parking Lot, Minister of Aviation, Honorable Kofi Adda made this known to DNT. The targeted completion period is the third quarter of 2021.

Hon. Adda revealed that the airport will also have a runway capable of accommodating transcontinental airliners suggesting that the airport in Ghana’s second largest city would not be a regional hub, but capable of accommodating international carriers such as KLM, BA, and Emirates.

“The Runway will be 2,300 meters long enough for 777 and the Terminal will have all the facilities required,” he stated. Currently the landing and take-off distances of the runway are 6,502ft (1,981m) and 7,242ft (2,207m) respectively. that means at completion an extension would have been made to the current runway.

DNT spoke to some members of the Ghanaian diaspora and the response to the news was all positive. Many Ghanaians in the diaspora from the middle to northern half of the country who have no means of accommodation in Accra have complained for a long period of time that arriving in the capital city at night has always been a challenge because they are forced to make their onward travel home at night, exposing them to robberies.

With the completion of the Kumasi international airport, that quagmire would be eliminated as they would be able to fly directly to Kumasi from where their onward travel home would be shortened. And no longer would the VIP bus service that operates from the Airport Shell by the Kotoka International Airport be a necessary part of their trip home from abroad.

Christie Arthur, DNT News