The goal of the reexamination of the role of the police is to “transform the police into a force for justice. We are not painting our Police Department with the same brush as other departments in other cities.”
— Selectboard member Leigh Davis
Tag: racism
Elizabeth Freeman Center supports victims of systemic violence
We will continue to support Black and Brown LGBTQ+ people surviving relationship or sexual violence by providing counseling, support, advocacy, and healing.
Contagion
And yet even with my family and professional history, I am learning daily about acts of racial policy and violence in our country’s history and in contemporary life that I hadn’t known, and that connect the dots to reveal a country bathed in the blood of racism.
FILM REVIEW: Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods’ ambitious, in tune with historic moment
The fact is that the core of his film is his evocation of how black soldiers were used as cannon fodder in Vietnam, which has remained a barely told story. And he evokes that story very movingly.
Peace on the left, justice on the right
I tell you all this because what’s new is old to me. And I have a slightly different perspective on the events following George Floyd’s murder.
EDGECAST: Black Lives Matter rally in Great Barrington
More than 2,000 people attended the Black Lives Matter demonstration in front of the historic Great Barrington Town Hall where the first resistance to British rule took place in 1775.
Thousands join #BlackLivesMatter demonstration in Great Barrington
Longtime police Chief Bill Walsh told the board his department was an early adopter of the principles enunciated in President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
LEONARD QUART: Righteous protests begin to have an effect
Still, I felt that in the absence of any semblance of national leadership, there was a need for more than righteous anger from the protestors.
Area school counselors commit to anti-racism
In a letter to the editor, Anne Thidemann French and Ward Johnson write, “Our students need us now more than ever as they try to understand and make meaning of the violence in our society.”
Alan Chartock: Our racist society
Many people think that the police are the problem but, in fact, they are just the point guards for a racist society.
CONNECTIONS: My hometown is burning
The people on TV keep saying, “We are better than this.” What does that mean? Were we better than this once?
Our duty to create a more perfect union
It is vitally important for those of us who have not been affected by racial discrimination and oppression to be the allies of those who are.
Resistance to America’s ‘double system of justice’ has long history in Great Barrington
In a letter to the editor, the Clinton Church Restoration board members write, “Du Bois’ writing in ‘Souls’ reminds us that the systemic racism that led to the murder of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and too many other Black people in this country is not new.”
‘Silence’ of GB police ‘cannot go unnoticed’
In a letter to the editor, Mae Whaley writes, “As much as it is necessary for us to stay aware of the overt ways in which police departments across the country are contributing to racism, we cannot allow the constant images and videos of tear gas, rubber bullets and concussion grenades to lower our standards for how we expect our police to behave.”
EDITORIAL: Amid Washington leadership void and search for racial justice, signs of hope
This fragile and unprecedented period in the nation’s history is made worse by an abject lack of leadership in the nation’s capital.
Hundreds pack Park Square to protest police brutality and racial injustice
“A justice system the public cannot trust to be fair and equitable is a broken system. A complete investigation and commitment to seek justice for George Floyd is only a start in eliminating the bigotry and racism deeply ingrained in our society. The Berkshire District Attorney’s Office reaffirms our commitment to making long-lasting and formidable changes to eliminate bias at every stage of the criminal justice system.”
—- Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington
POEM: Reflection
it’s our neck
it’s our knee
it’s our knee on our neck
Bits & Bytes: ‘A Recovering Racist in America’; Shawn Fields art talk; Neil Simon drama excerpts; Neha Das at Lenox Library
As detailed in his memoir, Tim Parrish will discuss his racist upbringing at home and in his church in Louisiana during the 1960s, his involvement in racist violence during high-school desegregation in the 1970s, his ongoing recovery from racism, and the current state of racism in the United States.
Alan Chartock: Hurtful language, exclusionary quotas
Andrew Cuomo got early lessons about the insidious anti-Italian prejudice that existed when his father Mario, a brilliant graduating law student, could not get a job interview with a prominent law firm in New York.
BOOK REVIEWS: Two writers on growing up black
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book . . . appeared at just the right moment, when the media was saturated with cases of police acting unprofessionally, destructively and sometimes murderously in their dealings with young black men.
ORANGE ALERT: The (almost) daily outrage
“The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”
— President Donald Trump
REVIEW: ‘Barrington Stage’s ‘America v. 2.1’ lets politics get in the way of character
Playwright Rose’s view, authentic and passionate though it be, is so relentlessly angry and uniformly cynical that the satire gets suffocated.
THEATRE REVIEW: Barrington Stage Company’s ‘America v. 2.1’ has a long life before it
This is a play with politics that could not be realized in any time but our own, and it should survive as a symbol of its time.
Closing Becket spring: Water abuse
In a letter to the editor, Luke Pryjma writes, “I’ve heard, in addition to pathology-centric science, the spring was closed because, at a Becket town meeting, certain officials didn’t want “those” people stopping for spring water.”
ORANGE ALERT: The (almost) daily outrage
White supremacist groups had carried out more attacks in the U.S. than any other domestic extremist group over the past 16 years.
New W. E. B. Du Bois exhibit highlights a Berkshires-grown ‘global citizen’
The exhibit, titled “W. E. B. Du Bois: Global Citizen Rooted in the Berkshires,” was put together by Randy Weinstein, who runs the Du Bois Center at Great Barrington, with the help of the other Du Bois Center—the one at UMass Amherst, where many of Du Bois’ papers are kept. The exhibit is part of the months-long celebration of the 150th anniversary of Du Bois’ birth.
Amplifications: A picture is worth a thousand words
Anyone with a modicum of education can draw a straight line from the white hoods of the KKK to the angry red of a MAGA cap.
Nativity tableau, 2018
Merry Christmas from the Border Patrol.
Progressive movements conference calls for unity to confront contemporary crises
Emerging social justice movements represent a collective response to compounding crises. The challenge is bringing all of these movements together and maintaining unity among diverse groups working on what are seen as separate issues.
Why I’m not voting for Charlie Baker
In his letter Lawrence Davis-Hollander writes: “While people have been convinced to think this election is about right vs. left, conservative vs. liberal, globalism vs. nationalism, Republican vs. Democrat, it is quite simply about good vs. evil.”
AMPLIFICATIONS: Moments
I believe we are not really a nation of baby-killing, Jew-hating, Islamophobic racists. Now everyone just needs to stand up and prove it.
AMPLIFICATIONS: Incivility
Recently, I was at an afternoon movie following a doctor’s appointment. I wanted to pleasantly kill some time before I put my chauffer’s cap back on. This was a rare treat and I was looking forward to shutting out the world for a couple of hours. Just as the movie began my cell phone rang.