Wednesday, June 17, 2020

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Repug stalls bill to make lynching a federal crime

Rand Paul and President Trump
Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images

...About 4,075 African Americans were lynched in 12 southern states between 1877 and 1950, according to a 2015 report by the Equal Justice Initiative. Some were watched by crowds, as if attending a form of public entertainment.

Ida B Wells, a crusading African American journalist, once said: “Our country’s national crime is lynching.”

The killing of Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes, caught on film and seen by millions, has been likened to a 21st-century lynching. It spurred more than two weeks of worldwide protests.

From 1882 to 1986, Congress failed to pass anti-lynching legislation 200 times, but this moment appeared to be different.

Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Tim Scott, the only three African American members of the Senate, led the unanimous passage of the legislation in that chamber in 2018 and 2019. The House of Representatives then passed it by a 410-4 vote in February but renamed it for Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy lynched in Mississippi in 1955...


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Matt Davies

Letter to the editor in today's SF Chronicle:


Concerning “Landmark victory for LGBTQ rights” (Page 1, June 16): While the Supreme Court ruling that federal law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is a significant step toward greater equality for all Americans, this transgender citizen would like to remind everyone that he cannot currently serve in the military under an order by President Trump.

Furthermore, nearly one-fifth of all U.S. hate crimes reported by the FBI last year were against LGBTQ people. And in just the past week, two black trans women were killed, and the Trump administration reversed protections for transgender people in the U.S. health care system. 

So while there is cause for celebration of this Supreme Court ruling, the ongoing intolerance and violence being directed toward the LGBTQ community, especially the “T” part, should not and cannot be ignored.

Jess Regnault
San Jose

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Thanks to democratic underground.

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