Multiple genealogists, including the Louisiana Creole expert Jari Honora, traced Prevost’s ancestry to the Black community of New Orleans. His maternal ancestors lived in the Crescent City before migrating to Chicago in the early 20th century.
Leo XIV is not known to have publicly commented on his African ancestry, which is part of a mixed heritage that also includes French, Italian, and Spanish roots. According to the U.S. Census, Prevost’s mother, the late Mildred Martinez, was the mixed-race daughter of Black property owners, the Haitian-born Joseph Martinez and New Orleans native Louise Baquié, a Creole.
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A friend of mine who is a nurse just had to take some kind of continuing education course or exam or something. He was a little pissed at one of the questions. I have to agree that it’s completely inappropriate.
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“What positive outcome…” Holy shit, that is fucking unbelievable! “What positive outcome came of the Holocaust?” “What positive outcome came of slavery?” I just can’t…
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Yes, while the National Research Act was a good thing, the fact that we had to pass a law to get researchers to stop treating people like lab mice is hardly a positive outcome.
ETA: this would be like saying that a positive outcome of slavery is that slavery was banned.
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If they had said something like – due to the human and civil rights violations against the victims of the so-called Tuskegee Experiment, what step was taken to ensure it would never happen again – or something like that, they could have still gotten the correct answer without being stupid about it.
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W…T…F!?!
Talk about a test question that should get someone fired…
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Fowler, who testified for the defense at the 2021 murder trial of former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, attributed Floyd’s death to a sudden heart rhythm disturbance as a result of his heart disease — a widely rejected theory that did little to persuade the jury. Chauvin was ultimately convicted of murder and manslaughter for kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes.
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She refused to testify in court in protest of the proceedings and was sentenced to seven years in prison. The city later gave Ramona Africa (not nearly enough) money and an apology for her “pain and suffering” from being bombed and then being imprisoned for it.
I’ve been rolling over in my head since then about why this hasn’t been a bigger deal? Why no “40 years Since MOVE Bombing” opeds? Why no segments in the national media? Why no statements from any “progressive caucus”?
Some thoughts:
This country erases crimes like this from its history. It’s not like there are yearly commemorations of the Ludlow Massacre or the assassination of Fred Hampton or the massacres at Wounded Knee or other state killings I’ve never been taught about. We aren’t talking about MOVE because, simply, that’s not what this country does. We don’t do reckonings about the past because they tend to condemn how little we’ve traveled.
The razing of a city block by a liberal democratic mayor is a reminder that while Trump is the proudest purveyor of authoritarian political violence in my lifetime, the MOVE bombing is one of many times over the last 40 years that the road was paved for Trumpism through state violence performed against marginalized communities in our cities; state violence served up with very rare accountability.
In recent years, we have seen blue city mayors blithely forgo due process and constitutional norms in attacks on Occupy Wall Street, BLM protestors, Cop City protestors, and encampments against Israel’s genocidal attacks on the Palestinian people. Hell, there is a public city block at my daughter’s urban-based college barricaded by police and you have to show special papers to walk on this block to get to one of the dorms. Even students who don’t live in the dorm are not allowed to walk on this block. Why? Because that particular side street by a massive, beautiful park was the site of their pro-Palestine encampment last year where over 100 people were arrested and they don’t want a repeat due to its symbolic status. So this public city block is simply shut down by police. Madness.
This is why they won’t talk about MOVE, because as fascisticly repugnant as Trump is, if you talk about MOVE it undercuts the idea that Trump is somehow a new creation on the political scene and not just a super-sized version of a longstanding US tradition of organized state violence. Usually it’s if we condemn the past, then we must condemn how the past continues into the present. In this case, it’s many liberals condemning the present but fearful to talk about the past because of what it says about how we got here.
Mumia raised the MOVE anniversary with me when I asked him about Trump’s destruction of due process. He went through what happened 40 years ago and the friends killed. He then was quiet for a moment and said, “Due process my ass.”
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Black lives matter so much that other people should learn black people’s names.
Charlie: “Good morning.”
He looks at me and says, “You’re the lady who has a cute puppy named after the woman who ran the Underground Railroad.”
I fake smile. “That was Harriet Tubman, Charlie. My dog is named after Sojourner Truth.”
“Oh shoot,” he snapped his finger. “That’s right.”
“It’s okay. It’s barely after 6 am. Still early. You’re not woke yet.”
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This was very interesting, and a few points caught my attention. The first was how the timing of discussions about MAGA and “Black fatigue” posted here…
…really fits into the cycle of appropriation described in the video. When they get tired of it (or it becomes dangerous/less profitable), then it’s something to be discarded. Stealing and attempting to redefine the meaning of fatigue is really galling, considering the actions of the current regime and responses to celebrations like this:
Reese Waters goes in depth about the outrage from plantation wedding and whitewashed history fans here:
The other part of the video that jumped out at me was the financial point. The constant appropriation and profiting from the pain of marginalized groups without compensation. It made this news even more disappointing:
This is in a state where systemic racism from copaganda and state officials enabling the criminal injustice system have been so recently revealed I doubt they could have already been fully addressed / accounted for in any reckoning:
This is why Godfrey and others have this reaction when the subject of reparations is raised and delayed:
ETA links for part one and part two of Godfrey’s videos in the text. Some links don’t work well in my browser.
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Kalorama is where racist housing covenants used to keep the neighborhood clean of Black folks, except when we were scrubbing toilets and polishing silver. A place so historically exclusive that even the air thinks it’s better than you. Welp… now it smells like smoke.
A controlled burn to cleanses the land. These historic relics that were built off stolen labor and bad energy are being repossessed by the spirits.
I don’t know who lit the match, but I know who fanned the wind. Keep going, ancestors. There’s plenty more kindling where that came from.
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Investigation? Disciplinary actions, punishment?
I’m surprised the opposite isn’t the response.
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I wouldn’t be shocked to see those who created and shared the memes invited to photo ops with Hegseth and 
at some point in the future. It’s their usual DARVO reaction to racism, and it’s fuel for their base.
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