Amid weeks of protests over systemic racism triggered by the death of a black man in the custody of a white police officer in Minneapolis, the U.S is facing a renewed culture war over symbols of the Confederacy – 11 states in the American South that wanted to preserve slavery in a Civil War that almost tore the country apart more than 150 years ago.  A statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, in Richmond, Virginia, and a statue of the Confederacy’s most honored general, Robert E. Lee, in Montgomery, Alabama, have been removed along with dozens of other Confederate monuments. Others have been vandalized.NASCAR,  the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, an organization that has celebrated its Southern roots since its inception 72 years ago, announced Wednesday it is banning the Confederate flag at its events and properties, declaring it “runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment.” FILE – The car for driver Bubba Wallace has a Black Lives Matter logo as it is prepared for a NASCAR Cup Series auto race in Martinsville, Va., June 10, 2020.In another area of American culture, citing “ethnic and racial prejudices,” streaming service HBO Max has removed “Gone With the Wind,” a 1939 Oscar-winning film for “racist depictions” that “were wrong then and are wrong today” of the antebellum South and slavery, the service said in a statement.Now 10 military bases that bear the names of Confederate Army officers, including Fort Bragg, Fort Hood and Fort Lee are front and center. Earlier this week, a Pentagon official said that Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy were “open to a bipartisan discussion” of removing Confederate names from the bases. This came as the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps announced each would ban the Confederate flag from installations. On Wednesday, the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the annual defense policy bill backed by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts that would require the Pentagon to scrap Confederate names and symbols from all military assets.“This is the right time for it. And I think it sends the right message,” Mike Rounds, Republican senator from South Dakota, said.President Donald Trump has threatened a veto, tweeting that his administration will not even consider the renaming of “these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations.”It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our Legendary Military Bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, etc. These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) The “Appomatox” statue at the corner of South Washington Street and Prince Street in Alexandria, Virginia, honored the city’s Confederate war dead. It was removed on June 2, 2020. (Photo: Diaa Bekheet)“There’s just something very visceral about having to look at the glorification of the people and the symbols that really wanted to have you, your people, people who look like you, held in chattel slavery,” said Steve Phillips, founder of A street sign of Black Lives Matter Plaza is seen near St. John’s Episcopal Church, as the protests against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd continue, in Washington, U.S., June 5, 2020.Despite this changing political landscape, critics say Trump is responding to events in the past few weeks, since Floyd’s death, by stoking racial division to motivate his base. Trump sees race as a wedge issue that can be used to his advantage for reelection, Brandon Byrd, assistant professor of African American History at Vanderbilt University, said.Byrd said the president has revived the so-called Southern Strategy, a Republican electoral plan to increase political support among white voters in the South with racially coded appeals targeting blacks, other minorities and immigrants.While the results of the November election remain to be seen, Byrd said, “the groundswell of dissent” may mean Trump does not have the political advantage he thinks he does.Still a president who takes sides in a culture war will likely deepen polarization among voters. While politics is about compromise and finding middle ground, culture is ultimately about the things that are sacred and we don’t want to compromise. “Because culture is driving our politics, these ideological divisions, our political polarization is going to be with us for quite some time,” Hunter, of the University of Virginia, said.
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Vogue’s Anna Wintour has apologized in an internal email for “mistakes” made in her 32-year tenure in not doing enough to elevate black voices on her staff and publishing images and stories that have been racially and culturally “hurtful or intolerant.”
The fashion doyenne wrote in the June 4 email: “I take full responsibility for those mistakes.”
The magazine’s editor in chief, who is also Conde Nast’s artistic director and global content adviser, had no further comment Wednesday on the email obtained by The Associated Press. It was first revealed Tuesday in the New York Post.  
Wintour’s mea culpa surfaced soon after Adam Rapoport, the editor in chief of another Conde Nast title, Bon Appetit, resigned after a photo surfaced of him in brownface, amplifying outrage over how the food magazine treats employees of color.
On Monday, the top editor and a co-founder of the lifestyle site Refinery29, Christene Barberich, resigned after former employees complained on social media of a toxic culture and unfair treatment of staff members of color over the years.  
Meanwhile, Samira Nasr on Wednesday was named the first editor in chief of color in the 153-year history of U.S. Harper’s Bazaar.
In her email, Wintour referenced the country’s “historic and heartbreaking moment” after the death of George Floyd and other black people at the hands of police, events that sparked rage and grief in protests playing out for more than two weeks around the world.
“I want to start by acknowledging your feelings and expressing my empathy towards what so many of you are going through: sadness, hurt, and anger too. I want to say this especially to the Black members of our team — I can only imagine what these days have been like. But I also know that the hurt, and violence, and injustice we’re seeing and talking about have been around for a long time.
Recognizing it and doing something about it is overdue,” Wintour told her staff.
She called for the tumult to be a “time of listening, reflection, and humility for those of us in positions of privilege and authority. It should also be a time of action and commitments.”
Wintour didn’t specify what content she was referring to as offensive, or what steps will be taken to rectify hiring and bring on a new creative approach. She pledged, “On a corporate level, work is being done to support organizations in a real way. These actions will be announced as soon as possible.”
She wrote: “Meanwhile, I want to say plainly that I know Vogue has not found enough ways to elevate and give space to Black editors, writers, photographers, designers and other creators. We have made mistakes too, publishing images or stories that have been hurtful or intolerant. I take full responsibility for those mistakes.”
Wintour said her staff includes “too few” black employees. She didn’t say how many there are.
“I know that it is not enough to say we will do better, but we will — and please know that I value your voices and responses as we move forward.”
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FX’s fictionalized hit show “Pose” introduced many to the underground world of ballroom culture, in which historically black and Latino LGBT youths compete in elaborate performances on a runway.
 
Now “Legendary” on HBO Max is serving up real ballroom battles to the mainstream, with competitors in eight “houses” vying to be declared the best and take home $100,000. Judging the competition are recording artist Megan Thee Stallion, actress and activist Jameela Jamil, stylist and TV personality Law Roach, and ballroom legend Leiomy Maldonado.
During battles, competitors wear elaborate costumes, makeup and wigs. They vogue, dance like acrobats and spin like ice-skaters.
“It’s like if ballet and break-dancing had a baby,” said Jamil, best known for her role on “The Good Place.”  
But “Legendary” is not just about being fierce. It’s about overcoming.
In the first episode, one of the competitors opens up about being ostracized from his family when he came out, a sad truth for many who turned to the ballroom community for acceptance.
“Growing up I already knew my mother wasn’t accepting of my sexuality,” Xa’Pariis Ebony says. “When I did decide to finally come out to her, I was put out. Like, I had to sleep in parks sometimes. But ballroom just really gave me a family. It really did teach me to be comfortable with who I am.”
The ballroom community not only offers a place where LGBT youth of color feel welcome but also powerful, Jamil said.
“These are people who are living a lifestyle that so much of our ignorant society shuns,” she said. “The fact that they are doing it as boldly, as loudly, as colorfully as possible, is so empowering.”
Although widely viewed as a big step by the ballroom community, “Legendary” has been criticized for allowing Jamil and Megan Thee Stallion to be judges, as opposed to others who are a part of the community.
Jamil in particular was singled out when HBO sent out a news release about the show that incorrectly identified her as the emcee. The competition’s emcee is Dashaun Wesley, a ballroom legend.
The backlash grew so much that Jamil worried that too much attention was on the controversy.
“I said to the show, I was like, ‘Do you think it would be better if I leave?'” she said. “And it was the ballroom community and it was Dashaun and Leiomy who got straight on the phone with me and they were like, ‘You’re not going anywhere.’ And the contestants like, grabbed one of the producers and were like, ‘Don’t let her leave,’ and it was because they don’t believe in ostracizing people. They believe in inclusion and not exclusion.”
And that, she said, was her “first big lesson of really experiencing the heart of ballroom.”
She defended her and Megan as judges, saying the show needed Hollywood names to get the proper attention it deserves.
“You need to make sure that you’re going to have eyeballs on a show and therefore you need people who have big followings,” she said. “And unfortunately, because of how our society is set up, the people with those big followings are often cis privileged people. So we are just here to try and do our service as good allies and open the door to let everyone else in.”  
The show’s message of acceptance is so strong, one of the eight houses competing is comprised entirely of cis women.
Wesley said he was involved in making that decision, which also has faced criticism among the ballroom community.
“The powerful thing is that you get to see a house that’s filled cisgender women. You get to see a house that’s filled with nothing but gay men. You get to see a house that’s filled with a cisgendered woman, a Hispanic man, a black man, a drag queen and a trans woman,” Wesley said. “You get to see all genres of everything.”
The message: It doesn’t matter who you are as long as you can bring it to the runway.
Those involved with the show say they hope introducing ballroom culture to a broader audience leads to more understanding and acceptance of LGBT culture.
“There are two different types of people that I’m really looking forward seeing (the show),” Jamil said. “One, are the young kids who might be queer or trans themselves, who haven’t seen themselves reflected back on mainstream television being glamorized and glorified. I think it’s important for them to know that like, ‘Oh, maybe not in my hometown, but somewhere there is a place for me and there’s a community for me where I would be accepted.'”
Next, she said she can’t wait for parents of such children and “people who maybe feared this culture or thought there was something wrong or dirty or shameful about it” to see the show.
“They can see the beauty and the joy of it,” Jamil said. “And, you know, I think that a lot of ignorance and bigotry just comes from fear of the unknown. And so let’s get to know these people.”
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Italian authorities on Thursday unveiled a stolen artwork by British artist Banksy that was painted as a tribute to the victims of the 2015 terror attacks at the Bataclan music hall in Paris.L’Aquila prosecutors said the work was recovered on Wednesday during a search of a home in the countryside of Tortoreto, near the Adriatic coast in the Abruzzo region’s Teramo province. It had been “hidden well” in the attic, prosecutors said.  No arrests have been made.  French officials last year announced the theft of the piece, a black image appearing to depict a person mourning that was painted on one of the Bataclan’s emergency exit doors.Ninety people were killed at the Bataclan on Nov. 13, 2015, when Islamic extremists invaded the music hall, one of several targets that night in which a total of 130 people died.Authorities said they were still investigating how the artwork arrived in Italy, and the role of any Italians potentially involved. They said the discovery was the fruit of a joint Italian-French police investigation.At a news conference Thursday in L’Aquila, a French embassy liaison officer, Maj. Christophe Cengig, said the Bataclan owners were informed that the work had been recovered.  “It belongs to the Bataclan, it belongs to all of France in a sense,” he said. The owners, he added, “were thrilled, very happy.”  L’Aquila Prosecutor Michele Renzo said authorities believed the motivation for the theft was financial, not ideological.  Some Chinese nationals were living in the Tortoreto home, but they appeared unaware that the work was there. Teramo Carabinieri Col. Emanuele Pipola said someone else had access to the attic. 
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The organization behind the Oscar awards elected “Selma” director Ava DuVernay on Wednesday as it slightly increased its number of female and black governors.The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has repeatedly been hit with criticism in recent years for a lack of diversity both among its members, and among the Oscar nominees and winners they select.”As a result of this election, the number of female Academy governors increases from 25 to 26, and people of color increases from 11 to 12, including the three Governors-at-Large,” the Academy said in a statement.DuVernay’s election comes well after the #OscarsSoWhite movement was launched in January 2015 in response to the Academy picking an all-white slate of nominees — the same year “Selma” was in contention.The movie about Martin Luther King Jr’s civil rights march did earn a best picture nomination, and won best original song, but was seen to have been snubbed in other categories.Its star David Oyelowo, who failed to pick up a nomination, last week claimed Academy members had threatened to sink “Selma” after cast and crew protested the death of Eric Garner with “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts at the film’s 2014 premiere.The Academy responded on Thursday, tweeting: “Ava & David, we hear you. Unacceptable. We’re committed to progress.”The expression “I Can’t Breathe” has once again become a rallying cry for anti-racism protesters after the death of George Floyd last month.Garner and Floyd were both African American men who died in police custody.Four of those joining the board for the first time are women, including Lynette Howell Taylor — who produced this year’s Oscars ceremony — while Whoopi Goldberg was among those reelected. 
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NASCAR has banned the Confederate flag from all events and properties. NASCAR says the Confederate flag “runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry.” Former chairman Brian France in 2015 tried to ban the flying of Confederate flags at race tracks, a proposal too broad to enforce and one that angered NASCAR’s core Southern-based fan base.   NASCAR banned the Confederate flag from its races and properties on Wednesday, formally distancing itself from what for many is a symbol of slavery and racism that had been a familiar sight at stock car events for more than 70 years.  The move comes amid social unrest around the globe following the death in police custody of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in Minneapolis. Protests have roiled the nation for days and Confederate monuments are being taken down across the South — the traditional fan base for NASCAR. FILE – Bubba Wallace greets fans during a NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Va., Oct. 27, 2019.Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s lone black driver, called this week for the banishment of the Confederate flag and said there was “no place” for it in the sport. At long last, NASCAR obliged.  “The presence of the Confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry,” NASCAR said. “Bringing people together around a love for racing and the community that it creates is what makes our fans and sport special.  The display of the Confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties.” The move was announced before Wednesday night’s race at Martinsville Speedway where Wallace, an Alabama native, was driving a Chevrolet with a #BlackLivesMatter paint scheme. Wallace got a shoutout on Twitter from several athletes, including NBA star LeBron James, for using the paint scheme in the race. The flag issue has been a thorny one for NASCAR. Former chairman Brian France in 2015 tried to ban the flying of Confederate flags at race tracks, angering many fans. NASCAR did not address how it would enforce the policy or indicate any penalties for fans who violate it by bringing the Confederate flag to the track. NASCAR has not raced with fans since the sport resumed last month amid the pandemic and was expected to have minimal fans allowed at races this month in Florida and Georgia. 
 
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The art director of Cairo’s international film festival has resigned amid calls for his removal because of past inflammatory posts on social media, the festival said.  The resignation of Egyptian film critic Ahmed Shawky was announced Tuesday in a statement by the festival’s advisory board. Shawky, who was acting artistic director of the 2019 festival, had been appointed artistic director of this year’s festival earlier this month.  His recent appointment brought criticism from activists and others who pointed to past comments Shawky made that apparently espoused violence. Those include referring to the death of dozens of Egyptian soccer fans in a notorious riot as their being “culled.”The statement said the festival would continue preparing for its 2020 edition and “uphold our principles of championing diversity, bridging cultures, encouraging dialogue, celebrating new voices.” The festival is scheduled for November 19-28.The festival statement did not provide reasons for Shawky’s resignation. The film critic did not answer phone calls and messages seeking comment Wednesday.But Shawky’s resignation came after activists threatened to write to foreign filmmakers invited to the festival to inform them of Shawky’s history.  Among the most controversial statements of Shawky’s were posts about a 2012 soccer riot that left more than 70 people dead in Egypt’s worst sports disaster and one of the world’s deadliest.  In a 2014 post, Shawky referred to the deaths of the soccer fans as their being “culled,” suggesting those who died were somehow inferior and selectively killed. Almost all of those killed were from The Al-Ahly club’s “Ultras” — hardcore supporters of the Cairo-based team and the country’s largest fan association.Shawky used the same word to describe the death of the daughter of a Muslim Brotherhood leader who was killed in the summer of 2013 when security forces descended on supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.  “No-one should feel sorry for her,” he said. “If I know someone like her … I would kill her with my own hands.”‘Hurtful words’Following the recent backlash on social media, Shawky apologized this week, saying in a statement that he used “hurtful words” that were “painful to the families of the dead.”He has since shut down his social media accounts.Shawky was also sharply critical of Syrian filmmakers documenting the country’s civil war, accusing them of taking advantage of the suffering to gain Oscar nominations.
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HBO Max has temporarily removed “Gone With the Wind” from its streaming library in order to add historical context to the 1939 film long criticized for romanticizing slavery and the Civil War-era South.  
Protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death have forced entertainment companies to grapple with the appropriateness of both current and past productions. On Tuesday, the Paramount Network dropped the long-running reality series “Cops” after 33 seasons. The BBC also removed episodes of “Little Britain,” a comedy series that featured a character in blackface, from its streaming service.  
In an op-ed Monday in the Los Angeles Times, the filmmaker John Ridley urged WarnerMedia to take down “Gone With the Wind,” arguing that it “romanticizes the Confederacy in a way that continues to give legitimacy to the notion that the secessionist movement was something more, or better, or more noble than what it was — a bloody insurrection to maintain the ‘right’ to own, sell and buy human beings.”
In a statement, the AT&T-owned WarnerMedia, which owns HBO Max, called “Gone With the Wind” “a product of its time” that depicts racial prejudices.  
“These racist depictions were wrong then and are wrong today, and we felt that to keep this title up without an explanation and a denouncement of those depictions would be irresponsible,” said an HBO Max spokesman in a statement.  
The company said that when “Gone With the Wind” returns to the recently launched streaming service, it will include “historical context and a denouncement of those very depictions, but will be presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”
Based on a 1936 book by Margaret Mitchell, “Gone With the Wind” is a historical epic about a romance between Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), the daughter of a Georgia plantation owner, and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), a gambler who joins the Confederacy.  
“Gone With the Wind” has long been denounced for featuring slave characters who remain loyal to their former owners after the abolition of slavery. It remains the highest-grossing film of all time when adjusted for inflation. It won eight Academy Awards including best picture and best supporting actress for Hattie McDaniel, the first black actress to be nominated or win an Oscar.
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A toppled statue of an Englishman involved in the slave trade in the British city of Bristol will be retrieved from the harbor and placed in a local museum to educate residents about the history of racism, the City Council announced Wednesday.A statue of Edward Colston, a local philanthropist who worked for the Royal African Company in the 17th century, was toppled by anti-racism protesters and thrown into the harbor on Sunday.In statement on the Council’s website, Mayor Marvin Rees announced the creation of a new commission that will explore more fully the southern city’s ties to racism and inequality.”As a city, we all have very different understandings of our past,” he wrote.Rees noted that “Education of our history has often been flawed,” and called for an increased “accuracy of our city’s history which is accessible to all (and) will help us understand each other, our differences, our contradictions and our complexities.”FILE – A banner is taped over the inscription on the pedestal of the toppled statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, England, June 8, 2020.As part of the new exploration of the city’s history, Colston’s statue will be placed in a museum alongside signs from Sunday’s Black Lives Matter protest.It has not yet been determined who or what will replace Colston on the plinth.Some activists have advocated for a statue of civil rights campaigner Dr. Paul Stephenson to be erected as a replacement, the BBC reports.Stephenson spearheaded the Bristol bus boycott in the 1960s, which ultimately resulted in overturning a ban on ethnic minorities working on city buses.Famed artist Banksy submitted an informal proposal on Instagram, suggesting that the statue be resurrected and restored to its plinth — with the addition of bronze protesters in the act of removing Colston.”Everyone happy. A famous day commemorated,” he wrote.Edward Colston was a senior official in the Royal African Company, which in the late 1600s trafficked 80,000 African men, women and children to slavery in the Americas. According to the AP, Bristol’s port transported at least half a million Africans into slavery before Britain outlawed the slave trade in 1807.Upon his death in 1721, Colston bequeathed his fortune to charity. Many streets and schools in Bristol are named for Colston.
 
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The Recording Academy is making changes to several Grammy Awards categories, including the often-debated best new artist title, and having nomination review committee members sign disclosure forms to prevent conflicts of interest.
The new rules announced Wednesday will affect the 63rd annual Grammy Awards, which will air live on Jan. 31, 2021.  
The best new artist award has been criticized for decades, and the academy has tried to evolve with the ever-changing music industry by continually updating the category’s rules. In recent years, the award has been scrutinized because the academy placed a song and album limit, disqualifying certain performers. But the new rules say, “there is no longer a specified maximum number of releases prohibiting artists from entering” the category.
The change will benefit younger artists, specifically rappers, who tend to release many singles and therefore did not qualify in recent years because they surpassed the 30-song limit. Whitney Houston and Lady Gaga missed out on being best new artist nominees because of the category’s rules in the years they marked their breakthroughs.
The academy also said musicians invited to participate in a nomination review committee — in place to safeguard a specific genre’s integrity and to serve as additional checks and balances — will have to agree to the terms of a conflict of interest disclosure form. Committee participants will have to reveal if they would benefit from an artist’s nomination for that category, whether the ties are financial, familial or creative.
If a conflict is discovered, that person would not be allowed to sit on that committee that year.
Some of the new changes could be a response to former Recording Academy CEO Deborah Dugan, who was fired only months into her job and days before the 2020 Grammys, held in January. Dugan had said the awards show was rigged and muddled with conflicts of interest. Questions have loomed for years around the nominations process for the Grammys, but the doubts reached a new level following Dugan’s comments.
The academy has said that nominees are selected from contenders voted into the top 20 in each category. But critics have called the voting less than transparent, because the choice of finalists happens behind closed doors. That has stirred claims that members of key nominating committees promote projects they worked on or projects they favor based on personal relationships.
The academy’s board of trustees approved the new changes last month. The organization also said it is making its 66-page rules and guidelines book public for the first time, at Grammys.com, starting Wednesday.
Songs and albums released between Sept. 1, 2019 and Aug. 31, 2020 will be eligible for nominations at the 2021 Grammys. There are 84 categories.  
Other changes approved by the board:
— The best rap/sung performance Grammy will now be called best melodic rap performance. The category was originally titled best rap/sung collaboration and was established at the 2002 Grammys for collaborations between rappers and R&B or pop singers. For the 2017 Grammys, the academy renamed it and allowed solo artists who sing and rap on a song — from Drake to Chris Brown — to compete. The newly titled category, available to solo performances or collaborations, now “requires a strong and clear presence of melody combined with rap cadence, and is inclusive of dialects, lyrics or performance elements from non-rap genres including R&B, rock, country, electronic or more.”
— The best urban contemporary album award, which debuted at the 2013 Grammys and represented R&B albums that fused elements of other genres, from rock to dance, has been renamed to best progressive R&B album. Qualified albums should “include the more progressive elements of R&B and may include samples and elements of hip-hop, rap, dance, and electronic music.”
— The Latin pop album Grammy has expanded and been renamed to best Latin pop or urban album, while the best Latin rock, urban or alternative album will now be called best Latin rock or alternative album.
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The editor-in-chief of Bon Appetit, Adam Rapoport, resigned after a photo of him dressed in a stereotypical Puerto Rican costume surfaced on social media.Staffers at the magazine had criticized him after the photo, of him and his wife, circulated on Twitter. That tweet featured a screenshot of a 2013 Instagram photo by Rapoport’s wife that depicted the two dressed up in costume. In the screenshot, his wife tagged the photo “boricua,” a reference to Puerto Ricans, and called Rapoport “papi.” He was wearing a large, heavy chain, a do-rag and a baseball cap. His wife’s account is private.  In an Instagram post, Rapoport said he was stepping down as editor “to reflect on the work that I need to do as a human being.” He said the photo was of an “extremely ill-conceived” Halloween costume 16 years ago. He acknowledged “blind spots” as an editor and said the magazine’s staff and readers deserved better leadership.Furor over the photo unleashed other employee complaints. One staffer, Sohla El-Waylly, claimed on Instagram that she hasn’t been paid for appearing in videos for Bon Appetit’s popular YouTube channel, in contrast to white editors who did likewise. She called for Rapoport’s resignation and for people of color on staff to receive “fair titles, fair salaries, and compensation for video appearances.” She received support online from several of her colleagues. At least four said they would not appear in the publication’s videos until their colleagues of color received equal pay.  Condé Nast, the magazine’s publisher, did not address those concerns directly. But in a statement it said it is “dedicated to creating a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace.”Several of Bon Appetit’s staff, including El-Waylly, are YouTube stars. Devoted fans devour videos of them making dishes, sometimes with celebrities; recreating junk-food classics from scratch, like Oreos and Warheads, in the magazine’s test kitchen; and just chatting about food, food media and each other. Videos get millions of views.Bon Appetit has been trying to tap into a national moment, saying recently that it will be highlighting more black-owned food businesses and “tackling more of the racial and political issues at the core of the food world.”Media companies are facing their own moment of reckoning around racism as rallies protesting police brutality against black people  spread across the U.S., touching off broader conversations about race.  Reporters, editors and other staff members, particularly people of color, are speaking up about racist content and policies at their publications. New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet resigned Sunday over publication of an opinion piece by Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, that advocated for using military force to quell unrest. That followed a revolt by many Times employees, some of whom argued that publication of Cotton’s argument endangered the lives of black staff.The Philadelphia Inquirer’s top editor resigned  Saturday after the paper’s staffers pushed back against a “Buildings Matter, Too,” headline on a column about buildings damaged in the protests. The headline was a play on the Black Lives Matter movement that the paper acknowledged was “offensive and inappropriate.”Colleagues of a black reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  are supporting her after the paper told her she could not cover the police brutality protests because she was biased.Also on Monday, Christene Barberich, the founder and top editor of Refinery29, a website owned by Vice and aimed at women, said she was stepping down after seeing “the raw and personal accounts of Black women and women of color regarding their experiences” at the company. Several former staffers had posted on social media about racism they experienced, including pay disparities.  In a memo to staff, Vice CEO Nancy Dubuc said the company will begin a company-wide and systematic overhaul of “how we hire, develop and retain a globally diverse workforce.” Barberich will remain with the company through a “transition period,” Dubuc said. 
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Former World Athletics’ Chief Lamine Diack was in a Paris courtroom Monday as a corruption trial opened against him. The case involves a Russian doping scandal. Eighty-seven-year-old Lamine Diack seemed relaxed as he made his court appearance Monday, sporting a dark grey suit. Arguments in the case were originally due to start in January, but postponed when new documents containing testimony from his son and co-defendant were submitted to the court. Lamine Diack is the former head of World Athletics – which was once known as the IAAF. As head of the IAAF from 1999 to 2015, Diack was once one of the most powerful figures in world athletics. Today, he lives under house arrest in Paris, charged with corruption and money laundering.  Prosecutors allege Diack solicited millions of dollars to cover up Russian doping tests.  Some of the money allegedly went to finance Macky Sall’s 2012 presidential campaign in Senegal. Sall won the election.  If found guilty, Diack faces up to 10 years in prison.  Diack denies wrongdoing. The trial is being held in Paris as the alleged money-laundering happened on French soil.  One of Diack’s lawyers, Simon Ndiaye, told reporters that people were unfairly lashing out against his client without any precise elements to back up their accusations. Ndiaye said Diack’s accusers have forgotten others surrounding the ex-chief. His client’s only concern, Ndiaye said, was to defend the IAAF and preserve its financial resources.  One of Diack’s sons, Papa Massata Diack, also faces corruption among other charges. He remains in Senegal, which has refused to extradite him, and will be tried in absentia. Four others are also on trial.  Briton Sebastian Coe replaced Diack as the association’s head. He is trying to rebuild trust in athletics and has introduced changes in how sport is governed. 
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To entice a European TV executive shopping for programs a few years ago, ABC offered up glossy fare including “Scandal” starring Kerry Washington and “How to Get Away with Murder” with Oscar-winner Viola Davis.
 
“‘This is great, but when are you going to start bringing us shows that don’t have black leads?'” the buyer asked in the 2015 meeting, as then-ABC executive Channing Dungey recounts. “I was sitting in a room in the 21st century, and I thought I was being slapped across the face.”
 
The remark was unusually blunt but the attitude is a familiar one within Hollywood’s own ranks: African American actors and stories make for poor exports, an assertion that’s burdened black artists and limited their opportunity and influence.
 
Until now. Box-office hits like “Black Panther” and the ethnically diverse “Fast & Furious” franchise increasingly undercut what filmmaker Ava DuVernay calls a “longstanding myth,” joined by a new generation of successful small-screen fare.
 
It’s an issue with resonance, as American torment over to the videotaped death of a black man in police custody is reflected in demonstrations held far outside this nation’s borders. Protesters carrying “We Are All George Floyd” and “Black Lives Matter” placards have gathered in cities including Montreal, London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Auckland.
 
Dungey, who at ABC became the first African American to head a major broadcast network and now is Netflix’s vice president for original series, says diversity’s appeal is proven by the streaming service’s globally distributed programs and closely held viewership figures provided to The Associated Press.
 
Racial discrimination and injustice are themes of some, but not all, of the Netflix projects that have drawn widespread audiences. The characters tend to be African American, created by the black writers, directors and stars whose progress in the U.S. entertainment industry has outpaced that of other people of color.
 
“When They See Us,” DuVernay’s Emmy-winning miniseries about the Central Park Five case, was watched by 31 million households worldwide in its first month of release, according to Netflix, with 51 percent of the audience outside the United States. “American Son,” about a missing black teenager that was produced by and starred Washington, was watched in 17 million homes worldwide in its first month, with non-U.S. subscribers making up 46 percent of viewers.
 
“Raising Dion,” about a black youngster with superpowers, drew attention from 32 million households, with 60 percent outside the U.S.
 
“I thought we might be in trouble when it’s called ‘American Son,'” Washington said of her film’s global prospects. “But the (African) diaspora was vast and large and the struggles that people of color have in facing prejudice when dealing with people in authority, that is not an American phenomenon. Racism and the prejudice expressed particularly toward young men of color happens all over the world.”
 
Multinational consumption is critical to the streaming service, with about 65 percent of its subscribers outside the U.S.
 
Netflix has begun sharing viewership results with its creators, resulting in what DuVernay called “astounding numbers” that are in dismaying contrast to how her major studio films, “A Wrinkle in Time” and “Selma,” fared with limited international releases.
 
“It wasn’t until I made a small documentary about prisons in America that I felt the world watching my work, and that was because Netflix made ‘13th’ available in 100-plus countries,” she said of her Oscar-nominated 2016 film.
 
The numbers provided by Netflix to the AP aren’t wholly revelatory: they represent one of the service’s viewing yardsticks — households that watched at least two minutes of a program. Netflix declined to provide overall program rankings.
 
Where viewers of black-led projects are found varies widely. “When They See Us” was most popular in Britain, Ireland, the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg), and in Africa. “American Son” did well in France, Africa, Mexico and Latin America.
 
“If you think about the global market, what does the rest of the world look like? The rest of the world looks like America’s diversity. It does not look like Europe,” said Darnell Hunt, a University of California, Los Angeles, professor and lead author of annual research on diversity and profitability. “The rest of it is Africa, it’s Asia, it’s Australia, all these other countries that look like America’s minority groups.”
 
Kenya Barris, creator of ABC’s sitcom “black-ish” and Netflix’s new comedy “#blackAF,” saw the bias at work with the 2017 big-screen romp “Girls Trip,” which he co-wrote. It was a U.S. box- office hit with $115 million but drew only $25 million internationally, which Barris attributed to a lack of support.
 
The result is different when a TV show such as “black-ish” is widely seen.
 
“I was in England, gave a waiter my (credit) card and he was like, ‘Oh my God, are you Kenya Barris? I love your show.’ And I was shocked,” said the writer-producer.
 
Studios and others resisting inclusiveness risk a “death knell” as newcomers such as Netflix open their doors, DuVernay said.
 
“Now there is a way to say, ‘I’m not going to deal with the trauma of this lie that handcuffs my work,'” she said. “I’m going to make work where it is embraced and where it will be shared widely.”
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Until last week, if you clicked the hashtag #whitelivesmatter on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, you’d find a smattering of right-wing posts by those opposed to the wave of global protests against racism and police brutality.  But follow that hashtag now, and you’re likely to find something much different: random, fan-created videos of South Korean pop music stars.  Over the past week, K-Pop fans around the world have commandeered the #whitelivesmatter hashtag, as well as #alllivesmatter and #bluelivesmatter, as a way to drown out racist posts that have also used those labels. It’s not just hashtags. When the Dallas, Texas police department set up a mobile app for users to submit videos of “illegal activity” from the protests, K-Pop fans quickly overwhelmed the site with tributes to their favorite stars, forcing the police department to take it down because of “technical difficulties.”  The online disruption, combined with the millions of dollars donated by K-Pop celebrities and their followers to Black Lives Matter causes, underscores how international fans of Korean music have emerged as a formidable organizing force for social causes around the world. “Their ability to massively coordinate action is just unparalleled. I’m serious when I say they are the most potent online force in the world right now,” says TK Park, who has written about Korean pop culture and runs the “Ask A Korean!” blog. Organizing skills It may seem random, but the closer you look the more sense it makes. K-Pop has become a global phenomenon, with massive fan bases in every part of the world. In the United States, many of those fans are African Americans. As Park points out, K-Pop fans everywhere are very skilled at massive online campaigns with very specific goals. Usually, that means coordinated efforts by fans to push certain songs or videos up the music charts by streaming them obsessively or posting about the content on social media.  “These groups of fans have accumulated a lot of [organizing] experience while supporting their idols,” says Hong Seok-kyeong, a communications professor at Seoul National University. “It requires a great deal of logic and strategy, like setting a timeline or choosing a channel.”  But K-Pop fans are increasingly aiming their grassroots organizational powers at charitable and other causes, such as A group of protesters take a knee while marching in lower Manhattan, June 6, 2020, in New York.But those efforts have been turbo-charged with the reemergence of Black Lives Matter protests, which were spurred by the most recent police killings of African Americans.  After BTS on Sunday donated $1 million to the Black Lives Matter organization, the group’s fans, known collectively as the “ARMY,” matched that donation within 24 hours, according to the OIAA website — a stunning display of online fundraising ability.  우리는 인종차별에 반대합니다.
우리는 폭력에 반대합니다.
나, 당신, 우리 모두는 존중받을 권리가 있습니다. 함께 하겠습니다.
We stand against racial discrimination.
We condemn violence.
You, I and we all have the right to be respected. We will stand together.#BlackLivesMatter
— 방탄소년단 (@BTS_twt) June 4, 2020“We’re happy to help ARMY organize and support the Black Lives Matter movement,” said an OIAA spokesperson. “We stand in solidarity with black ARMY. They’re an important part of our family. And we stand with black people everywhere. Your voices deserve to be heard.” Political past It’s not the first time K-Pop fans have influenced international politics.  In 2019, Korean music fans in Chile were partly responsible for a series of protests calling for more social and economic equality, a report by the country’s interior ministry concluded.  During those protests, K-pop fans criticized alleged human rights violations by the Chilean police force, according to a report by CNN Chile.  Why K-Pop? 
But why are K-Pop fans more politically active, especially on explicitly progressive causes, than fans of other types of music?  After all, most K-Pop songs aren’t particularly political, at least no more than the music of any other country. The answer, according to Park, may be that K-Pop seems to have a special appeal to racial minorities and immigrants across the world — groups that don’t necessarily see themselves reflected in white-dominated western pop culture.  In the United States, Asian-Americans and then African Americans were among the first to embrace Korean music, Park says. He notes there has been a similar trend in Europe. It’s possible, he speculates, that K-Pop is “essentially serving as a pop culture conduit connecting the marginalized around the world.” It could be “the pop culture representation of Third Worldism,” he says, referring to the diplomatic stance of non-aligned countries during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The explanation may not be all-encompassing. After all, not all Korean music fans are marginalized or even minorities.  But whatever is behind the activism, one thing is certain: the organization of K-pop fans is organic, with both the strategies and targets developing naturally online.  “This collective action takes place as voluntary support, not a top-down order,” says Professor Hong. “They learn from themselves, by themselves.” While some K-Pop fans have at times been accused of cyber bullying, groups like OIAA are now trying to harness the community’s collective power to accomplish “global good,” the group’s website says. To do that, the collective selects a different non-profit group every month to which it directs fan contributions.  “Many people giving small amounts,” it says, “can create a substantial impact when we work together.”   Lee Juhyun contributed to this report.
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Bubba Wallace donned a black T-shirt with the words “I Can’t Breathe” and NASCAR paused before Sunday’s Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway to acknowledge the country’s social unrest. The governing body vowed to to do a better job of addressing racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s death. During their warm-up laps, the 40 cars pulled to a stop in front of the empty grandstands and shut off their engines so NASCAR President Steve Phelps could deliver a message over their radio sets. “Thank you for your time,” Phelps said. “Our country is in pain and people are justifiably angry, demanding to be heard. The black community and all people of color have suffered in our country, and it has taken far too long for us to hear their demands for change. Our sport must do better. Our country must do better.” A black NASCAR official took a knee along pit road, mimicking a gesture used by protesters in tribute to former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. All 40 crews stood on the wall in front of their pit boxes. “The time is now to listen, to understand and to stand against racism and racial injustice,” Phelps said. “We ask our drivers … and all our fans to join us in this mission, to take a moment of reflection, to acknowledge that we must do better as a sport, and join us as we now pause and take a moment to listen.” Wallace, the only African American driver in NASCAR’s top series, has been the sport’s most outspoken voice since Floyd died while in the custody of Minneapolis police, sparking massive protests in all 50 states and around the world demanding an end to law enforcement brutality against people of color. Wallace’s T-shirt carried Floyd’s pleading words when an officer, identified as Derek Chauvin, pinned a knee on his neck for more than eight minutes while he was handcuffed. Chauvin and three other officers have been fired and charged in the incident, which followed the deaths of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. Protesters have cited all three African American victims in their demands for social justice. After Phelps spoke to the NASCAR drivers, they observed a 30-second moment of silence. Then, as the cars refired their engines and slowly pulled away for the green flag, the Fox broadcast cut to a video made by a number of Cup drivers, including Wallace and seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, as well as retired star Dale Earnhardt Jr. Several drivers also posted the video on their Twitter accounts, vowing to “listen and learn” from the protests that have rocked the nation. The vowed to “no longer be silent” and pledged to “work together to make real change.” With its roots in the South and one-time embrace of Confederate symbols, NASCAR has a checkered racial history. The organization has launched diversity programs but still struggles to shake its reputation as a largely white sport. During a shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic, NASCAR driver Kyle Larson was fired after casually uttering a racial slur while competing in a video racing game. “We need step up more than we ever have before,” said former Cup star Jeff Gordon, now a Fox broadcaster. “We are listening, we are learning and we are ready to change.” 
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Social distancing in the age of COVID-19 bars crowds from dense gatherings like movies or rock concerts.  This ‘new normal’ changes the business model of venues relying on turnout for profit.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi cues up this story of a nightclub selling tickets and embracing the new normal.
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Netflix is removing an episode of the History 101 program that says AIDS originated in Haiti.“We have seen the concerns raised and, together with the series creators, have decided to remove the episode while we review the issues involved,” a spokesperson for the online streaming service told VOA via email Saturday. Netflix offers users television shows, movies and documentaries.History 101 is a British TV show produced by ITN productions. It is described on Netflix as “infographics and archival footage [that] deliver bite-size history lessons on scientific breakthroughs, social movements and world-changing discoveries.”The episode sparked outrage among Haitian Americans, who posted their criticism and started a petition on Instagram and Twitter.“The framing of the whole doc lacks in world view,” renowned Haitian American DJ Michael Brun posted on Instagram. “For a disease that has affected Africa the hardest, they had 0 scientists or representation from the continent (or Haiti).”    View this post on Instagram         As the @Netflix History 101 doc has been removed and is currently being revised by their team, I wanted to share what my issues were with their HIV / AIDS episode. The biggest issue is irresponsible framing in regards to black communities worldwide and the inclusion of misinformation. I hope more companies can take note and lead their research with a more balanced world view that doesn’t unfairly stigmatize certain groups of people. If anyone wants sources for anything I mention just let me know and I will be happy to share. The reason this is being reviewed by their team is because of fact based research, not because of anger. Let’s lead with truth.A post shared by Michaël Brun (@michaelbrun) on Jun 6, 2020 at 10:41am PDTAccording to The AIDS Institute, a U.S. nonprofit organization that promotes social change, scientists attribute the HIV infection in humans to a type of chimpanzee found in West Africa.The Haitianroom, a popular Haitian American Instagram account, circulated a petition against the Netflix program that aimed to get 16,000 signatures.  By 4:30 p.m. EDT they had obtained 12,488 signatures.“The lies are part of the reason why many of us had a hard time growing up Haitian!!!” the post said.    View this post on Instagram         Update: they have taken down episode 9 which this was featured in!! We did it guys!!! ✊🏽 The lies are part of the reason why many of us had a hard time growing up Haitian!!!I just signed and donated! Link in my bio if you want to sign the petition (you don’t HAVE to donate but it helps if you do ❤️✊🏽🇭🇹) Also call them and request to remove the documentary… Info down below @netflix @strongblacklead . . We are calling Netflix to act responsibly in this matter and remove the episode immediately. In the first quarter of 2020, Netflix had over 182 million paying streaming subscribers worldwide. Of these subscribers, 69.9 million were from the United States. Misinformation is dangerous. We call ITN Production, the producers and researchers of this episode to step forward and support the immediate removal of this episode from Netflix and any other platform that it may have been published. This content should not be share or presented as fact on any media outlets again. Going forward we ask that this stigma against Haiti and Haitian people be put to rest. It is rooted in racism and should no longer be referenced as factual data by anyone researching HIV/AIDS and is origin. In fact, given all of the funding and research that has gone to support HIV/AIDS research over the past 30 years; is important that major corporations and media giants like Netflix help END THE STIGMA not perpetuate it. 1. Cancel your Netflix subscription. 2. Repost the video shared by @_XEAUX_ on Instagram, Twitter and other social media outlets. 3. Use the hashtag #AIDSdidNOTcomefromHaiti, tag @Netflix and @strongblacklead and post the hashtag in their comment section. 4. Contact Netflix to request removal of the video. Main:(888)638-3549 | Customer Service: (866) 579-7172 | Headquarters: (888) 638-3549. 5. Sign the petition. . . . . . . #thehaitianroom #haitianwomen #haitianmen #haitianpeople #haitian #haitians #haiti #ayiti #netflixA post shared by The Haitian Room 🇭🇹 (@thehaitianroom) on Jun 6, 2020 at 10:58am PDTLunionsuite, another popular Haitian American Instagram account that has 150,000 followers, also posted criticism about the episode. On Saturday afternoon it posted a thank-you to followers for putting pressure on the streaming company.  
 
“Netflix History 101 Episode 9 “AIDS” [has] officially been removed by @netflix on their platform!! Thank you to everyone who came together to make this happen in less than 24 hours!! We Did It!!” the post read.    View this post on Instagram         Netflix History 101 Episode 9 “AIDS” has officially been removed by @netflix!!! Thank you to everyone at @netflix for understanding the importance of removing this episode! We’re waiting on an update on whether they will publicly address it, and our community. — We Did It!!! ❤️🇭🇹⚫️✊🏾 @_xeaux_ @orlandooo7 @michaelbrun @leovolcy — #lunionsuite #wematter #ourstorymatters #haitian #haiti #blacklivesmatterA post shared by #1 Haitian-American Platform (@lunionsuite) on Jun 6, 2020 at 12:25pm PDTThe move comes as thousands worldwide take to the streets to protest racism and to demand justice for George Floyd, an African American man who died in the custody of four police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Netflix is one of several technology, banking, apparel and entertainment firms that have issued messages of support for those demonstrating against police treatment of black people.“To be silent is to be complicit. Black Lives Matter. We have a platform and we have a duty to our Black members, employees, creators and talent to speak up,” the May 30 Netflix post said.    View this post on Instagram           A post shared by Netflix US (@netflix) on May 30, 2020 at 1:36pm PD
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Newspaper comic strips have always operated in a parallel universe, seldom reflecting the problems of the real world.No matter what the reader is going through, Dagwood has never had to apply for unemployment benefits; there’s no global warming in Mark Trail’s forest; and people get old but don’t die in Gasoline Alley.But this Sunday, sharp-eyed readers will find tributes and thank-you’s to front-line workers who have spent the last five months fighting the coronavirus and making sure vital services don’t stop.The artists of more than 70 strips will hide six items associated with the COVID-19 battle lines within the pictures – a medical mask, a steering wheel for those who drive delivery trucks, a supermarket shopping cart, apples for teachers, a fork to thank food service workers and a microscope to salute medical researchers.The idea was the brainchild of Rick Kirkman, who is one of the creators of the comic strip “Baby Blues.”“Every time somebody finds or discovers one of those little symbols in the artwork, to me, I hope that evokes a little bit of gratitude that goes out into the universe,” he said.Kirkman threw out the idea to other cartoonists, and the results can be seen Sunday.“You can hide these things and just be really devious about it,” he said. “You can leave them in the open. You can use them as props. You can even build your gag around them. I don’t care as long as they’re in there.”But working an apple into a cartoon to thank schoolteachers is not as simple as it may sound.Sunday comic strips are drawn and submitted to their syndicates sometimes as much as three months in advance.Bruce Simon is a Berkeley, California-based cartoonist and comics historian.“The coordination problems are horrific with all these people having different deadlines and the syndicates need to work so far ahead,” Simon said.“Wiley Miller who does ‘Non-Sequitur’ actually pulled his scheduled strip and did a new one because he works so far ahead. But he wanted to be a part of it so he did a special one for Sunday and the one he had scheduled will show up some other time,” Simon added.And while it’s easy to camouflage a truck steering wheel into a 21st century-era cartoon, what about a long-running saga of the fifth century?“Prince Valiant. Now, how ‘Prince Valiant’ is going to incorporate a grocery cart or microscope into his historic strip is going to be something interesting,” Simon said.Because no newspaper carries every comic strip, all the strips with a thank-you to front-line workers can be seen after Sunday on the ComicsKingdom.com and GoComics.com websites.    
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The day that George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a white woman called the police on an African American man birdwatching in New York’s Central Park.”I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” the woman is heard in a video of the incident posted on Twitter that went viral.Oh, when Karens take a walk with their dogs off leash in the famous Bramble in NY’s Central Park, where it is clearly posted on signs that dogs MUST be leashed at all times, and someone like my brother (an avid birder) politely asks her to put her dog on the leash. pic.twitter.com/3YnzuATsDm
— Melody Cooper (@melodyMcooper) May 25, 2020In the outrage that followed, the woman was fired from her job.But the incident could have gone another way, said Tykee James.”As a black man in America, I know that that kind of discrimination is an easy route to police interaction that could end fatally,” he said.James is a birder himself, and a government affairs coordinator at the National Audubon Society, the nation’s leading bird conservation and advocacy group.As demonstrations against police violence draw thousands to the streets of cities across the United States, James and a group of African American scientists, naturalists and birdwatchers have taken to social media to launch another protest against systemic racism.It’s called #BlackBirdersWeek.’Not for us’With tweets, livestreams and Q&As, the group aims to change the perception that black people are not “outdoorsy” types.”For far too long, black people in the United States have been shown that outdoor exploration activities such as birding are not for us,” Georgia Southern University biology graduate student Corina Newsome said in a Twitter video launching the event.MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!
We at @BlackAFinSTEM are starting the inagural #BlackBirdersWeek to celebrate Black Birders and nature explorers, beginning 5/31!!!!!
Follow the whole group of us here: https://t.co/I23zoT3fFh
Take a look at the thread for the schedule of events! pic.twitter.com/yDsAtwR8te
— Corina Newsome (@hood_naturalist) Black Birders Week is not just for birders. Earyn McGee poses with a Yarrow’s spiny lizard. (Photo courtesy of Earyn McGee/Noel Hamideh)”That’s when I was like, ‘Oh, this is awesome,'” she said.Her love of lizards and the outdoors has persisted. Each Wednesday, she shares lizard facts and photos on her Twitter account, @Afro_Herper, under the hashtag, #FindThatLizard. She may not be a birder, but she is co-organizing Black Birders Week as an African American naturalist.At Howard, she said, “it wasn’t unusual for black people to be interested in science and wildlife.” But going to scientific conferences, she said, she could not help noticing, “the only black people I see, really, are the people who came with me from my university.””It’s really isolating and lonely,” she said. “You worry about, ‘Do I even deserve to be here, or do I belong?'”It’s the same on television, she added.”If you look on Discovery Channel or Animal Planet, most of what you see is white males. … You don’t really get to see a whole lot of stories from black people.”The outpouring of support on social media for Black Birders Week has been great, McGee said, but “we just hope that the support doesn’t stop at Twitter posts.”  
 
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Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has shared her sadness about racial divisions in the United States, telling students at her former high school that she felt moved to speak out because the life of George Floyd mattered.
Meghan told graduates at Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles that she wrestled with the question of what to tell them given the days of protests after the May 25 death of Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleaded for air as a white police officer pressed a knee on his neck in Minneapolis.
She said her nervousness arose because her words would be “picked apart,” but she decided to speak anyway.
“I realized the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing, because George Floyd’s life mattered,” she said in the virtual address Wednesday.
Floyd’s deaths sparked days of protests and riots in the United States.
The former Meghan Markle, who is biracial, said the unrest reminded her of the riots that took place in her hometown of Los Angeles after police officers were acquitted in the video-taped beating of Rodney King in 1992.  
“I remember the curfew, and I remember rushing back home and on that drive home, seeing ash fall from the sky and smelling the smoke and seeing the smoke billow out of buildings and seeing people run out of buildings, carrying bags and looting,” she said.  
“And I remember seeing men in the back of a van holding guns and rifles, and I remember pulling up to the house and seeing the tree that had always been there, completely charred. And those memories don’t go away.”
Meghan and her husband Prince Harry, who is a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, are seeking a new life in California after stepping away from royals duties earlier this year. Having cut off any cooperation with the British tabloid media, they have sought to independently shape their image and speak out on issues important to them..
The duchess’ video, which was first reported by the U.S. magazine Essence, offered encouragement to the graduates, urging them to consider the moments of light and humanity that emerged from the actions of peaceful protesters. Meghan said she wished the graduates were starting their young lives in a better world.
“I know sometimes people say, ‘how many times do we need to rebuild?”’ she said. “Well, you know what? We are going to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild until it is rebuilt. Because when the foundation is broken, so are we.” 
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Several prominent media and entertainment organizations, including Apple and ViacomCBS, paid tribute to the call for racial equality and justice in the United States amid the recent protests, some violent, by pausing regular services and company events on what they are calling “Black Out Tuesday.” 
 
According to Reuters, CBS said it would spend the day reflecting on “building community,” putting business ventures temporarily “on pause.”  
 
The company also said it would broadcast 8 minutes and 46 seconds of breathing sounds with the words “I can’t breathe,” echoing the last words of George Floyd, a man killed last week in Minneapolis.  
 
Floyd’s death has caused international outrage and days of protests across the nation, many turning violent. The officer present at the time of Floyd’s death, Derek Chauvin, has been arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.  
 
Black Out Tuesday was initially organized by the music community, the AP reports, although the movement quickly spread across social media to include sports stars, such as Lebron James, and other prominent cultural icons like Kylie Jenner.  
 
There has been some criticism on social media, however, that people tagging #black lives matter on the post has pushed the protest content and resources out of sight and actually has obscured it, rather than help to amplify it. They charge that this approach is not well conceived and is harming the cause rather than helping it. 
 
Rapper Little Nas X called for more exposure, saying the black-out effect shields the public from “what’s going on.”  
 
“This is not helping us,” he tweeted. 
 
Apple Music and iTunes both featured the group Black Lives Matter on their homepage, while streaming service Spotify created black logos for several of their most popular playlists, each captioned with the phrase “black lives matter.”  
 
The company added that it, too, would feature an 8 minute and 46 second track in select playlists and podcasts, and that it would halt social media publications.  
 
Eight minutes and 46 seconds is the length of a video capturing Floyd’s death.  
 
Several artists took to Instagram, posting black squares, some using the hashtag #TheShowMustBePaused or encouraging people to vote.  
 
Grammy-nominated singer Kehlani expressed doubts about the movement’s efficacy on Twitter, citing the various messaging surrounding the event.“The messages are mixed across the board and i really hope it doesn’t have a negative effect,” she tweeted.Several artists and record labels also announced that the release of new singles and albums would be delayed due to their participation in Black Out Tuesday.  
Interscope Geffen A&M Records said it would not release music this week, while new releases from Glass Animals, Chloe x Halle and others all will be pushed back, and will drop in coming weeks.  
…

Though Black Out Tuesday was originally organized by the music community, the social media world also went dark in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, joining voices around the world outraged by the killings of black people in the U.S.
Instagram and Twitter accounts, from top record label to everyday people, were full of black squares posted in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.
Most of the captions were blank, though some posted #TheShowMustBePaused, black heart emojis or encouraged people to vote Tuesday since seven states and the District of Columbia are hosting the largest slate of primary elections in almost three months.
Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Radiohead, Coldplay, Kelly Rowland, Beastie Boys and were among the celebrities to join Black Out Tuesday on social media.
“I won’t be posting on social media and I ask you all to do the same,” Britney Spears tweeted. “We should use the time away from our devices to focus on what we can do to make the world a better place …. for ALL of us !!!!!”
Spotify blacked out the artwork for several of its popular playlists, including RapCaviar and Today’s Top Hits, simply writing “Black lives matter.” as its description. The streaming service also put its Black Lives Matter playlist on its front page, featuring songs like James Brown’s “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud,” N.W.A.’s “(Expletive) the Police,” Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” and Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.”
The opening pages of Apple Music and iTunes focused on supporting Black Lives Matter, and SiriusXM said it will be silencing its music channels for three minutes at 3 p.m. EDT in tribute to “all of the countless victims of racism.”
The company said it “will continue to amplify Black voices by being a space where Black artists showcase their music and talents, and by carrying the message that racism will not be tolerated.”
Some on social media questioned if posting black squares would divert attention away from posts about the Black Lives Matter movement.
“this is the 4th completely different flyer i’ve seen for it,” Grammy-nominated singer Kehlani tweeted about Black Out Tuesday. “”this is the only one without the saying go completely silent for a day in solidarity. the messages are mixed across the board and i really hope it doesn’t have a negative effect.”
When musician Dillon Francis posted that the hashtag for Black Lives Matter was blank on Instagram because users were posting black squares, rapper Lil Nas X responded with: “this is not helping us. bro who the (expletive) thought of this?? ppl need to see what’s going on.”
Several music releases and events were postponed as a result of Black Out Tuesday. Interscope Geffen A&M Records said it would not release music this week and pushed back releases from MGK, 6lack, Jessie Ware, Smokepurp and others. Chloe x Halle said its sophomore album will come out June 12 instead of Friday, while the group Glass Animals postponed the Tuesday release of its new single “Heat Waves.” Instead of being released Wednesday, singer Ashnikko will drop her song “Cry” and its video on June 17.
A benefit for the Apollo Theater will take place Thursday instead of Tuesday, and South by Southwest postponed an event planned with Rachael Ray.
“At SXSW we stand with the black community and will continue to amplify the voices and ideas that will lead us to a more equitable society,” the company said.
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Leaders of the music industry have pledged to “disconnect” from business to support communities fighting against racial inequality as part of “Black Out Tuesday.” In response to a massive wave of outrage following the death last week in Minneapolis, Minnesota, of George Floyd in police custody, major record labels denounced racial injustice on social media. They are calling for a “day of action” on June 2 to reflect and promote accountability, contemplation and change.  “We stand together with the black community against all forms of racism, bigotry, and violence. Now, more than ever, we must use our voices to speak up and challenge the injustices all around us,” Ron Perry, chairman of Columbia Records, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation America, said Thursday night. Warner Records made a similar announcement, pledging that activity at their labels will not continue to operate as usual, and committing to help Black Lives Matter and other organizations battling injustice.Universal Music, part of Vivendi, said on its Twitter account that they “stand with the black community,” under the hashtag #TheShowMustBePaused. Interscope Geffen A&M, part of the Universal group, said it would release no new music this week. Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge issued a memo to staff over the weekend outlining plans for a task force to “accelerate our efforts in areas such as inclusion and social justice.” “This week, yet again, we saw our society’s most painful realities about race, justice, and inequality brought — cruelly and brutally — into the harsh light of day,” he wrote in the note, according to Reuters. Protests were ignited by a video showing white police officer Derek Chauvin suffocating Floyd, a black 46-year-old man, by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes shortly before his death May 25.  Chauvin has been fired and is facing third-degree murder charges.  Many influential artists have also spoken out on social media about Floyd’s death. Beyoncé posted a video to Instagram calling for her followers to sign a petition seeking “justice for George Floyd.” “We’re broken, and we’re disgusted. … I am not only speaking to people of color. If you are white, black, brown, or anything in between, I am sure you feel (left) hopeless by the racism going on in America right now,” she said to her fans.  “Watching my people get murdered and lynched day after day pushed me to a heavy place in my heart!” Rihanna wrote on Instagram.Other celebrities, including Ariana Grande, J Cole, Yungblud, Camila Cabello, Shawn Mendes and Nick Cannon joined protests over the weekend. Singer Hasley was among the artists seen protesting in Los Angeles and shared her experience via social media.”We were peaceful, hands up, not moving, not breaching the line,” she tweeted, along with photos of police in protective gear. “They opened fire of rubber bullets and tear gas multiple times on us,” the singer said. National Guard Troops have been deployed in 15 states and Washington, D.C., as tensions at the protests rose. Reuters contributed to this report
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The jersey-wearing camaraderie. The scent of sizzling sausages. The buzz before a big game.
 
The distinctive atmosphere of live sports, that feeling in the air, will return in time as pandemic restrictions are eased. But will that very air be safe in a closed arena with other fans in attendance?
The billions of dollars spent on state-of-the-art sports facilities over the last quarter-century have made high-efficiency air filtration systems more common, thanks in part to the pursuit of green and healthy building certifications. Upgrades will likely increase in the post-coronavirus era, too.
The problem is that even the cleanest of air can’t keep this particular virus from spreading; if someone coughs or sneezes, those droplets are in the air. That means outdoor ballparks have high contaminant potential, too.  
“Most of the real risk is going to be short-distance transmission, people sitting within two, three or four seats of each other,” said Ryan Demmer, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. “It’s not really about the virus spreading up, getting into the ventilation system and then getting blown out to the entire stadium because this virus doesn’t seem to transmit that way. It doesn’t aerosolize that well.”
The three hours spent in proximity to thousands of others is part of the fan experience. It’s also why major sports leagues have been discussing plans to reopen in empty venues, for now. High-touch areas with the potential to spread the virus — called fomite transmission — are plentiful at the ballgame, of course. Door handles. Stair rails. Restroom fixtures. Concession stands.
Hand washing by now has become a societal norm, but disinfectant arsenals need to be brought up to speed, too.
“I can’t really find good hand sanitizer easily in stores. So think about trying to scale that up, so everybody who comes into U.S. Bank Stadium gets a little bottle of Purel. Things like that can be modestly helpful,” Demmer said.  
There is much work to be done. Vigilant sanitizing of the frequent-touch surfaces will be a must. Ramped-up rapid testing capability during pre-entry screening could become common for fans. Minimizing concourse and entry bottlenecks, and maintaining space between non-familial attendees, could be mandatory. Mask-wearing requirements? Maybe.
Most experts, including those at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, believe the primary mode of transmission for COVID-19 is close person-to-person contact through breathing, coughing or sneezing but there’s no consensus on some of the details.
“There’s still widespread disagreement between experts on which mode of transmission dominates for influenza. So the likelihood of us figuring this out soon for this virus is low,” said Joe Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings Program and an assistant professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health. “We may never figure it out, but I also think it’s irrelevant because it’s a pandemic and we should be guarding against all of them.”
Including, of course, the air.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers designed the Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) scale to measure a filtration system’s effectiveness (from 1-16) at capturing microscopic airborne particles that can make people sick. Not just viruses, but dust, pollen, mold and bacteria. Most experts recommend a MERV rating of 13 or higher, the minimum standard for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.
An emerging technology in this area is called bipolar ionization. Connecticut-based AtmosAir has a bipolar ionization air treatment system in about 40 sports venues. Staples Center in Los Angeles was one of the first major sports customers. TD Garden in Boston and Bridgestone Arena in Nashville are among the others who’ve signed on.
The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority approved last year a 10-year contract for a little more than $1 million with AtmosAir to install its system in U.S. Bank Stadium, home of the Vikings and the first indoor NFL stadium to use it. The building, which measures 1.8 million square feet, has 53 air handling units with AtmosAir tubes installed, including 30 in the seating bowl.
The ions act like fresh air, reducing the amount of outside air needed to be introduced for the cleansing process. The protein spikes in the coronavirus particles make them easier to catch and kill, said Philip Tierno, a New York University School of Medicine professor of microbiology and pathology.
Said AtmosAir founder and CEO Steve Levine: “We’re never going to create a mountaintop, but we’re going to put in maybe three to four times the ions over the ambient air and then let those ions attack different pollutants in the air. The ions grab onto particles and spores and make them bigger and heavier, so they’re much easier to filter out of the air.”
The next time fans do pass through the turnstiles, in a few weeks or a few months, in most cases they will probably encounter an unprecedented level of cleanliness.  
“There will be some controls that are visible, extra cleaning and disinfection, but some of it will be invisible, like for what’s happening in the air handling system,” said Allen, the Harvard professor.
“The consumers will decide when they feel comfortable going back, and that’s going to depend on what strategies are put in place in these venues and stadiums and arenas and, most importantly, how well these organizations communicate that to the paying public.”
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Christo, known for massive, ephemeral public arts projects died Sunday at his home in New York. He was 84.His death was announced on Twitter and the artist’s web page. No cause of death was given.Along with late wife Jeanne-Claude, the artists’ careers were defined by their ambitious art projects that quickly disappeared soon after they were erected. In 2005, he installed more than 7,500 vinyl gates in New York’s Central Park and wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin in fabric with an aluminum sheen in 1995. Their $26 million Umbrellas project erected 1,340 blue umbrellas installed in Japan and 1,760 blue umbrellas in Southern California in 1991.The statement said the artist’s next project, L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, is slated to appear in September in Paris as planned. An exhibition about Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work is also scheduled to run from July through October at the Centre Georges Pompidou.FILE – In this June 16, 2016, photo, artist Christo Vladimirov Javacheff walks on his monumental installation ‘The Floating Piers’ he created with late Jeanne-Claude during a press preview at the lake Iseo, northern Italy.”Christo lived his life to the fullest, not only dreaming up what seemed impossible but realizing it,” his office said in a statement. “Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork brought people together in shared experiences across the globe, and their work lives on in our hearts and memories.”Born in Bulgaria in 1935, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Sofia before moving to Prague in 1957, then Vienna, then Geneva. It was in Paris in 1958 where he met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon. They were born on the same day (June 13) in the same year (1935), and, according to him, “In the same moment” and would become partners in life and art.Christo was already wrapping smaller found objects, like cars and furniture. After he met Jeanne-Claude, their scale broadened. Within three years they were working together on an installation of oil drums and tarp on the docks in Cologne.Although their large-scale outdoor and indoor projects were collaborative, they were all credited solely to Christo until 1994, when they revealed Jeanne-Claude’s contributions. The decision, they said, was theirs and deliberate since it was difficult enough for even one artist to make a name for himself.The pair moved to New York in 1964, where they liked to say that they were illegal aliens in an illegal building in SoHo for a few years. They eventually bought that building and would call the city home for the rest of their lives.Jeanne-Claude died in 2009 at age 74 from complications of a brain aneurysm. After her death, Christo said she was argumentative and very critical and always asking questions and he missed all of that very much.In a 2018 interview with The Art Newspaper, Christo spoke about his signature wrapping aesthetic. In the instance of the Reichstag, he said, covering it with fabric made the Victorian sculptures, ornament and decoration disappear and “highlight the principal proportion of architecture.””But, like classical sculpture, all our wrapped projects are not solid buildings; they are moving with the wind, they are breathing,” he said. “The fabric is very sensual and inviting; it’s like a skin.”The two made a point of paying for all of their works on their own and did not accept scholarship or donations.”I like to be absolutely free, to be totally irrational with no justification for what I like to do,” he said. “I will not give up one centimeter of my freedom for anything.” 
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Using their virtual paint brushes, two Chinese-American artists are honoring frontline fighters in the battle against COVID-19.  And as VOA’s Jiu Dao reports, they are also documenting what New York City’s Chinatown is going through during these challenging times. Lin Yang narrates. 
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