Snoop Dogg Says He's Voting For The First Time in 2020 to Get Trump Out

West Coast rapper and internet uncle Snoop Dogg says he will be making his voice heard at the ballot box this year—for the first time in his life.

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Andrew Cuomo wants to make false, Amy Cooper 911 calls a hate crime

Amy Cooper made headlines in May after a viral video showed her needlessly calling 911 and falsely claiming a Black man was threatening her life at Central Park in New York City.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now pushing for a bill to make false emergency calls a hate crime.

According to The New York Post, the bill Cuomo wants state lawmakers to pass was first introduced by assembly Assistant Speaker Felix Ortiz in 2018.

Cuomo spoke of the bill on his June 5 press conference.

READ MORE: Amy Cooper should be arrested for blatantly lying to police, endangering black people everywhere

“We’ve seen 911 calls which are race-based, false calls,” Cuomo stated. “A false 911 call based on race should be classified as a hate crime in the state of New York.”

Amy Cooper and dog (Image courtesy of Twitter)

The Democratic governor plans to add the piece of legislation to al ist of law enforcement reform he is advocating for. According to Ortiz, violators could face up to one to five years in prison based on current hate crime statutes.

The reform package includes banning chokeholds in New York law enforcement, increasing transparency of disciplinary action taken against officers and allowing the state attorney general to serve as an independent prosecutor for cases that involve deaths of unarmed civilians by law enforcement.

READ MORE: Amy Cooper, who called cops on Black birdwatcher, gets dog back

“The bottom line is: we should be using better judgment. Racism gets created, and I think that by making false reporting because of gender or region is completely unacceptable and intolerable,” Cuomo said.

Amy Cooper was videotaped by Christian Cooper, a Black New York birdwatcher, when she refused to use a leash as required while walking her dog in Central Park.

Franklin Templeton, a global investment firm, fired Amy Cooper after the racist incident spread quickly across social media and in the news media.

Have you subscribed to theGrio’s new podcast “Dear Culture”? Download our newest episodes now!

The post Andrew Cuomo wants to make false, Amy Cooper 911 calls a hate crime appeared first on TheGrio.

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Protesters tore down a statue in the former capital of the Confederacy. More may follow.

People gather around the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia, on June 4, 2020, during protests over the death of George Floyd. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced the statue will be removed. | Ryan M. Kelly/AFP/Getty Images

Protesters — and public officials — are tearing down Confederate monuments amid nationwide anti-racism protests.

Protesters toppled a statue of a Confederate general in Richmond, Virginia, Saturday night — it was the latest of a number of monuments to the former slave-owning South to be pulled down by both protesters and public officials as people nationwide demand racial justice and an end to police brutality.

Protesters defaced the statue of of Confederate Gen. Williams Carter Wickham in the city’s Monroe Park, which sits on the Virginia Commonwealth University campus, before using ropes to pull it down.

One person urinated on it before running away, according to reporting by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The statue had stood in the park since 1891.

The toppling of the monument in the Confederacy’s former capital comes as protests against police brutality and racism continue nationwide in the wake of the death of George Floyd, who was killed by a former police officer in Minneapolis on May 25.

Monuments celebrating the former Confederate States of America and its defense of slavery have been torn down or marred regularly since protests began. Earlier this week, protesters in Montgomery took down a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee outside a high school named after him. In Nashville, a memorial to Edward Carmack, a former lawmaker and newspaper publisher who pushed racist views, was taken down outside the state Capitol. A Confederate monument in the middle of the University of Mississippi campus was tagged “spiritual genocide” and covered in red handprints.

But it’s not just protesters advocating for the removal of the statues — some state and local officials have endorsed plans to remove the controversial monuments and rename Confederacy-venerating roadways and buildings in former Confederate states like Kentucky and Louisiana.

Birmingham, Alabama’s mayor agreed to remove a five-story-tall Confederate statue despite a 2017 state law that protects it from harm. The New Orleans City Council is considering changing Jefferson Davis Parkway — named after the first and only president of the Confederate States of America — to honor Norman Francis, a civil rights leader and longtime president of Xavier University. Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia announced on Thursday that the state will remove a statue of Lee from Richmond’s Monument Avenue, one of the largest pieces in a parade of Confederate statues on the street.

However, not all government officials with purview over Confederate monuments are willing to tear down the vestiges of a racist past — when discussions first arose years ago about removing the monuments, many pushed back. And this time, a number of politicians are doing the same.

The debate over Confederate symbols has been raging for years

The debate over the value of Confederate monuments goes back to 2015, when Dylann Roof, a self-described white supremacist, killed nine people in a predominantly black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Photos of Roof posing with a Confederate flag sparked debate in the state over whether the symbol is appropriate to be displayed at the state capitol. (It was eventually taken down.)

Since then, many Southern cities and states have been questioning their attachments to Confederate symbols. Vox’s German Lopez explains the divide:

The argument is simple: The Confederacy fought to maintain slavery and white supremacy in the United States, and that isn’t something that the country should honor or commemorate in any way.

Critics argue, however, that these monuments are really about Southern pride, not commemorating a pro-slavery rebellion movement. They argue that trying to take down the Confederate symbols works to erase part of American history.

Two years after the shooting in Charleston, as the debate wore on, local officials in Charlottesville, Virginia, agreed to take down a statue of Lee. That sparked protests, including a white nationalist Unite the Right rally that eventually turned deadly.

President Donald Trump weighed in on the issue shortly afterward, saying taking down Confederate monuments is “foolish” and “sad.”

Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

But there’s plenty of historical evidence that Confederate monuments and symbols became popular not amid any wave of Southern pride, but in response to civil rights gains made by black Americans over the last century.

The flag’s popularity grew among Southern universities and social groups in the 1950s as a symbol of white culture. As President Harry Truman promised to promote civil rights, many — including the Ku Klux Klan — adopted the flag as a symbol of opposition.

Roy Harris, a Georgia politician who opposed civil rights, even said in 1951 that the flag was becoming “the symbol of the white race and the cause of the white people.”

Even as calls grow for Confederate monuments to come down, some officials don’t support the changes. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall sued the city of Birmingham Tuesday for pulling down a Confederate monument. And Marshall has demanded a $25,000 fine be paid in accordance with a state law that requires local governments to get permission from the state before removing buildings or monuments deemed historically significant.

A handful of other Southern states have similar laws protecting statues, making removals difficult for local officials and residents who want to replace Confederate monuments, but are at odds with state leaders.

Notably, there has also been no renewed discussion of taking down the many Confederate monuments that remain in the US Capitol building.

Lee, Davis, and Davis’s former vice president, Alexander Hamilton Stephens, are memorialized in statue in Statuary Hall. John Calhoun, a former South Carolina lawmaker, US vice president, and an ardent slavery advocate, and North Carolina’s Charles Aycock, former governor and white supremacist leader, are also enshrined in the building. In prior years, there was an effort led by black lawmakers, including legislation sponsored by Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Barbara Lee, to replace these memorials — but these efforts failed.

Whether protests can overturn opposition to the removal of Confederate statues remains to be seen. Nor is it clear exactly what impact the protests will have on changing the police policies that disproportionately impact people of color. But as they continue, it is clear that they have already helped to prompt the dismantling of some of the symbols those American inequities were built upon.

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The protests are growing larger, calmer, and more community-oriented

People gather on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, June 6, 2020, as they protest the death of George Floyd. | Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

Saturday’s peaceful protests were filled with dancing, music, and community building.

Protests grew and broadened on Saturday, expanding to incorporate new people and a wide array of activities that brought communities together.

The protests, which first began two weeks ago following the death of George Floyd, were mostly calm on Saturday as people marched on streets across the US, holding signs that read “Black Lives Matter” and “No justice, no peace.” It was a stark contrast to a week ago, when tension escalated as protesters clashed with the police.

Washington, DC, saw its largest crowds yet as people flocked to the nation’s capital to protest police violence against the black community. Ahead of the demonstrations, Mayor Muriel Bowser painted “Black Lives Matter” in bold yellow words on 16th Street, which leads directly to the White House, and renamed an area in front of the White House “Black Lives Matter Plaza.” Thousands of people gathered in front of the Capitol and Lincoln Memorial before merging in front of the White House.

Thousands protesting outside Lincoln Memorial in #WashingtonDC today for #BlackLivesMatter. Definitely biggest day of George Floyd protests here.

You can see Reflecting Pool and Washington Monument in background: pic.twitter.com/TwgjAEPoLf

— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) June 6, 2020

President Donald Trump commented on the protests by tweeting, “Much smaller crowd in D.C. than anticipated.” While the hundreds of thousands expected did not materialize, Saturday’s protests were, in fact, the largest the city had seen in the past two weeks.

Demonstrations in Philadelphia also attracted thousands of people. Protesters flocked to City Hall to demand defunding of the police and redirecting the money to city services, such as the library and public parks. People were out past the city’s curfew of 8 pm, but the protesters eventually peacefully dispersed before midnight on their own, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

As the crowds grew, the protests also became a place for the community to get together. In Philadelphia, a couple joined the protests on their wedding day to march in a suit and wedding dress. The people around them clapped and cheered as they held hands and kissed in the middle of the street.

The power of love on so many levels #BlackLivesMattter #phillyprotest pic.twitter.com/b5ox0QcnIz

— Rachel E. Lopez (@Rachel_E_Lopez) June 6, 2020

In Atlanta, the protests also became a center for community building as demonstrators danced to Childish Gambino’s “This is America” — which has become an informal anthem for the protests. People also enjoyed live music played by a band perched on top of a parking garage, CNN reported.

“Music has completely changed the atmosphere, as you can see,” the band director told CNN. “As soon as we started playing, the crowd just immediately came this way. We just want justice. We understand what’s going on. Music will bring togetherness and everybody is here now.”

Protesters in Detroit also threw a dance party on Saturday as a way to help the community deal with the trauma caused by recent violence. MLive’s Dana Afana reported that people gathered downtown for dabke, a native Levantine folk dance, before heading back to the police headquarters for another round of protests.

“I saw during the crowd people trying to move their feet and move their bodies to kind of match with the marching. I’m just trying to let the people get out this energy that they have in a positive way and a way they can own,” Jah-T Headd, a Detroit resident who helped organize the dancing, told MLive. “As black people specifically, we deal with our trauma, we deal with our pain, often times through song and dance.”

The protests’ presence also continued to grow overseas.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in London, despite Covid-19 warnings from the health minister. Though a pandemic-related order banned more than six people from different households from gathering outside, the crowed marched together from Parliament Square to the US Embassy and even knelt on the ground for a minute in solidarity of the Black Lives Matter movement, according to the New York Times.

At least 20,000 people marched in Sydney to protest the police mistreatment of the black community as well as Indigenous Australians. The march almost didn’t happen: It was ruled unlawful under Covid-19 restrictions on Friday, but the decision was overturned by the court of appeals minutes before the event was supposed to begin.

The protests spread as far as Japan, where nearly 1,000 people marched in Tokyo and Osaka to speak out on police abuse, Japan Times reported. The demonstrations were fueled by the violent arrest of a Kurdish man by Tokyo police officers on May 22 — just three days before the death of George Floyd.

“We all know what’s happening in the US,” protester Nami Nanami told Japan Times. “The same thing is happening in Japan but nobody is talking about it.”

There have still been some escalations, despite protesters’ calls for accountability

City officials attempted to tone down their response to the protests by eliminating curfews and reducing arrests, with mixed success.

DC and Los Angeles lifted curfews earlier in the week, and protesters remained peaceful as demonstrations lasted late into the night. And officers didn’t enforce curfews in cities where they still existed, such as in New York City.

The number of arrests also drastically fell: Chicago, which once arrested more than 100 protesters in a single day, announced that the police made no arrests on Saturday. Cities like Atlanta, DC, Phoenix, and Miami made similar announcements.

Some officials also made the effort to keep their officers accountable. On Saturday, a Virginian police officer was charged with three counts of misdemeanor assault and battery for a violent arrest he made on Friday. Body camera footage reveals the officer using his stun gun on a black man who was walking away, then using it again when the man is already face-down on the ground.

Another officer from St. Louis was suspended for driving into a man on June 2 — and two other officers involved in the incident were also placed on leave. None have been arrested.

Despite these efforts, however, not all protests were free from conflict due to provocation from the police: In Seattle, the police used tear gas to disperse a peaceful crowd — even though the mayor had promised a 30-day ban on the use of the chemical weapon just a day before.

Dispersing the entire area and threatening arrest if people do not disperse pic.twitter.com/I5yX05O8dI

— Chase Burns (@chaseburnsy) June 7, 2020

Provocations such as these are likely to help ensure the protests continue — particularly given they are part of what demonstrators hope to change. Whether high attendance can be sustained remains to be seen — but large protests are again expected across the world Sunday.

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Support Vox’s explanatory journalism

Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.

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Pick Up This Versatile $19 Backpack and Be Ready For a Variety of Situations

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