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New York Times
29-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump's Attacks on Black History Betray America
The Trump administration is in a hurry to bury not only America's future but also its past. Burying futures usually involves burying the truths of history. Right now the Trump administration has been systematically attacking Black history. It's set about purging Black historical content from government websites and social media accounts (only restoring a few items after being called out), removing Black history books from libraries, eliminating Black history observances, butchering the reputations of historians and starving libraries, museums, universities and historical institutions of funding. At this rate, many Americans could one day believe that George Floyd 'dies after medical incident during police interaction,' as the Minneapolis Police Department put it in its first public statement on the matter, and that the officer Derek Chauvin attempted to save his life. There is a precedent for this, of course. Consider what happened in downtown Atlanta beginning on Sept. 22, 1906. Grotesque newspaper headlines detailing alleged assaults, later referred to as a 'carnival of rapes,' mobilized white Atlantans into a mob. The violence over the next few days snatched the lives of around 40 Black Atlantans and two white Atlantans. Black Atlantans were forced to organize a self-defense, with some community members arming themselves. The carnage largely ceased with the arrival of a state militia. What became known as the Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906 had been several months in the making. It was an election year, and all year long, candidates for governor and their propagandists had enraged white Atlantans with tales of 'uppity' Black Atlantans refusing to stay 'in their place.' 'Uppity' Black Atlantans like J. Max Barber, the editor of The Voice of the Negro, perhaps the first Southern magazine to be edited by Black people. Barber had dedicated the magazine to rendering current events and 'history so accurately given and so vividly portrayed that it will become a kind of documentation for the coming generations.' Born in South Carolina, Barber had come a long way from the place of his parents, who had been enslaved. After graduating from Virginia Union University in 1903, he moved to Atlanta to edit The Voice of the Negro. He secured contributors including the renowned educator Mary Church Terrell and the Atlanta University historian W.E.B. Du Bois. In 1905, Barber joined Du Bois and 27 others in forming the Niagara Movement, a predecessor of the N.A.A.C.P. One of the Niagara Movement's main initial outlets: Barber's Voice of the Negro, which touted 15,000 subscribers. Barber refused to publish the lie about the causes of the Atlanta massacre in 1906. 'There has been no 'carnival of rapes' in and around Atlanta,' he wrote. 'There has been a frightful carnival of newspaper lies.' He figured 'this mob got its first psychological impulse from Tom Dixon's 'Clansman,'' which 'came to Atlanta last winter' as a play. Thomas Dixon Jr. had published 'The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan' in 1905, depicting Klan attacks as heroic acts of justice. D.W. Griffith adapted the novel for his 1915 film 'The Birth of a Nation.' One of the film's intertitles had been written by the president of the United States, who screened the film in the White House. 'The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation,' Woodrow Wilson had written in 1902, 'until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South to protect the Southern country.' The Trump administration's framing of Black history as 'D.E.I.' — and 'D.E.I.' as harming white Americans — recasts its attack on Black history as protecting white Americans. As administering justice. Which is the justification of nearly every Klan and racist mob attack in history. The justification of the Atlanta attack in 1906. When Barber challenged the 'carnival of rapes' justification for the Atlanta Race Massacre in 1906, Gov. Joseph Terrell of Georgia and his Atlanta allies weaponized the criminal legal system. They threatened Barber with arrest. Police officers surveilled Barber's office. Sound familiar? Barber 'did not care to be made a slave on a Georgia chain gang.' He ran away from Georgia slavery by another name (just as there are some Americans today who are fleeing red states — and even the nation itself — out of fear). Barber fled with The Voice of the Negro on financial life support. The magazine died in Chicago in 1907. Barber's career documenting Black life and history died, too. The electrifying writer became a dentist in Philadelphia. He contributed to a few campaigns, such as erecting a statue for John Brown at the abolitionist's upstate New York gravesite in 1935 that still stands. But terror had largely silenced Barber's voice of the Negro. Life is named story. Afterlife is named history. Racist Americans have murdered Black lives and tried to murder Black afterlives, Black stories and Black history, Black storytellers and Black historians. So when Black people die, what we created, what we contributed, what we changed, what we documented dies, too. No funeral. Just gone from memory. President Trump's raid on the Black historical record is a raid on the opportunity for all Americans to know the endurance of racial inequity and injustice are consequences of the enduring history of anti-Black racist policy and violence, not what's wrong with Black people as a group. For Americans to know Black history is to know how Black ingenuity over the years has benefited them, how Black-led antiracist movements helped bring into being more equity and justice between Black people and white people, between Latino, Asian, and Native Americans and white Americans, between white men and women, between superrich white men and low- and middle-income white men. After all, the Ku Klux Klan didn't just terrorize Black Americans. Klan attacks are most remembered for whom they murdered. They are less remembered for what they murdered: all the Black towns, businesses, homes, churches, libraries, publications and careers. The very things that preserved public memory of Black history. In 1949 Barber died in Philadelphia. He was not murdered in public, like other victims of the Atlanta Race Massacre in 1906, but he was murdered from public memory. His ability to create public memory was murdered: the point of Mr. Trump's attack on Black history.
LBCI
08-05-2025
- Politics
- LBCI
Putin says Russia, China defend 'truth' about WWII
President Vladimir Putin told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Thursday that their nations intend to defend the "historical truth" about World War II, which the Russian leader accuses the West of wanting to distort. "Together with our Chinese friends we firmly stand on guard of historical truth, protect the memory of events of the war years and counter modern manifestations of neo-Nazism and militarism," Putin said, as Russian society has seen unprecedented militarization during three years of conflict with Ukraine. AFP
Free Malaysia Today
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Putin says Russia stands with China against ‘neo-Nazism'
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping greeted each other as 'dear friend' in Moscow today. (AP pic) MOSCOW : Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping for joining celebrations to mark 80 years since the 'sacred' victory over Adolf Hitler in World War II, and said the two countries stood together now against 'neo-Nazism'. Xi's presence at this week's anniversary celebrations provides an important boost for the Kremlin leader, who has portrayed his war in Ukraine as a struggle against modern-day Nazis from the start. Ukraine and its allies reject that characterisation as a grotesque falsehood, accusing Moscow of conducting an imperial-style invasion. 'The victory over fascism, achieved at the cost of enormous sacrifices, is of lasting significance,' Putin told Xi today. 'Together with our Chinese friends, we firmly stand guard over historical truth, protect the memory of the events of the war years, and counteract modern manifestations of neo-Nazism and militarism.' Xi said the two countries, as world powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council, would work together to counter 'unilateralism and bullying' – an implied reference to the US. He said they would 'jointly promote the correct view of the history of World War II, safeguard the authority and status of the United Nations, resolutely defend the rights and interests of China, Russia and the vast majority of developing countries, and work together to promote an equal, orderly, multipolar, and inclusive economic globalisation'. The two leaders spoke after approaching each other along a red carpet from opposite ends of one of the Kremlin's most opulent halls and shaking hands in front of the cameras. Each greeted the other as 'dear friend'. Xi is the most powerful of more than two dozen foreign leaders who are visiting Moscow this week to mark Thursday's 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. The celebrations are taking place at a key moment in the war with Ukraine, as Moscow and Kyiv come under US pressure to reach a peace deal. Ukraine's foreign ministry on Tuesday urged countries not to send their militaries to participate in the May 9 parade, saying such participation would go against some countries' declared neutrality in the war. Xi, whose country is locked in a tariff war with the US, is expected to sign numerous agreements to deepen the 'no limits' strategic partnership that the two countries signed in 2022, less than three weeks before Putin sent his army into Ukraine. China is Russia's biggest trading partner and has thrown Moscow an economic lifeline that has helped it navigate western sanctions. China buys more Russian oil and gas than any other country.
Daily Mail
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Putin and Xi's show of force: 'Old friends' Moscow and Beijing vow to take on global order together as Chinese leader arrives for Victory Day parade in Russian capital
Despots Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have pledged to take on the world order together as 'old friends.' Seen today in Moscow to celebrate Victory Day with Putin, China 's president Xi said that his nation was 'ready to work with Russia to promote an equal, orderly, multiolar and inclusive economic globalisation.' He said Beijing would stand with Moscow in the face of 'hegemonic bullying', adding: 'in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying behaviour, China will work with Russia to shoulder the special responsibilities of major world powers.' He added that he was 'visit Russia against at the invitation of my old friend president Putin.' President Xi is the most high-profile guest at Vladimir Putin's Victory Day celebrations, in which Russia is celebrating victory over the Nazis during the Second World War. The Russian leader said today: 'The victory over fascism, achieved at the cost of enormous sacrifices, is of lasting significance. 'Together with our Chinese friends, we firmly stand guard over historical truth, protect the memory of the events of the war years, and counteract modern manifestations of neo-Nazism and militarism', making a thinly veiled reference to his own justification to his invasion of Ukraine. Xi said they would 'jointly promote the correct view of the history of World War Two, safeguard the authority and status of the United Nations, resolutely defend the rights and interests of China, Russia and the vast majority of developing countries, and work together to promote an equal, orderly, multipolar, and inclusive economic globalisation'. Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) during their meeting at the Grand Kremlin Palace, on May 8, 2025 in Moscow, Russia The two leaders spoke after approaching each other along a red carpet from opposite ends of one of the Kremlin's most opulent halls and shaking hands in front of the cameras. Each greeted the other as 'dear friend'. Though Russia was allied with the West in the fight against the Nazis, its celebrations are totally out of step with Europe's celebrations. While almost all of Europe is today celebrating VE Day, Russia is holding its own ceremony tomorrow with a huge military parade on Red Square in central Moscow to mark the massive Soviet contribution to defeat Nazi Germany. Even if the end of World War II in Europe spawned one of the most joyous days the continent ever lived, Thursday's 80th anniversary of V-E Day is haunted as much by the specter of current-day conflict as it celebrates the defeat of ultimate evil. Hitler's Nazi Germany had finally surrendered after a half-decade of invading other European powers and propagating racial hatred that led to genocide, the Holocaust and the murdering of millions. That surrender and the explosion of hope for a better life is being celebrated with parades in London and Paris and towns across Europe while even the leaders of erstwhile mortal enemies France and Germany are bonding again. Germany's new foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, paid tribute to 'the enormous sacrifices of the Allies' in helping his country win its freedom from the Nazis and said that millions of people were 'disenfranchised and tormented by the Nazi regime.' 'Hardly any day has shaped our history as much as May 8, 1945,' he said in a statement. 'Our historical responsibility for this breach of civilization and the commemoration of the millions of victims of the Second World War unleashed by Nazi Germany gives us a mandate to resolutely defend peace and freedom in Europe today.' His comments underscore that former European enemies may thrive - to the extent that the 27-nation European Union even won the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize - but that the outlook has turned gloomy over the past year. Bodies continue to pile up in Ukraine, where Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion started the worst war on the continent since 1945. The rise of the hard right in several EU member states is putting the founding democratic principles of the bloc under increasing pressure. And even NATO, that trans-Atlantic military alliance that assured peace in Europe under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and its military clout, is under internal strain rarely seen since its inception. 'The time of Europe's carefree comfort, joyous unconcern is over. Today is the time of European mobilization around our fundamental values and our security,' Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at a Dutch memorial event in the lead-up to the celebrations. It makes this unlikely stretch of peace in Europe anything but a given. 'This peace is always unsure. There are always some clouds above our heads. Let's do what we can, so that peace should reign forever in Europe,' Robert Chot, a Belgian World War II veteran, told a solemn gathering of the European legislature. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola sounded gloomy. 'Once again war has returned to our continent, once again cities are being bombed, civilians attacked, families torn apart. The people of Ukraine are fighting not only for their land, but for freedom, for sovereignty, for democracy, just as our parents and our grandparents once did,' she told the legislature on Wednesday. 'The task before us today is the same as it was then to honor memory, to protect democracy, to preserve peace,' Metsola said. Commemorations have been going all week through Europe, and Britain has taken a lead. Here too, the current-day plight of Ukraine in its fight against Russia took center stage. 'The idea that this was all just history and it doesn't matter now somehow, is completely wrong,' U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. 'Those values of freedom and democracy matter today.' In London later Thursday, a service will be held in Westminster Abbey and a concert, for 10,000 members of the public, at Horse Guards Parade. In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to oversee a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe. And in Berlin, Chancellor Friedrich Merz will again highlight how Germany has remodeled itself into a beacon of European democracy by laying a wreath at the central memorial for the victims of war and tyranny.
