Friday, June 19 top news briefs
Hello, welcome to The Daily Moth! It is Friday, June 19. Happy Juneteenth. It is a day which marks the end of slavery in the U.S. Be sure to check out a video from Jesse Jones III that explains the importance of this holiday. The National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA) hosted a LIVE video celebration of Juneteenth. The links are above.
Now, here are today’s top news briefs.
The first news there is tension surrounding President Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday. It will be his first rally ever since the Covid-19 pandemic caused shutdowns all over the U.S. The rally was supposed to be today (June 19), but it was pushed to tomorrow after criticism on holding the rally on the same day as Juneteenth. There is still some criticism on holding the rally in Tulsa, which has historical significance because in 1921, a neighborhood that was predominantly African-American, as known as the “Black Wall Street,” was destroyed by a white mob with many murdered. So, that is the historic backdrop, combined with Juneteenth. There’s also the Covid-19 pandemic, so there’s more criticism on why Trump’s hosting the rally.
The mayor of Tulsa said he is expecting crowds of more than 100,000 people, declared a civil emergency, and established a federal exclusion zone in the six blocks around an arena where the rally will take place. The mayor said he has information that shows there are people who are traveling to “cause unrest.” There is a curfew in place during the nighttime that will be in place today and tomorrow. If people break the curfew, that’s usually when riot police will come in. That’s something to look out for.
President Trump said on Twitter that “any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters, or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!” He also said his supporters would be exempt from the curfew.
People have been lining up to attend the Tulsa rally. There are concerns with Covid-19 because it will be a large, indoors gathering. The White House is not encouraging people to wear masks.
The next news — the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky announced that one of the three police officers who were involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor on May 13 will be fired. His name is Brett Hankison. ABC News said documents show that Hankison fired 10 rounds into Taylor’s apartment when he went inside of the home on a no-knock warrant. Taylor’s boyfriend was home at the time and thought the officers were intruders, so he fired his licensed gun, and that’s when Hanksion fired 10 rounds through a door and a window. Breonna Taylor was hit with 8 bullets and died while sleeping. A termination letter said the officer showed “an extreme indifference to the value of human life.” There could be more disciplinary action and/or criminal charges in the future. People in the community are putting on pressure for more consequences for the death of Breonna Taylor.
The third news story — In Alaska, a National Guard helicopter lifted up a famous abandoned city bus near the Teklanika River to remove it for good. The bus became famous because an author and traveler, Christopher McCandless, stayed on the bus and died there. He wrote “Into The Wild” and it was made into a movie. The bus has attracted tourists to try and venture into the remote and dangerous area near the Denali National Park. Many tourists had to be rescued and some died when they were swept away by the river. The bus will be placed in a “safe storage.” It’s not clear what the next plans are.
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The fourth story — on Wednesday, Twitter announced they were introducing and testing a new feature that would allow people to post voice tweets. It allows users to record themselves speaking and it will be tweeted as an audio file with your profile image pulsating. Many deaf twitter users quickly pointed out that it was a bad feature because it is not accessible to deaf people, and criticized the lack of thought or involvement because there was not even an auto-captions feature added.
Today a Twitter representative named Maya Gold responded to the “Deaf/HOH Community” by posting voice tweets along with transcripts admitting that they “f—— up” because they should have included accessibility features. She opened up on a personal level by saying, “as a Black woman I wholeheartedly understand what it feels like to be excluded, to be the one who has to advocate for myself.” She promised she would do research to come up with a fix. Many applauded her response, and said the blame shouldn’t be placed on her but on the overall leadership of the company. So that’s what happened with Twitter and it’s something to follow up on whether they will add auto captions or features. Or hopefully Twitter will hire a deaf person on their team.
That is all the news for today. Have a good weekend. Stay with the light!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/opinion/tulsa-race-riot-massacre-graves.html
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1273972301156016130
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/your-tweet-your-voice.html
https://twitter.com/mayagpatterson/status/1273851224920485889