Good morning, RVA! It's 56 °F, and, with highs today in the mid 80s, it looks like another great day to spend outside.
Water cooler
Yesterday, locked away safe in my home following along on Twitter, I saw some of the most wonderful and peaceful protests bookended around one incidence of violence and escalation by the Richmond Police Department. Early evening, protestors had gathered downtown with, at least to my eyes, an entirely different vibe from previous nights. Organizers led folks in chants, in silence, in sitting down quietly while folks spoke—I saw lots of masks! Eventually the protestors made their way to the Robert E. Lee monument and gathered there ahead of the 8:00 PM curfew. About 30 minutes before curfew began, without warning, Richmond police officers shot tear gas into a calm and peaceful crowd. Any goodwill either the RPD or, by extension, the Mayor had left after the last couple of days most likely evaporated when cops swaggered their way through clouds of teargas, chased people down—people who were running away—and sprayed them point-blank with pepper spray. The lasting visual of Richmond's police department from yesterday will be their choice to use fear and violence against Richmond humans to protect a Confederate statue.
RPD's reaction to folks' outrage, in the moment, was...not great. First they started with: "To our peaceful protestors: We are sorry we had to deploy gas near the Lee Monument. Some RPD officers in that area were cut off by violent protestors. The gas was necessary to get them to safety." Videos and first-hand reporter accounts don't support that position at all, and, you can imagine the response people paying attention had to a "we are sorry but" tweet. It was not positive. RPD followed that up with: "To our peaceful protestors: We stand with you today and will keep supporting your rights to express your opinions in safety." Which, after the whole machismo, Resevoir Dogs-through-the-cloud-of-tear-gas moment, didn't ring super true. And, finally, about two hours after the original event, they posted: "Chief Smith just reviewed video of gas being deployed by RPD officers near the Lee Monument and apologizes for this unwarranted action. These officers have been pulled from the field. They will be disciplined because their actions were outside dept protocols and directions given." This pretty much contradicts their original statement, so it'll be interesting to see who accepts responsibility for what or how things get spun this morning.
In the midst of RPD's stumbles through public relations, Mayor Stoney also took to Twitter to commit to attending a meeting set up by (I think) protestors today at City Hall at 12:00 PM to personally apologize to people gassed by the police. He followed that up with: "Words cannot make this right, and words cannot restore the trust broken this evening. Only action. Only action will repair this community. Come to City Hall tomorrow at noon. I want to say sorry. I want to listen." Folks are obviously and legitimately very, very angry right now, and the Mayor had many, many opportunities throughout the weekend to make decisions that would have taken Richmond to a different Tuesday morning, one without memories of teargas and violent cops. That said, this is the correct path to make things right: an unqualified apology, naming what he did wrong, listening to the people he wronged, and a promise of action. All of those parts are important—especially the action—and we'll see what comes of that this afternoon. VPM's Alan Rodriguez has more on the Marcus Alert, which folks have spent the last couple of years asking for and feels like one possible policy outcome from today's meeting.
Finally, after all of that and despite direct provocation from the police, protestors continued their march, peacefully for several hours. I think that's amazing, and I'm incredibly inspired by and have a lot to learn from folks like 19-year-old organizer Jared Ivey. To get gassed and pepper sprayed and then end on a message of love? That's just...whew. The evening ended back at the Robert E. Lee monument with people filling the statue's steps, celebrating their accomplishments. I can't help but note the symmetry between last night's closing images and this postcard from the unveiling of the Jefferson Davis monument. In 1907—over a hundred years ago today and almost 50 years after the end of the Civil War—600 White children lined up in front of the Lee monument to celebrate a flag designed to spread fear and violence. Last night, hundreds of Richmonders—many young, many Black and Brown—lined up in front of the Lee monument to demand that we finally, finally start making the changes to move away from that history of fear and violence.
As of this morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports 791 new positive cases of the coronavirus in the Commonwealth and 17 new deaths as a result of the virus. VDH reports 139 new cases in and around Richmond (Chesterfield: 20, Henrico: 38, and Richmond: 81). Since this pandemic began, 194 people have died in the Richmond region. It is Pandemic Tuesday, so today I fully expect to see a big bump in all of these numbers. As far as testing in the Commonwealth goes, even with the inclusion of the antibody tests, VDH has only reported results from more than 10,000 tests six out of the last 14 days. The 14-day average of new tests per day sits riiiiiight at the 10,000 goal, so I think there's still more work to do on that front. Locally, I'm really interested in this graph of the seven-day average of new reported COVID-19 cases in Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield. At this point, the jurisdictional differences have melted away and each locality has started to report a similar number of new cases each day. We'll see if Richmond's delay of Phase One has any impact on this graph in a couple of weeks.
Our Confederate monuments have provided the literal and metaphorical background for much of the past days' protests. My loudly official position is to, of course, tear down these huge monuments to White supremacy as soon as possible, and @_SmithNicholas_ reminds me that, come July 1st, Richmond can begin the legal process of taking down the statues that it owns. He asks a great question: Which City Councilmember will get the resolution introduced to hold the state-required public hearing? If you think that it should be your councilmember, maybe shoot them an email. Also, while we're at it, the context added to the monuments by protestors should stay until we take these things down. Protestor graffiti has become an important part of the history of the Berlin Wall and should become an important part of the history of our Confederate statues. The rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church downtown—the church Robert E. Lee attended—had this to say about the graffiti on and around his church: "It’s something that the church has to look at—I mean literally and spiritually—and figure out what it is that we need to be about...we can’t sweep it under the rug...My plan is to leave it here.”
The Richmond 300 draft plan is now available for you to download, read, highlight, and send excerpts to all of your urbanism-related grouptexts. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet for obvious reasons but am excited to dig in soon.
This morning's longread
You cannot keep from getting swept up in Trump's agenda without a firm grasp on your own
Jay Rosen is one of my favorite media thinkers. His latest post lays out some incredibly important advice about bias for journalists as we move through both a pandemic and nationwide protests for police reform.
Now we are met on an ugly and brutal battlefield: the 2020 campaign for president. How should American journalists approach it? I have previewed my answer in the title of this post: You can’t keep from getting swept up in Trump’s agenda without a firm grasp on your own. But what should that agenda be? To this tricky question I now turn, armed with my distinction between the properly political and the overly politicized. I am going to list a few things I think journalists can legitimately be “for” as they report on the coming election. If they choose not to choose, and head into the 2020 campaign without stars to steer by, they are likely to become lost in Trump’s predictable flood of newsy distractions and lurid controversies. They know what’s coming. What they don’t know is how to avoid playing along. Here are some suggestions.
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