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West
San Francisco to begin 'Equity Audit' of controversial statues: Concentration of 'White Supremacy'
![San Francisco to begin 'Equity Audit' of controversial statues: Concentration of 'White Supremacy' San Francisco to begin 'Equity Audit' of controversial statues: Concentration of 'White Supremacy'](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Rober-E-Lee-Statue-Removal-3.jpg)
The San Francisco Art Commission is planning on spending $3 million to begin efforts to remove and replace controversial monuments.
In a meeting last week, senior project manager Angela Carrier gave more details regarding the “Shaping Legacy” plan, a strategy to address more than 100 examples of monuments and memorials that show “a concentration that talks more about power, privilege, White supremacy, patriarchy, and colonialism.”
“We have taken this moment to acknowledge and reckon with this moment of our past, how these monuments and memorials no longer represent the values that we say the city stands for and continues to ignore the stories of communities of color and reinforce inequities in race, gender and culture,” Carrier said.
IT’S TIME TO RESURRECT STATUES OF HEROES TORN DOWN BY THE MOB. THEY ARE OUR NATIONAL TREASURES
The San Francisco Art Commission provided an update regarding its “Shaping Legacy” project last week aimed at possibly removing and replacing statues and monuments deemed controversial. (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)
The plan was described by the commission as a “multi-year equity-focused commitment to critically examine the monuments and memorials in San Francisco’s Civic Art collection.” The first step will include an “Equity Audit” and review of monuments in the collection.
“We will engage communities that have historically been excluded from the discussion,” Carrier told the committee, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “The work of reckoning, repair and healing is not easy work.”
The project will be funded by a $3 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. It is part of a larger plan called the “The Monuments Project” which will invest $250 million by 2025 to reimagine the public landscape.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF MEDIA AND CULTURE
![San Francisco began reviewing statues after protesters began defacing them during Black Lives Matter protests.](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/1725425956_767_San-Francisco-to-begin-x27Equity-Auditx27-of-controversial-statues-Concentration.jpg)
San Francisco began reviewing statues after protesters began defacing them during Black Lives Matter protests. (AP Photos)
“This work requires that we focus on race as we confront inequities of the past, reveal inequities of the present and develop effective strategies to move all of us towards an equitable future,” Carrier said.
The initiative to review controversial statues began in 2018 after the commission agreed to renew debate over the “Early Days” sculpture that featured a Native American kneeling in front of a Spanish cowboy. The statue was later removed.
By 2020, following the George Floyd riots, Democratic Mayor London Breed formed the San Francisco Monuments and Memorials Advisory Committee on statues. The committee later recommended an equity audit in 2023.
![Early Days statue](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/1725425957_177_San-Francisco-to-begin-x27Equity-Auditx27-of-controversial-statues-Concentration.jpg)
A statue known as “Early Days” that depicts a Native American at the feet of a Catholic missionary and Spanish cowboy stands on Fulton Street as part of the Pioneer Monument on March 12, 2018 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“What the audit will do is decide which monuments are considered offensive today, and if so, what should replace them,” former arts commissioner Dorka Keehn said in 2020. “A broader question is, ‘how long should any monument be in existence?’”
Read the full article from Here
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New Mexico
AMP Concerts and FUSION Theatre join forces to boost creativity and cultural events
![AMP Concerts and FUSION Theatre join forces to boost creativity and cultural events AMP Concerts and FUSION Theatre join forces to boost creativity and cultural events](https://www.krqe.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/09/AMP-Concerts-and-FUSION-Theatre-join-forces-to-boost-creativity-and-cultural-events.png?w=1280)
AMP Concerts is partnering with FUSION Theatre Company to provide artists of all types with a space that allows for creative and cultural exploration. FUSION, home to the FUSION Theatre Company, is a center for arts and culture in Downtown Albuquerque. Its multi-venue, 35,000-square-foot campus hosts live music, dance, comedy, theater, and a myriad of special events. With three stages and both indoor and outdoor event spaces, FUSION is New Mexico’s home for creative and cultural exploration.
This month AMP Concerts and FUSION are presenting the following events:
- Mary Gauthier – September 4 from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at FUSION 708 (708 1st Street NorthwestAlbuquerque, NM, 87102United States)
- J2B2 – September 5 from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at FUSION 708 (708 1st Street NorthwestAlbuquerque, NM, 87102United States)
- Tab Benoit – September 10 from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at FUSION 708 (708 1st Street NorthwestAlbuquerque, NM, 87102United States)
To learn more about AMP Concerts, visit www.ampconcerts.org. To learn more about FUSION, visit www.fusionnm.org.
Washington
Washington Health Dept. COVID report promotes racism, exclusion
![Washington Health Dept. COVID report promotes racism, exclusion Washington Health Dept. COVID report promotes racism, exclusion](https://mynorthwest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Untitled-design-2024-09-03T174106.970.jpg)
The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) released a report sharing what its left-wing community partners learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is an aggressively unserious document that includes a virulently racist claim about the evils of white people.
“Don’t forget sometimes white people disengaged on safety when they learned people of color needed help,” the report absurdly claims.
The report paints an entire race with a broad, divisive brush. Or it’s meant to guilt white DOH staffers into giving organizations more money.
It demands WADOH “use COVID as an opportunity to invest in… youth of color… (and) incarcerated youth” by “celebrating their gifts” in ways that “don’t stigmatize or typify them when society fails them.”
The report even suggests that WADOH “get creative” in promoting health crisis materials by using flash mobs or collaborating with “BIPOC artists, trans/queer artists of color, women of color of all gender expressions, incarcerated youth and adult artists.”
More from Jason Rantz: Seattle may close 20 elementary schools due to avoidable problems
What is in this racist Washington Department of Health COVID-19 report?
“A Chorus of COVID – Voices from the Frontlines,” was highlighted in an Aug. 31 DOH post on X. It aims to “help us all reflect on lessons learned” during the pandemic.
DOH says it will use the lessons to help create better plans for supporting future efforts, with an aim towards better serving marginalized communities. It’s part of the department’s efforts to reach “health equity.”
“Poor health is often how communities that dominant society marginalizes know and feel what exclusion really is,” the report claims. “COVID showed several intersecting crises in public health — from the home front to the workforce and practically everywhere else you could imagine.”
Community partnerships were fundamental to the COVID-19 response. Our partners compiled their insights in two documents that help us reflect and remember equity lessons learned. Learn more at https://t.co/vCit7tYjex pic.twitter.com/ioQeuXr8tS
— Washington State Department of Health (@WADeptHealth) September 1, 2024
Dear White Progressive: Give us more money
The report predictably focuses on funneling resources specifically into “marginalized communities,” with the organizations behind it making clear that they prefer to have direct control over those funds.
They urge the state to “keep lowering the barriers to accessing funds,” but notably fail to provide any details on accountability or oversight—because why would they? This seems to be more about securing power and influence than protecting any community.
When it comes to decision making in how to best help during a pandemic (or other health crises), the reports asks DOH to give marginalized communities “decision-making power and influence.” It does not elaborate.
“Design trainings by and for communities that experience inequities such as mass incarceration, housing and food insecurity, substance use, mental illness, racism, ableism, ageism, xenophobia, sexism, transphobia and other forms of exclusion,” the report continues.
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There’s a lot of demand for “centering” in the report
The report demands that DOH “center” prison inmates and illegal immigrants for agency engagement. It explains that any DOH-produced guides should include photos of people “with dark to fair skin tones, all body types, ages, gender expressions, hair textures, facial features, [and] economic backgrounds.”
But the focus should be around visually representing ” Black, Indigenous, Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latinx, (and) BIPOC faces.”
The report is also drenched in far-left coded language that means absolutely nothing. Take, for example, the demand to “make human-centered frameworks that avoid pathologizing communities that experience disparities due to social exclusion and oppression and ask for better civic and community investment.” This is a jumble of meaningless jargon.
What’s the point of this Washington Department of Health COVID-19 report?
The DOH report is an exercise in fluffery and pandering. It’s the embodiment of a virtue signal: presenting the groups responsible for the report as noble frontliners fighting against imaginary systemic injustices. Based on ideas in the report, the emphasis on these community organizations shows their perspectives are neither more valuable nor more valid than actual professionals who handle health emergencies.
If this were merely a way to engage community organizations so that they won’t protest you in the future, it would be one thing. DOH doesn’t want to deal with a progressive mob when dealing with any health crisis.
But DOH and other government agencies have aggressively pushed left-wing dogma over their actual missions since 2020. During the pandemic, the DOH let providers deny vaccines to white people in the name of inclusion. This document raises concerns that it could serve as a blueprint for further wokify DOH.
The wrong direction
The insistence on “centering” narratives and experiences primarily on the basis of race is what actually ends up marginalizing people. More problematic, it also reinforces a victimhood mentality, suggesting that these communities are perpetually oppressed and incapable of thriving without special recognition or financial assistance.
The Washington State Department of Health report, if its ideas are implemented, would prioritize racial and social narratives over practical solutions, ultimately marginalizing the very people it claims to uplift.
Washingtonians should be deeply worried that DOH might actually follow through on this laundry list of woke demands, putting ideological posturing over effective public health strategies and initiatives. That won’t serve anyone.
Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason on X, Instagram and Facebook.
Oregon
US: Patients at Oregon hospital needed fentanyl but got tap water, $303 million lawsuit filed | Today News
![US: Patients at Oregon hospital needed fentanyl but got tap water, 3 million lawsuit filed | Today News US: Patients at Oregon hospital needed fentanyl but got tap water, 3 million lawsuit filed | Today News](https://www.livemint.com/lm-img/img/2024/09/04/1600x900/nurse_1725419370014_1725419370199.jpg)
Attorneys representing both living and deceased patients of an Oregon hospital filed a $303 million lawsuit against the facility on Tuesday after a nurse was accused of replacing prescribed fentanyl with non-sterile tap water in intravenous drips.
The wrongful death and medical malpractice complaint accuses Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford of negligence. The suit says the hospital failed to monitor medication administration procedures and prevent drug diversion by their employees, among other claims.
A spokesperson said the hospital had no comment.
Dani Marie Schofield, a former nurse at the hospital, was arrested in June and charged with 44 counts of second-degree assault. The charges stemmed from a police investigation into the theft and misuse of controlled substances that resulted in patient infections. She has pleaded not guilty.
Schofield is not named or listed as a defendant in the complaint filed Tuesday. A separate suit was filed against Schofield and the hospital earlier this year on behalf of the estate of a 65-year-old man who died.
The 18 plaintiffs in the new suit include nine patients and the estates of nine patients who died. According to the suit, the hospital began informing them in December that an employee had replaced fentanyl with tap water, causing bacterial infections.
“All Plaintiff Patients were infected with bacterium uniquely associated with waterborne transmission,” the complaint says.
All of the plaintiffs experienced mental anguish, according to the suit, which seeks millions of dollars in damages for medical expenses, lost income and the pain and suffering of those who died.
Medford police began investigating late last year, after hospital officials noticed a troubling spike in central line infections from July 2022 through July 2023 and told police they believed an employee had been diverting fentanyl.
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that has helped fuel the nation’s overdose epidemic, but it is also used in legitimate medical settings to relieve severe pain. Drug theft from hospitals is a longstanding problem.
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