Richard Battle-Baxter, a 38-year-old black male of New Jersey, said he finally feels like white people are starting to show they care. And while he appreciates these gestures, it’s not enough. He wants them to truly flip the script and understand how they benefit from systematic racism.

“It’s not our problem to fix, because we didn’t create the system,” Baxter said. “What is my participation in it now?” “How did I benefit from the system as it is now? “And how did my ancestors benefit from it?” Understanding that from a white person’s perspective will give them more insight into why there is a disconnect in our system.”

And while Baxter is somewhat hopeful for the future, he’s doing his best at the moment to manage his stress.

“Think about the opportunity cost of the productivity loss of the entire black population because we are dealing with what’s going on now,” Baxter said. “We know that these murder have been happening. It’s been a conversation for us but we’ve had to suppress it. It’s the suppression of these feelings that has been stressful.”

Meka Seymour, a 26- year-old black woman living in Harlem, is finding her own way to navigate her feelings. She is doing what she can to volunteer, organize, and educate herself.

“I feel extremely heavy and burdened some days by what is happening right now,” Seymour said. “Peers see this education as an academic exercise. This isn’t an exercise for me. I feel stressed out and it’s scary to think you still have to argue for your humanity in society”.

Growing up as a light skin African American woman, living in a predominantly low income black neighborhood, Seymour does not recall experiencing a lot of racial transgressions. She does recall facing colorism, and feeling caught in the middle.

“I’m what people refer to as light skin. People would tell me I have good hair,” Seymour said. “It has been communicated to me since I was a little kid that I am a more acceptable brand of black. I thought that was just how society worked. And that’s a problem.”

Haroon Saleem, a 42-year -old Pakistani living in Los Angeles, said he’s not surprised at all by what is happening. Saleem faced routine discrimination as child, being called racial slurs and getting beat up on the playground for being Muslim. It led to depression issues he still battles with today.

“When you come from the amount of s–t we have, this is not as shocking as it might be for other folks,” Saleem said. “We have to fight for normalcy, have conversations and be diplomatic. What our country is going through is a much needed reckoning.”

Just a few days after the election of Donald Trump, Saleem was at a gas station when a couple nearby said, “Y’all need to get ready to go back.”

“That was a gut punch for sure,” Saleem said. “I’m an American citizen.”

Despite the racism he has endured, Saleem does his best to remain positive.

“There has been a lot more of a reaction and people acknowledging that this is an issue. And you want to remain positive because what’s the inverse?,” Saleem said. “I would much rather focus on doing everything possible to better this situation than throwing in the towel.”

And despite the protests and attention on race and police brutality, Baxter still fears for his life walking out of his front door, a fear he’s carried with him since childhood. A fear that, he said, is rooted in knowing things can start small but end up deadly.

“You turn on the TV and you see, stop killing black men. I think, wait a second, I’m a black man, stop killing me,” Baxter said. ”We’re not asking for much. We just want to be equal.”

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Shout out to @browndages
BandAid acting like our skin tone just arrived with the new IOS update. That lil clear stuff wasn’t enough cause it still had that big white piece in it. I need to order another box for my travel first aid kit. ✊🏾✊🏾#BlackOwnedBusiness pic.twitter.com/kS2jdwrz0d

— what are we doing!?!?! (@1d9s1t3) June 18, 2020

A number of U.S. companies and global corporations have publicly taken a stand to support protests against racism and police brutality sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 29 – a departure from years past when these same brands typically stayed silent. But these reactive gestures aren’t setting the companies apart like they may have hoped, and instead show that consumers are holding companies to a higher standard than before.

Dozens of companies have taken actions that range from social media posts to new products to more diverse boards. Quaker Oats  is renaming its Aunt Jemima brand, a name born out of racial stereotypes, as is Eskimo Pie ice cream. Levi Strauss & Co. and Gap Inc. have committed to more representation of Black and Latinx people on their boards. NBC announced plans to diversify writers for TV shows.

For companies, it’s clear that they need to go beyond just social media posts to connect with the BLM movement, said Allen Adamson, co-founder of Metaforce, a brand consulting firm in New York. Taking tangible action, however, does not necessarily mean sales will increase. “At the moment, it’s not clear how they will stand out,” Adamson said.

That’s in contrast to when Nike announced an advertising campaign featuring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in September 2018. Kaepernick, while playing for the San Francisco 49ers in 2016, kneeled during the pregame national anthem as a sign of protest against racial injustice and police brutality. This cost Kaepernick his NFL career, but Nike stuck to its contract with the quarterback.

The company’s share price fell on the news and some customers took to social media to boycott the brand and even burned some of their products. But online sales actually increased significantly more than the same time period the year before in the days following the announcement, according to an analysis by Edison Trends.

“Nike supported the issue at a time when it was not on everyone’s radar and raising awareness mattered,” Adamson said.

For Nike, this was an opportunity to become connected with a cause. But the environment is different today. Brands hoping to have their own Nike moment need to recognize that they are practicing defensive marketing and acting in a reactive, rather than a proactive, way. “Nike moved before BLM became a tidal wave,” Adamson said.

Consumers expect more than just supportive messaging on social media, according to a survey conducted by Morning Consult, a Washington-based market research company. Only 25% of respondents had a more favorable view of brands that supported the protests on social media, whereas over half of the respondents said they have a more favorable view of companies donating to community cleanups after the protests or setting up a fund for small businesses impacted by looting.

Companies though still consider it risky to speak up on politically loaded issues. But the recent wave of BLM support has received support from a wider background of people than in the past. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll shows that 74% of Americans agree that the killing of George Floyd points to an underlying racial injustice problem.

“Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem was polarizing in 2016,“ said Christine Moorman, Senior Professor of Business Administration at Duke University and editor in chief of the Journal of Marketing, but now protesting against racism and police brutality are no longer as polarizing,

Most companies still want to play it safe. More than 80% of brands in a recent survey said they don’t think it’s appropriate for their brand to take a stance on politically charged issues, which is in line with results in recent years, according to the latest CMO survey published on June 16.

“If the issue is political or polarizing by definition, most companies won’t speak up,” said Moorman, who conducts the survey.

Taking the risk to publicly support a cause, as Nike did, could be a way for companies to stand out and boost sales. Of the companies that did take a stance on a political issue, more than 83% said it had a positive effect on attracting and retaining customers and business partners, and 90% said the decision helped their company stand out in the marketplace, according to the survey.

Companies need to commit to a long-term strategy and not just react to the news of the day, Adamson said. “Consumers are too sophisticated to let a brand capitalize on the situation,” he said.

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 In the early morning hours of May 29, CNN reporter Omar Jiménez was arrested by Minnesota state police on live television. Jiménez was calm and asked the officers what they wanted him and his crew to do, but they did not respond and instead handcuffed and arrested him.  

 “What am I under arrest for?” Jiménez asked as he was being turned away from the camera’s view and being escorted by police to what the viewer assumed would be jail.  The cameraman, Leonel Mendez,  continued to film Jimenez as he was perp walked until he fell out of view.

A black reporter being arrested on live TV while covering the protests in reaction to police killing yet another black man—during a pandemic that is disproportionately affecting black Americans—has filled me and millions of fellow Americans with an overwhelming sense of despair and pain. I feel broken. 

I woke up to all of this after a restless night. The president of the United States’ responded to a police officer kneeling on the neck of an unarmed black man, until he stopped breathing, by threatening people who were angered and grieving another senseless death.

“When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he wrote on Twitter. The tweet was flagged and deleted by Twitter.

It’s a decades-old law-and-order phrase that has been given new life by Trump.

But make no mistake, this is bigger than one man. It’s bigger than one year. Bigger than one election. This problem has been 400 years in the making, festering throughout American society even as “black faces in high places”—as the Princeton Philosopher Cornel West eloquently put it—seemed to signal a new beginning for this country. 

It was all a facade. Some of us knew that then, but more are suddenly coming to grips with this uncomfortable reality. 

My only option, though, like many generations of black Americans before me, is to somehow, someway find a morsel of hope to continue. This is a sad maxim of being black in this country, but it’s also a survival mechanism. 

If we lose this sense of hope, no matter how fleeting it may feel at times, then what else is there for me to continue for? I’ve promised to keep myself from thinking about the answer to this question for too long. 

Instead, I’m trying, though sometimes failing, to find things that bring me hope for a better future. And don’t get it twisted, this is not a naiveté or blind hope. It is a feeling that is sowed by the diversity and youth of the protesters across the country. 

From Dallas to Brooklyn, Minneapolis to Atlanta, Los Angeles to Washington D.C., an overwhelming number of those protesting are millennials or younger. These protesters are black, brown, white, Latinx, Asian and the like. They are straight, gay, trans, non-conforming and non-binary. Simply put, these protesters come from all walks of life—informed by intrinsically different lived experiences. 

The one thing that unites these people, however, is a shared sense of outrage over a society that has been broken for far too long. Quite literally pushing up their bodies against a system and society that was never built for them. The levels of empathy exhibited by those protesters among my generation is inspiring, and it provides me with the hope to continue. 

And it is precisely this hope that will prevent this wicked society from breaking me, no matter how broken I currently feel.

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Danny Fred, 29, says he can’t fit into the mold of the stereotypical gay male presented on the front cover. Photo by Rajeev Dhir.

There’s an almost schoolboy like charm to Danny Fred. He’s got a very youthful face and it’s hard to believe he’s 29 years old. His eyes squint when he laughs, an infectious sound that echoes through the living room of his modest apartment in Jamaica, Queens.

Settling back into his sofa, he rested a leg on the seat, ready to open up about his upcoming date. He was excited – the two met on an online dating site. After speaking on the phone for about a week, they agreed to their first face-to-face meeting over the weekend.

“I’ve met a lot of guys in the bars. I’ve met guys talking on the phone,” said Fred, who’s a proud Puerto Rican-Italian. “But now I actually meet guys a lot of the time online.”

Talking to guys on the internet, he said, is easy, because it allows you to build up a persona and chat comfortably without any pressure. Meeting in person, though, is an ultimate goal. But there is something that always makes him a little nervous before every first date. Fred is disabled.

“I was born with cerebral palsy and I’m HIV-positive,” he said. “It isn’t easy being a gay man with a disability in New York City.”

That’s because Fred believes he isn’t what most people consider to be the stereotypical gay male. For decades, clean-cut, muscular Caucasian men have become the dominant image of what gay men look like in mainstream media, even though diversity is the focus at most Pride celebrations annually and gay men who don’t fit that image find themselves on the outside.

Because his disability causes Fred to walk with a slight limp and he takes retrovirals everyday for the HIV virus, he said he faces discrimination in his social, romantic and everyday lives.

“I’ve had people look at me differently. I’ve had people within the LGBT community stare at me as I walk down the street,” said Fred.

Even though he’s embraced and accepted his disability, he tries to hide it by changing the way he dresses when he goes out in public so it won’t be noticed nearly as much. Even with something as invisible as the HIV virus, Fred said he’s felt the cold shoulder from other gay men.

“I’m fearful about what someone might say. Some gay men are like, oh no, I don’t want to catch it. Or oh, no, I don’t ever want a lover with HIV.”

Fred talks about being a gay man with a disability

Danny Fred talks about being a gay man with a disability 2

Racial bias can also be problematic within the community, according to Dennis Chin, who came out while he attended the City College in New Jersey. The 29-year old said it’s even more apparent in the online dating world, where personal preferences can often isolate and segregate certain groups. Sites like Adam4Adam, Manhunt and smartphone apps like Grindr and Jackd allow users to post racial and physical preferences, with some men’s profiles advertising “no fems, no blacks, no Asians” and even “no fatties”. Chin said he was bombarded with these kinds of messages, which influenced his own personal perceptions when he first came out.

“In the early 80s and 90s and I think even now, the face of the gay movement is a white, buffed up male,” he said. “You identify with what’s available. You think of yourself as white. I didn’t think of other Asians as datable or desirable and that was really a reflection of myself.”

Chin on race in the LGBT community

Dennis Chin on race in the LGBT community

But some people aren’t surprised that gay people discriminate. The problems facing the LGBT community are just reflective of larger society, said Richard Rothstein, 65, who felt the isolation that came with the anti-Semetic rhetoric he said he grew up with during his childhood in Manhattan. Although it deeply affected him, he said, those experiences better equipped him to deal with prejudice within the gay community.

Richard Rothstein, 65, believes there’s no difference between discrimination in mainstream society and the LGBT community. Photo by Rajeev Dhir.

“I know what discrimination and being on the outside is all about,” said Rothstein. “I know what being segregated is all about. That’s going to empower me. That’s going to make me stronger in terms of dealing with now being gay.”

Rothstein, who came out at 40, overcame the challenges of living as a gay Jewish man in New York City, but still faces biases from the community at large. Ageism is rampant in the gay community, where stereotyping occurs against individuals based on their age groups. It isn’t uncommon in the gay community, he said, for younger men to be cast as submissive “twinks” or older men to be seen as “daddies”.

“My best friend is a 27-year-old straight man and when we go out we often catch heat about the sugar daddy nonsense,” he said. “Because why else would a man his age be with a man my age. It never occurs to people that we love each other, share some important common interests and have fun when we’re together.”

Rothstein on discrimination within the LGBT community

Richard Rothstein on discrimination within the LGBT community

Licensed clinical social worker Paul Hays said any oppressed minority, including the LGBT community, isn’t immune to the ills of the greater society. One way to handle that is to shun others (who aren’t part of the norm) for their differences. Being at the receiving end of discrimination of any kind, Hays said, can have a long lasting effect on someone’s emotional well being.

“You see examples of that everyday. Drug and alcohol use in our community is sky-high compared to other populations. Teen suicide, that’s what we’re hearing a lot about today,” said Hays. Treating gay people who suffer from problems like racism and other forms of discrimination, he said, comes by providing a safe and open spot to open up.

Advocacy groups like Audre Lorde Project have been working with LGBT and gender non-conforming people of color from all walks of life adjust to the realities of living in a diverse community to help fill in the gaps and provide community support.

“We are not mainstream. We are not like the big groups that do corporate service or have these support groups,” said Irma Bajar, ALP’s membership program coordinator. “So we don’t represent the Will and Grace or Ellen DeGeneres. In this particular space that ALP has created, there is no box, there is no ‘if you are a gay man that you look a certain way or your body is a certain shape’. There is none of that.”

Anthony Trocchia, 44, facilitates the Disabled Queers of New York group once a month at The Center on 13th Street. Photo by Rajeev Dhir

Rejection from the mainstream has also lead to an increased number of people reaching out to support groups for social networking. These groups often cater to niche communities, which represent a variety of racial minorities, physical abilities and personal interests. Anthony Trocchia, a 44-year old man with muscular dystrophy, started a support group for disabled gay men four years ago. Disabled Queers of New York (DQNY) offers a safe and open space for men of different abilities. Trocchia said the group has been a success, with at least a dozen members that meet once a month.

“It’s (being a gay man with a disability) is difficult,” said Trocchia, who has used a wheelchair for the last 33 years. “I wanted to create an environment where guys could meet each other.”

Gay Asian Pacific Islander Men of New York formed out of a gay men of color group in 1990 to meet the specific needs of a growing Asian and Pacific Islander community within the LGBT population of the city.

“There was a lot of discrimination in the mainstream gay clubs where black Latino and Asian folks would not be able to go into clubs and there would be regular racial bias,” said Chin, who’s the chair of GAPIMNY. “So that men of color group formed because there was this strong desire to talk about race and validate their own experiences as gay men of color.”

Although groups like DQNY and GAPIMNY provide a safe, open space for their members, some people believe they can have a harmful effect on minority groups they serve.

“Sometimes, that comes at the expense of just sectioning yourself off, rather than coming to the issue,” said Terry Purdue, 28, an African-American gay man who has also faced discrimination based on his race. “I understand being able to appreciate the black, white and Asian differences.”

Purdue said he would rather people confront prejudice rather than self-segregate, which is what Chin would like to see more of within the community.

“We need to have a conversation about how you deal with that (discrimination) in the larger context. Having conversations like ‘are you being racist?’ don’t go anywhere,” he said. But what does, Chin added, is breaking down the definitions of the stereotypical gay man. “And that has to come from within the community.”

Fred agreed, adding, breaking down those walls comes first from within. “It’s taken us years to be comfortable with ourselves,” he said. “No matter what I do, I’m always going to have this disability. I’m always going to be HIV-positive. And I can’t change that. I hope that once people get to know me, they can see past the physical form and look at the person in their heart.”

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Audience members at Riverside Church await the start of the panel discussion regarding the closing of Attica Correctional Facility. Photo by Alaia Howell

Nearly 3,000 attendees filled the pews and gazed down from balconies at Riverside Church in Morningside Heights yesterday to hear the likes of Angela Davis, Michelle Alexander, Cornel West, Marc Lamont Hill and Joseph “Jazz” Hayden publicly call for the closure of Attica Correctional Facility.

As part of the 41st anniversary of the deadliest prison riot in U.S. history—which left 39 people dead—the Correctional Association of New York coordinated yesterdays evening’s event, which included a book signing and panel discussion.

Executive Director Soffiyah Elijah of the Correctional Association of New York said, “The legacy of Attica is a blemish on New York,” and called Attica Correctional Facility “symbolic” of the nation’s prison system.

In September 1971, over 1,000 inmates at Attica Correctional Facility sparked a four-day riot in reaction to brutal living conditions of the prison. The inmates seized control of the prison in an effort to make negotiations with Gov. Nelson Rockefeller.

On Sept. 13, 1971, Rockefeller ordered the New York National Guard to regain control of the prison by opening gunfire on the prisoners, resulting in the deaths of 29 inmates and 10 hostages.

The Attica riots have since been a benchmark for discussions on civil rights and racial issues within the nation’s prison system.

As recently as last year, four prison guards at Attica were indicted on felony charges of assault against a prisoner.

Panelist Michelle Alexander, associate professor of law at Ohio State University, civil rights advocate and author of “The New Jim Crow” addressed why prisoners’ rights are relevant more than 40 years after the Attica riots occurred.

“Mass incarceration reflects a fundamental choice of how we are seen as a global citizen,” said Alexander. “In terms of capitalism and how those at the bottom will be dealt with.”

The powerhouse panel of speakers discussed a wide range of issues including solitary confinement, stop-and-frisk practices by police, and the “prison industrial complex,” a term coined to describe the rapid increase in prison populations and its relationship to socio-economic divides in the U.S.

“This started out with a discussion with me and Pam Africa for the Mumia [Abu-Jamal] book-signing, reserving a room at Riverside and hoping that we could fill up that little room,” said Marc Lamont Hill, associate professor at Columbia University and co-author of “The Classroom and the Cell: Conversations on Black Life in America.”

“Tonight is a start because it gets us in the realm of ideas,” said Hill, who during the discussion asserted that there is a “direct connection between first-class jails and second-class schools.”

Sergio Bejarano, 25, a student at Queensborough Community College and member of Students United for a Free CUNY, a multi-campus coalition of students aimed at getting quality education for the working class through free higher education, attended the event with some of his fellow organization members. They all wore red shirts to symbolize solidarity.

“The discussion tonight gave me a positive outlook on how we can create a paradigm shift,” said Bejarano. “We need to connect the dots and critically criticize the Obama administration.”

During the panel discussion, philosopher and activist, Dr. Cornel West critiqued the current diplomatic climate.

“I see political paralysis of two political parties in a tie to Wall Street and vengeful corporations,” West said. “It has been the black freedom movements and anti-racism movements that have reminded America that when America was about to go down, you either renew your democratic possibilities or you become another state of shapeless xenophobia.”

The speakers made a call-to-action for audience members to engage in the efforts against mass incarceration, particularly stressing the role of young adults in the movement.

“I think students are the movement,” said Hill. “Symbolic resistance, if it gets organized, is powerful. We can’t have an anti-prison movement without students at the center of it.”

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Claude Jay, a Harlem-based performer and business owner, acted as emcee of the Gospel Station singing and welcoming runners into the 21st mile of the race. Photo byJoann Pan

Long-distance runner and ING NYC Marathon’s top female finisher Firehiwot Dado turned onto Broadway in a blaze of red causing Harlem to come alive in the roaring of cheers and slapping of thunder sticks, welcoming the first stream of runners to the race’s homestretch.

“You can do it,” the soulful voice of Claude Jay said, rolling over the crowd’s applause. “Harlem congratulates you.”

With his mouth to the microphone, Jay’s was the first voice the athletes heard upon entering the Harlem Miles—mile markers 21 to 23.

On the corner of 135th Street and 5th Avenue, life-long singer and Harlem-based business owner Jay sang a gospel song, “Mighty Mighty Mighty God,” interrupting himself several times to cheer on the athletes.

“Congratulations. Welcome to the Harlem Miles,” Jay shouted, as Dado ran down Broadway with police escorts on motorcycles as the first woman to enter Harlem and eventually win the 2011 ING New York City Marathon.

Crowd at 135th Street in Harlem, welcome marathon runners into the race's homestretch. Photo by Joann Pan

Harlem has always had great energy and presence at the marathon, according to Jay who has been coming to this race “since they started it” in 1970.

This morning’s crowd is a mix of children, parents and the neighborhood’s senior citizens with walkers or sitting in automated wheelchairs.

“The energy is so exciting. Harlem is a big part of New York City,” he said. Crowds lined the sidewalks on 5th Avenue from 135th to 125th Streets, prepared to cheer on about 50,000 runners to follow the pack leaders.

“This is awesome,” Jay said. “This is a Gospel stage. It’s like a sermon in motion because the will and the determination you see here today. It’s an honor to welcome them into Harlem, to New York, to Manhattan.”

Jay is no runner and doesn’t have the urge to give the marathon a try, he will always be on the sidelines welcoming runners to Harlem.

“The best part of this is watching the people on the sidelines and kids respond.” he said. “People really leave here inspired.”

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Hideki Kinoshita (left) and Steve Shannon (right) pose for pictures for fellow runners on their way to board the Staten Island Ferry to reach the start of the 2011 ING New York City Marathon. Photo by Eric Zerkel

With an estimated 50,000-registered runners, blending in at the New York City Marathon is far too easy. Ordinary runners don sneakers and other athletic garb with the extraordinary hope of completing the 26.2-mile feat. But ordinary just isn’t the Marathon Maniacs.

Surrounded by thousands of other prospective runners waiting to board the Staten Island Ferry to reach the start of the race, the small, close-knit group of five runners stood clad head to toe in superhero costumes.

This makeshift league of justice doesn’t jump tall buildings in a single bound, or even save heroines in distress, but accomplishes an even more incredible feat, running marathons—lots of them.

Take Hideki Kinoshita of Leonia, N.J., for instance, also identified by his costume as Thor. The 32-year-old’s resume could stretch nearly the length of the course. Kinoshita has run in 78 marathons just in the past three years, and the 2011 ING New York City Marathon – his third New York City Marathon – will mark his 30th marathon of this year alone.

“I’ve been running marathons every week, consecutively, since August,” Kinoshita said. “My goal is to run 100 marathons and at least one marathon in all 50 states. It’s just one big party that lasts for four or five hours. It’s addicting.”

But Kinioshita isn’t the only one with this running affliction. In fact, Kinoshita’s resume pales in comparison to some of the other members of Marathon Maniacs.

The club features a tiered membership, which, at the lowest level, requires the completion of two marathons within 16 days, and stretches to “titanium level,” which requires a modest 52 marathons over a year span.

The members who run the most marathons in a one-year span, are dubbed, “Maniac of the Year,” with last year’s winners completing 106 marathons, or 2,777.2 miles.

Kinoshita said the club has over 4,500 members and has allowed him to meet individuals scattered across the country.

“We travel all over the country together,” said Kinoshita. “I’ve found hundreds of friends through the Maniacs. It’s been great.”

One such friend is David Shannon, 53, of Shoreview, MN., who sported a custom tailored Mr. Incredible suit. Kinoshita and Shannon met last October, during the New Port Amica Breakers Marathon in New Port, RI.

And while Shannon has gone at a slower pace than Kinoshita, racking up 49 marathons since his first in 1998, he says the group of marathon pros has to find ways to switch things up.

“I said, what the heck, I’ve run 49 marathons and I’ve never ran one dressed in costume,” Shannon said. “I’m young, well at least I’d like to think I am, and I’m only going to live once, so I went for it.”

Despite their antics and endless accolades the Maniacs know exactly what keeps them running back for more.

“Crossing the finish line is pretty sweet,” Shannon said. “But it’s not really about the destination; it’s about the journey. Absorbing the crowds and the energy from all the people around you, that’s what it’s all about.”

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