Page 20 - Florida Sentinel 11-6-18

National
In Echo Of Flint, Michigan Water Crisis Now Hits Newark
Yoga Shooter Was A Far-Right Misogynist Who Railed Against Women And Minorities Online
NEWARK — For nearly a year and a half, top officials in Newark denied that their water system had a wide- spread lead problem, despite ample evidence that the city was facing a public health cri- sis that had echoes of the one in Flint, Mich.
Even as the risk persisted in the spring, the officials in Newark, New Jersey’s most populous city, took few pre- cautionary measures, instead declaring on their website, “NEWARK’S WATER IS AB- SOLUTELY SAFE TO DRINK.”
But this month, facing re- sults from a new study, the officials abruptly changed course, beginning an urgent giveaway of 40,000 water fil- ters across the city of 285,000 people, targeting tens of thousands of resi- dences.
The revelation that Newark is facing a poten- tially widening public health crisis over tap water has an- gered many residents and raised questions about whether the city’s negligence has placed young children at risk.
Officials were finally com- pelled to act after an engi- neering study commissioned by the city found that meas-
Shana Gilbert and her daughter, Malaysa Ingram, received water filters at Paradise Baptist Church in Newark this month. The filters were distributed free because of elevated lead levels in the city’s water.
SCOTT BEIERLE
The yoga studio where the shoot- ing took place.
ures to prevent lead from leaching into drinking water were failing at one of Newark’s two treatment plants.
State officials are warning that children under 6 in homes with lead pipes served by the plant should not drink unfiltered tap water.
Concerns over lead in tap water have been heightened since the crisis in Flint, where dangerous levels of lead in improperly treated water led to criminal indictments against local and state offi- cials and left residents relying
on free bottled water. Like Flint, Newark has a large black population and a high poverty rate.
“The parallels to Flint are fairly clear: The city was denying a problem even though its own data was showing problems,” said Erik Olson, a top official at the Natural Resources De- fense Council, which filed a lawsuit against Newark in the summer, accusing it of violat- ing federal safe drinking water laws. “Newark is not as extreme as Flint but still a se- rious problem.”
The man who shot and killed two women at a yoga studio in Tallahassee, Florida, on Friday before killing him- self was a far-right extremist and self-proclaimed misogy- nist who railed against women, black people, and im- migrants in a series of online videos and songs.
Scott Beierle, 40, was named by Tallahassee police as the shooter who opened fire inside the Hot Yoga Tal- lahassee studio, killing two women, and injuring four other women and a man.
Those killed were identi- fied as Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, who worked at Florida State University’s College of Medicine, and FSU student Maura Binkley, 21.
On a YouTube channel in 2014, Beierle filmed several videos of himself offering ex- tremely racist and misogynis- tic opinions, in which he called women “sluts” and “whores,” and lamented “the collective treachery” of girls he had gone to high school with.
“There are whores in — not only every city, not only every town, but every village,” he said, referring to women in interracial relationships, whom he said had betrayed “their blood.”
Officer Damon Miller
of the Tallahassee Police De- partment said he could not tell BuzzFeed News whether women were specifically tar- geted in the attack or whether the online posts were a sub- ject of the police investigation into the attack.
“Everything that he has a connection to we’re investi- gating right now,” Miller said.
Police said they were still
trying to identify a motive, but noted Beierle had previ- ously been investigated for harassing women.
In one video called “Plight of the Adolescent Male,” Beierle named Elliot Rodger, who killed six peo- ple and injured 14 in a shoot- ing in Isla Vista, California. Rodger is often seen as a hero for so-called incels, or those who consider them- selves “involuntarily celi- bate.”
“I’d like to send a message now to the adolescent males ... that are in the position, the situation, the disposition of Elliot Rodger, of not get- ting any, no love, no nothing. This endless wasteland that breeds this longing and this frustration. That was me, cer- tainly, as an adolescent,” Beierle said.
This is the second deadly attack this year in which Rodger has been mentioned by the suspected assailant. A man who wrote anti-women references on his Facebook account allegedly killed 10 people in April when he drove his van into a crowd in Toronto. “The Incel Rebellion has already begun!” that sus- pect, Alek Minassian, wrote on Facebook before the attack in a post that also men- tioned “the Supreme Gentle- man Elliot Rodger!”
Some in the incel commu- nity have previously raged against women wearing yoga pants.
Another of Beierle’s 2014 videos was titled “The Rebirth of my Misogynism,” and fea- tured him listing the names of women — from eighth grade until his time in the Army — whom he said caused his “re- birth.”
Google Employees Stage
Walkouts To Protest Company’s
Social media is filled with the spectacle of thousands of Google employees standing outside the company’s offices in Dublin, London, Zurich and Singapore. The protes- tors are demanding changes in how the company handles sexual harassment com- plaints in the wake of a New York Times article revealing that two senior executives who were accused of miscon- duct were seemingly re- warded with exit packages worth millions of dollars while a third remained in a highly compensated job.
Google employees called for an end to forced arbitra- tion in cases of harassment and discrimination and a clear, uniform process for re- porting sexual misconduct
Employees staged walkouts at offices around the globe to protest the company’s handling of sexual harassment claims.
Handling Of Harassment
safely and anonymously. They demanded Google com- mit to end pay inequity, a long festering issue at the company that led to a gender bias suit. The protestors also called for publication of a sexual harassment trans-
parency report.
In an effort to elevate the
issue, protestors said Google’s chief diversity offi- cer should report directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and make recommendations to the board of directors.
PAGE 20 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2018