RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/linda-thomas-greenfields-reckless-moral-equivalency/

Does Linda Thomas-Greenfield understand the purpose of, and duties associated with, her position as United States ambassador to the United Nations? I’m sure she has her own conception of the job, and it’s her right to act on the basis of that conception; she’s the one who’s been selected for and confirmed to the role. But judging from her recent comments made while addressing Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, I don’t think that conception bears much resemblance to that which Americans have of her mission:

Of course, when we raise issues of equity and justice at the global scale, we have to approach them with humility. We have to acknowledge that we are an imperfect union and have been since the beginning. And every day we strive to make ourselves more perfect and more just. In a diverse country like ours, that means committing to do the work. It means learning and understanding more about each other. It means engaging trailblazing groups like yours, to teach, to grow, to include, to improve. It means not forgetting our past or ignoring our present, but keeping both firmly in mind as we push for a better future. I tried to do this recently in the U.N. General Assembly when I spoke on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Thomas-Greenfield shared a few moving examples of the horror that she and other African Americans experienced in the Jim Crow South before going on:

I’ve seen for myself how the original sin of slavery weaved  white supremacy into our founding documents and principles . . .

. . . Racism is not the problem of the racist. And it is the problem of the society that produces the racist. And in today’s world, that’s every society. In America, that takes many forms. It’s the white supremacy that led to the senseless killing of George Floyd. Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many other black Americans. It’s the spike in hate crimes over the past three years against Latino Americans, Sikh, Muslim Americans, Jewish Americans,  and immigrants. And it’s the bullying, discrimination, brutality, and violence that Asian Americans face every day,  especially since the outbreak of COVID-19. That’s why the Biden-Harris administration has made racial equity a top priority across the entire government. And I’m making it a real focus of my tenure at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17287/fashion-brands-forced-labor-china

The suit accuses Spain-based Inditex (whose brands include Zara, Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Oysho, Pull and Bear and Stradivarius), France-based SMCP (comprised of Parisian brands, Sandro, Maje, Claudie Pierlot and De Fursac), U.S.-based footwear company Skechers, and the U.S. subsidiary of the Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo, of being “accomplices in serious crimes,” including “concealment of the crime of forced labor, the crime of organized human trafficking, the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity.”

The plaintiffs are asking the French judiciary to rule on the “possible criminal liability” of the companies. The stated aim is to “end impunity” for the brands, which are accused of “offloading on their subcontractors their responsibility for human rights.”

“In fact, many companies in the sector are likely, at one stage or another of their production, to profit, consciously or not, from the coercive policy pursued by Beijing towards the Turkic peoples, whether in Xinjiang or in factories in other regions of China where Uyghur workers are sent.” — French newspaper Liberation.

“China’s systematic campaign against the Uyghur population is characterized by mass detention, forced labor, and discriminatory laws, and supported through high-tech manners of surveillance. There are reasonable grounds to believe that China is responsible for crimes against humanity. It is important to recall that crimes against humanity were born out of the experience of the Holocaust and first were prosecuted at Nuremberg. Every government has committed to protect their populations from crimes against humanity.” — Naomi Kikoler, Director, Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Four major European and American apparel and footwear manufacturers have been sued in a French court for allegedly using forced labor in Xinjiang, a mostly Muslim region in northwestern China.

Human rights groups, academic researchers and journalists have increasingly been sounding the alarm that the Chinese government is forcing more than 500,000 Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic and religious minorities to pick cotton in Xinjiang, one of the largest cotton-producing regions in the world.

On April 9, the European Uyghur Institute, in collaboration with a French human rights NGO called Sherpa, the Ethics on Labels Collective (Collectif Ethique sur l’étiquette), and a Uyghur detention camp survivor, all represented by Bourdon & Associés, a prestigious Paris-based law firm, filed the lawsuit at the Judicial Court of Paris (Tribunal judiciaire de Paris).