October 23: Shortly before 8 a.m., police were dispatched to a Wrightstown Township home for the report of a disturbance. As a result of the investigation, a woman was charged with ethnic intimidation and criminal mischief (damage to property).

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A bill to broaden protections for LGBTQ+ people passed the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives on Tuesday - the first to advance this far after yearslong efforts by Democrats - though it faces strong headwinds in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The bill passed 102-98 in the House where Democrats have a razor-thin majority, becoming the first of its kind to see a floor vote. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said he supports it.

Similar legislation - long supported by LGBTQ+ advocates, and even a priority of former Gov. Tom Wolf - has failed to get a floor vote in either chamber, despite clearing committee years ago.

Under the bill, it would be illegal to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people in housing, workplaces and public services.

The legislation would add the categories "sexual orientation, gender identity or expression" to a law that empowers the state Human Relations Commission to investigate complaints of discrimination because of someone's race, sex, religion, age or disability. The commission can impose civil penalties, such as back pay or damages.

Do schools officials treat students of color differently? Data, especially surrounding school discipline, suggests some students are treated differently in local schools, and that could be purposeful or unconscious bias.

The nonprofit Center for Public Integrity joined with the USA Today Network to analyze more than 230,000 cases in which law enforcement was called upon to handle a student. Researchers used the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Education and found that the consequences of school policing disproportionately fall on students with disabilities and Black children.

Consider just a few of the numbers:

• Pennsbury School District is 6% Black. Yet 19% of out-of-school suspensions were Black students, according to records from the 2017 school year, the latest figures available.
• In the New Hope-Solebury School District, Hispanics account for less than 6% of students, records show. Yet one in four students who received an out-of-school suspension in the 2017-18 school year was Hispanic. Of three cases involving police, two were Hispanic students.
• In Bensalem, Black students account for 12% of the student body and 27% of out-of-school suspensions.
• In the Quakertown Area School District, 10% of cases referred to police were Black students, though Black students make up just 2% of the students.

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In Pennsylvania, 734 of 1,540 law enforcement agencies reported a total of 81 hate crimes. Among the reported incidents, 59 were race, ethnicity or ancestry related.

The number of reported hate crimes in our state increased last year compared with 2019, when 45 hate crimes were reported.

Here's a look at what 2020 data revealed about why victims of hate crimes were targeted in Pennsylvania:

• Race/ethnicity/ancestry: 59
• Religion: 13
• Sexual orientation: 4
• Multiple biases: 3
• Gender identity: 2

Most Prevalent Bias Type:

• Anti-Black or African American: 29
• Anti-other race, ethnicity or ancestry: 13
• Anti-Jewish: 11
• Anti-Asian: 8
• Anti-White: 4
• Others: 16

See the full 2020 data report for Pennsylvania; https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crime/hate-crime

In a comment made at the September 8, 2021, Board of Supervisors meeting, Newtown Grant resident John D’Aprile, was of the opinion that the township should not spend money on hybrid meetings so that “lazy” residents can attend. “Why should we cater to someone who is lazy and does not want to come to meetings?,” quipped Mr. D’Aprile.

In my opinion, Mr. D’Aprile’s comments are an insult to residents who are NOT lazy such as the elderly, the handicapped, and anyone susceptible to COVID infections.

UPDATE (9/22/21): Video Gold submitted more detailed proposals/quotes for various options to implement hybrid public meetings via Zoom, Youtube etc. (view the proposals/quotes). At the September 22, 2021, BOS meeting, supervisor Kyle Davis requested that the township get more details about the equipment needed. No further action was taken. Background: "Residents Say YES To Hybrid In-Person/Online Public Meetings."

On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s historic Emancipation Proclamation, U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3, which informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now free. Granger commanded the Headquarters District of Texas, and his troops had arrived in Galveston the previous day.

General Order No. 3, issued by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, June 19, 1865. The order was written in a volume beginning on one page and continuing to the next. (RG 393, Part II, Entry 5543, District of Texas, General Orders Issued)

This day has come to be known as Juneteenth, a combination of June and 19th. It is also called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, and it is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

The official handwritten record of General Order No. 3, is preserved at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.

General Order No. 3 states:

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

While the order was critical to expanding freedom to enslaved people, the racist language used in the last sentences foreshadowed that the fight for equal rights would continue.

After word got around that Bucks County Community College would be hosting a talk by a “practicing homosexual” on May 9, 1968, the school’s president, Charles E. Rollins, received 100 complaints and decided to cancel the engagement three hours before it was to start.

As many as 200 students promptly held a demonstration that made headlines in college and local newspapers. They also made history a full year before the Stonewall riots launched the modern LGBTQ rights movement and eclipsed most of the pathbreaking events and organizations that preceded it.

Named for a mob-owned Greenwich Village bar that was frequently raided by police, the Stonewall uprising — with two fabulously fierce transgender women of color named Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson as key players — began on June 28, 1969, and continued for six days. StonewalI energized, focused, and intensified the movement and ultimately gave birth to Pride Month.

“High-profile protests like Stonewall don’t come out of nowhere,” said the historian and author Marc Stein, who brought the forgotten Bucks County incident to light with the help of Monica Kuna, director of library services at the college in Newtown, Pa.

Lesbians, gay men, and transgender people “had been swept under the rug, but by the late Sixties the issue was coming in to the public consciousness,” said Daniel Brooks, the founder of New Hope Celebrates, an organization that promotes LGBTQ businesses as well as Pride Month activities in and around New Hope. The artsy tourist destination, located 10 miles north of Newtown, has long had a vibrant gay presence. Brooks also heads up the New Hope Celebrates History project, which is raising money for a documentary film that will tell the story of the local LGBTQ community.

As the 52nd anniversary of the Stonewall riots approach, it’s important the Bucks County event be remembered, said Bob Skiba, the curator of collections in the LGBTQ archives at the William Way center in Philadelphia, “because it ties what was going on in gay activism in 1968 with what was going on with antiwar, civil rights, and feminist activism” on and off campus across the country.

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The Neshaminy School District's "Redskins" moniker and former mascot does not violate a Pennsylvania law that prohibits discrimination, a state appeals court has ruled.

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania on Monday overturned a decision by the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. Many groups and individuals consider the nickname to be racist, offensive and hurtful due to its history and origins.

The PHRC previously said Neshaminy could continue using the word Redskins so long as it also provided education regarding its "negative and positive attributes."

Among them, it is associated with the practice of scalping. For a time, the U.S. government paid monetary rewards for killing Native Americans and providing scalps as evidence.

The PHRC, in a ruling in November 2019, also also directed that the school district cease using “any and all logos and imagery in the Neshaminy High School that negatively stereotype Native Americans.”

The district appealed the decision, in part, saying it had received no clear guidance from the PHRC on what specific images it considers stereotypical or what curriculum changes need to be made regarding Native American education.

A century ago, a prosperous Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Okla., perished at the hands of a violent white mob.

Imagine a community of great possibilities and prosperity built by Black people for Black people. Places to work. Places to live. Places to learn and shop and play. Places to worship.

Now imagine it being ravaged by flames.

In May 1921, the Tulsa, Okla., neighborhood of Greenwood was a fully realized antidote to the racial oppression of the time. Built in the early part of the century in a northern pocket of the city, it was a thriving community of commerce and family life to its roughly 10,000 residents.

Hundreds of Greenwood residents were brutally killed, their homes and businesses wiped out. They were casualties of a furious and heavily armed white mob of looters and arsonists. One factor that drove the violence: resentment toward the Black prosperity found in block after block of Greenwood.

The financial toll of the massacre is evident in the $1.8 million in property loss claims — $27 million in today’s dollars — detailed in a 2001 state commission report.  For two decades, the report has been one of the most comprehensive accounts to reveal the horrific details of the massacre — among the worst racial terror attacks in the nation’s history — as well as the government’s culpability.

The destruction of property is only one piece of the financial devastation that the massacre wrought. Much bigger is a sobering kind of inheritance: the incalculable and enduring loss of what could have been, and the generational wealth that might have shaped and secured the fortunes of Black children and grandchildren.

“What if we had been allowed to maintain our family business?” asked Brenda Nails-Alford, who is in her early 60s. The Greenwood Avenue shoe shop of her grandfather and his brother was destroyed. “If they had been allowed to carry on that legacy,” she said, “there’s no telling where we could be now.”

On May 4, 2021, Doylestown Township passed a resolution that designates June 19th, as "Juneteenth Freedom Day" (read “Doylestown Township Passes Juneteenth Freedom Day Resolution”). This is in recognition of date in 1865 that Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas and enforced President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation order, freeing the slaves in Texas two and a half years after it was first decreed.

I was told by Kevin Antoine, Chief Diversity Equity Inclusion Officer at Bucks County Community College and Chair of the Newtown Township Human relations Commission, that down south where he grew up, he and other black people celebrated June 19th as their equivalent of the 4th of July.

On June 19, 2019, PA Governor Wolf signed legislation that designates June 19 as “Juneteenth National Freedom Day” in Pennsylvania. So why the Doylestown resolution?

Most importantly, the Doylestown resolution offers a bit of local history. It states, for example, that the last people legally enslaved in Bucks County were freed from slavery in Doylestown Township in 1824 only to be transitioned into “indentured servitude for decades longer.”

Questions
This was a bit of history I did not know about until I read the resolution. But I had questions: Were slaves “freed” in other townships prior to and after 1824? Who owned slaves in Bucks County? Where did they live in Bucks County? How many slaves did they own?

Find some answers here...

Racial bias in traffic stops has been a focus of researchers and civil rights advocates for years. At Stanford University’s Open Policing Project, researchers analyzing more than 100 million traffic stops around the country found persistent racial disparities, with Black and Hispanic drivers more likely to be stopped and more likely to be searched. Collectively, officers found contraband at a lower rate among those searches than in searches of white drivers.

Traffic stops also have the potential to escalate, like the case of Mr. Wright, who was shot by a police officer after he got back into his car as the police tried to arrest him for an unrelated warrant. The officer, Kimberly A. Potter, who had shouted that she was preparing to use her Taser, resigned and was charged with second-degree manslaughter.

Paige Fernandez, a policing policy advocate at the American Civil Liberties Union, said low-level infractions such as expired registrations and air fresheners on mirrors should not be handled by armed police officers.

“The danger that police traffic stops pose greatly outweighs any benefit of having them engage in that,” Ms. Fernandez said.

“Even if you are polite, calm, even college-educated, the bottom line is that at the end of the day you are still Black,” Mr. Taylor said. “That’s all the cop sees and stereotypes.”

The news from Atlanta was shocking, although it shouldn't have been. Hate crimes against Asian Americans have been rising ever since some leaders decided to call COVID-19 a "Chinese virus" - or worse. Between 2019 and 2020, anti- Asian hate crimes reported to police rose by 149%, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

Many incidents don't end in violence so they don't get reported at all. It's reported that 31% of Asian adults in the U.S. say they've faced ethnic slurs or jokes since the beginning of the COVID- 19 pandemic, according to a Pew Research Center survey from July of 2020.

So, what can we in Bucks County do to ensure we're a united community where everyone feels safe and valued? How can we make sure our county thrives not despite but because of our diversity?

First, there's been a lot of discussion lately about what Bucks County schools should teach about diversity, particularly racial and ethnic diversity. Students of color feeling like they are always "othered," dealing with hate-based social media attacks and rarely seeing themselves in the curricula.

Second, we must ensure that everyone in Bucks County feels safe and protected by law enforcement. Equal protection of the law is a bedrock value of American democracy and is essential to thriving as a diverse county.

With sheriff, district attorney and judgeship elections right around the corner, ask the candidates what they will do to ensure equal protection. How will they ensure equal treatment in arrests and bail? Will they advance innovative ways to deal with mental health crises? What is their perspective on use of force, and how can we ensure it is a last resort everywhere in Bucks County?

There were eight incidents of extremism and anti-Semitism in Bucks County in 2019, according to information recently provided by the Anti-Defamation League.

The occurrences in Bucks County were among the 4,015 examples of extremist and anti-Semitic incidents that happened nationwide in 2019. The figure reported for 2019 is up almost 32 percent from the 3,052 incidents reported in 2018, according to the ADL.

Here are the Bucks County incidents the non-governmental organization included in its registry:

Incident type: Anti-Semitic Incident - Harassment

Location: Newtown

• Date: May 2019
• Description: Jewish high school student victim of ongoing anti-Semitic harassment at school
• Incident type: Anti-Semitic Incident - Vandalism

Location: Newtown

• Date: May 2019
• Description: Swastikas were spray-painted on the road at Tyler State Park

View the video archive...

The nonprofit Public Citizens for Children and Youth has used publicly available data supplied by schools and law enforcement agencies to assess racial equity in Philadelphia's suburban districts.

None got a passing grade.

School districts are failing to properly educate Black and Hispanic students, and often discipline minority students more harshly as compared to white children and teens, the report found.

Black students, on average, score 22% lower in reading and 27% lower in math assessments in the Philadelphia suburbs. Hispanic students, on average, score 16% lower in reading and 19% lower in math assessments in those schools.

Students in Pennsylvania are among the most likely in the nation to be arrested, and educators are more likely to involve police when the student is Black or brown, according to an analysis of more than 2,400 law enforcement related incidents clocked by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

The report found that in 92% of the suburban districts, fewer Black and Hispanic students are enrolled in AP classes than one would expect, and fewer Black and Hispanic students access career and technical education programs.

The passage of the Equality Act by the House has cleared one if its two major hurdles. The next, passing the Senate, will require a herculean effort by LGBTQ+ proponents and senators alike.

The Equality Act extends anti-discrimination laws to protect LGBTQ+ individuals, prohibiting "discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment, housing, credit, and the jury system."

Specifically, the bill defines and includes sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity among the prohibited categories of discrimination or segregation.

The Equality Act amends the 1964 Civil Rights Act to allow the Department of Justice to intervene in equal protection actions in federal court on account of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The bill prohibits an individual from being denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual's gender identity.

[For more details about the Equality Act, listen to the comments made by Kevin Antoine - Chief Diversity Equity Inclusion Officer at Bucks County Community College – at the March 11, 2021, Commemoration of the passage of Newtown’s LOVE is LOVE Resolution]

While the House passed the bill, the legislation now faces a steep uphill climb in the Senate, where some prominent members, include Maine Sen. Susan Collins, are on record as opposing the Equality Act in its present home.

Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said he will vote to pass the bill, however.

"The Equality Act puts into law a simple yet vitally important principle: that no person should be discriminated against at work, in public education, in housing, in jury service, at restaurants or other places of public accommodation because they are LGBTQ+," Casey said. "Our LGBTQ+ friends and neighbors deserve equal protection under the law and, as a cosponsor, I look forward to voting in favor of the Equality Act when it comes before the Senate.”

Marlene Pray, director of The Rainbow Room In Doylestown, which also serves as Planned Parenthood’s Bucks County LGBTQ+ & Allies youth center, said "it's about damned time," and that in 2021, people should have the right to go about their daily lives without fear of discrimination, or worse.

Pray also said the youths she works with experienced a higher frequency of profiling for their identity or perceived identity, resulting in everything from loss of wages to outright assault.

"The message [this vote] sends is that you have value, you are loved, you can have a life, can be the one you love and can exist in public with freedom; it is incredibly meaningful," Pray said. "So many young people I have worked with over the years have lost jobs and had to keep their LGBTQ+ secret out of fears at work. And add to the number of Black LGBTQ+ youth and these problems become greatly magnified.

"This is commonsense legislation, and it only makes sense to update our Civil Rights Act to protect LBGTQ+."

We must examine our own attitudes and recognize where we must change the way we think. We must perform acts of personal courage and acts of kindness. We must speak out whenever we see injustice. And we must examine our institutions, whether our criminal justice system, our schools, or the laws that govern us, and identify where we must make changes.

Examining our criminal justice system with a critical eye does not make us any less supportive of those who serve in it with honor and a devotion to public safety.

On the contrary, leaving this responsibility to future generations does those who put themselves at personal risk to keep us safe a disservice and dishonor no matter how cynically the omission may be portrayed as a test of loyalty.

Examining our schools does not mean that we adopt a view of history that is as biased against the good as it has been against the injustice that has been allowed. But it does require us to be honest about our past and our present so that the next generation is better prepared to face the challenges of the future.

Examining our laws is not an invitation to absolve anyone of personal responsibility or create one set of injustices to wash away another. But it is an opportunity to create a society in which equality is more than an Enlightenment goal.

I cannot accept that we have come this far only to fail at this moment. Imperfect as we have been, America has played a crucial role in the march of democracy and freedom in the world. We have more yet to do. Before we can do it, however, we must at long last heal ourselves.

Toward that end, on Thursday evening, more than 5,000 people came to the Garden of Reflection in Lower Makefield, staying in their cars as they drove through to observe a vigil against racism, violence and injustice.

It was a powerful display of solidarity and a moment that could not help but restore our faith in the goodness of people. Alone, however, it was not enough. Now we must undertake the hard work of healing the wounds of our past and present.

What can you do? Join the Bucks NAACP (all are welcome). Reach out to the Peace Center and take one of the action pledges that we have proposed. But above all else, get involved and make a difference.

The Newtown Township Supervisors voted unanimously July 11, to approve a settlement with Adams Bickle Associates, a Royersford contractor the township hired to install turf at Veterans Park in 2012.

Back then, township inspectors became unsatisfied with the work that was done at the park and subsequently withheld $158,000 in payments to the contractor.

In the settlement with Adams Bickle, the contractor agreed to accept $122,000 as payment in full and both parties agreed to pay their own legal fees. According to outgoing Township Manager Kurt Ferguson, the township spent the difference paying another contractor to finish the work not completed by Adams Bickle.

In other news, the supervisors voted 3-1 to spend more than $21,000 to replace the microphone system at the Public Administration Building’s meeting room. Board member Kyle Davis voted against the plan that would see more than $13,000 paid to Horizon Information Services for new mics and over $8,000 to Video Gold Productions for installation.

The supervisors also voted 4-0 to appoint Micah Lewis as interim township manager after Ferguson’s departure on July 13. Lewis has been the township’s assistant manager since 2015. While Ferguson accepted a job as township manager in Lower Makefield, he has agreed to work as a consultant to Newtown, at least through the remainder of the 2018 fiscal year.

Meanwhile, Secretary/Assistant Treasurer John Mack wants residents to be aware of a public meeting being hosted by the EPA at Hatboro-Horsham High School from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. July 25. Workshops will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with discussion to follow.

The subject matter is perfluorinated compounds or PFAs.

“Our neighbors in Horsham, Warminster and Warrington had some of the highest levels, nationwide, of PFAs – which have been found to be toxic – in their drinking water.

“Newtown Artesian Water Company says it follows state and federal guidelines for acceptable levels of these chemicals. But there’s controversy over what is and what is not an acceptable level and the role that the EPA plays in determining that level.”

Mack is also pressing the board to draft an anti-discrimination ordinance that would extend protections against discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodation regardless of race, color, gender, religion, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, veteran status and mental or physical disability.

Pennsylvania is the only state in the Northeast that does not extend those protections based on sexual orientation and gender identification. Yardley recently became the fifth municipality in Bucks County to approve such legislation. Doylestown, New Hope and Bristol also have passed anti-discrimination bills.