“Political Violence” From the RNC to Gaza
Among the themes at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee was “,” an apparent reference to “supporting law enforcement, border security and battling human and drug trafficking.” According to a from the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, the former president plans to stop “the endless crime spree and drug flow that plague America.” This, in spite of the fact that crime levels have since the 1990s.
The RNC, occurring just days after Trump survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, did not address gun violence from young, white, disaffected Republican men, who commit the vast majority of mass shootings in this country. Trump’s suspected attempted assassin was a who used a legally obtained AR-15 rifle. Data shows .
Kamau Franklin, founder of Community Movement Builders, recently co-wrote a story for ý called “In Atlanta, Police Violence Ties Together Protests for Gaza, Stop Cop City.” He spoke with ý Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on ý Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about what it takes to truthfully address issues of violence and safety.
Sonali Kolhatkar
joined ý in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of ý Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 of the same name.
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