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CSUSB professor comments on research on earliest inhabitants of North America
NBC News
July 22, 2020
Anthropologist Matthew Des Lauriers of California State University, San Bernardino, commented on new research that suggests people first entered the North American continent much earlier than previously thought.
Pieces of limestone from a cave in Mexico may be the oldest human tools ever found in the Americas, and suggest people first entered the continent up to 33,000 years ago.
The findings, published Wednesday in two papers in the journal Nature, which include the discovery of the stone tools, challenge the idea that people first entered North America on a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska and an ice-free corridor to the interior of the continent.
Des Lauriers, who was not involved in the studies, said they “pushed the boundaries” of knowledge about the earliest human arrival in the Americas.
But he questioned how ancient people who had been in the Americas for more than 25,000 years could have remained “archaeologically invisible” for over 10,000 years.
He said that archaeologists in Australia and Japan, for example, had no difficulty finding evidence of human occupation from that time.
“Archaeologists in the Americas have either been doing things very wrong for the last 90 years, or we have here [an] anomaly that must be accounted for,” he said.
Read the complete article at “Ancient stone tools suggest first people arrived in America earlier than thought.”
CSUSB professor interviewed about vandalism at Sacramento Black church and other hate crimes
The Sacramento Bee
July 22, 2020
Brian Levin, director of CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, was quoted in an article about the FBI investigating vandalism at a Sacramento Black church after a series of hate crimes in the Sacramento region. A parishioner at Murph-Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a predominantly Black, 126-member church in North Highlands that was holding a drive-in church service outside because of COVID-19, found racial slurs, including “Kill ‘em all” and “KKK,” carved into the rooftop air conditioning unit.
The California Department of Justice reported 66 hate crime events against houses of worship in 2019, and one scholar says incidents at houses of worship are simply not unusual anymore.
“Unfortunately, churches routinely get targeted, and especially with regard to the African-American community,” said Levin.
But he added that he has seen anecdotal evidence so far this year of hate crimes against Asian Americans because of coronavirus, as well as against Black citizens. And, Levin said, things likely will get worse in coming months because of the political calendar.
“In most places, hate crime is down the first half of this year,” Levin said. “But in election years we routinely see spikes in the second half of the year.
“When we see periods of racial division in an election year, we often see spikes. We’re still waiting for data, but we’ve had a sharp increase in many places of anti-Asian hate crimes, and what I’m hoping is that is not going to be a harbinger of hate crimes against others.”
Read the complete article at “FBI launches vandalism investigation at Sacramento Black church after series of hate crimes.”
CSUSB professor and other experts fear violence will mar November election
Newsy
July 22. 2020
White supremacist and nationalist groups pose the greatest threat, spurred by a summer of protests, some experts say.
Analysts on extremism don’t often speculate, but these days they’re warning the election in November could be marred by violence.
"Election years have been times when we've seen a spike in hate crimes, a spike in hate speech, and also a clustering of extremist activity and plots around election time," says Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino.
According to the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism, hate crimes have increased in every election year since 1992.
See the online video report and transcript at “Extremism experts fear violence will mar November election.”
CSUSB professor joined panel discussing ‘Equity in Remote Education’
The Chronicle of Higher Education
July 22, 2020
Before she hosted the panel discussion, Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer for the higher education website, included in her column an item about the webinar “Equity in Remote Education” that included Enrique Murillo Jr., CSUSB professor of education and executive director of Latino Education and Advocacy Days.
The July 22 webinar, livestreamed on Zoom, can be viewed on demand at "Virtual Forum: Equity in Remote Education."
CSUSB professor comments on Iran and Iraq suing U.S. over assassination of Iranian military leader in January
Press TV
July 21, 2020
David Yaghoubian, CSUSB professor of history, was interviewed for a segment on Iraq and Iran announcing that they will sue the United States for the assassination of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and the deputy head of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in Baghdad on Jan. 3.
Yaghoubian said that both nations indicated soon after the attack that they would pursue action through the international judicial system as well as in each nation’s domestic courts. The Trump administration had said it launched the attack because of an imminent threat against the U.S.
“This joint statement of collective action in the international criminal court, coming on the heels of just a little over a week after Agnes Callamard, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, (released) a very harsh report that really left the United States no room for euphemisms or other malarkey, essentially calling out the United States for having absolutely no evidence to support the idea that there was some kind of imminent threat,” Yaghoubian said. “I believe that even though, again, the court process is lengthy, this is going to be a very strong case that is going to be buttressed by the fact that it is being put forward by two member nations who signed on to the original Rome protocol in 1998, which brought the international criminal court to bear in 2002.”
See the video of the interview at “Iraq to sue US for ‘criminal act on its soil.’”
CSUSB professor emeritus writes, ‘If not Abiy Ahmed, then who? I stand by Ethiopia and Abiy Ahmed!’
ECDAF Ethiopian News & Views
July 20, 2020
Alemayehu G. Mariam, CSUSB professor emeritus, political science, wrote in an opinion column: “Today, we live in a time of universal deceit.
“Many Ethiopians in the country and in the diaspora, and particularly the so-called elites sporting an alphabet soup of acronyms after their names, are living comfortably in self-deceit.
“So, I am going to engage in a revolutionary act by asking – and throwing the gauntlet to one and all — one simple question which demands a declaration of the truth: If Abiy Ahmed is not to lead Ethiopia today, who will?”
Read the complete article at “If not Abiy Ahmed, then who? I stand by Ethiopia and Abiy Ahmed!”
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