Viral News Today

Starbucks bans employees from wearing anything in support of Black Lives Matter An internal memo sent to Starbucks employees last week specifically warned staffers against wearing accessories or clothes bearing messages in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The memo, obtained by BuzzFeed News, reminds staffers that such messages are prohibited under the company's policy against accessories that "advocated a political, religious or personal issue." Numerous employees told the news outlet, however, that the company regularly allows or even encourages employees to wear pins in support of LGBTQ equality, especially during Pride Month every June. "Starbucks LGBTQ+ partners wear LGBTQ+ pins and shirts, that also could incite and create violent experiences amongst partners and customers," one black transgender employee of the coffee chain told BuzzFeed. “We have partners who experienced harassment and transphobia/homophobia for wearing t...

“That’s America tonight, totally cool,” Carlson doubled-down on Wednesday on BLM-led or inspired protests, saying that “racist lunatics with semiautomatic weapons” want a new “segregation” in the county. This comes on the same day that Carlson made an exit of his own and left the Daily Caller. After co-founding the conservative digital outlet a decade ago, Carlson had his one-third stake bought out in recent days, supposedly to free him to focus on his four-year-old FNC show Having said that, the fiscal year ends June 30, so we have no overall data yet on how Carlson’s show has or has not be hit by any advertisers exiting. However, beyond the boardroom politics, if past advertiser boycotts of Carlson and other FNC shows are an indication and and past record bottom lines for FNC in 2018 and 2019 are taken into account, we may be looking at an impact of nickels and dimes at most when all is said and done. Still, in a yet another monologue tonight, one-time COVID-19-warnin...

Tucker Carlson’s Fox News Show Loses Disney & Other Advertisers Over George Floyd Killing & Black Lives Matter POV UPDATED with Disney/ABC & Fox News statements: Tucker Carlson has one of the most-watched shows on cable news, but the Fox News Channel host is losing advertisers – again. Whereas in 2018, when 20 companies yanked their ads after Carlson obtusely proclaimed that undocumented immigrants made America “poorer, and dirtier, and more divided,” this time the exits are over the host’s stance on the death of George Floyd and the ensuing nationwide protests against police violence and racism. Both Disney and T-Mobile have cut ties with the primetime Tucker Carlson Tonight over the host’s polarizing point of view on the Black Lives Matter movement and the desire for justice and equality in America that many of its members advocate. Along with Papa John’s, the media giant and the telecommunications brand faced a backlash in recent days for their association wi...

A former manager of Little Shop of Stories, the children’s bookstore in Decatur, Ga., Jones has gained acclaim for her 2019 novel  I’m Not Dying With You Tonight  (Sourcebooks Fire), which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Co-authored with Gilly Segal, the book tells the story of two girls whose lives intersect when a race riot breaks out at a high school football game and they simply try to survive. That message of survival is at the heart of Jones’s video. “The social contract is broken,” she said, adding later, “You broke the contract when you killed us in the streets.” Fellow authors have shared the video widely, including  The Hate U Give  author Angie Thomas, who took to Twitter to say, “Y’all are blessed that @kimlatricejones writes for our young people, and half of y’all don’t even know it. Go buy her and @really_gilly’s novel, I’m Not Dying with You Tonight.” For her own part, Jones expressed gratitude at receiving the support of p...

YA Author's Video on Racism Goes Viral In the weeks following the police killing of George Floyd, anti-racist protests have vaulted a number of Black leaders, artists, intellectuals, and authors to the foreground of American consciousness. Among them is YA author and former bookseller Kimberly Jones, whose seven-minute video “How Can We Win” has gained national media attention, been viewed three million times, and was given the final word of John Oliver’s episode dedicated to police violence on his show  Last Week Tonight . “How Can We Win” opens with Jones dismantling the debate within Black communities regarding the value of different types of protests and riots as a distraction. “As long as we’re focused on what they’re doing, we’re not focusing on why they’re doing it,” she says. But Jones reserves much of the video for a searing critique of the white supremacist “up from your bootstraps” take on the American Dream, which she says ignores how Bl...

The video was posted by Baze on Twitter and soon went viral, gaining over 2.7 million views and 15,300 shares. Maxwell was identified by some of the Twitter users, who provided the email address to her school's principal. The Bakersfield City School District has since started an investigation against her. On June 10, the Bakersfield City School District Superintendent Doc Ervin, released the following statement: "The Bakersfield City School District strives to be a model of inclusion and equity for our students, staff, families and community members. The District is aware of the incident that occurred on June 5, 2020 involving an employee. We do not condone nor endorse the action and behavior captured on the video. The District is currently conducting an investigation into the incident. As this is a confidential personnel matter, we are unable to comment any further." While apologizing for her actions through her lawyer, Maxwell said that she panicked after...