Tag Archives: racial inequality

Morgan Stanley launches Black recruitment program to boost trading unit’s diversity

By Imani Moise

(Reuters) – Morgan Stanley is piloting a program to recruit Black talent in its sales and trading division, executives told Reuters, in corporate America’s latest initiative to improve diversity after nationwide protests against racial inequality.

The Morgan Stanley Experienced Professional Program within its Fixed Income & Business Resource Management Divisions is seeking Black professionals with at least two years’ full-time work experience in any field who want to work in finance.

“As long as you have the skill set around communication, analytical abilities, interpersonal skills, and you are willing to work hard, you could have a strong career,” Derek Melvin, a managing director who designed the program, said in an interview on Wednesday.

The banking industry has been scrutinized for its lack of racial diversity since the May 25 death in police custody of George Floyd, a Black man, sparked demonstrations and prompted deep introspection at companies across the country.

That has led to fresh pledges to improve diversity and tie executive compensation to meeting related targets. However, such action has triggered concern from authorities.

Last week, Wells Fargo & Co defended its diversity initiatives after the U.S. Labor Department questioned whether they were unlawful or discriminatory.

Morgan Stanley’s program is only open for up to 20 people. Melvin said he hopes the program, if successful, will be replicated across the firm’s institutional securities business.

That division, the bank’s largest breadwinner, reported a 21% jump in revenue for the third quarter on Thursday, helping the bank breeze past Wall Street estimates.

Successful applicants will get a month of training before doing 10-week rotations on different trading desks, leading to a full-time job.

Feedback on the program so far has been overwhelming, Melvin said. Since advertising it at the end of September, his team has received over 700 applications. Successful applicants will be chosen by the end of the year.

“Our expectations were that after a month, we’d have about 100 to work through,” Melvin said in an interview. “But we’ve been surprised to the upside here.”

(Reporting by Imani Moise; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Paul Simao)

Protesters fail to bring down Andrew Jackson statue near White House

By Tom Brenner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Protesters tried tearing down a statue of Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, in a park near the White House on Monday, scrawling “killer scum” on its pedestal and pulling on the monument with ropes before police intervened.

The confrontation unfolded in Lafayette Square, where crowds peacefully protesting the death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer were forcibly displaced three weeks ago to make way for staged photos of President Trump holding up a bible in front of a nearby church.

The thwarted effort to topple the famed bronze likeness of Jackson astride a rearing horse was the latest bid, in protests fuelled by Floyd’s death, to destroy monuments of historical figures considered racist or divisive.

President Donald Trump took to Twitter saying that many people were arrested for the “disgraceful vandalism” in Lafayette Park and also for defacing the exterior of St. John’s Church.

“Ten years in prison under the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act. Beware!” he warned.

Monday’s incident began around dusk with scores of protesters, most wearing masks against coronavirus infection, breaking through a 6-foot-tall fence erected in recent days around the statute at the center of the park.

Protesters then climbed onto the monument, fastening ropes and cords around the sculpted heads of both Jackson and his horse and dousing the marble pedestal with yellow paint before the crowd began trying to yank the statute from its base.

Dozens of law enforcement officers, led by U.S. Park Police, stormed into the square, swinging batons and firing chemical agents to scatter protesters. By dark, police had taken control and outnumbered demonstrators in the immediate area.

Jackson, a former U.S. Army general nicknamed “Old Hickory,” served two terms in the White House, from 1829 to 1837, espousing a populist political style that has sometimes been compared with that of Trump.

Native American activists have long criticized Jackson, a Democrat, for signing the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which led to thousands of Native Americans being driven from their lands by the U.S. government and forced to march west, in what became known as the “Trail of Tears.” Many perished before arriving.

(Reporting by Tom Brenner in Washington; Additional reporting by Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Clarence Fernandez)

Seattle plans to dismantle occupied protest zone after shootings

(Reuters) – Seattle authorities, alarmed by two weekend shootings, plan to start dismantling six blocks of streets in a part of the city occupied by activists protesting against police brutality and racial inequality across the United States.

A teenager was killed and at least two other people were wounded in the shootings in what is known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) zone.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said city authorities were working to bring the CHOP zone to an end and that the Seattle Police Department (SPD) would soon move back into a precinct building its forces had largely abandoned in the area.

“SPD will be returning to the East Precinct. We will do it peacefully and in the near future”, Durkan told a news conference on Monday.

Durkan condemned the violence, writing on Twitter that it was “unacceptable”.

She said such violence distracted from changes in policing demanded by demonstrators.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said the demonstrations in the Seattle protest zone are being run by “anarchists”.

Anti-racism protests and demonstrations against police brutality have spread around the world since an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, died after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while detaining him in Minneapolis on May 25.

Protesters have also demanded authorities take down monuments honoring pro-slavery Confederate figures and the architects of Europe’s colonies.

(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Teenager killed in Seattle protest zone shooting, one wounded

(Reuters) – Seattle police on Saturday said they were investigating the fatal shooting of one person and wounding of another in a part of the city occupied by activists protesting against police brutality and racial inequality across America.

The Seattle Police Department said it was investigating a shooting at 10th Avenue and East Pine inside the Capital Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) area, which has been occupied by activists without any known police presence since June 8, when Seattle police abandoned the East Precinct located there.

The police said they responded to a report of shots fired in Cal Anderson Park at about 2:30 a.m. PDT (0930 GMT) only to learn that two male victims had already been moved to Harborview Medical Center by CHOP medics.

Harborview spokeswoman Susan Gregg confirmed the hospital received two shooting victims from Capital Hill in the early hours and that one, a 19-year-old, died shortly after arrival while the other was in critical condition in intensive care.

The police said that the suspect or suspects, for which they had no description, had fled and were still at large.

The occupation of the district came as widespread protests against police abuse and injustice took place across the United States after George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died while he was in Minneapolis police custody. A bystander recorded video of the officer who was charged with murder holding a knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.

Video footage after the Seattle shooting from Omari Salisbury, a reporter for Converge Media, showed a small group of police entering part of the protest zone on foot, holding riot shields and firearms, as occupants raised their hands and shouted at officers to drop their guns.

The footage, seen by Reuters, also showed people surrounding multiple police cars, which then left the area.

In a statement, the police called the protesters a “violent crowd that prevented officers safe access to the victims.”

(Reporting by Sinéad Carew; Editing by Tom Brown and Daniel Wallis)