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‘This Isn’t Just About Policy, It’s About What Kind of Nation We Want to Be’: CounterSpin interview with LaToya Parker on Trump budget’s racial impact

Janine Jackson — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 17:43:21 +0000

Janine Jackson interviewed the Joint Center’s LaToya Parker about the Trump budget’s racial impacts for the June 20, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250620Parker.mp3

MarketWatch (3/7/25)

Janine Jackson: “Most Americans Can’t Afford Life Anymore” is the matter-of-fact headline over a story on Dow Jones MarketWatch. You might think that’s a “stop the presses” story, but apparently, for corporate news, it’s just one item among others these days.

The lived reality is, of course, not just a nightmare, but a crime, perpetrated by the most powerful and wealthy on the rest of us. As we marshal a response, it’s important to see the ways that we are not all suffering in the same ways, that anti-Black racism in this country’s decision-making is not a bug, but a feature, and not reducible to anything else. What’s more, efforts to reduce or dissolve racial inequities, to set them aside just for the moment, really just wind up erasing them.

So how do we shape a resistance to this massive transfer of wealth, while acknowledging that it takes intentionality for all of us to truly benefit?

LaToya Parker is a senior researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and co-author, with Joint Center president Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, of the recent piece “This Federal Budget Will Be a Disaster for Black Workers.” She joins us now by phone from Virginia. Welcome to CounterSpin, LaToya Parker.

LaToya Parker: Thank you so much for having me.

JJ: I just heard Tavis Smiley, with the relevant reference to Martin Luther King, saying: “Budgets are moral documents.” Budgets can harm or heal materially, and they also send a message about priorities: what matters, who matters. When you and Dedrick Asante-Muhammad looked at the Trump budget bill that the House passed, you wrote that, “racially, the impact is stark”—for Black people and for Black workers in particular. I know that it’s more than one thing, but tell us what you are looking to lift up for people that they might not see.

OtherWords (5/28/25)

LP: Sure. Thank you so much for raising that. This bill is more than numbers. It’s a moral document, like you mentioned, that reveals our nation’s priorities. What stands out is a reverse wealth transfer. The ultra-wealthy get billions in tax breaks, while Black families lose the very programs that have historically provided pathways to the middle class.

JJ: You just said “historic pathways.” You can’t do economics without history. So wealth, home ownership—just static reporting doesn’t explain, really, that you can’t start people in a hole and then say, “Well, now the Earth is flat. So what’s wrong with you?” What are some of those programs that you’re talking about that would be impacted?

LP: For instance, nearly one-third of Black Americans rely on Medicaid. These cuts will limit access to vital care, including maternal health, elder care and mental health services.

Nearly 25% of Black households depend on SNAP, compared to under 8% of white households. SNAP cuts will hit Black families hardest, worsening food insecurities.

But in terms of federal workforce attacks, Black Americans are overrepresented in the public sector, 18.7% of the federal workforce, and over a third in the South. So massive agency cuts threaten thousands of stable, middle-class jobs, undermining one of the most successful civil rights victories in American history.

LaToya Parker: “The ultra-wealthy get billions in tax breaks, while Black families lose the very programs that have historically provided pathways to the middle class.”

So if I was to focus on the reverse wealth transfer, as we clearly lift up in the article, the House-passed reconciliation bill is a massive transfer of wealth from working families to the ultra-wealthy. It eliminates the estate tax, which currently only applies to estates worth more than $13.99 million per person, or nearly $28 million per couple. That’s just 1% of estates. So 99.9% of families, especially Black families, will never benefit from this.

Black families hold less than 5% of the US wealth, despite being over 13% of households. The median white household has 10 times the wealth of the median Black household. Repealing the estate tax subsidizes dynastic wealth for the majority white top 1%, and does nothing for the vast majority of Black families who are far less likely to inherit significant wealth.

JJ: I feel like that wealth disconnection, and I’ve spoken with Dedrick Asante-Muhammad about this in the past, there’s a misunderstanding or just an erasure of history in the conversation about wealth, and Why don’t Black families have wealth? Why can’t they just give their kids enough money to go to school? And it sounds like it’s about Black families not valuing savings or something. But of course, we have a history of white-supremacist discrimination in lending and loaning and home ownership, and in all kinds of things that lead us to this situation that we’re in today. And you can’t move forward without recognizing that.

LP: Absolutely. Absolutely.

JJ: I remember reading a story years ago that said, “Here’s the best workplaces for women.” And it was kind of like, “Well, if you hate discrimination, these companies are good.” Reporting, I think, can make it seem as though folks are just sitting around thinking, “Well, what job should I get? Where should I get a job?” As though we were just equally situated economic actors.

But that doesn’t look anything like life. We are not consumers of employment. Media could do a different job of helping people understand the way things work.

LP: Absolutely. And I think that’s why it’s so important that you’re raising this issue. In fact, we bring it up in our article, in terms of cuts to the federal workforce and benefits. So, for instance, to pay for these tax breaks to the wealthy, the bill slashes benefits for federal employees, and it guts civil service protections, saving just $5 billion a year in the bill that costs trillions, right?

So just thinking about that, Black employees make up, like I said before, 18.7% of the federal workforce, thanks to decades of civil rights progress and anti-discrimination law. Federal jobs have long provided higher wages, stronger benefits and greater job security for Black workers than much of the private sector.

And the DMV alone, the DC/Maryland/Virginia region, more than 450,000 federal workers are employed, with Black workers making up over a quarter in DC/Maryland/Virginia. In the South, well over a third of the federal workers in states like Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Louisiana are Black. In Georgia, it’s nearly 44%. So federal employment has been a cornerstone for Black middle-class advancement, helping families build generational wealth, send children to college and retire with dignity.

JJ: And so when we hear calls about, “Let’s thin out the federal government, because these are all bureaucrats who are making more money than they should,” it lands different when you understand that so many Black people found advancement, found opportunity through the federal government when they were being denied it at every other point. And it only came from explicit policies, anti-discriminatory policies, that opened up federal employment, that’s been so meaningful.

LP: Exactly. Exactly. Federal retirement benefits like the pensions and annuities are a rare source of guaranteed income. Nearly half of Black families have zero retirement savings, making these benefits critical to avoiding poverty in retirement. So these policies amount to a reverse wealth transfer, enriching wealthy heirs while undermining the public servants and systems that have historically offered a path forward for Black workers. Instead of gutting the benefits and eliminating the estate tax, we should invest in systems that have provided pathways to the middle class for Black workers, and expand these opportunities beyond government employment. Ultimately, this isn’t just about policy, it’s about what kind of nation we want to be, right? So that’s what it’s all about.

JJ: And I’ll just add to that with a final note. Of course, I’m a media critic, but I think lots of folks could understand why I reacted to this line from this MarketWatch piece that said, “Years of elevated prices have strained all but the wealthiest consumers, and low- and middle-income Americans say something needs to change.” Well, for me, I’m hearing that, and I’m like, “So it’s only low- and middle-income people, it’s only the people at the sharp end, who want anything to change.”

And, first of all, we’re supposed to see that as a fair fight, the vast majority of people against the wealthiest. But also, it makes it seem like such a zero-sum game, as though there isn’t any shared idea among a lot of people who want racial and economic equity in this country. It sells it to people as like, “Oh, well, we could make life livable for poor people or for Black people, but you, reader, are going to have to give something up.” It’s such a small, mean version of what I believe a lot of folks have in their hearts, in terms of a vision going forward in this country. And that’s just my gripe.

LP: I agree. These aren’t luxury programs. They’re lifelines across the board for all Americans. The working poor—if you like to call it that, some like to call it that—cutting them is just cruel, right? It’s economically destructive, it’s irresponsible. Fiscally, states would lose $1.1 trillion over 10 years, risking over a million jobs in healthcare and food industries alone. So I agree 100%.

JJ: All right, we’ll end on that note for now. We’ve been speaking with LaToya Parker, senior researcher at the Joint Center. They’re online at JointCenter.org, and you can find her piece, with Joint Center president Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, on the impact of the federal budget on Black workers at OtherWords.org. Thank you so much, LaToya Parker, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

LP: Thank you again for having me.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Michael Galant on Sanctions & Immigration, LaToya Parker on Budget’s Racial Impacts

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 15:43:23 +0000

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250620.mp3

Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).

CEPR (3/3/25)

This week on CounterSpin: We’ve always heard that racists hate quotas, yet Stephen Miller’s “3000 a day however which way” mandate is terrorizing immigrant communities—brown immigrant communities—around the country. The response from people of conscience can look many ways: linking arms around people in danger, absolutely; vigorously disputing misinformation about immigrants, whether hateful or patronizing, also. But another piece is gaining a deeper, broader understanding of migration. News media could help answer one implied question—“Why is anyone trying to come to the US anyway?”—by grappling with the role of conditions the US has largely created in the places people are driven from. We’ll talk about that largely missing piece from elite media’s immigration coverage with Michael Galant, senior research and outreach associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250620Galant.mp3

Inequality.org (5/29/25)

Also on the show: Anyone who pays attention and cares can see that the Trump budget bill is a brazen transfer of resources from those that are trying to meet basic needs to those that can’t remember how many houses they own. But corporate reporting rarely breaks out economic policy in terms of how it affects different people—especially how it affects communities for whom they show no consistent concern. Economic policy is itself racialized, gendered, regionalized, targeted. Humanistic journalism would help us see that.

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250620Parker.mp3

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

The Case for Racial Equity in Public Health

Sarah Bobrow-Williams — Thu, 29 May 2025 19:32:36 +0000

Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable and treatable cancers when detected early. In Mississippi, Black women are 1.5 times more likely to die from this cancer than white women.

This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Sarah Bobrow-Williams.

Plea for UN intervention over illegal PNG loggers ‘stealing forests’

APR editor — Tue, 27 May 2025 12:18:02 +0000

RNZ Pacific

A United Nations committee is being urged to act over human rights violations committed by illegal loggers in Papua New Guinea.

Watchdog groups Act Now! and Jubilee Australia have filed a formal request to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to consider action at its next meeting in August.

“We have stressed with the UN that there is pervasive, ongoing and irreparable harm to customary resource owners whose forests are being stolen by logging companies,” Act Now! campaign manager Eddie Tanago said.

READ MORE: Other PNG logging reports

He said these abuses were systematic, institutionalised, and sanctioned by the PNG government through two specific tools: Special Agriculture and Business Leases (SABLs) and Forest Clearing Authorities (FCAs) — a type of logging licence.

“For over a decade since the Commission of Inquiry into SABLs, successive PNG governments have rubber stamped the large-scale theft of customary resource owners’ forests by upholding the morally bankrupt SABL scheme and expanding the use of FCAs,” Tanago said.

He said the government had failed to revoke SABLs that were acquired fraudulently, with disregard to the law or without landowner consent.

“Meanwhile, logging companies have made hundreds of millions, if not billions, in ill-gotten gains by effectively stealing forests from customary resource owners using FCAs.”

Abuses hard to challenge
The complaint also highlights that the abuses are hard to challenge because PNG lacks even a basic registry of SABLs or FCAs, and customary resource owners are denied access to information to the information they need, such as:

The existence of an SABL or FCA over their forest;
A map of the boundaries of any lease or logging licence;
Information about proposed agricultural projects used to justify the SABL or FCA;
The monetary value of logs taken from forests; and
The beneficial ownership of logging companies — to identify who ultimately profits from illegal logging.

“The only reason why foreign companies engage in illegal logging in PNG is to make money,” he said, adding that “it’s profitable because importing companies and countries are willing to accept illegally logged timber into their markets and supply chains.”

ACT NOW campaigner Eddie Tanago . . . “demand a public audit of the logging permits – the money would dry up.” Image: Facebook/ACT NOW!/RNZ Pacific

“If they refused to take any more timber from SABL and FCA areas and demanded a public audit of the logging permits — the money would dry up.”

Act Now! and Jubilee Australia are hoping that this UN attention will urge the international community to see this is not an issue of “less-than-perfect forest law enforcement”.

“This is a system, honed over decades, that is perpetrating irreparable harm on indigenous peoples across PNG through the wholesale violation of their rights and destroying their forests.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A Place to Learn Your Place: Education and Racial Capitalism

Eve L. Ewing — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 17:19:54 +0000

For Black and Native children, schools are also a place where their ordained role within a capitalist society is taught, reinforced, and ultimately normalized.

This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Eve L. Ewing.

The Pursuit of Racial and Social Justice During the Trump Era

Chloe Atkinson — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 05:34:17 +0000

Image by Breana Panaguiton.

Racial and social justice remains a cornerstone of liberal philosophy and activism. As we live through another terrifying four years with President Trump in the now-excessively gaudy and overgilded Oval Office, we must fight for reforms to dismantle inequities, promote marginalized communities, and promote inclusivity across all institutions.

Let’s start with criminal justice reform. We need to end mass incarceration, reform policing practices, and eliminate racial bias during sentencing. One proposal to achieve this is to end for-profit prisons, reallocate police budgets to community welfare services, and decriminalize non-violent offenses.

But such reform is pointless unless it is accompanied by equitable education funding. We must fight to ensure schools in underserved communities receive adequate funding and resources. This is a critical issue, and we cannot allow a cut in federal funding for public schools, student debt relief, or programs that assist minority students.

The LGBTQ+ community is rightfully concerned that the Trump administration is crossing red lines by reducing federal protections against discrimination in employment, housing, and healthcare. We must push Congress to pass the Equality Act to ensure our rights and counter any restrictions on transgender rights – whether state-level or federal – especially in schools and healthcare. The Trump administration is weakening the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, such as those under the Civil Rights Act, and is dismantling DEI programs in federal agencies and schools. Trump’s support for restricting discussions of race or limiting transgender rights will only embolden further discrimination.

With all that is going on now regarding immigration and Trump’s horrific ICE agency, we need to fight for the rights of individuals and families who have arrived in our country in the hope of pursuing a better life. The Trump administration must end its Soviet Stasi-style arrests of innocents, racial profiling, and mass deportations reminiscent of some communist countries.

Trump’s agenda prioritizes divisive rhetoric and policies that are reversing decades of civil rights progress.

Centuries of systemic injustice in America – whether slavery or segregation – means we need proactive policies that level the playing field. The alternative means the continuation of inequity across society. By reducing racial and social disparities, we can boost economic growth. Closing the racial wealth gap will benefit all Americans. Equality is a moral imperative and we, as a just society, must guarantee equal opportunities and protections for all citizens, regardless of race, gender, or identity.

Social cohesion and political stability requires inclusive policies – the opposite of what the Trump administration is doing. Instead, they are deepening division with misguided policies and creating more problems than solutions.

And when it comes to America’s global standing, the administration’s isolationist and exclusionary policies aren’t helping. We must champion human rights abroad since this will enhance our credibility.

But the only way we can achieve our goals is to unite. Currently, the Democratic Party is fractured, and we don’t have much time to piece it back together. Through grassroots organizations and legislative advocacy, we can raise awareness and pressure lawmakers to support liberal policies such as protecting voting rights, expanding healthcare access, and defending the LGBTQ+ community.

Liberals can and should file lawsuits to block discriminatory state laws, such as those restricting transgender healthcare or banning critical race theory in schools.

The Trump administration’s misguided policies should serve as a reminder of the urgency of the situation in the United States today, especially since it is not too late to protect our rights and our values of equity and justice. By banding together, we can overcome political headwinds and shape America’s future for the better.

The post The Pursuit of Racial and Social Justice During the Trump Era appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Chloe Atkinson.

ProPublica Updates Its Database of Museums’ and Universities’ Compliance With Federal Repatriation Law

by Mary Hudetz — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

by Mary Hudetz

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Museums, universities and government agencies continued to make headway last year toward repatriating the remains of thousands of Native American ancestors to tribal nations after decades of slow progress drew national attention.

Nowhere was the shift more apparent than at the U.S. Department of the Interior, the agency charged with enforcing the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which requires items and remains taken from Indigenous gravesites to be returned to tribes.

The department’s subagencies, including the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, collectively repatriated the remains of 1,366 Native American ancestors last year, more than a third of the number in its possession at the start of the year. The department’s efforts reflected an awareness, documented in an internal memo in late 2023, that it has a crucial leadership role to play under NAGPRA. Only the Illinois State Museum, an institution that ProPublica has reported on in-depth, came close to repatriating as many, with the transfer of more than 1,320 remains excavated from a single site.

The emphasis on repatriation increased in tandem with reporting by ProPublica in 2023 about failures to comply with the law.

“For too long ancestors and Tribal cultural items have been disconnected from their communities and resting on museum shelves,” Interior officials said in an October 2023 memo.

In response to questions from ProPublica, an Interior spokesperson did not say whether the department’s focus on repatriation will continue under Donald Trump’s second presidency but pointed to new regulations finalized in 2023 that aimed to speed up the process. The regulations, which took effect last year, require institutions to defer more to tribal accounts of their histories and ties to the regions from which remains were removed; the rules also set new deadlines for institutions to comply with the law.

In total, museums, universities and agencies across the country returned more than 10,300 Native American ancestors to tribes last year. The total makes 2024 the third-biggest year for the repatriation of ancestral remains under NAGPRA, according to an online ProPublica database that allows the public to look up the records of more than 600 museums and universities that must comply with the law. Today, ProPublica is updating the database to show repatriation progress through Jan. 6, 2025.

Outside of the Interior Department and the Illinois State Museum, state universities also recorded significant progress. For example, California State University, Sacramento repatriated the remains of 873 Native Americans previously held in its collection.

The progress made last year followed a record number of repatriations in 2023, when institutions returned 18,000 Native American ancestors.

“The progress shows the regulations are working,” said Shannon O’Loughlin, the chief executive for the Association on American Indian Affairs, a nonprofit that advocates for Native American rights.

Nearly 60% of ancestral remains reported as falling under NAGPRA over the years have now been repatriated, but that still leaves at least 90,000 that must be returned to tribes. The Interior Department has acknowledged that many of the human remains it must eventually repatriate have long been unaccounted for in federal inventories. Many of the department’s collections are scattered across the country in university and museum repositories over which the federal government has no oversight, officials said.

Agency staffers also said last year that they would need continued funding for their efforts — a factor that may prove challenging under an administration focused on cutting spending and staffing.

“We need to sustain this work until all of the ancestors that are in DOI control have been repatriated,” one Interior Department employee last year told the National NAGPRA Review Committee, a federal advisory board made up of museum, science and tribal representatives.

The Arizona State Museum in Tucson is among the institutions that have gone through their collections to determine what belonged to the federal government. (Michael Barera/Wikimedia) More Work to do at the Interior Department

Just over a year ago, the Interior Department had yet to repatriate more than 3,000 ancestors, many of which were excavated in 20th century archaeological digs and infrastructure projects on federal and tribal lands.

The department’s progress repatriating 1,366 Native American ancestors last year comes after top officials sent directives in late 2023 instructing Interior agencies to prioritize the work. Some agencies also set aside more money for repatriation work.

“If you look at previous budgets, we weren’t allocated any funding for NAGPRA,” Tamara Billie, the chief of cultural resource management for the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, told the National NAGPRA Review Committee last May.

She estimated it could cost several million dollars over the next three to five years for the bureau to repatriate the hundreds of ancestors it has yet to reunite with tribes.

Since Congress passed NAGPRA in 1990, federal staffers have tried to locate the collections excavated on federal and tribal lands, but they have often found that museums and universities transferred their holdings to other institutions without leaving much of a paper trail.

Last year, officials said only a handful of repositories, like the Arizona State Museum in Tucson, had gone through their collections to determine what belonged to the federal government — an early step in the often long repatriation process.

“Some have submitted very detailed, in some cases itemized inventory information,” said Bridget Ambler, with the Bureau of Land Management, during a National NAGPRA Review Committee hearing last year. “But to be honest, for the vast majority we’re not fully aware of what the nature of those collections are and if they include human remains or NAGPRA cultural items.”

Under the new NAGPRA regulations, museums and universities had a deadline of January of this year to hand in lists of items in their facilities that should be included in federal inventories. The requirement resulted in museums and universities submitting roughly 1,000 new notices to the Interior Department, the manager of the National NAGPRA Program said during a recorded training last month. It’s not clear how many ancestral remains are accounted for in those notices.

A display case at the Dickson Mounds Museum previously held human remains. (Sky Hopinka for ProPublica) Progress in Illinois and Ohio

At the Illinois State Museum, which holds the second-largest collection of Native American remains, leadership was already focused on improving their repatriation record. Then, a new state law, along with the Interior Department’s updated regulations, went into effect. The state law, which followed ProPublica’s reporting, gave tribes more control over reburials. It also established a fund for repatriation work, such as paying for tribal members to travel to the museum to consult on collections, and for the reburials of remains.

Many of the remains held by the state museum came from a burial mound dug up in the 1920s by Don Dickson, a chiropractor. He turned the burial site into a roadside attraction. Over the years, Native Americans, whose tribes had been forcibly removed to other states, protested the exhibit that later became the Dickson Mounds Museum, a branch of the Illinois State Museum.

The state eventually closed the burial mounds exhibit, but the museum kept the human remains, maintaining that they could not be traced to living people and therefore would not be repatriated. That was until this past year.

On Feb. 24, 2024, the Illinois State Museum published a notice in the Federal Register saying that 1,325 ancestors and thousands of items buried with them were available to tribes for repatriation. As of the start of this year, the Illinois State Museum held the remains of an estimated 5,800 Native American ancestors.

Only the Ohio History Connection now holds more unrepatriated human remains, over 7,900 in total, according to federal data. In the roughly three decades prior to 2024, the Columbus institution had returned fewer than 20 ancestors to tribes. But it showed signs of progress last year in making more than 150 ancestral remains, or roughly 2% of its skeletal collection reported under NAGPRA, available to be repatriated. In an email, a spokesperson for the museum said it expects to complete more repatriations in consultation with tribal partners, who have asked the museum “not to rush this critical work.”

As in Illinois, the Ohio institution’s collections largely originate from centuries-old burial mounds in a state where tribal nations were forcibly removed.

“It Is Time for the State to Take Repatriation Seriously”

More state support for repatriation also could be on the horizon in Arizona. Last month, Gov. Katie Hobbs announced she would ask lawmakers for $7 million to support repatriation efforts at the Arizona State Museum.

The museum on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson is a repository for the state and federal government. Over the years, records show, it has conducted repatriations but has yet to return more than half of its collection reported under NAGPRA — the remains of 2,600 ancestors total — to tribes mostly in the Southwest.

“The hard-working staff at the museum have done their best to repatriate human remains and artifacts to tribes without any significant financial investment from the state,” Hobbs, a Democrat, said in prepared remarks to tribal leaders last month. “It is time for that to change. It is time for the state to take repatriation seriously.”

One of the museums’ challenges in trying to reach full compliance with the law stems from the fact that it continues to receive human remains because of its status as a state repository. Arizona medical examiners have sent the museum human remains that they come across in their investigations, including the ancestors of Native Americans. In some instances, looters have surrendered items and bones unearthed from graves, according to Jim Watson, associate director at the Arizona State Museum. (Looting violates federal laws.)

“We will receive an individual or remains in the mail or objects from private citizens, particularly when individuals pass away and their relatives are going through their stuff,” he told the NAGPRA Review Committee last spring. “They find a box in the garage or the attic, for example, and it says, ‘from Arizona,’ ‘artifacts from Arizona,’ ‘artifacts from Phoenix’ or ‘ancestral remains.’ So, they will ship them to the University of Arizona, often without contacting us first.”

He estimates the museum receives such packages two to three times per year.

Ash Ngu contributed data analysis.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Mary Hudetz.

#1. Thousands Killed and Injured on the Job, with Significant Racial Disparities in Deaths and Injuries

Kate Horgan — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 17:06:48 +0000

Working in the United States is becoming more dangerous, and Black and Latiné workers in particular are at heightened risk of being killed or injured on the job, according to recent studies reported on by Truthout and Peoples Dispatch. According to a February 2024 report for Truthout by Tyler Walicek,…

The post #1. Thousands Killed and Injured on the Job, with Significant Racial Disparities in Deaths and Injuries appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

How Researchers Measure Wildfire Smoke Exposure Doesn’t Capture Long-Term Health Effects − and Hides Racial Disparities

Joan Casey – Rachel Morello-Frosch — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 05:25:56 +0000

Smoke from wildfires in the Pacific Northwest shrouds the Lewis and Clark Bridge over the Columbia River in Rainier, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Kids born in 2020 worldwide will experience twice the number of wildfires during their lifetimes compared with those born in 1960. In California and other western states, frequent wildfires have become as much a part of summer and fall as popsicles and Halloween candy.

Wildfires produce fine particulate matter, or PM₂.₅, that chokes the air and penetrates deep into lungs. Researchers know that short-term exposure to wildfire PM₂.₅ increases acute care visits for cardiorespiratory problems such as asthma. However, the long-term effects of repeated exposure to wildfire PM₂.₅ on chronic health conditions are unclear.

One reason is that scientists have not decided how best to measure this type of intermittent yet ongoing exposure. Environmental epidemiologists and health scientists like us usually summarize long-term exposure to total PM₂.₅ – which comes from power plants, industry and transportation – as average exposure over a year. This might not make sense when measuring exposure to wildfire. Unlike traffic-related air pollution, for example, levels of wildfire PM₂.₅ vary a lot throughout the year.

To improve health and equity research, our team has developed five metrics that better capture long-term exposure to wildfire PM₂.₅.

Measuring fluctuating wildfire PM₂.₅

To understand why current measurements of wildfire PM₂.₅ aren’t adequately capturing an individual’s long-term exposure, we need to delve into the concept of averages.

Say the mean level of PM₂.₅ over a year was 1 microgram per cubic meter. A person could experience that exposure as 1 microgram per cubic meter every day for 365 days, or as 365 micrograms per cubic meter on a single day.

While these two scenarios result in the same average exposure over a year, they might have very different biological effects. The body might be able to fend off damage from exposure to 1 microgram per cubic meter each day, but be overwhelmed by a huge, single dose of 365 micrograms per cubic meter.

For perspective, in 2022, Americans experienced an average total PM₂.₅ exposure of 7.8 micrograms per cubic meter. Researchers estimated that in the 35 states that experience wildfires, these wildfires added on average just 0.69 micrograms per cubic meter to total PM₂.₅ each year from 2016 to 2020. This perspective misses the mark, however.

For example, a census tract close to the 2018 Camp Fire experienced an average wildfire PM₂.₅ concentration of 1.2 micrograms per cubic meter between 2006 to 2020. But the actual fire event had a peak exposure of 310 micrograms per cubic meter – the world’s highest level that day.

Scientists want to better understand what such extreme exposures mean for long-term human health. Prior studies on long-term wildfire PM₂.₅ exposure focused mostly on people living close to a large fire, following up years later to check on their health status. This misses any new exposures that took place between baseline and follow-up.

More recent studies have tracked long-term exposure to wildfire PM₂.₅ that changes over time. For example, researchers reported associations between wildfire PM₂.₅ exposure over two years and risk of death from cancer and any other cause in Brazil. This work again relied on long-term average exposure and did not directly capture extreme exposures from intermittent wildfire events. Because the study did not evaluate it, we do not know whether a specific pattern of long-term wildfire PM₂.₅ exposure was worse for health.

Most days, people experience no wildfire PM₂.₅ exposure. Some days, wildfire exposure is intense. As of now, we do not know whether a few very bad days or many slightly bad days are riskier for health.

A new framework

How can we get more realistic estimates that capture the huge peaks in PM₂.₅ levels that people are exposed to during wildfires?

When thinking about the wildfire PM₂.₅ that people experience, exposure scientists – researchers who study contact between humans and harmful agents in the environment – consider frequency, duration and intensity. These interlocking factors help describe the body’s true exposure during a wildfire event.

In our recent study, our team proposed a framework for measuring long-term exposure to wildfire PM₂.₅ that incorporates the frequency, duration and intensity of wildfire events. We applied air quality models to California wildfire data from 2006 to 2020, deriving new metrics that capture a range of exposure types.

The researchers proposed five ways to measure long-term wildfire PM₂.₅ exposure.
Casey et al. 2024/PNAS, CC BY-NC-ND

One metric we devised is number of days with any wildfire PM₂.₅ exposure over a long-term period, which can identify even the smallest exposures. Another metric is average concentration of wildfire PM₂.₅ during the peak week of smoke levels over a long period, which highlights locations that experience the most extreme exposures. We also developed several other metrics that may be more useful, depending on what effects are being studied.

Interestingly, these metrics were quite correlated with one another, suggesting places with many days of at least some wildfire PM₂.₅ also had the highest levels overall. Although this can make it difficult to decide between different exposure patterns, the suitability of each metric depends in part on what health effects we are investigating.

Environmental injustice

We also assessed whether certain racial and ethnic groups experienced higher-than-average wildfire PM₂.₅ exposure and found that different groups faced the most exposure depending on the year.

Consider 2018 and 2020, two major wildfire years in California. The most exposed census tracts, by all metrics, were composed primarily of non-Hispanic white individuals in 2018 and Hispanic individuals in 2020. This makes sense, since non-Hispanic white people constitute about 41.6% and Hispanic people 36.4% of California’s population.

To understand whether other groups faced excess wildfire PM₂.₅ exposure, we used relative comparisons. This means we compared the true wildfire PM₂.₅ exposure experienced by each racial and ethnic group with what we would have expected if they were exposed to the state average.

We found that Indigenous communities had the most disproportionate exposure, experiencing 1.68 times more PM₂.₅ than expected. In comparison, non-Hispanic white Californians were 1.13 times more exposed to PM₂.₅ than expected, and multiracial Californians 1.09 times more exposed than expected.

Rural tribal lands had the highest mean wildfire PM₂.₅ concentrations – 0.83 micrograms per cubic meter – of any census tract in our study. A large portion of Native American people in California live in rural areas, often with higher wildfire risk due to decades of poor forestry management, including legal suppression of cultural burning practices that studies have shown to aid in reducing catastrophic wildfires. Recent state legislation has removed liability risks of cultural burning on Indigenous lands in California.

Understanding the drivers and health effects of high long-term exposure to wildfire PM₂.₅ among Native American and Alaska Native people can help address substantial health disparities between these groups and other Americans.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post How Researchers Measure Wildfire Smoke Exposure Doesn’t Capture Long-Term Health Effects − and Hides Racial Disparities appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Joan Casey – Rachel Morello-Frosch.

"Simply Lying": Marc Lamont Hill Slams Trump NABJ Interview, Attacks on VP Harris’s Racial Identity

Democracy Now! — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 13:47:02 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“Simply Lying”: Marc Lamont Hill Slams Trump’s NABJ Interview, Attacks on VP Harris’s Racial Identity

Democracy Now! — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 12:15:38 +0000

We speak with journalist Marc Lamont Hill amid Donald Trump’s ongoing attacks on the racial identity of Vice President Kamala Harris. The Republican presidential nominee was interviewed this week at the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists, where he claimed Harris “happened to turn Black” for political expediency, even though she has always been open about her Jamaican and Indian American parents and identifies as both Black and South Asian. Following backlash to his comments, Trump dug in and continued to attack Harris on social media for supposedly obscuring her heritage, while Trump’s running mate JD Vance, whose wife Usha is Indian American, defended the remarks. “I wish I could say I was shocked or disappointed. This is exactly what Donald Trump does,” says Hill, who is a member of the NABJ. “He demonstrated all the misogynistic and racist and patriarchal sensibilities that we would expect from Donald Trump. And, of course, he spent a lot of that time simply lying.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

We Need a New Path to True Racial Equity

Shervin Assari — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 17:41:14 +0000

The traditional emphasis on education, occupation, and marriage is not enough.

This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Shervin Assari.

A lack of data hampers efforts to fix racial disparities in utility cutoffs

Akielly Hu — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 08:30:00 +0000

Each year, nearly 1.3 million households across the country have their electricity shut off because they cannot pay their bill. Beyond risking the health, or even lives, of those who need that energy to power medical devices and inconveniencing people in myriad ways, losing power poses a grave threat during a heatwave or cold snap.

Such disruptions tend to disproportionately impact Black and Hispanic families, a point underscored by a recent study that found customers of Minnesota’s largest electricity utility who live in communities of color were more than three times as likely to experience a shutoff than those in predominantly white neighborhoods. The finding, by University of Minnesota researchers, held even when accounting for income, poverty level, and homeownership.

Energy policy researchers say they consistently see similar racial disparities nationwide, but a lack of empirical data to illustrate the problem is hindering efforts to address the problem. Only 30 states require utilities to report disconnections, and of those, only a handful provide data revealing where they happen. As climate change brings hotter temperatures, more frequent cold snaps, and other extremes in weather, energy analysts and advocates for disadvantaged communities say understanding these disparities and providing equitable access to reliable power will become ever more important.

“The energy system as it is currently designed is failing to adequately serve all customers,” said Shelby Green, a researcher with the nonprofit Energy and Policy Institute. “Economically disadvantaged and minority people’s lives will be the ones most at threat.”

The research in Minnesota, led by Bhavin Pradhan and Gabriel Chan, found that households of color served by Xcel Energy experienced disproportionately more shut offs and more frequent outages. Between 2020 and 2022, neighborhoods with the highest concentration of people of color were 47 percent more likely than other areas to lose power for more than half a day.

Pradhan told Grist he was surprised to find that those racial differences held even over a period of several years. “It wasn’t just one year where there was a spike, but consistently over time,” he said. The team analyzed data for groups of a few hundred households from 2017 to 2022 — a level of spatial detail that allowed them to isolate the effect of race at a neighborhood level. Xcel Energy has noted that its own grid equity analysis found similar racial disparities in shut offs and outages. But the utility highlighted the age of a home as an equally significant factor for extended outages, and largely attributed cutoffs to a customer’s income. In a submission to the public utilities commission, the company noted that “disconnections are correlated with poverty, and — for a variety of deeply entrenched economic and social reasons that are not driven by the energy system — poverty is correlated with race.” It added that the utility offers programs to help customers cover their bills.

Erica McConnell, staff attorney at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, countered that the utility’s own disconnection data proves those efforts are insufficient. Xcel Energy is currently updating a five-year plan outlining future grid investments, a process McConnell says provides an opportunity for the utility and regulators to invest in communities disproportionately impacted by disconnections and outages. The Center and other organizations have also called on the state Public Utilities Commission to consider reinstating a moratorium on disconnections, introduced at the height of the pandemic, until it can determine how best to address these disparities.

The Family Photographs That Helped Us Investigate How a University Displaced a Black Community

by Logan Jaffe — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 09:00:00 +0000

by Logan Jaffe

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

James and Barbara Johnson flip through a book of their memories. They arrive at a photograph Mr. Johnson snapped as a surprise: a photograph of the long-married couple’s first kiss.

Even after all this time, Barbara Johnson quietly says to herself, “I don’t know how he did that.”

“Me neither,” James Johnson says with a laugh.

James Johnson kept this selfie of his and Barbara’s first kiss. (Christopher Tyree/VCIJ at WHRO. Original photograph by James Johnson.)

The Johnsons are the center of a short documentary ProPublica released last year. The documentary, “Uprooted,” is part of an investigative project reported by Brandi Kellam and Louis Hansen, both of the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO, in partnership with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network and co-published by the Chronicle for Higher Education and Essence. The investigation examines a Black community’s decadeslong battle to hold on to its land as city officials wielded eminent domain to establish and expand Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia.

Now in his 80s, James Johnson has spent decades chronicling through photographs the life of a neighborhood that for the past several decades he’s watched disappear. The Johnsons live in one of five remaining homes of what was once a flourishing middle-class Black community, with roots that extend to the late 1800s. James Johnson’s grandfather, in 1907, purchased slightly more than 30 acres of land in what’s called the Shoe Lane area.

Mother and daughter Ellen Williams Francis and Mannie Francis Johnson (Courtesy of James Johnson)

Eventually, the Shoe Lane community expanded from mostly a community of farmers and laborers to a growing middle-class community including dentists, teachers and a NASA engineer in 1960. This was during a time when racial segregation was a legal pillar of American society, and all-white communities, including the then-all-white Christopher Newport University, enjoyed systematized benefits not afforded to Black people.

The Johnsons’ home as they were building it in 1964 (Courtesy of James Johnson) Johnson and his son during the home’s construction in September 1964 (Courtesy of James Johnson)

As Brandi reported, the 110-acre Shoe Lane area was adjacent to one of the city of Newport News’ most affluent white neighborhoods. So, when the Johnsons made it known they intended to subdivide more of their 30 acres to help provide Black families with opportunities for homeownership, the all-white City Council perceived it as a threat. Like many localities in midcentury America, the Newport News City Council had weaponized urban renewal against Black people to maintain racial segregation and the illusion of white superiority.

Brandi found that in 1961, the city used eminent domain to “seize the core of the Shoe Lane area, including the Johnsons’ farmland, for a new public two-year college — a branch of the Colleges of William and Mary system.” That college eventually became Christopher Newport University.

The Johnsons raised three children in their Shoe Lane home. (Courtesy of James Johnson)

At the time, the university and City Council all but ignored the community’s protests. Instead, the narrative conveyed by the white newspaper was that the Black people of Shoe Lane were against the university because they were anti-education.

For a story that for so long had been told wrong, Brandi saw an opportunity for her reporting to get the story right.

Watch “Uprooted: What a Black Community Lost When a Virginia University Grew”

As bulldozers and trucks filed into Shoe Lane over various waves of university expansion, James Johnson turned to his camera to preserve what he could. His photographs became evidence Brandi relied on in her reporting. While investigative reporters often use Freedom of Information Act requests and government data to document the past, Johnson’s personal archive told the story of what happened to Shoe Lane better than the official records.

268 Prince Drew Road, built in 1972 and demolished in September 2010 (Courtesy of James Johnson) 63 N. Moores Lane demolition in late January 2005 (Courtesy of James Johnson) After homes are demolished, trucks haul away the debris. (Courtesy of James Johnson)

“I just started knocking on doors,” Brandi told me of how her reporting began two years ago. “The person who opened the door for me was Mrs. Johnson.”

When Brandi eventually met James Johnson, she sat with him for hours. She said she let him teach her what happened; she absorbed the history like a sponge.

“He just started opening up these notebooks,” recalled Brandi. “I almost fainted.”

He had kept the original deeds to the land his grandfather bought. He printed out parcel data that was no longer publicly available. He had photographed the front of dozens of homes that no longer existed, writing on sticky notes captions that could only hint at the emotional weight they carried to a community as it was systematically dismantled.

“He collected this not because he was looking for someone to tell the story,” said Brandi. “He did it because he was deeply hurt by what happened to his community.”

What Johnson’s archive documented was, in one light, a story of loss. But, said Brandi, his documenting was also an act of love.

A wedding in the Johnsons’ backyard (Courtesy of James Johnson)

His photographs of his own family and of the community depict lifetimes of what the people of Shoe Lane had earned and experienced for themselves. Today, the Johnsons’ home — the one they built with their own hands — is only one of five remaining. The university’s updated site plan calls for acquiring the last houses in the neighborhood by 2030, Brandi reported.

Barbara and James Johnson sit in their living room in July. They helped build the home on family property almost 60 years ago. (Christopher Tyree/VCIJ at WHRO)

But, for the first time, the university is publicly reckoning with the damage it’s caused to the Shoe Lane area. In January, the university announced its launch of a joint task force with the city of Newport News to reexamine decades of records regarding the neighborhood’s destruction. It may also recommend possible redress for those uprooted families. That reckoning is because of Brandi’s reporting and the accountability lens she’s brought to the story of Shoe Lane. But, Brandi said, her work is building on James Johnson’s project of making sure people don’t forget about Shoe Lane.

The investigation has also prompted attention from Virginia lawmakers, who’ve approved a commission to examine universities’ displacement of Black communities. That commission would consider compensation for dislodged property owners and their descendants.

The 25-minute documentary, which was directed by Brandi and produced by ProPublica’s Lisa Riordan Seville, recently won first place in the documentary journalism category of the Pictures of the Year International Competition. You can read the first installment of Brandi’s investigation, “How a Virginia College Expanded by Uprooting a Black Neighborhood,” and her essay on why the destruction of Shoe Lane matters to her.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Logan Jaffe.

Virginia Lawmakers Approve Commission to Examine Universities’ Displacement of Black Communities

by Brandi Kellam — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

by Brandi Kellam

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Virginia Center for Investigative Reporting at WHRO. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

The Virginia legislature has approved creating a statewide commission to investigate the role of public colleges and universities in displacing Black communities.

The legislature’s action represents a milestone for the budding national movement to seek compensation for families dispossessed by university expansion. It follows a 2023 series by ProPublica and the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO, which showed that universities nationwide have uprooted tens of thousands of families of color, contributing to Black land loss and lagging rates of Black home ownership. The series, which detailed how the creation and expansion of Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, swallowed up a Black neighborhood, spurred city and university leaders there to create a similar task force in January.

The state budget passed by the legislature Saturday would establish a commission to determine whether any public institution of higher education in Virginia “has purchased, expropriated, or otherwise taken possession” of properties in Black neighborhoods to establish or expand a campus, and whether compensation would be “appropriate” for the property owners or their descendants, according to the bill. The commission will also research similar acquisitions in other states to provide context. The panel would report its findings annually to the legislature and submit final recommendations by July 2027. National higher education groups said they are unaware of any other statewide commissions studying the issue.

The Virginia commission would include 10 legislators, the state’s two top education officials and seven members of the public. Gov. Glenn Youngkin has until April 17 to sign the budget; he could also veto specific line items such as the commission’s funding, which consists of $28,760 per year for members’ expenses. Commission staff will be paid separately by the state Division of Legislative Services.

“My country has gone from uprooting Black communities violently to legally doing it,” the Rev. Robin D. Mines, a Richmond minister, testified at a legislative hearing last month in support of the provision. “It is far past due time to do something about this and bringing hope to our communities.”

By documenting the confiscation and destruction of Black neighborhoods for higher-education facilities, the ProPublica-VCIJ series added to the debate over how universities address the legacy of racial injustice — both on their campuses and in the country as a whole. Numerous universities are grappling with their racial histories, even as red states are restricting classroom discussion of critical race theory, which holds that racism is ingrained in America’s laws and power structures.

Del. Delores McQuinn, a Richmond Democrat, introduced legislation in January to create the commission. McQuinn originally proposed allocating $150,000 a year, which was reduced in the conference committee process after her bill was inserted into the budget. She said she would request more funding if needed.

McQuinn, who will be a member of the commission, said she will seek input from other legislators, historians and families affected by university expansion. She said the commission would address “how we repair some of the damage that has been done, whether it is through actual dollars, or scholarships or other kinds of ways.”

She declined to speculate on whether the governor would veto the commission. Youngkin, a Republican, issued an executive order in 2022 to end the use in K-12 schools of what he called “inherently divisive concepts,” including critical race theory, which is more commonly taught in colleges and graduate schools. In a statement Saturday after the legislative session ended, Youngkin said that the legislature “sent me more than a thousand bills plus backward budgets that need a lot of work,” and that he would review and decide on them in the next 30 days.

In the past two decades, prominent universities including Harvard, Yale, Brown and the University of Virginia have issued extensive mea culpas describing their historical involvement with the slave trade and slave owners. In Virginia, a 2021 law required UVA and four other universities that were established before the Civil War and used enslaved laborers to search for descendants and make reparations through scholarships or community-based economic development and memorial programs.

The 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd prompted more institutions to reexamine their history of racial injustice. Still, only a few universities have reckoned with the impact of their growth on communities of color. In 2022, Colorado lawmakers allocated $2 million in scholarships for families and descendants of the Auraria community in Denver. The establishment of the University of Colorado at Denver campus in the early 1970s and its subsequent growth displaced 350 families and reduced the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood to just 13 cottages and a grocery store. The scholarship program eliminates fees and tuition for students and families who lived in the community between 1955 and 1973.

In Athens, Georgia, former residents of the Linnentown neighborhood have sought redress for the taking of their community by eminent domain to develop dormitories for the University of Georgia in the early 1960s. Researchers estimated the property seizures cost Black families $5 million in current dollars, mostly due to underpayment for the land.

Commissioners in Athens-Clarke County, where that university is located, passed a resolution in 2021 urging the state to compensate the roughly 50 displaced families and their descendants. They set aside $2.5 million to build affordable housing and a community center. The University of Georgia, citing a state constitutional ban on voluntary public funding for third parties, has rejected the concept of reparations.

Virginia legislators began discussing redress for uprooted families in response to the ProPublica-VCIJ series and an accompanying documentary film, which both explored how Newport News’ all-white city council seized the core of a thriving Black community in and around Shoe Lane by eminent domain in the early 1960s to build Christopher Newport’s campus. City leaders wanted to “erase the Black spot” near a segregated country club. In the ensuing decades, the school acquired almost all of the remaining homes.

Following the first article in the series, Christopher Newport University President William Kelly acknowledged in a message to faculty and staff that the university’s progress “has come at a human cost, and we must continue to learn about and understand our complicated history.” Kelly, who became president last year, has also said that incoming freshmen will be taught at orientation about the college’s origins and evolution. In January, the city of Newport News and CNU announced a task force to review decades of property acquisitions and consider possible redress for displaced families.

Christopher Newport University has declined to comment to ProPublica or VCIJ on the joint local task force or the possible state commission.

Other Virginia state universities that absorbed Black communities have tried to make amends for their history. Old Dominion University’s expansion since the early 1960s diminished a once-thriving Black community in Norfolk called Lamberts Point. In the 1990s, the university established scholarships and a jobs program for current neighborhood residents.

A memorial on UVA’s campus acknowledges its centuries of mistreatment of Black people both during and after slavery, including employees and local residents. In 2020, UVA President Jim Ryan announced a goal to build as many as 1,500 affordable homes and apartments on property owned by the school and its affiliates. The housing would be open to residents outside the university community.

While the Virginia measure focuses on public universities because they were established by the state, private institutions have their own fraught history. The University of Richmond, for example, acknowledged in 2019 that part of the campus was built on top of a cemetery for enslaved persons. The university is planning a memorial to honor the people buried there.

McQuinn, the legislation’s sponsor, said that she has long been aware of the displacement of Black neighborhoods by universities, but that the ProPublica-VCIJ series spurred her to act. Several supporters of the proposal, including the heads of the statewide and Richmond chapters of the NAACP, attended the Feb. 9 subcommittee hearing in person or online.

Others submitted comments via the General Assembly’s portal. “I see an opportunity to right the wrongs of the past,” wrote a Richmond resident identifying himself only as Antoine. He added that the “pushback” against studying the history of racial injustice, like the university expansions themselves, is “reminiscent once again of the erasure of a culture.”

Louis Hansen contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Brandi Kellam.

Haitian Asylum Seekers Take Biden Admin to Court for Racial Discrimination, Rights Violations

Democracy Now! — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 15:48:03 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Haitian Asylum Seekers Take Biden Admin to Court for Racial Discrimination, Rights Violations

Democracy Now! — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 13:45:34 +0000

A federal court in Washington, D.C., heard arguments Thursday in a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of racial discrimination and rights violations of Haitian asylum seekers. The suit was brought on behalf of 11 Haitian asylum seekers who were abused by U.S. border agents as more than 15,000 people, mostly from Haiti, were forced to stay in a makeshift border encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande near the Acuña-Del Rio International Bridge in Texas. One of the plaintiffs is Mirard Joseph, the asylum seeker whose image went viral after being photographed while a Border Patrol agent on horseback lashed him with split reins, grabbed his neck and gripped Joseph by the shirt collar. “This is a critical junction in our country here in the United States as we make sure to uphold human rights and understanding seeking asylum is a human right,” says Guerline Jozef, executive director of immigrant advocacy organization Haitian Bridge Alliance, which helped bring the case on behalf of asylum seekers. “We will continue to push forward and make sure that accountability is served but also we have systematic change in the way that we receive people in the United States.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Task Force to Consider “Restorative Justice” for Black Families Uprooted by Virginia University’s Expansion

by Brandi Kellam, Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 22:00:00 +0000

by Brandi Kellam, Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

The city of Newport News, Virginia, and Christopher Newport University are creating a joint task force to reexamine the destruction of a Black neighborhood to make way for the school’s campus starting in the 1960s, and recommend possible redress for uprooted families.

The new commission, announced Monday, will scrutinize four decades of the school’s property acquisitions, probing the decisions that led to locating and expanding its campus in the midst of a once-thriving Black community. It will also contact families displaced by Christopher Newport’s steady growth to ask what “restorative justice” would mean for them, and seek state assistance with potential relief for victims, according to a draft action plan.

The formation of the task force follows publication of a series by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO and ProPublica, which revealed that Christopher Newport and other Virginia state universities grew by decimating thriving Black communities. It also documented race-based decision-making by the City Council by locating the school in a Black neighborhood despite having cheaper options and by seizing properties by eminent domain. CNU’s expansion has whittled down the Shoe Lane neighborhood in Newport News to just five houses.

In their announcement, Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones and Christopher Newport University President Bill Kelly said that the task force’s goals are to develop a “comprehensive understanding” of historical events and to ensure that residents are treated better in the future. “Understanding and acknowledging our past is important to moving forward in a transparent and thoughtful way. Christopher Newport is committed to this work,” Kelly said.

“I was deeply disturbed to know that this happened in our community,” Jones said. “I feel a personal obligation to ensure the city speaks to its role in displacing families and disrupting the sense of community in this historic area.”

The city will align itself with CNU’s plan to boost Black enrollment, according to the draft action plan obtained by VCIJ and ProPublica. Black people make up 44% of Newport News residents but only 8% of Christopher Newport students, down from 17% in 1996, VCIJ and ProPublica reported.

The announcement marks the latest and one of the broadest efforts in the country by a university and its host city to revisit their role in urban renewal and the disruption of once-stable Black communities. City and school reexamination of the historic displacement of marginalized communities has led to greater recognition of the plight of former residents near the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Georgia in Athens. The Denver university has also established a scholarship fund for descendants of families in the displaced Aurorian community.

Besides municipal and university action, the VCIJ-ProPublica series has also stirred a state legislative response. Delegate Delores McQuinn introduced legislation this month to create a commission to study how Virginia public colleges have uprooted Black communities and to explore routes of redress.

The first phase of the Newport News and CNU review will examine property records and assessments from 1958 to 1997 to determine whether property owners were properly paid for their land. The task force will also review city and university records, family archives and church documents to identify displaced families and calculate potential compensation, according to the draft action plan.

In the late 1950s, the Johnson family sold farmland in the Shoe Lane area to Black families for a new subdivision called Johnson Terrace. (Christopher Tyree/VCIJ at WHRO)

Additionally, the working group will survey affected families and consult with historians, lawyers and restorative justice experts. The task force will also suggest changes to the city’s policy for using eminent domain to seize properties.

The city has not released details about how many members would be appointed to the task force, when it would be expected to conclude its work or when findings would be released.

Newport News Vice Mayor Curtis Bethany and CNU Provost Quentin Kidd will co-chair the task force, which is expected to include representatives of the city, the university administration, alumni, students and the community, according to the action plan.

The ProPublica series detailed how universities have taken advantage of federal funding and court rulings to displace tens of thousands of families of color. A 1959 amendment to the Federal Housing Act gave colleges generous subsidies to join with cities to expand into stable neighborhoods, often by using eminent domain. While these efforts were promoted as ways to revitalize deteriorating neighborhoods, they frequently resulted in the destruction of Black middle-class communities. Christopher Newport and other Virginia state universities grew at the expense of Black neighborhoods.

Following the first story in the series, Kelly acknowledged in a message to faculty and staff that the university’s progress “has come at a human cost, and we must continue to learn about and understand our complicated history.”

Kelly also shared the series and a related documentary film with students, faculty and staff, and CNU hosted a panel discussion in November on its history. There, before an overflow crowd, panelists and audience members lashed out at the university. “A school that’s built on land that was taken from Black Americans should be more diverse,” said panelist Audrey Perry Williams, president of the Hampton Roads Association for the Study of African American Life and History.

Another panelist, professor Johnny Finn, chair of the Christopher Newport sociology department, floated the idea of reparations for affected families. “I think we need to think about materially, in addition to the symbolic and the representational, how we deal with this,” Finn said.

In 2019, Christopher Newport implemented the Community Captains program, designed to prepare students from Newport News high schools to enter the university and increase enrollment of Black students. Other Virginia universities have taken steps to rectify the historical displacement of marginalized communities caused by their campus expansions. Beginning in the 1960s, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, took over part of the predominantly Black Lambert’s Point neighborhood. ODU has since worked to improve relations with remaining residents by increasing enrollment of students of color and awarding scholarships to residents of Lambert’s Point and nearby areas. The University of Virginia, which also dislodged Black residents, appointed two executive commissions to study its historical support for racist policies and has set a goal to create affordable housing for Charlottesville residents on university-owned properties.

Around 1960, the area bounded by Shoe Lane and three other streets was a growing Black middle-class neighborhood. Residents included teachers, dentists, a high school principal and a NASA engineer, and there were plans to develop farmland for additional housing. But an all-white Newport News City Council blocked those plans by seizing the core of the community in 1961 to establish a college. A former Christopher Newport University president said he was told that the goal was to “erase the Black spot,” in part because the area was near an all-white country club where city and business leaders gathered. The city paid the homeowners 20% less for the properties than the value set by an independent appraiser, council records show.

Even after the 1960s seizure, Black families continued to live around the perimeter of the college. However, Christopher Newport kept expanding. Between 1987 and 2019, it acquired at least 70 properties in the Shoe Lane area, according to an analysis of real estate records. Contending that the university’s expansion hurt their property values, because no one else would want to buy the property, homeowners unsuccessfully sued the university in federal court in 1989.

Paul Trible, CNU’s president from 1996 to 2022, said publicly he wouldn’t need to invoke eminent domain. But his administration used it as leverage to force at least one homeowner to sell in 2005, records show. That same year, the school’s governing board approved its use for three other properties that Christopher Newport said it ultimately acquired without resorting to eminent domain.

Dwayne Johnson, who grew up on Shoe Lane, urged the task force not only to compensate families for underpayments and loss of property value but also to pay them punitive damages. Johnson’s great-grandfather purchased 30 acres of land on Shoe Lane in the early 1900s.

“Do we want reparations? That would be nice,” Johnson said. “But do we think it will be meaningful in that it actually is reflective of our losses? I don’t know.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Brandi Kellam, Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO.

The University Uprooted a Black Neighborhood. Then Its Policies Reduced the Black Presence on Campus.

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 11:00:00 +0000

by Brandi Kellam and Louis Hansen, Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO, and Gabriel Sandoval, ProPublica

More than most public colleges, Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, is the embodiment of one person’s vision.

Paul Trible was CNU’s president from 1996 to 2022, serving almost three times as long as anyone else. He remains a distinguished professor at the school and its highest-paid employee, making more than half a million dollars a year. A former congressman and U.S. senator, Trible took over a young university and transformed it from a commuter school into a residential campus. He boosted the school’s endowment from $300,000 to $64 million. Construction during his presidency included a student union, dormitories, a theater and concert hall, a baseball stadium and a chapel. The CNU library underwent major renovation and was renamed after Trible and his wife.

The longtime Republican politician also left another, less-noted legacy: a decline in the Black presence both on campus and in the adjacent neighborhood. Under his stewardship, the university pursued policies that thinned the ranks of Black students and faculty even as its continuing expansion eradicated a nearby Black community.

“For our area, a school that’s built on land that was taken from Black Americans” should be more diverse, said Audrey Perry Williams, president of the Hampton Roads chapter of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, during a university-sponsored panel discussion on CNU’s history in November. “It’s just amazing that we’ve got all of this technology, we’ve got this outstanding institution here. And we’re not represented.”

Under Trible, CNU prioritized recruiting from affluent, largely white suburban high schools, according to current and former university officials.

In a state that is one-fifth African American and a city that is 44% Black, CNU’s Black enrollment dropped from 17% to 7% during Trible’s administration. It now stands at 8%.

The share of low-income students also decreased. The fifth most expensive of Virginia’s 15 public universities. CNU has the highest average net price — the actual cost of attending after subtracting grants and scholarships — for students from families with incomes under $30,000, according to state data.

Pell Grants, the federal financial aid program for low-income students, demonstrate the shift. From 1996, when Trible became president, to 2017, the last year for which federal data is available, the number of Pell Grant recipients at CNU dropped by 26%. Over the same period, the number of recipients nationally almost doubled. According to state data, the number of CNU students on Pell Grants declined by about one-third, from 1,003 in 1996 to 663 in 2021.

Proportions of Black and Low-Income Students at Christopher Newport University Dropped as Recruiting Efforts Targeted Affluent Suburbs Note: The number of Pell Grant recipients grew nationally from 2008-2010 due to increased federal funding, broader eligibility rules, and an economic recession that reduced incomes and led many people to go to school rather than seek jobs. Source: State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (Lucas Waldron/ProPublica)

Black representation among professors is even more sparse. Out of CNU’s 286 full-time faculty in the fall of 2021, only seven, or 2.4%, were Black, the lowest percentage since at least 1993 and well below the national average of 6%, according to U.S. Department of Education data. One factor: CNU’s hiring criteria favored candidates from schools that were highly ranked by U.S. News & World Report, putting applicants from historically Black colleges and universities at a disadvantage.

Questions of racial discrimination have plagued Christopher Newport, which has 4,500 students and an annual revenue of about $180 million, since its birth as an all-white branch of the Colleges of William and Mary system in 1960. As ProPublica and Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO previously reported, the city of Newport News seized the core of a middle-class Black community by eminent domain as a site for the new college’s campus, bypassing other, less-expensive locations. Under Trible, the university completed the neighborhood’s erasure by acquiring almost all of the remaining homes.

As CNU president, Trible’s actions and comments on race-related issues sometimes stirred controversy. In 2003, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found reasonable cause for a complaint by two former CNU employees — a Black police officer and a white security guard with an adopted Black daughter — who had quit after two campus officers used racial slurs and made death threats. The EEOC urged CNU to rehire the complainants, pay their lost wages and discipline the offending officers.

Trible refused. He said in an email to faculty and staff that CNU had investigated the case “aggressively and exhaustively” and “determined that these are unfounded allegations of disgruntled former employees.” The Department of Justice, to which the EEOC refers cases when its findings aren’t heeded, decided not to sue the university. The security guard, William Nowinsky, received the department’s approval to file a lawsuit, but couldn’t afford to do so.

After a white police officer murdered George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, in Minneapolis in May 2020, Trible emailed the CNU community, deploring not only the deaths of Floyd and other victims of police violence, but also the vandalism associated with protests sweeping the country. “My own son’s business,” a luxury clothing store in Richmond, “was ransacked, and all of his merchandise and cash register carried off,” Trible said. In response, 1,700 students and alumni signed a letter criticizing him as “tone deaf” to racism. Trible then apologized, writing, “I hear your cry for change. … Black lives matter to me and always have and always will.” CNU also created a scholarship in Floyd’s memory for undergraduates from underrepresented groups.

That summer, more than 180 CNU faculty members wrote to Trible and members of the school’s board, urging them “to recognize and address our own university’s role in reproducing systemic inequality. … We believe that demographic disparities, alongside a number of university policy decisions, foster an environment that produces a strong anti-Black bias.”

Among other policy changes requested in the letter, the writers urged CNU to make Martin Luther King Day a university holiday. Although Trible voted as a senator in 1983 for a national holiday in King’s honor, a ProPublica-VCIJ survey found that Christopher Newport was the last Virginia state university to recognize it as a holiday, not doing so until 2021. Asked why, CNU and Trible did not respond.

In 2019, the Phi Beta Kappa Society, which has almost 300 member colleges, rejected CNU’s request to set up a chapter on campus and encouraged the school to pursue greater diversity. “A diverse faculty, staff, and student body allows ideas to emerge for the benefit of the entire campus community,” Frederick M. Lawrence, the honor society’s secretary and CEO, wrote in a letter explaining the decision. “There are elements that Christopher Newport can point to with pride, especially that the Board of Visitors has affirmed the importance of free inquiry. It is important as well that the campus culture support that commitment.”

In the past, Trible has attributed the drop in Black enrollment to higher admissions standards, but neither he nor CNU answered a detailed list of questions about this and other aspects of his record as president. “We want to learn and understand the University’s full history,” current President William Kelly said in a statement. “As we examine our past, we seek to contribute to the future of Virginia and Newport News, our hometown that we cherish. We welcome local high school students to an innovative, no-cost, pre-college program. We’re offering expanded scholarships and direct admission to first-generation and low-income students. We are recruiting more diverse students and faculty and we are committed to building stronger connections with our neighbors and community.”

In a September message to faculty and staff, Kelly also acknowledged “the impacts on the community from the location and expansion of the campus.” Christopher Newport’s growth “has come at a human cost, and we must continue to learn about and understand our complicated history,” Kelly said.

As the campus expanded, so did Trible’s pay. Between 2010 and 2022, he earned at least $10 million in combined compensation from CNU and its real estate foundation. On average, Trible was paid $772,000 annually during this period, with roughly $425,000 coming from the university and $347,000 coming from the foundation, according to public tax filings. In all but one year between 2010 and 2021, Trible’s pay exceeded that of his counterpart at another state university in Virginia, Old Dominion, that has five times as many students as Christopher Newport, according to compensation data on the most recent tax forms from each school’s real estate foundation.

As a tenured professor in the department of leadership and American studies, Trible’s current salary is $524,000, paid by the real estate foundation, according to a university spokesperson. Trible is not teaching this year. According to his contract, he does not have “any obligations” this year. He may start teaching next year, the spokesperson said. The other former CNU president and distinguished professor, Anthony Santoro, who is teaching this year, is making $200,464. The current president, Kelly, a retired rear admiral and former superintendent of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, earns $400,000.

Trible’s post-presidential pay has become an issue on campus. At an all-faculty meeting in August 2022, James Bogenpohl, an associate professor of biology and neuroscience, asked provost Quentin Kidd how much Trible was making. Kidd said he didn’t know and faculty would have to submit a public records request, Bogenpohl said. They did so. At a similar meeting a year later, which included a discussion of budget cuts to faculty merit awards and research, Bogenpohl stood and read from Trible’s contract, questioning its generous terms in a time of belt-tightening. Some professors applauded, Bogenpohl said, while others looked shocked that he would criticize the revered ex-president. Trible didn’t attend the meeting. Kidd did not respond to a request for comment.

“Trible claims to love the university,” Bogenpohl said in an interview. “You would think if he’s going to take a year of leave, he might find it in his heart to take that year without a half-a-million-dollar bonus.”

Associate professor James Bogenpohl, standing in front of the Trible Library, has questioned Trible’s compensation. (Christopher Tyree/VCIJ at WHRO)

The 76-year-old Trible descends from an old Virginia family. His roots stretch back centuries in Essex County, Virginia, a rural region of former plantations and small commercial ports along the Rappahannock River, about an hour northeast of Richmond.

One 19th-century ancestor, John Samuel Trible, was a doctor and plantation owner, according to the Essex County Historical Society. John S. Trible enslaved 19 people, including 11 females and 8 males between the ages of 1 and 70, according to the 1850 Federal Census Slave Schedule.

Paul Trible himself owns an antebellum plantation in Kilmarnock, Virginia, called Gascony, which was operated by slave labor in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 1950s, his parents acquired the main home and property, which Trible eventually inherited. He has bought adjacent properties over the years, reassembling the original plantation. Gascony was named a Virginia landmark in March, and Trible’s application to the National Park Service to add it to the national register of historic places was pending as of June. A primary benefit of these designations is that owners may qualify for tax credits for renovations.

Trible’s father, Paul Trible Sr., was a business executive, and the family moved frequently. Paul Trible Jr. grew up in Richmond and New Orleans and graduated from high school near Scranton, Pennsylvania.

As an undergraduate at private, all-male Hampden-Sydney College in southwestern Virginia, he made his goal clear. “I want to be president of the United States,” Trible told his adviser, according to “Crazy as Hell: The Story of the Transformation of Christopher Newport University” by Ellen Vaughn, which was copyrighted by the university’s education foundation and is dedicated to Trible and his wife, Rosemary.

Trible attended law school at Washington and Lee University, where Robert E. Lee became president after commanding Confederate forces in the Civil War. He was elected to Congress in 1976, before his 30th birthday. When he sought reelection two years later, his Democratic opponent criticized him for voting against every priority advocated by the Congressional Black Caucus.

Trible “has one of the worst records in the entire Congress when it comes to issues important to blacks,” read a campaign ad by Democrat Lewis Puller. Trible responded that it was ridiculous to characterize his entire record on the basis of 16 votes.

Trible won anyway, and then was elected to the Senate in 1982. A staunch supporter of Ronald Reagan, Trible was viewed as a pragmatist, not a firebrand. Conservative on social issues — he opposed abortion except to save the pregnant person’s life — he worked across the aisle to support public education.

In 1988, during his last full year in the Senate, Trible and Virginia’s other Republican senator, John W. Warner, backed the nomination of a local lawyer to the federal bench. The nomination died in committee after it was revealed that the attorney belonged to the James River Country Club in Newport News, which would not admit its first Black member until 1990. Newport News leaders may have wanted to uproot a middle-class Black community nearby because it was close to the country club, where the city’s business and political elite played golf, according to CNU historian Phillip Hamilton.

Instead of running for reelection, Trible sought the Republican nomination for governor. He lost and returned to practicing law. He also served on CNU’s board of visitors. When CNU’s president, Santoro, announced in 1995 that he would resign, Trible was named to the search committee for a new president. After reviewing dozens of applications,Trible surprised other committee members by offering himself as a candidate.

“I haven’t labored in the academic world,” he told the search committee, according to “Crazy as Hell.” “But I have learned important lessons in government service. I know and love this community and Virginia, and I’ve come to know and love this school.”

Trible brought his conservative politics and values to his presidency. For example, his administration imposed traditional standards of fashion. Students who worked part time for the university had to abide by dress codes. In 2013, the code required student employees to wear “modest” clothes and jewelry “in good taste.” Only women could have fingernail polish, makeup or earrings — and no more than two earrings per earlobe. Visible tattoos were “not acceptable.” By 2020, the policy was less specific, but it still said that tattoos and piercings other than earrings could not be visible.

If Trible was going to be at an event, “you better wear a tie,” Bogenpohl said.

When Trible arrived, the school had a small endowment and an unimposing campus. Trible proved to be an effective fundraiser. After he networked with politicians across the state in 1996, the legislature increased CNU’s funding by 21%, the largest hike of any university that year, according to “Crazy as Hell.”

Trible developed a close relationship with Smithfield Foods in nearby Smithfield, Virginia, the world’s largest pork producer. In 2005, a $5 million donation from Smithfield established a business school at CNU. Two years later, Trible joined Smithfield’s board. The company foundation again donated $5 million in 2011, plus $1 million from its chief executive and his wife for CNU’s chapel, which opened in 2012 and features a marble entranceway, a 60-foot cupola and a main hall seating 325 people.

One of Trible’s early moves as president was to establish a real estate foundation — a common strategy at Virginia public universities to reduce reliance on state financing for major projects. It became a vehicle for Christopher Newport to buy and develop adjacent properties, displacing dozens more Black families and a Black church. It offered Trible six-figure bonuses for fundraising for new construction. The foundation also built a five-bedroom, five-bathroom presidential mansion for Trible on the waterfront, with a library, a reception hall and four fireplaces, according to the local newspaper.

During his presidency, Trible has said, the university underwent a $1 billion renovation and expansion. In 2019, The Princeton Review ranked CNU as the 17th-most-beautiful campus in America.

“Paul Trible was a builder,” former president Santoro said. “Just look at the place.”

A portrait of Trible and his wife hangs in the library named after them. (Christopher Tyree/VCIJ at WHRO)

Trible’s plans to reshape the student body were equally ambitious. Christopher Newport’s original mission was to serve the rapidly growing student population in the blue-collar Tidewater region. Trible had a different idea. His vision, he told the university alumni magazine in 2006, was to “offer a private school experience at a public university — great teaching, small classes, lots of personal attention and a marvelous sense of community.”

During his tenure, CNU moved away from vocational programs. In the early 2000s, facing state budget cuts, it eliminated a bachelor’s degree program in nursing. Although data on the program’s enrollment by race was unavailable, nationally 11% of nursing graduates are Black. It also planned to scuttle teacher education but compromised, after strong criticism from the local community, by creating a master’s degree program.

CNU also pivoted to recruiting students from the wealthy suburbs of Richmond and northern Virginia. School officials courted high school guidance counselors there and held annual recruiting events at the opulent, late-19th-century Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, according to Vaughn’s book.

Trible himself pitched CNU at the Jefferson Hotel in the fall of 2019, said William Gordon, who attended the session as a prospective student. The event was known at Gordon’s suburban Richmond high school as a way for early admission applicants to make an impression, he said. Gordon, who is Black, said he soon noticed how few other Black students were there. “It was like to the point where, if anybody Black was in that room, you would give a little nod,’ he said.

After Trible’s speech, Gordon and other students lined up to meet him. Trible wrote down many of their names and CNU followed up by immediately accepting some of them, Gordon said. His own acceptance was deferred, but he ultimately enrolled.

William Gordon on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. Gordon transferred there from Christopher Newport. (Christopher Tyree/VCIJ at WHRO)

In the long term, CNU has struggled to attract enough high-achieving students from outside its home region. In Trible’s first decade as president, the number of CNU applicants soared and its acceptance rate dropped from 82% to about half. The average SAT score of its students rose by more than 200 points, according to media reports, and the graduation rate increased.

But CNU couldn’t sustain this success. Its yield rate — the percentage of admitted students who enroll — has plunged from almost 40% in 2004 and 2005 to 17% in 2021 and 18% in 2022, according to data from the university’s office of institutional research.

CNU accepted at least 85% of applicants in 2021 and 2022. Even so, enrollment has skidded 14% in the past decade, increasing CNU’s reliance on state funding.

CNU was founded to serve the Newport News area. But by 2014, few of its students were local. The proportion of freshmen coming from Newport News and neighboring Hampton, which both have a plurality Black population, had plummeted from 9% as recently as 2005 to 3.5%. The two cities, Newport News sheriff Gabriel Morgan said, weren’t “seen as the pool to draw from.”

As Morgan, who is Black, drove or biked past the campus almost every day, he realized that it didn’t reflect the city’s makeup. He told then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, who agreed that CNU should have more diverse voices in its leadership and appointed Morgan to CNU’s board.

“Trible didn’t have the benefit of people challenging his policies,” Morgan said.

With Morgan’s support, CNU implemented the Community Captains program in 2019. Sophomores at Newport News high schools who have at least a B-plus average and would be the first in their family to go to college are paired with a CNU student mentor and receive academic preparation as well as early admission. Aided by an influx of Community Captains, the number of Black freshmen from Newport News increased to 44 in fall 2021, up from a low of 14 in 2018, but still below levels seen earlier in Trible’s presidency.

In 2018, Trible established a President’s Council on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Two years later, he created the position of chief diversity officer.

Still, Morgan felt that progress was slow and that other board members were more enthusiastic about new buildings than they were about diversity.

“If you’re white, straight and Christian, you’re going to love Christopher Newport,” said Morgan, who left the board in 2022. “If you’re anything other than that, it’s going to be a struggle for you. Unfortunately.”

CNU spokesperson Jim Hanchett said that the university has stepped up its in-person recruiting visits to high schools in the Hampton Roads area, which includes Newport News and Hampton, focusing on underserved communities. It is also offering “immediate, direct admission” to more than 30,000 out-of-state students who come from low-income families, who would be the first in their families to go to college, or who are members of underrepresented groups, Hanchett said.

CNU has a Black student organization and several Black fraternities and sororities. But current and former students told ProPublica that they found it hard to be Black on a predominantly white campus. In 2021, in his second semester at CNU, William Gordon transferred to Virginia Commonwealth University due to a dispute over his financial aid and a campus environment that he felt was unwelcoming to Black students, he said.

Matthew Johnson, a Black CNU senior who is a resident assistant in a dormitory, said that a drunken white student there once called him the N-word. When he objected, the student said that Johnson had misheard. “He told me he said ‘bigger,’” recalled Johnson, who decided not to pursue the matter.

Matthew Johnson, a CNU senior, says people at the school rarely discuss the difficulty of being Black on a predominantly white campus. (Heather Hughes for VCIJ at WHRO)

The Rev. William Spencer, current pastor of a Baptist church that used to be the religious and social center of the Black neighborhood next to campus but has since relocated, said that the school’s diversity efforts are more show than substance. “I’m looking for diversity and inclusion to not just be a word thrown around like a used toothpick but to actually mean something,” Spencer said at the panel discussion in November on the university’s history.

Black faculty members also said they feel isolated. Trible’s predecessor, Santoro, hired about a dozen Black professors over the course of his presidency, including psychology professor Shelia Greenlee and her husband, political scientist Harry Greenlee. The Greenlees soon began hosting a monthly Friday-night dinner for other Black professors, where they discussed topics such as establishing a Black faculty caucus and how to support Black students.

“It was just an opportunity for us to bond, to connect and to feel comfortable that there was someone else here other than you because there are so few of us,” Shelia Greenlee said.

As several Black professors left, the dinners became less frequent. After Trible became president, the Greenlees wanted to revive them, but there weren’t enough Black faculty and some of those that were hired didn’t stay long. With her husband’s retirement two years ago, she said, the number of Black professors at CNU with tenure — lifetime job security — dropped by one-third, from three to two. One of them was Greenlee herself.

One deterrent to hiring Black faculty was a policy adopted at least 15 years ago under Trible. It said that tenure-track candidates should “ideally” have at least one credential, such as a doctorate, from a university ranked as one of the 74 best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, or a bachelor’s degree from one of the top 50 national universities or top 89 liberal arts colleges. Only one historically Black college or university, Spelman College in Georgia, made any of those lists. Another possible credential was Phi Beta Kappa membership, but only four HBCUs have chapters. In their 2020 letter to Trible, faculty members urged CNU to “immediately abandon” its reliance on these hiring lists, “thus eliminating the implicit and explicit racial bias.” Instead, CNU expanded the criteria to include a degree from one of the top 25 historically Black colleges.

Patricia Hopkins, a Black associate professor of English, realized when she moved to a new office in 2010 just how much of an anomaly she was. While she and her daughter were shelving books in her new office, a white janitorial staffer came to her door. “Faculty are going to be here any second to move into these offices, and you haven’t even dusted yet,” he said, tossing rags and a can of furniture polish at her.

Professor Patricia Hopkins said she was mistaken for a custodian. (Christopher Tyree/VCIJ at WHRO)

“It never occurred to him that I was actually Dr. Hopkins and this was my office,” she recalled. “The likelihood is, he took an educated guess and on this campus, I’m more likely to be the cleaner than be the professor.”

Reach Brandi Kellam at brandi@brandikellam.com or brandi.kellam@vcij.org and Louis Hansen at louis.hansen@vcij.org.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by .

Colonialism, Nazi Antisemitism and How Hate Became Racial

Bruce Neuburger — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 06:57:28 +0000

Public reading of the antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer, Worms, Germany, 1935

Anti-Jewish sentiments and laws had a long history in Europe and in Germany. But in 1930s Europe racial antisemitism, the belief that Jews were a separate and inferior or dangerous race, was a relatively recent invention. Racial antisemitism, like the concept of race itself, was largely a product of the era in which it arose, the era of capitalism. It fully ripened during the period when industrial capitalist nations were colonizing and enslaving vast stretches of the world that lay beyond their shores. It was a byproduct of that colonization.

Background

There was nothing pre-ordained about modern capitalism arising in Europe. There was nothing special about the people of the region, that became Europe and gave rise to its economic and social development and scientific advances, any more than was the case regarding other human advances in other eras and regions, be they the invention of written language in Mesopotamia, gun powder in China, or the cultivation of corn in Meso-America.

In a world where Homo Sapiens migrated out of Africa into the various continents with different geographies and climates and so on, mainly isolated for thousands of years from one another, it would not be expected that social evolution would move evenly, in step, along the same lines everywhere.[1] In fact, unevenness is an essential feature of human development, as it is with all natural phenomena.

There was nothing special, in that sense, to dictate that Europe, and in particular, England, should become the first locus of modern industrial capitalism. And capitalism, like all economic/social systems before it, possesses its own set of characteristics. In industrial capitalism’s case there are two factors that are most relevant to the point I wish to make here. One, it is competitive. Two it emerged, and could only have emerged, at a time and under circumstances when scientific-technical development had reached a certain threshold making possible the harnessing of sources of energy beyond that which could be produced by humans, animals, wind, fire, and an occasional river. Specifically, the development of steam power from the burning of wood and later, other sources of energy, such as coal and oil, for driving machines for production and transportation, developed in Europe first.[2]

Competition among different producers of goods in a common marketplace provided the impetus and necessity to expand and find ever more efficient means of production. The development of technology allowed for the scale of that production and marketing to increase rapidly and dramatically.

Colonial Ambitions

The fact that Europeans, beginning with the Spanish and Portuguese in the 1400s, had already explored, established outposts, and seized control of different regions of the world meant that when industrialized capitalism came along in the 1800s it had the pathways to expand its reach globally. In fact, the inroads made by these earlier colonial powers and the wealth that they extracted from the Americas, and the labor they stole from Africa, and America accelerated the development of European industry, science, military weaponry and so on, which in turn, accelerated that global expansion.

By the end of the 1800s much of the non-European regions of the world were under the domination of one or another European nation.[3] The U.S. which had also jumped on to the industrial track and was, in the last half of that century, in the same league economically and politically with England, France and others, used its industrial development (greatly accelerated through the enormous wealth accumulated under slavery) to seize the land of the native population, including vast stretches under the control of Mexico, and gain control of large regions south of U.S. borders, as well as in other parts of the world. The growing pace of what would become a breakneck competition over colonial expansion was demonstrated in the mid-1800s by the seizure of California as a jumping off point for trade and expansion into Asia, especially China.

Among the colonizing nations there was a growing obsession with grabbing up territory to satisfy their industrial sectors’ growing appetite for raw materials, markets, cheap labor, and the need for profitable investment of ever larger blocks of capital. Successful colonizers enjoyed increased wealth which could be used to reduce the poverty and discontent of their own exploited classes. In these colonizing countries parts of a growing middle class (essentially those sections of the population able to access a larger share of that expanding wealth), there was a growing clamor for colonies expressed in a rising attitude of nationalism, chauvinism, and an acceptance, if not embrace, of militarism.

By the latter 1800s England, France, Holland, Belgium, and the U.S., along with the older colonial powers of Spain and Portugal, had seized most all of Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America and the South Pacific Islands region. Germany consolidated into a single country after its successful war with France in 1871, and emerged as an industrial powerhouse, with similar needs and ambitions to these rival European powers. But it came up against the reality that it had come late to the game. Even Belgium and Holland with far smaller populations and industrial bases had grabbed proportionally more of the world’s territory and population than Germany.

In 1879 a Bavarian Lutheran pastor, Friedrich Fabri wrote a book on the subject that garnered wide attention and triggered a national debate. The book, Bedarf Deutschland der Koloniens? (Does Germany Need Colonies?) argued that for Germany the acquisition of overseas colonies was a matter of life or death: “Should not the German nation, so seaworthy, so industrially and commercially minded . . . and possessing a rich and available supply of labor, all these to a greater extent than other modern culture-peoples, should not this nation successfully pave a new path on the road of imperialism?” The sentiments expressed by Fabri were hardly his alone. During Germany’s Second Reich, the urge to build its own colonial empire became an obsession among German politicians, military leaders, and academics and was a significant component of Germany’s push to become a major military land and sea power: a prelude to the First World War. After World War I, in the wake of Germany’s defeat, this urge to empire was the motor that drove militarism and fascism.

For instance, on November 19, 1938, after Germany had seized and absorbed Austria and occupied the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels justified Germany’s aggressive expansionism with this assertion, “. . . the nations of the world got busy partitioning the continents of Africa, South America, Asia, Australia. By the time we [Germany] had finished our domestic struggles and appeared united for the first time on the stage of the world, we found that the partitioning was complete.”[4]

When Germany entered the race for colonies in the latter 1800s it had limited options for where it could plant its flag. Germany made some limited inroads in Africa and the South Pacific.[5] One of those was a place that had been largely bypassed by other nations. It was known then as South West Africa; today, Namibia.

Germany in South West Africa

Previous explorers and would-be colonizers had passed South West Africa by. Its geography and topography were not particularly alluring. Its coast was rugged and buffeted by frigid winds that swooped in off the south Atlantic Ocean. Inland from the coast, there were tens of thousands of square miles of dry, hot sand dunes, barren gravel or scrub brush planes and the dry mountains of the Namib desert. Beyond that, to the east, was another desert, the Kalahari. There were no known deposits of valuable resources. Limited animal husbandry was possible and sustained a relatively small native population. Farming was only sustainable in places where groundwater was found, and wells successfully dug.

But colonial fever was in full force in Europe when, in 1883, a young German named Heinrich Vogelsang, with some experience in colonial affairs and a knack for European colonial methods, arrived at the austere South West African coastal town of Lüderitz with a plan. Vogelsang traveled inland and arranged to meet with Joseph Fredericks the leader of one of the twelve clans of the Nama people. The Nama were one of the two major African populations in that region. In exchange for some rifles and a modest amount of money, Vogelsang was able to secure an agreement that gave Germany “legal” access to a barren tract of land around the little port area of Lüderitz. It was the opening of a door to a process whose implications Fredericks could not have foreseen. In the following years, German colonists began moving in with the backing of the German government and military.

What the Germans found was a vast area occupied by two distinct native peoples, the Herrero, and the Nama (whom the Europeans called Hottentots). They were mainly pastoral people who made their living by riverbed farming and herding cattle. They were dark-skinned people but very different from each other in physical appearance, history and language. The adaptation of their cultures to their conditions was seen in their languages which had hundreds of words to describe the gradations of colors and the characteristics of their all-important cattle.

The German colonizers in South West Africa were much like colonizers in other parts of the world, hungry for land and wealth, confident in their technical and, especially military, superiority, contemptuous of the native peoples and frequently unscrupulous and harsh in their dealings with them.

Over several decades after the arrival of the German colonists, the native people of South West Africa were gradually driven from their lands, deprived of their means of livelihood, and forced to accept existence as slaves or cheap labor for the colonists. When the Herero and Nama people rose in resistance to defend their societies, their culture, and their sovereignty, they were met with brutality that became more extreme and pitiless as time went on.

Germany ruled over South West Africa from 1883 to 1918. Over the course of those 35 years, the Herero and Nama people fought fiercely against the displacement and destruction of their way of life and for their survival.

By 1904 the Herero people were enraged by arrogant and provocative actions by German colonists which included the theft of their land and cattle and humiliating treatment such as the unforgivable insult of having Herero bodies removed from their graves and sold to German “race scientists”—those making a career out of “discovering” the physiological basis for European superiority over their colonial subjects.[6] Rising tensions eventually gave way to war.

The spark for an uprising came in July 1904. A group of armed Herero men arrived in the town of Okahandja to seek arbitration by a Herero leader for an inheritance dispute. The Germans misinterpreted their arrival as an act of hostility and responded by attacking the arriving Herero men. Fed up with a long string of abuses, the Herero rose to retaliate. They defeated the Germans in several initial battles. This provoked an outcry in Germany. Kaiser Wilhelm was infuriated by the prospect of being bested by a people he regarded as “unmensch” – “in-humans,” or Untermensch, “sub-humans.” The Kaiser’s response to the Hereros’ resistance was meant to exact revenge and to demonstrate Germany’s military superiority for the native African people and the world at large.

This was the same Kaiser Wilhelm who, in July 1900, famously sent a group of German sailors to China in response to a rebellion there with the admonition that they take no prisoners and teach the Chinese to fear the Germans as much as the world had once feared the Huns. It was a public boast of brutishness that earned Germans the nickname “Huns” for years to come.[7] Now the Kaiser commissioned Lothar von Trotha to head a military campaign to crush the Herero rebellion and destroy their ability to resist.

Von Trotha assembled an army of six thousand troops, by far the largest body of armed men to operate in South West Africa up to that point. This army was outfitted with the most advanced weaponry from German factories.

The Herero leadership had refrained from following up their initial victories in battle with further attacks on the Germans as a gesture made in the spirit of disengagement in order to encourage negotiations. After their engagements with the Germans and fearing retaliation, the Herero withdrew from their scattered villages and concentrated their people in an area called Waterberg where they believed the valley surrounded by cliffs offered them a better place to defend themselves.

On August 11, 1904, von Trotha’s troops arrived at Waterberg. Rejecting offers to negotiate to settle the matter peacefully, Trotha ordered his troops to attack the Herero settlements that stretched out along valley. The Germans used artillery, grenades, and the most lethal weapon applied by Europeans in their colonial warfare, Maxim guns – machine guns.

In the assault, thousands of Herero elderly, women and children were slaughtered and wounded. The survivors retreated into the Omaheke Desert just west of the Kalihari where many more died from dehydration and starvation along with thousands of their cattle, the mainstay of the Herero economy and culture.

Von Trotha pressed the attack declaring that “Within the German borders,” (that is, those parts of South West Africa the Germans claimed as their own), “every Herero, with or without weapons . . . will be shot. I shall no longer shelter women and children.” Von Trotha ordered watering holes to be poisoned to ensure even greater carnage.[8]

German troops were sent to patrol the edge of the desert and were ordered to kill any among the Herero that attempted to the escape the harsh desert conditions.

The battle of Waterberg and the repression that followed became a subject of great discussion inside Germany. The war against the Herero people was glorified in the German press. Photographs taken by German officers of African prisoners or servants being humiliated and brutalized were published and widely circulated as postcards with sarcastic captions.

German literature that degraded the native people while romanticizing the colonists had a poisonous effect on German society, even while it provoked revulsion and opposition from some quarters.

Camps

Von Trotha failed to annihilate the Herero people. But the measures against them continued. In warring against the Herero and later against the Nama people, the Germans set up special camps and forced much of the populations to live under armed guard.

The use of these concentration camps was not a new tactic in European colonial warfare. The Spanish employed them against a rebellious Cuban population before 1898. The British built camps in South Africa in the war to suppress the Boer population beginning in 1900. Those camps were meant to isolate the population from the rebel fighters. In South West Africa the Germans took it one step further and used those imprisoned in camps as forced labor thus creating even more deadly conditions.

The German colonists set up a special camp at a place called Shark Island near the town of Lüderitz. Those detained in this camp were subject to rape, beatings, starvation, and extreme weather conditions. They were denied medical care in the face of typhus outbreaks.

Of the 3500 people sent to Shark Island in 1905 only 193 survived by the time the camp closed in 1907. Among the 1200 Nama people sent to Shark Island, 460 women and 274 children perished. It was, in every respect, the first consciously created and administered death camp.

Overall, according to Germany’s own official count, 45 percent of the more than 17,000 Herero and Nama people sent to German camps in South West Africa perished.[9] By the time German colonial rule ended in South West Africa in 1918, 80 percent of the original native population had been exterminated.

Undergirding these policies was the idea gaining currency that successful societies needed space to expand, and “superior cultures,” such as those in Europe and North America would continue to displace “inferior” ones. In the United States this concept was called “Manifest Destiny.” In Germany, a similar doctrine emerged. It was called Lebensraum. Lebensraum would later become a cornerstone of Germany’s expansionist ambitions under Nazi rule.

“Racial boundaries”

Doctrines to justify the ruthless seizure of land and wealth developed along with the practice itself. They came in the form of distorted descriptions of the native people and theories that those in the countries being colonized were not only culturally but also racially inferior to their European overlords.

Furthermore, as contact between Europeans and peoples of other areas of the world increased along with miscegenation, so too did the doctrine that colonized people represented a “racial threat” to Europeans themselves, requiring “racial boundaries.”

In Germany intermarriage between Africans and Europeans was described in some quarters as rassenschande, or “racial shame,” and laws were passed to forbid the practice in the colony. Proposals for similar measures for the home country were debated in the Reichstag in those years and these public discussions injected racist ideas and terminology into the public sphere.[10]

In search of racial evidence

Herero and Nama people had suffered devastating losses as a result of colonial violence and the survivors were dying in concentration camps when a young German academic, Eugen Fischer arrived in Southwest Africa in 1908. Fischer came with a purpose in mind, to find proof that “inferior races”, of the colonized, represented a danger to a “superior” or “more advanced” race of the colonizer.

Fischer chose a community that called themselves Basters, descendants of families with European fathers and African mothers, to verify his theories. The Basters were originally from South Africa. Forced to leave their homeland, a large group from that community settled in the South West African town of Rehoboth located on a high plateau between the Namib and Kalahari deserts. There the Basters lived mainly from herding cattle, sheep, and goats.

When Fischer showed up at Rehoboth and announced his intention to study the community, there were many who refused to be subjects of examinations or to the intrusive measurements of their bodies he intended to make. Nevertheless, he conducted a study of sorts among 310 children. His goal was to gather data on physical characteristics, like eye and hair color, and measurements of intelligence. He then claimed he would compare these data to draw his conclusions.

Not so coincidentally, Fischer’s conclusions matched his assumptions. He wrote,

“Without exception, every European people that has absorbed the blood of the inferior races – and that Negro Hottentots, and many others are inferior is something that only dreamers can deny – have paid for this absorption of inferior elements by intellectual and cultural decline”.[11]

This was ignorant claptrap masquerading as science. But it was sweet music to the ears of those looking for a justification for their prejudice, for their efforts at domination and extermination and their laws outlawing intermarriage. Fischer and his team conducted a series of medical experiments on Herero and Namaqua imprisoned in Shark Island concentration camp, including the measurement of skulls, the removal of body parts for anatomical study, and the sterilization of women.[12]

Fischer published his findings in a study called Die Rehobother Bastards in 1913. The book had a big impact in Germany. Fischer, and others like him, rode a wave of success by providing scientific-sounding verbiage to previously held biases. The study established Fischer’s reputation, and his market value.

In 1921 Fischer, along with several other racial scientists and eugenicists, co-authored a textbook, Human Heredity and Racial Hygiene which became a widely used study in the 1920s. It was published in English in Britain and the United States. Fischer established strong ties with advocates of what was at that time a robust eugenics movement in the United States. Fischer’s ideas and writing influenced Hitler and his book Mein Kampf written in 1923. After 1933, Fischer’s book was cited as the “scientific basis” for Nazi eugenic sterilization programs. In that same year Fischer wrote a paper condemning “racial mixing” between “Jews” and “Germans” as harmful to the “German race.” He advocated for laws to prevent it. His work would influence the Nuremberg racial laws of 1935.

Fischer was a leader of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetics and Eugenics. In the 1930s that institute taught anthropology to Nazi SS doctors. Among the students of the Institute was Josef Mengele the infamous doctor who practiced a sadistic form of medical butchery at Auschwitz.

Racial divisions in Europe

By the time Fischer came along in the early 1900s, so-called “scientific racism” had already found its way into the European academic and intellectual circles. One of the pioneers of this concept was a Frenchman by the name of Joseph Arthur de Gobineau. In the 1850s Gobineau wrote a book entitled An Essay on the Inequality of Races. In it he argued that race created culture. He argued that white people were superior to non-white people and were the only humans capable of intelligent thought. His writings translated into English also found a supportive audience among pro-slavery Americans.

Gobineau developed these racial theories in the aftermath of the revolutionary movement that swept Europe in 1848. The revolution raised demands for democratic reforms and more radical views that threatened the power of Europe’s monarchies. He despised the revolution and those who were its proponents, the rising middle class and working class rebels.

At the time, European aristocracy was on the defensive and losing ground to the up and coming bourgeoise and the rising demand for democratic forms of rule in place of hereditary ones. A fan of the aristocracy, to which he claimed his own roots, Gobineau fashioned a defense against this tide of change by arguing that the aristocratic classes were the best suited to running society because they were racially superior to the “common” people. Gobineau further theorized that the aristocracy owed this superiority to the fact that they engaged in less interbreeding with “inferior races.” Thus, Gobineau promoted the view that there were racial divisions within the European or “white race” and claimed that “Aryans”, a term taken from Hindu legend, were that superior element. Gobineau took the colonialist concept of the racial inferiority of people outside Europe, to groups inside Europe.

Gobineau’s ideas evolved at a time when Karl Marx, responding to the same revolutionary upheavals, was forging views that became known as “scientific socialism.” Marx was inspired by the radical democratic demands of the time, and he embraced them while advocating a more thoroughgoing revolutionary change. Marx put emphasis on what the working people of all nations had in common and envisioned the potential of a society without exploiters or overseers. Gobineau, a steadfast defender of the old monarchial order, made no effort to deny that he represented the interests of the “overseers,” but he based his defense of the aristocracy, not on some claim that they were chosen by God, but on the assertion that they were chosen to rule by their genetics!

Gobineau insisted that all the great civilizations were founded and led by “Aryans.” He wrote:

“In the ten civilizations no Negro race is seen as an initiator. Only when it is mixed with some other, can it even be initiated into a civilization. Similarly, no spontaneous civilization is to be found among the yellow races; and when the Aryan blood is exhausted stagnation supervenes.”

Though he was not per se an antisemite, Gobineau’s theories about race were seized on by Europe’s antisemites and adapted and spread by people who would later go on to form political movements around racial dogma, such as the Nazis.

The Kaiser’s friend

Houston Steward Chamberlain was a British-born intellectual who, like Gobineau, was taken by the Hindu legend of a superior race of light-skinned people called Aryans. As a young man Chamberlain became enthralled with Germany where he found a community of like-minded racially conscious people whose hero was the German composer, Richard Wagner. Acolytes of Wagner considered the composer a genius whose music embodied the mystical quality of the superior Germanic being – the Teutons, the purist of the “Aryans” whose greatness had been demonstrated historically and would in the future rise to further heights.

Chamberlain became good friends with Wagner’s widow Cosima, a proponent of the Wagnerian mythology and he eventually married Wagner’s daughter Eva von Bülow-Wagner. He remained the rest of his life in Germany where he made a career of writings embodying his historical and racial thinking.

Chamberlain adopted and promoted a Euro-centric worldview. He saw the economic, scientific, and technical advances of 19th-century Europe as the product of European racial superiority – especially of that select group among them, the so-called “Aryans.” Extrapolating from his historical moment, Chamberlain went on to analyze all human history, past, present, and future, based on this obscenely narrow framework.

In his most famous work, The Foundations of Nineteenth Century (Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts)published in 1899, Chamberlain claimed that every great thought, creative art, or human invention was the product of the “Aryans” and them alone.

The Foundations was Chamberlain’s crowning “intellectual achievement” for which he was hailed in racial/nationalist circles. The methodology in this book amounted to taking the prejudices of his day and applying them retroactively to history. In doing this in a “scholarly fashion” he lent a “respectable” academic veneer to an otherwise gutter ignorance.

Foundations made Chamberlain a celebrity in Germany. His book gained adherents among teachers in certain parts of the country, and Foundations was made required reading in some German high schools (Gymnasium) and also found a following on German university campuses.

Throughout Europe, but especially in Germany, ideas about Aryan superiority most often came paired with antisemitism. Chamberlain argued that Jews represented a racial group that stood in antithesis to the Aryan. For Chamberlain the “Jew” was a representative of all the bestial inferiority racist Europeans ascribed to non-European peoples, be they Black or Asian. Chamberlain even contended that Jews were the founders of Chinese civilization which in Chamberlain’s view explained the Chinese’ “total absence of all culture!”[13]

There was genocidal logic to Chamberlain’s scholarship. In The Foundations Jews are said to be race apart, genetically disposed to evil and that an inevitable showdown was coming between the civilization of the noble Aryan on one side and the inferior Jew, Black and Asian, and so on, on the other.

Chamberlain’s German nationalism

Chamberlain lived at a time when national rivalries were intensifying, and these would eventually lead to war. Chamberlain also cast that rivalry in racial terms, championing Germany as the great Aryan protagonist in a world-historic struggle between good and evil.

Chamberlain considered the German monarchy the bedrock of German society. He referred to Kaiser Wilhelm as an “Aryan soldier-king” who embraced the “struggle against the corroding poison of Jewry.” He advocated aggressive German militarism and an expansion of German sea power as a means to world dominance. This brought him favor in the eyes of the Prussian monarch and an invitation to visit the Kaiser. On Chamberlain’s visit with Kaiser Wilhelm in November 1901 he was met with an elaborate reception. Thereafter the two became friends and carried on a mutual correspondence through which shared their common loathing for Jews and non-European peoples.

When world war erupted in 1914 Chamberlain extolled the German war effort. Germany’s defeat in 1918 devastated Chamberlain and may have negatively affected his health. After the war Chamberlain embraced the theory promoted by militarists, monarchists, and rising fascists that Germany had not lost the war but were betrayed by the liberals, Social Democrats and Jews.

Chamberlain was nearing his 70s and confined to a wheelchair when Hitler emerged in 1923 as German ultra-nationalism’s most prominent opponent of the Weimar Republic. Chamberlain joined the Nazi Party and wrote for its paper the Völkischer Beobachter. In a letter to Hitler he wrote, “That Germany, in the hour of her greatest need brings forth a Hitler—that is proof of her vitality . . . that the magnificent Ludendorff openly supports you and your movement: What wonderful confirmation! I can now go untroubled to sleep . . . May God protect you!”[14]

A 1925 article in Völkischer Beobachter referred to Chamberlain’s Foundations as the “gospel of the Nazi movement.” Chamberlain died in 1927 before Hitler came to power. But there is no doubt that Chamberlain’s life’s work contributed to the ideological foundation for what was to become Nazi Germany.

Germany loses its colonies

When the war in Europe began in 1914 military forces from South Africa allied with the British invaded South West Africa and seized control of Germany’s colony without much difficulty. The Germans offered little resistance as they intended to seize back the colony once they were victorious in Europe. That never happened.

In 1917, as the British anticipated victory in the war, a British major was assigned the task of writing up a report on German atrocities committed in their South West African colony. It included testimony of those who survived the genocidal horror of those years. The report was one of the most thorough records ever compiled of European brutality against a colonized people. Much of what it spoke to was known to the British and others, but not publicly revealed while it was happening. Now in the wake of the world war, these atrocities were made public to justify the seizure of Germany’s African colonies by the victorious parties. Under the Versailles Treaty South West Africa was declared a Class C mandate and placed under the control of the Union of South Africa and the British.

Munich

As Germany’s western front collapsed in the Fall of 1918 sailors and soldiers marched in the forefront of a revolution that forced Kaiser Wilhelm’s abdication and brought the declaration of a new German republic.

Other soldiers and veterans were organized by the old military guard into Freikorps units to crush the revolution. Freikorps units began operations in Berlin in January 1919 and detachments were sent to other regions such as industrial Ruhr and Munich.

The largest Bavarian Freikorps unit to march into Munich on May 1, 1919, was a 700 strong force under the command of General Franz Xavier Ritter von Epp a veteran of the German war against the South West African people.[15]

Marching with von Epp were World War I veterans who would become key members of the soon-to-be-formed NSDAP or Nazi party. They included Gregor Strasser, the commanding officer in a World War I unit that included Heinrich Himmler. Strasser, who rose to be an important Nazi leader and propagandist, recruited the future propaganda leader Joseph Goebbels into the party. Gerhard Wagner future leader of the Nazi adult euthanasia program and Walther Itze, who rose to become the Nazi Reich Leader of University Teachers were also in von Epp’s Freikorps unit.

Other veterans of the South West Africa genocide among Freikorps leaders were General, Ludwig Maercker and Hermann Ehrhardt. Ehrhardt’s Freikorps, known for its violent antisemitism, wore white swastikas on their helmets.

Herman Goering, a World War I pilot who came to Munich in the years after the war and joined the Nazi cause, also had a direct connection to Germany’s African colonialism. His father Heinrich was a leading German colonial official in the years when Germany was establishing its rule in the South West African colony.[16]

The coming together of veterans of German colonialism in Munich following the defeat of the Munich Revolution in 1919, contributed to the city’s transformation into a breeding ground for racial supremacy and (Völkisch) ultranationalism and antisemitism.

The fact that important leaders of the Munich revolution of November 1918 and subsequent socialist-oriented governments were led by people with Jewish roots, Eisner, Toller, Landauer and Mühsam, became a topic for furious agitation through which the fascists propagated their racial hatred and conspiratorial fantasies. It was the pole of attraction around which von Epps, Gregor Strasser, Gerhard Wagner, Herman Goering, Julius Streicher, Herman Hess, Heinrich Himmler, and of course, the World War I veteran, Adolf Hitler, among others, joined to form the core of the Nazi movement.

The early Nazis saw the Freikorps as a model for an armed force that would empower their movement to seize institutional power they sought to implement their social and political program. Ernst Röhm an aide-de-camp to Freikorps leader Ritter von Epp and veteran of the first world war and an early member of the Nazi Party, took the lead in forming a Nazi militia formally known as the Sturmabteilung (“Assault Division”) or SA for short. When the new militia sought a standard attire for its ranks, Epps and Röhm found one that matched the need and the limited budget of the new movement in the surplus uniforms shirts left over from the Schutztruppe, Germany’s defunct South West African colonial army. The color of the Schutztruppe uniforms inspired the popular name for this Nazi armed force, the Brown Shirts.

Bibliography.

Chamberlain, Houston Stewart The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century Vol. I. Lees, John (trans.) New York: Howard Fertig Inc.

Gobineau, Arthur An Essay on the Inequality of Races. London William Heinemann, 1915

Lenin, VI Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1973

Madley, Benjamin From Africa to Auschwitz: How German South West Africa Incubated Ideas and Methods Adopted and Developed by the Nazis in Eastern Europe. Sage Journals, Vol. 35 Issue 3 July 2005

Olusoga, David and Erichsen, Casper The Kaiser’s Holocaust, Germany’s Forgotten Genocide Faber and Faber, 2010

Uzonna Anele Talk Africana Eugen Fischer: The German Doctor Who Conducted Human Experiments on Herero and Namaqua People in Namibia from 1904-1908 April 27, 2023

Notes.

[1] By social evolution this author does not mean to imply some fixed pattern of development. One marker of evolution is the development of science and technology as applied to production. Technological development influences but does not determine the relations of production or social relations more broadly.

[2] Steam power was utilized in a very limited way in the time of the Greek Athenian civilization but was restricted in its use and was never developed as a source of energy for production.

[3] By 1899 the colonial possessions of England and France alone mounted to 11 million square miles of territory and more than 360 million people, more than 20 percent of the world’s population at that time.

[4] Rothstein, Andrew The Munich Conspiracy Lawrence and Wishart Ltd, 1958 pg. 47

[5] By the turn of the century German had established colonial presence in Africa in Cameroon, Togoland, German South West Africa, and German East Africa, and in the South Pacific in German New Guinea and German Samoa.

[6] Madley, Benjamin From Africa to Auschwitz: How German South West Africa Incubated Ideas and Methods Adopted and Developed by the Nazis in Eastern Europe. Sage Journals, Vol. 35 Issue 3 July 2005 pg. 445

[7] Kaiser Wilhelm coined the phrase “yellow peril,” referring to the Chinese.

[8] Hochschild, Adam King Leopold’s Ghost Mariner Books, 2020 pg. 282

[9] Madley, pg. 450

[10] Madley, pg. 439

[11] Madley, pg. 453

[12] Uzonna Anele “Talk Africa” Eugen Fischer the German Doctor Who Conducted Human Experiments on Herero and Namaqua People in Nimibia from 1904 – 1908. April27, 2023

[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Steward_Chamberlain

¹⁴Nazi Germany Source book 2.12

¹⁵Olusoga, David and Erichsen, Casper The Kaiser’s Holocaust, Germany’s Forgotten Genocide Faber and Faber, 2010 pg. 284

¹⁶Madley, pg. 451

The post Colonialism, Nazi Antisemitism and How Hate Became Racial appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Bruce Neuburger.

Climate and racial justice advocates condemn treatment of Tube driver

Anita Mureithi — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 16:59:18 +0000

Campaigners say treatment of Tube driver who led ‘free Palestine’ chant is part of a clampdown on dissent

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Anita Mureithi.

Trans athletes fight for inclusion in sports & racial economy of college football | Edge of Sports

The Real News Network — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 23:00:11 +0000

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.

Trans athletes fight for inclusion in sports & racial economy of college football | Edge of Sports

The Real News Network — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 23:00:11 +0000

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.

Reclaiming Antimonopoly for Racial and Economic Justice

Azza Altriraifi – Sasha Hammad — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 04:54:43 +0000

Today, a reinvigorated, militant labor movement has set its sights on Amazon. Amazonians United, Bessemer workers organizing with RWDSU, the Amazon Labor Union, CAUSE, Southern Workers Assembly, the Teamsters, and worker centers in the Athena network have built the foundation for an unprecedented level of Amazon worker activity.

The Teamsters launched a dedicated Amazon Division in 2022 to secure “more workplace protections in the warehouse and logistics industry,” and the UPS Teamsters historic and standard–elevating contract is reverberating across the economy.

Amazon Studios is also under pressure, as striking workers with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of TV and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) urge antitrust regulators to investigate Hollywood mergers, which enable media conglomerates to depress workers’ wages and imperil their futures.

Organizers have long understood that the law is a tool of power. As the FTC’s lawsuit against Amazon demonstrates: “Organize, and the law will follow.”

After all, as labor economist Brian Callaci notes, “markets do not arise spontaneously from nature, but rather sit atop legal rules, regulatory infrastructures, and informal norms and power relationships that structure them.”

A leftist vision and practice of antimonopoly aims to dismantle the oppressive social and economic systems that give rise to concentrated corporate power in the first place. Through this lens, we see the law, the state, or the market as constructions of human hands — not naturally emerging or neutral things.

Antimonopoly activism must foster democratic and collaborative practices that keep law and policy in dialogue and in solidarity with emancipatory social movements.

By pursuing non-reformist reforms that modify power relations, we move beyond the narrow question of what is possible in a current political moment and pursue solutions to build “new centers of democratic power.” Then, we can radically reconfigure our political economy.

Antimonopoly can be a transformative tool that supports grassroots organizing movements. By reorienting its previously narrow focus on “efficiency” and “competition,” we can use it to democratize relations of political and economic power — and usher in an economy and a politics of abundance.

This essay builds on Liberation in a Generation’s newest report “From Big Business to a Liberation Economy: A Racial Justice Agenda for Reining in Monopoly Power.”

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Azza Altriraifi – Sasha Hammad.

NZ elections 2023: Green Party, Te Pāti Māori call out ‘harmful emboldening of extremism’

APR editor — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 09:52:35 +0000

RNZ News

Green Party co-leader James Shaw has compared the language of New Zealand First leader Winston Peters to former US president Donald Trump, saying it may be emboldening violence against candidates in Aotearoa NZ’s election campaign.

It comes after several candidates from different parties have spoken out about being targeted, including a home invasion on Te Pāti Māori’s youngest candidate, an assault on a Labour candidate, and another Labour candidate saying she has faced the “worst comments and vitriol” this campaign.

Te Pāti Māori candidate Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, whose home was ram raided and invaded, put the blame on what she called race-baiting from right-wing parties.

Peters told Newshub Nation that notion was wrong, and accused Te Pāti Māori of being a racist party.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters . . . believes candidates faced worse times during the Rogernomics privatisation period of the 1980s. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone

But Shaw — who himself was assaulted in 2019 — suggested Peters could be empowering and emboldening extremists.

“It makes me really angry. Because political leaders, through the things we say create an air of permissiveness for that kind of extreme language and now physical violence to take place and it’s not too dissimilar to what we saw in the United States under Donald Trump,” he said.

“Half of the argument about Trump was whether he personally intervened to make those things happen and at one level it doesn’t matter, he created an atmosphere where these extremists felt empowered and emboldened to kind of enact their kind of crazy, racist, misogynist fantasies.

Lead to physical violence
“And that did lead to physical violence there and it’s leading to physical violence here too.”

However, Shaw told RNZ he was not surprised given the “misogynist and racist rhetoric”, which he said had been at least in part been given permission by political parties in this election campaign.

Green Party co-leader James Shaw and Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer . . . calling out “misogynist and racist rhetoric” in the election campaign. Image: RNZ News/Cole Eastham-Farrelly/Samuel Rillstone

“[It] has created a situation where that kind of online hate and violent language is only one or two steps from actual acts of physical violence and now you’re starting to see those manifest. It is really worrying.

“I think all of us have a responsibility to try and create an atmosphere for democracy to take place, which is respectful, where people can have different opinions and for that to be okay.

“And I think that at the moment we’re seeing a rise in this kind of culture or language which is imported from overseas, that is not just unhelpful but downright dangerous.”

Te Pāti Māori said the break-in at Maipi-Clarke’s house was yet another example of political extremism in New Zealand.

Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said some right-wing politicians were emboldening racist behaviour and needed to take responsibility.

‘Harmful inciting’
“We have seen a harmful inciting, a very harmful emboldening of extremism, this is an example of that.

“We’ve had it with our billboards – they’ve been so destroyed that we haven’t been able to afford to replace a lot of them now. It’s just been disgusting, the extent of racism.”

This year’s election had brought some of the worst abuse Te Pāti Māori had ever experienced, she said.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters claimed of Maipi-Clarke’s incident that “it couldn’t have been a home invasion” and he would answer more questions about the case when he knew all the facts.

“As for the first one [alleged assault on Labour’s Angela Roberts], violence of that sort is just not acceptable, full stop.”

He believed the time for candidates was worse was during the Rogernomics period of the 1980s.

“With respect, I can recall during the period of Rogernomics, there was a full scale fight going on inside the Labour Party convention.”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins in Mount Eden today . . . assaulting candidates or threatening their safety “shows total contempt for the very principle of democracy”. Image: RNZ/Giles Dexter

Minorities persecuted
Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins — who has vowed to call out racism — said a number of parties were deliberately trying to persecute minorities and it was reprehensible.

Assaulting candidates or threatening their safety “shows total contempt for the very principle of democracy”, he said.

He had made it clear to all Labour’s candidates that if they thought their physical safety might be at risk, they should not do that activity, Hipkins said.

“I think there has been more racism and misogyny in this election than we’ve seen in previous elections.”

Hipkins said he had respect for women and Māori who put themselves forward in elected office, but they should never have to put up with the level of abuse that they have had to in this campaign.

National Party leader Christopher Luxon told reporters his party had referred several incidents to the police too.

Luxon said he condemned threats and violence on political candidates, or their family and property, as well as all forms of racism.

Number of serious incidents
“It’s entirely wrong. We’ve had a number of serious incidents that we’ve referred to the police as well, over the course of this campaign.

“I think it’s important for all New Zealanders to understand that politicians are putting themselves forward, you may disagree with their politics, you may disagree with their policies, but we can disagree without being disagreeable in this country.”

He would not detail the complaints his party had made to police.

He said political leaders had a responsibility not to fearmonger during the campaign.

“Running fearmongering campaigns and negative campaigns just amps it up, and I think actually what we need to do is actually everyone needs to respect each other. We have differences of opinion about how to take the country forward, we are unique in New Zealand in that we can maintain our political civility, we don’t need to go down the pathway we’ve seen in other countries.

“It’s just about leadership, right, it’s about a leader modelling out the behaviour and treating people that they expect to treated.”

Asked if National had a hand in being responsible for fearmongering, he said it did not, and their campaign was positive and focused on what mattered most to New Zealanders.

Worry over online abuse
Shaw was worried for his candidates, having seen the online abuse they were subjected to.

“It’s vile, it is really extreme and it is stronger now than it has been in previous election campaigns and like I said I don’t think it takes much for a particularly unhinged individual from whacking their keyboard to whacking a person.”

But it was worse for female candidates and Māori, he said.

“Not just a little bit, not just an increment, but orders in magnitude, from what I’ve seen my colleagues be exposed to. It is just unhinged.”

There has been increased police participation in this campaign, Shaw said.

“Parliamentary security have got new protocols that we are observing. We have changed, for example, the way we campaign, the way we do public meetings, or when we’re out and about, we’re observing new security protocols that we haven’t had in previous years.”

Hipkins said where there might be additional risk, they have worked with Parliamentary Service on a cross-party basis to ensure there was additional support available for some MPs.

All parties have an interest in ensuring the election campaign was conducted safely, he said.

What has happened?
This week, Te Pāti Māori candidate Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke’s home was ram raided and invaded, with a threatening note left.

Police said they were investigating the burglary of a Huntly home, which was reported to them on Monday.

Te Pāti Māori candidate Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke . . . her home was ram raided and invaded and she blames what she called race-baiting from right-wing parties. Image: 1News screenshot/APR

Te Pāti Māori issued a statement saying it was the third incident to take place at Maipi-Clarke’s home this week.

Also this week, Labour candidate for Taranaki-King Country Angela Roberts said she had laid a complaint with the police about being assaulted at an election debate in Inglewood.

Hipkins said he had great respect for Roberts, and he told her she could take any time off if she needed to, but she has chosen not to.

“She’s an incredibly staunch and energetic campaigner and I know it knocked the wind out of her sails a little bit, but I know that she’s bouncing back.”

On Thursday, Labour candidate for Northland Willow-Jean Prime told reporters she has faced the “worst comments and vitriol” in the seven campaigns she has been through – two in local government and five in central government.

“I was being shouted down every time I went to answer a question by supporters of other candidates primarily, there were not many of the general public in there,” she said of a Taxpayers Union debate in Kerikeri.

“Whenever I said a te reo Māori word, like puku, for full tummies, lunches in schools, I was shouted at.

“When I said Aotearoa, the crowd responded ‘It’s New Zealand!’. When I said rangatahi, ‘stop speaking that lanugage!’ that is racism coming from the audience, that’s not disagreeing with the gains I’m explaining that we’ve made in government.”

She said she noticed that type of “dog-whistling” in other candidate debates, but not whilst out and about with the general public.

“What is really worrying is that they feel so emboldened to be able to come out and say this stuff publicly, they don’t care that other people that might be in the audience, that might be listening or the impact that has on us as candidates.”

The New Zealand general election is on October 14, but early voting begins on October 2.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Report Highlights the Gendered and Racial Impacts of the Fossil Fuel Industry in North America and Complicit Financial Institutions

Newswire Editor — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 12:15:41 +0000

With apocalyptic scenes of increasing fires, floods, and heatwaves proliferating, it is clear that the climate crisis is accelerating. As part of national and global efforts to lower carbon emissions, stop fossil fuel expansion, and halt the worst effects of the crisis, the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) has released the third edition of The Gendered and Racial Impacts of the Fossil Fuel Industry in North America and Complicit Financial Institutions in a call for immediate divestment from fossil fuels to protect communities and our global climate.

The third edition spotlights new case studies and data, addressing the disproportionate gender and race-specific health and safety effects as well as Indigenous rights issues of fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure in the United States and selected parts of Canada— interlocking issues that have been sorely neglected in the discourse regarding fossil fuel extraction. The report explicitly exposes the role that financial institutions, including banks, asset managers, and insurance companies, play in preserving and perpetuating negative gender and racial impacts through focusing on 9 regional case studies, from the fracking fields of Kern County in California to the recently approved Willow Project in the Western Arctic.

The report provides ample evidence of the harms women in marginalized communities face, including increased risks of cancers, ovarian diseases, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and mental and emotional distress related to air pollution and water contamination caused by the fossil fuel industry. This report provides scientific evidence highlighting these and many other disproportionate health impacts women experience from fossil fuel pollution including, black carbon, an airborne pollutant released through fracking processes, which has been linked to increased hospitalizations from respiratory and cardiovascular issues and adverse birth outcomes. Health impacts resulting from fossil fuel derived contamination exacerbates women's caretaking roles when sickness and disability amongst children, elders, or other community members occurs, leading mothers to be more exposed to stressors, report greater strain, burden, and distress than their male counterparts.

“Whenever I do my blood work, I get my iron infused in the same place where women get chemotherapy. Every time I'm there, even when I get my iron treatment, I'm always thinking ‘what if the next time I come, I have to get chemotherapy.’ I do live in Cancer Alley, so it’s those things that play on your mind and the reality of it that's really detrimental…We’re also dealing with climate change and being impacted by hurricanes; the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our area alone is massive… it’s a lot of different intersections that come into play. There are ways financial institutions can invest to improve our health and also support our communities instead of contributing to harming them, ” states Jo Banner, Co-founder and Co-director of The Descendants Project, resisting fossil fuel projects in “Cancer Alley”, Louisiana.

This report also acknowledges the crucial role that Indigenous women play as cultural bearers in their communities, while highlighting the imminent threat to cultural lifeways posed by the fossil fuel industry.

Whitney Gravelle (Anishinaabe), President of the Bay Mills Indian Community, resisting the Line 5 pipeline and protecting the Great Lakes states: “When we're getting into these fights over water, and trying to protect water and not having anyone else respect water, it is very frustrating. As an Anishinaabe woman you want to do what you need to do—to know the depth of your teachings and to understand why you need to protect the water…It does have ceremonial impacts not only on myself but on our community. Who would want to go and perform a water ceremony, if the water is surrounded by oil? No one. If that place is destroyed, if the Straits of Mackinac are destroyed, our ceremonies are destroyed, those Waters Spirits are destroyed, those beings, we can no longer communicate with them…and so it becomes a threat to our Indigenous spirituality, our Indigenous lifeway, when we can no longer really be who we are. If the water is destroyed it's also the land—it’s not just nor right.”

The report spotlights Vanguard, BlackRock, Capital Group, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of America, and Liberty Mutual as primary financiers of harmful fossil fuel projects within the regional case studies. All seven of these financial institutions have voiced support of the Paris Agreement and human rights via public statements or by signing various international frameworks, yet, these financial institutions continue to fund companies whose operations are disproportionately harming women and communities of color, while also violating Indigenous rights and furthering the climate crisis.

Patricia Garcia-Nelson, Fossil Fuel Just Transition Advocate with GreenLatinos, resisting fossil fuel expansion in Weld County, Colorado states: “Women are the creators, we give birth to life on this planet and for us women, it's natural to want to protect and to take care. All I can say to the financial institutions making investments in these destructive and extractive industries is that they are investing in the wrong thing.”

The report outlines risks for financial institutions and recommendations for policy changes. Financial institutions are exposed to various risks, including regulatory risks, stranded assets, physical and transition risks of the climate crisis, and reputational risks. The report details a list of 14 recommendations financial institutions need to adopt including robust implementation standards and due diligence on climate and human and Indigenous rights issues. The report also advocates for a just transition to a renewable and regenerative future that uplifts communities most impacted by environmental degradation, pollution, and the climate crisis.

Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of WECAN and co-author of the report states, “The fossil fuel industry, and their financiers, are leading us further down the path of irreparable climate disaster, and we need to understand who is being harmed first and worst by their actions. If we want to truly address the climate crisis we must lead with climate justice and that means understanding the gendered and racial impacts of the fossil fuel industry. Women are rising to stand up and end the violence against the earth and women. Through the report we are calling on financial institutions to be leaders in a Just Transition by taking action to halt the financing of fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure, which is causing egregious harms to frontline women and communities. We want no more sacrifice women, no more sacrifice zones, and no more sacrifice zip codes. The fossil fuel era is over and the time is now to transition to renewable, regenerative energy, and a healthy and equitable future for all.”

If you are interested in learning more about the report, speaking with affected frontline women, please contact Katherine Quaid, katherine@wecaninternational.org

Methodology note:

The report, organized by Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, began with an investigation into fossil fuel extraction, and infrastructure projects across the United States and in a few locations in Canada. Based on the initial collection of research, nine regions with large fossil fuel projects and/or high concentrations of fossil fuel infrastructure were identified. Based on an examination of companies operating in the nine regions, seven financial institutions are identified as prominent financiers, insurers, and investors of these companies. This report is based on the analysis of first-hand women’s accounts, peer-reviewed scientific articles, and other published papers.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Racial Terror in Jacksonville, from Dollar General Shooting to 1960 Ax Handle Saturday

Democracy Now! — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 14:50:31 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“Hurricane of Racism”: Racial Terror in Jacksonville, from Recent Shooting to 1960 Ax Handle Saturday

Democracy Now! — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 12:38:48 +0000

As the Jacksonville community mourns the loss of three people killed Saturday in a racist shooting, more details are emerging about the white supremacist who went to a Dollar General store looking to target Black people before killing himself. Authorities say he left behind a suicide note and other writings outlining his racist ideology. The 21-year-old gunman had legally bought the two weapons he used in the shooting, including an AR-15-style rifle marked with swastikas. The shooting occurred as thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to mark the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech. Activists in Jacksonville had also been preparing commemorations of Ax Handle Saturday, when a white mob led by the Ku Klux Klan violently attacked Black civil rights protesters on August 27, 1960. “This hurricane of racism that we've been dealing with in the Jacksonville community is not new,” says Jacksonville-based historian and civil rights leader Rodney Hurst, who helped lead desegregation protests in the city during the 1960s.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

60 Years After “I Have a Dream”: Gary Younge on MLK’s March on Washington & the Fight for Racial Justice

Democracy Now! — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 12:22:06 +0000

After thousands gathered Saturday in Washington, D.C., to mark the 60th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington, we speak with Gary Younge, author of The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream. “There is this notion of King’s dream speech as being folded into America’s liberal mythology: America is always getting better, it’s always getting more wonderful,” says Younge, who wrote his book on the speech to reflect America’s current struggle with white supremacy and attacks on people of color. “As things can go forwards, so can they go backwards.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

60 Years After “I Have a Dream”: Gary Younge on MLK’s March on Washington & the Fight for Racial Justice

Democracy Now! — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 12:22:06 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Inside the Smithsonian’s "Racial Brain Collection" & the Eugenics Project Behind It

Democracy Now! — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 14:59:53 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Racial Segregation and Gun Violence in Black Communities

Algernon Austin — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 05:56:19 +0000

August 14, 2023 by Algernon Austin

Photo: Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.

What distinguishes the United States from other rich countries is not freedom, but firearms. No other rich country has a firearm homicide rate anywhere near as high as the United States. As if to emphasize this point, over last month’s Fourth of July holiday weekend, there were at least 17 mass shootings which left 18 people dead and 102 injured. The Fourth of July is the most popular day for mass shootings in the United States.

While mass shootings receive the most national media attention, it is important to be aware that the United States has at least four different gun violence crises occurring at the same time. For this discussion, “interpersonal gun violence” will refer to shootings associated with street crime and interpersonal conflicts, including intimate partner gun violence. Interpersonal gun violence causes more deaths and injuries than mass shootings. While there were at least 17 mass shootings over the Fourth of July weekend, there were hundreds of interpersonal shootings that same weekend.

Gun violence is a complicated issue with multiple causes. Interpersonal gun violence has a disproportionately harmful impact on Black people. Previously, the Center for Economic and Policy Research illustrated the relationship of gun violence to poverty and economic hardship. The figure illustrates the relationship between gun violence victimization among Black people and racial segregation. (The data is for 42 states for which the public health researcher Anita Knopov and her colleagues were able to obtain Black firearm homicide rates and segregation measures.)

Figure 1

More segregated states tend to have higher Black firearm homicide rates. More in-depth analyses show that the relationship between segregation and violence holds even with controls for poverty and other measures of economic hardship. (See, for example, these articles.) Residential segregation facilitates, concentrates, and amplifies multiple forms of social and economic disadvantage in Black communities, which then creates the conditions for a higher rate of interpersonal violence.

There are numerous facets to the gun violence problem in the United States. One component is the high degree of social and economic marginalization of many in the Black population. A strong commitment to improving the material economic circumstances of Black people would lead to less interpersonal gun violence.

This originally appeared on CEPR.

Algernon Austin, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has conducted research and writing on issues of race and racial inequality for over 20 years. His primary focus has been on the intersection of race and the economy.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Algernon Austin.

Memory Work and the Making of White Working-Class and Racial Identities

Henry Giroux — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 05:54:40 +0000

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. – George Orwell As a young kid growing up in Providence, Rhode Island, I was always conscious of what it meant to be a White male. Whiteness was a defining principle shaping how I both named and More

The post Memory Work and the Making of White Working-Class and Racial Identities appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Henry Giroux.

False Arrest of Pregnant Woman in Detroit Highlights Racial Bias in Facial Recognition Technology

Democracy Now! — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Part 2 of our conversation with Porcha Woodruff, a pregnant woman in Detroit who was wrongfully arrested and jailed for robbery and carjacking. A month after her arrest, prosecutors dropped the case because the Detroit police had made the arrest based on a faulty AI, artificial intelligence, facial recognition match.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.

We Carry the Burden of Repatriating Our Ancestors. Here’s What It’s Like to Report on the Process as an Indigenous Journalist.

by Mary Hudetz — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

by Mary Hudetz

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

We had reached the top of a sandstone mesa when Theresa Pasqual set down her hiking pole and scanned the storied canyon before us.

We could see the centuries-old buildings of Chaco Canyon, a site in northwest New Mexico that her tribe’s ancestors, the Ancestral Puebloans, had occupied before eventually establishing other communities in the region. Pueblo Bonito, the canyon’s largest structure, sprawled from near the base of the bluff where we stood, its walls arcing around hundreds of hollowed rooms.

Two colleagues and I had traveled to the canyon with Pasqual as part of our reporting on how the nation’s most prestigious museums and universities had excavated Native American cultural sites like this and how they continued to keep what they took.

Pasqual, who is from the Pueblo of Acoma, roughly 100 miles to the south, has visited this remote canyon countless times, starting some four decades ago as a child on trips with her father. Now, she is the director of the Acoma Historic Preservation Office.

She describes Chaco Canyon as a place to which Acoma people make pilgrimages. It is a sacred site, and multiple tribes trace their ancestry to it. It is also incomplete, void of the thousands of items and hundreds of ancestral remains that museums took during excavations that began in the late 1800s, she said.

“It’s like a looted palace somewhere in some other country,” said Pasqual. “What we see in Chaco now is really only the shell of what was once here.”

Theresa Pasqual, director of Acoma Historic Preservation Office, says Pueblo Bonito will be incomplete as long as items and human remains that came from the site are held in the collections of museums and educational institutions. (Russel Albert Daniels for ProPublica)

I first met Pasqual several months earlier as my colleagues and I began investigating why many museums have been slow to return human remains, burial items and sacred objects to tribes.

I had struggled to decide whether to report on the topic. As an Apsáalooke, or member of the Crow Tribe in Montana, I know how sensitive discussions of museum holdings and matters of repatriation can be for a tribal community. Where I grew up, museums had collected ancestors and precious objects, sometimes through exploitative purchases and sometimes through outright grave robbing. Contemplating this history as an Indigenous person can feel disturbing and dehumanizing.

How could I write about this issue, I often asked myself. But how could I not, given that it has lingered far longer than Congress intended when it passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990.

NAGPRA called for institutions to inventory their collections and publicly report the human remains and items that had come from Native American graves and then return them to Indigenous communities. But Pasqual notes that tribal communities have shouldered the burden of this work — both the financial cost and the emotional distress. Her tribe, like others, had to draw on existing ceremonies to establish a new process for reburials that did not exist before the looting.

“We as a community have to carry that burden,” she told me. “Part of the cost is that emotional toll, the cultural, spiritual cost that is carried by the community.”

Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, former director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office in Arizona, shared a similar sentiment when I interviewed him. During his 30-year career, he reburied more than 8,000 ancestors for the Hopi Tribe. The number of belongings he buried with the deceased surpassed 15,000. Now retired, he has a sense of fulfillment, knowing he helped his tribe. But he also has had to cope with trauma, even anger, from confronting how institutions and government agencies have mistreated ancestral remains, he said.

“It’s not well documented what people like me have to go through,” said Kuwanwisiwma, who speaks with a soft and measured voice. “But it’s now part of our current historical trauma.”

Even after ProPublica has published multiple stories on repatriation over the past eight months, it is still unsettling to ponder the sheer scale at which museums stored away the bodies of so many Indigenous ancestors. Six thousand at Harvard University. Nine thousand at the University of California, Berkeley. (Both institutions have pledged to prioritize repatriation.)

In total, museums across the country hold the remains of 104,539 Native Americans, according to the most recent figures we have reported from the National Park Service, which administers NAGPRA.

Historical accounts show that tribal leaders from California to Maine opposed the plundering by outsiders and many tried to block archaeologists from desecrating burials on their lands.

On my reservation, Chief Medicine Crow, one of my ancestors, was so troubled by the looting that he donated some of his land so tribal members could have a cemetery in Lodge Grass, Montana, said Timothy McCleary, an anthropology professor at Little Big Horn College. Until then, the final resting place for many had been in the open, unpopulated countryside of our tribe’s homelands.

I think a lot about how this issue has persisted from Medicine Crow’s lifetime to mine.

Chief Medicine Crow (Edward S. Curtis/Library of Congress)

In the Southwest, where I live now, there was such an intense interest in the ancient dwellings of Ancestral Puebloans that major museums competed with each other to be the first to seize sites.

Richard Wetherill, a rancher-turned-amateur-archaeologist from Colorado, helped steer the American Museum of Natural History to Chaco Canyon. From the canyon, the museum collected the remains of some 150 Native American ancestors during a methodical yet aggressive expedition around the turn of the 20th century that was funded by two heirs to a soap fortune.

The museum’s archaeologists directed the excavations while Wetherill served as their guide. He established a homestead in the canyon during the expedition and managed to keep it after Chaco Canyon became a national park.

Ever since, researchers have been fixated on Pueblo Bonito. Called a “great house,” it once stood four stories tall, according to the National Park Service, and has 40 kivas, ceremonial and social spaces with brick-lined walls.

Our reporting at ProPublica has focused, in part, on how museums have kept many ancestors by saying that, based on their records, they cannot determine which tribe these human remains belong to. Sometimes institutions make these decisions even when tribes have documented ancestral ties to the place that was excavated and have presented that information to the museum or made it publicly known.

The American Museum of Natural History holds the largest collection from Chaco Canyon that has been publicly reported under NAGPRA rules. In a statement, the museum said it recognizes Pueblo peoples’ ties to the canyon. However, the museum said there are gaps in the archaeological record after the Ancestral Puebloans migrated from the canyon eight centuries ago, which makes it difficult to affiliate human remains and items to specific tribes.

For Pasqual, Chaco Canyon, known in her tribal language as Wa’asrp’ashak’a, emerges often in the telling of her ancestors’ migration, she said. She had heard the term often enough in her youth that by the time her father first took her to the site around age 9, she already felt profoundly familiar with and connected to the place, she said.

Others from Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico and the Hopi Tribe in Arizona also shared with me how they see evidence of their cultural ties to Chaco Canyon all around them.

Pueblo Bonito contains dozens of kivas, or underground ceremonial spaces. (Russel Albert Daniels for ProPublica)

Clark Tenakhongva, a former vice president of the Hopi Tribe, understands his cultural link to Chaco Canyon through his tribe’s oral histories, he said. The Hopi believe they had great engineers, astronomers and doctors among their ancestors. At Chaco Canyon, where a southern wall of Pueblo Bonito aligns with the sunrise on the equinox, his tribe refined that knowledge and maintained it after migrating to the mesas in Arizona where many live now, he said.

“All the education and knowledge that we have — we have within our homes, within our kivas, within our plazas — came from here,” said Tenakhongva, who once helped lead efforts to protect cultural landscapes like Chaco Canyon and Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.

Edward Wemytewa, a councilman from the Pueblo of Zuni, simply calls Chaco Canyon a home.

“We’re descendants of Chaco. That’s very clear,” he said. “We are still a living culture. We still practice our ceremonies.”

This year, the Interior Department is considering changes to regulations under NAGPRA that would speed up the repatriation process. But even if change comes, repatriation will take time, likely years.

Yet even though much time has passed, repatriation work that’s just beginning now should not be rushed, Pasqual said. When museums work with tribes to return ancestral remains and items, tribal representatives meet with museum staff in person to discuss what was taken and stored for decades, and the tribes have seen the institutions become better as a result of these consultations, she said.

Pasqual descends a mesa along Chaco Canyon. (Russel Albert Daniels for ProPublica)

One expert we interviewed said that if the institutions continue repatriating at their current pace they would need another seven decades to consult with tribes and return what they have.

As we stood on the mesa, I asked Pasqual what she hoped would come of the repatriation work she and others have done. I was considering a similar question as our reporting team thought about the potential impact of our investigation.

“I would hope that for future generations, like my family’s grandchildren, that there will come a time when they will know that this place is complete,” Pasqual responded.

It was late afternoon as we descended onto a trail that threads between massive boulders and cliff ledges before reaching the canyon floor. Soon, we were walking down a wide dirt path past a cemetery named for Wetherill, the rancher. Wetherill is buried just off the trail; his grave lies undisturbed not far from the burial sites and rooms he helped excavate.

But Pasqual hardly acknowledged this point on the trail. Instead, we made a final stop near a sign on the north side of Pueblo Bonito that details the ways tribes remember their ancestors’ time at Chaco Canyon: “songs, stories, languages, ceremonies, pottery, art, corn, shells, architecture and sun-watching.”

She had read the sign countless times on her visits. People may have moved away, but they did not forget Chaco Canyon, it says.

She climbed into her truck and began her drive back to Acoma Pueblo.

Fajada Butte juts up from the plain near Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. (Russel Albert Daniels for ProPublica)

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Mary Hudetz.

"It’s a Way of Reparations": Why Henrietta Lacks Settlement Matters for Bioethics & Racial Justice

Democracy Now! — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 14:43:47 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“It’s a Way of Reparations”: Why Henrietta Lacks Settlement Matters for Bioethics & Racial Justice

Democracy Now! — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 12:27:18 +0000

The family of Henrietta Lacks, a Black cancer patient whose cells were taken by Johns Hopkins University Hospital without her consent in 1951, has reached a deal over the unethical use of her cells with pharmaceutical company Thermo Fisher Scientific. Henrietta Lacks’s family has denounced the racist medical system that allowed the biotech company to make billions in profit from the “HeLa” cell line, which helped produce remedies for multiple diseases, including the first polio vaccine. Details of the settlement were not made public, but the plaintiffs celebrated the lawsuit’s resolution last Tuesday, on Henrietta Lack’s birthday. For more on the case and the history of medical racism in the United States, we speak with Dorothy Roberts, director of the University of Pennsylvania Program on Race, Science and Society. She is the author of several books, including Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century. “What happened to Henrietta Lacks didn’t just happen to her. It’s part of a long history of experimentation and exploitation of Black people in biomedical research,” says Roberts.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

A New Illinois Law Shifts Repatriation and Reburial Power to Tribal Nations

by Logan Jaffe — Sat, 05 Aug 2023 09:00:00 +0000

by Logan Jaffe

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law Friday sweeping reforms that for the first time will give tribal nations — not state agencies, universities or museums — final say over how and when the remains of their ancestors and sacred items are returned to them.

“With the Governor signing these bills into law, Illinois is proving that a government is capable of reflecting on its past injustices and planning for a future that respects and celebrates our interconnectedness,” Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Chairperson Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick said.

The newly signed Human Remains Protection Act was shaped by tribal nations over more than two years of consultations with the Illinois State Museum and the state Department of Natural Resources. The legislation unanimously passed the state House and Senate this spring and follows publication of ProPublica’s “The Repatriation Project,” an ongoing investigation into the delayed return of Native American ancestral remains by universities, museums and government agencies.

“Here in Illinois we believe in justice, and we won’t hide from the truth,” Pritzker said. “It’s up to us to right the wrongs of the past and to chart a new course.”

The law makes it the state’s responsibility to help return ancestral remains, funerary objects and other important cultural items to tribal nations, and it compels the state to follow the lead of tribal nations throughout the repatriation process. It also establishes a state Repatriation and Reinterment Fund to help with the costs of reburial, tribal consultation and the repair of any damage to burial sites, remains or sacred items.

Existing law to protect unmarked cemeteries in Illinois failed to create a pathway for tribal nations to rebury ancestral remains that had been disinterred. That law, passed in 1989, deemed most Native American remains to be property of the state.

The new law increases criminal penalties for the looting and desecration of gravesites, while adding a ban on profiteering from human remains and funerary objects through their sale, purchase or exhibition. Moreover, it mandates tribal nations be consulted as soon as possible when Indigenous gravesites are unintentionally disturbed or unearthed — such as during construction projects.

The measure follows decades of Indigenous activism, new leadership within the Illinois State Museum and IDNR, and ProPublica reporting that revealed widespread delays in institutions’ compliance with a 1990 federal repatriation law. ProPublica found that more than 30 years after passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, museums and other institutions nationwide still hold more than 100,000 Native American human remains.

The failure to repatriate expeditiously, as required by NAGPRA, is rife in Illinois, where more than 15,461 Native Americans have been excavated — more than from any other state, the ProPublica investigation found. The vast majority of those ancestors are still held by Illinois institutions. Previous policies at the Illinois State Museum, which holds the remains of at least 7,000 ancestors, favored the scientific study of remains over their return to tribes for reburial.

Sunshine Thomas-Bear, the cultural preservation director for the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, said, “It has been a rough road in trying to get the protection and rights that non-Natives have in protecting our ancestral burial sites and homelands.” She added that many Illinois gravesites have been desecrated and destroyed.

“This bill cannot remedy the damage that has been caused thus far, but perhaps it will protect the sites that remain in our homelands,” Thomas-Bear said, though she emphasized that the law is “a step in the right direction” for rebuilding relationships.

Significantly, the law empowers IDNR to set aside and maintain land solely for the reburial of repatriated Native American ancestors and their belongings. Tribal nations have pointed to the lack of protected places for reburial in Illinois as among the highest barriers to repatriation.

For example, in 1999 the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, the Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska and the Sac and Fox Nation, Oklahoma, repatriated the remains of 34 of their ancestors held by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, records show. The tribes wanted to rebury their ancestors at or near the site where they were originally interred: a former Sauk and Meskwaki village in Rock Island County along the Mississippi River. But the state wouldn’t allow the tribes to use the land, said Johnathan Buffalo, the tribal historic preservation director of the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa. They had to rebury the ancestors in Iowa — west of the Mississippi River, the same borderline used by the U.S. government when it expelled all Native American tribes from the state during the 1830s.

“That old wound opened when Illinois did that to us,” Buffalo said.

More than 30 tribal nations are recognized by the state museum as having cultural and historic ties to Illinois. The consultations, which are ongoing, began with discussing the repatriation of more than 230 ancestors unearthed from what today is known as Dickson Mounds.

“The need to rebury and to think about a different way of being in relationship with land from the state side was reiterated to us from just about every tribal nation,” said Heather Miller, the director of tribal relations and historic preservation for the Illinois State Museum. Miller is also an enrolled citizen of the Wyandotte Nation.

The new law is part of a broader effort to recenter Native voices in Illinois and within state institutions, a commitment brought to the Illinois State Museum in part by its former director, Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko, before her death this year. It was signed in tandem with two other laws; one requires the history of Native Americans in the Midwest be taught in Illinois public schools and another that bans school boards from prohibiting students from wearing cultural or tribal clothing and regalia in schools and at graduation ceremonies.

Interim Director Jennifer Edginton said the museum and IDNR, which oversees the institution, have “been looking very inward” to address the previous absence of Indigenous worldviews in their programs, collections and exhibits.

“We don’t want to continue that erasure, or stereotypes, or things that the museum field in general, unfortunately, has done since the inception of museums,” Edginton said.

The Legacy of Forced Removal

Today, no federally recognized tribes reside in Illinois, though Chicago is home to one of the largest urban communities of Indigenous people in the country. The absence of an organized political presence and tribal government has in part led to the state having among the worst repatriation track records in the nation.

“Forced removal affects everything,” said Miller, referring to the expulsion of Native American tribes from Illinois throughout the 1800s. “There was the physical removal, but that also removed [tribal nations] from being able to have a say in law, to have a say in voting, and from participating in all the ways the state operates and functions.”

That legacy has also contributed to Illinois museums designating many of the ancestral remains in their collections as “culturally unidentifiable” under the federal repatriation law. That designation has been misused by some institutions to avoid repatriating remains under NAGPRA, giving museums outsize power in consultations with tribal nations.

With passage of the new Illinois law, that balance of power will for the first time tip toward tribal nations whose ancestral lands became the state of Illinois.

“We have the ability to now bring those communities that were forcibly removed in violent ways back here,” Miller said. “Rather than being a ‘removal state,’ Illinois could be known as a ‘new relations’ state instead.”

The Future of Funerary Items

Another significant aspect of the new law is that it prohibits institutions from charging admission to view human remains that are Native American and any items that were originally buried with those individuals. Although the public display of Native American ancestral remains by museums fell out of practice after the passage of NAGPRA in the early 1990s, the public display of their funerary items has not.

After Dickson Mounds Museum in the early 1990s closed a burial exhibit that displayed the remains of more than 230 Native Americans, the institution still maintained a permanent exhibit that featured items taken from Indigenous gravesites across the state. As ProPublica reported this year, in September 2021, curators dismantled much of the exhibit at the request of tribal partners, who wished to see the items reunited with the ancestors they were buried with before their repatriation. Those funerary items made up about 40% of the exhibit.

State museum officials told ProPublica they’re not sure how many museums in Illinois still display funerary items. The law applies to every museum, university and historical society in the state — far more than the 15 institutions in Illinois that have reported their Native American holdings under the NAGPRA.

When asked about what he would say to museums that may push back against the law, Illinois State Rep. Mark L. Walker said: “Too bad.”

Walker, a Democrat who represents part of Chicago’s northwest suburbs, sponsored the legislation. He said he’s already received interest from other states looking to adopt similar laws.

“I think we can be a model for other states,” Walker said. “Whether we can change [Illinois’] image to such an extent that these communities actually trust us? I don’t know. That may take 30 years.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Logan Jaffe.

FBI & Colorado Springs Police Sued for Targeting & Spying on Racial Justice Protesters

Democracy Now! — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 16:26:02 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

FBI & Colorado Springs Police Sued for Targeting & Spying on Racial Justice Protesters

Democracy Now! — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 12:47:44 +0000

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado has sued the FBI, the Colorado Springs Police Department and local officers for illegally spying on local activist Jacqueline “Jax” Armendariz Unzueta and the Chinook Center, a community organizing hub in Colorado Springs. “This was one of the worst moments of my life,” says Unzueta, who describes the investigation by law enforcement as “incredibly invasive.” The lawsuit accuses the agencies of “unconstitutional and invasive search and seizure of the phones, computers, devices, and private chats of people and groups whose message the Colorado Springs Police Department dislikes.” This comes after revelations the FBI had infiltrated the Chinook Center by sending an undercover police detective named April Rogers to volunteer at the center in 2020, first exposed by the investigative reporter Trevor Aaronson, who writes for The Intercept and created the Alphabet Boys podcast. “For more than a year, she was undercover for the FBI,” says Aaronson, who reports the officer, who used the name Chelsie, surveilled the Chinook Center and unsuccessfully attempted to entrap local activists in gun-running conspiracies. This was part of a broader FBI effort to infiltrate racial justice and left-wing groups in Colorado after the police killing of George Floyd.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Lawsuit Targets FBI Probe of Racial Justice Activists

Trevor Aaronson — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 17:17:14 +0000

The FBI’s secret infiltration and subversion of the racial justice movement in Colorado was challenged Tuesday in a lawsuit alleging that federal and local law enforcement officials abused their powers when they targeted left-wing activists in the summer of 2020.

The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, accuses the FBI, the Colorado Springs Police Department, and local police officers of overstepping their authority in infiltrating, surveilling, and requesting search warrants aimed at Colorado Springs activists. The FBI’s targeting of racial justice activists was revealed in February by The Intercept and the podcast series “Alphabet Boys.”

In a separate federal case in Denver, the Justice Department last week did not deny that the government’s initial investigation of racial justice activists was prompted by speech. That filing — the government’s first public response to revelations that the FBI infiltrated the racial justice movement in Denver using a violent felon as a paid informant — claimed that the “violent nature” of the activists’ statements “made them a legitimate subject of investigation.”

The two cases stem from the same source. During the summer of 2020, the FBI secretly hired an informant, Michael “Mickey” Windecker, to infiltrate the racial justice movement in Denver. While being paid by the FBI, Windecker accused movement leaders of being informants themselves; encouraged violence at protests; and tried unsuccessfully to entrap two Black activists in a plot to assassinate the state’s attorney general.

Internal FBI reports showed that Windecker, a tattooed, cigar-smoking white man who drove a silver hearse, first attended racial justice demonstrations in the Denver area in May 2020. Windecker then approached the FBI, claiming to have unique information about racial justice protesters. But Windecker’s tips, according to initial FBI reports, were entirely about speech. As an example, Windecker claimed one Black activist, Zebbodios “Zebb” Hall, said of the city of Denver: “We need to burn this motherfucker down.”

Based on statements he claimed to have overheard and a recording he secretly made of Hall speaking vaguely about training and revolution, the FBI enlisted Windecker as a paid informant and asked him to pose as a racial justice demonstrator.

The FBI, in its reports, stated Windecker had come forward voluntarily out of some sort of duty to protect the United States, but the bureau’s documented knowledge of Windecker complicated that claim: The FBI was aware that Windecker had prior arrests in at least four states and had been convicted of misdemeanor sexual assault and felony menacing with a weapon. The FBI also knew that Windecker had a long history of working the system as an informant, going back as far as two decades earlier, when he’d been a jailhouse snitch in a murder-for-hire case. Nevertheless, the FBI paid Windecker more than $20,000 for his work during the summer of 2020.

Windecker’s work for the FBI resulted in at least two investigations: one in Colorado Springs, led by a young female detective, and the other in Denver, led by Windecker himself. Both are now under scrutiny in federal court.

April Rogers, left, a police officer who went undercover for the FBI in the Colorado Springs activist community, participating in a 2021 housing rights march during which several activists were arrested.

Photo courtesy of Chinook Center.

“Unconstitutional Actions”

While investigating racial justice demonstrators in Denver, Windecker provided information about a protester who was active in both Denver and Colorado Springs, according to FBI records. That prompted the bureau to recruit a young Colorado Springs Police detective, April Rogers, to infiltrate the activist community there. Wearing provocative clothing, the pink-haired Rogers suggested she was a sex worker named “Chelsi Kurti.” She offered to volunteer at the Chinook Center, a community space for left-wing activists in Colorado Springs.

During the pandemic summer of unrest that followed George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, members of the Chinook Center organized a protest near the home of a police officer involved in the fatal 2019 shooting of a young Black man, De’Von Bailey. For more than a year after the demonstration, Rogers, pretending to be an activist, secretly collected information about members of the Chinook Center; she also tried unsuccessfully to lure at least two activists into gun-running stings engineered by the FBI. The information Rogers surreptitiously collected from the Chinook Center, coupled with the use of a new FBI program called Social Media Exploitation, allowed the FBI and its local law enforcement partner to build dossiers on individual activists without warrants.

After building the intelligence files, Rogers participated in a 2021 housing rights protest organized by the Chinook Center. As The Intercept reported in March, Colorado Springs police, armed with intelligence reports created by the FBI’s Social Media Exploitation program and filled with photos from social media, eagerly awaited the protesters they planned to arrest. “Boot to the face,” a police officer, Scott Alamo, said gleefully as he flipped through the pages of activists’ photos, his body camera recording the comment. “It’s going to happen.”

The cops, dressed in riot gear, violently arrested several activists on charges related to their roles in the protest near the police officer’s home a year earlier. As police stormed in to make arrests, Jacqueline Armendariz Unzueta, an activist and Colorado-based staffer for Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet at the time, was walking her bike. She saw a cop charging toward her and reacted.

“I just threw my bike down and was like, ‘Bitch, you’re coming for me?’” Armendariz Unzueta said. “That’s the honest truth.”

The charging officer sidestepped the bike, but the encounter was captured by a police body camera.

Armendariz Unzueta was not arrested that day. In the days after, local police couldn’t determine her identity because she had been wearing a face mask and a bike helmet. But Daniel Summey, a Colorado Springs detective assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, started looking for the mysterious cyclist by searching the social media accounts of known Chinook Center activists.

Summey found Armendariz Unzueta on social media, matching her bicycle helmet and shoes to photos online. He then wrote an application for a warrant to search her home, but the warrant was based on activities that are protected under the First Amendment. Summey noted, for example, that the demonstration Armendariz Unzueta participated in included red flags, which Summey claimed were a “radical political symbol.” In his search warrant application, Summey also gratuitously appended a full-page photo of Armendariz Unzueta in a bikini that had nothing to do with the investigation. “Sometimes you’ve got to laugh to keep from crying,” Armendariz Unzueta said of the photo’s inclusion.

The ACLU’s lawsuit against the FBI and Colorado Springs Police Departments alleges that the search warrant targeting Armendariz Unzueta and additional warrants to obtain private chats associated with the Chinook Center’s Facebook account and the group’s membership roster essentially criminalized First Amendment-protected activities and violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

“The warrants targeting Chinook and Armendariz were part of a pattern and practice of unconstitutional actions intended to teach activists a lesson: Colorado Springs police would retaliate against political expression with dragnet warrants to chill free speech,” the ACLU of Colorado alleges in its complaint, the first lawsuit related to FBI’s surveillance of activist groups in Colorado during the summer of 2020.

Zebbodios “Zebb” Hall was among the Denver activists who became close to Mickey Windecker, not knowing he was a paid FBI informant.

Photo: Trevor Aaronson

Policing “Violent” Speech

Remarkably, the Justice Department isn’t denying that the FBI’s investigations of activists in Colorado were related to potentially First Amendment-protected activity. In the Denver criminal case, the Justice Department acknowledged that the FBI’s investigation there during the summer of 2020 was based on speech, albeit of a “violent nature.”

The admission came last week in the criminal case of Hall, the primary Black activist targeted by the FBI and its informant, Windecker, during the summer of 2020. The Justice Department was compelled to respond to Hall’s motion to vacate his felony conviction for buying and giving a firearm to Windecker, a convicted felon who was not allowed to have a gun.

Windecker asked Hall to buy him the gun after failing to persuade Hall and another Black activist to join an FBI-engineered assassination plot supposedly targeting the state’s attorney general. Hall bought the Smith & Wesson handgun for Windecker, despite knowing that Windecker was a convicted felon, and pleaded guilty to the federal charge in January 2022. He was sentenced to three years of probation.

But following the reporting by The Intercept and “Alphabet Boys,” Hall petitioned the court to vacate his conviction based on his previous lawyer’s alleged failure to investigate Windecker fully and pursue an entrapment defense. Hall claims that Windecker, who made public death threats while being paid by the FBI and claimed to have killed Islamic State fighters as a volunteer for the Kurdish Peshmerga fighting force, threatened to harm him if he didn’t buy him the gun. Windecker’s threats of violence weren’t secret. In one YouTube video, Windecker, while secretly being paid by the FBI, states: “I have a plan to kill everybody in the fucking room if need to be.”

“We believe he could have prevailed with an entrapment defense,” Lisa Polansky, a Colorado lawyer who was recently appointed to represent Hall in his effort to vacate his conviction, told The Intercept.

The Justice Department described Hall’s claims as “meritless,” but Denver federal prosecutor Rajiv Mohan acknowledged that FBI reports showed that Hall and other racial justice activists were initially targeted following Windecker’s reports about speech. Mohan claimed, however, that Hall’s decision to buy a gun for the FBI’s informant was independent of “any outrageous government conduct in relation to speech.”

The FBI’s investigation in Colorado is the first documented case of federal agents infiltrating the racial justice movement during the summer of 2020. Although the Justice Department and the FBI have said little about it, the probe has garnered attention on Capitol Hill. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon called it “a clear abuse of authority.” Republican Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina quipped: “This is what the FBI does.” Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio submitted The Intercept’s article about the FBI activity in Denver into evidence in his Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

Join The Conversation

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Trevor Aaronson.

‘You Are Exacerbating the Racial Wealth Gap Through the Use of Subsidies’ – CounterSpin interview with Arlene Martínez on corporate subsidies

Janine Jackson — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 20:46:45 +0000

Janine Jackson interviewed Good Jobs First’s Arlene Martínez about corporate subsidies for the July 14, 2023, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

CounterSpin230714Martinez.mp3

Good Jobs First (7/6/23)

Janine Jackson: Under a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, some factories making batteries for electric vehicles will each receive more than a billion dollars per year from the US government. That’s along with some $13 billion in state and local economic development incentives that factories making electronic vehicles and batteries are slated to receive.

But as Good Jobs First calls out in their new report on the subject, called Power Outrage, there are no requirements for the jobs promised—and considered key to this deal—to be permanent jobs, or even that they provide market-based wages or benefits.

We have a press corps that considers it due diligence to critically examine every dime the government offers to struggling people. But huge economic subsidies to profitable corporations are a no-comment given, no matter how not needy the grantee, and no matter how opaque the process.

There’s just little sense of any need to follow up on a government, or “taxpayer,” gift to those who we are told are the doers, the makers, the job creators. This crucial but under-examined economic phenomenon is Good Jobs First’s topic all the time. And a new report, the first in a series, takes an angle on the impact of subsidies that you pretty much never hear.

Good Jobs First (6/12/23)

Arlene Martínez is deputy executive director and communications director at Good Jobs First, and author of the recent report “How Economic Development Subsidies Transfer Public Wealth to White Men.” She joins us now by phone; welcome to CounterSpin, Arlene Martínez.

Arlene Martínez: Hi, thanks for having me.

JJ: We see subsidies, or what you call “mega deals,” going to folks like Amazon, companies that don’t need a lift, they don’t need community support, and they don’t give back, necessarily, when they get it.

The racial unfairness is part and parcel of that. And yet I feel like, every day, we learn how irreducible white supremacy is, how it doesn’t stir into anything else and just disappear. So what did you find, and why do you think it matters?

AM: Yeah, Good Jobs First has a subsidy tracker, which looks at economic development subsidies that have gone to companies. And we have a special category called “mega deals,” as you mentioned. And those mega deals are the biggest of those deals, anything that’s $50 million or above. So I took a look at the top 50 of those, so we’re talking all billion-dollar deals and up, very extravagant packages that go to some of the biggest well-known companies in the world.

And what we saw is that most of those companies were run by white men. And in cases when they weren’t white men, they tended to be born outside of the United States, and then there were just two women, who were also white.

So we talk a lot about this transfer of wealth, and really what you’re doing is taking a community’s very precious, limited resources and directing it towards some of the biggest, most profitable companies in the world, which isn’t what subsidies were ever meant to do in the first place; they were supposed to incentivize development that wouldn’t have otherwise taken place. And that’s just not what we’re seeing here.

So what you’re really having is, you are exacerbating this racial wealth gap through the use of subsidies. We thought we should be explicit about who the winners were.

JJ: Right. You hear, well, OK, these are big companies and they provide a lot of jobs, and a lot of those jobs might go to people of color, or to women, so we can’t help that they’re big. What about that?

Boondoggle (6/16/22)

AM: That’s one of the very popular myths, we would say, we hear quite a bit: Well, these are big companies. They produce a lot of jobs.

But the truth is, that’s not what actual research shows, which is that these companies aren’t producing any type of special, extra amount of jobs. And, in fact, a lot of times they’re just simply taking jobs from smaller companies.

I think Amazon is a great example of this. Their online presence and their warehouse workers mean that a lot of the retail jobs that used to exist have been cannibalized. So it’s really just been a transfer of jobs, in a lot of cases.

And some of those times they’ve gone from good industries to really poorly paid warehouse workers, where Black and brown workers tend to be holding the poorest-paid, most dangerous jobs.

JJ: I remember talking with Dorothy Brown about tax policy, and just saying that there’s a way that, broadly, race can be related to economic outcomes, but somehow when we’re talking about policy-making, it’s not factored in.

And she was saying that people would say, race doesn’t affect tax policy, because we don’t have any data that connects that. So what you don’t study is invisible to you, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

And, similarly, with the case of subsidies, if you don’t think the impacts of these big subsidies are race-related, or have impact that is meaningful in terms of race, well, then, I guess you don’t see it. But that doesn’t mean those impacts don’t exist.

ProPublica (6/8/21)

AM: That’s right. And Dorothy Brown, we had a conversation, and one of the points that I’ve heard her make is ProPublica, which has done a series of really damning, amazing reporting around some of the tax returns of some of the wealthiest people in the world, and just how much they’re avoiding paying taxes.

And one of the points she makes is, look at the list. They’re all white people, and yet ProPublica doesn’t take that extra step to say, by the way, the people who are avoiding paying taxes, who aren’t paying what everyone else is paying, are the richest people in the world, who are white. So I think she does a good job of doing that.

JJ: Calling attention to that impact, which, if you don’t see it, you don’t have to see it, but there it is.

AM: And I was a reporter before I joined Good Jobs First, and I remember one of the stories I was writing about was, there was, of course, a budget shortfall, as there often are in these local communities that we cover; I was a local reporter.

And the first thing on the chopping block really was a boxing gym and a library and a community center in a very heavily Latino neighborhood in the city. And it was, of course, disproportionately used by, well, that city’s Latino population.

And it wasn’t these other things that were being cut; police and fire were being fully funded. Those are both professions that tend to have, again, high populations of white men who occupy those positions, and are being paid some of the highest salaries in a community.

So, yes, I think there is a need, and communities benefit from, really, that conversation becoming a lot more explicit than it’s been.

JJ: Absolutely. Part of, I guess, what galls me about news media’s sort of soft, blurry attention to subsidies is, and I said it to Greg LeRoy last year, we don’t look to corporate news media first for critical examinations of corporate capitalism, but they do present themselves as watchdogs of the public interest, and especially of public spending. We hear about the “cost to taxpayers” a lot.

And so, if that’s true, I feel like minimally, the secrecy around public subsidies to companies like Amazon ought to be compelling stuff, and yet somehow they don’t get broken open often, and the impact and the follow-up on communities just doesn’t seem to be the kind of catnip to reporters that you would think it would be.

Arlene Martinez: “The scrutiny that we give every spending dollar that seems to come out of a city budget is not at all applied in the same way to companies.”

AM: Yeah, and it’s amazing how the scrutiny that we give every spending dollar that seems to come out of a city budget is not at all applied in the same way to companies, and company behaviors and company press releases. Their word is taken at face value, and as if somehow it’s more legitimate, when they’re questioning every nickel and dime that’s coming out of a community.

I remember covering a county museum that was looking to get some money, and there was city council meeting after city council after city council meeting about whether this museum should get a million dollars over five years, or whatever the case was, whereas other communities, and we write about these a lot, they will approve a $300 million subsidy behind closed doors, with no one knowing about it. And it’s touted as a good thing for the community.

So I think there increasingly is more scrutiny on things like these subsidies, and people really are starting to question more whether this is really the best way that communities should be spending that money. But there is something interesting about the way that corporations and companies are reported on with such a trust that isn’t given to government, for example.

JJ: And I just want to say finally, Good Jobs First is very much about involving everyone in the process. And you referenced subsidy trackers that you have. They’re accessible for folks who are reporters or not reporters. You try to make data or databases available to folks who want to follow the money.

AM: Yes, we have databases that we’ve purposely made fully accessible. We don’t even ask for your email, and you can look up a company. So if a company comes to your community and says, “We need some money to expand our operations,” or to even open, you can look to see where else has this company gotten money, and what did it deliver for the money that it’s gotten in other places.

Good Jobs First

Or you can look at a company in our violation tracker and say, “What’s its record on corporate conduct?” Because we have all types of misconduct records in there to say, if the company has a long track record of cheating workers or harming the environment or cheating consumers, you can say, “Is this the kind of company that this city should be investing in?”

So yes, we do try to make these databases very accessible and easy to use. We’re trying to do the research for you, for journalists.

JJ: Right? Well, if journalists won’t use it, then the public can use it and work around the press corps. I mean, the point is to get it done, right?

AM: That’s right. That’s right. And we are thrilled that every day we get some kind of outreach, whether it’s a grassroots community group, an individual who said, “I saw this, I can’t believe what I’m seeing.” So they go to their city council, then they can question what’s going on, or whoever their official might be. And so always thrilled when we see that.

I would just add, I made this point earlier, but communities have a certain amount of money, and the money that’s being spent is precious. And there are things that actually do lift up communities, and those are excellent public schools, and they’re communities with parks that take care of their natural resources, and safe communities.

And when communities invest in those types of things, people want to live in those kinds of communities. And the companies want to be where those people are, where those workers are.

So the real wins that we see that communities do, is when they invest in those things that truly lift up people from the bottom up, rather than showering a corporation with a billion dollars and hoping somebody at the very bottom of that funnel can use it to lift themselves to a better place.

JJ: All right, then. We’ve been speaking with Arlene Martínez. She’s deputy executive director and communications director at Good Jobs First, online at GoodJobsFirst.org. Arlene Martínez, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

AM: Thanks for having me.

The post ‘You Are Exacerbating the Racial Wealth Gap Through the Use of Subsidies’ appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

From Affirmative Action to Reparations: Bridging Racial Economic Inequality

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 05:50:54 +0000

The Supreme Court’s latest attempt to mandate colorblindness amidst the reality of deep and widespread racial inequality has dealt another strong blow against affirmative action in higher education. Yet at the same time communities across the country are recognizing that racial inequality will only be addressed if policies are specifically designed to repair these divisions. More

The post From Affirmative Action to Reparations: Bridging Racial Economic Inequality appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dedrick Asante-Muhammad.

Celebrating Racial Justice and Equality on Juneteenth

Alaysia Hackett — Sat, 17 Jun 2023 12:00:00 +0000

The holiday is an opportunity to learn from our history, celebrate our progress, and carry both forward.

This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Alaysia Hackett.

The Boldest Step to Close the Racial Wealth Divide in Generations

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 05:51:35 +0000

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Juneteenth celebrates the end of chattel slavery in the United States. But over 150 years later, discriminatory public policies have prevented African Americans from closing the racial wealth divide in this country they helped build.

Policy created that divide — and policy can close it.

One state is showing how to move forward in advancing racial economic equality. This year, Connecticut is launching the country’s first “Baby Bond” program.

This program will invest $3,200 for every baby born into poverty in the state. The bonds are projected to grow to between $10,000 and $24,000 in value, depending on when they’re used.

When they reach an age between 18 and 30, these Connecticut residents will be able to use that money to start a small business, get a higher education or job training, or buy a home.

That money goes to poor residents regardless of their race. But because Black and Latino residents of the state are poorer than their white counterparts, the program will significantly address the state’s racial wealth gap — even as it gives young people of every race in the state a path out of poverty.

I’ve been researching and writing about the racial wealth divide for the last 20 years. In my view, Connecticut’s Baby Bond program is the most significant step forward in public policy I’ve seen yet. It should be an example for the country.

The program builds off decades of analysis and advocacy.

In 1959, over 50 percent of African Americans lived in poverty — a figure that had fallen to less than 19 percent by 2019. That’s still more than twice the rate for non-Hispanic whites, but it’s an example of substantial economic improvement for African Americans.

How did this happen? By removing barriers to economic and social opportunities and investing in those facing poverty.

The Black freedom movement of the 1950s and 1960s pushed for important legislation like the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968. The movement also helped advance the War on Poverty and its associated programs — including SNAP, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, all of which dramatically decreased poverty for the entire country.

Today we see Connecticut taking the next big step forward.

The idea for Baby Bonds came out of the wealth-building movement popularized by Michael Sherraden’s 1992 book Assets and the Poor: New American Welfare Policy. The book’s theme was the need to shift from simply supplementing people’s income to helping them build real assets — to help poor people get beyond day-to-day survival.

Child Savings Accounts under the Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship, and Downpayment (SEED) Initiative were one step in that direction.

By 2017, there were 54 of these programs serving 382,000 children in 32 states and Washington, D.C. At that time, the most common initial deposit for a Children’s Saving Account was $50 — not enough to make a significant difference in reducing poverty or the racial wealth divide.

Connecticut’s Baby Bond program was inspired by a vision to address racial economic inequality first proposed in 2010 by economists William Darity and Darrick Hamilton.

Though the return of $10,000 to $24,000 for all babies born in poverty would not bridge the nearly $150,000 wealth divide between Blacks, Latinos, and whites, it would about double the median wealth of Black and Latino households in the state.

Hopefully this is the beginning of states nationwide creating similar wealth-building programs.

It could also build momentum for the national American Opportunity Accounts Act introduced by Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). That law would provide a Baby Bond of $1,000 for every American child — with an annual addition of up to $2,000 for the lowest income Americans.

For generations, we’ve done little to bridge the racial wealth divide or get families out of multi-generational asset poverty. Connecticut’s Baby Bond program, which launches in July, and similar proposals across the country show that we may finally be willing to take the next step.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dedrick Asante-Muhammad.

Listen: On Chicago’s South Side, one bike ride became a passion for cycling and racial equity

Grist staff — Tue, 23 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

This is Season 3 Episode 5 of Grist’s Temperature Check podcast, featuring first person stories of crucial pivot points on the path to climate action. Listen to the full series: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify

“At that time, I didn’t know anything about endorphins and what it means to get your blood going and your muscles moving, and the impact that could have on depression. I just knew the totality of the experience, the socializing with people, the nature, the exercise, all of it together helped me feel a little bit better. And I knew this was not just a bike ride. This was the start of something.”

– Olatunji Oboi Reed

Episode transcript

Olatunji Oboi Reed was working in the corporate world when his long struggle with depression forced him to take a leave of absence. During that time, he made a decision to get on a bike, and that ride, it eventually led him to his life’s work promoting racial equity. This is his story.

My name is Olatunji Oboi Reed. I am 49 years old and I am the founding president and CEO of the Equiticity racial equity movement.

I grew up on the South Side of Chicago. Growing up, we lived a modest life. Sometimes my mom had a car, sometimes she didn’t. My parents were divorced at a pretty young age. Same for my father – sometimes had a car, sometimes didn’t. So I would say it was mostly public transit, walking, and sometimes somebody may have a car.

As a kid, we loved riding bikes and it was super popular. It was a form of freedom. You know, as a child it was our way to explore our streets, our neighborhoods, get a little bit of distance from our parents, you know, have some freedom and just, you know, hang out and be with friends. Me and my brother, we had two of the coolest bikes on the block. He had a blue and gray Schwinn Stingray. I had a green and yellow Schwinn Stingray with the tall handlebars, the banana seat. It was awesome. We were the cool kids because we had some cool bikes.

I think it was around sophomore year in high school. I started to lose interest. Started to lose interest in going to school and studying. Felt like my energy was low. I wanted to sleep more, wasn’t as interested in spending time with my friends. Had a challenging relationship with my father.

I do recall in high school a mentor of mine said, “You know, I think you’re struggling with depression.” And at that point in my life, you know, I’m a young brother growing up on the South Side of Chicago, running with a crew of more young brothers and trying to be as hard as we can be and trying to, you know, get as many girls as we can get. The idea that I would even acknowledge maybe I have depression was just something I, you know, I couldn’t even consider.

I probably was a little ashamed of the potential that I could have a mental illness and didn’t want anybody to know. So some part of it was that I did not believe him. Some part of it is that I didn’t want to acknowledge it to myself.

I don’t know that I really had any coping strategies. I just tried to do what I could. That meant oftentimes not doing well, you know. Not doing well in my classes in high school, because I’m not showing up, I’m not studying, and I’m not focused. I can’t read. I mean, I knew how to read, but I couldn’t, like, sit down and focus because, you know, one of the challenges with depression is that you can’t focus.

I have an older brother. There’s two of us – me and my older brother. He’s about 11 months older than me. And I figured he just – he got the right genes, you know, because he was studious, he was focused. He was clear on his goals and objectives. And I was just kind of floundering. So I just thought I was the lazy one of the two of us. He was the one that had figured it out.

My older brother was going to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and at first I was at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, and wasn’t doing well. So he said, “Well, come up here and figure it out.” And he was leading an organization on campus called If Not Now, a black activist organization, and they did a mentorship program at an elementary school. The program was housed at Planned Parenthood. And, you know, because he was my older brother and I wanted to be around him, you know, he went, I went, and I loved it. You know, we were working with these middle school young brothers, and it was great. When the program director left, he asked me to apply for his position, and I wound up applying and got the job.

Probably around that time I thought nonprofit was for me, you know. And there was a gentleman who worked for the utility company in Champaign, and we were running leadership development programs for high school students and taking them on college tours, and I would always reach out to him when we needed some extra funding. Oftentimes, he would come through with the extra funding. He would bring this big check. He would bring a photographer. He would ask the media to come. And I just started thinking: Who is this guy? What does he do? What is his job title that he just gives money away and gets the media to cover it and make a big deal of all of this stuff. And I learned he does something called community relations. So in 1999, I moved from Champaign to Chicago, and I made up my mind that I’m going to go into community relations in the corporate sector.

It wasn’t the corporate sector itself. It was the idea of community relations, community affairs, community development. Like me being someone who could take corporate resources and give them to our neighborhoods. Like, I could do that. I could be a philanthropist. So I came back to Chicago, and I just went trying to find a job in the corporate sector. And fortunate enough, I found one working for Bank One, which eventually was acquired by Chase Bank, and that was my first corporate job.

I don’t know that this was a coping mechanism because, you know, I’m in the world of work now and what I’m doing is just pushing through my depression. And when I can’t, I step back and I come up with excuses for why I can’t be more present. You know, calling off sick, somebody in my family passed away. Any excuse that I could, you know, come up with.

So I come back to Chicago in ‘99. By 2000, I’m working at Bank One, and it was a junior level community development position. And I had a lot of flexibility. I could kind of come and go. So while I’m still struggling with depression, I’m able to use those coping mechanisms and not put myself in too much risk of losing my job. I leave Bank One and I go to Citigroup, where I become a vice president and director of community relations. And in that position, those similar coping mechanisms didn’t work. Like, calling off more than once every few months is a problem. Or not delivering on an assignment. You know, something is due, it needs to be turned in on time. Like, any minor slip up was noticed. I couldn’t hide the impact of my depression.

When I’m depressed and I’m working it’s hard to concentrate. It’s hard to socialize. It’s hard to articulate. It’s hard to read. It’s hard to keep a schedule. And when depression does get to the point where I just can’t even go to work, I can’t even wake up, the way it manifests for me is to sleep as much as possible and just try to ignore the world and maybe, you know, maybe I’ll wake up and it’ll all be a dream and everything will be alright. But it was a form of escape, you know, just to sleep and not acknowledge it. Not talk to people, because anyone I talk to: “How you doing? What’s up with work? How about therapy? How about medication?” And I didn’t want to face those questions.

You know, I’m not sure how or why I started to think about the bike I had in the basement. I know that I had been socially isolated for probably two months or more on a medical leave of absence from work. Not answering the phone, not answering the door, you know, not communicating with family and friends and really questioning, is it worth it? Should I should I continue to struggle with? And some kind of way I just thought about it. Like, I do have a bike, you know, I do have a bike in the basement. Maybe – because I had been, you know, in this darkness, both literally and figuratively – maybe I could just go for a ride and just, you know, feel a little better. Just at least get out the house. I thought it could just give me a little bit of respite from the darkness and the pain.

So I muster up the strength to take the bike to a bike shop, because it had been sitting in the basement so long, it was sitting on flat tires and in disrepair. Got the bike fixed, put the bike in the trunk and drove to 63rd Street Beach. Grabbed the bike out the trunk, took a deep breath. Because I’m still struggling. I mean, as much as I’ve done to get that bike to that lakefront trail that day was a big deal, however, I am deeply, deeply depressed, just sort of pushing through to bring this bike ride to life. Hop on the bike and started riding.

It was a beautiful summer day in Chicago, and it was early in the morning. And as I’m riding, I’m noticing a few things. It’s on the South Side of Chicago, and there’s Black folks on the trail, because it’s in a predominantly Black neighborhood, and they’re acknowledging me. They’re passing me with a head nod, with a “how are you doing, brother?” That acknowledgment after social isolation for several months was massive.

The sun is peeking out of the clouds, and it feels like the sun is playing a game of hide and seek. So I’m sort of getting a little kick out of the sun coming in and out. The wind blowing the leaves of the trees sounded like a song. Like the leaves were singing to me. The sun’s rays following me on the water, bouncing off the water and just following me as I rode felt like it was this protective envelope around me. It was nature speaking to me in a way that I had never paid attention to. I had never looked to just take a moment and embrace all that is happening in nature. In that moment, I did. I saw it, I felt it, I heard it. It was like this cacophony of experiences and sounds and motion and things moving, and it was all happening.

And then it was the physical movement of riding a bike. At that time, I didn’t know anything about endorphins and what it means to get your blood going and your muscles moving and the impact that that could have on depression. I just knew the totality of the experience, the socializing with people, the nature, the exercise, all of it together helped me feel a little bit better. And I knew this was not just a bike ride. This was the start of something.

When I got back to the car, there was this sort of realization that all is not lost. You know, I’m not painting a picture that the bike rack cured me or that I was no longer depressed. However, it certainly helped me have a little more hope and gave me a little more faith that I’m able to come out of this deep, deep depression.

I’m starting to ride more and more, and there was an old friend who I reconnected with, and we decided to go for a bike ride. And we’re on the Major Taylor Trail on the South Side of Chicago, kind of southwest, and I see a group of young people with an adult in the front. And these young people are in this practically straight line. It’s beautiful to see all of these young people riding, and the adult is clearly, you know, teaching them how to ride safely and manage the ride. And it was it was cool to see. And in that moment, I kind of thought about it, you know, maybe I could start a bike club to help get people to ride with me. So I decided to start a bike club. It was called the Pioneers Bicycle Club, and I would just invite family and friends to meet me at the Point here in Chicago, and let’s ride our bikes on the lakefront.

I go back to school, you know, I left corporate America. By that time, I had went to Nike and left Nike. Decided to go back to school and did a study abroad program in Brazil. So I paused the Pioneers. When I came back, there was a new organization called Red Bike & Green, which was founded in Oakland. A woman named Ebony had brought a chapter to Chicago, and I loved everything that they were doing. They were focused on the black community and I connected with Ebony and asked her, “May we consider, you know, I could fold the Pioneers into Red Bike & Green and we could, you know, co-lead Red Bike & Green together.” And we did.

And as I’m starting to ride more and more across the city, I notice some distinct differences of riding bikes on the South and West Side, which is predominantly Black and brown and low-to-moderate income, and riding bikes on the North Side or downtown, predominantly white and middle-to-upper income. And as I became more and more of an advocate, I would talk to bike advocates, mostly white. I would talk to government agencies and staff – again, mostly white. And I would ask, “Why is it harder to ride in our neighborhoods and easier to ride in white neighborhoods?” And what they all told me, to a T, “We focus bicycle resources where they will be used the most.”

And that never sat right with me. Because I’m thinking about myself as someone who has turned to bikes to address my depression. And I’m also recognizing all of the health care disparities in Black and brown neighborhoods, from mental health to diabetes, heart disease, obesity. We could go on and on. And I’m thinking, well, should you focus bicycle resources where they will be used the most? You’re going to put those resources in predominantly white, middle, upper income neighborhoods, because those are the people who are going to take to cycling because they don’t have the inequities, they don’t have the structural challenges that we have in our neighborhood that stop us from taking to cycling. So you’re incentivizing people who are already well positioned to cycle. And you’re not going to put those resources in our neighborhoods where they’re needed the most.

So I became more and more of an advocate. Eventually, I co-founded Slow Roll Chicago. Slow Roll Chicago was an organization that came out of Slow Roll Detroit – Slow Roll Detroit was this massive bicycle movement. We were doing weekly rides in Black and brown neighborhoods, and narrated rides in partnership with community-based organizations. And at that point, I felt like one of the most important things needed was infrastructure. And when I’m in Black and brown neighborhoods and I’m telling people in our neighborhoods that we need bike infrastructure, I’m getting a lot of pushback. People are telling me that they don’t want the bike infrastructure, because it’s not for them, it’s going to cause gentrification and displacement. And it was tough for me to hear, because I’m a cyclist and I believe infrastructure will allow all of us to bike more – Black and brown people to bike more. We should we have safe bike infrastructure on our streets. However, I’m understanding their concerns. So I was, you know, I was twisted. I was deeply concerned that there was all of this pushback.

And a few things happened. On a whim, I learned about an organization called PolicyLink, based in California in the Bay Area, focused on equity. And I should just add, at this point, I’m talking about bicycle equity in Chicago. I’m advocating for bicycle equity. And nobody is listening. And in fact, many people are fighting me on bicycle equity and they don’t believe in it. They don’t want to support it. It’s not going to work. I shouldn’t do it. And then I go to PolicyLink’s conference in LA., and I’m surrounded by people who are talking about equity. It was like going to a family reunion and meeting family you never knew existed.

So I come back and a couple of things happen. The video of Laquan McDonald’s murder is released, there’s a global racial justice reckoning as a result. Shortly thereafter, the city of Chicago announced its strategy to reduce traffic violence. It’s called Vision Zero, and their leading strategy was enforcement. And I could not see how the city’s answer to traffic violence, which is mostly impacting in our neighborhoods, is enforcement.

There was a white-led organization here in Chicago – and I think this was just what took me in a different direction. They decided to host a summit about Vision Zero. And as soon as I saw their announcement, I knew that they did not want Black and brown people there. It was on a weekday from 8 a.m.-12 p.m., located downtown, and it costs $50 to get in. And this white-led organization wants to do a summit to talk about traffic violence happening in our neighborhoods, and don’t engage with the community organizations operating in our neighborhoods, people who live in our neighborhoods. So I just decided, you know what, we’re not going to let this one go. Y’all not going to keep disrespecting our neighborhoods.

And I told them, “Cancel it. Cancel the summit.” And they said, well, we made some mistakes, however, we’ll fix it. We’ll bring some Black and brown stakeholders to the table. We’ll work together to figure this out. I said, “No, no, we’re done. Cancel it. Start over from the beginning and a full partnership with Black and brown people in Black- and brown-led organizations. This summit is – it’s not happening.” After an intense three weeks, they canceled it.

So in that moment, it really showed me there’s power in our neighborhoods. There’s power in our neighborhoods to do what needs to be done to change the course of history. To change our future, to improve our communities. That really sort of cemented for me that Slow Roll Chicago was not the right vehicle for me, and I needed something new. And that’s what gave birth to Equiticity.

I wanted to move towards other forms of transportation. Transit, walking, emerging transportation technologies – you know, Bikeshare was becoming more and more popularized, scooters were on the horizon, dockless bikes were coming up. After learning about PolicyLink. I wanted to focus on equity more broadly, and in the context of equity I really wanted to focus on racial equity.

And then there was this interconnection of transportation and police violence. When Laquan McDonald was murdered, he was walking. When Philando Castile was murdered, he was driving. You know, like, police violence and transportation are inextricably linked. We can’t separate those two. And I also wanted to center power, and that’s what drove the name of this organization.

So Equiticity. Most people see “equity city” when they see the name. They see equity city. And I understand. It makes sense that you would see that. For us though, that’s not what it was about equities. It is a play on equity and electricity. The same way electricity requires a physical infrastructure to be transformative, so does equity require a social infrastructure to be transformative. Equiticity is about allowing power and equity to flow through our neighborhoods. Our central question from the founding of our organization has always been: what happens when we turn on the power and equity moves like electricity through our homes, our streets, our neighborhoods and our cities? That’s Equiticity.

Equiticity is a racial equity movement operationalizing racial equity by harnessing our collective power, through research, advocacy, programs, community mobility rituals, and social enterprises to improve the lives of Black, brown, and Indigenous people in our society.

We did research titled “Biking Where Black,” focused here in Chicago. Through that research, we uncovered that Black people are eight times more likely to be stopped and ticketed for riding bikes on the sidewalk than white people. And largely where we’re being stopped is on large arterial streets where there’s no bike infrastructure. That inequity is really two compounding inequities coming together, the infrastructure inequity and the enforcement inequity. When we ride bikes on the sidewalk, we get stopped by the police. When white people do it, they don’t.

I’ll give you a quick example of some of our program work. One is BikeForce. It is a program focusing on high school students, teaching them about the technologies inside of e-bikes. There’s a wave coming to our society with these e-bikes. Bike share is eventually going all e-bike. Cities, states are offering incentive programs for people to go and purchase e-bikes. And we want our young people to sort of be at the forefront of that wave so when the time is right, they’re in a position to create employment opportunities for themselves.

We do five types of rituals: community bicycle rides, neighborhood walking tours, public transit excursions, group scooter rolls, and open streets festivals. We also want to do the work to position us to be financially independent. So we are incubating some social enterprises that we see some potential of one day helping to financially support our organization and create jobs in our neighborhoods.

From our perspective, when we think about climate, we think about it from the perspective of environmental justice. You know, the people in our cities – in Chicago and many cities across the country – the people who are the most impacted by climate change are Black, brown, and Indigenous people. So when we think about the sectors that we’re the most active on, of course transportation is number one, and we’re active on environmental justice and sort of growing our work in that space.

So one of our programs is Mobility Opportunities Fund. It is a stipend program providing residents in North Lawndale with stipends to purchase climate-friendly transportation. That includes a conventional bike, e-bike, e-cargo bike, or an electric vehicle. So it’s our opportunity to begin to move people from, you know, regular cars to more sustainable, healthy forms of transportation.

I don’t think it was until Equiticity that I felt like this was in my blood. Like it was in my body. It was something that was inherently the work that I should do. And that work, to be clear, is racial equity, you know, not limited to transportation. It is a part of my spirit. It’s a part of my soul. It’s everything that I want my life to be about.

I’m a new father now. I have a newborn daughter. I want her to be excited about bikes. I want her to ride with her big cousins. Cycling has grown in the U.S., especially among Black and brown people, and knowing that I’ve contributed in even a small way doing something that maybe my daughter will appreciate, and my niece and nephews will appreciate, gives me a profound sense of purpose that I think I really, you know, in those younger years, I really struggled with.

I’m feeling pretty good. Of course, I have my ups and downs as one who continues to struggle with depression. However, I’ve maintained a nice regimen, some strategies to stay healthy. Of course, cycling is part of that mix. Doing what I love is a part of that mix. Being with family and friends. Having a new daughter gives me, you know, a whole new life. My daughter is six weeks today. She turned six weeks old today. So, yeah, things are going well. I don’t take any of it for granted. I know it’s a fragile existence for me. However, I’m proud of progress I’ve made.

Everybody want to ride bikes now. Everybody. People visiting Chicago: “Oboi. Hey, can we hop on some bikes?” People want to come to North Lawndale, wanna ride. Everyone wants to ride. So I don’t have a dearth of people who want to ride. I probably got too many to keep up with all the requests to hop on some bikes. I don’t get to ride as much as I used to, however, our Friday night race series in North Lawndale is one that I love, and every time I’m able to hop on some bikes, cause it’s always a lot of young people on those rides, it reminds me that this is the reason I do this work.

More reading on this topic:

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline On Chicago’s South Side, one bike ride became a passion for cycling and racial equity on May 23, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Grist staff.

Clyburn’s Role in South Carolina Redistricting May Be Examined as Supreme Court Hears Racial Gerrymandering Case

by Marilyn W. Thompson — Wed, 17 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

by Marilyn W. Thompson

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear oral arguments in a South Carolina redistricting case where the NAACP is challenging the state’s Republican plan as racially motivated.

The role of the state’s most powerful Democrat, U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, is likely to play an important part in the discussions, legal experts said.

In 2021, South Carolina Republicans reshaped the voting map, taking a district that had been in the hands of a Democrat as recently as 2018 and making it a much safer seat for the incumbent Republican. The NAACP brought a suit against the effort, and in January, three Democratic-appointed judges ruled in the group’s favor.

The Supreme Court could decide to restore the map that the Republicans drew or order the legislature to create a new map. The case comes after a series of rulings from the high court that have made partisan gerrymandering easier, though the court has still deemed redistricting predominantly based on race to be illegal. Legal experts said this week that the South Carolina case will help define the limits of how much a legislature can consider race as it draws new maps.

South Carolina Republicans have defended their efforts, saying they were not motivated to dilute Black political power in the state. Lawyers for state Republican leaders argued during the trial that they did not consider race in making their map. They also contended that their map could not have targeted Black voters because they worked with Clyburn, one of the most powerful Black Democrats in the country.

This month, ProPublica added new detail to this account, reporting that Clyburn had been more involved in the process than previously known. He recommended moving Black and white voters in such a way that made his district politically safer but hurt Black Democrats.

A map of the new district lines. They were the subject of a 2021 lawsuit, and the Supreme Court said it will hear oral arguments in the case. (Cheney Orr for ProPublica)

Clyburn’s role could be an important underlying factor for the court, according to legal experts following the case.

“The court likely will get into the details of South Carolina redistricting, including the role played by Rep. Clyburn, because all this information is potentially relevant to whether racial or partisan factors predominantly explain” a district’s design, said Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos, an election and constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School.

Clyburn’s recommendations for how his district map should be drawn are “potentially relevant” as the court weighs the three-judge panel’s decision that the Republican-led legislature predominantly used race to create the maps, said Justin Levitt, an election law expert at Loyola Law School. Clyburn’s role has already complicated the NAACP’s case. The appellate panel threw out some of the racial gerrymandering allegations, partly because Clyburn’s office had recommended the changes. Nevertheless, it found that the new map of the coastal 1st, which had been the swing district, was an illegal racial gerrymander that deliberately targeted Black Democrats and moved most of them into Clyburn’s district, the 6th.

Court documents and testimony showed that Clyburn, who had no official role in the redistricting, submitted a confidential hand-drawn map that Republican lawmakers said they used as their starting point. None of his requests were made public.

Clyburn’s recommendations sought to move about 85,000 people into the majority-Black 6th District to make up for a population deficit. His map also moved some white Republican-leaning residents out of his district into the 1st, currently represented by the Republican Nancy Mace. Under the redistricting plan, each of the state’s seven congressional districts had to represent 731,203 people.

Clyburn’s office declined to answer specific questions about his requests and said his only input was responding to legislative inquiries. Clyburn said in an interview that he did not get everything he wanted in the plan passed by the legislature, mainly because it lowered the Black voting age population in his district to under 50%. Maintaining a majority-Black district had been important to Clyburn, who was elected in 1992 and rose to become one of the most prominent Democrats in the House.

Clyburn’s office said he opposes the Republican map and hopes the decision of the three-judge panel will be upheld.

The Supreme Court has pending decisions on several other important redistricting cases, including an Alabama racial gerrymandering case that addresses whether legislatures in states with high Black populations have an obligation to draw more majority Black districts.

Richard Pildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University School of Law, said the court generally accepts findings of fact from a three-judge panel unless it concludes they are “clearly erroneous.” In that case, he said, it will look more deeply into the court record and question parties at oral arguments.

Joshua Douglas, an election law and voting rights expert at J. David Rosenberg College of Law at the University of Kentucky, said the South Carolina case is significant because it “involves the interplay of race and politics.”

“The legislature says it was trying to achieve a partisan result, not a racial result. The court had previously said a legislature cannot hide behind politics to justify a racial gerrymander. It’s possible the court will use this case to reevaluate that rule,” Douglas said.

Republican lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to render an early decision in the case because it may require new maps that could impact congressional races in 2024.

Do you have access to information about redistricting that should be public? Email marilyn.thompson@propublica.org. Here’s how to send tips and documents to ProPublica securely.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Marilyn W. Thompson.

Clyburn’s Role in South Carolina Redistricting May Be Examined as Supreme Court Hears Racial Gerrymandering Case

by Marilyn W. Thompson — Wed, 17 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

by Marilyn W. Thompson

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear oral arguments in a South Carolina redistricting case where the NAACP is challenging the state’s Republican plan as racially motivated.

The role of the state’s most powerful Democrat, U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, is likely to play an important part in the discussions, legal experts said.

A map of the new district lines. They were the subject of a 2021 lawsuit, and the Supreme Court said it will hear oral arguments in the case. (Cheney Orr for ProPublica)

Clyburn’s role could be an important underlying factor for the court, according to legal experts following the case.

Clyburn’s office said he opposes the Republican map and hopes the decision of the three-judge panel will be upheld.

Republican lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to render an early decision in the case because it may require new maps that could impact congressional races in 2024.

Do you have access to information about redistricting that should be public? Email marilyn.thompson@propublica.org. Here’s how to send tips and documents to ProPublica securely.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Marilyn W. Thompson.

Police violence, gentrification, and racial capitalism w/Robin D. G. Kelley

The Real News Network — Wed, 10 May 2023 13:00:31 +0000

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.

Youth Continue Fight for Racial Justice Six Decades After Birmingham Children’s Crusade

Denis Moynihan — Sat, 06 May 2023 10:12:01 +0000

Students nationally rallied on May 3rd for the Freedom to Learn, taking action to challenge censorship, book banning and voter suppression sweeping the country. They are demanding the right to learn their history and that of their forebears, even if it makes others “uncomfortable.” The day of protest fell on an auspicious anniversary. Sixty years earlier, on May 3rd, 1963, thousands of young people risked their lives in Birmingham, Alabama, on the second day of what became known as The Children’s Crusade. Images of the march shocked people worldwide, as Black children and teens engaging in non-violent protest were brutalized with police dogs, clubs and water cannons.

Birmingham was considered the Jim Crow South’s most segregated and most violent city, controlled for decades by a racist political boss named Bull Connor. The courage demonstrated by those young people that day was remarkable, and contributed to enduring change – change that is now threatened.

“Sixty years ago today, I woke up with my mind on freedom,” Children’s Crusade participant Janice Kelsey recalled, speaking on the Democracy Now! news hour. “I had attended student nonviolent workshops, and I was prepared, because I finally understood that it was more than just segregation, it was inequality.”

Janice Kelsey continued, “In the preparation sessions that were held at 16th Street Baptist Church, we had seen film of demonstrations in other places, so I saw people being hit, being called names and being mistreated for demonstrating. We were told that if you participate, some of this may happen to you, but this is a nonviolent movement, and you cannot respond, except to pray or sing a freedom song…I was so incensed at having been mistreated all these years, until I was willing to sacrifice whatever was necessary to take steps to change the environment.”

The Birmingham campaign was planned in secret in January, 1963 by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a handful of his closest associates, including the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, James Bevel and Fred Shuttlesworth. The late Harry Belafonte rescued King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference from near bankruptcy, raising for the Birmingham campaign, in one night at a fundraiser he hosted, close to $500,000 – almost $5 million in 2023 dollars. This history is detailed in the newly published book, “You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America,” by Paul Kix. The title’s first sentence comes from words Shuttlesworth spoke at Belafonte’s fundraiser.

Days later, the Birmingham campaign began, as Kix quotes King, to “break segregation or be broken by it.” When it didn’t take off with hoped-for intensity, King himself marched and was arrested. While in Bull Connor’s jail, he clandestinely penned “The Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

One of King’s key advisors was Vincent Harding, an African American war veteran who had embraced non-violence. Speaking on Democracy Now! in 2008, Harding explained the Children’s Campaign:

“There was a whole development in which many of the protesters were young people, and in some cases children, who came to play a crucial role in leading the struggle against segregation, partly because many of the adults were afraid to, couldn’t afford to, were worried about what would happen to them and their livelihoods if they did it.”

Vincent Harding played a role in helping King deliver his secretly-penned letter, which explained why American Blacks, especially in the South, were tired of waiting for change.

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,” King wrote. “We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights.”

340 years before 1963 was 1623, four years after 1619, the year the first ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived on the shores of what would become the United States.

History matters. And right now the right-wing is attempting to obliterate the often violent, racist history of the United States.

“It’s very discouraging and frightening to see leaders in legislatures and governors who are trying to push back on the gains that were made due to the tremendous sacrifices that were made by young people 60 years ago…I’m hoping and praying that our young people will step up again and say, ‘No, we are not going back,’” Janice Kelsey said.

As this column was going to press, ten young Dream Defenders, committed to racial justice, were occupying the office of Republican Florida Gov. Ron Desantis. “He stokes division to try and make white people afraid and I’m here to say that we will not be divided…we are stronger when we stand together,” Julia Daniel, one of the occupiers, said in a statement.

Janice Kelsey needn’t worry. Today’s youth, like those of 1963, are taking a stand.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Denis Moynihan.

Activists Arrested for Occupying Florida Gov. DeSantis’ Office While Staff Literally Eat Cake

Brett Wilkins — Thu, 04 May 2023 00:17:29 +0000

More than a dozen activists were arrested late Wednesday after occupying part of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' office to protest his "fascist agenda," especially his support for a new anti-immigrant bill.

Protest organizers said 14 people were placed under arrest Wednesday evening. Earlier in the day, dozens of members of the Florida-based and youth-led Dream Defenders and allied groups including Florida Rising and Showing Up for Racial Justice had entered the lobby of DeSantis' office in Tallahassee, where around a dozen people sat and locked hands in front of the reception desk.

\u201cActivists protesting Gov. Ron DeSantis and his policies, who were holding a sit-in at his office, are being arrested.\u201d
— Douglas Soule (@Douglas Soule) 1683157317

The activists—who said they would not leave until they met with the governor and presumptive 2024 GOP presidential contender—were protesting a wide range of DeSantis' policies and actions, including his support for S.B. 1718, a bill passed by both houses of Florida's Legislature that would ban cities and counties from funding organizations that issue identification documents to people who enter the U.S. illegally.

The bill also bans businesses from accepting identification—including out-of-state driver's licenses—from such immigrants, and forces hospitals to record patients' immigration status upon admission.

\u201cFrom his Don't Say Gay bill to his 6-week abortion ban and now to his newest anti-immigrant bill, Ron DeSantis has made his fascist agenda crystal clear.\n\nWe won't stand for it and neither will the millions of young voters who're ready to punch back.\u201d
— Sunrise Movement \ud83c\udf05 (@Sunrise Movement \ud83c\udf05) 1683140591

Video posted on social media by Dream Defenders shows at least one of DeSantis' staffers eating chocolate cake in front of the demonstrators.

One protester is heard saying in the video that "they sittin' here eatin' cake while the people of Florida are in crisis."

Florida Planned Parenthood Action tweeted that "as always, the cruelty is the point with this administration."

\u201c@GovRonDeSantis\u2019s staff is giving Marie Antoinette vibes..\u201d
— Women's Voices SW Florida (@Women's Voices SW Florida) 1683140993

Florida Rising senior political adviser Dwight Bullard—a former Democratic state lawmaker—said in a statement that "Gov. DeSantis and Republican lawmakers have chosen to attack many of Florida's most vulnerable and historically marginalized communities with policies that attack who they are, who they love, and how and what they learn."

Showing Up for Racial Justice associate director Julia Daniel said that DeSantis "stokes division to try and make white people afraid, and I'm here to say that we will not be divided or tricked because we know that we are stronger when we stand together."

Common Dreams reported last month that advocacy organizations issued a travel advisory for Florida, with one of the groups, Equality Florida, citing DeSantis' "passage of laws that are hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, restrict access to reproductive healthcare, repeal gun safety laws and allow untrained, unpermitted carry, and foment racial prejudice" in warning that the Sunshine State "may not be a safe place to visit or take up residence."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Oxfam Shows US Billionaires Almost a Third Richer Today Than When Covid Hit

Brett Wilkins — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 19:23:17 +0000

As the deadline for Americans to file federal income tax returns fast approaches, Oxfam America on Friday renewed calls for taxing the ultrarich while publishing an analysis showing America's growing number of billionaires saw their wealth increase by nearly one-third since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and by nearly 90% over the past decade.

"Wealth inequality in the U.S. is more extreme and dangerous than income inequality; and we need to change our approach, so we effectively tax wealth as well as income," the charity said in an introduction to the report, Tax Wealth, Tackle Inequality.

Based on Forbes data, the report found that "U.S. billionaires are almost a third richer (over a trillion dollars, in real terms) than they were at the onset of the pandemic in 2020," while overall U.S. billionaire wealth has soared 86% since 2013.

The number of U.S. billionaires—of which there are now more than 700—is also nearly 60% higher than it was a decade ago, according to the analysis.

\u201cOur new report shows US billionaires got a third richer during pandemic - and why today\u2019s wealth inequality is so extreme and dangerous.\n\nAhead of #TaxDay, we outline five arguments why we need a wealth tax now. Read in @Marketwatch https://t.co/ZCVqNM3Xga\u201d
— OxfamAmerica (@OxfamAmerica) 1681496603

As the report notes:

At the same time, our country has a "permanent underclass" of working families who are denied their economic rights, trapped in poverty, and unable to accumulate wealth no matter how hard they work. Oxfam data shows that almost a third of the U.S. labor force earns less than $15 an hour; half of all working women of color earn less than $15.14.

The racial wealth gap is actually growing wider since the 1980s, and today is close to what it was in 1950. The average Black American household currently has only about 12 cents in wealth for every dollar of the average white American household.

And while the gender pay gap has barely budged in two decades, the gender wealth gap is much wider. One study found a raw gender wealth gap of women owning 32 cents for every dollar of male wealth. For women of color, the gap is even more profound.

"At a time when the ultrawealthy are amassing historic and dangerous levels of wealth, a federal wealth tax offers a vital and necessary tool for directly redressing extreme wealth inequality, as well as advancing racial justice, tackling the climate crisis, and protecting democracy," Oxfam argued. "It also offers a reminder that today's debt ceiling gridlock is a consequence of giving tax breaks to the ultrawealthy."

\u201cJeff Bezos is worth $122 BILLION, while a market trader selling rice in Uganda makes $80 monthly.\n\nGuess which one is taxed at 40%?\n\nJoin the global call to tax the mega-rich now.\n#TaxBillionaires\n\nhttps://t.co/DtdocnOHik\u201d
— Mark Ruffalo (@Mark Ruffalo) 1681425400

Oxfam urges Congress and the Biden administration to enact legislation like Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, which would impose a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts exceeding $50 million, plus a 1% annual surtax on billionaires.

According to an analysis by University of California, Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the tax would bring in at least $3 trillion in revenue over 10 years without raising taxes on 99.95% of American households worth less than $50 million.

Citing figures from the Institute for Policy Studies and Patriotic Millionaires, Oxfam's analysis showed that:

The wealth tax proposed by Sen. Warren, based on taxing U.S. billionaires alone, would raise $114 billion annually—more than enough to pay for reinstating the Child Tax Credit;
An annual net wealth tax could raise over half a trillion dollars ($582.6 billion) each year, by taxing more than only billionaires and using marginally higher rates: 2% for wealth above $5 million, 3% above $50 million, and 5% above $1 billion; and
If there had been a net wealth tax of 6.9% since 2013, it would have kept billionaire wealth simply constant.

"Tax Day is a reminder that the tax system isn't working for ordinary Americans. It's built to favor the richest in our society," said Nabil Ahmed, Oxfam America's director of economic justice. "The ultrawealthy are sitting on mountains of wealth that remain largely untouched by taxes, and their wild riches are in no small part a result of intentional public policy."

"We need to implement strategic wealth taxes if we want to stand any chance at reining in this kind of Gilded-Era wealth inequality that allows the super-rich to have a stranglehold over our economy," Ahmed continued.

"Taxing the ultrawealthy is essential to tackle extreme wealth inequality and protect our democracy from the threat of oligarchy—but it is also central to advancing racial and climate justice, connections that we must pay more attention to," he added. "It's also clear that political gridlock around the debt ceiling is a consequence of tax cuts on the richest."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

BLS Data Underscores Racial and Regional Diversity in 2022 Union Growth

Vins — Tue, 11 Apr 2023 18:06:24 +0000

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recorded a substantial rise of 200,000 unionized workers in the United States from 2021 to 2022, of which almost all included workers of color,…

The post BLS Data Underscores Racial and Regional Diversity in 2022 Union Growth appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

Resisting Eugenics and Racial Capitalism

Yarden Katz — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 05:58:57 +0000

Image Source: Pharaoh and the Midwives, James Tissot c. 1900 – Public Domain

Passover and the Tradition of Shifra and Puah

This world needs revolutionaries who refuse orders to kill and exploit. Two midwives named Shifra and Puah were such revolutionaries. When a racist ruler asked them to limit the reproduction of slaves – out of fear of a slave uprising – they disobeyed. Shifra and Puah refused to implement eugenics: the practice of exploiting and killing those deemed disposable, while cultivating those that the powerful consider worthy.

While eugenics is often presented as a “modern” practice, exemplified by the US eugenics laws of the early twentieth century and later the Nazi regime of racial hygiene, the practice is quite old. Shifra and Puah are two characters from the Book of Exodus (Shemot) in the Hebrew Bible, the book on which the Passover (Pesach) holiday is based. Shifra and Puah’s story, and Exodus more generally, is a cautionary tale about racial capitalism – and a call to resist eugenics and racial ideology.

This Passover we can re-read Exodus for this radical current, which has inspired many struggling against racial capitalism. This old story provides a timely window into how racialization is used to maintain power, extract value, and limit the lives of those deemed disposable. Exodus also reminds us how systems of racialized extraction can and must be disrupted.

+++

The story of Exodus begins with a “demographic threat”: the Pharoah of mitzrayim (“Egypt”) realizes that the enslaved Israelites, the unfree laborers of his regime, are growing too numerous. He fears they might rebel. This fear is familiar from contemporary regimes – from the British empire’s struggle to rule over Black majorities in the Caribbean colonies, to the state of Israel’s ongoing efforts to repress Palestinians and steal their land.

The “solution” is eugenics. Pharoah decides to limit the Israelites’ reproduction, first by imposing harsher forms of labor. He makes the Israelites labor with mortar and bricks, and work the fields. He also uses taskmasters to further oppress the enslaved, yet the Israelites continue to live and have babies.

When harsher labor conditions prove insufficient, he makes a second attempt, this time by trying to control women’s reproduction – just as modern eugenics regimes have done and continue to do. The Pharoah asks Shifra and Puah, described in the text as the “midwives of the Hebrew women,” to kill the newborn Hebrew males. “When you deliver the Hebrew women,” he tells Shifra and Puah, “look at the birthstool: if it is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.”

The midwives refuse. They deliver all babies safely. When Pharoah asks Shifra and Puah why they didn’t kill as instructed, they play to his racism. The Hebrew women, they tell him, give birth “like animals” – too quickly to intervene. Their answer shows that Israelite (Hebrew) women were seen as racially distinct from Egyptian women, and Shifra and Puah exploited this racist view to disobey the command to kill. This refusal made Shifra and Puah, as Jill Hammer put it, into “revolutionaries” that fight for the most vulnerable and oppressed.

But who are these revolutionaries, Shifra and Puah? The phrase “midwives of the Hebrew women” in the text is ambiguous. It could mean that they are Hebrew women who work as midwives among their own, or that they are Egyptian (or other non-Hebrew) women who work as midwives for the Hebrews. The identities of Shifra and Puah have been much debated, but the fact of the ambiguity is key. This ambiguity adds another layer to the critique of race found in Exodus: racial hierarchies not only justify enslavement and misery, but the very idea of a racial “us” versus “them” collapses if Shifra and Puah could be “race traitors” who come to the aid of those people racialized as inferior.

In fact, Exodus has several cases of people refusing their prescribed racial roles. An obvious example is the Pharaoh’s unnamed daughter who rescues baby Moses, allows his mother to nurse him, and then raises him as her own. Moses himself is arguably an example of racial betrayal, as Sigmund Freud has famously suggested: an aristocratic Egyptian who comes to the aid of the Hebrews upon witnessing their oppression and ends up playing a major role in their – and as a result, his own – liberation struggle. This liberation struggle was never just about “my people,” either. When Moses was forced to flee Egypt after standing up for the Israelites, he found refuge in a place called Midian, where he met his wife Zipporah and decided to name their son Gershom (from the Hebrew root ger, meaning “stranger” or “foreigner”) in honor of the hospitality he had received as “a stranger in a foreign land.” This too undermines the idea of biological, racial groups.

It’s striking that the much-admired figures in Exodus are racially ambiguous, and that what matters is their shared commitment to what’s right rather than loyalty to a racial group. Racial ideologies only get in the way of shared struggles so that eugenic regimes can be maintained. Race, as Dorothy Roberts puts it, is a “fatal invention,” not a biological reality. This is why actions that disrupt racialization and eugenics, such as Shifra and Puah’s, are essential.

When Pharoah realized he couldn’t use the midwives to implement his eugenic policy, he resorted to other means. He decided to make slavery even more terrible. He required the Israelites to collect their own straw for making bricks yet demanded that they produce the same number of total bricks. The Hebrew Bible is very specific on this point: “You must go and get the straw yourselves wherever you can find it; but there shall be no decrease whatever in your work.” This is racial capitalism: squeezing more and more “output” from racialized populations, with less and less supplies and capital.

Exodus thus gives us a profound critique of racial hierarchies, and a demonstration of their nefarious utility in extracting value from workers and stifling solidarity among oppressed peoples.

+++

The Exodus story has inspired many healers and medical practitioners, writers and artists, and those struggling against eugenics and capitalism.

Roza bas Yukel, a Jewish midwife working in Groningen, Netherlands in the eighteenth century, saw herself as continuing the tradition of Shifra and Puah. In 1794, she crafted this introduction (in both Hebrew and Yiddish) to the birth records of the babies she had delivered:

This is the book of the generations/children of man, those that were born by my hands among the Hebrew women. I came to them, I the midwife, for they are vital and give birth to a son or daughter. I took this book as my possession, and I recorded in the name of those giving birth with the name of the newborn, with the date of birth, so that it should be a remembrance from the day I began this occupation and forward…I am engaged in this profession, and may no obstruction be caused by my hands, heaven forbid, neither to the woman sitting on the birthing stool nor to the newborn about to be born: Only let it be expelled from the uterus like an egg from a hen.

The phrase “birthing stool” directly references the scene from Exodus, and the phrase “give birth to a son or daughter” signals a rejection of the Pharaoh’s order to kill the male babies. As historian Jordan Katz has argued, birth records such as Roza bas Yukel’s allow us to hear Jewish midwives in “their own voices, unmediated by men.” And Roza reveals, in her own voice, what is arguably her own subversive aim: while these birth records were often used by the state to document population growth – numbers meant to be used for the state’s interests – this wasn’t how Roza saw her work. She was following Shifra and Puah.

The tradition of Shifra and Puah calls to resist eugenic regimes, which are regimes of racialized extraction. This aspect of Exodus – which shows how racial oppression can create private wealth – has captured the imagination of those struggling against capitalism.

We find Exodus in Yiddish writer IJ Singer’s monumental novel The Brothers Ashkenazi, which chronicles the ravages of capitalism and the emergence of socialist movements in the Russian empire starting in the nineteenth century. In the novel, Jewish handweavers in Lodz, Poland decide to go on strike. In addition to their grueling workday without food or drink, the boss has required them to supply their own candles for working in the dark factory. The workers frame their demands in the terms of Exodus: “The full-time workers, seasonal workers, and apprentices who board at their employers’ must receive food that is fattened, likewise, their coffee must contain milk and sugar, for he who does not feed his workers and demands of them work may be likened to the Egyptians who did not supply straw, yet demanded bricks.”

Fiction drew on reality. “The story of deliverance from Egypt,” as historian Hadassa Kosak argued, “was a particularly recurring theme among Jewish workers.” In the US during the late nineteenth century, for example, “Egyptian slavery became a symbol for the toiling garment workers, while the Pharaoh’s enslavement of the Jews was used as a metaphor for the attempts of autocratic employers to subdue the workers by imposing inhuman conditions.” Jewish labor organizers would give speeches to workers that reference their own ancestors who were “enslaved by Egyptian taskmasters and likewise had to throw off their yoke.”

The Bund, an anti-zionist Jewish socialist movement established in 1897 in Tsarist Russia, also drew on Exodus and the Passover holiday. Bundists in Galicia, for instance, published their own Passover haggadah, framed around socialist struggle against capitalism. Exodus is arguably inscribed in the movement’s very name: as historian Daniel Mahla pointed out, “the Yiddish word Bund is only used in one other context: to denote the Mosaic covenant which God had established with the Israelites after he had saved them from slavery in Egypt.”

Exodus’s theme of liberation has reached well beyond Jewish communities, of course. Exodus is core to the Black spirituals “Go Down Moses” and “Wade in the Water,” which Harriet Tubman used in the underground railroad to covertly communicate with Black slaves during their escape to freedom. And during civil rights actions in the 1960s, radical organizer Fannie Lou Hamer would sing the spiritual “Go Tell It on the Mountain” with modified lyrics that refer to Exodus: “Go tell it on the mountain/ That Jesus Christ is born” became “Go tell it on the mountain/ To let my people go.”

+++

Jews living under the most extreme regimes of eugenics and enslavement have likened their struggles to that of the Israelites in Exodus.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, a factory of racial capitalist death, provides another example. In this factory, the Nazis extracted everything possible from their captives. Some of the harrowing details come from accounts by members of the Sonderkommando, the prisoners forced to do the dirtiest work in the Nazi pipeline. These prisoners were, in the words of Jewish Hungarian doctor and Sonderkommando survivor, Miklos Nyiszli, the “commando of the living dead.”

The Sonderkommando had to accompany other prisoners to death in the gas chambers. As Nyiszli reports, they had to ensure that those about to be slaughtered strip and put away their shoes and clothes neatly, so that these items could be used by Germans. The Sonderkommando then extracted the remaining valuables, like the gold from the crowns of the teeth (up to 75 pounds of pure gold, once smelted, each day) and the hair, which the Nazis used in making detonators for delayed action bombs (among other uses). The last job was to cremate the dead bodies. Those Sonderkommando prisoners with medical skills, such as Dr. Nyiszli, were also forced to dissect the prisoners selected by Josef Mengele. The captives’ bodies became raw materials for Nazi scientists, with organs of interest sent to elite institutions in Berlin.

Captives were even forced to build the facilities of their own captivity, as Nyiszli described in his memoir, by working with brick, in bondage, like the Israelites in biblical Egypt:

It was they who had worked in the Mauthausen [concentration camp] quarries cutting the blocks; it was they who had carried the finished stones along the seven-kilometer path up the mountain…And it was they who had constructed the powerful walls around their house of sorrow, which was composed of wooden barracks. They had finished the castle at the price of unbelievable suffering, but they had never lived to occupy it. In the midst of this great mass of stone and concrete they had all perished, like the slaves in ancient Egypt.

Nyiszli also gives us a view of the resistance inside this death factory, which is where we find the tradition of Shifra and Puah.

Like the biblical Pharaoh, Mengele wanted to use care providers to implement eugenics. As Nyiszli explained, the Nazis would deal with a case of infectious disease in one of Auschwitz’s camps by exterminating the entire camp, and they needed imprisoned doctors to diagnose these infections. When Nyiszli was ordered by Mengele to dissect the dead bodies of prisoners to determine a cause of death, he understood that the fate of the whole camp might be in his hands.

Nyiszli decided to conceal cases of typhoid fever by making up creatively false diagnoses. Like Shifra and Puah, Nyiszli played on Mengele’s racism – or more precisely, the incompetence resulting from his commitment to racial science. “Dr. Mengele was a race biologist and not a pathologist,” Nyiszli wrote, “so it was not difficult to convince him that my [false] diagnosis was correct.” The unnamed doctors assigned to Auschwitz’s barracks participated in the subversion and cared for sick prisoners under miserable conditions. “They were careful not to reveal any cases of infectious diseases to the SS medical authorities,” Nyiszli recalled. “As often as was possible they went so far as to conceal the sick person in a corner of the barracks, and cared for him as best they could with the meager resources at their disposal. They avoided at all costs sending the sick to the hospital, since the SS doctors checked all patients there and the appearance of a contagious diseases meant the liquidation both of the barracks where the disease had originated and of the neighboring barracks as well.”

The Sonderkommando unit of which Nyiszli was part eventually took up arms against the Nazis, an act made possible by subversion. Imprisoned Jewish women, some of whom worked in a munitions factory, hid gunpowder in their bras and dresses and smuggled it to the Sonderkommando. When the Sonderkommando attacked their Nazi enslavers on October 7, 1944, they managed to kill at least three SS officers and injure several more. They also blew up one of Auschwitz’s four crematoriums, making it unusable. They were all either executed or killed in the fight, and four of the Jewish women who supplied the explosives – Ala Gertner, Roza (Shoshana) Robota, Regina Sapirstein, and Ester Wajcblum – were tortured and publicly hanged. May their memory be a blessing.

Just as in the story of Exodus, this resistance depends on people refusing to play their assigned role in the racial hierarchy. Captives need help from accomplices on the “outside” in order to survive and resist.

We see this in the Warsaw Ghetto, another site of murderous, racialized extraction. The ghetto’s captives who managed to avoid “selection” (being sent to the death camps) had to work for the Nazis. Like the Israelites in biblical Egypt or the handweavers in IJ Singer’s novel, these enslaved laborers were being squeezed, asked to produce commodities for their oppressors with less food and supplies. The Nazis’ food rationing plan was in fact designed to starve the ghetto to death within a year. So, the captives collaborated with those on the “Aryan” side in creative ways to survive, some of which are described in Bernard Goldstein’s stunning memoir Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto. Goldstein, a Bundist and member of the underground resistance, explained for example how children were key to elaborate food smuggling operations for their ability to climb ghetto walls. And this is how captives got milk: “From the window of a building on Franciskanska Street which overlooked the ghetto (half the street was outside the wall) a sheet metal pipe was lowered, and milk poured across the racial boundary.” This nourishment made later resistance possible – resistance that broke out in full on April 19, 1943, during Passover eve.

Survival in the ghetto also depended on mutual aid, a form of care that negates eugenics. In the ghetto, Bundists organized improvised kindergartens, covert elementary schools in kitchens (the Nazis forbade Jewish children from learning Polish), care for orphaned children, among other necessities. The ghetto’s defiant care workers continued the tradition of Shifra and Puah. For instance, Anna Braude-Heller – a Bundist and head doctor in the children’s hospital in the ghetto – did what she could with her colleagues to care for ill and starved children under abysmal conditions. In his memoir, Goldstein recalled how he had tried to convince Braude-Heller to let comrades to smuggle her out of the ghetto, to save her life:

“This has been suggested before, Bernard,” she said with a smile. Her voice was grim. “I am not going. I have agreed to send my son and his wife and child. As long as there are Jews in the ghetto, I am needed here, and here I will stay.”

Anna Braude-Heller was martyred in the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943.

+++

It is hard to discuss eugenics in the most canonical of Jewish texts without also thinking about the eugenics practiced by the state that claims to be “Jewish”: Israel.

Like other colonial regimes, the state of Israel generates profits from its captives. Gaza is an obvious example. Israeli state eugenicists make sick calculations about the number of calories Palestinians in Gaza should have, and engineer starvation by blocking foods and supplies sent from abroad from entering. Gaza is also used as a captive market for absorbing the surpluses of the settler economy, and as a laboratory for the lucrative Israeli weapons industry which sells its “tested” products internationally.

All this comes with a policy of periodic murder, made infamously explicit by Israeli demographer Arnon Sofer. In 2004, Sofer told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that once Israel pulls its settlers out of Gaza and places the region under total siege, Palestinians will “become even bigger animals than they are today…The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war…if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.” It’s trite by now to point out that these are Hitlerian words; that Israel uses similar tactics to those the Nazis employed against their captives.

Across the whole of Palestine, there is resistance to this regime. Recently, there has been coordinated armed resistancein Nablus and Jenin against Israeli occupation forces. This resistance is organized against all odds, with few resources and under brutal crackdowns by Israeli army and police. In Gaza, of course, resistance continues too. Outside Palestine, there have also been important efforts to damage the Israeli war machine. The group Palestine Action, for instance, managed to shut down several factories of Elbit – one of Israel’s major weapons developers.

+++

In Passover celebrations in the US, Exodus is frequently used as a container for liberal or vaguely “progressive” politics (and all too often, liberal zionism). There has been a proliferation of progressive haggadot and spin offs on Arthur Waskow’s “Freedom Seder” of 1969. This Passover, as in others before, there will be more of that.

This Passover, however, it is worth re-reading Exodus for the radicalism already present in the source, with its critique of racialized extraction, its deep rejection of racial ideology, and its call for subversive resistance.

But the story gains its true power when the radical possibilities within it materialize into collective action against regimes of death and extraction. We should support and celebrate such actions wherever we see them: in Palestine, in the recent wave of strikes in US prisons, or in the ongoing battle by forest defenders in Atlanta to stop ‘Cop City,’ an over $90 million training facility for police forces that is planned to be built on stolen, deforested land – to name only a few.

We live in a world where the social fabric necessary for such actions is generally lacking. This Passover, we must discuss and mourn the destruction of Jewish communities and movements that once had the power to mount collective resistance. In the US and Europe as in other parts of the world, Jewish radicals have been exterminated, exiled, or marginalized, purged from establishment “Jewish” institutions that have aligned themselves with imperialism and capitalism. We can still try to organize ourselves in ways that will make the radical traditions of Exodus come alive – and become more than just a story, and more than material for another haggadah or midrash.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Yarden Katz.

Sweeping Repatriation Reform Bill Unanimously Passes Illinois House of Representatives

by Logan Jaffe — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 18:50:00 +0000

by Logan Jaffe

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. This story is part of an ongoing series investigating the return of Native American ancestral remains. Sign up for ProPublica’s Repatriation Project newsletter to get updates as they publish and learn more about our reporting.

For more than 30 years, tribal nations have been asking the state of Illinois and its state-run institutions to return the remains of their ancestors for reburial within the state. For just as long, Illinois has made that nearly impossible.

But now, legislation moving through the Illinois General Assembly would finally pave the way for the remains of thousands of Native Americans to be repatriated.

The legislation, which unanimously passed the Illinois House of Representatives this month, comes after nearly two years of consultations among the leaders of more than two dozen tribal nations, the Illinois State Museum and the state Department of Natural Resources.

In January, a ProPublica investigation revealed that institutions have not returned the remains of at least 15,461 Native Americans who were excavated from Illinois. We also revealed how the Illinois State Museum had for decades displayed open Native American graves at Dickson Mounds, a burial site that was billed as a tourist attraction and then as an “educational” exhibit before its closure in the 1990s.

“We’re grateful for the bipartisan support we’ve received from Illinois legislators who are working to right historic wrongs that have, put simply, diminished us,” said Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation Chairperson Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick. “This legislation brings respect to our history and our ancestors the way they should’ve been respected centuries ago.”

State Rep. Mark L. Walker, a Democrat who represents part of Chicago’s northwest suburbs, said he introduced the bill after leaders of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation brought the issue to his attention. Walker, who has a master’s degree in anthropology, said it is “atrocious” that some museums and universities still keep the human remains and funerary items of Native Americans.

“These people were buried by their people with the goods they wanted to be buried with in spaces they wanted to be buried in and [we] disturbed that,” Walker said. “Just go repair it. It’s so simple.”

He added: “I don’t know what right we have to dig up somebody’s grandmother.”

Most excavated Native American remains in Illinois are held by state universities and museums. Our investigation found that the Illinois State Museum holds the remains of at least 7,000 Native Americans, yet it has returned only 2% of them to the tribal nations who could claim them under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a 1990 federal law that pushed for the expeditious return of human remains and funerary items excavated from Indigenous burial sites. The museum has the country’s second-largest collection of unrepatriated Native American remains, and one of the lowest return rates.

Following ProPublica’s reporting, institutions across the U.S. have vowed to return the Native American remains held in their collections. In Illinois, the proposed legislation could signal a new era of proactive repatriation and consultation with tribal nations in a state that has favored the curation and scientific study of these remains over their return.

“Native tribes have existed since before colonization, and our land and culture are the foundation of our society,” Rupnick said. “Yet the remains of thousands of our ancestors are in the hands of governments and institutions, just as our Native lands have been for centuries.”

Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko, who until her death this year served as the director of the Illinois State Museum, previously told ProPublica that the state needed to revise its existing burial law and ensure that tribal nations have more say in how their ancestors are protected and returned. According to the minutes of a November meeting of the Illinois State Museum board of directors, Catlin-Legutko said she was working on legislation with the Department of Natural Resource’s legal team.

The museum and Department of Natural Resources declined interview requests for this story, citing policies against commenting on pending legislation.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, the bill would create a cemetery on state land where repatriated Native American ancestors and their belongings could be reburied. The state would be responsible for protecting the cemetery, which would not be for public use, from potential looting or vandalization.

Since at least the mid-1990s, state officials have known that tribal nations with cultural and geographical connections to Illinois wished to have their ancestors reburied. ProPublica obtained records from 1995 showing that the Illinois State Museum conducted consultations with leaders from 15 tribes with ancestral ties to Illinois to discuss the cultural affiliations of human remains, as required by the federal law. In those conversations, every tribal leader told the museum that the human remains in its collection should be reburied in Illinois.

In the intervening years, the museum repatriated the remains of at least 156 Native Americans, most of them to the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. But Illinois did not provide land for reburial and those ancestors were reburied in Oklahoma despite the preference that tribal leaders had expressed in the 1990s.

The Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma declined to comment for this story.

In addition to the creation of a cemetery, the bill would also establish a committee of leaders from more than 30 tribal nations to review state construction or other projects that might affect burial sites and other places of religious or ceremonial importance. The group would serve as an unprecedented Native voice in state affairs.

“For me, this work really is about recentering power,” said state Sen. Cristina H. Pacione-Zayas, a Chicago Democrat who sponsored the bill. “And [it’s about] communities who have been historically harmed and where policy has explicitly taken out their humanity, taken out their agency, taken out their ability to be self-determined.”

The legislation acknowledges that the state “has not maintained meaningful consulting relationships with tribal nations” and points to the “State of Illinois’ long history of removing tribal nations.” Today, there are no tribally held lands in Illinois.

“Without meaningful relationships between the State of Illinois and tribal nations, there has been harm caused to tribal nations and trust needs to be rebuilt as the State works to correct those harmful mistakes,” the bill reads.

Walker said that describing the historical context of forced removal in the bill is significant.

“It’s part of the larger discussion: Are we going to face our history or aren’t we?” he said. “As adult human beings, I think it’s time we embraced our entire history.”

The bill would establish a Tribal Repatriation Fund, which could only be used to help return ancestors and items and for reburial and would help pay for repatriation work using money from fines and other penalties collected from individuals or organizations that knowingly disturb burial sites.

Significantly, the proposed law shifts the ownership of any Native American remains and funerary items still buried in the state or accidentally unearthed from public lands to Native American nations. The current burial law, the Illinois Human Skeletal Remains Protection Act, passed in 1989, deems most Native American remains to be property of the state.

Help Us Investigate Museums’ Failure to Return Native American Human Remains and Cultural Items

More than 30 federally recognized tribes have cultural or geographical ties to the land that is now the state of Illinois. For this story, ProPublica reached out to representatives of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, the Osage Nation, the Wyandotte Nation and the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. If you are a representative of a tribe with ties to Illinois and would like to share comments with ProPublica, please email us at repatriation@propublica.org.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Logan Jaffe.

Dozens of Museums and Universities Pledge to Return Native American Remains. Few Have Funded the Effort.

by Logan Jaffe, Mary Hudetz and Ash Ngu — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +0000

by Logan Jaffe, Mary Hudetz and Ash Ngu

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. This story is part of an ongoing series investigating the return of Native American ancestral remains. Sign up for ProPublica’s “Repatriation Project” newsletter to get updates as they publish and learn more about our reporting.

Until this year, the University of Kentucky’s William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology had never returned any of the more than 4,500 Native American human remains in its collections.

That is about to change.

Weeks after ProPublica published the “Repatriation Project,” the university told federal officials that 138 ancestral remains in its collection could be repatriated to three Shawnee tribes in Oklahoma and Missouri. The university also announced it will commit nearly $900,000 over the next three years and hire three more staff members to work on repatriations.

“This significant investment in staff and resources is a testament to the university’s steadfast commitment to Native nations and completing the sensitive process of repatriation with transparency, dignity and respect,” Kristi Willet, a university spokesperson, said in an email to ProPublica.

The University of Kentucky is among more than a dozen U.S. schools and museums that have pledged to redouble their efforts to return the human remains and belongings — in some cases numbering in the thousands — that were taken from Native American gravesites. Institutions have also publicly acknowledged the harm inflicted on tribal communities by continuing to keep ancestral remains and cultural items, including after the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act called for them to be returned to tribes.

The wave of responses follow the launch of ProPublica’s series investigating the failures of the federal law.

In the three decades since the law’s passage, museums and universities repatriated fewer than half of the 210,000 human remains they initially reported holding, according to a ProPublica analysis of federal data from December. Ten institutions and federal agencies — including old and prestigious museums, state-funded universities and the U.S. Interior Department — hold about half of those remains, the analysis found.

Nearly 50 local and regional newsrooms have used the data analyzed by ProPublica to report on the progress of repatriation by institutions in their area.

“We want to get this done quickly. We recognize that tribal nations actually feel harm the entire time we’re holding their ancestors,” Catherine Smith, who was recently hired to coordinate University of Florida’s repatriation efforts, told WUFT, a public radio station in Gainesville.

Many institutions have for years told tribes that they will improve their work under NAGPRA and apologized for holding onto remains, said Shannon O’Loughlin, chief executive of the Association on American Indian Affairs, a nonprofit that has long advocated for tribes on repatriation. Meanwhile, museums and universities often continued to interpret the law in ways that allowed for them to resist repatriation and escape scrutiny, she said.

Now, with increased attention from the news media, institutions are facing more pressure to answer for vast collections of Native American remains. The public apologies and commitments to allocate more resources, including hiring staff, mark a shift for many institutions, she said.

“We’ve been told the same stuff, so I’m not sure that we should believe them now,” said O’Loughlin, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. “But, hey, they’re saying it in the public, so we’re gonna hold them to it.”

“More Work to Do”

Tribes could be left with empty promises again, as only a fraction of those institutions stated they will devote more money and other resources to repatriation.

Among those promising to put resources behind their commitment to repatriate is the Tennessee Valley Authority, which told ProPublica that it also has drafted a federal notice that will enable tribal nations to repatriate the remains of nearly 5,000 Native Americans. Federal records show that the utility has at least 3,500 remains in its collections; ProPublica learned that the TVA recently found roughly an additional 1,500 ancestors in its repositories at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the University of Kentucky and the University of Alabama. Those ancestors hadn’t previously been reported under NAGPRA, as required by the law.

Most of the ancestral remains in TVA’s collections are stored at those three universities, which, along with the TVA, are among the 10 institutions that ProPublica identified as holding the largest number of remains of Native Americans in the country.

Nine of those 10 institutions have stated to ProPublica that they are committed to returning remains and cultural items to tribal nations. Indiana University has not responded to ProPublica’s requests for comment.

The speed and scale of the TVA’s effort to repatriate everything in its collections concerns some tribal historic preservation officers and cultural directors.

“We’ve never had a collection of this magnitude be left to have the tribes decide,” said Miranda Panther, NAGPRA officer for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. “Usually we make decisions before transfer of legal control has occurred. So I’m not sure how this process is going to work.”

Archaeologist Megan Cook, who recently became a NAGPRA specialist for TVA, said that consultations will continue with tribes and that the TVA is committed to repatriation “for the long haul.”

Reporting from two Washington state outlets, The Inlander in Spokane and The Bellingham Herald, as well as Axios prompted the president of Western Washington University to issue a statement in response to ProPublica’s investigation.

Last year, the university made the remains of three Native Americans available for return to the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, according to federal data analyzed by ProPublica. It is the institution’s only repatriation since the law’s passage. The university said in an email that it still holds the remains of at least 63 Native Americans.

“We recognize that we have more work to do to ensure that the ancestral remains we currently house are returned home,” Sabah Randhawa, the president of WWU, said in the statement. “We recognize the need for securing additional expertise and resources.”

A school spokesperson told ProPublica that university leaders are still discussing how much funding, and what expertise, is needed.

ProPublica’s investigation also led to a report by South Florida public radio station WLRN that revealed one museum’s intention to return all of the human remains and funerary objects in its collection to the Seminole Tribe of Florida. ProPublica found that HistoryMiami Museum is one of about 200 institutions across the country that have repatriated no human remains.

HistoryMiami CEO Natalia Crujeiras told WLRN that the museum didn’t know which tribe to repatriate to and that no tribe had claimed them. That began to change in 2019, after the museum learned the Seminole Tribe of Florida planned to claim more than 100 ancestral remains in the museum’s collection.

The museum identified some as belonging to Calusa and Tequesta cultures, though it listed all of the remains as “culturally unidentifiable” in an inventory submitted to the national NAGPRA office in the 1990s. Until 2010, the federal law only mandated the repatriation of remains and items that institutions deemed “culturally affiliated” with a modern tribe.

“It’s really upsetting that they still disassociate the Seminole Tribe of Florida from our ancestors,” Tina Osceola, the tribal historic preservation office director for the Seminole Tribe of Florida, told WLRN. “I don’t think HistoryMiami or anyone else should have the power to tell the Seminole Tribe of Florida who their ancestors are. They have our ancestors. End of story.”

ProPublica’s reporting and database also spurred an investigation by Hearst Connecticut Media Group that found 90% of still-unreturned remains in that state are held by the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. According to the news outlet, the museum said it will hire two more full-time staff members to work on repatriation “to meet its own goals and the anticipated federal rule changes.”

A museum spokesperson told ProPublica that it has also secured additional funding for tribal consultations but declined to specify the amount. “We are completely committed to these efforts,” museum Director David Skelly said in a statement.

Student journalists have also used ProPublica’s data to hold their own universities accountable.

At Brown University, student reporting found that in 2018, the campus’ Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology made the remains of 10 ancestors available to the Narragansett Indian Tribe to repatriate. But the tribe’s historic preservation director, John Brown, told The Brown Daily Herald that he wasn’t aware of the notice, and that the museum hadn’t adequately consulted with the tribe before publishing it in the federal register.

The reporting prompted an apology from the museum’s director, Robert Preucel, to the Narragansett Indian Tribe’s historic preservation office. Preucel told the Brown Daily Herald that the museum is “doing everything we can to repatriate all of the human remains” it holds.

At the University of Montana, a spokesperson shared similar comments with the Montana Kaimin, saying that repatriation is a “top priority” for the school, even though completing the work will “take time.”

ProPublica's reporting sparked an investigation by the campus newspaper in February that found the university has no one on staff who is entirely focused on repatriation efforts, despite having been awarded a federal grant last year to hire an employee for such a position. Dave Kuntz, the university’s spokesperson, told ProPublica last week that the school has not been able to fill the position.

Institutions’ Statements on Repatriation

Here’s what other institutions have said in response to recent reporting on repatriation. The figures reported below are from a ProPublica analysis of federal repatriation data from December:

Texas State University’s anthropology department Chairperson Christina Conlee to the University Star: “Our goal here is to repatriate these remains and we’re working towards that. We remain in compliance with the law and we hope that we will make good progress going forward.” The university reported still having the remains of at least 100 Native Americans.

Milwaukee Public Museum President and Chief Executive Ellen Censky in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “While it is a long and complex process, our goal is to repatriate all ancestral remains and associated cultural objects identified under NAGPRA.” However, the museum is preparing to move to a new building in 2026, making a timeline to repatriate tough to “pin down.” The museum reported still having the remains of at least 1,600 Native Americans.

University of Texas San Antonio spokesperson Joe Izbrand to Axios and the Paisano, a student publication, regarding remains held by the university’s Center for Archaeological Research: “It is our intention to repatriate all of the remains and objects to the rightful parties, and we are working methodically to facilitate their return, enabled in part by a grant from the National Park Service.” The university reported still having the remains of at least 200 Native Americans.

Penn Museum at the University of Pennsylvania Director Christopher Woods to The Philadelphia Inquirer: “This is incredibly sensitive, time-consuming work. Each case is unique and deserves its own consideration. It is essential to proceed with the utmost care and diligence, as we confront our own history of racism and colonialism. That work is ongoing.” The university’s museum reported still having the remains of at least 400 Native Americans.

Temple University Anthropology Laboratory and Museum in a statement to the Inquirer: “We want to make clear that 100% of the ancestors at Temple University are available for repatriation, and we are actively working to accomplish this.” The university reported still having the remains of at least 100 Native Americans.

A New York University statement to Washington Square News, an independent student newspaper, in a report about remains held by the NYU College of Dentistry: “We did not get started on the efforts to audit and repatriate the remains as early as we should have.” The College of Dentistry reported still having the remains of at least 100 Native Americans.

You can reach us using this form or by contacting repatriation@propublica.org or 206-419-7338 (calls or Signal messages). If you would prefer to use an encrypted app, see our advice at propublica.org/tips. We won’t publish anything you write without getting your permission first.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Logan Jaffe, Mary Hudetz and Ash Ngu.

Hey Teachers, Please Remain Alert to Racial Prejudice and Discrimination

Steven Singer — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 15:33:32 +0000

“I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there – best stay woke, keep their eyes open.”
–Lead Belly “Scottsboro Boys”

How can you understand a problem if you are not allowed to name it?

How can you fight injustice if you are forbidden from learning its history and connection to the present moment?

These questions are at the heart of a well-financed war against a simple term – woke-ness.

Since the summer of 2020, oligarchs and their tools in the United States have been waging a disinformation campaign against that term – especially as it pertains to our schools.

Chiding, nagging, insinuating – you hear it constantly, usually with a sneer and wagging finger, but what does it really mean?

To hear certain governors, state legislators and TV pundits talk, you’d think it was the worst thing in the world. But it’s not that at all.

In its simplest form, being woke is just being alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.

That’s all – just knowing that these things exist and trying to recognize them when present.

I’m not sure what’s so controversial about that. If we all agree racism is bad, why is it undesirable to acknowledge it exists when it’s demonstrably there?

More specifically, being woke means focusing on intersectionality – how issues of race, class and gender overlap and interrelate with each other. It means practicing critical race theory – not the made up dog whistle conservatives use to describe anything they don’t like being taught in school, but the study of how racial bias is inherent in many Western social and legal systems. It means using the lens of Black feminism, queer theory and others to address structural inequality.

Again, why is that a bad thing? If we agree that prejudice is bad, we should want to avoid it in every way possible, and these are the primary tools that enable us to do so.

Our society is not new. We have history to show us how we got here and how these issues have most successfully been addressed in the past.

But these Regressives demand we ignore it all.

Shouldn’t we protect hard-fought advances in human rights? Shouldn’t we continue to strive for social justice and the ability of every citizen to freely participate in our democracy – especially in our public schools?

Of course we should!

But leaders of the backlash will disagree.

Like in so many other areas of our culture, they have stolen the term “woke-ness” and tried to co-opt it into another invented grievance. For people who deride their political opponents as being too fragile and unable to handle reality, they certainly find a million things to cry about on their 24-hour news networks to keep their base angry and engaged all the time.

They have attacked librarians, spied on and harassed teachers, banned books and weaponized the law to forbid certain ideas from our schools and public spheres.

They have targeted and demonized antiracist work. They have tried to discredit the concepts that Black women and LGBTQ people have created to explain and improve the inequitable conditions of their lives.

And the reason is crystal clear – they oppose that work.

They oppose anti-racism. They oppose the rights of Black women and LGBTQ people to better treatment.

They are against everyone but a perceived white, male, heteronormative majority that doesn’t even really exist.

They call their political opponents extremist. They call them groomers. They call them prejudiced and racist.

But it is Regressives’ anti-woke agenda that is really all of those things.

For them, up is down and circles are squares.

As public school teachers, being woke is not a choice. It is a responsibility.

For we are the keepers of history, science and culture.

Who will teach the true history that for more than 400 years in excess of 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the transatlantic slave trade? Who will teach the true history of the fight against human bondage and the struggle for equal rights? Who will teach about women’s fight for suffrage, equal pay, and reproductive freedom? Who will teach about the struggle of the individual to affirm their own gender identity and sexual expression?

We, teachers, must help students understand what happened, what’s happening and why. And to do so we must protect concepts that emerged from decades of struggle against all forms of domination.

It must be us.

It won’t be the College Board, a billion-dollar American business calling itself a non-profit, that after years of stalling finally released its Advanced Placement African American Studies curriculum – a college-level course available for high school students nationwide. In the wake of political backlash, the new course material is as watered-down as weak tea in comparison to previous drafts of the course.

This just goes to show that the free market will never stand up to political power if it is perceived as adversely affecting the bottom line. True education comes not from corporate academic standards or standardized test gatekeepers. It comes from teachers.

And we must teach like never before because our lessons have a pivotal impact on society at large.

Intersectional frames such as those under attack by billionaires posing as populists have been incredibly important in supporting overlooked social problems and addressing today’s human rights failures.

Those of us who know history understand that suppression of knowledge and intellectuals (especially those from marginalized peoples) are a tool used to increase racism and oppression – to overturn the progress of the last century.

Refusing students access to books, criminalizing “divisive concepts,” and discrediting those with whom they disagree have all been tools of domination. Just as denying the persistence of any inequality has been a tool to discredit its victims.

Progress has been made in the last hundred years, but the struggle is not over. And denying that there are any problems left to solve is a way of stifling that progress and turning back the clock against it.

If we give in to these partisan “anti-woke” imperatives, we enable the return of racist and cultural inequalities that had been at least partially rectified years ago. We clear the way for these extremists to bring back a mythical past in which women are meant to be merely subservient to men and where race, gender and sexuality are rigidly defined and limited according to the ruling class.

Teachers, we cannot allow this to happen.

We stand at the gates, the first (and perhaps last) line of defense, because we stand at the schoolhouse doors.

It is a responsibility none of us signed up to take. But here we are.

If we are truly educators, we must teach the truth.

We must put the facts in their proper context.

We must encourage our students to think about what came before and what’s happening now.

We must stay woke.

Or the whole world sleeps.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Steven Singer.

America in Denial: Exposing the Religious, Racial, and Class Dimensions of Rightwing Extremism

The Marcon Institute, Lehigh University — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 06:50:33 +0000

The last few years have seen the emergence of one of the largest progressive movements in history – Black Lives Matter – which spotlights America’s continued crisis of white supremacy. Progressive movements historically provoke significant rightwing backlash, and the modern era is no exception. A new poll sponsored by the Marcon Institute for anti-racist studies and social justice provides comprehensive evidence of how white Christian nationalist politics are mainstreamed in contemporary society. Yet the purveyors of hate, who vehemently deny their role in normalizing white supremacist politics, are making it increasingly difficult to expose bigotry.

The Marcon poll contacted a nationally representative sample of 1,021 Americans and asked them a battery of questions to gauge their level of support for white Christian nationalism. In an era marked by record inequality, the poll also provides hints about whether this ideology is fueled by economic insecurity. In a comprehensive examination of white supremacy and public opinion, our poll asked many questions about race in America. The results paint an ugly picture – large numbers of people embrace all sorts of white nationalist-compatible beliefs, even as they insist that they are not racist or affiliated with extremist ideology. We include each of the questions in our white nationalism index immediately below, along with information about how Republicans, Democrats, and the public overall reacted.

1. On confederate politics and statues that valorize the confederacy and slavery, 42 percent of Americans, 69 percent of Republicans, and 24 percent of Democrats agree that “The effort to remove confederate statues from our public parks represents an assault on our nation’s cultural history and heritage.”

2. On romanticizing early European immigrants, 43 percent of Americans, 62 percent of Republicans, and 19 percent of Democrats feel that “a culture established by the country’s early European immigrants is important to the United States’ identity as a nation.”

3. On support for white nationalist identity as a feature of American politics, 27 percent of Americans, 43 percent of Republicans, and 18 percent of Democrats believe that “America must prioritize and preserve its white European heritage from those who would seek to diminish it.”

4. On voluntary residential segregation as an ideal, 24 percent of Americans, 33 percent of Republicans, and 19 percent of Democrats say “I prefer to live in a community with people who are like me, ethnically and culturally speaking, rather than living in one with people who come from diverse ethnicities and cultures.”

5. On the fear that white Americans will lose their majority status, 26 percent of Americans, 42 percent of Republicans, and 18 percent of Democrats believe “it is important that Americans work to ensure that white people do not become a minority in their own country.”

6. On neofascist, xenophobic, and jingoistic notions of American purity, 24 percent of Americans, 41 percent of Republicans, and 16 percent of Democrats feel “America’s strength is being diluted by the flood of people into the country with different ideas, beliefs, cultures, and languages from our own.”

7. On the mainstreaming of neofascist “Great Replacement” theory, 26 percent of Americans, 45 percent of Republicans, and 15 percent of Democrats feel that “the changing demographics of America pose a threat to white Christian Americans and to their culture and values” and that “we should protect the country against this threat.”

8. Also related to Great Replacement theory and the paranoia that there is a shadowy cabal trying to overthrow America’s white majority, 33 percent of Americans, 60 percent of Republicans, and 18 percent of Democrats agree that “the recent change in our national demographic makeup is not a natural change but has been motivated by progressive and liberal leaders actively trying to leverage political power by replacing more conservative white voters.”

The Marcon survey also reveals that a significant minority of Americans share a commitment to Christian nationalist and Islamophobic values. These include the following:

1. On tearing down the separation between church and state, 26 percent of Americans, 44 percent of Republicans, and 18 percent of Democrats say “the federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation.”

2. On government policy, 34 percent of Americans, 51 percent of Republicans, and 26 percent of Democrats believe “the federal government should advocate Christian values.”

3. On suspicion of non-Christian religions, 45 percent of Americans, 64 percent of Republicans, and 34 percent of Democrats hold an unfavorable “impression of the religion called Islam.”

4. On Islamophobic stereotypes, 15 percent of Americans, 23 percent of Republicans, and 12 percent of Democrats feel that, “generally speaking, Muslims in the United States behave in dangerous, anti-American ways,” while 23 percent of Americans, 36 percent of Republicans, and 17 percent of Democrats agree that “war and violence are means of religious expression in the Muslim faith.”

Our findings matter for numerous reasons. First, the Marcon poll demonstrates that rising extremism is not the province of a small number of political actors – like the insurrectionists that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Instead, we see that large numbers of people indulge in racism and religious fundamentalism in ways that are compatible with white Christian nationalism, even as most Americans do not refer to themselves as white supremacists.

Second, the survey demonstrates that much of the American right, and the public in general, excels at the politics of denialism, claiming not to support extremism, while appropriating values that are white Christian nationalist-compatible. The Marcon survey reveals only a minuscule number of Americans openly identify with fascist and white supremacist politics. Only 4 percent of Americans, 2 percent of Republicans, and 5 percent of Democrats think that it’s “acceptable” to “hold Nazi views.” Similarly, only 10 percent of Americans, 9 percent of Democrats, and 14 percent of Republicans “identify” with the “white nationalist movement in the U.S.” today. And yet, we also find that 22 percent of Americans, 30 percent of Republicans, and 17 percent of Democrats admit to supporting “the ‘alt-right’ movement that was active in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, and that made headlines due to its conflict with counter-protesters over its opposition to removing confederate statues in public parks.” The “alt-right” is notoriously fascist in its politics, identifying with antisemitism, white supremacy, Great Replacement theory, and violence. So to identify with this movement is to identify with fascism and white supremacy.

Outside of the disturbing statistic that roughly a third of the GOP identifies with a fascist political movement, the Marcon poll reveals that about a quarter of Americans (26 percent) and just under half of Republicans (44 percent) formally identify with Christian nationalism, calling on the U.S. to officially declare itself a Christian nation. A slim majority of the GOP (51 percent) and more than a third of Americans (34 percent) operationally embrace the Christian nationalist agenda by calling on U.S. leaders to illegally support Christian values, even as the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from doing so. Similarly, although less than one in ten Americans call themselves white nationalists, close to half to two-thirds of Republicans, and between a quarter to nearly half of Americans (depending on the question asked) identify with values that are white supremacist-compatible in relation to neo-confederate iconography, Great Replacement theory, and identification with white ethno-nationalism.

Finally, Christian white nationalist beliefs matter because of how they influence Americans’ beliefs about various political issues. Our statistical “regression” analysis of the Marcon poll reveals that individuals who express white Christian nationalist-compatible beliefs are significantly more likely to agree with a variety of political opinions, controlling for respondents’ age, education, race, gender, income, class status, political party identification, and ideology. These include:

+ Support for “the wall Trump sought to build between the U.S. and Mexico.”

+ Approval of “Trump’s travel ban, which was applied to Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.”

+ Opposition to progressive social movements, via agreement that “Black Lives Matter is embarrassing for the nation because it conveys the idea that America has never been a country of liberty and justice for all.”

+ Opposition to “Critical race theory” as “divisive and harmful” and as something that “should not be taught in American schools because it makes young people think poorly of their country and of white people.”

+ Acknowledgement that one is “likely” to “vote for Donald Trump for president in 2024” if “he wins the Republican primary.”

Where does a class analysis of American society fit into all of this? The Marcon survey also included an array of economic metrics, designed to measure the extent to which people suffer from economic and financial insecurity. The survey asked Americans if they faced any of the following challenges over the last five years:

+ If they defaulted on a student loan

+ If they were foreclosed on their home or evicted from a residence

+ If they were unable to get health care or pay a health care-related bill

+ If they declared bankruptcy

+ If they were laid off from their job

+ If they work a second job or overtime in their main job

+ If they have received welfare benefits, including food stamps, a housing subsidy, Medicaid, or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

The relationship between economics and white Christian nationalism is complicated. For one, our economic insecurity index of the seven questions above is significantly associated with being more likely to identify with white nationalist and Christian nationalist values. But this finding must be carefully qualified. Only an exceedingly small number of Americans score moderately high or high on the insecurity index, with about 7.5 percent of Americans citing struggles with 3 or 4 of the questions asked, and only 2.6 percent struggling on more than 4 of the economic metrics examined. Only a very small percent of Americans score moderately high on both the Christian nationalism and economic insecurity indexes (1.8 percent) or very high on both indexes (0.6 percent). In total, we estimate that no more than 4 percent of Americans surveyed express moderate to strong financial hardships and fall into the orbit of white Christian nationalism.

Similarly, only 1.1 percent of Americans score moderately high on both the white nationalism and economic insecurity indexes, while only 2.2 percent score high on both indexes, and just 5.1 percent score moderately high to high on both. The vast majority of Americans cannot be classified as suffering moderately or severely from economic insecurity, and exhibiting moderate to high support for white Christian nationalism. And most Americans in our survey who suffer from a high amount of economic insecurity (between 60 to 80 percent) do not score highly on the Christian nationalism or white nationalism indexes.

Notably, our primary class metric reveals that economic affluence is actually associated with being more likely to support white Christian nationalism – which is to say that individuals who self-identify as upper-middle class and upper-class are significantly more likely to indulge in Christian white nationalism than those hailing from lower classes. Only a small number of Americans identifying as “lower-class” or “lower-middle class” – between 11 to 22 percent – exhibit strong support for white Christian nationalism. For Americans identifying as “upper-middle” class, 12 to 26 percent score highly on the Christian and white nationalist indexes respectively, whereas it’s 40 to 53 percent for those identifying as “upper-class.”

How do we make sense of these findings? The simplest way is to conclude that, generally speaking, the “big picture” lesson from the Marcon poll is that rising affluence (measured by self-identified class status) is associated with an increased likelihood of identifying with white Christian nationalism. Recognizing this trend, there are a very small number of Americans who suffer catastrophic economic tragedies and who appear, due to their extreme circumstances, to be more susceptible to embracing racist values and religious fundamentalism.

We believe that the Marcon poll provides a vital guide for understanding the crisis of right-wing extremism in contemporary America. Despite many journalists and intellectuals explaining extremist politics as a function of economics, financial insecurity plays a very small role in stoking right-wing fundamentalism. Rather, tens of millions of Americans, and a majority of Republicans, indulge in white Christian nationalist ideology. We believe that much of this support comes from socialization, impressed upon people by their friends, family, peers, and right-wing political actors in the Republican Party and the media. Importantly, our survey finds that Republican partisanship, conservative ideology, and low education levels are significant predictors of being more likely to score higher on our Christian and white nationalist indexes. Broad economic metrics like class status cut in the opposite direction, with lower and lower-middle class Americans being less likely to identify with white Christian nationalism, and with self-reported income being insignificant as a factor. We find that ideology is far and away the strongest predictor of support for white Christian nationalism, followed by education and partisanship.

The Marcon survey provides guidance and serves as a tool for getting past denialist discourses claiming that because only a tiny fraction of Americans identify as Klanners, Nazis, or white nationalists, the U.S. is not suffering from a white supremacy crisis. In modern America, much of the population prides itself in not “seeing” race, with celebrationsthat the country is moving toward “post-racial” nirvana being longstanding. The vast majority of Americans do not view themselves as white supremacists, even as a third of the public and most Republicans express values that are compatible with white supremacy. The United States needs to change the way that it talks about race if the crisis of white supremacy is to be recognized. One cannot fight a problem they do not recognize exists.

Marcon Institute Poll

Demographic Information

Gender

52% Women
47% Men
1% non-binary

Race/Ethnicity

62% White-Caucasian
18% LatinX
11% African American
5% Asian American
2% Native American

Age

7% 18-29
18% 30-45
12% 46-54
19% 55-64
42% 65+

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by The Marcon Institute, Lehigh University.

How the FBI Infiltrated Racial Justice Protests in 2020

Deconstructed — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 11:01:16 +0000

As the racial justice movement was heating up in 2020, a new “activist” arrived on the scene in Denver, Colorado. The man, who looks like a biker, is named Michael Adam Windecker II. He was able to make his way into the Denver racial justice activists’ inner circle and eventually began helping organize protests. He also attempted to involve some of the activists in criminal activity, like a plot to assassinate the state attorney general. But Windecker was not an activist; he was a fed. This week on Deconstructed, investigative reporter and Intercept contributor Trevor Aaronson joins host Ryan Grim to discuss Windecker’s story. Aaronson and Grim discuss the FBI’s approach to the racial justice uprising in 2020, the FBI’s infiltration of Black activist groups, and how the FBI’s use of informants may create crime rather than prevent it. Aaronson is the host of the new podcast “Alphabet Boys,” which chronicles the story of Windecker’s infiltration of the movement.

Transcript coming soon.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Deconstructed.

The FBI Paid a Violent Felon to Infiltrate Denver’s Racial Justice Movement

Trevor Aaronson — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 18:54:31 +0000

As racial justice protests broke out nationwide in the summer of 2020, a man driving a silver hearse became a regular at the demonstrations in Denver.

He was a paunchy 5-foot-7 with a ruddy complexion and wore military fatigues with patches on the sleeves. By activist standards, he was an old-timer: pushing 50 as he swaggered through crowds of teens and 20-something protesters, a cigar clamped in his lips.

“I didn’t know much about him, but he drove a hearse,” said Zebbodios “Zebb” Hall, a Black activist in Denver. “Inside this hearse was a lot of guns: AR-15s and all other kinds of shit.”

The driver of the hearse filled with guns was Michael Adam Windecker II. He went by the nickname Mickey and boasted of having been a soldier for the French Foreign Legion and the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting force known most recently for battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. He claimed to have traveled to those battlefields and trained antifascist activists there in weapons, hand-to-hand combat, and explosives.

“He was just this badass dude talking about how he worked in a foreign military and how he was for the Black Lives Matter movement,” Hall remembered.

Denver was a hot spot during the summer of 2020, with protesters enraged not just by George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis but also by the senseless death of Elijah McClain, who was forcefully subdued by police in 2019 in Aurora, a Denver suburb, and injected with a lethal dose of ketamine.

Trey Quinn, a muscular Black activist with a beard and large-framed glasses, led some Denver protests. One night, after Quinn had addressed a group of demonstrators, several young activists introduced him to Windecker.

“Hey, this guy’s really, really dope. He’s legit. He knows his shit,” Quinn remembered being told by the fresh-faced activists. “You should let him sit in, and he could probably help you out.” Windecker was “really pushy,” Quinn told me, “trying to put himself at the forefront.”

Bryce Shelby, another Black activist, remembered seeing Windecker walking around the protests. He had a GoPro camera strapped to his chest, which Shelby initially thought was suspicious. “He de-escalated any type of suspicion because he would start flashing his prison badge,” Shelby said. “So yeah. You know what I mean? OK, he’s not a fed.”

But Shelby and many other activists in Denver were wrong about the man behind the wheel of the silver hearse. Windecker was a fed. The FBI paid him tens of thousands of dollars in cash to infiltrate and spy on racial justice groups during the summer of 2020.

For the last year, I’ve been investigating Windecker and his work for the FBI. I tell that story in detail in a new 10-episode documentary podcast, “Alphabet Boys,” from Western Sound and iHeartPodcasts. As part of this investigation, I reviewed more than 300 pages of FBI reports and hours of FBI undercover recordings, as well as publicly available videos recorded by Denver demonstrators and by Windecker himself. I also examined dozens of court files related to Windecker’s past and interviewed more than three dozen racial justice activists who encountered Windecker during the summer of 2020.

The FBI declined to comment on Windecker and the investigation in Denver and refused to respond in writing to a list of questions I sent.

Windecker wouldn’t tell me much either. After I left a note at his old apartment south of Denver explaining that I wanted to interview him about his work for the FBI, he called me. “I do not work for the FBI,” he said. “I’ve never worked for the FBI. If you get proof of me working for the FBI, then I’ll say otherwise. But there’s no proof, because I didn’t work for them.”

I explained that I had FBI reports and recordings to the contrary.

“I don’t talk to the press, I don’t talk to politicians, and I don’t talk to police,” Windecker told me, before hanging up.

Windecker became an organizer of Denver’s racial justice demonstrations and ultimately undermined the social movement gaining momentum there.

FBI payment receipt records signed by Windecker show that he was paid more than $20,000 for his work during the summer of 2020, when the FBI aggressively pursued racial justice and left-wing activists based on nothing more than First Amendment-protected activities. The story of the bureau’s infiltration of racial justice activist groups is particularly relevant now, as House Republicans launch a new committee chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, that seems exclusively focused on the FBI’s alleged targeting of right-wing groups.

The FBI’s work in Denver, with Windecker as its eyes and ears on the street, demonstrates the falsity of that narrative.

While on the FBI payroll, Windecker became an organizer of Denver’s racial justice demonstrations and ultimately undermined the social movement gaining momentum there by deploying the same controversial tactics the FBI used to devastating effect against Black political groups during the civil rights movement.

Until now, little has been revealed about the FBI’s actions in the summer of 2020. The Denver undercover probe involving Windecker provides the first look behind the scenes at how the FBI viewed and investigated racial justice groups during that turbulent summer.

Mickey Windecker, sitting in his silver hearse in these stills from FBI undercover video footage, infiltrated racial justice groups in Denver.

Credit: FBI

“I Got a Song for You Guys”

Any accurate description of Windecker sounds like a cartoon. With tattoos all over his body, a scraggly goatee, garishly large rings on his fingers, and a soggy cigar in his mouth, Windecker was hard to miss as he drove the streets of the Mile High City in his silver hearse.

One rainy summer afternoon after becoming a paid informant, Windecker met with his FBI handler, Special Agent Scott Dahlstrom. The federal agent clicked on a hidden camera device.

“It is August 28, 2020, at approximately 4:02 p.m.,” Dahlstrom said into the FBI recorder before handing it to Windecker. The video is part of more than a dozen hours of FBI recordings I obtained documenting Windecker’s work investigating racial justice activists.

Dahlstrom asked Windecker if he remembered his tasking orders — which involved enticing a Black racial justice activist into committing a felony.

“Yep, I got it,” Windecker said. “Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.”

Windecker walked to his silver hearse, placed the camera on the passenger seat, and started the ignition. Dahlstrom and his FBI colleagues watched the live feed from their black sedan.

“I got a song for you guys,” Windecker said, looking into the camera lens and speaking directly to the FBI agents. He turned up the volume on the silver hearse’s stereo and played “America (Fuck Yeah!),” the theme song from the puppet comedy movie “Team America: World Police”:

America, America

America, fuck yeah!

Comin’ again to save the motherfuckin’ day, yeah

America, fuck yeah!

Freedom is the only way, yeah

Terrorists, your game is through

’Cause now you have to answer to

America, fuck yeah!

As the song ended, Windecker turned to the camera again, as if on a stage, confident that the FBI agents were watching him.

“America,” Windecker said.

The United States of America had become Windecker’s new employer, and the FBI was paying him to spy on activists that summer day as he barreled down the road. According to internal FBI reports I obtained, Windecker began attending demonstrations in May 2020. He witnessed firsthand what millions of Americans saw on their screens at home: protests turning violent, clashes between left-wing and right-wing activists, demonstrators and instigators setting fires and vandalizing storefronts.

Windecker offered to give the FBI information about protesters. In an internal report, the FBI claimed that Windecker’s motivation for becoming an informant was “to fight terrorists” and that he believed “people who participate in violent civil unrest are terrorists.”

Bureau documents detailed Windecker’s history as both an informant and a criminal, with prior arrests in Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Florida.

In their report adding him to the bureau’s more than 15,000 informants, FBI agents described Windecker as something of a good Samaritan — a kind of volunteer Captain America. But that notion was undercut by other bureau documents, which detailed Windecker’s history as both an informant and a criminal, with prior arrests in Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Florida for crimes including sexual assault.

When Windecker was 20, he had a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old he met at a roller skating rink. Windecker, who claimed he didn’t know the girl was underage, pleaded the case down to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to 180 days in jail.

In another case, for felony menacing with a weapon in 2001, Windecker stuck a gun in a woman’s face and claimed to be a police officer looking for a suspect. That incident resulted in a felony conviction, and Windecker served two years. While he was in prison, according to FBI internal reports, another inmate tried to hire him to murder someone; instead of committing the crime, Windecker became a cooperating witness and helped convict the people who’d sought to enlist him.

In addition to criminal charges, Windecker has had four protection orders filed against him in Colorado, the most recent in 2021. In a petition for a protection order filed in 2016, a friend of Windecker’s alleged that Windecker had presented a fake police badge and theatened to kill him and his family.

Windecker claimed to have been a fighter for the French Foreign Legion and the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting force in Iraq. He often said he had diplomatic immunity in the United States due to his association with the Kurds. In 2015, the Daily Beast reported that he was disliked by other volunteer Peshmerga fighters. One American fighter was reported to have described him as “a compulsive liar.”

I spoke to several volunteers who were with Windecker in Iraq; few of them wanted to be publicly associated with him. One of those fighters told me that Windecker claimed to be a demolitions specialist. “Dude was going around literally cutting wires off of IEDs,” he said, referring to improvised explosive devices, also known as roadside bombs. “So he could have gotten anybody killed in the vicinity.”

Alan Duncan, a Scottish volunteer fighter with the Peshmerga, told me that he hadn’t fought with Windecker but knew his reputation from the other fighters. Windecker was better known for taking pictures with dead bodies, long after the fighting was finished, than for engaging in combat, Duncan told me. “He was floating about taking a few photos with the Pesh,” Duncan said. “It’s easy to claim to be Peshmerga. But claiming to be Peshmerga and actually being Peshmerga are two different things.”

Cassie Windecker, Mickey Windecker’s third ex-wife, told me that during one of his tours with the Peshmerga, Kurdish fighters had contacted her online to say that he was vacationing more than fighting.

When they first started dating, she recalled, Windecker sent her a picture of thousands of dollars in cash spread over a bed. “Do you want to come home to this every day?” Cassie remembered Windecker asking her. She said that she never knew Windecker to hold down a job during their marriage, but he often had a lot of cash in his pockets.

Cassie had long suspected that her husband was secretly working for the police in some capacity. She said she’d seen him visit local police stations to meet with cops. “Why do you have so much money?” Cassie, who was an exotic dancer at the time, would ask him. “I bust my ass, literally, on a pole. What are you doing?” She told me that Windecker would never give her a straight answer.

In July 2017, after she and Windecker separated, Cassie went to the apartment they had once shared to pick up her mail. In the apartment, Windecker allegedly grabbed Cassie by the neck, slammed her down on a table, and stood over her holding a gun. Cassie screamed as she ran out of the apartment; police arrived and arrested Windecker. The responding officers were wearing body cameras, and I obtained those videos. “He slammed me on my back, on the table, like freaking WWE-style,” Cassie told the cops, her voice breaking with fear.

While in jail following that arrest, Windecker revealed his talents as an informant, according to the police body camera footage.

“One of the officers said that you had to speak to me about a murder?” the arresting officer said to Windecker, speaking through the jail cell door about two hours after the arrest.

“Well, here’s the thing,” Windecker replied matter-of-factly. He then offered information about a murder, and the arresting officer told him he’d have to talk to a detective.

“Hang tight, all right?” the officer said as he walked away. The body camera footage then ended.

While in the hospital for her injuries, Cassie said she received a text from Windecker: “Hey bitch, I’m out.”

Cassie said police officers were still taking her statement in the hospital when the text arrived. “And I showed them the text, and they were just like, ‘We don’t know how he’s out,’” she said.

There is no record in Colorado court files of Windecker being charged, and Cassie said she was not contacted by police or prosecutors following her discharge from the hospital.

Three years later, in the summer of 2020, Windecker approached the FBI, claiming to have unique information about racial justice activists.

Participants stand on Lincoln Avenue facing Denver police during a protest outside the state Capitol over the death of George Floyd, on May 30, 2020, in Denver.

Photo: David Zalubowski/AP

“We Don’t Investigate Ideology”

As protests broke out in cities like Minneapolis; Denver; and Portland, Oregon, the FBI’s second-in-command, David L. Bowdich, compared the demonstrations to the 9/11 attacks. “When 9/11 occurred, our folks did not quibble about whether there was danger ahead for them,” Bowdich wrote in a memo first obtained by the New York Times. “They ran head-on into peril.” Bowdich described the racial justice demonstrations throughout the country as “a national crisis” whose “violent protesters” were “highly organized.”

Agents suspected these demonstrators could fit into a domestic terrorism ideology the bureau had defined during the first year of the Trump administration as “Black Identity Extremism”: a controversial, widely criticized catchall label for any domestic extremist ideology that drew a Black following. (The FBI has since abandoned the term in favor of a new category called “Racially Motivated Violent Extremism,” which combines white supremacist violence with so-called Black Identity Extremism.)

What’s been publicly known about the federal government’s activity during the summer of 2020 is astonishing: The Justice Department charged hundreds of people for their roles in First Amendment-protected demonstrations; the Department of Homeland Security deployed more than 750 agents, dressed in military-style uniforms, to Portland and abducted demonstrators in unmarked vans; and the Drug Enforcement Administration, using surveillance powers intended to stop drug runners, spied on more than 50 racial justice groups nationwide, among them a peaceful group that held a vigil on a public university campus in Florida.

The official position of the FBI, whose undercover activities during the summer of 2020 have been largely unknown until now, is that agents do not open investigations based on First Amendment-protected activities. “We don’t investigate ideology. We don’t investigate rhetoric,” the FBI’s director, Christopher Wray, told a Senate committee in 2019. “It doesn’t matter how repugnant and how abhorrent or whatever it is.”

But internal reports I obtained suggest otherwise. These documents show that Windecker’s information was about speech, and this apparently justified hiring him as an informant and launching the undercover investigation. He reported that one local activist, Zebb Hall, used incendiary rhetoric in conversations with other demonstrators, claiming that Hall said: “We need to burn this motherfucker down.”

Windecker also secretly recorded a conversation in which Hall spoke vaguely of violent revolution and a desire to train for combat. Windecker encouraged Hall with fantastical claims of training antifascist activists in Iraq and Syria as part of what he called the “Red Star Brigade.”

“My type of training that I do is anything from, like, I teach how to shoot a gun to, you know—”

“Hand-to-hand combat?” Hall interrupted.

“Yeah, hand-to-hand combat all the way to blowing up fucking buildings and guerrilla warfare tactics and sabotage,” Windecker replied.

Windecker, secretly working for the FBI, quickly became well-known among Denver’s most committed activists.

“He came off as maybe being a [rookie], but really being into the movement,” Brian Loma, who livestreamed many of the area’s demonstrations that summer, told me.

One of Loma’s videos from July 2020 shows demonstrators marching down a street in Aurora. “Our streets!” they chant. “Our streets!” Windecker’s slow-moving silver hearse can be seen upfront in the video, clearing the way for the demonstrators.

By the next month, Windecker had become a leader of Denver’s racial justice movement. The demonstrators had given him a nickname: Drill Sergeant.

With his military-style jacket and trademark cigar, he’d strut confidently in front of a line of demonstrators, some dressed in homemade armor.

“I can’t hear you!” Windecker would yell.

“No justice! No peace!” the demonstrators would chant back loudly.

Trey Quinn, one of the organizers of Denver’s racial justice demonstrations, speaks on the steps of Denver City Hall on June 29, 2020. Mickey Windecker and the FBI targeted Quinn as part of the undercover probe.

Photo: Kevin Mohatt/Reuters

“They’re Preparing for a Genuine Battle”

In 1975, a Senate committee led by the late Democratic Sen. Frank Church of Idaho investigated the FBI’s civil rights-era domestic surveillance program known as COINTELPRO. Among the FBI abuses documented by the so-called Church Committee was the practice of informants becoming leaders in the organizations they were surveilling, and then accusing the real leaders of being informants themselves — a subversive technique known as “snitch-jacketing.”

While COINTELPRO no longer exists, some of its methods remain inside the FBI. This is clear from the bureau’s investigation of racial justice activists in Denver during the summer of 2020.

As Windecker gained prominence among the protesters, eventually rising to a leadership role, he was accusing real activists of being FBI informants. These baseless accusations sowed mistrust and undermined some of the most effective organizers in the community.

Trey Quinn, the Black activist leading protests in Denver, was among the first to suspect that Windecker might be an informant. Quinn devised a way to test Windecker: Speaking in hypotheticals, he asked him about burning down a neighborhood. Could we get it done?

“And he was like, ‘Oh yeah, I got the right guy for the job,’” Quinn said. “This is how he’s talking.”

While COINTELPRO no longer exists, some of its methods remain inside the FBI.

Windecker’s enthusiastic response fueled Quinn’s suspicions, but he didn’t have proof, so he didn’t warn other activists then. But Windecker, appearing to view Quinn as a threat to his cover, started telling activists that he suspected Quinn was working for the FBI.

“Mickey seemed super concerned that Trey was an informant,” Hall said. “Then I started getting concerns about it.”

Suddenly, Quinn found himself on the outside. His fellow activists stopped communicating with him. As Quinn was being marginalized, Windecker encouraged protesters to become more militant and go on the offensive against the police.

In late August 2020, Hall went to an apartment that served as a base for Windecker and the young allies he’d recruited. Inside, Hall saw a table covered with guns. “I’m like, ‘Holy fuck,’” Hall recalled.

Another activist, who was with Hall in the apartment but asked not to be named because she fears retribution for speaking publicly, confirmed Hall’s account. “There are guns, weapons, medical supplies, literally looking like they’re preparing for a genuine battle,” she told me.

From August 22 to August 29, 2020, a series of demonstrations in Denver morphed into assaults on police stations, with protesters carrying homemade shields and hurling rocks and fireworks at police. The demonstrators called one of these events “Give ’Em Hell.” More than 70 police officers were injured that week.

The police response was ferocious. Officers in riot gear broke bones and fired pepper balls and rubber bullets. One man was hit in the head with a lead-filled bag fired from a police shotgun. A stingball grenade exploded next to a woman, knocking out her teeth. In the first civil judgment awarded at trial for police brutality in response to protests triggered by the Floyd killing, Denver police were forced last spring to pay $14 million to 12 protesters.

According to more than a dozen activists I spoke to in the Denver area, Windecker, the FBI’s informant, helped organize and promote these protests, which quickly turned violent.

Denver police officers fire canisters to disperse a protest outside the state Capitol, May 28, 2020, in Denver.

Photo: David Zalubowski/AP

“You Need to Have an Objective”

A pervasive social media and cable news narrative in the summer of 2020 was that racial justice and antifascist activists were becoming increasingly violent and destructive.

“The violence and vandalism is being led by antifa and other radical left-wing groups,” President Donald Trump said. Right-wing news media reinforced and amplified that message. “Violent young men with guns will be in charge,” Tucker Carlson told his large audience on Fox News, adding: “You will not want to live here when that happens.”

Michael German, a former FBI agent, watched from his home in California as this narrative took hold. “It was frustrating for me to see how ably — usually that’s not a term that you use when you’re referencing former President Trump — but how ably he was able to make this boogeyman out of antifa,” German, now a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program, told me.

According to FBI files and videos, Windecker’s mandate from the FBI wasn’t just to provide information about racial justice protesters — though his “intelligence” about activists filled dozens of reports — but also to try to set up protesters in a conspiracy that would have supported Trump’s claims.

On orders from the FBI, Windecker targeted two Black activists: Hall, whose incendiary rhetoric Windecker had first reported to his handlers; and Bryce Shelby, a slender man with a reputation for giving fiery speeches with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Windecker invited both men to lunch in late August 2020 at a barbecue restaurant. Windecker said he’d brought them together because they were “talking about the same shit,” by which Windecker meant the prospect of protests turning violent. Windecker told them he had a friend — “an outlaw biker buddy” — who could supply whatever they needed, including weapons.

“You need to have an objective of what you’re gonna do,” Windecker told the two men. “If Bryce is planning on like, ‘OK, I want to blow up a motherfuckin’ courthouse,’ I need to know what the game plans are.”

But Windecker’s operation in Denver failed to generate a headline-grabbing conspiracy. Hall declined to participate in a violent plot. Windecker introduced Shelby to his supposed outlaw biker buddy — an FBI undercover agent who went by the nickname “Red” — and together they drove to Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser’s home. As a hidden camera recorded them, the undercover agent encouraged Shelby to commit to a plot to assassinate Weiser, and even suggested they could hire a hitman for as little as $500. Still, Shelby refused to move forward with any plans and immediately cut off contact with Windecker and the undercover agent. Although Shelby was not charged with a crime, local prosecutors used the FBI’s undercover recordings to convince a judge to seize Shelby’s guns under Colorado’s red flag law.

Zebbodios “Zebb” Hall was among the Denver activists who became close to Mickey Windecker, not knowing he was a paid FBI informant.

Photo: Trevor Aaronson

“I Was Just Afraid of Him”

A week after trying to rope Hall and Shelby into a violent plot, Windecker had drawn enough suspicion that an antifascist activist group in Colorado Springs, south of Denver, posted a Twitter thread detailing its concerns. “Be careful around this dude,” the group wrote on Twitter. “Probably wise not to let him in your protest space.”

Although the group didn’t have evidence that Windecker was an informant, the public allegation threatened to damage his cover. Activists in Colorado took the claim seriously.

“You heard through different groups: ‘Kick his ass on sight.’ ‘Fuck him.’ ‘Don’t let him around the groups,’” Hall remembered.

Windecker gathered his allies, including Hall, at the apartment in Denver where activists had seen the table covered with guns. Windecker wanted to record a video and post it to YouTube in response to the allegations. He created a stage for the video: a flag for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and an AR-15-style assault rifle propped against the wall behind him, and, on the table before him, a ball-peen hammer and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

“He had a cigar and was acting all tough,” Hall said.

After an antifascist group in Colorado accused him of being an informant, Mickey Windecker posted a video response to YouTube in which he denied the accusation. “I will be polite and professional, but I have a plan to kill everybody in the fucking room if need to be,” Windecker threatened.

Credit: YouTube

Wearing a custom-made black Punisher T-shirt, Windecker stared into the camera.

“This propaganda shit you guys posted doesn’t mean fuck all to me,” Windecker said in his gravelly voice, sounding furious. “But understand this: I will be polite and professional, but I have a plan to kill everybody in the fucking room if need to be … If you’re trying to implicate that I’m a fucking snitch, check this out. Three things I ain’t: a punk, I ain’t a bitch, and I ain’t a fucking snitch.”

Watching as Windecker recorded the video, Hall was struck by how defensive he seemed. He finally accepted what he’d long thought impossible: Windecker, the activist leader encouraging everyone to become more militant, must be a secret government informant.

That created a problem for Hall. Windecker had given Hall money days earlier and asked him to buy a gun. Hall had agreed and bought a Smith & Wesson handgun for Windecker, despite knowing that Windecker was a convicted felon. Hall didn’t think he had a choice in the transaction. He believed that Windecker, who made the looming prospect of violence part of his identity, would come after him if he refused. “I was just afraid of him,” Hall explained. “I was fucking terrified of this guy.”

After he made the video, Windecker and his silver hearse disappeared. In July 2021, nearly a year after he’d bought the gun for Windecker, federal agents arrested Hall. He pleaded guilty to a felony firearms violation — for buying a gun, with the government’s money, for the government’s informant — and received three years of probation. That was the extent of the plot Windecker and the FBI succeeded in engineering among the racial justice activists that summer.

Many of the activist groups in Denver have splintered or disbanded. There was a lot of distrust. Activists there told me they suspected government agents had infiltrated the groups to encourage the violence that occurred, but until now, they’d never had proof.

“The FBI caused violence here,” Hall said. “They don’t want people to know that.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Trevor Aaronson.

How to Report on the Repatriation of Native American Remains at Museums and Universities Near You

by Ash Ngu — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 11:00:00 +0000

by Ash Ngu

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

In 1990, Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which pushed for museums, universities and other organizations that possessed Native American human remains to return them to Indigenous communities. But our reporting shows that many institutions still hold many of those remains in their collections. Last month, ProPublica published a database that allows you to search the repatriation records of these hundreds of institutions.

But the full story of repatriation goes beyond the numbers, as illustrated by our story about a state museum in Illinois that was built on Native American burial mounds. This guide is for reporters who want to take a deeper dive on repatriation at institutions in their area.

Watch an Informational Webinar With Our Reporters. 1. Understand the Repatriation Process. Key terms

Human remains: The physical remains of a person of Native American ancestry. Each inventory record lists the minimum number of individuals (MNI) represented by the remains. We’ve avoided referring to Native American remains as “collections” or “sets of remains” in our reporting, though the terms are commonly used. Instead, to highlight the humanity of the individuals, we have opted for phrases like “remains of Native Americans” or “ancestral remains.”
Associated funerary objects (AFO): Items found with human remains that are also in an institution’s possession. Also consider using “funerary belongings.”
Inventory: Item-by-item descriptions of human remains and associated funerary objects. The institution that holds them provides this list to the federal government and potentially affiliated tribes.
Cultural affiliation: A shared group identity connecting a present-day tribe with an earlier group. The standard for establishing affiliation is a preponderance of evidence.
Preponderance of evidence: A legal burden of proof that is met when something is more likely than not.
Culturally unidentified: Remains and items for which no culturally affiliated tribe has been determined, according to the institution that holds them.
Disposition: When culturally unidentified remains and associated funerary objects are transferred to tribal control through geographic affiliation instead of cultural affiliation.
Notice of inventory completion: A notice published in the Federal Register when an institution determines that certain remains and funerary objects are culturally affiliated with one or more tribes, or will repatriate based on a geographical link.

More information is available on the NAGPRA site’s glossary page.

Read up on the law and regulations.

NAGPRA applies only to institutions that receive federal funds and have Native American human remains or cultural items. The law provides a process for consultation and repatriation.

The National NAGPRA Program, which operates under the Department of the Interior, helps administer the law. The program runs a website that provides useful resources on terminology; compliance; inventory records; the duties of the NAGPRA Review Committee, which monitors and reviews the implementation of the law; annual reports to Congress; enforcement; and more.

To understand the law’s goals and how it has been implemented, read the text of the act and the history of legislative intent. The Department of the Interior administers the law and has issued a series of regulations since 1990. Notably, in 2010 the department created a pathway for the return of remains and items whose cultural affiliation cannot be established. This year, the department is seeking to update the regulations to expedite the repatriation process.

To show what the law requires of institutions, the NAGPRA Community of Practice, a network of people who work on NAGPRA, created a flowchart and museum guide. The National Park Service also has an in-depth guide on NAGPRA compliance.

(National Park Service)

Repatriation can be requested by direct descendants, by federally recognized tribes and Alaska Native entities, or by Native Hawaiian organizations. Institutions are not required to consult with tribes that lack federal recognition. However, in some cases museums have chosen to consult directly with these tribes, or with a federally recognized tribe acting as an intermediary.

Institutions may repatriate Native American remains to multiple tribes. In these cases, the tribes often work together to determine what they’d like to do with the remains.

2. Dig Into the Data. Search the ProPublica NAGPRA database.

Our tool adds visuals and a search function to a data set maintained by the National Park Service that itemizes all the Native American human remains and associated funerary objects that roughly 600 institutions have reported to the federal government. The data set includes information on the state and county that remains and objects were taken from, which institutions hold them and whether they have been made available for return.

You can type the name of an institution, tribe or state into the search box, or click on counties in the national map to learn more. All institutions, tribes and states are listed at the bottom of the page.

State and county pages: If you want to start exploring geographically, each state has a page (e.g., California) that lists the institutions in the state that hold remains or items from anywhere in the country. The page also lists what institutions hold remains and items that were originally taken from that state. It also shows the percentage of remains each institution has made available for return and to which tribes. From the state pages, or from the map on the main page, you can drill down to county pages (e.g., Apache County, Arizona), which show the status of human remains originally taken from that county.

Sometimes institutions make conflicting decisions about human remains and items taken from the same area. State and county pages make it easy to identify these disagreements. For example, federal agencies have been generally more likely than museums to repatriate remains taken from the Southwest area. Further reporting could explain why some institutions have kept remains and objects while others have returned them.

Institution pages: The institution pages (e.g., University of Arizona) provide a summary of where the ancestral remains in an institution’s inventory were taken from and which remains the institution has not made available for return.

The timeline chart on these pages shows the institution’s progress since NAGPRA was passed and can identify important events in the institution’s history. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority did not start making remains available for return until the 2010s. Since then, a majority of the Native American remains in its possession have been made available for return. What changed? A critical government audit sparked reform.

Keep in mind that some institutions, like Stanford University, completed repatriations prior to NAGPRA’s passage. The data ProPublica published only reflects what institutions have reported since the law came into effect. We have no way to consistently track repatriations before that.

Tribe pages: ProPublica for the first time made the NAGPRA data set searchable by tribe (e.g., Chickasaw Nation). The pages show where Native American remains that have been made available for return to a tribe were taken from and which institutions returned them. They also include a list of institutions that may have ancestral remains taken from counties of interest to each tribe. This information can help NAGPRA coordinators identify tribes that should potentially be contacted about unrepatriated remains. Keep in mind that institutions may make remains available for return to multiple tribes and that the remains listed on tribes’ pages are not necessarily exclusive to one tribe.

Request inventory record data from the National NAGPRA Program.

The National NAGPRA Program has additional detail on specific inventories broken down by institution, state or county. This information can help reporters understand how remains were acquired and make comparisons between institutions. The level of detail that institutions provide varies. Due to concerns about looting, we decided not to publish specific information about the sites that remains were taken from, unless the site is already commonly known, like a national monument or state park.

Caveat and contextualize the data.

The data is self-reported by institutions. Institutions give a minimum estimate of how many Native Americans’ remains they hold, and they frequently adjust these numbers. Some institutions subject to NAGPRA have failed to report the remains in their possession. As a result, the numbers are best taken as low-end estimates.

The data can appear deceptively precise. When speaking generally about what an institution has, we recommend rounding numbers to the nearest tens or hundreds. For example, “The University of California, Berkeley reported still having the remains of at least 9,000 Native Americans” instead of 9,075.

Some institutions claim that all of the human remains subject to NAGPRA in their holdings are “available for return.” What they mean is that everything has the potential to be returned, pending a tribal claim, consultation, determination by the institution and publication of a notice detailing the list of tribes eligible to claim the remains. We use “made available for return” only for remains that have already been through that process, and the only step left is for the specified tribes to decide what they’ll do with the remains.

The physical transfer of remains can take time. Tribes might not have the money, space or capacity to complete this last step. Also, tribes sometimes establish agreements under which remains stay in the care of museums but legal control of them is transferred to the tribes.

That said, many of the remains described as “made available for return” have been physically returned. We’d like to say when physical return occurs, but the federal government doesn’t collect that data. If you contact an institution individually, it may share this information.

3. Gather Documents. Search the Federal Register for notices.

When an institution establishes a connection between tribes and remains, it must publish a list of the tribes eligible to make a repatriation claim. These notices are published in the Federal Register and are searchable. Try searching for “Notice of Inventory Completion,” followed by the name of the institution or tribe you’re interested in.

Tribes and institutions sometimes change their names, so the present-day name may not exactly match what’s listed in the notice.

Notices describe the Native American remains and associated funerary objects being made available for return. They contain information on which tribes were consulted, how the remains came to be in the institution’s possession, and who to contact at the institution. Occasionally, the evidence used to determine a cultural affiliation or disposition of the remains is also included.

Request records.

Other documents can aid in reporting on NAGPRA. Look for records that:

Detail how the institution acquired the Native American remains and items reported in its inventory (also known as their provenance).
Explain the behind-the-scenes decision-making on whether to repatriate and the evidence used.
Show the quality of relations between the institution and tribes.

Records you can seek include:

Original inventories or summaries of Native American remains and cultural items that institutions send to tribes. Copies are sent to the National NAGPRA Program.
Excavation field notes. Many remains were removed in federally funded excavation projects or by academically oriented field schools in the 20th century, and both of those endeavors often produced significant archives.
Loan files that document requests and transfers of Native American remains and objects between institutions, potentially for research purposes.
Notes or internal email correspondence from NAGPRA staff, faculty, administrators, legal counsel, tribes or colleagues at other institutions.
Materials and notes used during consultations. Institutions often prepare materials for their meetings with tribes and take notes.
Recordings of consultations. During the pandemic, many meetings were held over Zoom and may have been recorded.
Tribal claim documents. These may contain information that tribes do not want shared publicly because they are culturally sensitive or could aid looters.
Determination records. These may explain the rationale behind determinations of cultural affiliation or disposition.
NAGPRA Review Committee transcripts. Disputes are often brought before committee, and you can search for mentions of tribes, institutions or regions.
Grant application materials. When institutions apply for NAGPRA or other government-funded grants, the application materials and statements supplied may provide insight into their budgets and intent. You can request these records from the agency that administers the grants.
Historical documents, such as field notes and annual reports, that may not be online.
Appraisal documents for objects.

Note that while freedom of information laws make it possible to request records from public institutions, private institutions’ records are much harder to obtain. In those cases, you may have luck by requesting records from amenable institutions or groups that have corresponded with or worked on consultations with them.

4. Talk to People With Experience.

The history of the taking and repatriation of Native American remains and cultural items varies by region. Familiarize yourself with the history of Indigenous peoples and institutions in your area. Talk to tribal and institutional representatives to understand how efforts to repatriate have proceeded since NAGPRA’s passage in 1990. There may have been several rounds of consultation between tribes and institutions. And when repatriation efforts stretch back 30-plus years, it may help your reporting to piece together a chronology of who represented each group.

Talk to representatives of tribal nations.

Learn the basics of repatriation before approaching sources. Be prepared to explain why you’re interested in reporting on this topic. Look up the tribe’s page on ProPublica’s NAGPRA database as a starting point to understand which institutions they may have consulted with already.

Tribes generally have designated NAGPRA specialists. Often, they are a tribal historic preservation officer or cultural director. Use these directories to find a point of contact:

Reach out to tribal reps early, since they can be very busy. Know that tribes have different views on how best to repatriate. Tribes are not always ready to repatriate and don’t always want remains to be physically returned. Sometimes multiple tribes make competing claims that take time to sort out. Tribes may be open to respectfully conducted research.

Also, keep in mind that tribal leaders may not want to discuss repatriation and might not see news coverage as beneficial, especially if they’re in the middle of consulting with institutions and need to maintain those relationships. Repatriation can be a private issue in some cultures, and some do not have a cultural protocol for handing the dead.

Ask about successes and challenges the tribe has faced in their repatriation work. Have tribes had sufficient funding to pursue consultation and repatriation? What has been positive or negative about their experiences? Have institutions been proactive in reaching out to them and sharing information about ancestral remains and cultural objects in their collections?

It’s critical that both tribes and institutions have sufficient funding to work on consultations and repatriations. Many tribes and institutions don’t have a dedicated, paid staff member to work on NAGPRA issues, and even when that role exists, turnover can be high. Stable funding allows for long-term relationship-building between tribes and museums who often must engage with each other over years to complete the process.

Talk to museum representatives.

The number of people involved in NAGPRA work varies by institution. Some institutions have full-time NAGPRA coordinators, while others rely on individuals who have other responsibilities, often as professors or curators.

Some institutions list a NAGPRA contact on their websites. Otherwise, you can find out who to talk to by looking at the National NAGPRA contacts database. If the institution has published a notice in the Federal Register, those often include contact information, and you can find them with a “Notice of Inventory Completion” search as explained above.

Some questions we suggest asking:

Is the data maintained by the National NAGPRA Program accurate? If the institution says the data is out of date or inaccurate, ask it to elaborate on specifically what is incorrect and to update its federal records.
What efforts have been made to consult with tribes on remains that have yet to be repatriated? When did the museum last reach out to tribes? Some institutions say they have followed the law because they invited tribes to consult when the law was first passed and they didn’t get a response. That approach doesn’t match the spirit of the law. Some tribes have several dozen institutions holding human remains and objects that could potentially be repatriated to them, creating a burdensome workload for tribes.
How were decisions about whether to repatriate made? Who have been the decision-makers?
If an institution has not repatriated remains taken from a specific region or site, while others have, get in touch with the ones that did repatriate and ask why their determinations were different.
How does the institution fund NAGPRA work? How many staff positions are dedicated to it?
What is the institution’s policy on research, teaching, display, imaging and circulation of human remains and cultural items that are potentially subject to NAGPRA? NAGPRA does not prohibit these practices, but tribes often find them to be disrespectful.

Lastly, keep in mind that even if a museum is not listed in the database, it might have unreported Native American remains that are subject to NAGPRA. Small or private institutions that have received federal funding might not understand that they are subject to the law. In a 2021 article, Indian Country Today looked into whether institutions that had accepted stimulus funds may be subject to NAGPRA.

Talk to people involved with repatriation.

People have been working on repatriation for a long time, and it’s important to understand the variety of opinions on how to approach the issue. Perspectives on NAGPRA have been shared in academic publications dealing with fields such as law, museum and heritage studies, Native American studies, anthropology and archaeology.

The NAGPRA Community of Practice is a network dedicated to supporting the implementation of the law. The group offers training resources and holds meetings twice a month.

The NAGPRA Review Committee’s members are nominated by tribes and national museums or scientific organizations.

The National NAGPRA Program can be reached at NAGPRA_info@nps.gov.

Get in touch with us.

If you publish a story about repatriation using our data, let us know! You can contact our reporting team to share stories or ask questions at repatriation@propublica.org.

We have also solicited tips about repatriation from readers across the country. With the permission of those who wrote in, we may share tips with local newsrooms. If you are interested in being part of this effort, let us know by emailing us with the subject line “Interested in Tips.”

Help Us Investigate Museums’ Failure to Return Native American Human Remains and Cultural Items

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Ash Ngu.

Racial Justice, Voting Rights, and Authoritarianism

Clarence Lusane — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 06:51:37 +0000

Photograph Source: Mike Maguire – CC BY 2.0

The fundamental right to vote has been a core value of Black politics since the colonial era — and so has the effort to suppress that vote right up to the present moment. In fact, the history of the suppression of Black voters is a first-rate horror story that as yet shows no sign of ending.

While Democrats and progressives justifiably celebrated the humbling defeat of some of the most notorious election-denying Republican candidates in the 2022 midterms, the GOP campaign to quell and marginalize Black voters has only continued with an all-too-striking vigor. In 2023, attacks on voting rights are melding with the increasingly authoritarian thrust of a Republican Party ever more aligned with far-right extremists and outright white supremacists.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that the insurrection of January 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington was also an assault on minority voters. In the post-election weeks of 2020, insurrection-loving and disgraced President Donald Trump and his allies sought to discard votes in swing-state cities like Atlanta, Detroit, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Phoenix. Those were all places with large Black, Latino, or Native American populations. It was no accident then that the overwhelmingly white mob at the Capitol didn’t hesitate to hurl racist language, including the “N” word, at Black police officers as that mob invaded the building.

For years, Republican lawmakers at the state level had proposed — and where possible implemented — voter suppression laws and policies whose impacts were sharply felt in communities of color nationwide. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, “At least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting,” laws invariably generated by Republican legislators. These included bills to limit early voting, restrict voting by mail, and even deny the provision of water to voters waiting for hours in long lines, something almost universally experienced in Black and poor communities.

While normally pretending that such laws were not raced-based but focused on — the phrases sound so positive and sensible — “voter integrity” or “election security,” on occasion GOP leaders and officials have revealed their real purpose. A recent example was Republican Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Robert Spindell, one of three GOP appointees on the six-person commission that oversees that state’s elections. He openly bragged that the “well thought out multi-faceted plan” of the Republicans had resulted in a dramatic drop in Black voters in the 2022 midterm elections, including in Milwaukee, the state’s largest city, which is about 40% African American. He wrote: “We can be especially proud of the City of Milwaukee (80.2% Dem Vote) casting 37,000 less votes than cast in the 2018 election with the major reduction happening in the overwhelming Black and Hispanic areas.”

How Far Might Voter Suppression Go?

You undoubtedly won’t be surprised to learn that, rather than develop policies attractive to voters of color, the GOP and conservatives generally have chosen the path of voter suppression, intimidation, and gaming the system. And if anything, those attempts are still on the rise. In 2023, less than a month into the new year, according to the Guardian, Republicans across the country have proposed dozens of voter-suppression and election-administration-interference bills in multiple states.

Republican state legislators in Texas alone filed 14 bills on January 10th, including ones that would raise penalties for “illegal” voting, whether committed knowingly or not. More ominously, one Texas proposal would fund the creation of an election police force exclusively dedicated to catching those who violate voting or election laws. That unit would be similar to the draconian election-police unit created in Governor Ron DeSantis’s Florida as part of what is functionally becoming a regime dedicated to a version of right-wing terror. Symbolically enough, for instance, Black ex-felons were disproportionately targeted by DeSantis. Although the campaign was launched with great fanfare, only a few generally confused ex-felons were arrested and most of them had been given misinformation by state officials about their eligibility to vote and were convinced that they had the right to do so.

But DeSantis never really wanted to stop the virtually nonexistent crime of voter impersonation or fraud. His goal, and that of the GOP nationally, has been to strike fear into the hearts of potential non-Republican voters to ensure election victories for his party.

In states like Alabama, Mississippi, and 20 others where the GOP controls both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s mansion, intimidating voter-tracking police squads could be the next play in an ongoing effort to undemocratically control elections. Such policing efforts would without question disproportionately target communities of color.

While the expected midterm “red wave” of Republican victories didn’t occur nationally in 2022, the same can’t be said for the South. As documented by the Institute for Southern Studies’ Facing South, the GOP actually outperformed expectations, expanding its hold on multiple state legislatures in the region. Prior to the election, analysts had predicted that the Republicans might gain 40 seats across the South; in fact, they gained at least 55. Not only did they take control of at least 25 state legislative chambers — the lone exception, Virginia’s state senate where Democrats retained a two-seat majority — but they also built or maintained supermajorities in legislative chambers in Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia. This means that even if a Democratic governor is in office, Republican legislators can pass extremist bills into law despite a gubernatorial veto.

None of this is spontaneous, nor is it random. Tens of millions of dollars or more from super-rich conservative donors and right-wing foundations have poured into voter-suppression and election-manipulation efforts. Heritage Action for America, a conservative legislative-writing group linked to the Heritage Foundation, spent upwards of $24 million in 2021 and 2022 in key swing states to help Republicans write bills that would restrict voting, targeting Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, and Texas. Consider it anything but a coincidence that the language in voter-suppression bills in those states and elsewhere sounded eerily familiar. As the Guardian reported, at least 11 voter suppression bills in at least eight states were due, in part or whole, to advocacy and organizing by Heritage Action. A New York Times investigation found that in Georgia, “Of the 68 bills pertaining to voting, at least 23 had similar language or were firmly rooted in the principles laid out in the Heritage group’s letter” that offered outlines and details for how to limit voting access.

Contemporary voter suppression efforts, however, go significantly beyond just trying to prevent people from voting or making it harder for them to do so. Credit that, at least in part, to the determination of so many Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans to vote despite restrictions imposed by the states. Consequently, Republican legislators now seek to control — that is, manipulate — election administration, too. Their tactics include the harassment of election workers, far-right activists seeking positions as election officials, and various other potentially far-reaching legal maneuvers.

In fact, in recent voting, attacks on election workers, officials, and volunteers have become so prevalent that a new national organization, the Election Officials Legal Defense Network (EOLDN), was formed to protect them. EOLDN provides attorneys and other kinds of assistance to such officials when they find themselves under attack.

Meanwhile, a flood of far-right activists has applied for positions or volunteered to work on elections. Neo-fascist Steven Bannon and other extremist influencers have typically called for such activists to take over local election boards with the express purpose of helping Republicans and conservatives win power.

Finally, GOP leaders in multiple states have been pushing an “independent state legislature” doctrine that argues such bodies have the ultimate power to determine election outcomes. They contend that governors, state supreme courts, and even the U.S. Supreme Court have no jurisdiction over non-federal elections. Their fanciful and erroneous reading of Article 1, Section 4 and Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution suggests that state legislatures can not only overturn the will of voters in a given election but select electors of their choice in a presidential contest, no matter the will of the voters.

In past decisions, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and the late Antonin Scalia indicated that they were at least open to such a reading. A firm decision on this matter may occur in that court’s current session in the case of Moore v. Harper. Court watchers are split on whether the court’s conservative majority might indeed embrace that “doctrine” in full, in part, or at all in ruling on that case later this year.

Missed Chances

Much of this dynamic of voter suppression is the result of the failure of congressional Democrats to carry two voting rights bills across the finish line. Black activists are all too aware that the Democrats blew the opportunity to pass such legislation during the last two years when they controlled both chambers of Congress, even if by the slimmest of margins in the Senate. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act(JLVRAA) and the For the People Act (FtPA) were each game-changing bills that would, in many ways, have blunted the massive efforts of Republicans at the state level to institute voter restrictions and other policies that result in the disproportionate disenfranchisement of African Americans, Latinos, young people, and working-class voters generally, all of whom tend to vote Democratic.

The JLVRAA would have restored the power of the Voting Rights Act to prevent the very passage of voter suppression laws taken away by the Supreme Court in 2013 in the case of Shelby County v. Holder. The FtPA would have banned partisan gerrymandering, expanded voting rights, and even supported statehood for Washington, D.C. Those bills were aimed specifically at countering the hundreds of voter-suppression proposals in Republican-controlled state legislatures.

In its final report, the January 6th committee actually blew a chance to highlight the attacks on Black voting rights. That report’s full-scale focus on the role of Donald Trump, who certainly was the key instigator of the insurrectionary events at the Capitol and its chief potential beneficiary, ended up obscuring the role of racism and white nationalism in the stop-the-steal movement that accompanied it and was so crucial to Republican election deniers. It should be remembered, though, that Trump’s central argument and the biggest lie of all was that Black, Latino, and Native American votes should be thrown out in Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, and other urban areas in states like Arizona and Nevada where he was rejected by overwhelming numbers.

Unfortunately, the January 6th report didn’t sufficiently identify white supremacy as a driver of the “stop the steal” movement. Despite the prominence of certain Black faces among the Trump camp, including conservative organizer Ali Alexander, Trump campaign aid Katrina Pierson, and former Georgia legislator Vernon Jones, January 6th, in fact, represented the culmination of months of attacks on Black campaign workers, especially in Atlanta and Detroit. President Trump explicitly fired up white nationalists by name-checking and endangering individual African American election workers as spoilers of his alleged victory.

The movement in some democratic states to follow Trump’s autocratic playbook is now also metastasizing globally. In Brazil, on January 8th, thousands of followers of the defeated far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro attacked government buildings in Brasilia. Newly elected President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva has had to confront a surging wave of election deniers in the early days of his administration. And it’s important to note that Lula’s voters were disproportionately from the north and northeastern regions of Brazil, areas with deep concentrations of Black and indigenous communities.

In the United Kingdom, in 2022, the Conservative Party pushed through legislation that requires photo identification to vote in future elections beginning in May 2023. As with Republican legislation in Texas, student IDs will not suffice, creating a new obstacle for a constituency that tends to vote for the Labour Party. In a country where many working-class people don’t have drivers’ licenses and the state does not easily provide acceptable IDs, voter suppression is operative.

A democracy agenda that recognizes the racial elements of voter suppression and election denial is sorely needed. At the federal level, President Biden and Congressional Democrats should prioritize keeping the issue alive, while forcing Republicans to divulge their undemocratic hand, until the Democrats (hopefully) fully take back Congress in 2024.

At the state level, Democrats who have momentum from their victories in 2022 need to consolidate and strengthen voting-access laws and policies. In Michigan, for example, where the GOP had for years used its control of the state legislature to pass outlandish, racist laws that generated significant harm for Black communities, the recent Democratic sweep should mean a new voting day.

Former President Trump and the rest of his crew, as well as state versions of the same, are sadly enough in a significant, if grim, American tradition. Isn’t it time to focus more energy on how to stop their urge to suppress the Black vote?

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Clarence Lusane.

How a Tourist Attraction Displaying the Open Graves of Native Americans Became a State-Run Museum

by Logan Jaffe — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 11:00:00 +0000

by Logan Jaffe

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. This story was first published as part of ProPublica’s Repatriation Project newsletter, which follows our ongoing investigation into whether U.S. institutions are returning Native American ancestral remains. Sign up to get updates as they publish and learn more about our reporting.

When William Dickson moved to Fulton County, Illinois, from Kentucky in 1833, he purchased a beautiful piece of land overlooking the confluence of the Spoon and Illinois rivers. The federal Indian Removal Act of 1830 had exiled most Native American tribes from the state under the threat of genocide, and Illinois would soon have no tribally held land.

The people of Fulton County, as described an 1879 history of the area, were proud of what they saw as accomplishments of the “Anglo Saxon” race:

“They transformed the wigwams into cities; dotted the knolls with school-houses and churches; replaced the buffalo, deer, elk, and wolf, which had been driven further westward, with domestic animals; erected factories, built railroads, and reared a refined, enlightened and cultured people.”

Still buried throughout much of Fulton County, according to archaeologists’ estimates, were at least 3,000 grave mounds and remnants of villages that belonged to Indigenous people and their ancestors.

So when Dickson prepared his property to plant an orchard in the 1860s, he inadvertently unearthed human remains. His grandson, Thomas, later unearthed more human remains and objects while building his house nearby. Years later, in 1927, Thomas’ son, Don, turned the burial mounds into a public spectacle — and his livelihood.

“I grew up with this knowledge,” Don F. Dickson told an audience of Illinois State Academy of Science members in May 1947. “The burials were in my backyard. I liked those people.”

Dickson, a chiropractor, and his family excavated at least 234 burials and opened the site to the public. While most amateurs, archaeologists and anthropologists of the time fully disinterred and disarticulated human remains during excavations, Dickson chose to leave the burials as he found them in the ground. The novelty of seeing the dead in situ helped make the site a popular Illinois tourist attraction billed as Dickson’s Mound Builders Tomb, or what’s known today as Dickson Mounds Museum.

Inside a canvas tent lay the remains of what Dickson and newspaper reporters believed was an extinct race of people. A 1927 article from one local paper promoted the exhibit under the headline “Excavations in Illinois Reveal Race That Lived and Died Before Indians.” Dickson benefited from the promotion; tens of thousands of people visited the private museum in the late 1920s. By charging 50 cents for admission, the Dickson family made their living.

What visitors learned from the “museum” was the story that the Dicksons wanted to tell. In the remains of two adults placed side by side, their faces turned to face a baby that lay between them, Don Dickson saw a primitive, but loving, family. He speculated about relationships, social hierarchies and the purposes of various possessions. He and his family members served as the tour guides and public interpreters of the site. He rearranged objects to make the burials more dramatic; he removed the mandibles of some people to display them alongside the mandibles of various animals. Many bones and belongings were broken; some were stolen.

The state of Illinois purchased the site from Dickson in 1945 and then hired the Dicksons to run it; Don Dickson continued to interpret the site for the public until his death in 1964.

Don Dickson (Illinois Digital Archive, Illinois State Library)

A few years later, the state built a large, new museum and adopted Dickson’s open-air exhibit as a permanent wing of the facility. Over the years, the burial exhibit saw various interpretations by museum staff, including the addition of audio and multicolored spotlights. Viewmaster reels and postcards were sold in the gift shop.

I learned of the exhibit when I started investigating why the state museum held so many human remains, and I quickly realized that memories of it are not uncommon among a generation of Illinoisans slightly older than I am. An archivist assisting me with research in the Illinois State Archives told me that he was among many Illinois students in the 1970s who had visited the museum on field trips, and he remembered it, simply, as “spooky.”

In 1990, a long movement for Native American rights led to the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a federal law intended to enable tribal nations to reclaim their ancestors, funerary objects and sacred items from institutions.

Staff at the Dickson Mounds Museum and its parent institution, the Illinois State Museum, had been monitoring the bill and others like it for years and had anticipated changes in public sentiment around the display of open graves.

To try to head off controversy, museum leaders decided to close the burial exhibit. Illinois Gov. James R. Thompson had agreed with the museum’s decision. But when news of the exhibit’s planned closure broke, the public outcry and political pressure that ensued forced Thompson to reconsider his decision. At the heart of his dilemma was the question of whether the exhibit was educational or entertainment, and whether the offense it caused to Native Americans outweighed the potential benefits of public education and tourism. Ultimately, Thompson reversed course.

“This never has been treated as a carnival sideshow,” Thompson said. “It is an educational exhibit that respects the lives of people who made a civilization here hundreds of years ago. It will remain so.”

Among Thompson’s most vocal opponents was Michael Haney, an activist of Seminole and Sioux heritage. Haney had helped gather crowds of protestors at the museum and had responded to the governor’s decision to keep the exhibit open by calling it racist. But in addition to making many pointed public comments, which included referring to Fulton County residents as “country bumpkins,” he expressed the deep hurt caused by the Dicksons and those who supported keeping the exhibit open in a way that continues to resonate:

“If you want to know about Indians, ask living Indians,” Haney said at a public hearing in 1990. “Don’t desecrate our graves.”

A protest against the museum’s exposed burial sites in the early 1990s (Illinois Digital Archive, Illinois State Library)

For perhaps the first time, some local residents and others paying attention to the issue were forced to confront the notion that, by advocating to keep the exhibit open, they were complicit in the erasure of Indigenous people from the story the museum was telling about them.

The controversy lasted for more than two years.

The exhibit eventually closed in 1992. Contractors installed cedar flooring over the open graves to shield them from public view. Museum officials today say that no one has seen the graves in 30 years.

At ProPublica, my colleagues and I have spent the last 18 months trying to understand why so many of the nation’s top museums and universities still have thousands of human remains in their collections even though the law to push for repatriation passed more than 30 years ago. The Illinois State Museum and Dickson Mounds Museum, for example, together hold the remains of more than 7,000 Native Americans.

But a new generation of museum leadership sees an opportunity to rewrite the story the Dicksons wanted visitors to learn, and returning remains to tribal nations is part of that. Dickson Mounds Museum is now led by a citizen of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, whose members are descendents of more than a dozen tribes that were forcibly removed from the state in the 1700s and 1800s.

“My ancestors put me here,” said Logan Pappenfort, interim director of Dickson Mounds Museum. “They came from Illinois, and it’s my responsibility to do everything I can to get them where they’re supposed to be again.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Logan Jaffe.

Fiji police suspend questioning of former AG Aiyaz in ‘hatred’ case

APR editor — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 05:09:16 +0000

RNZ Pacific

Police interviewing of FijiFirst Party general secretary and former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has reportedly been suspended but will continue later.

FBC News reports the interview with Sayed-Khaiyum will continue.

The police Chief of Intelligence and Investigations, Assistant Commissioner Surend Sami, told the state broadcaster the suspension is to allow investigators to verify issues and information gathered during the interviews.

FijiVillage reports there was a second round of questioning on Tuesday.

The Minister for Rural, Maritime Development and Disaster Management, Sakiasi Ditoka, had filed a complaint against Sayed-Khaiyum on December 22, for allegedly inciting racial hatred and violence at a media conference in Suva before the coalition government had been formed.

In that conference, Sayed-Khaiyum had claimed stoning incidents highlighted by the police and said that this demonstrated the “divisive character” of the People’s Alliance Leader Sitiveni Rabuka, who is now the Prime Minister.

President told not to take external legal advice
Fiji’s Attorney-General, Siromi Turaga, has told the President he should not take legal advice from the former attorney-general, the former prime minister or from the opposition FijiFirst party.

FBC News reports Turaga saying that he briefed President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere that he must only accept legal opinions from the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

He said no other law firm should be advising on any other matters, and if he is in doubt, the Attorney-General’s Chambers is able to assist the President.

Turaga said that according to the Constitution and the law, any issues dealing with government affairs are to be dealt with by the coalition government and its head, Sitiveni Rabuka.

Complaint lodged against former PM
A human rights activist has filed a complaint against FijiFirst leader Voreqe Bainimarama.

FBC News reports that Surend Sami confirmed the complaint was in relation to statements made on live videos on the FijiFirst Facebook page on January 1 and 4.

In her complaint, Shamima Ali has alleged that Bainimarama’s statements were intended to cause public alarm, anxiety, disaffection, discontent and were made with malicious intent.

Sami said the investigation had now been taken over by the Criminal Investigation Department.

President Katonivere will officially open Parliament next week on Friday, February 3.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

High-Level Pentagon Official Used Racial Slurs, Drank on Job, Sexually Harassed Employees: Watchdog

Daniel Boguslaw — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 20:21:55 +0000

The Pentagon’s watchdog agency today released the results of an investigation into a former high-ranking military official, Douglas Glenn, confirming that Glenn engaged in a pattern of racially and sexually insensitive workplace behavior — including casually using the N-word in the office.

The investigation by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, prompted by a complaint from an anonymous Defense Department employee, found that Glenn made sexual and racially offensive comments to co-workers, raised his voice, and provided alcohol to subordinates on at least two occasions without authorization, in direct violation of Pentagon policy.

An investigation substantiating allegations against such a high-ranking official is unusual and follows promises from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to root out racism and rampant sexual misconduct in the armed forces.

Doug Glenn is Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at the Office of Personnel Management.

Photo: U.S. Office of Personnel Management

Glenn, who now serves as chief financial officer at the Office of Personnel Management, was promoted to the role of deputy CFO at the Defense Department in December 2020, before leaving in November 2021. The inspector general report will be forwarded to the director of OPM for “appropriate action.”

Glenn did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. In the report, Glenn repeatedly denied intentionally creating a hostile work environment, though simultaneously confirming many of the allegations leveled against him.

Throughout 2021, Glenn engaged in “an overall course of conduct that failed to treat subordinates with dignity and respect and created an offensive work environment for his subordinates,” according to the report. According to the full report, “Three subordinates told [the Office of Inspector General] that his comments were insulting, disrespectful, and implied that ‘DoD employees sucked.’”

Two Defense Department employees describe Glenn using the phrase “all balls, no bush” during an office conversation. Another described Glenn telling her that if he could line up all the women in the office, they would not look as good as she did. Yet another employee said Glenn referred to her as a “Hot Blond” at an out-of-office happy hour. A fifth described overhearing Glenn tell another colleague that he “hoped some studly guy would be rubbing oil on her back at the beach.”

The report details that “Mr. Glenn responded to the sexually sensitive comments by denying that he made the comments, saying that he did not recall making the comments, and telling us that the comments did not sound like anything he would say.”

It also substantiated Glenn’s use of the N-word by confirming that he told subordinates a story in which he had misheard a colleague saying “negative attitude” as “n-word” attitude. In another instance, Glenn “asked an Asian American subordinate to share her feelings during the all hands meeting about being an Asian female in a department that considers China its biggest threat.” Hundreds of Defense Department employees were on the call described in the report.

The Defense Department is the largest U.S. government agency both in terms of personnel and budget. As deputy CFO, Glenn would have overseen the Pentagon’s financial management policies governing the agency’s sprawling, multibillion-dollar budget.

Austin, the first Black defense secretary in U.S. history, during his confirmation hearing, vowed “stamp out sexual assault, to rid our ranks of racists and extremists, and to create a climate where everyone fit and willing has the opportunity to serve this country with dignity.” He also signed a memo ordering commanding officers to carry out a stand-down to address extremism in the ranks in light of January 6.

Under Austin, the Pentagon has also updated the manner in which it screens personnel. In 2021, The Intercept reported on the Defense Department’s plans to screen service members’ social media accounts for extremist content.

In defending the racially insensitive comments he made during the all hands meeting, Glenn told the Office of Inspector General that he remembers discussing a “60 Minutes” interview where Austin described his experiences with racism in the military, and that he used a comment made by President Barack Obama to illustrate how racial misunderstandings can occur.

“[T]he example I used was about how people can look at things differently. It was a comment that President Barack Obama had made,” Glenn told the Office of Inspector General. “He said once, ‘I know what it means to be a black man walking down the street and hearing car doors lock.’ And there’s two ways to look at that. Who are the people in the car that are locking their doors? Maybe they’re racists. Maybe they’re looking at a black man and assuming that there’s a high potential for being robbed. Or maybe they’re just following National Highway Administration guidelines to lock your doors when you drive. It could be either.”

Despite Austin’s moves, experts say commanders still have complete discretion in handling misconduct complaints. Military inspectors general do not have statutory independence unlike other federal inspectors general: In many cases, investigators must get permission from a commander to investigate a complaint.

Sexual misconduct is an endemic problem in the military. Reports of sexual assault have risen sharply in recent years, with an increase of 38 percent from 2016 to 2018, representing more than 20,000 service members reporting such cases in 2018 alone, according to Defense Department data. Last year, The Intercept reported that a U.S. service member alleged sexual assault involving 22 other troops at the Army training base in Fort Sill, Oklahoma — and that sexual assault against men in the military is vastly underreported.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Daniel Boguslaw.

Fiji’s new politics – forging consensus in a nation renowned for ethnic tension poses challenges

Shailendra Singh — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 11:05:51 +0000

By Shailendra Bahadur Singh in Suva

Fiji’s 14 December 2022 election will go down as a momentous occasion in the nation’s history — including for potential impacts on Suva’s diplomatic ties with Pacific partners.

Immediate tasks identified by new Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s tripartite coalition include the revival of the pandemic-scarred economy, the re-examination of foreign relations, and the restoration of democratic institutions, which never quite recovered from the battering of the 2006 coup.

The election ended the 16-year reign of the FijiFirst government headed by Voreqe Bainimarama, the country’s larger-than-life figure after seizing power in 2006, before winning elections in 2014 and 2018.

Bainimarama’s military background coupled with Fiji’s “coup culture” had raised concerns about a smooth transfer of power amid fears about the military being called to assist police.

For two weeks after the new government was finally sworn-in on Christmas Eve on a slim, three seat majority in the 55-member house, the country was on edge as tensions between the former and successor governments intensified.

Bainimarama’s actions suggested that he would not leave quietly. Not only did Bainimarama fail to concede, he did not bother to congratulate the new prime minister, as per democratic tradition.

To the contrary, Bainimarama upped the ante with belligerent media statements claiming the ruling coalition was engaging in “repressive conduct”, attacking the values and principles of the 2013 constitution, and that the country was “reliving the dark ages”.

Sharp rebuke
This was met with a sharp rebuke from Rabuka, who accused Bainimarama of bombarding the country with lies and trying to create racial disharmony alongside former attorney-general Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.

Police confirmed receiving a complaint against Bainimarama for “inciteful” statements, with a border alert issued for Sayed-Khaiyum should he return to Fiji for allegedly “inciting communal antagonism”.

It was a remarkable turn of events for what had been the two most powerful men in the FijiFirst government, which had ruled with an iron grip yet could only secure 42.5 per cent of the vote in December.

The government diffused a potentially risky situation, and despite a stand-off over the role of the police chief, seems to be in control so far.

The new government’s 100-day “first order of business” emphasises not just the economy, but democracy and human rights. Image: Pita Simpson/Getty Images/The Interpreter

The actions of military commander Major General Jone Kalouniwai have been crucial. In an address at the military’s end-of-year parade just a week before the elections, Kalaouniwai had ordered his troops to honour the democratic process and respect the wishes of voters.

Kalaouniwai’s pledge is significant in light of the description of Fiji by longstanding Pacific academic Professor Stewart Firth as a democracy by military permission. This was in reference to Fiji’s 2013 constitution mandating that “It shall be the overall responsibility of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces to ensure at all times the security, defence and well-being of Fiji and all Fijians”.

‘Hybrid regime’
Professor Firth calls this provision a “capacious definition of the military’s role that could easily be invoked to justify another coup”. In 2017, the Economist Intelligence Unit categorised Fiji as a “hybrid regime”, while the 2022 Freedom House report rated Fiji only as “partly free”.

Should the new government remain cohesive and the present situation prevail, it will mark Fiji’s first smooth transition of power. Rabuka staged the first two pro-indigenous Fijian coups in 1987 against perceived Indo-Fijian dominance. During his prime ministership from 1992–99, the former military commander had a change of heart and adopted a multiracial stance by forging a partnership with the late National Federation Party (NFP) leader Jai Ram Reddy to usher in the more equitable 1997 constitution, only to be rejected at the 1999 polls.

For Rabuka, re-claiming government is a vindication of his partnership with the NFP and its current leader, Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad. In his pre-election campaign Rabuka stressed the importance of social harmony in a country with “so many races, so many religions”.

Rabuka’s multiracial credentials in this ethnically tense country will be put to the test during his term.

The new government’s 100-day “first order of business” emphasises not just the economy, but democracy and human rights. A pledge to ensure “separation of powers” in crucial institutions such as the judiciary, “strengthen human rights”, and review the draconian 2010 Media Industry Development Act will be welcomed by international partners such as the United States, which is assembling a “community of democracies” to counter growing authoritarianism.

How the government handles its diplomatic relationships will be the focus of regional attention. Whereas the Bainimarama government enjoyed close relations with China, all three leaders of the coalition government have stated that they preferred to align with countries with democratic traditions.

While campaigning, Rabuka indicated that his government would forge closer ties with Fiji’s traditional partners, Australia and New Zealand, while distancing from China. But in a subsequent interview with the ABC in his first week in office, he changed tone, chiding Australia and the United States for their “colonial” mindset while praising China for seeing “us as just development partners”.

Largest development partner
While Australia is the largest development partner in the region, China remains an important actor in Fiji and the Pacific — a reliable source of development finance and aid, a market for the Pacific’s resources sector, including fisheries, and a growing source of tourists. Given its unprecedented debt challenges in the wake of the pandemic, Fiji is unlikely to scorn any source of development funds.

At a “New Approaches to Economic Progress” panel discussion in Suva last week, Professor Prasad, who also holds the finance portfolio, stated that the “task ahead of us is huge” and announced the forthcoming budget to be released in about six months will target job creation, the high cost of living and investor confidence.

Professor Prasad emphasised that ultimately Fiji’s progress hinges on social cohesion and political stability. Building consensus on major policy issues, equitable sharing of economic benefits, keeping the coalition intact and preventing the collapse of government will be the key challenges.

Dr Shailendra Bahadur Singh is associate professor and head of the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific. He is a research associate and board member of the Pacific Journalism Review and Asia Pacific Report and a member of the Asia Pacific Media Network. This article was first published in The Interpreter and is republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Shailendra Singh.

Juan González on Fighting for Racial and Social Justice in Media & History of Latinos in the U.S.

Democracy Now! — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 13:59:56 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Democracy Now!’s Juan González on 40 Years of Fighting for Racial and Social Justice in Journalism

Democracy Now! — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 13:01:28 +0000

In a Democracy Now! special broadcast, we spend the hour with our own Juan González, who recently gave three “farewell” speeches in his hometown of New York before he moved to Chicago. González is an award-winning journalist and investigative reporter who spent 29 years as a columnist for the New York Daily News. He is a two-time winner of the George Polk Award and author of many books, including the classic “Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America,” which has just been reissued and published in Spanish. His other books include “News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media.” González is also the founder and past president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Before beginning his career in journalism, he spent several years as a Latino community and civil rights activist, helping to found and lead the Young Lords Party during the late 1960s. He has also been the co-host of Democracy Now! since it started in 1996, and is continuing to co-host the show from his new home in Chicago. In the first part of our special, we feature his address in November at the Columbia Journalism School reflecting on “Forty Years of Fighting for Racial and Social Justice in Journalism.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Arizona’s Governor-Elect Chooses Critic of Racial Disparities in Child Welfare to Lead CPS Agency

by Eli Hager — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 17:12:00 +0000

by Eli Hager

Arizona Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs is taking the state’s child protective services agency in a radically different direction in the wake of a ProPublica-NBC News investigation into the racial disparities that have plagued the child welfare system here.

This week, Hobbs, a Democrat, announced that she has selected Matthew Stewart, a Black community advocate, as the new head of Arizona’s Department of Child Safety. Stewart previously worked at DCS as a case manager and training supervisor for a decade before quitting in 2020, later saying he was ashamed by the racial disproportionality he was seeing in his work.

Stewart, who is the son of the longtime senior pastor of Phoenix’s most prominent Black church, will be the first Black leader of the department, replacing its current director, Mike Faust. Faust had been appointed by outgoing Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican.

Arizona’s child welfare system has long disproportionately investigated Black families. According to the ProPublica-NBC News investigation, which highlighted Stewart’s role, 1 in 3 Black children in metro Phoenix faced a DCS investigation in just a recent five-year period. Faust said the department had made progress over that time, but the news organizations found that while the overall number of investigations has gone down, the racial disparity between white and Black families has only increased.

After leaving DCS, Stewart formed the community organization Our Sister Our Brother, which has fought the department for more equitable treatment of Black and also low-income parents.

Matthew Stewart (Screenshot from an NBC News interview)

This fall, he told ProPublica and NBC News that generational poverty and the resulting trauma within families, which in some cases can lead to parenting problems and in turn DCS investigations, have been “centuries in the making.” Are parents supposed to believe, he asked, that after the department takes custody of their children, “these things will be solved?”

“I simply don’t think DCS is the agency to do this,” he said.

Stewart will now run that very agency.

Stewart was not immediately available for an interview. But he said in a statement that he will strengthen the state’s partnerships with community organizations and hopes that under his team’s leadership, the department will “become a place for encouraging and facilitating community healing” in part by providing more resources to families in need.

In a separate statement, the governor-elect said that Stewart knows how to keep children safe based on his experience working at DCS, but also how to get families help and keep them united. “He is a leader who will ensure that we can continue to transform our public systems so they are responsive to the communities that we serve,” Hobbs said.

Child welfare experts in the state and families affected by the system praised Stewart’s selection, though some wondered how much change he could bring about even in DCS’ top position.

“Matthew Stewart has been singularly focused on keeping families safely together,” said Claire Louge, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Arizona, an organization that provides services and training to prevent child maltreatment. But, she pointed out, like all DCS directors he “will face the challenge of leading an agency that is perpetually criticized — either for removing children from their families too much or too little.”

Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, an advocacy group, noted that “Arizona’s incredibly tough to fix.” He pointed to a previous Democratic governor of the state, Janet Napolitano, whose reform-minded pick to lead DCS’ forerunner agency couldn’t fix the system’s racial disproportionality two decades ago. “We’ll see how much times have changed,” Wexler said.

Tyra Smith, a Phoenix-area parent who has personal experience with the child welfare system and has worked directly with Stewart as a parent advocate, said she is hopeful about Stewart’s leadership but worries that when given a new role, people can change.

“I just don’t want to be forgotten about,” she said.

Stewart’s first order of business likely will be selecting new senior staff; he has been critical of several of DCS’ current top officials.

He also has expressed excitement about installing a new Cultural Brokers program that will ensure that a trusted community member of the same race is present when DCS caseworkers show up at a family’s door.

But Stewart will be partially hamstrung by the fact that the Legislature, still in Republican hands, is unlikely to adjust its anti-poverty agenda to get more economic assistance and support services to struggling families in order to prevent child maltreatment cases before they happen. Currently, Arizona spends a majority of its welfare budget not on direct assistance to low-income parents but on DCS investigations of them, as ProPublica reported in 2021.

Stewart also will have to focus on more than the racial disparity issue: DCS has been plagued by other scandals in recent years, as well as child fatalities. In one example, the outgoing director, Faust, was grilled by legislators about reports of violence and drug use in the state’s foster system, leading to one teenager at a group home being shot and killed.

But for the dozens of Black families across metro Phoenix who spoke with ProPublica and NBC News this year, there is finally a sense that someone who looks like them, who has actually interacted with them and who will listen to them is now in a position of power in a state where only two of 90 state legislators are Black. Many said in interviews that they know Stewart understands the constant, communitywide dread they feel, given that in Maricopa County, 63% of Black children will go through a DCS investigation by the time they turn 18.

After Hobbs defeated Kari Lake in the governor’s race, Stewart told ProPublica and NBC News that “I believe this will work to our benefit.” He noted that Hobbs’ background as a social worker might provide her with “a values frame and openness to change that will help guide her administration and choice of advisers.”

Stewart said he “can’t predict the future,” but “I am optimistic, and I believe it is never too soon for hope.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Eli Hager.

“This Is a Racial Backlash”: Stanford Prof. Hakeem Jefferson on Role of White Supremacy on Jan. 6

Democracy Now! — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 15:47:08 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“This Is a Racial Backlash”: Stanford Prof. Hakeem Jefferson on Role of White Supremacy in Capitol Attack

Democracy Now! — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 13:31:39 +0000

The House select committee on the January 6 attack released its final 845-page report Thursday, and the word “racism” appears only once throughout the entire document — despite the central role white supremacist groups played in the insurrection. “Those who stormed the Capitol … didn’t merely come in defense of Donald Trump,” says Stanford professor Hakeem Jefferson, an expert on issues of race and identity in American politics. “They came in defense of white supremacy and white Americans’ hold on power.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

‘Incitement’ complaint against top FijiFirst official handed on to CID

APR editor — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 23:47:39 +0000

By Ian Chute in Suva

A complaint lodged against FijiFirst general secretary Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum for alleged incitement at the Totogo Police station yesterday has been handed over to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID).

Police Commissioner Brigadier-General Sitiveni Qiliho said this today in a statement.

Yesterday, People’s Alliance general secretary and registered officer Sakiasi Ditoka lodged a police complaint against Sayed-Khaiyum, alleging comments he made during a news conference this week incited racial hatred, violence and communal antagonism.

Commissioner Qiliho said the complaint had been handed over to the CID and that investigators were conducting their analysis before the next course of action was decided.

Sodelpa meeting
Meanwhile, Talebula Kate reports that members of the media covering the Sodelpa management board meeting at the Southern Cross Hotel in Suva have now been allowed near the hotel but remain outside the premises on the public walkway.

This development came after media members had been standing in the rain for more than 30 minutes some distance away from the hotel entrance.

Media personnel are allowed into the meeting venue but can only stand outside.

Today’s meeting is for members of the Sodelpa management board to vote for the party they will form a coalition with to form the next Fiji government over four years.

Ian Chute is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Juan González: Reflections on 40 Years of Fighting for Racial and Social Justice in Journalism

Democracy Now! — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 13:00:00 +0000

Democracy Now! co-host Juan González recently spoke at the Columbia School of Journalism in the first of three “farewell” speeches in New York before he moves to Chicago. Juan will also be speaking in New York on Friday, December 9, at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and Monday, December 12, at the CUNY Grad Center. In his speech at the Columbia School of Journalism, Juan talked about his atypical journalism career and his years as a student activist and organizer with the Young Lords. Juan said, “I have been grappling now for more than 50 years — initially as an activist, then for decades as a journalist and a student of history — with the burning issue of how oppressed and marginalized people can best create and disseminate a narrative that truly reflects their lives, not just accepting the simple-minded, stereotypical and often denigrating narratives of them fashioned by those with greater power and wealth.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Angela Davis on UC Strike, Abolition, Palestine & Lessons on a Life Fighting Racial Capitalism

Democracy Now! — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 13:00:00 +0000

A web-only discussion with Angela Davis, the world-renowned abolitionist, author and activist. Davis reflects on her remarkable life and struggles ahead. Davis recently released a new edition of her 1974 autobiography, first published and edited by Toni Morrison nearly 50 years ago. The book details Davis’s early life, from growing up in a section of Birmingham, Alabama, known as Dynamite Hill due to the frequency of bombings by the Ku Klux Klan, to her work with the Black Panther Party and the U.S. Communist Party. It also follows her 16-month incarceration, during which she faced the death penalty and was eventually acquitted on all charges, which influenced Davis’s focus thereafter on transforming the criminal justice system and building a movement for abolition.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Richard Wright’s Legacy of Exposing Racial Violence Honored on Anniversary of Elaine Massacre in Arkansas

Democracy Now! — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 12:00:00 +0000

In Part 2 of our our interview about the 103rd anniversary of the 1919 Elaine massacre, which was commemorated this weekend, we continue our conversation with Julia Wright, daughter of the acclaimed Black author Richard Wright, who called Elaine home and wrote about his great-uncle Silas Hoskins’s lynching in Elaine three years prior in 1916. We also speak with Paul Ortiz, historian at the University of Florida, about one of the worst racial massacres in U.S. history, when white mobs in Arkansas killed over 200 African Americans. After the massacre, no white attackers were prosecuted, but 12 Black union members convicted of riot-related charges were sentenced to death. The NAACP challenged their conviction, and in a landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 2 that their 14th Amendment right to due process had been violated, leading to their release.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.

New Report Highlights Persistent Racial Disparities Among Wrongful Convictions

Dani Selby — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 16:27:27 +0000

A new report on race and wrongful convictions has confirmed some alarming racial disparities in the criminal legal system.

Entitled “Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022,” the report, which analyzes exonerations for murder, sexual assault, and drug crimes since 1989, was published today by the National Registry of Exonerations — a research project of three universities that documents and studies exonerations and wrongful convictions.

To date, the registry has documented more than 3,200 people exonerations in the last 33 years, and more than half of those people are Black, according to the new study.

“The report really shows the depth of the belief that race is a proxy for criminality in the criminal legal system,” Innocence Project Executive Director Christina Swarns told Yahoo News.

While the study examined data from exonerees of all races, national criminal justice statistics are not complete or accurate enough to allow for meaningful systematic comparisons of wrongly convicted Latinx people, Asian Americans, Indigenous people, and other populations. But the report’s findings on disparities in wrongful conviction between white and Black Americans are damning, and reflect what we’ve seen in our work at the Innocence Project.

While Black people make up just 13.6% of the U.S. population, they accounted for 53% of exonerated people. Similarly, of the approximately 240 people the Innocence Project has helped free or exonerate, 58% are Black.

“It’s hard to wrap your head around how much of a failure this is that we have jurisdictions that fail people this spectacularly, and then refuse to acknowledge it and then refuse to sort of make it right … The weight of all of that and the burden of trying to correct all of that is carried by my clients, which is insane to be charitable,” added Ms. Swarns.

The National Registry of Exonerations’ report highlighted particularly shocking disparities between races among wrongful drug convictions. About 69% of people exonerated from drug crimes were Black and 16% were white, despite studies showing that white and Black people use illegal drugs at similar rates. And of the nearly 260 people who were exonerated in individual cases in which they were deliberately framed for drug crimes by corrupt police officers, 87% were Black.

“The report really shows the depth of the belief that race is a proxy for criminality in the criminal legal system.”

Besides these individual cases, another 2,975 innocent people have been exonerated en masse in large-scale scandals involving police deliberately framing people for drug crimes. These large-scale group exonerations are mostly considered separate from the National Registry of Exonerations’ main tally of exonerated individuals because they were exonerated in groups based on patterns of misconduct that were uncovered, as opposed to investigations into individual cases resulting in individual exonerations. Among those whose names were cleared in these group exonerations, the overwhelming majority of these people were Black.

“Of the many costs that the War on Drugs inflicts on the Black community, the practice of deliberately charging innocent defendants with fabricated crimes may be the most shameful,” wrote University of Michigan Law Professor Samuel Gross, lead author of “Race and Wrongful Convictions 2022” and senior editor of the National Registry of Exonerations, in a statement.

Racial profiling plays a large part in the disproportionate number of Black people wrongly convicted of drug crimes. While many wrongful drug convictions are the result of unreliable or defective drug tests, police officers are more likely to stop and search Black and brown people for suspected drug crimes and subject them to these flawed tests.

In 2017, the National Registry of Exonerations published a similar report examining racial disparities among wrongful convictions and, unfortunately, this recent report confirmed that many of the same disparities persist. Five years ago, the organization found that innocent Black people were seven times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder than innocent white people. The new report found that those odds have worsened slightly since, with Black people now being 7.5 times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder and eight times more likely to be wrongly convicted of rape than white people.

Many factors contribute to these disproportionate figures, including cognitive biases, higher homicide rates in some Black communities, frequent misidentification of Black suspects by white victims (know as cross-racial identification), and outright racism — according to the report.

Based on the rate of wrongful conviction among death sentences, the National Registry of Exonerations estimates that most innocent people convicted of crimes have not yet been exonerated, and that the number of innocent people behind bars likely numbers in the hundreds of thousands. The organization approximates that more than half of people not yet exonerated for murder are Black.

This compelling data is exactly why the Innocence Project works to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone.

The post New Report Highlights Persistent Racial Disparities Among Wrongful Convictions appeared first on Innocence Project.

This content originally appeared on Innocence Project and was authored by Dani Selby.

‘High prevalence’ of racial harassment in NZ workplace, says new research

APR editor — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 01:17:25 +0000

RNZ News

Māori, Pasifika, Asian, as well as disabled and bisexual employees, are disproportionately affected by bullying and harassment in workplaces in Aotearoa New Zealand, according to new research out today.

More than a third of respondents to a Human Rights Commission survey say they have experienced some form of harassment at work in the past five years.

In the report, Experiences of Workplace Bullying and Harassment in Aotearoa New Zealand, 39 percent of people said they had been racially harassed at work.

Also, 30 percent reported being sexually harassed and 20 percent bullied.

Māori, Pacific Peoples, and Asian workers, as well as disabled workers, and bisexual workers were disproportionately affected.

The nationwide study found that 24 percent of those who reported being mistreated, raised a formal complaint.

Experiences of Workplace Bullying and Harassment in Aotearoa New Zealand report, 29 August 2022. Image: Human Rights Commission/RNZ

Researchers said the 2500 workers involved in the survey in May and June provided a representative picture of the population.

‘Disappointed’ in the harassment
Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Saunoamaali’i Karanina Sumeo told RNZ Morning Report she was disappointed to see a “high prevalence” of racial harassment in the workplace.

She said the study looked at different industries.

“Healthcare seems to be the one that goes right across in terms of high prevalence of racial harassment, sexual harassment and bullying.

“In healthcare, you’ve got huge power dynamic. So the majority of people who perpetrate these behaviours occupy a more senior role to the victim. In those really hierarchical occupations, there’s a high risk of abuse of power.”

Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner Saunoamaali’i Karanina Sumeo. Image: HRC/RNZ

More young people reported being harassed in the hospitality and accommodation industry.

“It depends on the industry. It’s insane in terms for men [in] construction, manufacturing, communications … for women [it is] the health sector, and the public sector generally,” Sumeo said.

“This is real and it’s a shared suffering,” and it was important for people facing these circumstances to know that they were not exaggerating, she said.

‘No definition’ in laws
“We don’t have a definition of bullying in our laws at the moment and it’s really important that we have that. So myself, the Human Rights Commission, the unions and others are calling on government to ratify our ILO 190, which gives us the ability to identify and then we can allocate resources.”

She also called on the government to look at compensation laws “in terms of recognition and compensation and support to go to people who are suffering bullying and sexual harassment and racial harassment”.

Read the Experiences of Workplace Bullying and Harassment in Aotearoa New Zealand report.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

IFJ condemns Solomons threat to ban ‘disrespectful’ foreign journalists on China

APR editor — Fri, 26 Aug 2022 08:37:53 +0000

Pacific Media Watch newsdesk

The Solomon Islands government has threatened to ban or deport foreign journalists “disrespectful” of the country’s relationship with China, according to a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office this week.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned this “grave infringement on press freedom” and has called on Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to ensure all journalists remain free to report on the Solomon Islands.

In the detailed statement, the office of the Prime Minister Sogavare on August 24 criticised foreign media for failing to abide by the standards expected of journalists writing and reporting about the affairs of the Solomons Islands.

The government warned it would implement swift measures to prevent journalists who were not “respectful” or “courteous” from entering the country.

The statement specifically targeted an August 1 episode of Four Corners, an investigative documentary series by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

The report, entitled Pacific Capture, was accused of “racial profiling” and intentionally using “misinformation” in its recent coverage of the growing influence of China in the Solomon Islands.

“ABC or other foreign media must understand that the manner in which journalists are allowed to conduct themselves in other (countries) does not give them the right to operate in the same manner in the Pacific,” the statement read.

Journalists could be blocked from Solomon islands. Video: ABC News

‘Pacific not same as the US’
“The Pacific is not the same as Australia or United States. When you chose to come to our Pacific Islands, be respectful, be courteous and accord the appropriate protocols,” the statement continued.

On August 24, ABC rejected the claim that the Four Corners programme included “misinformation and distribution of pre-conceived prejudicial information”, with the episode’s main interviewees including two prominent Solomon Islanders.

Solomon Islands has been the subject of global controversy following the signing of a wide-ranging deal with China in April to strengthen Solomon Islands’ national security and address issues of climate change.

On August 1, the government ordered the national radio and television broadcaster SIBC to censor any reports critical of the government, a major blow to press freedom.

Currently, journalists intending to enter Solomon Islands can apply for a visa on arrival. The statement did not reveal how the new restrictions would be enforced nor to whom they would apply.

“The statement released by the office of Prime Minister Sogavare is extremely concerning and, if actioned, will pose a critical threat to press freedom,” the IFJ said.

“The IFJ strongly condemns the threats made by the Solomon Islands government and urges the country to respect the right of all journalists to freedom of expression.”

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Biden’s Student Debt Plan Is an Important Step Towards Narrowing the Racial Wealth Divide

Sarah Anderson, Brian Wakamo — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 16:41:50 +0000

President Biden’s student debt plan will provide relief to some 43 million borrowers of all races—and it is a particularly important step towards narrowing the racial wealth divide.

Black graduates also face greater challenges in paying off their student debt because of the systemic racism in education, employment, housing, and other areas that creates economic disadvantages.

The student debt crisis has disproportionately affected Black families, exacerbating racial inequalities. On average, Black students have to take out larger loans to get through college than their White peers. A National Center for Education Statistics study reveals that Black Bachelor’s degree graduates have 13 percent more student debt and Black Associate’s degree graduates have 26 percent more than White graduates with those degrees.

Black women have the largest student debt burdens of all. Those who received bachelor’s degrees in 2015-2016 have average student debts of $37,558, compared to $31,346 for White women, according to a 2020 analysis by the American Association of University Women analysis of a 2017 U.S. Department of Education survey.

Black graduates also face greater challenges in paying off their student debt because of the systemic racism in education, employment, housing, and other areas that creates economic disadvantages. Black Bachelor’s degree and Associate’s degree holders earn 27 percent and 14 percent lower incomes, respectively, than Whites with the same degree.

Institute for Policy Studies analysis of Federal Reserve data shows that while the racial wealth gap has improved slightly, an estimated 28 percent of Black households and 26 percent of Latino households had zero or “negative” wealth in 2019 — twice the level of Whites. Families that have zero or negative wealth (meaning the value of their debts exceeds the value of their assets) live on the edge, just one minor economic setback away from crisis.

As a result of these economic disparities, Brandeis University researchers have found dramatic racial differences in long-term debt burdens. Black and White students who enrolled in college in 1995 took out relatively similar amounts of student loans: $19,500 for Black people, and $16,300 for White people. Twenty years later, the Black graduates had on average only been able to pay down 5 percent of their total amount owed, while Whites had on average been able to pay off 94 percent of the amounts they owed.

Debt cancellation will be a boost not only for borrowers, but the economy as a whole. Research by the Federal Reserve and the Levy Economics Institute shows that once former debt holders are freed up from these financial burdens, they will have more buying power to help spur economic recovery.

President Biden’s plan will provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients with loans held by the Department of Education and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients. Pell Grants are needs-based financial assistance. According to the White House, about 94 percent of Pell Grant recipients came from a family that made less than $60,000 a year and 66 percent made less than $30,000.

Borrowers are eligible for relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples). No one who ranks in the top 5 percent of U.S. incomes will receive benefits under the plan. The plan also includes several other provisions to make student loans more manageable, such as capping monthly payments for undergraduate loans at 5 percent of a borrower’s discretionary income — half the rate that most borrowers now pay.

Much more needs to be done to reduce remaining debt burdens and prevent future students from accumulating new unpayable debt loads. In a statement, the White House admitted as much, vowing to continue working to lower tuition costs by increasing the size of Pell grants and making community college free. But Biden’s action is a welcome step to help millions of people meet their basic needs and build the generational wealth that has been elusive for so many Americans, particularly Black families.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Sarah Anderson, Brian Wakamo.

The U.S. Needs a National Plan for Racial Justice

Ejim Dike — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 17:11:48 +0000

As the United States testifies before the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the lack of progress since 2020 on racial justice is glaring.

This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Ejim Dike.

Why the Great Migration Did Little to Bridge the Racial Divide

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad – Briana Shelton — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 05:45:22 +0000

August 3, 2022 by Dedrick Asante-Muhammad – Briana Shelton

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad is Chief of Membership, Policy and Equity at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. Briana Shelton as an NCRC Intern.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dedrick Asante-Muhammad – Briana Shelton.

In Debate Over Chicago’s Speed Cameras, Concerns Over Safety, Racial Disparities Collide

by Melissa Sanchez and Emily Hopkins — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 09:00:00 +0000

by Melissa Sanchez and Emily Hopkins

As Chicago’s City Council debates whether to rein in a controversial expansion of the city’s speed camera ticketing program, elected officials are wrestling with whether the devices have improved traffic safety enough to justify their financial burden on Black and Latino motorists.

It’s a difficult, complex question, and it comes at a moment when the city has witnessed a series of high-profile fatal traffic crashes — including several involving children.

In this context, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is defending her policy lowering the threshold for speeding tickets from 10 mph over the limit to 6. The lowered threshold, which comes with $35 tickets and went into effect in March 2021, is projected to bring in some $40 million to $45 million in revenue this year. (Previously, the city issued $35 tickets to motorists caught speeding 10 mph over the limit and $100 tickets for those caught at higher speeds.)

The City Council is expected to vote this month on a measure proposed by Alderman Anthony Beale, who represents a ward on the South Side, to repeal the lowered threshold.

Beale and his allies say the mayor’s move was a cash grab that comes at the expense of motorists who can least afford it. Lightfoot and those who support maintaining the lowered threshold say they are motivated by safety.

ProPublica’s reporting has helped inform the debate. Since 2018, we have reported on how Chicago’s ticketing system — including parking, compliance and automated red-light and speed camera citations — disproportionately hurt Black motorists, sending tens of thousands into bankruptcy.

In January, we reported on how households in Black and Latino ZIP codes received camera tickets at about twice the rate of those in white ZIP codes. That reporting was primarily based on an analysis of data on red-light and speed camera citations issued between 2015 and 2019, but we also examined tickets issued to motorists going 6 to 9 mph over the speed limit in the first two months of the program’s expansion. Racial disparities persisted.

ProPublica identified some road design and neighborhood-based differences that seem to contribute to the disparities in ticketing, such as wider streets with more lanes that lend themselves to speeding in areas with higher proportions of Black and Latino residents.

A study from the University of Illinois at Chicago released in January found similar racial disparities in camera ticketing in addition to a greater financial burden from late penalties on households in low-income Black and Latino neighborhoods. The study also found a 15% reduction in the expected number of crashes leading to fatal and incapacitating injuries during a three-year period after cameras were installed.

Beale’s motion passed out of the Finance Committee in June; when a vote was scheduled for the full City Council, Lightfoot’s allies used a parliamentary maneuver to postpone it, reportedly to buy time to kill it. It’s now expected to go to the City Council on July 20. If it’s approved, Lightfoot is expected to veto the measure, which would be a first for her administration.

Given all this, here are a few important points to consider as the City Council weighs whether to change the program:

1. There has been no extensive analysis of the safety benefits of the lowered threshold for issuing speeding tickets.

City officials pointed to the UIC research on the safety effects of the speed cameras as a reason to keep the lower threshold in place. That study, however, covers a time period before the lowered threshold took effect.

In response to questions, city Department of Transportation officials said that the average recorded speeds of all vehicles passing by cameras dropped about 1 mph and the number of tickets issued to drivers going 11 mph or more over the limit has also dropped since the change. In addition, the city said there is preliminary evidence that the number of injury-producing crashes near cameras has decreased since the threshold was implemented. These changes, the city said, reflect a “collective slowing down of vehicles.”

2. The city has not acted on some of the UIC research, which it commissioned.

Stacey Sutton and Nebiyou Tilahun, both of UIC’s College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, found that the safety benefits from the speed cameras were not universal. At 16 of the 101 camera sites studied, researchers observed what they called a “marked” increase in crashes over what would have been expected had the devices not been installed at those locations.

They recommended that, where cameras have not reduced crashes, the city move the devices to other locations or turn them off, and that it examine the decision-making process it uses to choose where to put them.

That process is ongoing, the city said. “We are obligated to perform an empirical and thoughtful process, before abruptly removing a safety tool from our streets,” city officials said in a statement. “With that said, we have not ruled out moving or eliminating cameras and are prepared to make changes to the program in the near future.” In January, city officials had told ProPublica they would not consider reducing the number of the speed cameras in the program.

Sutton said she was disappointed the city had not yet acted on the recommendations. “The cameras do improve safety,” she said, “but they don’t all improve safety all of the time.”

The city said it did respond to the UIC findings on racial disparities. Before the report was published, the mayor rolled out a program that offers low-income motorists some debt forgiveness if they sign up for a plan to pay off some of their recently accrued citations, minus any late penalties.

3. Nationally, cities are looking at Chicago — and learning from its mistakes.

“The numbers [showing racial disparities] are stark and awful, and it’s a warning sign to many of us to think differently and to step back,” said Leah Shahum, the founder and executive director of Vision Zero Network, a national nonprofit group that helps communities set and reach the goals of eliminating traffic fatalities and severe injuries. “We are asking the question: Are we thinking of unintentional consequences?”

She pointed to examples of cities and states on the West Coast that have tried to incorporate equity and infrastructure into their camera programs. In Washington state, for example, lawmakers require cities with new speed camera programs to direct some of the ticket revenue toward improving safety for pedestrians, cyclists and people with disabilities. In addition, state law requires cities that install new speed cameras to produce an equity report at the end of a pilot period.

In California, lawmakers have considered — but not passed — legislation that would allow some cities to try speed camera programs as long as equity is taken into account in the placement of the devices, among other restrictions. The only way cities could maintain cameras is if they could be shown to improve safety through a reduction in the number of tickets issued.

Concerns about racial equity in automated camera enforcement have been picking up across the country and even internationally since the ProPublica and UIC reports. In February, the nonprofit transportation news site Streetsblog New York examined New York City’s camera enforcement program, raising questions about inequities in infrastructure and ticketing that are similar to those in Chicago.

In Toronto, transportation safety advocates supported a measure this winter to require the city to conduct an equity analysis after an expansion of that city’s speed camera program. That initiative, which was ultimately withdrawn, aimed to ensure the automated enforcement did not “result in over policing of racialized communities and people,” according to the measure’s language.

Meanwhile, Priya Sarathy Jones, national policy and campaigns director with the nonprofit Fines and Fees Justice Center, said she’s been getting calls from more and more cities that are interested in camera enforcement as an alternative to potentially biased police officers making traffic stops.

“We’re also seeing that there’s a lot more acknowledgement that it’s not a straightforward solution,” she said. “We’re getting questions about how and if we can implement an equitable automated enforcement program, and if you can, what does that look like?”

4. Traffic safety and racial equity advocates agree there needs to be more emphasis — and money spent — on making streets and infrastructure safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.

Olatunji Oboi Reed, the president and CEO of Equiticity, a Chicago-based racial equity in transportation organization, supports repealing the lowered speeding threshold because it would reduce the volume of tickets to Black and Latino motorists.

Instead of relying on a punitive strategy, Reed said, “what the city should be doing is reengineering our streets to reduce traffic violence and reduce the need for automated enforcement.”

Groups that have long supported speed camera ticketing also want to see a larger focus on the underlying infrastructure.

“What Chicago really needs is a citywide approach to redesign dangerous streets and add life-saving infrastructure that protects people when walking and biking and makes the street safer for everyone,” Kyle Whitehead, a spokesperson for the Active Transportation Alliance, a local road safety advocacy group, said in a statement.

Although Active Transportation initially spoke out against the lowered threshold, saying it was unclear how low-income and minority motorists would be affected, it now wants to keep the lower threshold in place. “High-crash streets in majority Black and Brown neighborhoods should be prioritized for safety improvements to ensure rates of speeding decline and residents in these areas are not overburdened with fines,” Whitehead said.

Sutton, one of the researchers behind the UIC report, said the city should spend the ticket revenue it’s getting from the lowered threshold on infrastructure and traffic-calming measures, including reducing the number of lanes, installing speed bumps and adding signs that tell motorists how fast they’re going.

We don’t actually know exactly how that revenue is spent. The city is limited by state law in how it can use the money it gets from speed camera tickets; police spending accounts for the vast majority of what’s allowed, according to budget documents. But city officials said they could not provide a breakdown of how the additional revenue from the lowered threshold is spent.

The city said it has made significant investments in pedestrian infrastructure during Lightfoot’s administration. Officials pointed to her capital infrastructure plan, which provides $20 million a year for programming aimed at eliminating traffic fatalities and injuries, and an average of 400 pedestrian safety improvements installed a year. The city also plans to install 100 more of those digital speed signs near speed cameras this year.

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This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Melissa Sanchez and Emily Hopkins.

We Need Racial Solidarity to Restore Abortion Rights

Loretta J. Ross — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 07:55:21 +0000

The Supreme Court’s ruling overturning the right to an abortion is an act of White supremacy. But not in the way you might think.

I’ve heard many complaints from women of color about how the ruling targets them and how the Whiteness of the pro-choice movement is to blame for the loss of reproductive rights. I reject these complaints for a specific reason.

The restrictions on birth control, sex education, and abortion are about coercing White women into having more babies. The architects of these restrictions are not scheming for more Brown or Black babies to be born. Nothing they’ve ever done indicates that they care about the survival of Black and Brown children.

Instead, their restrictions on abortion, birth control, and sex education are consistently aimed at increasing births among White women, not people of color.

Therefore, it is racially consistent and appropriate for it to be White women on the front lines of arguing for abortion rights, because it is White women’s wombs and their White children that are the commodities in this fight, as the June 24 Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade makes clear.

The Dobbs v. Jackson ruling is the new Dred Scott, but along the axis of gender instead of race, that confers second-class citizenship on specific groups of people in this country, namely women and all people capable of becoming pregnant.

The Supreme Court’s Decision Promotes Eugenics

The walls between reproductive politics and White supremacist ideology are paper-thin; I am not sure that there is even separation between them. The politics of abortion revolve around the role White supremacy plays in trying to manage the reproduction of different racialized populations—discouraging and preventing reproduction from some populations, while forcing it in another.

This fascistic, eugenical thinking that led to the Nazi Holocaust against Jews and other vulnerable people during World War II has never retreated; it just regrouped under new euphemisms, like “protecting the unborn.” We see eugenics resurging in today’s SCOTUS decision, a ruling that also tees up attacks on contraception, queer people, immigrants, and all vulnerable populations.

By asserting that abortion bans are aimed at White women, I don’t mean that vulnerable populations, such as Black, Indigenous, and people of color and LGBTQIA+ people, will be exempt from harm. Yes, we will be injured—disproportionately so—as we are always harmed by racist and sexist policies, because it is anticipated that Black deaths from abortion restrictions may increase by 33%. We are not the primary targets of the restrictions; we are collateral damage.

As I explained in a 2004 book I co-wrote, Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice, our Black feminist theories of intersectionality and reproductive justice have predicted this attack on human rights for decades, ever since the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, which outlawed segregation. That was the first major judicial setback for the promoters of White supremacy, who have been systematically organizing ever since, because they recognize that a “one man, one vote” democracy would not permanently protect White supremacy as the dominant framework for laws of the land. We should expect continuing attacks on the 14th Amendment, which provides citizenship rights for everyone who is not a White male, to follow this unprecedented rollback to 19th-century standards of who counts as an American. Perhaps women’s 19th Amendment voting rights will follow.

The White supremacists’ demographic nightmare is that people of color are poised to outnumber whites by 2045. “Respectable” racists like Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson sound the alarm about “White replacement” theories that lead to violent vigilantes massacring Black, Indigenous, Jewish, Muslim, and Latino people, such as the mass shooting of Black people in Buffalo, New York.

The Supreme Court Ruling is in Fact About Enslavement

Let’s be clear about what the Supreme Court ruling means. I’ve heard some people, including White women, say forced pregnancy is analogous to slavery—a statement others consider racist.

In fact, I think the analogy is appropriate. Anytime you are forced to submit your body to the improvement of someone else’s well-being, it is an enslavement. While every historic genocidal horror has its own specific characteristics, there are some consistencies across the board: the unequal treatment of human beings, the wanton disregard for life, the disregard for the human rights of the people who are vulnerable, and the manipulation of bodies for the enrichment of a privileged population.

People are risking death in childbirth, not to mention the years of sacrifice that go into raising a child. Caring for others should be a choice if it involves sacrificing your body and risking your life. This overturning of Roe is the unwarranted imprisonment, killing, and coercion of people to achieve state-sanctioned goals, and, in that particular way, the slavery analogy works on abortion bans. It even extends to the role of bounty hunters in Texas’ abortion ban SB 8, not unlike the fugitive slave catchers of a century ago.

Black people have rarely had the luxury of believing the U.S. jurisprudence system was going to lead to our liberation. In fact, we have been disabused of that hope too many times when the Supreme Court has denied us our human rights. I’ve always maintained that U.S. laws upholding human rights are only as good as the social movements that support them. We need, therefore, to make sure our social movements are clear in our agendas and that we have solidarity with each other.

Here’s How We Fight Back

We’re going to do whatever is necessary to save women’s lives.

We will continue to do what we always have done, which is to center the most vulnerable people in our communities and to make sure they have access to the services they need, whether via paying for abortions through our abortion funds, providing safe transport, protecting human rights defenders, or creating a black market for abortion pills.

We will rely on others to participate in the struggle with us—or at least get the hell out of the way so we can do what we need to do.

I’m disheartened by the infighting I see within the reproductive justice movement. It leads me to wonder whether we can use “calling in” practices of the kind I train people in via my online courses, to bring all defenders of abortion rights together.

White supremacy is the ideological driver of reproductive politics, and to resist the social engineering the Supreme Court ruling engenders, we’re going to have to call each other in to understand the simultaneities of our struggles. Instead of critiquing the predictable Whiteness of the movement, we can sophisticate our analyses to recognize the actual appropriateness of the Whiteness of the movement. Simplistic racial optics are not what we need at this time. We need to stay focused on defeating the opponents to all human rights as the real threats to our survival.

Fascism is definitely in our future unless we work together in these tumultuous times.

A version of this article originally appeared in Yes! Magazine.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Loretta J. Ross.

Organizing across racial and class divides in rural North Carolina

The Real News Network — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 19:02:08 +0000

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.

“His Name Is George Floyd”: Two Years After Police Murder, His Life & the Struggle for Racial Justice

Democracy Now! — Mon, 23 May 2022 12:28:21 +0000

This week marks the second anniversary of the police murder of George Floyd. We speak with Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, who have just published an in-depth new book, “His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” that tells the story of structural racism in the U.S. through Floyd’s own story. “This is an American story. It shows how American poverty works, how American wealth works, and George Floyd was on the wrong side of the line because of the color of his skin,” says Toluse. “He was living in a world where he was trying to get better, but there weren’t a lot of supports to do it,” says Roberts. “It’s important for us not to leave behind the millions of other George Floyds that are operating in silence, not getting the same attention, and who are experiencing some of the same struggles and troubles that he did during his life.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Help Us Investigate Racial Disparities in Arizona’s Child Welfare System

by Eli Hager and Asia Fields — Wed, 11 May 2022 15:00:00 +0000

by Eli Hager and Asia Fields

Reporters at ProPublica and NBC News are conducting research on Arizona’s child protective services agency (the Department of Child Safety, or DCS) and how it investigates Black families in the Phoenix area at a higher rate than white families. We would like to hear directly from people who have been affected by this issue.

We’re especially interested in speaking with Black families who have had any interaction with DCS, which used to be called Child Protective Services, or CPS. We’d also like to hear from others who know about this topic, such as educators and community organizers.

We know this can be difficult to talk about. We appreciate you sharing your story, and we take your privacy seriously. It is important to us. We are gathering these stories for the purposes of our reporting, and we will contact you if we wish to publish any part.

Filling out the short questionnaire below will help us shine a light on the important issue of racial disparities in Arizona’s child protective services system.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Eli Hager and Asia Fields.

Why Canceling Student Debt Is a Matter of Racial Justice

Sonali Kolhatkar — Tue, 10 May 2022 08:56:48 +0000

Photograph Source: Sarah Mirk – CC BY 2.0

“If America has a cold, then the Black community has the flu,” said India Walton, explaining how the burden of student debt is disproportionately borne by African Americans. Walton, who famously campaigned on a socialist platform to beat a Democratic incumbent in last year’s mayoral primary race in Buffalo, New York, is now a senior strategic organizer with RootsAction.org leading the organization’s “Without Student Debt” campaign. “Forty-seven million Americans carry student debt, but the burden of the debt falls disproportionately on Black and Brown people,” she said.

According to the Education Data Initiative, out of the 47 million Americans that Walton cited, about 92 percent of them (43 million Americans) have borrowed more than $1.6 trillion from the U.S. government in order to access higher education. The average federal loan size per borrower is $37,113, but when factoring in loans from private borrowers, that number rises to more than $40,000.

Because of how the income and wealth gap is so starkly delineated along racial lines, it’s not at all surprising that Black and Brown students are disproportionately represented among student borrowers. Women are also the majority of borrowers. Those at the intersection of race and gender are most impacted. “The average Black woman carries more than $35,000 in student debt,” said Walton.

The simple reason why nearly one-third of all undergraduates borrow money from the federal government in order to attend college or university is that the cost of higher education has risen dramatically. According to one in-depth analysis, it has risen nearly five times faster than inflation over the past half-century. And, if the price tag of higher education were in line with inflation, it would cost only about $10,000 or $20,000 per year to attend a public or private four-year school, respectively. Instead, while public universities are still relatively less pricey, private schools can cost upward of $50,000 a year.

Since wages haven’t kept up with the skyrocketing costs of higher education, student debt has ballooned as borrowers are unable to pay back the loans. It’s no wonder that some people consider suicide as they face the grim prospects of being unable to pay back tens of thousands of dollars.

It turns out that student debt, just like medical debt or the inability to pay increasing rents, is just another feature of a capitalist, market-driven system designed to ensure the health of Wall Street over the wellness of people. And—it bears repeating—those financial stresses affect people of color the most. “It’s a stain on this, the wealthiest nation in the world, that we are not even able to provide basic services to our people,” said Walton.

Meanwhile, since his election, President Joe Biden has tantalized debt-burdened Americans with indications that he might keep his campaign promises of forgiving federal student loans. His initial campaign promise of forgiving $50,000 in loans was dramatically downgraded to only $10,000. Walton said, “what we’re asking for, what we’re demanding, is that all federally guaranteed student debt be canceled,” not just a portion.

Corporate media outlets are predictably doing their part to help Biden water down the idea of debt forgiveness. Even though only a minority of Americans feel that it is unfair to forgive the loans of some people because others have found ways to pay them back, media outlets have elevated this talking point.

Walton said this argument is “not valid.” Citing the high cost of colleges and low wages, she said, “we’re just not in the same economic conditions as people were, who seem to tout having paid off their student loan[s].”

Additionally, some media pundits are labeling the demand to erase student debt as a radical idea, akin to “Defund the Police,” or “Abolish ICE” (none of these are in fact radical). David Frum writing in the Atlantic claimed that the call to erase student debt is a “trap” laid for Biden by leftist activists. He bizarrely compared it to the right-wing culture wars being waged by GOP leaders like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.

How is DeSantis’ targeting of transgender youth to win political points from his rabidly homophobic and transphobic voter base anything like Biden erasing the student debt of 43 million Americans? If anything, the GOP may be opposed to debt forgiveness precisely because such a move would benefit disproportionately impacted Black and Brown people.

Americans are worried about the state of the economy, and are blaming Biden for it. In such a context, student debt forgiveness is a no-brainer. Not only would it amount to a retroactive government subsidy for higher education—a far more constructive use of tax dollars than, say, the fossil fuel industry—it would also amount to an economic stimulus. With fewer loan payments to make, borrowers would have more income freed up to spend on necessities. At a time of high inflation, any extra income helps household finances.

As prospects for Democrats to hold on to their slim House and Senate majorities in the November midterms appear grim, it would seem to be an obvious electoral tactic, if not a morally sound decision, to forgive the student debt that has hampered the lives of so many people, and especially Black and Brown Americans. Polls show there is overwhelming supportfor doing so.

The response from the GOP does not go beyond the now-cliché label of “socialism” to describe debt forgiveness. Republicans are also claiming that Biden lacks the legal right to cancel the debt via executive order—a laughable position in light of former President Donald Trump’s constant executive overreach. But, in response to Republicans introducing a recent bill to thwart Biden’s executive authority to cancel student debt, analystshave pointed out that the Republican Party has inadvertently admitted that the president does indeed have the legal standing to do so.

“The Higher Education Act of 1964 gives the president the power to direct his secretary of education to cancel debt broadly,” said Walton. Indeed, for the past two years, Biden has used this same authority to pause the repayment of federal student debt in light of pandemic-related financial hardships.

Still, that hasn’t stopped Obama-era Education Department general counsel Charlie Rose from claiming that presidential action to erase student debt is legally questionable and suggesting that loan servicing companies might sue the administration.

“I’m concerned,” said Walton. “I don’t know what the reason for not [doing] broad cancellation [of debt] would be.” Republicans never seem to waver in their singular focus on ensuring that wealth flows upward and into the hands of wealthy white elites. And Democrats, far too often, fail to provide a countervailing force in the other direction.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sonali Kolhatkar.

Why Canceling Student Debt Is a Matter of Racial Justice

Sonali Kolhatkar — Tue, 10 May 2022 08:56:48 +0000

Photograph Source: Sarah Mirk – CC BY 2.0

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sonali Kolhatkar.

Black Land Theft and the Racial Wealth Divide

Tykeisa Nesbitt — Mon, 09 May 2022 08:44:16 +0000

At the beginning of the 20th century, African Americans owned at least 14 million acres of land. By the 21st century, 90 percent of the land had been stolen from them. Now, African Americans only own 1.1 million acres of farmland and are part owners of another 1.07 million acres. Across a century, white farmers More

The post Black Land Theft and the Racial Wealth Divide appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Tykeisa Nesbitt.

Reproductive Justice Is Racial Justice: Abortion Doctor & Activist Vow to Fight On

Democracy Now! — Wed, 04 May 2022 14:46:23 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Reproductive Justice Is Racial Justice: Abortion Doctor & Activist Facing Deportation Vow to Fight On

Democracy Now! — Wed, 04 May 2022 12:17:22 +0000

As the leaked opinion showing the Supreme Court plans to overturn Roe v. Wade sparks protests across the United States, we speak to an abortion doctor and a reproductive rights activist facing deportation about what is next. “We will keep fighting for us to have abortions that are safe, legal and accessible to everyone, no matter where you are, no matter where you’re coming from and no matter what your income,” says community organizer Alejandra Pablos, noting the decision could have particularly disastrous effects on already vulnerable undocumented immigrants and border communities in Arizona. “People should be able to access abortion care as part of the general healthcare that a pregnant person or any other person would seek,” says gynecologist Dr. DeShawn Taylor about how criminalizing abortion affects medical professionals in the field, especially her clinic Desert Star Family Planning, one of the only abortion clinics in Arizona.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

To achieve racial justice we must rebuild the world – and save the planet

Aaron White, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 00:02:00 +0000

Olúfémi Táíwò argues that reparations for slavery and colonialism must include saving the earth from climate catastrophe

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Aaron White, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò.

EPA to investigate racial discrimination in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’

Diana Kruzman — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 10:45:00 +0000

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is looking into complaints that Louisiana’s health and environmental agencies discriminated against Black residents when reviewing air pollution permits.

The two complaints, filed in January on behalf of community groups and the Sierra Club, accuse the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, or LDEQ, of allowing several facilities – including a chemical complex, a plastics plant, and a proposed grain terminal – to operate without updated permits and release dangerous levels of air pollution, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported. One complaint also contends that the Louisiana Department of Health failed to provide residents living near the chemical complex, Denka Performance Elastomer, in St. John the Baptist Parish with information about the health effects of chloroprene, a byproduct of neoprene rubber production which the EPA says is “likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”

The complaints allege that these plants have discharged “excessive levels” of carcinogenic chemicals in an industrial corridor with some of the nation’s highest cancer risk and a majority-Black population. According to the EPA’s EJScreen tool, nearly every census tract between Baton Rouge and New Orleans — an area environmentalists call “Cancer Alley” — has a higher cancer risk from toxic air pollution than 95 percent of the country. The Denka plant, in particular, is located just half a mile away from Fifth Ward Elementary School, where more than 90 percent of students are Black.

“They are busing Black children from all over the parish into that school, and this plant is poisoning them,” Robert Taylor, whose community group the Concerned Citizens of St. John filed one of the complaints, told a local radio station. “When are they going to do something?”

The EPA will investigate permit approvals for at least seven current and two proposed projects in the area, according to the Associated Press. These facilities are accused of emitting or planning to emit high concentrations of fine particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and carcinogenic chemicals including chloroprene, ethylene oxide benzene, formaldehyde, and ethylene oxide. In doing so, the EPA will determine whether the agencies violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prevents programs receiving federal funding from discriminating on the basis of “race, color, or national origin.”

The Louisiana agencies acknowledged the complaint and said they will work with the EPA during the investigation. “We believe LDEQ’s permit process, prescribed by state law, is impartial and unbiased,” Gregory Langley, press secretary for the agency, told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. “LDEQ handles all issues with a fair and equitable approach.”

A spokesperson for Denka denied the accusations in the complaints, according to the newspaper, pointing to Louisiana Tumor Registry results that show no widespread elevated cancer rates in St. John the Baptist Parish compared to the state average.

The EPA’s response comes as the Biden administration ramps up enforcement of polluting industries and promotes its commitment to environmental justice. Administrator Michael Regan visited Cancer Alley in November on a tour of environmental justice communities, where low-income residents of color face disproportionate impacts from issues like flooding and toxic pollution, and promised more aggressive monitoring of air pollution in industrial areas across the South.

And this isn’t the first time that the Biden EPA has used its powers to investigate alleged discrimination in state environmental agencies. Last year, the EPA found that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, after environmental and civil rights groups challenged the state agency’s decision to extend an operating permit for a fuel transport site located near a low-income community of color in St. Louis.

“We are grateful that the EPA is taking environmental racism seriously; it has real-world consequences that the Black community in St. John the Baptist Parish has been dealing with for far too long,” Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which filed one of the complaints against the Louisiana agencies, said in a statement to E&E News. “The government must protect its citizens, and this investigation is the first step.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline EPA to investigate racial discrimination in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ on Apr 12, 2022.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Diana Kruzman.

Addressing Racial Inequality in Paid Leave Policy

Rebekah Entralgo — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 07:50:15 +0000

While efforts to secure paid leave benefits are stalled at the federal level, states and cities are moving forward. In the latest victory, the District of Columbia has granted hundreds of thousands of private-sector workers 12 weeks of paid time off, up from a maximum of eight weeks. Across the country, nine states have paid More

The post Addressing Racial Inequality in Paid Leave Policy appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Rebekah Entralgo.

In the fight for racial justice, optimism is not enough

Nasar Meer — Mon, 07 Mar 2022 00:02:00 +0000

Our desire for a better world must not lead us to ignore the fact that inequality is systemic, and ongoing

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Nasar Meer.

The Capitalist Roots of U.S. Racial Oppression

W. T. Whitney — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 09:58:41 +0000

A recent BBC report attributes climate-change damage in Africa to “racialized capitalism.” That confusing term reflects a new understanding of U.S. slavery on the part of many historians. Here the term signifies the commanding role of capitalism in the oppression of Africans and of African-descended peoples in the United States. Racial hatred, by implication, takes on a secondary role as a tool useful for enforcing oppression. More

The post The Capitalist Roots of U.S. Racial Oppression appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by W. T. Whitney.

These Native Hawaiians Waited Years for Homes on Their Ancestral Land. Then the Problems Began.

by Rob Perez, Honolulu Star-Advertiser — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 10:00:00 +0000

by Rob Perez, Honolulu Star-Advertiser

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

When Steven Moniz Jr. and his wife, Sheri, got the keys to their new home in 2013, their kids were so happy that they made “snow angels” on the carpet. It was the first time the couple had ever owned property, and they too were overjoyed.

For years, they had rented an apartment in a low-income housing project on Oahu, unable to afford a house amid the island’s booming real estate market. But then, because Steven is Native Hawaiian, they were able to purchase a new residence at roughly half the going rate through a unique homesteading program created a century ago to return Hawaii’s Indigenous people to their ancestral lands.

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With the help of a federal grant, the Moniz family bought a three-bedroom house for $281,000 in a West Oahu subdivision built specifically for the program. The couple cried at their good fortune, knowing that thousands of other Hawaiians are still waiting for such an opportunity. “For us, it was like tears of joy,” Sheri said.

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The elation didn’t last long.

Within months of moving in, she said, the wall near a window frame in the master bedroom started to swell and mold began growing as water seeped through the frame. Their central air conditioning stopped working. And, when a family member climbed into the attic to inspect the AC system, he discovered that one of the main wood beams supporting the roof was cracked in half.

“How could they have missed that?” Moniz asked.

Dozens of other Native Hawaiian homeowners have found themselves asking similar questions, alleging problems with their new homes, according to a Honolulu Star-Advertiser-ProPublica survey of nearly 80 residents.

The state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, which administers the homesteading program, has the right to inspect new construction under its contracts with builders. But DHHL never inspected the Monizes’ new home or the hundreds like it that cropped up over roughly the past decade in their subdivision and another one nearby. Instead, the agency relied on the developer it hired to inspect the properties and vouch for the quality of the work.

Sheri and Steven Moniz Jr. stand in the cul-de-sac in front of their home. (Cindy Ellen Russell/Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

DHHL is a unique entity: It exists to manage a trust that returns people who are at least 50% Native Hawaiian to their ancestral land, recompense for the government’s history of taking property. And the agency says that inspections conducted by the builder and the city are sufficient to protect the buyers’ interests.

But legal scholars and former DHHL officials disagree with the state agency’s view. They say that as a trustee, DHHL has a heightened legal duty to act in the best interests of Steven Moniz and the thousands of other beneficiaries eligible for homesteads. And by forgoing inspections, they say, the agency is shirking that responsibility, leaving no one who represents only the buyers, some of whom waited decades for homesteads.

“Inviting beneficiaries to put their life savings into homes that the department has never bothered to inspect is not a close question,” said attorney Carl Varady, who along with a colleague has successfully sued the state and DHHL for breach of trust in a separate matter. DHHL “can’t delegate that.”

Moreover, the department has no system in place for tracking complaints once beneficiaries move into their new residences. Instead, DHHL directs homeowners to the private developers who built the homes.

Given questions about the department’s responsibilities to Hawaiians and its approach to construction oversight, the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica undertook to find out how satisfied beneficiary homeowners were. The news organizations canvassed the two most recent homesteading subdivisions in Kapolei, a region of former sugar cane land where much of Oahu’s single-family housing has been built the past several decades. Gentry Kapolei Development began building in one subdivision in 2009, the other in 2018.

Through our survey, we found dozens of homeowners claiming multiple problems with their residences, including some that started within days or months of moving in. Many residents criticized DHHL’s lack of oversight, and some sought help from the agency but were turned away. And while the builder, Gentry, ultimately fixed many of the problems, some homeowners said they ended up spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on repairs not covered by warranties.

“I’ve been running across problem after problem since we’ve been in this house,” said Peter Kamealoha, who described a range of issues in his 2010 Kanehili home, including a cracked air-conditioning duct and cracks in the ceiling. “A brand-new home shouldn’t have problems like this.”

Gentry, which has built more than 14,000 homes in Hawaii over half a century, says it takes pride in delivering quality homes to Native Hawaiians and would not jeopardize its reputation for the sake of small, short-term gains. “It’s an honor to build these homes,” said Gentry President Quentin Machida. A spokesperson also said the company is responsive to homeowner complaints and has performed many “courtesy” repairs beyond the warranty periods, including for Moniz and Kamealoha.

The homeowner experiences are adding to many beneficiaries’ frustration with DHHL’s management of the program. As the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica previously reported, the historically underfunded agency has consistently failed to meet its main mission of getting Hawaiians onto trust-held land on a timely basis. Now, the news organizations have found that the agency, in the eyes of many beneficiaries, is failing even some who get housing.

“They’re telling beneficiaries F you,” said Mike Kahikina, a trust beneficiary and former member of the Hawaiian Homes Commission that oversees DHHL. “We’re treated as fourth-class citizens.”

The Monizes said they found one of the main wood beams in their attic had cracked in half. After the homeowner complained, Gentry said it attached splints on either side to reinforce the beam. (Cindy Ellen Russell/Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

The newsrooms’ investigation comes as the Legislature considers whether to appropriate a record $600 million to help DHHL address the needs of the thousands of Hawaiians waiting for homesteads, particularly those who cannot afford to purchase their own homes. The proposal was sparked in part by the news organizations’ coverage, including the revelation that at least 2,000 beneficiaries have died while waiting.

“The Beneficiaries Deserve More”

Under the homesteading program, Hawaiian beneficiaries apply for a 99-year land lease from DHHL. Upon award, they then take one of two primary routes to housing: hiring a contractor to construct a home on the parcel, or buying a completed home from a developer hired by the department. The latter is by far the most common option.

Home inspections emerged as a major issue in the mid-1990s after a number of legal settlements with beneficiaries who sued DHHL over allegations of shoddy construction.

In one case, the agency paid out $1.5 million to settle claims involving a 50-home development in Panaewa, located on the Big Island’s eastern shoreline. Homeowners alleged they were given substandard septic tanks, defective concrete foundations and keys that opened multiple houses.

Following the settlements, DHHL said in 1996 it would step up oversight, beginning twice-weekly inspections of construction projects. Then-Director Kali Watson told reporters that the measure was designed to prevent another Panaewa. Today, Watson, who heads a nonprofit developer of affordable housing, still believes DHHL should handle inspections. “They do need people with a lot more expertise to actually monitor construction and make sure it’s done well,” he said in an interview.

In the intervening decades, the agency spent more than $200 million on Kapolei projects, including an unprecedented effort to develop four subdivisions totaling more than 1,000 homes.

Sometimes DHHL served directly as the developer for new units, and in those cases it did continue the inspection system. But other times, like in the two most recently built subdivisions, Kanehili and Kauluokahai, it hired a private developer who was also responsible for the inspections.

Still, the development contracts DHHL signed with Gentry in 2008 and 2018 included a provision giving the agency the right to inspect the homes during construction. The provision was standard in DHHL’s development agreements.

But given the layer of inspections already in place, including those done by the builder and city, DHHL decided not to exercise that right. Doing so “would take additional resources, depriving or reducing service to the other class of beneficiaries, those on the waitlist,” said William J. Aila Jr., the department’s director and chair of the commission that oversees it. DHHL could not say how much it saved by forgoing inspections. Aila also said Gentry had done excellent work in the two subdivisions.

Attorneys versed in trust law, however, say DHHL is obligated to do inspections as part of its legal duty as trustee.

The Kauluokahai subdivision where Gentry has built more than 125 homes (Cindy Ellen Russell/Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

“With respect to the duty of loyalty owed to the beneficiaries, the beneficiaries deserve more,” said Susan Gary, a retired University of Oregon law professor with expertise in trust law. “And I think that’s where the problem is. That’s not something you can delegate.”

David Kauila Kopper, litigation director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., said courts have required the state to protect beneficiary interests in other matters related to trust duties. In 2000, for example, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the state could not delegate to a developer the state’s trust responsibility to determine whether a planned Big Island project protected the customary and traditional rights of Native Hawaiians to access the property for cultural practices. And in 2019, the high court determined that the state breached its trust duty to care for public lands by failing to conduct regular inspections of Hawaii Island property that the military was leasing for live-fire training exercises. In nearly 50 years, the state had only inspected the land a few times. “It all stems from the same trustee obligation,” Kopper said.

When it comes to DHHL and homestead construction, “an argument could be made that by relying on Gentry or the city and putting your hands up and saying, ‘Well, that’s good enough,’ you’re delegating the duty to further the best interests of your beneficiaries to entities that perhaps don’t have that in mind — and that’s not their job,” Kopper added.

DHHL counters that it only has a constitutional obligation to provide beneficiaries with a buildable vacant lot, not a home. Therefore, officials say, the department has no duty to check the houses themselves. Beneficiaries, the agency noted, purchase homes directly from the builder, who must comply with government code under its development agreement with DHHL.

For the two Kapolei subdivisions, Gentry used in-house and third-party inspectors. The company said the level of monitoring, including daily checks by Gentry superintendents, was thorough and matched what is done at its private developments. Additionally, the buyer is able to walk through the home after it’s completed to do a final check.

John Merriman, vice president of Mid Pac Engineering, one of the outside companies used by Gentry, said, “There are multiple people out there who want the quality to be high enough that those homeowners don’t have issues.”

Regarding the Moniz case, Gentry said that if the support beam had been cracked before the home was sold, the problem would have been caught during the inspection process. The company told the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica that it reinforced the beam after the homeowner complained.

“They Did Do a Bum Job”

DHHL says it has no jurisdiction over homeowners’ construction-defect claims because the transaction is between the buyer and the builder, so the department typically doesn’t investigate or track such complaints. Gentry, however, conducts regular surveys of its customers and said the overall feedback from their DHHL projects has been positive.

For our own survey, the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica reached out to the occupants of the roughly 500 developer-built homes in the two newest homestead communities in Kapolei. Over the course of several months, the news organizations sent mailers and emails, made phone calls, knocked on over 100 doors, advertised on social media, spoke at a homeowner meeting and published a questionnaire on the websites for both media outlets. Seventy-eight people responded, including 53 who reported two or more problems or concerns with their residences. The majority of those raising multiple issues were from Kanehili, the older of the two subdivisions. The issues ranged from simply cosmetic — hairline cracks in the ceiling, for instance — to more serious, such as mold growing inside the home or flooring damaged by sewage backups.

Gentry provides a warranty that covers the cost of parts and labor for all repairs during the first year, as well as similar coverage for electrical and plumbing issues for another year. And some manufacturer warranties for specific items extend beyond that, though the length of the guarantees vary and they typically cover parts only.

In an interview, Aila, the head of DHHL, stressed that homeowners have the responsibility to properly maintain their residences. If they don’t do so and the warranties expire, “three or four years later, they can’t come back and make accusations that there’s poor quality because the faucet is leaking and now the cabinet is rotten,” he said.

Dozens of respondents, however, told the news organizations that their problems emerged within about a year of moving in. And many said they were surprised when they had to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on repairs not covered by warranties in the first few years. DHHL declined to comment on the cases, except to say the house is the responsibility of the homeowner.

One respondent who reported issues was Marlena Brown-Clemente, who said her AC unit stopped working just over a year after moving in. When she called DHHL to complain, she said the agency directed her to Gentry. The company told her the problem was her responsibility, she said, so she ultimately paid about $1,000 to fix it. Still, problems persisted. That was not what Brown-Clemente expected when, in 2016, she inherited her late father’s rights to pick a lot in Kauluokahai, which at the time had no homes. Two years later, she and her husband purchased a four-bedroom, three-bath house there for about $360,000. As luck would have it, the home model was called The Lena, the nickname Brown-Clemente’s father used for her. “I looked at my husband and cried,” she said in an interview. “I said, ‘Whatever you do, you have to get me that house.’”

Marlena Brown-Clemente holds a portrait of her father, Arthur Brown Sr., who died in 2016. (Cindy Ellen Russell/Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

Gentry said it had no records of calls about air conditioning from Brown-Clemente, and that the system performs well if regular maintenance is done. Brown-Clemente, 49, a full-time volunteer for her church, said the couple hires a company to service the system every six months, like Gentry recommends. “I came into this thinking I’m just lucky to have it, so I didn’t complain too much,” she told the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica. “But now I’m looking back: Yeah, they did do a bum job on my house.”

Air conditioning, which is all but essential in Kapolei during the humid summers, was the most commonly cited problem in the Star-Advertiser/ProPublica survey, mentioned by nearly 40 respondents.

Plumbing was another top concern, flagged by more than two dozen.

Kealii Cabrera, a construction supervisor who bought his new $390,000 Kanehili home in 2020, said his problems started almost immediately. A week after moving in, he said, sewage started backing up through a downstairs shower drain, flooding part of the first floor. Cabrera said he had to relocate his family to a hotel for a month while repairs were made to the flooring and walls.

He said he complained to DHHL multiple times. At first, the department referred him to Gentry, which initially refused to take responsibility for the damage. When conversations with the builder stalled, Cabrera said he went back to DHHL, which told him the department couldn’t get involved. He said he asked the department whether it had a quality control system, and it responded no. “That’s the root of the problem,” Cabrera said.

In response to written questions from the news organizations, a Gentry spokesperson said the company ultimately paid Cabrera over $50,000 to cover cleanup, temporary housing and other costs, after reviewing his request and the circumstances around the incident. The spokesperson described the temporary housing payment as “a very rare occurrence.”

In the Moniz case, Gentry said it performed many “courtesy” repairs beyond the warranty periods, including paying for refrigerator and AC fixes in 2017 and 2018, in addition to reinforcing the beam.

Some respondents to the news organizations’ survey lauded Gentry for its customer service and quality of work. About 18 reported no or only minor problems, including nearly a dozen who said they were very happy with their homes. “It’s like the promised land for us,” John Gora said of the Kauluokahai house he and his wife, Melissa-Ann Gora, purchased last summer after she spent nearly 40 years on the waitlist.

No Forum for Help

If homeowners are unable to resolve disputes over alleged defects with the builder, they usually can’t expect help from DHHL. The agency provides no forum for owners to pursue such claims — even when DHHL served as the developer and oversaw inspections.

Timothy McBrayer and Iwalani Laybon-McBrayer learned that firsthand.

For more than a decade, the couple has unsuccessfully sought DHHL’s help to resolve alleged construction defects that they say have been present almost from the time they moved into their new home in 2007. Shioi Construction, which built the home, disputed their claims and noted that the city and a DHHL special inspector had checked the dwelling.

The couple live in Kaupea, a Kapolei subdivision that was constructed just before Kanehili and for which DHHL served as the developer. The department hired Shioi to build homes and a project manager to monitor the work.

The carpet in one of Iwalani Laybon-McBrayer’s bedrooms was removed after a water leak caused mold to grow, she said. (Cindy Ellen Russell/Honolulu Star-Advertiser) Laybon-McBrayer said one of the home’s outdoor outlets caught fire in 2018. (Cindy Ellen Russell/Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

In the first year or two, the McBrayers said they experienced plumbing, mold and electrical problems that they reported to Shioi and DHHL. The problems largely continue to this day. The couple can no longer get homeowner’s insurance.

The McBrayers kept a log showing they sought assistance from 25 different DHHL representatives since 2007, and they said they received multiple assurances that the agency would deal with the situation.

Eric Seitz, their attorney, told DHHL in August that the couple relied on those promises. And DHHL, which supervised the builder, owed the McBrayers a fiduciary duty that went well beyond a normal home transaction, Seitz said. “The department is there to provide a service to Hawaiians, to help them, not merely to sell them a house and say, ‘You’re on your own,’” he said in an interview. “When complaints are brought to them, they have a much deeper and overriding responsibility to help.”

But when the McBrayers tried to take their case to the commission, their request was denied because DHHL lacked jurisdiction, a position the agency took repeatedly with the couple, its records show.

One of Laybon-McBrayer’s upstairs bathrooms. She says the tub and shower cannot be used because of plumbing leaks. (Cindy Ellen Russell/Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

Still, some commissioners have raised concerns. At a February 2019 meeting, one questioned why the McBrayer problems have taken so long to resolve. Another, Zachary Helm, cited the case to highlight the need for greater oversight of construction. As contractors build more homes, “we can do a little better job in monitoring the work these people do,” said Helm, who recently declined additional comment.

DHHL also declined to comment.

“The Wild, Wild West”

Some beneficiary families remain skeptical of DHHL’s ability to remedy their concerns. Kepa Maly, one of the original homeowners in the Panaewa development plagued by problems, recently sold the house he and his wife shared for 30 years. “Our children didn’t want anything to do with it,” Maly wrote in an email. “And given the choice, I doubt we would ever live in a DHHL-developed project again. They’ve demonstrated incompetence and a lack of common decency throughout their history.”

Former Gov. John Waihee, the only Native Hawaiian to serve as the state’s top executive, said the solution is simple: DHHL should hire an inspector or two. The costs, he said, would be negligible.

But Robin Danner, who heads the largest beneficiary organization in Hawaii, says that after decades of state mismanagement, something more is needed: greater federal oversight. That could come in two forms. One, the U.S. government could sue the state for breach of trust, a step it has never taken. Or two, it could further specify how DHHL implements the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, the federal law that created the program a century ago. As written now, the law is vague about a range of issues, including quality control.

In fact, the homesteading program, which was taken over by the state as a condition of statehood, ran for more than 90 years without a single federal regulation in place.

A 2013 White House discussion where Robin Danner, far right, who leads a group for homestead beneficiaries, said she asked if the Obama administration could start developing federal regulations for the homesteading program. (Courtesy of the White House)

At the request of Danner’s group, the Sovereign Council of Hawaiian Homestead Associations, the Obama administration in 2016 adopted the first two federal regulations in the program’s history. But neither dealt with housing; one established procedures for land exchanges and the other a process for amending the 1921 law. No more have been adopted since, continuing to leave large sections of the law open to interpretation. And that has enabled DHHL to undermine its fiduciary obligation to beneficiaries, according to Danner, who says the federal government should adopt a rule requiring DHHL to perform inspections.

“When federal regulations are silent, that’s when you get the wild, Wild west,” Danner said.

She and other Native Hawaiians are now looking to President Joe Biden, who has vowed to fulfill “Federal trust and treaty responsibilities” to Indigenous people and appointed Deb Haaland to lead the Interior Department, which oversees the Native Hawaiian land trust. As the first Native American to lead the department, Haaland has pledged to champion Indigenous issues.

But it’s unclear what, if any, action will come from Washington.

Haaland’s office has not made her available for an interview, despite several requests since June. But an Interior spokesperson issued a statement in response to questions from the Star-Advertiser and ProPublica. “Both the state and the federal government have roles in administering the laws governing the Hawaiian Home Lands trust,” he said. “However, the day-to-day administration of the trust and the governance of home inspections are the responsibility of the state.”

The news organizations also reached out to Hawaii’s four members of Congress, but three of them declined comment or did not respond. Sen. Mazie Hirono issued a statement. “DHHL has an important obligation to provide access to affordable, safe housing for Hawaii’s Native Hawaiian community,” she said. “I remain committed to supporting the Native Hawaiian community and working to ensure that both the state of Hawaii and the federal government meet their obligations under the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act.”

Hirono did not address the question of greater federal oversight.

Laybon-McBrayer, who is president of the Kaupea Homestead Association, said the situation leaves families like hers to go it alone. “I just say, ‘Lord, keep us safe,’” she said. “I gotta trust in a higher power rather than a broken system.”

Beena Raghavendran and Agnel Philip of ProPublica contributed reporting. Kacie Yamamoto of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser contributed research.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Rob Perez, Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

Climate Action Must Include Racial Justice

Kimi Waite — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 17:17:38 +0000

To not take race into consideration when discussing environmental justice is to deny someone’s lived experience and reality.

This content originally appeared on The Progressive — A voice for peace, social justice, and the common good and was authored by Kimi Waite.

For the Supreme Court, Racial and Gender Diversity Matters, But So Does Judicial Philosophy

Miles Mogulescu — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 11:41:06 +0000

While Democrats have decried the reactionary decisions by a growing right-wing Court, they seem to have all but given up any attempt to develop and promulgate a Constitutional doctrine in opposition to originalism/textualism that masquerades for corporate power. It is time for that to change.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Miles Mogulescu.

#22. Dataminr Introduces Racial Bias, Stereotypes in Policing of Social Media

Project Censored — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 19:35:47 +0000

In an October 2020 article published by the Intercept, Sam Biddle reported on racial bias at Dataminr, a New York company that monitors Twitter for “suspicious behavior,” which it reports…

The post #22. Dataminr Introduces Racial Bias, Stereotypes in Policing of Social Media appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Project Censored.

Dataminr Introduces Racial Bias, Stereotypes in Policing of Social Media

Vins — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 23:24:21 +0000

In an October 2020 article published by the Intercept, Sam Biddle reported on racial bias at Dataminr, a New York company that monitors Twitter for “suspicious activity” that it reports…

The post Dataminr Introduces Racial Bias, Stereotypes in Policing of Social Media appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

Call to End LAPD Racial Profiling, COVID Restrictions Tighten in CA, Activists Push to Reject Police Union Contract

KPFA — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 18:00:00 +0000

Police Reform Advocates Call For End to LAPD Racial Profiling.
Latinos Call For Newsom To Pick Latino Replacement for Harris Senate appointment.
Governor Newsom Tightens Covid Restrictions In Most of State.
Activist Call For San Francisco To Reject Police Union Contract Agreement.

The post Call to End LAPD Racial Profiling, COVID Restrictions Tighten in CA, Activists Push to Reject Police Union Contract appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Episode 99 – Racial Justice and Art, spirituality and activism w/Rev. Mark Doox

Project Censored — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 02:09:02 +0000

On today’s episode, Nicholas Baham II (Dr. Dreadlocks), Janice Domingo, and Nolan Higdon explore art, spirituality and activism w/Rev. Mark Doox. Along The Line is a non-profit, education-based podcast that…

The post Episode 99 – Racial Justice and Art, spirituality and activism w/Rev. Mark Doox appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Project Censored.

House Speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi tours Chinatown to debunk racial hysteria surrounding coronavirus – February 24, 2020

KPFA — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 18:00:00 +0000

Former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein led to prison in handcuffs after rape, sexual assault convictions.
President Trump addresses mega-rally in India with Prime Minister Modi.
House Speaker Pelosi urges visitors to patronize SF Chinatown after unfounded fears caused by coronavirus.
Bipartisan support for legislation that would automatically expunge criminal records of up to two million Californians.
Israel-Gaza fighting breaks out after Israeli bulldozer scoops up dead body of Islamic Jihad fighter and carries it away.

The post House Speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi tours Chinatown to debunk racial hysteria surrounding coronavirus – February 24, 2020 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

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Figure 1

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"It’s a Way of Reparations": Why Henrietta Lacks Settlement Matters for Bioethics & Racial Justice

“It’s a Way of Reparations”: Why Henrietta Lacks Settlement Matters for Bioethics & Racial Justice

A New Illinois Law Shifts Repatriation and Reburial Power to Tribal Nations

FBI & Colorado Springs Police Sued for Targeting & Spying on Racial Justice Protesters

FBI & Colorado Springs Police Sued for Targeting & Spying on Racial Justice Protesters

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