Economic Inequality: Safe Words, at Last
OZY - December 23, 2013, by Pooja Bhatia - For decades, talk about economic inequality was taboo. Those who tried were met with accusations of sour grapes, inciting...
OZY - December 23, 2013, by Pooja Bhatia - For decades, talk about economic inequality was taboo. Those who tried were met with accusations of sour grapes, inciting class warfare, or — gasp! — advocating socialism.
But such rhetorical bludgeons appear to have lost force in recent years, and words like “inequality” and “economic fairness” have at last found a place at the table of mainstream American political discourse. It’s not quite the head of the table, but it’s not the servants’ quarters either.
Words like “inequality” and “economic fairness” have at last found a place at the table of mainstream American political discourse.
“The core issue of economic justice has been getting more traction now than during most of my time in organizing,” says Andrew Friedman, who’s been a progressive organizer for more than 15 years and now co-directs the Center for Popular Democracy in New York. Derecka Mehrens, executive director of labor-oriented think tank Working Partnerships USA in San Jose, Calif., agrees: “There’s been a sea change in how and even whether we talk about inequality.”
The signs are everywhere. In his November apostolic exhortation, the pope warned of the “tyranny” of unfettered capitalism and called “an economy of exclusion and inequality” sinful. Clear majorities of Americans support hiking the minimum wage and other policies that aim to reduce the wealth gap. Earlier this month, President Obama positioned inequality and lack of social mobility as the “defining issue of our time.” Mayors-elect of major cities all made economic inequality central to their platforms. And this year’s National Book Award for nonfiction went to George Packer’s The Unwinding, which chronicles rising social and economic inequality in the United States.
Inequality talk is no longer off-limits for a simple reason: The lot of many has stagnated or worsened over the past decade, in some cases severely.
Some credit the 2011 Occupy movements for popularizing economic inequality. (Or blame it, depending on their perspective.) But the main reason inequality talk is no longer off-limits is probably simpler: The lot of many has stagnated or worsened over the past decade, in some cases severely. Some 10 million people lost their homes in the Great Recession. Although unemployment is at a five-year low, the decline is partly because many have stopped looking for work.
As OZY noted a few weeks ago, the lag between technical “recovery” and job growth is lengthening, and these days it’s lingering four to five years. No wonder the Great Recession’s rough ride seems endless. Moreover, while worker productivity has increased over the past decade, real wages have stagnated or declined — leaving the average worker to wonder just where the gains from productivity are going.
“They hear the news that the stock market is climbing and say, Oh really?” Mehrens says.
Lovely A. Warren won election as mayor of Rochester last month with a campaign lamenting what she called the “two Rochesters,” challenged by crime and poverty, but also boasting prosperous neighborhoods.
Economic inequality has been growing since at least the early 1980s. But it was harder to complain about during the Clinton years, when broad-based growth lifted all boats, yachts and dinghies alike. Economic inequality grew during the Bush years too, but those were the days of subprime homeownership and plasma TVs for all. Five years after the collapse of that easy-credit economy, most Americans are still hurting. The average household has recovered less than half the wealth it lost during the recession.
As a result, income inequality has become a winning issue in some cities. The mayors-elect of New York, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis made economic justice a central plank of their platforms — and did so despite naysayers and with newfound success. New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s “tale of two cities,” for instance, was not much different from Fernando Ferrer’s campaign theme in 2005 or Ruth Messinger’s in 1997 — but only in the New York of 2013 did it resonate.
It was harder to complain about during the Clinton years, when broad-based growth lifted all boats, yachts and dinghies alike.
Not that the discursive war has been won, mind you. Plenty of people and conservative think tanks still argue that inequality has nothing to do with poverty. Winning a war of words wouldn’t be enough anyway, organizers say: “We need to figure out how to use this sea change in how we talk about inequality to how we act against inequality,” says Mehrens.
The newfound cache of certain phrases has had some perverse effects. Developers and other big employers have latched onto terms like “living wage” but not always with worker-friendly intentions, says Lee Strieb, a researcher with labor organization Unite Here. Developers have “attempted to wrap themselves in the flag of the living wage, almost as a shield to avoid unionization,” says Strieb. ”There is a heightened sensitivity to the need to address [the wage] issue — but to the extent they can address it in a superficial way, they will.”
Mr. de Blasio’s relentless critique of economic inequality in New York seemed to resonate with voters, who elected him in a landslide.
The shift could signal a readiness to engage meaningfully with issues like the living wage or tax increases on top earners.
It’s unclear whether 2014 will set in motion changes to our income distribution. Mayors alone may have little power to tackle the issue. They usually can’t run big deficits and, in cities like San Francisco and New York, space for affordable housing is hard to find. Most important, mayors can’t singlehandedly restore the middle-class jobs that disappeared during the recession.
Yet the shift in tone and rhetoric is significant and could signal a readiness to engage meaningfully with issues like the living wage or tax increases on top earners. Consider Cam Kruse, 72, a mostly retired civil engineer who is active in ISAIAH, a social justice organization of about 100 churches in metropolitan Minneapolis. Kruse believes in small government. When working full time, he perched in the top one to three percent of earners. And he was a Republican for most of his adult life.
But earlier this year he found himself urging the state legislature to raise tax rates on top earners, which, he said, had fallen through the decades. Growing “gaps” in education, health, housing and transportation worried him. “My success, and that of all the other top earners in Minnesota, has been based on the investments that people before us made,” he testified. “It is our turn to give back and make investments for those who will be our future.”
The tax increase passed.
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Yellen Says Improving Economy Still Faces Challenges
The Washington Post - August 22, 2014, by Ylan Q. Mui - Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen on Friday expressed growing confidence that America’s market is...
The Washington Post - August 22, 2014, by Ylan Q. Mui - Federal Reserve Chair Janet L. Yellen on Friday expressed growing confidence that America’s market is improving but uncertainty over how much further it has to go.
Yellen began her remarks before a select group of elite economists and central bankers here by enumerating the unequivocal progress made since the Great Recession ended: Job growth has averaged 230,000 a month this year, and the unemployment rate has fallen to 6.2 percent after peaking in the double digits during the depths of the crisis.
But she quickly transitioned to the challenges in determining how close the labor market is to being fully healed — and how much the nation’s central bank should do to speed its convalescence. Although Yellen has consistently emphasized that the recovery is incomplete, her speech Friday focused on the difficulty of making a current diagnosis.
“Our understanding of labor market developments and their potential implications for inflation will remain far from perfect,” Yellen said at the annual conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. “As a consequence, monetary policy must be conducted in a pragmatic manner.”
The Fed slashed its target for short-term interest rates to zero and pumped trillions of dollars into the economy in the aftermath of the recession. More than five years later, it is finally scaling back that support. The Fed is slated to end its bond-buying program in October and is debating when to raise interest rates.
That decision carries enormous consequences: Move too soon, and the Fed risks undermining the economic progress made so far. Move too late, and it could risk stoking inflation in the future and sowing the seeds of the next financial crisis.
Investors generally expect the Fed to raise rates in the middle of next year, but several central bank officials gathered here cautioned that the moment could come earlier if the recovery improves more rapidly than expected. Yellen gave no clear timeline Friday but called for a “more nuanced” reading of the labor market as the economy returns to normal.
For example, the size of the nation’s workforce unexpectedly declined after the recession, the result of both demographic factors and unemployed workers who gave up hope of finding a job. Yellen reiterated Friday that a stronger economy could help stem that drop and suggested it may already be working. She also said that the run-up in involuntary part-time work and the low level of people choosing to quit their jobs could be reversed as the labor market improves.
But Yellen seemed to shift her stance on the country’s stagnant wage growth. Previously, she has cited it as a sign that the labor market remains weak. But on Friday she called on research that suggests wage growth has been subdued because employers were unable to cut salaries deeply enough during the recession, a phenomenon dubbed “pent-up wage deflation.” She also suggested that globalization and the difficulty that the long-term unemployed face in finding jobs could also be depressing wage growth.
The uncertainty facing the Fed means it will be carefully evaluating economic data over the coming months, Yellen said. And she said the central bank will remain nimble in its response.
“There is no simple recipe for appropriate policy in this context, and the [Fed] is particularly attentive to the need to clearly describe the policy framework we are using to meet these challenges,” she said.
Central bankers were not the only ones gathered in the Grand Tetons this year. Several workers and activists also traveled to Jackson Hole and called on the central bank to be cautious in removing its support for the economy, the first protest at the conference in recent memory.
The grass-roots group, organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, also issued an open letter to the Fed earlier in the week signed by more than 60 activist organizations. Kansas City Fed President Esther L. George — one of the most vocal proponents of raising interest rates soon — met with the protesters in Jackson Hole on Thursday for about two hours to hear their stories. Ady Barkan, senior attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy, said the groups plan to request meetings with other Fed officials as well.
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Kenny Leon teams up with Marvel stars for Puerto Rico benefit
Kenny Leon teams up with Marvel stars for Puerto Rico benefit
Actress Scarlett Johansson has been in Atlanta working on Marvel’s latest “Avengers” project and keeping up with the harrowing updates out of storm-ravaged Puerto Rico. It could be Christmas...
Actress Scarlett Johansson has been in Atlanta working on Marvel’s latest “Avengers” project and keeping up with the harrowing updates out of storm-ravaged Puerto Rico. It could be Christmas before power is back on throughout the island and access to a steady supply of clean drinking water is still a challenge more than a month after Hurricane Maria hit.
Read the full article here.
Los trabajadores latinos quieren que la Fed les oiga
Lo cierto es que pese a la mejora económica la tasa de desempleo de latinos (6.8%) y negros (9.1%) es más elevada que la de los blancos (4.6%) y asiáticos (4%) y muchos de ellos trabajan por...
Lo cierto es que pese a la mejora económica la tasa de desempleo de latinos (6.8%) y negros (9.1%) es más elevada que la de los blancos (4.6%) y asiáticos (4%) y muchos de ellos trabajan por sueldos muy bajos. Muchos de ellos, como Rubio no sienten la recuperación. “Yo paso por los bares y los veo llenos incluso los lunes pero no todos podemos hacer eso, yo no”, explica.
Su inquietud por los más desfavorecidos le ha llevado a integrarse en la asociación comunitaria Make the Road para ayudar a los trabajadores, muchos de ellos latinos, de forma diferente a como lo hacía en su país. Desde hoy está en Jackson Hole, Wyoming, donde se reunen economistas de todo el mundo y representantes de bancos centrales para hablar de política monetaria. Rubio forma parte de un grupo de trabajadores y asociaciones de base de todo el país, en las que hay representación latina, que quieren convencer a la Reserva Federal de que no suba las tasas de interés. Su argumento es que si se quedan bajas como ahora “ayudarán a mejorar las condiciones laborales y crear más empleo”.
Rubio dice que la recuperación no ha llegado a los trabajadores como ella y que por eso no es momento de empezar a subir unas tasas que reconoce que están históricamente bajas(0%-0.25% desde diciembre de 2008) para estimular el crecimiento durante la reciente Gran Recesión.
“Lo que decide la Fed nos atañe a todos”, explica con convicción Rubio antes de hablar de la fuerte desigualdad laboral que hay y el hecho de que apenas hay inflación, motivo por el que no debería haber prisa por subir tasas o como dicen los economistas, normalizarlas. El programa de Jackson Hole y la lista de asistentes se hace público por el organizador de este encuentro anual, la Reserva Federal de Kansas City, hoy mismo pero ya se sabe que la presidenta de la Fed, Janet Yellen, no va a asistir. Rubio espera estar en algunas reuniones con parte de los asistentes.
“Uno piensa que no les van a ver pero ha veces que hay que pedir y abrir un caminito”, dice.
De hecho, Rubio, junto con otros trabajadores y activistas, ya se reunió este mismo mes con el presidente de la Reserva Federal de Nueva York, William Dudley. Según esta hondureña les dio la razón cuando se planteó la existencia de una desigualdad laboral y que no hay empleo para todos. Dudley dijo que dada la situación económica fuera de las fronteras la necesidad de subir las tasas es ahora “menos imperiosa”.
Ady Barkan, abogado del Centro de Democracia Popular que está impulsando la campaña “Fed Up” y estas peticiones ante la Reserva, explica que es necesario que las autoridades monetarias “presten atención a los trabajadores”.
“La economía no se ha recuperado, hay mucho desempleo entre negros y latinos, subempleo, baja participación en el mercado laboral y apenas hay subidas de salarios”, resume Barkan. Este abogado cree que la economía necesita tasas bajas para que las empresas sigan invirtiendo de forma barata y que haya préstamos asequibles que reactiven el consumo de todos.
Lo cierto es que las empresas tienen cash y algunos tipos de préstamos como los hipotecarios no han remontado lo esperado. “No obstante, si las tasas suben la situación será peor”, explica Barkan, “porque las empresas tendrán más motivos para quedarse sentadas en sus montañas de cash si tienen rendimiento de ellas y por que para invertir necesitan una inflación que no hay, ni habrá si suben tasas”.
“La economía tiene que calentarse un poco más”, dice. Barkan admite que las tasas bajas no son suficientes y que sería bueno que el Congreso hiciera algo además de subir el salario mínimo.
Representantes de la campaña de Fed Up ya se han reunido con Yellen y presidentes de otras reservas como la de Kansas, San Francisco y Atlanta entre otras, miembros de la Federal.
Dean Baker co director del Center for Economic and Policy Research de Washington publicaba recientemente que la subida “reducirá ingresos y oportunidades para quienes menos tienen”, una posición que también comparte el nobel de economía, Joseph Stiglitz.
¿Cuál es la misión de la Reserva Federal?
La Reserva Federal o Fed es uno de los reguladores de la banca y la autoridad que tiene en sus manos la política monetaria, es decir, regula la cantidad de dinero en circulación. ¿Su misión? Asegurarse de que se creen las condiciones de crédito y monetarias para conseguir el máximo empleo, precios estables (ni inflación ni deflación) y tasas de interés a largo plazo moderadas.
¿Cómo funcionan las tasas?
La Reserva Federal sube las tasas de interés a corto plazo, el dinero que se prestan los bancos entre sí, para retirar dinero del mercado y evitar las subidas de precios o inflación. Cuando las baja es porque los precios están bajos y falla el consumo. Al bajarlas se pone más dinero en circulación lo que, en teoría, animando la economía. Estas tasas a corto terminan reflejándose en las de largo plazo que son las que se usan en hipotecas y otros préstamos que se usan para comprar e invertir. Cuanto más se invierte y más crece la economía más y mejor trabajo se crea.
Source: La Raza
New Report: State School Takeovers Lead To Academic Failure
02/08/2016
WASHINGTON — Today, the Center for Popular Democracy released a report, State Takeovers of Low-Performing Schools: A Record of...
02/08/2016
WASHINGTON — Today, the Center for Popular Democracy released a report, State Takeovers of Low-Performing Schools: A Record of Academic Failure, Financial Mismanagement, & Student Harm, showing that all statewide takeovers of low-performing schools have failed to achieve positive results and have instead resulted in harm to students and communities.
Kyle Serrette, the Director of Education Justice at Center for Popular Democracy, released the following statement:
“An education strategy that consistently has not been able to achieve its intended results doesn’t make sense. The data is clear: state takeovers harm students, families, and communities.”
Despite the poor track record of statewide school takeovers, lawmakers in seven states -- Wisconsin, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Utah -- have introduced bills to expand the number of takeover districts in 2016, following 2015, when nine states introduced legislation to create statewide takeover districts: Arkansas, Georgia, Nevada, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin.
In 2003, Louisiana established the “Recovery School District,” the first statewide district of this kind. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the state rapidly expanded its takeover district. Tennessee followed suit, creating its “Achievement School District” in 2010 and expanding it in 2012. Finally, Michigan established its “Education Achievement Authority” in 2013, explicitly modeling it on the Louisiana precedent.
Louisiana Recovery School District: In 2014, there were 136 charter schools operating in Louisiana, attended by over 65,000 students. Of those schools, which accounted for 21,000 students, 41 percent, received a letter grade of D, F, or T (Transitional School), with a School Performance Score (SPS) below 69.1. Only 9 percent of Louisiana’s charter schools, enrolling just 8,700 students, received the letter grade A.
Tennessee Achievement School District: Only six out of the 17 takeover schools had moved out of the bottom performance decile by the end of the 2013-2014 school year. 2015 was the first year that statewide test scores in the takeover schools had improved after two years of either zero gains or actual decline. Reading scores in takeover schools have been consistently lower than pre-takeover levels all three years of the ASD, down over four percentage points in 2015.
Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority: The chancellor of Michigan’s EAA, Veronica Conforme, recently admitted that, “three years into this [the EAA], achievement hasn't improved.” In fact, it has actually set students back rather than delivering positive educational outcomes. Between 2012 and 2013, 36 percent of students in EAA schools saw declines in their performance on Michigan’s MEAP mathematics tests, and another 43 percent saw no improvement. Over the same time period, 36 percent of EAA students also saw declines in MEAP reading performance, with another 26 percent showing no improvement. Even worse, nearly half (46 percent) of students who had previously been proficient in the MEAP mathematics exam saw significant declines in their performance. Among these previously proficient students in the EAA, 82 percent of previously proficient students saw declines in their math test performance and 11 percent saw no change.
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www.populardemocracy.org
The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.
Media Contact:
Asya Pikovsky, apikovsky@populardemocracy.org, 207-522-2442
Anita Jain, ajain@populardemocracy.org, 347-636-9761
Why the People’s Climate March matters to people of color like me
Ever since taking power, the Trump administration has made clear it intends to wage war on the environment. It’s given the green light to both the Dakota Access and Keystone pipelines and geared...
Ever since taking power, the Trump administration has made clear it intends to wage war on the environment. It’s given the green light to both the Dakota Access and Keystone pipelines and geared up to wipe away long-standing protections that keep our air and water safe. Its mission is clear: Eliminate any obstacle that stands in the way of fossil fuel companies.
Read the full article here.
Nueva York pagará abogados a algunos inmigrantes
El Nuevo Herald - July 18, 2013, by Claudia Torrens - Nueva York se prepara para dar otro paso en su tradición de ayuda a inmigrantes: planea pagar los abogados de oficio que necesitan cuando se...
El Nuevo Herald - July 18, 2013, by Claudia Torrens - Nueva York se prepara para dar otro paso en su tradición de ayuda a inmigrantes: planea pagar los abogados de oficio que necesitan cuando se presentan ante un tribunal de inmigración para defenderse de un orden de deportación.
Para finales de este año o principios de 2014, algunos inmigrantes, autorizados o no, que enfrenten la deportación podrán presentarse ante el juez de inmigración con un abogado de oficio pagado con fondos municipales, reduciendo así sus posibilidades de ser deportados. Activistas, un magistrado federal y funcionarios locales planean anunciar el viernes que el gobierno municipal ha destinado 500.000 dólares a financiar un programa piloto que ofrecerá representación legal a inmigrantes.
Brittny Saunders, de la organización Center for Popular Democracy, dijo a The Associated Press que es la primera vez que un programa de este tipo se implementa en una municipalidad de Estados Unidos.
"La intención es reunir información sobre los beneficios que la representación legal supone tanto para un individuo detenido y en proceso de deportación como para su familia, su comunidad y la ciudad entera", dijo Saunders. "Esperamos que este programa sea un modelo para otras comunidades en todo el país".
Los inmigrantes que acaban en los tribunales de inmigración y que enfrenten la deportación no tienen derecho a ser defendidos por un abogado de oficio. Pueden contratar a un abogado privado, pero muchos no tienen el dinero para pagar ese servicio. Es por ese motivo que el gobierno municipal, varios activistas y el juez federal Robert Katzmann han unido esfuerzos para ofrecer ayuda a inmigrantes en esta situación.
Saunders dijo que en el estado de Nueva York una media de 2.800 inmigrantes enfrenta anualmente la deportación sin acceso a asistencia legal. Muchos de ellos, explicó, con frecuencia son detenidos por infracciones a las leyes de inmigración, como quedarse en Estados Unidos una vez vencida su visa.
El Congreso debate en estos momentos una reforma a las leyes de inmigración y el proyecto de ley aprobado por el Senado hace unas semanas propone un camino a la naturalización de 11 millones de inmigrantes sin autorización para vivir en el país. El gobierno del presidente Barack Obama deportó a más de 400.000 inmigrantes en el año fiscal 2012, una cifra récord.
El juez federal Katzmann y su grupo "Study Group on Immigrant Representation" publicó un informe en el 2011 que indicaba que 18% de los inmigrantes detenidos en Nueva York que cuentan con abogado salen adelante con su caso, mientras que entre los que no tienen asesoría jurídica, la cifra es de sólo 3%.
Entre los inmigrantes no detenidos, 74% sale adelante, mientras que entre los que no tienen asesoría legal la cifra es de 13%, señala el informe.
El programa piloto que se planea presentar el viernes — llamado "New York Immigrant Family Unity Project" (Proyecto por la Unidad Familiar de los Inmigrantes en Nueva York) — necesita escoger a través de un proceso público de varios meses a una organización sin ánimo de lucro que ofrezca sus abogados para la representación legal.
La presidenta del Concejo Municipal de Nueva York, Christine Quinn, ha sido una de las impulsoras del financiamiento del programa. Quinn aspira a ser la próxima alcaldesa de la ciudad durante elecciones municipales en noviembre.
En Nueva York viven más de tres millones de personas nacidas en otros países, según información del Censo.
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New Report on Charter Schools Exposes Fraud
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 5, 2014
CONTACT:
Kyle Serrette: KSerrette@populardemocracy.org, 202-304-8027
Sabrina Stevens: media@integrityineducation.org, 720-295-0238
CHARTER SCHOOL CHEATS: New Report On Charter Industry Exposes $100 million In Taxpayer Funds Meant For Children Instead Lost To Fraud, Waste & AbuseA new report released today reveals that fraudulent charter operators in 15 states are responsible for losing, misusing or wasting over $100 million in taxpayer money.
“Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud And Abuse,” authored by the Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education, echoes a warning from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General. The report draws upon news reports, criminal complaints and more to detail how, in just 15 of the 42 states that have charter schools, charter operators have used school funds illegally to buy personal luxuries for themselves, support their other businesses, and more.
The report also includes recommendations for policymakers on how they can address the problem of rampant fraud, waste and abuse in the charter school industry. Both organizations recommend pausing charter expansion until these problems are addressed.
"We expected to find a fair amount of fraud when we began this project, but we did not expect to find over $100 million in taxpayer dollars lost. That's just in 15 states. And that figure fails to capture the real harm to children. Clearly, we should hit the pause button on charter expansion until there is a better oversight system in place to protect our children and our communities," said Kyle Serrette, the Director of Education Justice at the Center for Popular Democracy.
“Our school system exists to serve students and enrich communities,” added Sabrina Stevens, Executive Director of Integrity in Education. “School funding is too scarce as it is; we can hardly afford to waste the resources we do have on people who would prioritize exotic vacations over school supplies or food for children. We also can’t continue to rely on the media or isolated whistleblowers to identify these problems. We need to have rules in place that can systematically weed out incompetent or unscrupulous charter operators before they pose a risk to students and taxpayers.”
Versace Sued for Allegedly Using a Code Word to Profile Black Shoppers (Update)
Versace Sued for Allegedly Using a Code Word to Profile Black Shoppers (Update)
Update: December 30, 2016, 12:00 p.m. EST: Versace has issued a statement affirming its commitment to equality: “Versace believes strongly in equal opportunity, as an employer and a retailer. We...
Update: December 30, 2016, 12:00 p.m. EST: Versace has issued a statement affirming its commitment to equality: “Versace believes strongly in equal opportunity, as an employer and a retailer. We do not tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, national origin or any other characteristic protected by our civil rights laws. We have denied the allegations in this suit, and we will not comment further concerning pending litigation.”
Originally posted on December 27, 2016:
Versace is coming under fire for allegedly using a secret code to alert workers when an African-American person enters the store. A former employee who says he experienced the shocking scenario firsthand is suing for unpaid wages and damages.
According to the lawsuit, Christopher Sampiro, 23, claims the employees at the Bay Area Versace location used the code word “D410” to casually let each other know when a black person entered the store. The exact code is also used to identify all black clothing. After learning of the practice, the plaintiff, who self-identifies as one-quarter African American, responded to his manager by asking, "You know that I'm African American?" Following the exchange, Sampiro claims he was denied rest breaks and a "legitimate" training. He was fired two weeks later.
The management told Sampiro that he was let go because he hadn't "lived the luxury life," the lawsuit reports. Versace denied the allegations and filed a request for dismissal of the suit—but this isn’t the first time the Italian fashion house has gotten into trouble for its similarly questionable actions related to race.
Earlier this summer, the company released its fall 2016 ad featuring Gigi Hadid as the matriarch of an interracial family. While the campaign initially received praise for the depiction of a racially-diverse family, people were later upset to find that the 21-year-old model was depicted as a mother of two small children. One of the black children also appeared to be strapped into its stroller with a metal chain...it was odd, to say the least. In response to the criticism, Versace released a statement that said, "The campaign is made of a series of tableaux, some real-life and some fantastical. One part of the story is very glamorous, almost a fantasy, a kind of dream. The other part of the story is the same people, but in their real lives.”
Legal controversy related to race isn't new in the world of fashion. Last year, the Center for Popular Democracy accused Zara of racial profiling in a new report compiled from a survey of 251 Zara employees in New York City. According to the report, the store employees used the word “special order” to trail black customers who were deemed potential thieves while shopping. In the survey, 46 percent of employees claimed black customers were called “special orders” "always" or "often," while 14 percent said the same about Latino customers and 7 percent said the same about whites.
While Zara refuted the claims, both Versace and the Spanish retailer's cases, if proven to be true, show that the industry still clearly has a long way to go when it comes to diversity.
By KRISTEN BATEMAN
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Battleground Texas: Progressive Cities Fight Back Against Anti-Immigrant, Right-Wing Forces
Battleground Texas: Progressive Cities Fight Back Against Anti-Immigrant, Right-Wing Forces
Sarah Johnson, the executive director of Local Progress, a group that works with Casar and other local politicians on passing progressive legislation, told Salon that the initiative "brings...
Sarah Johnson, the executive director of Local Progress, a group that works with Casar and other local politicians on passing progressive legislation, told Salon that the initiative "brings together the way that policing impacts both immigrant communities and more broadly communities of color that are overcriminalized."
Read the full article here.
2 days ago
2 days ago