Today we CAN do something to honor Heather Heyer. We can stand up against the hate that killed her.
Today we CAN do something to honor Heather Heyer. We can stand up against the hate that killed her.
We can honor Heather in the same way she stood up for justice and equality. We can rise up against the hate that took...
We can honor Heather in the same way she stood up for justice and equality. We can rise up against the hate that took her life and that targets even more of our fellow Americans. There are events taking place all across the country today against the hate and violence on display in Charlottesville this weekend. Find one and be there. If you can’t, please help spread the word so others may do so.
Read the full article here.
Dream Come True
Alyssa Milano and Ady Barkan attend the Los Angeles Supports a Dream Act Now! protest on Wednesday....
Alyssa Milano and Ady Barkan attend the Los Angeles Supports a Dream Act Now! protest on Wednesday.
See the photo here.
What Does Black Lives Matter Want?
On August 1 the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a coalition of over sixty organizations, rolled out “A Vision for...
On August 1 the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a coalition of over sixty organizations, rolled out “A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom & Justice,” an ambitious document described by the press as the first signs of what young black activists “really want.” It lays out six demands aimed at ending all forms of violence and injustice endured by black people; redirecting resources from prisons and the military to education, health, and safety; creating a just, democratically controlled economy; and securing black political power within a genuinely inclusive democracy. Backing the demands are forty separate proposals and thirty-four policy briefs, replete with data, context, and legislative recommendations.
But the document quickly came under attack for its statement on Palestine, which calls Israel an apartheid state and characterizes the ongoing war in Gaza and the West Bank as genocide. Dozens of publications and media outlets devoted extensive coverage to the controversy around this single aspect of the platform, including The Guardian, the Washington Post, The Times of Israel, Haaretz, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Of course, M4BL is not the first to argue that Israeli policies meet the UN definitions of apartheid. (The 1965 International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the 1975 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid define it as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”) Nor is M4BL the first group to use the term “genocide” to describe the plight of Palestinians under occupation and settlement. The renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, for example, wrote of the war on Gaza in 2014 as “incremental genocide.” That Israel’s actions in Gaza correspond with the UN definition of genocide to “destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” by causing “serious bodily or mental harm” to group members is a legitimate argument to make.
The few mainstream reporters and pundits who considered the full M4BL document either reduced it to a laundry list of demands or positioned it as an alternative to the platform of the Democratic Party—or else focused on their own benighted astonishment that the movement has an agenda beyond curbing police violence. But anyone following Black Lives Matter from its inception in the aftermath of the George Zimmerman verdict should not be surprised by the document’s broad scope. Black Lives Matter founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi are veteran organizers with a distinguished record of fighting for economic justice, immigrant rights, gender equity, and ending mass incarceration. “A Vision for Black Lives” was not a response to the U.S. presidential election, nor to unfounded criticisms of the movement as “rudderless” or merely a hashtag. It was the product of a year of collective discussion, research, collaboration, and intense debate, beginning with the Movement for Black Lives Convening in Cleveland last July, which initially brought together thirty different organizations. It was the product of some of the country’s greatest minds representing organizations such as the Black Youth Project 100, Million Hoodies, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Dream Defenders, the Organization for Black Struggle, and Southerners on New Ground (SONG). As Marbre Stahly-Butts, a leader of the M4BL policy table explained, “We formed working groups, facilitated multiple convenings, drew on a range of expertise, and sought guidance from grassroots organizations, organizers and elders. As of today, well over sixty organizations and hundreds of people have contributed to the platform.”
“A Vision for Black Lives” is a plan for ending structural racism, saving the planet, and transforming the entire nation—not just black lives.
The result is actually more than a platform. It is a remarkable blueprint for social transformation that ought to be read and discussed by everyone. The demands are not intended as Band-Aids to patch up the existing system but achievable goals that will produce deep structural changes and improve the lives of all Americans and much of the world. Thenjiwe McHarris, an eminent human rights activist and a principle coordinator of the M4BL policy table, put it best: “We hope that what has been created carries forward the legacy of our elders and our ancestors while imagining a world and a country profoundly different than what currently exists. For us and for those that will come after us.” The document was not drafted with the expectation that it will become the basis of a mass movement, or that it will replace the Democratic Party’s platform. Rather it is a vision statement for long-term, transformative organizing. Indeed, “A Vision for Black Lives” is less a political platform than a plan for ending structural racism, saving the planet, and transforming the entire nation—not just black lives.
If heeded, the call to “end the war on Black people” would not only reduce our vulnerability to poverty, prison, and premature death but also generate what I would call a peace dividend of billions of dollars. Demilitarizing the police, abolishing bail, decriminalizing drugs and sex work, and ending the criminalization of youth, transfolk, and gender-nonconforming people would dramatically diminish jail and prison populations, reduce police budgets, and make us safer. “A Vision for Black Lives” explicitly calls for divesting from prisons, policing, a failed war on drugs, fossil fuels, fiscal and trade policies that benefit the rich and deepen inequality, and a military budget in which two-thirds of the Pentagon’s spending goes to private contractors. The savings are to be invested in education, universal healthcare, housing, living wage jobs, “community-based drug and mental health treatment,” restorative justice, food justice, and green energy.
But the point is not simply to reinvest the peace dividend into existing social and economic structures. It is to change those structures—which is why “A Vision for Black Lives” emphasizes community control, self-determination, and “collective ownership” of certain economic institutions. It calls for community control over police and schools, participatory budgeting, the right to organize, financial and institutional support for cooperatives, and “fair development” policies based on human needs and community participation rather than market principles. Democratizing the institutions that have governed black communities for decades without accountability will go a long way toward securing a more permanent peace since it will finally end a relationship based on subjugation, subordination, and surveillance. And by insisting that such institutions be more attentive to the needs of the most marginalized and vulnerable—working people and the poor, the homeless, the formerly incarcerated, the disabled, women, and the LGBTQ community—“A Vision for Black Lives” enriches our practice of democracy.
For example, “A Vision for Black Lives” advocates not only closing tax loopholes for the rich but revising a regressive tax policy in which the poorest 20 percent of the population pays on average twice as much in taxes as the richest 1 percent. M4BL supports a massive jobs program for black workers, but the organization’s proposal includes a living wage, protection and support for unions and worker centers, and anti-discrimination clauses that protect queer and trans employees, the disabled, and the formerly incarcerated. Unlike the Democratic Party, M4BL does not subscribe to the breadwinner model of jobs as the sole source of income. It instead supports a universal basic income (UBI) that “would meet basic human needs,” eliminate poverty, and ensure “economic security for all.” This is not a new idea; some kind of guaranteed annual income has been fundamental to other industrializing nations with strong social safety nets and vibrant economies, and the National Welfare Rights Organization proposed similar legislation nearly a half century ago. The American revolutionary Thomas Paine argued in the eighteenth century for the right of citizens to draw a basic income from the levying of property tax, as Elizabeth Anderson recently reminded. Ironically, the idea of a basic income or “negative income tax” also won support from neoliberal economists Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek—although for very different reasons. Because eligibility does not require means testing, a UBI would effectively reduce the size of government by eliminating the bureaucratic machine of social workers and investigators who police the dispensation of entitlements such as food stamps and welfare. And by divesting from an unwieldy and unjust prison-industrial complex, there would be more than enough revenue to create good-paying jobs and provide a basic income for all.
Reducing the military is not just about resources; it is about ending war, at home and abroad. “A Vision for Black Lives” includes a devastating critique of U.S. foreign policy, including the escalation of the war on terror in Africa, machinations in Haiti, the recent coup in Honduras, ongoing support for Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and the role of war and free-trade policies in fueling the global refugee crisis. M4BL’s critique of U.S. militarism is driven by Love—not the uncritical love of flag and nation we saw exhibited at both major party conventions, but a love of global humanity. “The movement for Black lives,” one policy brief explains, “must be tied to liberation movements around the world. The Black community is a global diaspora and our political demands must reflect this global reality. As it stands funds and resources needed to realize domestic demands are currently used for wars and violence destroying communities abroad.”
Finally, a peace dividend can fund M4BL’s most controversial demand: reparations. For M4BL, reparations would take the form of massive investment in black communities harmed by past and present policies of exploitation, theft, and disinvestment; free and open access to lifetime education and student debt forgiveness; and mandated changes in the school curriculum that acknowledge the impact of slavery, colonialism, and Jim Crow in producing wealth and racial inequality. The latter is essential, since perhaps the greatest obstacle to reparations is the common narrative that American wealth is the product of individual hard work and initiative, while poverty results from misfortune, culture, bad behavior, or inadequate education. We have for too long had ample evidence that this is a lie. From generations of unfree, unpaid labor, from taxing black communities to subsidize separate but unequal institutions, from land dispossession and federal housing policies and corporate practices that conspire to keep housing values in black and brown communities significantly lower, resulting in massive loss of potential wealth—the evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible. Structural racism is to blame for generations of inequality. Restoring some of that wealth in the form of education, housing, infrastructure, and jobs with living wages would not only begin to repair the relationship between black residents and the rest of the country, but also strengthen the economy as a whole.
To see how “A Vision for Black Lives” is also a vision for the country as a whole requires imagination. But it also requires seeing black people as fully human, as producers of wealth, sources of intellect, and as victims of crimes—whether the theft of our bodies, our labor, our children, our income, our security, or our psychological well-being. If we had the capacity to see structural racism and its consequences not as a black problem but as an American problem we have faced since colonial times, we may finally begin to hear what the Black Lives Matter movement has been saying all along: when all black lives are valued and the structures and practices that do harm to black communities are eliminated, we will change our country and possibly the world.
By By Robin D. G. Kelley
Source
A Guide To Rallies & Actions Planned For May Day 2017
On May Day 2006, hundreds of thousands of immigrants participated in actions across the country, skipping work and...
On May Day 2006, hundreds of thousands of immigrants participated in actions across the country, skipping work and school in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to protest a bill that would have made it a felony to be in the United States without documentation. The Bush-era legislation ultimately floundered. May Day, rooted in national protests for an eight-hour workday, solidified its status as a day for immigrant action.
"Those 2006 demonstrations were huge," said Joshua Freeman, a history and labor professor at CUNY. "It was a little bit of an earthquake in several ways. Never before had so many immigrants publicly presented themselves to support their rights."
Read full article here.
Panelists talk immigration policy at CNN documentary screening
Panelists talk immigration policy at CNN documentary screening
Ana María Archila, the co-executive director for the Center of Popular Democracy, said immigrants are frightened and...
Ana María Archila, the co-executive director for the Center of Popular Democracy, said immigrants are frightened and anxious just living their lives and going about their daily routines.
Read the full article here.
BREAKING: Maryland Legislature Restores Voting Rights To 40,000 Ex-Offenders
Source: ...
Source: ThinkProgress
Maryland’s legislature voted on Tuesday to override Gov. Larry Hogan (R)’s veto of a bill to give more than 40,000 ex-offenders in the state the right to vote while still on parole or probation.
Maryland joins 13 other states and the District of Columbia where citizens are permitted to vote immediately after serving their sentences. Hogan vetoed the legislation in May of last year after the legislature passed it with large majorities.
In response to the override, Hogan’s office issued a statement saying that he was disappointed with the decision and that “our citizens deserve better.”
“Today, twenty-nine people in the Maryland Senate decided to ignore reason and common sense and support an action that the vast majority of Marylanders vehemently oppose,” a spokesperson for the governor said. “For too long, voters have been completely ignored by their elected representatives in Annapolis.”
But there’s no evidence that a “vast majority” of Maryland voters opposed the bill, and national polls show that strong majorities of Amercians support restoring voting rights to non-violent offenders who have served their sentences. Emma Greenman, director of voting rights and democracy at the Center for Popular Democracy, told ThinkProgress that the legislature’s override is crucial for ensuring full political participation in Maryland.
“A lot of those voters are in Baltimore,” she said. “When we talk about political participation, it’s really important. This is a disenfranchised by law community. It’s so important to restore the rights for these 40,000 folks who are paying taxes, raising families, and want to have a political voice in the decisions that are affecting their lives.”
Ex-offenders and their allies unsuccessfully demonstrated in favor of the legislation in Baltimore last year to pressure the governor to sign the bill. Those in favor of the bill also wrote letters and phone banked to emphasize the importance of voting in helping people reintegrate into society after jail or prison.
The bill’s author, freshman Delegate Cory McCray (D-Baltimore), told ThinkProgress last May that it was crucial that people demonstrated to keep elected officials like Hogan accountable.
“When you can’t vote, you don’t have a seat at the table,” said McCray, whose Baltimore district has one of the highest ex-offender populations in the state. “Obviously, they’ve made mistakes, but these are our family members, our friends, our neighbors. These folks pay taxes. You can’t leave 40,000 people out of the conversation on subject matters that directly and indirectly impact them, like criminal justice reform, housing, access to fresh foods, employment, and transportation.”
Greenman, who was involved in the campaign to introduce the legislation, also said its passage will make it much easier to administer elections in the state because anyone not serving time in prison at the time of an election will be given the right to vote.
“It’s incredibly pragmatic for election administration,” she said. “It’s easy for folks on the ground, easy for folks coming out of prison to understand, and easy for election administration officials. Its a clear line.”
Greenman said she hopes the move creates momentum across the country to restore voting rights for ex-offenders. Currently, Minnesota lawmakers are considering a similar change. And more pressure is being put on Florida and the few states that permanently disenfranchise their former felons.
Fed Language in DNC Platform Could Be Stronger, Activists Say
Fed Language in DNC Platform Could Be Stronger, Activists Say
The Democratic national platform’s language calling for a more diverse Federal Reserve and for the promotion of full...
The Democratic national platform’s language calling for a more diverse Federal Reserve and for the promotion of full employment is historically progressive, but it still could be stronger, some activists say.
Advocates on the “Fed Up” campaign, led by the progressive Center for Popular Democracy, are pleased that the platform — amended in a committee meeting over the weekend — includes language that supports banning commercial bankers from Fed leadership.
But the activists are still hoping for more explicit support bolstering the Fed’s mandate to promote “full employment,” said Jordan Haedtler, Fed Up’s campaign manager.
As it stands, the platform committee adopted an amendment to “protect and defend the Federal Reserve’s independence to carry out the dual mandate assigned to it by Congress — for both full employment and low inflation — against threats from new legislation.”
An amendment promoted by Fed Up would have sketched out a more detailed stance on full employment, but it failed 70-100 at the meeting. That amendment stated: “The Federal Reserve should be a fully public institution that serves the American people and pursues a genuine full employment economy that creates good jobs and rising wages for all.”
Haedtler said the platform’s language about protecting the the Fed from “the threat” of new legislation might actually be counterproductive. His group hopes to lay the groundwork for legislation overhauling the central bank during the next administration. It is likely, however, that the platform writers were referring to legislation from conservatives to abolish the Fed or severely shrink its capabilities.
“I appreciate that full employment is fleetingly mentioned, but the fact is that sound new legislation regarding the Federal Reserve is necessary,” Haedtler told Morning Consult in an interview.
Democrats in Congress have also pushed for more diversity in the Fed’s top layer. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, pressed Fed Chair Janet Yellen during a recent hearing for a commitment to fixing the bank’s diversity problem.
“Diversity is an extremely important goal, and I will do everything I can to advance it,” she told him.
The words “full employment” haven’t appeared in a Democratic National Committee platform since 1988, Haedtler said. But Fed Up hopes to see the language bolstered further in the platform’s preamble.
“This is not as strong as past mentions of full employment in Democratic platforms going back several decades, where the fact that the Federal Reserve has a role in creating full employment is more fleshed out and a plan for how to get there is described,” he said.
The Fed Up activists also want to amend the platform to outline the Fed’s path to becoming a fully public institution.
By TARA JEFFRIES
Source
Blood in the Streets: A Conversation About Gun Violence in Chicago
Gawker - July 11, 2014, by Jason Parham - Earlier this week, writing for The Daily Beast, Roland Martin proposed a...
Gawker - July 11, 2014, by Jason Parham - Earlier this week, writing for The Daily Beast, Roland Martin proposed a solution to combat the surging violence on Chicago's South and West Sides: Send the National Guard to Chicago.
Martin's essay, narrow-minded and altogether ill-considered, was sparked by the recent killings that took place over the July 4th weekend—84 people were shot, and 14 killed. The city's poor black neighborhoods have become a recurring national talking point since President Obama, who calls Chicago home, assumed office in 2008: Violence and death, it seems, are the only constants in Chiraq. Concerned that Martin's solution for military occupation ultimately presents more harm than benefit to residents, I reached out to Ernest Wilkins, a reporter for RedEye Chicago, Josie Duffy, a writer and policy advocate at The Center for Popular Democracy, Jamilah Lemieux, senior digital editor at Ebony, and Kiese Laymon, author and contributing editor at Gawker, for answers. Our conversation appears below.
Josie Duffy: I have a lot of thoughts on this, but I'll start the conversation off by just saying one thing. If 84 people are shot and 16 are killed in one city in one weekend, I think it's clear the government has failed somewhere. So I think Martin is right insofar as the government has a responsibility to respond and attempt to rectify the problems plaguing Chicago.
But this sort of violence doesn't appear out of thin air—it's a response to a long history of systemic deprivation. That's why Martin's solution is deeply misguided, both on principle and practice. And while he suffers from a number of problems in this article – a memory deficiency, an overabundance of self-righteous moralism—perhaps the most pronounced is his laziness problem. He has a creativity deficiency.
This is his idea? More law enforcement? His suggestion is extreme, sure, but it's neither innovative nor intelligent.We're ahead of you, Roland. We've tried that. Law enforcement—from the police to the prosecutors to the prisons—have been working overtime for decades. Spoiler alert: It hasn't worked. In fact, it's made things worse in a lot of ways.
Somewhere along the way many people forgot that victims and residents of places like Chicago and St. Louis and Brownsville are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves, so I don't want to pretend to know what's best for those residents. What I do know, however, is that violence across America and especially in Chicago is perpetuated against the poor and the black and the brown. It's not a coincidence that we're talking about the same demographics that have been not only ignored, but explicitly and intentionally prevented from access to education, economic mobility, and safety. This idea of the powerful causing the problem and then swooping in to benevolently gift us the "solution" is offensive. You can't make up for systemic deprivation through law enforcement. Law enforcement doesn't have the nuance, it doesn't have the tools, and it doesn't actually work. It's reactive and not preventative. Stop trying to find a shortcut where there is no shortcut.
Do any of you think there a way, as Roland suggests, to address violence without addressing poverty? Also, has Roland heard anything about Iraq and Afghanistan lately?
Ernest Wilkins: Josie, you're so on point about the residents of Chicago being able to speak for themselves. Before we consider rolling troops down Stony Island or through the Low End, maybe we should address the lack of communication taking place between the people in these neighborhoods and the people in power in Chicago. Nothing changes without that. When I say "ignored" understand that, in a lot of cases, that's literally happening. There have been countless meetings, initiatives, caucuses, fish frys, etc. with members of the communities suffering from this violence and the people in power. You would think some insight would have been gained by now. Instead, the conversation usually goes like this:
"What is the problem here? Why is everyone killing everyone?"
"We're poor. We need money and jobs in this community."
"Ok. What's the solution to this violence though?"
"We just told you. Money and jobs in the community. A lot of this goes away with opportunities to do better in life that we currently aren't being afforded due to ignorance about our plight. Stop lumping everyone into a faceless mass of "gangbangers" and listen to us as human beings."
"Maybe you're not understanding me here. WHAT. IS. THE. SOLUTION. TO. THE. PROBLEM???"
"...We give up."
Even worse, when people from these communities define the exact issues that lead to this violence, their opinions are picked apart and not taken seriously, with the response usually being some variation of tired-ass narratives like, "You need to fix your community by pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps, not blaming the white man" or "Something something Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson" or the "solution" Roland Martin presented in that piece.
The fact is, the people who die in our streets aren't looked at as real humans. We've obsessed over the numbers and crunched the stats so much that the baseline reaction now after hearing that TRIPLE the amount of the lives lost in the Boston Marathon bombing were killed over the weekend some four miles from your house is that of numbness. You aren't sad. You aren't angry. You just post an incredulous "This has got to stop!" message to your Facebook feed, and keep it moving.
Jamilah Lemieux: Josie and Ernest, I think you've both summed up a great deal of my own frustration with the media narrative that talking heads like Roland have driven and also, the apathy that comes with being detached from the actual violence. I read this week that 85 percent of the city's violent crimes affect 5 percent of the population. That means that your average Chicagoan doesn't know anyone who has been harmed or killed, nor do they live in an area that has been affected by the violence—which is primarily concentrated in two of the cities 60 zip codes.
Fourteen homicides in a weekend is a tragedy no matter what the circumstances, but I believe that so much of the reporting on these shootings has to do with 1) the 24-hour news cycle that didn't exist when the murder rate was significantly higher in the 90s and 2) the president's connection to the city. There is something so wrong about Roland implying that the entire South and West Sides are on fire. I am tired of trying to explain the culture and the geography of my hometown to people who have never set a foot outside of O'Hare Airport because they are somehow experts on all things black and terrible. And as someone who left here—I just happen to be in town this week—12 years ago for college and never moved back and never intends to do so, I recognize my own limitations in identifying some of the shifting dynamics that have brought us from being known as "Chi-Town" to "Chiraq." However, when someone says something as reckless as 'send in the National Guard' to police American citizens who have never had the honor of being treated as such, it makes it plain that folks aren't even trying to understand what is at play here.
My parents can tell you stories of black Chicagoans being terrorized by the National Guard during the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the riots that ensued under the regime of the late and notorious Mayor Richard Daley (the first one). That any black man over the age of 40 would see this as a viable solution makes me question his knowledge of history and also, just what he thinks the National Guard does. They are trained to shoot and kill, to mobilize for war. How does that serve the people of this city? Who does that help? I do believe that government intervention—on a federal and local level—is appropriate, but coming in with guns to fight guns only increases the likelihood that innocent black people will find themselves incarcerated, maimed, or worse. What a solution looks like, I don't know, but as Ernest said, we should be looking to the people who are HERE and fighting that fight daily, as opposed to a tired police chief from Newark and the Army, to decide what that should be. People are poor, jobs are scare, the "you aren't welcome here anymore" gentrification is making it difficult for people to commute to the jobs they do have, to afford the rent and groceries that may have already been a challenge. But some cat from the South thinks that what we need are tanks and guns? That's infuriating.
Kiese Laymon: Thank y'all for breaking all of this down with plenty care, introspection and imagination. I'm not sure I have much to add other than more questions. Half of my family moved to Chicago, Indiana, and Racine a few decades ago to escape Mississippi.
I remember my Aunt Daisy—who lost a daughter to violence, and lost her son to years in prison after he was found guilty of violence—saying that there are more folks on the ground fighting to keep kids alive than anywhere else she ever lived. But those folks, Daisy claimed, are the least well-paid folks she knew.
I'm wondering what happens if we really invest in the work of folks in Chicago really fighting to ward off what white supremacy and unexplored sexist culture has produced. And if we can't allow or expect adequate compensation for those folks, should we find creative ways as black folks to fairly compensate and fairly train the folks in our community who want to do this work? What would a communal creative financial commitment to fighting the consequences of white supremacy look like?
And what role should black folk who don't live in those communities anymore play?
My other question is a tougher one. I come from a place very similar to Chicago. Jackson's murder rate is routinely higher proportionately than Chicago's. Like a lot of folks who grew up there in the 80s and 90s, I feel lucky to be alive. I know part of that is because of small classes, committed freedom fighters who let me know over and over that killing and fighting each other was playing into the hands of the worst of white folks, and a grandma I never wanted to let down. I'm not in Jackson anymore. And while I write words that I know some young folk in Jackson read, do we have the responsibility to go back to the communities we come from and commit to learning and teaching and fighting for the future of our people?
I work with young middle schoolers and high school kids in Poughkeepsie, but that's not home. Should we go home and commit to loving our people, especially when folks are talking bout unlovingly sending in men with guns to discipline them if they don't act right. Should we go home and fight?
Jason Parham: The answers we're looking for won't be easy. And while I don't agree that the National Guard is necessary to help mitigate the violence sweeping across the South Side and West Side of Chicago, I do agree that an increased level of authority—via residents who wield some sort of influence, community organizers, etc—might help subdue a portion of the terror taking place. But even then, we are not really unearthing the root of the problem.
As Ernest pointed out, there are a lot of variables at play here, the most horrific realization being: black life doesn't account for much in America. And the statistics Jamilah offered reinforce this. People who visit Chicago via a CNN news broadcast or a clip uploaded to YouTube see us, but they don't really see us. This, of course, is nothing new. But it is something that I think about often, and I wonder how a similar situation would play out in an area populated by, say, middle class whites. I accept this reality, though—a reality, I should say, that we are forcibly trying to alter, stubborn as it might be—and understand that there are cultural structures in place that allow for the continued devaluation of black and brown life (doubly if you're poor, triply if you're black, poor and a woman).
I don't have the one true solution to any of this. I'm a black man and I find value in our existence, in our love and support and uplift of each other. But I know that it begins with us. I take responsibility for my brothers and sisters. I acknowledge that what these young men are doing is wrong and hurtful, but I also understand that it comes from a place of anger and self-doubt and not wanting to be unloved. I am reminded of Kai M. Green's words: "What do we do with the scars, those of us who did not die, but still aren't free?" I don't want anybody to misinterpret what I'm saying: I am not making excuses for the violence, killing is a cowardly and terrible evil, but many of these young men are reckoning with traumas, tangible and intangible, they don't fully comprehend. A black man is born with a target on his back. That is our starting point. That some of us have made it this far is a miracle.
So to answer your question, Kiese: should we go home and fight? If we have the means to do so, absolutely. It begins with us; it begins with better and more sustainable community building. Why is it that these young men feel like joining a gang is their only option for acceptance and survival? Why is it that these kids are merely trying to "make it out" instead of trying to "live"? Obviously these issues are rooted to larger systemic problems within the context of America—the lingering residue of Jim Crow-era segregation, disinvestment in areas populated by poor black and Latino populations, inadequate schools in "urban" neighborhoods, the fracturing of the black family, etc etc—but not unsolvable. As Jamiliah noted, I don't want the readers to think we are speaking in absolutes here, this isn't the entire reality of communities at war—there are individuals doing great and important things on Chicago's South Side, and in neighborhoods like Brownsville and Compton—but the violence is a reminder that there is ever more work to be done.
Jamilah Lemieux: Do we have the responsibility to go back to the communities we come from and commit to learning and teaching and fighting for the future of our people?I struggle with this question often. On some level, I feel some guilt for leaving the place that nurtured my development and taking whatever talents or gifts I have to become part of this large New York machine. One of millions of transplants who, depending who you ask, either drain that city dry, or make it richer than its own natives could on their own. But on the flip, what does coming home look like? How do I make things better here? And do the unique challenges facing my hometown mean that I'm not entitled to the pursuit of happiness that led me to leave in the first place? Because I decided to leave long before "Chiraq" was something struggle rappers used to lend credence to careers that would have been felled by their lack of skills some 15, 20 years ago.
I'd like to believe that on some level, my work as a writer and editor who focuses on issues of race, gender. and sexuality is a contribution to my community—the black community, from Chicago, to Brooklyn and beyond. If I can figure out ways to help these South Side girls feel better about their sexual agency, or to address the flaws in the media narrative around Chicago from the place I've adopted as my home, is my absence still a betrayal?
In April, activist Leonore Draper was killed in a drive-by outside her home after leaving an anti-violence fundraiser. I honor her sacrifice, but I am not willing to give my life to Chicago. And while I understand the city well enough to know that the violence is largely contained to certain areas, and that Americans must be prepared to be shot at any time (see: Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook), I do feel that relocating back here comes with the increased possibility of being in the wrong place at the wrong time—especially if I were to return specifically to "help make things better." I have a child, she needs me and she needs to be safe. My ex is also from here, and when she is visiting the city without me, I just pray that the desire to go see Cousin or Auntie So-and-So in a rougher part of town takes a backseat to keeping our child away from harm. I worry over her being in shopping malls and on subway trains or anywhere that people can be found. I don't have what it takes to deal with her being down the street from where Chief Keef stays.
I try and do my best to be an ambassador for my city, to tell the Roland Martins of the world, "Look, you've got this wrong!" and to remind people that Chicago is not a city of savages, but one that has been criminally underdeveloped by structural racism and inequality. But I'm not willing to return, at least not now.
Ernest Wilkins: My family is from the Robert Taylor Homes. The environment that molded thousands of black lives—including my father's—literally doesn't exist anymore. The housing project was finally demolished in 2007. I've never been there and I never will. Still, there's still a sense of responsibility within me to do right by my people. I love Chicago. The city made me who I am. One of the main reasons I moved back home after college and living in Atlanta for a few years was to try and contribute to making the city better. As black people, I think the whole point is to recognize that situations like this affect all of us, no matter how much we might want to distance ourselves or feel like it isn't our responsibility. If you live in Brooklyn and have access to a few million, you can do more than I can on the ground here in the immediate sense. However, I can go talk to these kids and donate my time. Everyone can do something.
I think there's a sense of hopelessness and a feeling that the job is too big. The society that can save Chicago is the same one that's out here giving a man 20k to fund a goddamn potato salad on Kickstarter. We have the tools. These neighborhoods need awareness to the real issues, not rhetoric, posturing, and lack of empathy. No matter what though, the solution ain't troops, my guy.
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Shutting Down the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Working at The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), Kate has partnered with youth-led organizations on various policy...
Working at The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), Kate has partnered with youth-led organizations on various policy initiatives and community organizing campaigns, and has represented young people facing school suspensions. At Proskauer, she has conducted trainings and served as a mentor and supervisor, enabling our lawyers to make a real difference in school suspension hearings. Even when a suspension cannot be avoided, an attorney may be able to help reduce its duration or secure other benefits, such as help for a learning disability, or a transfer to a school that is better-suited to the student.
Read the full article here.
‘Inflation Dynamics’ With the Fed as Ringmaster
In the center ring, Federal Reserve brass will be gathering for the closed-door conference that is hosted annually by...
In the center ring, Federal Reserve brass will be gathering for the closed-door conference that is hosted annually by the Kansas City Fed. Janet Yellen is skipping the event, as chairs of the board of governors occasionally do. The town, though, will be full of her critics.
On the right, the American Principles Project will host a separate parley on the need to reform the monetary system by restoring the gold standard as the best route to full employment.
In the left ring, a third group, called Fed Up, will argue for placing a priority on job creation. The Washington Post reports that the organization’s “teach in” will cover “income inequality, efforts to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and whether the Fed should invest in municipal bonds.”
The Fed and its critics will be gathering as a bill to establish a Centennial Monetary Commission goes to the floor of the House. The bill would establish a commission to examine the Fed as it begins its second century.
At the Fed’s conference—the theme is “Inflation Dynamics”— one speaker will be the Fed’s vice chairman, Stanley Fischer. Earlier this month, in an interview with Bloomberg News, he seemed to suggest that the dollar wasn’t losing value fast enough for the Fed’s taste.
MarketWatch headlined the interview as suggesting that a rate hike in September is “not a done deal.” The collapse of stock markets around the world in recent days, says USA Today, gives the Fed a “new excuse” not to raise interest rates.
No doubt Fed Up, part of the Center for Popular Democracy, will make the most of it. In addition to pressing for keeping interest rates near zero, the group is lobbying for more labor and consumer advocates on boards of regional Federal Reserve banks. Fed Up also wants easy money. “Fed policy has been too tight for the past 40 years,” Fed Up Director Ady Barkan emails me. “The commitment to keeping inflation low at all costs is what has led to the elevated levels of unemployment.”
The focus of the American Principles Project—with its gathering of economists, political leaders, bloggers and activists— will be less on what the Fed should do and more on whether central banks are the problem and how Congress should use its powers for reform.
I wonder whether there might be surprising convergence between the left and right camps. American Principles is also focusing on employment but sees as critical to job creation the return to a dollar that is an honest unit of account defined in law and backed by gold.
One of the group’s presenters, Marc Miles, is likely to report on a new study showing that higher interest rates correlate to job creation. Has the Fed pursued the wrong policies as it has used its mandate, legislated in 1978 with the passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, to boost employment?
When the law created the Fed’s so-called dual mandate by obliging the central bank to aim for full employment in addition to maintaining price stability, even the New York Times called the measure a “cruel hoax.” Considering whether to end the dual mandate is one of the questions that would be taken up by the Centennial Monetary Commission on which the House is preparing to vote.
So would the question of whether a rules-based system, such as that proposed by economics professor John Taylor, could solve the problem of fiat money that is not defined in law. Congress has already started looking at these matters.
Fed Chair Yellen has bridled at such ideas. Earlier this year she suggested that she would oppose any rule of monetary policy making. At Jackson Hole three years ago, then-Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress to, as the Drudge Report headlined it, “butt out” of interest-rate policy discussions.
The fear at the Fed is that Congress will politicize the formation of monetary policy. That strikes me as a weak line. The Constitution, which all Fed chairmen swear to support, grants monetary powers to Congress, precisely to the most political branch of the government.
We are approaching the end of a presidency that has been hobbled by an underperforming economy. No wonder the Fed’s most celebrated annual gathering is now bracketed by competing conferences that seek political reform of monetary policy. The big question is whether Congress and the presidential candidates are listening.
Source: Wall Street Journal Asia
7 days ago
7 days ago