New Website IDs Corporations Profiting From the Abuse of Communities of Color
New Website IDs Corporations Profiting From the Abuse of Communities of Color
BackersOfHate.org documents Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Uber and more companies' ties to the Trump Administration and...
BackersOfHate.org documents Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Uber and more companies' ties to the Trump Administration and policies that negatively impact poor people of color...
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Warren says Toys 'R' Us investors should augment worker fund
Warren says Toys 'R' Us investors should augment worker fund
The toyseller's former private-equity owners said they were forming the fund on Tuesday after months of pressure from...
The toyseller's former private-equity owners said they were forming the fund on Tuesday after months of pressure from former employees and their representatives, along with some public pension funds and lawmakers including Warren, a former Harvard Law School bankruptcy expert who is considering a run for president in 2020. The groups, linked to the Center for Popular Democracy, estimate that workers are owed $75 million in severance pay, and they've also pressed Toys "R" Us creditors including Solus to pitch in.
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Overnight Finance: Trump keeps up attack on Amazon
Overnight Finance: Trump keeps up attack on Amazon
"We hope that John Williams's tenure as president will not be characterized by the same disregard for the public as his...
"We hope that John Williams's tenure as president will not be characterized by the same disregard for the public as his appointment was." -- Fed Up, a coalition of progressive non-profits focused on reshaping the central bank.
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Project to provide legal counsel for immigrants
Project to provide legal counsel for immigrants
National Catholic Reporter - December 17, 2013, by Megan Fincher - Impoverished immigrants facing deportation in New...
National Catholic Reporter - December 17, 2013, by Megan Fincher - Impoverished immigrants facing deportation in New York City can now have court-appointed counsel on their side for the first time in this nation's history.
Noncitizens of the United States facing deportation -- such as green card holders, refugees, victims of trafficking, and those living in the country illegally -- have no constitutional right to representation. The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, a pilot program funded by a $500,000 investment from the city, is trying to change that.
"New York City has a tradition of welcoming immigrants. Its economics are driven by immigrants. Investing in immigrant families in New York City is our starting point," Brittny Saunders told NCR. Saunders is a senior staff attorney for immigrant rights and racial justice at the Center for Popular Democracy, an advocacy group working with the Family Unity project.
For the next year, the project will provide pro bono legal services to an estimated 20 percent of indigent noncitizens facing deportation at the Varick Street Immigration Court in New York City, according to Vera Institute of Justice, a nonpartisan, nonprofit center for justice policy and practice.
"The current state of affairs is creating real harm, really devastating immigrant families in New York City," Saunders explained.
Paula Shulman, second-year law student at Cardozo School of Law, agrees: "The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project is very aptly named. Detentions and deportations tear families apart every day."
The idea to create the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project came out of the 2010 New York Immigrant Representation Study, initiated by Judge Robert Katzmann of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The study examined trends in New York City immigration courts from 2000 to 2010. During that decade, 60 percent of detained immigrants in New York City were without counsel, and subsequently, only 3 percent of that group won their case. In comparison, immigrants who were represented and released from detention or never detained experienced a 74 percent success rate.
With the support of legal nonprofits, research groups, and ultimately the city itself, the study went "from an academic model to a living, breathing program" via the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project Nov. 6, Saunders said.
"For the first time ever, anywhere in this country and our legal system, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers who would otherwise be unable to afford an attorney have access to attorneys who can present the legal issues and handle them expeditiously," Shulman, who works at Cardozo's Immigration Justice Clinic, wrote to NCR in an email.
Saunders explained that immigrant families are often "mixed status," meaning citizens, permanent legal residents and undocumented persons can make up a single family.
"One study from 2005-2010 showed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested parents of 13,500 children in New York City alone," Saunders said. "More than half of those children lost at least one parent to a final order of deportation."
But what happens when primary caregivers are sentenced to deportation whose children are U.S. citizens? "If there's no other caregiver in place, children are thrust into the foster care system," Saunders said.
Shulman explained that the project is also fighting unnecessary detentions "because it can be the family breadwinner or the single mom who is held in a facility, unable to see his or her loved ones, let alone support or provide for his or her family."
Immigration detention is unlike criminal detention, because it is not "based on risk of danger to the community," and determining who gets sent to immigration detention and what bond is set is "haphazard and divorced from clear risk assessment," Shulman said.
"One of the many goals of the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project is to reduce detention time for individuals eligible for release so they can return to their families, their jobs, and their communities."
Saunders noted that in its first weeks, the project is "not just creating benefits for individuals who receive counsel, but it's also creating real benefits for the courts and the systems themselves. It's been really impressively seamless."
"We see what is happening in New York as the beginning of a change that could happen all across the country," Shulman said. "We support and anticipate replication of the model and the pilot. In fact, we have already received inquiries from five other states."
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Scarlett Johansson and Her Fellow Avengers Raise $500,000 for Puerto Rico Relief
Scarlett Johansson and Her Fellow Avengers Raise $500,000 for Puerto Rico Relief
Johansson and the John Gore Organization partnered for a benefit performance of Our Town in Atlanta....
Johansson and the John Gore Organization partnered for a benefit performance of Our Town in Atlanta.
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Voting rights restored to 40,000 Marylanders
Source: ...
Source: The Baynet.com
The Maryland General Assembly overrode Governor Larry Hogan’s veto today on a bill that restores voting rights for approximately 40,000 Maryland citizens who live in their communities but were barred from voting because of a criminal conviction in their past. The law will go into effect on March 10, 2016 allowing all former felons who are out of prison to register and vote in Maryland’s upcoming April local and federal primaries.
Maryland law withheld the right to vote from individuals until they fully completed every requirement of their sentence, including those beyond incarceration, like probation and parole supervision. SB 340/HB980, introduced by Sen. Joan Carter Conway (D-Baltimore) and Del. Cory McCray (D-Baltimore), simplifies the process by allowing an individual to become eligible to vote upon release from prison or if they were never incarcerated.
After the law takes effect on March 10, affected Marylanders will have until April 5 – less than a month -- to register to vote in the April 26 primaries. New voters can also register through same-day registration during the early voting period of April 14 – 21. There will be at least 59 early voting centers throughout the state.
The bill was championed the Unlock the Vote coalition, led by Communities United with Out for Justice, the ACLU of Maryland, Common Cause Maryland, Maryland Working Families, MD State Conference of the NAACP, Maryland League of Women Voters, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, SEIU Local 500, SEIU 32BJ, SEIU Maryland & DC State Council, Prison Ministry Task Force of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, the Job Opportunities Task Force, the Center for Popular Democracy, Brennan Center for Justice, the Sentencing Project, the National NAACP and the NAACP National Voter Fund, Communication Workers of America, SAVE Our Votes, Colorofchange.org, People for the American Way, the Democracy Initiative, the American Probation and Parole Association and Common Cause.
“The Maryland General Assembly has opened up our democracy to the thousands of Marylanders who have returned home from prison and now have the right to vote. I know from experience that this legislation will have a powerful impact on our lives and in our communities,” said Perry Hopkins, a formerly incarcerated citizen and organizer with Communities United. “From the minute you are released from prison, you pay taxes, you are working to reintegrate back into society in a productive way and you deserve the full rights of citizenship. It’s just that simple. And today the Maryland General Assembly did the right thing and restored our rights.”
“Today’s override is a huge step forward for voting rights in Maryland. Governor Hogan suppressed the vote for an additional eight months with his veto so our next challenge is to quickly educate and register voters for the upcoming April 26 local and federal primaries” said Jane Henderson, executive director of Communities United. “Because of the confusing nature of the previous law, there is a lot of misinformation about if and when those with felonies can register and vote. We want all former felons to know that if you are home, you can vote. We have a short window of opportunity in March to reach and register newly enfranchised voters – whether in church, on the job, at recovery centers, at parole offices or in our neighborhoods – and we call on civic, civil rights and religious leaders to help us to reach these 40,000 newly enfranchised citizens."
“This is a victory for civil rights that comes at a critical moment for our state and our nation,” said Gerald Stansbury, President of the Maryland State Conference of the NAACP. “Today 40,000 Marylanders who have been locked out of the process by an unfair law and an unjust criminal justice system have regained a fundamental right of citizenship, the right to vote. The majority of citizens regaining their voting rights are African American and it has never been more important that their voices are heard in local government, the halls of the State House and by our federal representatives. I am grateful to the Maryland General Assembly for restoring the right to vote.”
“Democracy is on the march in Maryland. The Maryland General Assembly’s vote to restore the right to vote of more than 40,000 ex-offenders comes at a critical time for our democracy,” said Emma Greenman, Director of Voting Rights and Democracy at the Center for Popular Democracy. “Over 50 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, nearly 5.8 million Americans remain shut out of the democratic process because of a criminal conviction. Today Maryland unlocked the vote for folks reintegrating into their communities and lifted up their voices in our democracy.” “We’re seeing growing national momentum for voting rights restoration, and Maryland is the latest place to join in on this trend,” said Tomas Lopez, Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. “This legislation will give 40,000 Marylanders a second chance.”
The measure builds on recent bipartisan support for rights restoration around the country. Last year, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called on states to restore voting rights. Supporters from across the political spectrum have introduced bills in Congress to restore rights, including the Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act of 2015 from U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and the Democracy Restoration Act of 2014 from U.S. Sen.Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).
Over the past two decades, more than 20 states have improved their criminal disenfranchisement laws, including Maryland, which ended lifetime disenfranchisement in 2007. Like similar laws elsewhere in the United States, Maryland’s criminal disenfranchisement law has disproportionately impacted racial minorities. It is estimated that African Americans have comprised more than half of Maryland’s disenfranchised population. When the rights restoration bill becomes law, Maryland will be the newest addition in the national movement to restore voting rights to people who are released from prison, joining 13 states and the District of Columbia.
Janet Yellen, the first woman Fed chair, proved the skeptics wrong and got fired anyway
On February 3, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, the first woman to lead the central bank and likely the most...
On February 3, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, the first woman to lead the central bank and likely the most qualified nominee ever for the post, will exit the Fed, leaving a legacy described as “near perfection” and with an “A” grade from a majority of economists.
And yet in 2014, the US Senate confirmed Yellen by a vote of 56-26, the lowest number of “yes” votes a confirmed Fed chair has ever received.
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What Can Jews Do About Police Violence After Shootings — and Dallas?
What Can Jews Do About Police Violence After Shootings — and Dallas?
Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!” The ground this week is not East of Eden, where Cain slew Abel;...
Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!”
The ground this week is not East of Eden, where Cain slew Abel; it is St. Paul, Minnesota, where Philando Castile was gunned down while reaching for his ID. It is Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Alton Sterling was shot at point-blank range, already immobilized and pinned down by police.
And while you, reader, are not Cain — after all, you did not pull the trigger — neither can any of us object, as he did, “Am I my brother’s keeper?!” We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, as Americans, as mostly-white and mostly-privileged Jews, as participants in a society where so many tragedies become travesties of racial injustice.
But what can we do? What can I do?
First, we must, communally, recognize that this is a real crisis and make it a subject of dinner conversations, rabbinic sermons and communal action. Because in fact, the problem isn’t just the cops; it’s us.
Thanks to the proliferation of recording technologies, the crisis of police violence is now more visible than ever before; Castile was killed live on Facebook. Indeed, as best as we can tell, the rates of violence haven’t risen much; we’re just seeing the evidence of it more.
Yet even in the face of gruesome videos, there is still a great deal of denial among white Americans that the deaths of Eric Garner, Laquan McDonald, Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd and now Castile and Sterling, are, in fact, a crisis of police violence against people of color. After all, none of the officers were found guilty in a court of law; they had reasons to believe they were in danger; these things happen.
But these things don’t just happen. Yes, most police officers are diligently doing their jobs and keeping us all safe. Painting with a broad brush is not only inaccurate, but leads to tragedies such as the shooting deaths of three police officers at a Dallas protest this week. At the same time, the statistics paint a convincing, terrible picture.
Over 1,000 people are killed by police every year, nearly 60% of whom were either unarmed or should never have been stopped in the first place. Compare that number to other countries. Germany had 6, Britain, 2; Japan, 0. What the hell is wrong with us, as a country?
One problem is how we police. “Quality of life” policing is a gigantic dragnet, ostensibly based on the “broken windows” theory that even petty crime leads to a deterioration of law and order in general. In practice, however, it creates confrontations where none need to exist. And then “these things happen.”
I’ll give you an example that isn’t in the news, and isn’t based on race. Just last week, an acquaintance of mine was relaxing on a beach when his towel slipped off. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. This was a minor infraction of the law — but my friend was suddenly jumped by five police officers (two in civilian clothes), pinned to the ground and dragged, naked, off the beach while he pleaded for help.
That entire confrontation should never have taken place. At most, he should have been given a citation; really, he should have just been warned. But, presumably because that particular beach is popular with LGBTQ people and with people of color, someone, somewhere, decided that a crackdown was necessary. Thank God my friend didn’t resist arrest; he, too, could have been a statistic.
Now multiply that encounter by ten thousand, maybe a hundred thousand. Even without “stop and frisk,” our nation’s approach to policing creates dangerous situations. Violence becomes inevitable.
“Broken windows” must end. “For-profit policing,” in which cops are given quotas for minor offenses in order to generate revenue and evaluate police performance, must end. Profiling must end. Escalation of minor incidents must end. The philosophy must change.
Another problem is how police are trained and reviewed. In many places, cops are not adequately trained to balance protecting safety (their own and others’) with defusing conflict. They respond, routinely, with overwhelming and often deadly force to situations that could be resolved without it. They are often scared kids, put into stressful situations with inadequate mental resources.
The rules of engagement must be changed at the training level and the legal level. States and cities should adopt international standards for the use of deadly force — both as cops are trained and as their actions are reviewed. Standards of review should be changed.
And of course, cameras should be placed on every cop in America — with strict rules that civilians’ faces be obscured before any recording is released to the public. This should help the vast majority of cops, since recordings help explain and defend appropriate conduct as much as they reveal misconduct. And in addition to holding bad cops accountable, body cameras could help prevent misconduct from happening in the first place.
Yet of the 509 fatal shootings by police that have taken place this year, body cameras were worn in only 64 of them. Who knows how many of the remaining 445 lives might have been saved, or what we would have known about the circumstances of their deaths?
Another problem is weaponization. The last two decades have witnessed a massive militarization of civilian police forces. Town sheriffs are buying tanks, military-grade weaponry — it’s outrageous and dangerous and unwarranted. Arm cops to the teeth, and they will use the tools they’re given.
And then, of course, there’s race.
Of those 509 people fatally shot by police so far this year, 202 were black or Hispanic. Young black men were killed at five times the rate of similarly-aged white men. Even taking into account higher crime rates in communities of color, this has been shown by exhaustive, detailed studies to be disproportionate. According to once such study, correcting for all these and other factors, the probability of being black, unarmed and shot by police is 3.49 times the probability of being white, unarmed and shot by police.
That’s why we need #blacklivesmatter and not #alllivesmatter: because when it comes to police violence, black lives clearly matter less.
Part of this is demographics: White men are less than one third of the U.S. population, but they are two thirds of police officers. Most of them are not overtly racist. But unconscious bias affects all of us, no matter how well-meaning we are. That’s what white privilege is: precisely that which is often invisible.
And when it comes to cops, we’re talking about life and death. This, too, must change, through recruiting, training and changes in the way our entire society talks about race.
Finally, while I doubt those Forward readers intending to vote for a candidate espousing white supremacy will ever be persuaded by evidence, it’s worth bearing in mind the yawning gap between the presidential candidates, and political parties, on this issue. Hillary Clinton has proposed creating national use-of-force guidelines, ending all forms of racial profiling, and improving training in conflict de-escalation.
Donald Trump has proposed nothing, but has said “We have to give strength and power back to the police.”
And in this regard, most other Republicans are right on board with him, usually refusing to acknowledge that a crisis is taking place or that is has anything to do with race. This, of course, reflects the racialized preferences of their white, conservative base. (The racism Trump’s candidacy has ignited didn’t come from nowhere.) It is also reprehensible.
As on so many other issues — climate change, gun regulation, the wealth gap — the Republican Party is on the wrong side of justice. If Trump is elected, more innocent black people will die. It is that simple. And those #StillBernie lefties still spreading calumnies about Clinton in the name of this or that pet issue should reflect on that.
Now, I didn’t come up with a single solution in this column. They and others are listed, and described in detail, on the websites of Campaign Zero, the Center for Popular Democracy and the Presidential Task Force on 21st Century Policing: ending “broken windows,” limiting use of force, demilitarization, body cameras, oversight, et cetera.
And yet, each time something like this happens, we white people ask ourselves “What can be done?” often throwing up our hands in despair. When in fact, a lot can be done. The problem is that around half the population doesn’t want to do it.
So, ironically, we need to make this crisis worse. Police violence against people of color requires local involvement, pushing for city- and county-level reforms. That gives Jewish communities, and other organized groups, unique leverage to make change — if we care enough to do so. Unfortunately, too many of our fellow privileged Jews aren’t “woke” to the crisis or the ways to address it. While God may hear the cries of our brothers’ blood, we are often deaf to them.
By JAY MICHEALSON
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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: “...
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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6 days ago
6 days ago