As many individuals across the United States and in New Haven are engaged in conversations and activism around systemic racism, sparked in part by the disparate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color and recent horrific incidents of police brutality against black men and women, around 170 members of the Yale community and others convened on Zoom on July 22 for a conversation titled Anti-Blackness, Abolition, and Criminal Justice: A Conversation with Dr. Emily Wang and Professor Tracey Meares."

Anna Reisman, MD, director, Program for Humanities in Medicine, and professor of medicine at Yale, and Helena Hansen, MD, PhD, director of Social Medicine in Action, and associate professor, Department of Psychiatry, NYU Langone Health, organized and moderated the program, in which Sydney Rose Green, a fifth-year MD-PhD student at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and the Program in History of Science and Medicine, also participated as discussant.

Tracey Meares, JD, Walton Hale Hamilton Professor and a founding director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School, began the conversation, explaining that people need to know the history of the abolition of slavery and Reconstruction to understand the current advocacy for abolishing and defunding the police. Meares is a nationally-recognized expert on policing in urban communities.

Meares stated that the term abolition is inescapably tied to the context of slavery, and that while the 13th Amendment eradicated the legal category of slavery, it did not do the rest of the necessary work to establish citizenship for the formerly enslaved. The 14th Amendment ensured birthright citizenship for emancipated enslaved people and the 15th Amendment was directed at ensuring their right to vote. Reconstruction made some progress on the systemic changes necessary for citizenship, but it lasted only 11 years before a backlash of white supremacist terror ended it.

The calls today for abolishing and defunding the police, Meares believes, are calls to fulfill the promise of Reconstruction that never took place and provide the set of public goods of citizenship that Reconstruction was to have provided. In our era some of those goods include quality health care, housing, and education. Meares described safety as one of those public goods, but said that when people who live in neighborhoods that are disadvantaged from decades of underinvestment and neglect are asked to define safety, they will often focus on issues such as housing, food security, and access to health carenot how quickly armed law enforcement officers arrive when someone calls 911.

She then compared the concepts of abolishing and defunding the police to a compass, noting Ted Alcorns metaphor. These terms point us in the direction we may want to go, but they are not a road map for how we get from here to there. As Meares described later in the conversation, even if policing was dramatically changed overnight, communities in need would still be fragile, with, for example, poor health care, housing, and schools, and these underlying conditions will take timeand a significant amount of moneyto change. Meares added, what makes change particularly difficult is that money currently invested elsewhere will have to be reprioritized, meaning there would have to be a sacrifice of privilege.

YSM Associate Professor Emily Wang, MD, MAS, agreed with Meares that there is difficult work ahead and that progress is not going to be fast. Wang is the director of the Health Justice Lab, which focuses on improving the health of individuals and communities who have been affected by mass incarceration. She also is the director of the new SEICHE Center for Health and Justice, which will focus on identifying and applying strategies to improve the health of individuals and communities impacted by incarceration in Connecticut, nationally, and globally.

Wang noted that while it is positive that COVID-19 has led to more decarceration, early release is often dangerous because of the poor support systems available to formerly incarcerated individuals outside of prison. Made worse by COVID-19, these include, for example, lack of food, jobs, housing, and health care.

Wang said that as health providers, we must ask ourselves how we provide the vital support needed for people leaving prisons. Referring to the history Meares had highlighted, Wang noted that when a health care system for newly-freed individuals began to be created during Reconstruction, the doctor-patient ratio was poor, with 100 doctors caring for four million people. Many of the newly free individuals did not have vital supports in place, similar to released prisoners today. Wang said that health care providers also need to interrogate themselves and the health system to see where they are complicit with anti-blackness, noting that COVID-19 has unmasked longstanding health disparities.

In her remarks, Green thanked Meares for providing important historical context and Wang for showing photos of people in the prison system, humanizing what often is an abstract topic.

Green shared how she first came into consciousness of the role of health care providers in perpetuating systemic racism. In 2013, she was living in Florida when Marissa Alexander, a black woman with three children, was facing 20 years in prison in Florida for firing warning shots to protect herself in her own home from her violent husband. Green did not understand why health care providers, such as pediatricians, did not stand up and say a prison sentence would harm Alexanders kids and Alexander herself. Green viewed the health system as implicated in what happened to Alexander.

Regarding the road map for change, Wang pointed to Yale University, Yale New Haven Hospital, and YSM as the biggest three employers in New Haven, and noted that nationwide, about one of seven new jobs is in health care. She said that if our local institutions step up and hire from minority communities, that would have a significant economic impact, and would importantly change the look of who works in our health system.

Wang also focused on the importance of changing the hearts and minds of ordinary people and said this happens most often when people meet individuals who are different from them, for example, who have been incarcerated. She said unfortunately this does not happen often, because we lead segregated lives.

Meares agreed that bringing about systemic change requires that ordinary people understand that the system we live in is unjust, adding that this is the work we must be doing.

Greens advice to medical students and trainees for bringing about change: Dont wait. As a collective, our voices can be just as powerful.

One of the final questions of the evening was whether providing medical care to people in prison legitimizes incarceration. Wang admitted this is a complicated issue for which she does not have an answer. From a professional perspective, she and her colleagues center their values and practices on the wishes of their incarcerated patients. Personally, she knows that without good health care, incarcerated patients will suffer.

Meares responded by saying she has never been an idealist, but rather is a pragmatist, adding there is no purity to this if you are on the ground doing the work.

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Anti-Blackness, Abolition, and Criminal Justice: A Conversation with Dr. Emily Wang and Professor Tracey Meares - Yale School of Medicine

NAGASAKI--Hibakusha atomic bomb survivors expressed outrage Aug. 9, the 75thanniversary of this city's atomic bombing, overPrime Minister Shinzo Abe's apparent indifference to their calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons and related matters.

Representatives of five groups of hibakusha met with Abe after he arrived from Tokyo to attend the annual ceremony to commemorate victims of the bombing.

In his address during the ceremony, the prime minister said his government will give consideration to hibakushas feelings.

But he did not visit the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, which the representatives had requested he do when they met with him last year.

Abe also made no mention during his speech of calls by hibakusha for the government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

If the government says it will be considerate of hibakushas feelings, the prime minister should grant our request, said Shigemitsu Tanaka, 79, head of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, one of the five groups, after this years meeting with the prime minister. He should ponder his reason for traveling all the way to Nagasaki.

After the ceremony, the representatives handed a written request when they met with Abe and other government officials.

The government side reiterated its longtime position that Japan will continue to work to bridge differing stances taken by countries on the abolition of nuclear weapons and lead efforts to promote international debate on the issue.

Koichi Kawano, 80, chairman of the A-Bomb Survivors Liaison Council of the Nagasaki Prefecture Peace Movement Center, said he was disappointed by the lack of substance in the prime ministers speech.

The government vows to work as a bridge, but I am wondering what it has been actually doing while being complacent about remaining under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, he said.

Hibakusha were also dismayed by the almost identical speech delivered by Abe at the commemorative event held in Hiroshima three days earlier.

We might have felt a serious note if his speeches had contained references to respective details unique to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but there were none, said Masao Tomonaga, chief of the Nagasaki-ken Hibakusha Techo Tomo-no-Kai (association of people with the official designation as hibakusha).

See the original post here:

Dismay among hibakusha over Abe's perceived indifference : The Asahi Shimbun - Asahi Shimbun

Formally known as Convention No. 182, the treaty, adopted two decades ago, achieved universal ratification on Tuesday, making it the most rapidly ratified Convention in the UN agencys 101-year history.

Universal ratification of Convention 182 is an historic first that means that all children now have legal protection against the worst forms of child labour, said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.

It reflects a global commitment that the worst forms of child labour, such as slavery, sexual exploitation, the use of children in armed conflict or other illicit or hazardous work that compromises childrens health, morals or psychological wellbeing, have no place in our society.

Ending child labour has been one of the main goals of the ILO, which was founded in 1919.

The UN agency estimates that 152 million children worldwide are affected, with 73 million in hazardous work.

Most child labour takes place in the agriculture sector, mainly due to poverty and parents difficulties in finding decent work.

Convention No. 182 calls for the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, which includes slavery, forced labour and trafficking.

It forbids the use of children under18 in armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, illicit activities such as drug trafficking, and in hazardous work.

The Convention was adopted by ILO member states meeting in Geneva in 1999.

It is one of the organizations eight Fundamental Conventions, which cover issues such as the elimination of forced labour, the abolition of work-related discrimination and the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining.

The Pacific island nation Tonga deposited its ratification instruments with the ILO on Tuesday, becoming the final country to do so.

The ILO said incidence of child labour and its worst forms dropped by almost 40 per cent between 2000 and 2016 as ratification rates increased and countries adopted laws and policies, including relating to minimum age to work.

However, the UN agency fears the COVID-19 pandemic could reverse years of gains, especially as progress had slowed in recent years,

particularly among children 5 to 11 years, and in some geographical areas.

As 2021 is the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, the ILO plans to raise awareness of the issue to accelerate progress.

Go here to read the rest:

Convention on worst forms of child labour receives universal ratification - UN News

The Modi government has taken yet another step to make the government free from activists and experts who know how to pontificate without really making any impact on the ground. Just like the garden variety activist who pontificates about poverty in the slums while sitting in air-conditioned parties, the Handloom Board, which was abolished by a notification on the 27th of July, had activists and experts who sat in Delhi, enjoying the social status of a prestigious position without really working with the weavers.

The move inspired some amount of outrage from expected quarters that wished to turn this into a move that supposedly hampered the growth of the industry and also the interests of the weavers. The loudest criticism came from activist Laila Tyabji.

Laila Tyabji is reportedly an Indian social worker, designer, writer, and craft activist.She is one of the founders ofDastkar,a Delhi-basednon-governmental organization, working for the revival of traditional crafts in India. Unsurprisingly, she was awarded by the UPA government in 2012 with a Padma Shri.

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Laila Tyabji, chairperson of Dastakar a not-for-profit NGO working to support traditional Indian craftspeople reacted to the decision and said: Strange things happen quietly in COVID times without even a whisper of warning. The news that the almost 70-year-old All India Handicrafts Board, established in 1952 by Pupul Jayakar and nurtured by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, has been abolished came as a complete surprise.

Tyabji expressed her shock in a Facebook post. She wrote: All these years on, it remained the one official forum, however, watered down, where the voices and views of weavers and craftspeople could be expressed directly. One place where representatives of the sector were present in considerable numbers and were actually empowered to advise the Government in policy and sectoral spending The spaces where people themselves can interact directly with Government, or be part of their own governance, are certainly becoming leaner and increasingly few in number. It is worrying.

Essentially, Laila Tyabji insinuated that the Handloom Board was the one true voice of the artisans and craftsperson and the abolition of the board meant that the government would work in isolation and not really hear the real voice of the people, christening herself as their representative.

It is important to note that people in the know say that the Handloom Board was nothing but a group of advisors who wished to pontificate without doing making a substantial impact. The board has existed for 4 decades. What is their impact?, an individual close to the board said. Essentially, the board was started to give political patronage to friendly faces by the previous regime and thus, served no substantial purpose in furthering the interests of the weavers over the past 4 decades.

The criticism that has come from Laila Tyabji gives one the impression that voices of the downtrodden, which were heard through these activists are now being suppressed by the government. However, did Laila Tyabji actually make any substantial impact while working with the ministry to give the Ministry the required inputs?

People in the know have now questioned the commitment of Laila herself citing another example. Vide on order in 2016 was passed for the up-gradation of Weavers Service Centres and for the creation for Design Resource Centres.

The composition of the committee was as under:

The composition of the committee was as under:

The 1stmeeting of the committee was held on 08.11.2016 under the chairpersonship of Honble Minister of Textiles, in which policy decisions regarding revamping of WSCs were taken. On the basis of inputs received from WSCs along with the requirement of additional physical infrastructure & manpower, a draft report was submitted by the expert committee. Thereafter, the 2ndmeeting of the expert committee was held on 27.02.2017 for discussing the draft report and to make final recommendations for upgrading WSCs.

In the meeting, it was decided that the expert committee members shall indicate their preferences for visits to various WSCs and such visits will be facilitated by the ministry.

Interestingly, only Jaya Jaitley visited the WSC and submitted her report to the Ministry. Laila Tyabji, who is now outraging about the Handloom Board being abolished and that her work being the voice of the voiceless will be compromised, did not only not bother to visit any WSC but also did not bother to submit a report to the Ministry.

Thereafter, it was decided to abolish the board and work towards the upliftment of the weavers and craftsmen through NIFT.

The Modi government then decided to set up DRC in all 28 Weavers Service Centres (WSCs) through NIFT with the following objective:

To build and create design-oriented excellence in the Handloom Sector.

To facilitate weavers, exporters, manufacturers and designers for creating new designs.

According to sources, an amount of Rs 3.5 crores has already been released to NIFT to work with weavers within the framework of this program and students and faculty, together, would be working with the Ministry.

The same objectives that were meant to be met by the committee and the board is now working effectively through the NIIFT.

Thus, it is evident that Laila Tyabji herself was hardly interested in representing the voices of the downtrodden to the Ministry. If she was, she would have visited the WSC and given her inputs to the government.

Essentially, the Handloom Board was an advisory council that made little to no impact on the ground. The members thus used their position as a status symbol without really contributing to the development or welfare of the weavers through their position in the board.

Many in the know expressed their opinion on the board, however, wished to stay anonymous. One person in the know said, How can they claim to be the voice of the weavers of Bhagalpur and several other areas sitting in their AC rooms in Delhi? None of them bothered to visit the weavers personally and they wish to pretend as if they were the sole voice of the downtrodden. This is just them being disgruntled at losing a prestigious position that they can show-off in parties.

Essentially, people in the know said that the Board was hardly of any consequence and more work is certainly being done after the Ministrys association with NIFT as compared to the board giving gyan on what the weavers and artisans needed without even meeting them.

7th August 2020 marks the 6th National Handloom Day in India. August 7was chosen as National Handloom Day to commemorate the Swadeshi Movement which was launched on this day in 1905 in the Calcutta Town hall to protest against the partition of Bengal by the British Government. The Handloom industry in India is of prime significance since it not only symbolises the culture of India but also gives employment to thousands of women.

The Modi government decided to abolish the much-hyped and ornamental Handloom Board. The notification to abolish the Handloom Board was issued on the 27th of July. The notification read, Minimum Government and Maximum Governance, leaner government machinery and the need for systematic rationalisation of government bodies, the Government of India have abolished All India Handloom Board with effect from the date of this resolution.

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Modi govt abolishes textile board with activists and experts pontificating, to get work done through institutes like NIFT instead - OpIndia

Nagasaki Nobuto Hirano, a peace activist born to a hibakusha family in Nagasaki, is determined to nurture young people so they will take over the work of passing on memories of the tragedy and hopes for peace to future generations.

It is our generations responsibility to nurture people who will lead peace activities in the next generation, Hirano, 73, said, noting that those who survived the atomic attacks are aging.

Hirano has been supporting the high school peace ambassador movement since it began 23 years ago.

The movement has sent over 270 Japanese high school students to visit the U.N. office in Geneva and other places across the world to convey the voices of hibakusha and call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Nagasaki was devastated by a U.S. atomic bomb Aug. 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in the closing days of World War II.

Hirano started thinking about the bombing seriously when he was a high school student after his friend from childhood suddenly died of leukemia. Everyone suspected that his death was caused by the effects of radiation from the atomic bombing.

The experience guided Hirano toward peace activities.

After graduating from a university in Tokyo and working for a company, he became a teacher in Nagasaki and started playing a leading role in peace activities as a child of hibakusha.

In 1998, the peace ambassador movement started, prompted by nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan that year.

Hirano was the one who suggested sending young people to the United Nations. I had a sense of crisis because peace activities did not involve many young people, Hirano recalled.

I thought I had to nurture young people, he added.

Some of Hiranos peace-promoting peers were skeptical about the idea, he said. Even a hibakusha asked him, What can young people do?

But Hirano brushed aside their objections and launched the movement, believing nothing starts if we keep saying such things.

In 1998, two first high school peace ambassadors visited the U.N. headquarters in New York and called for the elimination of nuclear weapons in English.

The movement gradually started attracting international attention. It was nominated as a Nobel Peace Prize candidate in 2018 and 2019.

Persistence led us to success, Hirano said confidently.

However, there are challenges in helping young people grow into leaders.

Hirano has lost touch with some of the young participants. Some take part only while theyre serving as peace ambassadors, he said.

Nevertheless, Hirano feels great about continuing the movement each time he dines with about 20 to 30 former peace ambassadors in Nagasaki on Aug. 9.

Ive been spending every Sunday over the past 23 years to raise them, Hirano said. I have strong confidence in their future.

Link:

Nagasaki peace activist working to nurture next generation - The Japan Times

Charles, left, & Inez Barron, right, at a ceremony with the Mayor & others (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

Anything short of a revolution wont satisfy Charles and Inez Barron, the married Brooklynites who hold seats in the State Assembly and City Council, respectively, and the police reforms and city budget passed in the wake of recent widespread Black Lives Matter protests serve merely as a distraction to their radical idea of Black-led politics.

Assemblymember Charles Barron and City Council Member Inez Barron, both Democrats, have a combined 30 years in city and state elected office, and many more in activism. They are two Black elected officials with a long history of fighting racism and representing majority-Black neighborhoods like East New York, East Flatbush, and Canarsie, and they are eyeing the current moment as a new opportunity in their campaign against oppression and vision for a new political party.

My biggest goal right now, and has been for the last couple of decades, is to build a powerful, independent, Black, radical political movement for the liberation of Black people in communities where we constitute the majority, said Charles Barron, once a member of the Black Panther Party and now representing the 60th Assembly District.

For the Barrons, whove been civil rights activists for decades whether in or out of elected office, the recent Black Lives Matter protests spurred by police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black people, as well as the city and state government response, are seen in a long, historical context. And, they say, the heated political debates the protests catalyzed in New York still amounted to tinkering at the margins, not properly reinventing a racist society.

While they ignited protests across the country, those recent deaths hit New York nerves still raw from past deaths of unarmed Black people at the hands of police, especially the killing of Eric Garner in 2014, and ongoing complaints of excessive force and disproportionate enforcement by race by the NYPD. The massive wave of protests prompted city and state politicians to pass a very long list of idled police reform bills, as well as a New York City budget that became focused around calls by activists and some elected officials to defund the police.

Though many New Yorkers saw the recent sweep of city and state legislation -- which included outlawing police chokeholds, codifying the New York Attorney General as special prosecutor in certain cases of civilian deaths at the hands of police, and much more -- as either too much or major victories in the fight against injustice, the Barrons said the reforms (and the new city budget) fell far short of what they believe is required.

That is a very pathetic response, said Charles Barron. I supported all of it, the activists, the advocates wanted it, the families that were harmed and lost loved ones wanted it. I supported it. But it was a bunch of bogus legislation that was around for years.

Whether its the state budget in Albany or the New York City budget at City Hall, the Barrons -- who swapped seats in 2013/2014 and may do so again in 2021/2022 -- are often among the no votes even as most of their fellow Democrats vote yes. In separate interviews with Gotham Gazette, Charles and Inez Barron emphasized their own ideas for increasing public safety, like dismantling current models of policing, involving the community in adding or removing officers, establishing a truly independent prosecutor for when police kill unarmed civilians (since they view New York Attorney General Letitia James as not independent enough), abolishing prisons, and increasing Cure Violence programs.

Inez Barron also said she plans to introduce new legislation aimed at replacing the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), a police oversight agency, with an elected body that reviews NYPD misconduct.

The Barrons also described what they call their own Black-led radical political movement, which they currently run through a nonprofit grassroots advocacy organization they founded called Operation P.O.W.E.R, or People Organizing and Working for Empowerment and Respect, and how they eventually want to grow it to a political party that supports Black people running for office.

Inez Barron said the couples future political plans remain uncertain as her time in the Council ends at the end of next year due to term limits. There are no term limits in the State Assembly, however, and Council members are allowed more than two terms if they run again after a break, so the possibility of another Barron seat swap remains. While its possible Charles Barron may run for City Council and Inez Barron for Assembly again, Inez Barron said elevating youth to positions of power is a priority for her and her husband.

Well, thats an interesting idea and we dont see it as switched, because it certainly was not a musical chairs kind of thing, the people voted and we were elected to those positions and were very pleased to see that the community appreciates and recognizes our service and wants us to represent them, said Inez, who represents the 42nd City Council District, which includes East New York, Broad Channel, Brownsville, Canarsie, East Flatbush, Howard Beach, and Jamaica Bay. So what the future holds, I dont know, my term as you say does end until December of 2021. And we work from a collaborative, a co-operative group Operation P.O.W.E.R. and the decisions about people and positions and elections and campaigns is in fact made collectively, those decisions are made collectively, so we have not in fact made those decisions.

We do have several young people that we are grooming and training and making sure they understand the intricacies of how things work, Inez Barron continued. And we are preparing them to step into those positions and represent the people.

History of ActivismAccording to the biography on his website, Charles Barron joined the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party before founding the branch of the National Black United Front, or NBUF, in the same neighborhood. The chairperson at the time made him chief of staff of NBUF and also secretary general of the African Peoples Christian Organization, or APCO.

Charles Barron touts efforts to bring truly affordable housing to the areas hes represented in the Council and Assembly, and securing millions of dollars in funding for CUNYs Black Male Initiative.

Inez Barron has highlighted a long history of fighting segregation and discrimination, excluding Africa from school curriculum, police misconduct, and environmental racism. Before being elected to the City Council, Barron authored legislation in the Assembly to preserve affordable housing in Spring Creek and Starrett City. Before being elected to the Assembly in 2008, Barron was a public school teacher for more than three decades.

Operation P.O.W.E.R. and a Public Safety VisionInez and Charles Barron offer a similar vision of the community taking control of public safety. Charles said he wants to see the police department, in its current state, dismantled, and for the community to lead in the hiring and firing of police in their neighborhoods. He stressed the importance of having more social workers involved in intervention. The Assembly member also said he wants to abolish the prison system as it exists today and find alternative solutions for people who are mentally challenged or display antisocial behavior.

Both Barrons emphasized preventative measures in public safety. Charles pointed to poverty as the root of crime and that unemployment causes mental distress. Inez praised Cure Violence programs, which take an evidence-based, public health approach to stop the spread of violence through conflict-resolution by authentic messengers, engagement with high-risk individuals, and community mobilization. Inez said nonprofit Man Up! works in her Council district to promote peace in communities, and its work has contributed to the relatively lower increase in gun violence in her district compared to others, who have seen a proportionally larger uptick. The BK Reader recently reported the relatively high shooting numbers in East New York are on par with similar numbers from last year, a stark contrast to other neighborhoods that have experienced spikes.

As for the implementation of their vision, the Barrons said they have been building their Black-led, radical movement for years. Working through Operation P.O.W.E.R., they foresee building a Black-led political party because, as Charles Barron said, the Democratic Party does not fit their vision of Black liberation. The Barrons formed their organization with specific goals in mind, including self-determination, community control of organizations and governmental agencies embedded in the community, land trusts, and worker cooperatives to combat a capitalist society, according to Inez Barron.

Charles Barron said their tactic right now is to use the Democratic Party as a way to win elections until they build a separate party. He disparaged other Black elected officials who he said let their neighborhoods gentrify, saying many of them fall to political ambition or party loyalty. The Assembly member also said political organizations like the New King Democrats or the Democratic Socialists of America or parties like the Working Families Party are not matches for the movement the Barrons spearhead.

Any Black person looking for liberation, these groups are not viable options, said Charles Barron. Theyre using us to maintain the status quo. Theyre not trying to really change any system of capitalist oppression, theyre trying to reform things and some are just opportunists for themselves.

Next year, Inezs time in the Council expires. When Charles, who held her seat before her, reached his consecutive term limit, East New Yorkers voted him into the Assembly seat while Inez ran for City Council. That may be a possibility again, but Operation P.O.W.E.R. will reach a decision on who it wants to support in elections towards the end of this year, according to Inez Barron. She said they have also mentored young people in East New York who they want to help boost into office, though she did not name any names.

All thats represented by my Council district are the areas in which were looking to make sure we can have strong, radical, independent, decision-making people in those positions, said Inez Barron. If you grow too quickly and if you dont have other areas that adhere to what you say are the principles of your organization it can morph into something that you did not intend.

The Barrons tend to differentiate the movement they are building as more radical and revolutionary from the one New Yorkers have recently seen a resurgence of in the streets. Charles Barron advised Black Lives Matter advocates to move from the symptoms of racism to root causes.

Theres a difference between organizing and mobilizing for power, said Charles Barron. When you mobilize people around issues like police brutality or some other kinds of issues, you dont get any power doing that. Youre just responding to issues and they placate you with some empty reform.

State Police ReformOn the state level, reforms included the Eric Garner Chokehold Act that criminalizes police using chokeholds when it leads to serious injury or death; the repeal of 50-A, which kept law enforcement officers disciplinary records from the public eye; the appointment of the Attorney General as a special prosecutor when police kill an unarmed civilian; the Amy Cooper bill that makes false, race-based 911 calls illegal; the right for persons not under arrest to record law enforcement; and the Police Statistics and Transparency Act, which directs courts to collect racial and demographic data for low-level offenses and publish it online each month, along with mandating police to report any deaths during arrest to the Department of Criminal Justice Services. The governor also signed laws requiring that officers report discharging their weapons; people in custody are given medical and mental health services as needed; State Police patrol officers wear body cameras; and the state creates a Law Enforcement Misconduct Investigative Office under the Department of Law which will investigate misconduct complaints against any local police department.

Charles and Inez Barron both said the new state laws, as well as those passed at the city level, are not fully responsive to the needs of the people, and that their passage had been long overdue. Charles referred to the history of the chokehold bill and how, although an NYPD ban on chokeholds had been implemented in different forms for decades it had not stopped police from using the maneuver on unarmed, Black civilians (like Eric Garner).

Charles Barron launched into criticism of Attorney General Letitia James, who like the Barrons is a Black Democratic Brooklynite (James was a City Council member, then New York City Public Advocate before being elected Attorney General). By Cuomo executive order going back several years, before James took office in 2019, the Attorney General acts as a special prosecutor in cases where police kill unarmed civilians, a responsibility now codified. James is also currently investigating NYPD interactions with protestors, as requested by Cuomo. Charles Barron said he doesnt see James office as a separate, objective entity because of the attorney generals connection to Cuomo, who helped James win a crowded 2018 Democratic primary as the Democratic governor and former attorney general won a third gubernatorial term himself.

She is a disgrace to our people, Charles Barron said of James. She is a puppet for the governor and he doesnt mind showing the strings. An independent office doesnt need a governor to appoint them to do anything, but she got in there by way of favor from the governor and shes his puppet.

Charles Barron said that the attorney generals office chose not to prosecute instances of police misconduct like the case of Saheed Vassal, an unarmed Black Brooklyn man who was shot by an NYPD officer in 2018, and appealed the case of Jalil Muntaqim, a former member of the Black Panther Party who contracted COVID-19 in prison and was set for temporary release until the state blocked the initial decision.

Attorney General James has worked tirelessly and independently to investigate the interactions between the NYPD and protesters, said a spokesperson for the Attorney Generals office in response to the criticism from Charles Barron. While this investigation remains ongoing, its clear that many New Yorkers have lost faith in law enforcement, and Attorney General James is leading the charge for transparency, accountability, and progress. We must all work together to change the system, and we encourage Assemblymember Barron to share his ideas about redesigning the role of public safety with us.

Governor Cuomos office did not respond to requests for comment for this article. These are not Charles Barrons first critique of the governors actions, as seen in 2016 and 2018 when the Assembly member interrupted Cuomos annual State of the State addresses to question his commitment to public school funding, especially in low-income neighborhoods.

City Police ReformThe City Council also passed and Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a set of laws aimed at police reform and accountability. It approved its own chokehold bill, which went farther than the state legislation in that it criminalized any use of chokeholds by police, classified the action as a Class A misdemeanor, prohibited officers from compressing someones diaphragm during arrest, and criminalized other forms of restraint that put pressure on a persons neck or back that may prevent breathing or blood flow. The Council also approved the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology, or POST, Act, which requires the police to report on its surveillance technology and how it is used to the public; a disciplinary matrix to track officer misconduct; the right of the public to record law enforcement; and a mandate for police to display their badges at all times.

Inez Barron said she commends her colleagues in the Council on the chokehold bill, but they need to stay resolute in the face of opposition from the police commissioner.

I encourage them to stand tall and dig in because theres going to be pushback, she said. Theres already talk about, Well we need to amend that and not include the restrictions on other airway passages, we need to not have that in.

Otherwise, Inez Barron said the new disciplinary matrix loses some of its footing in reform because the police commissioner has no obligation to act on the findings. To introduce the type of accountability she wants to see in the NYPD, she said she is cosponsoring a bill with Council Member Alicka Ampry-Samuel, also a Black Brooklynite, to reform the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

The CCRB is an agency that can receive complaints about certain types of alleged NYPD office misconduct, investigate those claims, and make recommendations on disciplinary actions. But Inez Barron said she found fault in the process because the police do not have to execute the recommendations and only a small percent of complaints are substantiated, meaning the CCRB finds enough evidence to believe that the subject officer committed the alleged act without legal justification. Jon Darche, the executive director of the CCRB, confirmed that 10 percent of complaints ultimately become substantiated in a June board meeting.

The mayor, City Council, public advocate and police commissioner appoint the members of the CCRB, and that is one of Inezs primary concerns in replacing the agency. The Barron-Ampry-Samuel legislation would section the city into 17 districts and hold elections in those districts for members of a new civilian review board. In addition, the four districts with the highest incidents of police misconduct complaints would receive an extra representative, for a total of 21 members.

This is legislation that is not just a knee-jerk response to the most recent conditions that were facing of police misconduct and police causing death, said Inez. This is legislation thats been five, six years in the making.

The Council member said the bill will also address another of her primary concerns, the CCRBs power in investigating misconduct. She said the proposed new body would be able to hold hearings, have subpoena power, and implement binding decisions the commissioner cannot change but the individual who filed the complaint may appeal.

The last piece of the legislation would create the appointment of an independent prosecutor who is elected by the people and has the authority to prosecute police abuse cases that rise to the level of a crime.

Inez Barron said she and Ampry-Samuel will likely introduce the bill in the next several weeks, and have received calls from other Council members who want to support the proposal.

She said that officers who commit certain offenses, especially the shooting of unarmed civilians, should be immediately dismissed. She pointed again to what she said was a police force without adequate repercussions or accountability for their actions.

Things are not gonna change when they know the consequences for their actions are minimal, said Inez. They continue to be on the job, they continue to get increases in salary and rise through the ranks. Its criminal, its really criminal.

A Divisive City BudgetThe city budget that passed for the July 1 start to the new fiscal year served as another piece in the recent and ongoing public safety and police reform debate. Many protestors and elected officials called for an at least $1 billion reduction to the roughly $6 billion NYPD annual operating budget.

Inez Barron was among those officials, and she voted no on the budget deal -- as did Council Members Brad Lander, Carlos Menchaca, Jimmy Van Bramer, Ben Kallos, Antonio Reynoso, Carlina Rivera, Donovan Richards, and Helen Rosenthal -- because she said it did not meet those demands, not going far enough to defund the NYPD and shift resources to youth and social services.

Both Charles and Inez Barron noted some claims, chiefly by Mayor de Blasio, that the new budget moved $1 billion from the police, but said clearly, as acknowledged by City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and others, that it did not in actuality.While explaining her no vote during the City Council budget proceedings on June 30, Inez Barron said the mayor did not acknowledge the demands of the protestors in the actions he took, and argued for a reduction in the ranks of those officers killing Black and brown people.

We need a hiring freeze, no new academy classes, and a reduction in uniformed officers headcount, Barron said. And just as the city had to pivot on a dime to address the COVID-19 pandemic, we must do likewise regarding the NYPD. There is, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, quote, the fierce urgency of now end quote. I vote no.

The Barrons call for defunding the NYPD and, more broadly, for abolition of the police as it is currently structured, stands in some contrast to several Black City Council members who supported the budget deal reached between the mayor and the Council. Several of those Black elected officials, like Brooklyns Laurie Cumbo and Robert Cornegy and the Bronxs Vanessa Gibson, have argued they while they want fairer policing their communities also want a strong police presence, and that while they favored moving some resources from the NYPD in the recent city budget, they were not supportive of a major defunding of the police department. Richards, who is likely to become the next Queens Borough President based on the recent Democratic primary he won, was the only Black Council member aside from Inez Barron who voted against the budget deal.

In particular with the city budget, the Barrons both called attention to school safety agents' planned multi-year move from the NYPD to the Department of Education as a soft reform and accounting gimmick.

It was, I dont want to say symbolic, Inez Barron told Gotham Gazette of the NYPD changes in the budget. It was, in fact, the act of defunding but it did not affect the officers themselves. I think as long as [Mayor de Blasio] has the commissioner that he has in place theres going to be a lot of continuation of situations that are not beneficial to Black and brown people, particularly as they get involved in issues with the NYPD.

Charles strong opinions have been recognized by most elected officials, including Mayor de Blasio. In a 2018 ceremony unveiling the Prince Joshua Avitto Community Center, named after a 6-year-old boy who was murdered in East New York, Charles suggested that as much as they were celebrating the new center, a revolution was imminent, and he repeated calls to abolish jails and shelters while investing more in jobs, youth centers, and economic development.

So I want to say about the Assembly member what you see is what you get, de Blasio said after Barrons remarks. And thats a compliment.

Youth services is also a significant point of contention for the Barrons in this years city finances. Charles said people should not consider the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), which the adopted budget partially restored through the Summer Bridge initiative after de Blasio had cut the entire SYEP in his executive budget plan, as a win in the city budget.

On the youth program alone I wouldnt have passed this budget, I wouldnt have voted for it, Charles Barron said. How can they feel good about 35,000 youth slots and you got $88 billion [total budget]? You cut it from 70 [thousand slots] and then brag about how you saved it.

Both Barrons also brought up $450 million the mayor said was being moved from planned NYPD capital spending and reserved for youth and recreation centers and how, in their experience, the bureaucracy around creating those buildings delays plans by three to five years. Inez Barron did say, however, that she saw the restoration of funding for CUNYs Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) as an accomplishment. ASAP offers special financial and academic resources for students to graduate from associate-degree programs. Both Barrons are CUNY Hunter College alumni; Inez served as teacher, administrator, and principal in education for years before running for office, and she serves as the chair of the Councils Committee on Higher Education, where she has pushed for making CUNY tuition-free again.

In light of what they considered disappointing reforms and budgeting amid a more widespread reckoning about race and power, their pursuit of a Black-led political movement seems top of mind for both Barrons. They said they will continue to grow their movement until it is strong enough to stand as its own political party without being co-opted by people who do not share their same aims.

I plan on speaking truth to power no matter what the consequences are, said Charles Barron. Inevitably, I believe our struggle may be long, but our victory is certain.

Link:

'A Very Pathetic Response': Charles and Inez Barron on Protest, Police Reform and Radical, Black-Led Politics - Gotham Gazette

Remember Hiroshima by Abolishing Nuclear Weapons

For the last 17 years, my friends and I have organized a peaceful vigil for nuclear disarmament on Hiroshima Day, August 6th, in Los Alamos, New Mexico at Ashley Pond Park, the actual spot where the Hiroshima bomb was built.

There, sometimes with as many as 400 others, weve been calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons; the closing of the Los Alamos National labs; the cleaning up of the environment and making reparations to the downwinders and indigenous people whose land was stolen.

This year, the pandemic has forced us to host an online commemoration instead (on August 6th, 8 p.m. EST, at http://www.campaignnonviolence.org/hiroshimaday2020) with speakers including Dr. Ira Helfand of the Nobel Peace Prize group, the Intl Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and Archbishop John Wester of New Mexico, who will speak of his recent visit to Hiroshima and Pope Francis urgent call to abolish nuclear weapons.

We remember what the United States did 75 years ago when we killed 200,000 people at Hiroshima and another 40,000 people in Nagasaki. We repent of this evil by recommitting ourselves to the long hard work of building a global grassroots movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons and war, starting with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Our message over the years has been simple, moral and urgent: Nuclear weapons have totally failed us

Our message over the years has been simple, moral and urgent: Nuclear weapons have totally failed us. They dont make us safer; they dont provide jobs; they dont make us more securethose are age-old lies. Instead they bankrupt us, economically and spiritually.

According to the Doomsday Clock, we are in greater danger now than ever. A limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan is very possible; an all-out nuclear war would end life as we know it. We cannot continue down this path. If we spent billions instead on teaching and building nonviolent civilian-based defense systems and nonviolent conflict resolution programs around the world, we could move the planet closer toward true peaceand have the resources to cut the roots of war, such as injustice, poverty, and racismand start safeguarding creation.

To the employees of the Los Alamos National Labs and the nuclear weapons industry, we have been pleading: dont waste your one precious life building weapons to vaporize millions of sisters and brothers. Quit your jobs and find pro-human, nonviolent work.

To the Christians who work at the Los Alamos Labs and the nuclear weapons industry, weve been saying: take up the command of the nonviolent Jesus who say love your enemies, dont nuke them. Quit your jobs, join his campaign of nonviolence, and work for a more just, more nonviolent nation and world.

To our politicians, we say, stop funding nuclear weapons development. This message is integral to the Black Lives Matter movement, the environmental movement, the anti-corruption movement, and all the grassroots movements for justice and peace. Instead, fund the needs of the people for better schools, jobs, healthcare, food, housing and environmental cleanup.

These weapons and our violence blind us to the truth of our common humanity, our oneness with creation. We can no longer even imagine a world without war or nuclear weapons. Today, we demand leaders with vision of a new North America, free of nuclear weapons, a new land of nonviolence that fulfills Dr. Kings visionary dream, who will work to make that vision come true.

This 75th anniversary of Hiroshima should not just be an interesting historical marker; it should be a turning point, when the U.S. renounces its nuclear legacy, and charts a new course for itself and humanity, so that together in a nuclear-free future, we can get on with the task for justice, environmental cleanup and learning to live at peace with one another.

John DearPeaceVoice

Excerpt from:

Remember Hiroshima by Abolishing Nuclear Weapons - LA Progressive

In thinking specifically about the abolition of prisons using the approach of abolition democracy, we would propose the creation of an array of social institutions that would begin to solve the social problems that set people on the track to prison, thereby helping to render the prison obsolete. There is a direct connection with slavery: when slavery was abolished black people were set free, but they lacked access to the material resources that would enable them to fashion new, free lives. Prisons have thrived over the last century precisely because of the absence of those resources and the persistence of some of the deep structures of slavery. They cannot, therefore, be eliminated unless new institutions and resources are made available to those communities that provide, in large part, the human beings that make up the prison population.

Angela Davis

Our infantile President needs to be taught some lessons. Its not just the lessons that the liberal meritocracy wants him to learn. Trumps opposition in the majority of the Democratic Party and the corporate media who backs them up wants Trump to start listening to the expertswho are often in their position of power through many of the same tactics as Trump: ability to bullshit, lack of empathy, being boring enough to have ambition. Our country may be full of idiots but they are mostly at the top.

The larger problem with our society is a lack of education of citizenship a la Ralph Nader. Nader hits another home run in his latest radio hour with educator Barbara Lewis. Speaking of home runs, couldnt the Marlins use Ralph more than ever right now with most of their team sidelined with COVID? Lord knows the blue team could use a person who can catch some bases being stolen in Florida. Which is exactly what Nader does on the second half of his show with Greg Palast.

When cases inevitably pile up in the schools wouldnt Trump be just like the baseball commissioner who said the players need to be better. Trumps only governing strategy is deflection. Without at least some checks and balances of power the virus would be far worse. With the country structured as it is he can blame local officials who are cleaning up his mess because these officials do have some power. However, the dictator-in-Chief will do anything he can to get rid of all checks until we are the hoarded toilet paper in his bleached shithole of a country.

Just as Trumps fascist state has abandoned public health, public democracy and public lands it has abandoned public schools. The disinvestment from poor and minority schools can only be met with a reparations policy that considers all aspects of oppression in an intersectional and dynamic way. But why put the cart before the horse here? If the neoliberal state continues to present itself as incapable of funding public programs why should the public have to take on the health risk of partaking in them?

Mandatory schooling prevents another dynamic of criminalization of people with health conditions who can not afford to let their children take the risk. The dangerous rhetoric of children being immune from COVID obscures how the disease spreads between even mild cases and prevents a false security to children who could suffer permanent damage to their body even if they dont die.

One of the unique risks of children specifically being infected is paradoxically that they often dont show symptoms meaning they are more likely to spread to others at school because we cant tell that they are sick. According to Harvard Health, children exposed to COVID have developed multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) which results in life-threatening organ failure.

Trump is criminally threatening to remove funding for schools that dont reopen. While this blackmail may be the only kind of black or mail Trump supports, lets remember too that he is cutting the budget by tremendous amounts regardless. The fiscal year 2021 proposes cuts to education by 6.1 billion according to the National Education Association. They point to cuts to English Language Learners, Title I (low income students), Title II (disability) and rural. Our taxes are also being funneled to private schools through 5 billion in Freedom Scholarships. Public service loan forgiveness would meet its death like many of the American people and work-study funding would fall by 55%.

Schools in free fall are being abandoned by the federal government. Those who can stay afloat amidst budget crises are the schools funded by property taxesnamely where the rich kids live. The other truth is that safely reopening simply isnt realistic unless the budget radically changes. The estimated cost of safely reopening is 245 billion dollars according to The Council of State Chief School Officers. Compare that to Republican Senator Lamar Alexanders estimation of 50 billion. The aid is also being disproportionately allocated to private schools already as Betsy DeVos changes the formula of distribution to one based on distribution of total number of schools in a district rather than total number of low income students in a school.

The coronavirus is forcing us to consider space in a new way. In what ways is space utilized to reenforce inequality? How have closed spaces such as prisons and immigrant detainment centers left communities vulnerable to the virus? In what ways has the home been a similar trap for women, who now experience an alarming rise in domestic violence thanks to the enclosed space of the home? In what ways would the closed space of the school be a similar entrapment for children without access to health care and already suffering health consequences of a polluted environment? In what ways do the rich create their own spaces to be free of the dangers of being poor and dark skinned, whether that be policing, environment deregulation or austerity defunding through the logic of neoliberalism?

However to avoid cynicism we should also be asking what type of schools we want for our children. If we can determine a safe way for return then we should be looking at it. However, the numbers simply dont add up between what is needed for a safe reopening and what is being proposed to be given. While a district by district approach has some appeal we also should be problematizing this segregation of policy because it is obvious that for the richer schools with more funding there is less safety risk. Accepting a district by district approach does accept this inequality and leaves poor children further behind.

Who even needs school when you have Black Lives Matter? Why continue to send children to American Exceptionalism history classes when they could be attending statue removals? Now thats a bit of hyperbole but the basic point is this: if we cannot even properly educate the public on the dangers of the virus why are we sending people to risk their lives for an alternative story?

The silver lining of this virus is that it has forced us to imagine new possibilities. Rather than working all day for capital people have turned to protest to make demands for justice. On a parallel, the false guarantee of work is exposed under the virus as people have to turn to the government to survive. Hopefully, this will be the propaganda for socialism we need. But then again the American public may already be there. Bernie Sanders mentions winning the ideological battle on socialist programs. The deeper problem is that there is no democracy to give voice to these issues because of the very inequality that makes the policies obvious. While we wait for corporate duopoly racketeers to catch up hundreds of thousands die from austerity politics that have completely lost track of the poor who have the virus or are at risk of it. Even if the virus brings the revolution it will be at a tremendous cost.

For now, we simply dont have the revolution necessary to transform social relations and the idea of living to see another day politically and physically seems like an idea that will have to do. Meanwhile, children will have to deal with a multitude of problems especially from poor and working families reliant on the childcare and food from the school system. But while boycotting school may have many downsides, it also can amount to the same leverage as a strike, which teachers are already organizing. Go back to school and a certain cut will die and Trump and co. will say thats the cost and that for those of us not dead, America is back. Thats always been his political gambit. Some of you are disposable but the country benefits from it. Cowardly.

However if we boycott school now the government is forced to respond to more civil unrest. This is the sort of exposure of the state that will be necessary to transform it. Just as protest across the country has made the authoritarian state show its brutal hand, so too a boycott of the schools will expose the inability of neoliberal relations to deal with a public health crisis.

Trump defines himself by his wealth and fame. A true public education system can teach our children to be so much more than that. But under a corporate neoliberal model the only public we have is public death. Until we revolutionize our society into one that takes care of the least of us and not just the corporate class we will continue to have cyclical but continual crisis and unnecessary death. In the absence of this society the most responsible thing to do is prevent as many deaths as possible.

When the coronavirus first started I was sadly one of those who bought into the false choice presented by the right: work and die or dont work and die. I wanted people to be able to go back to work because I could only imagine a society where work could provide for the poor. However, the left must always fight against the reactionary politics of the right that aim to hold idealism captive. There are other ways for society to provide beyond dependent slavery to capital. It is our job to create these possibilities for alternative structures.

Examples of the false choices meant to smother idealism include: reopen the economy amidst a deadly pandemic so poor people can have enough to eat. Counter with a solution that gives people enough to eat without having to risk their lives. The worst-case scenario is the right reactionary one that only emerges because they neglected common sense and decency in their original question.

Another example: the right says invade and sanction Venezuela because their government has failed. The left could respond by pointing out that the economics are sabotaged by Empire and that by negotiating with terrorists like John Bolton we only increase the downward spiral. Resistance to the hegemony of United States must be supported in Venezuela especially when they represent almost a last stand against neoliberal free-market dominance in the entire region of Latin America.

The same logic goes on in the transition to green energy. The right says well lose jobs. Well how about we stop choosing between livelihoods and the very existence of life on earth being threatened from climate change. Here is where an emphasis on intersectionality is so key so that the right cant make disingenuous left arguments (rights of workers) to stop real left projects (transition to green economy which includes workers rights naturally).

It is that time of year again and I know it is a special election with a special shade of fascism but the same false choice argument is used for opportunistic Democrats. If you want something more than their corporate neoliberal agenda, you support Republicans is the argument. Lets give one up for Barack Obama, not just because he didnt use his eulogy time for a Civil Rights leader to take shots at black radicals as Bill Clinton did but also because he brought up the necessary fight for voting rights that are under severe attack by this authoritarian administration.

We can tell Obama really has the right amount of respect for his doofus successor Joe Biden. That is, zero respect. Obama would never have campaigned for himself to have a Democrat Congress because it would mean he would have to do something for progressives. Good for him for trying to fuck over Biden with a Democrat congress that he will eagerly ignore. Biden will be busy lost in his literal and political basement trying to juggle replacing what Biden called the first racist President with all the politically expedient racist policies that Biden built his career on.

Opening schools would be more of an argument if we had an administration that took the virus seriously. We know that this administration will not respond to the plight of children or workers and as a result, the question of catastrophe for school populations is not if, but when. The same disregard for human life can be found in the way this administration deals with public schools generally. In fact, both corporate parties have been gutting public health and public school resources. Under neoliberalism the public doesnt even exist, only the individual does. President Trump is the embodiment of this mentality as he will kill the entire public as long as it benefits himself. It is said that reading is the best way to create empathy because it gives you access to the world of another person. So Mr. Trump, shut up and read a book. It wont kill you.

Read the original post:

Donald Trump Is The Only One Who Should Be Going To School This Fall - CounterPunch

Stanley A. Ransom Jr. has written and published Americas First Black Poet; Jupiter Hammon of Long Island. Ransom grew up in Winsted and is a graduate of The Gilbert School.

Stanley A. Ransom Jr. has written and published Americas First Black Poet; Jupiter Hammon of Long Island. Ransom grew up in Winsted and is a graduate of The Gilbert School.

Photo: Stanley A. Ransom Jr. / Contributed Photo

Stanley A. Ransom Jr. has written and published Americas First Black Poet; Jupiter Hammon of Long Island. Ransom grew up in Winsted and is a graduate of The Gilbert School.

Stanley A. Ransom Jr. has written and published Americas First Black Poet; Jupiter Hammon of Long Island. Ransom grew up in Winsted and is a graduate of The Gilbert School.

Winsted native writes book on Black poet Jupiter Hammon

With the publication of the 88-line broadside poem An Evening Thought in 1760, Jupiter Hammon became the first published African-American contributor to American poetry.

The book, Americas First Black Poet; Jupiter Hammon of Long Island, written by Stanley A. Ransom Jr., is a reflection of the authors fascination with the history of Long Island and its past, including the lives of slaves who were brought to that part of New York in the 1700s.

Ransom, 92, now retired, has made a mission of educating people everywhere of the great contributions of Black poets to society, and annually organizes Black Poetry Day in Plattsburgh, N.Y., where he has lived for many years.

He is past president of the Long Island Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, and is a descendant of Solomon Stoddard, a 17th-century minister quoted by Jupiter Hammon. Ransom first became interested in Hammon through the work of author Oscar Wegelin. In 1970, he proposed that Oct. 17, Jupiter Hammons birthday in 1711, be celebrated as Black Poetry Day, to recognize the contributions of African-American poets to American life and culture and to honor Jupiter Hammon, the first Black man in America to publish his own verse, according to the book.

Ransom was born in Winsted in 1928, and moved to West Hartland in 1935, to be closer to his fathers family. His father, Stanley Ransom Sr., worked as sales manager for the Gilbert Clock Co.; his mother, Charlotte Grace Adele Sheldon, was the soloist at the Winsted Methodist Church. The family resided on Walnut Street, and Ransom attended the Greenwood School.

After graduating from high school, Ransom worked for three years for the Connecticut Parks and Forest Commission, where he planted trees and fought forest fires. He graduated from Yale University in 1951 and from Columbia University Graduate Library Service School in 1953, then worked for the New York Public Library on 42nd Street for five years.

I realized Id gone as far as I could go there, and I took a job at the Huntingon, Long Island, public library out on the north shore, Ransom said. I learned a lot about being a librarian there from the director, and when he left, I became the director.

Ransom fed his interest in local history by exploring Huntington, and heard about Jupiter Hammon. His name popped up, Ransom said. A lot of people had heard of him; he was a neighbor, and lived in the area. Theres a peninsula thats now a state park, but in 1711, that whole area was the manor of a place called Queens Village, where members of the British hierarchy settled.

There, Henry Lloyd was a 24-year-old from Boston who came to what was known as Lloyds Neck, which was owned by his wife, he said. She received it from a man she was formerly engaged to, and he willed the land to her; when he died, she received the whole neck. When she married Henry Lloyd, it became theirs.

The Lloyds had eight slaves that they brought from Boston, who were from Barbados. In the early 1600s, the whole of Barbados was dedicated to developing sugar on plantations. (On Long Island at that time) there were 56,000 slaves on a plantation who were working on sugar, cutting the cane and pressing it.

Jupiter Hammon was among those slaves. The Lloyds settled on what is now known as Shelter Island, N.Y., bringing eight slaves, including Hammon, to their home. They owned all of Shelter Island, Ransom said. I went there when I was library director, and at that time the house was owned by a Mr. Fisk.

Finding out more about Jupiter Hammon wasnt easy.

We dont know what he looked like, or anything about him, Ransom said. I hunted everywhere, and there were no diaries, no newspapers that covered the time that he died, in 1805. I asked if he was buried in the African-American cemetery in Huntington, but he wasnt. Its probable that he was placed in the African-American burial ground, thats full of unmarked graves.

Jupiter Hammon wasnt the first Black poet, and I learned he was the first to publish his own verse, Ransom explained. Apparently the first Black poem was written by a woman named Lucy Terry, in a little town in Massachusetts, about an attack by Native Americans that killed settlers in a place called Bars Field, somewhere near Great Barrington.

Lucy wrote a long poem about it, and the poem wasnt printed until 1866, I think, Ransom said. But Jupiter, and Phyllis Wheatley, were the first Black persons to publish their own poems Jupiter in 1760, and Phyllis about 10 years later. She got a lot of publicity, but Jupiter was somewhat of a mystery. But he was the first Black poet to publish his own verse.

Eventually, Ransom learned about that the Lloyd Harbor Historical Society building, a 1711 saltbox house near Huntington, was the closest to a resting place for Jupiter Hammon.

Its become kind of a shrine for him, he said. Groups of people who are interested in African-American history have put decorations on the house, and awarded plaques to the house. So that seems to be a substitute for a cemetery marker.

A natural intelligence and a deep religious fervor led Hammon to publish his poetry and prose, and his Address to the Negroes of the State of New York, which first appeared in 1787, was later reprinted and distributed by the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, according to Ransoms book. Some of Hammons most productive years were spent in Hartford during the American Revolution, he said. With newly found genealogical information on Jupiter, this present volume with newfound poems has become the most complete and authoritative work on this early American black poet, according to the books publisher, Outskirts Press.

Hammons poetry reveals his joyous intoxication with religion, and in this vein he precedes the composers of those Black spirituals which are today an integral part of American culture, Ransom wrote. This collection of his poems and writings now includes two newly discovered poems found in New York Historical Society Library and in the Sterling Memorial Library of Yale University. Ransom noted that Hammon used several codes and indirect ways to let his fellow slaves know his real feelings about slavery. He used his Biblical knowledge as a cover.

Ransom has observed Black Poetry Day at Plattsburgh since 1970. Id like to see a national observance of Black Poetry Day, having people read the poems of Black poets, he said. Up here in Plattsburgh, theyve had nationally known Black poets come to Plattsburgh University. Im trying to get all the states to do it.

On Oct. 17, its all about Jupiter Hammon and Black Poetry Day, he said. I have a poetry day committee, and we feel that it is important to have some ways to promote racial harmony. This book, I think, is timely. Its a way to accept and appreciate Black poetry as a major expression of the Black experience. Im trying to enable the use of Black poems to celebrate person of color.

Ransom said he doesnt benefit personally from the celebration. But it seems to me that with all the terrible problems weve experienced lately, that this might help, he said. There are so many Black poets who have written such good poems for people to read. They write about life and family, and their experiences. ... Their poems should be read for the benefit of hearing what they have to say.

Since founding the annual event, Ransom has had readers including former Connecticut Poet Laureate Marilyn Nelson, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy Smith; Gwendolyn Brooks; and Derek Wolcott, who in 1992 was the days reader a week after winning a Nobel Prize. These poets have a lot to say, Ransom said. And for schoolchildren and college kids poetry is still a good way of expressing your feelings. Thats my aim to get people to experience and appreciate poetry.

Ransom writes poetry, too, but is more inclined to short story writing, and has become a professional storyteller and a member of the National Storytellers Institute, sharing his skills with libraries, childrens programs and schools. Hes also a singer and musician, and goes by the name Connecticut Peddler.

I also play hammer dulcimer, guitar, mandolin, auto harp and ukulele, he said. With my wife, Christina, we have volunteered every morning at our hospitals skilled nursing facility. We go up and talk to the patients, and sing to them. But with COVID-19, there are no more volunteers allowed at the hospital.

In September, Ransom is performing four songs during a yearly event on the Battle of Plattsburgh, honoring the date in 1814 with the U.S. Navy defeated an army of British soldiers trying to invade the area. Ransom has recorded 10 CDs of historic music. He has also written two musical compositions, the Jupiter Hammons Jig and the Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley, based on Jupiter Hammons second poem, a four-part arrangement for Gospel Choir by Shirley Baird, Canadian musician and educator.

I like to do creative things, he said.

Ransom is an Army veteran of WWII. He and his wife, Christina, have four children, including a step-daughter, and eight grandchildren.

For more information or to contact the author, visit http://www.outskirtspress.com/JupiterHammon. The book is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

See original here:

Winsted native writes book on Black poet Jupiter Hammon - Torrington Register Citizen

Something has come unstuck. The common sense about policing has abruptly changed.

This shift was a long time coming: Prison abolitionists a movement of scholars and activists, notably spearheaded by Black women such as Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore have spent decades organizing toward a goal of abolishing the prison system. The Black Lives Matter movement and a new generation of Black-led organizing have kindled a new moment in which a world without police feels truly possible.

After decades of expanding police power bolstered by a hegemonic law and order discourse and a bipartisan tough on crime agenda something snapped when Minneapolis police were filmed callously suffocating George Floyd, an unarmed Black man. Suddenly once-staunch defenders of the police even their own unions are calling for reform, and moderates advocate defunding specific programs or entire departments. The police have come to be seen as a threat to public safety rather than its instrument, and the ideological framing of Black criminality has given way, at least for the moment, to that of institutional racism. More than two-thirds of Americans (69 percent) believe that Floyds death is a sign of broader problems in [the] treatment of black Americans by police, and 81 percent believe police in America need to continue making changes to treat blacks equally to whites. As recently as 2014, it was a minority (43 percent) who saw similar incidents as a sign of broader problems.

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As cities burned and crowds fought with cops, surveys showed that three-quarters of Americans (78 percent) saw the anger driving the uprisings as at least partially justified, and a majority (54 percent) felt similarly about the protesters militant tactics, including the burning of Minneapoliss Third Precinct station house. Twice as many people including a majority of whites report being concerned about police violence as express concern over protester violence. A large majority (74 percent) express support for the protests (47 percent strongly support them).

Riots get results. The cops who killed George Floyd are being prosecuted; many departments are banning chokeholds; and police chiefs, district attorneys and other law enforcement leaders have resigned, one after another, across the country. Police budgets are being slashed, with the funds reallocated to social spending reversing the trajectory of the last half-century. The Minneapolis City Council voted to disband its police force altogether and try something else instead.

Some of the concessions responded to long-standing complaints, and others represent changes that no one had even demanded: Lego is de-emphasizing police-themed toys. Babynames.com featured a stark black banner on its front page listing dozens of victims of racist violence, beginning with Emmett Till, and reminding us that, Each one of these names was somebodys baby. The long-running television program Cops was abruptly cancelled. Corporations started pouring money into civil rights organizations, and celebrities publicly challenged each other to bail out arrested protesters.

Twenty years ago, I began work on a history of policing in the United States, which appeared in 2004 under the title Our Enemies in Blue. (It is now in its third edition.) The main argument of the book is that the core function of the police is not to fight crime, to protect life and property, or even to enforce the law, but instead to preserve existing social inequalities, especially those based on race and class. In making that case, I looked at the origins and development of the institution, the centrality of violence in police work, and the persistent bias in the law and its enforcement. I also forwarded a number of contentious (and at the time, almost heretical) claims: that modern policing originated not in the New England town watch, but in the Southern slave patrols militia groups responsible for enforcing pass laws and preventing uprisings; that cops are not workers and police unions are not labor unions; that community policing is not a program for progress but a counterinsurgency strategy; and that the institution of policing must be abolished rather than reformed. At the time, none of those were accepted positions, even among many strident critics of the police. They remain today minority views, but it has become a substantial minority. These points have entered the mainstream discourse: Historians increasingly acknowledge the significance of slave patrols. Unions are calling into question the legitimacy of police unions, and even breaking ties with them. The military literature has become increasingly explicit in comparing community policing with counterinsurgency. And even mainstream politicians find themselves debating the question, not merely of reforming the police department, but of defunding or disbanding it.

Meanwhile, the agenda of activists has quickly expanded beyond policing: Around the world, crowds pulled down statues of Confederate generals and slave owners. Popular Mechanics ran articles offering practical advice on avoiding police surveillance at protests, and a how-to guide to pulling down racist statues. NASCAR barred displays of the Confederate battle flag, and Mississippi decided to remove the Stars and Bars from its state flag. A street adjacent to the White House has been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza. Employers adopted Juneteenth as a paid holiday. And Johnson and Johnson announced a new line of darker Band-Aids.

Many of these gestures are purely symbolic. But while some changes may not do much, that is not to say that symbolic gestures are meaningless: the symbolism itself demonstrates something of the emerging consensus.

In addition to being a pivotal moment for organizers, this shift in public consciousness would seem to recommend an expanded agenda for researchers. Most crucially, we should find ways to put our work in the service of social movements, always remembering that it is the movement, and not the scholarship, that propels change.

We should, of course, continue to document the prevalence of police violence, analyze its causes and evaluate proposed reforms. But in the present crisis, provisional answers are already available and widely circulating. What is more urgently needed is further work documenting and evaluating alternatives to policing, identifying best practices and organizational features that correlate with good outcomes.

Furthermore, we must work to situate abolition as part of a revolutionary program, to make clear the limits of defunding (or even disbanding) the police, and to make the argument that abolition cannot end with policing, but must extend to the entire criminal legal apparatus the machinery of prosecutions and punishment, even probation and community-based corrections. We must not be afraid to embrace the radicalism of such proposals. Just as we highlight the structural role the police play in economic exploitation and racial oppression, we must articulate the importance of abolition in the broader revolutionary project of overthrowing white supremacy and capitalism.

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Abolishing Police Is a Step Toward Larger Goals -- Overthrowing White Supremacy and Capitalism - Truthout

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Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement announced Monday that its founding president, IAS officer-turned-politician Shah Faesal, has stepped down, and that Feroze Peerzada would be its new president.

The announcement comes a day after ThePrint reported that Faesal had removed President JKPM from his official Twitter handle, raising speculation that the IAS topper who resigned from the service last year would either rejoin it or leave the country for higher studies. Now his Twitter account shows no tweets of his own, with the last like registered on 4 August 2019.

Peerzada confirmed to ThePrint after his appointment that Faesal will either rejoin the IAS or go to the US for further education, though Faesal, who claims to be under house arrest, was not available for a comment when ThePrint contacted him through phone calls. His resignation from the IAS was never accepted.

We have had month-long deliberations with Dr Shah Faesal, trying to convince him to stay in the party and continue politics for the good of people. However, he was firm on his decision to leave politics, said Peerzada, 52, a businessman-turned-politician who was earlier the vice-president of the JKPM.

Dr Shah Faesal was the main reason behind me joining politics. I truly believed that he is the person to usher in great social changes, but unfortunately, what has happened in the last year has left no space for politics. Dr Faesal realised this, but I am sure whatever he does, be it civil services or getting higher education, he will continue to work for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, Peerzada said.

Also read: Shah Faesal sparked an IAS craze in J&Ks Lolab, his arrest has now dampened enthusiasm

In a statement, the JKPM said: State Executive Committee of JKPM in an online meeting today discussed the ongoing political developments in the state. In the said meeting, the request of Dr Shah Faesal to spare him from the organisational responsibilities was discussed.

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Dr Shah Faesal had informed State Executive Members that he is not in a position to continue with political activities and wants to be freed from the responsibilities of the organisation. Keeping in view this request, it was decided to accept his request so that he can better continue with his life and contribute whichever way he chooses, the statement added.

The committee also accepted the resignation of chairman Javed Mustafa Mir and accorded farewell to him. Javed Mustafa Mir a veteran political figure of the J&K has been under house arrest since 5 August 2019.

Faesal had formed the JKPM last year, and then entered into an alliance with the Awami Ittehad Party headed by Sheikh Abdul Rashid, more commonly known as Engineer Rashid.

However, Faesal was detained days after the scrapping of Article 370, when several other politicians were also being held. Just before his detention, Faesal, the 2009 UPSC exam topper, had taken to Twitter to express his displeasure against the Narendra Modi governments decision to revoke J&Ks special status.

Kashmir will need a long, sustained, non-violent political mass movement for restoration of political rights. Abolition of Article 370 has finished the mainstream. Constitutionalists are gone. So you can either be a stooge or a separatist now. No shades of grey, Faesal had tweeted.

Faesal was detained by immigration authorities at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi last year in August and handed over to the Delhi Police, which put him on a flight back to Srinagar. Officials said Faesal was on his way to Istanbul at the time.

He was charged under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) in February 2020, before being released in June, when the PSA was revoked.

In his PSA dossier, the J&K administration had alleged that Faesal advanced the separatist ideology and challenged the decision of the central government to scrap the special status of J&K.

According to an official source, Faesal had expressed his wish to leave India for higher studies, but the idea was not acceptable to the Centre, which was more interested in his return to the IAS.

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Shah Faesal will either rejoin IAS or go to US to study, says new chief of his JKPM party - ThePrint

The nations historic Voting Rights Act was signed into law on Aug. 6, 1965, formalizing key provisions to allow Black voters across the country to participate in local and national elections without obstruction, discrimination, violence or intimidation.

Effects of the legislation were immediate and transformative. Black voter registration increased by 14% to 19%, and overall turnout grew by nearly a fifth. Tens of thousands of Black people across the United States have been elected to public office, including six U.S. senators and the countrys first Black president.

Yet structural barriers persist that disproportionately keep Black residents from casting ballots, from voter ID laws to long lines and limited hours at polling places.

Just before his recent death, U.S. Representative John Lewis wrote of the ways in which the current Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality and systemic racism recalls his work as a leader in the U.S. civil rights movement.

Emmet Till was my George Floyd, he wrote, remembering the lynching of the 14-year-old boy who was just one year his junior at the time.

When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law, Lewis was there, along with two other instrumental leaders of the U.S. civil rights movement, Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Many others also loomed large in the room.

People like Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair, the young girls murdered in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963, were there in spirit.

People like Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was brutally murdered by police during a peaceful protest in 1965 as he was protecting his mother. His death inspired the Selma to Montgomery marches, where 25,000 people joined arms to demand revolutionary change, giving rise to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. He was there too.

People like Herbert Lee, who fought against literacy tests, poll taxes and other discriminatory practices that barred Black citizens from voting across the South, and who was targeted, shot, and killed by a Mississippi State Representative in 1961 for his advocacy.

And people like Philadelphias Octavius Catto, who was born free and spent his lifetime fighting tirelessly for the abolition of slavery, for the desegregation of public space, for Black suffrage, and for quality Black education. Catto was shot and killed in 1871 for exercising his right to vote in his native city, where a monument in his honor became Phillys first public statue commemorating a person of African American descent when it was erected in 2017.

Today, on the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, our movement leaders, our fallen martyrs. We celebrate this landmark civil rights victory and commit ourselves to the unfinished work of fully-realized Black citizenship.

Voting is just one important part of citizenship, but as we reckon with the legacies of centuries of violence, oppression and racism, it is critical to protect what Lewis called the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democracy.

While the tasks ahead of us are many, there are concrete steps we can take to protect Black peoples right to vote now and in the future.

At the local level, we must ensure ample polling places are available and safe for Novembers elections, particularly in Black neighborhoods. We must support covering the cost of stamps for mail-in ballots and efforts to make sure everyone is aware voting by mail is easy and secure. We must also work to ensure Pennsylvania U.S. Senators Bob Casey Jr. and Pat Toomey understand how important it is to pass the pending John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

We can also work with neighborhood leaders, community-based organizations and political leadership to empower all citizens of voting age to register and to cast their ballot in the pivotal election on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Lastly, we can continue to honor the legacy of John Lewis and those that came before him by pursuing new state legislation that makes voting accessible, convenient and safe for all citizens.

Automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, restoring voting rights to people who have been incarcerated, streamlining vote by mail, and making Election Day a national holiday would dramatically increase voter participation.

The fight for the Black vote has never been more important. The road to justice has been paved with blood and with heartache. But the lives of those who have been lost in the fight against white supremacy, police violence, and voter suppression are not in vain. They galvanize us into action.

Continue reading here:

Opinion: 55 years after the Voting Rights Act, there's still work to do - Billy Penn

THIS years SQA debacle clearly demonstrates that the end of schooling examination and certification process in Scotland is divisive and dysfunctional. Without question, it is not fit for purpose. It compounds then consolidates, in formal qualifications, the disadvantage of those already most disadvantaged. There is an urgent need for the most radical root and branch reform. But, since this cannot be done without challenging the interests of those who benefit from the current system, radical change will not be easy.

Reactions to the debacle demonstrate the gulf between those who design and administer the system and those who "experience" it. Parents, students and teachers highlight the failure of the system to recognise the hard work of learners, their application and commitment to task, together with their personal and academic problem-solving abilities all skills and qualities that modern employers tell us they value most. On the other hand, politicians and examination body spokespersons emphasise their statistical processes and historical comparisons.

A quarter of candidates this year have been told: Sorry, but you are not as good as you (and your teachers) think you are. We the "system" know better because we have a model weve used before. These are the same young people and their parents that, if Scotland is to compete successfully in the 21st century world, we need to convince of the value of a lifelong commitment to education and training. How exactly does this contribute to reducing the attainment gap and promoting a "can do" culture?

This debacle was not an accident, the consequence of an aberrant computer glitch or systems/personnel malfunctions. The process of assessment and grading worked this year exactly as intended and designed by the examination body and politicians. Every year candidate results are manipulated, by the same process, to fit the demands of the normal curve of distribution a statistical process increasingly regarded as spurious, as a mechanism for producing valid assessments of anything but the simplest of human capabilities.

For those prepared to look critically at the evidence there is an irrefutable case for the abolition of current models of assessment and certification in Scotland.

Students were demonstrating in Saturday in George Square and Dalkeith to protest about their treatment. They have been failed by the system. They deserve our strongest possible support.

Jim Rand, Blanefield.

WHATEVER the rights and wrongs of the recent SQA marking furore and the consequences that may fall from it, I think that a degree of naivety and/or benign ignorance may be present in the approach and beliefs of some of those seemingly disadvantaged by apparently poorer exam results than expected.

Put simply, and using mathematics as an example of a subject discipline whose "answers" in a test must surely be as objectively "correct" as is possible, it is not the case that a person's test score of, say, 65 per cent on the day will be the mark/grade that ends up as that person's final mark/grade. For a variety of reasons, that "raw" score is then subject to an equal variety of "adjustments" based on all sorts of indicators.

The Bell Curve, for example, the rationale of which argues that human intelligence is substantially influenced by both inherited and environmental factors and that, ipso facto, is therefore a better predictor of many outcomes, is a common type of distribution for a variable on which the highest point represents the most probable event in a series of data while all other possible occurrences are systematically distributed around the mean. This has the consequence of forcing groups of people to be categorised as poor, average, good. Also, for smaller groups, having to categorise a set number of individuals in each category to "fit" a Bell curve will do a disservice to those individuals.

Of course, none of the above in any way, diminishes the sense of anger and frustration felt by those most affected. There are many people, too, who hold that such social engineering, for whatever reason, is simply not on. However, the point is that these types of assessments/ re-adjustments, and many more, are taken into account when final grades are being awarded.

Consequently, those who believe, like the head of Clifton Hall school in Edinburgh, that the professional standards of teaching staff are being called into question are aiming at the wrong target. It's not the teacher marking that's in any way imperfect; rather it's the myriad statistical contortions gone through by those who have rarely seen the inside of a classroom or struggled face-to-face with the learning difficulties of many of our youngsters that are the issue.

Finally, as an anecdotal pointer to the invariable cries of marking inconsistencies that arise every year, as a teacher and SQA marker of many years, many's the time when I and other colleagues have smiled wryly at the idea of appealing for some students' grades to be downgraded, such is our surprise when they "over-achieve". But we don't. Nor have I ever come across a student who, having done better than expected, has appealed their grade.

But then, as Mark Twain reportedly said: "I've never let my schooling get in the way of my education."

Gerard McCulloch, Saltcoats.

Read more here:

Letters: Surely now we ought to bring to an end the school examination and certification process - HeraldScotland

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Good evening. Heres the latest.

1. Another disappointing monthly job report is looming over lawmakers locked in stimulus talks.

The Labor Department will report Friday on how many jobs the economy created in July as America climbs back from the depths of the pandemic recession. New claims for unemployment benefits have exceeded 1 million a week for 20 straight weeks, though the latest figure was not as dire as in some weeks early in the pandemic. Above, a job center in Helena, Ark.

There is a good chance that senators will not reach a deal on an economic rescue package before they leave Washington on Friday for a one-month recess. President Trump threatened to act unilaterally by issuing a series of executive orders, which may have helped lift the S&P 500 near a record high.

Separately, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio tested positive for the virus as he was screened to greet Mr. Trump in Cleveland. He did not meet with the president.

2. Americas failure to control the virus has set it apart among wealthy nations. We investigated to try to understand why, and two themes emerged.

First, the U.S. faced longstanding challenges in confronting a major pandemic, including the prioritizing of individuals over government restrictions and an unequal health care system. The second is the Trump administrations defiance of expert advice.

Meanwhile, schools continue to open on shaky ground. Photos of a packed school in Dallas, Ga., above, have quickly come to symbolize a chaotic first week back in U.S. classrooms.

And experts are revising their views on the best methods to detect infections, saying quicker but less accurate testing may be the best chance to rein in the sprawling outbreaks.

3. Europe is a facing a viral resurgences.

The scale is nowhere near that in the U.S., but France reported 1,695 new cases on Wednesday, and Germany reported more than 1,000 on Thursday higher numbers than either had seen in months. Other Western European countries, like Spain and Belgium, are also experiencing surges.

Some health experts said Germans were becoming lax about upholding social-distancing and mask-wearing requirements. Above, Berlin this week.

And a French scientific panel warned that a second wave of infections by the fall was highly possible, urging cities to prepare for new lockdowns.

4. International rescue teams arrived in Beirut as Lebanon entered a period of official mourning over the huge explosion that brought the capital to its knees.

Heres what video footage tells us about the blast.

Public anger is growing over evidence that government negligence allowed more than 2,000 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate seized from a ship to be stored in the port for years. The port, a crucial economic hub, has been destroyed, and with it the nations grain supply, raising concerns about food security in a country of 6.8 million people.

President Emmanuel Macron of France visited the area, but no major Lebanese politicians did so.

In an essay in Times Opinion, Lina Mounzer, a Lebanese writer and translator, connects the disaster to the warlords who have warped Lebanon for decades. Yet I couldnt imagine how spectacular and lethal the incompetence of the Lebanese state could be, she says.

5. New Yorks attorney general, Letitia James, filed a civil suit seeking to dissolve the National Rifle Association over claims of corruption. The battle may take years.

Ms. James charged that years of improper action and misspending that enriched officials and their friends, families and allies had irreparably undermined the N.R.A.s ability to operate as a nonprofit and cost the organization $64 million over three years.

Ms. James, who has regulatory authority over the group because it is chartered in New York, also sued four current or former top N.R.A. leaders, seeking tens of millions of dollars in restitution and the ouster of the groups chief executive, Wayne LaPierre.

The lawsuit will leave the 148-year-old N.R.A. long the nations most influential gun-rights lobby fighting for survival. The group has recently been hobbled by financial woes and infighting.

6. This year is shaping up to be one of the most active hurricane seasons on record.

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there could be 19 to 25 named storms (those with sustained winds above 38 miles an hour) by the time the season ends on Nov. 30. Seven to 11 could be hurricanes.

Forecasters originally predicted 12 to 19 named storms, but the season has already brought nine the most on record for the first two months of a season including Hurricane Isaias, above, which dealt a powerful blow to the Bahamas and much of the East Coast of the U.S. this week.

7. Aug. 6, 1945.

Setsuko Thurlow was 13 years old and in Hiroshima when the U.S. dropped the first of two atomic bombs on Japan. Ever since, she has been fighting for the abolition of nuclear weapons, sharing a Nobel Peace Prize for the work in 2017.

Our Tokyo bureau chiefs profile of Ms. Thurlow, now 88, comes on the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing and serves as a reminder of the urgency of hearing the stories of a dwindling number of survivors.

A new book documents the human impact of the bombings, which ended World War II, with photographs that the U.S. once banned both at home and in Japan.

8. Professional athletes voicing exasperation in the heat of the moment is nothing new. Doing so without the sound buffer of a live crowd is entirely different.

As Major League Baseball stages an untraditional 60-game campaign amid the pandemic, players and coaches are trying to be more mindful of their colorful language. Theyre doing so with varying levels of success.

The league also tightened its safety protocols in an effort to slow virus outbreaks among teams. Players and staff members must restrict their travel and, in the ballpark, wear face coverings when they arent on the field, such as in the dugout and the bullpen.

9. A slice of summer by the (national) seashore.

From California to Cape Cod, federally protected coastlines offer a different kind of outdoor experience: The primary attraction is water and uncrowded stretches of sand. Today, the National Park Service protects 809,000 acres of shorelines abutting thousands of miles of oceans and lakes. Here are eight of the most scenic ones, like Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia, above.

Public pools have been more subdued than usual. We visited a popular pool complex in the East Bay area of California that lacked the normal flap of flip-flops and splashy entrances. Still, a small group of kids had enough time during family swim hour to pretend to be mermaids.

10. And finally, a different kind of back to school.

Giuseppe Patern graduated with honors last week from the University of Palermo, with a degree in history and philosophy. Mr. Patern is 96.

That he reached his lifelong goal despite an impoverished childhood, World War II and family demands drew attention across Italy, resonating as millions of schoolchildren faced extraordinary uncertainty amid the pandemic.

Dont get lost because you find obstacles because there will always be obstacles, Mr. Patern said after donning the traditional red-ribboned laurel wreath. You have to be strong.

See original here:

Stimulus, Beirut, National Seashores: Your Thursday Evening Briefing - The New York Times

Prisoners Justice Day is every day of the year to all of us who have been incarcerated. But we come together annually on August 10 to raise awareness of injustices, to remember those who have lost their lives behind prison walls, and to educate communities about the reality of the justice system.

This year has been a particularly difficult one to advocate for people who have been criminalized, who continue to be criminalized, and who currently remain behind bars. With COVID-19, access to prisoners for the community-based organizations and agencies that fight to protect their rights and hold correctional systems accountable has been stripped away.

This has allowed prisons to further dehumanize, discriminate against, violate and profit off those they house, without fear of being held accountable. According to Global Prison Trends 2020, the worldwide prison population rose from 8 million in 2002 to 11 million in 2018an increase of over 20 percent.

Within this, the prison population of women continues to grow, by an estimated 50 percent during that time period, even though it has been 10 years since the United Nations adopted the Bangkok rules that were meant to protect the rights of women prisoners. Among other jurisdictions, women are the fastest-growing segment of the United States prison population, which is the worlds largest.

How did Prisoners Justice Day begin and evolve? It all started in Canada on August 10, 1974, when Edward Nalon bled to death in the segregation unit of Millhaven Maximum Security Prison in Bath, Ontario.

Many of the alleged leaders in this one-day, peaceful protest would still be in segregation a year later.

In 1975, on the first anniversary of Eddie Nalons suicide, incarcerated people at Millhaven held a day of action. They refused to work, went on a one-day hunger strike and held a memorial service, even though these actions would mean a stint in solitary confinement.

Many of the alleged leaders in this one-day, peaceful protest would still be in segregation a year later, still fighting for the rights of prisoners. Although refusing to eat or work are among the only options for peaceful protest available to prisoners, both are viewed as disciplinary offences by prison administrations.

On May 21, 1976 another prisoner, Robert Landers, died in the segregation unit of Millhaven. Bobby, as he was known, had been a leader in the struggle for prisoners rights.

According to the Prison Justice website: Called to testify at the inquest, the warden of the institution said in effect that the punishment (solitary) had been intended to stop the victim from getting prisoners rights respected.

Landers had tried to summon medical help, but the cells panic buttons werent working, and his and other prisoners shouts were ignored by nurses and guards, recounts the John Howard Society. He died of a heart attack; a heart specialist said at the inquest that he should have been in intensive care, not solitary.

From its Canadian origins, Prisoners Justice Day has increasingly been recognized and marked by incarcerated people and their allies all around the world. But no history of the prisoners rights movement in Canada would be complete without a section on Claire Culhane.

Culhane spent over two decades of her life single-handedly taking on the system. She was many things to many people, but to prisoners all across this country she was the voice that would speak on their behalf, fighting for the rights of people who historically had no voice.

In 1974, she volunteered to teach a Womens Studies class at the Lakeside Regional Correctional Centre for Women in British Columbia. But the event that would draw her into the struggle for prisoners rights began on June 9, 1975.

Three prisoners who were about to be returned to solitary confinement at British Columbia Penitentiary took 15 hostages. The standoff with prison officials lasted 41 hours, and ended with the emergency response team storming the hostage-takers. In the process, the guards shot and killed one of the hostages, Mary Steinhauser, a young correctional officer who had gained the respect of prisoners by implementing educational courses in solitary.

Over the next month, Claire Culhane would join demonstrations in support of prisoners who were staging sit-ins and work strikes over the conditions inside. Her participation with the Prisoners Union Committee would result in the cancellation of her Womens Studies class, but that was not about to keep her out of prisons. A group of Vancouver area activists soon set up the Prisoners Rights Group (PRG), and she was one of its founding members.

I was deeply thankful for the legacy of her activism as I sat in a correctional facility in 2015.

The mandate of the PRG was to help prisoners to help themselvesespecially in matters of involuntary transfers, finding competent lawyers, filing and following up grievances, qualifying for parole hearings, getting access to healthcare, educating the public and finally, advancing the philosophy of prison abolition.

Culhane staged many sit-ins at wardens offices, picketed outside prison gates and on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, hosted a cable TV show called Instead of Prisons, responded to every press article about prison, wrote articles of her own, and spoke extensively on the subject of prisons as a form of social control.

Although Claire Culhane died in 1996, I was deeply thankful for the legacy of her activism as I sat in a correctional facility in 2015.

I was incarcerated in a Federal Womens Prison in Canada. Inspired by activists like Culhane and Landers, I, too, became an advocate for prisoners rights, spending each day fighting the injustices within the walls.

I worked with the Elizabeth Fry Society, the Citizens Advisory Committee, Members of the Canadian Parliament and Senate, social justice advocates, and many other wonderful people from the community to facilitate change.

It didnt come without its cost! I was constantly being targeted by staff and management, urged to stay quiet, and threatened with being reprimanded for speaking out. This, of course, only hardened my resolve to fight. My advocacy would not be silenced.

Ask yourself, today and every day: What am I doing to make a difference?

When I was finally released on day parole earlier this year, I took my fight with me into the community. I currently work for a prison outreach initiative to house people being released back into the community. I am a peer support worker for those who have faced, or are facing, criminalization, marginalization, discrimination and racism, with an emphasis on the 2SLGBTQI2+ community.

To further the principle of nothing about us without us, I sit on numerous policy committees, providing lived experience and advice in getting much-needed resources and support to people both inside and in the community. I am also a law school candidate for fall 2021, and I engage in public speaking, panels, education and social activism.

I may have joined the fight for social justice while incarcerated, but coming out into the community has not dampened my determination. I fight as an individual who has seen the injustices unfold first-hand, and as a collective with all those who stand up for change.

I hope that people reading this, including incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people around the world, will see that it isnt only the people that come from privilege who have the power to enact change; it takes individuals from all walks of life.

So ask yourself, today and every day: What am I doing to make a difference?

Photo via uihere/Public Domain

Read more from the original source:

Prisoners Justice Day Is Every Day for Those of Us Who Have Lived Inside - Filter

Leela M Ramdeen

Last Saturday, 1st August, we commemorate the 182nd Anniversary of Emancipation in Trinidad and Tobago. Although The Abolition of Slavery Act was passed in August 1833 and came into effect on August 1, 1834, slavery was not really abolished in the British Caribbean until 1838.

After 1834 a "new raft of law-and-order measures" came into effect. "Under the new 'apprenticeships', newly 'freed' people were still expected to remain on the plantations and put in 10-hour days. Absenteeism would result in imprisonment in one of the many new jails (equipped with treadmills) that were being built to contain recalcitrant workers. Additional tiers of 'special officers' and stipendiary magistrates were created to police the changes. 'Apprentices' could still be flogged without redress; females includedThe effects of emancipation in the British West Indies varied from island to island. The apprenticeship scheme would come to an end only in 1838".

As someone who has African blood running through my veins, it is with a deep sense of pride that I continue to educate myself about the struggles of those persons of African origin whose indomitable spirit and relentless quest for freedom have led us eventually to this juncture. Do our educators find time in the curriculum to share information about resistance/uprisings/rebellions by slaves in various parts of the world e.g. Nanny of the Maroons in Jamaica, Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines in Haiti, Bussa in Barbados; Nat Turner in the USA? How many of you have told your children the story of people like abolitionist and political activist, Harriet Tubman, who fearlessly risked her life to rescue more than 70 enslaved persons, including family and friends in the USA? Or do we only tell students/children about action to end slavery by people such as William Wilberforce?

Too often the history of people of African origin starts with the transatlantic slave trade, when it should commence with the rich history of Africa from which millions were enslaved and taken to various parts of the world. Let us not forget to highlight the devastating negative effects of colonialism and imperialism, not only on persons of African origin, but on many other ethnic groups. Sadly, it is estimated that about 40.3 million individuals are victims of modern day slavery, with 71% of those being female, and one in four being children.

What does Emancipation mean to people of African origin in TT today? Is our democracy working for everyone today? TT has gained Independence and Republican status; we are paddling our own canoe. We have made progress in many spheres of life, but we still have some way to go to create conditions that will enable everyone to live with a modicum of dignity. Many still dream of equality and equity.

The Vatican II document: Gaudium et Spes, reminds us that: "A just society can become a reality only when it is based on the respect of the transcendent dignity of the human personHence, the social order and its development must invariably work to the benefit of the human person, since the order of things is to be subordinate to the order of persons, and not the other way around."

While it is important to celebrate our rich African heritage, and acknowledge the many accomplishments of people of African origin, let us also reflect on the areas that we need to address. NJAC chairman, Aiyegoro Ome, rightly stated in Newsday on 22 July: "Africans should use Emancipation Day as a family commemoration so that they can become more knowledgeable about their several African achievements. Remember, Africans are now halfway through the UN-declared International Decade of Persons of African Descent (2014-2025).

"We should use Emancipation Day at home to pay attention to our health, covid19 notwithstanding". He mentions issues such as non-communicable diseases, especially diabetes and hypertension, prostate cancer, sickle cell trait and sickle cell disease. "At the social level, African families, in certain marginalised communities where people are stigmatised, must take action against the decline of their living, trapped as they are within dysfunctional families, subjected to inferior schooling and abused by criminal elements...Emancipation Day at home 2020 must become yet another stepping stone toward an African Renaissance..."

As we prepare to go to the polls on 10 August, let us not forget that we will only truly achieve our goals as a nation when we view our diversity as a source of strength. I believe that it is possible to have unity and harmony in diversity.

Leela Ramdeen is Chair of the Catholic Commission for Social Justice in the Archdiocese of Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, (CCSJ) and Director of CREDI

Tags: Leela Ramdeen, Trinidad and Tobago, Emancipation, Toussaint Louverture, Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Slavery, BLM, Black Lives Matter

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(MENAFN - Caribbean News Global) Denys Springer is an educator and freelance writer trained in social sciences, labour studies and industrial relations, education, conflict, resolution, and mediation. Denys Springer lectures part-time at the Open Campus UWI in Saint Lucia on supervisory management the psychology of management.

By Denys Springer

'It is a defect in language that words suggest permanent realities and people do not see through this deception. But mere words cannot create reality. Thus, people speak of a final goal and believe it is real, but it is a form of words and the goal, and as such is without substance. The one who realizes the emptiness of objects and concepts does not depend on words. Perfect wisdom is beyond definition, and pathless is the way to it.' (Prajnaparamita).

I ponder on these words aware that the prime minister of Saint Lucia seems invariably to use words he does not understand and make unfounded statements commonplace with a flawed mindset.

As an academic, I am at times truly lost why such utterances come from the mind of a country's leader. Is it to lead people astray part of the European experts unable to understand the culture of the country and therefore uses phrases to pacify and appease?

I, therefore, put forward a statement that was made by the prime minister in terms that 'colonialism had a conscience'. I am of the view that any West Indian leader with such an ethos his followers should immediately differentiate themselves from such. Here we are celebrating Emancipation Day when according to those words only the chains have been removed from hands and feet but the majority of minds are still suffering from mental and economic slavery while persons of such echelon perpetrate servile and submissive practice.

Guided by the examples that Saint Lucia has a wonderful destination called Rodney Bay named after the English Lord Sir Walter Rodney. Yet how many have gone into his background in the era of 'Black Lives Matter'?

Sir Rodney was a vicious, pernicious slave owner. A proponent that slavery should not be abolished. Yet, we hear that 'colonialism had a conscience'. Where are the historians, the academics or learned people among us to refute such a statement? This must not be allowed to be washed over lightly as if it was a passing phrase.

Yes, it was not too long ago I heard a historian making it clear that African leaders were against the abolition of the slave trade. Yes, that is true because in their wars they took slaves but what she failed to tell the world is that many so-called slaves rose to be chief of that tribe (she studied African Civilization) but took out what suited her xenophobic mind. Not only that, but until the Portuguese arrived with their guns, tribal wars were fought with bows and arrows. The guns were given to a certain tribe to go into the interior of the west coast of Africa to bring out captured blacks to become slaves for export. Facts are facts if we are prepared to look and to learn from it.

So if 'colonialism had a conscience' here we have a United Workers Party (UWP) government in Saint Lucia who made that statement, and is it not ironic that it is now a country where public opinion does not influence government policy whatsoever.

Saint Lucia has a prime minister who is intent on pursuing his ambitions and interests and does not have to care or worry for five years. Public opinion supposedly part of the democratic system, in effect only counts superficially close to an election as we are witnessing at present. The public has been reduced to becoming a reason for justifying the use of resources and a target of media manipulation instead of a nation reflecting the fundamental values and goals of a democratic system.

This government leads by suppressing public opinion, by instilling fear of external pressures rather than listening to learned public opinion

I have said time and time again that the UWP government is a source of democratic dictatorship. Saint Lucia's democracy has degenerated into a means to obtain power and the dictatorship is expressed in the rush (unnatural high) the government gets from its arbitrary use of power.

The recent 'Fresh Start' incentives are a classic case for blatant illegality and presumptive corruption, however, the Cabinet Secretary who is purportedly an astute professional in the public service and should have advised the Cabinet is himself left wanting, on the wrong side of the Fiscal Incentives Act. Wilful blindness to laws and regulations has become a staple of Saint Lucia's democracy. A lot of work is needed to put things back on track.

Moreover, I say to all Saint Lucians 'if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor'. Here we have a government hell-bent on borrowing and have even made fun of the former prime minister for his fear of borrowing.

How do they have the nerve when the nation's economic outlook is so gloomy? Is borrowing the answer to our plight and suffering and in latter years accumulate debt for generations? Can we not feed ourselves when we have such excellent volcanic land?

By most indication, employment prospects remain unfavourable post-COVID-19 and this government does not have a clue how to tackle the nation's economic woes. The issue of natural resource (talent shortages) in Saint Lucia has become a hot topic for many years however this government is not interested in developing the skill sets of the future. This government should be nurturing a higher quality workforce by removing regulatory barriers to technology and innovation and assist SMEs scale-up production.

There are no quick fixes to decades of mental anguish and false doctrines; but there are many increment steps to solve Saint Lucia's economic woes such as investment in education, innovation, and infrastructure.

I, therefore, refer this government to Carl Jung writings many years ago, that 'study your theory; practice your techniques inside out, and when in the presence of a living soul, respond to the soul'. This current dialogue, in my mind, reflects an effort to address the second challenge.

When a government uses an election to secure control of the legislative and by a weird constitution control a senate that was not elected and uses this majority to implement policies that run counter to public opinion, while the system lacks the tools to counterbalance these actions, then there is something wrong with this democracy. That is why the prime minister 'colonialism has a conscience' becomes his colonial world in a convoluted mind.

And when society abandons logic, reductionism, history, and science; and becomes mired in mysticism that sinks into sentimentality and naivete' and lose the parts of resolution which rely on reason, science, strategy, technique and planning. It is from thinking that we develop that critical political virtue, common sense. It is a faculty we need if we are to be able to live with others and with ourselves in this real pristine land of ours.

I hope and pray that this article will be a lesson to the powers that be coming from the heart and not one that is colonized. Many years ago; I was released from mental slavery and colonial masters; therefore, let a thousand flowers bloom and turned into thousands of those released from mental slavery.

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Let thousand flowers bloom - MENAFN.COM

This story was originallypublished in The Chicago Maroon.Click hereto view the original story.

The carceral state isnt color-blind, and neither is COVID-19. Since the pandemic broke out earlier this year, it has taken a disproportionate toll on people of color, reflecting glaring racial disparities in public health in the United States.

Prisons, with their overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, have exacerbated the spread of the virus as COVID-19 hotspots. Because of this, mass incarceration has severely endangered the lives of those in prison, whogiven the inequality in the criminal justice systemare predominantly people of color. Given the extent to which prisons have contributed to the coronavirus pandemic and compounded the existing racial inequalities in the criminal justice system, the pandemic has made one thing clear: Tackling coronavirus will require us to radically rethink our systems of justice.

The racial health disparities associated with COVID-19 are undeniable. African Americans bothcontractthe disease at higher rates than their white counterparts anddiefrom it at over 2.5 times the rate of whites, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project. Indeed, despitecomprisingonly 13.4 percent of the US population, Blacksaccountfor 23 percent of COVID-19 victims where race is known. COVID-19 has disproportionately affected Latino communities as well: In Iowa, for instance, Latinos are only 6 percent of the population butaccountfor over a fifth of the states coronavirus cases.

And its not biology that discriminates. The virus has not simply chosen to undertake a vehement rampage against Black andbrowncommunities. Its humansand the systems weve builtthat discriminate. Health disparities reflect that. To naturalize the racial health disparities of COVID-19 as nothing more than an immutable biological reality is to deny the effect of racism on health outcomes.

Nowhere is the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on people of color more evident than in American prisons, which have become hotbeds for the virus. Given that Blacks areincarceratedat over five times the rate of whites in the United States, COVID-19s toll on incarcerated populations means that African Americans are severely affected. While prisons across the country havebecomecoronavirus hotspots, Chicagos Cook County Jail has been hit particularly hard. By over-incarcerating to such an extent and maintaining overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, the jail has enabled the rapid spread of the virus,makingCook County Jail the nations largest source of COVID-19 as of April. And according to research conducted by Eric Reinhart of the UChicago Pritzker School of Medicine, justcyclingthrough Cook County Jail is associated with 15.9 percent of COVID-19 cases in Chicago and 15.7 percent of cases throughout Illinois.

As the situation in Cook County shows, COVID-19 and mass incarceration are inextricably connected. Both perpetuate racial disparity and have combined during the pandemic to wreak deadly havoc as the virus sweeps through American prisons. Indeed, we are fighting twopandemics, one coronavirus, the other the racism that undermines the integrity of criminal justice systems worldwide. Unless we recognize this connection and begin to interrogate the systems that allow for rampant racism to persist, we wont solve either pandemic.

Importantly, COVID-19 has exposed the fractures in the American prison system, revealing it as a racist institution that compromises public health. It has reminded us that we cannot continue to attempt to build better prisonsdoing so wont address the police misconduct, wrongful conviction, racist attitudes, and plethora of other factors that cause African Americans to be disproportionately incarcerated in the first place, and moreover, wont address the fact that prisons arent working to effectively deter crime. Indeed, recidivism ratesshowthat nearly one-fourth of those released from prison return for a new crime within three years of release, demonstrating the failure of prisons to successfully deter crime. Importantly, prisons also fail to provide access to adequate mental health resources, which is particularly problematic given that incarcerationexacerbatesmental health whereas investing in mental health resources can actuallyreducecrime.

Political activist Angela Davis reminds us why attempting to reform prisons instead of reimagining justice entirely wont work. In her bookAre Prisons Obsolete?she writes, Frameworks that rely exclusively on reforms help to produce the stultifying idea that nothing lies beyond the prison, limiting our ability to reimagine justice and focus on decarceration. Moreover, prison abolitionist Ruth Gilmoreremindsus that in a world with different attitudes towards punishment, well actually see less crime: In Spain for instance, which takes a less punitive approach towards violence offensesthe average time a person spends in jail for murder in Spain is seven yearsmurder is actuallylesscommon.

COVID-19s disproportionate toll on incarcerated populations throughout the United States has made it clear that in order to combat both coronavirus and racism in this country, we need to reimagine justice and rethink systems of punishment entirely. And Im not just talking about the tearing down of prison walls. As Georgetown law professor and political theorist Allegra McLeodexplains, abolition is less about the physical tearing down of prisons and more about abolishing both the culture of racialized punishment in the United States and the conditions that caused the carceral state to come about. The recent deluge of Instagram activismboth in response to COVID-19 and to the death of George Floydis inspiring. However, being liberal is not enough. We cannot use our progressivism as political armor or as an excuse for complacency. Its time we realized that to fight COVID-19 we need to dismantle the carceral state.

Meera Santhanam is a fourth-year in the College and a Viewpoints editor.

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COVID-19 and the Case for Prison Abolition - Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

In recent weeks, the House of Lords has been a subject of heated debate after Prime Minister Boris Johnson handed out 36 peerages to Conservative Party loyalists, Brexit supporters and even his own brother. The list of peerages, granted by the Queen last week also included Evgeny Lebedev, Russian proprietor of the London Evening Standard newspaper and son of a former KGB agent, former cricketer Ian Botham and Ruth Davidson, former head of the Scottish Conservative Party. Ken Clarke and Philip Hammond who fell out with Mr Johnson over Brexit and subsequently had the Tory whip withdrawn were also given peerages. Seats in the upper chamber were also awarded to Claire Fox who represented the Brexit Party in Brussels as well as Labour rebels who had campaigned to leave the EU Kate Hoey, Frank Field and Gisela Stuart. This has led many to question the role of the Lords but diversity has also been a key criticism levelled at the upper chamber.

In March 2020, 48 or 6.1 percent of Members of the House of Lords were from ethnic minority groups, according to research by Operation Black Vote.

In February this year, it emerged that minority ethnic staff were asked to show their security passes more often than white counterparts.

This was found in a report which also outlined accounts from BAME staff who said they were not allowed to eat or drink in the same rooms or even use the same toilets as the mostly white members of the House of Lords.

The research carried out by workplace equality network ParliREACH listed examples of times when they felt that the lack of diversity and understanding of race had resulted in racist (inadvertent or otherwise) behaviours.

In response, a Lords spokesperson said: The House of Lords administration is determined to ensure that all who work for the house are treated equally and with respect and creating an inclusive working environment.

As part of this work, the board decided to remove access restrictions to catering facilities based on grade of staff, and remove misleading historic signage suggesting some toilets were restricted to members of the house.

All signs have now been removed and replaced. This was part of our wider inclusion and diversity strategy.

A petition calling for the abolition of the Lords gained over 100,000 signatures in 2018.

It took aim at the upper chamber as an undemocratic yet powerful overly influential fixture of British politics.

READ MORE:Jeremy Corbyn admitted NOT including state pension in tax return

The petition said: The House of Lords is a place of patronage where unelected and unaccountable individuals hold a disproportionate amount of influence and power which can be used to frustrate the elected representatives of the people."

The Electoral Reform Society chief executive David Hughes also hit out at the Lords after it was revealed in 2017 that more than 100 peers, who made no spoken contributions for a year, claimed 1.3million in expenses.

The ERS says: The House of Lords totally fails to represent the diverse skills and experience of UK citizens.

It is out of control with over 800 members the second largest legislative chamber in the world after China.

"And it costs far too much for an institution that fails to reflect the British public.

The House of Lords also played a crucial role in the Brexit process, frustrating eurosceptics with its decisions.

DON'T MISSCorbyn humiliated as Labour peers chosen for 'contribution' to Boris[INSIGHT]Petition to SCRAP unelected House of Lords exceeds 340k signatures[ANALYSIS]'300-a-day undemocratic Brexit-blockers' but Boris wants MORE Lords[INSIGHT]

In September last year peers supported a bill which prevented a no deal Brexit.

The Benn Bill mandated Boris Johnson to seek an extension to Brexit until at least January 31 if he could not secure a deal or gain MPs' consent for no deal.

A spokesman for Number 10 said at the time: The PM will not do this. It is clear the only action is to go back to the people and give them the opportunity to decide what they want: Boris to go to Brussels and get a deal, or leave without one on October 31.

When the Lords passed a bill in 2018 which threatened to give Parliament the power to set the terms on Brexit, a Tory Leaver called for it to be abolished.

Daniel Kawczynski said: This is rapidly moving towards a constitutional crisis of unprecedented magnitude.

In my lifetime I cannot think of anything like it.

The House of Lords is an elitist chamber which is trying to block the will of the people.

The time has come for us to start talking about the abolition of the House of Lords and I will start agitating for this.

The 90 Liberal Democrat peers are completely determined this is a highly undemocratic effort to neuter Brexit."

Defending the upper chamber, Lord Fowler pointed out: "[Abolishing the Lords] would do little to improve levels of scrutiny when a government is returned with a big majority.

"In those circumstances, having a second chamber to ensure legislation does not slip through without proper debate and analysis is absolutely essential."

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Westminster at war: House of Lords diversity row laid bare as abolition calls mount - Express

When an argument escalated earlier this summer, one person in the house called Milwaukee police, Leonard said, and someone else called 414LIFE a team of community violence interrupters who are trained to intervene. With her adrenaline pumping, Leonard said she was already in fight mode when the officers arrived, and their response only antagonized those involved in the dispute, adding to the stress.

We didnt need someone to come say that we could all be arrested, she said.They talked to everyone individually. They were just making sure that everyone in the space was good.

The violence interrupters quickly dissolved that tension once they arrived, Leonard said, and it helped that some people in the house knew one team member.

It was just a completely different approach to domestic violence that a lot of people arent usually privileged to see, said Leonard, who aims to uplift Milwaukees Black residents in her own organizing work holding healing events and calling for the abolition of police. It just made it clear, this is why we dont need police officers in our communities.

Calls to defund the police have grown louder in Milwaukee and other cities after the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis fueled nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism.

Floyds death came as Milwaukee grieved the loss of Joel Acevedo, who died days after Michael Mattioli, an off-duty Milwaukee police officer, acknowledged putting him in a 10-minute chokehold during an April fight, according to media reports. Mattioli was charged with first-degree reckless homicide, and the department suspended him with pay.

Some say the goal of defunding the police is to shift funds away from police and towards public health, housing and other programs to alleviate conditions that lead to crime. But many local and national advocates eye a more ambitious goal: to abolish police over time. Abolitionists see reallocation as the first step toward dismantling policing and prison institutions, replacing them with neighborhood-based public safety models.

Milwaukees defunding movement comes as city officials set next years budget, and the police department wants to grow its slice of the pie. Meanwhile, a coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc on the economy, promising to slash city revenue and leave less money for a host of government services.

Even if the tragic death of George Floyd and nationwide protests had not occurred, there was very good reason for citizens and policymakers to take a look at the Milwaukee Police Department budget, and that has nothing to do with any kind of opinion or bias with putting municipal budgets into police departments, said Rob Henken, president of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, who noted that Milwaukee faced tremendous economic stress even before the pandemic.

The conditions and debate transcend Milwaukee. During calls to divest from police, the Madison School Board in June voted to terminate its Madison Police Department contract for resource officers at high schools. Critics of the officers presence highlighted disproportionate arrest rates for Black students and said the school should handle discipline outside of the criminal justice system.

We didnt get here overnight

Law enforcement in 2018 accounted for nearly 22% of Milwaukees $1.4 billion in total expenditures the largest category in the budget, according to Wisconsin Department of Revenue data. That hovers above law enforcements 20% share of municipal spending statewide, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum analysis of state data.

The Milwaukee Police Department consumes an even bigger share of the citys general purpose budget the portion controlled by the mayor and Common Council. MPD accounted for about 47% of that spending in 2020, up from 40% in 2012, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum. The police budget in each of the last five years has eclipsed the citys entire property tax levy, one of three main revenue sources. Nearly 95% of the police budget funds salaries, wages and benefits.

MPD is requesting nearly $316 million for next year as Milwaukee wades into the countrys worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. That proposed $18.5 million increase from last year is 20 times the Milwaukee Health Departments $15.7 million request.

The health department houses the $2.1 million Office of Violence Prevention, which encompasses the 414LIFE team, a small-scale example of policing alternatives.

The team is trusted in the neighborhoods it engages, said Derrick Rogers, program director for 414LIFE. It is among groups globally that practice an evidence-based Cure Violence model that sees violence as a treatable epidemic. The 414LIFE team aims to stabilize people deemed at high risk of committing violence, helping them secure housing, jobs, therapy and relationship support. The interrupters check in with people involved in disputes even months after they defuse them.

When Rogers responded to the dispute at Leonards grandmothers house, he helped one person pull weeds in a garden while talking through the frustrations that fueled the conflict. They constructed a plan to avoid future conflict and discussed how to file a restraining order. Rogers later called the persons friends and offered connections to mental health providers.

But Milwaukee is spending roughly $504 per resident on policing compared to less than $4 per resident on such direct violence prevention.

We didnt get here overnight, Reggie Moore, director of the Office of Violence Prevention, said this month during an online Wisconsin Police Forum event. These were generations of decisions and policymaking and investment where unfortunately a lot of cities and counties responded to situations of community crisis with greater investment in law enforcement, versus looking at public health and taking more innovative approaches.

Grassroots organizers have spent years helping Milwaukee residents envision such an approach in a city that last year declared racism a public health crisis and saw annual eviction rates of up to 15% of households in some neighborhoods even before the pandemic left thousands jobless and waiting on rent assistance.

How do we address the root causes of the trauma and pain that were seeing as opposed to trying to manage it with punishment and the criminal justice industry? added Moore added.

Calls to shift funding grow

Common Council members last month reported a flood of constituent requests to defund the police. The council on June 16 approved a resolution to study a 10% cut to the MPD budget about $30 million. The Milwaukee School Board two days later unanimously resolved to remove police officers from public school grounds.

Thats not enough for advocates such as Markasa Tucker, director of the African-American Roundtable, a coalition serving Milwaukees Black residents. The coalition and other groups are calling for a $75 million cut to MPDs budget that would shift $50 million to public health and $25 million to housing cooperatives in a campaign called LiberateMKE.

These are our tax dollars. This is our money, and we get to say where we want it to go, Tucker said at a June Facebook event.

The campaign is one step toward a longer-term goal of upending the citys approach to public safety, said Devin Anderson, lead organizer for the LiberateMKE campaign.

We believe a world without police is possible, he said. Defund is the goal, and divestment is the process.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett will begin holding budget hearings in August and plans to present his budget to the Common Council in September.

The funding of our police department is one aspect of the review, but a funding cut, alone, does not address a multitude of other issues we must consider, Barrett said in a June statement. Our upcoming budget process is an opportunity to take a comprehensive look at how city government views public safety.

Crime surges following decline

The conversation unfolds as homicides in Milwaukee are surging to levels not seen since the 1990s following a four-year decline a trend playing out nationwide during the pandemic. Violent crime does not necessarily correlate with a need for police officers, the Wisconsin Policy Forum noted in a 2019 report showing how Milwaukee and some other Wisconsin cities are boosting police spending even as they lose officers.

Defund advocates say many factors outside of law enforcement affect crime rates and create safety, and Milwaukee has never invested to scale in community-based strategies to keep people safe without police.

Monique Liston, chief strategist at Ubuntu Research and Evaluation, a Black women-led consulting firm for education, policy and advocacy, underscored that societies havent always relied on police, and that many of Americas police systems were created to control Black people and protect the interests of the wealthy.

Policing was built around protecting stolen property and protecting stolen people, she said. One of the big disservices weve done in history is to act like police are a natural part of organizations. Its so ingrained in people that police have to be there.

Distrust of Milwaukee police not new

Distrust of police runs deep in some of Milwaukees Black and brown-majority neighborhoods, and some residents are tired of waiting on piecemeal reforms to change policing tactics that have disproportionately harmed people of color.

Reforms like banning chokeholds, adding body cameras and that we need more trainings in many ways those are not enough, said Anderson of LiberateMKE. By investing so much in a system that was never meant to keep us safe, thats leaving no space and no room for the other investments, and its hurting us. In some cases, its literally killing us.

Milwaukee police officers have for years been the subject of reform debates and criminal and civil proceedings, including after the police killings of Dontre Hamilton in 2014, Sylville Smith in 2016 and Acevedo.

Recommendations have followed from the U.S. Department of Justice in 2017 and the city-convened Collaborative Community Committee in 2019. But the city has yet to implement many such proposals. Barrett in June announced yet another reform commission, which some activists viewed as dj vu.

Milwaukees Fire and Police Commission, a civilian oversight board with the power to change policy and investigate complaints, this week issued a set of directives to Morales demanding changes. The commission itself faces allegations that it acts slowly and lacks transparency.

Were constantly being put where were in the position for these tough conversations needing to hold cops accountable, Leonard said. Im not trying to demand reform from them anymore. The whole system needs to be abolished.

Stop-and-frisk persists

In 2018, Milwaukees Common Council approved a $3.4 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The group alleged Milwaukees stop-and-frisk program led to unjustified stops, racial profiling and harassment of residents without cause for suspicion.

In a June report monitoring the departments progress on the settlement, the Boston-based Crime and Justice Institute found that officers undercounted frisks and failed to properly justify 81% of documented frisks during the second half of 2019, showing no improvement on those measures from earlier in the year.

The report also showed that officers stopped and searched Black people at disproportionately high rates. Black residents make up roughly 39% of Milwaukees population but faced nearly 60% of police encounters and 80% of frisks.

Theyre not really living up to their end of the bargain, said Molly Collins, associate director of the ACLU of Wisconsin. It can be the police firing tear gas or rubber bullets at protesters, but also it just looks like continued patterns of police interactions with Black and brown folks that continue to break the relationship between the police department and the community.

Said Grant, the MPD spokeswoman: Our members continue to receive training, and MPD continues to make progress in our compliance efforts.

The community knows what keeps them safe

Fueled by frustration with Milwaukees status quo, neighborhood leaders have long brainstormed ways to reinvest funds flowing to police. One tiny example: When Anderson would wrap up LiberateMKEs meetings last year at city public libraries, he noticed the buildings would stay full until closing time, with staff asking people to leave.

What if we took money from the police for that? he said, suggesting staffing the libraries for longer hours.

LiberateMKE encourages residents to envision new uses for their tax dollars. The coalition surveyed more than 1,100 residents in that process. Last years participants recommended rerouting $25 million from MPD to community-based violence prevention programs such as 414LIFE. They also called for bigger investments in employment opportunities for young people and affordable, quality housing.

Many of those recommendations referenced the Office of Violence Preventions 2017 Blueprint for Peace, a set of community-driven goals and recommendations.

That involved hundreds of community members who sought to identify the root causes of Milwaukees violence. Among those flagged: lack of quality, affordable housing, neighborhood disinvestment, limited economic opportunities and persistent trauma. Participants determined what Milwaukee should leverage to make neighborhoods more resilient, including already strong community-building groups, schools, arts and cultural expression and welcoming public spaces.

The blueprint spurred the creation of 414LIFE and other investments in youth programming, mental health and domestic violence prevention.

We understand that when we look at the production of public safety in our city, it really takes beyond policing and the criminal justice industry, and I think thats really what this movement and moment is challenging us to think about, said Moore, the Office of Violence Prevention director. When we look at neighborhoods throughout the city and throughout the country where large police presences arent required, those communities tend to have thriving businesses. They have thriving families who are gainfully employed.

Moore said Wisconsin leaders should help Milwaukee and other cash-strapped cities invest in violence prevention.

State Representative David Bowen and State Senator Lena Taylor, both of Milwaukee, and other Democratic lawmakers in March proposed funneling tax revenue from vaping products into a statewide violence prevention fund. The bill failed to draw a hearing. Other Milwaukee groups have helped lay the groundwork for this moment.

Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, which aims to invest in and empower Milwaukees Black residents, released a 2019 Platform for Prosperity. It incorporates voices from thousands of who responded to the question: What would it look like for your community to thrive?

The group is now surveying residents online and via text about their vision for policing. Rick Banks, the groups political director, said support is growing to defund MPD.

Police brutality and things have been an issue for generations, but right now the energy around it, coupled with the budget cycle, is a huge opportunity for people to explore that idea, he said. It doesnt feel like a far-fetched idea.

The pandemic has added momentum to the push for change, said Liston of Ubuntu Research and Evaluation.

I dont think a lot of people knew how badly these systems were failing people, and it took a pandemic for people to realize how bad things are, she said.

The virus is disproportionately infecting and killing Milwaukees people of color, and it is worsening economic hardship and flooding courts with eviction cases. Even before the pandemic, about half of Milwaukee renters paid more than 30% of their income in rent, according to a 2018 report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum. The same report showed 42% of the citys renter households earned less than $25,000 a year, while only 9% of rental units charged rents considered affordable to those households.

The pandemic is also spurring more grassroots efforts to provide food, financial help, child care and other services proving that residents can take care of each other, Anderson said.

Mutual aid, that is community care. That is community safety, he said. Those are people on the ground making sure that peoples needs are met by offering support to their neighbors. The community knows what keeps them safe.

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COVID-19, Protests, and a Budget Crunch: How shifting funds can improve the quality of life in Milwaukee - Milwaukee Independent