Over seventy years since publication, the first British edition of Eric Williams classic Capitalism and Slavery remains vital, despite establishment critics, argues John WestmorelandEric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Penguin 2022), 304pp.Blood at the root

The republication of Eric Williams classic account of Britains role in the slave economy of the Americas and the Caribbean comes at a time when there is a renewed interest in Britains role in the slave trade, stimulated by the Black Lives Matter protests that rocked cities across the UK and USA.

Williams thesis, first published in the USA in 1944, has rightly been hailed by discerning scholars as a masterpiece. For some reason you will have to guess - the book has not been published here in the UK before. Williams argument has come to be known as the Decline Thesis because it links the decline of the slave economy in the Caribbean with its eventual abolition.

In 1944, Capitalism and Slavery provided a starting point for a new generation of students interested in the history of slavery and the civil rights of Black Americans. Written in an elegant and persuasive style, the book postulates an analysis that owes much to Marxs writings about the origins of capitalism, and where the capital that financed the system that bears its name came from.

In short, Williams argues that the trade in slaves and the profits from the plantations on which they laboured provided the capital that funded the industrial revolution in England and Scotland, and built the great port cities connected with the triangular trade. Glasgow, Liverpool, Bristol, and London were at the northern tip of a trade triangle connecting the coast of Africa with the Caribbean and American colonies. Manufactures left Britain for the west African coast where they were traded for slaves, a human cargo that was shipped to Britains colonies to be traded in turn for the valuable commodities of cotton, tobacco, rum and sugar.

Sugar was the commodity that enriched investors in the City of London. The sugar barons were renowned for preposterous wealth, and many stately homes were built and furnished through sugar wealth. The insatiable appetite for sugar in Europe exacted a terrible toll on the slaves who worked the plantations. The demand for sugar generated the demand for slaves.

However, as capitalism matured, the capitalists started to favour the free market views expressed by Adam Smith and turned against the mercantilist slave system that protected an inefficient and insatiable planter class. Free markets favoured an expanding empire where British finance outmatched foreign competition. This shift in thinking was prompted by the decline of the slave economy in Britains Caribbean possessions that set in after the American colonies gained their independence in 1776. The steps to the abolition of the slave trade and slave emancipation in the colonies thereafter link closely to the development of British capitalism.

Firstly, when the slave trade was abolished in 1807, economic considerations loomed large. In market terms British colonial sugar production lagged behind that of Saint Domingue (Haiti) and Brazil. Indeed Saint Domingue produced more sugar than all the British colonies combined, and the growing market in North America, freed from the obligation to buy British sugar, meant the protection of British sugar from cheaper suppliers made little economic sense.

The economic case for the abolition of the slave trade was strengthened by the calculation that the slave population in the West Indies could be replenished naturally and the navy could be put to more useful tasks than policing the Caribbean.

Secondly, after the capitalist class confirmed its political ascendency in Britain after the passing of the so-called Great Reform Act in 1832, it was swiftly followed by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 that emancipated slaves in the Caribbean. By this time the sugar supply was boosted by production in India and European grown sugar beet. Again the market triumphed over protection. The only negative economic aspect was that the slave owners had to be paid compensation for their loss of property.

The final nail in the coffin of mercantilism came in 1846 when the protective sugar duties were finally abandoned. At this point British pre-eminence in the world saw them commit wholeheartedly to the free market where they held sway. The protective Corn Laws, a constant annoyance to free-market ideologues, were also repealed at this time.

Therefore Williams established a clear connection to the development of capitalism and the move to slave emancipation. This connection of capitalism to the barbarities of the slave trade and slave production continues to enrage conservative thinkers. And its not just that the capitalist system is shown to be rooted in the blood and misery of enslaved Africans. Even more infuriating is Williams exposure of the real reasons for abolition as being in the economic interests of capitalists rather than the evident determination and humanitarianism of the abolitionist movement.

A good many national myths had been developed concerning William Wilberforce and his abolitionist saints, and these are myths that the Tories are out to preserve.

That the publication of Capitalism and Slavery has produced an instant reaction (and condemnation) on the Conservative Home page says something about the likely effect it will have on a new readership.

Tory MP David Davis has taken up the cudgels against Williams and brought all his intellectual might to bear. His argument, the less hyperbolic part, is a regurgitation of arguments first used by the American historian Seymour Drescher in the 1970s. Drescher challenged the data used in Williams economic analysis, which will be dealt with later. What is more novel is that Davis tries to reframe the narrative in a way that not only restores the virtue of Wilberforce and the saints, but tries to claim that British abolition was a moral endeavour that set an example to the rest of the world.

Our history with slavery is a lot more nuanced than many would have you believe, he says. It is doubtful if those experiencing the horrors of the middle passage or performing back breaking work under brutal slave masters and tropical heat would find solace in his nuanced history, much of which seems to have been downloaded from Wikipedias entry on Britains West Africa Squadron.

Deflection, rather than nuance, is what Davis is about. His attitude to Britains role in the slave trade is to acknowledge the shame without explanation of cause or content in order to shift the focus. For thousands of years, humanity had been characterised by the enslavement of one people by another. Over 550 years ago, Europeans began the transatlantic slave trade. While Britain was not the worst practitioner of this evil, we must acknowledge our part; we can no more re-write history than those who tear down statues.

The Tories are keen to turn the history curriculum into a fable about British values, and for Davis the act of ending the slave trade and slavery in the Caribbean is a cause for celebration. So he doesnt dwell on the horrors Britain imposed on foreign subjects, he moves quickly to explain how Britain became the worlds leading force in the emancipation of slaves.

Perhaps Black Lives Matter should take the knee in gratitude to their white emancipators! The history of Britains West Africa Squadron, if the Tories get their way, will no doubt gain a place in the curriculum so that the good parts of the British Empire can be learned. Davis says:

Founded in 1808, the West Africa Squadron of the Royal Navy had the singular purpose of stopping transatlantic slave ships. For over 60 years, the force patrolled international waters, captured 1,600 slaver ships and rescued 150,000 slaves.

And (wiping a tear from his patriotic eye): It was an astonishing tale of derring-do and heroism, of great deeds done solely for the purpose of destroying a great evil.

This line of argument might absorb some undefended minds in academia, but not many. Setting the record straight on the West Africa Squadron isnt too difficult. More importantly it is part of the history of imperial expansion with solid capitalist motives.

The idea that Britain was a force for decency in the world in the nineteenth century is laughable. Britain was a capitalist force for profits. A list of British ruling-class crimes in search of profits across the globe is too long to go into. Historians like Eric Williams have their counterparts across the globe in former British colonies, and it is better to let them recount their own tales of British heroism and decency. If the British hadnt wiped out the peoples of Tasmania man, woman and child, perhaps they could join in the chorus of approval.

The West Africa Squadron came from the 1807 Act abolishing the slave trade. The thinking was that if Britain had just closed off a market to British subjects they were damned if French, Spanish or Portuguese traders would benefit. For Davis, Britain was all about upholding justice on behalf of conquered peoples in the same way as the USA has considered itself a world policeman in our times. In reality, Britains desire for international justice, as with the USA, was closely linked to the imperial project of gaining British naval supremacy. Britain ruled the waves and waived the rules.

Michael Jordan has successfully debunked Britains honourable abolitionist claims in The Great Abolition Sham (The History Press 2005). Jordan shows that the Act abolishing the slave trade in 1807 contained provisions that pleased the anti-abolitionists. Slaves seized by the navy were treated as prizes by the terms of the Act. They were often dragooned into Caribbean regiments that had been decimated by disease. They were indentured in the same way as apprentices, but without pay. The Act therefore maintained plantation slavery.

Britain waived the rules by turning a blind eye to ships flagged with countries with whom a mutual trading interest was established. At the Congress of Vienna, where the chance to abolish slave trading was on the agenda, the British, represented by Castlereagh, consented to allow the Bourbon regime in France to continue trading to restock French colonies.

Stopping the slave trade took up only a small number of ships but was an important part of the assertion of British naval supremacy. Britains domination of the Atlantic and West African shipping lanes was to have a massive pay-off when European nations partitioned Africa in a frenzy of imperialist robbery after 1875. Britain secured all the most profitable parts of Africa and ruled their new subjects as racist overlords. Apartheid in South Africa is just one such example from many.

The final point in this debate was made by Eric Williams himself. Emancipation meant little for the freed slaves without their being given some means of support that would help them make an independent living. The former slaves were plantation workers in the main. They were trapped on islands dominated by plantation agriculture. Abolitionist freedom meant the triumph of the free market, an imperialist economic victory. The former slaves were not made economically equal and therefore remained unfree.

Racism, the most obvious British value in the Caribbean, was the ideological cement of British rule. In 1865 at Morant Bay in Jamaica the former slaves rose in rebellion. British troops crushed the rebellion in what came to be known as the Morant Bay Massacre. Whole villages were burned. Those who could not vouch for their innocence were shot, hanged and flogged. Women were hung from trees and some were flogged by British soldiers.

David Davis MP chose not to mention Morant Bay. Too much nuancing obviously spoils a good yarn.

Williams thesis is a major challenge to the history taught in schools and universities. The challenge is dealt with in the time honoured liberal fashion of misrepresenting Williams through omission and exaggeration, and attacking what is left.

For example, A level students studying the abolition of the slave trade are informed by the exam board textbook that:

The weakness of [Williams] argument lies in the definitive assertion that economic considerations were the primary motive for abolition and that every action is motivated by it. This polemical approach reduces the importance of other factors and therefore by focussing so intently upon one feature, opens itself up to criticism.i

This conclusion is offered to students after one introductory paragraph and a selected quotation. It is an example of liberal historical training. Williams sophisticated historical argument is disempowered by reduction that itself amounts to assertion, and this is followed up by considering an array of liberal historians to dissolve any lingering sympathy in a sea of considered liberal opinion.

And thus liberal balance is counter posed to Marxist dogma. And who would aspire to be an unbalanced dogmatist? There is not the space here to consider the liberal critics of Williams in great depth but we can counter some of the major criticisms. Williams could only be accused of focussing so intently on one feature of abolition by someone who has never read Capitalism and Slavery.

Firstly, critics of Williams have argued that the industrial revolution in Britain was not financed by the profits of slavery, rather capital was generated by developments here. The agricultural revolution, for example, freed labour for industrialisation that in turn generated labour saving inventions like steam power.

However, Williams does not argue that slavery begat capitalism, just the opposite; capitalism begat slavery. He writes:

When by 1660 the political and social upheavals of the Civil War came to an end, England was ready to embark wholeheartedly on a branch of commerce whose importance to her sugar and her tobacco colonies in the New World was beginning to be fully appreciated (p.27).

This takes Williams onto an analysis of the mercantilist system, which his critics accuse him of positing as a completely different entity to market capitalism. In chapter 2, The Development of the Negro Slave Trade, Williams shows that the mercantilist system, protected from foreign competition, was an early capitalist method of securing the European market for slave produced commodities.

Williams makes it clear that slavery suited plantation agriculture because free labour abhorred it, and this is a consideration in line with modern corporate investors who have their commodities produced by child labour that is nothing less than modern slavery. Slavery provided an abundance of labour that could be worked to death and replenished. Therefore it made economic sense, and was politically acceptable in Britain too.

In chapter 3, British Commerce and the Triangular Trade, Williams shows exactly how the industrial revolution was stimulated and paid for in good part by slavery. The reductionist criticism of Williams implies that the capitalists here waited for the profits to roll in then invested it, but his approach is far more persuasive than that. Williams shows how the triangular trade stimulated industry, agriculture and further imperial trading opportunities. It developed major seaports like Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow. In these cities industrial capitalism got a boost as well as the docks. Ship building and design, dock building and civil engineering, metal working, rope making, crane design and manufacture all took off. In these great cities industrial capitalism leapt forward contributing to the development of the system as a whole.

The implications for further imperial expansion should be obvious. It led to Britain being the workshop of the world in the nineteenth century as well as the dominant imperialist power.

The second important attack on Williams thesis comes from the American historian Seymour Drescher.

Drescher researched Williams sources and found them wanting. He reversed the Decline Thesis by showing that the abolition of the slave trade was not in line with capitalist reasoning as Williams claimed. For Drescher, the slave economy was not declining, but was actually reaching its full potential. Therefore abolishing the slave trade in 1807 dealt a death blow to a vital economic area, whether slavery was inherently evil or not. Drescher did agree that economics played a part, but not in the way Williams claimed - or in the way that Drescher claims he claimed.

Dreschers argument centres on his oft quoted view that slavery was aborted in its prime and this is the theme of his book, Econocide, published in 1976. But it is not the devastating demolition of Capitalism and Slavery that his supporters think. In the first place, recent research done by the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at UCL supports the economic arguments of Eric Williams. And Capitalism and Slavery is about much more than economics. Williams shows capitalism to be a form of political economy, not just an economy.

This is why Dreschers analysis falls flat in my view. He worships at the altar of classical economists who see capitalism as rational and virtuous. Capitalists do not always make decisions that ward off crisis and they have a long history of doing the opposite. So to say that abolition was somehow contrary to the advice offered by modern economic analysis based on new data crunching techniques is meaningless in explaining why it happened.

For example, Drescher argues that the value of plantations in the Caribbean were rising at the time of abolition, and therefore there was still profit to be made. But isolating economic data in this way exaggerates the importance of it, and by decontextualizing it, distorts it. House prices in Doncaster are rising at the moment, but the reason is not because Doncaster is booming, trust me.

Politicians and campaigners alike fight for change because of how events in the immediate past prompt them to think about the future. As Williams explains, in a quarter of a century Britain had lost American colonies, intensified the exploitation of a vast market in India, and entered into a war with another great imperialist power that would impact upon the world. Britains fortunes no longer relied on its West Indian trade. And the trajectory of British capitalism certainly went against the idea of Econocide.

The final critique from which Williams should be defended flows from the incorrect assumption that his analysis is a form of economic determinism that leaves out the actions of individuals, their courage and tenacity. When people like David Davis and William Hague eulogise William Wilberforce and the saintly Clapham Sect upon which the British abolitionist movement was largely founded, they are in fact following a tradition begun in 1807.

The abolition of the slave trade produced an astonishing volte face in the British establishment. Having spent thirty years blocking all attempts at abolition of the slave trade, once the act of abolition was passed they celebrated it as a triumph for the whole nation. Amid the outpouring of articles, engravings and plates depicting Britannia trampling on the emblems of slavery, the Duke of Norfolk opined that abolition was, the most humane and merciful Act which was ever passed by any legislature in the world.

In chapter 10, The Saints and Slavery, Williams deals with something Marxists are well acquainted with: appearance and reality. Williams intention is not to deny the many commendable attributes of the abolitionists, rather he seeks to set their actions in a changing economic and political world. He writes of the abolitionists: The humanitarians were the spearhead of the onslaught which destroyed the West Indian system and freed the Negro (p.169).

He goes on: The British humanitarians were a brilliant band. Thomas Clarkson personifies all the best in the humanitarianism of the age. His praise is limited to a few of the brilliant band, perhaps too few, but his intention is to reveal what lies beneath.

The abolitionists were not radicals. In their attitude to domestic problems they were reactionary. The Methodists offered the workers Bibles instead of bread and Wesleyan capitalists exhibited open contempt for the working class. Wilberforce was familiar with all that went on in the hold of a slave ship but ignored what went on at the bottom of a mineshaft (p.170).

Williams doesnt write this maliciously. He correctly locates the limited space that humanitarianism enjoyed. The arguments for abolition never strayed into anti-capitalist sentiment even though there was huge popular support for abolition in working-class districts. To connect chattel slavery with wage slavery in mine and mill never entered their heads. Their strategy was purely parliamentarian.

In the abolitionist propaganda and petitions that roasted the planter class, there was no condemnation of their racism. Rather they were fellow Christians who had strayed into cruelty. The humanitarians regularly played on anti-mercantilist sentiment too.

In the call to abolish slavery in the Caribbean many abolitionists supported boycotting West Indian sugar in favour of Brazilian and Indian sugar. Did they know nothing of the appalling conditions suffered by free labour there?

The fact is that the abolitionists pursued a moral cause with determination. When their appeal coincided with favourable economic arguments for abolition, the establishment, at the time and since, chose to seize on the moral arguments to deflect from the economic reasons. This was done to present capitalism as virtuous, and is in substance exactly the same as presenting a war for oil as a war for democracy.

Capitalism and Slavery is a must read book and is the essential starting point for a new readership. It is a book that will hold the readers attention, and presents a powerful analysis in a persuasive and easy to understand way. Reading it is a pleasure.

There are certainly aspects of this topic that Williams does not cover in great depth; it is a relatively short book. One area that students will want to explore further is the role of slaves in freeing themselves, and a good place to follow this up is through the work of C.L.R. James. James was Williams mentor and his book, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint LOuverture and the San Domingo Revolution, is a masterpiece.

i Challenges to the authority of the state in the late 18th and 19th centuries (Pearson 2015), p.121

Counterfire is expanding fastas a website and an organisation. We are trying to organise a dynamic extra-parliamentary left in everypart of the country tohelp build resistance to the government and their billionaire backers. If you like what you have read and youwant to help, please join us or just get in touch by emailing [emailprotected] Now is the time!

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Capitalism and Slavery - book review - Counterfire

The Seder is the ultimate Jewish celebration of freedom. We sit (or recline) with our families and friends around the table recounting the story, as if each of us was a slave who witnessed the terrible plagues and then suddenly, at midnight, marched upright with clenched fists and unleavened bread on our backs, out of Egypt.

Different generations and communities celebrate the Seder according to their own customs and interpretations, adding references to the embodiment of Pharaoh as the main tormentor of the Jews of that time. After the Holocaust and the rebirth of Israel, these events were interpreted as a strong parallel to the transition from slavery to freedom.

In recent years, as those memories faded, some politically liberal Jews have shifted the emphasis from the core Jewish experience, first in Egypt and then in subsequent generations, to a universalist version embracing the downtrodden of the world. I first encountered this as a student in Berkeley in 1969, in the form of a Freedom Haggadah, which sought to draw comparisons between the events of the exodus and the burning political issues of the day in Americaspecifically civil rights (as it was known then) and the womens liberation movement. Egypt, Israelites and slavery were still part of the text, but were no longer the primary or only focus. Armed with my copy of that Haggadah, I went home for our non-liberal particularist family seders.

In the decades since, successors to these activists of the 1960s moved the emphasis further away from Jewish history, culture and identity and towards universalism in the form of identifying with all victims, many real, and but also some that are imagined. (Todays edition would focus on the war against Ukraine, with Putin in the role of Pharaoh.)

In the progressive versions of the Haggadah that I have seen, the traditional four cups of wine are reinterpretedwith no mention of the traditional symbolism of the fourth cup, associated with Gods promise to bring the Israelites to the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 6:8). Leaving Egypt was never considered an end in itself, but rather the first step in a complex process of redemption, via Sinai and the commandments, and ending with the arrival (forty years later) in the Land of Israel.

By deliberately disconnecting the two, the revisionists are deleting this core dimension. In their political spin, this cup, in a paraphrase of the others, is supposed to represent a world where no one is held in slavery a world without sweatshop laborers, where all workers are able to make a fair wage (A Haggadah for Justice Truah). The particularism of Jewish existencethe Promised Land and Land of Israelare censored out of existence.

Similarly, in every generation for 2000 years in exile and Diaspora, our ancestors ended the seder by singing Next year in Jerusalem. But in another manifestation of intersectionality and self-assimilation, this statement and all mention of Jerusalem and Jewish self-determination are erased from progressive seders. This is part of the wider assault on Jewish history and identity, in which Zionism is presented as a form of colonialism and, according to the NGO industry and the United Nations, apartheid. To the degree that Israel is presented at all in these versions of the Haggadah, it is through this hostile and distorted filter, envisioned not as the homeland of the Jewish people, but rather as a country of all its inhabitantsthe catch-phrase for dismantling the Jewish state. Far from the celebration of Jewish freedom and deliverance from oppression, the intersectional Haggadah highlights the need for grappling with the realities of Jewish power, Palestine solidarity, and the sense of Jewish complicity with Palestinian suffering and white supremacy.

Like the wicked child in the Haggadah, the radical universalists and inter-sectionalists are excluding themselves, their lost and uninformed followers, and their children from the Jewish community.

Like the wicked child in the Haggadah, the radical universalists and inter-sectionalists are excluding themselves, their lost and uninformed followers, and their children from the Jewish community.

These distortions and interpretations go far beyond the student-led Freedom Haggadah of 50 years ago. The earlier versions added universal concerns without erasing the traditional Jewish interpretations and themes, including the celebration of our freedom in the Land of Israel, and the right of the Jewish people to determine our own destiny.

Just as the exodus from Egypt necessarily led to the arrival in the Land of Israel, the founders of Zionism understood that to escape from the oppression of the diaspora, the Jewish people must be anchored in our homeland.

In contrast, the marginal Jews and anti-Zionists of today are marching backwards from freedom into a world of assimilation and slavery.

In contrast, the marginal Jews and anti-Zionists of today are marching backwards from freedom into a world of assimilation and slavery. By prohibiting all particularism, and specifically attacking the centrality of Israel to the Jewish people, they are tearing down our identity.

For generations upon generations, the texts and collective rituals of the Passover seder were primary expressions of Jewish continuity and the everlasting yearning for our own freedom, which every family taught to their children. This continuity is the essence of our identity as a people and a nation, and the key to our survival.

Next year in Jerusalem.

Gerald Steinberg is emeritus Professor of Political Science at Bar Ilan University and president of NGO Monitor. His latest book is Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process: Between Ideology and Political Realism (Indiana University Press).

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From Slavery to Freedom: Keeping Israel at the Seder Table - Jewish Journal

THE suspended jail term handed to a Carlisle man who was convicted of a modern slavery offence after a vulnerable man was found living in a shed will not be increased, top judges have ruled.

The Court of Appeal was asked to review the sentence after a suggestion that it was 'unduly lenient'.

At the original sentence hearing in February, Judge Richard Archer was told that the prosecution accepted Peter Swailes junior was unaware of the squalid conditions in which the victim was kept.

READ MORE: Newly restored lighthouse vandalised within one day

The court heard that the victim endured appalling conditions for up to 40 years, at times living in a horse box. The shed which was his home was unheated, dirty, and damp.

The defendants elderly father, also called Peter, who lived next to the shed on at site at Brampton Old Road, north of Carlisle, died before his case came to trial.

Solicitor General Alex Chalk today failed to persuade Appeal Court judges that the sentence given to Swailes junior, who admitted helping to exploit the victim by paying him below minimum wage for dangerous roof work, was too lenient.

Swailes junior, of Low Harker, Carlisle, Cumbria, admitted conspiring with his father, also called Peter, to financially exploit the man from July 2015, when the Modern Slavery Act came into law.

READ MORE: Visas issued for Ukraine families to live in Carlisle

Prosecutors accepted Swailes guilty plea on the basis that, although he had known the victim for many years, he was unaware of his living conditions.

A barrister representing Mr Chalk told a hearing in London that the sentence was unduly lenient.

Peter Ratliff told Lord Justice Holroyde, Mrs Justice Farbey and Sir Nigel Davis that a longer sentence should have been imposed and the jail term should not have been suspended.

But Lord Justice Holroyde said judges had concluded that neither the length of the term, nor the suspension, was unduly lenient, given the basis of Swailes guilty plea.

He said the case was complicated and difficult.

The vulnerable victim, who had a very low IQ of 59, was used and exploited during that period by Swailes father, who was his boss at the various accommodations over the years, judges heard.

Swailes father, who was 81 and died last year while awaiting trial after being accused of modern slavery offences, approached the man when he was aged about 18 and invited him to work with him doing various jobs.

In October 2018 the man was discovered by police living in a rotting, leaky shed near Carlisle, with no heating, no lighting and no flooring.

Swailes accepted that, from time to time, his father would contact him and arrange for the victim to undertake work with him, and that, on occasion, he paid him less than his minimum entitlement.

The case came after a three-year investigation by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, supported by Cumbria Police and the National Crime Agency.

The victim, in his 60s, now lives in supported accommodation outside Cumbria and has been helped by City Hearts, a charity providing long-term support to survivors of modern slavery.

The defendant's father had denied the modern slavery charge he was accused of. The court heard that his dog lived in more comfortable conditions that the man found living in the shed at the caravan park on Brampton Old Road, Carlisle.

READ MORE: Thugs assaulted victim because he looked different

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Appeal Court rejects tougher sentence bid in shed slave case | News and Star - News & Star

The episode asks the question: What would white people do if they finally had to pay the rent?

Season 3 of the award-winning series Atlanta is here and its once again reminding viewers why its one of the best shows on television.

The latest episode, titled The Big Payback, tells its own contained short story rather than following the series main characters. Written byFrancesca Sloane, the episode imagines how society might change if Black people could sue white people for reparations relating to slavery.

Activists in the United States have been advocating for slavery reparations for many decades, and only recently have made some steps forward. A landmark task force was assembled in January of this year to recommend reparations payment schemes after a bill was passed through the California state government in 2020. Reparations put so-called Australia in world news over the last few years too:in 2021, a fund of $280 million dollars was set up to be established to compensate Mob affected by the Stolen Generations.

Its in this slow, very recent trickle of social reckoning with colonial injustices against Black folks that Atlantas latest episode establishes itself. The episode centres on Marshall Johnson (Justin Bartha), a working middle-class white man on the verge of divorce. When we meet him hes listening to an NPR podcast, detailing a recent case in which a wealthy Tesla investor has been successfully sued out of millions by a Black man whose ancestors were enslaved by the investors ancestors. We hear on the podcast that the man won by arguing the investors wealth was a direct result of the enslavement of his ancestors.

Our protagonist Marshall shrugs off the news and its potential social ramifications, and even waves away his daughters anxiety over being called a racist at school. But the new reality catches up with him. A Black woman namedShaniqua Johnson(Melissa Youngblood) issues Marshall with a court document proving that his ancestors enslaved her own, and is now seeking compensation. Its worth noting here that her last name being the same as his reflects the real phenomena of Black families sharing the surnames of their ancestors owners. Marshall refutes the claim, but its a brave new persistent world.

Shaniqua persues Marshall, camping outside his workplace and taking over his house. Its over the top maybe, but a satirical nod to how a lot of people imagine reparations involve hostile homewrecking. Marshalls wife divorces him to save her personal finances from taking a hit along with Marshalls. Im Peruvian! This never would have happened to me! she says as justification, but Marshall baulks at this. You were white yesterday! he shouts. Its a great gag throughout the episode, white people scrambling to know their exact ethnicity as if it somehow makes them less complicit in enjoying the benefits of a society built on chattel slavery.

The episode comes to a climax as we find Marshall dejectedly drinking away his sorrows in the lobby of a cheap hotel. There he meets a fellow white man called Earnest who admits hes in the same boat. Its a meta sort of comment, as Earnest appears in the cold open of the seasons first episode as a fisherman. Turns out [my grandad] had a lot of help and a lot of kids, Earnest says to Marshall, explaining how the reparations shed light on the lie that his family was self-made.Maybe its only right, he says.

But Marshall doesnt agree. Im being fucked by some shit I didnt even do, he insists, saying neither of them deserves this.What do they deserve? Earnest replies. For them, slavery is not past It is not a mystery. It is not a historical curiosity. It is a cruel unavoidable ghost, he says, and its here that the central tenet of the episode is made clear.

It would be easy to write off the episode as an oversimplified thought experiment. In the final sequence, Marshall is working as a waiter and paying a portion of his wage to restitution taxes, which doesnt offer acknowledgement of how mass individual reparations claims would complicate existing systems of debt. Indeed it would be almost unreasonable for any episode to achieve such an explanation in 30ish minutes.

Instead, The Big Payback very specifically illustrates the white reactionary pushback against reparations.

Instead, The Big Payback very specifically illustrates the white reactionary pushback against reparations. And most importantly, the episode uses the voices of white people to explain exactly why such pushback is just another example of entitlement. When Earnest combats Marshalls resentment at having to pay Shoniqua with the simple question, and what do they deserve? he reminds Marshall andthe Atlantaaudience that reparations are compensation for unimaginable undeserved harm and ongoing disenfranchisement of Black people.

Atlanta has a large audience that includes white folks like Marshall Jackson who dont think of themselves as racist on a day-to-day basis. People who, nevertheless, would still likely baulk at the prospect of paying reparations and actually reckoning with the ramifications of slavery. This episode of Atlanta is for those people. It is taking the hands of those who believe theyre removed from a nebulous history and shows them that, regardless of their day-to-day beliefs, those hands are bloodied.

The Big Payback makes a show of white guilt, fragility and entitlement, portraying almost bombastically how Black folks claiming reparations would feel like horror for white people. But then, from white peoples own mouths, reminds audiences that the real horror is why reparations are owed in the first place.

Atlanta is streaming on SBS on Demand.

Merryana Salem (they/them) is a proud Wonnarua and LebaneseAustralian writer, critic, teacher and podcaster on most social media as@akajustmerry. If you want, check out their podcast,GayV Clubwhere they yarn about LGBTIQ media. Either way, they hope you ate something nice today.

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'Atlanta' Reminds Viewers Why Reparations For Slavery Are Overdue - Junkee

Nearly 450 workers at five nursing homes in Hartford, Rocky Hill, West Hartford, Bloomfield and Windsor will begin a strike April 22 to resolve what they describe as unfair labor practices, their union announced Tuesday.

Many of the caregivers, dietary, housekeeping and laundry workers we represent have received poverty-level wages, have spent weeks or days without pay, and have worked in some cases 16 hours a day for weeks on end, said Jesse Martin, vice president of SEIU District 1199 New England.

The union announced that its membership had overwhelmingly authorized a strike for April 22 starting at 6 a.m. at Bloomfield Health Care Center, Hebrew Center for Health & Rehabilitation in West Hartford, Maple View Health and Rehabilitation Center in Rocky Hill, Windsor Health and Rehabilitation Center and Avery Heights Senior Living in Hartford.

These employers have committed significant violations of federal labor law, Martin said. In one case at Windsor Rehab, they hired unlicensed staff, required them to work for two to three weeks without wages in exchange for the employer possibly taking the CNA licensure this is modern day slavery.

The union said those nursing homes are also among the last stragglers to reach new labor contracts; it said it has successfully negotiated multi-year agreements with about 90 percent of Connecticuts nursing homes.

It wants minimum wages of $20 for certified nursing assistants, $18.50 for other workers, more affordable health insurance, retirement and pension contributions, and what it called measures to address racial discrimination.

National Health Care Associates, which owns the nursing homes in Rocky Hill, West Hartford and Bloomfield, countered that it has been bargaining in good faith all along.

The company has agreed to increases of 15.5 percent to 20.5 percent for minimum wage employees starting next summer, and a 4.5 percent raise for anyone earning more than minimum wage, it said.

Story continues

We also have committed to using monies from the state to fund a defined contribution employer pension plan, and to make improvements to the health plan and/or make it more affordable, spokeswoman Christina Fleming said in a written statement.

By contrast, the union made an initial proposal on Feb. 21 and, with one exception, has not modified its position, Fleming said.

National Health Care will continue negotiating and believes a strike isnt the right answer, she said, but added it is doing everything necessary to limit disruption to our residents and ensure patient care is in no way affected.

At Avery Heights, Administrator Bill Thompson offered a similar response.

We will continue to negotiate in good faith in hopes of reaching a settlement that is fair and equitable to the team members represented by NEHCEU, he wrote. If no agreement can be reached before the April 22nd deadline, Avery Heights will continue to ensure the ongoing care, safety and wellbeing of our residents.

Windsor Health and Rehabilitation did not respond to a message Tuesday.

The union said its members have filed grievances and that at least 10 National Labor Relations Board complaints are pending, but claimed it must strike to prevent further losses to workers.

It said some members have been threatened and harassed for union membership, and that some of the nursing homes have refused to pay new employees for their first two or three weeks of work.

As part of a COVID 19 mitigation package, the companies all received state aid to help pay workers - but some have refused to spend it even while theyre shortchanging employees, Martin said. He said the union is concerned that when the state department of social services audits those grants, it will reclaim the money and the workers will never get what theyre owed.

Several certified nursing assistants from the homes attended the morning press conferences at 1199s Hartford office, and told of long-time workers still making substandard wages - despite the demands of the pandemic and the shortage of health care workers.

We have worked consistently and are tremendously tired through the COVID (pandemic). We should be paid fairly for the work we have done and are still doing, said Annamaria Parsons, a CNA at Avery Heights. The boss is making lots of money and doesnt want to share.

Yvonne Foster said she has worked at Windsor Health for 21 years and still doesnt make $20 an hour, has no retirement account and cant afford health insurance.

Marcia Armstrong, a CNA at Bloomfield Health, said coworkers whove put in 30 and 40 years are being treated unfairly, and accused her employer of making promises that go unfulfilled.

Weve been told for two years that were essential, yet I still cant pay my bills or afford health care with the low wages Im being paid, Nadine Lawrence, a CNA at Bloomfield Health Care Center, in a statement. Im at my breaking point.

See original here:

Workers at five Connecticut nursing homes threaten April 22 strike - Yahoo News

A Ramadan lantern, traditional symbol of the holiday. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

In a rare confluence of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious calendars, we are heading into a time when all the worlds monotheists are observing major periods of holy time. For Jews, it is the week of Passover; for Christians it Easter, and for Muslims, the Holy Month of Ramadan.

This should be a time to be in awe; and to celebrate the many ways that the One God has communicated His love and his messages to humanity. Instead, it is a fraught time that has the potential of violence from heightened religious fervor.

What shame some have brought to our faiths by distorting the message of love and fellowship that is at the heart of all three of those religions, which purport to worship the same God.

I am a rabbi. I cannot tell my fellow non-Jewish monotheists what their holy times are all about. That would be presumptuous. But when it comes to religious observances, theres always a message in the rites and rituals; some-take away that is meant to motivate and inspire the faithful, through proscribed rituals and the memories they invoke. We are meant to take that inspiration and those memories into our lives and try to cleave more closely to the way we ought to be living in order to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Christian really, a good person.

When Jews gather around their Seder tables to begin the Passover observance, the central memory we will invoke is what happened when the Israelites fled Egypt and stood at the shore of the sea with the Egyptians chasing after them. Two miracles occurred: first, the sea parted, so the Israelites could escape; and second, as the Israelites emerged safely on the other side, the sea closed upon the Egyptian chariots following them.

Why do we tap into those miracles; and how does our Bible guide us in remembering them? The Bible gives us two stories that center around remembering these miracles. The first is the story of King Josiah.

King Josiahs reign spans the years 640609 B.C.E. He is best known for finding a book during a Temple renovation that inspired him to reform much of the Jewish tradition as it had come to be practiced. Scholars believe that Josiah found what we call the Book of Deuteronomy. In that book, he made a startling discovery: there was an astonishing gap between the religious life they were living and what that book commanded.

They had forgotten to observe Passover! In 2 Kings 23:22 we read: And the king commanded all the people, saying: Keep the Passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant. For there was not kept such a Passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah

Passover hadnt been observed for hundreds of years! During Biblical times, they disobeyed the bible! As you could imagine, that was troubling, and Josiah wanted to close the gap. A major part of King Josiahs religious reforms was to renew the observance of Passover.

At the time of this religious Reform, the kingdoms of Assyria and Egypt were ascending after a period of decline. Thats when Pharaoh decided to wage war against Assyria. To get to Assyria his army would move up the coast through the area now called Tel Aviv, and turn right around Megiddo. This route meant the Egyptians would go through one small corner of Israel. Josiah made a fateful decision at that time: to go to war against Egypt right there.

It was an amazingly foolish decision to go to war against the king of Egypt. The Egyptian leader tried, unsuccessfully, to dissuade Josiah (see 2 Chronicles 35:21). As a consequence of his decision, Josiah was killed and the independence of Judah was finished. The King of Egypt routed Israel, went into Assyria and then returned to conquer Judah. He installed a son of Josiah to be his governor. Josiah was the last sovereign king of Judah.

Why did Josiah go to war against a military giant? Why enter a war that wasnt originally about him or Israel? Passover reminded Josiah of that time when the Israelites stood in front of the sea with nowhere to go. The people were distraught, but Moses assures them that God will take care of them. God will make the impossible possible. You dont need to do anything: God will take care of this. God will fight for you. God is on your side. So, jump into the sea!

Thats what Josiah, the king who revived Passover, remembers a time when Israel was at war with Egypt at the time of the Exodus and God fought the battle for them. Surely God would be on his side when he led Israel into battle against Egypt. For Josiah, remembering the miracles of the Exodus became inspiration to engage in an irresponsible war. Why not? After all, Gods on our side.

The Bible offers another way to think about how to deal with the memory of miracles performed on your behalf. For that, we look to Moses. How does Moses invoke the miracles Israels redemption?

After Gods direct revelation of the Ten Commandments, the Israelites ask Moses to bring Gods words to them. Hearing them directly from God was too much. Immediately after the Ten Commandments, Moses explains the laws about owning Israelite slaves. It says in Exodus 21:2: If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.

Moses is the hero of the Book of Exodus. In Deuteronomy he is the teller of the story. He not only repeats the Ten Commandments, but he directly ties the Israelite redemption from slavery to the commandment to release ones slaves: And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing to-day. (Deuteronomy 15:15)

The 10 Commandments began with an introduction of God to the Israelites: I am the God who liberated you. And then we get the first commandment after that revelation. The Israelites are to liberate their slaves. This commandment teaches, Because God liberated me, Im commanded to liberate others. The meaning of being liberated is to become a liberator. The memory of what happened to you in the Exodus becomes something you are supposed to make happen for others.

Moses and Josiah both tap into memory of the miracles of the Exodus, but with a fundamental difference. For Josiah the memory is one of the Israelites waiting for God to fight their fight and intervene on their behalf. For Moses the memory is about emulating God. The miracle of Passover is not a sign of something to happen; its a norm we have to emulate.

In Deuteronomy, when Moses is the story teller, he emphasizes the compassion that God had on the Israelites. He uses that memory to give meaning to the miracles God performed for Israel: that they should be compassionate towards others and never perpetuate the kind of injustices and indignities they suffered from on others. Dont ever do unto others what was done unto you!

On Passover, we do not remember miracles to tell us that Gods on our side. Rather, we remember miracles to learn not to rely on God to do the justice work were supposed to do. Just as we were liberated; we are to be liberators. Just as we were saved from oppressors, so should we save others from oppression.

In 1994, the Jewish religious extremist Baruch Goldstein was inspired by miracles in his faith as motivation to massacre Muslims at prayer in Hebron. At Easter services Christians have heard messages that inspired them to engage in pogroms against Jews. And Ramadan has inspired its share of terror. All of us have perverted the memory of what God has done for us and the result has been human misery, not glory to God!

I hope that in the days ahead, when we gather in our homes, or in our mosques or churches or synagogues, we remember miracles and Gods love to inspire us to be as loving and compassionate as the God we all say we believe in.

Michael Berk is Rabbi Emeritus ofCongregation Beth Israel, the largest Jewish congregation in San Diego and the oldest in Southern California.

Read more here:

Opinion: During Ramadan, Passover and Easter, Let Us Learn from God's Compassion - Times of San Diego

05:29Full story: inflation hits 7% in March as Britains cost of living soars

Households in Britain have come under renewed pressure from the soaring cost of living after the official inflation rate reached 7% last month amid a record increase in petrol and diesel prices.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed the latest rise in the consumer prices index was the fastest in three decades, coming a month after the barometer for rising living costs jumped by 6.2% in February.

With broad-based price rises across the economy, the biggest increase came in the cost of filling up at the pump after Russias invasion of Ukraine sent the global oil price close to record levels amid concerns over supply disruption and sanctions.

Average petrol and diesel prices soared to record highs of 160.2p and 170.5p a litre respectively, rising by more than 30% over the past year the biggest annual increase since 1989.

Restaurants and hotel prices also rose steeply in March, having been unavailable last year during lockdown, while there were also rises across a number of different types of food as the cost of a weekly shop increases.

Heres the full story:

Updated at 05.35EDT

Time to wrap up... here are todays main stories, first on inflation:

...Russia...

And also:

Goodnight. GW

Updated at 13.12EDT

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellens warning to countries not to undermine sanctions against Russia came hours after data showed Chinas trade with Russia jumped by more than 12% in March from a year earlier.

That outpaced the increase in Beijings trade with the rest of the world, according to Chinese customs data.

My colleague Phillip Inman explains:

Shipments to and from Russia increased 12.76% in March to $11.67bn, Chinese customs data showed on Wednesday, slowing from 25.7% growth in February, when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

The decline in trade with Russia was less severe than the decline with other countries, fuelling concerns that China has maintained strong links with Moscow despite the atrocities perpetrated by the Russian military in Ukraine.

Growth in trade during March with the rest of the world was only 7.75%, after it increased to $505bn.

Beijing has refused to call Russias action an invasion and has repeatedly criticised what it says are illegal western sanctions to punish Moscow.

European stock markets have closed little changed on the day, as concerns over rising inflation and slowing growth occupy investors minds.

The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares finished just 4 points higher at 7,580, with airline group IAG (+3.8%) leading the risers.

Michael Hewson of CMC Markets explains:

British Airways owner IAG shares are doing well after optimistic outlooks from its US peers Delta Airlines and American Airlines. Delta said it had seen record bookings amidst optimism that it would be profitable in each remaining quarter of the current financial year.

Supermarket shares slipped, though, with Tesco down 2% after it warned that rising prices would hit its profits, and rival Sainsbury off 2.4%.

Major housebuilders lost around 2%, after the government announced that more than 35 homebuilders have agreed to put 2bn towards fixing unsafe cladding on high-rise buildings in England identified in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster.

Michael OShea, construction partner at the law firm Gowling WLG, says the deal is a significant step in re-dressing the overall issue.

It will be interesting to see how measures around other fire safety defects - such as defective compartmentation, fire doors and other non-cladding defects which allow smoke and flames to spread are pro-actively approached by the industry moving forwards.

Whether the insurance industry now follow suits is also a key factor - ensuring that the cause and effect nature of the entire process is fully appreciated is a significant dynamic here.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index ended the day flat, with Italys FTSE MIB 0.2% higher, but Germanys DAX slipping 0.35% as forecasters predicted a sharp recession if Germany introduced an immediate ban on Russian energy.

Updated at 13.48EDT

Annual inflation in Russia accelerated to 17.49% as of April 8, its highest since February 2002 and up from 16.70% a week earlier, the economy ministry says, following the latest rise in prices last week:

Consumer prices in Russia have jumped almost 11% so far this year, new inflation data shows.

Thats despite a softening in inflationary pressures last week, as the rouble recovered from its slump when the Ukraine war began, as Reuters explains:

Weekly inflation in Russia slowed to 0.66% in the week to April 8 from 0.99% a week earlier, taking the year-to-date increase in consumer prices to 10.83%, data from statistics service Rosstat showed on Wednesday.

In the same period a year ago, consumer prices rose 2.72%.

That follows a 7.6% jump in prices in March along, the biggest monthly increase since 1999.

Russias central bank said last Friday that inflationary pressures had eased, as it cut interest rate from 20% to 17%.

But price pressures are still intense.

Earlier today Alexei Kudrin, the head of Russias audit chamber, predicted that inflation could reach between 17% and 20% this year.

Analysts polled by Reuters late last month forecast 2022 inflation to accelerate to around 23.7%, its highest since 1999.

The Dutch bank ABN Amro has apologised for its predecessors role in the slave trade, after it commissioned an investigation into the untold suffering it caused.

The investigation, by academics at the International Institute of Social History (IISH), an Amsterdam archive, found that two of ABN Amros predecessor companies were involved in either financing the operation of slave plantations directly, or underwriting the trade in products produced by slaves.

The global Black Lives Matter protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in the US in 2020 prompted many historical institutions to re-examine their own links to slavery and the slave trade.

Heres the full story:

The heads of the World Bank, the IMF, the World Food Programme and the World Trade Organisation have called for urgent coordinated action on food security.

As the Ukraine war threatens to push millions more people into poverty, David Malpass, Kristalina Georgieva, David Beasley and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala say the surge in the prices of staple foods, and supply shortages, are increasing pressure on households worldwide.

They urge the international community to help vulnerable countries, including though emergency food supplies, financial support to households and countries, and grants to cover urgent financial neeeds, as well as increasing agricultural production and ensuring open trade.

In a joint statement, Malpass, Georgieva, Beasley and Okonjo-Iweala say:

The threat is highest for the poorest countries with a large share of consumption from food imports, but vulnerability is increasing rapidly in middle-income countries, which host the majority of the worlds poor. World Bank estimates warn that for each one percentage point increase in food prices, 10 million people are thrown into extreme poverty worldwide.

The rise in food prices is exacerbated by a dramatic increase in the cost of natural gas, a key ingredient of nitrogenous fertilizer. Surging fertilizer prices along with significant cuts in global supplies have important implications for food production in most countries, including major producers and exporters, who rely heavily on fertilizer imports. The increase in food prices and supply shocks can fuel social tensions in many of the affected countries, especially those that are already fragile or affected by conflict.

US treasury secretary Janet Yellen has also warned that global economic growth will take a hit from Russias war in Ukraine.

Yellen noted that it had sent prices for food, energy and some metals sharply higher, fueling existing inflationary pressures (as weve seen in the UK today).

Reuters has more details:

It is likely to be a hit to global growth, Yellen told an event hosted by the Atlantic Council think tank, adding that she worried more about recession prospects in Europe, which was most vulnerable to disruptions in energy supplies from Russia.

The United States had a very strong economy, and a very strong labor market, Yellen said, but also faced strong, strong wage pressures, inflation and the potential for further supply chain pressures due to COVID-19 lockdowns in China.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will convene a meeting of top international financial officials next week to address the global food security crisis, following Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Yellen says she was deeply concerned about the impact of Russias war in Ukraine on global food prices and supply, as soaring prices threaten many millions of people with severe hunger.

Yellen said she would convene other leaders during next weeks Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to discuss possible solutions to help the poorest, who spend a larger share of their income on food.

Yellen also issued a warning to countries who havent cut financial ties with Russia or are seeking to undermine sanctions imposed due to the war in Ukraine.

In prepared remarks delivered at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council, she said:

While many countries have taken a unified stand against Russias actions and many companies have quickly and voluntarily severed business relationships with Russia, some countries and companies have not.

Let me now say a few words to those countries who are currently sitting on the fence, perhaps seeing an opportunity to gain by preserving their relationship with Russia and backfilling the void left by others. Such motivations are short-sighted.

And in a call to China to help end the Ukraine war, she said:

The worlds attitude towards China and its willingness to embrace further economic integration may well be affected by Chinas reaction to our call for resolute action on Russia.

Updated at 11.24EDT

The IMF is worried about the risks posed by decentralized finance (DeFi), the crypto-based financial networks that operate without a central intermediary.

In a new blogpost, IMF staff warn that the fast-moving fintech sector is creating challenges for effective regulation and supervision.

It cites decentralized finance, which uses secure distributed ledgers to handle transactions. Such networks have been targeted by cybercriminals, and the lack of deposit protection means customers often rush to take their money out when a cyberattack occurs.

The IMF says:

Also known as DeFi, it offers the potential of delivering more innovative, inclusive, and transparent financial services thanks to greater efficiency and accessibility.

However, DeFi also involves the buildup of leverage, and is particularly vulnerable to market, liquidity, and cyber risks. Cyberattacks, which can be severe for traditional banks, are often lethal for these platforms, stealing financial assets and undermining user trust.

The lack of deposit insurance in DeFi adds to the perception of all deposits being at risk. Historically, large customer withdrawals often follow news of cyberattacks on providers.

The IMG also points out that FinTech can push banks to innovate to remain relevant to customers, by disrupting core financial services.

For consumers, it means potentially wider access to better services. Such changes also raise the stakes for regulators and supervisorswhile most individual FinTech firms are still small, they can scale up very rapidly across both riskier clients and business segments than traditional lenders.

Read the rest here:

UK inflation hits 7%; Yellen warns of global growth hit as it happened - The Guardian

Toscano is a former minority leader in the Virginia House of Delegates. He is the author of Fighting Political Gridlock: How States Shape Our Nation and Our Lives.

The 2020 election again showed that we are in the fight of our lives. Donald Trump was dispatched, but not without efforts to overturn a democratic result while undermining the legitimacy of elections themselves. Democrats won the presidency, but actually lost seats in state legislatures. Some new officeholders openly embraced the stop the steal narrative. A recent NPR/Ipsos poll reports that 64% of Americans believe U.S. democracy is "in crisis and at risk of failing." And the public remains focused on a federal system that appears dysfunctional and mired in partisan gridlock.

But as the publics gaze remains fixed on Washington, major decisions affecting control of the nation and the quality of our lives are being made in each of the 50 states. Democracy is up for grabs. Voting rights are under attack in many states, and hyperpartisan redistricting continues to manufacture majorities by shaping state legislatures and congressional delegations. But state policies influence us in so many other ways.

Here are five:

A democratic society cannot survive without an informed and educated citizenry. Wonder why some topics are taught in schools and others are not? Why some schools are modern, and others are physically deteriorating? Why some children score better on tests than others? The answers are found in state policy.

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Exploring the history of racial discrimination, paying teachers more than the national average, and reinvesting in the buildings within which learning occurs are uniquely state functions. Less than 8 percent of K-12 school funding comes from the federal government; most is provided by the states. The choices of state lawmakers affect our childrens performance much more than decisions made by policymakers in D.C.

Lately, disputes over the teaching of slavery and discrimination have reemerged as statehouse flashpoints. Five state legislatures recently considered denying education funding to school divisions that included materials from The New York Times 1619 Project about the role of slavery in their curricula. Nine state legislatures and state school boards in four others have banned critical race theory from schools altogether. The first official act of Virginias new governor was to sign an executive order to prevent CRT from being taught in schools, even as there is no evidence of it.

In addition, state legislatures are now considering laws to compel the removal of controversial books from schools and libraries. To complicate matters, some states are considering making school board elections partisan contests, a change that will further polarize our schools.

While we should be mindful about exposing our youngsters to inappropriate materials, access to information and critical inquiry are essential to democracy. And efforts to rewrite American history, whether it involves eliminating examples of our idealism and compassion or whitewashing the darker sides of our ignorance and heartlessness, only undermines the publics ability to understand our past and build a better future. Strong democracies embrace the truth. Enhancing democracy begins in our schools, and the states will be key in supporting curricula that protect democratic values.

The pandemic created huge challenges for democracy, most of which were affected by state policy. When Trump was asked about federal responses to the virus early in the crisis, he said, I would leave it to the governors. State executives responded by using legal authority not available to the president to impose a wide array of mandates and policies designed to combat the virus.

For almost a year, these executive orders went generally unchallenged. But as the pandemic continued and became politicized, many legislatures became uneasy with this exercise of power and moved to end it, even in places where the virus surged. Legislatures began to push back, arguing that emergencies are, by definition, temporary, and one person should not be permitted to control too much of our daily lives.

The spread of the delta and omicron variants further intensified debates over mask and vaccination mandates. Despite low vaccination rates and soaring infections, many states, mostly in the South and under the control of Republican legislatures or governors, fought mask and inoculation requirements. Many of these states initially reported the highest Covid infection rates.

This continued into 2022.

In early March, data showed that of the 10 states with the highest Covid deaths per 100,000 population, only two had a Democratic governor and all of them were controlled by Republican legislatures. Couple this with generally underfunded state public infrastructure, and you have a recipe for different health outcomes depending on the state in which you live.

Public legitimacy is a key underpinning of a democracy. And if people do not believe the system is just, its legitimacy is undermined. The murder of George Floyd sent shock waves through our nation and compelled the U.S. to reexamine the relationship between criminal justice and democracy.

Our nations high incarceration rates are largely due to state policies. Most offenders are incarcerated in state facilities becauscre they broke state laws and were sentenced in state courts; the numbers of state criminal cases far exceed those in federal courts. State pardon and parole policies dictate when the incarcerated can be released, even if they are model prisoners.

These policies are traceable to the law and order attitude of the late 2000s, and a reexamination is now underway, led by a coalition of liberals and conservatives concerned both about monetary costs of the system and the social impacts of housing so many prisoners, especially those from minority communities. Some states are reforming their criminal justice system, especially in the treatment of juveniles. Finding the proper balance between punishment for wrongdoing, the costs of incarceration, fairness in sentencing, and the effectiveness of rehabilitation is always a challenge. The major decisions on these issues will be made not in Congress, but in statehouses.

Wonder why your city council cannot require the payment of a living wage or impose a mask mandate? The answer is found in state policy doctrines called the Dillon Rule and preemption.

The Dillon Rule is a concept applied in more than one-half of our states and prohibits localities from acting unless the state has provided the authority to do so. Hence, many localities are forced to request legislation that will provide them explicit approval to make change; legislators call this enabling legislation. Requiring localities to seek state permission often limits their ability to innovate and respond to uniquely local challenges. Even in states where constitutions grant localities more flexibility to act (called home rule jurisdictions), legislatures can still preempt changes from occurring.

In other words, states rule.

Conservative lawmakers have historically used these tools to prevent liberal localities from enacting policies with which they disagree, thereby exerting control over populations that they may not directly represent.

The pandemic only exacerbated the conflicts between state and local governments. As school began in fall 2021, 12 states and the District of Columbia required everyone to wear masks, eight states prohibited any such requirement, and another 29 states left the decision with local school districts. But governors and legislatures then began to intervene.

By early 2021, 17 states had enacted legislation to bar localities from imposing mask mandates in schools. In Texas, Gov. Gregg Abbott sued to prevent the states four most populous counties and various school divisions from imposing mask requirements, and issued executive orders to bar private businesses from compelling employees or customers to be vaccinated.

As Florida became the state with the highest number of new Covid-19 cases, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order that required schools to allow parents to determine whether their children wear masks in school, and the state then imposed a $3.57 million fine on Leon County because it required its employees to be vaccinated. Even as Covid abates, the conflicts between state and local control will continue, and many issues of life and liberty will be determined based on their resolution.

Increasingly, states are willing to tackle issues that the federal government either will not or cannot address. And these policies often become models for other states or federal approaches.

Almost two decades ago, Massachusetts embarked on an experiment to provide health insurance for all its citizens. In 2006, it embraced the concept called the individual mandate. Everyone in the state was required to have health insurance, with subsidies provided to those who could not afford to pay. Four years later, this served as the model for the Affordable Care Act.

Today, states are innovating in other areas. Eleven states have now joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a state consortium seeking to reduce emissions through market-based practices. And the burgeoning movement to legalize marijuana has been led by the states through the use of a specific tool permitted in some state constitutions called initiative petition. Twenty-four states have some variation of this direct democracy, where citizens collect enough signatures to place a policy or constitutional change directly before the voters or the legislature. Initially, cannabis legalization was not the result of legislative action, but instead through citizen ballot initiatives. Today, eighteen states have legalized recreational use of the drug.

Policies to protect democracy and enhance economic opportunity dont just happen. They are created by elected officials who understand the issues and by an engaged citizenry who participate, prod and push for change, not just in national elections but in statewide contests as well. Decisions being made right now in statehouses across the nation will influence not only electoral results in 2022 but, more importantly, the direction of the nation, the strength of our democracy and the quality of our lives in the years ahead.

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Continued here:

The fight for democracy: Five reasons to focus on the states - The Fulcrum

We all ask the famous question at the Seder of ma nishtana (why is this night different from all others)? But, in light of the last six weeks of war, and certainly for those in Poland whose neighbor, Ukraine, is undergoing untold atrocities and unjustified aggression, we should really acknowledge that this Pesach will indeed be like no others we have experienced. Well, at least most of us have not experienced, since there are still some Holocaust survivors who have those memories. The rest of us, however, have grown up in relative peace and freedom.

And so, when we celebrate Pesach this year, as bombs continue to pulverize cities in Ukraine and refugees continue to escape imminent danger by the thousands, we realize that just as our lives in Poland have changed due to this war, so too will our commemoration of the Pesach seder. Yes, we are, thank God, one step removed from the fire, as we are fortunately in the position to offer support, refuge, and a semblance of normalcy for many refugees, but we cannot help but feel like the themes of the holiday slavery and redemption, tragedy and triumph reverberate ever so loudly in our hearts and minds.

One of the important mitzvot of Pesach is to tell the story of Pesach at the seder and the rabbis instructed us that the story must have an embarrassing beginning, but a praiseworthy ending: matchil begnut umesayem beshevach.

If I were to tell the Pesach story happening in modern times, 500 miles to the east, I would note that in the first half of the story the shameful beginning I see great symmetry in the personalities of the two villains, Pharaoh and Putin: Both kings had total control over their nations, both brainwashed their citizens to do their bidding by separating their people from the outside world, and both hatched a plan to get rid of their enemy by exploiting their own people. Pharaoh together with his ministers secretly planned to turn the Israelites into pariahs, to demonize them and ultimately dehumanize them. Putin made the same plan for his western neighboring country, a people who were very similar to Russians but had some different thoughts about life and society, which Putin perceived as a threat.

By using the tactics of lies and fearmongering, Pharaoh managed to brainwash an entire nation into doing unspeakable acts against an innocent people ultimately to the point of murdering children. Putins fabricated propaganda sowed the seeds of hate and mistrust between the two peoples and his unprovoked attack on Ukraine reflects his willingness to stop at nothing to achieve his maleficent goals.

But here is where we depart from the Biblical tale and engage in our own modern-day Exodus narrative. The second half of the story relates to a certain praise, a description of the hero who saves the day and redeems the nation. In the Torah, it is crystal clear who that personality is God Himself. In fact, time and again the Torah speaks of God fighting against Pharaoh, God striking down Egypt, God slaying the firstborn, and splitting the sea. Moses role was only as a physical messenger to warn Pharaoh of his wickedness. In fact, to punctuate the point, Moses name is not mentioned on the Seder night at all! Thus, due to the impotence of the victim the Israelites and the cowardice of the neighboring countries to confront Pharaoh, God Himself had to wage this war and defend the vulnerable.

History tends to repeat itself and bullies have continued to persecute with impunity while often the weak have suffered alone. Yet, though no other country has stood up to Putin and fought alongside Ukrainians in this war, nevertheless countries all over the world have fought against this injustice in less conventional ways soundly condemning Putin in the halls of international justice, banning trade with Russia and putting a stranglehold on their financial solvency, supplying Ukraine with much-needed provisions, militarily and humanitarian, and (to continue the Exodus parallel) opening up their borders to allow the Ukrainians to flee from danger to freedom.

Poland has risen to the occasion and mobilized both on the national level and more significantly on the individual level. Having been to the border many times I have marveled at the sight of Poles sacrificing their time, money and jobs, in order to work 24/7 to extricate Ukrainians from harms way and care for them during their journey to freedom. Some Poles have turned their community centers into humanitarian outposts, providing all types of services day and night; others have opened their homes and invited strangers to come in and find comfort; many millions of others have donated, rallied, shown true solidarity and welcomed the millions of refugees into their land.

Indeed, it is here that we depart from the standard Pesach story, for it is not God (alone) but individual people from all over the world who have earned praise in these last six weeks. And Polish people in particular many of whom have had a difficult time confronting their past, and who have sometimes struggled to stand up for the vulnerable in recent history it is they, now, who stand up to tyranny and for the weak, impoverished, persecuted and lonely.

Our Pesach seder is different this year not because there is no longer evil, unfortunately, that has yet to be eradicated; rather, it is because those who have not been indifferent to the suffering of others, can stand proud, knowing that history does not have to always repeat itself.

The Pesach story of old is not an absolute joyous celebrationit is fraught with horrible memories of destruction, slavery, and oppression. Indeed, we eat maror, the bitter herbs, to acknowledge that there is intense sadness even amidst the celebration of victory. Similarly, our story is filled with multiple narratives: joyous tales of camaraderie and love as well as tragic stories of war and loss while at the time of this writing, the war continues, and revelations of atrocities begin to emerge.

Let us hope and pray that just as the redemption of the ancient Israelites took place in the blink of an eye, on one night, in a shocking twist of fate, so too, this war will change its course in a flash and peace will reign supreme even before we sit down for the seder. And just as the Exodus of the past ultimately led to Israel returning to their promised land, so too, this current war will cease, the enemies will be repulsed, and Ukrainian citizens will be able to finally return home to begin rebuilding their homeland.

Rabbi Avi Baumol is serving the Jewish community of Krakow as it undergoes a revitalization as part of a resurgence of Jewish awareness in Poland. He graduated Yeshiva University and Bernard Revel Graduate School with an MA in Medieval JH. He is a musmach of RIETS and studied at Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shevut. He served as a rabbi in Vancouver British Columbia for five years. Rabbi Baumol is the author of "The Poetry of Prayer" Gefen Publishing, 2010, and author of "Komentarz to Tory" (Polish), a Modern Orthodox Commentary on the Torah. He also co-authored a book on Torah with his daughter, Techelet called 'Torat Bitecha'. As well, he is the Editor of the book of Psalms for The Israel Bible--https://theisraelbible.com/bible/psalms. In summer 2019 Rabbi Baumol published "In My Grandfather's Footsteps: A Rabbi's Notes from the Frontlines of Poland's Jewish Revival".

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Pharaoh, Putin and why this Pesach is different from all others - The Times of Israel

Claire Schwartz: How would you describe the current political landscape as represented by the field of presidential candidates?

Franoise Vergs: On the far right you have Marine Le Pen [the National Rally candidate] and ric Zemmour [the journalist and pundit who has long cultivated relationships with far-right politicians]. And then you have Valrie Pcresse [the candidate of the center-right party The Republicans] and Emmanuel Macron. Macron is the candidate of the right, the candidate of the dominant classes and of business. He is a neoliberal who wants to roll back the social protections that were won through the struggles of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s: retirement pensions, minimum wage, everything. He is extremely dangerous.

Houria Bouteldja: On the left, we havent had a good candidate in a long time, and now we have one in Jean-Luc Mlenchon [a former member of the Socialist Party, running as the candidate of the left-wing party La France Insoumise, which he founded]. The French left is very Islamophobic, and a few years ago Mlenchon, too, spoke about Muslims in very problematic ways. But in the past three years, hes really changed. Now he recognizes that the French police are becoming more and more fascist. And he has moved, too, on international issues. For example, in November [when France sent police to the overseas department of Guadeloupe to stamp out uprisings over Covid-19 measures and high fuel prices] he denounced the state repression of the Guadeloupean people. Im not saying that Mlenchon is a revolutionary, not at all. But in the framework of the French system, he has become very radical.

FV: On the left (in quotes because one wonders where is the left in that left), you have the Socialist Party candidate, Anne Hidalgo, the perfect figure of socialist betrayaltotally in tune with liberalism. Her policies are anti-migrant. Shes never said a [meaningful] word about police violence. The disappearance of that Socialist Party would not be a loss. Nathalie Arthaud for Lutte Ouvrire, a Trotskyist organization, and Phillipe Poutou for the New Anticapitalist Party, also Trotskyist. The Green Party defends a white bourgeois ecology. The Communist Party has nothing much left of communism. Another candidate of the far left did not receive enough signatures to get on the ballot.

I agree with Hourias analysis of Mlenchon. It is extremely important that Mlenchon has brought back the idea of a non-aligned position with regard to the war in Ukraine. That Western media and politicians do not understand what it means, or pretend not to, is not surprising. A short reminder. The idea for a movement of the non-aligned emerged during the 1955 Bandung conference [a gathering of people from Asian and African nations]. It concerned states that did not want to formally align themselves with either the United States or the Soviet Union, but sought to remain independent or neutral. The objectives, as described in the Treaty of the Non-Aligned Movement, were to create an independent path in world politics that would not result in member States becoming pawns in the struggles between the major powers. It was neither Washington nor Moscow, making room for opinions on global matters and wars from the South.

By endorsing a non-aligned positionrefusing the supposedly unanimous position (see the position of African and Asian states) that is not just pro-Ukraine, but also pro-NATOMlenchon is reconnecting with that history. Our task, then, is to bring content to this non-aligned movement and to refuse to let it stand in for some kind of passive pacifism, where we are against war in some general, abstract way, and not against NATO, against imperialism, against the increasing militarization of Europe. Still, I do not take a public position on the elections out of principle, because even though Mlenchon has supported the strike in Guadeloupe and protested against the repression of the Guadeloupean people, I still think his position on the overseas territories needs to be amended. Im waiting for a left that would really move forward with the processes of its own decolonization.

All the same, there is something really at stake in this election, and it is crucial that Mlenchon wins a lot of votes. It will say that something else is possible. And then we will have to work.

CS: You pointed to an anti-racist shift in Mlenchons position over the past three years. It strikes me that in that same period Macron has become increasingly explicitly Islamophobic. Can you speak to the social contexts of those changes?

HB: If you look back, youll realize that Macron was not always as Islamophobic on the face of it. He ran a campaignthe first one, in 2017where he distinguished himself by the fact that he didnt appear Islamophobic. But as head of state, he was entrapped by the states racial logic. In fact, it only took one uprisingthe gilets jaunes protests [which were sparked in 2018 by a planned rise in taxes on diesel and petrol and soon transformed into a wider anti-government movement]for him to become Islamophobic. Why? The gilets jaunes was not simply an uprising of poor whites; it was an uprising of poor whites who didnt consider Islamophobia a priority. Even if many who participated in the uprisings were themselves racistas by and large French people aretheir priority wasnt to rage against nonwhites; it was to target the state, to make social demands. And in an attempt to reconstruct unity on the basis of whitenessto reconstruct a unity between poor whites, the bourgeoisie, and the statethe bourgeois state imposed an Islamophobic agenda. In other words: The state turned poor white people against Muslims in order to prevent unity of the working classes.

FV: The anti-migrant politics do not have the vast support in France that the media suggests. French people, the youth, say to themselves: Okay, we are told we are French, i.e. white, but we are poor. We cannot find jobs. Our children cannot find jobs. In some parts of the countryside, you have to go 200 kilometers before finding a hospital. The gilets jaunes repopulated the language of the French Revolution: The people against the aristocrats. Suddenly there was a real fear among the bourgeoisie that people would turn against the state, so the state has wielded the specter of immigration to remind the French people that Frenchness is really about not being Muslim. There is a perpetual reconstitution of what it means to be French by way of these colonial and racist tropes. It very often takes place on the Muslim body, especially the body of the Muslim woman. A woman wears a burkini, andoop!the French nation-state reconstitutes itself. It is a constant process in which media, TV, films, books, declarations, manifestos, petitions, play an important role. The violent reactions of the state and the dominant classes show a deep fear of losing their position.

CS: Where have you seen movements to contest these attempts toward reconstituting Frenchness by way of a racialized other?

HB: After George Floyd was murdered, there was a mobilization. The movement in the US was refracted in France through the struggle for justice for Adama [Traor, a Black man who died in French police custody after having been violently restrained]. Thirty thousand peoplemostly Black and Arab people, who came to France in postcolonial contextsmarched in the streets. This mass mobilization against racism, plus the gilets jaunes? For the powers that be, it was a nightmare.

The first chance that presented itself for the state to break up these mobilizations and reassert its identity was the murder of Samuel Paty [a French secondary school teacher who was beheaded, allegedly because of a lesson about free speech in which he shared cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad naked]. That moment was really a tipping point. After Patys murder, there was a general ambiance of sacred unity around the new martyrwho had died, as it was being figured, at the hands of Islam. What Mlenchon did at that moment was critical. He said, I stand by my values, which is that we need a unity of the popular classes. Against every expectation, he refused the division and separation sown by the bourgeois state. This is why Mlenchoneven as there are many things one must critique him forplayed an absolutely vital role, one that fundamentally distinguishes him from the other candidates. He is the only one who understands the function of Islamophobia as a counterrevolutionary tool. Its not that were trying to figure out whether hes a revolutionaryhes not. Still, I really do think hes something remarkable in France, where were going on 20 years of incessant Islamophobia.

CS: Where do you see these insurrectionary energies coming from?

HB: On the one hand, I attribute them to our antiracist struggles, and on the other, to the fact that the French government is becoming more and more right wing. The far right is becoming stronger and stronger.

FV: What we are seeing is really the return of the 19th-century bourgeoisievery conservative, racist, colonial, Catholic, antisemitic, anti-migrant, terrified of the proletariat. Macron is really a child of that conservative French bourgeoisie, but he is able to mask it behind his youth, his cosmopolitanism, etc. He wants to appear as the young president who will close the chapter on colonial historyso he asked historians to write reports on the war in Algeria, on the stolen objects in the museum, etc. He wants colonialism to be memorysomething people put behind themso it wont be political history, which can be activated in the present. His form of ceremonial reconciliation is aimed at erasing the radical dimensions of reparation and restitution, and representing Frenchness as a new form of humanitarianism. He says, We recognize the crime, slavery was bad, colonialism was bad, objects were stolen, etc., while at the same time carrying out an incredible repression of real reckoning. There are tremendous attacks on decolonial theory in schools and universities, for example.

We are certainly seeing a rise in new forms of fascismstate feminism, corporate feminism, attacks on the university, attacks on decolonial theorybut there is a lot of emerging discussion and debate. In the womens movement, feminists against mainstream feminism are becoming stronger. Likewise, though the repression of the gilets jaunes was really brutal, this brutalitythe police doing to white people what they have always done to people of colorshowed that, if you turn against the state, whiteness will not always protect you. This also showed the possibilitythe necessityof constructing an alliance between the poor white proletariat and decolonial movements.

HB: Peoplepoor people, including nonwhite peopleare angry, and they are expressing their anger by demonstrating in the streets.

FV: But we still have a lot of work to do to connect antiracism and antifascism. Not all antifascists have been connected with antiracist movements.

CS: The ongoingness of colonial histories finds vexed expression in the figure of ric Zemmour, an Algerian Jew who takes no pains to couch his Islamophobic and anti-migrant racism. As far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Penthe father of current presidential candidate Marine Le Pentold the French newspaper Le Monde: The only difference between ric and me is that hes Jewish. Its hard to call him a Nazi or a fascist. This gives him greater freedom. In opposition to the historical idea of the Jew as Frances other, we now see this figure of the Jew as, in a manner of speaking, the fullest realization of French nationalism. How might we understand Zemmour in historical context?

HB: I think you can consider Zemmour from a psychoanalytic anglebut psychoanalysis tied to political history. His neuroses are really a product of republican integration. Hes a good student, in a manner of speaking. That is to say, his parents accepted the narrative of integration. They came from Algeria. They were Jews, but not too much. They were first and foremost French. I imagine that when one is a Jew from Algeria in a France that is simultaneously Arabophobic and antisemitic, one is very worried about structural racism, and that worry shaped their route to integration, which is the only thing France offers everyone. In fact, I think Zemmour is tortured by this journey that he wants to complete. He wants to disappear the Jew in him, and he cant stand to see Muslims or other Jews who want to maintain a sense of their identity. And, in fact, this completely delirious Islamophobia is in response to a Muslim world that accepts itself and doesnt hidewhere people observe Ramadan, go to the mosque, have Muslim or Arab names. He wants all victims of racism to stop resisting and dissolve into the sea of whiteness. He wants to make it all disappear because people who resist remind him of his own cowardice. In other words, he wants everyone to make the same sacrifice he made.

His attempts to rehabilitate Marshal Ptain [chief of state of Vichy France from 1940 to 1944], who participated in the final solution, are the logical conclusion of his journey. In undertaking this process of hysterical assimilation, Zemmour is saying, in a certain way: I want the French to exterminate meculturally, if not physically. Hes saying, in fact: I want the whites to finish their work.

France produced this creature. Hes a creature of colonialism because hes Algerian. Hes a creature of the relationship of France to nonwhites in general and to Jews in particular.

FV: It is important to remember, too, that even if Ptain is widely recognized as a collaborationist of Nazism, many Vichy-era judges, magistrates, police chiefs, army officers and civil servants remained in their posts after the war, or found careers in the overseas departments and then back in France again. The full circulation of their violence is not often discussed.

One of the most infamous figures is Maurice Papon, who was the secretary general for the police in Bordeaux [during World War II], where he participated in the deportation of Jewish children. And then he became the prefect of Constantine [during the Algerian War], where he repressed and tortured Algerians. In 1961, as a prefect in Paris, he orchestrated the October 17th massacre of Algerians demonstrating against the curfew that was imposed on them. So, at the state level, there is profound complicity between colonial repression and antisemitism. When Papon was on trial for the deportation of Jewish children, the 1961 massacre was not included in the accusation. But colonialism and the making of antisemitic France are deeply connected.

CS: Even as these circuits of violence expose how antisemitism and colonialism have both been mechanisms for reconstituting French nationalism, theres also a way that the Holocaustthat urtext of antisemitic violenceis repeatedly called up in conversations at the highest level of the state. Whats the role of the memory of the Holocaust in particular in the construction of contemporary Frenchness?

FV: Its part now of the national narrative. We atone for that. Vichy was bad. And so now we can be past that. But it allows for the weaponization of the specter of antisemitism. There are Islamophobic Jewish organizations in France, condemning BDS, and anything that appears pro-Palestinian.

CS: After the election, what comes next for the left and for decolonial struggle in France?

HB: After the elections, the conversation about decolonialism will die down among the white left. We are in a dialectical relationship with them. In a certain sense, the left vampirizes us, taking over the management of our questions. That is to say, in order for the left in France to represent itself in a certain way, it is necessary to make us disappear. Their movement is not our movement. Even if Mlenchon is more interesting than the other candidates on the question of Islamophobia, and more sympathetic to our struggles against police violence, he is not us.

The elections are cyclical, but the struggle is continuous. We will continue to pursue our project of building an international decolonial movement. We began one important iteration of this project in May 2018, when we convened the first Bandung du Nord conference, an international gathering of nonwhite movements and people in Paris, in a historical filiation with the 1955 Bandung. Whereas the original conference gathered nonwhite people in alliance with all of the colonized South, we called our reworking the Bandung of the North because our task is to create an alliance of nonwhite people living in the Northto think together about the coarticulation of anti-imperialism and anti-racism. And inside of these articulations, were thinking about questions of gender, ecology, economy, capitalism, etc.but always on the condition that our anti-racism is formulated in terms of an anti-imperialist struggle. In France, any struggle that is anti-racist without attending to anti-imperialism will produce an integrationist politicbecause that would mean that were looking to improve our situation only within the imperial borders of the Republic. We are not.

We believe that the South leads its own struggle. If one needs to fight against Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, African autocrats, or whoever, we are in solidarity with people who lead those struggles, but we do not lead them. Our best mode of solidarity with the global South is to fight against our own imperialismright now, against Macron, against NATOand therefore to liberate the South, in a certain sense, from us.

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Waiting on the French Left to Decolonize Itself - Jewish Currents

This Earth Month, join us as we explore the personal steps and global movements that will work in tandem to keep our planet healthy. Because, as we know, the Earths well-being directly impacts our own. Read more

Take a close look at the packaged foods that line the shelves of your local supermarket, and you'll likely notice a promising uptick in labels that nod to the environmental efforts put forth by the product's manufacturer. While plenty of the marketing claims used are familiar (if nebulous) words like natural, sustainable, and climate-friendly to tout the brands commitment to addressing the impact the food industry has on the planet, you may also spot a newer term on both processed foods and produce: regenerative. This is a nod to the significant increase in interest America has seen in the past three years in the regenerative agriculture movement, with even huge corporations like Cargill and Nestl publicly touting their support for a move to regenerative food systems.

In essence, the term 'regenerative agriculture' means using agricultural practices that helprather than hurtthe environment, according to Ryland Engelhart, co-founder of Kiss the Ground, a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring participation in regenerative agriculture. It presents a promising way to combat the climate crisis by capturing carbon emissions from the atmosphere and rebuilding soil health. And though the discussions of regenerative agriculture as a potential solution for carbon sequestration, improving water and air quality, and increasing biodiversity are valid, they dont take into account where these practices originated from, nor the social or racial injustices that are still at play within the agricultural system. This is a huge problem, and one that is only going to continue to grow alongside the burgeoning movement.

To understand why the regenerative agriculture movement is rooted in inequitable practices, we must first take a closer look at what's involved. Regenerative agriculture aims to prioritize soil health and use land management practices that emulate nature and rehabilitate the land, thereby offering a potential solution for feeding our population without depleting the planet's resources in the process. This is extremely important, as todays agricultural practices are responsible for an estimated one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Clearly, there is tremendous promise in regenerative agriculture. However, as the movement grows and the term becomes more widely used, a key issue is being swept aside in the frenzy to jump on the latest sustainability bandwagon: This "new" way of doing things is actually just a compilation of farming methods long-practiced by Indigenous populations. Regenerative agriculture cannot be perceived as a 'rising trend' for fixing the climate crisis; it is a return to an old way of land stewardship. Until we have a consensus on what regenerative agriculture actually means, where it comes from, and we recognize the human dimension of the agricultural system, regenerative agriculture isn't just at risk of becoming just another greenwashed marketing termit's at risk of becoming a movement blinded by whitewashing.

Regenerative agriculture is not a new concept.

Perhaps the biggest fallacy about regenerative agriculture is that it is an innovative way of growing food. When you trace the origins of the practices that are now being deemed "new" and "revolutionary," you find that many (including regenerative agriculture, biodynamics, and permaculture, to name a few) have been practiced in Indigenous cultures for thousands of years. Celebrated practices such as seed preservation, eating seasonally, and planting native species draw directly from the methods of marginalized communities.

According to Nicole Civita, vice president of strategic initiatives at Sterling College in Vermont and a food systems transformation agent, ethicist, and educator, few in this newly-minted regenerative agriculture movement prioritize concern for the well-being of those who labor in the food system. (Think farm workers, not farm owners or managers). Many so-called regenerative farmers are fighting to maintain outdated, racist laws that exclude agricultural workers from basic workplace protections, Civita says. "Agriculture cannot be truly 'regenerative' if it hinges on the exploitative degeneration of the human lives that power it." Organic, regeneratively grown veggies sold at the farmers' market still fall short if they were picked by workers making below minimum wage without overtime, working without access to water and shade in the heat of summer.

In fact, Civita says that many of the practices that are currently being dubbed regenerative are the same as practices that biotech proponents and international development organizations have tried to get small farmers to abandon in favor of more industrial farming methods. In a turnabout that is simultaneously stunning and predictable, these same practices are being labeled regenerative by largely white celebrity farmers, Civita says. The same multinational corporations that developed their power through conventional agriculture are now the ones hoping to benefit from advancing these new regenerative practices.

Truly regenerative agriculture is about so much more than just creating carbon sinks and improving soil health, says Devon Pea, a Chicano farmer in the San Luis Valley of Colorado, founder and president of the Acequia Institute, and professor of American ethnic studies, anthropology, and environmental studies at the University of Washington. Actual environmental wellness goes far beyond ideal production practicesin fact, this singular focus perpetuates an agricultural system that has long been devoid of social and racial justice. A just and inclusive regenerative food system must include robust discussion and action on issues such as community health, cultural resilience, and basic human rights, says Pea. He says that the current industrial farming system is based on an individualistic approach that doesnt reward this type of collective action, and therefore doesnt drive toward equity.

Denying the roots of the regenerative agriculture movement perpetuates the complicated history of structural racism on which much of our food system is based. According to Pea, the invisibility of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) farmers within the regenerative agriculture movement is unjust. It is very easy to go from dispossession of land to erasure, he says. "BIPOC farmers and Indigenous populations need to be acknowledged both for their role in the overall agricultural system and for the role they have played for centuries in the regenerative movement. They must not be brushed aside in the quest for the next trend in agriculture and alternative food culture."

Both Civita and Pea agree that in order to be able to champion the promise of the regenerative agriculture movement,we need a collective change in mentality. You can't get to the solutions by just focusing on ecology, or on agro-ecological factors, says Pea. You also have to focus on the human dimension, community dimension, andeven more importantlythe institutional dimension that applies to all the institutions that will need to support sustainable regenerative agriculture. That means improving labor practices and providing credit to (and access to land for) BIPOC farmers. We need collective action that takes care of the people at the core of our food system.

We should be suspicious about any solutions that reduce our intertwined eco-social crises down to just one component, adds Civita. The current concern over CO2 levels, while justifiable given the severity of the climate crisis, has led the regenerative agriculture movement in a myopic direction that continues to reward the same people that the current system does. This further perpetuates the invisibility of the BIPOC farmers that the entire structure is based upon, both in terms of origination of principles as well as labor. Real change will require taking smallholder agriculture and smallholder wisdom seriously when practicing regenerative agriculture. It also involves interrogating why and how so much land wound up in the hands of so few wealthy white landowners and their multinationals. And it means taking political action to support to undo the legacy of colonialism, displacement, slavery, and centuries of discriminatory practices within the United States Department of Agriculture.

Additionally, we need a clear definition of what regenerative agriculture is, because there is currently no agreed-upon meaning of the term. In fact, a study done at The University of Colorado Boulder found that across 229 academic journal articles and 25 practitioner websites, definitions of 'regenerative agriculture' varied tremendously. "I get concerned when self-interested actors fabulize the term 'regenerative agriculture.' As the phrase gets buzzier, we're seeing many poorly definedor wholly undefinedways of using it," says Civita, who also worked on the study. She cautions that this lack of clarity is about much more than mere semantics. "Speaking about regenerative agriculture in such a loose way masks how little some of these so-called 'regenerative' initiatives actually do to improve the health of ecosystems and well-being of communities." Without a clear set of principles that outline what the intended ecological, social, and cultural outcomes are (and who the movement is intended to benefit), there is no clear path forward. There is currently one regenerative agriculture certification program, Regenerative Organic Certified, with others likely on their way, but it will take widespread acceptance and adoption by food growers and manufacturers for these programs to have an impact.

Change also requires that the powerful companies and individuals who have consistently profited from environmental and climate harms that have resulted from large-scale agricultural practices are held accountable through the legal, regulatory, and tax systems. While many large companies do participate in carbon credit programs, these systems essentially just allow companies to continue to emit carbon if they are willing to pay to pollute. While this may cap carbon emissions to a certain point or help sequester some of the carbon into the ground, it does nothing for fixing problematic practices and driving change in the long-term.

These recommended actions may seem beyond an individual readers sphere of influence on the regenerative agriculture movement. But as Civita says, The way we get policy change involves voting whenever we are able, as well as actively defending the voting rights of others who have been on the losing end of these extractive systems, and keeping the pressure on elected officials between elections with calls, emails and demonstrations. Getting involved with alliances and networks like the HEAL Food Alliance, A Growing Culture, EcoGather, the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, and the Food Chain Workers Allianceor any of their more local member organizationsis a great place to start.

Until we are willing to be as open to the idea of talking about power and privilege as we are to cover crops and tilling methods, the transformational potential of regenerative agriculture will be limited at best. But if we can tap into the collective wisdom of BIPOC communities, advocate for the small stakeholders (and those who have been traditionally oppressed by large-scale, industrial agriculture), and take care of the people at the root of our food system... well, then we might just have hope of regeneration, after all.

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Regenerative Agriculture Has a Big Race and Equity Issue, and Its Not Going Away Anytime Soon - Well+Good