Jessica A. Johnson| Columnist

Ive been giving quite a bit of thought to an opinion piece that noted Chicago Tribune columnist Cal Thomas wrote last year regarding evangelical Christians disappointment with the 2020 election results.Evangelicals were, and many still are, some of former President Donald Trumps most steadfast supporters.

In his column, Thomas referenced an essay thatDr. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, wrote for the Fox News website before the election results were confirmed.Jeffress, a fervent backer of Trump, called for evangelicals to continue trusting in God, stating that Our faith and our salvation lie not in any human ruler, but in the ruler of rulers, the King of kings.

Thomas further elaborated on these points by maintaining that although evangelicals are strongly at odds with the policies of the Biden and Harris administration, this disagreement should not prevent them from carrying out their ministry efforts to those in need in their communities.

Given where we are now during the aftermath of the election, American churches are in, to quote the book of Esther, a critical for such a time as this moment, as the country is still reeling from extreme political discord and racial strife while battling through the coronavirus pandemic. Many evangelical congregations were heavily into politics during Trumps term in the White House and were devastated and angry when he lost to Joe Biden.They thought, as Jeffress wrote, that the God of the evangelicals should be on the side of Republicans and conservatives.I believe that God wanted the church to acknowledge two significant issues in the wake of Trumps defeat.First, racial division needs to be addressed, and second, Christians need to refocus on the primary mission in ministry: to share the Gospel and draw souls into the kingdom of God.

When it comes to political headlines in the media regarding evangelicals, race is hardly an elephant in the room of discussion.White evangelicals have been called purveyors of white supremacy and hypocrites regarding their faith.Recent Fact Tank reports from the Pew Research Center list white in many titles in analysis of evangelical approval of Trumps stances on issues such as immigration and travel bans while he was in office.An NPR podcast last year titled Multiracial Congregations May Not Bridge Racial Divide did not offer an overly optimistic view of churches becoming more diverse.

The historical racial divide in American churches is deeply rooted in the South, with racist ideology infiltrating congregations since the days of slavery.The Black Church, also historically known as the Negro Church, formed out of necessity for blacks to have a haven of worship as early as the 1780s.A pertinent question we must ask ourselves today is how can the church be a true witness of the teachings of Christ when stark segregation remains?The ugliness of our politics in the past four years greatly exposed the longstanding racial rifts within the church, placing evangelicals at the forefront, and it is something that both white and Black pastors can no longer ignore.

During this time when so many people are suffering and on the brink of despair, it is imperative that ministers not let ongoing political disputes take their attention away from the work of the Gospel.In fact, when studying the Gospels, it is evident that Jesus really did not get completely immersed in the political debates of His day.For example, Mark 12:13-17 records the devious intention of the Pharisees and Herodians to bait Jesus into speaking against paying taxes to Caesar.Instead of getting into an argument about the oppression of the Roman government, Jesus simply said to render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods.

Now, Im by no means implying that churches should idly stand by in the face of injustice and not participate in civic discourse, but when we do take a public stand, Christ must remain in the center of our message.When we minister to those who are marginalized in our society, those in prison, sick, and poor, Jesus said we have ministered unto Him.

This is the ministry the church should be focusing on in this tumultuous political moment, our Esther moment, but we cannot effectively carry it out with the current division within the body of Christ.

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Opinion: Politics should not distract the church from its mission - Online Athens

The coup d'tat is disrupting the countrys development, but also the missionary and social activities of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, who care for girls, seniors and the sick. The military dictatorship will increase poverty. The Sisters decided to stand with the people in the name of the social doctrine of the Church and Pope Francis 'Laudato si'. Feb 10, 2021

By Sr Rebecca RaySister Rebecca Ray, superior of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, decided to express, together with her community, explicit support for non-violent demonstrations against the military dictatorship and the coup dtat of 1 February.

The Sisters are one of the many religious institutes that support the protesters who have filled the streets of Myanmar cities: Mandalay, Myitkyina (Kachin), Yangon, Taunggy, etc. They are united with the people, in total harmony; they share their concerns, worries and fears. They want to grow in the future and in the light.

Here is what Sister Rebecca told us.

We want to show our unity with the people. We are in total harmony, we share the same concerns, worries and fears. We don't want to be under the junta, we want a safe life.

In the last 10 years, for better or for worse, we began to enjoy freedom, and were able to meet the world. Our country saw the future and the light grow.

Before the coup, the situation was rather calm. I could communicate with the world; I was able to carry out my missionary work as provincial superior of four countries; I could arrange meetings even without travelling; I could support the work of my Sisters in different countries; I could have relations with our mother house in Rome.

Now all this is gone and nothing is certain. All this makes me sad because it limits my abilities to serve the people.

We do not want to go back to the time of darkness, living in fear and oppression. Life under the dictatorship was terrible, fearing pointed guns, fights. Now we don't know what will happen to us, when and how.

Praying is not enough. I believe in prayer and work and both are the most effective way to support our country.

[In the convent] we have continuous adoration, day and night; the rosary every day and the breviary. We say the rosary together with the people who work with us or with the guests of the clinic for the poor we manage.

In Myanmar last year, due to COVID, the country got poorer. The communities we serve already have many difficulties. If now there is a coup d'tat and tensions arise, I cannot imagine how much worse the situation of poor people will be.

The Sisters of the Good Shepherd have a mission in society. Under the new democratic government, its social works are registered as a foundation. Maybe, under the junta we won't be able to keep this registration anymore and our service to the people will be reduced. We work with many women, with non-profit organisations, with foundations, etc.

Unfortunately, our future is now confused; the future of our nation is dark. We cannot go out, we have restrictions, and we cannot work for the people. All this is terrible for those who need it most, especially women (street girls, abused women, etc.).

As citizens, we stand with our people and for our mission to the poor and need; to women, girls, children; to the most vulnerable. It is unbearable to see our people suffer, lose hope, overwhelmed by fear.

What is happening violates the laws of the country, it violates our human rights and our dignity. It is a great blow to democracy and development, which began to take hold in the country over the past five years.

The military are advising religious leaders to tell their faithful to stay calm, that nothing is going on, that everything will be fine. But we don't believe it. We already see the insecurity and darkness; power supplies, the Internet and telephone lines cut; banking instability, job insecurity, unemployed day labourers. This is the main concern that grieves me: all of this will have an impact on the people of Myanmar.

Perhaps we risk being imprisoned, but we want to be together with the people in the streets, sharing their traumas and suffering. What is happening violates our freedom of expression, our free vote that we cast three months ago, the right to choose our new democratic government, our leaders.

What has happened in recent days is real injustice, a manipulation of power. We want a civilian government; we don't want to be under a military government. We want to be governed by love, attention, not oppression and fear.

At present, according to the constitution, we men and women religious do not have the right to vote, but we want to vote because we too are citizens and have human rights. We want to have the right to life, security and joy.

We want all the people of Myanmar, of all religions, races and ethnicities, to enjoy the same rights and democracy. We all want development for the whole country, like what we have seen over the past 10 years.

In past few days, life has plunged into darkness, uncertainty, full of fear and anger. We no longer want this; we want to stand by our people.

Religious leaders, Brothers, Sisters, priests, even the Bishop of Mandalay have expressed their solidarity with the people. We will do this today and always, in the name of the Church's social doctrine, as well as our mission and for what Pope Francis says in Laudato si.Asia News

Excerpt from:

Sisters of the Good Shepherd are united with the people for the future of Myanmar - Malaysian Christian News

Mulondwe Muzungu says the PF governments oppression, cruelty, brutality, tribal hate and political violence have the potential to escalate into genocide.

The PF has destroyed our cherished national unity, leaving Zambia polarised by their divide and rule schemes and the naked tribal hate. With the foregoing abominations in Zambia, citizens are fed-up and desire a regime change sooner than later, says Muzungu.

Theres no doubt that Edgar Lungu and his PF are relying heavily on divide and rule strategy, and the tribal card to perpetuate their stay in government.

We have all been witnesses to how they have viciously canvassed on tribal and regional lines.

And they dont seem to care the long term consequences of their political game.

But as Dr Kenneth Kaunda warned against a spate of hate based on tribe, province, race, colour and religion in 1967 The people we have taught to hate others, may successively be taught to hate us next time. So that even from a personal and rather selfish angle this way of electioneering must be condemned as completely unZambian unless, of course, we do not mean it when we speak of One Zambia One Nation. Let it be remembered that it would be madness to expect to harvest groundnuts where in fact we had planted castor oil.

Today, our country is witnessing schemes that eat at the core of our unity as Edgar attempts to rewrite our democratic values and entrench himself in power, even at the expense of mutilating the Constitution.

Indeed, the PF is unashamedly destroying our cherished national unity, leaving Zambia polarised by their divide and rule schemes and the naked tribal hate.

But as we have stated before, there are no corrupt and tyrannical politicians whose ending has not been disastrous. And Edgar will be no exception. His ending will be bad.

In this we are in no way cursing him or wishing him bad things. Its simply an honest assessment of things and a matter of drawing the right conclusions.

Every corrupt and tyrannical politician thinks he is different and what happened to other corrupt and tyrannical politicians before him wont happen to him. But the ending has been invariably the same. Look at Idi Amin, Mobutu, Bokassa, Blaise Compaore, Eduardo Dos Santos, Mugabe! The list is endless. And what is special about Edgar?

Link:

'PF's divide and rule schemes' The Mast Online - themastonline.com

PS 90 in 2007. By Nicholas Strini/PropertyShark

The 2020 murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd thrust the Movement For Black Lives firmly into the public consciousness. When centuries of anger, frustration, and despair spilled out into the streets, I hoped that our political and civic leaders would finally take stock of the mass uprisings and realize the dire need to radically rethink the practice of government. Sadly, that message seems lost on Mayor Bill de Blasio and Council Member Mathieu Eugene, as evidenced by their announcement last October of an affordable housing project at 2286 Church Avenue in Flatbush, previously P.S. 90 and potentially associated with a burial ground for enslaved Africans.

I would like to clarify that I agree with Mayor de Blasio and Council Member Eugene on one point: there is a real desperate need for genuinely affordable housing across the City, especially in Flatbush, Brooklyn. However, I vehemently disagree with their approach: top-down planning with no transparency in the same old guise, an illusion of inclusion. Its a disingenuous method that attempts to trick the community into believing that it has a say in an already decided process and destination. The hand-selected Task Force, to be convened in private though paraded as transparency indicates that the process is business as usual, and the community will have little to no real influence in the projects details. Instead of cloak and dagger political actions, there should be open public planning meetings with development stakeholders, with extensive promotion to ensure public participation.

To make matters worse, the sites potential history as an African American burial ground seems like a mere footnote in this projects consideration. It is downright unfortunate that the City has a terrible track record acknowledging its relationship to slavery and struggle to respect Black lives. Although not surprised in the slightest, I was disappointed to see only a brief mention of the burial ground for enslaved Africans in the press release. I sincerely hope that the Task Force charged with investigating the history and making the final decision on a memorial will be transparent and include real community representation. This land and the people who toiled and died on it deserve more than just a plaque somewhere in a big shiny building.

Let us not forget that this is public land. I repeat, this is public land. Why was its usage decided without broad community input and discussion? Instead, unspecified local leaders determined its designation as affordable housing and a community center. People in power dictate the projects destiny without community input. There are numerous affordable housing units under construction within proximity to 2286 Church Ave. Why should we build more affordable housing on this site? Were there other options considered, such as a reflective, open-space memorial and education center about Black Americans contributions to Central Brooklyn? Or, merely using every available square footage for a community center with a full-service gymnasium, playground, and more? An urban farm for composting and addressing the food insecurity in the neighborhood. How about a concert park or some other cathartic space to help Black people heal from not only centuries of oppression but the added traumas of COVID-19? How about any ideas the community might contribute during an opportunity for public comment or engagement?

This site is an excellent chance to do something dramatically different. The City should take this opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of Black enslaved people who built Brooklyn and the legacies of the African descended people from across the diaspora whove shaped our borough into the vibrant collage it is today. It can honor them by allowing the community to maintain ownership of PS 90 rather than giving it away to enrich another private developer. Why doesnt the City hand this property to a Community Land Trust (CLT) that would transparently and democratically serve community residents needs instead of the private markets whims? CLTs are for acting on behalf of the community; a CLT would ensure that real homage to history is paid and that any development would only happen in a way shaped in true partnership with the community. Considering how racism denied Black people the opportunity to build generational wealth for centuries, a CLT might propose affordable homeownership on the site as a more robust community benefit.

If our elected officials meant it when they affirmed that Black Lives Matter, then we need to see it in their actions. They must throw out the old playbook and commit to building in partnership and collaboration with Black communities. Im calling on the Mayors Office, New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), and Councilmember Mathieu Eugene to host a public hearing with an opportunity for genuine community input in coordination with Community Board (CB) 14 and the neighboring CB 17 so the people can decide what this site should look like from our perspective. The future of the PS 90 site is far from settled. Now is the time for a new approach.

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OPINION: PS 90's Future Belongs To The People Of District 40 - BKLYNER

There is a quiet movement among settler colonials in Australia and the US to critically examine their family histories as a way of re-examining the impact of centuries of dispossession and slavery of Indigenous peoples.

Critical family histories enable a shift from celebratory tropes of benign settlement to deep considerations of legitimacy. The myth of great white men and women, bravely opening new worlds and taming the wilderness, including the savage Indigenes, is now being challenged by a search for the truth.

As Diane Kenaston, an American pastor and genealogist, explains in her book Genealogy and Anti-Racism: A Resource for White People, genealogy has long been entwined with white supremacy. And family history research has been the preserve of white privilege.

But, she writes, critical family history can also change the narratives within our own families.

Our ancestors were works in progress, just as we are. They, like us, sometimes participated in oppressive systems and sometimes resisted them. [We need to] engage this complex legacy.

Read more: Friday essay: the 'great Australian silence' 50 years on

Education activist Christine Sleeter first adopted the use of critical family history in this way. While researching teaching methods for the multicultural classroom, she discovered that intersections of race, class, culture, gender and other forms of difference and power had shaped her own family history.

In her research, Sleeter found

a history and legacy of not only European American immigration, but also of Appalachia, of slave ownership, of African Americans passing as white and leaving family behind, and of Jim Crow.

Her awareness led to a sense of responsibility and debt. In 2017, she returned to the Ute people US$250,000, which she had inherited from the sale of a homestead on land stolen from the Ute people in Colorado in 1881.

In Australia, David Denborough, a writer and academic, thought there would be nothing of interest in the stories of his ancestors.

Working alongside Aboriginal people, documenting their stories of dispossession and survival, he was challenged by Jane Lester, a Yangkunytjatjara/Antikirinya woman, to find his ancestors.

Now, 20 years later, he is publishing a book of letters to his great-great-grandfather, Sir Samuel Walker Griffith.

Griffith, a celebrated founding father of Australia, was premier of Queensland during the killing times and later became the countrys first chief justice.

The relationships between Denboroughs ancestors and Aboriginal people were marked by colonisation, racism and often inhumane treatment. While Griffith wrote terra nullius into the Australian constitution, another ancestor, Charles Cummins Stone Anning, was responsible for atrocities against Aboriginal people in Queensland.

Denborough is determined to tell the truth as part of his healing journey and his close relationship with Aboriginal people. He has realised

there is no sense in moral superiority towards my ancestry because colonial violence in this country has not ended; no place for hopelessness because First Nations resistance has never wavered; and, no time for paralysing shame because invitations to partnerships are still being offered by Aboriginal people and [there is] so much to be done.

James Brown was 16 years old and shepherding alone on a remote sheep run near present-day Quorn, South Australia, in 1852. He was found tragically clubbed to death and mutilated in unknown circumstances.

An unwritten rule of the frontier was that attacks on white people, no matter the circumstances, were followed by vigilante violence. Men, women and children were often massacred in retribution.

Seventeen men, including Browns brothers and two Aboriginal trackers, rode out. They reported killing four Aboriginal men. Tellingly, though, two of the 15 men would not swear this on the Bible.

Mike Brown, a descendent of this family who took over land in the Flinders Ranges area, knew very little of the Aboriginal history of Australia. After hearing Reg Blow, a Gureng Gureng elder, speak about the true history of the criminal takeover of Aboriginal lands, Brown was inspired to research his own family history.

Read more: Friday essay: masters of the future or heirs of the past? Mining, history and Indigenous ownership

Wanting to investigate the Aboriginal stories of the 1852 massacre, he found a lifetime friend in Ken McKenzie, a prominent Kuyani-Adnyamathana elder, from whom he received the dignity of forgiveness.

Brown is now working with others on a documentary, Beyond Sorry, to reveal the full story of the massacre. He told me,

Its how we discover who we really are as a people and our relationship to this land [] we need to be released from the illusion we live under that affects our attitudes to others, to be free.

In NSW, playwright Clare Britton was also shocked to discover the story of brutally murdered relatives in her family history.

The pregnant Elizabeth O'Brien and her infant son Poggy were clubbed to death by the Aboriginal bushrangers Jimmy and Joe Governor in 1900. With the help of descendents of the Governor family and Aboriginal elders, Brittons theatre company produced a play based on this story, Posts in a Paddock. The title refers to all that remained of the O'Brien household when she visited, a stark memorial to the family tragedy.

Britton explained that elder Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor introduced the concept of dadirri deep listening to the ensemble. They sat with their Aboriginal collaborators and each others families. And listened to each other. She said,

so many Indigenous people were killed, separated from their families and taken away from their homes and you cant read about that in the same way because those stories were not recorded. [These murders] were thoroughly documented because my family and the other victims were white.

The understandings I formed then have changed me.

In the US, artist Anne Mavor was inspired to learn about her ancestors after attending a public meeting where a local Indigenous person challenged the white audience to critically examine their histories.

Mavor put together an exhibition, I Am My White Ancestors: Claiming the Legacy of Oppression, comprised of 12 pieces of art depicting her ancestors. They include royal figures, a slave owner, warriors, farmers and a pilgrim all with Mavors face. The life-size portraits make whiteness visible and accountable.

Mavor told me she seeks

to inspire white viewers to claim both positive and negative aspects of their own family histories to contribute to the end of racism.

She says white people dont get a pass by ignoring the oppression of their ancestors. They need to ask: What is the legacy of this oppression and how does this affect me now?

This is just one of many projects designed to give back to Indigenous peoples. In Seattle, residents can pay rent to the citys first inhabitants, the Duwamish people, who have long been rejected by the US government for federal recognition as a Native American tribe.

Read more: Explorer, navigator, coloniser: revisit Captain Cooks legacy with the click of a mouse

The Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites has developed the Real Rent program as a means of restitution, but also to educate the broader public about the plight of the Duwamish.

Another project, Reconciliation Rising, coordinated by Lakota journalist Kevin Abourezk and academic Margaret Jacobs, showcases the work of those engaged in confronting painful and traumatic histories as a way towards reconciliation.

Their website lists examples of apologies, notable activists and many instances of the return of ancestral lands.

Land hand-backs are happening in Australia, too. Tom and Jane Teniswood have returned half of their 220-acre property in Tasmania to the local Aboriginal community. The Teniswoods advocate individual action over government reconciliation efforts, saying

reconciliation is great but it is so much talk, so many documents and so little action. This is just a symbol of action.

It is easy to agree with them. While government leadership in truth-telling is vital, we will see more of these acts of profound generosity and genuine reconciliation from settler colonials.

Settler colonials are beginning to understand the true impacts of the criminal takeover of Indigenous lands. They are seeking to right the balance and achieve a spiritual resolution.

This is the Aboriginal way of approaching history, in order to move forward after a conflict. A common process across the continent, it is called Makaratta by the yolngu people of Arnhemland. In the same way, a critical approach to family histories involves a great deal of communication between settler colonials and Indigenous peoples. It enables the forging of new relationships.

It is histories such as these that will change people through deep understanding and empathy. They also present an opportunity to truly and indelibly change the nature of our society and leave a meaningful legacy for our children.

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Truth telling and giving back: how settler colonials are coming to terms with painful family histories - The Conversation AU

Islamabad - Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz has said that Pakistan will keep continue moral and political support for oppressed Kashmiris and resolve to remain resolute with Kashmiris fighting against Indian State terrorism, illegal military occupation and barbaric oppression.

Talking to the media, Senator Shibli Faraz expressed solidarity with oppressed Kashmiris and said, On this day, people of Pakistan reiterate their unflinching resolve to express solidarity with their Kashmiri brethren and vow to continue lending full political, diplomatic and moral support in their just struggle for right to self-determination.

He said Pakistan demands world leadership to take notice of Indian atrocities on oppressed and innocent people of Kashmir.

He said, this year Kashmir Solidarity Day is being observed with added enthusiasm as on August 5th, 2019,Indian government through atrocious and ferocious way tried to change status of Occupied Kashmir.

Information Minister said, Jammu and Kashmir dispute is the unfinished agenda of the Indian partition but unilateral and illegals acts of India on August 5, 2019 has enhanced the importance of February 5.

He said that Pakistan on this February 5, 2021 also demanded of the world leadership to take notice on Narender Moodis aggressive cruelties towards innocent people of Kashmir.

Minorities in India are going through a miserable and traumatic phase under Modis regime, said Information Minister.

He said that people of Kashmir are going through a very hard time since last one and half year and time has come to awake conscience of world community on miseries of Kashmiris.

He said world community should exert diplomatic, economic and social pressure on Indian government to allow plebiscite in accordance with UN resolutions.

He stated that world leadership should put pressure on Indian government to ensure implementation on UN resolutions to resolve Kashmir.

He said world community should force Indian government to bring change in their attitude and stop atrocities on people of Kashmir.

Although, unarmed and innocent Kashmiris have been subjected to inhumane Indian oppression for the last 7 decades yet the Kashmiris have demonstrated matchless courage in facing unabated military siege, communication blockade, media blackout and severe restrictions in the last 18 months, said Information Minister.

He said India has been unveiled as a oppressor and colonizer state which has not only deprived Kashmiris of basic human rights but it is also victimizing minorities in its country, particularly the Muslim community which is being subjected to racial discrimination.

Shibli Faraz said the international community must come forward to stop these inhuman and barbaric acts of India.

He said civilised world should play its role in helping Kashmiris to get their right as enshrined in the UN Security Council Resolutions.

He said Prime Minister Imran Khan is siding with Kashmiris and he has raised his voice for Kashmiris on all international forums.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit Baltistan Ali Amin Khan Gandapur and All Parties Huriyat Conference yesterday vowed to liberate Kashmir.

They said India will ultimately be defeated in its designs to keep Kashmiri under its illegal occupation. They maintained that the Kashmir Solidarity Day reminded of the just cause of the Kashmiris.

Speaking at a news conference here, Gandpaur said Pakistan would continue its moral, diplomatic and political support to the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir in their just struggle for independence and against incr

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World must pressurise India to hold plebiscite - The Nation

I begin by asking a simple question, why cant we get Black history education right? The desire to write and learn Black history has been a priority by Black communities for over a century. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black educators including Edward A. Johnson, Booker T. Washington, Lelia Amos Pendleton, Carter G. Woodson, and Merl Eppse wrote Black history textbooks, teacher guides, and other resources to correct white authors omissions and misrepresentations.

Black history education became more mainstream during the 1960s as Black children, parents, teachers, and community members protested for more Black history courses. These acts of agency led to more Black history courses and a handful of states creating legislation mandating Black history in public schools.

Despite its storied past, Black history education continues to have severe problems in the way it is conceived and taught. As prominent educator Gloria Ladson-Billings wrote in her 2003 Critical Race Theory: Perspectives on the Social Studies, when schoolchildren learn Black history, they learn that Black people are relatively insignificant to the growth and development of our democracy and our nation, and they represent a drain on the resources and values.

The first time many schoolchildren learn about Black people is through enslavement and other oppression-centered narratives. Black people are taught as passive people and disconnected from their liberation. The prevailing narrative emphasizes white saviors and the federal government as Black peoples primary liberators. When Black liberation is taught, liberation is limited to nonviolence, and historical narratives that state otherwise are vilified and compared to white supremacy. The stale K-12 Black history instruction rarely builds on itself; instead, the same context and content are regurgitated throughout students educational careers.

We cant get Black history education right because we teach about Black history instead of through Black history. Teaching about Black history has meant that schools teach from how white people imagine Black histories. Teaching through Black history should mean listening, writing, and teaching narratives from the actual historical experiences and voices of Black people.

These historical perspectives differ significantly. For instance, teaching Brown v. Board of Education through Black voices would acknowledge that many Black communities were not in favor of integrating schools, just equity in school funding. Black schools were culturally confirming, relevant, and sustaining. Integration meant transferring Black students to predominately white schools where instructional practices were culturally insensitive and racist. Black schools were closed, and many Black teachers and administrators lost their jobs. Teaching through Black history about the Brown ruling provides a critical assessment of the policy and not the federal governments moral prerogative of racial progress.

We can teach through Black history by adopting what I call Black historical consciousness. Black historical consciousness is a set of principles to understand, develop, and teach Black histories that recognize Black peoples full humanity and emphasize pedagogical practices that reimagine the legitimacy, selection, and interpretation of historical sources. This consciousness should be adopted for creating and sustaining Black history programs.

Black historical consciousness consists of six principles and ample examples, some of which may require further research even for history teachers:

1. Dont ignore systemic power, oppression, and racism. We cannot teach about Black history without exploring how these forces have influenced Black life in America. Examples include the institution of slavery, the nadir of race relations, the wealth gap and housing patterns, the war on drugs, and mass incarceration.

2. Acknowledge Black agency. Black people have always acted independently, made their own decisions based on their interests, and fought back against oppression. Just because oppression has influenced Black life histories does not mean that oppression defines Black history. Examples include African resistance to slavery, Black abolitionists, the two Great Migrations, the NAACP and the courts, and the Black Power movement.

3. Study the similarities and differences of Black histories and cultures across Africa and the African Diaspora worldwide. Black history should begin with the study of ancient Africa and move to define Blackness worldwide. Examples include African origins of humanity, the Haitian Revolution, the Caribbean Black Power movement, and African civilization, kingdoms, and dynasties.

4. Focus on Black joy through liberation and radical projects that defied oppressive structures throughout history. Highlight histories about Black culture that are not focused on hardship but sustain Black peoples spirits. Examples include Black family dynamics, music, dance, cultural expressions, sports, holidays and traditions, and the Black Arts Movement.

5. Explore the multiple identities that can inform and intersect with Blackness. Examples include the Combahee River Collective, Black political thought, Black nationalism, and the experiences of Black Indigenous people, Black women, and Black LGBTQ+ communities.

6. Recognize that all Black histories are contentious. These histories are twofold. First, Black people are not a monolithic group and have had various and sometimes competing ideas on how to solve social issues. Examples include Black Marxism, the reparations movement, Pan-Africanist movements, and the Garvey movement. Second, like all histories, Black histories are not always positive and include unfavorable and problematic moments and narratives. Examples include recolonizing Africa, homophobia, and sexism during the civil rights movement.

If we continue to teach about Black history and not through it, we will perpetuate instructional practices that (intentionally or not) dehumanize Black people, emphasize white supremacy and anti-Blackness, and psychologically harm schoolchildren, especially Black children.

The reason why we cannot get Black history right is that we refuse to seriously listen to, understand, and interpret Black historical voices. We fail to listen to Black teachers and educators who have been telling us how to teach Black history for more than a century. We cling to historical fantasies and not historical truths from multiple perspectives.

Until we believe Black people are historical vessels, we will continue to suffer from anti-Blackness and an inequitable society that continue to relegate Black histories to the margins. The unbalanced Black histories we continue to propagate as history paint Black people as a problem in society and not a solution. Black historical consciousness holds the hope to transform history education and, in turn, society.

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Black History Is About More Than Oppression (Opinion) - Education Week

On this day, 82 years ago, some 200 Aboriginal people, including my grandmother and her children, walked off the Cummeragunja mission in protest against decades of cruelty and mistreatment at the hands of white mission managers and government control of country.

Followed by a nine-month strike across the Murray River in Barmah, it was the first major protest by Aboriginal people in Victoria.

Today, we are still fighting against the colonial violence and oppression. The legacy of the Cummeragunja walk-off is living on through Aboriginal-led protests, constant calls for change, and more recently the establishment of the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria.

After the walk-off, my parents moved to a fringe-dwelling community out near the tip in Leeton, New South Wales, where I was born.

I can remember up until I was five, it was beautiful living there we were surrounded by Aboriginal families and community, I went to school, there were orchards, channels to swim in and the tip where we could always get stuff.

My father passed away when I was five. It was a time where children were being removed, and when word got out, people from the welfare system warned my mother, Lulla, you should pack up and leave cause theyll take your children next.

So thats what she did. She brought us all back down to live on country at Cummeragunja.

Thats when my mother began telling us stories about the things that happened at Cummeragunja about her life growing up and about the cruelty they experienced, how children were beaten and taken away, how we were banned from speaking our language, about the lack of food. She told us about the strength and resilience of her community who fought for their rights and country.

As kids, we would lie down and ask to hear these stories, listening as she spoke passionately about culture and her pride in her community. She instilled in all of us pride about being Aboriginal and a desire to be of service to our community that is with me to this day, and that I have passed on to my children and grandchildren.

The experiences and legacy created by my mum, family and community that came before me, and the tireless strength of Aboriginal activists and leaders, drive me today in my fight for generations to come.

We may not have mission managers today, but we are still living under a system that sees our people overrepresented in the prison system and dying in police custody. Our children are being removed by the state at 16.1 times the rate of non-Aboriginal children in Victoria. Our people are still fighting that same fight for our rights, for self-determination, for our land.

Sometimes I wonder: has anything changed?

Seeing the thousands of people across the continent who took to the streets to stand with us on 26 January, I have hope.

We have a government in Victoria which is committed to progressing treaty and a truth-telling process with the First Peoples of this land.

Acknowledging these painful memories, and the ongoing impact that has been passed down through the generations, is hard but unavoidable for us. As more of our fellow Victorians also recognise the connections between past and present, we can build a better future together. I believe we are living in a moment in time where we have a real chance to effect profound and lasting change for our people.

None of this would have been possible without the activism, courage and leadership of our community and the legacy created by our Elders who fought before us, including every person who walked off Cummeragunja mission in 1939. From 200 Aboriginal people walking off the mission only 82 years ago to today, tens of thousands of people joining our fight and walking beside us.

We still have a long road ahead, so I ask you: will you walk with us?

Auntie Geraldine Atkinson is co-chair of the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria and a proud Bangerang and Wiradjuri woman

Excerpt from:

My family was part of the Cummeragunja walk-off decades ago. Sometimes I wonder if anything has changed - The Guardian

by David W. Houpt

David W. Houpt is Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. His work focuses on the political culture of Revolutionary America and is currently finishing a book that explores the struggle to define the nature of democracy following the Declaration of Independence.

George Washington Leads Troops to Crush the Whiskey Rebellion. Artist Unknown. Attributed toFrederick Kemmelmeyer.

Public Domain, from Metropolitan Museum of Art

The events of January 6, 2021, presented two starkly different versions of democracy: one represented by elected officials exercising their Constitutional authority to formally declare Joe Biden the winner of the Electoral College and the other represented by throngs of individual citizens who rejected the legitimacy of the proceedings and stormed the Capitol in an attempt to block certification of Bidens victory. Democracy, in the first instance, means that the people exercise their sovereignty through elected representatives. Under the latter version, the people have the right (and even responsibility) to assert their authority directly when they feel that the government is no longer representing their interests. Although it is rarely displayed in such a dramatic fashion, this tension between a representative democracy and a more direct form of democracy can be traced back to the countrys origins.

America was born in a violent rebellion against a government that some colonists deemed corrupt and illegitimate. The Declaration of Independence justified the break from Great Britain as a necessary response to repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. Having long suffered under the Kings rule, it was now Americans right . . . [and] duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. The people, in other words, had to take matters into their own hands in order to protect themselves. In response, states that had not already done so overthrew their colonial government and established new state governments based on the principle of popular sovereignty, meaning that all power flowed from the people (as opposed to from the crown).

In the years following, however, Americans struggled with how to reconcile the nations origin in rebellion and violence with the need to establish an orderly form of government. Just as Patriots were justified in resisting British rule, some Americans believed that they had the right to oppose laws that they deemed unjust. In some parts of the country, residents began attacking tax collectors and subjecting them to the same type of humiliating and painful forms of torture that Loyalists had endured. In Massachusetts, the unrest culminated in 1786, when aggrieved farmers took up arms and shut down court houses to prevent the collection of debts. Shays Rebellion, as the uprising became known, horrified political leaders, and the violence served as one of the final catalysts for the calling of a Constitutional Convention.

The new federal Constitution, adopted in 1788, represented a sharp turn away from the version of democracy that allowed the people to assert their will directly. The Constitution created a strong central government that could serve as a check on popular passions and established that citizens expressed their will exclusively through the ballot box. As one supporter of the new government explained, power may be derived from the people, but they possess it on election day alone. Beyond that, it is the property of their rulers.

Ratification of the Constitution did not, however, prevent some Americans from continuing to think they had the right to assert their authority directly. Just five years after the launching of the new government, Pennsylvanians took up arms to protest recently passed taxes. Using symbolism from the American Revolution, the insurrectionists portrayed themselves as the defenders of the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence. But, unlike what had happened during Shays Rebellion, which dragged on for nearly a year, President George Washington moved quickly to crush the rebellion. Seeing the insurrection as an opportunity to flex the muscles of the federal government, Washington called out a force of 13,000 men, matching the largest number of soldiers he ever commanded during the Revolutionary War. He personally marched the troops to suppress the so-called Whiskey Rebellion. This emphatic response sent a stern warning that challenges to the governmenteven those done in the name of preserving libertywould not be tolerated.

By the early nineteenth century, most Americans had come to accept that American democracy meant that the people spoke through elections (which, not coincidently, had the effect of defining women, people of color, and anyone else without the franchise as not part of the American people). This fragile definition was shattered in 1861, when southern slaveholders rejected the legitimacy of Abraham Lincolns election and seceded. The next four bloody years tested American democracy in new and gruesome ways. The Union ultimately prevailed, but some white southerners continued to use violence as way to circumvent the electoral process. Despite the 15th Amendments guarantee that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, Black men in the South were often prevented from casting a ballot. Even when these men did manage to participate in the political process, there was no guarantee that their voice would be heard. In 1898, an armed mob of white supremacists staged a coup dtat and forcibly overthrew the legitimately elected government in Wilmington, North Carolina, because it supported Black rights.

So, what can this brief history tell us about the state of our democracy today? At their most basic, the events of January 6 should serve as a reminder of the challenges inherent in the American experiment. The Revolution bequeathed a complex legacy that combines a commitment to freedom and liberty with a suspicion of centralized authority. Indeed, it should not be a surprise that in a country where children are taught to revere the men who rebelled against the British monarchy that some Americans have felt that they have the right to use force to resist what they deem to be government oppression. Recognizing this does nothing to detract from the seriousness of the moment. Since the adoption of the Constitution, American democracy has been built on a shared agreement that election results represent the will of the people. When aggrieved groups have refused to abide by that agreement, some have invoked the Revolutionary spirit to justify a turn to violence against the representative government enshrined by the Constitution. This country has experienced political turmoil in the past, but Americans have ultimately come together. Lets hope they do so again soon.

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Democracy, Violence, and the Legacy of the American Revolution - History News Network (HNN)

In the midst of the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region, thousands of Eritrean refugees who fled oppression and authoritarianism have been deported back to their home country, said an Eritrean Catholic priest.

Father Mussie Zerai, a priest of the Archdiocese of Asmara, Eritrea, who works with migrants, said the refugees were in Schimelba and Hitsats camps, which hosted about 20,000 refugees. He said about 10,000 of them were deported to Eritrea.

The refugees are part of the 96,000 who were hosted in four camps in Tigray. The Eritreans had fled political persecution, compulsory military service and war back home.

"About 5,000 managed to escape and reach the Mai-Aini refugee camp, which now houses over 20,000; 5,000 people are missing," Father Zerai told Catholic News Service.

"What happened in the refugee camps in Tigray is a cruel violation of the Geneva Convention of 1951," which relates to the status of a refugee, the priest said. "We know there have been violence and killings."

Father Zerai, chairman of Habeshia, a humanitarian organization that advocates for migrants and refugees' rights, said it was not clear what happened to those who were deported. Some news reports indicate the refugees are being held in prisons.

"We know that they are considered deserters and therefore await their arrest and a period of 'correction and re-education,' according to the regime's modalities. The use of violence and torture often abounds, especially for those who had been staff of the regime's army," said the priest.

"After the punishment period is over, if they survive, they will be forced to return to military service and national service," he added.

Father Zerai said the government of Ethiopia, which was supposed to guarantee safety in the camps, bore the greatest responsibility for the latest development in the settlements. He called for an immediate investigation into attacks, rape of women, killing of children and the deportations.

"The U.N. must investigate every aspect of this horrible fratricidal war," he said.

Fighting in Tigray, a semi-autonomous region in northern Ethiopia, started Nov. 4 after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali sent the federal army to fight the Tigray People's Liberation Front, which ruled the semi-autonomous region. The prime minister accused the rebels of attacking an army base in Mekele, capital of Tigray. On Nov. 28, the federal army captured the city.

The impact of the operation is still being felt. Tigray opposition leaders say nearly 52,000 people have been killed, while humanitarian agencies say more than 2 million people were displaced. Aid agencies have cited difficulties in accessing the region, despite the population urgently seeking humanitarian assistance.

"Today there is hunger in Tigray. There is talk of starvation in Tigray, because there are many areas not reached by humanitarian aid. I fear that hunger is being used as a tool of punishment and to force all forms of resistance to surrender. All of this is a crime against humanity," said Father Zerai.

In mid-January, the U.N. refugee agency said it had been unable to access Schimelba and Hitsats camps since the start of the military operation.

"I am very worried for the safety and well-being of Eritrean refugees in those camps. They have been without aid for many weeks," Filippo Grandi, U.N High Commissioner for Refugees, said Jan. 14. He said he continued to received "many reliable reports and firsthand accounts of ongoing insecurity and allegations of grave and distressing human rights abuses, including targeted abductions and forced return of refugees."

Jesuit Refugee Service, which had a presence Tigray camps before the military operation, could not confirm the deportation, citing limited access to the settlement.

"What we know is that there is a great need for assistance," said Andr Atsu, JRS regional director in East Africa.

Read the rest here:

Priest says thousands of refugees in Tigray deported to Eritrea - Angelus News

In the 1870s, the colonizing American government rounded up Indians and put them in boarding schools and forced them to learn English. The American government knew one thing: If you take away a persons language, you take away their culture and their soul. Its the first and most important step of colonization and a necessary type of violent oppression. If you want to subdue people and landscapes and cultures, you must first describe and define them in the words of the oppressor and colonizer and teach them to use those words.

Environmentalists are losing the water wars because they have had their language stolen they are taught to use the language of their oppressor, and they often repeat that story, and thereby oppression, constantly in their communications.

My first exposure to this problem was more than a decade ago when I was in a meeting with the head of a government organization that wanted (and actually still wants) to build a dam on the Cache la Poudre River in northern Colorado. I was complaining that the river was already being drained by dams and diversions, and he replied to me and said that what was actually happening was that senior water-rights holders had swept the river.

My jaw dropped.

They werent farmers or cities, which are actual people who are harming the river they were senior water-rights holders. They werent draining the river. They had swept it, as if the complete draining and destruction of the river made it cleaner.

And finally, it wasnt even a river. It was just water.

Over the years I collected these words, metaphors and euphemisms because theyre repeated by the water agencies and establishment I call them water buffaloes and often by the environmental groups that work hand-in-hand with them. Here are just ten examples of a whole institutionalized and legalized system of linguistic and cultural oppression describing river destruction:

If you are a professional environmentalist and trained in water law or hydrology, youre taught this language in college and law school. At work, you repeat it day after day in meetings, phone calls and emails. The water buffaloes like this because you use their language, and they invite you to their meetings and give you a seat at the table. At best, the language sanitizes the destruction of living rivers and entire nonhuman life forms. At worst, the language solidifies the systemic, institutionalized oppression of living rivers and the people who protect them, thereby stealing your culture and your values.

When Aldo Leopold paddled through the 2-million-acre wetland of the Colorado River Delta in 1922, he said the river was everywhere and nowhere and described it as a milk and honey wilderness full of hundreds of lagoons containing deer, quail, raccoon, bobcat, jaguar and vast flocks of waterfowl. Now the Colorado River Delta is almost 100 percent drained, and the small effort to restore it is often described with bland scientific terminology. The tiny amount of water that the United States and Mexico are allowing to be pumped into the restoration zones is measured in acre-feet.

Language is a tool of political manipulation when you use and repeat your opponents language, you solidify their status and your own oppression.

Consider this mumbo-jumbo that you hear when talking to water agencies: When a water right is in priority, you perfect it by sweeping the river so that excess supplies are held in storage for consumptive use.

What really happened? They dammed, drained and destroyed a river, which is a living, breathing life force the veins of the planet providing survival to a vast array of nonhuman creatures that have entire cultures and languages of their own.

If they steal your language, they steal your soul. Dont let them.

Gary Wockner

Gary Wockner, PhD, is a scientist and conservationist based in Colorado. Follow him on Twitter, @GaryWockner. Learn more at savethecolorado.org

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OPINION: The Words That Kill Rivers - Pagosa Daily Post

Judas and the Black Messiah, directed by Shaka King and written by King and Will Berson, follows William ONeals (Lakeith Stanfield) attempts to infiltrate the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and help the FBI to take down its chairman, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya). King extensively covers every possible dynamic in the relationship between ONeal and Hampton and the rest of the people rallying around them. And in addition to drawing parallels between the plight of African Americans then and now, the movie also sends a powerful, universal message about how we shouldnt side with oppressors even if its for our survival because the damage that does is irreparable.

At the time of writing this review for Judas and the Black Messiah, Indias farmers are hosting one of the biggest protests of all-time against the Narendra Modi governments 2020 Agricultural Acts. The farmers have been harassed in every possible way for dissenting. Their protest has been infiltrated by the ruling partys goons and maligned by the Godi media (Nickname for Indias lapdog journalists). The farmers attempts at reaching the protest sites have been thwarted by diverting entire trains and the Indian police have planted barricades around said protest sites which are laced with nails and iron rods. And almost anyone who is trying to highlight it is being arrested. Why am I saying this? Because I am sure every mainstream film critic is going to draw parallels with the Black Lives Matter movement. But not many are going to talk about its slighter international relevance.

Judas and the Black Messiah is directed by Shaka King. It is written by King and Will Berson and is based on the story by Berson, King, Kenny Lucas, and Keith Lucas. It is produced by Ryan Coogler, Charles D. King, and Shaka. The music is by Craig Harris and Mark Isham, the cinematography is Sean Bobbitt, editing by Kristan Sprague, casting by Alexa L. Fogel, production design by Sam Lisenco, art direction by Jeremy Woolsey, set decoration by Rebecca Brown, costume design by Charlese Antoinette Jones, and hair and makeup by Sian Richards and Rebecca Woodforks teams. It features Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback, Lil Rel Howery, Martin Sheen, Ashton Sanders, Algee Smith, Darrell Britt-Gibson, and Dominique Thorne. The story revolves around the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and how FBI informant William ONeal (Stanfield) betrayed its iconic chairman, Fred Hampton (Kaluuya).

I wont be going too much into the plot because it has been extensively recorded and talked about in documentaries and in this film. And I want you to experience it firsthand. Instead, I will be talking about what it made me feel. Our point-of-view character is William ONeal whose sense of self-preservation is so high that he will rather side with the Feds than support his own community to fight systemic racism and oppression. In real life, I see this happening on a daily basis. The level of fear that has been created by the Narendra Modi government and the law enforcement agencies doing its bidding that people have chosen to either shut up or silently do what theyre being told to do or openly and vocally supporting them. And thats empowering these fascist forces that theyre being able to get away with almost anything.

The tragic thing about oppression is that its being done by people on people hailing from the same goddamn country. India received freedom in 1947. 1947! And people are still oppressed. Why? Because the government and government agencies always have and always will hate dissent. They want people to stay oppressed so that they can make money by making everyone else work their guts out. So, if you think that siding with the system will help you get out of its cycle, youre wrong. Youve to hold those who have promised to keep the system democratic accountable for their actions. For that, you have to speak up. If you dont, youre doing some irreparable damage that will take years, decades, maybe centuries to fix. Thats what ONeal and Hamptons journeys show. When fascist forces are at play, you have to look above your own self-interest and work for the people so that they can have a free future.

A recurring problem that I have seen in movies based on true events such as this is that they dont have flair. It often feels like theyve taken pages from the events Wikipedia page, plopped the camera on the set, and has recorded some footage. Thats when you start feeling you couldve just read about all this instead of watching it. Shaka King probably knows about that and goes all out to make it an immersive audio-visual experience. Because its important that the imagery and the sounds stay with the audience so that they can take those themes back home and start to implement them into their lives. For example, the I am a revolutionary scene is burned into my brain, and although its a slogan that was used for an African-American fight, I felt it stir something in me and motivated me to do my bit in the revolution happening in my country.

Apart from being a political thriller, the movie functions as a detective/spy movie as well. But most importantly, it is a well-choreographed action film as well. You probably might be thinking that how does that help in any way? Well, a good action movie has the ability to address the magnanimity and weight of the plot. If theres a palpable sense of tension during a shooting scene, you empathise with the heroes and thereby root for their movement in a way that extensive dialogue scenes probably wont be able to do. And King employs this method along with the beautifully shot and framed dialogue scenes. What I mean to say is that his dialogue-heavy scenes are as tense and electrifying as his action sequences. So, theres a one-two-punch thing going on to embed the importance and depth of the story, which is something that I hope other directors start to do as well if they want to be as good as Shaka.

I dont think it will be an understatement to say that this is one of the best performances that Lakeith Stanfield has delivered in his career and the man has a laundry list of brilliant performances. There is so much going on with William that he externalises and internalises very methodically. William is always toeing the line between being too assertive and being too passive. If he is too assertive, the Black Panthers are going to catch him and the FBI is going to fry him. If he is too passive, the FBI is going to find out that hes sitting it out, theyll let the Black Panthers know, and he will be punished for being a snitch. And this conflict is eroding away at his soul and Lakeith captures that so perfectly. The final scene between him and Daniel is way too painful to watch!

I also dont think it will be an understatement to say that this is one of Daniel Kaluuyas best performances, right? How does this man deliver every time? Because hes awesome that why. I think that its very tough to portray determination and conviction to a political cause unless you feel it deep within you. I mean, that could be just me but feigning allegiance to something political must be difficult. And I think that Daniel isnt feigning it here. Every word, every flicker on his face, his physicality is coming from somewhere deep within his gut. Thats why it pierces through the wall between the reel and the real and hits you. Fred Hamptons lines are definitely powerful. But I dont think reciting them wouldve had the same effect. Its very apparent that he went deep into his psyche to give such an honest and heartfelt portrayal (Which is undoubtedly aided by Fishback) of an iconic leader.

The rest of the cast deserves a shoutout as well. They did exceptionally well although this is clearly a Lakeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya movie.

I cant emphasise the importance of Judas and the Black Messiah in the current political climate enough. This is essential viewing for all! Yes, you can appreciate it as a well-crafted movie by Shaka King with two of the best performances of all time by Lakeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya, and call it a day. But you have to dig deeper into the core themes of the film, engage with the commentary on display, and think about your place in the revolutionary movements that are definitely happening in your country (I say definitely because every country is fighting for change. If you dont see it, that doesnt mean it isnt happening). And always remember that when you have to pick sides during this ideological and humanitarian crisis, be the Messiah and not Judas.

SEE ALSO: Sundance Night Of The Kings Review - A Beautifully Created Ode To The Magic Of Storytelling

Cover image courtesy: Sundance Film Festival 2021

See more here:

Sundance 'Judas And The Black Messiah' Review: A Relevant Film About The Oppressed Fighting The Oppressor - Mashable India

Steve Brawner| Fort Smith Times Record

How should schools teach about history? And who should decide? The answer to the second question helps determine the answer to the first.

Arkansas state legislators are confronted with both with two bills by Rep. Mark Lowery (R-Maumelle).

House Bill 1218 would prohibit public school districts and state-supported colleges and universities from teaching material that:

Promotes overthrowing the government

Promotes division between, resentment of, or social justice for a race, gender, political affiliation, social class or particular class of people

Advocates the isolation of a group of students based on ethnicity, race, religion, gender or social class

Violates federal civil rights laws

Negatively targets specific nationalities or countries

Schools that violate these terms could lose 10% of state foundation funding.

The bill wouldnt prohibit discussing controversial aspects of history and wouldnt outlaw discussing the Holocaust,genocide,historical oppression of people based on ethnicity, race or class,or African-American history. It also wouldnt prohibit students from participating in voluntary activities.

Lowery is also sponsoring House Bill 1231, which would prohibit the use of public school funds to teach the 1619 Project, which is a curriculum developed by the New York Times that teaches that 1619, when slaves were first brought here, is Americas true founding date rather than the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

The 1619 Project elicits strong reactions from people. Supporters say it explains slaverys importance as an economic and political institution. Opponents say it inaccurately devalues the nations more noble, high-minded principles.

The bills have not yet been heard in committee.

Heres the thing about laws: They ultimately put the lawyers in charge, which makes everyone hesitant to do anything and turns us all into i-dotters and t-crossers. School districts would have to decide what promotes division and then theyd have to be really careful about teaching anything. If they cant negatively target a nationality or country, then what could they say about Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Chinaor Iran?

The second half of the bill tries to foresee its own potential problems by listing what schools can teach, but then it becomes self-contradictory. Schools could teach about oppression based on race but couldnt promote social justice for a race? Thats a minefield. It lists exceptions to its own prohibitions, but what does it leave out unless controversial aspects of history covers everything? Ultimately, lawyers would decide.

The 1874 Arkansas Constitution makes the state ultimately responsible for maintaining a general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools, even as schools were locally run back then. In recent years, the courts have interpreted the phrase to give the state an increasing role in public education, particularly regarding funding. Meanwhile, historical events have moved power from the schoolhouse to capitols, and not always for bad reasons. If President Eisenhower had to send troops to Little Rock in 1957 to end school segregation and protect those students from the mob, so be it.

But turning schools into arms of the state and federal governments also has a downside in a diverse, divided country. There are real differences between red states and blue states, and there are differences between parts of Arkansas. Mountain View is different from Malvern, which is different from Helena-West Helena. 48 languages are spoken in the homes of students in the Springdale School District, the states largest with large populations of Hispanic and Marshallese students.

The truth is the truth, but certain approaches to history will work better in one school than they will in another. People who live in different places and have different experiences will see history differently. Communities will have different expectations. Whats divisive in one district, or classroom, would be merely controversial in another.

Force can resolve differences, and sometimes thats necessary, as it was in 1957. But we should be hesitant to use force, which is what a law is. We can also try persuasion. The other choice is accepting that differences will occur, often even celebrating that fact, and trusting schools and teachers to make these decisions.

So we return to our first two questions. How should schools teach about history? And who should decide? Well see what answers come from the Capitol in the coming days.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.

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How should history be taught, and who should decide? - Times Record

Editor's note: This is the second of two articles on Kim Hayes's experience with one family shefirst met while serving them in pregnancy help, and with whom she would develop a lasting relationship. Shaomin and Martin, from China, came to the Ohio pregnancy help center where Kim volunteered in 1994. They had many difficulties which they saw as obstacles to giving their unborn child life. Click HERE for the first part of their story.

On April 20, 1995, a beautiful boy was born to Shaomin and Martin. They asked me to name him because, He doesnt belong to us, they said, he belongs to you and God.

So, the babys name is John, which means Jehovahs gift. He instantly became the pride and joy and focus of their world. Martin and Shaomin continued to be dear friends of my family.

But there were still many things to work out, especially seeking to secure their firstborn child, a daughter who remained in China with family members.

Martin had actually been a dean at an engineering school in China. Really, Martin needed to find work as a chemical technician or in mechanical design using AutoCAD to adequately utilize his training and skills.

Shaomin had been a math teacher in China. As layers of information were peeled away, it was clear the next step was to seek political asylum to protect them from ever being turned over to China.

In the summer of 1989, Martin was among the students who protested at Tiananmen Square. He was caught on tape by a media source speaking out. This led to his arrest, and then he spent two years being re-educated by the Chinese government.

So horrific was the torture and fear of those two years that Martin would not speak of it to his family.

As I prepared for this writing not only could his children not recount any of this information to me, but they both await eagerly to read it to learn more about their own familys history and what led them to becoming Americans.

[Click here to subscribe to Pregnancy Help News!]

One of the faithful prayer groups and many donors offering support to my friends were coming from our home church, Westerville Christian.

One friend there, Susan Banks, worked at the time for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Through her contacts, she reached out to the office of John Kasich, then U.S. Representative for Ohio, to help Martin and Shaomin seek a path to citizenship.

Kasichs office was instrumental in documenting Martins case and in the end, we had a great celebration of the couples citizenship at the church (complete with U.S. flag, cake and so much joy).

Now that they were citizens, Kasichs office further pursued the proper channels for getting their daughter released to the U.S.

This process took much longer. She was eight years old when I first met Martin and Shaomin. I couldnt imagine the heartbreak of being separated from your child and not know if or when you would see her again.

To protect their daughter, family members would all tell the same cover story to her so she would never be in danger of saying the wrong thing about where her parents were and perhaps call unwanted Chinese government attention to their family.

Martin and Shaomins daughter Yun and her grandmother were residing in the apartment Martin and Shaomin had lived in as well, and with Martin and Shaomins disappearance there would be threats of their eviction. Yun knew there was talk by the local schoolhouse that they would be losing their apartment.

For Yun it was many years of not understanding the situation. Years of being given vague answers about whether she would ever see her parents again. This drove my prayers and the prayers of so many others.

The main story Yun recalls being told was that her dad had received a scholarship from a university in Ohio. She may have sensed there was something more going on, but she accepted this as the reality at that time.

When the day finally arrived in July 1996 and Yun got off the plane from China in the Columbus, OH, airport it was surreal. She was obviously overjoyed to see her mother and hugged her.

Yun was also delighted to see her baby brother for the first time. Our whole family waited with Martin as Shaomin signed a document from the guardian who delivered Yun to her. As they approached us, my daughter Kayleigh greeted Yun and introductions were made by Shaomin.

Lots of smiles, so much joy! Our oldest son, Kellen held out a gift to Yun and she shyly received it. Shaomin continued to point out each of us and our names. Yun was a bit overwhelmed by the presence of these strangers and halfway hid behind her mom.

Then it got awkward. Martin stepped forward to only receive some angry comment from his daughter in Chinese as she held onto her mom and moved on toward the terminal. Martin laughed nervously and said, She said I am not her daddy.

While it was heartbreaking to see this little girls confusion, anger and pain, there was so much joy in simply having the family together safely. It would not take Yun long to learn English and learn to embrace being an American girl.

Recently in talking with Yun she recalled the present she received at the airport.

She said, That was the first present I had ever received, and I just kept staring at it thinking, my first present.

Martin did end up with a job utilizing his chemical engineering expertise. Soon they would buy their own home and have two cars. They were even able to buy a restaurant in Lancaster, OH, and Martin would go help Shaomin with running it when he had time off from his job.

Yuns primary responsibility was caring for John while their parents commuted back and forth to the restaurant. While this was perhaps a tough life for two young children, it did act to bond the siblings who remain lifelong close friends.

Financially the family would do quite well. They experienced the American dream and opened another Chinese restaurant in Athens, OH. It was called Yuns Palace. John was six and Yun was a teenager. This time they moved to the same town.

Both children learned well the value of hard work. John would test beyond his years causing the school to move him up a grade level halfway through the school year.

The 1998 season of the Touched By An Angel television program featured a two-part episode titled, The Spirit of Liberty Moon, (season 4, episodes 26 & 27). I bought the family a copy of the episodes to give to Martin and Shaomin. Apparently when they played it, Martin left the room and would not finish watching.

It was too real. The episode depicted a family that was separated by the events at Tiananmen Square and the father being placed in a re-education through labor camp. The father becomes sickly under the harsh and abusive conditions, which included torture to attempt to get him to confess his crimes and denounce his actions.

Obviously, it was my hope that viewing this show together would be an opportunity to open up a dialog about their own family history. Instead, the silence continued.

There were many arguments over the years between Martin and Shaomin or with his daughter. He would call me, or a few times I visited their home, and we would have very long and open conversations.

It amazed me how tolerant of my directness Martin wasoften it occurred to me how desperate he wanted everything I stated to be true, but he couldnt allow it. Something held him back.

Mostly I detailed the depths of Gods grace.

We would go to the Scriptures; I would use real life examples or various parables to clarify. The stopping point would inevitably be when I would press in on how he needed to let go, accept forgiveness and trust God.

Martin clung so tightly to his secrets surrounding what had been done to him.

Every now and then I would ask if he had told his family about what happened to him at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party and the answer was always the same, They dont need to know.

There was deep fear and humiliation tied to the whole thing. The psychological warfare leveled against him built an impenetrable wall. Repeatedly I tried to help him understand how he was continuing to allow them to hold power over his lifea power they could only maintain with his consent.

In 2002, when Yun was 16, the family was in great turmoil and came altogether to my home hoping I would help them change their daughters rebelliousness (which I believe they thought was merely a function of her now being an American girl).

For more than an hour I listened to them yell at one another. So much hurt on their faces.

Finally, I called for quiet and calm.

I looked at Martin and said, Does she know why she was left alone in China? Does Yun understand why you came to the U.S. without her?

His eyes dropped; he wouldnt answer me.

So, I looked into the eyes of this precious girl and began to detail for her everything I knew. By the time I finished, tears were streaming down my face but thankfully I have mastered the art of being able to talk while crying.

They were all quiet. I would love to say this resolved everything.

However, you cannot erase a decade of hurt with one story. It also would have been so much better if Martin would have been willing to give voice to what was shared. Instead, he remained stone silent, looking at me as if I had betrayed a sacred trust.

Since they had come to me asking for help, I did not believe it was wrong to share the information. Martin had been given five or six years to tell what had happened. No doubt he suffered deeply from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Yun would continue to demonstrate a rebellious spirit and decided she needed to get out on her own, so she joined the military. It was there she would gain so much confidence and learn to overcome the challenges life had given her.

Martins silence and attempts to battle his demons alone took a toll on his emotional, physical and spiritual health, as well as his marriage and relationships with family members.

In May 2005, the couple once again sought my help.

Their arguing had escalated, and both were ready for divorce. Shaomin arrived first and I spent four hours with her. When Martin arrived, we had two more hours together.

Their focus was on money. The rage they expressed toward one another made it impossible for them to listen to each other. My own kids were in the basement and they could hear the screaming from there.

But money was not really the issue, it was the distraction. They both had proven they could build a fortune in a short timeframe and were able to sustain on little to nothing in the meantime.

Shaomin had agreed with me that even if Martin had all the money, God was able to take care of her and her son.

The real oppression still was rooted in Martins secret world. He held the pain inside like it was an idol to worshipfaithfully committed to serving its demands.

All this time and Shaomin still did not know what Martin went through in China (other than the few things I had told the family three years earlier). The only reason I knew was because I read the document which was submitted to our government as he sought political asylum.

She knew he was part of the Free China movement and that is all. The unspoken rule they all seemed to obey was that is all she needed to know. But when it is the very information Martin had used as his lens for every relationship, it was exactly what Shaomin and the rest of her family needed to know.

Prior to this meeting, I had insisted Martin watch The Passion of the Christ. This became part of the conversation that day. Finally, he was able to visualize much of what he had read in the Bible and acknowledged that Jesus could understand Martins own beating and torture.

But in the next breath Martin suggested that Jesus probably was just tired of this awful world and that is why He died. Again, he questioned motiveseven Godsso why would Martin ever be able to trust anyone (this included his wife, children, everyone)?

Shaomin was still very limited in understanding the Bible. Wrongly I had trusted that she had access to the Chinese Bible I had given them years prior. She said that Martin did read it, but she had not, so I did end up getting one for her.

Because of our many conversations and her participation previously with some Bible study groups, Shaomin knew that Jesus came to save us, and He is Gods Son. She understood about asking Him into her heart to be her Lord and friend.

That day in preparation for Martins arrival I had taken her through the life of Joseph (from the book of Genesis) to show her Gods work in the midst of hard times. We talked about how God uses what the enemy meant for evil and turns it for our good. Shaomins life was already filled with very real examples of this.

This meeting did not end with a happily ever after solution. It was more painful revelations rather than reconciliation. My husband Jeff came home about the time we were wrapping up.

Martin pulled Jeff aside pleading with him to find Shaomin a job at the bank where he was employed. It was so obvious to both Jeff and I that Martin still loved Shaomin deeply.

However, Martins failure to be able to adequately express his love for his wife had destroyed their marriage. It would be another casualty of Communist oppression. They may have enjoyed freedom in the U.S., but Martin was far from experiencing freedom in his heart.

In the winter of 2005, the family would move to Florida. Martin and Shaomin began living very separate lives, but when I would speak with him on the phone, he would update me on the family, very proudly bragging about his children as if everything was fine.

Once my friends moved to Florida, I heard little from them.

In 2012 Martin was diagnosed with colon cancer which was already stage four by the time he had sought medical attention. The doctors believed he had no more than six months to live.

Martin did not tell me about the cancer, and I found out he had died while reaching out to Shaomin during the holidays. It saddened me so to not have been able to be there for my friend.

There were so many years of praying for this family and even when I was no longer part of their lives, I knew God would faithfully hear my prayers as I asked that there would continue to be Christians speaking truth to them and especially to Martin.

Tweet This: There were so many years praying 4this family & even when I was no longer part of their lives I knew God faithfully heard my prayers 4them

He heard the truth of the Gospel so many times, I feel certain he could have reiterated it to anyone who might ask him to explain it.

So, while I never specifically heard Martin confess having accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior, I chose to believe Gods word (which Martin was always open to hearing) did not return void.

In fact, I eagerly await seeing many family and friends in heaven one day soon and expect my dear friend, Martin will be there.

To my delight, I learned that during his final months of life, Yun reconnected with her dad. They would have weekly conversations and she would visit whenever she got leave.

Not only did a lot of healing happen between daughter and father, but she said Martin had changed.

He transitioned, stated Yun. He wasnt angry anymore. Dad had always been okay with going with us to church and he liked to listen to the Scriptures, but after his diagnosis he changed.

Then I asked her specifically if Martin had accepted Christ as his Savior and she said, He did.

Yun continued, He told me, I should have been there more for you. I should have paid more attention to you.

What a joy to hear her report! What a blessing to know Martin experienced not only reconciliation with God but reconciled with his precious daughter. God granted him twice as much time as the doctors predicted and Martin passed in November of 2013.

Yun has a husband and a son. She told me that her son is a lot like Martin, Calm, relaxed and sweet.

Yun continues to love her family and has learned to love her new country. She has served in the military for 12 years and was given special recognition in 2020.

John has a masters degree and got married. His life is filled with many joys and he is enjoying his career and his marriage.

Shaomin is gratefully delighting in an amazing life in Florida. She loves Jesus. I know she prays for her children and thanks God for them.

She wrote to me in an email, You know since I met you, I start learning Gods word and I cant live without (it). Remember John name you gave to him told me Gods gift to me and truly I very proud (of) my son.

The last time we got to see one another was on Mothers Day, 2018. Shaomin and John came to Columbus and she insisted on taking my family to dinner at a way too expensive local steakhouse.

She has such a generous heart. None of us ordered enough food to her liking so then she ordered multiple appetizers to make up for it (I cannot even imagine what the final bill was).

This January I asked John if he knew anything about his fathers oppression at the hands of the Chinese government and his escape from China.

He stated, Not much, just everything that I learned from you when my mother and I visited Columbus a couple of years ago. For my sister, I believe she was staying with my Aunt and other relatives in China, but I dont know much else.

John also noted, I do know that he (Martin) hated the color red, but dont know if that was related or not.

When I asked John about his sister Yun, he answered, Im absolutely proud of her! I know her going into the military was a huge source of conflict, but with everything shes been able to do now Im just incredibly proud of her.

Whenever I retell the story of what God did in the lives of Martin, Shaomin and their children, I am reminded what a joy it is to be used by God.

Once again, as I have seen so often in my life, you cannot out give GodIve tried and failed enormously!

What a blessing it is to know this dear family!

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After decades in the grip of oppression, family has the promise of hope with Christ and pregnancy help - Pregnancy Help News

The Salem transit agency has unsuccessfully sought to attract minority and women-owned businesses to share millions in contract work. Now, the agency's leadership is embarking on a sweeping review thats an early step in making its operations more equitable.

A Cherriots bus on State Street outside the Oregon Capitol (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter)

The Salem Area Mass Transit District awarded just a single contract to a company owned by a woman or minority in its most recent reporting period, well short of its own goal to see that such businesses get a share in millions in government spending.

Agency leaders point to a small pool of minority and women-owned businesses as well as there being less work and outreach because of the pandemic as reasons why it only met 16% of its contracting goal.

Between October 2019 through September 2020, Cherriots awarded 248 federally funded contracts for services and goods that totaled $1.5 million, according to a Dec. 29 internal memo provided to Salem Reporter. For that period, Cherriots had a goal of awarding $173,430 to disadvantaged business enterprises, certified as small for-profit companies that are owned by women or minorities.

During that period, Cherriots awarded one contract to one of these businesses: Marco Ideas Unlimited, a woman-owned business in Portland, paying $28,583 for uniforms.

Agency leaders have since launched a top-to-bottom review last year with the aim of meeting contracting goals while making overall operations more equitable.

Can we do better? said Chi Nguyen, a director on the Cherriots board and chair of its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. I think we can, and we will.

The federal Transportation Departmentstarted the disadvantaged business enterprise programin 1980 as a way to increase the participation of minority and women-owned businesses in federal contracting.

State and local transportation agencies that receive money from the department are required to establish goals for contracting with disadvantaged business enterprises. The federal government doesnt penalize agencies that fail to hit their goals if they are trying.

Dan Knauss, Cherriots manager of procurement and contracts, explained that Cherriots goal is based on the number of expected projects and the number of disadvantaged business enterprises based in the Salem area or in nearby counties.

The memo blames the shortfall partially on the pandemic, which scuttled an in-person training and delaying or canceling planned projects. Thats meant less overall work companies had a shot at landing. Knauss said one notable project Cherriots had to postpone work on was the new South Salem Transit Center because of a dispute with a property owner. Final costs for the project werent finalized.

That one project made up the lions share, said Knauss.

Knauss said there were other large projects that were canceled. Additionally, Cherriots had to delay a contract for a survey of riders, delayed because not enough people were riding buses because of Covid, among other projects.

He said Cherriots contracted with Brown Contracting for a project at the Keizer Transit Center and the company subcontracted with two disadvantaged business enterprises, CBK Constructors LLC of Canby and Pac Green Landscape of Woodburn, paying them $62,371. But those payments recorded during the most recent reporting period didnt count toward Cherriots goal.

The memo states that the agencys potential pool of disadvantaged business enterprises is relatively small and outreach events were canceled because of the pandemic. Knauss said Cherriots has attended trade shows remotely this year and is preparing to distribute its outreach brochures to recruit more interest among businesses to share in the transit districts business.

But he said disadvantaged business enterprises tend to be smaller and the requirements for government contractors can seem daunting.

Numbers provided by Cherriots show it hasnt met its disadvantaged business enterprise goals going back four years.

In 2019, it awarded $85,445 about half its goal and in 2018, it awarded $8,000 towards a goal of $50,505. For 2017 and 2016, the agency didnt give any contracts to disadvantaged businesses.

Cherriots now has a goal of awarding disadvantaged business enterprises 2.49% of the $3.3 million worth of projects it has planned for fiscal years 2021 through 2023..

The Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs declined to comment for this story. Salem Capitol Connections, a group that helps connect small businesses to government agencies, didnt respond to an email seeking comment.

Ian Davidson, Cherriots board president, said he wants to improve the agencys contracting with disadvantaged business enterprises. He pointed to documents showing that disadvantaged business enterprises were solicited for projects but ended up not bidding, which he said could point to other issues that stymie their participation.

He said that Cherriots is hiring a consultant to conduct an equity analysis. The consultants work is being finalized but will evaluate how Cherriots operates internally and with the community, he said.

Im really interested to get that critical feedback to start closing gaps, he said.

Last June, the board created a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee as Cherriots accelerated its plan to broadly address inequities in its operations.

Nguyen said the review will highlight some of Cherriots sausage-making," exposing dominant cultural artifacts that continue to allow oppression. She expects the consultants findings will present clear actions for the transit agency.

A small business owner herself, Nguyen said shes been struck by the lack of diversity in the pool of contractors. She also wonders if the process intended to boost contracting with disadvantaged business enterprises is itself a barrier.

You go through all the hoops and that doesn't guarantee you a contract, she said.

Contact reporter Jake Thomas at 503-575-1251 or[emailprotected]or @jakethomas2009.

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Cherriots failed to meet minority contracting goals for years - Salem Reporter

Ilya Somin, Opinion contributor Published 8:00 a.m. ET Feb. 3, 2021 | Updated 4:48 p.m. ET Feb. 3, 2021

Biden's immigration changes would transform the lives of vast numbers of migrants fleeing poverty and oppression. For many, it could literally mean the difference between life and death.

The new Biden administration has the most expansive pro-immigration agenda of any president in decades. In the wake of Donald Trump the most anti-immigrant president in modern times it was inevitable that any Democratic successor wouldchange course.But the scope of Bidens agenda goes well beyond merely reversing Trumps more egregious policies. If fully implemented, it would have enormous benefits for both potential migrants and current U.S. citizens.

It is especially notable that Biden is pursuing this agendaamidst the COVIDpandemic. Historically, economic crises tend to promote nativism. The last year has been a rare exception, as public attitudes have continued to become more pro-immigration.

Bidens otherwise admirable policies do have two drawbacks:heavy reliance on executive actions, and his proposal for a $15 minimum wage that would shut many recent immigrants out of the labor market.

Some of Bidens initiatives terminate Trump policies, such as reversing the anti-Muslim travel bans forbidding entry by residents of many nations with large Muslim populations, ending the remain in Mexico policy(though those previously subjected to it will not immediately be released), which forced asylum applicants to remain in dangerous conditions in Mexico for months on end, ceasing construction of Trumps border wall, and terminating Trumps efforts to pressure sanctuary cities. Biden has also ordered a full restoration of the DACA program, which protects undocumented immigrants brought to the US as minors by their parents. The repeal of the travel bans is especially laudable, because that policy was motivated by anti-Muslim bigotry and cruelly separated many thousands of people from their families.Some other Trump policies are likely to take more time to wind down. But the administration still intends to ultimately reverse them.

Bidens immigration liberalization initiatives go well beyond undoing Trumps work. The new administration plans to raise the annual ceiling for refugee admissions to 125,000, which is not only a sea change from Trumps near-total gutting of the refugee system, but also a higher figure than even the peak number under the Obama administration (110,000). It also has imposed a 100-day moratorium on most deportations, and is likely to cut back on many even after.

President Joe Biden on Feb. 1, 2021, in Washington, D.C.(Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

The immigration reform bill Biden will submit to Congress would legalize nearly the entire population of undocumented immigrants currently in the United States some 11 million people and give them an 8-year pathway to citizenship. That goes beyond any previous presidential initiative. The bill would also expand legal immigration in a variety of ways, including dropping per-country quotas for employment visas, raising them for family reunification migration, and making it easier for family members of employment and H-1 B visa holders to get green cards and work authorization.

All told, Bidens agenda would expand legal immigration by up to hundreds of thousands of people per year, and enable many millions of undocumented migrants already here to come out of the shadows (as Barack Obama put it), and begin to live normal lives, fully integrated into our economy and society. These changes would transform the lives of vast numbers of migrants fleeing poverty and oppression. For many, it could literally mean the difference between life and death.

The Biden policies would provide major benefits to American society.Bringing undocumented immigrants out of the shadows would increase their productivity and facilitate assimilation. Increasing employment visas and other migration would further expand immigrant contributions to Americas economy. Immigrants contribute disproportionately by starting new businesses at higher rates than natives,and making major contributions to scientific and other innovation. Immigrant scientists and medical workers have played a major role in improving health care, including being responsible for both of the new COVID-19 vaccines approved by the U.S. government.

Lingering trauma: Families separated at border suffer long-term mental health challenges

Curbing deportations would also protect the civil liberties of current U.S. citizens by reducing racial profiling, and the all-too-common detention and deportation of citizens by immigration enforcement agencies. Reducing deportation can also help combat the COVID-19 pandemic by incentivizing undocumented immigrants to get tested and vaccinated, which many now hesitate to do, for fear of being deported. Americas often-unsanitary immigration detention facilities also help spread COVIDand other diseases. Less deportation means less detention.

Bidens proposed immigration legislation is likely to face an uphill struggle in a closely divided Congress. But even partial passage could make a big difference. Moreover, the very fact that the president is proposing this law and making it a major initiative can help shift the Overton Window of political discourse. Even if these ideas are not enacted anytime soon, they will now be part of mainstream political debate.

One key weakness of Bidens immigration agenda is the heavy even if sometimes unavoidable reliance on executive actions. What one president does with a pen and phone can often easily be reversed by the next, as Biden himself is doing with many Trump initiatives. Some of the new policies are susceptible to legal challenge. The 100-day moratorium on deportations has been temporarily blocked by a federal court, for example.

Sadly, Bidens laudable immigration initiatives could also be undercut by his proposal for a nationwide $15 minimum wage. If enacted, it would price millions of workers out of the job market by making it unprofitable for employers to hire them, and would have a disproportionate negative effect on recent immigrants. This would both reduce immigrant workers ability to contribute to the economy and impede their assimilation and social mobility (both of which are furthered by participation in the job market). These negative effects may be delayed, but not avoided, if the minimum wage increase is phased in over several years, as Democrats propose. Hopefully, Congress will reject this idea.

The last amnesty: How to finally get immigration reform done (and do it the right way)

To make his immigration reforms more effective, Biden would do well to push Congress to enact as many as possible in legislation. He should also drop the ill-conceived minimum wage increase.

Despite somelimitations, this is the most impressive immigration-reform agenda put forward by any administration in many years. If it is even partially realized, it will do much to restore what Ronald Reagan called Americas role as a beacon of freedom and opportunity that draws the people of the world.

Ilya Somin is a law professor at George Mason University, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and author of "Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration and Political Freedom."

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Biden's pro-immigration agenda is more expansive than Obama's, but it has drawbacks - USA TODAY

Real revenge requires abolishing the financial sector as we know it and the systems of oppression it fosters.Lauren Walker / Truthout; ADAPTED: Aaron Amat, Ilona Nagy / Getty Images

Theres a catharsis to actually making money off their pain a little bit, Justin Speak, a 27-year-old evangelical pastor from California, told The New York Times in reference to his part in the great GameStop caper that saw small-time investors, coordinated on Reddit and other platforms, sabotage a series of Wall Street hedge funds by revenge buying the ailing video game retailers stock.

Speak himself made a cool $1,700 thanks to the way he and others used online stock-trading platforms like Robinhood to pump up demand for (and therefore the value of) the shares of GameStop, the movie theatre chain AMC, and other well-known brands that have a soft spot in consumers hearts but that have been hard-hit by the pandemic. While this movement began in online stock advice forums that purport to share tips about how to find undervalued companies whose shares can be bought cheap now to be sold dear later (going long, as it is called in the industry), it soon found a more political orientation.

By January 28, it had reached such a frenzy that Robinhood began to severely limit users powers to prevent what represented a kind of reverse run on the bank. In typical financial panics, spooked consumers seek to withdraw their investments for fear of collapse, triggering banks to slam their literal or metaphorical doors for fear of bankruptcy. In this case, Robinhood and other platforms were pressured by financial and government forces to take measures to discourage consumers from investing because it threatened to upset the financial order.

The enthusiasm of small investors swarming, seemingly out of nowhere, toward otherwise undesirable shares created havoc for several big Wall Street hedge funds. These funds strategy had been to short these underperformers to bet against their future rise in value. Hedge funds are essentially pools of very rich peoples money that borrow even more money to make risky bets on the market based on careful research into market niches. They were among the major culprits behind the frenzy of predatory lending that led to the 2008 financial meltdown. Hedge funds bet on both sides of that crisis and many came out ahead. In that calamitys wake, hedge funds used their connections and acumen to benefit from the bailouts. And during the pandemic, when millions have been thrown out of work and suffer economic precarity and hardship, hedge funds have been enjoying record profit.

So, when it turned out that a rag-tag swarm of investor-trolls with seemingly little coordination could bring one or two financial giants down by weaponizing what former Federal Reserve chair and neoliberal eminence Alan Greenspan once called irrational exuberance, it was, for many, sweet revenge. Eat the rich, Speaks wife chimed in, echoing her husband with what has become the slogan of the GameStop movement.

But while such revenge can indeed be sweet, those who hunger for social and economic justice should think again. This incident will largely be remembered as a momentary, comical blip on the financial sectors otherwise untroubled ascent to power and wealth. Moreover, this form of resistance is a reflection of, rather than an opposition to, the financialization of society and the imagination. And it resonates with a growing tendency toward revenge politics that all too often substitute symbolic victories for meaningful social change and the kinds of organization of the oppressed it would take to achieve it. The silver lining here is that, in this mass act of financial disobedience, tens of thousands of people have come to, for a moment, exercise their collective power. What comes next is the question.

While the GameStop caper represents a victory in the battle against the hubris of Wall Street, it actually represents a step backward in the war against the power of capitalisms financial sector. Over the past three decades, financialization has advanced in lockstep with the ideology of neoliberalism, which holds that the best and fairest way to organize society is around the needs of markets. Accordingly, public services have been cut, industries (including finance) have been deregulated, and taxes on the rich and on corporations have been slashed, with the ultimate effect being a world where the rich are getting richer and the poor even poorer as the fabled trickle-down principle fails to manifest its bounty for most people. The effects have been highly racialized, with graver impacts on Black, Indigenous and other communities of color.

Over this same period, the financial sector has grown in wealth, power and influence, and used its position to further drive forward both financialization and neoliberalism. The fact that, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that it caused, the sector escaped any real repercussions, punishment or loss, made it clear that finance, rather than governments, is ultimately in charge of policy. This fact has been rammed home by the fact that, around the world, in both liberal and conservative governments, the finance minister or their senior staff are almost always alumni of large investment banks which, as we also know, are very generous benefactors of political candidates and parties the world over.

But this economic and political power is also matched by a social and cultural power. As most of us have become poorer and more precarious, and as shared government services (housing, health care, old age and disability insurance and the like) have been slashed, we have been sold the lie that we have been liberated from government paternalism and empowered to embrace our potential as a miniature financier. From education to housing to hobbies to personal relationships, we have been encouraged to reimagine nearly every aspect of our lives as assets to be leveraged in an unforgiving, competitive world. This is financialization: the way the ideas, ideologies and methods of finance begin to seep into every aspect of our lives.

On the one hand, the GameStop caper saw thousands of small-time individual market actors swarm together in a way that, for a brief moment, caught the dominant financial powers off-guard and off-balance. A few hedge funds lost a lot of money. But it relied on individuals that have already adopted the disposition and the tools of the miniature financier: precisely the endgame of financialization.

Indeed, the most intelligent and (for all I disagree with them) freedom-oriented of neoliberal philosophers predicted such things should happen: For them, the unseating of power corporations by upstarts is an essential part of the triumphant progress of markets. For these thinkers, the usurpation and disruption of business as usual by uninvited guests is evidence that free markets are working, not failing, because it allows for (disruptive) innovation and the ruthless creative destruction of market inefficiencies and abnormalities.

So, while the GameStop caper can feel like revenge, it is not really. In my recent book on the politics of revenge in our moment, I explore how small revenge fantasies can become transformative avenging imaginaries capable of transforming power at its root.

Revenge fantasies are, in our own individual lives, incredibly common: As ugly as they may be, we all have them, especially in a world where so many of us suffer systemic oppression, inequality and exploitation, or where these manifest on the level of everyday life in forms of interpersonal cruelty or violence. In fact, revenge fantasies can be quite important and healthy: Theyre often based on and help us remember that what we suffer or have suffered is not our fault, and that we have value and are owed something for harms we have endured. Revenge fantasies can, of course, become dangerous infatuations. But they are often most dangerous not because they lead us to take revenge, but because we satisfy ourselves by endlessly nursing a grudge, neither forgiving and forgetting nor finding the courage to claim the debt. The fantasy becomes our home.

On a collective, political level, revenge fantasies can be opportunities for solidarity when we recognize that we share a common source of pain, that we are owed a collective debt. Sometimes we dont know how to change the system that caused the injury or pain or oppression, and so the only grounds for our protest and passion is refusal and a common dream of getting back at those who have harmed us. But these sentiments can be easily manipulated, and often by precisely those people who caused the harm in the first place. On one level, U.S. society in the grips of financialization endlessly dreams of revenge in the form of television and film: Game of Thrones, the works of Quentin Tarantino, and other popular spectacles offer a kind of cathartic expression for the unnamed vengefulness that many of us feel as we ensure and are made to participate in a financialized society.

But it gets more dangerous still. Financialized capitalism, which transforms us each into a competitive risk-taker in a world of unmanageable risks, necessarily produces profound alienation, a sense of being cheated, a rage at being unable to live as we imagine we ought to be able to live, and these can find horrific political expressions. Throughout the history of the United States, the ruling classes, many of them enriched by finance, have stoked and harnessed the vengefulness of non-elite whites to foment racial violence, lynchings, extrajudicial murder and racial terrorism, of which Donald Trump and his armed legions of reactionaries are only the latest incarnation.

I am not arguing these are the woeful left behinds with legitimate grievances as some do; they are heinous expressions of the very worst. But their significant popularity draws its energy from the way they embody a revenge fantasy that flourishes in white supremacist financialized society where the sources of social pain and discord are willfully misidentified as migrants, feminists and queer folk, unruly Black people and intellectuals, rather than the system of capitalism.

The GameStop caper is a kind of vivified revenge fantasy, a dream of getting back at the powerful come to life, if only for a moment. Such revenge fantasies can be important for the struggle for social and economic justice, but are also very dangerous. On the one hand, the momentary realization of the fantasy can be mistaken for a substantial change in reality, but we would be foolish to presume that the momentary upsetting of financial business-as-usual will result in any real change. And in some ways, this kind of activism is what finance has always intended: the recoding of our dreams such that even rebellion takes a financialized form.

On the other hand, this revenge fantasy can easily be harnessed by reactionary forces, and in many ways already has reactionary characteristics. Famously, the Nazis made a central plank of their rise to power the promise to bring to heel the speculative financiers who were, according to their ideology, ruining things for the good, faithful, earnest and honest German workers and small business owners. Then as now, the line between antagonism towards finance and antisemitism is far from sharp, and critiques of parasitical financiers often slides easily into conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds or George Soros. No less dangerously, when Main Street is nostalgically presented as the hapless victim of Wall Streets predation, we neatly forget that Main Street was also the site of many lynchings, race riots and other acts of racist cruelty.

For these reasons, we must be wary of the way challenging finance can serve to perpetuate its power or to elevate reactionary politics. This easily happens when an analysis of finance and financialization is detached from an equally critical approach to the way it works in tandem with capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and other systems of power, and when we mistakenly imagine that all that it will take to achieve social and economic justice is improving access to markets.

What would it mean for the GameStop caper to move from a revenge fantasy to an avenging imaginary?

Revenge fantasies are brewed by individuals and collectives in a moment of powerlessness, hurt and anger and, as a result, often bear the hallmarks of a kind of poetic justice: The same cruelty that was once used against you becomes the form of retribution against your tormentor. After years of being the abject loser, one is now the winner and one exacts on the enemy the same injustice. How does it feel, Wall Street, to have your own tools used against you; to be, for a moment, the victim of the same unfair, manipulative and destructive instruments that you arrogantly wielded for so long? Revenge is sweet.

But what distinguishes an avenging imaginary is an abolitionist and feminist worldview: it does not seek to claim the power of the oppressor for its own, but to annihilate that power so that it can no longer harm anyone. An avenging imaginary is a way of coming together around a dream where revenge means the destruction and replacement of the systems that cause pain, oppression and injustice in the first place.

In the case of the GameStop caper, an avenging imaginary would dream not simply of tweaking the nose of Wall Street, but of abolishing the financial sector as we know it. Maybe that would look like nationalizing the banking sector so it could be used to support investment in a Green New Deal. Maybe that would mean a minimum and a maximum income to redistribute the financial sectors misbegotten wealth. Maybe it would mean reappropriating that wealth to fund excellent and universal health and social care. Maybe it would mean abolishing household and student debt. Maybe it would mean the much broader goal of abolishing the system of capitalist exploitation as a whole.

An avenging imaginary is a collective leap of the radical imagination that opens new horizons of how we might live and work together beyond the neoliberal, financialized, capitalist model where we each compete with one another until the Earth is destroyed.

The glimmer of possibility in this GameStop caper is that, in a flash, some new we came to recognize that we indeed have power when we act together. The same neoliberal financialized capitalist system that oppresses, exploits and seduces us has bestowed us with powerful digital tools to coordinate and communicate. How could we use these to rebel, not only as individual investors or for the fun of it, but in the name of collective liberation?

The GameStop caper offered a potentially important moment of shared vindictive laughter as the powerful, for a moment, appeared weak. But if, as has been often said, the best revenge is the laughter of our children, how will we make the most of this moment to create a post-capitalist world where they can enjoy the wealth of human potential and ecological justice?

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The GameStop Saga Is Not the Revenge Against Finance We... - Truthout

Switzerland could follow in the footsteps of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Bulgaria by banning women from wearing the burka or niqab in public spaces. On March 7, the people will vote on a popular initiative that aims to enshrine a ban on hiding ones face in public in the constitution.

Journalist based in Bern. I am particularly interested in topics about society, politics and social media. Previously I worked in regional media, for the newspaper Journal du Jura and Radio Jura bernois.

More about the author| French Department

The Egerkingen Committee launched the initiative in 2016. Made up of numerous members of the right-wing Swiss Peoples Party, the committee was the same that instigated the initiative to ban minarets, accepted by the Swiss in 2009.

Opposed to the text, the government has developed a counterproposal which has also been supported by parliament. It proposes to create a law that would oblige individuals to show their faces during identity checks carried out by authorities.

Peoples Party parliamentarian and member of the initiative committee Jean-Luc Addor argues the ban promotes equality between men and women and will help fight against radicalisation of Islam.

SWI swissinfo.ch: Given we are all walking around wearing masks to protect against Covid-19, isnt the arrival of an initiative to ban hiding ones face now untimely?

Jean-Luc Addor: One would think so, but this is not the case. Walking around the streets, its easy to see the difference between a woman who wears the burka [a full veil which covers the whole body and hides the eyes behind a cotton mesh] or the niqab, and a person wearing a protective mask. Its obvious the text is not targeting masks. The initiative allows for a certain number of exceptions, including the possibility of waiving the ban for health reasons. The pandemic shows that adequate exceptions were thought about by the initiators.

According to government estimates, the number of women who wear the burka in Switzerland is between 95 and 130. Is it really necessary to institute a ban for such a small number of people?

I would be curious to know on what basis the government is making these estimations. Of course, its rare to meet women who wear the burka in Switzerland, except in certain tourist spots. However, we do see women wearing the niqab [full veil which covers everything except the eyes], even in the small Valais town of Sion.

In recent years we have witnessed a form of radicalisation of the ostentatious character of Islam in the public space. This trend has manifested in an increase in the number of women who go out wearing the hijab [covering the hair, neck and sometimes the shoulders] and in the most radical cases wearing a niqab. France, a country which belongs to the same civilisation as us, has practically lost control of the situation. We dont want to get to that.

In Ticino, where a ban has been in place since 2016, there have only been around 30 interventions. Isnt that a weak record?

Its like if I told you: In the end, there are only a few assassinations. What is the point of maintaining the infringement in the criminal code? Thankfully, there are only a few cases!

The example of Ticino shows that banning hiding ones face is useful, because there have been interventions. It also proves that it can be applied without creating particular problems, especially with foreign countries, as (the opposition) have tried to make us believe.

The opponents of the initiative fear that the text will have a counterproductive effect: that women who are obliged to wear the burka would be forced to retreat from public view. Isnt that a risk?

Their position amounts to legitimising the number of cases of women and girls who are forced to dress in a certain way. The burka is a symbol of oppression and alienation of women. We refuse to be complicit in female oppression. We want to promote the dignity and equality of women. Proof is that even on the left, prominent personalities support the initiative. They have understood that it is not credible to invoke principles only to forget them under the pretext that the initiative comes from the ranks of the conservative right.

The Peoples Party is not known for fighting for equality. In this case, isnt this engagement opportunistic?

This initiative is not only a Peoples Party initiative, it is also supported by a large cross-section of people, including from the left. It is true that the Peoples Party is not always at the forefront when it comes to equality. The party is nonetheless committed to a more fundamental fight: we defend the notion of female dignity. There is a slight difference.

The indirect counterproposal put forward by the government aims to ensure that a person shows their face for identification purposes. Isnt it an acceptable compromise?

The governments indirect counterproposal is a smokescreen. It is trying to take a tiny step to make us believe the problem has been resolved. The initiative has a much larger field of application. Parliament wanted to add elements to the text which touch upon integration and equality between men and women, but in fact the counterproposal avoids the issue. The initiative takes the problem head on and offers a way to deal with it. This way exists already, and we can evaluate it. It is the system established in Ticino.

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'The burka initiative defends the dignity of women' - swissinfo.ch

The summer of 2020 jolted America out of a complacent slumber. George Floyd didnt walk into a Minneapolis convenience store foreseeing his death, but his lynching reminded many Americans of the precarity of Black life when confronted with maximum-force policing. It only took a 911 call over Floyds alleged counterfeit $20 bill to seal his death by Minneapolis police.

Grotesque public killings like Floyds disturb the conscience of many. But for Black people, theyre also routine reminders of what often happens when they encounter police: harassment, or worse, death.

2020 saw newfound enthusiasm for mutual aid networks and community-based public safety systems amid the twin threats of the pandemic and law enforcement. But communities adversely impacted by American institutions have used this model for years, with an awareness that working together better ensures their survival. Existing systems will not meet their needs; instead, they often create and exacerbate them.

Police are more likely to shoot and kill unarmed Black men presenting signs of mental illness, compared to white men showing similar behavior, according to a UC Berkeley School of Public Health study. (2020 provided a harrowing example upstate in Rochester, where Daniel Purdue died by asphyxiation in late March after police pressed his head and naked body into the ground. The 41-year-old was suffering a mental breakdown intensified by drug abuse. Purdues brother had made the 911 call.)

Six years ago, the litany of police killings catalyzed Vanessa Green and other Black Lives Matter Hudson Valley organizers to brainstorm ways to reduce Black peoples contact with the police. What if they were their own first responders? We asked, what would a hotline for Black people look like? Green says. What would it look like for us to respond in our own community that we know and love?

Green and other organizers began by tackling mental health crises in the Black community, starting a rapid response team to mitigate such deaths in their neighborhoods. We knew that if you called the police on somebody in a mental health crisis and theyre Black, they could die, says Green.

At first they focused on Newburgh, where 24.5 percent of residents are Black. Green and others shed trained in crisis intervention made house calls to de-escalate situations.

Sometimes they got callers from outside the city and state. When they couldnt make those housecalls, theyd steer callers to other resources. But it soon became clear that they should nationalize their work. In 2016, they shifted gears, retiring their in-person response initiative to focus solely on phone calls and texts nationally. Thats when they became Call BlackLine, a 24/7 hotline that helps BIPOC navigate the struggles, abuse, and harassment they face in America.

Call BlackLine is part crisis line, part warmline. While some callers need immediate counseling, others just need a friendly ear to share day-to-day highs and lows. Still others might need emotional support in their distress or may be on the brink of crisis.

The organization answered 1,016 calls between January and August last year, ranging from Black students facing racism at school to people living with schizophrenia searching for a daily constant in their lives. Green says more people are calling about COVID-related stressors amid the pandemic. Ive got moms with kids at home who just need to talk to anybody because theyve been isolated, she says.

January was another recent major flashpoint for the hotline, after Congress certified Joe Bidens election victory and a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol. All day the phones ringing off the hook, Green says.

Through an LGBTQ+ Black femme lens, the hotline embraces and affirms even the most marginalized within BIPOC communities. Green and the team of 10 volunteers, most Black, queer, and/or people with disabilities themselves, connect with callers through their shared experiences with racism, violence, and other forms of oppression. Transphobia and other bigotry arent tolerated by callers either. Our philosophy is, thats how we get freewhen we start lifting up our trans sisters, Green says.

Those lived experiences also inform the training volunteers undergo and the protocols they take with suicidal ideation and mental health crises. Major hotlines like the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline have come under fire for tracing and routing callers locations to local police departments without their consent. Some are harassed by police and forcibly hospitalized. For BIPOC, LGBTQ folks, and sex workers, these interactions can be fatal. For that reason, Call BlackLine doesnt call the police.

Instead, the team connects callers to regional therapists, psychiatrists, homeless shelters, and other resources as needed. Many are Black or Black-led, and all are vetted by Green and a national network of other racial justice and Black Lives Matter organizers, with approval based on Black women and femmes past experiences with the resource.

Green herself does not have a therapists license, and she says that the hotlines legitimacy has been critiqued since Call BlackLine was founded. But neither she nor other team members present themselves as therapists, and callers in acute need are connected to help. She addressed that criticism in a prior interview: We dont need licensing because weve been doing counseling in our communities since you trafficked us here.

The hotline fills another niche in BIPOC community care: its a place to report brushes with consumer discrimination, negative police interactions, and racist vigilantism.

In the hopes of changing the way our communities are policed, we hope to speak to people who have had negative experiences with law enforcement or vigilantes, Call BlackLines website states. We want to help build a new network of support that our community can rely on.

For many Black folks, reporting police harassment to the local department can be daunting because of the fear of retaliation. Raising red flags about white racist vigilantism to local law enforcement can also be futile, as they often fumble their response, enable the activity, or even cheer it on. Police departments have failed to crack down on this activity despite the Department of Homeland Security naming white supremacist extremists the most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland in a 2020 report, and warning about the current rise of right-wing extremism as far back as 2009.

The threat is not foreign to the Hudson Valley, even if it hasnt risen to widespread ideological violence. According to the Hudson Valley Anti-Fascist Network (HVAN), Patriot Front is the main white nationalist group recruiting in the region, primarily through flyering and stickering. John, an organizer with HVAN who prefers to remain anonymous, says Patriot Fronts activity has declined after HVAN doxxed its regional director, who fled Poughkeepsie soon after. But that hasnt stopped other local white supremacist groups from attempting to make their presence felt: in December, the neo-fascist group Proud Boys threatened a Putnam for Black Lives food drive led by BIPOC high schoolers.

As for vigilantism, John says individual activity that HVAN has monitored pales in comparison to last summers counterprotest against a Rally for Black Lives in Pleasant Valley, when Back the Blue counterprotesters hurled slurs, punches, slaps, and spit at Black women, children, and other rally attendees. It was so shocking because it was so unprecedented for this area. It seemed almost like Charlottesville that day, John says.

Only one arrest for disorderly conduct was made by New York State police, after two months of public pressure. An early analysis of the event by the Dutchess County Sheriffs Office found that a small group on both sides were violent. Since those preliminary findings, Captain John Watterson says no new information has surfaced, no evidence of misconduct has been discovered, and no charges have been filed.

Green says Call BlackLine doesnt receive many calls about vigilantism, but that isnt to say its not happening. Most of the calls they do get are about activity that feels threatening but doesnt quite cross the line: white neighbors looking through a Black neighbors window or trailing them by car. And long after Black codes and Jim Crow, national store chains and small business retailers still perpetuate the Shopping While Black phenomenon. Green hopes to help BIPOC navigate this reality by developing an app to document these experiences.

This isnt criminal behavior per se, so police might chalk it up to unfounded paranoia. But in a country known for gaslighting Black people about their pain and trauma, the hotline is an alternative safe place where these experiences are affirmed.

Cataloguing those experiences can also provide a clearer picture of the problem, and help Call BlackLine quantify its impact. A Vassar College student is creating a database of these reported incidents and other call data that, when complete, Call BlackLine will draw from to bolster grant applications that will allow the organization to pay volunteers.

Despite Call BlackLines social justice mission, Green hasnt always had a social justice worldview. Her 31-year career in the social work, human services, and nonprofit sectors slowly but surely radicalized her.

Green can attest to how social servicesparticularly foster carecan be inherently oppressive for communities of color and the poor. During her 11-year stint at Pius XII Youth and Family Services in Orange County, the overflow of Black and Latinx families in her caseloads disturbed her. Why are there so many Black and brown people in the system? she remembers thinking. And then I realized its because theyre Black, and theyre brown, and theyre poor.

Green says that the foster care systemor family policing, as she calls itholds Black and brown families to oppressive standards. Instead of helping families in hard times, the system punishes them. We know that poverty is one of the root causes of kids being hungry, moms being on the streets, moms prostituting themselves, [and] doing whatever they need to do to survive, she says.

Green did everything in her power to keep families together. But if that wasnt possible, she made sure they kept in touch. Theres no such thing as adoption being private with a Black child. These kids need to know where they come from, she says.

A year after Pius XIIs office closed in 2000, Green joined the Mental Health Association of Orange County to direct rape crisis services, where she witnesses more failures by local government to protect victims.

For one thing, Green says police involvement often did more harm than good. At one point, St. Lukes Cornwall Hospital had a policy of calling Newburgh police when they admitted rape victims. Green believes this policy ultimately got one person killed by her attacker, who thought the woman had snitched to police. Through meetings and relationship-building with staff, Green helped to get the hospital to change its policy. You just killed her, she remembers telling St. Lukes staff. Its about giving a woman autonomy. You let the victim decide if they want to report their rape.

Year after year, Greens supervisors at the Mental Health Association couldnt keep up with her visions for reform. They told me, Youre moving too fast. Im scared, she says.

Green was also working part-time for the mental health, family counseling, and advocacy nonprofit VCS, gaining the social justice acumen shed use to attempt to reform mental health response in Orange County. Black women and girls are at disproportionate risk of sexual violence, but are less likely to report rape compared to white women. When Green did targeted outreach for Black women and other women of color, she was met with resistance from her supervisors. Feeling unsupported, she left the Mental Health Association in 2006 to work full-time for VCS.

Green had her ups and downs with the trailblazing social justice nonprofit, as well. On one hand, she gained invaluable knowledge of institutional oppression through her mentor, Phyllis B. Frank, a longtime social justice advocate. On the other, Green says the organization mirrored many other nonprofits in its day-to-day dehumanizing treatment of people of color. You can ask any Black person working at a nonprofit organization: We experience that on the daily. Thats just par for the course, she says.

But it was anonymous death threats that ultimately ended her time at VCS, after she and other BLM Hudson Valley organizers filed a lawsuit alleging illegal surveillance by Clarkstown police. Green says that put a target on her back. She left her post as a racial justice organizer for VCS in 2018, sought cover from the public eye, and threw herself into the work of Call BlackLine.

Green is dubious of the United States willingness to address the institutional and societal oppression driving the calls to Call BlackLine. This is a country that has never atoned or acknowledged the abuse, terror, and genocide that they have perpetuated on every marginalized peoples since they began their system of colonization hundreds of years ago, she says.

According to Green, social services, human services, and the nonprofit industrial complex arent the answers either. Three decades in these sectors has taught her that much. White supremacy, homophobia, sexism, and patriarchy are all embedded in the institutions and structures that purport to serve the public. Some within these systems have pure intentions. But with the exception of some policy changes, Green says, transformation isnt possible for innately oppressive structures. Reform, as witnessed in policing, doesnt eradicate inherent anti-Blackness.

If were working on providing services for marginalized communities, we cant continue to use structures and institutions steeped in maintaining the status quo, that work in hand in hand with police and systems that continue to cause harm within our community, she says.

As an abolitionist and community organizer, Green also believes strongly in divesting funds from police departments bloated budgets and investing in education, youth programs, housing, mental health, and restorative justice initiatives. Poverty and poorly funded public infrastructure should be considered public health crises, Green says.

Above all, communities should get to shape their futures, unfettered by paternalistic governments and nonprofits. When we say defund, we want to create different programs for our communities where were working as a unit together, Green says.

There is power in self-determinismthat is, there is power in marginalized communities deciding what their freedom looks like. That often doesnt look like what the government wants it to be. But until thats realized for all marginalized peoples, Call BlackLine helps BIPOCfrom single Black mothers to sex workersnavigate present-day America.

Call BlackLine can be reached 24/7 by calling or texting (800) 604-5841.

This article was published in the February 2021 issue of Chronogram.

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Call BlackLine: Community Care and Liberation on Speed Dial - The River Newsroom

Trigger warning: Rape, murder and violence.

What is it like to be a woman in Indian society? Well, in my experience, it is a struggle because, on daily basis, I come across heinous crimes that take place towards other women, children and men. Rape and violence towards women, children and oppressed sections have become a toxic culture in India. Our society has normalised this unsafe environment. This goes on to the extent of accepting rape jokes, casual sexism, acceptance of toxic masculinity, victim-blaming, and violent acts against women.

The Nirbhaya case was still fresh in our memories when India witnessed another heinous crime that took place in Hathras and Kathua.

The alleged gang-rape of a 19-year-old Dalit woman by four Thakur men was a shock to the whole nation. A woman said caste-based sexual atrocities were common in the village.We dont let our daughters walk around alone, said a Dalit woman. Normally, the Thakurs dont even touch us, she said, referring to the age-old practice of untouchability, but to rape, they take our daughters, the woman mentioned.

The caste skew that drives this caste-based sexual violence against Dalit women is not a new culture in several parts of India.

The caste-based hierarchy system in India in many ways contributes to this culture where individuals belonging to the deprived section of the society face caste-based sexual violence as an act of oppression. In detailed interviews with rape survivors and Dalit activists across five western, central and eastern districts of the Uttar Pradesh-Hathras, Shravasti, Unnao, Jaunpur and Lucknow. It was also found that state-wide public programmes to ensure the safety and rights of women-projects, shelters, helplines-have become defunct over the last few years, neglected, drained of funds or simply shut down.

Acts such as stalking, molestation, sending unsolicited photographs of genitalia contribute to the degradation of woman. Such acts are normalised by the society by sayings like Most women at some point in their life become a victim of such acts.

Looking at this through the lens of intersectionality we can say that gender-based violence is as an instrument of oppression or a means of teaching a lesson.

However, this is not a lone incident that has shaken up the country. Several incidences like Nirbhaya rape case (2012), Unnao rape case (2017), Kathua rape case (2018) and the Hyderabad rape-murder case (2019) expose the grim reality of bestial sexual crimes against women in the country. A survey by the Thomas Reuters Foundation in 2018 ranked India as the most dangerous country for women.

In the Annual Crime in India Report 2019 published by the National Crimes Records Bureau, crime against Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribe has been recorded an increase of over 7% and 26% respectively in the year 2019. Crime against women hs steadily been rising over the years. The NCRB 2019 states that 4 lakh crime-based cases were reported against women which means 88 rape cases per day. Experts say this is nearly just 10% of the crime and violence women experience. Many of the worse cases go totally unreported.

In the Kathua rape case, where a nomadic minor 8-year girl was kidnapped on January 10, 2018, and allegedly gang-raped in captivity in a small village temple in Kathua district after being kept sedated for four days. Her mutilated body was found in a forest on January 17. The question here is what did a little girl do to deserve this level of torture? Or what did any individual do, to go through such violence and humiliation? These cases of child and women abuse are gross and traumatic and literally show that even in this new era women, children and oppressed are not at all safe and are prone to such outrageous acts.

This breach of bodily dignity and violence creates a long-lasting phycological and physical impact on the survivors which cannot and should not be neglected by the justice system and society. Such grievous violence must be handled on a quick, efficient and professional basis with empathy to provide justice to the aggrieved.

When talking about this caste-based issue, I really cannot forget to mention the Payal Tadvi and Rohit Vemula case which depicts the deeply rooted casteist society that we live in which is being represented by leaders, a few of who still live in another era and fail to understand the energy and ambitions of the youth. A major section of youth demands human rights and dignity and want to feel accepted.

The system of oppression continues to fail the deprived class repeatedly. The poverty rate in India is 21.9% which is grossly understated. Among the lower castes, 81% of the STs, 66% of the SCs, and 58% of the OBCs live under the poverty line. On the other hand,the poverty level among the rest of the population is 33%. The lack of representation and lack of important resources such as education, food security and health care, continues to increase the gap between the privileged and the deprived.

A voice of a Dalit and Adivasi is usually silenced over savarnas in each and every field including governance, justice or this so-called progressive society!

Talking about justice, most often in caste-based violence, the system completely chooses to ignore the caste angle or sometimes even the bodily violence itself.

In most cases, blame-shifting is also seen as in Dr Tadvis case her capacity to deal with academic pressure was questioned. The lawyers then promptly moved ahead to argue that her unstable mental health and the alleged marital discord were the real cause for her death. This despite the colleges anti-ragging committee finding evidence that Tadvi was subjected to extreme harassment by three defendants.

Well, we as humans ignore that caste-based discrimination is very much a thing and it can completely affect a persons self-worth. Sheetal Kamble, a PhD scholar from Mumbais Tata Institute of Social Sciences, mentions the case of Khairlanji massacre. A woman, her college-going daughter and three sons were publicly tortured and murder. The media, and the caste society, assassinated the character of the women. Whether the deceased woman had a romantic relationship outside her marriage or not was the primary focus of every discussion. The perpetrators and the police leaked baseless stories about their faulty characters and the media readily lapped it up, Kamble points out. The focus, she says, was shifted from the criminals to the characters of the victims.

In India, there are no laws made towards hate crimes in general but there we do have Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities Act).Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for past so many years have been humiliated and have faced crime violence by the upper caste, and this represents an extreme form of prejudice and discrimination.

Across the world, we find upper caste individuals humiliating another individual based on caste identity in the form of rape, abuse by police personnel, harassment, illegal land encroachments, forced evictions and so on. After the Nirbhaya case, the government may have taken measures but no increase has been seen in conviction rates. As the NCRB data of 2018 shows, only 25.5% of cases end in conviction.

Human Rights Watch reported that Dalit women exist at the lowest end of genders class, caste hierarchies, and therefore upper caste men have used sexual violence as a tool against Dalit women as a means to inflict political lessons and crush dissent and labour movements within Dalit communities.

I can say that we as a society, have failed to address this issue, we have failed to provide women, children and the deprived section of a safe environment and fair justice. We as a society forget to unlearn toxic things which are passed down through generations.

When we look into empowerment, especially of Dalit-Advisai females, the historical experiences of Dalit communities particularly in the context of education are based on deprivation and oppression. They were traditionally denied access to learning due to their so-called polluted and lowest status in the Indian caste system. Education is an important input for human resources development and it plays a key role in empowering women in general and Dalit women in particular. It is a very powerful instrument for the emancipation of Dalit women. It not only improves prospects for economic development but also promotes self-confidence and helps in capacity building to meet the challenges that the changing socio-economic scenario poses.

The education of Dalit girls is a serious issue as they are often doubly disadvantaged, due to both their social status and their gender.

Gender equity is a major concern, as the drop-out rate is higher among them at the elementary level. Dalit girls are particularly disadvantaged because family and social roles often do not prioritise their education. Early marriage and poverty lead to large scale drop-out in the 5-10-year-old and 16-20-year-old age groups, interrupting the completion of girls education. However, this is not the only reason that Dalit girls drop-out.

Memories of humiliation can also play an important role in the decision to leave, albeit a less visible one (National Commission on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 1998). There is also a feeling that reservation of seats and preferential treatment benefit Dalit students, but the empirical reality is quite different. It has been seen in various studies that there is a minimum enrolment of Dalit girls. This lack of empowerment through education and basic rights deprives the Dalit-Adivasi females to live a life that they deserve and also makes them prone to caste-based violence.

In most caste-based crimes, we see failures in the filing, investigating, and pursual of cases that empowers potential perpetrators by signalling that crime against lower castes will go unpunished. It further disempowers marginalized communities by eroding their trust in the legal system. Moreover, a regular occurrence of such crimes may lead to secondary victimization i.e., it creates a sense of vulnerability and anxiety not just for the victim but also for the wider community.

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When Violence Is Used To Teach A Lesson: A Day In The Life Of A Dalit-Adivasi Woman - Youth Ki Awaaz