(Editors Note: This article is part of a specialJust SecurityRacing National Securitysymposiumedited by editorial board memberMatiangai Sirleaf. Thegoalof the symposium is to render race visible in national security to shift the dominant paradigm toward addressing issues of racial justice.)

We carry the border on our skin, in our language, through our religion. Anyone on the other side of that border whose skin is Black or Brown; who speaks to their loved ones in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, or Farsi; whose house of worship is a mosque or a temple is readily dehumanized as a national security threat.

While this particular brand of racism is levied by many individuals against migrants (and people wrongly assumed to be migrants based on their race), it is important to remember the ways in which immigration law has constructed and perpetuates racist imaginaries of national security. In turn, migration status (or lack thereof) and national security frames can be used to obscure race, though these concepts are deeply intertwined. This dehumanization of immigrants also has a curious twist: when it comes to conversations about race and racial justice, the migrant experience is oddly invisible.

The border in the minds of most Americans is, of course, the southern border with Mexico. Countless atrocities have been committed there in the name of national security. While these racialized harms have been magnified to an extreme under the Trump administration, they have been perpetuated by Democratic and Republican administrations alike for centuries in the name of keeping the nation safe.

The most horrific of recent abusive immigration policies was the administrations family separation program, analyzed as torture by Beth Van Schaack. In 2018, at least 2,800 children were torn from their parent(s), who had been prosecuted for unlawful entry and were told by Customs and Border Protection officials that, as a result, they no longer had a right to be with their children. This zero tolerance policy specifically targeted families of color fleeing extraordinary levels of violence in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. It is not clear what national security goal is served by ripping families apart, or what security threat parents fleeing extraordinary violence pose to one of the wealthiest nations in the world, but that was nonetheless the legal justification for this racist policy.

The law consistently sends a clear message that, at the border, Brown lives do not matter, as they are outweighed by nebulous national security concerns. One stark recent example is the case of Hernandez v. Mesa, decided by the Supreme Court in February. As Steve Vladeck, who helped litigate the case, explained in language from the brief, We argue only that a border patrol agent could not, without any justification, shoot petitioners fifteen-year-old son [Sergio Hernandez] while he hid behind a pillar a few feet into Mexican soil. Yet citing foreign relations and national security implications, the Supreme Court refused to allow Sergios parents to pursue a Bivens claim a lawsuit against the federal officer for violating the U.S. constitution based on this cross-border shooting. Since the Trump administration found that the CBP officer who shot Sergio did not act inconsistently with [Border Patrol] policy or training regarding use of force, it did not prosecute that officer. In other words, the law now tells us that border enforcement officials can shoot across the border to take Brown lives with impunity.

In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration has also invoked national security to close the border to asylum seekers, in violation of our international legal commitments (as analyzed by Oona Hathaway) and with dubious public health justifications. The most recent pronouncement to this end is a proposed new rule issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice on July 9. This rule would permanently enable the executive to bar from asylum and withholding of removal, on national security grounds, applicants traveling from countries where a contagious or infectious disease is prevalent or epidemic. The background to the rule provides a sweepingly broad interpretation of national security, noting that:

the scope of the term extends well beyond terrorism considerations, and national defense considerations as well. The Attorney General has previously determined that danger to the security of the United States in the context of the bar to eligibility for withholding of removal encompasses considerations of defense, foreign relations, and the economy.

Defined so broadly, public health concerns easily fall within the scope of national security and can be manipulated to exclude asylum seekers on grounds that are not explicitly racial but map conveniently onto racial categories.

These are just a few examples of the many uses of national security as a justification for our racialized physical borders. But the racialized border is everywhere, carried with migrants of color and their descendants, as well as with people of color wrongly assumed to be migrants, in the interior of the country, without regard to individual circumstances and accomplishments. The migrant of color is the perpetual outsider, readily transformed into a national security threat. The recent example of racial discrimination against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic demonstrates how easily even a model minority can be shown their place.

How does the law come into play here? For Asian Americans, years of exclusion through immigration law, starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that was not completely dismantled until the Immigration Act of 1965, instantiated and perpetuated the racialized othering upon which Trump and others now play.

The pandemic also foregrounds a deep and painful irony in the situation of Latinx migrants. As described above, the Trump administration has used COVID-19 as a justification to completely exclude migrants from the Northern Triangle of Central America who are seeking protection from exceptional levels of violence in their home countries. When it comes to detained migrants, the executive has revisited its torturous family separation policy, offering parents a binary choice of remaining in detention with their children in the face of the pandemic or enabling their children to be released by voluntarily accepting family separation.

Yet at the same time, the executive has relaxed the requirements for processing temporary worker visas both in the interior and the exterior; most recipients of these visas are Mexican nationals. Even Trumps most recent Proclamation Suspending Entry of Aliens Who Present a Risk to the U.S. Labor Market Following the Coronavirus Outbreak contains an exception for any alien seeking to enter the United States to provide temporary labor or services essential to the United States food supply chain. Temporary status, yet essential labor; this is a precarious place to reside. This paradox, instantiated and reified by immigration laws that fail to provide sufficient lawful pathways for plentiful low-wage jobs, underpins the permanent labor underclass upon which the U.S. economy depends. On one side of the border, Latinx asylum seekers are a threat to national security; on the other side, Latinx workers are essential workers but disposable people.

These examples present just a handful of recent uses of racialized national security tropes to exclude immigrants. Though anti-migrant racism abounds in history and has grown exponentially under the Trump administration, the migrant experience curiously disappears from the conversation when it comes to racial justice. To be sure, the original sin of slavery must be the first priority in terms of accountability and redress. At the same time, there must be space to expand the conversation around racial justice to include the very real suffering of all migrant communities of color and their hyphenated progeny.

Racialized borders travel with all of our skin, no matter how long ago our ancestors arrived. From African-Americans who were labeled refugees after Hurricane Katrina, to Puerto Ricans who were treated as foreign in the wake of Hurricane Maria in terms of their receipt of federal aid, to second and third-generation Latinx Americans who are told to go back to their home country for speaking Spanish in public, all people of color in the United States are subject to othering as foreign. Our experiences are all intertwined in the history of American racism and the enduring power of White supremacy in the country; addressing each of them completely requires attention to all forms of racial subordination.

What would it mean to have a real conversation about racial justice, migration, and national security? We are so extremely far from this reality at the moment that it is difficult to even imagine what this discourse might look like. I do, however, have a first step to offer: humanization. In order to protect the lives of people of color, they must first be valued as equal to White lives. The law has played a central role in devaluing and dehumanizing migrants, often through a national security frame. It is an open question whether law can be nearly as effective in humanizing all people of color in the United States and at our borders. It is also an urgent question: until the full humanity of all racial minorities is recognized, we will carry the border on our backs.

More:

Dispatches from a Racialized Border: The Invisible Threat - Just Security

Minneapolis-St. Paul, the center of the reigniting of the Black Lives Matter movement, has one of the highest rates of prosperity in the United States, ranked sixth among its 150 metropolitan-area peers. But it ranks 149th in terms of racial inclusion, indicating one of the worst racial wealth disparity gaps in the country.

This finding, and other granular details, have emerged as part of the Racial Equity Index, a new tool that allows users to view how 100 cities, 150 metro areas, and all 50 states, perform with respect to racial equity compared with their counterparts. Launched on July 23, its the latest iteration from the National Equity Atlas, the nations most detailed report card on racial equity, which provides evidence for the need to build equitable, resilient, and prosperous new economies. The hope is that this newest release of data can be harnessed by politicians to assess specific problems and craft policy that focuses more precisely on areas of need.

The new data resource takes the form of scorecards, accompanied by visually digestible analysis. The indexs nine specific indicators range from unemployment and median wage to air pollution, commute time, and rent burden (the share of renter-occupied households spending more than 30% of income on housing costs). Scores are generated, from 1 to 100, for each locations performance and for each racial group within that location.

Using the tool, youd discover that Minneapoliss inclusion troubles stem from huge disparities in educational attainment. Youd see that, while 16% of white residents of the area are economically insecure, that rate is 57% for Black residents and 50% for Native Americans.

[Screenshot: National Equity Atlas]Racial equity really is the defining issue of our time, says Michael McAfee, president and CEO of Policy Link, which started building the atlas in 2014 along with USCs Program for Environmental and Regional Equity. We cant tackle it without clear data on who is most impacted, where they live, and what are the most significant issues in their lives.

For McAfee, the tool has rolled out at exactly the right moment, when protesters are still mobilizing across the nation. Data is crucial to concretely showing where the biggest prosperity gaps are, which racial groups theyre affecting, and what their causes are. Now, were in a moment where we can merge our hopes and aspirations with the rigor of really good data, he says.

We live in a moment in which the world has broken open to try to pay attention to issues of racial inequity, says Manuel Pastor, director of the USC program. And I think its useful to have a tool on the shelf that can help you to do something about it.

The index found that no community in America is free of racial inequities, even the highest performing, such as San Jose, California, in the middle of Silicon Valley. There, Black people have the highest college graduation rate yet still have an educational attainment rating thats 23 percentage points lower than white people. It also found that some of the highest-scoring cities have low Black populations, such as Albuquerque, Reno, and Honolulu. Of the 33 bigger cities with the most Black residents, only two of them are in the top 20 for racial equity performance. Among the 25 best regions for prosperity, none are also in the top 25 for racial inclusion.

Pastor calls this a diagnostic tool, in that it shows where policymakers need to move the needle, and what groups need to benefit from policies and investments, all to reach the atlass ambitious end goal of dismantling structural racism on the local level.

McAfee says some localities have already made policy strides using the atlass prior data. It was used by Fairfax County, Virginia, to help establish One Fairfax, the countys plan to advance racial equity and opportunity. It was used by Asheville, North Carolina, which last week announced its approval of monetary reparations for slavery and discrimination for Black residents.

While these examples give McAfee hope, he stresses that data can never supplant conscious leadership. Leaders need to be committed to acknowledging Americas racist past in order to make an effectual change. The problem that this nation has faced is that it has not reconciled with the fact that its democracy and its economy were predicated on stolen land, genocide, and slave labor, he says.

The COVID-19 crisis, he says, has exposed the cracks in a system that was designed to be toxic for Black and brown people and which is now affecting people on a wider scale. He mentions Floridas failing unemployment system, which Republicans admitted was designed badly to purposely keep its users from receiving benefits. Now, it means people cant receive their pandemic relief checks. That is a real-world example of how anti-Black racism ends up impacting white America.

When combined with the fighting spirit of this rare moment, where a diverse coalition of young people are demanding change, the data make McAfee optimistic for changewhich needs to happen in an extensive and sweeping way in order to close up the gaps. Black people can never catch up with white people unless you do something really radically transformative, he says.

Just as the founding fathers had the radical imagination to create something that was as beautiful as this democracy and this economy, but equally as oppressive for some, he says, we can remake it now.

More:

The Racial Equity Index compares racial equity around the US - Fast Company

Introduction

If the summer of 2020 is remembered for anything other than lockdown, social distancing and the search for a vaccine, it may be for the anti-racism protests around the world, triggered by the controversial death of George Floyd in police custody. This provoked angry protests and the tearing down of statues of slave traders from previous centuries. These scenes were reminders of how the evils of the historical slave trade are remembered (particularly among BAME communities) and continue to provoke strong revulsion today.

Although slavery was abolished and outlawed by the UK in 1833, the phenomena of slavery and human trafficking have continued, in a clandestine form, both here and abroad. It is estimated that there are around 48 million people globally living in conditions of slavery today, with up to 13,000 in the UK. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA) has been enacted to help address the problem.

The focus on forced labour was intensified further this summer when a Sunday Times investigative report revealed modern slavery in the supply chain of Boohoo plc, a listed UK company. The scandal is discussed below. Whilst it would be easy for those in construction trade to dismiss the relevance of the Boohoo saga to their own business, I explain below why that attitude could prove a costly mistake. I also explain how the law has changed, what this means for construction businesses and the steps they can take to protect themselves from this pervasive problem.

What is the Boohoo scandal?

Boohoo is an online fashion retailer, which largely targets the 16-30 female demographic. It owns popular lines such as PrettyLittleThing, Karen Millen and Nasty Gal. The Sunday Times undercover investigation revealed a garment supplier within the Boohoo supply chain, Jaswal Fashions, was paying its factories workers 3,50 per hour, considerably less than the UK minimum wage of 8.42 (for workers over 25). Jaswals Leicester based workforce had also been required to work throughout the COVID-19 lockdown period without social distancing measures.

The impact on Boohoos business was immediate and adverse. A number of electronic platforms notably Amazon - announced that they would cease selling Boohoos goods. Boohoos share price fell by around 23% on the day of the announcement.

Boohoo responded, saying it was shocked and appalled by the reports of modern slavery in its supply chain. It emphasised that Jaswal was a sub-supplier rather than a direct supplier to its business. Nevertheless, it ceased all business with the associated company and announced its intention to conduct an investigation of its supply chain, to be led by Alison Levitt QC. Ms Levitts terms of reference will be announced at the end of July 2020.

Why does Boohoo matter to the construction industry?

Whilst construction and fashion are worlds apart, they share certain common features making them prone to modern slavery and human trafficking. These include the labour intensive nature of the work, the complexity of supply chains and a large number of foreign workers involved in output, who have either migrated to the UK or supply goods and services from overseas. In construction, the reliance on migrant workers is accentuated by a shortage of labour generally (both skilled and unskilled) and a need for workforce flexibility.

The construction sector ranks sixth in terms of UK industries most affected by slavery. Press reports in recent years have highlighted its vulnerability. For example, a BBC undercover investigation revealed in December 2019 the ease with which an unscrupulous contractor could hire an Eastern European construction crew available for work for seven consecutive days without a break for as little as 4.50 per hour.

Internationally, there have been serious documented incidences of forced labour in infrastructure projects, including the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Qatari project leaders are reported to have imported labourers from poorer Asian countries such as Nepal and Indonesia. Amnesty International alleges that workers were in some cases tempted to Qatar with false promises of office jobs, only to find they had fallen prey to bait and switch and been forced to work on construction sites. They could not leave easily, as employers would remove their passports and departing the territory would require an exit visa. Concerns were also raised of workers being forced to operate in extremely hot conditions without adequate protection. Several deaths on site were reported.

Changes to UK Law and the fight against slavery

The MSA went some way to strengthen the law against modern slavery within Britain. The Act consolidated slavery related offences in a single statute and increased penalties for infringements. It was accompanied by the creation of the office of Anti-Slavery Commissioner which in itself has raised the profile of slavery and trafficking.

The Act reflected a recognition that combating slavery was not the role of government exclusively. For that reason, Section 54 of the MSA introduced an obligation for businesses above a certain size (36 million annual turnover) to publish an annual statement disclosing the steps they took to ensure there was no slavery or trafficking present within their organisation or supply chain.

The MSA has been backed up with enforcement measures. Prosecutions have been brought against gang-masters accused of controlling forced labourers. In 2018, two successful prosecutions were brought after forced labourers were found to be working on housing construction sites and for a demolition contractors. Raids at addresses where Eastern European site workers have been held by gangmasters have also culminated in convictions for ringleaders in other cases. The Metropolitan Police told Construction News in 2019 that there has been a significant increase in allegations of labour exploitation and modern slavery in the construction industry.

What can construction businesses do to protect against the risk?

Construction businesses need to steer clear from allegations of forced labour or trafficking for many obvious reasons. First and foremost, the business ought to care about how it is perceived by its customers and the public at large. The effect of a prosecution could be devastating. Regulation 57 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 also entitles public bodies to debar companies from public contract tenders if they have infringed the MSA (e.g. through failing to disclose as required under S 54 MSA).

Having an effective compliance program can certainly help minimise the risk and preserve the reputation of your business. The following are key steps that can form part of such a program:

This list provides a useful roadmap of an effective slavery compliance strategy. Successful implementation of many of these steps will often be assisted by professional advisers. An outsider particularly one with the requisite expertise may be better placed to identify vulnerabilities in the practices of a business with regard to its procurement and hiring strategies. Too often, an organisation can become blinded to its own faults.

Aside from minimising the risk of enforcement action, there are other benefits to an effective compliance program. For example, the company may itself become subject to a slavery audit by one or more of its customers, who will expect it to show clear evidence of a commitment to compliance, appropriate levels of monitoring and ethical labour practices, both within the organisation and its supply chain. Falling short of these expectations could result in the loss of client relationships. On the other hand, clients may be impressed by efforts made to avert the occurrence of forced labour and this could enhance confidence for future collaboration.

Conclusion

Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, once advised his workers: If you lose money for the firm I will be understanding. If you lose reputation I will be ruthless. The reputation of any business can take decades to build but be demolished in a day. A failure to adhere to responsible governance and ethical hiring practices is one rapid and sure-fire method for tarnishing the good-standing of a corporation, perhaps irreparably.

Construction has a number of features which make it inherently vulnerable. Tight margins, a need for labour flexibility and the shortage of labour (which may soon be exacerbated by a no deal Brexit) number amongst them. Unfortunately, in the court of public opinion these provide no defence to a charge of being complicit in modern slavery. The Boohoo experience illustrates how brightly the spotlight will shine on any incidence of modern slavery, wherever it occurs. Construction businesses cannot afford to allow Boohoos fate to become their own. They should take proactive steps to ensure that it does not.

See original here:

Labour compliance without tears: Modern slavery, Boohoo and the construction industry - Lexology

In a letter to the editor, HudPost publisher and North Bergen resident James de los Santos lays out three ways the township can be a part of to fight racial injustice.

Dear Editor,

The global Black Lives Matter movement is the largest civil rights movement the world has ever seen.

The North Bergen BLM rally on June 6th, 2020 was likely the largest grassroots demonstration this township has ever witnessed.

While many cities and police departments have responded in ways to answer the demands of their people, it is time for our officials to do the same.

Today, our leaders must take action to pass meaningful legislation and resolutions to build towards a more just society.

1. Abolish Slavery Amend the 13th

Recently, Hoboken and Jersey City passed resolutions backing ACR 145. We must hold our board of commissioners to the same standard and call for them to make amending the 13th a concerted county-wide effort.

Our state senator and assembly people need to support the state legislation to Abolish Slavery in New Jersey by endorsing a bill being proposed by the Legislative Black Caucus of New Jersey and sponsored by Senator Ron Rice and Assemblywoman Angela McKnight.

ACR 145 proposes to add language to our state constitution, permanently abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude, including as punishment for a crime.

As a state amendment, this measure would go to the ballot in November of this year. This means the people will be allowed to take action at the ballot box and carry this over the finish line.

Currently, the United States has 5% of the worlds population, but 25% of the worlds prisoners. In Hudson County, Blacks and Latinos makeup 40% of the population but are at the 80th percentile inside of our county prison facilities.

When the 13th Amendment was passed ending slavery in the country, the clause except as a punishment for crime was included allowing our judicial court to systematically oppress people of color.

This clause led to the Jim-Crow era where our criminal justice system and corporate retailers have exploited the 13th amendment clause by way of slave wage prison labor and for-profit prisons.

2. 8 Cant Wait

Our police department should immediately adopt the policies of 8 Cant Wait. The initiative is a set of policies introduced by Campaign Zero.

The policies call for: ban on chokeholds and strangleholds, require active de-escalation tactics during all interactions, require warning before shooting, exhaust all alternatives before discharging a weapon, duty to intervene, ban on shooting at moving vehicles, require the use of force continuum, as well as require comprehensive reporting.

Most of these policies have been implemented by the New Jersey Attorney General, which prohibits the North Bergen Police Department from failing to enact these changes.

With the help of our department, we can drive this initiative forward in its entirety.

3. Mandate the Inclusion of Black History in High School Curricula

Our Board of Education must immediately implement a mandated Black History course in North Bergen High School curricula beginning no later than the 2022 academic year.

A petition started by recent North Bergen High School graduate, Izabella Lima, received over 600 signatures from classmates, teachers, and alumni demanding North Bergen High School require a meaningful and thoughtfully curated African-American history course for all students

History will ask what we did during these unprecedented times and we must rise to the call for justice for all.

Take Action Today

Contact your local officials and urge them to support these policies

1. Abolish Slavery

State Representatives

State Senator Nicholas Sacco (201) 295-0200

State Assemblyman Pedro Mejia (201) 770-1303

State Assemblywoman Angelica Jiminez (201) 223-4247

North Bergen Board of Commissioners

Nicholas Sacco (201) 392-2005

Hugo Cabrera (201) 392-2062

Allen Pascual (201) 392-2031

Frank Garguilo (201) 392-2161

Julio Marenco (201) 392-2012

2. Implement Black History Course

George J. Solter, Superintendent of Schools (201) 295-2706

North Bergen Board of Education (201) 868-1000

Patricia Bartoli, Board President

Claudia Rodriguez, Vice President

Claudia Baselice

Luis Diaz

Haissam Jaafar

Kanaiyalal Patel

Luis Rabelo

Sai Rao

Ruth Shaw

3. 8 Cant Wait

Police Chief Peter Fasilis (201) 392-2100

See the article here:

LETTER: Here are 3 initiatives North Bergen can be a part of to fight racial injustice - Hudson County View

Last week,fire stations in the Black Country were forbidden from flying the region'sflag at an annual festival devoted to the region.Senior fire-fighters were reportedly concerned that the flag, which features chain in its design, might be seen to glorify slavery and trigger accusations of racism.

So is the flag, or the region, racist?The Black Country name is nothing to do with race or ethnicity. And the imagery or colours of its flag are not intended to be linked to slavery.

But that doesnt mean questions cannot be asked of The Black Country region or the symbolism behind the Black Country Flag. We shouldnt blindly beat our chest in defence of eitherflag or region without knowing their history.

The Black Country is a region of England which today covers the metropolitan boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. It becamethe birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, with a landscape dominated by coal mines, iron foundries, glass factories, brick works and many small industries, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Chimneys of factories, furnaces and small home forges bellowed out smoke and soot to heavily pollute the air. The pollution filled the sky and the region,described as 'Black by Day' and 'Red by Night' by the American writer Elihu Burritt, became known as The Black Country.

In 1712 the Black Country changed the world when it became the first place to harness the power of steam with the Newcomen Engine. In 1828 the working class people of the region built the Stourbridge Lion, the first steam locomotive to run in the USA. Black Country workersthey made the glass and iron for the Crystal Palace and its great exhibition in 1851 and forged the anchors and chains for great ships like the Titanic.

The efforts ofBlack Country people changed the world and shaped modern society, but that is not to say that the region and its work force did not produce items for the slave trade, or that we should dismiss the region's links to the enslavement.

African men and women were undoubtedly shackled and chained on the Atlantic crossing with items produced in The Black Country. Once they reached their destination, they would be held captive with Black Country-made products of various descriptions.

There is evidence of Black Country products marketed specifically for the slave market with items listed as Negro Collars and African Chains. Enslavement was big business and wealthy men capitalised on that industry to make as much money as possible.

The rich people who marketed these products neithercared about the slaves that their products were used on, nor those who made the products. The working-class people of the Black Country were extremely poor. Life expectancy in the region in 1841 was 17 years old. People worked from the age they could walk, and some died before they became adults. There was no luxury for our ancestors and there was no profit. They worked hard in hope they would live a little longer than the people dying around them. If cholera didnt kill them then hard work would.

The working-class people of the Black Country never profited from the slave trade, in fact there is little evidence to suggest that they even knew what their products were used for.

When modern Black Country folk show pride for the history of our region, it is the working-class people we are proud of. We dont take pride in the starvation wages that our ancestors were paid or the squalid conditions they were forced to work in or the rich who profited from the slave trade. We celebrate the hard work of our ancestors and the fight they put up to ensure the first ever minimum wage, we respect the courage shown by people uniting and laying down their tools to ensure women were paid equally.

This is not a case of pitting the plight of our Black Country ancestors against the horrendous treatment of the people who were enslaved. It is saying that in many cases working class Black Country people and Black slaves were victims of the very same people who profited from their labour.

To cause offence intention matters, and there is no intention to offend anyone with the Black Country Flag. Most people I speak to are not offended.

The Black Country flag was designed by 12-year-old Gracie Sheppard in 2012. It features a glass cone to represent the glass industry of the Black Country. The cone is flanked by black and red panels inspired by Elihu Burritts famous description of the area, and the chain across the centre represents the chain industry in the region but also symbolises the linking up of different communities.

We should all take time to learn about the remarkably interesting history of our region and it should be open for discussion. Each year we celebrate Black Country Day on July 14. We have a Black Country Anthem and Black Country Flag - and I am proud to fly it.

The rest is here:

There's nothing 'racist' about the Black Country flag - the reality is far more interesting - Telegraph.co.uk

Markisha Smith and Ted Wheeler

Smith is director of the Portland Office of Equity and Human Rights. Wheeler is mayor of Portland.

At this historic period of protest and institutional change, our grieving process for one Black life lost is interrupted by yet another instance of a Black life lost due to policebrutality and systemic oppression. In just the last few weeks, we learned ofBlack people found hanging from trees, and we saw footage of a Black man who needed assistance, not interrogation,shot in the back and killed in front of his community at a Wendys drive-through. And these are just the stories that we have heard about. We know that there are countless other incidents that are never investigated and never reported. Black Americans have been, and continue to be, mentally, emotionally and physically lynched by oppressive systems and perpetrators of those systems.

Black, Indigenous and people of color constantly attempt to navigate systems that arent designed for them. As a whole, BIPOC communities do not enjoy economic prosperity equally, much less generational wealth, in this country. And Black communities often succumb to modern day slavery through capitalism, low-wage jobs, denial of leadership advancement opportunities, racist educational experiences and businesses or property ownership that is linked towhite supremacist institutions.

The Civil Rights Movement took years; lasting, meaningful reform and dismantling anti-Black, racist, oppressive systems will as well.We cannot simply offer platitudes and small gestures of our commitment to the Black communitywe must change our policies, practices, and procedures. It is time for white people, regardless of position, to step back, listen and follow. We have an opportunity to make history. But what will the history books say about Portland?

History will say that Portland answered the call for reform in transformational ways and rejected the violence that destroyed our city for more than a month.

We are in the midst of a reconciliation process led by Black Portlanders. The terms of forgiveness cannot come from the entity that inflicted the wrongdoing in the first place: Black voices must be elevated when we talk about reconciliation and restorative justice.

Weve listened to the community to disinvest from police, cutting $27 million and reinvesting many of those dollars in programs supporting black youth leadership development, unarmed first responders to move away from police-based solutions for people experiencing homelessness, our Office of Equity and Human Rights and tribal relations.

We are reimagining public safety and proposing policies that will lift our children, unsheltered neighbors and BIPOC people out of the systems of institutional racism that have held down generations.And despite a $75 million gap in our budget due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Portland City Council reaffirmed our commitment to prioritize relief and recovery for our hardest-hit community members, knowing that COVID has worsened disparities for BIPOC communities. Our goal is to emerge from this crisis more resilient.

Our future as a community envisions more counselors, after school programs and restorative justice programs, not school resource officers. More housing, employment, health care options and social workers. We need further investment in more community-based anti-violence programs, trauma services and jobs for young people.

For far too long, our community has relied unreasonably on police to solve a greater amount of our social problems. Detangling these responses will not be easy or fast, but we are determined to invest in the future of what we want to see and not just respond to the crisis of the moment.

And while much of this reckoning is happening within policing, all institutions and organizations should be looking at how they uphold systemic racism.

We have made great progress, but we are not done.

We are not done until we are investing more in the well-being of our communities than we are in the policing of our communities. We are not done until BIPOC students are succeeding at the same rate as their white classmates. We are not done until we have created generational wealth opportunities for Black families. We are not done until we have more elected officials who accurately reflect the diversity of the community we serve.

This is our moment to reshape, reimagine, and rebuild Portland with our Black leaders and communities leading the way.The movement we are witnessing doesnt stop when the marches end.

What will history say about Portland?

History will say the city of Portland did not resist the call for reformation, but rather linked arms with communities and ushered in a new era of reconciliation, restorative justice and prosperity for all.

Share your opinion

Submit your essay of 500-700 words on a highly topical issue or a theme of particular relevance to the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and the Portland area to commentary@oregonian.com. Please include your email and phone number for verification.

Link:

Opinion: What will history say about Portland? - oregonlive.com

On my last trip to the supermarket, I saw a familiar sight: a red carton with an older Black man in a chef's hat and bowtie. He looked joyous, holding a steaming bowl of Cream of Wheat in his right hand, beckoning for me to try it. Behind Rastus's welcoming Black face (that's the name given to the caricature used as Cream of Wheat's mascot), though, is a longstanding stereotype, one that's far from comforting for many Black people. It's rooted in racism, serving as a constant reminder that America loves to portray Black lives as valuable only within the confines of servitude.

Rastus is "under review" now as many other companies examine their products and packaging. Aunt Jemima is changing its name and logo. The Uncle Ben's branding will "evolve" soon.

But the comeuppance the brands are experiencing is long overdue. The usage of Black caricatures like these represents a denial of Black humanity that's always existed. According to the Smithsonian, The Supreme Court ruled in 1857 that people of African descent were not humans, which "permitted the image of African Americans to be reduced to caricatures in popular culture." These stereotypes from slavery not only persisted, they gained new groundespecially the Mammy, a rotund, perpetually jovial caricature who "loved" the white family she served and attended to their every need, never complaining.

It's this stereotype that prompted Chris Rutt to name his new pancake flour after "Old Aunt Jemina," a minstrel song in 1889. But the real Mammies and Aunt Jemimas were a stark contrast from their cartoon-ish counterparts, explains Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson, Department Chair of American Studies at the University of Maryland College: "Nine times out of 10, the Aunt Jemimas were in the kitchen. She was worried about the children who were running around the kitchen while [she was] cooking. She was worried about whether [she would] have dinner on time, and if she had all the ingredients she needed. [She was] worried about getting maimed, hurt, raped, or killed. She wasn't smiling."

Uncle Ben's, Cream of Wheat, and other brands used these tropes, too, liberally exploiting Sambo and Uncle Tom caricatures to sell goods. Food was the place where eugenics, racism, and sexism fusedwhere stereotypes were used to pedal everything from coffee to cupcakes. The invention of these caricatures attempted to rework the narrative of slavery as something benigneven beneficialto Black people. White comfort was paramount, and that meant hiding the very real evils of slavery, its visceral effects acutely felt in Black communities over a century later.

As America moved from slavery to its new form, Jim Crow, these caricatures came to represent the idea of comfort, servitude, and respectability. Through these items, Black people were allowed to occupy white homes and imaginations, but only as one-dimensional characters. "The image of the happy, smiling Black person helps people believe 'Oh, here's my friend. They're going to take care of me,'" Williams-Forson says. "The whole image of comfort given by the smiling Black face is because in American society and throughout the globe, we don't like an angry Black person. That's part of the narrative of the simple Black person. You don't have to deal with our complexity."

Lynn Pitts, a New York-based creative director, notes that these images of happy Black people were a strong factor in appealing to white households. Pitts recalls a piece she read that was particularly salient to her. "I can't remember where I read this, but there was a piece that talked about these brands [that] were designed to appeal to white people who had a really specific idea of what it meant to have a Black face or hands preparing the food, that these were 'trusted Black people,'" she says. "Marketers were trying to appeal to white housewives who wanted to feel confident about the food they were putting on their table. And in some cases, that meant a reminder of the Black people who had prepared food for them at some point in their lives."

While the idea of comfort remained, its iteration changed slightly: Real women like Nancy Green, who was used as the face of the first Aunt Jemima, received little compensation for their likeness. Nancy continued to work as a housekeeper until she was hit by a car and killed in 1923. Aunt Jemima continued to use real women until 1968, until they created a composite with a slimmer face and relaxed hair. The year 1989 saw another makeover: no headscarf, but a new little lace collar and pearl earrings for a "contemporary" look.

Public Domain, Uncle Ben's Co.

Uncle Ben's had to wait a few more decades for a different change: In 2007, he received an abrupt move from the kitchen to the boardroom on a redesigned site, though he kept his original maitre d' uniform. (The website no longer exists, and the Uncle Ben's caricature no longer has a bowtie or jacket.) However, brand names have not changed: While aunt and uncle seem to signal familiarity, they are vestiges of the Jim Crow era, where whites refused to address Black people as Mr. or Ms., even though racial etiquette rules called for Black people to use honorifics or risk putting their lives in danger.

But the changes didn't do much to rectify America's racist past. In response to previous and frequent outcries over racially charged mascots, brands have done little more than adding and taking away clothing. "Very longstanding brands like those can be suddenly reluctant to change aspects of what they consider 'hallmarks' of their brand," Pitts explains. "In Black communities, people have been talking about the problematic images that are in question right now...for a long time, but that talk didn't generate the kind of consequences that are being generated right now."

Brands, relying on warped notions of nostalgia with racism at the foundation, were willing to defend these caricatures for the sake of profit. "What capitalism has figured out is how to use a shorthand toward very complicated conversations because it's easier to rely upon these stereotypes to get across a very simple message, as their whole bottom line is to make money," Williams-Forson notes. And some consumers who don't knowor careabout the history of these stereotypes are excusing brands in defense of happy childhood memories.

From enslaved Africans who were brought into America for their labor to present-day food apartheid, food has always been mired in politics and the subjugation of Black communities.

So are brands truly changing nowdoing more than just adding or subtracting accessories or moving a caricature to a different room? "As long as the Black Lives Matter movement is active and applying pressure, you'll continue to see changes or, at the very least, reactions," Pitts says. "Brands are reacting to what's happening in the marketplace, and there's pressure being applied to their bottom line because of the movement."

Williams-Forson echoes a similar sentiment: "The reason why this particular moment is happening is because of COVID. We're drawn to the media more than ever before, without work or the daily distractions of life. This has been going on for decades, centuries even, but we are literally and globally being forced to stop and watch injustice," she says. "You cannot unsee George Floyd. You're forced to make a decision: Am I going to act, or am I not going to act?"

The current act of choice? Removing mascotsbut it's not a panacea. Quaker Oats (Aunt Jemima's parent company and a subsidiary of PepsiCo) declared they would be spending $400 million dollars over the next five years to "lift up Black communities and increase Black representation at PepsiCo." As plenty of brands clamor to perform solidarity in the wake of Black Lives Matter, the true impact is yet to be seen.

"I'm more interested in how quickly Quaker Oats changes their overall image as a corporation, and I'm not talking about hiring more people in their plants," Williams-Forson says. "I'm talking about a systemic, actual change in the way they do business, from hiring practices to paying people a living wage and providing health insurance, maternity leave, and paternity leave. How are you really going to make those changes across the board?"

Removing these mascots isn't going to magically solve racism; it's a small, reactionary fix to a system ossified centuries ago. And as Dr. Williams-Forson notes, change boils down to the way businesses create long-lasting, equitable policies across entire organizations. The real work that goes beyond reactionary measures like removing mascots, attending protests, or posting black squares to social media is the most uncomfortable. It's in the quiet, ongoing, rigorous, and necessary self-examination and accountability-takingfollowed by actionfor being complicit in the racism that pollutes America.

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Food Brands Are Finally Changing Their Racist MascotsBut Is It Enough? - Delish

Eight garment factories in Leicester gave been subject to enforcement action since the start of lockdown.

The citys textile sector has been under the spotlight after Government ministers suggested bad working conditions had contributed to a local spike in Covid-19 cases.

Factory managers in the city have reacted by saying online a small minority are guilty of exploiting staff.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said it had taken action against a number of businesses and was considering further enforcement action at other local firms where non-compliance with Covid-19 risk controls has been found, according to Baroness Stedman-Scott, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.

Spot-checks in Leicester are understood to have been prioritised since the lockdown.

Inspections have been stepped up after concerns were raised over working conditions and pay rates being well below minimum wage.

Public Health England has maintained that the outbreak was not linked to any one setting or sector.

Following the latest concerns the police, Leicester City Council, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, National Crime Agency, HMRC, Leicestershire Fire and Rescue and Home Office Immigration Enforcement have investigated and visited some of the area's 1,000 garment manufacturers.

The GLAA said it found no evidence of modern slavery in visits it has made to Leicester textile firms at the start of the month.

The HSE has inspected 34 textile firms in Leicester since the start of the national coronavirus lockdown.

The firms inspected or where action has been taken have not been named.

Details came from Baroness Stedman-Scott, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions after a question was put to her about Leicesters clothing factories by Baroness Jenny Tonge.

She asked: What health and safety regulations are in place to protect workers' rights in clothing factories; and what assessment they have made of the adherence to those regulations of clothing factories in Leicester?

In a written answer, Baroness Stedman-Scott said: Specifically, since the lockdown, in Leicester HSE has inspected 34 textile businesses to assess compliance with health and safety legislation. Enforcement action has been taken at eight of these premises.

HSE will continue to regulate workplaces by carrying out proactive spot checks over the coming weeks to ensure that appropriate measures are in place to protect workers from Covid-19.

In Leicester, HSE has prioritised these spot checks in the textile industry and will take enforcement action to secure compliance where businesses cannot demonstrate they are taking all reasonable steps to make their workplace Covid secure.

HSE will also continue to respond to reports of concerns raised.

Meanwhile a Leicester MP has joined calls for the Government to provide immediate help for Leicester businesses affected by the extended lockdown.

Jon Ashworth, Labour MP for Leicester South and Shadow Health Secretary contacted the Government this week on behalf of local businesses.

Mr Ashworth spoke to the prime minister and the chancellor to ask for help for both businesses in Leicester, and the neighbouring borough of Oadby and Wigston, which is also in extended lockdown.

His plea follows similar calls from city Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby.

He said: "I made it clear that many businesses are on the edge and urgently need extra investment to get through this lockdown.

"Ministers insisted on putting the whole of Leicester and beyond into lockdown, they now have a responsibility to safeguard local jobs and livelihoods."

Non-essential retailers in the lockdown zone can reopen from July 24, but businesses such as pubs and restaurants, which are open elsewhere, must remain closed for the time being.

Mr Ashworth said : "As businesses that are central to the citys economy, such as food and drink businesses and evening and night-time businesses, still cannot open this entire sector of the economy is now facing hardship and job losses."

He also said that the forced closure of these non-essential retailers meant the businesses 'faced more hardship compared to others in England'.

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Action taken against Leicester textile factories over working conditions - Business Live

// Boohoo calls on government to take action in protecting workers after allegations of malpractice// Boohoo had over 1 billion wiped from its share value in just two days after the allegations

Boohoo has urged the government to take action in protecting workers by introducing a licensing scheme to ensure that textile factories are fit to trade.

The urgency comes after the fast fashion retailer, which owns Boohoo, PrettyLittleThing and Nasty Gal, was embroiled in allegations of malpractice at a supplier in Leicester.

Boohoo had more than 1 billion wiped from its share value in two days after a Sunday Times article accused it of paying factory workers as little as 3.50 an hour.

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Following the allegations, retailers such as Next and Asos dropped Boohoo products from their websites.

On Friday, Boohoo Group chief executive John Lyttle sent a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel headlined protecting people being exploited in UK garment factories.

He wrote that around 40 per cent of Boohoos products were manufactured in the UK, supporting thousands of jobs in this country that may otherwise be lost to overseas markets.

Lyttle added that Boohoo is taking action to investigate allegations of malpractice in its supply chain and asks government to take action too.

He wrote that Boohoo backed calls from the BRC and the All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) for Fashion and Textiles and Ethics and Sustainability for the government to implement a Fit to Trade licensing scheme to ensure all garment factories met their legal obligations to employees.

On Friday, Boohoo co-founders Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kanebought another 15 million worth of shares in a bid to stop its share price from falling any further.

Kamani injected 10.7 million into five million shares, while Kane spent 4.3 million on Boohoo stock on Thursday, in an attempt to boost the embattled business.

Meanwhile, fast fashion retailerQuiz said it believes that one of its suppliers, based in Leicester, has used a subcontractor at the centre of allegations over breaches to the national living wage.

The National Crime Agency said on July 8 that it was assessing allegations of modern slavery and exploitation in the textile industry in Leicester.

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Boohoo urges government to take action after slavery scandal - Retail Gazette

There is no doubt that councils are also working even harder. No more so than here in Leicester, the first and possibly the last city to suffer from the imposition of a COVID-19 local lockdown, and one where despite having no powers to protect exploitation in garment factories, we have received the finger of blame for this. Without any epidemiological evidence and with questionable motive, endemic issues have come to the fore in places where they should have always been a high priority.

These issues have been a high priority at Leicester City Council for some time.

Whilst we dont have any authority or powers to inspect factories for potential labour market exploitation, these responsibilities rest with a complex web of government agencies, we do have responsibility to drive bad jobs out of the city and to welcome good jobs (of which there are already very many in textiles and beyond). We do this for the wellbeing of our residents and for the wellbeing of the local the economy.

Why dont we have the powers? Its a question we have asked.

In 2017 the Human Rights Select Committee chaired by Harriet Harman MP, visited Leicester, where a session of the committee was also held. The final report included a recommendation to bring forward legislative proposals to grant powers to local authorities to close down premises which are found to exploit workers. This was a recommendation we encouraged and supported yet was rejected by government.

A short time later, thecity mayor convened a Textiles Coalition Event, which led to the National Labour Market Enforcement Strategy published and, with the encouragement of Sir David Metcalf of Labour Market Enforcement (LME), the setting up of a pilot task force to test how multi-agency working between enforcement bodies and others including GLAA, HMRC HSE, the council, industry bodies, suppliers, retailers and consumers.

Leicester City Council got behind this fully, without any new resources being offered to us.

Operational activity at multiple premises took place, resulting in a small number of modern day slavery investigations. A review of the initial pilot by LME concluded that whilst data sharing had improved, lack of ongoing intelligence leads hampered progress. It was generally agreed that better communication was needed so Leicesters mayor Sir Peter Soulsby and Sir David Metcalf came up with the idea for a unique post, funded by the council. This post is now filled and actively supporting better data sharing: but the problems of reporting and resources remain.

Away from this enforcement work, the mayor has pushed forward a range of activity to promote and create good jobs and to drive out bad jobs. In addition to promoting the National Living Wage Foundation campaign across the city, by May 2019 we had provided business support and run ethical compliance workshops and other events for 150 businesses and we have given over 400k of grants to textiles businesses as part of a wider 1.2m grant pot from the European Union.

Our work with textiles businesses across the city has not abated. We jointly commissioned a feasibility study for a textiles hub with the LLEP (our local enterprise partnership), and have identified a site, and funding to subsidise for building works and a lease. This work has had to be paused due to COVID-19 but we are now discussing next steps with partners.

Weve yet to be offered financial support from industry or government to support this work.

Coming right up to date, in mid-July we co-convened a webinar to help fashion and textiles businesses learn more about making their workplaces COVID19 secure. We delivered the webinar alongside the Business Gateway Growth Hub, which is an initiative of the LLEP.

Over twenty-five businesses signed up to the event, on 14th July which looked specifically at managing COVID-19 related risks and implementing measures to remain compliant with legal requirements. Advice was tailored to the fashion and textiles industry with a step-by-step guide outlined to make factories COVID19 secure.

Its now over a year since Beis announced the governments intent to establish a single enforcement body and the consultation ended last October. The government website states that consultation responses are still being analysed.

We havent seen any progress.

Labour market exploitation around the country, in many sectors, has of course taken place in that time.

Were calling on Government to immediately publish their plans for this single enforcement body so we can remove the over-bearing barrier of too many stretched organisations trying to navigate a system thats too easily exploited resulting in people being exploited.

Councils must to be given the adequate powers and resources to work closely with the single enforcement body to help prevent exploitation of workers, to drive out bad jobs and ensure they are replaced by good jobs. By establishing this body in the centre of England, in Leicester, we will also be able to replace some of the jobs lost as a result of HMRC contracting over the last few years ahead of moving out of the city completely by 2022.

Bringing people out of exploitation is everyones business. In Leicester we are proactively trying to address the problem head on, on all fronts.

So, what are you doing?

Cllr Adam Clarke is deputy city mayor at Leicester City Council

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Why don't we have the powers to fully tackle exploitation? - The MJ

Shocking claims about the work and pay conditions of the garment workers in factories in Leicester have been headline news this past fortnight. The National Crime Agency said it was investigating modern slavery and human trafficking at a number of business premises in the city after an undercover reporter for the Sunday Times claimed that he had been employed by a Leicester garment factory making clothes for Boohoo, and told he would be paid between 3.50 and 4 an hour. (The national minimum wage for people over the age of 25 is 8.72 per hour.)

In a statement, Boohoo responded: We are grateful to the Sunday Times for highlighting the conditions at Jaswal Fashions, which, if they are as described by the undercover reporter, are totally unacceptable and fall woefully short of any standards acceptable in any workplace. Our investigations have shown that Jaswal Fashions is not a declared supplier, and is no longer trading as a garment manufacturer. It therefore appears that a different company is using Jaswals former premises and we are currently trying to establish the identity of this company. We are taking immediate action to thoroughly investigate how our garments were in their hands, and we will ensure that our suppliers immediately cease working with this company.

Subsequent reports by the Guardian have linked the factory in question to a business with links to Jalal Kamani, a Boohoo shareholder and the brother of Boohoos executive chairman, Mahmud Kamani. Boohoo has confirmed that the factory in the centre of the allegations is run by Morefray Ltd, but said that Mahmud Kamani had no involvement in the business. Investors have continued to sell off shares in the company.

What a difference a quarter makes. Ahead of the Covid-19 outbreak, Boohoo was an extremely agile, successful business. Sales for the year to February 2020 rose by 44 per cent to 1.2 billion and pre-tax profit grew 54 per cent to 92.2 million. As well as its own online platform, currently selling Disco Slinky Twist Front mini dresses for 7 (down from 12), and long-sleeved Bardot crop tops for 4 (at 50 per cent off), Boohoo owns Boohooman, Pretty Little Thing, Nasty Gal, Coast, Karen Millen, and recently added Oasis and Warehouse to its stable.

This is a business that believes in paying above and beyond where its top executives are concerned. In 2019, Primarks former chief operating officer John Lyttle joined the company as CEO on a salary of 615,000 and with an annual bonus of up to 150 per cent of his annual salary, as well as company shares. Co-founders Mahmud Kamani and Carole Kane were both paid more than 1.3 million each for the last financial year. In June, a third of Boohoos investors voted against a proposed bonus of 50 million for Lyttle if the company reaches its target of a valuation of 6 billion by March 2024. The fact that the company had 2 billion wiped off its market worth last week, plus a massive press and social media backlash, means Lyttle has his work cut out for him.

Boohoo, meanwhile, announced an independent investigation into its supply chain, an attempt to regain the trust of its investors, not to mention its customers the majority of whom are aged 16 to 24, and make up a generation that is increasingly political and outspoken. One such customer is Vas J Morgan, who had been paid to promote Boohoo via his social media following of 466k on Instagram, but withdrew his services. He captioned an Instagram post: Although 80 per cent of people working in these factories are women of colour; this is not about race, this is about human rights This is not an attack on Boohoo this is a wake up call for ALL fashion companies... His followers responded with comments suggesting that they were emptying their shopping baskets.

At the same time, 21-year-old Isabel Hambly, graduating from her fashion degree at Nottingham Trent University, just down the road from Leicester, posted on her Instagram feed a short essay she had written earlier in the year about the seductive value of a 3 dress. The allure of that killer dress would soon falter if the conditions in which it was made were revealed, she wrote. I told my flat mates about my research into slavery in factories at the time, she said when I called her this week. They didnt seem that bothered about it. Now, people who never thought about it before are messaging me. There will be outrage for a few weeks we need to keep up the clamour for change.

Hamblys own research showed her that while the allegations centring in Leicester have been spot lit against a backdrop of the local spike in coronavirus, illegal labour conditions have been well documented since 2014, when the University of Leicesters Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures published a report on working conditions in UK garment manufacturing. This report, which was not specifically investigating Boohoo, but was focussing on manufacturing across Leicester and East Midlands, identified a new business model that was based on small margins and relatively small orders, caveated with fast turnaround times. It detailed that there was widespread under- or even non-payment of wages, which were well below the minimum wage. A conservative estimate on the above evidence would put the underpaid wage sum in apparel manufacturing within the East Midlands at 1 million per week, the report stated.

Several years later, in March 2017, the Labour MP Harriet Harman went on a fact-finding mission to the city and found that between a third and three-quarters of people were working in situations where they did not have contracts of employment or received below the minimum wage. She called it an epidemic of factory workers being badly treated. In August of that year, Asos and New Look bosses described the dark underbelly of Leicesters factories as a ticking timebomb. This was widely reported, including here at Vogue.

Separately, according to a subsequent report by Labour Behind the Label, released in June, most of the garment workers in Leicester are from ethnic minority groups, largely from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh but also Somalia and increasingly Eastern Europe. The report observed: These workers are vulnerable to abuse as a result of their immigration status, language skills, integration in the community (and support mechanisms such as union membership etc) as well as higher unemployment rates.

Last week, Priti Patel described the allegations of exploitation of people in sweatshops for commercial gain as truly appalling. Either Patel has not been paying attention for the past six years, or these illegal practices on their own have not caused enough of a public outcry to warrant serious action until now.

Because ultimately its about inequality an inequality and an imbalance of power that underpins the industry, one that is built on exploiting peoples aspirations in the most cynical of ways. When the millionaire CEO and founder of Pretty Little Thing, 32-year-old Umar Kumani, who is the son of Boohoos founder Mahmud Kamani, paid Kylie Jenner a six figure sum in July 2016 to wear a 15 orange dress to host a pool party for the brand in an LA mansion, complete with pink cocktails and flamingo floats, it resulted in a 10-fold increase in sales. While there is an argument that cheap fashion provides access to people on low incomes to dress like their favourite influencer, the issue is whether a dress can be sold for 15 without having to exploit another human being. The price tag it is feared is only possible because someone, somewhere, is vulnerable enough to need to work for next to nothing, in unsafe conditions that put them and their families at risk.

The Boohoo allegations have shone a light on the inequalities that lie at the heart of the industry, said Orsola de Castro, co-founder of Fashion Revolution, the campaign for a more transparent fashion industry. What is particularly shocking about these allegations is how our own communities are affected. This is happening right under our noses.

So, how can brands change the systems that allow exploitation to happen within the fashion supply chain? Frankie Phillips set up her business To Be Frank in 2019 to prove that a brand can operate in a way that respects both environment and people and still maintain affordable prices. Nothing is worth the mistreatment of another person, no matter what it is, but especially if its a pair of polyester leggings, she told me, earlier this week. Phillips lived in Asia for three years as a supply chain manager for a high-street brand before setting up on her own. To Be Frank pays its workers in Turkey a living wage of $9 per hour (in a country where minimum wage is $4). You have to make sure you are working with a factory operating with full transparency, she says. They are open about sharing pay cheques. If a supplier wont share this information, she says, then you know something is wrong.

The price for a kilo of cotton is set at market rates. But labour costs are not. The reality is: there is always someone whose situation is desperate enough to take a pay cut. The thought of not earning enough to feed your family is not acceptable. How can a brand sell clothing for that cheap and pay themselves such huge bonuses? asks Phillips.

Subcontracting is part of the problem: it provides cheap labour that can be hidden away. The pricing structure is built on what the brand wants a garment to cost on the website, not on what the garment actually costs in terms of materials and labour.

What worries Phillips is the fact that the unregulated factories that are called out subsequently see their contracts cut which means those workers are now out of work, without a safety net. When your income is already on a knife edge, there is no cushion to prevent you from starvation and homelessness. But this is what thousands of garment workers in garment-producing countries including India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam are facing. For while shops in the UK are starting to open up, and we are being encouraged to spend, garment workers around the globe are still not being paid, as factories are still reeling from the sudden pause in orders. Many big-name brands and retailers have still not paid up for orders that were produced pre or during lockdown and then not shipped.

De Castro is hopeful that a new generation will not stand for brands exploiting fellow humans. Climate emergency, Black Lives Matters and anti-racism are encouraging the next generations to be more political, more informed, and this is the kind of cultural shift we need to see permanent changes, she says.

Each of us has the power to demand that governments hold illegal practice to account, as well as to make careful choices when we shop. You can see brands that are behaving unethically and not fulfilling their contracts to pay for orders, and sign the petition to protect workers in supply chains, at Labour Behind the Label. You can donate to a range of organisations who are organising aid to workers including the Awaj Foundation founded and led by garment workers in Bangladesh. The Worker Rights Consortium has a tracker that shows which brands have paid up and which havent. Theres also the Clean Clothes Campaigns Fashion Checker. But as Phillips says, most importantly: You vote with your wallet. Its simple maths.

For the latest news on the impact of Covid-19 in the fashion industry, a list of ways to get involved, how to email a brand, make your voice heard and support the garment workers, go to Fashionrevolution.org/covid19

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How To Hold The Garment Industry To Account? You Vote With Your Wallet. Its Simple Maths - British Vogue

Home Secretary Priti Patel has been urged to act to protect workers (Picture: PA)

The Home Office is facing increasing pressure to take action against the exploitation of garment factory workers in the UK.

More than 90 retailers, MPs and other organisations have come together to urge the Government to act.

It comes after online fashion giant Boohoo came under fire following an article which alleged workers in a Leicester factory making clothes for the company were paid as little as 3.50 an hour.

In a letter sent to Home Secretary Priti Patel on Saturday, the coalition called for a licensing scheme to ensure textile factories are fit to trade.

The letter said: These reports on the terrible working conditions people face in UK garment factories add weight to concerns which have been raised over the last five years by academics and parliamentary committees about the gross underpayment of the national living wage and serious breaches of health and safety law in these workplaces.

Unless action is taken now, thousands more people will likely face exploitation.

The licensing scheme would ensure workers are paid the national minimum wage and encourage retailers to source clothing locally, the letter states.

Coordinated by the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the letter has been signed by fashion retailers ASOS, Missguided, New Look, Next and River Island among others.

Boohoo has not signed the letter but on Friday its chief executive John Lyttle sent his own note to Ms Patel in which he backed calls for a licensing scheme.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, added: While there is no silver bullet, licensing is a critical step toward resolving this issue.

The public want to know that the clothes they buy have been made by workers who are respected, valued and protected by the law.

Minister for safeguarding, Victoria Atkins, said: Exploiting vulnerable people for commercial gain is despicable and this Government will not stand for it.

We expect all companies implicated in these allegations to conduct a full and thorough investigation to ensure that their supply chains are free from labour exploitation. We have liaised with relevant agencies regarding alleged working practices at garment factories in Leicester. We await the results of these investigations.

Boohoo had more than 1 billion wiped from its share value in two days, while other retailers such as Next and Asos dropped its clothing from their websites.

The fast-fashion company said it will investigate the allegations and end relationships with any supplier it finds to have broken its code of conduct.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk. For more stories like this, check our news page.

Originally posted here:

Home Office urged to protect workers amid Boohoo slavery allegations - Metro.co.uk

Do not oppress a needy and destitute hired labourer, whether a fellow Israelite or a stranger in one of the communities of your land. You must pay out the wages due on the same day, before the sun sets, for his life depends on them (Deuteronomy 24:14-15). In the Torah we find such inspiring, universal and timeless statements.

And it was a Jew, Ren Cassin, who might have been motivated by such refrains, who co-drafted Article 23 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights concerning work. It states, among other things: Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of socialprotection.

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Some see such statements as idealistic. But the Jewish motif of knowing slavery underpins our obligation to uphold ethical business and employment practices. Well that and simply doing the right thing.

Until the day he died, my grandfather-in-law answered the question how are you? with I makea living. Wrapped up in this reaction is the vitality of work, to earna just living that provides physical and mental wellbeing and dignity.

Judaism has no problem with wealth generation, but it expects justice for those whose backs it is built upon.

The majority of Torah and Jewish employment law concerns the behaviour of the employer because, in most cases, they hold power over employees.

The exposure of a Boohoo-supplying factory in Leicester that allegedly paid workers just 3.50 an hour, offered no protection from coronavirus and had appalling working conditions, caused outrage. If true, it would be akin to modern-day slavery. Outrage was justified: we wish business well, but not by exploiting labour. We should continue our push for employees to earn a Real Living Wage.

But the outrage was also self-righteous. We have encouraged fast fashion. Our expectations drive an economy that seeks immediate gratification at the lowest price.

We should not ignore exploitation in the production of our goods, here or abroad.

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Progressively Speaking: Do not ignore the exploitation of workers - Jewish News

The weight of all forms of American racism on Black people African, American, Afro-Latinx, Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Caribbean on Indigenous peoples, on people of colour with proximity to Blackness (collectively, BIPOC) is often overwhelming.

At sea level, the Earth's atmosphere exerts 14.7 pounds per square inch on us all. Or, for metric-system lovers, 1 kilogram per square centimetre. Racism has a weight that is equal to atmospheric pressure, doubling the effect of the Earth's air on every square inch of every Black and Indigenous person's body, mind, and spirit.

All that weight, all this constant pressure, equivalent to being 10 metres underwater, slowly drowns many a Black and Indigenous person, outside-in and inside-out.

From conception to the afterlife, this weight is inescapable.

Black hyper-masculinity and Latino patriarchy cannot shift it. Nor can socioeconomic mobility and educational achievements. Nor can alcohol or drugs or sex. Nor can Christianity or respectability politics or virginity or "doin' the right thing." No matter a BIPOC's class standing, this weight and pressure is always there.

It constricts skin and muscle, crushes bone and bone marrow, entangles neurones and blood vessels. Leaving so many Black and Indigenous persons in a constant state of anxiety-ridden awareness. No human should be on alert for attacks and oppression their whole lives.

I have been an American Black male for more than half a century. There have been only a handful of times since turning seven and watching the mini-series Roots for the first time in 1977 when I have not felt this excess weight, this otherwise unyielding pressure. Like when I went to Toronto in 1999 to do a conference presentation, leaving the US for the first time. Or when I visited an Athabascan village in the middle of Alaska during the summer solstice in 2001. Both put me outside the weight and pressure of my life in the US. Otherwise, anxiety, bouts with depression, a quiet yet deep well of rage, the nagging feeling that my work and my accomplishments are never good enough, the everyday struggles with being Black in the US, all have been my companions over the past 43 years.

This weight, this pressure, has consequences, for me and millions of others. A lower life expectancy and a lower quality of life. Hypertension, high blood pressure, cancer and diabetes are often on this toxic menu. Justified paranoia that with the weight of racism can contribute to clinical depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, real and socially constructed.

"If only all the contradictory voices shouting inside my head would calm down and sing a song in unison ... I wouldn't care as long as they sang without dissonance ... But there was no relief," Ralph Ellison's bodiless narrator says in his 1952 classic 'Invisible Man'.

Imposter syndrome for the small percentage of BIPOC folks who find themselves among America's elite is another consequence. "People of colour ... are particularly vulnerable to this debilitating sensation ... imposter syndrome isn't just an imaginary voice in our heads. We ... receive almost daily messages from society that we truly don't belong," HuffPost Life reporter Jolie A Doggett wrote in 2019.

Expressions that denigrate achievement, like telling a Black student who received an acceptance letter from an elite university they got in because of race, or congratulating an accomplished BIPOC orator for being "articulate," exacerbate imposter syndrome. These not-so-micro aggressions feed that sense of not belonging, of being a fraud, of using the white gaze as the means for measuring BIPOC self-worth.

But the most common consequence is being constantly at war. War with one's self as WEB Du Bois identified it in 'The Souls of Black Folk' (1903), part of his definition of "double consciousness," of using the white lens to see one's self rather than one's own self-reflective ID. Or, "two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder," as Du Bois wrote.

And, with white patriarchy, there is also an intraracial and intersectional war, as whiteness and the narcissism that whiteness nurtures is a world more insidious than anything seen in The Matrix. The intersection between racism, colourism, misogynoir and narcissism nourishes many BIPOC men into internalised racism, domestic violence, rape and other forms of dehumanisation. Leaving Black and Indigenous women, LGBTQIA folx of colour, and BIPOC living with poverty fighting on multiple fronts, with that much more weight to carry and that much more pressure on their beings.

There is also the culture of resistance in which African diasporic and Indigenous people especially have engaged for centuries. Resistance to slavery, by escaping and freeing oneself. Resistance to cultural erasure, by combining the remaining shards of African folk traditions into music, into prayer, into family, with medicine and with food. Resistance to Jim Crow, in building civil rights movements, in self-defence, in Pan Africanism.

Resistance to marginalisation, to lynchings, to law enforcement-sanctioned murders, to rapes, to wage theft, in "protesting with their feet" and migrating for the opportunity "to 'joy" their "freedom" (to quote Princeton historian Tera Hunter indirectly) to cities all over the US.

And as with any organised resistance, freedom fighters from Nat Turner, Ida B Wells, and Marcus Garvey to Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Angela Davis, and Assata Shakur have faced repression, detention, assassination and exile.

We can possibly add Ferguson and St Louis Black Lives Matter activists like Darren Seals, Deandre Joshua, and Bassem Masri to this mix. For those activists who do not die young, there is also the toll on their physical and mental health, the ostracism they face, the loss of income that occurs.

Being a resistance fighter in the war against American racism can crush spirits and bodies like a tin can caught in the gravity well of a black hole.

To expect Black, brown, and Indigenous people to respond to these lethal weights and pressures with nonviolent protest and instant forgiveness is simply ignorance and racism defying all logic. Like Du Bois, I believe it is a wonder that there is not more violence directed at individual white people and individual American institutions for their everyday anti-Black and anti-brown violence. Like author and activist Kimberly Jones, I understand why so many would want to "burn this bitch to the ground," and agree the US is "lucky that what Black people are looking for is equality and not revenge".

But, the weight of American racism is backbreaking, the pressure suffocating. How long are marginalised Americans supposed to wait before the US restructures itself to remove the weight and release the pressure?

Excerpted from: 'The weight and pressure of American racism'.

Courtesy: Counterpunch.org

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The weight of racism - The News International

Workers of the world unite (preferably, under a different red banner)! Photo: MAGA Rally in New Hampshire. (Photo by Preston Ehrler/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

At this moment in time, the most significant fact about how the GOP coalition is changing is that it is getting smaller. Back in February, slightly more Americans identified as Republicans than as Democrats in Gallups polling; today, the Donkey Party leads in partisan identification by a margin of 50 to 39 percent.

Given the extraordinary context in which this survey was taken, one could plausibly argue that the result is an illusory byproduct of nonresponse bias, or the marker of a durable, pro-Democratic realignment. To the extent that partisans exhibit a greater tendency to answer calls from pollsters when they are eager to discuss politics because their side is doing well then this would seem like a bad time to get Republicans to come to the phone.

Conversely, to the extent that presiding over a catastrophic failure of governance can impair a partys brand in a long-lasting fashion as ostensibly happened with Herbert Hoovers GOP and (more arguably) Jimmy Carters Democrats then having your partys standard-bearer counsel the public to inject disinfectant while a pandemic kills 140,000 Americans and plunges the nation into the worst recession since World War II seems like it could do the trick.

Regardless, another significant way that the GOP coalition is changing is that its voting base is becoming more working-class. And if this November does bring a blue tsunami, that fact could theoretically have some bearing on how the Republican Party rebrands and rebuilds in the aftermath.

Donald Trumps erosion of support in recent months has been driven by the defections of white voters in general, and college-educated ones in particular. A variety of recent polls have found Biden leading Trump among the latter by roughly 30 percentage points. Although the presidents standing among non-college-educated whites has declined significantly in recent weeks, he still boasts a roughly 20-point lead with that demographic in the most recent surveys.

Counterintuitively, the presidents grip on a sizable minority of nonwhite voters has scarcely loosened: In recent polls from CNN, Monmouth University, and the New York Times, Trumps share of the African-American and Hispanic voting blocs remains about where it was in 2018 exit polls which was itself a bit higher than his share in 2016.

Graphic: The New York Times

Considering that the pandemic and recession have harmed nonwhite Americans disproportionately and that Trump has turned his appeals to white racial grievance up to 11 since the onset of the George Floyd protests this is a rather surprising phenomenon. And it is possible that a collapse in Trumps nonwhite support is still in the offing. But, at least before the pandemic, the presidents modest gains among Black voters wouldnt have surprised some close observers of African-American political behavior.Keeping 90-plus percent of African-Americans united in one partisan camp takes work. The reason Democrats have enjoyed such a landslide margin among Black voters despite considerable ideological and attitudinal diversity within that demographic is not that each individual African-American Democrat concluded that the GOP was hostile to people like them through their own personal ruminations on current affairs. Rather, as political scientists Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird argue in their book, Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior, the Black bloc vote is a product of racialized social constraint which is to say, the process by which African-American communities internally police norms of political behavior through social rewards and penalties. In their account, the exceptional efficacy of such norm enforcement within the Black community reflects the extraordinary degree of Black social cohesion that slavery and segregation fostered.

If this thesis is correct (and White and Laird do much to substantiate it), then it would follow that the erosion of African-Americans social isolation would weaken racialized social constraint, and thus, narrow the Democratic Partys margin with Black voters. And, according to the Democratic Party data scientist David Shor, the polling bears out this thesis: Young, secular Black voters whose distance from the African-American church makes them less subject to social constraint have become slightly more Republican since 2016.

The Democrats triumph in the 2018 midterms was powered by college-educated whites, even in races where one might have expected a groundswell of nonwhite support to put the party over the top. In Georgias gubernatorial election, Stacey Abramss share of the states Black vote was 4 percentage points lower than Hillary Clintons was in 2016, according to the Democratic data firm Catalist.

(All results here are from Georgia).

The source of the relative stability of Trumps Latino support is less well-theorized. But it is true that, holding ethnicity constant, non-college-educated voters tend to be more conservative on immigration both in the U.S. and in other countries. It is conceivable that some of the same qualities that make Trumps politics appealing to white non-college-educated voters also serve to ingratiate him with a minority of working-class Latinos, particularly those generations removed from the immigrant experience.

Regardless, since the Latino and African-American voting blocs are more working-class than the electorate as a whole, one effect of the GOP holding its ground among nonwhite voters while bleeding white college-educated ones is to render its coalition less affluent and highly educated than it was in 2016.

This is the scintilla of truth behind Ted Cruzs remarks on the Federalist Radio Hour Thursday.

The big lie in politics is that Republicans are the party of the rich and Democrats are the party of the poor. That just aint true, the Texas senator told the right-wing outlet. Todays Democratic Party is the party of Silicon Valley billionaires. Todays Democratic Party is the party of Michael Bloomberg. It is the party of power, it is the party of suppression, it is jackbooted thugs who will enforce their will through force.

Setting aside Cruzs last remark (by all indications, the president wants the GOP to be known as the party of jackbooted thuggery), he is narrowly correct that the Democratic Party boasts more support from affluent voters than at any time in its modern history (although American billionaires still donate predominately to the GOP, and controlling for educational attainment, Republicans still soundly beat Democrats among high-income voters).

And yet: If the GOP is becoming more working-class, in terms of its coalitions demographic composition, there are few signs that it is becoming a party for the working class, in the sense of governing in the interests of workers as workers. By the same token, while the Democratic Party is becoming more affluent demographically, its economic policies have grown steadily more progressive over the past decade. Since taking control of the House of Representatives on the strength of the partys support in suburban districts, Nancy Pelosis caucus has passed a $15 minimum wage, The Protecting the Right to Organize Act (a pro-union labor-law reform bill), and pushed to have the CARES Act provide Americans with the highest unemployment benefits on offer anywhere in the world (albeit, on a disastrously temporary basis).

By contrast, since Donald Trump eked out an Electoral College majority by making significant inroads with lower-income white voters, he has established himself as (at least arguably) the most economically regressive Republican president in history. He began his presidency with an attempt to throw 14 million low-income Americans off Medicaid, and then proceeded to shower wealthy capitalists in tax cuts, make it easier for corporations to cut costs by poisoning children, and gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among other reactionary things.

Now, with tens of millions of Americans freshly unemployed, upwards of 20 million at risk of eviction by autumn and state governments poised to layoff public-sector workers and slash social services due to cratering revenues the Republican Party is putting its principled commitment to slashing welfare provision above its political interests. There is no evidence that the CARES Acts $600 weekly federal unemployment benefit is starving the U.S. labor market of much-needed workers by making joblessness more rewarding than hard work. On the other hand, there is copious evidence that such benefits have stabilized personal income levels in the U.S., thereby preventing a much sharper recession.

Nevertheless, the party of single moms and steelworkers finds the theoretical threat of American workers having the power to turn down an unattractive job offer from an employer without suffering a significant loss of living standards so offensive, it is fighting to slash the incomes of 32 million Americans (in the middle of a pandemic, just months from Election Day).

Meanwhile, the partys other top priority for the next COVID-19 recovery package is to immunize employers from workplace safety lawsuits.

It is true that the Republican firmament is home to some conservative intellectuals who would like the party to embrace a more communitarian economic vision. Many religious conservatives have lost their reverence for plutocracy as neoliberal capitalism and cultural traditionalism have come to appear increasingly incompatible. Some dissident wonks, like former Mitt Romney policy advisor Oren Cass, have gone so far as to embrace sectoral bargaining, a policy that would enable an industrys workersto set minimum compensation standards that would apply to all employers in that sector.

But no major Republican lawmaker has crossed that Rubicon. Instead, as the Roosevelt Institutes Mike Konczal notes, the GOPs putative populists, like Missouri senator Josh Hawley, have opposed pro-union reforms and minimum-wage hikes while pretending that immigration is the primary driver of working-class wage stagnation in the U.S. As Konczal writes:

If, like me, youve told people on the populist right theres no evidence in the debates that immigration is among the top five reasons of wage stagnation; to whatever extent it exists the declining minimum wage is far more important by itself and just watched the blinking eyes, you know theres a gap here. I think the coverage of the debate over immigration and wages does a disservice here, because the range of the numbers in no way matches the scale of the fall in fortunes for American workers. The debate is between increased wages and minimal decline, and just for the small group of non-native-born Americans without a high school diploma. Even if you believe the high estimates, they pale in comparison to the things even moderate Democrats want to accomplish, and you should be skeptical of those estimates.

Contra [conservative commentator Saagar] Enjeti, full employment and a tight labor market arent determined by the number of people in the country immigrants take jobs, but they also create jobs through spending but instead by fiscal and monetary policy, demand and technology. Theres a pretty standard toolkit among the left for compressing the income distribution and raising wagesunionization, higher minimum wages, public programs, overtime, wage boards, high progressive taxation on the rich, sectoral bargaining, high aggregate demand and full employment, etc.to draw from. Historically and across nations, these are the things that work. Its telling that members of the populist right do not endorse these and even actively fight them (populist right Senator Josh Hawley supported right-to-work laws in Missouri), and also do not provide serious alternatives to them.

Given the hegemony that business conservatives have enjoyed over the American rights core institutions of policy and leadership development, the safe money would be against the Republican Party embracing a remotely prolabor economic agenda in the coming years, even if there were a significant faction within the GOP advocating for such a turn. As is, there is only a cohort of opportunists whove wedded marginally heterodox views on a few discrete issues to vituperative denunciations of a rootless, godless professional-managerial class.

So, the GOP is (almost certainly) not becoming a party for the working class. Whether it will become the preferred party of 51 percent of working-class voters is less clear. Given the relative sturdiness of the GOPs share of non-college-educated voters throughout three years of reactionary policy-making and five months of catastrophic misrule it seems possible that well-packaged pseudo-populism may be all the party needs to grow its blue-collar wing. All true friends of American labor must do what they can to guard against that possibility.

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The GOP Coalition Is Getting More Working-Class. Its Agenda Isnt. - New York Magazine

It has been a tumultuous month for Boohoo.

The online fast fashion house saw its shares climb to a record high at the end of June, driven by the companys lean and agile business model that has continued to perform well during the coronavirus crisis.

It has been able to quickly respond to pandemic-induced trends, such as the switch in demand from eveningwear and holiday clothing to tracksuits and other loungewear. Its youthful customer base has continued to spend, and its online-only model has thrived whilst traditional retailers on the high street are struggling to survive.

Despite experiencing a marked drop in demand when lockdown was introduced, it quickly returned to growth by the end of April and that seems to have only continued to improve. Revenue in the three months to the end of May shot up 45% - delivering solid double-digit growth across all its geographies and established brands.

But Boohoo shares lost nearly half of their value between 30 June and 15 July, rocked by allegations that its low-cost model is underpinned by a troublesome supply chain. Shares have recovered some of their value but are still trading over one-third less than the all-time high. It has been enough to knock Boohoo off its perch as the most valuable company listed on AIM, and the fact that it lost the title to rival ASOS makes it all the more hurtful.

Read more: Boohoo shares tumble after allegations against its suppliers

We have a look at the allegations that have injected volatility into Boohoo shares and what the long-term impact may be, as well as a look at whether the sell-off in Boohoo shares has been overdone.

Boohoos supply chain has come under severe scrutiny after reports from The Sunday Times suggested a garment factory in Leicester that supplies Boohoos Nasty Gal brand was paying staff below minimum wage and not adhering to lockdown rules.

The paper sent in an undercover reporter that said the factory had continued to operate when the city was put into a local lockdown, all without any additional measures taken to protect to staff. It was then argued that this could have contributed to the rise in cases in the area. The reporter was also told to expect 3.50 an hour, well below the minimum wage of 8.72 for over-25s. Other media outlets reported that some furloughed workers were being told they would not receive their government support if they didnt continue to work.

Boohoo responded by stating it was shocked and appalled by the recent allegations, adding it was committed to doing everything in our power to rebuild the reputation of the textile manufacturing industry in Leicester.

One of the reasons Boohoo is able to keep costs down is because it designs its own clothing but outsources the manufacturing. In terms of assets, it has two major distribution centres that it uses to ship its products around the UK and the world. This means it makes sense for the company to source clothing made close to home, and around 40% of its products are made in the UK, which it argues protects thousands of jobs that would otherwise be lost to cheaper foreign workers abroad.

Leicester is the countrys hub for garment making and Boohoo is thought to be its biggest customer. A report by Labour Behind The Label, which campaigns for garment workers rights around the world, said Boohoo was ordering up to 400,000 units from Leicester per week during lockdown in April, up from 120,000 in a normal week. This is thought to account for up to 80% of Leicesters entire capacity, which is met through a number of small factories.

Boohoo has tried to add some clarity to the situation. It said the company subject to media reports was not a direct supplier, meaning it was a company that was used by one of its own suppliers. It said the garments were not made in the UK but in Morocco, and were simply being repackaged in Leicester so they could be sold in the UK. It also said that its investigation to date has not found evidence of suppliers paying workers 3.50 per hour.

Those claims have, so far, held up. No less than seven different UK authorities ranging from anti-slavery and immigration to the police and the council found no foul play in their initial round of investigations, but we can expect more surprise inspections going forward.

Plus, it has already attracted the attention of politicians, who have pledged to clean up Leicesters garment industry, where concerns over conditions have been rife for years. Home secretary Priti Patel said the claims were truly appalling and said the government was committed to stamping out malpractice.

Boohoo said it would not hesitate to end its relationships with any suppliers that were not meeting its code of conduct, and that this includes very clear expectations on transparency about second tier suppliers.

It has launched an independent review of its UK supply chain which will be led by Alison Levitt QC and committed 10 million to eradicate supply chain malpractice. It has also accelerated its review of its third-party supply chain and its ethical audit.

The investigation will not be quick, which means this issue will linger over Boohoo for at least the rest of this year. It will set out the scope of the review by the end of July, but said it intends to provide updates when it releases its interim results in September, and again when it publishes a trading update for its peak trading season in January 2021.

It then intends to inform shareholders about how it will ensure Boohoo is sustainable when it releases its annual results in April or May 2021. That suggests its supply chain will be under the spotlight for some time.

The problem for Boohoo is that investors have become concerned that its low-cost, fast fashion model is underpinned by underpaid workers that are treated unfairly. We wont know how true this is if at all until the investigation starts to give us some answers.

But, regardless, this has highlighted a major problem for Boohoo and other fashion firms. The fact Boohoo said it was shocked by the situation shows how opaque its supply chain is. Boohoo concerns itself with its direct suppliers those that supply the end product but not the other businesses used by those suppliers. It has highlighted the need for greater transparency in the supply chain, and that will have to become a top priority for Boohoo if it wants to assure investors.

The Conservative chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, Philip Dunne, sent a letter to Boohoos co-founders Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane that said it was shameful Boohoo didnt know what was going on. It is incredible that, over a year since the committee highlighted illegal working practices in its supply chain, Boohoo has publicly denied any knowledge of what has been happening for years, he said.

The letter also accused Boohoo of being unwilling to engage with trade unions and the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), which is an independent body that promotes workers rights. Last year Boohoo told us that it was going to join the ETI. We note it has not done so. It is shameful that it took a pandemic and the ensuing outrage about working practices in their supply chain for Boohoo finally to be taken to task for turning a blind eye, said Dunne.

For now, the damage is being done to its reputation. That hasnt been helped by the fact it said it would pay up to 150 million in bonuses to its board and founders so soon after accusations that factory workers are being grossly underpaid came to light. The fact the bonuses are only based on the companys share price performance rather than the business itself has also raised eyebrows.

Some of its major shareholders have flagged concerns. Jupiter Asset Management, the second largest shareholder in Boohoo behind co-founder Kamani, actually raised its stake in the business after the allegations were made to capitalise on the slump in its share price. But Standard Life Aberdeen, apparently not convinced, was reported to have dumped almost all of its stock in Boohoo just days after the allegations were made.

Boohoos wholesale business has also been hit after a number of retailers, including rivals ASOS, Next and Zalando, all pressed pause on buying Boohoos clothing until they get clarity over the situation. However, the wholesale division accounts for just 4% of Boohoos annual revenues, and just 1.4% of sales in the first quarter, so this loss is highly manageable.

The fashion industry being accused of dodgy supply chains is nothing new, but the fact Boohoo has been caught out in the UK has brought it into the spotlight because, quite simply, people pay more attention when the problem is on their doorstep rather than elsewhere.

The main task will be increasing transparency of its entire supply chain and addressing whatever horrible truths that could unveil.

Still, we are yet to see any evidence that its reputation has been harmed to those that matter the most, or that its young customer base has been turned off Boohoos brand. Sales figures will be closely watched over the coming quarters, but there is little expectation that demand has been severely hit by the allegations.

At worst, the investigation will reveal that Boohoos supply chain is not fit for purpose and that the cost of production goes up, which in turn would push up prices because of Boohoos cost-plus model. But this shouldnt pose too much of a problem for Boohoo because it boasts superior profitability over its rivals, so it can afford to absorb higher costs if it must.

For example, ASOS generates more than twice the amount in revenue than Boohoo but its lower margin. Boohoos edge comes from the fact it sells its own products and has a lean model that outsources everything, from manufacturing to information technology (IT), whereas ASOS and others sell more third-party products bought from other labels.

ASOS said earlier in July that revenue in the three months to the end of June had risen by 10% year-on-year.

Read the rest here:

Will Boohoo shares recover? - IG

Tuesday, 21 July 2020, 4:52 pmOpinion: Binoy Kampmark

In many ways, rapper and footwear mogul Kanye West fitsthe mould. That mould the star or celebrity running forhigh office had already been made by theactor-cum-amnesiac Ronald Reagan, who, with his dabbling inastrology and conveniently re-imagined reminiscences, didmuch to prepare the White House for what one might call thereality show. The fruit from that garden has beenample and bitter.

After announcing his improbable andalmost certainly doomed campaign for the US presidency,West, after flirting with dropping out, decided to at leasthave a campaign rally. Like other countries who havewitnessed celebrities gather the electoral silver and maketheir way into office, West is playing politics emptied ofpolitics, the patient extracted of the nerve. Theanti-political politician is an oxymoron, but it is anoxymoron that has speared and skewered statecraft. Thepolitical classes are petrified in alienation,representatives shielded behind armies of pollsters, publicrelations gurus and party machinery. The voter might as wellvote for a candidate on the autopilot gravy train. Thelunatic you get is the lunatic you see.

West is hisown gravy train, admittedly also stocked up with provisionsfrom his fellow celebrity companion, Kim Kardashian. Hisarticulations are pricks of irritation, rarely credible andalmost always reversible. He does his utmost to convincethat he is some discount idiot savant, trying to soundprofound even as he fumbles. His rallyat Charleston, South Carolina left something for everybody,though no one present should have been confused by theall about me theme.

It all started withpredictable theatre. There was no microphone. West donned abulletproof vest. (You ought to be worth shooting to becredible.) 2020 was shaved into performers head.The audience gathered could not exactly be called vast,though the rapper promised that future events would beglorious, held in rooms where the acoustics will beincredible because I will be involved with thedesign.

The presentation was peppered by suchhowlers as that on the abolitionist Harriet Tubman, whonever actually freed the slaves. What Tubman did,reflected West, was just having the slaves go work forother white people. The fogged up looking glass wasbrought out, with suggestionsby Dani Di Placido in Forbes that this might havebeen some obscure reference to wage slavery and whitesupremacy. That said, a lament follows. Why did West haveto go after a beloved civil rights hero given hisprevious Trump love phase, his own hyper-capitalistambitions and the fact of becoming a billionaire whichcan hardly happen through opposing wageslavery?

Knocking off the gloss of the Tubmanlegacy was part of a show that moved into the realm of theteary and transcendental, with the performer promoting hisinspirational link to the divine. West the mystic spoke ofGods intervention, suggesting that fabulous sky creaturedivines are terribly incurious, and bored, by nature. Iwas having the rappers lifestyle. I was sitting up inParis, and I had my leather pants on and I had my laptopup and I got all of my creative ideas. I got my shoes, I gotmy sound cover, I got communities, I got clothes, I got allthis and the screen [went] black and white and God said,if you f*** with my vision Im going to f*** withyours.

It all had to do with his child, whoserved as a good publicity prop for the occasion. This goodLord of the mind blowing f*** vision had convincedWest that he and his wife should have their baby. And Icalled my wife and she said, were going to have thisbaby. I said were gonna have this child So even if mywife were to divorce me after this speech, she brought Northinto the world when I didnt want to. She stood up and sheprotected that child. To ease any moral or ethicalquandaries, West had a solution for troubled couples: givethem money. Everybody that has a baby gets a milliondollars.

There was much talk about hisentrepreneurial prowess (boosting the Adidas bank balanceand share portfolio), his 132 IQ genius, a person wholiterally went to the hospital because his brain was toobig for his skull.

There were audienceinterventions that rarely taxed the big-brained wonder. Acertain Summer complained about education beingwhitewashed, police brutality and thebrainwashing offered by such technology platforms asTikTok, though West spent more time fussing over not beingable to hear anything above the din and distraction: nocamera flicks, no flashes, no moving, no opening up Doritobags. He also got preoccupied about the exits. You seewhere the two exits are? Is it okay to close the doors, butkeep them unlocked while we are talking?

Campaignsfor the US presidency can start as engorged, dramaticstunts, with the ego maniac festooned with ambitions thatare light on policy but heavy on boastful character. Theperson promoting it ends up riding a historical train hecannot get off. Donald Trump, to some extent, did just that.Many in the Trump camp, leaving aside such ideologicalblunder busts as Steve Bannon, were as disbelieving as manyothers that victory was in the offing that November in 2016.Then the gag got real. West has some way to go before comingclose.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a CommonwealthScholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMITUniversity, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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All About Me: The Kanye West Campaign Rally - Scoop.co.nz

Pro-slavery advocates before and during the Civil War worked to defend the morality and necessity of American chattel slavery, and one of their defenses was that African-American slaves were actually much better treated than free white Americans.

George Fitzhugh wrote in Cannibals All! or Slaves Without Masters, published in 1856, of the benefits of American chattel slavery for African-Americans versus the plight of free white Americans.

But we not only boast that the White Slave Trade is more exacting and fraudulent (in fact, though not in intention) than Black Slavery; but we also boast that is tis more cruel , in leaving the laborer to care for himself and his family out of the pittance which skill or capital have allowed him to retain. When the days labor is ended, he is free, but is overburdened with the cares of family and household, which makes his freedom and empty and delusive mockery. But his employer is really free, and may enjoy the profit made by others labor, without a care, or a trouble, as to their well-being. The negro slave is free too, when the labors of the day are over, and free in mind as well as body; for the master provides food, raiment, house, fuel, and everything else to the physical well being of himself and his family. The masters labors commence just when the slaves end. No wonder men should prefer white slavery to capital, to negro slavery, since it is more profitable, and is free from all the cares and labors of black slave-holding.

The defenders of American chattel slavery argued that free white Americans were wage slaves, forced to work long hours for low wages in horrid working conditions, which was actually quite true. This gave credibility to the pro-slavery argument in the minds of white Americans in 1856.

Slaveholders asserted that they were benevolent to their slaves and actually treated their slaves well, whereas northern factory owners and other employers abused and overworked their white American employees and then callously cast them out of their work places to fend for themselves, casting the freedom of white Americans as a miserable existence.

Pro-slavery advocates argued that African-American slaves, on the other hand, lived secure lives of comfort and security under the paternalistic care of enlightened and benevolent Christian slave holders.

Indeed, Fitzhugh argued that The negro slaves in the South are the happiest, and in a sense, the freest people in the world, and that they were well treated, living in a utopian world without stress or want.

Free white American workers, on the other hand, were described as wage slaves who were held in thrall by greedy psychopathic employers, and thus abolitionists and free soil advocates were villains who wanted to wrench the slaves from their utopian existence in slavery into the horrific misery that free white Americans had to endure in their daily lives.

This view of slavery still persists in the Lost Cause narrative of the Civil War, which persists to the present day.

Grady Atwater is site administrator of the John Brown Museum and State Historic Site.

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George Fitzhugh and the defense of slavery - Miami County Republic

George Floyd died on Monday, May 25. He was known among his family and friends for his compassionate character and beautiful spirit. However, he died in a matter of minutes at the hands of Derek Chauvin, an officer with the Minneapolis Police Department. Since then, protests have erupted across the country, demanding justice for Black Americans who have been murdered this year, including Breona Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others. In the process, police precincts have been seized, protestors have been fired upon, and stores have been razed. America is returning slowly to a new normal constructed on the ruins of weeks of protests and riots.

However, as we watch this violent crisis unfold, another looms in the background: The pandemic rages on. On May 28, the U.S. death toll surpassed 100,000 people. As of July 13, that number has increased to 137,000, with over 3 million total cases. Yet, reopening orders continue to be implemented across the country, with states like Texas, Florida, and Arizona emerging as new global epicenters for the virus. Adding to this, the American economy is in a state of crisis. The federal deficit is climbing at an unprecedented rate, with the Department of the Treasury borrowing over $3 trillion in only the last three months and economists foreseeing a significant recession in our near future. People are dying, markets are in a freefall, and GDP growth and deficit spending are at unhealthy long-term levels.

Today, however, we must realize that the crisis of policing and that of the economy are inextricable from each other. George Floyd himself, as reported by Joanna Walters in the Guardian, was like many millions of Americans over the last few months: out of work and looking for a new job. His situation was the result of mass businesses closures, a situation which has left millions of other Americans jobless. The crises are converging. Both the calamity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the scourge of systemic racism are inextricably intertwined, stemming from and perpetuated by the countrys reverent adherence to a corrupt, capitalist system. If we are to cast off the political and social ineptitude that has marked our policies for generations, we must take this moment of large-scale societal change to implement progressive political change.

With regard to the pandemic, despite the heightened urgency of support, the only existing relief package to Americans has been a means-tested $1,200 check without systemic payment freezes or assistance for utilities, rent and mortgages. This has left many millions of Americans in a state of economic limbo. Sandra Black, an economics professor at Columbia University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, highlighted the insufficiency of such a measure. In an interview with Time, Black remarked that this is not enough money to keep most families afloat And this shutdown is far from over.

Meanwhile, major debt-bearing American corporations have received substantially more government assistance, resulting in moral hazard a situation which encourages corporations to continue their risky practices without liability, to the detriment of the average American. As American workers find it more difficult than ever to make ends meet, financial institutions are saved to the penny. Meanwhile, billionaires continue to profit, with some, like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckeberg, adding over 50% to their respective net worths as most Americans suffer on a months-old relief check. This conundrum is similar to the Great Recession, but our contemporary context makes it an entirely different beast: Even if individuals can find work, they may have to expose themselves to unsafe conditions in order to earn wages. Floyd himself was among the millions caught within this abhorrent paradox. Like so many other struggling Americans, Floyd found himself in search of a new job. However, in merely soliciting a possibly counterfeit bill, Floyd became part of an even more sinister statistical grouping: an unarmed Black person killed by an American police officer.

The intersection of these trends is no coincidence. It is the working of a corrupt, capitalist system. The wage slavery that has arisen amid stagnant wages drives poverty, and poverty drives policing especially in urban areas. These trends further drive community mistrust of police, where the force that allegedly protects the public is increasingly perceived as the problem. Black Americans, who are disproportionately represented amongst these poor communities, are continually targeted by police in their own communities. However, what brings together these two systems that of police targeting and economic disadvantage is racial policing.

Consistent historical evidence has documented overtly discriminatory policing against Black Americans for centuries, but the most recent surge in such behavior was catalyzed by Reagans Tough on Crime campaign and its post-Reagan continuations, especially the 1994 Crime Bill. The War on Drugs and calls to crack down on urban crime became political tools for the mass incarceration of Black Americans. Indeed, as Kenneth Nunn writes in Race, Racism, and the Law, the War on Drugs was a targeted war, the employment of force and violence against certain communities in order to attain certain political objectives. These political objectives are expressly racial the mass incarceration of people of color. Compounding this, many millions of Black Americans are stuck in generational cycles of poverty, their communities also engulfed by gentrification. They are denied political rights by racial gerrymandering and overtly discriminatory polling rules in the South. These distinct yet structurally intertwined systems of oppression are the makeup of an apartheid state, in which White supremacy complements the American neoliberal economic system to maintain a vast prison-industrial complex that disproportionately targets communities of color.

Also inherent in the nature of American capitalism is the defense of private property before social good. The police have revealed themselves to be the mercenaries of corporate interests, stepping in not to protect protestors but to protect burning buildings and endangered private property. Jacob Frey, the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis, even came under fire from the president for refusing to dispel protesters from the Third Precinct station of the Minneapolis Police Department, instead allowing the building to burn in hopes that it would quell the passion of the protesters. It was at this juncture, when private property was threatened, that Trump escalated his federal response, threatening and then pursuing national military action.

Leftists intellectuals have long asserted that the role of police in America has been to uphold the agenda of the monied elite. Recent events have indeed evidenced the inherently violent means of enforcing protection of property in this country, especially in urban areas where looting is most concentrated. Even President Trump asserted this logic in invoking the racially charged words of Miami Police Chief Walter Headley in 1967: When the looting starts, the shooting starts. The violent actions of police demonstrate an insurmountable internal contradiction for police officers: How can the protectors of our communities often meet peaceful protests with military-style repressive tactics? In the midst of this contradiction, organizers have brought awareness to a new rallying cry: Buildings can be rebuilt, but lives cannot be brought back.

While only now coming to the forefront of ongoing discourse, these are long-existing realities of the Black experience in America. As a White man, I cannot say I can truly give this experience and crisis enough consideration in writing this article I can only recognize the systemic inequity and utilize my privilege to become an ally. But I can review the annals of our history, and such a reading provides a dangerous narrative: It is this time, in our era, that the riots are different. This time, compromise and peace are failing to deliver answers, even more so than they did in Los Angeles in 1992. This time, dialogue is breaking through at an alarming rate.

This is because the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening the basic institutions of American society. The market disruptions of March and April were unprecedented, featuring the biggest stock market crash since 2008. As a result, the modern state has expanded across society in a visibly larger way since even March. The coronavirus relief bill shares many traits with major policies of crisis management in the past, especially during the Great Depression and the Great Recession, such as its direct assistance to individuals, companies, and even American cultural funds. Yet, it is distinct in its size: It appears now to be the largest economic stimulus, even adjusted for inflation and real growth, in American history. What may be more important than scale, however, is implication. Similar to the Works Progress Administration in FDRs New Deal and the employment-based direct assistance in Obamas American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the current world situation again evidences that large, rogue markets cannot regulate themselves and that they are undermined by systemic crisis. Again, people are being asked to forgive the mistakes of a system that has never worked for them.

Such large-scale changes, undergirded by major global crises, open up the space for political discourse and make equally large-scale institutional and social change seem like achievable goals. Yet, we cannot merely speculate any longer. We must seize this moment for change.

Image Credit: Photo by Julian Wanis used under the Unsplash License

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A Revolutionary Perspective on Our Crisis, Part I - Harvard Political Review

A poster board in a classroom shows traces of lessons and projects before the Yung Wing School PS 124 in New York City was closed on June 09, 2020. (Michael Loccisano / Getty Images)

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After the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, President Barack Obama delivered what I have always believed to be the best speech of his presidency. He talked about what its like to be a parent, and the critical realization, experienced by most parents, that you cant keep your children safe or teach them well without the help of your friends and neighbors. Then he expanded that idea to include the whole of society. He said, This is our first taskcaring for our children. Its our first job. If we dont get that right, we dont get anything right. Thats how, as a society, we will be judged.Ad Policy

We have not gotten anything right when it comes to caring for our children. We were not getting things right before the coronavirus pandemic; we did not get things right at the outset of the crisis; and as we hurtle towards the fall, we are on the verge of getting things dangerously, irreparably wrong again.

We are now embroiled in a critical debate about sending our kids back to school, and we have left ourselves nothing but bad options. If we send them to school, they might get sick or might get others sick. If we keep them home, we wont be able to go to work and we might stunt their educational growth. If we do a blended learning approach and send them to school some days but keep them home other days, our children might get sick and they might be stunted. Besides, there arent many parents who can hold down a full-time job that they show up for only two-and-a-half days a week.

It didnt have to be this way. If we had successfully done the work of stopping the spread of the virus, as has been done in other countries, we wouldnt have to pick which poison to expose our kids to. If we had committed to testing so as to track the spread of the virus, instead of not testing so as to manage Donald Trumps asinine fear that testing causes cases, we might know which school districts could safely reopen. If we had leaders who cared about the health of our people nearly as much as they care about the health of their stock portfolios, we would be able to protect teachers instead of asking them to risk their lives.More from Mystal

Instead, our leaders view children as nothing more than tiny impediments to efficient wage slavery. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar put it most bluntly: Parents have to get back to the factory. Theyve got to get back to the job site. They have to get back to the office. And part of that is their kids, knowing their kids are taken care of.

Meanwhile, just last week President Donald Trump worried that CDC guidelines for protecting our children were too expensive. He tweeted, I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!

And so, we are here. I wouldnt let my children eat candy handed out by this administration. There are snakes with better parental instincts than these people. The people running the nation have led us to 138,000 deaths and counting, the most in the world. Theyve lost the right to advise me on how to keep my kids safe.Current Issue

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To be sure, there are decent people, mainly at the local level, trying to come up with humane plans for the fallplans that keep our kids safe, teach them, and dont kill thousands of teachers while doing so. The problem is, a national crisis has a way of exacerbating everything that is weak with the underlying society, and our child care and school systems were hobbled and broken well before Covid-19 reared its viral head.

The first problem is that our child care system and school system are the same system, and that means that working families have no access to reliable, affordable child care without in-person schooling. In the Covid-19 Economy, You Can Have a Kid or a Job. You Cant Have Both, blared a recent New York Times headline, highlighting the problem every working parent has faced since the onset of the pandemic. Unequal access to home computingthe digital dividedeepens the problem and renders remote learning a disaster for many families. A family with only one device that can connect to the Internet is put under immense stress while parents are trying to work from home and a child (or multiple children) must Zoom in to school. And I dont even know how the millions of families who have no devices and no reliable Internet service are getting by.

Meanwhile, experts tell us that there are psychological and social benefits to having kids return to school. The American Academy of Pediatrics is pushing for kids to be physically present in a classroom, if possible. Im no doctor, but I worry a lot about how this extended quarantine (my kids havent been out in public since March 6) is delaying my childrens social growth and emotional intelligence. I can homeschool math; I cant homeschool Yes, your classmates made fun of your comment. Are you going to deal with it or are you going to act like Bari Weiss about it? There is learning that can happen only out here in these streets, and the pandemic is robbing my children of such experiences.

But my first job is to keep my children safe. Sending them to a physical building with a bunch of other people doesnt feel safe right now. When I last saw my 7-year-olds class back in March, the kids were trampling each other to get in line for recess. Now Im supposed to believe they will wait patiently six feet apart for an entire day? Have you met children? Socially distant school is one of those phrases, like clean coal or compassionate conservative, that names a thing that does not exist.

Covid-19 does not seem to kill children at the same rates as it kills adults, which is a blessing. But the long-term health effects of the virus on growing lungs are still largely unknown. Do people really expect parents to offer their children as guinea pigs in a years-long coronavirus study? Come on. I know parents who wont let their kids near a Nintendo for fear of what screen time will do to their young minds.

Thats probably why, despite the desperate need for education and child care, an Axios poll found that 71 percent of parents thought sending kids back to school was a moderate to high risk. Among communities of color, the dread is even higher: 89 percent of Black respondents and 80 percent of Hispanic respondents thought sending kids back to school was risky.Covid and Schools

Even if I werent myopically concerned about the health and safety of my own children, I would be skeptical of opening schools and risking the lives of my kids teachers. Whatever protections children seem to have from the virus does not extend to their caregivers and educators. Teachers should not be used like frontline infantry in our fight to return to normalcy.

The Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE), the progressive caucus within New Yorks United Federation of Teachers, is saying more or less the same thing: Its too soon to go back to school. Even beyond the obvious health risks, decades of underfunding and inequality have robbed many school districts of the resources they would need to keep children and teachers safe if we reopened schools during the pandemic.

Once kids are back in the building, who is washing all those germy little desks? We saw this past spring that schools didnt even have the basic supplies needed to keep classrooms clean. The government has had problems getting personal protective equipment to hospitals; how are we going to get all of that stuff to schools? Where are all the cleaning supplies coming from? Who is paying all the overtime for janitorsparticularly in all those districts facing budget cuts?

And who is paying off the wrongful death lawsuit if even one child dies from Covid at school? Or will parents be expected to sign a death waiver, as if theyre sending their kids to a Trump rally?

And what happens when someone inevitably gets sick? You can read reams of plans and proposals for reopening schools, but you dont see plans for when a child or teacher contracts the disease. Will the schools be closed? For how long? You dont see plans for easy access to testing. You dont see reporting guidelines for confirmed cases, or transparency guidelines for informing the school community when someone comes down with the illness. Do we really think parents are going to want to send their kids back to school when their kids teacher has Covid-19? Or is the plan simply to not tell the parents that the teacher got sick?

Despite the demonstrable need to send children back to school, it is highly unlikely that I will be sending my kids to a physical building this fall. I can say that because I am drenched in privilege. I have a house with a yard, so my kids arent cooped up all day. Each kid has their own dedicated iPad, and they have their own laptop. My wife and I both have jobs we can do from home, while homeschooling our kids. Its terrible, but I at least have the option of dashing off crappier columns while taking care of my kids (sorry, readers). Most important, my kids school, a private one, provided all of the materials and support my family needed to keep educating the kids through this crisis. Zoom learning isnt the best, but well get by.

My privilege speaks to the shocking inequality in our society and school system. Fortunate people will opt out of this madness until there is a vaccine. Well print out workbooks, take virtual-reality trips to the zoo, and wait until everybody stops dying before letting our kids out of our cocoon of safety.

Less-privileged people will have to suffer the full consequences of living in the only advanced nation that cant be bothered to stop the spread of the virus. Other countries are in a position to reopen schools and businesses because they did the right thing with lockdowns and didnt turn public health into a culture war. Our country, led as it is by a ruling party that has spent three decades acting like science was a liberal hoax, is only in a position to court death.

Reopening schools in this environment will have predictable results: The children of poor and working-class folks will be more exposed to the disease, because those families will have no choice but to risk their health in order to work. Those children will, in turn, infect their parents and the teachers who work in lower-income communities, and any long-term health risks from Covid-19 will be borne more heavily by those who grew up with more economic challenges. Eventually, clusters of teachers will turn up dead, and schools will re-close just as many bars and restaurants are doing now.

It would be nice if we could skip over the dead teachers phase, but Trump and his education secretary, Erik Princes sister, have evidently decided that getting people killed is the best way for him to win reelection.

Trumps predecessor poignantly concluded that our inability to protect our children from gun violence is the most unforgivable failure of American society. I guess I shouldnt be surprised that a society that cannot come together to prevent children and teachers from being shot at school has no plan to keep children and teachers from getting sick at school.

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There Are Literally No Good Options for Educating Our Kids This Fall - The Nation