Monthly Archives: June 2019

Open Letter: To my Trump-supporting family. – My Daughter’s Army

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“After I left the Navy and joined the real world, I saw more and more of what this country truly was.  The mistreatment of people of color, the judgment and chastisement of the LGBT community, and the everyday sexism.  Unlike the America taught in schools, this place had a lot of scars, scratches, and quite a few gaping wounds.  But still I thought none of them were terminal.  Surely Bill Clinton (for all his flaws) had it right when he said there was nothing wrong with America that couldn’t be cured by what was right in America.  Surely.Up until November 8, 2016, I genuinely believed that, despite its myriad shortcomings, America was still the country that stood up to bullies.  It valued intellect and scientific discovery.  Americans may have disagreed on specific policies, but still had faith that public servants genuinely had the country’s best interests at heart.  Immigration built this country.  And we should always, always protect the innocent and welcome those fleeing poverty, war, or famine with open arms.But America didn’t elect a leader who represents any of those principles.  America didn’t elect a leader with any principles.  And you did that.  You can say you held your nose and voted for the “lesser of two evils,” or that you only voted for Trump because you knew he’d further the policies with which you agreed, even if you found him personally detestable.  But when you and all of the other Trump voters pulled that lever, you weren’t just selecting your preferred presidential candidate.  You were selecting what America was.  And it is nothing like the America I grew up believing in.  To say that your choice and the result it brought about triggered an existential crisis would be an understatement.  My whole life, I’d been an unquestioning, patriotic servant of America because of what I’d believed it stood for.  But in a single night, everything it stood for was revealed as a fraud.  Everything I stood for was a fraud.”

Source: Open Letter: To my Trump-supporting family. – My Daughter’s Army

A Brief History of US Concentration Camps | Black Agenda Report

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“The Union Army re-captured freed slaves throughout the South and pressed them into hard labor in disease-ridden ‘contraband camps.’’

concentration camp (noun): a place in which large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution.– Oxford English Dictionary

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has ignited a firestorm of criticism, from both the left and the right as well as the mainstream media, for calling US immigrant detention centers “concentration camps.” To her credit, Ocasio-Cortez has refused to back down, citing academic experts and blasting the Trump administration for forcibly holding undocumented migrants “where they are brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying.” She also cited history. “The US ran concentration camps before, when we rounded up Japanese people during World War II,” she tweeted. “It is such a shameful history that we largely ignore it. These camps occur throughout history.” Indeed they do. What follows is an overview of US civilian concentration camps through the centuries. Prisoner-of-war camps, as horrific as they have been, have been excluded due to their legal status under the Geneva Conventions, and for brevity’s sake.”

Source: A Brief History of US Concentration Camps | Black Agenda Report

U.S. begins paying out reparations from France to Holocaust survivors and their heirs – The Washington Post

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“Transportation U.S. begins paying out reparations from France to Holocaust survivors and their heirs Add to listBy Katherine Shaver September 15, 2016The State Department has paid or approved 90 claims for a total $11 million in reparations from France to former World War II prisoners who were carried to Nazi death camps in French trains — the first French reparations paid to Holocaust survivors living in the United States, officials said Thursday.

The payments apply to Holocaust survivors who were deported from France to concentration camps on stifling trains operated by the state-owned French railway, SNCF, or, if the survivors have died, to their spouses or heirs. It is the first French compensation to Holocaust survivors who settled in the United States as well as Israel, Canada and other countries that haven’t had a reparations agreement with France.It’s also the first World War II reparations program to include heirs considered to be “standing in the shoes” of people who died before receiving compensation for the atrocities they or their spouses endured, State Department officials said.

“In many ways, this is belated justice for the worst crimes in history,” said Stuart Eizenstat, the State Department’s special adviser for Holocaust issues. “But it also underscores a long relationship with France.”SNCF was paid to transport 76,000 Jews and other prisoners, usually with no food and only a bucket for a toilet, to Nazi camps. All but about 2,000 were killed.[Video: On a French train to Auschwitz, a daring leap for survival]While the French government has paid more than $6 billion in Holocaust reparations since 1948, including to deportees, those payments previously covered only French citizens and those of four countries that had bilateral agreements with France.More than 700 claims have been filed under a 2014 agreement between the United States and France in which the French government pledged a total $60 million for the deportations carried out by SNCF, officials said.

In exchange, the U.S. government agreed to ask courts to dismiss any U.S. lawsuits against SNCF or the French government.U.S. Jewish groups and aging Holocaust survivors have pushed for French reparations since at least 2000, both through class-action lawsuits and state and federal legislation. However, their cause gained political traction in 2010, when survivors began protesting SNCF and a company in which it holds a majority stake, Paris-based Keolis, as they pursued state and federal rail projects.

Survivors said SNCF and Keolis shouldn’t be awarded U.S. contracts supported by their tax dollars until they had been compensated.So far, Eizenstat said, 29 Holocaust deportees have received $204,000 each, while 11 spouses of those who died in Nazi concentration camps or before 1948 are receiving $51,000 each. Spouses of Holocaust victims who died in or after 1948 — the start of France’s own Holocaust reparations fund for French citizens — will receive $750 for each year that the survivor lived after 1948.

Source: U.S. begins paying out reparations from France to Holocaust survivors and their heirs – The Washington Post

Women And People Of Color Were Elected At Same Rate As White Men In 2018: Report | HuffPost

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“Specifically, women of color were 4% of 2018 candidates and 5% of winners; white women were 28% of candidates and 29% of winners; men of color were 6% of candidates and 7% of winners; and white men were 61% of candidates and 60% of winners.  “There’s a common assumption that white men are the more electable candidates ― but our research found the opposite,” Brenda Choresi Carter, director of the Reflective Democracy Campaign, said on a press call. “We found women of color, white women and men of color win at essentially the same rate. There’s only one group that loses slightly more ― and that’s white men.”

Source: Women And People Of Color Were Elected At Same Rate As White Men In 2018: Report | HuffPost  

More:  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-of-color-candidates-increase-2018-midterm-elections_n_5bbe8a71e4b0c8fa1367e58e

The b[B]lack woman who launched the modern fight for reparations – The Washington Post

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“Indeed, b[B]lack women have been at the center of the push for reparations for more than a century. Excluding them from the reparations debate blinds us to the multifaceted modern movement.”

“The reparations hearings in the House of Representatives last week turned contentious as experts such as writer Ta-Nehisi Coates traded barbs with politicians, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The bill at the heart of the hearings, H.R. 40, first introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr. in 1989, would create a commission to study and develop proposals for reparations for descendants of slaves.While Conyers should be lauded for his original efforts to introduce this legislation, this month’s hearings would not be possible without Audley “Queen Mother” Moore, the founder of the modern reparations movement. Indeed, b[B]lack women have been at the center of the push for reparations for more than a century. Excluding them from the reparations debate blinds us to the multifaceted modern movement. It also runs the risk of omitting some of the most generative and inventive reparations proposals developed to date.The debate over reparations is not new.

Since the Civil War, b[B]lack Americans have been imploring the federal government to rectify years of racial terror and prejudice. Some followed Callie House, an ex-slave turned reparations organizer who formed the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association to mobilize freed men and women to lobby Congress for pensions and land in the late 1800s. Others called on the federal government to make good on Special Field Order No. 15, a short-lived Civil War-era law that redistributed confiscated Confederate land to former slaves in 40-acre plots. By the turn of the century, the phrase “40 acres and a mule” became a catchall term for reparations claims.”

Source: The black woman who launched the modern fight for reparations – The Washington Post

Finally Seeing Andrea | Boston Review

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“I saw adults as gatekeepers who stood between me and the world. I hated their evasions, rules, lies, petty tyrannies. I wanted to be honest and feel everything and take everything on. I didn’t want to be careful and narrow the way they were. I thought a person could survive anything, except maybe famine and war, or drought and war. When I learned about Auschwitz, my idea of the unbearable became more specific, more informed, sober and personal.”

Source: Finally Seeing Andrea | Boston Review

Slavery Reparations Could Cost Up to $14 Trillion, According to New Calculation

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The Permanent Memorial to Honor the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, in New York City, acknowledges a tragic chapter in the nation’s history. Some have argued that reparations for slavery would help heal long-festering racial strife. EDUARDO MUNOZ / REUTERS

” In 1865, toward the end of the Civil War, Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman promised slaves that they’d receive 40 acres and a mule. Land was even set aside, but the promise was recanted by President Andrew Johnson. Ever since, the issue of reparations has come up many times, often fiercely debated. Although most Americans generally don’t support reparations, according to University of Connecticut researcher Thomas Craemer, it matters greatly how the question is worded, who would get reparations and in what form. For example, the idea of reparations paid in educational benefits are more popular than others, Craemer says.

On the other hand, one of the cases often made against reparations is that it’d be impractically difficult to calculate how to fairly take and give so many years after the fact. But in a new paper, published in the journal Social Science Quarterly, Craemer makes the case that there are other examples of historical reparations paid many decades later after “damages” were incurred. He also has come up with what he says is the most economically sound estimate to date of what reparations could cost: between $5.9 trillion and $14.2 trillion.

Craemer came up with those figures by tabulating how many hours all slaves—men, women and children—worked in the United States from when the country was officially established in 1776 until 1865, when slavery was officially abolished. He multiplied the amount of time they worked by average wage prices at the time, and then a compounding interest rate of 3 percent per year (more than making up for inflation). There is a range because the amount of time worked isn’t a hard figure.

Previous estimates of reparations have ranged from around $36 billion to $10 trillion (in 2009 dollars), Craemer says. Those calculations mostly looked at wealth created by slaves as opposed to services provided, resulting in underestimates. Craemer believes that “the economic assumptions underlying [his method] are more sound” than those used in previous papers.

The paper also illustrates several historical examples in which reparations were paid, many decades later, despite being initially unpopular—showing that repayment of age-old claims is not without precedent . . .

Reparations will never bring one life back, and it’s totally inadequate to the terror of the [past], but having a meaningful symbol of reparations is a good thing, not just for recipients but for the people who provide it,” he says.”

Source: Slavery Reparations Could Cost Up to $14 Trillion, According to New Calculation

Black History | Breeding American Slaves | 3CHICSPOLITICO

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“The purpose of slave breeding was to produce new slaves without incurring the cost of purchase, to fill labor shortages caused by the termination of the Atlantic slave trade, and to attempt to improve the health and productivity of slaves. Slave breeding was condoned in the South because slaves were considered to be subhuman chattel, and were not entitled to the same rights accorded to free persons.”

Source: Black History | Breeding American Slaves | 3CHICSPOLITICO

A National Forum: HR-40 and the Promise of Reparations for African Americans

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Juneteenth National Forum: HR-40 and the Promise of Reparations for African Americans

Press Play: Live-stream will begin here at 1PM EST, Wednesday June 19, 2019Healing and Reconciliation: HR-40 and the Promise of Reparations for African AmericansWednesday, June 19, 2019 (Juneteenth), 10 AM the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution will convene a hearing on HR 40.Following this historic hearing, the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) will hold a national forum, 1 PM at the Historical Metropolitan AME Church, 1518 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005. This event is free and open to the public. Doors Open at 12:30 PM. If you are not able to join us in Washington DC, join us here online during the livestream (above).Panelists and speakers to include Rev. Dr. William Lamar, Jeffery Robinson, Dr. Ron Daniels, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Danny Glover, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, Kamm Howard, Atty. Nkechi Taifa, Dr. Iva Carruthers, Nana Dr. Patricia Newton, Katrina Browne and others – See program

Source: A National Forum: HR-40 and the Promise of Reparations for African Americans

Report: The Department Of Education Has Spent $1 Billion On Charter School Waste And Fraud

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“In many cases, CSP awarded grants to schools that never even opened, or closed soon after opening. In 2015, Innovative Schools Development Corporation pulled in a three-year federal grant for $609,000 to open a STEM school. The school promised to enroll 250 students, but it wanted to open in a county that already had twenty charter schools, and enrollment never topped thirty students, nor did it secure the rest of its needed funding. Its charter was revoked before it even opened.”

Source: Report: The Department Of Education Has Spent $1 Billion On Charter School Waste And Fraud