Category Archives: Information for Activism

Texas GOP sees Haitian migrant border crisis as a political opportunity – Vox

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” . . . The situation in Del Rio — where more than 12,000 migrants are camping in increasingly squalid conditions without adequate access to water, food, and sanitation — is growing dire from a humanitarian perspective. Most of these migrants are from Haiti and plan to seek asylum in the US, as is their right under federal and international law. In just the last few months, Haiti has suffered from a political crisis stemming from President Jovenel Moïse’s July assassination, resultant gang violence, and the two-punch of a 7.2-magnitude earthquake and a tropical storm that left about 2,200 dead and many thousands more injured or missing. Those conditions appear to have driven more Haitians to make the treacherous journey to the US border: Federal immigration authorities have encountered more than 30,000 Haitians this fiscal year, nearly six times the number encountered over the previous fiscal year.But Abbott has sought to twist that humanitarian crisis into a security crisis designed to appeal to Republican voters in his state, who have long identified immigration and border security as top priorities in public opinion polling. He told the Texas Tribune that he was trying to “stop these [migrant] caravans from overrunning our state” and described US Customs and Border Protection agents as “overwhelmed by the chaos.” That’s in line with his recent rhetoric trying to demonize migrants arriving on the southern border as lawbreakers and carriers of disease. . . ”

Source: Texas GOP sees Haitian migrant border crisis as a political opportunity – Vox

FHTE Reparationist Quick Guided (Volume 1 Issue 2)_.pdf – Google Drive

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FHTE Reparationist Quick Guide
January 2021 – Volume 1 Issue 2

About Us
The FHTE (From Here to Equality) Reparationist Quick Guide Response was
initially established in October of 2020, as the ADOS Reparationist Quick Guide©, and is designed to be a civic engagement resource for anyone. It allows supporters to take an ownership share in our online social justice advocacy. Authorship is being encouraged from every sector and community of citizens concerned with the restorative justice of black American Descendants of Slavery (i.e., ADOS) and the closing of the black-white racial
wealth gap. The book From here to equality: Reparations for black Americans in the twentieth century (Darity & Mullen, 2020) will serve as our base source for the volumes’ invited authors. Each issue will contain four topics and five quick points from four featured authors who offer their responses to commonly held positions in opposition to reparations or frequently asked questions (FAQ) about African American reparations.

The inherited disadvantages of slavery and the inability to transfer wealth to ADOS descendants have been a significant contributor to the bottom class positionality of this ethnic group. This series is published to encourage study and dialogue. It is an instrument for personal empowerment. The guide creates a space for the civic engagement participation of Reparationist in national coalition-building, including petitioning for significant revision (or
replacement) of the bill H.R. 40 (S.1083) currently under consideration in the U.S. Congress.

 

Source: FHTE Reparationist Quick Guided (Volume 1 Issue 2)_.pdf – Google Drive

US Is Using Pandemic as an Excuse to Send Asylum Seekers Back Into Harm’s Way

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The U.S. is using the pandemic as a pretext to further shut down asylum, while spreading the virus through deportations.

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COVID-19 Weaponized to Shut Down Borders

The Trump administration began pushing its agenda of shutting down asylum in the U.S. right out of the gate, and COVID-19 has now provided a new justification. Purportedly to protect public health, the government has essentially shut down asylum at the southern border with Mexico while the U.S. spreads the virus through deportations. Asylum deals with Central American nations are currently in limbo, but the administration could begin sending people to a third country, Honduras, at any time.

In 2019, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security signed a series of bilateral agreements with security officials in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, including an asylum cooperative agreement (ACA) with each country. The agreements permit the U.S. to send asylum seekers of other nationalities to precisely those Central American countries that hundreds of thousands of citizens have been fleeing, and forcing them to seek asylum there instead or return home.

More than 900 Hondurans and Salvadorans were sent to Guatemala under the agreement between November 2019 and mid-March 2020, when implementation was suspended due to factors related to COVID-19, and the president of El Salvador said months prior that his country did not yet have any capacity to receive people under the third country deal. But implementation of the U.S.-Honduras asylum cooperative agreement could potentially begin at any time, following its publication on May 1 in the U.S. Federal Register.

“There are some reasons why the Trump administration might roll out some other ACAs like the Honduran ACA,” said Yael Schacher, senior U.S. advocate at Refugees International, a humanitarian and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

Together with Human Rights Watch, Refugees International just released a new report, “Deportation with a Layover,” that examines the U.S.-Guatemala asylum cooperative agreement. The May 19 report details rights violations and lack of protection at every step of the way, from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody to Guatemala. People are effectively compelled to abandon their asylum claims, according to the report, which notes only 20 of the 939 Hondurans and Salvadorans sent to Guatemala under the deal applied for asylum in Guatemala.

Source: US Is Using Pandemic as an Excuse to Send Asylum Seekers Back Into Harm’s Way

Methodist Le Bonheur Makes Millions, Owns a Collection Agency and Relentlessly Sues the Poor

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In July 2007, Carrie Barrett went to the emergency room at Methodist University Hospital, complaining of shortness of breath and tightness in her chest. Her leg was swollen, she’d later recall, and her toes were turning black.Given her family history, high blood pressure and newly diagnosed congestive heart failure, doctors performed a heart catheterization, threading a long tube through her groin and into her heart.

Her share of the two-night stay: $12,019.Barrett, who has never made more than $12 an hour, doesn’t remember getting any notices to pay from the hospital. But in 2010, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare sued her for the unpaid medical bills, plus attorney’s fees and court costs.Since then, the nonprofit hospital system affiliated with the United Methodist Church has doggedly pursued her, adding interest to the debt seven times and garnishing money from her paycheck on 15 occasions.

Source: Methodist Le Bonheur Makes Millions, Owns a Collection Agency and Relentlessly Sues the Poor

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Report: More than 1600 Polling Places Have Closed Since the Supreme Court Gutted the Voting Rights Act – Mother Jones

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The consequences of the Shelby County decision were immediate: States that had previously fallen under the jurisdiction of the VRA immediately passed tough voter restriction laws and restructured election systems. But a new report released today by the civil rights coalition The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights adds another dimension to the picture of how this 2013 ruling has undermined voter access by analyzing the number of polling place that have been closed since the ruling. According to the report, entitled “Democracy Diverted: Polling Place Closures and the Right to Vote,” 1,688 polling places are now shuttered in those areas. The report, which is a follow-up to a 2016 analysis, looked at 757 counties and found that 298 of them, or 39 percent, reduced their number of polling places between 2012 and 2018.

“Next to the ballot itself, the most identifiable element of our democracy’s voting process is the polling place. It should—and it must—be accessible to all,” the report states. “When it is not, the barriers to participation can be high. Moving or closing a polling place— particularly without notice or input from communities—disrupts our democracy.”

Source: Report: More than 1600 Polling Places Have Closed Since the Supreme Court Gutted the Voting Rights Act – Mother Jones

White People Need to Understand That Helping Is Not the Same as Controlling

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He told me that White people need the humility to understand that helping is not the same as controlling. Not only should we not assume the lead, we must also possess and exercise the humility to be told what to do, what is best, what is right—and what is wrong.We need to help support communities gain the power to control their own destiny, not “help” them by assuming that control for ourselves.And we need to be honest.

IF WHO WE TRULY ARE DOES NOT ALLOW US TO TEACH, SUPPORT, CARE, LOVE AND FIGHT FOR BLACK AND BROWN KIDS, THEN WE NEED TO GO DO SOMETHING ELSE.

If who we truly are does not allow us to teach, support, care, love and fight for Black and Brown kids, then we need to go do something else.These were not easy things for me to hear. I was triggered, defensive and unsure. Which was precisely the reaction that demonstrated how comfortable I had been telling others what to do and how to be, but how little experience I, as a White man, had being on the opposite side of the conversation.

Source: White People Need to Understand That Helping Is Not the Same as Controlling

Embracing the Courageous Four:Radically Reconceiving and Reconstructing America

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“Trump’s attacks on these four courageous, committed, knowledgeable and defiant congresswomen of color, not only reflect his commitment to views, policies and practices that are racist, anti-people of color; xenophobic, anti-immigrant and those different; sexist, anti-women; and opportunistic, ever self-promoting and peacocking.

These attacks also reflect his reactionary politics and conception of America. It is a politics of White supremacy; predatory capitalism at home and abroad; warmongering; privatization of public wealth and space; and peddling a personalized patriotism based on his astonishing ignorance, multiple insecurities and vulgar interests.We must constantly expose, criticize and condemn the monster side of America we call Trump and his supporters and enablers, but we must not over focus on him and under focus on the rising movement to actively resist him in Congress, as represented by the initiatives of the courageous four and also in our various communities across the country. To make this mistake would be like over focusing on a devast[at]ing fire and the havoc it is wreaking and under focusing on the response and responders needed to control and extinguish it.

Audacious and defiant, these four progressive congresswomen resist and reject Trump’s attempt to impose his deformed and dishonest reactionary conception of patriotism and politics. Indeed, they cannot morally and will not politically accept Trump’s packaged and constantly peddled racist patriotic politics of vicious and varied forms of oppression: apartheid walls here and abroad; corruption and coercion; the savaging of immigrants and the abuse and separation of children from their families; anti-labor and anti-union policies; preference for the rich at the expense and injury of the poor; racial and religious restrictions and preferences; denial of climate change; and his obsessive and infantile attempt to rival and erase everything considered an Obama achievement.

Source: Embracing the Courageous Four:Radically Reconceiving and Reconstructing America

Seeing Red: A professor coexists with ‘MAGA’ in the classroom

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“Thus, in that moment, I was unsure whether the student was directing a hateful message toward me or if he merely lacked decorum and was oblivious to how his hat might be interpreted by his black law professor. I presumed it was the former. As the student sat there directly in front of me, his shiny red MAGA hat was like a siren spewing derogatory racial obscenities at me for the duration of the one hour and fifteen-minute class.Being a law professor, I understand the complexities of academic freedom and free speech. I respect students’ rights to freely express their political beliefs and values within the framework of the law. Yet, at the same time, law schools are inherently institutions of professional training. Just as faculty and staff are required to maintain professional formalities to aid the training and matriculation of their students, it seems only logical that students, too, should maintain similar businesslike etiquette.But when students fail to live up to such professional expectations, what are the professors’ options? Although my position is at a private university, I understood that my lack of tenure, precarious status as a VAP and the hue of my skin meant that I would be fighting an uphill battle should I have asked the student to remove his distracting red hat during class. Surely, there must be protocol when African-American professors—whose presence is scarce in most law schools—find their authority defiantly undermined by an insensitive student.As my blood boiled inwardly, outwardly I remained calm. In an effort to assuage the perceived tension, I jokingly told the student, “I like your hat,” when he raised his hand to participate in class discussion. Without missing a beat, the student mockingly grinned from ear to ear and said, “Thank you.”

Source: Seeing Red: A professor coexists with ‘MAGA’ in the classroom 

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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

America’s Reproductive Slaves

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“The effort to block birth control and abortion is not about religion nor about politicians pandering to a right-wing base, nor is it a result of prudery, nor is it to punish women for having sex,” Jenny Brown writes in her book “Birth Strike: Hidden Fight Over Women’s Work.” “It is about the labor of bearing and rearing children: who will do it and who will pay for it.”

Source: America’s Reproductive Slaves