BLOG FEED – RE-POSTS

HENRY-LOUIS TAYLOR, JR.
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KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR

His Name Was Emmett Till

By Wright Thompson

Read the full article from The Alantic, here.

Emmett till was killed early on the morning of August 28, 1955, one month and three days after his 14th birthday. His mother’s decision to show his body in an open casket, to allow Jet magazine to publish photos—“Let the world see what I’ve seen,” she said—became a call to action. Three months after his murder, Rosa Parks kept her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, and she later told Mamie Till that she’d been thinking of Emmett when she refused to move. Almost 60 years later, after Trayvon Martin was killed, Oprah Winfrey channeled the thoughts of many Americans in evoking the memory and the warning of Emmett Till.

Can Erie County office close the health equity gap?

By News Editorial Board

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz plans to spend $300,000 in federal stimulus money to attack the racial disparity in health outcomes. It’s a good start. The challenge for Poloncarz: Ensure the spending actually narrows the gap.

In Erie County, African American children are more than twice as likely to die within a year after birth, according to the County Health Rankings report, and twice as likely to die before they turn 18. African American girls are 2 1/2 times more likely than whites to give birth in their late teens.

Underlying all of that is poverty. Nearly half of African American children in Erie County are living in poverty – five times the rate among white children.

How Buffalo’s lottery proposal for $500 monthly checks compares to other cities

By News Staff Reporter

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

The “guaranteed income” program Mayor Byron W. Brown has proposed for Buffalo shares the traits of other such initiatives around the country with one exception: More people would participate.

The $500 monthly payment is in line with pilot projects proposed or already running in 16 other cities, according to a Buffalo News review of their criteria.

Related Companies obtain $3 million in tax breaks for affordable housing overhauls

By News Staff Reporter

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

Related plans to invest up to $50,000 per unit on renovations that should begin this fall and take up to 18 months to complete at the Princeton Court Apartments, Parkside Houses Apartments, Brewster Mews Apartments and Oxford Village Townhomes. Current owner M.J. Peterson Corp. will remain a 50% owner and continue to manage the properties.

Amherst Industrial Development Agency officials say the projects preserve roughly 1,000 units of affordable housing in the town for the next 30 to 40 years. The IDA board approved the incentive requests on July 16. Related also is seeking a payment in lieu of taxes agreement from the Town of Amherst.

People Inc. ready to start next project at Elmwood Crossing

By News Business Reporter

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

The next phase of work at Elmwood Crossing is poised to begin in just over a month, with a little-noticed conversion project would bring low-income seniors to live in a former hospital buildings.

People Inc., the region’s largest social services nonprofit agency, plans to transform the former Maternity Building at the old Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo into a senior housing facility.

Buffalo police community outreach

By Sharon Cantillon

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

The Buffalo Police Department held a community outreach called Taking It to the Streets at New Hope Baptist Church, across from Schiller Park, Tuesday, July 20, 2021. It provided a chance for the police to interact with the public. Police officials and various officers were on hand as well as community groups and services. They plan on doing similar events around the city throughout the rest of the summer.

Citizen panel questions Buffalo police chief on white supremacy in policing

By Deidre Williams

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

Noting a series of alarming incidents around the country, members of a citizens police oversight panel that reports to the Buffalo Common Council on Wednesday questioned Police Commissioner Byron C. Lockwood on the steps being taken to prevent a white supremacist from infiltrating the department’s ranks.

In the Twin Cities, Affordable Homeownership Is Increasingly Inaccessible for Black Families

By Yonah Freemark, Eleanor Noble, Yipeng Su, and Kimberly Burrowes

Read the full article from Housing Matters, here.

But deep structural racism and classism have made access to homeownership inequitably distributed along racial and class lines. Nowhere in the US is this inequity greater than in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, a region encompassing Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and their suburbs, where Black families own homes at less than one-third the rate of white families—the largest gap in the nation.

Erie County legislators expect ugly fight before vote on how to spend stimulus money

By Sandra Tan

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

The Democratic majority of the Erie County Legislature stands poised to approve County Executive Mark Poloncarz’s $123.7 million spending plan Thursday, which would take one of the biggest windfalls in decades and use it to boost a variety of infrastructure and community improvement projects, as well as county payroll.

But the Republican-supported minority caucus is gearing up to wage a battle on the Legislature floor. They will push to sidetrack the county executive’s spending plan and replace it with a different plan that they say offers more public input.

Buffalo offering aid for those behind on water bills

By Jeff Slawson

Read the full article from WKBW Buffalo, here.

The City of Buffalo and the Buffalo Sewer Authority are providing relief to the more than 30,000 households that fell behind on water and sewer bills during the past 16 months. Of the $361 million the city received through the American Rescue Plan, $13 million of it will be used to wash away debt for low-income families who faced financial hardships as a result of the pandemic.

After assuring Congress that it hasn’t forgotten about Haiti, the Biden administration scrambles to assess the crisis

By Lara Jakes and Catherine Porter

Read the full article from The New York Times, here.

On Wednesday morning, Representative Andy Levin, a member of the committee who is also a co-chair of the House Haiti Caucus, called the killing of Mr. Moïse “a devastating if not shocking example of the extent to which the security situation in Haiti has unraveled.”

“For months,” he said in a statement, “violent actors have terrorized the Haitian people with impunity while the international community — the United States included, I fear — has failed to heed their cries to change course and support a Haitian-led democratic transition.”

Eric Adams Wins Democratic Primary for New York City Mayor

By Katie Glueck

Read the full article from The New York Times, here.

Eric L. Adams, who rose from poverty to become an iconoclastic police captain and the borough president of Brooklyn, declared victory in the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City on Tuesday, putting him on track to become the second Black mayor in the history of the nation’s largest city.

Another Voice: Education, not guilt, is the focus of Critical Race Theory

By Beth Kwiatek

Read the full article from Buffalo News, here.

CRT and whiteness studies argue that racism is not the consequence of the actions of individual racists, but that racism is embedded in the systems of our nation: legal, economic, education, religious and political. These systems all purport the myth of equality, but operate in a way that has always benefited whites and continues to do so.

At UNC, the Damage Is Done

By Sarah Brown

Read the full article from The Chronicle of Higher Education, here.

Wilson isn’t planning to leave UNC yet. She had another job offer a year ago and decided to stay in Chapel Hill. But at a recent meeting of the Carolina Black Caucus, a campus group that advocates for Black faculty and staff members, most of the 30 attendees said they were looking for jobs elsewhere — and caucus leaders say that sentiment is reflected broadly across their membership.

Forming Partnerships With Public Health Departments, Part 1: Why It’s a Good Idea

By Logan Rockefeller Harris, Megan Gaydos, and Solange Gould

Read the full article from ShelterForce, here.

Meaningful partnerships between public health departments and community organizers are incredibly important—they can build community power to create the conditions that allow people and communities to thrive. At Human Impact Partners (HIP) we’re working to transform the field of public health to center equity and build collective power with social justice movements.

Change universities to change capitalism

By Capital-Star Guest Contributor

Read the full article from Pennsylvania Capital Star, here.

Recently, leading foundations, including Ford, Hewlett, and the Omidyar Network, have developed initiatives designed to promote a reexamination of capitalism and find a successor to neoliberalism with its emphasis on privatization, deregulation, and a reduction in government spending.

The American Rescue Plan and President Joe Biden’s big and impressive infrastructure bill will turn the tide and begin to redirect capitalism for the better.

Producing a truly more humane and effective system will also require changing American higher education. Research universities in particular are sources of new ideas and discoveries, incubators for business and technology, cultural and artistic centers, and local, national and global economic engines.

A Nightmare of Terror Across the Landscape of Palestine

By Yousef Munayyer

Read the full article from The Nation <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/israel-palestine-reign-of-terror/&quot;.

“[W]hat is happening in Sheikh Jarrah is not just about Jerusalem but is also reflective of the entire Palestinian experience. Since the start of Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine, the aim has been to slowly and steadily expand control over the territory, pushing the indigenous population out in a continual process of replacement…All of this would be tinder enough for this moment, but it also happens to be taking place in a broader immediate context, one in which the vise grip of accelerating right-wing, theocratic nationalism is tightening across Israel.”

How a Socialist City Councilor Won 100% Affordable Housing in a Gentrifying Chicago Neighborhood

By Carlos Ramirez-Rosa

Read the full article from Jacobin here.

“From the top of Logan Square’s newest seven-story apartment building at 2602 North Emmett Street, just steps from the train stop bearing the neighborhood’s name, the view is incredible…In Chicago’s most rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, this is usually the kind of coveted view and central location only the wealthy can enjoy. But they won’t be able to buy all this building has to offer. Instead, all of the building’s hundred apartments are publicly funded and reserved for poor and working-class people.”

Is Capitalism a Threat to Democracy?

By Caleb Crain

Read the full article from The New Yorker here.

“In Vienna, Polanyi had heard socialism dismissed as utopian, on the ground that no central authority could efficiently manage millions of different wishes, resources, and capabilities. In “The Great Transformation,” he swivelled this popgun around. What was utopian, he declared, was “the concept of a self-regulating market.” Human life wasn’t as orderly as mathematics, and only a goggle-eyed idealist would think it wise to lash people to a mechanism like the gold standard and then turn the crank. For most of human history, he observed, money and the exchange of goods had been embedded within culture, religion, and politics.”

Please Don’t Wear A Sombrero: What Cinco De Mayo Really Means, From A Mexican

By Maria Garcia

Read the full article from WBUR here.

“My biggest gripe with Cinco de Mayo is not the cultural appropriation, as off-putting as I find it. The real tragedy for me is that a day that once represented Black and brown solidarity — and resistance against colonialism — has been mired by a commercial whitewashing. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla in 1862, when a rag-tag army of mostly indigenous Mexicans defeated French forces who attempted to conquer the independent country…At the time, Mexican-Americans in California opposed to slavery felt that the success of the Union could hinge on the Battle of Puebla and upon hearing that Mexican forces had prevailed, they celebrated with fireworks and drinks. Cinco de Mayo was born…In the ’60s, Chicano activists in the U.S. revived the holiday, using it as a call to solidarity for Civil Rights.”

The Fight for Diverse, Inclusive, Antiracist and Just Democracies

By KerryAnn O’Meara, Ahmed Bawa, Hugo Garcia, Ira Harkavy, Rita Hodges and Hilligje Van’t Land

Read the full article from Inside Higher Ed here.

“At the 2020 Association for the Study of Higher Education conference, we shared research and practice from universities in South Africa, the United States and the International Association of Universities. We concluded that postsecondary institutions — notable contributions during the pandemic notwithstanding — have too often been complicit in systems that create or reproduce savage health and economic inequities, public disregard of science, and individuals who feel alienated and forgotten. Examples include the scarcity of locally situated university clinics and the lack of educational opportunities that perpetuates the exclusion of marginalized groups and working-class students.”

‘Justice Will Prevail,’ But Why Must We Die For Us To Come Out Ahead?

By Kevin L. Clark

Read the full article from Ebony here.

“As a rabble-rouser and fellow member of the Black community, it’s soundbites like this that make people like Nancy Pelosi believe that these police-sanctioned murders are “sacrifices” meant as steps to progress that will eventually liberate us from the oppressive and murderous intentions of the state and federal government.”

As Global Pandemic Worsens, U.S. Keeps Blocking Vaccine Patent Waivers Amid Big Pharma Lobbying

Listen to the full story from Democracy Now! here.

“Dozens of countries from the Global South, led by India and South Africa, are demanding a temporary waiver on vaccine patents, but rich countries, including the U.S. under both the Trump and Biden administrations, have opposed the move. Lee Fang, investigative journalist at The Intercept, says there is a “glut” of vaccines going to wealthy countries while much of the rest of the world is left waiting.”

White Supremacy Never Takes a Day Off

By Elie Mystal

Read the full article from The Nation here.

“The police, the people empowered to turn systemic racism into state-sponsored terrorism, remain totally unbowed by the conviction of a single cop. At the very moment the verdict against Chauvin was being read in Minneapolis, police in Columbus, Ohio, shot 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant to death. Cops couldn’t wait until the close of business on the day George Floyd’s family found some measure of justice before killing another Black person.”

We Still Don’t Know Who the Coronavirus’s Victims Were

By Ibram X. Kendi

Read the full article from The Atlantic here.

“More than a year into a pandemic that has killed at least 574,978 Americans and infected 32.3 million as of Thursday, we still have only partial visibility into precisely who coronavirus patients really are. Data inequality, and all its shadows, is the norm. No one knows how many Black Americans died from COVID-19. No one knows exactly how many Native Americans were hospitalized. No one knows precisely how many white Americans were tested for the coronavirus. No one knows precisely how many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were terrorized by other Americans.”

Police Traffic Stops Have Little to Do with Public Safety

By Libby Doyle and Susan Nembhard

Read the full article from Urban Wire here.

“Research on police traffic stops has consistently found widespread racial disparities, with Black drivers more likely than white drivers to be pulled over in cities across the country. These disparities are amplified when considering vehicle search rates; Black and Latine drivers are significantly more likely to be searched than white drivers. In North Carolina, Black drivers were 63 percent more likely to be pulled over and 115 percent more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white drivers, despite finding that contraband was more likely to be found on white drivers.”

What It Actually Means to Pass Local ‘Reparations’

By Brentin Mock

Read the full article from CityLab here.

“Reparations in the U.S. have conventionally been defined as the idea that Black Americans should be compensated for the wrongs of slavery and racial discrimination — an idea once embraced almost exclusively by members of the Black radical Left. As the term has become mainstream, it’s important to probe: Do these municipal programs actually constitute reparations as opposed to, in Evanston’s case, housing assistance, or, in Asheville’s case, part of the divest/invest strategy that many other cities are pursuing?”

Bill Gates says no to sharing vaccine formulas with global poor to end pandemic

By Jon Queally

Read the full article from Salon here.

“Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest men and most powerful philanthropists, was the target of criticism from social justice campaigners on Sunday after arguing that lifting patent protections on COVID-19 vaccine technology and sharing recipes with the world to foster a massive ramp up in manufacturing and distribution — despite a growing international call to do exactly that — is a bad idea. Directly asked during an interview with Sky News if he thought it “would be helpful” to have vaccine recipes be shared, Gates quickly answered: ‘No.’”

George Floyd, Cariol Horne, and the Duty to Intervene

By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

Read the full article from Democracy Now! here.

“Horne organized a campaign to pass “Cariol’s Law” in Buffalo, New York. The law codifies the duty to intervene for police officers, whether on- or off-duty, when they see another officer using unreasonable force against a civilian. It also protects those officers who intervene from retaliation. As the protests sparked by George Floyd’s police killing swept the globe, the Buffalo City Council passed Cariol’s Law, and the mayor signed it into law.”

The Chauvin Verdict Represents an Absolute Minimum of Justice

By Elie Mystal

Read the full article from The Nation here.

“[I]f we ignore the structural changes, the hard changes, the necessary changes, we will be back here. We will not break the cycle of violence against people of color or the polarization over whether our lives matter. It is literally already too late for Floyd to be the last unarmed Black man to be murdered by criminal police action. It is already too late for this time to be the last time the country is divided over whether a cop should be held accountable for their actions.”

DeSantis Signs Bill Ending Vehicle Driver Liability For Hitting Protesters

By Chris Walker

Read the full article from Truthout here.

“Adora Obi Nweze, president of NAACP Florida State Conference, also described the law as being ‘racist, discriminatory, unwise, unlawful, and unjust…The Governor put his stamp on this discriminatory law filled with criminalization and civil rights disenfranchisement aimed at Black and Brown Floridians,’ she added. ‘We won’t sit silent on this issue and we won’t let this stop peaceful protests across the state of Florida.’”

Mayor Lori Lightfoot Has Failed Chicago

By Jasson Perez

Read the full article from The Nation here.

“In the aftermath of the tragedy, the mayor, police, and attorney general followed their usual post-police-killing script: They minimized both the violence on the tape and police culpability. Mayor Lori Lightfoot tried to hold abstractions like ‘systemic forces’ responsible…We know who killed Toledo. It was the police, with an assist from mayors like Lightfoot who fund and empower them. This is why we have taken to the streets in Chicago, again.”

What Daunte Wright’s Killing Foretells for the Suburbs

By Will Stancil

Read the full article from The Atlantic here.

“In some respects, segregation is even more harmful in the suburbs than in major cities, which typically have a larger industrial and commercial tax base that allows them to weather crises and sustain public services. On average, predominantly nonwhite suburbs have the lowest per capita tax base of any community type in a major metropolitan area—about 25 percent less than major cities, and about 40 percent less than predominantly white suburbs.”

‘Intellectual diversity’ on college campuses measure heads to Governor’s desk

By Renzo Downey

Read the full article from Florida Politics here.

“The Legislature has passed a bill calling for a survey of the ideological beliefs of Florida’s university and college professors, and it is now heading to Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ desk…The legislation comes as conservatives complain about a so-called liberal indoctrination of students. But in discussions Thursday, Republican Sen. Ray Rodrigues, who is shepherding the legislation through the Senate, opposed assertions that the effort is political. He brushed off suggestions administration could use the survey results in malicious ways toward faculty.”

New York Is Finally Taxing the Rich

By Liza Featherstone

Read the full article from Jacobin, here.

In the annual wrangling over the New York State budget, socialists and other left forces just won far more than anyone expected. The state legislature agreed to temporarily raise taxes on New Yorkers earning more than $1.1 million, with a tax rate of 10.9 percent on incomes over $25 million. This is happening even though Democratic scion Andrew Cuomo is still the governor. After years of Cuomo’s elevation of coddling the rich into a matter of liberal principle, in New York, as at the federal level, decades of austerity are grinding to a halt.

Chicago Awaits Video of Police Killing of 13-Year-Old Boy

By Jamie Kalven

Read the full article from The Intercept here.

“Again and again, incidents of police violence have arisen from relatively trivial occasions (e.g., a woman driving a car with a broken tail light, a man selling loose cigarettes, a child playing with a toy gun in a playground, et cetera). In view of the potential for any police encounter to derail, the first order of business is to reduce the number of unnecessary interactions. ShotSpotter does the opposite: It dramatically increases the number of such interactions and thereby increases the probability of bad outcomes that would not otherwise occur.”

Collaborative Justice-Centered Think Tank Launches at UIC: The Social Justice Portal Project

By University of Illinois at Chicago

Read the full article from Newswise here.

“John D. MacArthur Professor Barbara Ransby, director of the University of Illinois Chicago’s Social Justice Initiative, has convened a formidable roster of social justice scholars and writers as the inaugural cohort of Marielle Franco fellows, named after the assassinated Brazilian human rights leader. They are: Angela Y. Davis, Robin D. G. Kelley, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Naomi Klein. The four Franco fellows will participate in curated discussions and public events over the next two years with some of the most influential organizers in the country and scholars whose research wrestles with social and racial justice themes.”

Minnesota police shooting of Daunte Wright sparks protests

By Rachel Elbaum and Caroline Radnofsky

Read the full article from NBCBLK here.

“The Minnesota branch of the American Civil Liberties Union called in a statement for an ‘immediate, transparent and independent investigation by an outside agency’ and for the quick release of any body camera video. It said it has ‘deep concerns that police here appear to have used dangling air fresheners as an excuse for making a pretextual stop, something police do all too often to target Black people.’”

‘White Lives Matter’ rallies flop as hardly anyone shows up

By Brandy Zadrozny

Read the full article from NBC News, here.

The poor showing underscores how the country’s unpopular and disorganized extremist movements have been driven underground by increased scrutiny from the media, law enforcement agencies and far-left activists who infiltrate their private online spaces and disrupt their attempts to communicate and organize.

Bills stadium deal makes Highmark brand memorable. But in what way?

By Rod Watson

Read the full article from The Buffalo News here.

“The Rev. George Nicholas, chair of the African American Health Equity Task Force – who also signed the letter – pointed to the health disparities and wondered aloud if people are OK with that, adding, ‘We need to have a real conversation about what’s important in this region…We’re burying too many people,’ he said. ‘I get too many funerals of people who are not old.’ But Nicholas also took a more encouraging tack, saying, ‘The potential to do a much bigger thing is right there.’”

Baseball Says No to Jim Crow 2.0

By Dave Zirin

Read the full story from The Nation here.

“[T]he state passed a set of Jim Crow laws buttressed by a set of Jim Crow lies. It’s brazen as hell. Instead of competing for votes, the GOP has gone full white authoritarian in a manner that would make Bull Connor blush. Kemp is serving up these oppressive laws with a hearty helping of slop-Orwellian disinformation: It’s Orwell for people who didn’t do the reading.”

Corporations gave over $50M to voting restriction backers

By Brian Slodysko

Read the full article from AP News, here.

State legislators across the country who have pushed for new voting restrictions, and also seized on former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, have reaped more than $50 million in corporate donations in recent years, according to a new report by Public Citizen, a Washington-based government watchdog group.

The Enduring Fiction of Affordable Housing

By Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal

Read the full article from The New Republic here.

“The strategic myopia of offering technical solutions to political problems, valorizing the expertise of financiers and economists over that of residents, and situating the private real estate market as the cure rather than cause of the housing crisis, is baked into the Affordable Housing project.”

Robin D.G. Kelley: Amazon Union Drive Builds on Decades of Black Radical Labor Activism in Alabama

From Democracy Now!

Watch the full interview from Democracy Now! here.

“I want to really emphasize that what makes the history of Alabama unionization important was the role of the left. You know, the fact is, the reason why we have anti-labor legislation, we have violence against labor in Alabama, what appears to be conservatives, the reason we have Jim Crow and the disenfranchisement of Black people, the most draconian anti-immigration laws, is precisely because those who rule the South know the potential of an interracial labor movement, because they’ve seen it.”

Exploring the future of higher education

By Kristina García

Read the full article from Penn Today here.

“Ira Harkavy, associate vice president at Penn and the Netter Center for Community Partnerships’ founding director, is the book’s co-editor. Harkavy contributed three chapters, one of which, ‘Chapter 7: Past, present, future: Re-thinking the social responsibility of U.S. higher education in light of Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter,’ was co-written with Rita A. Hodges, Netter Center associate director. Penn Today talked with Harkavy to discuss social responsibility at Penn, the democratic purpose of higher education, and the role of universities in a post-pandemic world moving forward into the ‘next normal.’”

The Diversity and Inclusion Industry Has Lost Its Way

By Kim Tran

Read the full article from Harper’s Bazaar here.

“The people who populate DEI are who theorists call the national bourgeoisie, an entrepreneurial class of people of color interested in economic development (and personal enrichment) instead of liberation. Frantz Fanon said that the purview of the national bourgeoisie was “not to transform the nation but prosaically serve as a conveyor belt for capitalism.” The diversity, equity, and inclusion industry is distressingly close to getting caught in the assembly line of its own making, but another word for crossroads is choice.”

Need Amid Plenty: Richest U.S. Counties Are Overwhelmed by Surge in Child Hunger

By Laura Ungar

Read the full article from Route Fifty, here.

Data from the anti-hunger advocacy group Feeding America and the U.S. Census Bureau shows that counties seeing the largest estimated increases in child food insecurity in 2020 compared with 2018 generally have much higher median household incomes than counties with the smallest increases. In Bergen, where the median household income is $101,144, child hunger is estimated to have risen by 136%, compared with 47% nationally.

Evanston is the first U.S. city to issue slavery reparations. Experts say it’s a noble start

By Char Adams

Read the full article from NBC News, here.

The historic plan by Evanston, Illinois, to make reparations to its Black residents — including housing grants for a fraction of the city’s families — has prompted questions about whether funding such programs, as opposed to direct payments, can be considered reparations for slavery and racial discrimination at all. The first phase involves giving 16 residents $25,000 each, for home repairs or property costs. This plan, however, is far from the direct payments that have come to characterize reparations — redress for slavery and the subsequent racial discrimination in the United States. But experts say Evanston’s plan is a noble start to a complicated process.

The Amazon Union Drive and the Changing Politics of Labor

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells

Read the full article from The Atlantic here.

“Amazon’s influence is so vast—touching on issues from wealth and income inequality to antitrust policy, the American relationship with China, the omnipotence of workplace surveillance, and the atomizing effect of big business, in its most concentrated and powerful form, on families and communities—that it can scramble ordinary politics…The fight in Bessemer is different because it is so direct. Amazon isn’t a proxy for the future of the economy but its heart.”

Exclusive: Ohio’s Nina Turner picks up Ocasio-Cortez endorsement in U.S. House race

By Amanda Becker

Read the full article from the 19th here.

“Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement of Turner on Monday adds additional progressive energy to a race that is being seen as a contest between the Democratic Party’s establishment and its activist wing, given Ohio’s 11th Congressional District is heavily gerrymandered and strongly favors Democrats.”

Your Home’s Value Is Based on Racism

By Dorothy A. Brown

Read the full article from The New York Times here.

“Black Americans are often unable to build wealth from homeownership in the same way their white peers are, in large part because home prices are generally set by the people who make up the majority of buyers: white Americans. White families typically prefer to live in predominantly white neighborhoods with very few or no Black neighbors. Homes in these neighborhoods tend to have the highest market values because most prospective purchasers — who happen to be white — find them most desirable.”

The Democratic Party’s Real War in 2020 Was Against Bernie Sanders

By Branko Marcetic

Read the full article from Jacobin here.

“Like Mr Magoo stepping on a sewer lid or a construction beam at just the right moment, Biden was propped up and rescued by a series of twists of fate he’d barely noticed, and came out the other side convinced it had all been his doing.”

Cities with more black residents rely more on traffic tickets and fines for revenue

By Akheil Singla

Read the full article from The Conversation here.

“In our study, we looked at a representative sample of 93 California cities from 2009 to 2014 to determine what affects how much cities fine residents and rely on fines for revenue…All else equal, our results showed that a 1% increase in black population is associated with a 5% increase in per capita revenue from fines and a 1% increase in share of total revenue from fines.”

France’s Alternative to Gentrification

By Owen Hatherley

Read the full article from Tribune, here.

This year’s Pritzker Prize, the highest award in architecture, went to Lacaton and Vassal: French architects who rejected estate demolition and instead renovated public housing – keeping residents in place.

Did the Comprehensive Community Initiatives of the 1990s, early 2000s Bring About Change?

By Meir Rinde

Read the full article from Shelterforce here.

“While their methods and specific goals varied, the CCIs all sought to bring focused resources and the lessons of past revitalization initiatives to poor, urban neighborhoods in order to effect broad change at the individual, neighborhood, and systems levels. They aimed to help local groups organize their communities, develop leaders, improve the physical infrastructure, boost their economies, enhance access to human services, and strengthen social bonds.”

Now and Then: Rent Control, Rental Assistance, and Universal Vouchers

By Miriam Axel-Lute

Read the full article from Shelterforce here.

“Although the backdrop of a crisis that requires major federal intervention and economic stimulus is similar to that of 2011, the political landscape is clearly very different right now. The dominant conversation is not about how to eke out positive interest in our work along the margins, and convince Republicans to consider housing, but how to make the most of the opportunity of a country ready to talk about housing and with an appetite for bold proposals that actually make meaningful differences in people’s lives.”

‘Couldn’t possibly be silent’: These women are carrying the torch for Breonna Taylor

By Chloe Atkins

Read the full article from NBCBLK here.

“‘It has given a lot of women a voice who didn’t realize they had one or didn’t know how to use it,’ said Tamika Palmer, Taylor’s mother. ‘To see so many women become part of something and stand up and not feel ashamed or powerless because they’re women — that’s a blessing, and Breonna would’ve loved to see it.’”

From Brooklyn to Buffalo, Socialists are Organizing to Tax the Rich

By Rob Katz

Read the full article from The Indypendent, here.

When a coalition of 40 organizations wrote to Krueger in February 2020 to propose a package of income taxes on wealthy individuals and large corporations, she told the Daily News that she supports a “robust progressive tax system” but insisted that only the governor, who has spent his decade-long tenure slashing taxes and social spending, could grow total spending for new or expanded programs. In the pre-pandemic world, Krueger made clear that while she supported the sentiment, she believed her hands were tied.

It’s Past Time for Congress to Permanently Demilitarize Our Police

By Representative Hank Johnson and Yasmine Taeb

Read the full article from The Nation, here.

In the last few years, the transfer of surplus military-grade weaponry from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to the streets of America has flourished. The militarization of domestic law enforcement perpetuates institutionalized racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia and contributes to the maintenance of a society where the lives of Black and brown people don’t matter. Moreover, studies have shown that the militarization of police departments is not only unsafe for communities but also ineffective in reducing crime or improving police safety. Not surprisingly, evidence has shown that law enforcement agencies that receive military equipment are more prone to violence against the communities they are sworn to protect.

White supremacists’ fake bomb threats net 3 years in prison

By Associated Press

Read the full article from the Grio, here.

A former Old Dominion University student who joined up with white supremacists in a swatting conspiracy that targeted a Black church, his own university and a Cabinet officer, among others, was sentenced to nearly three years in prison Monday.

Renting Is Terrible. Owning Is Worse.

By Shane Phillips

Read the full article from The Atlantic here.

“The housing situation is only getting worse—more expensive, more inequitable, more precarious. As prices have continued their climb in the country’s most economically dynamic regions, it’s no longer feasible for working-class residents to seek out the best opportunities there. Instead, younger and lower-income residents are being pushed out to places where jobs are less plentiful and lucrative, but where housing, at least, is relatively affordable.”

Speakers make case for giving financial reparations to descendants of slavery

By Barbara Branning

Read the full article from UBNow here.

“Darity pointed out that wealth is equated with a family’s well-being, and that a person’s financial agency leads to greater opportunity — for homeownership and building savings, for example. Currently, he said, Black people represent 13% of the population but hold only 2% of the nation’s wealth. Darity and Mullen ended their presentation with a synopsis of their detailed plan for providing substantial financial compensation to all eligible descendants of documented slaves.”

How Can Blackness Construct America?

By Michael Kimmelman

Read the full article from The New York Times here.

“The MoMA show was organized by Sean Anderson, an associate curator at the museum, and Mabel O. Wilson, an architect, Columbia University professor and author, among much else, of ‘White by Design,’ which describes the Modern’s failure to display and collect works by Black architects and designers. ‘Reconstructions’ proceeds from a question: ‘How do we construct Blackness?’ The architects enlisted to answer this question are a multigenerational mix, including some familiar names. Nearly all run small or solo practices.”

U.S. Pedestrian Deaths Soar In ‘Total Failure’ As States Prioritize Vehicle Speed, Traffic Flow

By Nina Golgowski

Read the full article from HuffPost here.

“Black people were found to have been struck and killed by drivers at an 82% higher rate than white non-Hispanic people during the years 2010 to 2019. The fatality rate in the lowest-income neighborhoods was nearly twice that of middle-income neighborhoods. ‘Low-income communities are significantly less likely to have sidewalks, marked crosswalks, and street design to support safer, slower speeds,’ the report states. ‘It is likely that many of the people walking in these lower-income census tracts are also lower-income themselves.’ People in lower-income communities are less likely to have cars, the report adds.”

Legislating the Gig Worker Economy

By Liz Farmer

Read the series on the gig economy from the Rockefeller Institute here.

“Part One of this series will address the legislative approach to protecting gig workers’ rights in California and other states. Part Two looks at efforts to protect gig companies. Part Three will look at how the COVID-19 economic crisis might influence the gig economy and labor policy going forward.”

‘Support Black Women Leaders’ Is Key Message In National Ad—And We Agree

By Donna M. Owens

Read the full article from Essence, here.

In a full-page ad in The New York Times, the group is celebrating nearly 100 current and former Black women political leaders. They run the gamut from Vice President Kamala Harris to the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. Higher Heights is also challenging what they called “the shameless absence of Black women” in certain offices at the federal level and beyond.

A Florida Lawmaker Introduced Legislation to Remove Traffic Enforcement From Police

By Meg O’Connor

Read the full article from The Appeal, here.

Under Hardy’s proposal, each city and county in Florida would be required to create a Public Safety Department by July 1, 2023. The department would have distinct operational divisions with different public safety functions, including law enforcement, traffic enforcement, crisis response and intervention, and emergency call answering and dispatch. The bill also seeks to hire civilian crisis responders.

Iowa governor signs Republican bill restricting voting access into law

By The Associated Press

Read the full article from NBC News, here.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Monday signed into law a Republican-backed bill that makes it harder to vote early, potentially eroding a key aspect of Democratic campaigns. Republicans in the House and Senate quickly approved the voting changes over the opposition of all Democratic legislators. Republicans said the new rules were needed to guard against voting fraud, though they noted Iowa has no history of election irregularities and that November’s election saw record turnout with no hint of problems in the state.

Racial disparities plague vaccine rollout in WNY and across U.S.

By Caitlin Dewey

Read the full article from The Buffalo News here.

“In New York, white residents have received a disproportionate share of vaccines in each of the state’s 10 regions and in all five counties of Western New York. That disparity is especially dramatic in Erie County: While white residents make up just over 81% of the population, they account for almost 91% of the newly vaccinated. Black residents, on the other hand, represent 5.7% of all vaccinated people (compared to 13.1% of the population), while Asian residents make up 2.5% of those vaccinated (3.6% of the population) and Hispanic residents make up 2.2% (4.5% of the population).”

Why Cornel West’s Tenure Fight Matters

By Robin D.G. Kelley

Read the full article from Boston Review here.

“So when Harvard’s administrators tell Professor West that they cannot bring him up for tenure because it’s ‘too risky’ and he’s ‘too controversial,’ they completely undermine the point of tenure: to preserve and protect his freedom to speak truth to power, to expose injustice anywhere, to bring to bear his enormous critical faculties and prophetic voice to say those things we need to hear in order to advance knowledge and create a more just world. After all, neither his generous salary, nor the name on his endowed chair, nor all the effusive assurances from the administration will protect him from dismissal if, in the course of ‘offering ideas, views and analyses,’ he offends the powers that be or their donors.”

Buffalo police don’t belong in traffic enforcement

By Jalonda Hill

Read the full article from The Buffalo News here.

“The BPD’s history of disproportionately stopping Black drivers also counters the argument that police improve community safety. Stop receipt data from 2020 shows that 68% of receipts were issued to Black motorists, despite Black people making up roughly 37% of the city’s population. This apparent racism also drives the disproportionate and unjustified use of police force against unarmed people of color.”

David Graeber: After the Pandemic, We Can’t Go Back to Sleep

By David Graeber

Read the full essay from Jacobin here.

“[I]n reality, the crisis we just experienced was waking from a dream, a confrontation with the actual reality of human life, which is that we are a collection of fragile beings taking care of one another, and that those who do the lion’s share of this care work that keeps us alive are overtaxed, underpaid, and daily humiliated, and that a very large proportion of the population don’t do anything at all but spin fantasies, extract rents, and generally get in the way of those who are making, fixing, moving, and transporting things, or tending to the needs of other living beings.”

Amherst, Clarence and Orchard Park see higher Covid-19 vaccination rates

By Sandra Tan

Read the full article from Buffalo News here.

“When it comes to getting the Covid-19 vaccine in Erie County, affluence equals access. Of the top seven ZIP codes in Erie County where more than a fifth of residents have already received the Covid-19 vaccine, six came from the Amherst, Clarence and Orchard Park, which are among the wealthiest communities in the region…Meanwhile, of the dozen ZIP codes which have fewer than 10% of the population vaccinated, nine were from poorer neighborhoods in Buffalo/Cheektowaga…”

Whose History?

By Zach Mortice

Read the full article from The Architect’s Newspaper here.

“Despite the National Register of Historic Places eligibility ruling, Buffalo’s housing agency hasn’t pursued any landmarking and instead wants to tear almost all of the complex down while retaining the sculptures. ‘These buildings are really pretty crappy,’ [Mayor Brown] said. ‘Even in their prime, they were not particularly lovely. They look like barracks.’”

Morehouse College Announces Program to Help Black Men Finish School

ByDerek Major

Read the full article from Black Enterprise, here.

Morehouse College, an all-male Historically Black College and University (HBCU), has announced an online program with reduced tuition for Black men who have some college credits. The program’s flexibility will allow students to set their own pace finishing and with the program being online, students in the program do not have to be on campus or stick to a typical academic calendar.

Philly Cops are Solving Fewer Homicides. The City Keeps Paying Them Millions

By Joshua Vaughn

Read the full article from The Appeal, here.

Between 2013 and 2020, the Philadelphia Police Department budget rose by nearly a quarter. At the same time, murders doubled, but police only solved half of all murders in the city. Community members and lawmakers want to know why those who control the city’s budget—the City Council and the mayor in particular—keep funneling money into a department that they say is failing to keep the community safe.

8 Essential Steps to Radically Transform Our Economy

By David Korten

Read the full article from yes!, here.

There is a related rising awareness of the need for a serious update to how we study and think about economics and prepare our future leaders. With few exceptions, economics, as it’s taught in universities, relies on the same badly flawed theories and ethical principles that bear major responsibility for the unfolding crisis. It values life only for its market price; uses GDP growth as the defining measure of economic performance; assures students that maximizing personal financial return benefits society; recommends policies that prioritize corporate profits over human and planetary well-being; and ignores the natural limits of a finite planet.

How Transit-Oriented Development Can Promote Equitable, Healthy Communities

By
Shadi O. Tehrani, Shuling J. Wu, and Jennifer D. Roberts

Read the full article from Housing Matters, here.

Where people live can significantly affect their health, well-being, and upward mobility. Cities have invested in transit-oriented development (TOD) to spur growth, revitalize neighborhoods, and promote healthy communities. Although the goal of TOD is often neighborhood revitalization and renewal, these strategies can inadvertently result in increasing rents and house values, residential or cultural displacement, and the widening of disparities in neighborhood resources, such as parks, as well as health outcomes, including obesity, among low-income communities and communities of color.

Lawyers have found the parents of 105 separated migrant children in past month

By Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff

Read the full article from NBC News, here.

The lawyers working to reunite immigrant parents and children separated by the Trump administration reported Wednesday that they have found the parents of 105 children in the past month. The steering committee of pro-bono lawyers and advocates working on reunification said it had yet to find the parents of 506 children, down from 611 on Jan. 14, the last time it reported data to a federal judge overseeing the process. The lawyers said the parents of about 322 of the 506 children are believed to have been deported, making it more difficult to find them. The lawyers are not required by the judge to say how many of the parents and children have been reunited.

Why Texas Republicans Fear the Green New Deal

By Naomi Klein

Read the full article from The New York Times here.

“Today, Texans are at the mercy of regulation-allergic politicians who failed to require that energy companies plan for shocks or weatherize their infrastructure (renewables and fossil fuel alike). In a recent appearance on NBC’s ‘Today’ show, Austin’s mayor, Steve Adler, summed it up: ‘We have a deregulated power system in the state and it does not work, because it does not build in the incentives in order to protect people.’”

2020 job losses in WNY hit low-wage workers the hardest

By Dan Miner

Read the full article from Buffalo Business First, here.

The Buffalo-Niagara economy was on a slow upward trajectory in terms of jobs until the Covid-19 pandemic hit, which was a blessing compared to its own history of decline but lagged behind many other comparable metros.

Police clash with residents in Portland over discarded food after power outage

By Wilson Wong

Read the full article from NBC News, here.

Portland police officers confronted a group of residents on Tuesday who tried to salvage food that was thrown away by a grocery store, authorities said.

A power outage caused by a winter storm forced workers at the Hollywood West Fred Meyer in Portland to toss thousands of perishable items into two large dumpsters outside the store, police said.

A Latino Young Lord remembers Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton: He united the oppressed

By Arturo Conde

Read the full article from NBC News here.

“While most people may associate the term Rainbow Coalition with Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign in 1984, the first multicultural Rainbow Coalition was founded by Hampton on April 4, 1969, in Chicago, which Luciano called “the most progressive movement of its day.” The diverse movement was led by the Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers, and it was initially joined by other groups in the city.”

Eugene Debs: “Why We Have Outgrown the United States Constitution”

By Eugene Debs

Read the full article from Jacobin, here.

In a 1911 article, legendary socialist Eugene Debs excoriated the US Constitution as an “autocratic and reactionary document” written by aristocrats and “in every sense a denial of democracy.” To mark Presidents’ Day, we reprint the fiery essay here in full.

Dunkirk nonprofit plans new housing development for Fruit Belt neighborhood

By Jonathan Epstein

Read the full article from Buffalo News here.

“That would bring 50 new apartments and homes to the low-income community east of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and north of downtown. The project would help counteract the gentrification trend in the neighborhood by keeping rents down for its new apartments. The nonprofit agency is partnering with the Fruit Belt Community Land Trust, which is the city’s designated developer for vacant sites in the neighborhood.”

UB researchers release major U.N. report on food systems planning

By David J. Hill

Read the full article from UBNow here.

“The report comprises six sections featuring contributions from UB and other global food systems researchers. Topics covered include describing the many ways in which local governments influence a community’s food system, an overview of the field of food systems planning, examples of local government policies from across the globe, and case studies from a number of low- and middle-income countries where food systems present an opportunity for equitable innovation.”

BLM co-founder Cullors discusses power of protest with UB audience

By Ellen Goldbaum

Read the full article from UBNow here.

“What does it mean when authorities in your own government call you a terrorist? What does that mean when you’re a social activist, a co-founder of a movement that calls out the frank injustice of the long history of police violence against Black people and other Americans of color? And how is it that that movement, that has been so viciously targeted, has now been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?”

Why Educators, Health Professionals, and Others Focused on Economic Mobility Should Care about Housing

From the McArthur Foundation

Read the full article from Housing Matters, here.

Cities striving to improve residents’ lives often focus on such issues as schools, parks, jobs, or health. Often overlooked is something equally fundamental. Trace the lineage of many social welfare issues, and you will likely uncover a history of substandard, unaffordable housing. Research increasingly shows that safe and affordable housing in strong and thriving neighborhoods is a launching pad to upward mobility for families.

Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa admits they hid nursing home data so feds wouldn’t find out

By Bernadette Hogan, Carl Campanile and Bruce Golding

Read the full article from New York Post, here.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top aide privately apologized to Democratic lawmakers for withholding the state’s nursing home death toll from COVID-19 — telling them “we froze” out of fear that the true numbers would “be used against us” by federal prosecutors, The Post has learned. The stunning admission of a coverup was made by secretary to the governor Melissa DeRosa during a video conference call with state Democratic leaders in which she said the Cuomo administration had rebuffed a legislative request for the tally in August because “right around the same time, [then-President Donald Trump] turns this into a giant political football,” according to an audio recording of the two-hour-plus meeting.

Asian Americans Are Calling on Allies in Response to a Wave of Violence

By Bettina Makalintal

Read the full article from Vice, here.

In light of recent events, the Asian American community is continuing calls for action that began with the surge of anti-Asian violence last year. With the COVID-19 pandemic came an increase in xenophobia, anti-Chinese rhetoric, discrimination, and violence. More than 2,100 hate incidents targeting Asian Americans and related to COVID-19 were reported nationwide between March and June of 2020, according to the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center. A New York Times report from March recounted Chinese Americans’ experiences being spit on, yelled at, and attacked, though that racism has extended beyond the Chinese diaspora. President Trump’s contributions (calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus,” “Wuhan virus,” and “Kung Flu” ) seemingly legitimized this growing racism, according to a United Nations report from August. (In response, President Biden signed an executive order condemning anti-Asian racism shortly after his inauguration.)

An Atlanta Neighborhood Will Finally Own Property as a Community

By Adina Solomon

Read the full article from Next City here.

“The Guild’s model is a community real estate trust that allows for anyone in the building’s 30310 ZIP code to contribute $10-100 a month. That investment goes into shares of the trust. Resident investors get a return through an annual dividend and the share price, which is tied to property values in this gentrifying neighborhood. The idea is to shift returns from developers to the community.”

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