Learn about safe haven communities.

The Freedom Georgia Initiative springs from a “desire to create generational wealth for our families” in a place where “restoration, recreation, and reformation” are possible. The ability to conserve family resources and enjoy ample rest and recreation has been denied to generations of Black families. As an explicitly pro-Black city in an anti-Black nation, Freedom, Georgia hopes to be a new start (Complex).

Happy Monday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! A special thanks to our members of the military reading this right now.

Friday's email outlined the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre and the importance of paying reparations to acknowledge and account for the devastation and loss that its victims and descendants experienced.

Today is a story about what restoring and rebuilding can look like, highlighting a Black community in Georgia. As you read, consider: what does a safe haven mean for you? What does safety mean for you? And how can we become active members of our community for its growth and development?

Thank you to everyone that makes this work possible. If you want to support, give monthly on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

ps – some of the Take Action resources we provided in Friday's newsletter didn't work for some of our readers. If you want to take more direct action to support Tulsa, you can sign this petition or make a donation that directly supports survivors and descendants of the massacre.

TAKE ACTION

Read Ashley Scott’s op-ed about the Freedom Georgia Initiative’s goals.
Follow or support the Freedom Georgia Initiative (Instagram).
Learn about New Communities, an earlier effort to build community for Black people in Georgia.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

In December, the site of a soon-to-be-built Georgia city quintupled. Earlier that year, jogger Ahmaud Arbery was murdered by white men whose arrests would take two months of protests and public pressure (USA Today). More than a dozen families purchased land to create a new city free of white supremacy in the aftermath of this atrocity. With the December addition, the site of Freedom, Georgia now comprises over 500 acres (Fox 5).

Ever since Emancipation, Black land and property have been seized, looted, attacked, and, in the case of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Black Wall Street, firebombed from airplanes (American Prospect) (CNBC). In part, because it’s so hard to build intergenerational wealth without land, the average Black family has only 10% of the wealth of the average white family (USA Today). These practices have inspired generations of resistance. Freedom, Georgia, isn’t the first effort of its kind in the United States. It isn’t even the first initiative of its sort in Georgia.

In 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) started organizing against the disenfranchisement of Black people under Jim Crow laws in the South. But Black farmers who registered to vote in SNCC voting drives faced eviction by white landowners. For many people, homelessness was the price of political participation (New Communities). To learn more about how Black people have been pushed out of farming, see our piece on Agricultural Education.

SNCC co-founder Charles Sherrod and his wife Shirley realized that control of land was an essential part of Black liberation. In 1969, the Sherrods started a collective farm in Lee County, Georgia, where Black people could live and work on community-controlled land without fear of retribution from white landlords. This farm, called New Communities, was the first example of a model of collective land ownership for community benefit called a community land trust.

“It really gave me a sense that I can do anything,” said Bummi Anderson of her childhood growing up in New Communities. “It was a group of people coming together really with the same ideals, the same hopes, and dreams for their children. We were a product of that, and so we grew up having the same sense of pride on who we were as African-Americans” (NPR).

Today, community land trusts preserve collectively-controlled, truly affordable housing across the country (Schumacher Center). New Communities understood that we need control of our homes and neighborhoods to struggle for justice. Today, the Freedom Georgia Initiative is walking a similar road as they plan utility infrastructure before moving onto the design and construction of the new city (Insider).

Co-founder Ashley Scott says that today’s Freedom Georgia Initiative was inspired by the realization that Black life was threatened even in cities with Black mayors and police chiefs, such as Atlanta. Scott says, “It was clear that developing new cities was necessary because these old ones, even with strong Black leadership, have too many deep-rooted problems…We figured we could try to fix a broken system or we could start fresh. Start a city that could be a shining example of being the change you want to see” (Blavity).

Those involved in the Initiative are the first to acknowledge that the road ahead will not be easy. “It is a long game,” Scott told the Insider. “Nothing is changed overnight.” Fighting racism by leaving existing American communities behind entirely to attempt to create a new one from scratch may seem a drastic move. But it’s nothing compared to the ways America has enforced anti-Black racism, exploitation, and death for centuries. From the horrors of chattel slavery to the violence of Jim Crow, from the assassination of civil rights leaders to the police murders and mass incarceration of today, generations of efforts to reform American white supremacy have failed to put it to an end. In the words of scholars Darrick Hamilton and Trevon Logan, “The most just approach would be a comprehensive reparation program that acknowledges these grievances and offers compensatory restitution, including ownership of land and other means of production” (The Conversation). Reforming a society so constitutionally incapable of reckoning with its nature and history may well be more far-fetched than creating a brand-new city from the ground up.

Key Takeaways

Families are planning a new, pro-Black city called Freedom, GA.
The ability to build intergenerational wealth and safety has long been denied to Black families.
There is a rich history of Black liberation movements encompassing housing justice and land sovereignty.

RELATED ISSUES

2/22/2021 | Advocate for reparations.

1/17/2021 | Support Black farmers.

5/12/2021 | Reverse racist land grabs.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.

Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza

Nicole Cardoza 5/28/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/28/21

Advocate for reparations for the Tulsa Race Massacre survivors.

In 1921, a white mob rampaged through Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Black Wall Street, burning, killing, and looting until they destroyed one of the few contemporary centers of Black wealth in the United States. This May, after a century, the Tulsa City Council finally acknowledged the horrifying massacre and announced it would investigate paying reparations to Tulsa’s Black citizens. We have five days to pressure Tulsa City Council to adopt a reparations resolution that would go beyond mere acknowledgement and begin to make right past harm, discrimination, and violence that continue to affect Black communities.

Happy Friday! Next week marks 100 years since the Tulsa Race Massacre. Today, Sydni from The Amendment Project joins us to raise awareness about the event and action items to advocate for reparations.

Thank you to everyone that makes this work possible. If you want to support, give $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Sign the petition to demand that the Centennial Commission and City of Tulsa give 80% of the $30 million raised to the survivors and descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre before the 100th anniversary.
Donate to the Justice for Greenwood Foundation to directly impact survivors and descendants.

GET EDUCATED

By Sydni Scott (she/her)

On May 19th, 2021, the Tulsa City Council announced a proclamation in acknowledgement of the Race Massacre. Then, on May 28th, they proposed a resolution that would establish a commission to study the necessity for economic reparations for Black Tulsa citizens. Now, we have just five days to pressure the city council into adopting a reparations resolution that would instill tangibility and practicable next steps for Tulsa residents beyond the platitudes of the proclamation. While it remains a controversial policy option, organizing our pursuit of racial equity around a reparative justice framework allows us to acknowledge and factor past harm, discrimination, and violence that will continue to have contemporary ramifications on Black communities around the world.

Black Wall Street – otherwise known as Greenwood – was a thriving economic mecca for Black Americans in the early 1900’s. The creation of Black Wall Street was primarily led by O.W. Gurley, who purchased 40 acres of land that he intentionally sold to Black people migrating “from the harsh oppression of Mississippi.” Gurley also gave loans to help other Black people start their own businesses. After O.W. Gurley, other Black entrepreneurs like J. B. Stradford who opened the largest Black-owned hotel in the country, and A.J. Smitherman, who was a publisher of the Tulsa Star and had an instrumental part in establishing the district’s socially conscious mindset. While the socioeconomic status of residents ranged from affluent to low-income, the money earned outside of the town would reinforce the community. Within Greenwood every dollar would change hands 19 times before it left. This town was a beacon of Black self-sufficiency and sustainability during a time for which both of those concepts were largely inaccessible to Black Americans.

On May 30th, 1921, Dick Rowland, a Black teenage shoe shiner from Greenwood, was arrested for an alleged assault on Sarah Page, a white woman. It was later determined that Rowland either tripped in the elevator or bumped into Page who then screamed which prompted the white store clerk to report the incident as “assault.”

Rowland was detained in a jail cell by a sheriff who had previously allowed a lynch mob to kidnap another Black man. The Tulsa Tribune printed an article calling for the lynching of Rowland. Upon hearing the news, a group of local Black men, many WWI veterans, came armed to protect Rowland from the steadily growing lynch mob outside the jail. The mob had swelled to over 2,000 people, intent on capturing Rowland. The veterans were outnumbered 100 to 1. Shooting broke out when a member of the mob attempted to disarm a Black veteran.

The next day a mob of white men and boys, including police and members of the national guard, rushed into Greenwood. They shot Black people on sight and looted and burned homes and businesses. As many as thirteen planes flew overhead dropping bombs and shooting from the sky. The mob destroyed 35 square blocks, including -- 1,200 homes, 60 businesses, a school, a hospital, a library, and a dozen churches. Over 800 people were admitted to the hospital. The mob stopped firefighters from fighting the flames and the National Guard arrested any Black people attempting to flee.

Some reports estimate that over 300 Black people died during these events, but it is impossible to know for certain because, as part of the local cover-up of the massacre, the sheriff banned funerals from taking place. Multiple sources saw large trucks carrying Black corpses out of town and there is currently an ongoing investigation to discover and identify mass graves. While some Black people were charged with rioting-related offenses, none of the estimated 1,500 white officials and citizens who participated were prosecuted for violent criminal acts.

City officials cleansed all evidence from records, including the Tribune article calling for a lynching and an article afterward saying, “the old N*****town must never be allowed in Tulsa again.” Not long after the event, the Tulsa Police Chief banned photos from being taken of the carnage as “a precaution against the influx here of Negros and other critics seeking propaganda for their organizations.” In the aftermath, the KKK used the massacre as a recruiting tool, sending postcards of the massacre all over the country. In the months following the massacre, the local KKK chapter grew to be one of the largest chapters in the country.

In the decades that followed, Greenwood residents would go on to rebuild a thriving Black community in Tulsa. This community would later be destabilized by eminent domain claims that stripped the town of infrastructure and resources. At The Amendment Project, we firmly believe that acknowledgement of harm is a fundamental prerequisite to necessary rectification and reconciliation. While one of the deadliest, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is not a unique phenomenon of racial violence against Black individuals and communities, and the coverup tactics have similarly been utilized to prevent genuine accountability for a century.

Reparations for Black Americans have long been relegated to the status of a political infeasibility, but the movement for reparations is on the rise both in the United States and globally. We ask for your support in encouraging/pressuring the Tulsa City Council to pass a reparations resolution that will acknowledge complicity and active participation in the 1921 Race Massacre and invest in the Black Tulsa community today.

Sydni Scott (she/her) is a 21-year-old student at Columbia University studying political science and African American studies. She is the founder and director of The Amendment Project, a grassroots, student-led organization that seeks to mobilize young people in the movement for reparations.

Key Takeaways

The Race Massacre of 1921 leveled a thriving Black community to the ground in just 48 hours. That town and its residents have since been the victim of racially discriminatory policies for the past century.
We currently have the opportunity to invest care and resources back into that community through a reparations bill being voted on by the Tulsa City council on June 2nd.
The movement for reparations is gaining momentum, and exists as a critical component of our conversation about racial equality.

RELATED ISSUES

5/12/2021 | Reverse racist land grabs.

9/22/2020 | Learn about sundown towns.

2/22/2021 | Advocate for reparations.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/27/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/27/21

Advocate for our right to trial.

The U.S. positions itself as a just country with a superior legal system where people are always considered innocent until proven guilty and always granted the right to a trial before a jury of their peers. Except this isn’t true at all. Despite the promise of the Sixth Amendment, we do not have an effective right to trial because today, the overwhelming majority of cases will never see a judge.

Happy Thursday! Understanding abolition requires us to consider how our criminal justice system fails to live up to its expectations. Part of that is understanding how our right to trial is often convoluted. Today, Andrew unpacks more.

TAKE ACTION

Read the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s report on “The Trial Penalty” and learn about racism in the criminal justice system.
Follow the Prison Policy Initiative (Instagram), The Marshall Project, and Prison Legal News.
Learn about how even deplorable acts of harm require justice from outside the legal system. (TW: discussion of child sexual abuse throughout).
Support Decarcerate PA (Instagram), the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, the Center for Constitutional Rights, or a local group working to fight prosecution, incarceration, and dependence on the state for addressing harm.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

Some think that most criminal cases go to trial and that those who take a plea deal are always guilty. But in reality, only a third to a fourth off felony cases went to trial in the 1960s. Today, the figure is just one in twenty. 90% of the criminal convictions are the result of a plea deal, not a trial (The Outline). Most convictions happen after a defendant gives in to a prosecutor offering them a lighter sentence if they plead guilty or a much heavier sentence should they lose in court.

It’s not hard to imagine an innocent person who may have already spent months in jail deciding to take such a deal rather than risk a trial. This “trial penalty,” says the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, “has virtually eliminated the constitutional right to a fair trial” (NACDL). In the words of Judge Jed S. Rakoff, “Our criminal justice system is almost exclusively a system of plea bargaining, negotiated behind closed doors and with no judicial oversight. The outcome is very largely determined by the prosecutor alone” (The Marshall Project). Only 2% of those facing federal charges go to trial, and that percentage drops every year (Pew). We now have a system where prosecutors use plea deals to simply assign sentences to the disproportionately Black and Brown people kidnapped by the American state.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world (Equal Justice Initiative) and incarcerates a greater number of people than any other country. One out of every four people incarcerated today are locked up in the United States, despite the fact that it has less than 5% of the global population (ACLU). The vast majority of those incarcerated are neither convicted nor sentenced by a judge or jury. The American criminal justice system is exceptional in many ways, but it is hard to imagine that such a system is exceptionally just.

Decrying the drop in cases taken to trial doesn’t mean we should go back in time. American justice wasn’t just when slavery was the law of the land. American justice wasn’t just in the Jim Crow era, when “Black Codes” and the convict leasing system returned thousands of Black people to effective slavery. It wasn’t just in the 1950s and 60s, when civil rights protestors were convicted as criminals (Equal Justice Initiative). It wasn’t just before 1963, when poor defendants had no right to an attorney (Britannica), or before 2003, when gay sex was illegal in more than a dozen states (Britannica). The American justice system has never provided justice for the masses of Black and Brown people, queer and gender non-conforming people, or poor people in general. That today almost nobody receives even the formality of a trial is but the latest egregious chapter in a long, enraging story.

People in every country on Earth, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, are taught that their country’s system is uniquely fair. Many Americans, despite all evidence, believe in the goodness of “our” system. Even after the uprisings of last summer, many seek minor reforms. If only we could modify the local police or change a few sentences of the legal code, the thinking goes, we could have the pure world of Law & Order episodes: intrepid cops who arrest the bad guy, a dashing prosecutor who uncovers incontrovertible proof, and a villain who tearfully confesses it all from the stand. The egregious reality of our court system suggests that we might instead look at limiting its power altogether. This means opposing incarceration, not only for drug or non-violent offenders but for everyone at all times (Prison Policy Initiative). This means opposing cages for people, whether they are in private prisons or prisons and jails run by the state. This means looking for transformation and justice within oppressed communities instead of demanding that prosecutors throw the book at alleged law-breakers (Teen Vogue).

Recognizing the lack of an effective right to a trial is one place to start.

Key Takeaways

Almost none of those charged with a crime go to trial. Instead, defendants are pressured into accepting plea deals.
In most cases, guilt isn’t established by a judge or jury. Instead, prosecutors are free to set sentences for suspects who plead guilty.
This means the right to a trial has effectively been written out of the U.S. criminal justice system.

10/29/2020 | Fight racist death row sentencing.

8/26/2020 | Be an active bystander.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/26/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/26/21

Promote agricultural education.

Agriculture is in full focus this year with people gaining awareness about how their foods are cultivated. As people across the country found themselves spending more time at home, home and community-based gardening started to rise (MLive). This trend is not limited to adults. It also includes the education provided for students. Agricultural education is a powerful component of racial equity that should be promoted for students across the country.

Happy Wednesday and welcome back. After months spent at home, many people discovered their green thumb, buying plants and starting gardens to bring the outside in. Today, Tiffany shares more about the importance of agricultural education to deepen our collective connection to the food systems and the earth.

TAKE ACTION

Donate $10 to Great Kids Farm, which supports agricultural programming for Baltimore City Public School Students.
Look at the Federation of Southern Cooperative’s work for Black farmers, landowners, and cooperatives doing agricultural education.
Watch Stephen Ritz’s TedxTalk about urban school farming, A Teacher Growing Green in South Bronx.
Support Urban Creators (Instagram), the group that runs Life Do Grow Farm in Philadelphia.

GET EDUCATED

By Tiffany Onyejiaka (she/her)

This trend is not limited to adults. It also includes the education provided for students. Agricultural education is a powerful component of racial equity that should be promoted for students across the country.

The Federation of Southern Cooperatives’ Darnella Winston told Anti-Racism Daily that “[many people] don't see the other side [of farming], or the beauty of being able to grow what it is that you want to eat, to be able to sell it at a price that you want, to be able to sell it regardless of market expectations.”

The Baltimore City School System operates Great Kids Farms as part of their school curriculum (Great Kids Farm). Miami-Dade County has a Food Forests for Schools program that helps students plant and maintain edible gardens on school grounds (Education Fund). The Green Bronx Machine is a school-based curriculum to teach students how to grow vegetables in their schools and communities (Green Bronx Machine).

Agriculture education is undertaken outside schools by groups like Urban Creators, a North Philadelphia organization started by youth organizers that operates the Life Do Grow Farm (Urban Creators).

At a basic level, agricultural education involves teaching students the science of growing and cultivating foods. Connecting students of color with this knowledge supports healthy communities today and begins to right historical wrongs.

There were 1 million Black American farmers in 1920 but only 45,000 in 2019 (The Guardian). In 2012, less than 60,000 Indigenous Americans worked as farmers (Census of Agriculture), a steep decrease for communities in part historically focused on sustainable agriculture.

Some of this decline can be attributed to negative modern ideas about agriculture, particularly in communities of color with histories of forced farming. Teaching young children of color farming helps them to connect with history that has been systematically stripped away over many years. Many food trends of today emerged only 50 years ago. It’s important for children to learn that while you can get an apple from a supermarket, you can also grow one like many of their ancestors did.

Agricultural education also helps low-income communities of color access healthy food. In the mid-twentieth century, supermarkets became the predominant way for Americans to buy food (Washington Post). Their rise largely bypassed low-income communities and communities of color (CNN). Even in neighborhoods with similar levels of poverty, communities with more Black and Latinx people have fewer supermarkets and less healthy food offerings (Johns Hopkins). When grocery stores do come to low-income Black and Latinx neighborhoods, the relatively high cost of healthy produce still keeps families buying lower quality options (The Counter).

“It's not so much that we want to [just] teach about agriculture, but we want everybody to see and understand and feel the ways that food and agriculture and land are tied into every part of who we are and what we do and how we learn,” Laura Menyuk, Farm to School education specialist at Baltimore City Public Schools, told Anti-Racism Daily.

“And no matter their culture and heritage and family background, if [kids] live in the United States, they are part of a society that has forced a disconnection with land and food in large part upon us by how our food system operates.”

Less healthy food translates to worse health. Black, Indigenous, and Latinx youth have a significantly higher prevalence of chronic conditions due in part to food inequality (NIH). Food injustice denies children of color the right to develop physically and mentally in the healthiest way they can. It’s a particularly insidious form of systemic oppression.

This is why teaching students about agriculture and how to grow healthy foods such an important aspect of undoing deep-seated racial discrimination. Teaching children of color about growing foods teaches children that they can be part of solutions to food injustice.

Key Takeaways

Unequal access to healthy foods impedes the health of children of color.
Agricultural education teaches children how to grow healthy foods that many cannot afford to access in supermarkets.
Schools and community organizations are creating programs to help students reconnect with farming and food production.

RELATED ISSUES

12/23/2020 | Combat food deserts.

11/23/2020 | Fight food insecurity.

3/2/2021 | Advocate for clean water.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/25/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/25/21

Do not circulate graphic videos of police brutality.

But race is a social construct, and social constructs have social histories. Our The first place generating criticism is in financial commitments. Companies in the U.S. pledged a collective $50 billion to various racial initiatives (Financial Times), an unprecedented response to social issues (Washington Post). But, research indicates that only $250 million has actually been spent or committed to a specific initiative (Financial Times). William Cunningham, the chief executive of Creative Investment Research, who published the study, notes that until those funds are actually spent, there’s no reason they couldn’t be retracted or allocated to another initiative. Another survey found that tech companies that made commitments have 20% fewer Black employees on average than those that didn’t (Bloomberg), adding more skepticism to some organizations’ intentions.

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to the newsletter. This was never meant to be a newsletter that lasted a year. I was in a lot of pain when I started this project. It felt like the whole world woke up to the violence that white supremacy has wielded for generations. I pledged to send one email each day because we know that this work isn't solved with one action. This world won't change from reactions, but a collective, persistent investment today, tomorrow, and the day after, too. Today is a reflection on the ongoing conversations on the role of graphic videos in public discourse.

Thank you to everyone that makes this work possible, particularly the ones that have been here since the start. We won't stop until we're all free. If you want to support, give $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Join the George Floyd Remembrance Virtual Day of Action by participating in any of the action items listed on the campaign page.
Donate to Yes 4 Minneapolis, a Black-led campaign to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety.
Use the resources created by the Witness Media Lab when considering posting or sharing videos of police brutality.
If you feel resourced, reflect on what you’ve learned – and unlearned – about the fight for racial equity over the past year. How can you continue to advocate for change? Use this article for guidance on identifying your role in your community.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

One year ago, George Floyd was murdered by a member of the Minneapolis Police Department. A video of his death, recorded by then 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, generated tens of millions of views in the following days and has been shared repeatedly across this past year, reigniting the everlasting fight for racial equity (NowThis). It’s undeniable that the video, and the conversation that sparked from it, fundamentally shifted society. It’s also re-ignited discussions on the role of violent videos available for public consumption, particularly regarding their impact on communities of color.

Note: this is different than advocating for the release of bodycam videos to the public. Bodycam footage, designed to hold police officers accountable while on the job, should never be withheld from a victim’s family and community.

But violence against Black people has also been used as a commodity, bartered and sold throughout time. I can’t help but think about how, just decades ago, lynchings were treated as a public attraction. Crowds would gather to partake in festivities surrounding the unjust killing, posing for photographs and taking home pieces of the person’s corpse as “souvenirs.” Postcards would be created and distributed as lasting memories. Learn more in a previous newsletter. Videos taken by police bodycams and shared widely have a similar feeling; digital souvenirs of violence protected by social and political norms.

But user-generated videos, like the one recorded by Frazier, have a different intent. Although still difficult to watch, they’re the recordings of what an everyday person was forced to bear witness to, individuals rendered helpless in the face of violence. Recording a conflict can be a form of bystander intervention when other options are limited. And social movements across time have been sparked by marginalized communities leveraging whatever channel they can to ensure their voices are heard. In this case, user-generated videos are journalism, a testament to the stories that define generations.

Author and professor Allissa Richardson, who advocates for citizen journalism and encourages everyone to consider their role in documenting the world around them, refers to it as sousveillance. This is the opposite of surveillance, created by body cameras, security cameras, and other public, often state-sanctioned forms of recordings. Sousveillance is people capturing stories with their own devices (usually smartphones) that will likely counter or disprove the facts presented by those with more power and privilege (Nieman Lab).

It’s no surprise that journalism leaders are calling for Darnella Frazier to receive the Pulitzer Prizes in Public Service for the video she recorded that changed the world, undoubtedly exemplifying content that “roots out corruption and contributes to the public good” (Nieman Lab).

Regardless of their intention, though, these assets need to be shared with sensitivity, as they exacerbate the trauma that people of color experience regularly. A study found that 20% of Black people who watch a video are “significantly affected” by it, experiencing lasting effects, including stress, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorders, or vicarious PTSD (Yahoo). These only elevate the race-based trauma that people of color experience in their daily lives (PBS). In an article written by Arionne Nettles, Alfiee Breland-Noble, the founder and director of mental health organization AAKOMA Project, notes how Black adolescents deal with vicarious trauma from watching the videos (ZORA).

“

Instead, cellphone videos of vigilante violence and fatal police encounters should be viewed like lynching photographs — with solemn reserve and careful circulation.

Allissa Richardson, assistant professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism, 2021 fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and author of Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones, and the New Protest Journalism, for Nieman Labs.

Leon Ford, who was shot and paralyzed by a police officer during a traffic stop in 2012, also urges us to consider the individuals and families of the victims. “These people have children. These people have cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, who can’t live a normal life...even though I don't watch those videos, I can feel that energy. When I see somebody posting, I scroll past it. It still sticks to me” (Yahoo).

Some will argue that it’s necessary to share because we will never be able to fight for justice without them. But what does it say about us that justice can only be pursued for the most atrocious cases, and only if they were captured on video and circulated broadly enough to create public outcry? Why is justice only justified when the crime is warranted worthy of national attention? Most urgently, when will we take action not to share, but change the social conditions to ensure that these instances never happen again?

That will take us changing our behavior. We must channel immediate outrage into a persistent commitment to long-term change. Media platforms are taking note; more have chosen not to post the videos on their social media feeds and create multiple news articles highlighting the event – one including the video footage, one without. And as individuals, we can do the same. Instead of sharing to elicit strong emotions like shock or disgust, consider sharing the information sans video. More importantly, we recommend sharing proactive ways your community can address policing and public safety issues, like upcoming city council meetings or alternatives to calling the police. It’s action – not awareness – that will prevent these videos in the future.

Key Takeaways

The U.S. has a long history of distributing assets depicting violence on marginalized bodies
The circulation of police violence videos often exacerbate stress, anxiety, vicarious trauma and PTSD in the Black community
We need to evolve beyond sharing for shock and awe and take action for solidarity

8/26/2020 | Be an active bystander.

6/4/2020 | Don't tell Black people how to respond.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/24/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/24/21

Analyze corporate commitments to racial equity.

Happy Monday, and welcome back to the daily newsletter! Today is a quick check-in on how corporate accountability has progressed since pledges made last year. I see this as an opportunity to both recognize pitfalls and explore the possibilities of where we can grow from here.

Thank you to everyone that supports our independent publishing! If you can, consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. I'm grateful for your support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Explore how major corporations have committed to racial equity using this tracker by Just Capital.
Use these instant downloads provided by Diverse City, LLC to improve your ERG group, navigate difficult conversations or address trauma at your workplace.
If you work at an organization, check in to see how any potential pledges have been implemented since last year.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

After the racial reckoning last summer, many companies quickly made broad public statements on how they can do better. But, one year later, research and testimony indicate that many haven’t lived up to their promises.

The first place generating criticism is in financial commitments. Companies in the U.S. pledged a collective $50 billion to various racial initiatives (Financial Times), an unprecedented response to social issues (Washington Post). But, research indicates that only $250 million has actually been spent or committed to a specific initiative (Financial Times). William Cunningham, the chief executive of Creative Investment Research, who published the study, notes that until those funds are actually spent, there’s no reason they couldn’t be retracted or allocated to another initiative. Another survey found that tech companies that made commitments have 20% fewer Black employees on average than those that didn’t (Bloomberg), adding more skepticism to some organizations’ intentions.

In addition, Jay Peters at The Verge adds context to the true amount of the commitments made by big tech companies. Although Apple’s commitment of $100 million, for example, sounds quite large, it’s relatively minuscule when considering that they made $6.3 million in profit every single hour last year (The Verge). This isn’t to discredit the clear impact that $100 million can make, but to emphasize how much more companies could do with lasting, consistent investment.

This graph, from the same The Verge article, adjusts corporate contributions to racial equity against the median U.S. salary of $63,179 to demonstrate how little, relatively, tech companies pledged.

Many also pledged to improve conditions internally by diversifying their talent pipeline, addressing barriers to employment eligibility, and increasing representation in the executive suite (Financial Times). But, a year later, many of those same large companies have yet to release their diversity metrics, making it challenging to quantify comprehensive change.

Ada*, a Black woman, watched this unfold at the financial services company she works for. The company publicly announced significant investments into companies owned by marginalized communities and plans to diversify its hiring practices. But the company has yet to share its metrics on hiring. “I’ve asked human resources for the data,” she explains, “but they say it’s tricky because they don’t have the accurate data. This makes no sense to me, considering they asked me my race/ethnicity on my job application.”

Khalia*, who worked in development at a national nonprofit organization, noted that her company made commitments to change internal culture last June. But, efforts that were implemented faded after a few months. “We had an ERG that met monthly to discuss areas where we could improve company culture. This space brought up a lot of things the executive leadership wasn’t aware of. But now, most of the people that initially joined don’t come to the meetings anymore, including those same leaders. It feels like an afterthought. And I don’t think we’ve actually changed anything for the better”. She ultimately left the organization because she desired a stronger commitment to the cause.

This scrutiny is compounded when considering how companies invested in equity initiatives before last summer. Because of COVID-19, jobs with titles like “chief diversity officer,” “diversity and inclusion recruiter,” or “D&I program manager” fell nearly 60 percent between early March and early June, according to the careers site Glassdoor (Washington Post). In comparison, jobs overall fell by 28%, and human resources roles fell by 49%, demonstrating that many companies felt like this was the best place to reduce costs. Since the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests, diversity job postings are surging. But filling the position isn’t enough; experts warn that these can be performative hires if leaders aren’t empowered and supported to guide corporate change (Axios).

Individuals, often employees of color, have taken on the task of carrying this work forward, regardless of their company’s investment. Ada has been intentional about incorporating initiatives to address systemic oppression and racism with her team, which she believes increases feelings of belonging and solidarity. “We have ongoing conversations, book clubs, watch movies, etc. My team has said that they look forward to it because they don’t have that outlet anywhere else.”

But individual employees aren’t the only ones taking note. Shareholders at major companies are pressuring executive leadership to perform racial audits for transparency and accountability (Forbes). Of seven big Wall Street banks, six urged shareholders to reject the proposals, despite the deep history of racial inequity in the financial sector (Inequality). Shareholders at Amazon, which is facing a slew of new allegations of racism and discrimination through its product offering and working conditions, are expected to vote on a racial audit on May 26 (Forbes).

Nevertheless, it’s important to recognize that all progress made so far – and how far we have to go has happened because each of us raise our voices and rally for change. “The only reason companies cared is because their employees did,” said Ada. “If people continue the momentum, there will be more accountability.” As the summer unfolds, continue to hold the organization you may work for, buy from, and engage with accountable to shift culture, both for employees and broader society.

We’d love to hear from our Black, Indigenous, and other readers of color: how has the company you work for respond to the events last year? How has it changed your experience working at your company? Reply to this email with your thoughts.

*Names have been changed.

Key Takeaways

As we approach one year since the racial reckoning of last summer, individuals and shareholders are scrutinizing the pledges made by major corporations to addressing racial equity
Over $50B was pledged by major corporations to racial equity initiatives, but so far, an estimated $250M has been committed
A growing number of shareholders are voting for their corporations to perform racial audits for accountability

10/4/2020 | Don't blame the pipeline.

2/1/2021 | Honor Black History Month with action.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/21/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/21/21

Understand whiteness.

But race is a social construct, and social constructs have social histories. Our modern understanding of race was created at a specific historical juncture in colonial Virginia. Prior to that, it did not exist.

It's Friday! Welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of "Between the World and Me," says that "race is the child of racism, not the father." Put simply, racism created the social construct of race that perpetuates racial bias and discrimination to this date. Andrew shares a bit more about the history of race in the U.S. and more resources to learn about the formation of whiteness.

Thank you to everyone that supports our independent publishing! If you can, consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. I'm grateful for your support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Learn about the social and historical construction of whiteness.
Educate yourself about the benefits of whiteness, provided by the National Musuem of African American History and Culture.
Take steps to disrupt and abolish race and whiteness.
Consider: How does being white grant certain privileges? How might white people experience oppression through other social identities, e.g., class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, etc.?

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

There’s a general conception of racism that goes something like this: just as some people are naturally short or tall, we are all born into one race or another. Racism is unfair discrimination, but the racial categories themselves are natural and universal. Just as we might imagine someone in Shakespeare’s England or the 16th century Mali Empire being short or tall, we would imagine that person fitting into one of the modern U.S. census’s racial categories.

This doesn’t mean that everyone previously looked the same. If those subjects of the Mali Empire and Elizabethan England met, they would have recognized differences in skin pigmentation or eye color or any number of other things.

Similarly, I notice people’s heights. But I do not have a mental map that divides people into either The Talls or The Shorts. I do not think of The Talls and The Shorts as two different sorts of human beings. I do not immediately make a subconscious decision on whether someone I am talking to sight unseen is either A Tall or A Short person. And our society isn’t designed to universally provide one of these groups of people more power, privilege and opportunity than the other. This is an absurd example, but we all make instant judgments of this sort concerning race. Not necessarily because we are racist, but because race is a fundamental feature of social life in ways the fictitious Tall/Short division is not.

In colonial Virginia, landowners brought workers from England, Ireland, and countries across Africa to cultivate tobacco. These enslaved or forced laborers were poorly treated, and none had many rights, but African and European laborers were treated largely the same. African laborers able to acquire their freedom could exercise voting rights in the colonial legislature, accumulate wealth, and hire European laborers. People of African and European ancestry intermingled and intermarried without penalty and there is no evidence that they thought of themselves as members of two great camps of Black and white people (Understanding Race).

But after African and European servants joined forces in 1676’s Bacon’s Rebellion, the colonial legislature began passing laws to make such solidarity impossible in the future. The rights of African people were reduced until African descent was synonymous with slavery. On the other hand, a new category appeared: white. For the first time, people who might have been referred to as Christian, or English, or Scottish, or Swedish were all lumped together under this new name. Even the poorest white person now had greater rights than any enslaved African.

“What colony leaders were doing was establishing unequal groups and imposing different social meanings on them,” said Audrey Smedley. “As they were creating the institutional and behavioral aspects of slavery, the colonists were simultaneously structuring the ideological components of race” (Understanding Race).

Much later, when mass Irish immigration began in the 19th century, Irish people were not yet considered properly white. Racial stereotypes about Irish people abounded in popular media. For Anglo-Americans, the Irish were thought of as being much closer to Black people than to whites. Black people were even referred to as “smoked Irish.”

Irish Americans today are a nationality firmly within the universe of whiteness. What changed wasn’t any physical characteristic of Irish people but rather their political position within American white supremacy. Irish Americans largely rejected calls by nationalist leaders like Daniel O’Connell to join forces with Black people, instead of opposing abolition and acting “unabashedly American in the way they dealt with the slavery controversy” (Irish Times).

“Essentially what happened was the Irish became white,” said scholar Noel Ignatiev. “To the extent to which they could prove themselves worthy of being white Americans–that is, by joining in gleefully in the subjugation of Black people–they showed that they belonged… Having fair skin made the Irish eligible to be white, but it didn’t guarantee their admission. They had to earn it” (Z Magazine).

Whiteness is a social construct, but that doesn’t mean we can just wish it away. Police officers and Lutheranism and Thursdays are also social constructs, but we can’t snap our fingers and make any of them disappear, either. Your non-belief in police officers won’t help you when you get pulled over; if you choose to ignore Thursdays you’ll always have the wrong day of the week. To say something is a social construct implies it has not always existed and could exist otherwise or not at all. Nonetheless, there are practices, policies, and institutions that make social constructs real, powerful, and potentially deadly while they exist.

Ignatiev’s suggestion was to instead work collectively towards the abolition of whiteness, meaning the destruction of those privileges associated with being part of the “club” of whiteness. “The white race is like a private club based on one huge assumption: that all those who look white are, whatever their complaints or reservations, fundamentally loyal to the race. We want to dissolve the club, to explode it” (LA Times).

It is not just that some white people or institutions are racist but rather that the category of whiteness in the United States has always had racial oppression as its function. To “explode the club of whiteness” does not require self-pity and hand-wringing by self-proclaimed white allies. If the fundamental assumption of whiteness is that all white people–neighbors, bosses and employees, police officers and civilians, family members or strangers on the street–have some basic loyalty to each other, a more powerful response would be to break the color line, practicing disloyalty to whiteness in favor of loyalty to humanity.

Understand, unpack, and abolish whiteness.

Key Takeaways

We often think of racism as unjust discrimination between objective racial categories.
In fact, categories like “white” didn’t always exist. Whiteness was created as a legal category in colonial Virginia to prevent lower-class solidarity.
Racial categories have always been part of a racial hierarchy.
To interrupt racism, we need to disrupt whiteness, including white intra-racial solidarity at the expense of people of color.

RELATED ISSUES

3/19/2021 | Divest from whiteness.

12/21/2020 | Have tough conversations.

10/9/2020 | Learn about slavery and the White House.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/20/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/20/21

Advocate for fair housing appraisals.

Carlette Duffy, a Black homeowner in Indianapolis, received an unusually low appraisal value for her home. After reading reports of discrimination in home appraisals, she contacted a different company. This time, she was sure not to reveal her race or gender, keeping all communications to email. For the home visit, she removed all photos of herself and her family from her home, and asked her friend’s white husband to act as her brother. As a result, the appraisal of Carlette Duffy's home more than doubled, jumping from $125,000 to $259,000 (NBC News).

Happy Thursday! The frenzied housing market has made it more difficult for Millennials to achieve first-time home ownership (Business Insider). It's also emphasizing the racial disparities in the home ownership process. Today, we're revisiting our conversation on home appraisals with new data and stories from those impacted.

Thank you to everyone that gives a little when they can to keep this newsletter going! If you can, consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. This newsletter will continue to be a free resource because of this collective support.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Follow these steps to report any unfair housing discrimination against you or someone you know. Use this website to help determine the best course of action by state.
Research to find a fair housing organization in your community to support.
Consider: How do inequitable housing appraisals affect the value of the homes in your neighborhood? How may it have affected the generational wealth of your family?

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Last fall, Abena Horton shared a similar story about her home appraisal experience. Based on the market prices for their neighborhood in Jacksonville, FL, Horton and her partner expected an estimated $450,000 for their four-bedroom, four-bath ranch-style house. So, they were surprised to find the appraiser’s value of $330,000. According to her Facebook post that went viral, she organized a second appraisal – only after doing the following:

"We took down all family pictures containing Black relatives. We took down all pictures of African-American greats that we display to inspire our son. Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison came down from the bookshelves; Shakespeare went up. My son and I took a convenient shopping trip during the appraisal, leaving my white male husband to show the appraiser around, alone."

The house was appraised for $465,000.

These are not isolated incidents; Black homeowners have shared countless stories of removing family photos or recruiting white friends to lead appraisals and home sales in hopes of getting a fairer price. In the NYTimes, comedian and actor D.L. Hughley shared that an appraisal he received was so low the bank flagged the report for inaccuracy (NYTimes).

Devaluing property owned by Black people is an institutionalized practice in the U.S. In the 1930s, as part of the New Deal, the federal government created a series of initiatives to incentivize homeownership (The Atlantic). As part, surveyors analyzed neighborhoods throughout the country to identify which were most deserving of support. They would color code regions: green for “best,” blue for “still desirable,” yellow for “definitely declining” and red for “hazardous. Areas outlined in red, or “redlined” areas, were neighborhoods with predominantly communities of color. Racial biases at the time saw these individuals as untrustworthy for lines of credit and their communities as unfavorable places to live. As a result, loans in redlined neighborhoods were extremely high or completely unavailable (Washington Post). From 1934 to 1962, “98% of the Federal Housing Administration Loans went to White Americans” (NBC Chicago). A 1943 brochure encouraged realtors to avoid undesirables such as “madams, bootleggers, gangsters—and ‘a colored man of means who was giving his children a college education and thought they were entitled to live among whites’” (The Atlantic).

These practices “ended” in 1968, when the Fair Housing Act banned racial discrimination in housing. But discriminatory practices are still happening today. These racial perspectives of the value of "redlined" neighborhoods, and homeowners of color, are reflected in how these homes are valued in today's time, with devastating impact.

A study from Brookings Institute puts this into perspective. Their research found that, on average, owner-occupied homes in Black neighborhoods are undervalued by $48,000, amounting to $156 billion in cumulative losses. Homes located where the population is 50% Black are considered half as valuable as communities with no Black residents. And these neighborhoods with greater devaluation are more likely to be segregated than others. They also produce less upward mobility for the Black children who grow up in those communities. This mobility is just a hint at the generational impact of this economic disparity and emphasizes why rebalancing this disparity is so essential. Read the full study over at Brookings’ website.

And this devalued property is ripe for gentrification, a topic we covered in an earlier newsletter. Many neighborhoods that are historically non-white will receive an influx of middle-class people, eager for accessible property prices. This is followed by a swift revaluation of the same property, forcing out existing community members or dissuading others from moving in (NPR).

And when economic justice meets social justice, more tensions arise, evident in the destruction of property during protests last summer. After a history of redlining and dispossession, Black people often live in communities where they don’t own any property. Lack of homeownership usually means a lack of local agency; landowners are often prioritized in policies made by local government, as they pay the property taxes that influence funding for local utilities. So when police brutality happens, Black people are not just outraged by the violence itself, but the lack of agency to drive political change. Conservatives will argue that communities are so willing to “destroy their own neighborhoods,” but who’s neighborhoods are they, really, if Black people can’t safely walk the streets to enjoy them?

This conversation is explored in-depth by Aaron Ross Coleman in an interview with Andre M. Perry, a fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, a scholar-in-residence at American University, and the author of Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities.

“

As long as Black lives matter less than the property that they are surrounded by, you never provide incentives not to burn something down. So when people say, “Don’t burn down the goods, businesses, services in your local neighborhood.” They’re missing the point of why people are protesting. The very fact that you have to say that means that they — the property, the goods, the services, the businesses — are so undervalued that the people around them are not respected.”

Andre M. Perry for Vox

The appraisal industry is responsible for carrying these practices into the present day. The Appraisal Institute, the nation’s largest professional association of real estate appraisers, is working to increase representation and improving equitable conditions for homeowners (Forbes). Although accountability is necessary for shaping the industry, dismantling racism is necessary for reimagining the system – and creating a more equitable journey of homeownership for all.

Key Takeaways

Black homeowners routinely experience lower appraisal values than white homeowners.
The practice of “redlining” historically made homeownership incredibly difficult for non-white communities, and the discrimination from that time still persists.
Homeownership is important for building generational wealth and share of voice in local communities.

RELATED ISSUES

4/14/2021 | Decommodify housing.

7/20/2020 | Protect your community from the harm of gentrification.

7/8/2020 | Investigate school district funding disparities.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/19/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/19/21

Recognize U.S.–sponsored brutality.

Israeli settlers are trying to evict Palestinian families from homes in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. “Since 1967,” says Amnesty International, “it has been the policy of successive Israeli governments to promote the creation and expansion of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” (Amnesty International).

Happy Wednesday and welcome back! The ongoing crisis in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories has dominated the news cycle this week. Calls to acknowledge both sides often ignore the gross power imbalance at play, and the U.S.'s complicity in the violence. Today, Andrew outlines the role of the U.S. in the brutality.

TAKE ACTION

Learn about the Israeli occupation, the Sheikh Jarrah expulsions, and Gaza airstrikes.
Understand the role the U.S. government plays in the oppression of the Palestinian people.
Support the Palestinian Youth Movement (Instagram), If Not Now (Instagram), and Free Gaza.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

Israel, like the United States, is a settler-colonial state, in which the inhabitants of a territory are killed or expelled by settlers who create their own society on the same land (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs). The foundation of the State of Israel saw the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people.

In the last two decades, dozens of Palestinian families have been evicted from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood alone. But the current attempted expulsions led to a huge wave of Palestinian opposition.

Far-right Israelis chanted “death to Arabs” at counter-protests, and the Israeli military stormed Al Aqsa Mosque, beating and shooting sniper rounds at those inside (Al Jazeera). When groups in the Gaza Strip launched rockets at Israel, the Iron Dome missile defense system shot down 90% of them. “Israel is the vastly more powerful player,” says the BBC. “Its air force, armed drones and intelligence-gathering systems enable it to strike targets in Gaza pretty much at will” (BBC).

Israeli airstrikes are now leveling buildings in Gaza, an impoverished region mostly inhabited by descendants of Palestinians whose families were forced out by the new State of Israel after the 1948 Arab-Israel War. Many live in refugee camps to this day (History). The Gaza Strip has high unemployment, inadequate water and sewage, and suffers from Israeli sanctions that block imports of resources like food supplies (Britannica). At least three high-rise buildings were destroyed by airstrikes last Wednesday alone. “There is nowhere to run, there is nowhere to hide. That terror is indescribable,” said a pharmacist whose apartment building was obliterated (AP News).

Violence is, of course, deplorable in general. But those liberal politicians and celebrities who merely condemn such violence “on both sides” miss two crucial points.

First, Israel is a settler-colonial nation-state immeasurably more powerful than its opponents. It was the more powerful party which started the current cycle of violence by supporting the eviction of families from land it occupies by force. Those dispossessed and displaced are organized into several opposition groups, all with significantly less capacity to inflict military damage than the Israeli state.

Second, when American leaders condemn “both sides,” they make it seem as if the United States were a disinterested party. But the U.S. is firmly aligned politically with Israel. In fact, the U.S. is Israel’s chief benefactor, providing both weapons and with international cover for the occupation. A 2018 UN Security Council resolution denouncing Israeli killings of Palestinian civilians would have passed had the U.S. not been the one member to vote against it (Reuters). The U.S. gives Israel over $3 billion each year in weapons, weapons which today are detonating in the Gaza Strip (U.S. State Department). On Monday, the Biden administration approved $735 million in precision-guided weapon sales to Israel (Washington Post). The day before, an Israeli airstrike destroyed the building containing the office for the Associated Press as the death toll in Gaza climbed to 148 (MSN). That same day, the United States stood alone in blocking a United Nations resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire between all parties involved (MSN).

There are many reasons for the United States’ uniquely strong support of Israel. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which lobbies for near-unconditional American political and military support of the country, brags of being the most influential lobbying group in Washington (New Yorker). Some evangelical Christians cynically support Israel out of a belief that Jewish control of the Holy Land is necessary for Jesus Christ to return and initiate the literal end times from the Book of Revelation (Belief Net).

The strength of pro-Israel sentiment in the U.S. government and vigorous efforts by Israeli politicians to ensure continued U.S. support do not mean that Israel alone controls the United States’ every move, a false idea connected to anti-semitic paranoias about all-powerful Jewish conspiracies. The United States is a superpower. Israel, the size of New Jersey, depends on U.S. weapons sales and international support. Thanks to American military aid, Israel is the most heavily armed country in a region whose location and natural resources are important for U.S. state interests (Observer). Arming and defending Israeli apartheid allows the American government to exert influence in a region thousands of miles away. “Were there not an Israel,” Joe Biden said in 1986, “the United States would have to invent an Israel to protect its interests” (Politico).

According to Human Rights Watch, the Israeli government committed crimes against humanity even before the current attacks (Human Rights Watch). The political, economic, and military support offered by the United States makes the U.S. government an active agent in these crimes. The residents of the United States have exponentially more power to fight for an end to Israeli apartheid, displacement, and aggression than anyone else in the world. “The size of the global solidarity has angered the [Israeli] occupation government,” said Sheikh Jarrah activist Muna al-Kurd. “I believe in popular resistance” (Al Jazeera).

U.S. support for international oppression is nothing new. In 1973, the U.S. helped overthrow democratically-elected Chilean President Salvador Allende’s government and its replacement by an authoritarian “reign of terror” under Augusto Pinochet (NPR). During the Salvadoran Civil War, the U.S. gave military training and $4 billion in aid (Britannica) to a government that tortured and slaughtered civilians, including the entire population of a village called Mozote (Huff Post). Today, the U.S. provides “defensive support” to a Saudi-led war in Yemen that has created conditions the United Nations describes simply as “hell” (Vox) (United Nations).

It is a political and moral responsibility for us to ensure our atrocities aided and abetted by our very own government are put to an end.

Recognize and resist U.S.-sponsored brutality.

Key Takeaways

After attempting to evict Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem, Israel began airstrikes against Gaza, flattening residential buildings and killing civilians.
Even before these attacks, Human Rights Watch declared that Israel was committing crimes against humanity.
Israel has many times the military power of its adversaries. 90% of rockets fired from Gaza were shot down by its missile defense system.
Israel depends on political, economic, and military support from the U.S., which provides $3 billion in weapons sales every year.

7/28/2020 | Denounce antisemitism.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/18/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/18/21

End “race norming” in healthcare.

Over the past year, the global pandemic has highlighted the vast racial disparities in medical treatment in the U.S. Many of its elements are more subtle; difficult to see if you don’t experience it first-hand. But some are more blatant – like racial correction factors. In medicine, equations and algorithms can often be used to diagnose or screen patients. Racial correction factors are when physicians adjust the measurements or risk calculations for patients based on their race. Despite the fact that race is a social construct, many medical providers hold on to the idea of race as a biological variable. This has a severe, sometimes fatal impact on people of color.

Happy Tuesday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily!

Right now, thousands of retired Black professional football players and their families are fighting to end the racial bias that determines which players are eligible for payouts for brain injury claims. The bias embedded in testing process makes it more difficult for Black players to demonstrate signs of dementia than white players, making them less likely to receive the $1B in settlements from the NFL (ESPN). Today, Tiffany shares other ways that racial bias influences the health and wellbeing of Black and Asian people.

Thank you to everyone that gives a little when they can to keep this newsletter going! If you can, consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. This newsletter will continue to be a free resource because of this collective support.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Read Towards the Abolition of Biological Race in Medicine and Public Health which details the history of medical racism, particularly for hypertension.
Watch Dr. Vanessa Grubb’s video segment on Racism and Race: The Use of Race in Medicine and Implications for Health Equity
Empower and educate people around you about racial correction factors so they can advocate for themselves in medical situations where doctors choose to delay treatment.
Consider: How does your racial identity influence your experience at the doctor’s office? What do or don’t you have to consider? How may this change based on your gender identity, or other factors of your identity?

GET EDUCATED

By Tiffany Onyejiaka (she/her)

Over the past year, the global pandemic has highlighted the vast racial disparities in medical treatment in the U.S. Many of its elements are more subtle; difficult to see if you don’t experience it first-hand. But some are more blatant – like racial correction factors. In medicine, equations and algorithms can often be used to diagnose or screen patients. Racial correction factors are when physicians adjust the measurements or risk calculations for patients based on their race. Despite the fact that race is a social construct, many medical providers hold on to the idea of race as a biological variable. This has a severe, sometimes fatal impact on people of color.

One of the most commonly used and widely discussed racial correction factors exists with estimated glomerular filtration rates (eGFR) in the kidneys, which assesses the level of kidney functioning. Medical providers measure eGFR by using a mathematical calculation that compares the creatinine measured in a person’s blood, with their size, age, sex, and race (Kaiser Permanente). Many medical institutions utilize a racial correction factor of approximately 1.2 for Black people (Nature).

“With the correction, Black patients' estimated kidney function is about 16-21% higher (depending upon the equation used) than all other races in this country”, according to Dr. Vanessa Grubbs, nephrologist and author of Hundreds of Interlaced Fingers: A Kidney Doctor's Search for the Perfect Match.

Medical providers use eGFR values to deduce what stage of chronic kidney disease a patient is at (National Kidney Foundation). The lower the eGFR value, the lower the kidney functioning, and the higher stage of kidney disease a patient is diagnosed with (Kidney). The correction factors that inflate Black patient’s eGFR measurements, could potentially have them diagnosed with an incorrect stage of kidney disease and delay needed treatment.

“This means that Black patients—even though they reach end-stage kidney disease nearly 4x faster than White patients—are referred later to nephrology specialty care and transplant evaluation”, recounts Grubbs. “I would not have referred one of my patients to kidney transplant at least a year later had I believed the race correction was indeed correct. And he lost kidney function faster than expected,” she adds. Grubbs recommends that patient’s request cyastain C blood tests to estimate their kidney functioning without the inclusion of race.

Another commonly used correction factors exists in in the use of spirometers in pulmonology. Spirometers directly measure the amount of air you can inhale and exhale, and the rate at which you exhale (Mayo Clinic). Medical providers use this tool to assess the strength of lungs and to diagnose for respiratory conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (Mayo Clinic). Spirometers measure two main values: FEV1 (how much air you can force out of your lungs in 1 second) and FVC (greatest amount of air you can breath out after brething in very deeply) (Healthline). Provider diagnose certain respiratory conditions such as by comparing patient’s FEV1, FCV and FEV1/FCV ratio to predicted normal values.

“So every age group has a different measurement of what normal means. At the same time, differences in gender, and race, at this moment is still added as part of the metrics,” explains Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, MD, MHS pulmonologist and Assistant Professor, Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Many spirometers have a built-in racial correction factor that automatically assumes a 10-15% smaller lung capacity for Black patients and a 4-6% smaller lung capacity for Asian patients when computing measurements (NIH). Medical providers typically diagnose COPD when a patient’s FEV1/FVC ratio is less than 70% of an estimated normal value (NIH). The lower adjusted values for Black and Asian patients could potentially lead to these patients not being diagnosed as having COPD when measured as having similar spirometry values or physical symptoms as white patients who are diagnosed with COPD.

“There’s a great number of studies that show fewer diagnoses of COPD in Black/African-America patients, even though they have much more symptoms,” explains Galiatsatos. “Spirometry is used for diagnostic purposes. So if you can’t diagnose [COPD], because you have this racial bias, then you’re going to delay these patients from getting the interventions that they need” he adds. He recommends patients ask medical providers to look at their flow volume curve results, which is not influenced by race when looking for an assessment or diagnosis.

The idea that Black people have different medical needs stems back from the times of slavery and was built from racist scientific ideas.

During slavery, people believed that Black folks had inferior lung capacities to white people. In 1832, Thomas Jefferson referenced differences in lung function between slaves and colonizers (Google Books). In the 1800s, physician (and slave owner) Samuel Cartwright used the spirometer to compare the lung capacities of enslaved Africans to the slaveholding white masters (NIH). He concluded that enslaved Africans had inferior lungs.

The racial correction factor for eGFR, however, was introduced later in the 1990s because Black people were observed to have higher creatinine levels in their blood (Nature). Researchers concluded that Black people’s higher creatinine levels were due to Black people having higher muscle mass than white people (Scientific American). This study failed to truly consider other explanations for why the Black patients had higher creatinine levels. This idea of all Black people being stronger than other people is reminiscent of stereotypes used to justify the animalization and enslaving of Black people for profit (NIH)

“There is no real science behind it,” believes Grubbs. “Most doctors still do it because they don't know why race was included in the first place and are just following along blindly. Others still do it because they are upholding White supremacy ideology that Black people are inherently different than all other humans.”.

Racial correction factors for eGFR are especially harmful because Black people are 3-4 times as likely to develop kidney failure compared to white people (NIH). 32% of kidney failures occur in Black people, despite only making up 13% of the population (NIH). In addition, Black people are three times as likely to die from asthma and Black men are 50% more likely to get lung cancer than white men (Lavaca Medical Center). Black and Asian people are both at a higher risk for being hospitalized for asthma compared to white people (NIH). It’s devastating to imagine how many people of color were delayed or denied life-saving treatment because of an outdated correction factor.

The movement to end the use of racial correction factors is picking up across medical institutions across the country (STAT News). Vanderbilt, University of Washington, and the University of California, San Francisco have moved to end the use of race-based correction factors in their medical institutions (Vanderbilt, UW, UCSF). Students like Noor Chadha at the joint UCSF Medicine and UC Berkeley program created a report titled Towards the Abolition of Biological Race in Medicine which examines the many explicit racist issues, including racial correction factors, in modern medicine.

We need to abolish racial correction factors to ensure that all people can equally get a chance to get life-saving medical treatments.

Key Takeaways

Many healthcare providers still utilize racial correction factors that require Black and Asian people to have lower kidney function and lower lung capacity to get diagnosed and get needed treatment.
Many racial correction factors are rooted in racist scientific ideas.
Many institutions are now making a push to remove racial correction factors.

8/14/2020 | Support Black mental health.

8/18/2020 | Support athletes in taking action.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/14/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/14/21

Support workers’ rights for educators.

Hate crime charges serve as a sentencing enhancement when someone acts with bias while committing a crime. This bias must be against members of a protected class – such as a specific race, religion, or sexual orientation – and it must be a motivating factor for the crime (Time). It seems reasonable that a crime is more odious if it occurs solely because the victim is a member of an oppressed community.

It's Friday! Welcome back to the newsletter. Yesterday, the CDC announced that fully vaccinated people can be indoors and outdoors in most places without a mask (NBC News). This news has prompted many industries to call for a full re-opening of businesses, including public school classrooms across the U.S. (Politico). Today, Andrew shares the perspective of educators – particularly those of color – and how we can support their wellbeing through this transition.

ps – apologies for the incorrect takeaways yesterday! I'm still trying to get the hang of this new platform. They're correct on the web version of our archives.

TAKE ACTION

Support a progressive teachers’ union in your community, like the Philadelphia Caucus of Working Educators, for example.
Advocate for school reopenings alongside the wishes and interests of educators and students.
Educate yourself about the toll COVID-19 placed on teachers – and how retaining Black teachers will help Black students succeed.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

We’re a long way from the early days of the pandemic when the nurses, grocery store clerks, and pharmacists who kept society running were praised as heroes (Newsweek). Instead of celebrating essential workers, some now focus on punishing those workers “too lazy” to return to what are often menial, low-paying jobs (Jacobin).

Teachers fall into both categories. They’re celebrated and considered essential while at the same time scorned if they don’t want to return to dangerous work conditions. Educators can provide the next generation with the skills and knowledge they’ll need for the rest of their lives. Nearly all of us were raised in part by teachers. Those who have or plan to have children will see them spend a majority of their waking lives under the supervision of teachers. Almost everyone would agree that teachers are crucially important.

That sentiment is a far cry from actually supporting educators. In March, Los Angeles’ largest teachers union decried plans to reopen schools as “a recipe for propagating structural racism” (Politico). According to the United Teachers of Los Angeles, it was largely wealthy white parents who pushed for school reopenings. This put both education workers and working-class students of color at risk, given that poorer neighborhoods have much higher rates of COVID and school staff were not yet fully vaccinated.

Right before Philadelphia schools reopened, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ Caucus of Working Educators shared photos of classrooms with mouse droppings and mold. This was despite previous assurances by the school district that schools were clean and ready for students (Chalkbeat). “We feel lied to and betrayed seeing the condition of our school,” said one educator. The rush to reopen clearly put both teachers and students at risk in a school district where most students are students of color (National Center for Education Statistics).

In May 2020, 7 out of 10 teachers reported their lower morale due to the pandemic, though at that point stay-at-home orders in most states were less than two months old (EdSurge). Now, teachers are even closer to the breaking point (NPR). One said the past year was harder than teaching in New York City after 9/11. Another, a Black teacher in Virginia, said that the combination of COVID and ongoing police murders have left her at “points of lowness [she] hadn’t experienced before.”

At the beginning of this school year, a quarter of teachers said they intended to leave before its end (Rand Corporation). And even before the pandemic, Black teachers in poor work environments were dramatically more likely to leave than their white coworkers (Chalkbeat).

Teachers are under pressure from parents and administrators alike. They were already dealing with poor salaries and working conditions, resulting in teachers–especially teachers of color–being squeezed out of the profession. This is an outrage for racial justice and a shameful way to treat educators, who are lauded in the abstract but ignored in real life.

Right-wing propaganda has long claimed that teachers' unions are bad for students and society writ large. And it’s true that there are bad teachers in teachers’ unions. There are bad bus drivers in bus driver unions and bad nurses unions and bad flight attendants in flight attendant unions because that’s how people are. Of course, we should vigorously oppose racist, queerphobic, and patriarchal behavior by those in positions of power in schools, just as we should struggle against their existence in any institution.

But at a time where teachers are pushed out of the field and schools are reopening in dangerous ways, groups of educators in progressive teachers unions are leading the fight for the wellbeing of their colleagues and students. Organized, progressive teachers are demanding safe, well-resourced classrooms and living wages for those who teach them. Supporting these struggles is how we ensure working-class students of color can succeed academically and educators of color can succeed professionally.

We need to support teachers’ rights.

Key Takeaways

The pandemic squeezed teachers to the breaking point.
25% of educators plan to leave their profession, and Black educators are leaving at higher rates than white ones.
Progressive teachers unions have led the fight to ensure school re-openings don’t put students at risk.

3/17/2021 | End standardized testing.

2/23/2021 | Rally against anti-trans legislation.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/13/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/13/21

Fight hate beyond hate crimes.

Happy Thursday! And welcome back to the newsletter. Although it's important we name how racism and discrimination influence violence against marginalized groups, hate crime legislation can disproportionately harm these same communities. Today, Andrew looks at the recent crimes designated as hate crimes and the disparities in sentencing.

TAKE ACTION

Learn more about what hate crime laws are and how they have actually been used against people of color.
Practice building community safety without policing and the Audre Lorde Project’s (Instagram) safety tips.
Read about why we should respond to anti-Asian violence with abolition, not hate crime legislation.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

In March, a white man walked into three Asian massage businesses and murdered eight people, six of them Asian women. All were identifiable as Asian-owned establishments. He entered each intending to take lives and admitted as much to police (NBC News). Immediately after the shooting, a Sheriff’s Deputy gave a press conference about the attack. He denied it was racially motivated, saying “yesterday was a really bad day” for the killer (MSN). It is almost impossible to imagine a police officer offering the same kindness to an Asian woman who shoots down six white people in their workplaces.

Understandably, many demanded that this vile act be labeled a hate crime, a common response after similar atrocities. Such killings were obviously motivated by hate, and we wish to see them acknowledged as such. But there are real reasons to be cautious of the rush to call things hate crimes, because when these practices become policy, they have an adverse impact on vulnerable communities of color.

Except this isn’t how the law is applied. A woman could be prosecuted for hate crimes against men. Queer people could be charged with hate crimes against straight people. In a landmark case, three Black teenagers had years added to their sentence because the courts held that their attack of a white teenager was a hate crime (Vice). Hate crime laws were used to sentence a member of the Black Liberation Army, a successor organization to the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, to death for supposed bias against white people (New York Times). According to hate crime laws, an organization fighting for Black liberation and a white supremacist mass shooter are one and the same.

In 2019, Black people accounted for 24% of hate crime convictions though they only make up 13% of the population. While white people make up 60% of the population, they only accounted for 53% of hate crime convictions (FBI). According to the criminal justice system, white people in fact commit disproportionately few hate crimes while Black people commit them at a disproportionately high rate. Since hate crimes are above all a legal category, it is not community members but a white supremacist system that decides when they exist.

We also need to remember that as sentencing enhancements, hate crime provisions increase the time someone is incarcerated or cause them to be legally executed. When we expand the prison system and increase its ability to kill, those who suffer first are not white bigots but rather Black and Brown working-class people.

In the Atlanta example, prosecutors finally decided to charge the shooter with a hate crime as well as domestic terrorism (Yahoo). Domestic terrorism laws are disproportionately used to over-police Black, Brown, and Muslim communities (Emgage Action). Supporting Muslim charities, loaning money to friends for airline tickets, and even going paintballing are all innocuous activities that have led to domestic terrorism charges (Jacobin). When we demand enhanced charges, we’re enabling an apparatus that overwhelmingly targets people of color. When we see racist murders go unpunished or armed white people storm the Capitol, it’s not absurd to think harsher penalties are what’s fair. But legitimizing the punitive system and enhancing its repressive abilities harms communities of color in the least equitable and most horrifying ways imaginable.

When we depend on the state for justice, we strengthen all of its parts: legislators and prisons, courts and police. If the American state, the wealthiest and most powerful one in the world, worked for racial justice, this newsletter would not be necessary. The protests of last summer would not have been necessary. Those protests were against the police and courts and prisons and politicians who enable them. The message of the revolts is that we cannot depend on the American government for racial justice, because the American government itself created and has profited from racial oppression for centuries. If we demand a stronger carceral system for that same system to protect us from hate, we throw all of those lessons aside.

We need to name racial violence without resorting to the language of a racist criminal justice system. We need to forcefully respond to it without depending on institutions that cause incredible harm to communities of color. We can confront racist bigotry without depending on racist institutions. If we support healthy, well-resourced communities that can defend themselves from racist attacks, we can build justice without promoting the forces that have denied it from so many for so long.

We need to fight hate. We can do it beyond appealing to hate crimes.

Key Takeaways

Demanding hate crime charges isn’t the only way we can resist racist violence.
Hate crime charges don’t make us free. They have been leveled against Black activists “biased” against white people and strengthen courts and prisons.
Black people are disproportionately convicted of hate crimes.
When we strengthen courts, police, and prisons, the people most directly affected are working class Black and Brown communities.
We can’t build true community safety by relying on a racist system.

4/13/2021 | Stop over-policing.

1/15/2021 | Mind the use of "terrorism".

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/12/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/12/21

Reverse racist land grabs.

Good morning and happy Wednesday! Throughout history, communities of color have been forcibly removed from their native lands. But land disenfranchisement continues to this very day. Today, Andrew shares the history of racist land grabs and the importance of paying reparations.

TAKE ACTION

Follow Justice for Bruce’s Beach (Facebook) to learn about their ongoing campaign.
Learn about the history of sundown towns and Black land loss in the US.
Support Black Land and Power’s work to transform land ownership to support Black liberation at Reparations Summer.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

In April, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to make amends for a massive land grab rooted in white supremacy, though this remedy came almost a century too late (MSN). In the early twentieth century, Charles and Willa Bruce opened a Manhattan Beach resort that offered other Black families the opportunity to vacation under the Southern California sun. The white residents of Manhattan Beach were not pleased. The Bruce’s neighbors slashed their tires. The Ku Klux Klan set fire to the resort’s deck. These horrifying acts of white vigilantism weren’t what forced Charles and Willa to leave. In actuality, it was Manhattan Beach itself. The city government condemned the entire neighborhood around Bruce’s Beach. They then seized the resort through eminent domain. Though the city said that they did this to construct a park, this park never materialized. The Bruce family, forced from the city, was compensated only one-fifth of their asking price for the land they were forced to give up.

“This was such an injustice that was inflicted,” said LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn, “not just on Charles and Willa Bruce, but generations of their descendants” (Yahoo News).

This isn’t just the story of one bad town. We are often taught to think about racism in American housing as only a matter of federal policy, a peculiarity of Southern states before the Civil Rights movement, or a historical injustice whose wrongs have been set right. In reality, none of these things are true.

It was not just segregated states, but cities and towns across the country, that actively excluded Black, Chinese, or other people of color from white neighborhoods. Some allowed non-white people during the day but prohibited them from staying after dark. There were over 100 of these so-called “sundown towns” in the supposedly progressive state of California alone (Yahoo News).

And the legacy of racist housing practices lives on. For one thing, the historical robbery of properties like Bruce’s Beach deprives the descendants of the original owners of untold amounts of familial wealth. For another, the sundown towns of the past remain overwhelmingly white to this day. They’re no longer supposed to be able to exclude people of color by law. But in practice, the prevalence of anything from racial slurs (LA Times) to police harassment to private businesses’ refusal to serve Black customers serves the same purpose for these white enclaves.

The LA County Board of Supervisors endorsement of the return of the Bruces’ land is significant because it could open the door for other Black families’ reimbursement for the historic theft of their property as well. Community organizations recently pressured another California municipality, Glendale, to publicly apologize for its status as a former sundown town. The town of Norman, Oklahoma, did the same (News 9). Things might keep changing, but only if we support community organizations to keep up the fight.

The fight to return Bruce’s Beach to the family isn’t over. The California State Assembly will now need to pass additional legislation to approve the act. And this fight goes well beyond Manhattan Beach. The belated apologies of other former sundown towns may be meaningful, but they do not serve to compensate those whose ancestors were deprived the right to live within them. Racist housing policies in this country run so deep that the entire state of Oregon once functioned as one large sundown town, with a constitutional provision banning Black people from living or owning property within its borders. This language remained in the state constitution under 2002 (Ballotpedia). Given the way these historical injustices bleed into present-day inequities, Oregon scholar and activist Walidah Imarishi gave the reminder that, “If you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in liberation – now is the time to act” (OPB).

Malcolm X once said in a speech that “land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality” (Rev). Land is not only where we put family businesses; it is the stage of our entire lives. Land is the means by which we build safety and homefulness for our future and the futures of those who will come after us. These are all of the things which white supremacy and white people have stolen from people of color in the United States and it is well past time to right these wrongs.

We need to reverse racist land grabs.

Key Takeaways

Many American cities and towns excluded people of color through laws and intimidation.
The Bruce family is fighting for the return of land a California city once legally stole from their ancestors.
Land theft not only affected its victims but their present-day descendants who lost the familial wealth that land would have helped create.
People of color in the U.S. have been systemically denied access to the security and resources that the land provides.

RELATED ISSUES

4/14/2021 | Decommodify housing.

9/22/2020 | Learn about sundown towns.

7/20/2020 | Protect your community from the harm of gentrification.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/11/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/11/21

Increase access to identification in your community.

According to the ACLU, 11% of U.S. citizens – or more than 21 million Americans – do not have government-issued photo identification (ACLU). Much of the conversation around the need for IDs revolves around voting, driven by the rise of legislation that states across the country are implementing that include stricter identification requirements (NPR). Marginalized groups, including those disabled, the elderly population, and people of color, are less likely to have identification than the general population, which means their voices are minimized in elections. But beyond that, the identification gap causes many issues for people across the country, particularly during COVID-19.

Good morning and happy Tuesday! Many of the issues we focus on here have to do with access, offering ways we can advocate to make things more cost-effective, culturally-responsive, safer, etc. But the issue of identification and verification is often an underlying issue. It's one of the most foundational aspects of engaging in the social and political systems in the U.S. but not equitably distributed. Today, we review the urgency of identification during the pandemic and organizations making a difference.

This newsletter is possible because of our gracious supporters! Consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Support local organizations near you tackling the identification issue in your community, similar to the ones referenced at the end of the article.
Research to see whether your state requires photo identification to vote.
If you have easeful access to identification, consider: What daily activities does your ID allow you to do without thought? How would your day today change if you didn’t have identification?

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

First, lack of identification has made it more difficult for people to get vaccinated. The federal government does not mandate the need for identification, emphasizing that it’s imperative that everyone, regardless of immigrant status, has access to the vaccine. But each state has a different registration process, and vaccination sites often make up their own rules (Washington Post). I had to bring my ID and proof of residency to receive mine. Some states, like Florida, and testing sites have implemented identification requirements to combat “vaccine tourism,” where non-locals will travel to other communities to get access (BuzzFeed). But these measures impact people that actually live in these communities who just happen not to have identification.

This issue also contributed to the racial disparities of those that received PPP funding, government assistance to support small businesses through the shutdowns over the past year. Until recently, the application process required a social security number, making those that do not have one ineligible, even those who pay taxes with an individual taxpayer identification number (Los Angeles Times).

Lack of identification is a persistent issue for those that are unhoused. Many cities have enacted legislation that makes it illegal to live in public (Anti-Racism Daily). Not having identification can increase the likelihood for individuals to be arrested or fined because of this, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP). Furthermore, access to essentials like rapid housing, temporary housing, employment, and medical care can become far more complex (Vice). Violent sweeps, performed by law enforcement as an attempt to clear unhoused people from sidewalks and parks, often result in the loss of physical identification items, like licenses and birth certificates. Replacing an identification is a difficult process, especially without the original and access to a permanent address. Efforts to increasing access to identification for unhoused communities must include protecting their valuables from the state government.

These issues don’t just create barriers to life-saving essential services. They contribute to the ostracization that many marginalized people experience when navigating our country’s social services. Having an identification is one of the most foundational aspects of belonging in a society. And in contrast, when one has to constantly prove their legitimacy without one, it can foster feelings of isolation and distrust. Changing the narrative of who "deserves" to have identification shifts how we welcome one another into our communities.

There’s some remarkable work happening to combat the identification gap across disciplines. Organizations like Mini City, based in Atlanta, and Samaritarian, based in Seattle, use smart tech to make it easy for those without identification to authenticate and apply for social services (Vice). Nonprofit organizations, like Reconciliation Services in Kansas City, host regular drives to get more people state IDs and start the necessary paperwork for other forms of identification (Kansas City Beacon). Some are also helping to cover or waive the fees for obtaining photo identification (StreetRoots). Other cities are starting, or expanding, their own local IDs initiatives for county residents, like this initiative in Broward County, FL (Miami Herald).

Hopefully, something like this is starting near you, too. It’s our collective responsibility to ensure that no members of our community are left behind.

Key Takeaways

11% of U.S. citizens – or more than 21 million Americans – do not have government-issued photo identification.
The barriers to obtaining identification make it difficult for marginalized groups to gain access to necessary support services – all more urgently needed during the pandemic.
A variety of solutions have been created by nonprofit organizations, community leaders, and tech companies.

4/1/2021 | Protect the unhoused community.

2/11/2021 | Support an equitable vaccine rollout.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/10/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/10/21

Support foster care youth.

16-year-old Ma'Khia Bryant was killed on April 20th, 2021, outside of her foster home by a police officer called to help (NYTimes). The officer resorted to extreme and fatal force without issuing any clear verbal warnings or commands to the girl who had been in foster care since 2018. Unless you’ve been a child or teen in the foster care system or a foster parent, this situation may be hard to understand. As a product of the foster care system, this case hit home. In light of National Foster Care Month, I’ll be telling my story, one of hundreds of thousands of stories of current and former foster care youth in America.

Happy Monday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. In honor of National Foster Care Month, Jacari joins us today to share his first-hand perspective of the foster care system and its role in the death of Ma'Khia Bryant.

TAKE ACTION

Donate to Families for All, a non-profit funding programs and services, scholarships, and care packages for foster youth and adoptive youth.
Educate yourself on current and former foster children’s stories. Learn more about my story as a child in foster care in my book, Lost & Found.
Sponsor a child in foster care through the nonprofit, Together We Rise.
If you’re in a position to do so, learn more about becoming a foster parent or adopting a child in foster care.

GET EDUCATED

By Jacari W. Harris (he/him)

My name is Jacari. I’m a Tallahassee, Florida native, a former child of foster care, and an adoptee. I grew up living in low-income, dirty, unkempt conditions with no provisions for care, surrounded by drug dealing, sex, poverty, and high crime rates.

I first met my biological father on his death bed on my thirteen birthday. My biological mother had a long history of crack and alcohol abuse. Before I could even crawl, she left me with a non-relative, informing the keeper that she would return in an hour. She returned days later, spotted walking the streets, appearing drunk or high on crack. This caused me to be in and out of foster homes for two years before I was eventually adopted. Once the termination of parental rights occurred, and there were no other family relatives who wanted to take me in. I had no choice but to remain with this new family.

Growing up in this system, I was depressed and angry with anyone I encountered. I spent much of my early grade-school years in detention, suspension, or expulsion. My adoptive mother put me in sports and sent me to counseling to reduce my anger and behavioral issues. I became angrier and would be triggered often to call the police department on my adoptive parents, thinking that they’d kick me out if I continued getting in trouble.

By high school, I was determined to go in a different direction and worked a full-time job, finished high school a year early, and eventually became the youngest intern at Parks & Crump, the firm that represented Trayvon Martin and George Floyd, in their firm’s history. I later graduated from college and wrote a book called Lost & Found about growing up in foster care and finding my identity as an adoptee. I now work in the racial justice space and advocate for foster care and adopted youth through my non-profit, Families for All.

My story is just one of the hundreds of thousands of children’s in the foster care system. Over 437,000 children are currently in the U.S. foster care system, and the numbers are only increasing (CCAI). “Over 125,000 of these children are eligible for adoption, and they will wait, on average, four years for an adoptive family” (CCAI). The rates are even more shocking for Black youth, who make up 13.71% of the population, yet 22.75% of children in foster care (NCSL, 2018). According to federal data, Black children “receive fewer services, are more likely to be given psychotropic medications to control their behaviors, and increasing numbers are being funneled through the foster-care-to-prison pipeline” (The Grigio).

In President Joe Biden’s recent “Proclamation on National Foster Care Month,” he confessed to some of the racial disparities that exist in the foster care system. “Black and Native American children are far more likely than white children to be removed from their homes, even when the circumstances surrounding the removal are similar. Once removed, Black and Native American children stay in care longer and are less likely to either reunite with their birth parents or be adopted. Too many children are removed from loving homes because poverty is often conflated with neglect, and the enduring effects of systemic racism and economic barriers mean that families of color are disproportionately affected by this as well” (“A Proclamation on National Foster Care Month, 2021”).

For these children, resources are often scarce. The demand for foster parents far exceeds the supply, and children in foster care receive 50% of the investment that the average American child receives (iFoster). During the pandemic, these disparities become increasingly impactful, with only 5% of rural foster youth and 21% of urban foster youth reporting access to a computer at home, limiting these children’s access to education, resources, and jobs (iFoster). Twenty thousand kids age out of the system annually, “leaving them to fend for themselves” in a world where they will have little access to education and be at high risk for unemployment (iFoster).

The foster care system failed Ma'Khia long before the day she was murdered by a state official. The system’s failure directly led to her death right outside of the home she was sent to keep her safe. She had no reason to trust the officer because adults had let her down, time and time again. Ma'Khia was not protected. We must do more to protect the hundreds of thousands of children in her position.

This month, as a former child of the foster care system, I ask that you share our stories, amplify our voices, and support organizations dedicated to meeting the needs of children and families touched by the foster care system.

Jacari W. Harris, a native of Tallahassee, Florida, is an author, life coach, social justice activist, and inspirational speaker. He also serves as the Executive Director of The George Floyd Memorial Foundation.

Key Takeaways

437,000+ children are currently in the U.S. foster care system and the numbers are only increasing. 125,000 of these children are eligible for adoption (CCAI).
Black children are overrepresented in foster care, making up 22.75% of the foster care population, but only 13.71% of all children in the U.S. (NCSL, Our foster care system failed Ma’Khia Bryant system. We must do more to protect children like her.

12/9/2020 | Rethink transracial adoption.

10/28/2020 | Unpack the history of social work.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Nicole Cardoza 5/7/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/7/21

Advocate for critical race theory education.

Yesterday, the governor of Idaho signed a bill into state law designed to prevent critical race theory from being taught in schools and universities. Specifically, the law bans discourse on the notion that any members of any race, sex, religion, ethnicity, or national origin are inferior or superior to other groups and that certain groups benefit from privileges based on society’s perception of their identity (The Guardian). A similar law was also enacted this week in Tennessee, and other states – including Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Florida – have proposed to do the same.

It's Friday! Welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. We briefly touched on this topic last fall, but as the conversations heat up again in schools, it's important to revisit the foundation of critical race theory. If you're reading this email, you're already familiar with the framework – we touch on many of the themes regularly. Take action to protect this necessary curriculum in schools.

TAKE ACTION

The Department of Education has a list of proposed priorities for creating a more culturally-responsive American History and Civics Education. They are requesting public comments from the community to gauge sentiment. Take a few minutes to review the curriculum and leave a (positive) review. The majority are negative.
Read this introduction to critical race theory to get a comprehensive overview.
Research specific bills that have been proposed or passed in your state, and the best way to take action.
Consider: How has your education so far informed your perspective on racism and systemic oppression? If you experienced institutionalized education, what has it contributed to what you know now?

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

This is the latest iteration of a long conservative tirade against the notion of educating on race in schools and organizations, accelerated by the Trump administration. Former President Trump wielded conservative sentiment around critical race theory to his advantage, using his platform to admonish the idea of diversity and inclusion trainings, the 1619 Project, and talking about racism in school (PBS). During its time, the Trump administration passed an executive order banning the federal government and its contractors from using curriculum that examined systemic racism, which was reversed by the Biden administration immediately after taking office (USA Today).

A common refrain against introducing critical race theory in schools is that it “indoctrinates” kids into racism. But in reality, critical race theory is a framework designed to help identify and understand how racism plays a part in our society. It helps provide insight and understanding of how racism can be studied, processed, and dismantled. It was created during the 1970s by a group of lawyers, activists, and legal scholars. Although it began as a theory for legal studies, critical race theory is widely taught and studied across disciplines, including education, sociology, and medicine (Critical Race Theory).

There are six key tenets to critical race theory:

Racism is a normalized and commonplace part of society. It is not just reflected in individual actions but embedded in our cultural and political practices and systems.
Consequently, whiteness is a “property” – something with tangible value – that offers white people unearned privileges and opportunities not afforded to people of color at the same level, like access to wealth, safety from law enforcement, opportunities for academic success, etc.
Because of this, the notion that all are treated equally, and have the same rights and opportunities, is a myth, challenging concepts like colorblindness and meritocracy.
Since racism benefits those with power and privilege, there is little incentive to solve it – unless it benefits both people of color and dominant members of society. This is also referred to as “interest convergence.”
Intersectionality is critical for understanding racism. Everyone has intersecting identities based on their racial/ethnic background, socioeconomic status, gender identity, etc., which means that each person experiences racism in unique ways.
The personal experiences of people of color are worthy and legitimate forms of discourse in the conversations on racism, especially when countering the default narrative.

There are several variations of critical race theory that focus on specific ethnic/racial groups, or intersectionalities within ethnic/racial groups – including critical race feminism (CRF), Latino critical race studies (LatCrit), Asian American critical race studies (AsianCrit), South Asian American critical race studies (DesiCrit), American Indian critical race studies (TribCrit), and disability critical race studies (DisCrit).

Our social world, with its rules, practices, and assignments of prestige and power, is not fixed; rather, we construct with it words, stories and silence. But we need not acquiesce in arrangements that are unfair and one-sided. By writing and speaking against them, we may hope to contribute to a better, fairer world.

– Critical Race Theory: The Cutting Edge (Third Edition)

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for some time, you’ll notice that we cover all of these topics regularly. Explore our archives to find many of these topics covered in previous newsletters. And if you’re interested, you can find a more comprehensive overview of critical race theory here.

When understood from this lens, it’s clear how necessary this discourse is within our schools and universities. Like any other subject, racism needs theory to help understand it in practice. And students are already learning about racism in practice, whether it’s on the syllabus or not. If they are a person of color, they are impacted by it directly. And either way, it’s unlikely they do not hear about racist incidents through the news, social media, or other aspects of their everyday lives. I think our youth are due, at minimum, a framework for contextualizing the world they live in.

This conservative attack isn’t just for the sake of education but one of many attempts to delegitimize the notion of racism and, consequently, the policies and practices to change that. We must advocate for this, not just in education, but normalized in all aspects of our society. As Justice Harry Blackmun stated, “in order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way.”

Key Takeaways

States across the country have proposed or passed legislation to ban critical race education in schools and universities
Developed in the 1970s, critical race theory is a framework created by activists and scholars to understand how racism persists in the U.S.
This is part of a broader campaign to discredit the concept of racism and its influence in U.S.

9/7/2020 | Learn about critical race theory.

9/21/2020 | Support the 1619 Project.

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Nicole Cardoza 5/6/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/6/21

Preserve Palo Santo and white sage.

The wellness industry in the U.S. is rooted in the concept of self-care. But, when we look beyond our own wellbeing, it’s clear how detrimental this approach can be to other communities. One popularized practice is the act of smudging, an Indigenous spiritual ritual to cleanse the soul and space around it (Huffpost). Many people use Palo Santo or white sage, which are medicinal, ceremonial, and sacred plants. As smudging moves its way into the mainstream, the demand for Palo Santo and white sage grows – negatively impacting the Indigenous communities from where the practice originates.

Happy Thursday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. The wellness industry is rife with cultural appropriation. Today, Isiah shares his insights on the appropriation of Indigenous practices, and how it relates to a long history of colonization and whitewashing.

This newsletter is possible because of our gracious supporters! Consider giving $7/month on our website or Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Instead of buying sage and Palo Santo from large corporations, buy them from Indigenous-owned wellness companies like Sister Sage and Whispering Winds Shop.
Learn more about how sage is used in Chumash healing practices (Chumash people have stewarded the land now known as Southern California).
Follow Indigenous creators like @notoriouscree, @dineaesthetics, and @tiamiscihk, who continue to use their platforms to educate people about different Indigenous cultures and issues.
Consider: How do your wellness practices honor – not appropriate – their ancestral lineage?

GET EDUCATED

By Isiah Magsino (he/him)

While the practice of smudging began with Native ceremonies and traditions passed down from generation to generation, companies are now using the practice as a way to spread ideas of yoga and wellness (Beauty Independent). Back in 2018, fragrance brand, Pinrose pulled back their “Starter Witch Kit” from Sephora after receiving backlash from activists about the appropriation of Indigenous medicinal practice in commerce (Refinery 29). Urban Outfitters sold smudge sticks and marketed the product on social media with the caption “cleansing your Insta of negativity” (fashionista). These instances of major retailers profiting off of smudging perfectly demonstrate the definition of cultural appropriation. And, while some Indigenous people believe that selling smudging products is fine, they’re still concerned about whether mainstream consumption will erase its significance (Huffpost).

“We are in a battle of keeping the sacred sacred,” says Ahsaki Chacherie, the founder of the Ah-Shi Beauty. “And it hurts because it’s not being used for its true purpose.” Chacherie isn’t the only Indigenous person to think so. Palo Santo originates from Indigenous peoples in Central and South America. Translating to “Holy Stick” in Spanish, shamans used Palo Santo to offer grounded and clearing energy (Mitú). Native shamans used Palo Santo to aid the dying on their spiritual journeys to the afterlife (Yoga Journal). Some Indigenous people believe that this wood should be given to you only by a shaman to ensure it’s being used appropriately (Refinery 29).

White sage is native to the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico. It was used by Indigenous communities native to those lands to cleanse, purify and ward off negative energy. Many Indigenous groups performed thoughtful rituals, which have been all but abandoned in its modern-day use. The ceremonial burning of white sage begins when participants ask an elder’s guidance to properly gather the plant. This ensures the harvest is sustainable, never taking more than necessary. These plants are not merely used as tools; they’re considered respected relatives that deserve gratitude and intention (Beauty Independent).

The demand for white sage and Palo Santo also contributes to a growing environmental issue. As beauty and wellness brands continue to gentrify the practice, these endangered plants are being overharvested (Beauty Independent). According to the United Plant Savers Medicinal Plant Conservation, there are less than 250 mature Palo Santo trees (Bulnesia sarmientoi, a species that grows in Paraguay, Argentina, and Bolivia) in the wild (Triluna Wellness). There are even instances of illegal harvesting of white sage (Daily Bulletin). While Indigenous companies harvest Palo Santo and white sage sustainably, consumers rely heavily on larger chains for the plant. Regulation for proper harvesting is proven difficult (Yoga Journal).

Often, the colonization and devastation of Native communities are considered part of the past. But these issues persist to modern-day (Beauty Independent). Indigenous people and their cultures continue to be exploited and ravaged for the sake of capitalism and “progression” in society while Westerners commodify sacred traditions for self-indulgence (Forage and Sustain). When White settlers first came to North America, they banned Native Americans from practicing their spiritual traditions, including using ceremonial white sage (Forage and Sustain). To commercialize a sacred ritual, then running the source to near extinction, and finally not using it for its true purpose is predation at the highest level. For wellness enthusiasts, answer this: Is your wellness worth the expense of Native practices and traditions?

Key Takeaways

Palo Santo and white sage are used by Native communities all over the Americas for ceremonial, spiritual, and medicinal purposes. They’ve served as grounding rituals throughout time.

As the wellness industry continues to push its use, the two sacred plants have become endangered as the demand is causing overharvesting.
Wellness brands often market Palo Santo and white sage in the wrong way. Each plant has specific uses and origins. Not just to “cleanse the bad vibes.”
Native Americans were prohibited from performing many ceremonial rituals when white colonizers first arrived.

12/17/2020 | Respect Hawaii’s sacred land.

11/24/2020 | Stop violence against Native women.

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Nicole Cardoza 5/5/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/5/21

Honor Cinco de Mayo.

Today is Cinco de Mayo, which represents the anniversary of Mexico’s victory against the French forces of Napoleon III at the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862. (Contrary to popular belief, the date is not Mexican Independence day, which is celebrated on September 16). President Benito Juárez had canceled its debts with European countries, incending France and causing them to invade. Although the Mexican army, led by General Ignacio Zaragoza, was outnumbered, they won after the day-long fight. Many of its members were Indigenous Mexicans from various backgrounds who united in solidarity against a common enemy (History).

Happy Wednesday, and welcome back! Yesterday, while writing this article, I was reminded of the definition of solidarity on the Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities' website. "Solidarity at its core is about relationships." As you read about the history and significance of May 5th, consider: what does it look like to be in relationship with this date? What does it look like to be in relationship with the strength and progress it represents? I hope you learn something new from today's newsletter!

As always, we welcome any support for our independent news. Consider giving $7/month on our website or Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Donate to a mutual aid network in your community, particularly one that supports the Latinx community. Here is a list of mutual aid by state, but do your own research, too!
If you choose to participate in the Americanized version of the holiday, shop from Latinx-owned restaurants and businesses. Shop Latinx has a curated selection of goods.
Don’t practice cultural appropriation – today or any day.
Reflect on what solidarity means to you: How can you practice solidarity more authentically? Who in your community is modeling solidarity?

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

But this wasn’t just a fight about money. Some scholars believe that the French were looking to invade Mexico and set up a base to support the Confederate South, which was in the midst of fighting the Civil War. The North had stopped exporting cotton to France during this time, forcing textile manufacturers to lay off workers. France saw an opportunity in forging a new alliance, helping the South maintain the institution of slavery in exchange for cotton (Remezcla). If Mexico had lost that battle, France could have colonized Mexico and potentially influenced the outcome of the Civil War (wbur). The French did gain control of Mexico City a year later, but by then, the North had an advantage (Remezcla).

Mexican American activists in the U.S. during that time celebrated the victory, recognizing the potential ramifications. But the holiday of Cinco de May in the U.S. didn’t go mainstream until the 1960s. Chicano civil rights activists, noting the solidarity represented in the historical event, revived the celebrations as a mark of pride and recognition of what we can achieve – together (wbur). By the 1980s, brands had co-opted the celebration to capture revenue from the growing Latinx audience historically overlooked (NYTimes). And, making the holiday mainstream offered brands – particularly alcoholic ones – to commercialize a cultural reason for everyone to drink in early May. The date is now one of the biggest days for beer sales in the U.S. each year (NPR). Meanwhile, in Mexico, observing the anniversary of the battle only happens in Puebla, where it occurred (wbur).

This date is also rife with cultural appropriation – fake sombreros and mustaches, insensitive costumes, made-up Spanish words, decorations that reflect Dia de Los Muertos, etc. Much of the practices related to Cinco de Mayo don’t truly honor Mexican culture and history. But avoiding appropriation on this date isn’t enough: today should also celebrate the importance of solidarity, and resistance, that protects our unique cultural identities.

And in these times, solidarity couldn’t be more urgent. The national debate over immigration and racist comments by former President Trump has led to hate crimes against the Latinx community increasing steadily since the 1990s, peaking in 2019 (NBC News). Latinx Americans are 3x more likely to be hospitalized because of COVID-19 than white Americans (CDC). And the number of people crossing the border from Mexico has remained at a twenty-year high over the past few months (Washington Post). U.S. authorities took 172,331 migrants into custody in March, including over 17,000 children and teens without their parents (Washington Post).

There’s nothing wrong with getting some tacos and a drink after work today – without appropriation and socially distanced, of course. But if you’re going to participate, consider that this day represents far more. To truly honor it, recognize the depth of its history, and stand in solidarity for our collective liberation.

Key Takeaways

Cinco de Mayo represents the anniversary of Mexico’s victory against the French forces of Napoleon III at the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862.
The defeat of Napoleon III's troops was a strong statement against colonialism, and prevented French from being more involved in the U.S. Civil War.
This holiday has been commercialized and Americanized, obscuring its true historical significance.
Honor today by standing in solidarity and respecting Mexican and Latinx culture.

11/15/2020 | Learn the key terminology.

3/1/2021 | Support unaccompanied minors.

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Nicole Cardoza 5/4/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/4/21

Fight anti-protest legislation.

Despite the strong evidence, the GOP has continued to rail against these protests by proposing legislation to prevent citizens from utilizing their constitutional right to protest. In the 2021 legislative session, 81 anti-protest bills have been introduced in 34 states – twice as many as previous years. Often veiled as “anti-riot” bills, these statements exacerbate the hateful rhetoric that demonstrations against police brutality and violence are an act of violence in themselves (NYT).

Happy Tuesday, and welcome back! If you haven't caught up on what's happening in Elizabeth City, NC, you should: the city's response to ongoing protests is heartbreaking. But similar acts to limit our right to protest are popping up in state legislation across the U.S. Today, Nia advocates for us to fight for our First Amendment rights – read more and see how you can rally against harmful legislation in your state.

ps – thanks for all the feedback on the new template! I'm optimizing it a bit more each day, so thanks for your patience. You might also notice that these emails are going to your spam – be sure to add hello@antiracismdaily.com to your contacts. If you have Gmail, drag and drop this to your primary inbox. It helps *everyone* when you do this, even if you're not affected!

TAKE ACTION

The ACLU of Florida has made a public statement about the anti-protest laws, and the ACLU defends the right to protest nationwide. You can donate to the ACLU by following this link.
Research the anti-protest legislation proposed or enacted in your state.
Write to your elected representatives to state your opposition to anti-protest legislation. You can find information about who your elected officials are at the local, state, and national level here.

GET EDUCATED

By Nia Norris (she/her)

Millions of people in the United States have participated in demonstrations since George Floyd was murdered in May of 2020 (NYT). The national attention that the movement for Black lives received generated a flurry of corporate support: two-thirds of the largest companies in the U.S. made public statements about police brutality (MarketWatch). However, not everyone has embraced the movement. Last year, former President Trump inaccurately claimed that the Black Lives Matter movement is destroying Democrat-run cities (USA Today). Twelve thousand demonstrations over the previous year were analyzed by the Crowd Counting Consortium at the University of Connecticut. They found that the majority of them were peaceful, with no property damage or injuries (ABC News)

Protesters are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. Last year, protestors were hit with cars more than 100 times (WSJ). In Kenosha, WI, on Aug. 25, 2020, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse open fired on demonstrators, killing two and seriously wounding one. He pled not guilty to all charges, claiming that he shot the individuals in self-defense (NPR). Between May 26 and June 5, 2020, Amnesty International USA recorded 125 incidents of police violence against protestors (Amnesty International USA).

Bills passed in Florida, Oklahoma, and Iowa grants immunity to drivers who hit protestors with their vehicles. Indiana’s proposal seeks to bar those convicted of unlawful assembly from state employment. In Minnesota, a bill seeks to restrict individuals who are convicted of unlawful protests from receiving benefits such as student loans, unemployment benefits, or housing assistance (NYT)(TNR). In some cases, states are looking to criminalize the act of merely attending a protest. The Iowa bill makes it a felony to even be present at a riot, regardless of the protestor’s actions (ABC News).

Unlike most protests, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was a violent event, resulting in five deaths that included a Capitol Police off(PBS). The assault on the capitol was incited by a speech by President Trump, who made false claims of election fraud and encouraged the mob to go out and “fight like hell” (NPR). Despite this, the police response to this riot was unlike the police response to protests. Officers were seen clearing the barricades and taking selfies with the rioters (PBS). Although the anti-protest legislation does not distinguish between types of protests, Republican proponents of the bill choose to center Black Lives Matter protests in their arguments instead of noting the danger of this event (NPR).

These laws are clearly meant to suppress individuals who would like to see accountability for police violence and racism. They’re also a direct violation of our First Amendment right, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of people to assemble peacefully and to petition the government for a redress of grievances (Congress).

Key Takeaways

Republican legislators are passing laws restricting the right to protest, thinly veiled as anti-riot laws. Many of these laws offer protections for citizens who hit protesters with their vehicles.
Black Lives Matter protests have been largely peaceful, with the most violent protest of the last year being the Capitol riot of Jan. 6th.
Anti-protest legislation is a violation of our First Amendment rights to assemble peacefully.

7/26/2020 | Pay attention to the Portland protests.

6/30/2020 | Boycott as a form of protest.

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Nicole Cardoza 5/3/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/3/21

Demand cops off campus.

Today is the first day of a series of actions organized by the Cops Off Campus Coalition, a network of students, educators, staff, and community members passionate about abolishing policing at all levels of education. I chatted with Alecia Harger (she/they), a sophomore at UC Berkeley and representative for both UC Berkeley Cops Off Campus and the transnational Cops Off Campus Coalition. We discussed today’s Day of Refusal, Abolition May, and the significance of getting cops off of campuses.

It's Monday and we're back with another issue of the Anti-Racism Daily! Thank you for being here, and staying committed to this work. I am so inspired by the campaign that the Cops Off Campus Coalition created for Abolition May, and excited to share their work below. Today is the Day of Refusal, and it's still early enough to join in! Learn more in the interview below.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on our website or Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Take the pledge to participate in the Transnational Day of Refusal. You can use this resource of sample messaging to share with students/faculty that might be interested.
Review the various actions you can take to support the Cops Off Campus campaign through the month of May.
Follow the campaign on social media on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok.

GET EDUCATED

By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Today is the first day of a series of actions organized by the Cops Off Campus Coalition, a network of students, educators, staff, and community members passionate about abolishing policing at all levels of education. I chatted with Alecia Harger (she/they), a sophomore at UC Berkeley and representative for both UC Berkeley Cops Off Campus and the transnational Cops Off Campus Coalition. We discussed today’s Day of Refusal, Abolition May, and the significance of getting cops off of campuses. This is a snippet of our conversation – the full story will be released in an upcoming podcast episode.

Thank you so much for being here. I know you just got out of class, and it's finals week. And you have a pretty big day of action coming up on May 3rd.

Yep. May 3rd, we are having a Transnational Day of Refusal. We are encouraging people to withhold their labor in whatever form that may take, whether that's paid labor, that's compensated by the university, academic labor, like turning in assignments and going to class, or the labor of graduate student instructors who are grading assignments. For one day this month, we’re encouraging everybody to withholds their labor in solidarity with activists and organizers who are trying to get cops off campus. And this is clearly connected to May Day; which was May 1st. It's just the first school day after May Day.

Can you explain May Day for people that might not be familiar?

Yeah. It's a day of solidarity between workers that often takes the form of labor refusals and strikes. In the Bay area, there are always a lot of protests. And I know that across the country, it's often used as the date to bring solidarity across many issues – labor issues, human rights issues, the issues of political prisoners, racial justice, environmental justice, etc. Learn more about May Day, or International Workers’ Day.

Yes, thank you. Refusing labor has been a powerful act of protest across social and political movements throughout history.

Absolutely. And by withholding our labor, we demonstrate how we hold universities up. It is our labor that maintains these universities – our sweat, our blood. They cannot function without the underpaid and exploited labor of graduate students and other underpaid staff.

Talk a little bit more about getting cops off campus. That's something that we had discussed at length here at the Anti-Racism Daily. It's certainly a small, substantial step towards abolition. Can you share a little bit more about how this is affecting your school?

I go to UC Berkeley and the UC schools has its own police department. It is a statewide police department with statewide jurisdiction. There are very few departments with statewide jurisdiction, except for, like, the California Highway Patrol. And on the UC Berkeley campus, there have been several instances of police brutality across the decades – like the fight to liberate People's Park in Berkeley in 1969, which was met with extreme amounts of police violence. We have seen this pattern of violence continue to the present. Our institution of higher education functions as a carceral branch of the state when our campuses are infested with police officers who brutalize and victimize marginalized students and community members.

Yeah. And by centering this directly into the academic environment, it acts as education that safety is correlated with law enforcement, right?

Absolutely. There's a 2019 survey of UC Berkeley students that showed the majority of Black and trans students do not trust the campus police department. And that's not a surprise. When we define safety on our campuses, we're defining safety based on the safety and comfort of privileged students, namely white students. We completely ignore what safety looks like for marginalized people. When we say get cops off campus, we mean re-imagining safety to being inclusive of everyone, and creating a space that's genuinely safe for even the most marginalized and victimized people.

I'd like to hear a bit more about how y'all organized this coalition. Y’all have created such a depth of resources that empower anyone to take action. What has that process been like?

So initially, our transnational coalition was two different groups. One was primarily students and one was primarily faculty. At some point, we decided to merge groups. We all came together under the charge of creating abolition. The coalition has grown organically, and rapidly.

How can parents, family members, or community members support?

I think that we all know college students. Simply spreading this information is incredibly helpful. Additionally, if you live in a town with a college, you are welcome at our actions. You don't just have to be a university student. We want to draw on community members because campus policing affects everyone in a campus community. It does not just affect students. I believe at UC Berkeley, Black and Latinx drivers are more likely to be stopped by UCPD. You don't have to be a student to get stopped by UCPD. These are issues that affect our entire community. And when we say Cops Off Campus, we don't just mean to limit it to institutions of higher education. We mean, we want cops off of high school campuses. We want cops off of elementary school campuses. We want cops off of diversion schools for youth who are considered to be wayward. We want cops out of our hearts and cops out of our minds. So this is not just a fight for college campuses. This is a full on abolitionist fight that just so happens to start in our institutions of higher learning.

Our goal is to see cops off of this earth and that's why that's our social media handle – @copsoffearth – because this abolition does not stop at our campuses. We know that abolition is the only thing that can keep us safe. Everything else just kicks the can down the road, and continues to endanger Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled, and queer people. Abolition is the only path to our safety and we know that to be true. That is our goal.

Key Takeaways

This month, the Cops Off Campus Coalition has organized a month-long series of actions to advocate the removal of police from school campuses.
Today, May 3, is the Transnational Day of Refusal, a day for students, teachers and staff to withhold labor from their higher institutions in protest of policing.
This series of action is part of a broader call for abolition, urging institutions to adapt alternative practices that reimagine safety for those most marginalized.

7/2/2020 | Remove police from our public schools.

7/15/2020 | End racial bias in school discipline.

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