tag:newamericamedia.org,2009-04-06://19 2013-05-21T19:42:32Z New America Media is a nationwide association of over 3000 ethnic media organizations representing the development of a more inclusive journalism. Founded in 1996 by Pacific News Service, New America Media promotes ethnic media by strengthening the editorial and economic viability of this increasingly influential segment of America's communications industry. tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11468 2013-05-21T19:40:45Z 2013-05-21T19:42:32Z

Colorlines ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
The randomness of Carson’s death has shocked the city’s LGBT community. “Mark is not going to die in vain. We are not going to get beat up in vain,” one rally participant told Mother Jones. “Gay rights, we’re still fighting for them, and the fight is not over. We need to protect each other.” To see photos go here.]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11460 2013-05-20T22:00:00Z 2013-05-20T22:46:56Z

Joseph Torres ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 It’s important to celebrate whenever social barriers are knocked down — including the one that fell today when Mignon Clyburn became the acting chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Never before has a president appointed a woman to chair the commission — not even on an interim basis.

It’s not the first time Clyburn has made history. She’s also the first African-American woman to serve as an FCC commissioner.

But there are still many barriers that need to be knocked down. For one, we need to remove the “acting” title for the next woman to chair the FCC.

Clyburn’s accomplishment is also an opportunity to reflect on the FCC’s history of permitting and even exacerbating inequality. For evidence, just consider the impact of the agency’s policy decisions on women and people of color.

It’s no accident that our nation’s media system looks the way it does; it reflects our nation’s legacy of discrimination. Most of our first broadcast licenses were allocated to white men or white-run companies. And not much has changed.

People of color own just 3 percent of all full-power TV stations and less than 8 percent of all full-power radio stations. Women own less than 7 percent of all full-power broadcast stations. These statistics explain both the lack of diversity among staff at broadcast outlets and the paltry amount of programming featuring people of color.

But instead of adopting policies that would boost ownership diversity, the FCC and Congress have consistently pushed for greater consolidation. Thanks to socioeconomic conditions, the FCC’s approach has made it even more difficult for women and people of color to buy broadcast stations.

That’s why it was troubling when former FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski pushed for more consolidation during his tenure. One of his last moves involved a policy proposal that would allow companies to own broadcast stations and newspapers in the same market — a matter that’s still pending before the commission.

The FCC has long placated broadband and wireless companies — and Genachowski didn’t buck this trend. He failed to protect the open Internet with strong Net Neutrality rules. And he failed to provide more options for affordable broadband access, leaving many households disconnected.

While politicians and media figures often talk about the importance of our nation’s changing demographics, few are willing to do anything to make our media system more representative of the population it serves.

There’s hope that Clyburn can begin the important work of ensuring the FCC places the interests of the public over those of a small corporate elite.

Clyburn has defended the Lifeline program — which provides access to basic phone service for poor households — against political attacks. She’s spoken out against the unlawful practice of charging predatory rates for phone calls that prisoners make to families and friends. Clyburn should pass an order to end this unlawful practice — and should also direct the Commission to conduct studies to address the shameful state of broadcast ownership diversity.

President Obama has nominated Tom Wheeler, a major donor to his presidential campaign who formerly headed the trade associations for both the cable and wireless industries, as Clyburn’s successor. The president’s choice of an industry lobbyist to lead an agency established to serve the public interest has troubled many.

Until the next chair is confirmed, Clyburn should do everything she can to gain back the public’s trust in the commission.

Joseph Torres is senior external affairs director of Free Press, a nonpartisan organization building a nationwide movement for media that serve the public interest.


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Sandip Roy ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=54 When I went to the United States for the first time, long before 9/11, I wondered if immigration officials would harass me, a single young man from a turbulent part of the world. I didn’t have to worry. Customs officials and their formidable sniffing dogs were much more interested in middle-aged Indian women. They rifled through the contents of the bursting-at-the-seams suitcase of a lady who could have been my aunt. In those days the “illegal immigrant” America was most nervous about a forbidden mango or a sneaky parwal.

September 11 changed everything. Soon shoes were suspect. Cosmetic bags were viewed as booby traps. Even the clearest liquids and gels signalled danger in an America that was permanently colour-coded threat level orange. And men with beards and brown complexions and Muslim names found themselves regularly pulled aside for questioning.

Now after the Boston bombings we enter confront the newest marker of the dangerous other – beware the pressure cooker.

Talal al Rouki, a Saudi student in Michigan found the FBI suddenly surrounding his house. Officers said a woman had called them because she had seen him carrying a “bullet coloured” pressure cooker out of his apartment.

The young man told the FBI he was cooking a traditional rice dish called the kabsah which he was taking to a friend’s house. 

“You need to be more careful moving around with such things, sir,” an FBI agent told al Rouki.

Indian mothers need to be more careful too in a jittery America. A Hawkins or Prestige pressure cooker has long been part of the must-have go-to-America-kit for any self-respecting desi student. The only question was how many liters – 2, 3, 5? I never took one with me when I went there, not because my mother was extraordinarily foresighted but because she was sure I’d make an absent-minded mess of it without her on-the-spot supervision.

However the hiss and whistle of a pressure cooker has always been the signature sound of apartment complexes filled with H1B families as much a marker of desi-dom as Subbulakshmi singing Suprabhatam. “The whistle is not working” is a domestic crisis on par with a lost green card. In Kolkata, my abiding memory of Sunday morning, is the pressure cooker whistling in kitchens around the neighbourhood – promising a Sunday lunch of goat curry and rice. In a country where it is hard for grown children to tell their mothers “I love you” and vice versa, we make do by asking “How many whistles?” the sharing of that pressure cooker wisdom as sure a sign of love as any Hallmark card.

The South Asian love affair with the pressure cooker is legendary though it was invented by a Frenchman. The blog TiffinCarrierAntiques hails the stainless steel workhorse of the Indian kitchen for being mother’s little helper in managing the “patriarchal expectations of a ‘complete Indian meal’” – a fairly impossible task which “would have been Herculean without the humble pressure cooker.”

Now thanks to the brothers Tsarnaev, the workhorse of the Indian kitchen is being viewed as the Trojan horse of America, its hiss more ominous than comforting. Swati on the blog WhistlingPressureCooker.com remembers how the pressure cooker saved her during Hurricane Irene in 2011.

(W)hen the electricity failed and the shiny, contemporary convection stove and oven beneath it at my in-laws’ house in Rhode Island were rendered useless, I cooked chicken tikka masala and rice in my pressure cooker over our tiny gas camping stove. Instead of ripening deli meat sandwiches made with stale bread, my in-laws and I ate a fresh, piping hot curry.

Now she writes of her dismay at the end of innocence as she sets her caramel custard in her trusty pressure cooker.

(T)hat a pressure cooker could be used for anything other than cooking tasty food fast had never crossed my mind. I now feel nervous professing my love for my pressure cookers, and pressure cookers in general, openly.

Swati might be well-advised to change the name of her blog before the FBI comes knocking at her door. But one could also argue the Swatis of the world have been in blissful denial. As Praveen Swami points out in Firstpost, the pressure cooker has been cooking terror for a long time:

In India, the Indian Mujahideen’s urban terror networks have used pressure cookers on several occasions—starting with the attack on Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar market in 2005. Pressure cookers were also used in the 2006 attacks on a temple in Varanasi and the Mumbai’s train system; again, they were used to in the recent Dilsukh Nagar bombing in Hyderabad. On other occasions, though, the group has used steel milk cans and flour-boxes.

But Indians take the pressure cooker’s dark side in their stride. You can still get onto a bus or a train with your pressure cooker without everyone clearing the compartment.

In America it’s a different story. But it should not come as a surprise. Soon after 9/11, the Shaikh family of Pennsylvania found secret agents in moon suits and gas masks going through the spice cabinets in their kitchen after neighbours spotted them carrying a large pot of biryani into their friend’s home.

At that time I had written:

Multiculturalism was supposed to take care of this fear of the other. But despite Diwali greetings to Hindus from the White House and International Day at school, in the end, multiculturalism has proven to be just a cute, fancy dress party. If it has really made a dent on how we conceive what it means to be American, it hasn’t trickled down to the Shaikh family’s biryani… Multiculturalism might have made the foreign a little more familiar. It certainly did not make it any more American.

Now we find the pressure cooker has remained resolutely un-American as well – the shining symbol of diversity that needs to be hidden at home, not carried out into the yard. Perhaps some enterprising pressure cooking enthusiast will embark on a Take Back the Pressure Cooker whistlestop tour of America to restore its lost shine.

Until then you have to careful moving around pressure cookers in America these days. Guns, not so much.]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11456 2013-05-20T08:45:00Z 2013-05-20T17:55:05Z

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Abusive behavior by law enforcement officers in towns across Kern County and neighboring Tulare County has generated distrust and resignation, especially among Latinos who make up the majority of the region's population. But national media coverage of...

Sandy Close and Raj Jayadev ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Abusive behavior by law enforcement officers in towns across Kern County and neighboring Tulare County has generated distrust and resignation, especially among Latinos who make up the majority of the region's population.

But national media coverage of the alleged beating death by deputies of David Silva, a 33-year-old Latino father of four, in downtown Bakersfield may prompt a public reckoning with the wider issue, according to some two dozen attendees at a health care fair here interviewed by New America Media.

Less than a week after Silva was beaten allegedly by eight or nine deputies and highway patrol officers, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC and Fox News had all reported on the incident as well as on an apparent attempt to cover it up when Bakersfield police confiscated the cell phones of several bystanders who had videotaped it.

So had the Spanish-language news outlet Univision, which posted a compilation of video segments titled "Most Infamous Police Beatings."

"This is a really conservative community. Most people will think something like this was bound to happen -- it's been happening in other places. But the country's eye is now on Bakersfield and that could make the difference," said Amy Lopez, 22, a student of dental hygiene at Cal State Bakersfield.

Bill Phelps, who works with South Kern's low-income health plan program HMC, said news of the beatings had "accelerated a huge mistrust of law enforcement across all sectors of the community. Thanks to national media coverage, Kern County is now on the public radar."

Hilary Meeks, a reporter for the Visalia Times, noted that the incident hadn't occurred in a vacuum. "There've been five shootings over the last four years in neighboring Tulare County ... A sheriff's deputy ran over someone two years ago and nothing was done about it. We had a guy killed in Porterville. The court case ended in a hung jury. That was one or two years ago."

At least a third of those interviewed by NAM at the fair, held at the Kern County Fair Grounds on Saturday, had not heard about the Silva incident, although it's been front page news for the Bakersfield Californian's daily website, and on local TV. But recession-related closures of all but one Spanish- language news weekly and Univision's Bakersfield bureau, has turned the city into something of a media desert, especially for non-English speakers.

"Local awareness will build with more local, state and national media coverage," said El Popular publisher George Comacho, who plans to report on the story next week, especially in the wake of Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood's request on May 14 for an FBI probe into Silva's death.

Linda Vasquez, a 27-year-old Cal State Bakersfield student, was as agitated by the cover up as the beating itself. "The part that makes me angry is how they took the phones, because they've done that before." She told a story of how her brother was harassed, and the phone of another family member who recorded the incident was taken by law enforcement. She was not sure whether it was city police or the sheriff's department.

Ali Morris, CEO of the local Black Chamber of Commerce, thinks that even if public pressure mounts over the Silva case, it's going to take a lot of time and education to change things for the better. "We have a broken system. In theory everything should work right. We can start attacking it here or there, but it's the system that's broke. It should have never gotten to this point.”

The solution, Morris says, has to come with changes in perception on both law enforcement's side and on the public's side.

"I think both sides are responsible," Morris observed. "The whole police force is at the mercy of one bad officer. At the same time, the police officer wonders why he is putting his life in jeopardy when the people here don't want him there.

"We have to go at this whole thing piece by piece," Morris concluded. "If I didn't have a spiritual foundation I couldn't get through it."

Pablo, another Cal State Bakersfield student who is studying to become a police officer and didn't give his last name, learned about the Silva incident from his criminal justice professor.

"There have been a lot of shootings and beatings by law enforcement officials. They should train the police to use nonviolence or non-lethal force," he commented.

Cal State student Amy Lopez said she was frustrated that there hadn't been more public reaction like a student protest. "Something's got to give. I shouldn't leave it up to another group to say something. I should step up and do something."


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Julio Ricardo Varela ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
Those are the words of lawyer David Cohn, referring to the case of David Sal Silva, a 33-year-old father of four who died in custody last Wednesday after an alleged confrontation with Kern County and California Highway Patrol officers in Bakersfield, Calif. Cohn is representing the Silva family and his reference to King is not an exaggeration. Something horrific happened last week in Bakersfield, and it is a tale of cellphone videos, possible police coverup, an FBI investigation, and a silent outrage that has begun to hit the national media (CNN, New York Times, HuffPost), but is nowhere near the level of the King beating or the Trayvon Martin case, even though the Silva case so far has more public footage of the incident than those two famous stories.

Read more

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11447 2013-05-19T10:00:00Z 2013-05-17T19:06:05Z

Laura Murphy ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 On Mother's Day, someone decided to shoot into a crowd of parading New Orleanians, injuring 19 people. Video footage of the event indicates that I was just feet away from the shooter. My family and friends think I should stop going to second-line parades or into "bad neighborhoods" (read: black neighborhoods, of course).

And some of them want me to leave New Orleans altogether. But this Sunday I am going to the second line, just as I will go any other Sunday when I wake up feeling like dancing -- which is more often than you'd think. I want people to know why.

New Orleans brass bands play what you might call second-line standards. There are the local favorites, such as "Roll With It" and "It Ain't My Fault"; there are the traditional dirges played to an upbeat tempo, like "I'll Fly Away"; and there are the popular covers that everyone sings in unison. My personal second-line jam is the Stooges Brass Band's rendition of the O'Jays' R&B classic "Back Stabbers."

On Sunday at the Original Big 7 Mother's Day second line, it took me only three or four notes to recognize Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," another crowd pleaser. People immediately started swaying, the "buckjumpers" trotted out some of their finest footwork and soon enough everyone was cheering, "With somebody who loves me!"

As the brass band pealed out the melody, I sidled up to my husband, a New Orleans transplant of three years and a second-line fanatic. I held his hand as we danced in the street with hundreds of other people -- black, white, Asian, Latino, young, old, native, transplant and all kinds of in-between. I silently rehearsed the only words I have to describe the second line: pure joy.

Only seconds later, just after we turned into the narrower streets of the 7th Ward neighborhood, we heard the all-too-familiar sound of gunfire. I think I heard four shots before I realized that I needed to get to the ground. I dropped to my belly right in the middle of the street, and other people fleeing the violence fell on top of me.

I remember that a soft, white T-shirt brushed my cheek, and I instinctively caressed the shoulder of a stranger, hoping to calm myself as much as her. Three or four more shots rang out before the firing stopped. Only feet from where the shooter had reportedly emerged from the shadows of a family home, we all lay in a silent pile, collectively holding our breath for several seconds more before we felt it safe to run.

When we returned to the corner a minute or so later, the scene was gruesome. People were writhing, bleeding, on every corner, on all sides of the spot where I had just dropped to the ground myself. The shooter had been indiscriminate, and if he had a target, it was impossible to tell who it could have been, because there were children, older ladies and dancing men among the 19 innocent people he callously wounded.

As the days pass and the fear and anger that emerged at the scene release me, a new frustration emerges. I can't help but keep wondering why more people don't seem to care or even know that this happened.

And I am going to say this very clearly: The reason so few people seem to care about this mass shooting is that the victims are assumed to be black.

Not So Normal

Every time I say something like this, I feel as if I'm preaching to the choir, but when I listened for that familiar chorus of affirmation this week, I didn't hear it. Somehow I keep expecting people to stop me on the street to process it, as many did when I was heading home through predominantly African-American neighborhoods right after the event. I expected Facebook and Twitter to be on fire with sympathy for the victims. I suppose I half expected there to be nationally organized fundraisers for the 19 people in the hospital. But all I heard were crickets.

How can so many people in this country -- people for whom violence is not the norm -- resign themselves to violence simply by relegating it to the category of "street violence" or "black-on-black violence"? When people thoughtlessly repeat this refrain, they suggest that everyone in that crowd should equally be considered a perpetrator simply because he or she is black, even though there was only one shooter, maybe two, who took aim at hundreds of innocent, dancing, celebratory black citizens festively enjoying a sunny Mother's Day afternoon.

When white people designate this as a "problem in the black community," the glaring implication is that violence is a problem endemic to the black community, that it is inherent and that it is both impossible to solve and not "our" problem anyway. That is the assumption motivating all the horrendous comments that make blackness the explicit or implicit source of violence instead of laying the blame on one cruel person. And it is that same assumption that silences and repackages our mourning over the violence that occurred in New Orleans this weekend.

Instead, what is endemic, and certainly feels intractable, are the systemic inequalities that persist in New Orleans and in the U.S. overall, injustice for which we are all responsible. Research coming out of the Orleans Parish Place Matters project indicates that life expectancies can differ by 25 years in New Orleans, depending on ZIP code, an indicator of the racial breakdown of a population. Place Matter's work shows that "social, economic, and environmental conditions in low-income and non-white neighborhoods make it more difficult for people in these neighborhoods to live healthy lives."

Furthermore, the study proves what should be clear to everyone: Neighborhoods that lack good schools and worthwhile opportunities are correlated with higher rates of violence. When we know this, we cannot hold individuals solely responsible for violence; we must respond urgently to the inequality in our educational institutions, employment opportunities and health care.

And maybe it is easier for many white and middle-class people to turn a blind eye to violence that happens in black communities because they think it cannot happen to them or to anyone they know. How does an entire race become anonymous to the point of seeming alien? How do white Americans live in this country and pretend that they do not know and are not responsible for their neighbors simply because of race?

Second-Line Community Building

I dance and talk and sing and debate with people of all races and classes and professions on Sunday afternoons. We are friends, neighbors and dancing partners, despite all the differences that may divide us. It is hard for me to imagine how anyone could live in New Orleans and not have relationships across what might seem to be impossible boundaries in some other towns. And it is hard for me to imagine living anywhere else anymore.

Knowing and loving people who are different from us, embracing their talents, joys and jokes, as well as recognizing and responding to their hardships and suffering is what makes us able to fight for and get passionate about justice in this world. Sometimes I get angry when I hear that someone is concerned about breast cancer only after a family member suffers from it or follows news from Ireland because he or she has some imaginary ancestral connection to the place. Why are the people who look like you more valuable than the people who don't? Why do we bother to learn about the suffering of our own community when we completely fail to respond to the suffering in others?

The story of violence and injustice in the black community is not my story to tell. There are many people who know it better than I do and have the most effective strategies (though often not the resources) for responding to it. But it should not be the sole responsibility of the African-American community to inform white Americans of the discrimination and inequality that determine the very life outcomes of the citizens of this nation and world.

It makes me sick to have to write this. I didn't want to say anything about being a witness to violence in New Orleans to anyone. I didn't want to post to Facebook or to Twitter that I had been in the 7th Ward on Sunday because I am afraid that it will be my story, the story of an innocent middle-class white person who was affected by the shooting, that gets picked up.

I am afraid that friends and family and colleagues will only finally believe that this is a significant event because it happened to someone they know. Look at the photos of the shooting that did make the national papers -- there are white folks everywhere in those photos, even though we made up a minuscule segment of the people who were attending the parade, and only a fraction of the people who were harmed. And let me not exonerate myself: After teaching and writing about injustice for years, I am writing about violence in my own community for the first time only after it hit close to home.

I decided that I had to say something, however, because I am a professor, and the way I attempt to effect change is through the words I write and the students I teach. I teach my students that the systemic, racialized inequalities that persist in our community and in the world carry prices and consequences that are much more significant than the cost of effective, ubiquitous education and health care -- basic necessities that we deny the majority of black citizens in my city and many others in the U.S. I teach them that it is the responsibility of every citizen to ensure that every other citizen is provided with his or her right to health and security.

And I insist that every human being deserves far more than the basic necessities. Many have suggested this more eloquently before today, but this event provides us with a moment to reflect again on our commitments. And personally, I suppose I am trying to transform the sadness and anger that grew out of my experience this weekend into something worthwhile.

The mass shooting that occurred on Sunday is not a black problem or a poor people's problem or a New Orleans problem. It is the responsibility of all of us to end the vicious inequality that leads to violence. We must all make a commitment -- regardless of our race or our class -- to the people and organizations that work to increase opportunity, education and well-being for all citizens in New Orleans and around the world.

We must support culturally informed, community-driven and -led conflict-resolution initiatives, like Project Ceasefire, that teach all of us that hatred and violence are the least effective solutions to our problems. We must dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to addressing the problems that no doubt affect all of us, but affect us unequally.

I will be at next week's second line. I can't wait to hear the opening strains of "Back Stabbers," which I suspect will be met with an unusually emphatic "What they do!" from the crowd. I know my family and friends will be horrified, worrying that I take my life for granted.

But let me explain: The second line is the most vibrant and loving cultural tradition I know of in the U.S. It celebrates life as it commemorates death. I will be there to celebrate and commemorate, alongside all the diverse members of this community who also take that work seriously, because I never feel more alive and more a part of this community than I do when I am at a second line.

Laura Murphy is assistant professor of English and the director of African and African-American studies at Loyola University New Orleans. She is the author of Metaphor and the Slave Trade in West African Literature and editor of the forthcoming Survivors of Slavery: 20th and 21st Century Slave Narratives.
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Elena Shore ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=7 The beating death of 33-year-old father David Silva in the central California city of Bakersfield last week has garnered national attention. Univision reports the incident highlights the Latino community’s ongoing fear of law enforcement.

Univision Los Angeles reminds viewers “the death of David Silva from Bakersfield is one more in a long list of beatings by police agents in California.” The site went on to list some of the more well-known police beatings in recent years across the state.

Silva, the father of four young children, died May 8 after deputies say he fought with them and CHP officers who'd responded to a report of a possibly intoxicated man. Several passersby who filmed the alleged beating later had their phones taken by police.

An FBI investigation into the case is currently underway.

Bakersfield reporter Juan Carlos Gonzalez found that many of the city’s Latino residents are afraid to talk about the incident.

“Here where the incident occurred, it’s clear that people are afraid of law enforcement,” he reported. “Of all the people we tried to talk to, only two agreed to be interviewed, but only on condition of anonymity.”

Gonzalez reports that there have been “many cases of abuse” involving police and Latino residents. Nearly 50 percent of the city’s 400,000 residents are Latino.

One man who spoke on condition of anonymity told Univision through his screen door, “Generally people who are Mexican or just not American are treated worse than animals, in jail, in the street, wherever.”]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11425 2013-05-15T08:30:00Z 2013-05-16T20:13:40Z

Maya Rhodan -NNPA Washington Correspondent ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 WASHINGTON (NNPA) — — Whites had an average wealth of $632,000 in 2010 while Blacks had about $98,000 and Hispanics had $110,000, according to a recent study by the Urban Institute.

“Such great wealth disparities help explain why many middle-income Blacks and Hispanics haven’t seen much improvement in their relative economic status and, in fact, are at greater risk of sliding backwards,” the report says.

Blacks start out at a disadvantage.

Whites begin with about 3.5-4 times more wealth than their Black and Hispanic counterparts in their “wealth-building years,” defined as 32 to 40 years old. By age 60, the wealth of whites increases to seven times the amount of wealth Blacks are able to accrue over the same amount of time.

Levels of homeownership and retirement savings are shown to contribute to the differences in wealth among races. In 2010, less than half of Black families owned homes, while more than three quarters of white families did.

Algernon Austin, director of the program on race, ethnicity, and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute, says that Blacks were more likely to have loss their homes during the recession because they couldn’t keep up with ballooning mortgage payments.

“What we’ve seen recently is a dramatic loss of wealth for African Americans because there has been a dramatic loss of homeownership,” Austin explains. “Blacks were more likely to be given high-priced sub prime loans and were hit much harder by unemployment. Both factors—more loans, losing a job– makes it more difficult to keep up with mortgage payments.”

The recession has had a dire impact on the wealth of all Americans, with Hispanic families reporting their wealth declined by 40 percent between 2007-2010, according to the report. Blacks experienced a 31 percent decline while whites’ wealth declined by 11 percent.

Austin calls the loss of wealth experienced by the Black community a “symptom of high levels of unemployment and low wages, but particularly unemployment.”

Today, 27 percent of Blacks live in poverty. In March 2013, Blacks experienced an unemployment rate of 13.3 percent, compared to the national rate of 7.6 percent.

“Homeownership is a really important factor in terms of wealth, but so is unemployment,” Austin says. “If you’re going through frequent spells of unemployment, you’re either going to be losing wealth or going into debt.”

He adds, “The issue of jobs and income are important to address. The higher your income, the easier it is for you to build wealth. The government needs to enact policies that allow for Blacks to get greater income and get better job opportunities.”

Blacks represent about 11 percent of the total workforce, but 14 percent of the poverty-wage workforce, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

According to the Urban Institute findings, Black families saw the most dramatic decrease in their retirement assets, experiencing a 35 percent decline in retirement savings between 2007-2010.

“This finding is consistent with research that suggests lower income families are more likely to withdraw money from retirement savings after a job loss or other adverse event,” according to the Urban Institute report. “The high rates of unemployment and other financial needs that took hold with the Great Recession appear to have led to larger declines in retirement savings for Black families.”

While the Great Recession can account for much of the loss of wealth, there are other contributing factors to African Americans’ low-wealth, including policies designed to help Americans accrue wealth and policies aimed at low-income families, a large proportion of whom are African-American.

“There’s lots that the federal government does that if it was targeted to lower income Americans it could impact the wealth gap, “ Austin adds. “However, unfortunately, it’s a difficult battle because current policies benefit people who have significant political power and influence.”

In 2009, the federal government spent about $384 billion on policies that help families buy homes, start businesses, put their children through college, and retire.

Many of these policies, however, are administered through the tax code and “subsidize wealth building for the wealthiest among us, rewarding them for the size of their homes and investment portfolios,” according to a 2010 report by the Corporation for Enterprise Development titled “Upside Down: The $400 Billion Federal Asset-Building Budget.”

“The federal asset building budget provides a variety of things—opportunities for families to buy homes, start businesses, and prepare for retirement,” says Jermie Greer, the director of government affairs for CFED. “Yet, this $400 billion budget is skewed to benefit the very wealthy.”

According to the report, a middle-class family making $50,000 annually receives less than $500 in benefits from federal asset building policies, while families that make $100,000 receive $2,000 in benefits.

Tax payers who make in excess of $1 million, however, can see more than $92,000 in asset building support through mortgage and property tax deductions and investment tax breaks. Over half of the nearly $400 billion in benefits, according to the report, goes to the top five percent of tax payers.

“Conversation around tax reform so often focuses on the relationship between revenues for deficit reduction, but missed the mark on what is the social policy we want to address through the tax code,” Greer says.

“They can take some of the tax benefits that go to the very wealthy and bring them back down to people that are trying to build wealth and scratch their way out of poverty,” Greer adds.

Most lower- and middle-income families use homeownership to build wealth. In fact, homeownership accounts for the largest proportion of wealth among lower and middle-income households.

Yet, homeowners with lower incomes often don’t receive enough of a deduction to make a difference. According to the CFED report, nearly 80 percent of the value of mortgage and property tax deductions went to the top 20 percent of taxpayers.

“Social policy is really focused on income and the income people earn,” Greer says. “While people need jobs and it’s important that people are able to earn income, but that’s not the only piece of puzzle when you think about wealth.”

“We need to think not only about income, but providing benefits and incentives that help people build wealth through starting businesses, buying homes, being protected from predatory lenders.”

For low-income families in particular, federal programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, help ensure families have basic necessities, but don’t assist in helping to develop economically stable households.

“Many safety net programs even discourage saving: Families can become ineligible if they have a few thousand dollars in savings,” he Urban Institute report says.

Individuals who receive benefits from assistance programs can only have savings that equal up to $2,000 before risking losing their benefits. States currently have the flexibility to wave these limits, which keep people from accumulating money that can help them start a business or build wealth that can lead them out of poverty.

Thirty-six states currently waive limits to the SNAP and Temporary Assistance to Needed Families programs.

There are also programs, such as the Self-help Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP), which helps low- to moderate-income families purchase homes, that can help low-income families build wealth through homeownership, but the programs received less funding than low-income rental programs in 2010.

Austin says that through implementing more policies that benefit a wider range of people from varying socioeconomic backgrounds, we could begin to see the wealth gap “start shrinking instead of watching it grow.”

“It’s possible to prevent [the wealth gap] from growing larger and even shrinking it, but none of the policies that will ensure that will happen by themselves,” Austin says. “With all of these things, they aren’t likely to happen overnight.”

This article was originally published in the May 13, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11431 2013-05-15T08:30:00Z 2013-05-15T22:28:55Z

Peter Schurmann and Donny Lumpkins ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 RICHMOND, Calif. – At the West County Detention Facility, inmates can pay upwards of $20 for a five-minute phone call to friends, relatives or lawyers. While the high rates are a cash cow for the prison, for detainees they have become a major hurdle to staying in touch with the outside.

For immigrant detainees and their families, the high phone rates can lead to total isolation.

“$50 gets about 15 minutes of actual talk time,” said Roberto de la Rosa, whose mother is currently being held at WCDF. De la Rosa noted that with repeated dropped calls and reconnection fees, the cost of a single conversation rivals a single families’ monthly phone bill.

De la Rosa was among a group of some 40 activists, former inmates and family members who gathered last Friday outside the prison, located about 30 miles east of San Francisco. Representing a cross-section of local civic, religious and legal organizations, protestors carried signs that read, “Detained mothers have the right to call home.”

The rally was part of a national Mother’s Day action led by the national Campaign for Prison Phone Justice. A fact sheet released by the group notes most Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees are either in deportation proceedings or have petitions for asylum pending, and that affordable phone access is critical to their effective legal representation.

De la Rosa’s mother has been held in detention for close to two years, and was brought to WCDF in 2012 after nearly a year of being shuffled between centers. Her son says the constant moving and high phone rates have made staying in touch difficult.

“I’ve really only been in touch with her for the last four months,” he explained. Having recently lost his job and with persistent health problems, he says the added expense of maintaining communication with his mom, on top of rent and groceries “has really taken a toll on the family.”

WCDF houses some 1100 inmates, including those held by the county as well as candidates for realignment -- a state-led initiative to transfer low-level offenders from state to county supervision. In the fiscal year ending in 2012, the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the Richmond facility, was paid more than $3 million by the federal government to hold ICE detainees.

Christina Mansfield is co-founder of Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), which recently launched a national campaign to bring attention to the high cost of prison phone calls. She was at Friday’s rally, where she described immigrant detainees as “a captive market … The high cost of phone calls creates additional and unnecessary suffering for families, and privileges profit over the right of families to remain in contact.”

Unlike state and federal penitentiaries, which are required by law to contract to the lowest bidder, counties are not subject to the same regulation. “Most county jails go with the companies that get them the most profit,” explained Mansfield.

The issue first gained prominence in 2000, after a class action lawsuit was filed by Washington, DC resident Martha Wright against the prison phone companies for charges related to calls made from her grandson, who spent 18 years behind bars. She later sued the Federal Communications Commission, and this past April her case was taken up by the Congressional Black Caucus.

The phone system at WCDF is run by Alabama-based Global Tel* Link. The company paid $75,000 for the contract with Contra Costa County, which receives 57 percent of all profits made from the phone calls. The contract is due to expire in June 2013.

Last year, the company saw profits from calls made within WCDF nearing $700,000, according to documents obtained via a public request act filed with the Sheriffs office by CIVIC.

Global Tel* Link declined to comment for this story.

A call from inside WCDF includes a $3.25 connection fee regardless of the duration, with per-minute rates running as high as 25 cents for interstate calls and an additional 30 cents when phoning out-of-state. Inmates in county jails like WCDF pay higher rates than those in either state or federal penitentiaries.

De la Rosa said that with calls routinely dropped, he often has to pay the connection fee more than once in a single conversation.

Reverend Deborah Lee is director of the Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights, one of the organizers of Friday’s rally. Gripping a stack of flyers with slogans that read “Justice” or “Happy Mothers Day – Affordable Phone Calls,” Lee described the rates as “exploitative,” saying they inhibited inmates ability to maintain family ties and stay up to date on their legal cases.

Prison reform advocates have long argued that maintaining connections to family and friends on the outside is critical to reducing recidivism and ensuring a smoother transition once inmates are released.

“Families are being overcharged for the most basic things,” she said, “like telling relatives you love them, or speaking with their attorneys about their cases.” Inmates’ relatives often pay anywhere from $25-$50 for two or three brief calls. “It’s cruel and inhuman,” said Lee, “the stories we hear are heartbreaking.”

One of those stories is that of Abesulom Taye, who was released from WCDF last week after a seven-month stint on a technicality stemming from charges dating back to 1998 for marijuana possession. Taye was among those at the Friday rally.

“It happened so fast,” he recalled of his arrest, saying it was unexpected as he had been granted asylum by a judge in 2010. A father, Taye said while he was detained he often had to “decide whether I wanted to talk to my son or have food that day.” The high costs meant that calls went from every other day to once a week. Eventually he racked up phone bills totaling $2000.

Lee’s group has joined with CIVIC in seeking a fair and open process for Contra Costa County to negotiate a new contract that would comply with ICE standards in going with the lowest cost provider.

“We shouldn’t be trying to balance our budgets on the backs of people trying to talk to their kids,” she said.]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11422 2013-05-14T17:08:00Z 2013-05-14T17:10:19Z

TC Daily Planet ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
The debate on the bill, which began about 1:50 p.m. after a couple of amendments were debated and defeated, offered an extraordinary and emotional look into a conversation over marriage rights that has divided the state for years but appears to be on the brink of a sudden and decisive conclusion. There were several riveting moments, including a heart-felt floor speech in Spanish — her first-ever — from Richfield DFLer Patricia Torres Ray.

A historic occasion in its own right, Torres Ray used her native tongue to explain to her family and Spanish-speaking friends — most of whom oppose same-sex marriage — why she was voting in favor of the bill.

Read more here.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11421 2013-05-13T22:14:09Z 2013-05-13T22:23:58Z

Colorlines ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 attractions normally ignored by mainstream media.

But Cotton also wrote about often-ignored problems in New Orleans concerning violence and poverty. The tragic irony of her being wounded in a second line parade is that she wrote about this very issue often in her blog. When a woman was murdered three years ago after a second line parade, and some journalists attempted to draw causations and correlations between murder and second line tradition, Cotton wrote:

"The unfortunate murder that occurred on Sunday is not symptomatic of second line culture. On the contrary, it’s directly attributable to deep social ills that New Orleans has yet to get a firm grasp on: a broken criminal justice system that allows murderers to get off easily and maintains bad cops which in turn undermines residents’ faith in cooperating with authorities; a broken education system that leaves citizens unable to function as adults in the professional world; and an economy based on two sectors that thwart ambition and opportunities — tourism and government. To end the murder culture, one must acknowledge and address the legitimate root problems and depart from racial biases that serve to further marginalize a distressed community." Read more here. 

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11410 2013-05-13T07:05:00Z 2013-05-15T22:51:50Z

Jude Joffe-Block ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Traducción al español
Pictured above: Santiago Dominugez, bottom right, poses with his children, grandchildren and a portrait of his daughter, Rosa, who is in Arizona. (Photo: Jude Joffe-Block)



TEPEAPULCO, Mexico -- It’s a typical Sunday in the town of Tepeapulco, in Mexico’s central highlands. Families gather, cook and catch up.

And that’s the scene at Santiago Domínguez’s home. At 82-years-old, he’s the family patriarch. He’s wearing pressed slacks, his dark hair smoothed back. By lunchtime, he’s surrounded by relatives.

But one person’s always missing: Rosa, Domínguez’s daughter. In the living room, there’s a picture of her as a young woman.

“I thought she’d only be gone three or four years—and then come back,” Domínguez said in Spanish.

But it’s been 18 years since Rosa left for Arizona with her two young sons. They went illegally to join the boys’ father there. She’s now 43 and has never returned to Mexico. Without papers, it’s just too risky.

“It got to the point that I told her, ‘You know, I’m not sure if we’ll see each other again,’” Domínguez said.

But now they might.

A proposed Senate bill would allow millions of immigrants who entered the US illegally to apply for provisional status and the chance to work legally and travel internationally.

“There’s hope like never before,” Domínguez said.

And it’s a feeling felt throughout Mexico.

A few towns over, Catalina Cervera knocks on a neighbor’s gate to visit the house next door—the one her younger sister, Sandra, abandoned.

Cervera’s sister left Mexico with her young children about 10 years ago. They crossed into Arizona illegally, picked produce, and now live near Phoenix.

“They’ve taken the door, the windows,” Cervera said in Spanish as she stood in front of her sister’s house.

Since her sister’s been gone, thieves have stripped her house clean, even the roof. It’s a cinder block skeleton.

Cervera said she and her sister feel impotencia, powerlessness—they want to see each other, but can’t.

Her sister couldn’t visit when their mother was dying. And a few years ago, Cervera couldn’t get a tourist visa to see her sister in Arizona.

Cervera said she lacked what’s needed for a US visa: things like a bank account, a business, or a credit card. But now she can envision her sister—and her sister’s kids—visiting Mexico again.

“They are motivated with the dream that this immigration reform is going to happen,” Cervera said of her relatives in Arizona.

But as Congress debates the legislation, the wait continues.

Back in Tepeapulco, Domínguez’s tradition is to sing to his daughter a famous ballad over the phone. It’s called “Sin Ti” or Without You.

“What else matters if being far from you makes me cry,” he sang.

Over a 1,000 miles away, in Arizona, his daughter Rosa has become an activist for immigration reform. She asks to only use her first name because of her unauthorized status.

“I want this to happen now, because our parents’ lives won’t wait,” Rosa said in Spanish.

And if reform does happen and she can travel to Mexico freely one day?

She said she’ll surprise her dad with a mariachi band. And they’ll play that ballad he’s sung to her for the last 18 years.

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11381 2013-05-06T22:43:00Z 2013-05-06T22:46:50Z

News One ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Anyone keen on the Supreme Court’s on-going arguments over the legality of certain parts of the Voter Rights Act surely has not forgotten Justice Antonio Scalia‘s “racial entitlement” remarks from earlier this year–especially “The Crisis,” the NAACP’s flagship publication.

“I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It’s been written about, Scalia said of the Act during a hearing back in February.

“Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.

The award-winning magazine pulled no punches with its response, using its cover to feature an illustration of Justice Scalia with a Confederate flag bandana wrapped around his mouth. The conservative’s eyes peer ominously through his thinly-framed eye glasses, evoking worst memories from the era in which the original Voter Right’s Act was born.

The cover is very hard-hitting, but The Crisis’ Editor-in-Chief, Jabari Asim, told NewsOne, “we thought his comments were hard-hitting and deserved that kind of response. I think that voting rights is one of those principles that the Crisis, African-Americans, and the NAACP all hold sacred. The memory of people who died for our right to vote remains fresh in many of our consciences and I think in that instance when you dare to be that irreverent and that disrespectful of the lessons of history that’s the kind of response you earn.”

Read the rest at News One
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News One ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Test the evidence.

That’s what Willie Jerome Manning and his legal team have been asking the state of Mississippi to do for the past 10 years, since being sentenced to death in 1994 for killing two White Mississippi State University students.

Jon Steckler‘s and Tiffany Miller‘s bodies were found in Oktibbeha County Dec. 11, 1992. Both were shot to death.

Miller’s car was missing but was located the next day. Manning was arrested after allegedly trying to sell the victims’ items. The evidence used to convict him was incriminating but not exact.

While hairs from an African-American male were found in Miller’s vehicle, DNA analysis was not sophisticated enough at that time to determine if they actually belonged to Manning.

It didn’t matter.

Manning was convicted for both murders and sentenced to death, even though he maintained his innocence throughout the case.

Read the rest at News One
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Sandy Close ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=26 Traducción al español

Editor's Note: Ahmed Rachidi, a native of Morocco who has been a British resident since 1985, was held in extrajudicial detention in Guantanamo from March 2002 to May 2007, when he was released without charge. Now 47, he is the author of a memoir about his experiences in Guantanamo, called The General: The Ordinary Man Who Challenged Guantanamo, co-authored by Gillian Slovo and published in March 2013. NAM editor Sandy Close interviewed Mr. Rachidi by phone in his home in Tangier, Morocco where he lives with his wife, mother and three children.

Why did you call your memoir "The General"?

Because I was one of a limited number of prisoners at Guantanamo who spoke English, I was often forced to be an "unofficial leader" by guards and interrogators. They nicknamed me "the general."

How were you released?

I was released in May 2007. I was on the "cleared for release" list for one year before I was released. Although I was a British resident and had worked as a chef in London for 16 years, I was repatriated to Morocco. I was never allowed to regain my passport so I was unable to return to London even for the release last March for my memoir.

How did you go from being a chef in London to being a prisoner in Guantanamo?

I had traveled to Islamabad in the late summer of 2001 on a one-month business visa. When I saw television coverage of Afghan refugees fleeing US air strikes across the Pakistan border, I wanted to help. It's the kind of emotional response you have when you see disasters. I thought I would volunteer for a week -- the border was not far away. But I wound up in the middle of a war zone. There was nothing I could do. When I crossed back into Pakistan I thought I was safe. I was riding in a car with five other passengers but the car was stopped at a Pakistani army checkpoint. After 44 days in a Pakistani jail, I was traded by Pakistan intelligence to the FBI.

Were you the only prisoner "cleared for release?"

At any one time there are as many as 50 or 60 prisoners on the "cleared for release" list, including Shaker Aamer, a native of Saudi Arabia. He is the last British resident held in Guantanamo. President Obama claims that those who are cleared for release can't go back either because they will face torture in their home countries, or because their governments don't want them back.

Is that true?

That simply is not true. For the last 11 years the British people have been campaigning for the release and return of Shaker to his family in London. And the U.S. has already sent dozens of prisoners back to countries like Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

How did you know Shaker?

I knew Shaker in the isolation box. Like me, he was a father. I can tell you that a father in Guantanamo is a desperate father knowing that his kids are growing apart and away from him. They are growing away from him without his knowing, without his care, without his affection and attention. So a father in Guantanamo is simply a devastated father.

Can you tell us about the hunger strike?

Shaker is one of over 100 prisoners in Guantanamo who have been on a hunger strike for almost three months. The Obama Administration claims they are on a hunger strike because they want better treatment or better food. But that is not true. They are on a hunger strike because they want justice. They want freedom. They want to go home to their families. And this time they will not quit.

Where you ever on a hunger strike?

I was on a hunger strike many times in Guantanamo. Food is the only comfort that prisoners have in their cell. So when there is a hunger strike that means that the prisoners give up their one source of peace and comfort. They allow themselves to fall into a deep coma. It's like crawling with your weak body into this dark tunnel with no light at the end of it.

What makes them quit?

During one hunger strike in 2006 the prison commander assigned me to a special block to take care of prisoners he said were coming out of the hospital. But they were actually coming from isolation blocks that were kept ice cold. Each prisoner was shaking, each prisoner had a bruised nose with dried blood and black ringed eyes that were petrified. Everyone complained of gut wrenching pain and bleeding hemorrhoids. Soldiers would insert feeding tubes with such force and no anesthetic through their noses and throats while they were strapped to chairs. Then the soldiers would pour medication to make their bowels move. After half an hour they would wet their pants and defecate. They would be left for hours like that. If they vomited, the soldiers would repeat the process. By using these tactics, they stopped the strike. Even I begged the administration to stop.

What is your biggest worry right now?

This will be the last hunger strike. To stop eating is the only way prisoners can exert any control when they are powerless. But this time Shaker and the other prisoners don't have the same strength, the same energy they used to have. Mentally and physically they are very weak. I am worried that something can go wrong, that someone will lose his life.

The hunger strike has gotten President Obama's attention. Has that helped?

President Obama said that he is sending 40 doctors to Guantanamo. Prisoners don't need doctors. Prisoners want to go home to their families. They have been crying out for justice for 11 years. To hold someone for 11 years without trial, without charge, is a crime.

What is the message of the hunger strike?

Guantanamo is a concern to every human being who believes in democracy, who believes in human rights, who believes in the rule of law. We don't have a lot of time. We need to come together to force President Obama to restore the rule of law and put an end to this disgrace.

See a video of Ahmed Rachidi speaking about his time in Guantanamo.
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