Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles
Juell Stewart
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Posts by Juell Stewart
Youth Say Race Still Matters–So What Are They Doing About It?
07 months ago
Earlier this month, our publisher released a report, “Don’t Call Them Post-Racial,” which surveyed attitudes about race in key systems in U.S. society among young adults 18-25. Dom Apollon’s research team conducted focus groups with dozens of young people in the Los Angeles area, and learned that their thoughts on race are far more nuanced than most polling and commentary has suggested. Theirs is the most diverse generation in U.S. history, but that doesn’t make them post-race. Rather, the young people in the focus groups made clear that they believed race still matters today.
The young people struggled for language to define racism and they differed across racial groups in how they saw race impacting society. But they identified race as a “significant problem” in a few key areas, with all racial groups agreeing that race remained a problem for both criminal justice and employment. Young people of color identified education as a particular trouble spot as well.
They also differed in what they thought should be done about these problems–while white Millennials, as this generation has been dubbed, largely identified racism as driven by individuals and demanding individual solutions, young people of color were more likely to identify racism as a collective problem that demands political action to resolve. As Apollon wrote, “All of these ideas are crucial to understand because they also shape how this generation will choose to act upon racism and racial injustice.”
So to make these ideas more concrete, we talked to five organizations and campaigns that are working with Millennials to tackle racism as a collective, systemic problem rather than an individualized, personal one. Here’s what they had to say about their work.
Fearless Leading By Youth || Chicago
FLY’s “Trauma Center Track.”
Brittany Blaney, 17, got involved in Fearless Leading by Youth (FLY) after her best friend was shot and killed on Chicago’s South Side. FLY is the youth leadership arm of Southside Together Organizing for Power, and one of their main campaigns is an effort to bring the University of Chicago’s trauma center back into the community, after 23 years of shuttered doors. “There’s no trauma center on the South Side. Why should we have to go all the way [downtown] to Northwestern when we could have a hospital right here?” Brittany and the other young leaders in FLY have been doing research on urban trauma centers, presenting their findings to the university and doing direct action in the form of protests, die-ins and teach-ins in the community. They’ve also gone beyond their own campaign to partner with allies working on issues that feed the systemic problem as well. They joined forces with CeaseFire to address the violence that makes the trauma center necessary in the first place, and they’ve supported the University of Chicago hospitals’ nurses during labor negotiations.
Ali Forney Center || New York City
The Ali Forney Story.
The Ali Forney Center was started in 2002 to provide resources and services for homeless LGBT youth. “There was no safe shelter in New York City for LGBT youth when we started,” says Carl Siciliano, the Center’s executive director. Siciliano estimates that nearly 80 percent of the teens and young adults that come to the center are people of color. In the nearly 10 years since it was founded, AFC has expanded to provide more than beds; it helps young clients build independent living skills, provides medical care and, importantly, has job placement programs. And it has led a coalition of groups reminding New York State politicians that LGBT people need more than marriage; they’re currently fighting for adequate funding to ensure safe housing for queer youth in shelters around the city. Earlier this month, as comedian Tracy Morgan apologized for an anti-gay tirade during a standup routine, the “30 Rock” star visited AFC to hear queer youth of color explain to him why violence against them isn’t funny.
Asian/Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy & Leadership (AYPAL) || Oakland
AYPAL has been working with allies and conducting outreach in the Bay Area for 13 years. After sending out a survey to search for solutions to problems plaguing youth in the area–isolation, racism, inter-generational tension, sexism–the group’s organizers got an interesting response from teachers, students and community members: The best way to ease tensions would be to introduce an ethnic studies curriculum in the Oakland Unified School District. “We don’t know about each other’s histories,” says Armael Malinis, lead organizer. Malinis believes dropout rates and school violence can be attributed to the fact that Oakland’s student body, which is overwhelmingly students of color, doesn’t see school as culturally relevant. “Incorporating ethnic studies into the curriculum allows them to feel connected.” As a youth-led organization focused on base-building and empowerment, AYPAL looks to students to guide their campaigns. “Those who are deeply impacted by racism … are the ones who can come up with creative solutions,” added Malinis. AYPAL is looking ahead to next school year, when its Ethnic Studies Task Force–along with OUSD administrators and teachers–will launch a pilot program in the area’s high schools, focused on developing a curriculum that will hopefully be replicated throughout the country.
Center For Young Women’s Development || San Francisco
“Young women have very different issues than boys,” says Venus Rodriguez, CYWD’s program director. CYWD’s core programs are targeted toward young women age 16-24 who participate in the underground street economy or have been in the juvenile or adult judicial systems. Their core programs are designed to develop young women into “peer models”–young leaders who can serve as examples to other girls in the center. CYWD gives incentives for participating in their programs, and gives young mothers childcare, parenting classes and meals to help them transition into the community. A big component of their work is their political education program, which “is almost like a re-education. They come in with all kinds of stereotypes and we use culture-shares to break them.” Because there are so many bigger interests along the school-to-prison pipeline and the incarceration system, Rodriguez points out that it’s necessary to educate girls about alternatives, and about how to navigate life in their communities.
Young Women of Color Initiative || Nationwide
The Young Women of Color Initiative started in 2001 as a part of Advocates for Youth, a national organization focused on building youth movements for sexual and reproductive health. “When we started the program, we saw the need to have culturally relevant and gender-specific community health organization programs. Nothing focused on young people or women of color; everything was about general HIV education,” says Trina Scott, Advocates for Youth’s associate director of health equity and youth empowerment. Scott describes the Initiative’s Leadership Council, a group of 14 young women who work together to promote HIV prevention programs targeting youth of color, where the epidemic is raging. Young women that have participated in the Council have gone on to careers in public policy, public health and education, taking the framework of reproductive justice to a broader scale and working toward equitable sexual health care nationally.
Is Michelle Obama’s Wal-Mart Endorsement a Healthy Idea?
011 months ago
Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign celebrated its one-year anniversary last month. The first lady can reflect on a year in which her initiative has been met with praise among community advocates and policy wonks alike, thanks in large part to its commitment to tackling the obesity epidemic and the nutrition gap with a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach.
From its inception as the White House Task Force on Obesity–which included participation from a wide range of government offices–to its central role in passing new school nutrition standards, Let’s Move has been successfully opened up a national conversation on health and obesity in unprecedented ways. And even though the campaign centers on childhood obesity, folks in every age range will reap the net benefits. That is, of course, particularly important to both black and Latino communities, where mortality rates from diabetes, heart disease and other obesity-related health problems are depressingly high.
But one element of the first lady’s campaign has drawn a significant amount of skepticism within progressive circles: Her would-be partnerships with large players in the food industry, an in particular her endorsement of retail behemoth Wal-Mart’s new healthy-food campaign.
In January, the first lady joined Wal-Mart executives in southeast D.C.–a traditionally black neighborhood in which the controversial chain recently announced plans to open stores–to announce the company’s effort to make its pre-packaged foods healthier and more affordable than less healthy options by 2015. Obama called it a “huge victory” that left her feeling “more hopeful than ever before.”
Last month, The New York Times reported that the National Restaurant Association–a nationwide industry lobby group that includes both large chain restaurants like McDonald’s and local establishments–was in talks with Obama to create menus with smaller portions and more nutritious kids’ meals. Experts in the article were leery of the move:
“Can the food industry play a responsible role in the obesity epidemic? The answer isn’t no,” said Dr. David Ludwig, the director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital in Boston. “The point is that the best initiatives can be subverted for special interest, and it’s important to be vigilant when we form partnerships with industry.”
Other critics say that by teaming up with corporate giants like Wal-Mart, the first lady risks undermining activism on other issues, like fair labor practices in communities of color that are increasingly dependent upon service sector jobs. At what point are these companies working in their own best interest at the detriment of consumers? The answer isn’t a simple one, but one thing is clear to those working on food equity: You’ll get nowhere without engaging industry.
“Hating the food industry is not an option,” says Shiriki Kumanyika, a public health advocate and scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and founder of the African American Collaborative Obesity Network.
The “huge victory” Obama championed in the Wal-Mart announcement is creating viable choices for informed consumers. She and others have argued that communities can only win if there is cost parity between healthy food and the high-calorie snacks that contribute to obesity. “If you have a dollar menu item and a healthier salad that costs three times as much, it’s not a choice for people living on a limited income,” says Antronette K. Yancey, co-director of the UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity.
Yancey also emphasizes that it’s not just families who have to make these choices–budget-strapped schools and city-run summer camps also must make cost-effective food purchases for children. Getting the food industry to self-regulate sugar and sodium has long-term benefits; getting a company as large as Wal-Mart on board might just trigger other manufacturers to follow suit, which leads to a marketplace with more healthier options, at a fair price to consumers. Even though consumers are ultimately responsible for the decisions they make, giving them the ability to make those decisions without economic repercussions makes good ones more likely.
“We have a dual responsibility,” says Mildred Thompson of PolicyLink. “Industry has to be held accountable, but we have to be better educators. We have to learn how to become partners with businesses, so it’s not just ‘us’ versus ‘them.’” And communities educated on healthy habits can better hold the food industry accountable, Thompson adds. “In addition to the role that industry has to play, all of us in other fields have to do our part to increase awareness about how the food environment is changing.”
PolicyLink is one of a handful of organizations that have worked to improve access to healthy food by encouraging new markets to open in under-served communities and providing support to existing stores to stock healthier food.
Obama’s Let’s Move! has also not shied away from demanding industry be accountable when it fails to offer real choices. She’s spoken harshly about the products food manufacturers and retailers sell today, and reportedly refused to endorse an industry initiative for putting nutritional information on the front of packages because it wasn’t up to Industry of Medicine standards. Among other things, she’s pushed food retailers to curb advertising unhealthy food to children.
Of course, putting salad bars in schools and revising nutrition labels is only a small part of what it takes to build healthier communities; building the infrastructure to foster healthy lifestyle habits is also essential. “Not every community has the resources needed for health–yet we all pay for the consequences [of poor city planning],” says Valerie Bassett, executive director of the Massachusetts Public Health Association. “People have shorter lives, and it’s all preventable.”
Bassett’s organization partners with community groups across Massachusetts to advocate for local planning and zoning that encourages physical activity. The group promotes healthy school lunch and access to healthy food, but it also prioritizes healthy community design. That’s a component of Let’s Move! that hasn’t garnered as much national attention as its work with the food industry. The campaign has enlisted local officials (superstar Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s a fan) community partners to make healthy design changes on a smaller scale. In Los Angeles, for example, in communities with food deserts, councilmembers have worked with city planners and developers to offer incentives for stores that sell fresh fruits and vegetables.
This is the theme that’s run throughout the first lady’s campaign: create more choices. Public health debates are consistently mired in the false divide between decisions individuals make and the structures in which they make them. The reality is that, for communities of color and low-income neighborhoods, the deck is stacked in favor of unhealthy choices. From industry to government to public education, the first lady has worked to change that imbalance. “If you’ve got more healthy choices, that creates the supply,” says Yancey says. “On the demand side, if people are picking up the message and asking that those choices be available, that’s where you start to see results.”
Juell Stewart writes about food for Colorlines.com. Read her author bio to learn more.
Need Holiday Recipes? Here’s What’s Cooking at ColorLines
01 year ago
My favorite part of the holidays has always been the food. Whether it was standing at my Granny’s feet while she made her famous macaroni and cheese, or preparing my own Thanksgiving feast in my tiny Brooklyn apartment with the help of my friends, nothing can quite compare to the way that a good meal spreads love and builds community.
Over the summer, we brought you stories of how some communities of color are taking control of their food systems. Now, just in time for the holidays, ColorLines reached out to some of our food-loving friends to get their favorite healthy spins on traditional dishes. Feel free to add to these recipes to create your own new favorites, and to share them with the people around you.
UpSouth Grits
For this year’s Kwanzaa brunch, Brooklyn-based food activist Nicole Taylor will be keeping true to her Georgia roots by giving her grits a Northeastern makeover with cheese from Vermont and butter from New York State.
“UpSouth” recipe
Ingredients (Serves 4-6)
| 1 cup | White Stone-Ground Grits* |
| 4-5 cups | Water |
| 2 Tablespoons | Coarse Salt |
| 1 cup | Vermont White Cheddar Cheese |
| 1/3 cup | Domestic Gorgonzola Cheese |
| 4 Tablespoons | Sweet Cream Butter |
| Fresh Cracked Black Pepper and Fine Sea Salt Soup Bowl Fork or Spoon |
* Note: Stone Ground Grits require overnight soaking or quick strain prior to cooking. Both steps
require skimming of hulls and chaff. Also, overnight soaking reduces the cooking time. This
recipes uses overnight soaking method. Carefully follow recommended instructions from grits
supplier.
Directions:
1. Place 4 cups of water, salt in saucepan, bring to a boil. Very slowly sprinkle grits into boiling
water. Reduce to low heat and stir frequently.
2. Cover grits. Reduce to low heat, stay close to grits. Stir frequently.
3. If grits become to thick, slowly add remaining cup of water to saucepan. Adjust adding water
based on desired consistency.
3. Add butter, around 20 minutes into cooking.
4. The grits should be creamy, around 40 minutes into cooking. Mix cheese into grits. Remove
from heat.
5. Serve immediately. Add fresh cracked black pepper and more salt, to taste. Eat with fork or spoon in soup bowl.
Brussels Sprouts with Dried Cranberries
egg is a Southern restaurant in Brooklyn that uses local, organic ingredients to reinforce the relationship between the land our food comes from, the people who work to produce it and the bonds that we create when we share meals with each other. (Full disclosure: egg is my home away from home.) Chef Evan Hanczor shares the simple and delicious recipe for one of my new favorites.
Brussels Sprouts with Dried Cranberries recipe
Ingredients
| 1 1/2 cups | cleaned brussels sprouts |
| ¼ cup | dried cranberries |
| 2 tablespoons | canola oil |
| 1/2 tbsp | butter (can be adjusted according to preference) |
| Salt to taste |
Directions:
- Trim the stem end of the brussels, split in half vertically, and remove any loose outer leaves.
- Heat some neutral oil coating a saute pan large enough to fit the sprouts in one layer. When the oil is hot (shimmering) add the brussels sprouts. Using tongs, turn all the sprouts so that they rest cut-side down in the oil.
- Cook over medium-high heat until nicely browned on the cut side.
- Toss the pan a couple times and either transfer to a hot oven for a few minutes, or turn the heat down to medium-low and finish cooking the sprouts on the stove.
- Add some butter and a small handful of cranberries. Toss the pan until the butter has melted and the cranberries are heated through. Season with salt to taste.
Confetti Collards
Just Food fights for food equity in New York City through connecting communities with local farms, establishing food education programs and promoting Community Supported Agriculture initiatives. Community Chef Margaret Schehl offers her take on collard greens.
Confetti Collards recipe
Ingredients (Serves 4-6)
| 3-4 tablespoons | olive oil |
| 5 | cloves garlic, minced |
| ½ cup | red bell pepper, finely diced. |
| ½ cup | yellow bell pepper, finely diced |
| 1 pound | collard greens, cleaned, stems removed, sliced into thin strips (see instructions below) |
| 1 cup |
water |
| 1 |
The juice of one lemon, fresh squeezed |
|
Sea salt, to taste. Black pepper (preferably fresh ground), to taste |
Directions:
1. Add olive oil to a hot frying pan.
2. Add garlic and a pinch of salt, and cook, stirring, over medium heat for a minute.
3. Add collard greens and saute until coated with oil and softening.
4. Add water and stir until the water has evaporated.
5. Add peppers and lemon juice and cook until liquid has evaporated.
Creole Hoppin Jean
Eco-chef Bryant Terry has been working to build a more equitable food system for over 10 years. His latest book Vegan Soul Kitchen reinterprets traditional African-American foods and emphasizes cooking with no animal products–making healthy, affordable dishes that still burst with flavor. Hoppin’ John is eaten on New Year’s Day throughout the South, and it’s believed to bring good luck. Here’s Terry’s remixed version:
Creole Hoppin Jean recipe
Ingredients
| ¾ |
cup black-eyed peas, sorted, soaked overnight, drained, and rinsed |
|
½ |
cup long-grain brown rice, rinsed and soaked overnight |
|
1 |
Tbsp. and 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil |
|
½ |
cup finely diced shallots |
|
⅛ |
tsp. onion powder |
|
¼ |
tsp. garlic powder |
|
½ |
tsp. paprika |
|
½ |
tsp. chile powder |
|
¼ |
tsp. red chile flakes |
|
⅛ |
tsp. cayenne pepper |
|
¼ |
tsp. dried thyme |
|
¼ |
tsp. dried oregano |
|
2 |
cups vegetable stock |
|
1 |
(14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained |
|
|
Coarse sea salt |
|
|
Freshly ground white pepper |
Directions:
- Combine the black-eyed peas with enough water to cover them by 2 inches in a medium saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Skim off any foam, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer, partially covered, just until tender, 50 minutes to 1 hour. Remove from heat and drain.
- Drain the rice and add to a medium saucepan. Raise the heat to medium and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring often with a wooden spoon, until the water has evaporated and the rice starts smelling nutty. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and continue cooking until the rice starts browning, about 2 minutes.
- Add the shallots, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, chile powder, red chile flakes, cayenne pepper, thyme, oregano, and 2 teaspoons olive oil. Continue cooking, stirring frequently, until the shallots are soft, about 3 minutes. Transfer this mixture to a bowl and set aside.
- Over medium heat in the saucepan that the rice was cooked in, combine the vegetable stock, the tomatoes, and 1 teaspoon salt; bring to a boil. Add the rice mixture and the black-eyed peas to the broth, and stir well. Bring back to a boil, then cover, reduce heat to low, and cook for 50 minutes, until most of the water has evaporated.
- Remove from heat and steam with cover on for at least 10 minutes. Serve hot with your favorite hot sauce.
From the book Vegan Soul Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African American Cuisine by Bryant Terry. Excerpted by arrangement with Da Capo Lifelong, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2009
We at ColorLines.com love good food–and some of us can throw down in the kitchen. Here’s a collection of tasty, healthy recipes from the site’s staff, as well as our colleagues at our publisher, Applied Research Center.
Check out our list below. Got one you wanna share? Put it in the comments.
Fish Sinigang (from Gina Acebo)
Milkfish or bangus is a favorite in Filipino cooking, but any firm white fish would work. The recipe is also great with shrimp.
Ingredients:
- 1.5+ lbs of fish
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- 1 head garlic, minced
- 1 bunch of water spinach (kangkong– leaves and upper stalks only) OR spinach that’s been thoroughly cleaned
- 2 eggplants, sliced
- 1/4 lb string beans
- 1
very small daikon (carrot sized), sliced - 1 pack of “sinigang” mix (good for 1 liter of soup
- 1 tbsp. cooking oil Patis (salted fish sauce) to taste
Directions:
1. Cut fish into serving pieces. Set aside.
2. Heat oil in a big saucepan or casserole.
3. Saute garlic. Add onions, chili pepper and tomatoes.
4. Stir until onions are transparent and tomatoes start to crumble.
5. Add 1 liter of water and salt or patis.
6. Add taro. Bring to a boil.
7. Simmer until taro is almost tender.
8. Add the eggplant and simmer for 5 minutes.
9. Pour in the sinigang mix.
10. Next, add the fish and simmer for 5-10 minutes, depending on how big your fish pieces are.
11. Add kangkong and kamote tops.
12. Simmer for another minute then remove from heat and transfer to a serving bowl. Serve immediately.
Raajma Curry (from Nayana Sen)
Ingredients:
• 2 tablespoons masala (or cumin, coriander, tumeric, salt and garam masala)
• 2 tablespoons plain yogurt
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons each, ginger and garlic paste
• 1 fresh tomato
• ½ yellow onion
• ½ can black or red kidney beans
• ½ can cannellini beans
Directions:
1. Mix 2 tablespoons of masala (or proportionate amount of cumin, coriander, tumeric, salt and garam masala) with large dollop of plain, unsweetened yogurt. Mix until masala is fully blended.
2. In a large wok, heat up vegetable oil.
3. Fry onion until golden brown. Add ginger and garlic paste.
4. Add yogurt mixture to onions. Stir slowly and cook until masala bubbles slightly and separates.
5. Add ½ can black or red kidney beans and ½ can cannellini beans to masala. Mix in well until yogurt is evenly distributed.
6. Add bean water from can, plus ½-1 cup warm water to create gravy.
7. Chop 1 tomato into chunks. Add to curry in wok.
8. Close lid on wok and simmer on low heat for 6-10 minutes until gravy thickens.
10. Garnish with lots of fresh chopped cilantro and some lemon juice.
Pupusas Revueltas (from Monica Novoa, inspired by Jorge Rivas)
Ingredients: Makes about 15 pupusas.
- 1 pound masa (don’t need to add salt!)
- 4 cups lukewarm water
- 3 3/4 cups skim shredded mozzarella cheese or vegan cheese
- 1 teaspoon of olive oil
- 2 green onions
- ½ a teaspoon of saffron
- teaspoon of seasoned salt and pepper
- 2 minced garlic teaspoons
- 2 cups of canned mashed black beans
- 1 cup of MorningStar Farms® Meal Starters™ Sausage Style Recipe Crumbles™ or whatever meat substitute you like
Directions:
1. Heat olive oil. Add onions, garlic, saffron, salt and pepper and crumbles. Once these ingredients brown, add black beans and mix well.
2. You can buy a pound of fresh masa from your local bodega or make it yourself – in a large bowl, mix together instant masa mix (Maseca) and water. Follow directions to yield 1 lb.
3. Set aside a bowl with water because you’ll need to dampen your hands often.
4. Using damp hands, form dough into 2 1/2-inch balls. Flatten each ball into a 4-inch patty and place 1/4 cup filling and cheese in the center of each. Fold sides of patties over filling to enclose and reshape into a ball. Flatten each ball into another 4-inch patty. Make sure filling is not exposed as much as possible.
The Reformers Everybody Ignored While Fussing Over the Tea Party
01 year ago
It’s hard to read anything about the upcoming November elections without hearing about the tea party’s antics. With the help of an extensive and powerful rightwing political and media network–most notably Fox News–the tea party movement has become a key player outside of the traditional power structure. And through the illusion of a “grassroots” call to action, they’ve successfully shaped national debate. But while the corporate media has been giving so much attention to fringe groups on the right, it’s been ignoring progressive movements that are similarly trying reshape electoral politics and hold elected officials in both parties accountable to the communities they represent. Here are a few of the biggest examples that should have been on the political media’s radar in 2010.
Beating Back the Banks
As foreclosures rose and employment numbers plummeted over the past two years, communities of color that were often the casualties of an unregulated financial system formed coalitions to fight for banking accountability and reform. They relied on their ability to channel frustrations into populist action, building a growing network of community groups to fight for economic and racial justice across the country.
When members of National People’s Action found out that Bank of America was responsible for one out of five home foreclosures in Chicago, its members took action and headed to the bank’s headquarters to demand they take responsibility for devastating communities. Thousands of people confronted the American Bankers Association at its October 2009 conference in an action dubbed the Showdown in Chicago. In late April, another visible–and very vocal–contingent of financial-sector reform advocates followed up with a Showdown on Wall Street. But we barely heard a peep from the mainstream media about either call for real regulation and accountability in the banking industry. (Photo: March on Wall Street, Creative Commons/pamhule)
Keeping the DREAM Alive
When Rigo Padilla was arrested in Chicago for a traffic violation in 2009, he faced deportation–back to Mexico, away from the only home he ever knew. Immigration reform organizations in Chicago rallied around Padilla and used a hybrid of traditional and online communication to highlight his story and shed light on the DREAM Act, which would create a path to citizenship through college or military service for undocumented youth. Through blog posts, Facebook groups and targeted outreach, Padilla’s supporters were able to get his story to The New York Times and USA Today. Eventually, the Department of Homeland Security granted him a stay of deportation, thanks to the tremendous outpour of grassroots support. “Traditional media allows us to get a message across; online activism allows us to take direct action,” says Nora Garcia, development associate at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a Chicago-based advocacy group. By combining the two methods of outreach, organizations were able to communicate to a wide audience about the broader issues surrounding immigration reform and the DREAM Act, while also targeting key activists to create visible results.
Nationally, the DREAMers took to the streets and staged demonstrations, sit-ins and hunger strikes. A group of undocumented youth marched from Georgia to D.C. to dramatize their movement. Activists sat in lawmakers’ offices and blocked intersections in Los Angeles. And finally, in September, the won a Senate vote. Though the bill failed, activists have vowed to stand strong and keep up pressure on lawmakers. The DREAMers and their allies have shown what a youth-led movement can accomplish. (Photo: Creative Commons/Dream Activist/Carlos Amador)
Uniting a (Deliberately) Divided Nation
In early October, a coalition made up of over 400 national civil and human rights leaders and organizations–including everyone from political heavy hitters like the NAACP and Green for All to smaller, community-based groups–mobilized folks from around the country to their inaugural rally on the National Mall to demand immigration reform, better jobs, and equitable economic recovery in the month leading up to midterm elections. Over 175,000 people showed up; but while organizers hoped to use the event to steer the national political frame away from Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally, the political media remained focused on divisive rightwing antics. “Glenn Beck’s rally was intentionally provocative; he created a spectacle by playing on Martin Luther King’s March on Washington,” says David Hill, a longtime labor organizer. “[Beck's rally] fit into the narrative that the Tea Party has been building ever since they started–that they’re a grassroots movement that’s built a groundswell of support in America.” (Photo: One Nation Rally, Creative Commons/SEIU International)
Creating Alternatives to Red vs. Blue
It’s often difficult for third parties to gain momentum in national elections. At the local level, however, a few parties have put up a serious fight to the two-party system. In Vermont, the Progressive Party has been wildly successful in sending representatives to their legislature, and had a big hand in sending Bernie Sanders to the U.S. House and eventually the Senate.
Originally started as a national response to the Vietnam War, the Peace and Freedom Party settled in California, promoting feminist and socialist ideals in the Golden State. The party developed beyond California by running Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez during the 2008 Iowa Primaries, but didn’t get enough votes to appear on the national ballot. Both the VPP and the PFP have developed relevance in their respective states.
The Working Families Party, meanwhile, has built a legacy in New York State electoral politics by employing fusion voting–a strategy in which multiple political parties can endorse the same candidate. Using this tactic allows voters to cast ballots in tight Democrat-Republican races while also producing a visible support base for progressive governing to which leaders can be held accountable. Since forming in 1998 with support from a coalition of labor unions, community-based organizations and progressive activists, the Working Families Party has expanded beyond the Empire State and into Connecticut, Oregon, Delaware, South Carolina and Vermont, backing national and local politicians that share the organization’s vision of affordable housing, living wages and quality healthcare for all Americans. Although WFP’s model can only be replicated in a handful of states because of strict ballot access laws, its form of coalition building has been successful enough to garner national attention–it even has Matt Damon’s support.
Study Shows How to Build LGBT, Racial Justice Movements Together
01 year ago
Last week, 19-year-old Johnson & Wales University sophomore Raymond Chase died in his Providence, R.I., dorm room, becoming the fifth LGBT youth to take his own life over the past three weeks. The recent rash of tragedies has led notable figures like Ellen DeGeneres and Dan Savage, through his It Gets Better Project to start campaigns to end campus harassment and hate crimes, but how do we build a lasting foundation of support networks for LGBT people within communities of color?
The Applied Research Center (ColorLines.com’s publisher), in partnership with the Arcus Foundation, recently released “Better Together,” a study of the intersection between lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities and organizations of color. There’s a widespread misconception that LGBT communities and people of color are radically different constituencies in the political landscape–an assumption that acts not only as a barrier to engaging in meaningful work, but serves to further ostracize young LGBT people of color in their own communities. Through surveys and interviews with dozens of leaders and activists, the report set out to explore the relationships between racial justice organizations and LGBT communities across the country, and to find strategies for overcoming those obstacles to encourage cross-issue collaborations on the ground.
Some highlights of the report:
Racial justice work should be inclusive of all communities in order to be successful. “We can’t talk about racial justice and not look at queer people of color,” said one respondent.
Long-term community education is a key element in bolstering an organization’s cross-issue engagement. “People think we’re culturally predisposed to be homophobic, but really we just need education like everybody else.” The more dedicated groups are to providing this education, the more successful they’ll be within their communities.
Developing LGBT leaders of color is crucial to moving LGBT issues in the racial justice community. These leaders not only act as role models to young people, but they challenge the assumption that LGBT means white.
Besides giving recommendations to funders and community groups on how to move forward with more equitable analysis within the racial justice and LGBT movements, the report also points out issues like workplace discrimination, child welfare and housing issues that specifically address the challenges that LGBT people of color face, and highlights successful strategies from existing organizations. Through creative strategic collaboration, each movement can reach a broader audience and have more political influence if they work together to develop leaders. In order to promote acceptance and solidarity nationally, it’s important to start conversations around sexuality in our own cities and regions. It’s just the beginning of a long road ahead, but “Better Together” is a step in the right direction for reclaiming the national dialogue on sexuality in our own communities and building a more inclusive movement.
Check out the Executive Summary and the full report here.
Chicago’s Fight Over "La Casita" Reveals Rifts in School Reform
01 year ago
For nearly two weeks, dozens of parents at Whittier Elementary School in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood have occupied “La Casita”, the fieldhouse and community space adjacent to the school that’s divided parents against administrators for over a year. In 2009, they learned that $350,000 of the $1.3 million in tax money the City of Chicago was using to renovate the school had instead been allocated to the building’s demolition.
The saga started seven years ago, when parents and community members started lobbying Alderman Danny Solis to cull money from city coffers in order to fund a school expansion for the already-crowded campus.
When parents saw that La Casita was slated to be demolished, they were appalled.
“The fieldhouse is a great space to have,” Lisa Angones, mother of students in 6th and 7th grade at Whittier, told ColorLines on Friday. Angones plans to spend this weekend sleeping in La Casita in protest. “The funds that they want to use to knock down the school could easily be spent to make it into a library.”
While the city maintains that La Casita is structurally unfit to safely handle occupants, inspectors hired by the community say that with the exception of a leaky roof, La Casita is perfectly safe.
Parents and community supporters have secured dozens of volunteer contractors, day laborers and other folks willing to lend a helping hand to ensure that the community institution stay intact. Book donations have started flooding the school, and supporters stood in solidarity with parents as they marched from La Casita to Alderman Solis’ office on Friday morning.
“We can petition the powers that be to do what they can with their resources, but a big part of action is doing what you can on the ground,” added Nate Goldbaum of the Chicago Teachers Union, himself a former Whittier teacher.
Goldbaum also noted the parallels between the La Casita struggle and the current trends in school reform, in Chicago and throughout the country. Reformers in some school districts would rather start from scratch than take the time to repair existing foundation — with structures and with teachers. Often, while it’s easier to hire new teachers every ten years, the students are the ones who end up getting hurt, he said. Indeed, the frustration that Whittier parents are struggling with is reflected throughout the country with school closings, teacher layoffs and school board cutbacks.
Though parents have amassed hundreds of supporters through their Facebook page and an online petition, they still have yet to talk to Alderman Solis. Still, parents and supporters maintain hope that the Chicago Public Schools will eventually decide in their favor. If not, they’re prepared to continue the fight. “We will not give up that easily,” Angones said as she prepared to spend yet another night in La Casita.
5 Ways Neighborhoods Are Taking Control of Their Food Systems
01 year ago
Last week, the Senate unanimously passed the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. The bill, which Michelle Obama pushed as part of her childhood obesity campaign, would provide $4.5 billion in additional funding to federal child nutrition programs over a period of 10 years–the first federal funding boost in 30 years. The bulk of the money would go toward improving the quality of school meals, making sure that students have fresh produce and can even start school gardens. It’s an important step in getting low-income children nutritional necessities.
We know that African-American, Latino and Native American children all have higher rates of obesity than their white counterparts, in large part because of how little access many communities of color have to healthy fruits and vegetables. As the first lady has stressed, fixing this doesn’t stop with government intervention. The food manufacturing and distribution industries will have to take responsibility for its role in creating this disparity as well.
But many food-deprived communities aren’t waiting around for that to happen; they’re taking steps to reclaim their food systems. Here are five ways they’re doing it.
Farmers Markets
“People need good food, but they need to be able to buy it,” says Travis Tench, who runs three weekly farmers’ markets in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Trench’s EcoStation:New York maintains a community garden that both provides food for the markets and teaches Bushwick residents how to grow and cook fresh produce. Make sure your farmers’ market accepts WIC/EBT so that everybody can access their goods. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Cooperative Food Buying
Want to work with your neighbors to save time and money when buying healthy food? A buying club is a good place to start. Members typically work together and divide duties to order and distribute food purchased in bulk. Buying clubs can fill the food gaps in communities with little access to healthy food, while maintaining low prices by eliminating the overhead charged by supermarkets. (Photo by Dolan Halbrook/CC)
Urban Farms
“All the major grocery stores left the city and we didn’t have anywhere to buy groceries,” says Nefer Ra Barber, co-chair and farm manager at the Detroit Black Food Security Network. Rather than relying on convenience stores to buy food, Barber and other Detroiters took matters into their own hands and started a two-acre urban farm. D-Town Farm partners with schools to teach healthy eating habits and agriculture to kids. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
Community Supported Agriculture
A CSA functions like a buying club, except you purchase “shares” of fresh fruits and vegetables from a local farmer. The farmer then delivers its harvest to your community and it’s distributed to members. Starting a CSA takes time–you must plan in the fall ahead of the growing season–but it’s rewarding. Many CSAs, like the one in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, make shares affordable with sliding-scale pricing. (Photo by thebittenword/CC)
Youth Leadership Development
Will Allen started Growing Power on his Milwaukee farm in 1993. Since then, it’s taught thousands of teens in Milwaukee and Chicago everything from growing cabbage to making compost. ”It’s been great to see children create a community in the garden,” says Laurell Sims in the Growing Power Chicago office. This summer, Growing Power started a 2.5-acre farm at a housing project on Chicago’s South Side. It will employ 40 teens and 150 adults. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
Cop in Chicago Torture Scandal Finally Nailed–for Perjury
01 year ago
Nearly 30 years after he electrocuted a Black man during an interrogation and tortured many others, former Chicago police commander Jon Burge was found guilty Monday of obstruction of justice and perjury.
Burge, 62, was fired from the Chicago Police Department in 1993 after a report from the Office of Professional Standards called for sustaining the accusations of excessive abuse against him. Burge and more than 30 other officers under his purview had allegedly tortured Black men routinely through the 1970s and 1980s. They suffocated victims and cattle prodded more than 200 suspects in Chicago’s Area 2 violent-crimes unit to extract confessions.
Though there had been reports of misconduct at Area 2 as early as 1984, Burge was simply transferred out of his department and promoted to commander four years later. It wasn’t until 1989 that Burge finally faced trial–one where he hired private lawyers financed by the city of Chicago and which ended in a mistrial.
The case was revisited in 2006, when special prosecutors released a report that found that there was evidence that Burge and the Area 2 officers had indeed employed torture tactics to force confessions; by the time the report was released, however, the statute of limitations on those charges had long passed.
It wasn’t until 2008 that Burge was indicted for lying in a 2003 civil case. “If Al Capone went down for taxes, it’s better than him going down for nothing,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said at the time.
Area 2 covers a broad section of the city’s southwest side–neighborhoods that are home mostly to Blacks–and the men that Burge and his cronies tortured were all Black. These forced confessions–sometimes the sole pieces of evidence in their trials–sent dozens of wrongly convicted men of color to prison for decades for crimes ranging from larceny to murder. After law students at Northwestern and the University of Chicago called for the exoneration of several death row inmates, former Illinois governor George Ryan halted executions in Illinois based on overwhelming evidence that the state’s penal system had suffered from irrevocable and irreversible misconduct.
When Burge is sentenced on November 5, he’ll face up to 45 years in the same prison system where he sent dozens of men throughout his career.
Photo: Creative Commons/caribb
It’s Happening Again. What Aiyana Jones’ Death Tells Us
01 year ago
It’s an all-too-familiar occurrence: A young person of color gets killed by the police, the community rallies around the victim’s family, and everybody wonders what can be done to prevent it from happening again. Well, it’s happening again in Detroit, where police fatally shot 7-year-old Aiyana Jones in her sleep early Sunday morning.
Law enforcement officials raided the Jones’ home, blasting through the door with a “flash-bang” device designed to “create confusion.” They were in pursuit of a suspect in the killing of a 17-year-old boy; the suspect was found in the upstairs attic. Police say Jones’ grandmother was on the other side of the door as they entered the house, and when she tussled with an officer, a gun accidentally discharged. The family’s attorney says a video shows cops actually fired into the house after the flash-bang discharge. Accident or not, the results remain the same: another innocent victim dead at the hands of police, a community left to mourn and to wonder how to keep it from happening again.
The outrage over the incident is understandably intense. Often in these cases, the official account creates room for doubt in the public mind about whether the victim precipitated the violence; this time, that doesn’t exist. Unlike with other high-profile, young Black male police murder victims, such as Sean Bell and Oscar Grant, the officers who shot Jones can’t argue that they believed a sleeping 7-year-old posed any immediate threat.
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing calls on residents to come together to address the violent crimes happening in their communities. He fails to acknowledge the fact that the very same people who are entrusted to protect citizens against these crimes are the ones that continue to slay people with few repercussions. We can look for answers all we want, and we still won’t find them. The reality is that this sort of violence is bound to happen again unless there is real, enforceable accountability in place to discipline officers who engage in misconduct. The cycle of violence is inevitable when violence is condoned and institutionalized.
What can we do in response to Aiyana Jones and the militarized police presence that plagues Black and brown communities throughout the United States? Adrienne Brown offers some suggestions:
we have to fundamentally shift the way we participate in our lives and in the creation of our local economies and societies. we have to demand that police fundamentally shift how they are allowed to function in our communities – they must be disarmed, we must demand they focus their training on the humanity of communities, unlearning these tactics of creating devastation from a safe distance.
We need not only to come together to demand justice for this latest atrocity. We must also acknowledge that until there is broad, systemic change to the way our neighborhoods are policed, we’ll continue to mourn our brothers and sisters.
(Image above provided by family)
White House Task Force Reports on Kiddie Obesity
01 year ago
by Juell Stewart
in Uncategorized
The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity—a committee launched in tandem with First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign—released their report to the President last week, outlining 70 ways to tackle the epidemic of obesity in a generation.
The report sums up the reasons for the problem: the relationship between car-centered urban design and decreased physical activity, as well as, the hours kids spend online that might otherwise be used for exercising outdoors.
But instead of wagging a finger at parents for not making their children do jumping jacks in the rain, the Task Force’s report surprisingly acknowledges the many players responsible for obesity including legislators, retailers, food companies and health care professionals.
Among the report’s best recommendations: suggestions to change food advertising to focus on the dietary content of the products instead of the characters licensed to them. This would happen through self-regulatory solutions within the industry (and we know how well that works!) and then realistically through FCC regulation.
The report also recommends the usual feel-good, to-do list like bolstering prenatal care services and giving parents and caregivers more tools to make better nutritional decisions.