Friday, November 1

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Police unions are one of the biggest obstacles to transforming policing
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POLITICS, SOCIAL JUSTICE

Police unions are one of the biggest obstacles to transforming policing

Protesters and community organizers are increasingly calling for defunding and disbanding the police as a way to end police violence. Advocates argue that moderate reforms like enhanced training and greater community oversight have failed to curb police violence and misconduct. But there’s a major, and usually insurmountable, obstacle to reform: police unions. Research suggests that these unions play a critical role in thwarting the transformation of police departments. Union officials like John McNesby in Philadelphia, where I live and work as a scholar of law and the criminal justice system, do not deny this. Over the course of his 12-year career as president of the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, he has derided the city’s civilian review board and predicted in 2010 th...
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No justice, no peace: Why Catholic priests are kneeling with George Floyd protesters
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

No justice, no peace: Why Catholic priests are kneeling with George Floyd protesters

Two days after the Catholic bishop of El Paso, Mark Seitz, knelt with a dozen other priests in a silent prayer for George Floyd holding a “Black Lives Matter” sign, he received a phone call from Pope Francis. Bishop Mark Seitz and priests from his diocese knelt for 8 minutes and 46 seconds to honor George Floyd, El Paso, June 1, 2020. Courtesy of Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters, CC BY-ND In an earlier era Seitz, the first known Catholic bishop to join the anti-racism protests spurred by Floyd’s killing, might have expected censure from the Vatican, which is often associated with social conservatism. Instead, Steitz told the Texas news site El Paso Matters, the pope “thanked me.” Days earlier Pope Francis had posted a message to Americans on the Vatican’s website saying he “witnessed wi...
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Students demand removal of ‘mild racist’ from Georgia landscape
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Students demand removal of ‘mild racist’ from Georgia landscape

Following the lead of African American activists, a coalition of young people has taken to the streets to protest police brutality and systemic racism across the country. Protesters in the South have demanded the removal of Confederate monuments and other symbols of white supremacy. In some cases, they have taken matters into their own hands. In Atlanta, a large crowd of demonstrators recently gathered at a statue of Henry W. Grady, the late 19th-century American journalist and orator who championed white supremacy. They chanted “We can’t breathe!” and stood on the statue’s terraced pedestal with signs reading “Black lynching must go!” and “Black lives matter.” Some state and city leaders have responded by pledging to remove Confederate monuments in Virginia and Alabama, despite laws tha...
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Life on welfare isn’t what most people think it is
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Life on welfare isn’t what most people think it is

When Americans talk about people receiving public assistance – food stamps, disability, unemployment payments and other government help – they often have stereotypes and inaccurate perceptions of who those people are and what their lives are like. Statistics can help clarify the picture by challenging false stereotypes of undeserving people gaming the system, but people’s stories about their own experiences can be more memorable and therefore more effective in changing minds. As an anthropologist and folklorist seeking to better understand life on public assistance, I have worked with a team of researchers in North Carolina over the past seven years, recording stories people tell about welfare in America. We’ve talked to more than 150 people and recorded over 1,200 stories and found that...
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Stripping voting rights from felons is about politics, not punishment
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POLITICS, SOCIAL JUSTICE

Stripping voting rights from felons is about politics, not punishment

In 2018 Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment ending the disenfranchisement of ex-convicts. Though it excluded people convicted of murder or sexual offenses, Amendment 4 restored voting rights to felons “after they complete all the terms of their sentence including parole or probation.” Civil rights groups and prisoner rights groups celebrated the election result. In contrast, Republicans worried that allowing felons to vote would tilt Florida toward Democrats. Scholars estimate that across the United States voter turnout among felons would average around 35%. If correct, this figure could have swayed several 2016 elections with small victory margins, including Florida, where President Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 1.2 percentage points. Florida Republicans s...
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Where are the African American leaders?
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Where are the African American leaders?

As protests rock the country in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, there is a notable absence in the national public discourse: African American community leaders. My scholarship in the discipline of black politics can explain why there aren’t any national African American leaders at this moment, filling roles like Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer and others once did. In past eras, leaders of the African American community were instrumental in creating huge social and legal changes, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Sweeping changes were possible because black leaders were willing to call out problems before they became crises, and risk their lives and livelihoods to eleva...
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Doctors can’t treat COVID-19 effectively without recognizing the social justice aspects of health
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COVID-19, SOCIAL JUSTICE

Doctors can’t treat COVID-19 effectively without recognizing the social justice aspects of health

Recent data shows that black, Latino, indigenous and immigrant communities are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, due in large part to the persistent legacy of structural racism – practices and policies that systematically benefit white people and harm people of color. From the Bronx and Queens, New York to the Mission District in San Francisco, to the Navajo Nation and black communities of New Orleans, Detroit and Oakland, the message is clear: COVID-19 highlights our societal failures at the intersections of public health, health care and social justice. If health inequities weren’t severe and oppressive enough, add on the layer of police brutality that takes black lives on a regular basis. No matter where we look, our system has continually devalued black bodies and lives. As an...
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Not Just Five Minutes Of Horror, But 400 Years
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Not Just Five Minutes Of Horror, But 400 Years

There’s no greater frustration than working every day to build and inspire others to build a more just, compassionate world, only to be so brutally reminded of how far away that world is, as we are bombarded by videos of an atrocity such as the police killing of Minneapolis resident George Floyd. Witnessing someone being killed is terrorizing. I am experiencing episodes of terror after seeing the life leave Floyd’s handcuffed body under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, while two officers held down Floyd, and another stood idly by. That image will stay with me for a long time, just as Eric Garner’s has, just as Philando Castile’s has, and Terence Crutcher’s, and 12-year-old Tamir Rice’s. And with those images, the stories of Trayvon Martin, Jamar Clark, Sandra Bland, ...
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Why cellphone videos of black people’s deaths should be considered sacred, like lynching photographs
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Why cellphone videos of black people’s deaths should be considered sacred, like lynching photographs

As Ahmaud Arbery fell to the ground, the sound of the gunshot that took his life echoed loudly throughout his Georgia neighborhood. I rewound the video of his killing. Each time I viewed it, I was drawn first to the young black jogger’s seemingly carefree stride, which was halted by two white men in a white pickup truck. Then I peered at Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, who confronted Arbery in their suburban community. I knew that the McMichaels told authorities that they suspected Arbery of robbing a nearby home in the neighborhood. They were performing a citizen’s arrest, they said. The video shows Arbery jogging down the street and the McMichaels blocking his path with their vehicle. First, a scuffle. Then, gunshots at point-blank range from Travis McMichael’s weapon....
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There’s a history of white supremacists interpreting government leaders’ words as encouragement
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

There’s a history of white supremacists interpreting government leaders’ words as encouragement

White supremacist and militia organizations are exploiting the government’s chaotic response to the coronavirus for recruitment efforts. Whatever his intention, these groups interpret President Donald Trump’s tweets to “LIBERATE” states and calling armed protesters “very good people” as support for their cause. Recent research by the Tech Transparency Project into social media accounts of white supremacists, a nonprofit that researches “the influence of the major technology platforms” on politics, policy and people’s lives, found that “some members of private … Facebook groups reacted to the president’s rhetoric (about lockdown protests) with memes of celebration.” The white supremacists’ response reflects the United States’ history of local, state and national political leaders encoura...
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