SOCIAL JUSTICE – Page 19

16Oct

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

The #MeToo Movement’s Roots in Women Workers’ Rights

An unsung shero of the early 20th century, Rose Schneiderman organized women to fight for laws to protect them from sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. Whenever new protest movements emerge, people look to history for lessons from activists and thinkers who came before. We all stand on the shoulders of those who struggled, sacrificed, and organized to push for a more humane society. #MeToo is one such movement. It has not only raised awareness about the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault—particularly of women—but is also an example of what happens when those who are relegated to a second-class citizenship status come together to speak out. History is filled with courageous and heroic women who launched crusades for women’s liberation and workers rights, and c...

16Oct

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

The Smith-Carlos Black Power salute: Once vilified, now praised

Tommie Smith, John Carlos were ridiculed after raising fists during 1968 Olympics. Fifty years on, they inspire others. Australian silver medalist Peter Norman, left, stands on the podium as Americans Tommie Smith, centrr, and John Carlos raise their gloved fists in a human rights protest in 1968 [File: AP Photo] Fifty years ago, two African American track-and-field stars, having just been awarded their medals at the 1968 Olympic Summer Games and very aware that the eyes of the world were fastened to them, bowed their heads and raised black-gloved clenched fists under a Mexico City sky. Those athletes - Tommie Smith and John Carlos - are beloved icons today. There have been statues erected of them, books written about them. The importance of what they di...

12Oct

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

How a rapper set up No Shoot Zones to stop Baltimore’s bloodshed

Tyree Colion, a rapper and ex-gang member, risks his life setting up No Shoot Zones in communities with record murders. Late on a Sunday evening in July 2017, rapper and former gang member Tyree Colion was stabbed in the neck in East Baltimore. Bleeding, the 42-year old pressed a t-shirt into his wound with one hand and launched a Facebook Live broadcast with the other. He turned the camera on himself. "I'm losing too much blood," he said, gasping for air. In the background, his female companion could be heard screaming for help, pleading with him to "hold on". "Yo if I die, keep pushing them zones," he said, before falling onto the pavement and losing consciousness. Several thousand Facebook subscribers who were tuned in knew the "zones" Colion was talking about. But for Tracy Cox,...

21Sep

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Civil Rights Tours Draw in New Generations

The current political landscape is inspiring more people from the U.S. and abroad to visit the sites where the civil rights movement made history. For decades, Tom Houck has taken people to landmarks of the civil rights movement—places where organizers strategized, demonstrators protested, and where both tragedy and triumph transpired. But it wasn’t until 2015 that the friend and aide to the late Martin Luther King Jr. established an official civil rights tour in his hometown of Atlanta. Houck estimates that close to 20,000 people have taken his three-hour bus tour since the inception of Civil Rights Tours Atlanta, with about 40 percent of participants coming from out of town. He hosts weekly public and private tours of key civil rights sites like the Martin Luther King Jr. ...

2Apr

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SOCIAL JUSTICE, VIDEO REELS

Does #MeToo Have the Power to Take Down a Supreme Court Nominee?

In 1991, Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexually harassing her and was vilified for her testimony. How might Christine Blasey Ford fare against Brett Kavanaugh in the age of #MeToo? The #MeToo movement does not exist to change the minds of misogynists—male or female. It is not about standing up, waving our arms, and screaming, “Hey, this violence happens to our bodies all the time and you should care!” For misogynists, the commonality of sexual harassment and assault of women is evidence that women who demand justice are hysterical and self-seeking, driven by personal vendettas, or a desire for fame or money. We are seeing this play out between U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist who alleges Kavanaugh attempte...

31Aug

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Why We Need to Stop Saying “Man Up”

This outdated, gender-specific, and illogical phrase is disrespectful and avoids the real issue. I never use the phrase “man up” since I realized that I was perpetuating misogyny with those two simple words. I began to examine the language that we use and the negative impact of gendered language. Take, for instance, calling someone a “pussy” when we’re implying that they are somehow weak. This one has always perplexed me. I’m a mother, and I can tell you that there’s nothing weak about female genitalia, particularly when we’re able to house babies in our bodies and then deliver them into the world. Using our body parts to imply weakness doesn’t line up with what I know about our strength. “Man up” may seem like a harmless way to tell a man to step up to his responsibilities, to be s...

24Aug

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

What Is Barbershop Therapy?

Barbers in the South are training as first responders to assist the men in their chairs with their mental health concerns. Amid the sound of television and hair clippers buzzing around him at Goodfellas Barbershop in Little Rock, Arkansas, Lorenzo Lewis was trying to get a man wearing a mask to talk about his emotional pain. Lewis asked the man how he was doing. “I’m good, I’m good,” he responded. Lewis said how he’d noticed he seemed on edge recently. Same response. Lewis kept asking questions until the man eventually took off his mask. “I’m hurting,” he said. “I’m just really going through something right now.” When asked if he was feeling suicidal, the man nodded. Lewis is founder of The Confess Project, a mental health initiative for boys and men of color. His demonstratio...

21Aug

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

The Black and the Blue: Tackling Police Racism and Abuse on a Systemic Level

An African American law enforcement expert finds hope in the firing of a racist police chief. Sixty miles south of my home is a small municipality in New Jersey called Bordentown Township. The population is 11,367, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Two very important things happened there in 2016. One alarmed me; the other gave me hope. The first was the arrest of the town’s former police chief, Frank Nucera Jr., who had just stepped down after years on the force. Nucera was charged by the FBI with committing a federal hate crime and violating a person’s civil rights while he was chief. Nucera, I would learn, is a confirmed racist. Once, when discussing a situation where he believed an African American had slashed the tires on a patrol cruiser, he told a fellow officer, “I wish that ...

I Stopped Playing the “Strong Black Woman”

21Aug

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

I Stopped Playing the “Strong Black Woman”

We are paying for this myth we’ve bought into with our lives.I never saw my grandmother rest. From morning to night, she appeared to be in service: cooking and cleaning, helping and caring for others. She died of a heart attack at 69. As I reflect today on the high rates of heart disease, stress, obesity, and other physical as well as mental ailments among African American women, I wonder what would have been the impact had she said, “I ain’t cooking tonight, everybody is on their own,” or “I’m headed out for a walk,” or simply, “I’m tired, and I need to rest.” What messages might I have inferred from watching her take 15 minutes of quiet time in the morning to “get centered.” Instead, I observed what appeared to be a never-ending pace of busyness, problem-solving, and making ends ...

13Aug

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SOCIAL JUSTICE

Lawyers Turn to Activism as Civil Liberties Come Under Attack

A new generation of social justice attorneys has risen to defend against the hard-line policies of the Trump administration, from immigration and abortion access to voting and gender rights. To train a new generation of lawyers to fight for the rights of immigrants after the 2016 elections, Claire Thomas started an asylum clinic at the New York City law school where she taught. In Seattle, Michelle Mentzer retired five years early as an administrative law judge so she could volunteer as an attorney with the ACLU. And in Texas, Anna Castro traded her full-time job for contract work so she could prepare to attend law school to better serve her community. The country is seeing a wave of legal activism as attorneys and attorneys-to-be have risen to defend civil liberties from the polic...