in the Library … Michelle Alexander”s ‘The New Jim Crow,’ a troubling and necessary book … a worthy repost

Leonard Pitts Jr. / Syndicated columnist

Michelle Alexander”s ‘The New Jim Crow,’ a troubling and necessary book

Columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. suggests reading “The New Jim Crow,” by Michelle Alexander, who contends that the mass incarceration of black men for nonviolent drug offenses, combined with sentencing disparities and laws making it legal to discriminate against felons in housing, employment, education and voting, constitute nothing less than a new racial caste system.

Syndicated columnist

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“You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to.”

— Richard Nixon as quoted by H.R. Haldeman, supporting a get-tough-on drugs strategy

“They give black people time like it’s lunch down there. You go down there looking for justice, that’s what you find: just us.”— Richard Pryor

Michelle Alexander was an ACLU attorney in Oakland, preparing a racial-profiling lawsuit against the California Highway Patrol. The ACLU had put out a request for anyone who had been profiled to get in touch. One day, in walked this black man.

He was maybe 19 and toted a thick sheaf of papers, what Alexander calls an “incredibly detailed” accounting of at least a dozen police stops over a nine-month period, with dates, places and officers’ names. This was, she thought, a “dream plaintiff.”

But it turned out he had a record, a drug felony — and she told him she couldn’t use him; the state’s attorney would eat him alive. He insisted he was innocent, said police had planted drugs and beaten him. But she was no longer listening. Finally, enraged, he snatched the papers back and started shredding them.

“You’re no better than the police,” he cried. “You’re doing what they did to me!” The conviction meant he couldn’t work or go to school, had to live with his grandmother. Did Alexander know how that felt? And she wanted a dream plaintiff? “Just go to my neighborhood,” he said. “See if you can find one black man my age they haven’t gotten to already.”

She saw him again a couple of months later. He gave her a potted plant from his grandmother’s porch — he couldn’t afford flowers — and apologized. A few months after that, a scandal broke: Oakland police officers accused of planting drugs and beating up innocent victims. One of the officers involved was the one named by that young man.

“It was,” says Alexander now, more than 10 years later, “the beginning of me asking some hard questions of myself as a civil-rights lawyer. … What is actually going on in his neighborhood? How is it that they’ve already gotten to all the young African-American men in his neighborhood? I began questioning my own assumptions about how the criminal-justice system works.”

The result is a compelling new book. Others have written of the racial bias of the criminal-injustice system. In “The New Jim Crow,” Alexander goes a provocative step further. She contends that the mass incarceration of black men for nonviolent drug offenses, combined with sentencing disparities and laws making it legal to discriminate against felons in housing, employment, education and voting, constitute nothing less than a new racial caste system. A new segregation.

She has a point. Yes, the War on Drugs is officially race-neutral. So were the grandfather clause and other Jim Crow laws whose intention and effect was nevertheless to restrict black freedom.

The War on Drugs is a war on African-American people and we countenance it because we implicitly accept certain assumptions sold to us by news and entertainment media, chief among them that drug use is rampant in the black community. But. The. Assumption. Is. WRONG.

According to federal figures, blacks and whites use drugs at a roughly equal rate in percentage terms. In terms of raw numbers, whites are far and away the biggest users — and dealers — of illegal drugs.

So why aren’t cops kicking their doors in? Why aren’t their sons pulled over a dozen times in nine months? Why are black men 12 times likelier to be jailed for drugs than white ones? Why aren’t white communities robbed of their fathers, brothers, sons?

With inexorable logic, “The New Jim Crow” propounds an answer many will resist and most have not even considered. It is a troubling and profoundly necessary book.

Please read it.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.’s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: lpitts@miamiherald.com

The Black Dollar: Move Your Money!

Black people need to make Wall Street and Big Banks stand up and take notice. The Black dollar is a powerful tool, but in order to wield that power Black people must invest it strategically.

Putting money in large corporate banks with no investment in the Black community or any community is not the way to wield that power.

Click here to read the full report.

The Black Institute
http://www.theblackinstitute.org/

Reminder …(teaparty 5/2010) GOPers Backpedal From Tea Party Call To Revoke Voting Rights -TPM

August 6th was the 46th Voter Rights Act Anniversary … voter rights are on the table 365 days of the year

Evan McMorris-Santoro | May 14, 2010, 4:13PM

Tea Party-Backed Repeal Of The 17th Amendment Gets Republicans Into Trouble

Senate campaign signs

2010 elections, Tea Party

There are signs that tea party calls to repeal the 17th Amendment — taking the selection of U.S. Senators out of the hands of voters and putting it in the hands of state governments — are proving to be a bridge too far for Republican candidates desperate to steal some of the movement’s mojo. In the past couple weeks, at least two mainstream Republican candidates have found themselves walking back from pledges to support repealing the amendment, suggesting there’s a limit to how much support the tea parties can provide.

The “Repeal The 17th” movement is a vocal part of the overall tea party structure. Supporters of the plan say that ending the public vote for Senators would give the states more power to protect their own interests in Washington (and of course, give all of us “more liberty” in the process.) As their process of “vetting” candidates, some tea party groups have required candidates to weigh in on the idea of repeal in questionnaires. And that’s where the trouble starts.

In Ohio, Steve Stivers — the Republican attempting to unseat Democratic Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy in the state’s 15th District — came under fire from Democrats when it was revealed he had checked the box saying he would repeal the 17th Amendment on a tea party survey (see question 11 here).

Kilroy’s campaign set up a website slamming Stivers for the stance, and attacked him in the press.

Stivers flip-flopped almost immediately, telling the Columbus Dispatch that despite the survey (and a January quote in The Hill), he didn’t know what he was saying when he called for an end to Senators elected directly by the people they represent.

“I made a mistake,” Stivers told the paper. “I answered that question wrong. It was not intentional.”

In Idaho, Republican Vaughn Ward is in a similar pickle. Ward, the NRCC’s choice to challenge Rep. Walt Minnick (D), is currently locked in a primary fight with state Rep. Raul Labrador. As happens so often in Republican primaries these days, the candidates are doing their best to appeal to the ultra-conservative vote. (And considering that Minnick is the lone Democrat to be called a Hero by the Tea Party Express, we’re talking extra tasty crispy conservative here.)

On April 30, Ward told a TV audience in Boise that he, like Labrador, favored repealing the 17th Amendment. But after the issue drew some heat in the press, Ward thought better of the idea and changed his tune.

“I do not want to take away the power of people to elect senators,” Ward told the Spokesman-Review newspaper. “What I do support is amending the Constitution and adding a two-term limit for U.S. senators.”

Ward said “I’m not changing position, I’m clarifying,” but reporters in Idaho called it like it was. One columnist put it this way: “Um, no.”

Tea Party Boise President Brendan Smythe told me Ward’s new take on the 17th Amendment is a “massive flip-flop.” He said that Ward’s change of heart “means a lot to us” and could have an effect on Ward’s chances in Idaho’s May 25 primary.

“It sounds to me like he’s answering to the GOP machine,” Smythe said. He said that most establishment Republicans in Idaho don’t support repealing the amendment and he speculated that they may have influenced Ward’s decision to change his mind on the issue.

“He probably got some advice from the incumbents,” Smythe told me. “[Ward's reversal] is typical party before country behavior. That’s all it is.”

There are, of course, plenty of conservative Republicans who favor repealing the 17th Amendment. Tim Bridgewater, the man who got the most votes at the Utah GOP convention that ousted Sen. Bob Bennett, says on his website that he’d support rewriting the constitution to put the power of choosing Senators in the hands of the states. And Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) has actually put forward legislation that would repeal the amendment.

For their part, some long-time proponents of repealing the amendment say that they wish it wasn’t associated with today’s far-right. John Trouslow, who heads up the non-partisan Campaign To Restore Federalism
said that the fact that the tea party has taken up the cause could do more harm than good. He said that repealing the 17th Amendment has long been a cause of those who want the federal government’s power over the states to be limited — which often means supporters of the ideology currently not in power in Washington. In the case of the tea party though, Trouslow said what he called the group’s inevitable decline could take repeal of the 17th Amendment with it.

“I wish it was more than the tea partiers who were talking about it,” he told me today. “I’m worried that the idea will get so tied to the tea partiers that as the tea party gets discredited the idea will get discredited too.”

Some Republican candidates seem to feel the same way about their own credibility. Their brief flirtation with the repealing the 17th Amendment — which appears to have been born out of trying to curry favor with the the tea parties — ended after it threatened to make them look too extreme.

Late Update: Shortly after this post was published yesterday, Tea Party Boise endorsed Raul Labrador in the Idaho Congressional race. According to KTVB-TV, the tea party group chose Labrador because, among other things, he’s “more thoughtful and knowledgeable” than Vaughn Ward.

Pell Grants help millions of Black students access higher education … by Matt Nelson, ColorOfChange.org

Tell Congress to stand up for educational opportunity:

 Black families across the U.S. are finding it harder to pay the rapidly-increasing costs of higher education, and now some members of Congress are trying to dramatically cut the Pell Grant program — a lifeline that makes college possible for more than 9 million low-income students each year.1

The Republican-led proposal would put educational access and advancement out of reach for millions of prospective Black students. $900 million in cuts would mean dumping 1 million students from the program within the next five years — half of whom could be kicked out before the end of this school year. The plan would also shrink the size of the award for many current recipients.2

The entire 2012 budget is under negotiation and Congress must vote by next Friday to avoid a potential government shut down. This debate is about funding priorities, and important programs like Pell will be cut unless enough members of Congress stand up to support education. Our elected officials should be working to expand opportunities for economic growth, not decimating higher education programs that help put low-income students and students of color in good jobs. Please call on members of the House of Representatives, where Republicans pose the biggest threat to Pell Grants, to vote down any attempts to cut or restrict the program:

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/PellFunding

Tuition and fees at colleges and universities continue to skyrocket, increasing more than 400% since 1982 — more than 4 times the rate of inflation.3 Access to a good education dramatically increases a person’s chances for solid employment and pay. Young adults with a college degree are nearly 3 times more likely to be employed, and earn almost twice as much as those with just a high school diploma.

Defunding Pell Grants will hit Black and low-income students the hardest. Nearly half of Black undergraduates rely on Pell Grants to attend school, and families with incomes below $40,000 constitute 90% of awardees.4 Republicans have used racially-charged language as part of their attack on Pell. One Congressman called Pell “the welfare of the 21st century.”5

Of course, Pell isn’t welfare. In fact, the average grant size is much less likely to cover a sizable amount of college tuition costs than when the program began 40 years ago. Back then, Pell covered 100% of the average cost of tuition while today’s maximum Pell award generally covers one-third.6

Pell Grants are a cornerstone of our nation’s student aid program and greatly influence the makeup of our nation’s colleges and universities, providing much-needed racial and economic diversity within the overall student population. Tell Congress to fund higher education, and when you do, ask your friends and family to do the same.

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/PellFunding

Thanks and Peace,

– Rashad, James, Gabriel, Dani, Matt, Natasha and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
    December 10th, 2011

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU—your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don’t share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

http://www.colorofchange.org/donate

References

1. “House Budget Committee Is Searching for Excuses to Cut Pell Grants,” Center for American Progress, 11-15-2011

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1070?akid=2320.1174326.5nh0Fe&t=7

2. “Fight for Social Programs Looms Anew in the House,” New York Times, 10-03-2011

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1071?akid=2320.1174326.5nh0Fe&t=9

3. “Is college still worth the price?” CNN Money, 04-13-2009

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1073?akid=2320.1174326.5nh0Fe&t=11

4. “Pell Grants: The Cornerstone of African-American Higher Education,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1072?akid=2320.1174326.5nh0Fe&t=13

5. “Rep. Denny Rehberg: Pell Grants Are Becoming ‘The Welfare Of The 21st Century’,” Huffington Post, 04-01-2011

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1074?akid=2320.1174326.5nh0Fe&t=15

6. “Infographic: A History of the Shrinking Pell Grant,” Campus Progress, 05-23-2011

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1075?akid=2320.1174326.5nh0Fe&t=17

Rick Perry -Cornerstone New Hampshire speech – Friday, 28 October, 2011 – a reminder

Washington State don’t let AG Mckenna keep HCR away from the people in Washington State- A reminder to Voters

On March 22nd McKenna announced he will join the HCR lawsuit to  protect Washington citizens against new health care mandates, he will probably do this by using tax payers dollars.

Please Call his office to tell him to STOP   blocking health care reform

CALL Main Office (360) 753-6200

OLYMPIA — Attorney General Rob McKenna today issued the following statement about joining a multi-state lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the recently-approved federal health care measure, once it is signed into law.

“I believe this new federal health care measure unconstitutionally imposes new requirements on our state and on its citizens. This unprecedented federal mandate, requiring all Washingtonians to purchase health insurance, violates the Commerce Clause and the 10th amendment of the US Constitution.

“I’m concerned that the measure unconstitutionally requires all Washingtonians to purchase health insurance and places an extraordinary burden on our state budget by requiring Washington to expand its Medicaid eligibility standards in violation of our state’s rights guaranteed under the10th amendment.”

–30 –

Contacts:
Janelle Guthrie, AGO Communications Director, (360) 586-0725
Dan Sytman, AGO Media Relations Manager, (360) 586-7842

360) 753-6200

CBO: Cost Estimate for S.1867 National Defense Act

Cost Estimate for S. 1867, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012
Cost estimate for the bill as reported by the Senate Committee on Armed Services on November 15, 2011

get to know … The Black Institute

Whenever there is a large-scale movement or protest in the United States, Black people’s issues have a tendency to be included at some point as a means to win Black supporters. However it seems that by the time the movement draws to a close, and the “majority’s” objective has been met, the issues that most affect Black people have been cast aside. Given that context, why should Black people feel compelled to get involved in the current Occupy Movement? When history tells Black people that their issues will be the first to be scratched from the list of demands, what incentive do they have to Occupy anywhere?

Read the full blog entry & join the discussion

The Black Institute

http://www.theblackinstitute.org/

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10Cost Estimate for S. 27, Preserve Access to Affordable Generics Act

S. 27, Preserve Access to Affordable Generics Act

Cost estimate
for the bill as reported by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on July 22,
2011

The document above is in pdf form so if clicking on it fails Please click and open in new window… Thank you

Occupy Black America …The Black Institute

Black celebrities such as Kanye West, Russell Simmons and Danny Glover have publicly supported the Occupy movement, but even with such an endorsement, Black people have had relatively low attendance. Some believe this is in part because when Black people turn on their televisions or search the web, they look out into the crowd and see mostly white faces. This gives Black Americans the sense that the protests are not about them. However, someone must take the first step. If Black people want to see themselves in the movement, Black people have to put themselves in the movement.

In this week’s blog we explore the role of black america in the occupy movement.
Read it and tell us what you think.