A new short story, speculative fiction and sci fi podcast from the third rail.
Episode 1: A woman with fatal insomnia meets two time traveling strangers on the California I5 freeway in the wake of the U.S.' invasion of Grenada in 1983. Featuring Cydney Wayne Davis, Heather Aubry and Sikivu Hutchinson.
"There was a whole sub-industry of airplane part junkies looking for the crown jewels of a black box, a control wheel, and a radar display from doomed cockpits."
She
was a young, Black female professional and daughter with a vibrant life and blossoming
career, cut down in four seconds in an act of domestic terrorism that has devastated
a multi-generational family. This past Saturday morning, twenty eight year-old
Atatiana Jefferson was murdered
in cold blood in her home by a white Fort Worth, Texas police officer responding
to a neighbor’s request for a “welfare check”.The police officer yelled for Jefferson to put her hand up through a
window, then fired his weapon four seconds later. Jefferson was playing video
games with her eight year-old nephew. The murder of Jefferson comes on the
heels of the conviction and puffball sentencing of white female police officer
Amber Guyger for the senseless killing of Botham Jean in his Dallas home. Guyger
received ten years for murdering Jean, then was the recipient of a stomach turning
gesture of courtroom
forgiveness from Jean’s brother and the Black female presiding judge. Like
scores of innocent African American victims before them, Jefferson and Jean
were slain in spaces that were ostensibly safe. In Jefferson’s case, the
neighbor believed that they were contacting a “non-emergency” number which
wouldn’t require law enforcement. Time and again, Black folks who reach out for
“help” and “assistance” from the police either wind up dead themselves or inadvertently
cause another Black person to be killed. The blind hope that law enforcement
will protect or honor Black life and the sanctity of Black home space has proven
lethal for Black folks. From Eulia
Love (murdered by LAPD, 1979) to Eleanor
Bumpurs (murdered by NYPD, 1984) to Amadou Diallo
(murdered by NYPD, 1999) to Jean, Jefferson, and many others, domestic police
terrorism has continued to be a toxic mental, emotional, and physical public health threat for communities of color.
Jefferson
is the fifth
person to have been murdered by Fort Worth police this year. A GoFundMe campaign has been established
for her family with the following message:
"Before
law enforcement goes about their pattern of villainizing this beautiful
peaceful woman, turning her into a suspect, a silhouette, or threat, let me
tell you about 28 y/o #AtatianaJefferson “Tay”. She was a Pre-med graduate of
Xavier University. She was very close to her family. She was the auntie that
stayed up on Friday night playing video games with her 8 year-old nephew. She
worked in pharmaceutical equipment sales. Her mom had recently gotten very
sick, so she was home taking care of the house and loving her life. There was
no reason for her to be murdered. None. We must have justice."
Folks
who give to the GoFundMe should also push the Ft. Worth police commission, Mayor Betsy Price and Texas
Governor Greg Abbott to fire and prosecute the officer who murdered Jefferson. After generations and centuries of state-sanctioned murder,
bloodshed, and multi-billion dollar police state looting, there can be no more
compelling evidence of the need to abolish
the police.
Feminism and atheism are “dirty words” which Americans across the political spectrum love to hate and debate. Throw them into a blender and you have a toxic brew that supposedly defies decency, respectability, and Americana. Add an “unapologetically” Black critique to the mix and it’s a deal breaking social taboo. In this groundbreaking volume, Black feminist writer Sikivu Hutchinson explores how the right wing conservative evangelical backlash in American public policy has inspired new generations of freethinkers, humanists, and atheists of color to challenge conventional gender politics, religious orthodoxy, and homophobic faith traditions. Putting gender at the center of the equation, progressive “Religious Nones” of color are spearheading an anti-racist, social justice humanism; disrupting the “colorblind” ethos of European American church-state separation focused atheist and humanist agendas. These critical interventions build on the lived experiences and social histories of segregated Black and Latinx communities which are increasingly under economic siege. Hutchinson argues that feminist politics, atheism, and humanistic world views offer a valuable and necessary context for social justice change in a polarized climate where Black women’s political power has become a galvanizing national force. Pre-order @ Indiebound, Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Inglewood, circa the late seventies, and there are white
kids on the swings and the jungle gyms, roving in the hallways, clutching their
milk money all Dennis the Menace freckle faced and anxious, waiting for story time
on the magic carpet in the second grade classroom of my elementary school.Most of them have been bused in as part of a
short-lived integration policy implemented by Inglewood Unified. The policy was
an outlier. A Hail Mary pass to Kumbaya when there were still a significant number
of white families in the westerly parts of a city which once boasted Klan
rallies on its major thoroughfare in the 1920s. In this snapshot it is over a decade
after the Watts Rebellion, the final catalyst for white flight from South L.A. Wormhole
to 2019 and the kids of these reluctant colonists have descended in dog
walking, baby strolling, cell phone clanking droves onto the ghettoes they once
sneered at steaming warp speed down Manchester Avenue fortified with a ripe helping
of Jimmy Buffett at the Forum escaping to the homey comforts of the 405. Inglewood (once dubbed Ingle-Watts and now on
the precipice of two new multi-billion dollar stadium developments that community
activists have pushed back on), has become the new “jam” of Becky and Biff with
2.5 kids and a $500k starter home loan to burn on planting white picket fences
in the hood.
In a county in which Black homelessness is the highest
in the nation, the white picket fence resurgence is a whiplash glimpse into
apocalypse for Black homeowners and renters. As Ron Daniels notes in the Institute
of Black World Twenty First Century, “What is equally egregious are the attitudes of
some of the newcomers whom residents of Black communities sometimes
characterize as ‘invaders’ or ‘neo-colonialists.’ This is because some
newcomers are not content to become a part of the community; they arrogantly
attempt to change the rhythms, culture and character of the community.”Nationwide,
the Black
homeownership rate is now lower than it was during the Jim Crow era. And the
gap between white and Black homeownership is larger than when the Fair Housing Act
was passed in 1968 (Black homeownership is 30.5% lower than whites).Coming to L.A. during the Great Migration period
in the early-to-mid twentieth century, African Americans were partly seduced by
the so-called California Dream of single-family homeownership, a supposed
antidote to Jim Crow apartheid. In the ensuing decades, Black homebuyers were
run out of the Westmont neighborhood of South L.A., terrorized and swindled out
of their 1920s resort property in Bruce’s Beach in
Manhattan Beach, and blockbusted by angry white mobs in Baldwin Hills. Post Watts
Rebellion, sunshine, endless sprawl, and exurban fortresses became the currency
of white generational wealth and white supremacy.
Despite the insidious legacy of racially restrictive
covenants, redlining,
subprime and predatory lending, and outright white domestic terrorism, home
ownership has always been the biggest
source of generational
wealth for African Americans. Sixty two percent of Black wealth is tied to
home equity. Yet, Black home equity is hamstrung by institutionalized segregation which
depresses home values in communities of color relative to those in
predominantly white communities. Disproportionately low levels of Black
equity are also impacted by low savings’ rates among African American homeowners.
According
to the Economic Policy Institute, “The typical black family with a head of household working full time has less wealth than the typical white family
whose head of household is unemployed.” This staggering disparity means that
most Black households simply scramble to remain afloat. Savings (much less investment
in stocks, bonds, and other high risk market investments) are often difficult
to accumulate when folks are one paycheck away from eviction, foreclosure, and
potential homelessness.
Hence, the threat of gentrification cuts to the heart
of black self-determination in a community that has been hyper-segregated,
demonized as crime-ridden, and sold to the highest bidder by Black politicians
and white developers.
North of Inglewood, the Crenshaw District’s built
environment has become dominated by perpetually clogged streets, epic lane closures,
rogue construction, and unhoused folks crammed into campers, vans, cars, tents
and sidewalks. Over the past several years, this part of the South L.A.
community has been under siege from runaway development rammed down its throat
with no grassroots input. One of the most egregious examples is the controversial
proposal to erect a 75-foot, 577 unit apartment complex on the corner of Crenshaw
and Obama Boulevards. The long vacant site was once home to a Ralph’s supermarket
and was originally slated for retail store development. The proposed “District Square” apartment
complex was to be built by developer Arman Gabay. As has been widely reported, Gabay,
who was recently indicted and arrested for bribing a County employee to secure
a lease, had close ties with Councilman Herb Wesson. Gabay is also in default
for millions of dollars in federal loans. The outrage of scofflaw Gabay being
granted the contract for the development is not lost on residents who face
foreclosure and homelessness due to predatory and subprime lending. Black folks
don’t have the luxury or privilege to wrack up loan debt while fronting multi-million
dollar residential developments. Gabay exemplifies the leeway granted to corporate developers who
were handed
billions of dollars in loans under both the Obama and Trump administrations on the backs of American taxpayers.
At September’s South L.A. Planning Commission, Wesson withdrew
his unqualified support for the development, backing an appeal
initiated by the Crenshaw Subway Coalition’s Damien Goodmon and area residents.
The appeal seeks to postpone the development in a push for affordable and
supportive units.
The challenge to the District Square development comes
on the heels of successful opposition to a neighboring complex on Brynhurst Avenue
near Crenshaw. The complex would’ve been rammed into a single family
residential block. The massive structure was widely opposed for being
incompatible with the neighborhood, environmentally hazardous, and unaffordable.
At the other end of the spectrum, the L.A. City
Council recently voted to table an ordinance that would have prohibited sleeping
on sidewalks near schools, parks, and libraries. Community activists charged
that the ordinance would criminalize the unhoused and lead to more racial
profiling.Given that the majority of the
unhoused are African American, “selective” enforcement of the ordinance would exacerbate
systemic over-policing of Black folks who have been forced onto the streets by
astronomical rent and housing prices. The city has filed a friend of the court brief
challenging a 2018 “Boise
Ruling” that bars local governments from prohibiting folks from sleeping on
the streets if there aren’t enough shelters. The city’s shameful challenge
comes as a recent City Controller’s audit
on Measure HHH— which was supposed to be used to construct 10,000 supportive units
for the unhoused—confirmed that no supportive housing units have been built with
the fund.According to the audit, only a
little more than half of the projected 10,000 will be for permanent supportive
housing.
The escalation of market rate development in
historically Black South L.A. fuels the dispossession of unhoused Black folks.
South L.A. and Inglewood homeowners report being besieged with calls and flyers
from realtors and flippers looking to buy up housing stock in areas that only a
decade earlier were branded “ghettoes”. Former Black strongholds like Harlem, D.C.,
Philadelphia, Seattle, Houston, Oakland, and Fillmore and Bay Point in San
Francisco, have morphed into designer ghettoes greedily carved up by developers
in imperial land grabs reminiscent of the twentieth century “urban renewal” or Negro
removal schemes that ripped apart Black neighborhoods. Last month, the Crenshaw Subway Coalition
launched a series of “Summer of Resistance” townhall
meetings that will continue into the end of the year with community actions
against the neo-colonial forces of development in City Hall. November’s meetings
will spotlight the potential displacement of thousands of Crenshaw residents,
the fencing of Leimert Park and the Planning Commission’s complicity in the
market rate boondoggle that is bleeding South L.A. dry.
On the bustling streets of Kensington in London last week, one of the Black women I asked to comment on the recent election of Boris Johnson (who has been branded as Donald Trump’s British mini-me) vehemently declined. “I wouldn’t be able to without cussing,” she said, her response encapsulating the rage and distress Johnson’s election has elicited for progressive people of color.
The backlash to Johnson’s ascent after the resignation of Tory Prime Minister Theresa May is reminiscent of Trumpian political turbulence. Johnson’s hard-line call for a “no deal” Brexit, or withdrawal from the European Union (EU), would further undermine social and economic justice in working class communities of color that are already suffering from massive unemployment rates, a grossly unaffordable housing market, educational disparities, and a criminalizing police presence.
Like Trump, Johnson sees himself as a redemptive figure for a first-world empire under siege. He has rightfully been branded a racist for famously ridiculing Black folks as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” and likening Muslim women who wear burkas to letterboxes. Just as Trump has whipped up white supremacist, nativist, and nationalist sentiment in the US, so too has Johnson aroused Britain’s isolationist, hard-right conservatives who see “their” country being overrun by brown and black immigrants milking a welfare state steeped in a threatening multiculturalism. According to the Counter Extremism Project, “These far-right political parties have been able to unite ethno-nationalism with populism by propagating the notion that ethno-nationalism serves the average hardworking individual and the broader national identity.” In this narrative, the EU is the scourge of white nationalist independence and self-determination, sucking the economies of Britain, Italy, and Germany dry.
The young white male shooter who murdered twenty-two people and injured dozens more at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart on August 3 also vilified “race mixing,” Latinx immigrants, and white America’s inability to defend itself from the dark hordes. Indeed, the upsurge in American white nationalism is part of a larger global trend that has also gripped Europe and Canada. As Britain’s Guardian newspaper notes,
The targets of deadly attacks have included Muslim worshippers at mosques in Canada, Britain and New Zealand; black Americans…at a historic black church in South Carolina; Jewish Americans in synagogues across the United States; and leftwing politicians and activists in the US, UK, Greece and Norway.
In June of 2016, a week before the Brexit referendum passed, British MP and Brexit opponent Jo Cox was murdered by a white terrorist who screamed “This is for Britain!” and “Britain first!”
After Brexit passed, rising hate crimes and Islamophobia ripped open what writer Habiba Katsha characterizes as the myth that Black folks have it “easier” in the UK. In this distorted view, British institutional racism is supposedly less insidious than in the United States. Yet for so-called Brexiteers, leaving the EU has been fetishized as a swashbuckling panacea to European domination and control, Britain’s twenty-first-century version of Confederate secession. “Britain First,” like “America First,” has become a clarion call for white resistance. Not surprisingly, Brexit support is most robust in rural and small cities where white voters feel most imperiled by immigration. Opposition to Brexit is strongest in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and London. Anti-Brexiteers believe the move will gut trade because the majority of Britain’s exports and foreign investment comes from Europe. Economic analysts predict that the pound will fall, trade at the Irish border will cease, and inflation will skyrocket. In anticipation of the withdrawal, major corporations like Airbus have threatened to leave Britain.
Blasting Johnson on the floor of Parliament, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn argued that a no-deal Brexit was the “height of economic lunacy” and would lead to job cuts, decreased workers’ rights, and fewer environmental protections. “I note the climate change-denying [US] president has already dubbed him ‘Britain Trump’ and welcomed his plea to work with fascist, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage,” Corbyn observed, warning this “would make us a vassal state of Trump’s America.” Suggesting the disastrous impact leaving the EU will have on working-class people, one commentator likened it to a Ponzi scheme—a massive swindle promising unlimited returns based on lies and subterfuge. That the majority of white working-class Labour Party members voted to leave the EU highlights how race solidarity always eclipses class solidarity in nations like Britain and the US, where the wages of whiteness are key to national identity, economic stability, and community.
The Black and South Asian women I spoke to were infuriated by the British media’s soft-pedaling of Johnson as a “charming eccentric.” Londoner and world traveler Muksa railed against the normalization of Trump’s hate speech and its effect on Britain’s political climate, noting that “the outside world rarely hears from British people of color,” which leads to the false assumption that folks are complacent and invisible. In her view, this presumed invisibility is strongly connected to hate attacks against Muslim and ethnic communities. Sadia Hameed, a feminist activist, atheist, socialist, and member of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, predicted that, “The poor will most certainly get poorer and, just as austerity impacted people of color in the worst way (women of color worst of all), in the same manner, Brexit will hit people of color doubly hard, harder than their white working-class counterparts.” Commenting on Johnson’s strategy, filmmaker Maria Ivienagbor of South London said, “I don’t think he has Black British folks in mind, and Brexit will probably be an ‘experiment’ on us. I’m worried for the future.”
This future is further clouded by the burgeoning global industry of hate fueled by a vast European infrastructure (anchored by training camps, social media, job networks, lecture circuits, and publication platforms) that attracts recruits from around the world to places like Russia and the UK for induction. Under the Trump administration, domestic terrorism efforts targeting white supremacist and nationalist groups have been squelched and funding gutted. With both the US and Britain hanging in the balance, mobilizing progressive communities for the 2020 election will be critical to ensuring that the destructive blight of global Trumpism doesn’t become a permanent human rights “experiment.”
The universe that we’ve inherited from Toni
Morrison is:
The pell mell swoon of Jazz and its , mysterious crazy in love triangle set against the backdrop of the
Great Migration of African Americans to NYC, caught up in its golden glow and cruel tease; the Blue-eyed
devastation of Pecola, dreaming her truth, against incest, in the grinding
poverty of segregationist Ohio; The twisted bond and ride or die Sula-passion between two dramatically different black women; one fuck-you mad, one respectable
and maybe veering towards madness; The elusive thrum of Paradise in an all-black town pulsing in the terror of the Middle
Passage where black women’s fight for self-determination, bodily autonomy, and
the Beloved blasted the white gaze to bits.
On my desk, I have a picture of Morrison with one of
her most famous quotes: “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t
been written yet, then you must write it.” ...More @ The North Star
In Los Angeles school-communities, resources, support, and advocacy for families, parents, and caregivers of LGBTQI and Non-Binary K-12 youth are scant to nonexistent. Further, when the LAUSD deigns to address LGBTQI youth issues in its school-communities, African descent youth and families are seldom prioritized or represented in these discussions. Many queer Black youth report that there are no visible role models, curricula or cultural engagement that speaks to their lived experiences and GSAs (Gender and Sexuality Network Alliances) are MIA on predominantly Black campuses.
A major 2019 report from the Human Rights Campaign found that:
More than three-fourths of Black and African American LGBTQ youth who responded to the survey have heard family members say negative things about LGBTQ people, and nearly half have been taunted or mocked by family for being LGBTQ
More than three-fourths of Black and African American LGBTQ youth who responded to the survey have heard family members say negative things about LGBTQ people, and nearly half have been taunted or mocked by family for being LGBTQ.
Eighty percent “usually” feel depressed, down, worried, nervous or panicked. Nearly half feel critical of their LGBTQ identities.
On August 29th, a meeting of Black LGBTQI family, caregivers, and community will be held in the Crenshaw District at the offices of APLA Health for an introductory dialogue and strategy session on providing culturally responsive resources, support and advocacy for queer youth. The meeting is organized through a partnership with APLA Health, Colors LGBT Youth Counseling Services and the Women's Leadership Project.
Donald Trump’s recent racist, sexist, nativist tirade against congresswomen Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)—telling them to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came”—underscores how fraught and dangerous conditions continue to be for women of color in the United States. Last year the four women (three of whom were born in the US and all American citizens) made history in a game-changing election that was a virtual rebuke of Trump’s fascist agenda. A year after the landmark political season, in which more women of color assumed national office than ever before, this October’s Women of Color Beyond Belief conference marks an important transition for secular women of color. Rep. Omar countered Trump supporters’ ugly chant of “Send her back!” with Maya Angelou’s line “Still, like air, I’ll rise.” The fearless example of Omar and “The Squad” is an inspiration for progressive women of color who are pushing for greater political visibility in the secular movement.
The Women of Color Beyond Belief conference, which will be held in Chicago from October 4-6, is being sponsored by Black Nonbelievers, Black Skeptics Los Angeles, and the Women’s Leadership Project. It was partly inspired by the July/August 2018 cover story of the Humanist magazine, “Five Fierce Humanists: Unapologetically Black Women Beyond Belief” that highlighted Black women atheist humanist activists (the “secular squad” if you will) who have championed social and gender justice in the secular movement: Bridgett Crutchfield, Candace Gorham, Liz Ross, Mandisa Thomas, and myself.
In addition to the women profiled in the original article, the conference will feature such generationally and culturally diverse speakers as Deanna Adams, Lilandra Ra, Rajani Gudlavalleti, Mashariki Lawson, Hypatia Alexander, and Cecilia Pagan. Among the topics the conference will address are: racial justice politics and intersectional organizing, secular parenting, criminal justice reform, and secular art and film.
As the Trump administration, the GOP, and the religious right ramp up their attacks on secularization, reproductive justice, women’s self-determination, and the human rights of queer LGBTQI communities, the Women of Color Beyond Belief conference couldn’t be more timely. As I argued in a recent piece for the Humanist, Black, Latinx, and indigenous women are the most imperiled by the recent wave of anti-abortion policies spearheaded by conservative legislators in Southern and Midwestern states. Queer, transgender, and non-binary communities of color are also in the crosshairs of the Department of Justice’s rollback of Obama-era protections for LGBTQI individuals in schools and the workplace. Not only are African-American folks more likely to identify as queer, but they are also more likely to have children and be at or above the poverty line, amplifying the grave implications that these policies have for communities of color as a whole.
The conference’s explicitly feminist emphasis is also a first for an event focused on secular women of color. Indeed, most feminist, humanist, and atheist discourse comes from a white, European-American perspective (case in point is the Wikipedia entry on “atheism and feminism,” which begins with a profile highlighting Jewish-American feminist, suffragist, and abolitionist Ernestine Rose, a forerunning atheist thinker). Although atheist, humanist, and feminist social thought and praxis would seem like a natural fit, the intersection of the three is still controversial, even in progressive feminist circles. Moreover, the association of mainstream atheism with vociferous white, male antitheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens is problematic for feminists who push back on their Eurocentric, sexist, and Islamophobic views. Further, sexual harassment and abuse allegations against prominent male atheists and skeptics are another deterrent for progressive feminists. The movement’s longstanding dearth of women of color in leadership roles has led to the erasure of gender and racial justice issues that are most pressing for segregated communities of color.
Ex-Muslim feminists Sadia Hameed and Heina Dadabhoy will be speaking at the WoC conference about women’s rights and visibility for persecuted ex-Muslim women who face misogynist violence, harassment, and community ostracism because of their apostasy. Other presentations include a solo performance by singer-musician Sandra Booker entitled “Confessions of an Atheist Black Woman,” along with panels on culturally relevant humanist practices, #MeToo and resisting the normalization of sexual violence, ally-building, and self-care for organizers. I will also be screening my film short, White Nights, Black Paradise, on Black women, Peoples Temple, and the Jonestown massacre.
Child care will be provided by Camp Quest and all genders are welcome to participate and volunteer. Early bird registration ends this month.
On Tuesday, the LAUSD School Board will vote
on a resolution to end the random search policy at all district schools and a resolution to strengthen protections for LGBTQI and nonbinary students.The random search resolution is the product
of years student and community activism by the Students
Not Suspects and Students
Deserve coalition against racist over-policing in the second largest district in the nation. It would sunset random searches by July 2020, prohibit
the re-institution of non-individualized searches, and prohibit an increase in
police presence at LAUSD campuses. Since
it was implemented twenty-six years ago, this insidious policy has wreaked
havoc on student morale and trust.It
has disproportionately targeted Black, Latinx, and Muslim students, further
criminalized them, and siphoned off valuable class time in schools that are
already over-policed and under-resourced. Instead of yielding weapons or “dangerous
objects”, random searches gave overzealous adults license to harass students
and confiscate personal items such as feminine hygiene products, sharpies, and
other benign miscellany. To counter this climate, the resolution directs the
district to promote Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support initiatives based on
restorative justice methodology.
That said, the majority of the district’s high schools do not have restorative
justice counselors. And the overall LAUSD budget for restorative justice was
around $10.8 million in 2016.By
contrast, the district has allocated millions more to school police, weaponry
and surveillance systems. In 2016, the school board approved a 14% increase in
funding for police, bringing its pot to over $67 million.It is currently the fifth
largest police department in L.A. According to the L.A. School Report, the
increases were due to “salary, healthcare benefits and pension payments”.
Nonetheless, the district claims to be dedicated to a full rollout of restorative
justice programming by the 2019-2020 school year.
Ending
random searches is a monumental shift toward improving the mental health, wellbeing,
and self-determination of LAUSD students. Nationwide, queer, nonbinary, and
trans students of color are also disproportionately targeted by these harsh
discipline policies.
Another resolution
before the board (authored by board members Kelly Gonez, Monica Garcia and Nick
Melvoin) would boost resources and support for LGBQI students. One key provision
ensures that all-gender restrooms would be available on every LAUSD campus (as
opposed to just high school campuses) to accommodate nonbinary and transgender
students and preempt transphobic harassment. The resolution would also provide
professional development training for faculty, staff, and administrators on LGBTQI
youth empowerment and support. Despite the significant increase in youth
between the ages of 8 and 18 who identify as nonbinary, most LAUSD K-8 schools lack
curricula, support resources, and targeted outreach for queer students. A GLSEN
survey my students and I conducted at one LAUSD South L.A. school found
that a majority of youth had not seen positive images of LGBTQI figures in their
textbooks (despite California’s forerunning efforts to embed LGBTQI social
history into school curricula), were not familiar with adult allies who were
supportive of LGBTQI youth on campus, and were unaware of student groups like
the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA). Moreover, according to a Human Rights
Campaign survey,
77% of African American queer youth heard negative statements about their
identities from family, while only 19% said they could be themselves at home, and
only 26% had an “ally” family member. In an era where LGBTQI families are increasingly
under fire by the Trump administration’s repeal of Obama-era non-discrimination
protections on health care, gender identification, and transgender military
enlistment, actively pro-LGBTQI school-based policies and resolutions are critical,
but they’re merely the first step toward visibility and agency.Tuesday’s resolution proposes the creation of
Anti-Bullying Awareness Program pilots with a specific emphasis on culturally
responsive support resources for queer, transgender, and nonbinary youth. To
urge school board members to vote for the pending resolutions or to get
involved with the pilot program contact the LAUSD School Board @ https://boe.lausd.net/contacts
Atrocities like the Alabama abortion bill are one of
the reasons why I’m an atheist. Barefoot, pregnant, and bombed back to the Stone
Age continues to be the clarion call for dominionist lawmakers who are bound
and determined to hijack women’s rights.
It was no surprise that twenty-five
Republican white men (one of whom is Dr. Larry Stutts, a freshman senator
and OB-GYN who was dubbed
Alabama’s 2015 “Scumbag of the Year” for seeking to repeal
a law named after a patient who died in his care shortly after giving birth) in
the Alabama state legislature were the linchpin for passing the most draconian
anti-abortion bill in the nation and shepherding it to the desk of Alabama Governor
Kay Ivey, who dutifully signed it into law. These are the same kind of men who queue
up in front of abortion clinics to hound and demonize pregnant women. They are
the same kind who lock and load at the mere mention of “abortionists” and think
chastity belts are long overdue for a revival. The same kind who howl, piss, and
moan about their immoral “God and Country” and foment Christian fascism based
on a deeply misogynist fear of women’s bodies, sexuality, and reproductive autonomy.
They are also the same kind of men whose protected white families systematically
benefit from Black, Latinx and Indigenous peoples’ poverty, segregation, and
criminalization by gutting social welfare funding and anything that supposedly “reeks”
of wealth redistribution. As it stands, the Alabama “Heartbeat” bill—which was preceded
by similar bills in Georgia, Mississippi and Ohio—has been framed as one of
the most potent threats to Roe vs. Wade. But it should be also be viewed as a bellwether
of economic injustice. Far too often, the focus on abortion rights, rather than
on reproductive justice, does not adequately address how abortion is a powerful
force for women’s economic liberation.
As other abortion
rights’ advocates have pointed out, these bills are most prevalent in states
that have some of the worst health and poverty indices for women of color and
children in the nation. Georgia has the
second highest black maternal mortality rate in the country (According
to the Centers for Disease Control, Black women died at a rate over three times as high as white women
during childbirth). Alabama ranks 49th in infant outcomes
due to poor scores in infant mortality, low birthweight, neonatal mortality,
and preterm birth. Poor and rural women constantly struggle to find adequate
maternal care providers in these states, further belying the claim that Heartbeat
laws “protect” children. Alabama also
has the sixth highest poverty rate in the U.S. with
over 17% of Alabamians living below the federal poverty line. 250,000 Alabama
children live below the poverty line and the state’s child food insecurity rate
is 22.5%, well over the national average of 17.5%. Predominantly African American
counties
in Alabama have the highest poverty rates in the state. Despite all their
claims of Christian charity, poverty, child care and social welfare have never
been of concern to the Religious Right theocrats who passed this law on the
backs of women of color.
The South and the Midwest’s anti-abortion assault
fundamentally undermines women’s right to self-determination by jeopardizing
their earning potential, job mobility, and ability to access child care. Nationwide,
communities of color disproportionately rely on family planning providers like
Planned Parenthood for counseling, screenings, contraception, and abortion
care. The closure of family planning clinics across the South and Midwest has
forced women to travel hundreds of miles for care; further endangering their
lives, families, and incomes. The Alabama bill stipulates that doctors who perform
abortions could be charged with up to 99 years in prison, a provision that criminalizes
health care practitioners and lays the foundation for a dangerous pre-Roe era
underground abortion economy. The bill’s prohibition on abortions for rape and
incest victims would also heavily impact Black and Indigenous sexual assault victims
(who have some of the highest
rates of sexual assault and rape in the U.S.), condemning them to relive
the trauma of their assault through forced pregnancy and government invasion—a prospect
that hearkens back to the sexual terrorism of slavery and colonial occupation
of Native land.
The white fundamentalist Christian stranglehold on
Southern and Midwestern legislatures has proven to be a national cancer which further
exposes the dangerous lie of a God-based, biblical morality. The Alabama bill
is yet another wake-up call for why theocracy, and all its amoral patriarchs,
must be aborted.
Over forty years ago, the 1977 Black feminist Combahee River
Collective statement laid out a bold platform for anti-capitalist change. Black
lesbian activist Barbara Smith
and her co-authors argued
“that all Black people’s oppression was rooted
deeply in capitalism” and that it was important to use a “Marxist analysis…and an understanding of class relationships
that takes into account the specific class position of Black women who are
generally marginal in the labor force.” Staking out a socialist
position, the Combahee Collective noted that, “Work must be organized for the
collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products, and not
for the profit of the bosses. Material resources must be equally distributed
among those who create these resources… A socialist revolution that is not also
a feminist and anti-racist revolution will not guarantee our liberation.”
As workers around the world observe May Day, Combahee’s
vision still resonates for Black women workers facing a bleak economic
landscape. Black women have the lowest proportion of household wealth in the
U.S., possessing only pennies to the dollar of white families.In a 2017 Forbes magazine article entitled “Black,
Female and Broke”, Maya Rockeymoore noted, “Single Black women, for example,
own only $200 in median wealth compared to $15,640 for single white women.
Those with children have a median wealth of $0 compared to $14,600 for
single white women.” Even more damningly, although Black women have the highest
workforce participation and college-going rates among women in the U.S.,
these factors have not contributed to commensurate increases in wealth.For example, according to a 2017 study
by the Samuel DuBois Cook Center, “Single white women without a degree have $3000 more in wealth than single Black women
with a degree”. Single white women with bachelor’s
degrees have seven times the wealth of single Black women with bachelor’s degrees.Not surprisingly, these disparities increase
with marriage.Married Black women with
bachelor’s degrees have five times less wealth than married white women with
bachelor’s degrees.And although Black
women are more
likely to start small businesses than Black men and women of other
ethnicities (in 2018, the number of Black women-owned businesses grew by a
whopping 164%), they are typically shut out of lending, mentoring and
pipelining opportunities that help small businesses get a foothold in their industries.
Thus, on every demographic indicator, Black women fare
significantly worse than white women in wealth accumulation.Age, educational level, and marital status
did not equalize their access to wealth relative to white women.Wealth accumulation is strongly influenced by
residential and housing patterns.Because Black women of all classes live in disproportionately segregated
communities with high levels of poverty and transience they have less access to
the home equity that constitutes the primary source of American wealth.As a result, white women’s across the board
advantages vis-Ã -vis Black women is rooted in the intersectional privilege of
race and class.White women have
historically had the advantage of “intergenerational transfers like financing
a college education, providing help with the down payment on a house and other
gifts to seed asset accumulation (that) are central sources of wealth
building.”
Compounding
these issues is the impact of last year’s Supreme Court ruling on the Janus vs.
AFSCME case, which undermined public sector unions’ ability to collect dues and
organize workers. Janus is especially
harmful for Black women workers due to their greater levels of public
sector union involvement and reliance upon the ever-shrinking defined benefit
plans provided by government employers.
All of this comes as there is a supposed “reckoning”
with the failures of capitalism among the robber baron one percent, who whine about
their concern for income inequality in think pieces and conferences for the
mega-rich. At the same time, mainstream
outlets like MSNBC lament Americans’ notoriously low savings rates (the “average”
household has approximately $12k in savings) but omit the racial and gender
disparities that give white households a significant generational advantage in
wealth accumulation. Doubling down on white supremacist patriarchy, Stephen
Moore, the Trump administration’s pick for Federal Reserve chief, recently remarked
that men’s declining salaries should be the primary concern for U.S. economic
growth. Moore’s sexist claims were similar to other comments he’s made promoting
gender discrimination in sports. But they are also symptomatic of the widespread
view that women’s wages matter less to families, communities, and the American
workforce than men’s do.
In addition, national assessments about the graying of
the American workforce typically marginalize the staggering impact aging has on
the livelihood of women of color workers. According
to the AARP, age discrimination-related EEO complaints filed by African Americans
have dramatically increased since the 1990s.Once Black women hit their fifties, they are at greater risk for job
insecurity, career stagnation, unemployment, health challenges, bankruptcy, eviction,
and homelessness. Older Black women who have spent most of their lives as sole
or primary breadwinners (an estimated 80% according
to the Economic Policy Institute) are also more likely to be saddled with
caring for multiple generations, making retirement an elusive fantasy.
At recent presidential candidate forums for women of
color voters and labor
activists, some Democratic hopefuls outlined economic reform agendas advocating
for more affordable and supportive housing, public sector union protection from
pernicious Right to Work laws, Medicare expansion, universal child care, and
reparations.The social democratic agendas
of Bernie Sanders (who was jeered
at the recent She the People voter forum over his failure to articulate
specific proposals for Black women) and New York congresswoman Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez have forced these candidates to step up their rhetoric on incorporating
racial and gender justice into their platforms. But for Black women workers, campaign promises
trumpeting a laundry list of “reforms” will not redress the fundamental wealth
divide that informs white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.Lasting systemic change must include increasing
taxes on corporations and the super elite, boosting capital investment in large
scale supportive, subsidized housing that’s connected to wraparound mental
health, wellness and educational services, daycare, and after school
programming, instituting a guaranteed living wage as well as Swedish-style paid
family leave. The gauntlet that Combahee threw down is still a revolutionary
promise for Black women in an apartheid economy. As radical-progressive voices
continue to hold corporate Democrats’ feet to the fire, Black women workers
will be critical to turning the neo-fascist tide.
There are few accessible youth community centers in the
over half-mile stretch where fifteen year-old Hannah Bell was killed
in April 2018 in front of a South L.A. hamburger stand on Western and 78th
Street.Out for a bite to eat, Bell and
her mom, Samantha Mays, were engaging in a familiar weekend ritual that should
have been one of ordinary, average mother-daughter togetherness.Instead, she became one of the scores of
African American youth slain on Los Angeles streets with no
leads on their killers. At a spring 2018 press conference and vigil
organized to commemorate Hannah and call for the apprehension of her killer, her
family and friends highlighted the irony of national focus on the Parkland,
Florida mass shootings when gun violence disproportionately impacts working
class African American communities. Bell’s brother commented that, “If we’re
supposed to be this great ‘sanctuary state’ we need to make sure it’s a safe
place for our kids.”Hannah had “great,
positive role models. They were all headed to college, they were all learning.
She was a great person.”
Nearly a year later, Bell’s murder remains unsolved,
the City’s offer
of a $50,000 reward for information on her killing is still in play, and the corner
where she was slain bustles with “normal” activity.
It is not normal for a child to be killed at virtually
point blank range on a busy street at nighttime. Hannah, like seven year-old Jazmine
Barnes, whose recent murder in Houston, Texas elicited national outrage
when it was reported that she was potentially targeted by a white killer, was more
than likely killed by someone from the community. By a person who knew that
targeting a black girl from the neighborhood would probably not elicit national
attention.
A student at nearby LAUSD Santee High School, Hannah
lived in an area that is notoriously bereft of safe, culturally responsive
spaces for young people.Though violent
homicides have purportedly declined in Los Angeles, Black women and girls
remain disproportionately vulnerable to gun violence, intimate partner
violence, and sexual violence in greater numbers.The nexus of these issues makes basic safety
in school communities and neighborhoods a pressing Black feminist concern.Being deprived of the right to patronize
local businesses safely is not an issue that white students have to contend
with in L.A.’s Westside and Valley neighborhoods. This, and the constant
specter of an early death, or sexual violence victimization, are not issues
that define the mental health and wellness of white children. Yet, Black girls must
navigate these traumas in their everyday lives while they are still expected to
be high-functioning, mega-strong caregivers conditioned to meet the needs of
others before themselves.
During a recent feminist of color mental health institute
for Black and Latinx girls from three South L.A. high schools, students identified
stress from caregiving, violence, and harassment (at school and online) as
being the most pressing issues they confront on a daily basis. In
intergenerational workshops with Shaunelle Curry, founder of Media Done Responsibly, and storyteller/poet
Jaden Fields, they discussed self-care and community empowerment strategies,
and explored the power of creative writing as healing and resistance, drawing upon
Black lesbian poet Audre Lourde’s maxim about self-care as a political act. Fittingly,
newly appointed Black female California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris has
identified preventing and addressing toxic
stress among children as one of her highest priority agenda items. She
notes that, far too often, “mental
trauma is considered unrelated to medical care”. This perception only reinforces the systemic
denial of mental health care to Black girls.
Bell was killed a stone’s throw away from where LAPD
officers gunned down 18 year-old Carnell Snell in the Westmont community near
Washington Prep High School in 2017. The corridor is still dominated by fast
food joints, storefront churches, 99 cent stores, and beauty salons. Pushing
back against the absence of culturally responsive spaces for youth of color in
Los Angeles, the Youth Justice Coalition
(YJC) and other activist groups pressed for the passage of a Youth Reinvestment
Act in the California Legislature. The 2019 Youth Reinvestment Grant fund
provides $37.3
million to fund “diversion programs & community-based services for youth at
risk of system involvement”. While the fund is a good start, it’s still a drop
in the bucket, which is why the National Center for Youth Law is asking that
the fund be boosted by another $100 million.It is precisely because of the lack of educational, job training and
therapeutic facilities in communities like South L.A. that Black and Latinx
youth are at “greater risk” for becoming victims of violence and
system-involved. After a long battle
with city and county government, YJC was recently victorious in its efforts to
get an abandoned South L.A. jail facility converted to a new youth center for
its community offices.But, in most
neighborhoods of color, the lack of access to designated youth spaces, coupled
with high rates of criminalization and police suppression, make Black girls
especially vulnerable to street violence, sexual violence, and domestic and intimate
partner violence.
Speaking on the tragedy of Hannah’s killing last year,
Rashad Mays pleaded, “Imagine if it was your daughter that was taken.I’m asking the community to come forward and
help us out.”We owe it to Hannah and
all the other victims of “normalized” gun violence right here in our communities
to make their lives visible.
