Voices and Soul
by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Poetry Editor
The ghostly creak and Doppler rumble of boxcars passing a remote Slavic forest resonates the same haunted railroad tie percussion along a rust belt corridor of iron, coal mounds and slaughter house stench.
Some might say it proves we are connected.
Some might say, history repeats.
Some might say both are correct.
Pandrol Jackson
Along a derelict railroad, abandoned machinery takes
its last tour of duty toward rust. Another town is stalling.
Another house smolders with rot while a television rages.
Crows patrol banked cinders beside a landfill with a sign:
No Dumping. We were Jews in Austria. No, we spoke German
in Czechoslovakia—by order of the Alliance, we filed
Into a railroad car and died. No, we were black in Arkansas.
Here is a filthy contraption, like a grim lawn mower
With flanged iron wheels, Pandrol Jackson in blue paint
on its rotted housing: a rail grinder, used to polish steel
To brilliance, forgotten here as after the Rapture. And the carcass
of a boxcar warps just down the track, groaning with a cargo of bones.
-- T.R. Hummer
Pandrol Jackson
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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For the first time in 20 years, federal agencies are reviewing how to collect and report race/ethnicity data, including breaking people of Middle Eastern descent out of the "White" category and changes in reporting on Asians. Color Lines: The Government May Change How It Collects and Crunches Race Data. Here's Why You Should Weigh In
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Standards on how federal agencies collect, maintain and report race and ethnicity data are up for review for the first time since 1997. These data are used for a wide range of purposes, including the enforcement of civil rights laws, the tracking of hate crimes, the development of minority business programs and the surfacing of labor and health disparities. They are also used to redraw Congressional districts and enforce the Voting Rights Act.
Twenty years ago, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) began requiring federal agencies such as the Departments of Justice and Education to track Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and multiracial populations as their own entities. One major change under current consideration is the creation of a new category called "Middle Eastern or North African" ("MENA") that would include Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Syrian, Moroccan, Israeli, Iraqi, Algerian and Kurdish populations. Historically, people from these regions have been conflated within the “White” race category.
"The MENA category is long overdue for millions of people," says Ahmad Abuznaid, executive director of the National Network on Arab American Communities. "By collecting data on people with roots to Middle Eastern and North African regions, federal agencies will better understand health disparities, track hate crimes, and come up with solutions to address our communities’ needs."
Having segmented data on Middle Eastern and North African populations would have been useful in the years after 9/11, when discrimination against those communities increased dramatically. But could the federal government –which has also surveilled and profiled Arab communities under the guise of national security—misuse race and ethnicity data?
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It amounted to the second finding of intentional discrimination in Texas election laws in two months. A different court in March ruled that Republicans racially gerrymandered several congressional districts when drawing voting maps in 2011, the same year the voter ID rules were passed.
Neither ruling has any immediate impact. But the decisions are significant because they raise the possibility of Texas being stripped of the right to unilaterally change its election laws without federal approval. Forcing Texas to once again seek federal permission — known as “preclearance” — has been a goal of Democrats and rights groups since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the rule in 2013.
The latest ruling by U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos of Corpus Christi comes more than two years after she likened Texas’s voter ID rules, known as SB 14, to a “poll tax” meant to suppress minority voters. On Monday, she reaffirmed that conclusion after an appeals court asked her to reexamine her findings.
The Texas law requires voters to show one of seven forms of identification at the ballot box. The list includes concealed-handgun licenses but not college student IDs, and Texas was forced under court order last year to weaken the law for the November elections.
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Sheila Abdus-Salaam, 65, was the first African-American woman to be appointed to the state’s Court of Appeals, where she served as an associate judge. The New York Post reports that she was reported missing from her Harlem home earlier in the day.
Witnesses discovered her fully clothed body floating in the river around 1:45 p.m. and called 911.
Her husband identified her body, and according to the Post, sources say there were no obvious signs of trauma or injuries indicating criminality or foul play; her death appeared to be a suicide.
In a statement issued Wednesday night, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, “Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all.
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