The Road Still to be Traveled
Review by Chitown Kev
A Perilous Path: Talking Race, Inequality, and the Law
by Sherrilyn Ifill, Loretta Lynch, Bryan Stevenson, and Anthony C. Thompson
The New Press, 128 pp., $14.99 (hardback)
On the surface, it seems that much of the subject matter covered in A Perilous Path: Talking Race, Inequality, and the Law is already contained by slightly-dusty book shelves in public and law libraries; been there and done that.
However, one of the charms of this book, a transcript of a conversation with prominent legal scholars, activists, and a former Attorney General of the United States, is that a somewhat undefined ‘’we’’ have allowed that dust to gather at our own peril, especially at this historical moment.
‘’We’’ became complacent.
In one way or another, every participant in this symposium called that complacency out.
Former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch states from the outset that many of us have not seen a federal government actively roll back rights ‘’in our remembered lifetime.’’
‘’...there have been, sadly, periods in American legal life and American legal history when the law has been used to hold people down, to discriminate, and to harm our citizens. And so we thought that we had moved away from that, because we had people who were using the law in a certain way. And the lesson is, how the law is handled depends very much on whose hands it is in.’’
Ms. Lynch reminds us that in lieu of not having a sufficient number of ‘'hands'' in the law making and law enforcement places in the federal government, that we must remember and utilize think tanks and “centers where you can have policy discussions with people from all walks of life, all generations, about how to craft policy.” Furthermore, Lynch asserts that it is just as necessary to pay attention to “the individual voice” and to focus on ‘’local empowerment’’ up to and including running for public office.
Which is only exactly what the conservative or, to be more precise, regressive and reactionary forces did in this country after the passage of multiple items of civil rights legislation in the 1960’s, after all. In fact, all of the forum participants say, in one way or another, is that the civil rights side seemed to assume that, with the passage of civil rights legislation, that a war had been won when, in fact, only one battle on one front was won at that time.
Bryan Stevenson explicitly states that on multiple occasions, the civil rights side won a battle on the surface; a civil war, civil rights, the election of an African American president, only to, time and again, lose “the narrative war.” Nowhere does this seem more apparent than the panel’s discussion of the demonization of the word ‘’public’’ and the now familiar association of the word “public” with the word “black” in civil discourse:
Sherrilyn Ifill: ...one of the narratives I hope we’ll begin to attend to is to reclaim the word “public”...the word public only became dirty when it became associated with being black. Public housing was built for white people initially. There was nothing about public transportation that was considered black...reclaiming that narrative about public and private and detaching it from this demonized and racialized context , I think, is one of the most important narrative engagements.
This conversation on the law and the intersections of the law, culture and politics hosted by the New York University School of Law early in 2017, touches on a variety of topics and specifics from Bryan Stevenson making much of the same case of granting reparations to black veterans that I once made to Ifill’s discussion of the difficulties of ex-offenders to utilize public transportation to get to work at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore to AG Lynch’s perfectly sensible and rather obvious statement that, “Politics is about more than who the president is.”
In other words, it was never all about President Obama then any more than it's all about President Tweetler now.
(it was quite refreshing to read AG Lynch’s somewhat unrestrained views on the law and public policy.)
We are well aware that now is not the time for complacency. A Perilous Path: Talking Race, Inequality, and the Law reminds us that there never was a time and will never be a time for complacency.
What’s done is done.
Time to shake off the dust and get to work.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Naomi Wadler is only 11 years old — and she’s already speaking to an international audience about gun violence in America.
“I represent the African-American women who are victims of gun violence, who are simply statistics instead of vibrant, beautiful girls full of potential,” Wadler, from Alexandria, Virginia, said. “For far too long, these black girls and women have been just numbers. I am here to say never again for those girls too.”
Most gun violence in the US disproportionately affects black communities. In 2016 (the latest full year for which data is available), for example, more than 52 percent of murder victims (73 percent of whom were killed by guns) were black, even though black people only make up about 13 percent of the general population.
These deaths could stand to get more political and policy attention — because we know of policies, including gun control, that could reduce them. But as Wadler pointed out, they rarely do.
It’s hard to ignore the racial element here: The majority of Americans are white, and it’s possible they might simply care less about black victims. We know, after all, that racial biases make white Americans more likely to perceive black people as less innocent and as criminals, which may, in some people’s minds, make these victims more deserving of the gun violence in their communities.
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Gun violence in Chicago has been a big topic of discussion, but little is said about the lack of a trauma center or quick access to health care for victims of gun wounds. Some individuals needlessly die not because of being shot but because the time it takes for them to get care. One 16-year-old by the name of Journey Jamison is taking the fight to save lives into her own hands.
Jamison received training in first aid guidance from Ujimaa Medics, a Black health collective based in Chicago. The”street medics”program is teaching people in the community how to respond to public traumatic events. Because of her training, Jamison at the age of 15 was able to save the life of a young man who knocked on her door after being shot in the neck in 2016.
“When you’re from Chicago, you become a little desensitized to a lot of the trauma and violence that surrounds you. So when it was on my front door, when it was in my living room, I could only be grateful that I had the training that I had,” Jamison said in a video for Mic.
Now the teenager trains people in her community on the lessons she has learned. She even taught Peda—the gunshot victim she saved—the techniques to help in an emergency.
“I never thought about it like I saved his life, but I took that opportunity to say, ‘Hey Peda, guess what? I was able to save your life because I had this training,’” said Jamison. “‘How awesome would it be if I could train you and your family or your friends on the same thing?’ Peda’s family and his close loved ones have been no stranger to gun violence, so he was extremely on board with learning.”
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Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz carries his career-long exploration of Latinx immigrant identity into his debut children’s title, “Islandborn.” Díaz told Crosscut.com on Tuesday (March 20) that he developed the book, which features a Black Latinx girl as its protagonist, to combat the White normativity of children’s literature.
“I experienced [not finding kids’ books with characters of color] and I certainly never wanted anyone else after me to experience it,” he explained. “So there’s the agony of the persistence of a crime, that something hasn’t been repaired. It certainly hurts you to know that the younger people, that the youth are going through things that you had hoped, by this time, would’ve been resolved. But ultimately, you’ve gotta recognize the problem and see if you can do anything about it. And this book was an attempt to do something about it.”
“Islandborn” follows a six-year-old immigrant named Lola, who shares her name with the title of the Spanish-language version of the book. Lola does not remember her country of origin, which she and her community simply refer to as “the Island.” A school assignment prompts her to interview neighbors about their homeland, which they portray as a beautiful, multicultural paradise. The adults also tell her about a monster who forced many residents to flee their homes—a reference to the military dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, whose bloody and destabilizing rule over the Dominican Republic fueled emigration to the United States. The Dominican-American Díaz, who wrestled with the Trujillo legacy in previous novels, said that he confronted anti-Black racism soon after he and his family left the Dominican Republic themselves.
Colorlines Screenshot of (L to R) Spanish- and English-language versions of "Lola/Islandborn," by Junot Díaz, taken from Facebook on March 22, 2018.
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For some time now, therapists have helped movie and TV characters cut through to the emotional core of their messy lives. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) has taken her sage and very patient psychiatrist, Dr. Noelle Akopian (Michael Hyatt), on a tumultuous ride of lows and (occasional) breakthroughs that have largely culminated in her ignoring her doctor’s advice. When Ilana (Ilana Glazer) needs to confront her inability to orgasm after a tedious several-month dry spell in a Season 4 Broad City episode, she seeks out a sex therapist—a soothing, free-spirited older woman named Betty (Marcella Lowery). And on the most recent season of Grace and Frankie, Sol (Sam Waterston) and Robert (Michael Sheen) seek professional counseling from Rebecca (Lorraine Toussaint) on how to navigate marriage to one another as older, out gay men.
Each of these characters is wrestling with different illnesses and/or issues, but one thing is a constant across their sessions: All of the therapists offering them professional guidance are played by black women. There are certainly examples in which this isn’t the case: Tina Fey inhabits Kimmy Schmidt’s wacky therapist, while Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter’s couples counselor on BoJack Horseman is voiced by Lorraine Bracco. But if you watch enough shows with dysfunctional protagonists who get to the point of seeking help, you might notice that a lot of familiar black female character actors are popping up in roles that require they wield a notepad and pen while listening intently to other peoples’ problems. And with rare exception, their patients are usually white and at least moderately affluent.
Taking into account the long, often-sordid history of portrayals of black women playing maids and prostitutes watching talented actors like Hyatt and Lowery play smart, highly educated authority figures is a good thing, no matter how small the role. And yet, when looking at the bigger picture, it does seem a bit peculiar when if their storyline only pertains to the white characters they serve emotionally. Is the Black Lady Therapist just the latest outgrowth of the storied Black Best Friend?
The Black Best Friend trope stretches back decades and crosses gender lines, though women have been more likely to be cast in the role than their male counterparts, from Wanda Sykes on The New Adventures of Old Christine to Lisa Nicole Carson on Ally McBeal to a pre-Scandal Kerry Washington in Save the Last Dance. Having played second fiddle to a winsome white protagonist is almost a given on a contemporary black actor’s resume, though not all BBF’s are made in the same mold. On the benign end of the spectrum, the characters, like Tara and Lafayette on True Blood, are imbued with a bit of a personal backstory (relatives, significant others, and so on) and storylines that don’t always have to do with their white best friend. But in the most extreme cases their only true function is to serve as cheerleaders and givers of advice—often with a heavy dose of “urban” sass—to the white leads, a performance that evolved from the more demeaning and thankless parts as maids, servants, and sidekicks that preceded them.
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“WE FEEL so hungry,” says Agatha Khasiala, a Kenyan housekeeper, grumbling about the price of meat and fish. She has recently moved in with her daughter because “the cost of everything is very high”. The data back her up. The World Bank publishes rough estimates of price levels in different countries, showing how far a dollar would stretch if converted into local currency. On this measure, Kenya is more expensive than Poland.
This is surprising. The cost of living is generally higher in richer places, a phenomenon best explained by the economists Bela Balassa and Paul Samuelson. They distinguished between goods that can be traded internationally and many services, like hairdressing, that cannot. In rich countries, manufacturing is highly productive, allowing firms to pay high wages and still charge internationally competitive prices. Those high wages also drive up pay in services, which must compete for workers. Since productivity is low in services, high pay translates into high prices, pushing up the overall cost of living.
Among developing economies, however, the relationship between prices and prosperity is less clear-cut. Prices in Chad, for instance, are comparable to those in Malaysia, where incomes are 14 times higher. Fadi Hassan of Trinity College Dublin finds that in the poorest fifth of countries, most of them in Africa, the relationship goes into reverse: penniless places cost more than slightly richer ones. A paper in 2015 from the Centre for Global Development (CGD), an American think-tank, accounts for various factors which could explain differences in prices, including state subsidies, geography and the effects of foreign aid. Even then, African countries are puzzlingly expensive.
One explanation is dodgy statistics. African countries may be richer than they seem. When Nigeria revised its figures in 2014 to start counting industries such as mobile phones, GDP almost doubled. They may also be less pricey than economists reckon, because poor people buy second-hand clothes or grow their own food.
A more intriguing explanation comes from food prices. The relative cost of food, compared with other goods, is higher in poor countries. In Africa, the absolute cost is sometimes high, too. Nigerians would save 30% of their income if they bought their food at Indian prices, finds a recent study by the OECD, a think-tank. Meat costs more in Ghana than in America.
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The only Christian girl among the Dapchi schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram last month could have been freed along with her schoolmates but refused to renounce her faith, according to her mother.
Leah Sharibu refused to accept Islam, resisting the entreaties of her classmates to pretend to do so, her parents learned from snatched conversation with her friends.
A faction of Boko Haram kidnapped 110 girls and one boy from the girls’ school in Dapchi, a town in north-east Nigeria, in February, and released most of them a month later, after what the government described as “back-channel” negotiations.
Five were killed, possibly trampled to death in the overcrowded trucks as they were being abducted.
Early on Wednesday morning, Rebecca Sharibu, the mother of Leah, 15, heard girls’ voices and the sound of vehicles driving past her house. She was told to stay inside, but when she heard the cars coming back after dropping the girls off, she ran out. All around her were joyful parents and their returned daughters.
But she could not find Leah anywhere.
The schoolgirls were sent to meet the Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, after their release.
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