Category: Political Equality

Kirstjen Nielsen Says Family Separation Policy Doesn’t Exist

~ mcequality

And even before Sessions announced that the new policy was official, parents were allegedly being separated from their kids at the border, a practice that a federal judge called “brutal, offensive, and fails to comport with traditional notions of fair play and decency”:

Ms. L explained that she wanted to apply for asylum and passed a crucial interview with an asylum officer. She was then taken and held in a detention center in the San Diego area.

Less than a week after arriving at the border, her daughter, called S.S. in court documents, was forcibly taken from her and brought to a detention facility in Chicago for minors who are unaccompanied, the lawsuit states.

“When S.S. was taken away from her mother, she was screaming and crying, pleading with guards not to take her away from her mother. That was the last time Ms. L saw her daughter,” the lawsuit reads.

via Kirstjen Nielsen Says Family Separation Policy Doesn’t Exist

Jeff Sessions Gives Speech in PA Defending “Zero-Tolerance”

~ mcequality

During his speech, Sessions recited from a well-rehearsed script, repeating talking points central to the administration’s worldview and subsequent policies. Sessions warned of the “tens of thousands” of undocumented workers crossing American borders, conflating immigrants with criminals. He spoke of the “shootings, stabbings, and beatings,” as well as the rapes and murders committed by MS-13, the Trump administration’s preferred monster. Sessions warned in his speech that the gang was “recruiting illegal aliens as young as 15.” Danger, it seems, lurked in every corner. He warned, too, that the “porous” Southwest border was impacting the rest of the United States, telling law enforcement in the audience that the lack of security at the border “makes your job that much harder.”

via Jeff Sessions Gives Speech in PA Defending “Zero-Tolerance”

‘Highly Offended’ White Teacher Kicked My 9-Year-Old Son Out of Class for Taking Knee During Pledge

~ mcequality

When my 9-year-old son told me that he had been thrown out of his fourth-grade class for kneeling during the Pledge of Allegiance, I was mildly surprised by his actions, but furious with his teachers.

Their instinctive responses were harsh reminders of how deeply white supremacy is embedded in the classroom. But more important for me in that moment were the shaming and intimidation tactics used against my child.

via ‘Highly Offended’ White Teacher Kicked My 9-Year-Old Son Out of Class for Taking Knee During Pledge

Police Are More Likely to Arrest You at a Protest Where People Actually Give a Shit, Study Finds

~ mcequality

A new study from the University of Southern California (USC) suggests that there is a correlation between an increase in violence at protests and tweets with “moral content” concerning what the protest is about—like, say, police violence. But dig a bit deeper, and you’ll find that the study’s implications are more complicated than that.

The research paper, which was published in the journal Nature Behavior last week, states, “When people encounter others who share their moral attitudes, those attitudes are validated and reinforced and, as moral beliefs become more intransigent, the likelihood of advocating or enacting violence to achieve desired moral ends (for example, topple a corrupt government, alter policing practices, stop the removal of a statue or defend the purity of one’s race) may increase.”

via Police Are More Likely to Arrest You at a Protest Where People Actually Give a Shit, Study Finds

When the resistance confronted Democrats in 1968, the crackdown was vicious

~ mcequality

The Yippies filed for an outlandish permit for a citywide festival at the same time as the convention, and told news media that the party would involve events such as nude swimming in Lake Michigan and dumping LSD into the water supply. The permit request and open invitation to the nation’s youth outraged Mayor Daley, a law-and-order politician and influential Democratic Party strongman who ruled the city with an iron fist. He may not have taken the threats literally, but he loathed the thought of the city being overrun with hippies, and prepared the police department for an invasion. He also stalled on distributing any permits, including to Dellinger, Davis, and Hayden.
Davis appealed to Justice Department official Roger Wilkins, who recognized his sincerity and attempted to negotiate with the mayor. “About five minutes into the conversation,” Wilkins remembers, “red started coming up from Daley’s collar, all up on these jowls, which seemed larger and larger and larger to me. And he launched into a monologue which lasted, I believe, 25 minutes. And when I started to interrupt and say, ‘But Mr. Mayor,’ he would just raise his voice.

via When the resistance confronted Democrats in 1968, the crackdown was vicious

Why Is New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell Working With White Nationalists?

~ mcequality

Now the city has a new mayor, and the fate of the Robert E. Lee statue is again up for debate. When asked about the future of the removed Confederate monuments in April, a few weeks before her inauguration on May 7, Mayor LaToya Cantrell—the city’s first black female mayor—told the Gambit: “My plan is to work with those who care about [the statues] and come up with a plan that I could support. And they will pay for it.”

via Why Is New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell Working With White Nationalists?

Voter ID: 340 did not vote after failing to show documents – BBC News

~ mcequality

About 340 people in five areas of England were turned away from voting in council elections because of a pilot scheme requiring proof of identity.
At least 688 were initially stopped but later returned to the polling station with the correct documents.
The Electoral Reform Society said requiring ID risked denying people their “democratic right”.
The government said an “overwhelming majority” of voters had the right documents.

via Voter ID: 340 did not vote after failing to show documents – BBC News

New Report Shows How ICE Uses ‘Gang Affiliation’ to Target Immigrant Communities

~ mcequality

Nonetheless, spurred by Trump’s rhetoric, in 2017, Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched “Operation Matador” aimed to “target violent gang members and their associates.” According to the National Gang Center, gangs form in the most disenfranchised communities as another symptom of social and economic inequality that plagues communities of color. The result of Matador, according to the report, is increased surveillance on communities of color by local law enforcement and federal agencies. According to ProPublica, in 2017, “ICE arrested nearly four times more immigrants simply for being suspected of belonging to MS-13 than it did in 2016.”

via New Report Shows How ICE Uses ‘Gang Affiliation’ to Target Immigrant Communities

For Powerful Men, #MeToo Is About Optics

~ mcequality

Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo quickly took ownership over the fall of former New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has resigned and is facing multiple criminal investigations after the New Yorker published allegations of his physical abuse against women. Cuomo, whose office has historically navigated questions of sexual harassment, “empowerment,” and women’s equality with the grace and subtlety of a dump truck careening through a bike lane, appears to believe himself up for the job.

via For Powerful Men, #MeToo Is About Optics