Support Black-Owned Businesses: 181 Places to Start Online

27th June 2021 ~ mcequality ~ Leave a comment

Racial and wealth disparities in the United States have been thrown into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic and racial unrest throughout 2020. We see more clearly than ever just how often Black business owners and creatives have been thought of as less than their Caucasian counterparts – and Black businesses are paying the price.
Black businesses are impacted more deeply than Caucasian businesses by COVID-related closures, due to the long history of racial inequality that’s now exacerbated by the ongoing state of emergency.
It feels like an overwhelming problem – and it is – but there’s one simple thing you can do right now to help: Shop at Black-owned businesses whenever you can.
Supporting Black-owned businesses helps provide much-needed stability to business owners that have been hard hit by the pandemic. And you’re laying a foundation to continue to support Black businesses long after the crisis is over.

https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/support-black-owned-businesses/

A Louisiana Parish Jailed a U.S. Citizen for Being Latinx. We’re Suing. | American Civil Liberties Union

25th August 2019 ~ mcequality ~ Leave a comment

Ramon Torres had been a U.S. citizen for nearly ten years when he was detained for four days on an immigration hold – despite having a U.S. passport, a Louisiana driver’s license, and a Social Security card, and despite that fact that a court ordered his release.

Torres’ ordeal began in August 2018, when he was pulled over and arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. Torres, a naturalized U.S. citizen since 2009, was carrying multiple forms of identification, including his driver’s license and other security credentials. Torres was booked at the Ascension Parish Jail, and the next day the Parish Court ordered his release.

via A Louisiana Parish Jailed a U.S. Citizen for Being Latinx. We’re Suing. | American Civil Liberties Union

Will North Carolina’s Supreme Court Allow Racism to Remain a Persistent Factor in its Death Penalty? | American Civil Liberties Union

25th August 2019 ~ mcequality ~ Leave a comment

In 2009, North Carolina passed the Racial Justice Act (RJA), which allowed defendants to strike the death penalty from their cases if they could show that racial discrimination was a factor in their prosecution. The law came as a response to a series of exonerations of Black people who were falsely convicted of crimes they did not commit by all-white or nearly all-white juries. The legislature took a bold step to address was what suspected to be deeply troubling evidence of racism infecting the death penalty—but no one knew for sure what evidence uncovered by the RJA would find.

via Will North Carolina’s Supreme Court Allow Racism to Remain a Persistent Factor in its Death Penalty? | American Civil Liberties Union

The Challenges of Breastfeeding as a Black Person | American Civil Liberties Union

16th August 2019 ~ mcequality ~ Leave a comment

WEB19-Breastfeeding-iStock-1160×768.jpg

Inequities in access to health care put breastfeeding out of reach for many Black people (iStock)
The fight to protect individual choices about reproductive care, including breastfeeding, is an ongoing battle. The central lesson of the reproductive justice movement is that choice means little without access. That lesson applies equally to breastfeeding.

Though laws, in the workplace and other contexts, are in place to protect the right to breastfeed, many low-income women and women of color face entrenched structural barriers that hinder their ability to breastfeed before they can even consider if it is the right choice for them. This problem is particularly acute for Black women, who have the lowest breastfeeding initiation rate of all racial groups at 69.4 percent, compared with 85.9 percent of white women, and 83.2 percent of women overall. They also have the shortest breastfeeding duration, with 44.7 percent of black women breastfeeding at 6 months compared with 62 percent of white women and 57.6 percent of women overall.

via The Challenges of Breastfeeding as a Black Person | American Civil Liberties Union

Meek Mill Says He Was Denied Entry to a Vegas Hotel Because He’s Black

12th August 2019 ~ mcequality ~ Leave a comment

On Saturday, Meek Mill accused a Las Vegas hotel of racism after its staff denied him entry and threatened to have him arrested for trespassing.

The rapper posted several videos on Twitter of a confrontation with security at the Cosmopolitan, in which he was told he’d be arrested for trespassing if he got out of his car. According to TMZ, he’d arrived at the Marquee Dayclub to see DJ Mustard when he was told he’d have to leave.

via Meek Mill Says He Was Denied Entry to a Vegas Hotel Because He’s Black

Facebook Pilots Anti-Hate Speech Moderation Team Because, Y’know, All the Nazis and Stuff

9th August 2019 ~ mcequality ~ Leave a comment

Four million. That’s the number of pieces of content on Facebook that the platform claims it took action against for containing hate speech from January to March this year, according to its most recent transparency report. (And to put a fine point on it, that’s just the content it actually caught.) In a press briefing this afternoon, vice president of global operations Justin Osofsky teased a plan to pilot a subgroup of moderators who are specifically tasked with handling hate speech.

via Facebook Pilots Anti-Hate Speech Moderation Team Because, Y’know, All the Nazis and Stuff

Immigrants’ Rights Aren’t Possible If We Don’t Stop Criminalizing Border Crossing | American Civil Liberties Union

7th August 2019 ~ mcequality ~ Leave a comment

Last night’s Democratic presidential debate shined an unlikely spotlight on a little-known section of the federal code — 8. U.S.C. 1325. This law makes crossing the border without legal authorization a federal misdemeanor. Its counterpart, 8 U.S.C. 1326, makes re-crossing the border a felony. They are the laws the Trump administration has leveraged to take thousands of children from their parents at the border.

via Immigrants’ Rights Aren’t Possible If We Don’t Stop Criminalizing Border Crossing | American Civil Liberties Union

‘His only tool is racism’: why Trump’s bigoted tirade could be a vote winner | US news | The Guardian

19th July 2019 ~ mcequality ~ Leave a comment

It was foul and repugnant. But was it a vote winner?

Donald Trump’s bigoted tirade against four congresswoman of colour, telling them to “go back” to the countries they came from, prompted widespread revulsion – the comments “drip with racism”, said the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer – and yet will not necessarily damage his chances of reelection.

On the contrary, the US president seems to regard divisive and nativist rhetoric as his best chance of clinging on to the White House next year. And, analysts say, he may be right.

via ‘His only tool is racism’: why Trump’s bigoted tirade could be a vote winner | US news | The Guardian

Study Shows Black Girls Feel the Impact of 'Adultification'

23rd May 2019 ~ mcequality ~ Leave a comment

Research has already shown that black girls are seen by adults as less childlike than white girls. This phenomenon, known as “adultification,” was first documented two years ago by researchers at Georgetown Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality. Now, a followup study reveals that, not surprisingly, black girls and women sharply feel the impact of “adultification.” As one study participant put it, “[T]o society, we’re not innocent. And white girls are always innocent.”

In an earlier 2017 study, Georgetown Law researchers found that black girls, even those as young as 5 years old, were seen by adults as less needing of comfort, nurturing, protection, and support than white girls. The researchers also found that black girls were perceived as more independent and knowledgeable about sex. In this latest study, researchers set out to understand how black girls and women experienced this “adultification” through a series of national focus groups.

via Study Shows Black Girls Feel the Impact of 'Adultification'