Category: US Social Problems

criminal justice and policing, immigration, labor, health, housing, education

Citizenship Questions, the Census, and Continued Attacks on Immigrants

By Bill Williams, July 17,2019

Introduction

On July 11, 2019, President Trump scrapped his plan to place a citizenship question on the 2020 Decennial Census and instead ordered federal agencies to provide citizenship data to the Census Bureau. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile pursuing what such a question would have done, its purpose, and other related subjects.

A Vicious Betrayal

I used to work at the Census Bureau (1974-1979), and I processed the entire 1970 Decennial Census many times for many different projects. I was familiar with how the Decennial Census is collected and processed. While I was not directly involved in the collection of Census data, I worked with people who were involved with it. Despite all efforts at trying to convince vulnerable minorities that the Census Bureau, unlike Immigration and Naturalization, is not out to harm them, it is nevertheless treated with distrust. This distrust is well founded, as I found out. During my last years at the Bureau, there was a test of the Census questionnaires in a certain Texas city. This was essentially a dry run for the actual 1980 Census. The Census Bureau put out the word that they will treat your information with care and keep it confidential and so on and so forth. The day after the test, immigration ran massive raids on that same city.

Continue reading “Citizenship Questions, the Census, and Continued Attacks on Immigrants”

Uniting by Class vs Identity in the Fight Against Racism

by Karyn Pomerantz, 5-24-2019

People represent themselves in many ways.  They indicate their pronouns to reflect gender identification or introduce themselves as belonging to a national or “racial” group.   Adoption of  the concept of intersectionality has made people further refine their identification with overlapping characteristics, such as an African-American woman or a biracial gay immigrant.  People also define themselves as high or low income, employed or jobless, and professional or service worker. Those not included in a particular classification may advance the causes of those in another group, for example whites opposing racism and men opposing sexism. But the fragmentation of identity by personal characteristics leaves many to believe they can only unite with and owe their deepest loyalty to those in the same group or groups. This reduces those in other groups to allies rather than comrades. Continue reading “Uniting by Class vs Identity in the Fight Against Racism”

DO WE NOW HAVE A FASCIST USA?

Quote actually from 1935!

 

by Ellen Isaacs

February, 2017

The word is being thrown around glibly now, but is Trumpism really fascism or isn’t it? And exactly what is fascism?

Most of us tend to think of Hitler and Nazi Germany as typifying this phenomenon, complete with the SS and concentration camps. We also think of fascism as a separate political system, distinct from capitalism or socialism. But both of these formulations are incomplete and decrease our ability to discern the true direction of our society.

Continue reading “DO WE NOW HAVE A FASCIST USA?”

How Racism Weakens the Fight for Women’s Suffrage: Multiracial Unity Is Crucial to Stopping Sexism

by Al Simpson

The struggle for women’s suffrage was long and admirable but it wasn’t without serious flaws. For the most part, it did not overcome racism or fear of foreigners or recognize the class basis of sexism. Despite universal suffrage today, white women workers still earn about 77% of the wages of white men, and black women workers earn about 61% of the wages of white men. All women suffer sexism on the job, and black women also suffer racism. We will examine the history of the women’s suffrage movement in detail and discuss what has been won, how the movement could have been stronger, and whether true equality is possible under U.S. capitalism.

Continue reading “How Racism Weakens the Fight for Women’s Suffrage: Multiracial Unity Is Crucial to Stopping Sexism”

STOP HOPKINS PRIVATE POLICE : ACTION ALERT

Karyn Pomerantz, March 25, 2019

The Johns Hopkins University plans to hire its own armed private police force to patrol the campus and residential streets around its properties in Baltimore, MD. The Hopkins medical campus in East Baltimore has expanded into surrounding neighborhoods for years displacing hundreds of people and allowing developers to move in with their expensive real estate. Universities have become large real estate companies with education on the side, gobbling up working class homes and destroying community bonds. Police forces serve the wealthy, protecting property and profit. Continue reading “STOP HOPKINS PRIVATE POLICE : ACTION ALERT”

ANTI-ASIAN RACISM, ANOTHER AMERICAN TALE

by Ellen Isaacs

Although no form of racism in the US can compare to the barbarism of black chattel slavery and its consequences that persist to the present, racist practices and ideas have cruelly affected other groups. One such is Asians, whose immigrant history is little known today. Moreover, there is a prevalent notion that Asian-Americans no longer suffer discrimination, and that they in fact fare better than many whites.

Continue reading “ANTI-ASIAN RACISM, ANOTHER AMERICAN TALE”

THE LOS ANGELES TEACHERS’ STRIKE AND OTHER TEACHER ACTIONS AROUND THE NATION

by Al Simpson

February 12, 2019

The Racist Nature of Education in the United States

According to the Center for American Progress report Unequal Education of 2012 (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/news/2012/08/22/32862/students-of-color-still-receiving-unequal-education/), schools are just as segregated in unequal now as they were in 1954 when Brown versus Board of Education was decided.  The average white student attends a school where 77% of students are white, and fully 40% of black and Latin students attend schools where over 90% or students are non-white. Especially in the big cities, racist segregation and differences in school funding have led to a dual education system, good in the suburbs and white upper income areas — where the students are prepared for college and professional, technical or managerial jobs — and poor elsewhere, especially in neighborhoods where there are people of color. Let’s look more deeply into this.

Continue reading “THE LOS ANGELES TEACHERS’ STRIKE AND OTHER TEACHER ACTIONS AROUND THE NATION”