Category Archives: Racism

Our System of Mass Incarceration: Seeing the Parallels between Black Americans and Immigrants

Our System of Mass Incarceration: Seeing the Parallels between Black Americans and Immigrants

José Arnulfo Cabrera
December 19, 2018

In the last 40 years, the incarcerated population in the United States has increased 500%. There are currently 2.2 million people in U.S. prisons and jail. We incarcerate more people than any other country in the world thanks to drug and sentencing policies that disproportionately affects people of color. According to the NAACP, the effect of this callous approach to policing is riveting: Black people are incarcerated more than five times the rate than whites, the Black women prison population is twice that of white women, and Black children represent 32% of children who are arrested.  Then upon release, returning citizens face a myriad of obstacles that impede reintegration: employment background checks, low wages, and lack of affordable housing, coupled with banishment from government-sponsored safety net programs. For people of color, an encounter with the penal system could be its own death sentence. This is not how we as a country ought to be leading.

Yet, it doesn’t look like the U.S. will lose its standing as the world leader in mass incarceration with the presidency of Donald Trump, who campaigned as the “Law and Order” candidate.  Since Trump took office, a new Jim Crow 3.0 has emerged: the criminalization of undocumented immigrants. Undocumented Immigrants are considered criminals because they committed a misdemeanor crime, the equivalent to running a red light, for staying, or entering the U.S. without documentation. Under President’s Trump’s administration 448,000 undocumented immigrants have been returned or removed and includes those with and without prior convictions. Because President Obama’s DACA policy gave prosecutorial discretion to immigration judges, there are no records available for undocumented immigrants without prior convictions.

As a Government Relations associate responsible for managing a legislative portfolio that includes both immigration and criminal justice reform policy, I find it dangerously easy to spot the similar tactics used to criminalize immigrants and Black Americans. During Trump’s presidential campaign he said Mexican immigrants are rapists, and that they bring drugs and crime to the U.S. This past mid-term election cycle President Trump retweeted a fear-mongering campaign ad that portrayed immigrants as dangerous criminals who we must keep out of the U.S. The video bore a notable resemblance to the 1988 Republican “Willie Horton” presidential campaign ad now infamous for the “dog-whistle” racism it employed. While I’d like to believe these fear-mongering tactics don’t work, 34,000 of the 2.2 million people incarcerated in the U.S. are immigrants held in ICE facilities, and 60% of those incarcerated are people of color.

When we begin to look at how immigrants and Black Americans are incarcerated, we find another scary similarity. Since 2000, the amount of people incarcerated in private prisons has increased by 47% and the amount of immigrants held in private facilities has increased 442% since 2002. The corporations that manage these prisons and detention facilities are GEO Group, Core Civic, and Management and Training Corporation, which require the states in which they are located to arrest and imprison a center amount of people in their prison to make a profit. Because of this practice, it is in their best interests that the U.S. incarceration and detention rate does not decline. Additionally, the prisons owned by these corporations are almost always located in the middle of nowhere, making it difficult for the families and lawyers of incarcerated people to visit them. These tactics are used to make it harder for people of color to seek the justice they deserve.

The United States has created a system that values incarcerating individuals more than helping them return to their communities to be self-sufficient and contribute to society as we all do. Our country views a criminal as people who have always been bad, and will continue to be bad. But the only true evil in this system is mass incarceration.

 

(feature image courtesy of the California Innocence Project)

Stronger Borders, But Weaker Morals: What’s Happening to Asylum Seekers at the End of the Road?

Stronger Borders, But Weaker Morals: What Happens to Asylum Seekers at the End of the Road

Lindsay Hueston
November 26, 2018

On the westernmost portion of the U.S.-Mexico border, the taunting iron fence stretches from mountain to sand to sea – disappearing after a few hundred yards into the ocean. The water that chops around is the same, splashing both U.S. and Mexican soil. The most radical thing that struck me about being at the border was that birds could fly so easily over it, which seemed so normal – but the U.S. government, simultaneously, so heavily regulated the movement of people on land.

The U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, CA – June 2013

That was five years ago when I went to the border. Now, instead of birds, there are capsules of tear gas hurled over the border: the only thing in the air now is intense fear.

I’ve had the opportunity to visit the U.S.-Mexico border twice: first in the summer of 2013 during a college campus ministry conference in San Diego bordering Tijuana; and again in the winter of 2016 leading a service-immersion trip to El Paso, a city thoroughly integrated with its neighbor Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.

I never crossed over to Mexico in either of these encounters, but exchanged words, held hands, and prayed with people mere feet away from me, the only thing separating us an immense wall of steel and millions of dollars built up to create a militarized border. I stood on the U.S. side; a recently deported family stood less than three feet away in Mexico. We breathed the same air. We each huddled from the same chill.

That was three years ago; had I met that family at the border there now, they and their three kids would be running away from the fence to avoid tear gas and rubber bullets.

Last week the Trump administration put out a statement authorizing the use of lethal force against families and individuals from Central American countries who trekked thousands of miles to enter our country, with the possibility of closing “the whole border.”

The news of tear gas attacks on thousands of people coming to the United States to flee violence – and being met with more violence – hits me to my core.

Lethal force? For people seeking safety, fearing they’d die in their home country – and facing the possibility of death instead of new life?

I’ve eaten and laughed and cried with people whose life stories and trials are likely near-identical to the droves of asylum seekers searching for welcome in our country. What kind of country are we creating when we say we are a nation of immigrants, then turn away the most vulnerable?

The U.S.-Mexico border in Sunland Park, NM – January 2016

The images and videos I’ve seen are of women, children, families – people who should not be faced with the immensity of physical punishment that the U.S. is inflicting upon them for fleeing violence in their own countries. It is unconscionable that the Trump administration has come so far as to demonize infant children and their mothers, and anyone seeking asylum, so much so as to accept their injury, trauma, and potential death as merely a necessary consequence of our political debate and national security.

Firing tear gas on children and families who are here seeking asylum is both legally and morally wrong.

The actions of the U.S. government in turning people away and further militarizing our borders are a result of systematic racism, and do not reflect the core of our foundational communal values. The immigration system in our country has long been broken, but the recent attacks against immigrants and refugees under this administration have attempted to fundamentally reshape our system with the aim of closing our border to all but wealthy, white immigrants.

The structures of our country were never set up to benefit the most marginalized, but we don’t have to accept policies that perpetuate these evils. Instead, we can change them.

Children shouldn’t choke on tear gas. Parents shouldn’t have to make pilgrimages hundreds of miles on foot to seek a better life for their families. People in neighboring countries shouldn’t have to face a life-threatening decision: stay and die, or go and live.

Bridge into Juárez, Mexico from El Paso, Texas – January 2016

Yet our administration sees these migrants from Central America as criminals for the very fact that they are pleading to us for help.  We are failing to live up to our own laws and international human rights obligations to offer asylum to those who qualify. We are willing to let innocent people die before we open our borders.

It isn’t right – none of it is right.

We must continue to pressure the Trump administration against the harmful consequences they are inflicting upon our sisters and brothers who deserve protection, not condemnation.

NETWORK Responds to Week of Violence, Bigotry, and Anguish

NETWORK Responds to Week of Violence, Bigotry, and Anguish

NETWORK Staff
October 29, 2018

After a would-be assassin mailed pipe bombs to 14 prominent Democratic figures, including the families of 2 former Presidents; after a gunman tried to enter a Black Church in Kentucky intent on doing harm but was unable to gain access so walked to the nearest Kroger grocery store and killed two people instead; after all of that, there was the terrible mass shooting of Jewish worshippers at a Pennsylvania synagogue.  It was a devastating week and we are still reeling from it.

Nevertheless, we join the country in offering our most heartfelt and sincere condolences to the family and friends of those 11 people who were killed in Pennsylvania and the 2 people in Kentucky.  No words can express how profoundly we grieve with you in your time of need.  We stand together as the nation mourns your, and our, loss.

At the same time, we condemn, in the strongest possible language, these senseless murders of 13 ordinary people, worshipping at Tree of Life Synagogue and buying groceries at the local Kroger store.  They were simply going about their day until two white men, fueled by anti-Semitism and racial animus, attacked them.  These innocent people lost their lives to hate and fear in a country founded on freedom, opportunity and religious values.

But our Catholic faith tells us that we are all created in the image and likeness of God.  No exceptions.  And as a result, every human being is imbued with an essential dignity that must be honored, respected and protected.  The hate-filled actions of the gunmen belie that fundamental truth.   Whether or not you are religious or have some faith-based beliefs, there is something profoundly wrong in society when people turn to violence against others simply because they belong to a different religious tradition or have a different skin color.  We condemn every action based on hatred, bigotry and violence.

Sadly, this is not the first time we have witnessed, endured and decried the presence and menace of such evil in our midst.  But this can be the last.  This is a time when the whole country can stand up and speak out against it.  This is a time when we must demand of our leaders and each other the guarantee of civility, respect and safety for everyone.  For our sake.  For our children’s sake.  For the sake of our country’s future.  We must not let this hatred, violence and division defeat us.  The only question is:  will we do it?  Or will we once again pay a terrible price for our silence?  People are fond of saying “we are better than this.”  Now is the time to prove it.

May God grant eternal rest to those who were slain.  May God shower peace and consolation on all those who mourn.  And may God have mercy on all of us if we fail to stand up to this moment in history.

Legislative Update: Trump Administration Proposes New Regulation to Create a Wealth Test for Immigrants

Legislative Update: Trump Administration Proposes New Regulation to Create a Wealth Test for Immigrants

Laura Peralta-Schulte
October 24, 2018

On October 10, 2018 the Trump Administration proposed drastically expanding the definition of who constitutes a “public charge” through a proposed rule in the Federal Register. Such a change would have a detrimental impact on the health and wellbeing of millions of individuals and families. If approved, it would set a wealth test for those seeking to become lawful permanent residents (LPR or green card holders), to extend or change the category of a nonimmigrant visa, or to bring family members to the U.S.  During this term in Congress, the Trump Administration has urged Members to pass legislation cut the family based immigration system and to shift to a merit based system.  Having failed to persuade Congress to much such a change, the Administration is now proposing to change the rules which will in practice limit legal immigration to US to those who are wealthy, well connected and well-educated.

The Administration is punishing people who wait years for a visa to come to America, work hard, and build a better life for themselves and their families. Previously, the government only restricted immigration applications on public charge grounds if it determined an immigrant would likely depend on public cash assistance or need long-term medical care in an institution at the government’s expense. Now, the bar will be much higher and impossible for many average, hardworking people to overcome. Under the proposed rule, receipt of an expanded list of public benefits will also be counted against a person including basic food, health and housing assistance. The full list includes:

  • Long-term institutionalization at the government’s expense
  • Medicare Part D
  • Non-emergency Medicaid
  • Public Housing
  • Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program
  • Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance
  • Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
  • Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
  • Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
  • General Assistance

D.H.S. is also considering adding the Children’s Health Insurance Program to the list.

Further, under this rule, having income below 125 percent of the federal poverty level, or $25,975 for a family of three, would also be counted against an applicant.  A full third of all previous applicants had an income below this level. D.H.S. would also consider age, health, family status, assets, education and skills when determining whether an immigrant would become a public charge and certain characteristics would be deemed “negative factors,” or as indicators that the immigrant could become a public charge. Children, for example, start out with a negative mark because they don’t work.  If an immigrant has a medical condition, that will make it harder to become a lawful permanent resident. Preferencing the wealthy and failing to consider the tremendous gifts all immigrants bring to our communities is wrong.

The consequences of this proposed rule would be felt directly by those applying as well as U.S. citizen children: parents of U.S. citizen children could perceive they must choose between depriving their children of critical public health and safety programs or jeopardize their own immigration status. This is a painful and impossible decision. Both outcomes have devastating consequences for the wellbeing of children and families in America as one quarter of children in this country have at least one immigrant parent, and 90 percent of those children were born in the U.S. This is not a theoretical assertion.  The last time the United States made changes to the public charge rule, as part of the welfare reform effort in 1996, it instilled so much fear in communities that it led to significant drops in the use of programs critical to families. Even populations who were exempt from the public charge, like refugees and victims of trafficking, stopped using critical benefits that provided the support necessary for their families to become stable and healthy.  The use of a temporary assistance program known as TANF, for example, fell 78% among the refugee population despite the fact that refugees were not subject to the public charge test. The current proposed rule would similarly instill great fear in our communities across the country.

Finally, it is clear that the faith community and others who provide human needs services to those struggling in poverty will not be able to meet the needs of those impacted by this rule.  For example, Catholic Charities serves 1 in 9 individuals in need of food assistance in the United States. If the federal government implements the proposed changes, Catholic Charities would absorb an estimated $24 million in services that would no longer be covered.

We can all work to defeat this rule. Stay tuned for more resources and an upcoming action alert from NETWORK for how you can make a difference!

Measure More than GDP!

Measure More than GDP!

By Shannon Hughes
July 11, 2011

What if we cared enough about our wellness as people to run statistics about it on a ticker in Times Square? In the Philippines, governors compete for prestige by reporting on and their economic accomplishments, but also their people’s rank according to  the United Nations’ Human Development Index. Government in the US, however, doesn’t officially use this data, instead focusing on stock prices and the GDP to tell us something about the success of our country.

Sarah Burd-Sharps, co-author of The Measure of America, knows that we can’t stop there. By calculating a single number based on the three basic standards of the Human Development Index – health, education, and income –The Measure of America gives us another look at how America measures up. Not surprisingly, inequalities abound across gender, race, and geography. The good news is, we can visit and understand the places that are doing well, and strategically focus policies to decreases the “entire century of progress [that] separates New Jersey’s Asian Americans and South Dakota’s Native Americans” in terms of life expectancy. Check out this video to hear Burd-Sharps explain her work more fully. Ready for more facts? Check out http://www.measureofamerica.org/ for interactive resources including a Common Good Forecaster and a personal Well-o-Meter.

Blog: Race, Wealth, and Intergenerational Poverty

Blog: Race, Wealth, and Intergenerational Poverty

Page May
Jun 10, 2011

Blog: Race, Wealth, and Intergenerational Poverty

Article: There will never be a post-racial America if the wealth gap persists.

From The American Prospect-

“Since the election of Barack Obama, a growing belief has emerged that race is no longer a defining feature of one’s life chances. But the extraordinary overlap between wealth and race puts a lie to the notion that America is now in a post-racial era. The smallest racial wealth gap exists for families in the third quartile of the income distribution where the typical black family has only 38 percent of the wealth of the typical white family. In the bottom income quartile—the group containing the working poor—a black family has a startlingly low 2 percent of the wealth of the typical white family.

Given the importance of intergenerational transfers of wealth and past and present barriers preventing black wealth accumulation, private action and market forces alone cannot close an unjust racial wealth gap—public-sector intervention is necessary…However, wealth, given the racial disparity of its distribution, can be an effective non-race-based instrument to eliminate racial inequality. We could shift from an income-based to a wealth-based test for transfer programs. Policy eligibility based on net worth below the national median would qualify a large proportion of black households…. These changes in eligibility should be coupled with policies to promote asset building.”

Read more here.

Blog: Smithsonian Racism Exhibit Promotes Reflection

Blog: Smithsonian Racism Exhibit Promotes Reflection

Matthew Shuster
Sep 23, 2011

This past Wednesday, the NETWORK staff ventured to the National Museum of Natural History to visit the new exhibit on racism, entitled, “Race: Are We So Different.” The exhibit, developed by the American Anthropological Association, presented race in an interesting manner as it not only provided historical and modern cultural information on race, but scientific and psychological as well. It included fascinating, but revealing interactive portions such as a game where the visitor must guess a person’s ethnicity based solely on their voice recordings – reminding the visitor that racism stems from prejudice not just based on skin color, but also from the sounds that we produce to communicate

Scientifically, the exhibit demonstrates biological proof within the study of genetics and artifacts to emphasize the point that race is a manmade, fallible classification system, most often used by wealthier, powerful groups to enact unfair and blatantly unjust policies to increase the gap between the haves and the have-nots. My favorite stop of the exhibit was about the history of racism and housing in the United States in relation to the wealth gap.

We here at NETWORK aim to educate the public, as well as the business and political leaders of our country about the imperative necessity in these harsh economic times to promote policies based on love and acceptance instead of racial ignorance that will allow people without much to have a chance to increase their income based on hard work and ambition. Here is a link to the exhibit’s website:http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/race/. I recommend it! Maybe some of the Super Committee members will stop by for some inspiration? We could only hope.

Blog: More on SNAP – How Could They?

Blog: More on SNAP – How Could They?

Marge Clark, BVM
May 22, 2013

Today, the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to accept an amendment with racially skewed outcomes. Unanimous consent means NO SENATOR OBJECTED!

Senator Vitter (LA) proposed disallowing anyone ever convicted of any of a specified list of violent crimes – at any time in his/her life to ever again receive SNAP benefits. Further, it specifies that their children or other family members would have their benefit cut. It doesn’t matter how many decades have passed since the crime, and how much time was served. A young teen caught in a violent situation could have his/her family denied sufficient nutrition for the rest of his/her life.

It is common knowledge that minorities frequently have received less fair treatment in the courts than to those of us from European origins. They are less likely to have had good counsel. Low-income African-Americans in the South often faced hostile juries and judges. Police were not always as careful with evidence.

The supposed attempt is to keep the worst of repeat offenders from getting assistance. But, no one thought to tweak the amendment to protect the innocent families. We are reminded again of what is in Scripture: Children are not to be held accountable for the sins of their ancestors.

This amendment can still be rescinded or modified. Senators, consider what you have agreed to, and make necessary changes so as to not punish those who need protection.

Distracted

Distracted

Jeremiah Pennebaker
October 23, 2017

“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.” -Toni Morrison

I used to love watching football every Sunday with my parents. I remember the scene well: my mom, an avid New England Patriots fan, and my father, laying claim to both the Cowboys and the Steelers– the teams who thrived during his childhood– both screaming at the TV, the living room filled with the aroma of fried food, and the surround sound pumping the voice of Al Michaels throughout the house.

Football is a sentimental pastime for me, as I’m sure that it is for many people across the country. But like many others, football has become difficult for me to watch. Since the kneeling protests by Colin Kaepernick and a multitude of other players across the NFL have started, I have been distracted from the game that I love by something larger. I can no longer watch football without being reminded of how much my life does not matter. I can’t watch football without being reminded that as a Black man in America, I only exist as a problem that needs to be solved, an animal to be muzzled and caged, a commodity to be bought, sold, and discarded.

I can no longer plug in, turn on, and tune out of the daily distraction that is racism when I watch football. I can’t watch football without thinking that people care more about a song and a piece of cloth than they do about a 12-year-old boy being gunned down for playing in the park. It has tainted the game I love. Some in the United States would rather have me pledge allegiance to the flag than the country be a nation with liberty and justice for all. It is hard for me to stomach this and simply “stick to sports.”

Football was a distraction for me, and I’m sure for many others, from the daily struggles of life. Now, it brings my lack of humanity in our society to the forefront every Sunday when I hear about people heckling those who kneel in protest or see the overt and covert racist tweets about “ungrateful athletes.” I imagine that those people are frustrated because they are also distracted from their favorite pastime. This was something that they could retreat to when they did not want to be bothered by the distraction that is the Black man begging for change outside of the subway. The distraction that is the Black girl with the funny name and big hair who “only got the job because of affirmative action”. The distraction that is the Black kid at school who keeps complaining about the confederate flags flying in the parking lot. These distractions have infiltrated the sacred space of American football. It is no longer the noncontroversial space of hard work and meritocracy that Americans viewers are used to. They’re distracted because their once colorblind consciousness has been forced to recognize that these athletes are people too. Black people. Black athletes are Black lives and their lives should matter just as much as I want mine to.

Being a Woman of Color in the Trump Era

Being a Woman of Color in the Trump Era

LaTreviette Matthews
November 8, 2017

Historically our country has viewed women and people of color –especially those on the low end of the socio-economic scale– as second-class citizens.  Never before, however, had I experienced so many emotions for just being me than I did after the 2016 election. The first thing I felt was a tremendous amount of fear. After the election, there seemed to be a rise in hate crimes and attacks on unarmed men and women of color. I did not want to leave my house. Subsequently the fear left me and I turned to anger. I felt angry that after having an African American president for two terms, now in the year 2017, people of color were still being treated like they are less deserving of being in this country than everyone else. I felt the pain of my ancestors and was ready for war against white supremacy and white privilege.

When fighting for the right to self-determination, people of color have endured pain and resistance. I did not want to do things the old fashion way by engaging in non-violent protests, boycotts, demonstrations, and marches. I vacillated between fight and flight, all the while determined to protect myself and my family at all costs. My emotions were beginning to change again. I was in limbo. I was still angry but now angry with a purpose. I wanted to do something. For centuries people of color have tried many forms of fighting back against racism and injustice. I wanted to do something that was going to make a difference. This presidential election was the catalyst for my ferocity. Uncertain of my future and armed with a fierce determination, I sought community support.

Before last year, I did not consider myself a political person. I did vote in the last five presidential elections; I felt it was important for my vote to be counted. However, for presidential elections held before then, I was uninterested in social political activism and did not understand the importance of having my voice heard through voting. Although I was aware that people fought very hard in this country for African Americans to vote, it did not dawn on me that my voice would make a difference today. Growing up as a young woman of color, I did not have someone like Sister Simone at my high school or college to discuss my political views, encourage me to go to a protest, or show me how joining a political group could make a difference. I thought the political stuff was best left up to the adults.

I believe everything happens for a reason. I am convinced that this backlash against Obama’s presidency happened in order to shake things up and to awaken people to the injustices happening in this country; injustices that have gone on for far too long. Aside from racism, sexual harassment and assault, just to name a few, are issues that have impacted me the most following the 2016 election. Over the past five years working at NETWORK, I have become more political in my views, more involved, and more “WOKE.”  As a woman of faith, I know that life and death are in the power of the tongue. As a woman of color, I know the double standard that comes with freedom of speech.

Today, social media and “fake news” seem to have surpassed the reach of traditional media. In spite of its limitations, social media has become a platform for getting voices heard. To that end, I commit to using my platforms to hold people accountable for their actions. I have joined racial justice groups and forums in hopes to educate myself and others about racism and the challenges that people of color face in the United States. Today I am more hopeful and more connected. Women of all races are rising up and raising their voices. This makes me proud to be a woman of color in the fight for racial justice and social justice.