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      US House passes bill banning discrimination against Black hairstyles

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      US House passes bill banning discrimination against Black hairstyles Natural Black hairstyles are often considered ‘unprofessional’ and school children face detention over dress code violations The US House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill banning race-based discrimination on hair, specifically textures or styles associated with a particular race or national origin such as dreadlocks, afros and braids.The bill is known as the Crown Act, standing for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. It was co-sponsored by the progressive Democratic representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, among others, who cited research showing that Black students were significantly more likely to face school detention, often for dress code violations based on their hair.‘Wear your crown, because change is coming’: Virginia joins states banning hair discriminationRead more“I want my two girls to grow up in a world where they know they will not be discriminated against because of their hair or the way they look,” Omar said in a press release on Friday after the vote.“Natural Black hair is often deemed ‘unprofessional’ simply because it does not conform to white beauty standards,” representative Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, a co-sponsor, said. “Discrimination against Black hair is discrimination against Black people.”The #CrownAct would prohibit hair discrimination by including an individual’s style of hair that is tightly-curled, locs, cornrows, twists, braids, Bantu knots, Afros and other styles commonly associated with a race or national origin in the definition of racial discrimination. pic.twitter.com/8zyxfT30Yx— Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (@RepBonnie) March 22, 2021
      The legislation attracted derision from some Republicans, including the rightwing Colorado representative Lauren Boebert, who referred to it as “the bad hair bill”.The Crown Act passed with some bipartisan support in the House and will now move to the Senate, where it is sponsored by the New Jersey Democratic US senator Cory Booker, where it has an uphill challenge, needing to secure 60 votes in the evenly divided chamber to pass.Several states have passed local versions of the law.TopicsRaceHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsDiscrimination at worknewsReuse this content More

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      Are white Christians under attack in America? No, but the myth is winning

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      Are white Christians under attack in America? No, but the myth is winningAlvin ChangThe idea that the American way of life is under threat from a variety of ‘others’ is wildly overblown but widely believed Every evening, Fox News tells a story about America.It’s a story about how traditional American values are being undermined by radical leftists – how marginalized populations actually account for a huge portion of the country, and that they want to take America from white Christians. These radicals are atheists, Muslims, Jews. They are people of color, vegans, coastal city dwellers and, of course, Democrats.The real reason Republicans are so interested in the census | David DaleyRead moreAnd it turns out this story is winning.Earlier this year, YouGov asked Americans to estimate what percentage of American adults fall under a certain identity group. On average, respondents assumed that 30% of Americans are Jewish, 27% are Muslim, 21% are transgender and 20% earn more than a million dollars a year. In reality, each of those groups account for less than 2% of the population.YouGov pollThere is a clear story in the way Americans perceive our country.We assume there are far fewer white Christians than there actually are, and that there are far more of everyone else – people of color, immigrants, non-Christians, non-straight people and non-binary people. To be fair, Americans also overestimated the number of left-handed people (estimate was 32%; reality is 11%). But it’s hard to ignore the directionality of our misperceptions.These misperceptions have real political consequences.In 2014, researchers Maureen Craig and Jennifer Richeson surveyed hundreds of white Americans who identified as political independents. They told half of them that California had recently become a majority-minority state – that white people were no longer the majority. The other half (the control group) weren’t told anything about white people becoming a minority.Then they asked everyone the same question: do you lean toward Democrats or Republicans?Those who were told white people were now in the minority in California were significantly more likely to support Republicans. Among people who live in the American west, the control group favored Democrats 31% to 16%. The group that was told California was now minority-majority flipped their preference – 33% leaning toward Republicans, 19% leaning toward Democrats.In other words, white Americans lean toward Republicans when they think they’re becoming the minority.To be clear, America really is browning. In 2013, the majority of newborn Americans were people of color. In 2014, the majority of public school students were kids of color. And in the next 25 years, America will no longer be a majority white country – at least according to the US census’s racial categories.But conservatives have long known that stoking racial or faith-based fears works, and they’re leaning into this messaging.I spent much of my childhood attending white evangelical Christian churches in the midwest, and I remember sermon after sermon painting Christians as victims. It started with a story about how Christians were being persecuted in a foreign country, often China, and how that echoes the biblical stories about Christians being persecuted. Inevitably the sermon would turn to Jesus being executed by the Romans, and then extrapolate this persecution to our lives as American Christians. The message was clear: it’s us versus the world – and the purpose of everyone else is to squash the fire of our faith.It was immensely effective and often translated into policy positions, like being anti-abortion and pro-Iraq war. But more importantly, it painted white Christians as an aggrieved group – a belief that it’s not just you under attack, but people like you. This victim complex can be critical to political movements. That’s partially what drove thousands of people to Washington on 6 January 2021 to protest against the presidential election results. For an individual protester, it made no sense to call out from work, get on a bus and march on the Capitol; the outcome would have been the same regardless of whether or not you showed up. But if you tell yourself that you’re joining a group of “patriots” who are being erased from this country, and that you’re fighting for the soul of America?Well, that story makes sense – and even though it’s patently incorrect, it’s the story that’s winning.TopicsRaceOpinionCensusUS politicscommentReuse this content More

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      Maryland Democrat’s leaked email casts doubt over Black candidates’ electability

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      Maryland Democrat’s leaked email casts doubt over Black candidates’ electabilityBarbara Goldberg Goldman wrote in her email that three previous attempts to elect a Black governor had failed Doubts about the electability of Black candidates “should have no place in America in 2022”, a contender for the Democratic nomination for governor in Maryland said, after an email from a party official and donor expressing such doubt went public.The email from Barbara Goldberg Goldman, deputy treasurer of the state Democratic party, was obtained by Axios. The news site noted the disparity between such doubts and Democratic reliance on Black voters in states across the US, not least in the election of Joe Biden as president.Beto O’Rourke calls Texas governor Greg Abbott an ‘authoritarian’ and ‘thug’Read moreIn the email, which Axios said was written “to other party insiders”, Goldberg Goldman explained why she was backing Tom Perez, a former labor secretary and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, for the nomination for governor this year.“So, my thinking beyond here is the age-old question,” Goldberg Goldman wrote. “Which candidate(s) have a better chance in the general election of beating an attractive female [Larry] Hogan team member for whom both [Democrats] and [Republicans] have expressed genuine likability?”The possible Republican nominee referred to as a successor to Hogan, who has served two terms, is Kelly Schulz, currently state secretary for commerce.“Consider this,” Goldberg Goldman wrote. “Three African American males have run statewide for governor and have lost. Maryland is not a blue state. It’s a purple one. This is a fact we must not ignore. In the last 20 years, only eight have been with a Democratic governor. We need a winning team. IMHO.”A spokesperson for Wes Moore, an author and non-profit chief executive who is one of three Black candidates for the nomination, said: “The idea that there would be skepticism about a candidate’s electability because they are Black should have no place in the Democratic party in Maryland – a state with both incredible diversity and disparities – or anywhere else in America in 2022.”John King, US education secretary under Barack Obama, is also running. He told Axios he had heard similar sentiments to those expressed by Goldberg Goldman.“In Maryland,” he said, “we have a very diverse state and a diverse electorate, so we are well-positioned to have our first African American governor. Having served in the administration of our first Black president, one would have hoped we’d be further along in these conversations.”The other Black candidate for the nomination, former county executive Rushern Baker, said: “While I don’t agree, it’s a fair criticism, understanding we haven’t seen it happen yet … Although those candidates didn’t win, it’s not impossible. They just weren’t the right candidates at the right time.”A Perez spokesperson said: “These hurtful and ill-conceived comments do not reflect the values of our campaign – as evidenced by Tom’s entire career to advance civil rights and expand opportunity.”Axios said: “Past performance is a valid index to use when considering future successes. The invocation of race as a determining factor, though, takes the discussion beyond pure politics.”Goldberg Goldman said: “I regret making the statement. It neither accurately expresses nor depicts my views, and does not represent my lifelong commitment to supporting Democratic causes and candidates.”TopicsMarylandDemocratsRaceUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      West Virginia Republicans miss own deadline to pass schools race bill

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      West Virginia Republicans miss own deadline to pass schools race billSupermajority runs out of time to greenlight House version of bill but does pass abortion restriction Republicans who enjoy a supermajority in the West Virginia legislature nonetheless failed to pass a controversial bill restricting how race is taught in public schools because they missed a midnight deadline in the final moments of the 2022 session.Butt of the joke: Bette Midler fires back at West Virginia governor Jim JusticeRead moreLawmakers spent weeks during the legislative session debating and advancing proposed bills similar to the Anti-Racism Act of 2022. It wasn’t immediately clear why Republicans waited until late on Saturday to take a final vote. The act had passed the Senate and House overwhelmingly and the vote was merely to greenlight the House version. “We took the vote, but essentially that didn’t matter because it didn’t make deadline,” Senate spokesperson Jacque Bland said, adding that the education bill now has no path to becoming law. A separate bill restricting abortion access did pass, minutes before midnight. It bars parents from seeking abortion because they believe their child will be born with a disability. It provides exemptions in the case of a medical emergency or in cases where a fetus is “non-medically viable”. Republican lawmakers appeared unhurried as the clock ticked down on Saturday, spending about an hour passing resolutions honoring two outgoing senators. Supporters of the Anti-Racism Act of 2022 said it would prevent discrimination based on race in K-12 public schools, banning teachers from telling students one race “is inherently racist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously”. The bill said students can’t be taught moral character is determined by race, or that a person by virtue of their race “bears responsibility for actions committed by other members of the same race”. It would have created a mechanism for reporting complaints and for the legislature to collect data on how many complaints are substantiated each year. It did not specify punishment. Legislators convened at the snowy state Capitol on Saturday with dozens of bills to finalize. The House speaker, Roger Hanshaw, arrived late to a debate on the state budget bill because he was delayed by a car accident on roads which were still being cleared. The bill dealing with disabilities and abortion was passed minutes before midnight, following 90 minutes of discussion. It now moves to the desk of the Republican governor, Jim Justice. “This is about science and morality,” said Republican Kayla Kessinger. “It’s about, ‘When does life begin?’ and whether or not it has a value.” Democrats voiced their opposition, with Evan Hansen saying the bill does nothing substantial to help people with disabilities and their families. “This is an attempt to use people with disabilities as props for an anti-abortion agenda, something that the disability community has not asked for, as far as I know – and that’s just wrong,” Hansen said. “It creates government overreach into personal family medical decisions.” A physician who violates the law could see their license to practice medicine suspended or revoked. The bill also requires physicians to submit a report, with patients’ names omitted, to the state for each abortion performed and whether “the presence or presumed presence of any disability in the unborn human being had been detected”. The reports would include the date of the abortion and the method used, as well as confirming the doctor asked the patient if they chose an abortion because the baby might have a disability. These reports must be submitted within 15 days of each abortion. That bill wasn’t the only abortion-related legislation brought forward but lawmakers declined on Saturday to take up a bill banning abortions after 15 weeks. Lawmakers voted 90-9 to send a $4.635bn budget to the governor’s desk after two hours of discussion on the House floor. The bill includes 5% pay raises for state employees and teachers and an additional bump for state troopers. The budget does not include a 10% personal income tax cut passed by the House last month. Lawmakers also promised that social workers in the foster care system will see a 15% pay raise. After a bill to provide the increases was essentially gutted, they advised the Department of Health and Human Resources to provide the raises by eliminating open positions. Additionally, lawmakers passed a bill decriminalizing fentanyl test strips, which can signal the presence of synthetic opioid in illicit drugs. Other bills repealed the state’s soda tax and banned requiring Covid-19 vaccination cards to enter state agencies or public colleges and universities. TopicsWest VirginiaRepublicansRaceUS politicsUS educationnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘It’s a scare tactic’: Pamela Moses, the Black woman jailed over voting error, speaks out

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      ‘It’s a scare tactic’: Pamela Moses, the Black woman jailed over voting error, speaks outExclusive: Longtime activist who still faces the possibility of a retrial tells the Guardian she believes she’s being ‘persecuted’ for being outspoken Pamela Moses, the Memphis woman who was sentenced to six years in prison for trying to register to vote, says she is grateful to be released – but believes the case against her was a “scare tactic” to discourage other people from casting a ballot.Moses was released from prison on bond on 25 February after a judge unexpectedly granted her request for a new trial, citing evidence, obtained by the Guardian, that had not been disclosed to Moses’ defense.New evidence undermines case against Black US woman jailed for voting error | The fight to voteRead moreIn her first interview since being freed Moses recalled the moment in the courtroom when Judge W Mark Ward decided to grant her a new trial – and said she was “overwhelmed with joy”. Video shows Moses nearly in tears and screaming in excitement when Ward ruled he was granting her a new trial.She knew that judges rarely reverse themselves and grant requests for new trials, but she had been praying Ward would see beyond her criminal record. “I was very grateful that God had allowed him to correct his own mistake, and that’s what you need in the criminal justice system.”But Moses, a longtime activist who founded the Memphis chapter of Black Lives Matter, still faces the possibility of a retrial. Moses says she was unaware she was ineligible to vote, and state officials acknowledged they made an error in indicating to her that she was eligible. Her case has brought renewed focus to the practice, common in many US states, of depriving people convicted of certain felonies of their voting rights for widely varying lengths of time, but sometimes for life.“It’s a scare tactic, what they did to me,” Moses told the Guardian. She thinks other people with criminal convictions will think twice before seeking to cast a ballot in elections. “It’s like, ‘if she went to jail for that, we don’t need to do that. We don’t need to follow her because we’re going to be in jail for six years too.’ I would say it sends a confusing message to people who want to vote.“Why should people be worried if they’re going to be prosecuted for doing their civic duty?”Moses is a well-known activist in Memphis who has filed numerous cases in local and federal courts, often representing herself. She has been outspoken against a number of local officials, including the local election commission, judges and Amy Weirich, the local district attorney who is prosecuting her case. She said she believes she’s being “persecuted” for being so outspoken.“If you silence the loudest person that’s screaming, ‘hey Black people, go vote, don’t vote for her, remove her from office’ then you eliminate the opposition,” she said. “I believe, not only if I wasn’t Black, but if my name wasn’t Pamela Moses, this probably never would have been a case.”Moses’ case attracted national attention because of the harshness of her sentence, which seemed at odds with the evidence in the case. Before the trial, election officials in Memphis conceded that they erroneously never removed her from the voter rolls after she pleaded guilty to felony charges in 2015.In 2019, Moses launched a campaign for mayor of Memphis and sought clarification from court officials about whether she had completed her felony probation and could appear on the ballot. A judge told her she was still on probation, but Moses still believed she was eligible and went to a probation office and asked them to verify her eligibility and sign a certificate saying she could vote. After about an hour of investigating, the probation officer did so.Prosecutors blamed Moses for this. In their request for an indictment, they wrote she “convinced” the officer to sign off on the document. And during her sentencing hearing, Ward, the judge overseeing her case, accused her of deceiving the probation officer into signing off on the eligibility certificate. Moses said she didn’t trick anyone and was stunned to hear such an assertion.“I was like wow, I need to go to magic school or something. I’m the new Houdini. I’ve got that much power to trick somebody I’ve never met, never seen in my life into doing something just by walking in the place? You know, no.”But a document obtained by the Guardian last month, after the trial concluded, showed that probation officials investigated the incident and found that the probation officer, identified as Manager Billington, had made an error on his own. Even though Moses’ file said she was still on probation, Billington thought that another person had made a mistake. The official who conducted the investigation ultimately determined that Billington was negligent and to blame for the error.Moses went out of her way to defend Billington. “I don’t like how everybody is portraying that supervisor as a bad person. That man did his job,” she said. “I don’t think that man did anything other than what he could do based on the information that he had in front of him.”But Moses was critical of Weirich, the prosecutor, who has said Moses bears some of the responsibility for her sentence because she declined to accept a plea deal that would not have resulted in additional prison time. “I gave her a chance to plead to a misdemeanor with no prison time,” Weirich said in February “She requested a jury trial instead. She set this unfortunate result in motion and a jury of her peers heard the evidence and convicted her.”Moses pushed back on that characterization. “I haven’t done anything in my mind wrong so why would I plead to anything?” she said.“We have a right to that. But you want me to give it up because you want it to be right? It was about the principle to me. “I hadn’t done anything wrong.”Weirich’s office did not immediately return a request for comment. Weirich has yet to say whether she will pursue a new trial. Moses and her new legal team plan to hold a press conference in Memphis on Friday asking her to drop all of the charges.Her prosecution may already be having a local policy impact. Citing her case, a coalition of civil rights groups is pushing the county commission to conduct a “racial equity audit” to examine whether there is racial discrimination in Weirich’s office.The Moses case is one of several high-profile instances that underscores the disparity between how white and Black defendants can be treated when it comes to election crimes. Several white defendants across the country received minimal punishments, such as probation, for purposefully impersonating family members in order to cast multiple votes – yet Black people who made mere mistakes when attempting to follow complicated processes and procedures received prison sentences.“The reason why Ms Moses’ situation has got the attention of the nation is because this sort of disparate treatment happens all the time,” said Rodney Diggs, one of her attorneys. “The disparate treatment between people of color and non-people of color. You can just see the differences.”Moses had been in jail since December, when the judge overseeing her case abruptly revoked her bond. She said that she contracted Covid-19. She was unaware of the attention her case was getting, except for periodic dispatches from a jail nurse who would mention that she had seen her on the local news.Her incarceration had been particularly hard on Tyler, her 24-year-old son, who she said lost his job and took on tasks like handling her mail and bills.Since she’s been released, she said she has spent time with her 13-year-old son Taj – a “mini me”. The weekend after she was released, they went to a funeral for a relative who had been killed. She has been taking him to school and they watch Netflix together. She hasn’t had to explain her case to him because he’d researched it on the internet. “He asked me certain things. And I just divert,” she said.Still, Moses said she still has a lot of anxiety. On Wednesday, she was at 40% back to normal. On Thursday, she said she was up to 65%.“I’m anxious. I’m worried because these charges haven’t gone away,” she said. “I mean look at how much money they spent on this. Just think about it. They probably could have built a school with all the money they spent prosecuting me over a piece of paper.”TopicsUS voting rightsFight to voteUS politicsRaceTennesseeMemphisfeaturesReuse this content More

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      US census produced huge undercount of Latino population in 2020

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      US census produced huge undercount of Latino population in 2020 Census also undercounted Black and Native Americans, while overcounting non-Hispanic white people and Asian Americans The 2020 US census undercounted America’s Latino population at more than three times the rate of the 2010 census, according to a report released on Thursday by the US Census Bureau.The census also undercounted the nation’s Black and Native American residents, while overcounting non-Hispanic white people and Asian Americans.The census helps guide the annual federal distribution of $1.5tn for public services including education, healthcare and transportation. Undercounting communities results in reduced political representation on local, state and federal level.According to the report, Latinos had a net undercount of nearly 5%. The Black population had a net undercount of 3.3%, a slight increase from a 2.1% shortfall a decade ago. American Indian and Alaska Natives living on reservations had a net undercount of 5.6%, up from 4.9% in the last census.The non-Latino white population had a net overcount in the 2020 census of 1.6% while Asians had a net overcount of 2.6%.In comparison, the non-Latino white population had a net overcount of 0.8% in 2010 while Asians had a net undercount of 0.08% that year.Overall, the 2020 census overlooked 0.24% of the total US population. In 2010, the census missed 0.01% of the national population.During a webinar on Thursday, the Census Bureau director, Robert Santos, said numerous factors played a role in the undercount of the Latino community, including the pandemic and increased joblessness and housing insecurity.“I’m personally not surprised to see the results we see today,” he said.Arturo Vargas, CEO of NALEO Educational Fund, expressed concerns about the undercount during the conference, saying that throughout his 35 years of tracking the census, he had never seen such a significant undercount in the Latino population.“As you can imagine, we are just terribly – I can’t even find the word right now – upset about the extent of the Latino undercount,” Vargas said.“These numbers are devastating. Once again, we see an overcount of white Americans and an undercount of Black and Hispanic Americans,” the National Urban League CEO, Marc Morial, told reporters on a phone call. “I want to express in the strongest possible terms our outrage.”The report cited various factors that influenced the undercounts, stating, “The 2020 Census faced many challenges, such as conducting fieldwork during the Covid-19 pandemic. Other challenges … included controversy around a proposed citizenship question, and changes in the duration of the Nonresponse Followup and other operations.”In 2019, the Donald Trump administration proposed adding a question to the 2020 census which would ask: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” The proposal, which eventually failed, led to concerns that many Latinos and immigrants would not return their census forms out of fear that their responses could be used against them.Despite the undercount, the bureau said that the results are “fit to use” for redistricting and are of “high quality”.“In fact, the quality of the 2020 census data is quite remarkable amid all the challenges we faced last year,” the bureau said.TopicsCensusUS politicsRacenewsReuse this content More

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      US Senate unanimously passes bill to make lynching a federal hate crime

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      US Senate unanimously passes bill to make lynching a federal hate crimeAn earlier version of the bill, which was blocked in the Senate, was passed by the House in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder The US Senate has unanimously passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, a bill to make lynching a federal hate crime. Such efforts had failed for more than a century.Bobby Rush, the Illinois Democrat who introduced the measure in the House, said: “Despite more than 200 attempts to outlaw this heinous form of racial terror at the federal level, it has never before been done. Today, we corrected that historic injustice. Next stop: [Joe Biden’s] desk.”Lynching Postcards: a harrowing documentary about confronting historyRead moreThe New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker, Senate co-sponsor with Tim Scott of South Carolina, a Republican, said: “The time is past due to reckon with this dark chapter in our history and I’m proud of the bipartisan support to pass this important piece of legislation.”Subject to Biden’s signature, the bill will make lynching a hate crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison.According to the Equal Justice Initiative, about 4,400 African Americans were lynched in the US between the end of Reconstruction, in the 1870s, and the years of the second world war. Some killings were watched by crowds. postcards and souvenirs were sometimes sold.The bill heading for Biden’s desk is named for Emmett Till, who was 14 when he was tortured and murdered in Mississippi in August 1955. Two white men were tried but acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury, then confessed. The killing helped spark the civil rights movement.The House passed Rush’s anti-lynching measure 422-3. Three Republicans voted no: Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Chip Roy of Texas and Andrew Clyde of Georgia.In 2020, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis and amid national protests for racial justice, the chamber passed an earlier version of the bill with a similar bipartisan vote.Then, the measure was blocked in the Senate. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said he did so because “the bill as written would allow altercations resulting in a cut, abrasion, bruise or any other injury no matter how temporary to be subject to a 10-year penalty”.Paul also called lynchings a “horror” and said he supported the bill but for its too-broad language.Kamala Harris, then a senator from California, now vice-president, called Paul’s stance “insulting”.Late last year, in another high-profile case, three white men were convicted in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a young Black man who went jogging in a Georgia neighbourhood.Will justice finally be done for Emmett Till? Family hope a 65-year wait may soon be overRead moreIn an interview published on Tuesday, Christine Turner, director of the Oscar-nominated short Lynching Postcards: Token of a Great Day, referred to the Arbery murder when she told the Guardian: “There are many what people refer to as modern-day lynchings that may cause some people to take our history of lynching more seriously.”On Monday, in a further statement, Rush said lynching was “a longstanding and uniquely American weapon of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy.“Perpetrators of lynching got away with murder time and time again – in most cases, they were never even brought to trial … Today, we correct this historic and abhorrent injustice.”He also cited a great civil rights leader: “I am reminded of Dr King’s famous words: ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’”TopicsRaceUS crimeUS CongressUS SenateHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More