Economic Justice

Activists In Ferguson Broaden Scope, Unveil ‘Power Behind The Police’

July 27, 2015 Sarah Jaffee, www.rollingstone.com Strategize! Economic Justice, Inequality, police brutality, Racial Justice, Wars and Militarism

By Sarah Jaffee in Rolling Stone - Roz Brown, one of the activists who spoke at the protests, tells Rolling Stone that racism is "embedded in the infrastructures" of St. Louis, from business to education to the judicial system. She points to the way police lined up to protect business headquarters when the protesters arrived last week — the same police who, in Ferguson, stared down protesters behind armored vehicles and riot shields. Unequal systems reinforce each other, Brown says. Frankie Edwards says he's troubled that these executives make a lot of money, but don't put enough of it back into the community in ways that help people like him: young black men who are constantly harassed by police. To him, they have a responsibility to build a city that works for everyone.

Equality Is Far Away: Conversation W/ Authors Of “Queer (In)Justice”

July 20, 2015 Joe Macaré, www.truth-out.org Educate! Book Review, Economic Justice, LGBTQ, Queer, Racial Justice

By Joe Macaré in Truthout - LGBTQ leadership has also had an impact on broader campaigns and movements around police accountability at both the national and local levels. It's well known that both #BlackLivesMatter and BYP 100 were launched by queer Black womenwho have consistently insisted on a framework for understanding state violence and anti-Black racism that centers on the lives of Black women, trans and queer folks. Of course, that insistence hasn't always been heeded - but Black queer women on the front lines in Ferguson, in the leadership of BYP 100, and in chapters of #BlackLivesMatter and BYP 100 across the country have made it clear that this is a nonnegotiable part of the current movement and moment.

Why Is The Military Sacred?

May 31, 2015 Sam Smith, www.prorevnews.blogspot.com Educate! Economic Justice, Media, Peace, Wars and Militarism, Youth

By Sam Smith in ProRevNews. On no single issue, is the media’s pretension of objectivity more regularly violated. Its true purpose in this matter is to perpetuate the myth of the sacred role of the warrior. In fact, as Joseph Conrad noted, the hero and the coward are those who, for one brief moment, do something out of the ordinary. At least the ones we honor, that is. The career firefighter, the inner city grandmother raising six grandchildren whose father is in jail and mother has a lousy job, or the teacher year after year helping to save those who society has preemptively discarded are not treated as sacred, as heroes, or as worthy of special honor during political campaigns and or on the evening news. But killing some Iraqis, or being killed by them: that’s the real thing.

Report: US Kids Are Poorer Than They Were Decades Ago

May 28, 2015 Rebecca Klein, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Children, Economic Justice, Education, Poverty

Teachers reported that kindergarten students from affluent households in the 2010-2011 school year were more likely to have positive approaches to learning than those whose families live below the poverty line, according to the center's annual report, called The Condition of Education 2015. A positive approach to learning includes paying attention in class, keeping belongings organized and enthusiasm for learning. Female students, students who were older at the start of the school year, students who came from two-parent households, and students whose family income was more than twice the poverty threshold were more likely to have positive approaches to learning, according to teachers.

Don’t Blame The Poor For Their Impoverishment

May 26, 2015 Alyssa Davis, www.epi.org Educate! Economic Justice, Poverty, Worker Rights and Jobs

It’s not fair to say the poor aren’t holding up their end of the social contract when almost two-thirds of employable poor people work and over 40 percent work full time (and their incomes have become more and more dependent upon wages over time). The truth is that the economy the poor are working in—an economy which has grown more and more unequal over the last several decades—has made it harder and harder for them to get by. Instead of focusing on the characteristics of the poor when assigning blame for poverty, we should examine the policy choices we have made that led to such an unequal economy. Going forward, we should focus on policy solutions that will spur wage growth—such as raising the minimum wage, targeting full employment, strengthening worker’s bargaining power, and updating labor standards—in order to make our economy work for all.

Baltimore Police Were Out Of Control Before Freddie Gray

May 25, 2015 Steven Rosenfeld, www.alternet.org Educate! Baltimore, Economic Justice, police brutality, Racial Justice

“It became clear that the most brutal cops in our sector of the Western District were black. The guys who would really kick your ass without thinking twice were black officers. If I had to guess and put a name on it, I’d say that at some point, the drug war was as much a function of class and social control as it was of racism. I think the two agendas are inextricably linked, and where one picks up and the other ends is hard to say. But when you have African-American officers beating the dog-piss out of people they’re supposed to be policing, and there isn't a white guy in the equation on a street level, it's pretty remarkable. But in some ways they were empowered. Back then, even before the advent of cell phones and digital cameras — which have been transforming in terms of documenting police violence — back then, you were much more vulnerable if you were white and you wanted to wail on somebody."

Health Insurance Getting More Expensive With Less Coverage

May 25, 2015 Sarah Kliff, www.vox.com Educate! Economic Justice, Health Care, Public Health

If you ask any economist the main purpose of health insurance, the answer you'll probably get back is this: to protect against financial catastrophe. Yes, the free annual check-ups or discounted gym memberships that health plans sometimes offer are nice. But the real thing you're purchasing with your monthly premium is protection against financial ruin. You're paying for someone else to be on the hook for the big medical bills that can and will pile up in the case of serious illness or accident. Except, increasingly, insurance does not provide that type of protection. That's the main takeaway from a new Commonwealth Fund report on the "underinsured," or people who have health insurance that leaves them exposed to really big costs — and who appear to skip care due to the price.

High-Stakes Testing Is A Social Justice Issue

May 25, 2015 author name, www.seattleducation2010.wordpress.com Educate! Economic Justice, Education, Racial Justice, Social Change, Testing

Few things please parents more than learning that their children are invigorated about and engaged in their education, perhaps deconstructing the representation of womenthrough a media literacy unit or trying Columbus for possible crimes against humanity – activities that represent education at its best. Unfortunately, however, too many students are coming home from school deflated, defeated, and disillusioned. Why? The high-stakes testing season is in full swing. What are high-stakes tests? Tests are considered high-stakes when they are tied to major consequences, such as graduation. But this year’s season is anything but business as usual. Instead, we are experiencing the largest revolt against high-stakes testing ever, as historic numbers of families from New York to Seattle opt their children out, refusing to subject them to what is too often education at its worst.

Rising Deductibles Will Make Underinsurance Worse

May 22, 2015 Sara R. Collins, Petra W. Rasmussen, Sophie Beutel, Michelle M. Doty, www.pnhp.org Educate! Capitalism, Economic Justice, Health Care

The rate of growth in medical costs and insurance premiums has slowed in recent years. However, millions of consumers continue to be saddled with high out-of-pocket health care costs. While the number of underinsured people in the United States held constant in 2014, the steady growth in the proliferation and size of deductibles threatens to increase underinsurance in the years ahead. The Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions and protections have greatly improved the quality of insurance coverage available to people who lack job-based health benefits. In addition, cost-sharing subsidies significantly reduce deductibles for people with low incomes who buy plans in the marketplaces. But those subsidies phase out quickly, leaving families with deductibles that may be high relative to their incomes.

The Forgotten Origins Of Wall Street In Slave Auctions

May 20, 2015 Alan Gilbert, www.democratic-individuality.blogspot.com Educate! Economic Justice, Finance and the Economy, History, New York City (NYC), Racial Justice

One might think New York was a bastion of abolitionist sentiment before the Civil War. Hamilton's Federalists had led a move for gradual emancipation in 1799; the last black person was freed in 1842. They, too, needed John Brown and mass abolitionism from below. Wall Street had founded the slave trade in 1711. Fernando Wood, mayor in 1860, proposed joining the Confederacy because of the heavy influence of slave-produced cotton/textiles. Two years ago, construction workers on a new building hit a cemetery for slaves. Over 40% of the skeletons were from people under 15. Bondage murdered (resulted in the otherwise unnecessary deaths of) many, many people. Last week, the Times editorial page below called Wall Street - at last - to account. As in Denver with Silas Soule at 16th street, so in New York, a plaque will be put up, honoring those captured and murdered, among the glitter of those who traded in them to found their fortunes (see also Craig Slaughter's Ebony & Ivy on the founding of major universities).

How Black Women Can Rescue The Labor Movement

May 6, 2015 Kimberly Freeman Brown And Marc Bayard, www.theroot.com Strategize! Black Women, Economic Justice, Labor Unions, Racial Justice, Social Change, Unemployment

The roles that African Americans play in their families and communities, on the job and in their unions are acts of resistance against the staggering inequality they face on a daily basis. The statistics regarding African-American wealth and wage inequality, unemployment, mass incarceration, police brutality and poverty are daunting. To cite just one, as of March 2015, the black unemployment rate (10.1 percent) was more than double the white unemployment rate (4.7 percent). Second, this report is our love letter to the labor movement—offering sometimes tough, but always unflappable, affection. We know what some may have forgotten: that if you are concerned about the economic advancement of black women, families and communities, you must think twice before you dismiss the value and importance of the labor movement.

Broke Cities & Broken Bodies – It’s Time To Make Connections

April 30, 2015 Matt Stannard, www.occupy.com Educate! Baltimore, Economic Justice, police brutality, Politics, Racial Justice

On the evening of Saturday, April 25, protests in downtown Baltimore against the death-in-custody of Freddie Gray turned violent; according to many accounts, white thugs instigated violence and the cops responded to the response. The scene was ugly and tragic. Forty miles away, comedians, elected officials and media celebrities wore tuxedos and drank wine as they listened to the President of the United States joke about partisan politics. The juxtaposition of police-induced riots in Baltimore with the opulence of the White House Correspondents' Dinner led Ted Scheinman to declare: “If you've worried that the political class is out of touch with its criminalized underclasses, Saturday evening offered a grim case study.”

Diversifying The Environmental Movement Isn’t Enough

April 17, 2015 Olivia Aguilar, www.truth-out.org Strategize! Economic Justice, Environmental Justice, Racial Justice

We have known for quite a while the environmental movement is stubbornly White. Most recently, Barbara Grady, of GreenBiz Group, noted that improvements are in the works, citing that the leaders of the EPA and NRDC were women of color. Unfortunately, this doesn't address the elephant in the room. Environmentalists don't have a diversity problem, they have an identity problem. And it's rooted in a racist history and unchecked biases. The past is complex. Historians have noted that even in the early 19th century, long before the modern environmental movement began, racist rhetoric was used to push for clearing Native Americans from potential land preserves. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, published in 1962, did little to help.

Jamaica Suffering ‘Most Austere Budget In The World’ By IMF

April 8, 2015 Center For Economic and Policy Research, www.cepr.net Educate! Austerity, Economic Justice, IMF, Jamaica

Ahead of President Obama’s trip to Jamaica this week, a new paper from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) finds that Jamaica is running the most austere budget in the world, with a primary surplus of 7.5 percent, due to its IMF agreement, and that the government’s interest payments on the debt and austerity have brought public investment to a low. The paper, “Partners in Austerity: Jamaica, the United States and the International Monetary Fund” by Jake Johnston, notes that Jamaica has a debt-to-GDP ratio of nearly 140 percent and its public interest burden is one of the very highest in the world, at over 8 percent of GDP last year.

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