Ms. Brenda, my favorite neighbor in Harlem, is forever young.
Whenever I'm like, "Ms. Brenda, let's take a picture" she shrieks and says something like, "Oh no. Not with me looking like this!"
(But she always lets me take her picture.)
She laughs the hardest when I crack jokes about her companion.
(He recently made me squeeze his right bicep. 🤣 She's laughing in this picture at a joke that was about a 7/10 😄)
She loves when I bring her food.
She always asks about my loved ones & my case.
(She tells me "I love that you're fighting" & sometimes shares a story about racism that she faced.)
On Thanksgiving 2022, at 3am the next day, she ate food that I brought her.
"Am I going to sleep? Tuh. This is going in my body"
As a HS student, there were two autobiographies that transformed my relationship to books and reading.
The first? "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"
The second? The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass (I forget which version)
Frederick Douglass in Full
“'From our perspective the important issue goes beyond Cop City itself.... It’s a question of whether people in Atlanta have the right to oppose the policies of their government without suffering police violence & malicious prosecution.'"
By greenlighting Cop City funding, "Atlanta’s city council not only approved a wildly unpopular proposal; they also sent a clear message of total resistance to even mild reform measures."
@RamendaC
has today's BASED
@AfricanaCarr
When I was in high school,
@AfricanaCarr
introduced me (and countless teens in Philly) to Randall Robinson's "The Debt."
We are forever grateful.
Rest in Power.
#AHN
"Schumer’s candidates all fit a milquetoast, don’t-make-waves stereotype that’s good for bossing them around inside the Senate Democratic caucus, but maybe not so much for inspiring people to vote."
Here's
@HaroldMeyerson
on the failures of Chuck Schumer, who commands unilateral control over candidate recruitment so this is on him. Just 3 of his top 11 candidates appreciably outperformed Biden in their states, & hundreds of millions were set on fire.
@GeorgeLakoff
's strict father morality comes to mind:
"The way to understand the conservative moral system is to consider a strict father family. The father is The Decider, the ultimate moral authority in the family. His authority must not be challenged."
"Any policy preferences that I have don't matter. They're irrelevant."
- Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett
While many rightfully see this statement as absurd, the foundation for this type of BS/mythmaking is widely taught in law schools by repub *and* dem professors.
One thing that is disturbing about these hearings is the way in which they ignore how people who want power often think & make career decisions.
Elite law schools are full of students who go out of their way to not express an opinion on certain issues. It's obvious and known.
An analyst on MSNBC: "I hope the President & his administration have a plan & strategy."
My God. These people are waiting for war hawks & the enemies of peace & democracy to suddenly turn into people who love/value our country, human life, or the truth.
Breaking News: The U.S. confirmed it was behind the strike that killed the powerful Iranian commander Qassim Suleimani, a major escalation in a conflict with Iran
"It’s important to recognize that the idea of hopelessness around a Biden Cabinet is nonsense.
Biden has several tools available to him to circumvent McConnell’s Senate...
Biden needs only to try...
The president of the United States is not powerless."
Joe Biden does not have to worry at all about Mitch McConnell blocking cabinet appointments. He has several avenues to get his people installed. If he's not doing it, that's because he wants the people he "settles" for. Here's
@MaxMoranHi
to explain:
Brings me joy to see our global community experiencing what
@AfricanaCarr
shared with us 20 years ago in Philadelphia Freedom Schools.
@karenhunter
, the part about the moon brought me back to when Dr. Carr played Gil Scott-Heron during our HS sessions.
"There’s a particular type of savvy political cynic constantly making the case for doing nothing. They need to familiarize themselves with the concept of 'getting caught trying.' ...
Show . . . that you want every working American to have a living wage."
Go through all of the scenarios for how to react to the parliamentarian's minimum wage ruling and there's always someone or something in the way. So put the bill on the floor. Practice politics.
As with many things, what happens next will come down to power.
Who has it? Who is prepared to use it? Who is capable of reminding people that they have it and can make/obtain more of it?
In other words, leaders better do more than tell folks to "VOTE."
"If they had our budget, they wouldn't be able to compete. If we had their budget, they wouldn't be able to compete."
-
@AfricanaCarr
quoting someone (I didnt catch name) in a convo about ppl incorrectly assuming coaches w/ more *wins* than John Chaney were better at coaching
A world where the "law" allows companies to funnel employees/customers into "neutral" arbitration "trials," while other employees/customers who make it into federal court are told the "law" requires them to pay companies' legal fees in discovery disputes?
Elizabeth Warren is correct here. It goes deeper than Robinhood in all likelihood, but yes, Robinhood can steal all your money and then hold a trial in front of arbitrator it hires. All corporations can do this, because of the GOP and the Supreme Court.
“'No civil rights progress has ever been made in this country without a full complement of tools being brought to bear, to make pressure for change,' Ifill said."
#AHN
"Litigation will not do it alone. Organizing can’t do it alone. We need this legislation.” -
@Sifill_LDF
We need stronger protections against discrimination in voting. We need H.R. 4.
"80% of the uninsured in NC are working families...Some are single individuals working 3 jobs & don’t qualify for Medicaid but don't make enough to afford insurance on the exchange. Now, thanks to expansion, at least 600,000 more adults in NC will gain coverage through Medicaid."
It's 13 years on & there are still 10 states to go, but the relief in states that expand Medicaid, what it means for the residents who will get covered, is really palpable. Our friends at
@capitalandmain
talk to some of these folks in North Carolina:
"Conservative parties . . . typically resort to two formally legal strategies to entrench themselves. One is to change electoral rules; the other is to use counter-majoritarian institutions, principally the courts, to limit what elected opponents can do."
Black Paul Weiss partners & Obama alums who serve as DEFENSE counsel to clients being sued by Black people for alleged racial discrimination:
Cardwell v. Davis Polk, et al. (Jeh Johnson)
Crawford v. McDonald's (Loretta Lynch)
Flores v. NFL (Loretta Lynch)
The professors know it too, as many of them encourage generation after generation to not speak about such issues in a public forum.
And so, you have a mass of law students and lawyers who have little to no public record that reflects what they actually think about power.
BREAKING: This morning, City Council unanimously voted down & rejected this developer-led rezoning proposal.
This is a victory for tenants who said we can fight and win--a victory for those who wanted to limit displacement at Lenox Terrace and in Harlem.
Harlem Developers push to rezone Lenox Terrace w/4 ads in free Metro paper. You can SPIN a lie to a fool who doesn't know facts & buy up every word you sell them. Harlem community says NO to rezoning Lenox Terrace while self-dealing developer talks phony 'affordable' apts
.
@AfricanaCarr
probably remembers better than I do. I think the first overnight, national training that we/Philadelphia Freedom Schools participated in was at Shaw University.
Hundreds of HS students, in 1999(?), learning about SNCC & more.
Lfe changing.
Sixty years ago, young activists gathered at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. In 2021, SNCC remains committed to the struggle for freedom & empowerment of Black People. Join us, virtually, Oct. 14-16, as we bring together activists, organizers & changemakers.
45k views and counting
Watch "In Class with Carr, Ep. 53: Coming2America, The Hex and Who is Octavio Catto?" on YouTube -
Featuring sister
@karenhunter
and brother
@AfricanaCarr
.
We werent put on this earth to spend our lives begging for justice, human decency, and an existence free of others' control and domination.
And, we dont have to.
If we engage--strategically, collectively, relentlessly, with love and a joy for serving each other--we can win.
"Ron Walters was an activist-scholar. If Ron had been a physician or a lawyer, he would have been an activist.
He was an activist before he became a scholar. He became a scholar as a means to carry on activism...and he continued it throughout his life."
I know who I am and what I'm about.
I know Black people and people of color aren't the threat.
I know the threat to our lives and families comes from those who leverage racism and are trying to rig the rules.
Forward is the only option.
Important article by
@matthewstoller
about elite corporate lawyers and how some of them "operate not as officers of the court, per se, but as accomplices to illegal activity."
Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett keeps repeating that she's "never expressed an opinion..."
She's used such language in response to "controversial" questions--i.e., stuff involving issues related to concentrated power (corporate, gender, racial, political domination).
"Black workers...are raising essential questions about the New South, unions, &...economy....
The strategy in the Jim Crow South was to divide & rule. What you do get now, like before, is a propaganda campaign that’s meant to intimidate & scare workers."
The story of the Amazon union fight in Bessemer, Alabama, which restarted again this month, is also a story about Black worker organizing in the South, where the labor movement still lacks a comprehensive strategy,
@matthewccook5
and Marc Bayard write:
Building the People’s Banks -
"[I]t may seem boring and arcane to focus attention on loans and securities. But control of money—who has it, who can manipulate it, and who can deploy it at others’ expense—must sit at the center of a left agenda."
"The backstory of all this is two decades of a corporate-friendly Supreme Court, and companies exploiting arbitration rulings to make legislation meant to protect consumers and employees unenforceable."
Robinhood has an arbitration clause in their customer contract. That may not help them avoid a class action lawsuit. But thousands of companies use arbitration to protect themselves from the law, and Congress can put an end to this.
"People who demand more corporate executives of color in regulatory agencies, but refrain from addressing the racialized predation that is a feature of our broader economy—perpetrated by the same corporations—are selling people of color short."
Some Dems are out here saying a ban on corporate executives & lobbyists would hamstring the racial diversity of a Biden Administration. The side eye is real on that one... new piece from
@DavidMoon2014
@RaulACarrillo
& me over
@barronsonline
When I was recruited from Central High School (a Philly public HS) to play football for Lehigh Univ., LU's record was like 44-3 over the previous four years.
As a freshman, I was 1 of 4 out of 32 freshman players on the FB team to "letter."
I played Safety/Defensive Back.
"On the night before he was assassinated in Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr. ... urged his audience 'to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. . . You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.'"
#AHN
"Our real shortage is in imagination, in the ability to conjure up a society where everyone is cared for....
But more than that, it’s going to require a dismantling of the negligence with which elites have managed our economy."
Today I wrote about shortages: not the "labor shortage" easily remedied by giving people a modicum of dignity at work, but the past year's shortages of supply, caused by decades of bad policy and negligence in managing the economy
The Pandemic Is Making Monopolies Worse -
"To focus the discussion of monopoly on the tech sector is to minimize the scope of a problem long in the making. Forty years ago, the government essentially stopped policing industry concentration."
#AHN
Must read.
"Our democracy in a real way depends on reversing the circumstances where the rich and powerful are untouchable...
We need federal law enforcers willing to take risks, to pursue cases, to protect the public, & to exemplify the notion of equal justice under law"
#AHN
America hasn't had the courage to convict the rich and powerful. What will be the impact of the Trump indictment on equal justice and accountability? I'm skeptical.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice includes "over 800 corten steel monuments, one for each county in the United States where a racial terror lynching took place. The names of the lynching victims are engraved on the columns. The memorial is more than a static monument."
These folks are constantly talking about threats to democracy, the rule of law, ethics, etc.
But, try to enforce the law against their people/clients & they suddenly can't stop making threats or trying to punish folks.
Fortunately, these moments help ppl see the real threat.
"And anyone whose record does not show a demonstrated commitment to the Constitution’s core guarantees of equality and liberty for all should be soundly defeated...Our future and that of our children and grandchildren demand no less." -
@Sifill_LDF
#AHN
"It’s part of a broader effort to give prosecutors access to evidence that will help them prove white-collar cases against executives, rather than their companies."
They don't believe the U.S. federal government can otherwise get the evidence.
Wild implications.
#AHN
"Federal District Judge Jed S. Rakoff’s Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free ... illuminate[s] the choices we face in reforming a criminal justice system that readily offers leniency, but largely only to corporations & the most privileged."
And a timely review from our latest issue by Brandon Garrett (Too Big to Jail), on two books about how we must prosecute corporate crime, from Judge Jed Rakoff and
@jentaub
"[N]o matter how great our political disenfranchisement & social exclusion, we have in our hands a voting power which is enormous...[T]o refuse to use an instrument of power b/c it is not all powerful is silly." - WEB Dubois (1938, "the education of Black people")
@AfricanaCarr
"As
@LawyersComm
puts it in a report released today on the Barrett record, “she is predisposed to side with law enforcement at the expense of defendants’ constitutional rights, & with employers & business interests in disputes with employees & consumers.”
As questioning in the Barrrett confirmation hearings begin, I highlighted a few of her civil and worker rights decisions that have been overlooked, including one where she upheld de facto segregation
"His mother...became a...teacher in Norfolk after earning her college degree while her son was in elementary school.
'I remember studying history together,' Dr. Spriggs...recalled of his mother... 'She would check out children’s books covering the topics she was learning about'"
Bill Spriggs spent four decades trying to root out racial injustice in society and in his own profession. He was, as
@SandyDarity
put it, "deeply committed to the idea that we do economics because we have a social purpose."
My obituary:
Working hard to fight for a "race-neutral" application process for a "race-neutral" person and world that somehow magically comes into being when a person is applying to college.
Listen to the oral arguments taking place at
#SCOTUS
: The white nationalist wing of the court working hard to find a theory that overturns precedent for
#AffirmativeAction
[Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina] Oral Argument |
"My findings revealed that white admissions counselors were, on average, 26 percent less likely to respond to the emails of black students whose interests and involvements focused on anti-racism and racial justice."
#AHN
"It's not work for the rushed, the glib, the popular, the calculating or the self-absorbed. Its watchwords are sacrifice & commitment.
This work chooses its workers; it is not chosen by them. You know who you are. Own it. Be it. You are protected & U R not alone" -
@africanacarr
"'COVID is just unmasking the deep disinvestment in our communities, the historical injustices and the impact of residential segregation,' said Jones, who...focuse[s] on identifying, measuring and addressing racial bias within the medical system."
#AHN
"This is deeper than an AP course. This is about eliminating any discussion that might be critical of the United States of America, which is a dangerous thing for democracy."
- Robin D. G. Kelley
Shout out to Bryan Stevenson for using his legal training and talent to challenge--not provide cover for--racial hierarchies.
EJI: "Racial hierarchy was enforced through codes, statutes, and legal rulings by courts."
#AHN
Today, the
@nationalbar
honors the trailblazing social rights justice activist Bryan Stevenson. Mr. Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI).
#BlackHistoryMonth2023
#NationalBar98
NEW: During an event with Mijente Latinx leaders and organizers, Senator
@BernieSanders
was asked if he would call for a moratorium on deportations. Sanders said yes. A senior policy advisor on the campaign confirms to me this is new.
2500+ learners watched the live feed.
15k views 18 hours later.
Many, many more hours of thinking, reading, and collaboration.
Folks continue to get in community (and formation).
Here for all of it.
#AHN
"This lack of litigation creates the...impression that the FTC simply looks to strike settlement deals...
[A] key method to determine the motivations for a merger & to predict how it will affect competition is to seek sworn testimony from key executives."
This dissenting statement from
@chopraftc
is an incredibly clear and honest assessment of the catastrophic role the FTC has played in pharmaceutical prices via mergers.
"A decade ago, New York City’s free pre-K consisted of a loose circle of means-tested, half-day programs for about 19,000 4-year-olds from low-income families.
Today, it’s America’s largest local system, serving 90,000 3- and 4-year-olds of all backgrounds."
#AHN
definitely not going to forget the folks who touted this shambolic, deeply incompetent mess of a mayor as the future of the democratic party because he was vaguely “anti-woke”
"I'm not arguing w/ anybody on the left who wants to raise the flag, sing the full-throated version of the Star-Spangled Banner -- even though in the 3rd stanza they denounce Black people. Why do I have to sign up for that?!"
WATCH the full convo here:
NEW from me: corporate profits are soaring way above input costs. Inflation is being use as an excuse to price gouge. What can be done? It's not just about telling a story, you need to take sustained action.
As
@AfricanaCarr
@karenhunter
often say, "How does it free us?"
The people in SNCC had some ideas & practices. They worked on being free with/to each other, even as they worked to change the social structure around them.
They were a serious social force
"McConnell is a pure political animal & he always chooses what he believes to be the most politically advantageous decision, no matter what the circumstances. He looks at what can aggrandize the most power 2 conservatives & makes his choices on that basis"
.
@AfricanaCarr
giving a 100% to the craft and the students in attendance.
Truly remarkable to see he has the same energy and commitment that I experienced 20 years ago.
"Southern black farm workers would not attempt to unionize again, until the 1930s when the Southern Tenant Farmers Union attracted both white and African American members.
But it too was met by a violent racist backlash."
#tdih
1887: Thibodaux Massacre. Louisiana militia shot & killed 30 to 60 unarmed Black sugarcane workers, on strike over meager pay issued in scrip, not cash.
No federal inquiry. Assassins unpunished.
#terrorism
#laborhistory
#TeachReconstruction
Read ⬇️
Reading Ronnie Greene’s new book, “Heart of Atlanta,” on HBCU students who fought Lester Maddox and other domestic terrorists leading to US Supreme Court case. As many times as we teach it at
@howardlawschool
, reminded how we MUST center the people behind these cases.
Top 10 of 2018 –
#1
– Prison Abolition Syllabus 2.0 – AAIHS
@AAIHS
/
@BlkPerspectives
compiled "the Prison Abolition Syllabus on this site as a way to bring together some of the urgent and informed writings on the history of prisons & prison rebellion."
"Minority women are more likely to be mistaken for janitors 'at a level 50 percentage points higher than white men.'
Women of all races reported doing more administrative tasks than their male colleagues."
Another collaboration between
@LadyLawyerDiary
and
@lawprofblawg
re: the issues minority lady lawyers face in the profession! Let us know what you think!
Malcolm X had a different way of describing this type of "reporting":
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."
cc:
@justicedems
@Ocasio2018
One disappointment about DC is the gossip that masquerades as “reporting.”
This story has:
- Not a SINGLE named or verifiable source
- Only ONE on-the-record comment, which is a denial.
My dad had a name for junk articles like this:
“Birdcage lining.”
"Readers of the Prospect..., accustomed to advocacy for industrial policy, antitrust actions, and worker rights, would have found Biden’s analysis and proposals old hat, save that this time, they were coming not from the pages of lefty magazines but from the [U.S.] president...."
Harold Meyerson writes that Biden's SOTU "set the Democratic Party and American liberalism on sounder economic and political ground than they’ve been since the New Deal"
@AfricanaCarr
So much isn't being considered or discussed in these types of WWF-twitter conversations, as they often include a mix of the following formula:
disingenuous question + insult + reinterpreting past comment beyond the actual comment + trying 2 make certain historical labels suspect
"Just 81 of Harvard’s 2,490 faculty members identify as Hispanic, according to Harvard’s Fact Book; the university would not say how many of those are tenured."
"...8 percent of the roughly 1,000 tenured faculty are underrepresented minorities...."
"But Gillibrand’s recruitment of DeWitt is emblematic of how, at a time when the crypto industry’s influence in official Washington should be at a low ebb, it’s instead gaining legitimacy and power, during its most embarrassing and destructive year yet."
With everything collapsing in crypto & allegations of fraud all around, seems like the perfect time for a Senator to hire Coinbase's former general counsel, doesn't it? Yet here's Kirsten Gillibrand doing so.
@dorajfacundo
reports:
This reality would be less of an issue if these same folks weren't obsessively focused on obtaining power for themselves/in their careers.
So, the "I've never expressed an opinion" response doesn't = not having an opinion.
She, like many, strategically doesn't want ppl to know.
"But let’s be clear: This is a cosmetic PR move from a corporate sector looking for simple, performative solutions to deep-seated persecution.
It attempts to wave away dissent without personal cost."
#AHN
Today I wrote about my deep skepticism of the Facebook boycott, as an example of how corporate America tries to buy off protesters on the cheap with empty symbols of solidarity
"It was the highest number recorded in more than a dozen years, and experts said it reflected a growing problem that could negatively affect children’s academic performance and health."
"A democratic society cannot accept such sharp divisions of fortune without a theory of racial inferiority to rationalize the gap."
-
@MehrsaBaradaran
("The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap")
#AHN
If we teach this to young people--if we model it for and with young people--a critical mass of young people will never forget it and they will organize their lives accordingly.
#EllaBaker
#EllaBaker
said not to rest until killing of Black mother's sons is as important in this country as the killing of white mother's sons. We know that means until the killing of our children is as important to everyone else as the killing of other people's children.
#HappyBirthday
“The..African Josephine Bakhita will be enthroned..& the founding jubilee extended an additional year in memory of the sweat & blood shed by our Afro-Boricua brothers during the construction of the cathedral & their contribution to the socio-cultural history of our [PR] homeland”
2023 marks the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico. The Archbishop of San Juan will honor the occasion by installing a cathedral icon of St. Josephine Bakhita, the formerly enslaved Sudanese nun canonized in 2000.
"Arguing about Winston’s interceptions is not really about Winston, it’s about not giving permission to future black Peyton Mannings or Brett Favres to play through their mistakes to realize their Hall of Fame selves."
#AHN
Peyton vs Winston after 5 Years:
20618 vs 19737 yards
85.9 vs 86.9 QB rating
62.1 vs 61.3 Comp %
138 vs 121 TDs
100 vs 88 INTs
4.9 vs 4.7 TD rate
3.5 vs 3.5 INT rate
A deeper look here 👇