No Accident: White Cop Shoots Another Black Man in Champaign

Posted on 06/26/2017 by Brian Dolinar

The shooting of unarmed Black men by white police in the United States is a story that keeps repeating over and over. The recent case of a local 22-year-old African American man shot in the shoulder by Champaign police officer James Hobson, who is white, is yet another outrageous example. It is a test case for police chief Anthony Cobb, who came into office in the wake of the police killing of Kiwane Carrington.

There has been some coverage of the shooting by the local media, in the News-Gazette and Smile Politely. Still, there has been little effort to dig deeper than the press releases put out by the Champaign police which have provided few details. According to the Champaign police, on Sunday night, June 11, at approximately 10:30 p.m., Officer Hobson stopped Dehari Banks in his car around Fourth Street on the North End. The reason why has not been provided. Banks had a case of driving on a suspended license, but it was pending, and he had not been convicted.

Perhaps scared by the many stories in the news, Banks did not stop his car, pulled into a driveway, ran into the garage door, got out and fled. Hobson ran after him and cornered Banks in a fenced-in area. According to Hobson’s police report, which has not been made available to the public, he drew his gun while coming to a running stop, pointed it, and “accidentally” shot Banks in the shoulder. Banks was unarmed.

One important detail that the news has failed to report is that Banks was not actually charged with anything to have justified his being shot. The News-Gazette listed a history of his offenses, and ran his mug shot, but failed to mention there were no traffic tickets or criminal charges filed against Banks for what happened that night.

Often, the police put “cover charges” on the victim of a police shooting to protect themselves from a potential lawsuit. Without charges, the City of Champaign is open to significant legal liability. No one was killed, so there will be no million dollar law suit. The family can hire an attorney and likely will get a cash settlement from the city.

Whether the decision to not charge Banks was a deliberate move by Chief Cobb, or (less likely) a result of the facts of the incident, the outcome is still uncertain. It remains to be seen whether Cobb will fire Hobson, who is on administrative leave according to the police union contract. Hobson is a rookie cop, joining the force in September 2015. Chief Cobb has called for “patience,” but he has refused to respond to phone calls about the incident.

Of course, anti-Black police violence in the US cannot honestly be described as an accident, but is the product of a fear and anxiety over Black bodies. Indeed, the police killing of 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington in 2009 was also described as an “accident” and Officer Norbitz, who allegedly shot him, cleared of charges.

In 1970, Black resident Edgar Hoults was killed by a Champaign police officer who chased him down, aimed his gun, claimed he slipped, and shot Hoults in the back of the head with a hollow point bullet, killing him instantly. It was claimed Hoults’s death was also an “accident.” The cop who killed him was exonerated by a jury.

More recently, I reported on four Champaign police officers who in December 2016 killed Richard “Richie” Turner, a homeless African American man, in Campustown. None of the police were charged and they are still on the force.

Champaign police keep killing―or trying to kill―Black people.

Some have questioned why Hobson wasn’t wearing a body cam. Across the country, body cams are being presented as a solution to police violence. Yet in cases like, most recently, that of Philando Castile, video footage of police killings has failed to bring justice for Black victims.

According to a source, Banks has been released from the hospital and is recovering.

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Our Mahomet Aquifer

Posted on 06/17/2017 by Jacquelyn Potter

By Jacquelyn Potter, Sierra Club Prairie Group
Jacquelyn Potter is on the Executive Committee of the local Sierra Club, where she is involved in activism with many issues, including water protection, and serves on the Mahomet Aquifer Model group.

Water issues have always been at the forefront of environmental and human rights concerns. This year was eye-opening for many following the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) conflict and its impact upon surface water. However, another critical issue is protection of our vital underground water sources against such threats. Our Mahomet Aquifer, lying right underneath us here in Champaign County and several other counties, supplies over 100 million gallons of water per day to over 500,000 in East Central Illinois.  Just think about that for a minute. Water. Is. Life.

What’s so special about the water from the Mahomet Aquifer? It exceeds other water sources in its purity. When you drink water from the Mahomet Aquifer, you are drinking very ancient water that fell to Earth between 3,000 and 10,000 years ago, well before the contaminants of our recent times. The Mahomet Aquifer is part of the prehistoric Mahomet River Valley, where water flowed upon bedrock and was layered with sand and gravel and buried beneath hundreds of feet of clay, compliments of the glaciers.

One major issue surrounding aquifers is how and where they recharge and how recharge is balanced with withdrawal. This is a complex topic, subject to much ongoing research. Illinois State Geological Survey Carbon-14 analysis shows the water underneath Champaign County is 5,000 to 7,000 years younger than 50 miles west, which reveals the highest amount of recharge is in northern Champaign County. Some researchers believe high withdrawal or over-consumption is a greater threat to the aquifer than contamination, especially in dry years when river flooding (a major source of recharge) doesn’t happen. A report by the Mahomet Aquifer Consortium revealed the highest level of withdrawal from both surface water and aquifer is by far thermoelectric power generation (coal, petro, natural gas and nuclear) with another figure showing it as 74% of total withdrawal: 1,315 million gallons per day. Conversely, the rate of recharge is estimated to be hundreds of millions of gallons per day, a figure thought optimistic by some. Close to half of Illinois’ population depends upon groundwater, and in rural areas, the number is closer to 90%. Therefore, improved conservation and protection of this precious resource is of utmost importance.

Public interest in protecting the Mahomet Aquifer began to increase just over a decade ago. In March of 2007, Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) issued a permit to Clinton Landfill to store potentially hazardous waste (e.g. polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs) at the landfill in DeWitt County sitting directly above the Mahomet Aquifer. For several years, this was fought, and finally then-Governor Pat Quinn directed the IEPA to stop approval of PCB waste storage at the landfill. By winter 2012, officials petitioned the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to designate the Mahomet Aquifer a “sole-source aquifer.” Such designation recognizes how vital the aquifer is as a source of water, giving special protection. The USEPA is required to review federally-funded projects located above the aquifer to ensure no danger to our drinking water supply. Over 400 people attended public hearings on sole-source designation, many expressing support for the designation; none were against it. By spring 2014, the USEPA issued preliminary approval of sole-source, and a year later was approved. Although sole-source designation requires EPA review for federally-assisted projects that would potentially contaminate the aquifer, projects funded by state, local or private entities are not subject to review. Therefore, sole-source designation did not affect Clinton Landfill plans, as it is privately funded. However, heightened attention toward aquifer protection did lead to passage of state law, when Representative Carol Ammons and Senator Scott Bennett introduced bills to protect the aquifer. Specifically, materials containing high PCBs and manufactured gas plant waste are prohibited in landfills above the aquifer. The legislation aimed at preventing Clinton Landfill from continuing plans to accept the toxic chemicals. Recently, another bill was approved establishing a Mahomet Aquifer Task Force to study the water source, develop a plan to maintain the quality of the aquifer, identify current and potential contamination threats, identify actions that ensure long-term protection, and make legislative recommendations to protect the aquifer.

These developments have bearing on the pipeline issue, as it has direct impact on the water sources in Illinois. The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) mostly affects surface water; however, the proposed pipeline expansion by Canadian corporation Enbridge to “twin” the Line 61 pipeline running through Illinois from Canada threatens surface water, but also runs directly over a Mahomet Aquifer recharge area. Central Illinois has become a major route for Canadian Tar Sands crude oil, with Enbridge sending up to 880,000 barrels a day through a pipeline constructed above the Mahomet Aquifer. History shows the question is not if a pipeline will break, but when. Sierra Club looked at Enbridge’s history of spills from years 1999 to 2010, finding it responsible for over 800 spills. The 2010 Enbridge spill in the Kalamazoo River required massive removal of streambed soil (to recover embedded oil). Because the Mahomet Aquifer is a deep aquifer, it is better protected than shallow aquifers; however, it can be contaminated. Therefore, protective measures are important, as it is extremely difficult to clean up contaminated surface water, but it is near impossible to clean up a deep underground aquifer once contaminated. Considering the Enbridge track record, it is extremely negligent to have the pipeline along the trajectory directly crossing Mahomet Aquifer recharge areas, and to allow for expansion along the same trajectory would be bordering on the absurd.

Pipeline deregulation has amounted to a weakening of the environmental review process, which is of utmost concern regarding sensitive areas such as streams or recharge areas, known as HCAs or “high consequence areas.” Some landowners said they were never informed the pipeline would be for Canadian Tar Sands Crude, which is much more pollutive and caustic due to high levels of volatile organic compounds. Doug Hayes, attorney for the Sierra Club, expects to prove the pipeline violates the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. “We have a strong case that the government deliberately segmented the project to avoid an environmental review.” Hayes said oil corporations saw the controversy of Keystone XL and intentionally planned the pipeline through central Illinois “behind closed doors.”

With this in mind, activist groups have been mobilizing in response to the proposed Enbridge pipeline expansion, informing Illinois land owners about the dangers the pipelines pose and the tactics used by the corporations to take their land.  There have been meetings with local and state government. In fall of 2016, local environmental activists and Native American representatives spoke to the Urbana City Council about dangers pipelines pose to surface waters and aquifers. The Urbana City Council responded, drafting a resolution that stressed the need to protect our aquifers. These efforts, along with the addition of the Mahomet Aquifer Task Force, aim at increasing awareness about the potential threats to our aquifers.

A longer-term viewpoint looks at how they are all connected.  That is, in order to best protect the Mahomet Aquifer, there must also be protection for the streams and rivers that recharge it. There is precedence that addresses the importance of this, as demonstrated when the EPA restored Clean Water Act protections for 48,782 miles of streams in Illinois, protecting against development of wetlands, dumping by coal companies, power plants and meat-processing plants. Both surface and underground water sources are depended upon for drinking water by approximately 1,680,948 Illinoisans. If so many are dependent upon the Mahomet Aquifer and surface waters that recharge it, all being vulnerable to overuse and contamination, then how is it the right of the few over the many to over-exploit and pollute? This question is pertinent to both the Dakota Access pipeline as well as the Enbridge pipeline, and we the people of Illinois must decide what kind of future we want for ourselves and our ancient waterways.

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People’s Climate March: History & Views from the Local & D.C. Marches

Posted on 06/17/2017 by Alice Englebretsen

By Members of Prairie Group of Sierra Club and Food & Water Watch

Origins of the People’s Climate March
By Alice Englebretsen

Alice Englebretsen has been a member of the Sierra Club for many years, and originally got involved by going on national outings. For the last 16 years she has been on the Executive Committee of the Prairie Group of the Illinois Chapter in many capacities. Currently she is Treasurer and Political Chair of the Prairie Group.

The original People’s Climate March (PCM) was called in May 2014 by 350.org, the environmental organization founded by writer/activist Bill McKibben, and it was endorsed by over 1,500 organizations, including the Sierra Club.  The march was conceived as a response to the scheduled U.N. Climate Summit of world leaders to take place in New York City on September 21, 2014. The months of organizing and the day itself helped to re-boot the climate movement in this country. The march was attended by over 400,000 people from all walks of life.

The work of the PCM is grounded in a set of core principles:

  • Prioritize leadership of front-line communities, communities of color, low-income communities, workers and others impacted by climate, economic and racial inequity.
  • Use the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing to ground our work.
  • Build a coordinated but decentralized structure that lifts up a common platform and message while being flexible enough to create more opportunities for connection to local issues, ownership and engagement in the movement.
  • Work in a way that helps to strengthen and build the capacity of the local organizing.
  • Develop opportunities for a range of organizations and social movements to work together, and to use our joint efforts to give greater visibility to our common struggle. This includes, but is not limited to, putting people into the streets as we demand policy changes and bold action.

In 2015 the Peoples Climate Movement focused its collective energy on strengthening the climate justice movement at the local level. That October we organized 200 actions in 48 locations, mostly led by front-line communities, unions, faith groups, youth, and people of color organizations. These actions highlighted the on-the-ground realities in their cities, and tied those struggles to the national movement.

In addition to the People’s Climate March in New York City, there were many other communities around the world who also hosted marches.

Alarms went off again when the climate-denying Trump was elected President in 2016, along with a right wing congress. Another People’s Climate March was organized for April 29th, 2017, 100 days after the inauguration, to be held in Washington D.C. In addition, many other communities in the United States and around the world organized marches. In Illinois there were marches held in Chicago, Carbondale, Peoria and Champaign-Urbana.

Bus from Central IL to D.C. Climate March

Hiking Boots on the Ground (in D.C.)
by Rachel Vellenga

Rachel Vellenga is a Sierra Club board member and children’s librarian in Urbana, IL. She enjoys hiking, reading and hanging out with her backyard chickens in her spare time. Her newest flock members are named Rea and Zist.

Equally important to the local marches was getting a large number of demonstrators to show up in D.C. to show politicians how adamant people are about the need to act on climate change. Some traveled on their own and some rode on buses organized by various environmental groups and other non-profits from around the country. An estimated 200,000 people answered the call to the national protest, people of all ages and ethnic groups.

I took a bus organized by the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club. The bus stopped in Peoria, Bloomington/Normal, Champaign/Urbana and Indianapolis. We were at capacity by the time we pulled out of Indianapolis, and drove all night to arrive in D.C. Saturday morning.  The march was very well organized, with parking set aside for buses at RFK Stadium and volunteers to direct us how to get to the starting point. You could text a number on your cellphone to get updates about the march and messages from your fellow bus participants.

We had a few hours to explore before lining up in a predetermined order. Our location was towards the end of the march, and therefore we had to wait some time to get started. But spirits were high, and we were eager to show our support for the planet. The weather was a sweltering 90 degrees in April, a tie with the all-time record set in 1974 (appropriate for the cause – where’s James “Snowball” Inhofe when you need him). Some kids got the entrepreneur spirit and sold bottled water out of old shopping carts for the sweating masses yearning to be free (of climate change).  While I am loath to buy bottled water, I am more loath to pass out on the asphalt in front of Trump Hotel from heat exhaustion (although again… appropriate).

We marched peacefully with a great collection of clever signs, costumes (one brave soul dressed in full polar bear outfit), musical instruments and chants. The biggest reaction came when we passed Trump Hotel, where marchers let our displeasure be heard loud and clear. Food trucks lined the avenue when we finished, and then it was back to our bus for the all-night ride home. We were extremely tired and sweaty and in need of a shower, but confident that we had done our part to show our support for combating climate change.

Rachel & fellow marcher in D.C.

Champaign-Urbana March
By Lois Kain

Lois Kain hooked up with Food and Water Watch in the fall of 2012 for the GMO food labeling fight in Illinois, and has been the volunteer local coordinator since 2013. She went to the NYC march in 2014 and wanted to try to bring that incredible experience to C-U.

When details for the 2017 PCM were being worked out for D.C., organizers around the country expressed desires to hold events in their home towns, so, the idea of sister marches was born. Day by day the map of sister marches and events around the country grew in number. While Chicago would be Illinois’ biggest march (5,000 people hit the streets in a cold rain!), a number of other cities across the state joined in to give Illinois activists an option closer to home. Champaign-Urbana got on the map! Local members of Sierra Club and Food and Water Watch, with the help of student groups Beyond Coal and iMatter, came together to create our event.

The steering committee decided to have not only a march but an Earth fair out in the fresh air and sunshine of Westside Park in Champaign. Music, tabling with local organizations, speakers, a march, and a raffle to raise money for our very own Pollinatarium came together over the months of March and April.

Carol Ammons (State Representative) and Scott Bennett (State Senator) headed up our speaker list. Alice Englebretsen (Sierra Club), Carol Hayes (Prairie Rivers Network), Lan Richart (Eco-Justice Collaborative), and Anna Catalina Rosu (iMatter) added their voices in the call for people to WAKE UP! to the impending catastrophe of our warming planet. Environmental and political party organizations, churches, local green energy companies and the City of Urbana tabled with messages and information for us human inhabitants of Mother Earth of hope, justice, solidarity, and solutions for the social and environmental messes in which we had made for ourselves. Even Flat Rodney hung out with us! Meadowhawk provided the welcoming music and Common Ground Food Co-op and Strawberry Fields-World Harvest donated cool, Earth-loving gift baskets for the raffle.

State Rep. Carol Ammons addresses the crowd at the C-U March

As the date approached, the weather forecast became more and more ominous. We had to decide to change our plans or change the venue. We opted for venue and Grace Lutheran Church was gracious enough to provide the new location on such a short notice.

People from all around East Central Illinois RSVP’d on the sister march website from Danville to Peoria, and Watseka to Mount Vernon. The threatening weather and sudden venue change did not dampen the spirits of 300 Earthlings who came to share their concerns and hopes for the future of our only home, Gaia.

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TRUMP EMBRACES 19th CENTURY ENERGY PLAN WHILE THE REST OF THE WORLD LOOKS AHEAD

Posted on 06/17/2017 by Pam Richart

On June 1, 2017, President Trump made it official: the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord. The 2015 Accord is an agreement among 195 countries to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2o C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5o C. Scientists believe the earth will be locked into a future of severe droughts, floods, rising sea levels, and food shortages if these thresholds are exceeded.

While not a surprise, given the President’s outright denial of climate change, the decision to leave the agreement outright angered world leaders and the global environmental community. Rapidly-increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have reached levels of 409ppm, dangerously above the 350ppm that is the generally accepted threshold to ensure a livable planet. And while all but two countries are signatory to the agreement (Nicaragua who said it didn’t go far enough, and war-torn Syria), the White House is doubling down on the use of carbon-emitting fossil fuels – known to be a primary driver of our changing climate – and turning its back on the rest of the world.

The Paris Agreement would result in “lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories and vastly diminished economic production.”
– Donald Trump on June 1, 2017

In exiting the accord, Trump declared that the U.S was being asked to bear too great a share of the costs for carbon reduction, and that compliance would mean economic loss and diminished quality of life for U.S. residents. It is clear that he chooses to ignore the clean energy industry that is creating U.S. jobs. According to a recent Sierra Club analysis of Department of Energy 2017 Jobs data, jobs in solar, wind, energy efficiency, smart grid technology, and battery storage outnumber fossil fuel jobs by a factor of 2.5 to 1. And, when it comes to coal and gas,  clean energy jobs outnumber employment in the coal and natural gas industries by a factor of 5 to 1.

With his exit from the Paris Agreement and a rollback of Obama-era carbon reducing policies, Trump is favoring fossil fuels that produce fewer jobs, pollute our air, poison our water, destroy our land, and contribute to the warming of our planet. Trump’s plan, not the Paris Agreement, is the one that will diminish quality of life for U.S. residents.

And Then … The Amazing Happened

Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States from the landmark Paris Agreement drew anger and condemnation from world leaders and industry. News reports anticipating the withdrawal claimed the U.S. would fall far short of meeting its pledges, and that Trump’s withdrawal would jeopardize the entire Agreement.

But the day President Trump announced withdrawal, some amazing things began to unfold.

The governors of California, New York, Oregon, and Washington, and the mayors of Austin, Los Angeles, New York City, Oakland, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco and Seattle, issued the following statement on behalf of the Under2 Coalition, a global pact of 170 jurisdictions in over 30 countries committed to limiting global average temperature increase to well below 2o C:

“As United States governors and mayors, we oppose today’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. The U.S. cannot address climate change on its own. Participation in the Paris Agreement, which includes nearly every country, ensures that the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions already underway across America’s states and cities are part of a larger global effort. Withdrawal only undermines our efforts.
… We remain as committed as ever to working with our partners around the world to implement the Paris Agreement and achieve our shared goals.  And we will continue to enlist like-minded cities, states, regions and countries to join in this fight.”

Within a week, more than 1400 cities, states and businesses across the country had pledged to meet or exceed the Paris commitments. This includes 247 mayors from nine of the 10 largest cities in the country – New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Dallas, and San Jose. These cities, large and small, in 42 red and blue states, represent more than 59 million Americans.

“We will intensify efforts to meet each of our cities’ current climate goals, push for new action to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius target, and work together to create the 21st-century clean energy economy. The world cannot wait—and neither will we.”
– Climate Mayors Agreement statement in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Accords

And on Saturday, June 10, 2017, Reuters reported that German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks announced Germany is teaming up with California to work on tackling climate change. Now Europe’s largest economy and the largest state economy in the U.S. will back the work of the Under2 Coalition, which represents 1.2 billion people and $28.8 trillion in GDP.

At this time in our country’s history, the Paris Agreement could be stronger without the United States. Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon Mobil and supporter of Donald Trump’s fossil fuel policies, would have had veto power. And had the U.S. decided to stay, the American public might have become complacent. Instead, state and local governments angered by Trump’s withdrawal, are proactively seeking alternatives to ensure the pledges made by the United States as part of the Paris Climate Accords are met or exceeded.

Closer to Home

Illinois is not part of the U2 Coalition. And as this article is being written, Governor Rauner has not yet signed a statement pledging to meet the Paris commitments, although organizations are now mobilizing to ensure that he does. But last December, Illinois became a clean energy leader by adopting one of the the most comprehensive climate bills in the country, with bipartisan support.

As a result, Eco-Justice Collaborative has teamed with Prairie Rivers Network, Delta Institute, Illinois Environmental Council, and Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter to leverage the resources of the Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA) in central and southern Illinois. This part of our state is experiencing severe job losses due to the closing of coal plants, mechanization of the mining industry, and changes in markets as natural gas, wind, and solar become more cost-competitive than coal.

Not without its flaws (the nuclear energy bailout among them), the FEJA will make available $200 million per year to build new solar, wind, and energy efficiency projects in Illinois. It will create the first community solar program, allowing residents to subscribe to a shared project; establish the Illinois Solar for All program, directing funds into low-income areas for community solar projects and job training; and set new standards for energy efficiency, allocating $25 million per year for programs that help low-income homes become more efficient. Collectively, these programs and financial resources will create good-paying jobs and prepare a workforce with skills that can compete in today’s new energy economy.

Our coalition’s work is just an example of what is taking place across the state as community leaders, faith groups, businesses, and organizations work with the clean energy industry to use this bill as a means to cut Illinois’ carbon emissions in half by 2030.

Trump may have pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement, but an energy revolution is underway that even he can’t stop. Take time to celebrate! But in so doing, realize that there are no guarantees that this new revolution is enough to stop a climate catastrophe. We all must continue to find ways to work locally and collaboratively to combat our rapidly changing climate – and protect this beautiful planet we call home.

By Pam & Lan Richart, Co-Directors of the Eco-Justice Collaborative, a local non-profit that uses education, advocacy and action to address urgent environmental issues, while integrating their work with ongoing struggles for social and economic justice.

Posted in Environment, Politics, Politics, Trump | Comments Off on TRUMP EMBRACES 19th CENTURY ENERGY PLAN WHILE THE REST OF THE WORLD LOOKS AHEAD

C/U Voters Value Nursing Home at Polls, Continue Support Despite Overall Outcome and Challenges Ahead

Posted on 05/19/2017 by Michael Wilmore

C/U  Voters Value Nursing Home at Polls, Continue Support Despite Overall Outcome and Challenges Ahead

Michael Wilmore

On Tuesday, April 4, voters in Champaign and Urbana voted strongly to support the Champaign County Nursing Home (CCNH) by voting for a modest increase in property taxes, and voting against giving the Champaign County Board authority to sell CCNH. However, turnout outside Champaign and Urbana was heavy due to contested Mayoral and Board seats, and voting there outweighed turnout in Champaign and Urbana, leading to an overall total against the property tax and for giving the County Board authority to sell the home. Continuing the fight to preserve CCNH as a public resource with health care access for the entire community, some County Board members and community activists are pointing to support for CCNH in Champaign and Urbana, while faulting low overall turnout and misleading information regarding finances and quality of care at CCNH for the election outcome.

Strong Support in Urbana and Champaign

Results from the Board Districts 6 – 11 (Urbana and Champaign) were as follows:

District 6: Yes tax 57.9%, No sale 59.4%

District 7: Yes tax 62.6%, No sale 60.7%

District 8: Yes tax 78.3%, No sale 78.5%

District 9: Yes tax 63.8%, No sale 62%

District 10: Yes tax 62.2%, No sale 63.3%

District 11: Yes tax 63.2%, No sale 71.5%

Voters in Champaign and Urbana clearly value the institution that has more than a hundred years of providing health care for the most needy residents of Champaign County.

Faulty Stars

One of the tragedies of the decision made by voters was a mistake in the star rating made by the State of Illinois in grading CCNH. Opponents of CCNH seized on the mistake, as though the star system were as simple as rating hotels.

Cathy Emmanuel, current member of the Nursing Home Advisory Board, describes the problem: “In the last publication of the five-star rating score for CCNH, there was a significant error in one of the three factors that determines that rating. The rating is based on the annual inspection score, staffing levels and quality measures. There was a data entry error by the state which understated the staffing hours for CNAs [Certified Nursing Assistants] by nearly 40%. The state corrected this after it was brought to their attention. The updated calculation and star ratings will be published in May and it is likely it will raise the star rating for staffing and may affect the overall rating.

“The Champaign County Nursing Home has, since 2014 when compared with other homes in Champaign-Urbana, had a higher than average rating for staffing hours and an overall staff rating on a par with other CU nursing homes. Up until February 2016 CCNH had four stars for staffing and two stars for an overall rating. The only nursing home in Champaign-Urbana that consistently outscored CCNH was Clark Lindsey Village, which has a small number of beds—only 25—and accepts no Medicaid patients.”

Scare Tactics?  Vermillion County Privatization

The faults of for-profit privatization are serious, which is why experts in health care support CCNH as a public entity. As Claudia Lennhoff, the Executive Director of Champaign County Health Care Consumers, states:  “Selling the Champaign County Nursing Home to a private for-profit company is not something that our organization would want. We know from large national studies that use data from Medicare, Medicaid, and state Public Health departments that for-profit nursing homes have significantly lower quality of care than public or non-profit nursing homes. For-profit nursing homes have to turn a profit for their shareholders, and they do so by cutting costs, usually in the form of staffing. A public entity has greater transparency and accountability, and the organization is more responsive to community needs because it is mission-driven. CCNH provides key services not available at many nursing homes, like the Adult Day-Care option. Taking care of sick and ailing people is time and labor intensive. When we talk about quality of care, we are talking about very measurable outcomes that directly impact residents’ health and at times, death—things like bed sores, infections, falls, broken bones, choking problems, etc.”

Less than a week after Champaign County voters made their decision on CCNH, the News-Gazette reported that in the first quarter of 2017, Gardenview Manor was cited with multiple serious violations by the Illinois Department of Public Health, for “a condition or occurrence at a facility that proximately caused a resident’s death.” Gardenview Manor was previously Vermillion County’s Nursing Home, sold in a decision by the Vermillion County Board four years ago. Staffing levels were immediately slashed. Although advocates for CCNH were repeatedly charged with using “scare tactics” regarding what happens when public nursing homes are sold, there is clearly a comparable example to what might happen to CCNH in our neighbors’ apparently troubled privatization experiment.

The Champaign County Board Consultant’s Warning Against Closing or Selling—The Future of CCNH

In his February 2017 report commissioned by the County Board, Ron Aldrich recommended against selling or closing CCNH. He concluded that in the event that the Nursing Home was closed, “the needy and the ‘at risk’ populations would likely suffer the most,” or if it was sold, there would be “consequences for the needy and ‘at risk’ . . . if all long-term care providers were for-profit.” These conclusions came from careful examination of the population of CCNH and the skilled care options that are provided at CCNH.

Mr. Aldrich pointed to factors which led to financial strain at CCNH: 1) The cost of construction and accompanying problems in building the current location of CCNH in 2005, which (unlike other County entities) are paid for out of the CCNH operating budget; and 2) the unusually long delay in Medicaid payments owed by the State of Illinois for services already provided by CCNH to residents of Champaign County.

Real financial challenges at CCNH have been made even more severe by the repeated assertions that sale or closure are imminent. Decisions made by families are understandably changed by the perception of instability of an institution. So the current census numbers at CCNH are lower than they have been in many years.

All of these current challenges are not because of a failed model or failure of care, but because of a crisis created by Medicaid delays from the State of Illinois, past construction decisions by the Champaign County Board, and a misinformed and low turnout (20%) vote. However, despite the continued drumbeat to sell CCNH coming from some of our elected leaders, County Board Member Kyle Patterson has joined ten other Board Members in continuing support for CCNH by signing a pledge. Patterson promises that he “will explore every possible option to preserve CCNH as a publicly accountable and quality care institution.”

To allow the County Board to sell out seniors for the sake of expediency would dishonor the hundred-year history of this community providing care to the neediest of citizens in Champaign County. It will not be easy, but Champaign County Nursing Home can still find its financial footing as a public institution for the next hundred years.

Michael Wilmore is currently Treasurer of CC-CARE and an AFSCME Staff Representative.

Posted in Nursing Home, seniors | Comments Off on C/U Voters Value Nursing Home at Polls, Continue Support Despite Overall Outcome and Challenges Ahead

The Art Theater Coop

Posted on 05/19/2017 by Leigh Estabrook

 

By Leigh Stewart Estabrook, President, Board of Directors, Art Theater Coop

The Art Theater Co-op, serving Champaign, Urbana and the surrounding communities, was the inspiration of Sanford Hess, then sole owner of what was the Art Theater, and Ben Galewsky, then president of the board of the Common Ground Food Co-op. In 2011, Galewsky and Hess spearheaded the creation of a co-op able to assume ownership of the theater. In late 2012 the Co-op purchased the business from Hess and assumed his lease.

Cooperative ownership of an art theater is unique. In the U.S., art theaters usually incorporate as “charitable” organizations dedicated to culture and education.

Citizens recognize art theaters as “public goods”—institutions like libraries or schools that benefit all, not just their patrons, even if they cannot sustain themselves in the market. The Art Theater Co-op has been an important experiment for this community: it has changed the way the Theater is perceived and how people engage in its work. But its legal status as a co-op has been frustratingly restrictive.

Most of the capital raised from purchases of shares was used to purchase a necessary new digital projector and make other capital improvements. Only $10,000 of the over $100,000 raised in ownership shares remains, not enough even to cover the remaining debt from purchasing the business. Ticket, concession, and merchandise sales cover basic costs, but are insufficient to provide equipment upgrades, improvements in the building, and special programming. The Art Theater Co-op, unfortunately, cannot operate independent of donations or grants.

Increasingly the Co-op has relied on such things as the annual membership program, sponsorship of the Smart Kids series and the Kickstarter campaign to refurbish the marquee. But as it sought to expand its fund raising, the Theater quickly confronted legal limits to cooperative ownership that affected who could donate and what benefits a donor could receive.

A Brief Technical Aside About the Tax Code and the Co-op

Under the U.S. tax code, the Art Theater Co-op is a not-for-profit, but it is not eligible to receive donations that are tax-deductible to the donor; nor can it receive such status so long as it remains a cooperative. It cannot become a 501(c)(3). Charities like the Champaign Community Foundation can provide grants only to other charities. They cannot support the Art unless it has tax-exempt status of its own.

For the past year, the Art Film Foundation (AFF) has collaborated with the Theater. Founded in 2015 by Dan Schreiber, a former member of the Art Theater Co-op Board, the AFF’s primary purpose is “to promote culture and education through film and cinema, and to foster dialogue through and about film.” It is a 501(c)(3) organization and has been able to support some Art Theater programs from tax-exempt donations; but the AFF can fund programs of the Art, not the Theater as a whole.

Back to the Co-op

After two years of seeking ways to work within the Internal Revenue Service limits, on April 4, 2017, the Board of the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign voted to merge with the Art Film Foundation (AFF). This month Co-op owners will vote on the proposed merger and, if approved, the Co-op will necessarily dissolve: the business will become fully a part of the AFF. Neither one person nor a group of people will own the Art. A not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization will become the owner and thus enable the Theater to become eligible to accept tax-exempt donations directly.

If the merger succeeds, the Art immediately becomes eligible to apply for grants from a wide number of foundations and from the other non-profit organizations. The Art also can hope to raise more substantial donations, both in-kind and monetary, from individuals once those donations are tax-deductible.

The financial challenges for the Art are similar to those faced by other co-ops: the Seminary Coop Bookstore in Chicago and the local Common Ground Food Co-op are but two that have recently sent out letters of distress to their owners. They, like the Art Theater Co-op, need financial support to augment ownership contributions and patronage.

The Art Board has concluded the Co-op must merge with the AFF if it is to keep up with community needs and desires. The Art’s merger with the Art Film Foundation should have little impact on the theater’s day-to-day operations, and General Manager Austin McCann will continue as its gifted programmer and manager.  Because the change can allow increased fund-raising, the Board sees the reorganization leading to more ambitious plans such as major repairs, finding a way to have a second screen or even acquiring its current or another building—little pieces of a better world.

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Should Champaign County Create a “Public Bank” to Promote Local Economic and Community Development

Posted on 05/19/2017 by GaryStorm

Born and raised in Urbana, Gary is a retired Dean and Professor of Education and Social Justice at the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS)

 

A Champaign County Public Bank could receive deposits from county-based residents, businesses, hospitals, institutions of higher education and municipal governments, as well as County government itself, that would be used to help secure loans—including mortgages as well as corporate and public bonds—for beneficial public, private and nonprofit purposes and, in the process, “create new money” to circulate in the local economy and employ more people.

Today, money is created primarily by banks extending loans to borrowers and then managing the new accounts established. When loans are made, a borrower’s account is credited with the amount of the loan. This becomes an IOU (or debt) from the borrower to the bank and, conversely, an asset to the bank. Through this process, new money is created in the form of electronic entries that can be redeemed as cash when needed.

The deposits in borrowers’ accounts are spent on various productive activities designed to bring positive financial returns (or desired capital or consumer goods or services) to the borrowers, either of which typically expands economic activity in the local area. However, the deposits must be paid back to the bank over time with interest. Interest earned by the bank is what makes loans significant assets.

As new money circulates in the local area through the exchange of goods and services, its beneficial effects multiply.  If the loans are mortgages, new homes or business structures are often built—or old ones purchased and improved. If the loans are bonds issued by the county itself or by municipal governments, infrastructure improvements may get made. If the loans are conventional business loans, new or expanded business activity may be stimulated. All of these activities create new jobs!

Before moving on, it should be noted that all banks, public and private, must secure the loans they make by maintaining reserves. Bank reserves are the currency (or bank capital) that is not lent out to a bank’s clients. A small fraction of the total deposits (typically 10 percent) is held internally by the bank in cash vaults or deposited with the central bank. The reserves exist to ensure that assets are available to cover expenses incurred by loans that fail or by unusually high rates of withdrawal of bank deposits (so-called “runs” on the bank).

For public banks, an approach for establishing sufficient reserves to cover the above contingencies is that used by the Bank of North Dakota (BND), the only public state bank in the U.S. The BND was set up as the Bank of North Dakota “doing business as” the state of North Dakota. This guarantees that all the assets of the state (its revenue deposits, real estate holdings, pension funds, investment securities, etc.) and, if necessary, its taxing powers are available to the BND to secure loans it makes. The BND also has an account with the Federal Reserve (central bank) that can be a source of very low interest loans to meet short term emergencies.

Most of the interest income taken in by the BND becomes available to make additional loans for publicly beneficial purposes. A portion could also be returned to the state, however, in the form of dividends. If the state has issued bonds for some purpose, such dividends could have the effect of “balancing out” the cost of interest on the bonds which, in turn, could reduce the state’s need to levy taxes extensively.

There is no reason why a county- or municipal-level public bank could not be established “doing business as” the county or municipality in the same fashion. Thus, a Champaign County Public Bank could be established (perhaps in conjunction with some or all of the municipalities located within it) to do business as Champaign County. This would allow extensive loans to be made which would spur economic growth throughout the County. The interest income generated could be used to bolster the bank’s reserves, extend more loans to the public, and/or pay dividends to the County (and perhaps to participating municipal governments).

Differences between Public and Private Banks

In the case of public banks, surplus income derived from fees, interest, investment securities, service charges, etc. after expenses have been paid can either be retained as reserves or, among other options, be “reissued” as additional loans to stimulate further local development; it would not, however, be treated as profit to be distributed for private gain.

By contrast, private banks, increasingly large national institutions, typically invest this surplus income to generate maximum profit to distribute to shareholders, directors and CEOs who may not even live—and spend money—in the local area.

Private banks usually feel pressure to maximize profits to attract or maintain shareholders and be competitive with other banks. This is often accomplished by investing their surplus income in different ways, including in financial instruments such as derivatives and credit default swaps which can place bank clients at risk unless the banks are deemed “too big to fail” and receive taxpayer bailouts for losses they incur as occurred in 2008. If profits are made from these investments, they are distributed to shareholders, directors and CEOs rather than being reinvested in beneficial local development. In short, they are used to benefit “Wall Street” rather than “Main Street.” The rich get richer; the rest, poorer.

It should be noted that because public banks use their surplus income to address the real economic needs of everyday individuals and of the institutions which serve them, wealth gets distributed much more broadly than it would if money were managed by private banks aiming to serve their shareholders, etc., a small subset of the total U.S. population.

It might be asked whether nonprofit credit unions with their members democratically controlling the organization could not be an attractive alternative to public banks? The short answer is that credit unions often struggle to generate reserves of sufficient size to offer loans supporting large commercial and governmental projects/activities. Their reserves would not include the extensive revenues and other assets of at least one government entity as occurs with public banks. Credit unions are better used for smaller financial transactions like home mortgages, auto loans, and small business loans.

Would a Champaign County Public Bank siphon money away from smaller, locally-owned private banks or credit unions and threaten their survival, or could it cooperate with these institutions in ways that benefit them and the local groups/organizations they serve?

For example, with its substantial reserves backed by one or more unit of government, could a county-level public bank subsidize or otherwise support the activities of locally-owned private banks and credit unions in ways that make them more competitive with large national banks? In exchange for these institutions agreeing to focus their efforts on supporting local economic development, could a public county bank act as a “mini-reserve bank” to these institutions by backing up their financial commitments directly, extending them low interest loans when necessary, or otherwise helping them to reduce the costs of their services (e.g., interest rates charged clients, especially low-income clients)?

Or could a county-level public bank cooperate with locally-owned private banks and credit unions by using the latter’s facilities, employees and/or technologies (e.g., computer hard- and software) to deliver at least some of its own financial services, thereby enhancing, through decentralization, their clients’ access to services? Further, could a few of these institution’s directors serve on the governing board of the public bank, ensuring coordinated communication, planning and problem solving? These forms of cooperation could improve the financial services available to county residents, businesses, and other organizations.

Residents of Champaign County should consider attending meetings being scheduled at the Independent Media Center (IMC) in downtown Urbana to discuss creating a public bank in the area, and/or implementing other economic reforms described elsewhere in this issue of the Public i (see notice).

 

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Green Bay Packers—A Better Model for Sports Ownership

Posted on 05/19/2017 by Neil Parthun

In the past months, the National Football League (NFL) has been the focus of popular anger from its fans. First, the Rams successfully petitioned to move from St. Louis to Los Angeles. The San Diego Chargers followed suit by relocating to Los Angeles too. Most recently, the Oakland Raiders decided that they will be heading to Las Vegas.

In each case, the billionaire owners of the respective franchises held their fan bases hostage by demanding either significant renovations to their home arenas or the construction of brand-new stadiums with taxpayers covering much of the bill. If the local communities and state would not socialize the cost of billionaires’ private wealth development, then they risked having their team ripped away and sent to another city willing to provide such benefits to the owner.

Similar threats abound in the sports world and are nothing new. This is largely standard operating procedure for most professional sports owners who are eager to generate revenue that comes from having a shiny new arena. But people opposed to this behavior may find a solution with one of the NFL’s own teams, the Green Bay Packers.

The Packers are located in one of the smallest markets in professional sports—Green Bay, Wisconsin. The team struggled economically during its first few seasons. By 1923, the franchise was about bankrupt. The way the team chose to handle this problem was unique, and has not been seen in pro sports since. Instead of selling the Packers to a new investor and uprooting the team to a new municipal base, the owners instead decided to allow local fans to buy ownership shares to keep the team financially solvent. As such, this established the stockholders of the franchise as the collective owners of the team. The Green Bay Packers were the first (and currently only) non-profit, community-owned professional sports team in the United States.

Rather than make demands on the local municipality to spend millions of public dollars on refurbishments to their home stadium, Lambeau Field, the Packers sell ownership stock in the team to finance the costs. Fans and supporters of the Green Bay team are the ones who voluntarily fund these ventures.

Owning stock shares provides no dividends, no equity and provides no privileges to get much sought-after game tickets. Shareholders are afforded the ability to vote for the board of directors and attend the annual meeting. Yet the most recent offering from December 2012 to the end of February 2013 to fund fixes to Lambeau Field saw over 250,000 shares sold at $250 per share. Fans are eager to be a part of this collectively owned franchise.

While many sports team owners consistently levy the threat of relocation to get more money, that is impossible with the Pack. The bylaws prevent any one person from owning such a significant amount of shares. Even if the local fans eventually decided that they wanted to sell the team to a private entity, any greedy motives would not bear fruit. The Articles of Incorporation for the Green Bay Football Corporation explicitly state that if the Packers ever moved out of Green Bay, any profits generated would be given to the Green Bay Packers Foundation solely for charitable purposes in the area. So there is no financial incentive to move the team.

Few fans gripe about the cost of concessions at the games, because they’re aware that 60% of the proceeds are funneled back into funding local charities and charitable causes. Volunteers and organizations are allowed to fundraise by working the concession stands on the Thursdays, Sundays and Mondays when the Packers play at home on the “frozen tundra” of Lambeau. Instead of fattening the pockets of a ridiculously wealthy owner, significant amounts of money are going towards helping the community and making Green Bay a better place for its residents.

While the NFL passed rules in the 1980s that eliminate this kind of ownership, and the ever-increasing valuations of franchises make this a significant challenge, the model of the Packers provides a framework for what sports fans and political activists should clamor for: supporters of the team funding the construction, fixes and refurbishments of their arena. No more conservative, right-wing reactionary owners using fans’ money to bankroll all sorts of noxious political causes. The fans may not become the most successful owners, but they’d never threaten to uproot the team or demand public financing of their private wealth development. After seeing the recent spate of teams leaving host cities or the horror shows of the McCourts’ owning the LA Dodgers, Donald Sterling’s tenure with the NBA’s LA Clippers, Dan Gilbert of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Dan Snyder of the NFL’s Washington football team—can the fans really be any worse? The Packers aren’t just a football team. They’re a model for how we can do sports better for cities, communities and athletics.

— Full disclosure: I am an owner of a share of Packers ownership stock after their 2013 stock sale.

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Worker Co-ops in Illinois and Their Future

Posted on 05/19/2017 by Jacqueline Hannah

Jacqueline Hannah

Jacqueline Hannah has been a manager and organizer in the US cooperative movement for 12 years, merging her passion for local just economies with her desire to empower individuals and communities to create their own solutions. Originally from the Chicago suburbs, Hannah has been a C-U resident now for over 20 years.

The future of work is hard to predict, the one thing we know for sure is that it will be changing, fast. Powerful forces are trying to ensure these coming changes of automation and increased globalization benefit the financial elite at the expense of the world-wide working class. While the challenges ahead are uncharted, we do have a powerful tool available to us that have worked in the past through times of great worker upheaval: worker co-ops.

In Illinois, we have a little-known history of worker cooperatives, which are business enterprises owned by the workers, each having an equal stake and vote in the business. While we do know that hundreds, possibly thousands, of worker-owned cooperatives were organized during the early US labor movement in the 1880s, we have little record of their existence in this state.

Many states started putting cooperative business statutes on their books in the early 1900s that dictated what kinds of cooperatively owned businesses could form and under what guidelines. These laws were created state by state, each one different. The Illinois Cooperative Act of 1918, formulated in the early years of the last century, was still on the books, unchanged, until 2016. It had little to recommend itself to forming a worker cooperative, and much to hinder it, and so dampened the development of worker co-ops for many decades in this state.

In 2015, a working group was formed to change the law. “One of the concerns people had was that the existing law did not allow service-based worker co-ops to form under the Co-operatives Act,” says Rebecca Osland, Policy Associate at the Illinois Stewardship Alliance (ISA). Osland formed and headed up the working group that studied the law and how to best change it. “This was a fairly simple fix to the IL statute, and so in 2016, Illinois Stewardship Alliance worked with State Rep. Will Guzzardi and State Rep. Anna Moeller to open the Co-operatives Act to all kinds of business. Previously, the law was restricted to grocery and farming type co-ops, and manufactures of items, such as flour, meal, boots, shoes, and apparel. The 2016 legislation scratched out these specific business types, and simply allowed one type of co-op to be any business operated by its shareholders—worker co-ops!”

While Osland’s organization’s mission is to cultivate sustainable local farm and food systems in Illinois, ISA felt strongly about taking up the work to amend the IL statute to make it easier to form worker co-ops in the state, because of the potential impact of worker owned co-ops on the food system. “We took an interest in making it possible for worker co-ops to form along the local food supply chain, though the new law we helped move forward is not limited to these types of businesses.” While the changes proposed to the Cooperatives Act did pass and go into place in 2016, so far the impact on the worker co-op movement in Illinois is hard to gauge. It turns out there are strong reasons why a group of workers forming or taking over a business might not want to form under the Cooperative Act in Illinois. “Here’s the key: workers in a corporation are presumed to be employees, or at least it’s a big grey area. And there are many burdensome requirements of employment laws,” explains Sarah Kaplan, an Illinois attorney who specializes in cooperative law. Kaplan currently recommends that workers forming a business they intend to run in a cooperative manner not use the IL cooperative statute, but instead form as an LLC so the workers can be treated under the law as the owners rather than employees of the business, which the Illinois Cooperative Act still does not allow.

The legal bramble matters, and likely can be pointed to as one reason the worker co-op movement in Illinois is still “nascent, but it is growing,” according to Brian Van Slyke, worker-owner at The TESA Collective,  a worker cooperative that creates programs and tools for social and economic change. When asked about the growth of the worker co-op movement in Illinois, Van Slyke shares, “I believe I hear about new worker co-ops popping up every couple of months, most specifically in Chicago, where I live.” But while worker co-ops are popping up now in at least the Chicagoland area, Van Slykes says the laws still need addressing to make Illinois conducive to worker co-ops. “There’s actually a push to get legislation passed in Illinois that would make incorporating a new business as a worker co-op easier, which could help the movement boom—but that effort has hit several roadblocks. Also, there’s been efforts in the past to start a worker cooperative network in Chicago that hasn’t quite gained enough traction.” Van Slykes sees positive signs on the horizon, though, for the movement, as organizations like Democracy at Work, a non-profit that advocates for worker cooperatives and democratic workplaces, come forward to support worker co-op organizing in the Chicago region. Kaplan also sees growth on the horizon for the Illinois worker co-op movement, and hopes to take part in helping to make it happen. “The Sustainable Economies Law Center and some partners have created something called Worker Co-op Academy. I’ve been thinking of offering that in Chicago, and hope to take action on that in the near future.”

Outside of Chicagoland there is as yet little stirring of the worker co-op movement in Illinois, but certainly just as much need for worker empowerment. Both in Chicago and nationally, there are trends in the types of businesses that tend to organize as worker cooperatives and they may be a good place for those in C-U to begin the discussion of worker empowerment through worker cooperative formation. “I’ve seen a lot of worker co-ops become established in industries that typically take advantage of low wage workers and freelancers. Two of the biggest examples, I think, are tech collectives (like companies that build websites) as well as coffee shops,” shares Van Slykes. “Worker cooperatives give employees access to a kind of control, stability, and self-determination they normally don’t have in traditionally exploitative industries.” The TESA Collective, Van Slykes’ organization, has also created a number of resources for groups and communities to use to explore how to start worker cooperatives. They offer a free documentary, Own the Change, about starting worker cooperatives, as well as other educational tools.

When asked if ISA could take a role in educating on and supporting the worker co-op movement in the rest of Illinois, Osland was open to the idea, but clear the call to do so would have to come from their members and communities they serve. “There seems to be a lot of interest around the country in figuring out how to remove additional barriers to make it easier for cooperatives to form. Those who are on the ground working to launch cooperatives should schedule meetings with state and federal elected officials and talk with them in their districts about the value of cooperatives and the barriers that they are hitting. Organizations such as Illinois Stewardship Alliance may be able to help, but we rely on our members’ and partners’ participation and input so that we can maximize the impact of our resources and staff. Working together, we can strengthen our local economies and communities.”

 

 

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Trump Administration Fascist?

Posted on 05/19/2017 by David Prochaska

The “highly unusual,” “unprecedented” Trump administration is leading us into “uncharted territory,” but where exactly? Since last November’s election, some commentators trying to understand what happened have used the “F” word, fascism, but without defining it. Many more have avoided it altogether as too toxic and pejorative, preferring instead terms like “authoritarian” and “populist.”

Yet a strong argument can be made that White House Senior Advisors Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller, and Deputy National Security Advisor Sebastian Gorka are fascists. Also, that Breitbart and other “alt-right” outlets, such as the Daily Stormer, plus billionaire donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer are fascist. And when Trump channels in tweets and speech Bannon, Miller, Breitbart, and other alt-right sites, he is repeating their fascist sentiments.

In The Anatomy of Fascism, Robert Paxton defines it “as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity.” He goes on to identify “a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants” that works “in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites.” This recalls Richard Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style in American Politics, which he characterized by “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.”

Paxton’s discussion is important for two additional reasons. Instead of viewing fascism as a binary—either it is or it is not—he lays out five developmental stages. These stages—his second point—can apply anywhere, anytime, and not simply to the classic cases of Hitler and Mussolini. This renders them applicable and useful for the present.

Stage 1 is the creation, and consists of individuals, isolated cells or groups that talk about national humiliation, lost vigor, and the failures of liberalism and democracy. In the U.S. this goes back to the original “America First” movement in the early 1940s of Charles Lindbergh and others, to the late 1950s’ and early 1960s’ John Birch Society, and Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign.

During stage 2 these fringe individuals and splinter groups form a larger group or party that takes root in the political system. Stage 2 corresponds to the self-styled “movement conservatism” of the last 40 years. It swept intransigent Tea Party Republicans to power in 2010.

Stage 3 marks the seizure of power over the government. Typically, the takeover is nonviolent; it occurs often in alliance with conservatives. Mussolini was asked to form a government in 1922; Hitler was named German chancellor in 1933. In the U.S. stage 3 occurred November 8, 2016 when Trump took power through the Electoral College but not popular vote, giving right-wing Republicans control over all three branches of government.

Yet it is not during stage 3 but stage 4 that the key break occurs with the previous regime. Exercising power generally entails coordination and discipline. But with Republicans battling among themselves, the question today is: how far down the road of coordination will the Trump administration get?

In stage 5, fascists choose between radicalization and entropy. Although “Fascist regimes have to at least produce an impression of momentum—‘permanent revolution,’” only Nazi Germany pursued radicalization to the point of self-destruction.

What is most worrisome and most dangerous is how the alt-right has gone mainstream and been normalized. It has been brought into the White House with Bannon, Miller, and others, while Trump retweets Breitbart and other alt-right sites.

The extent to which Republicans have enabled Trump and the alt-right is cause for serious concern. In 1920s’ Italy and 1930s’ Germany, political groupings from the center to the radical right went along in lockstep with the far right. Today, Congressional Republicans and their corporate friends are repeating the error.

At the time of writing, Bannon was the key. His worldview consists of what he calls his “three verticals or three buckets.” “The first is kind of national security and sovereignty.” “Sovereignty” puts “America first.” Bannon and Trump’s aggressive “America first” nationalism is the opposite of 1940s’ “America first” isolationism. At its core is white nationalism, or rather white supremacy. White Judeo-Christian civilization is engaged in an epic battle against “radical Islamic terrorism.”

“The second line of work is what I refer to as economic nationalism,” Bannon says. “Economic nationalism” puts “America first” economically. Eschewing free trade, he favors protectionism. Anti-immigration, he bans immigrants and refugees.

“The third, broadly, line of work is deconstruction of the administrative state.”  By “administrative state,” Bannon means both the federal bureaucracy and governmental regulations. Here nothing puts it better than his own language. “I’m a Leninist,” he said in 2014. “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too.”   

Lastly, he targets the “fake news” mainstream media. “They’re corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda.” For Bannon and his alt-right friends, reporting by the corporate media ipso facto confirms their conspiracist worldview. Thus, we get Trump, channeling Bannon, attacking the mainstream media as the “enemy of the people.”

Bannon and his ilk personify Paxton’s definition of fascism. Hofstadter termed the Bannons of the world “pseudo-conservatives,” right-wing radicals who sought to deny their radicalism—hence the “pseudo”—but who actually expressed “a profound if largely unconscious hatred of our society and its ways.” “They wished to destroy far more than they did to conserve,” another commentator says.

Sounds like Bannon. “I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Both in his films and his politics, “apparently, Bannon just loves to blow stuff up.”

What about Trump? He happily channels Bannon and Miller’s fascist sentiments. In his inaugural address, written by Bannon and Miller, Trump repeated what they had borrowed from archvillain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises (2012). “Today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people.”

By the end of January and beginning of February, commentators started referring to “President Bannon.” The New York Times editorialized “President Bannon?” A Saturday Night Live skit featuring Bannon as the Grim Reaper captured this political moment with a pitch-perfect scene in which Bannon took Trump’s seat behind the Oval office desk, relegating Trump to a tiny nearby table.

With the Trump administration, we have begun the fourth stage of fascism, but there are some countervailing factors. “If Trump is a fascist, he may be the most backassward fascist we’ve ever seen,” wrote Corey Robin regarding the late January rollout of Trump’s first Muslim immigrant ban. The Trump administration may get better at handling such matters. But the missteps and demonstrable lies continue unabated. Moreover, Trump has managed to unite all those on the left and center-left, elected Democrats, and brought about an outpouring of grassroots opposition to virtually everything he and his administration do and stand for.

On the other hand, Trump’s February 28, 2017 speech to Congress, despite its lack of specifics, was generally deemed “presidential,” if only in contrast to what had come before. If Trump were to act “presidential,” even desultorily, then not only his rural, white, working class Main Street voters, but also his Wall Street corporate supporters would continue to back him. Key here is Congressional Republicans. It is more likely that they will go-along to get-along than break with Trump decisively. Shudder the thought, but if Trump somehow restrains himself from continually stirring up the opposition, it may well wither.

Yet the bottom line is that anything that anybody says or writes today is even more contingent than usual on future developments. In the Trump era, this means the next couple of days, even hours. Because we simply do not know.

March 31, 2017

This article first appeared at Juan Cole Informed Comment

 

 

 

 

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50th Anniversary of Project 500 Coming Up, Should Be Celebrated

Posted on 05/19/2017 by Terry Townsend

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy called on the nation to take action to eradicate the interrelated and interconnected social problems of African-American citizens in the United States. The country was in a crisis. Many, but not all, post-secondary schools devoted considerable time and resources to answering the President’s call by, for example, forming general and faculty committees, holding conferences, developing new policies and procedures, and hiring new staff.

In 1966, several universities launched initiatives for “disadvantaged” students, including The City University of New York, University of Wisconsin, University of California, and Southern Illinois University. The following year, similar programs were undertaken at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

Many of these programs had started up as early as 1963. Yet, the academy’s deliberately slow way of doing business resulted in actual launch dates years later. The University of Illinois was among the first to launch its initiative to recruit and enroll the “disadvantaged” student. University of Illinois President David Dodds Henry observed in 1963, “I believe that we must take more positive steps to overcome the disabilities that stem from decades of inequality in our society… as we build ramps for our physically disabled students without violating our standards, I believe that we must offset some of the disabilities arising from racial and social inequality by building psychological and special assistance ramps for young people who need them.” President Henry framed the University’s call to action in the light of that of President Kennedy and the mission of the public Land-Grant University to create a “people’s school.” He created the All-University Committee on Human Relations and Equal Opportunity. He appointed new administrative and academic staff.

At the same time, the Governor of Illinois issued an executive order, the Code of Fair Practice. Faculty member Harry Tiebout and student leader Bill “Squirt” Smith were fighting racial discrimination locally in and around the Urbana campus. External stakeholder actions supported the actions of internal constituencies.

On April 4, 1968, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The United States experienced widespread violence and political protest. It was pandemonium! The ferment at the University of Illinois was unbecoming. This was not a panty-raid riot. Demands for more Black students, staff, faculty, and programs from competing stakeholders and constituencies flooded President Henry’s office, and the office of the first Chancellor of the University of Illinois system, J.W. Peltason. In 1961, Professor Peltason had already written and published the seminal work 58 Lonely Men: Southern Federal Judges and School Desegregation. Appointed Chancellor of the University of Illinois, Urbana campus on September 1, 1967, he had been in that office approximately eight months when Reverend King was killed.

At the same time, there was great tension within, between, and among stakeholders and internal constituencies. Eventually, Chancellor Peltason met with Black Student Association (BSA) executive members and Champaign-Urbana Black leaders, some of who were UIUC students. BSA President Dan Dixon observed, “Chancellor Peltason opened the meeting with a question―What do you want? I turned to fellow student leader Boyd Jarrell, who said we want 500 additional students beginning of the fall semester approximately five months away. Chancellor Peltason gave his approval.”

On May 2, 1968, Chancellor Peltason announced the Special Educational Opportunities Program, popularly known as “Project 500.” He stated: “Specifically, every effort is being made to increase enrollment in the Special Education Opportunity Program from the previously planned 189 to at least 500 students at the Urbana campus for the 1968 Fall semester.” On the same day, he wrote to BSA President Dan Dixon: “The draft report circulated by the ad hoc special education committee contains targets for enrollment of Black students, which, in my opinion, must be increased in order for the University to demonstrate its concern for the crisis which now confronts the nation.”

On October 18, 1968, Chancellor Peltason distributed a document entitled The Special Education Opportunities Program (SEOP), at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that outlined:

“General Nature and Purpose:

“The Special Educational Opportunities Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, commonly referred to as “Project 500,” is one of several experimental programs at universities across the country designed to offer young people from disadvantaged backgrounds―those whose class/cultural characteristic and financial need placed them in a disadvantage in competition with the majority of students―an opportunity to continue their formal education beyond high school. A parallel program exists at the Chicago Circle.

“Through SEOP the University is attempting to do several important things. Among them are

  1. To provide educational opportunity for students who might not otherwise be able to receive it or even to consider undertaking a college-level program.
  2. To increase the numbers of minority group students on the Urbana campus.
  3. To develop educational practices and policies both academic and administrative that will assist and support such students and which might benefit other students generally.
  4. To provide and disseminate to legitimate and responsible educational institutions and agencies information to increase their ability to deal with educational and sociological problems that affect students so identified.
  5. To provide for the students in the SEOP the vital cultural and social experience of meeting and living and learning with and from students from cultures different from their own.”

In the technical sense, “Project 500” was not a program, but rather one initiative of several that used existing services, and external resources. The University of Illinois launched other major initiatives during this transformative period in civil rights. The first was the Equal Opportunity Law Program (EOLP), and on the Chicago campus the Educational Assistance Program (EAP), and the Medical Opportunity Program (MOP). The work by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, President David Dodds Henry, and staff assistance William K. Williams, Joseph Smith, Lucius Barker and Clarence Shelly, to name a few, is important to telling this story.

The impetus to solve the national social problem came from President Kennedy. But the Urbana campus initiatives were not out of step with the national crisis. Undoubtedly, the aftermath of MLK’s assassination, coupled with the advocacy of the UIUC BSA, partnering with Champaign-Urbana Black leaders including Steve Jackson, Al Mitchell, Lawrence “Beno” Williams, Bill “Squirt” Smith and John Lee Johnson, to name a few, were the catalysts that motivated Chancellor Peltason to create and enlarge “Project 500.”

In the final analysis, “Project 500” was Chancellor Peltason’s initiative. It will be 50 years old in 2018. The University of Illinois should commemorate and celebrate one of higher education’s finest examples of how the “People’s School” served the public good.

Posted in African Americans, University of Illinois | Comments Off on 50th Anniversary of Project 500 Coming Up, Should Be Celebrated

The Cops Killed Richie

Posted on 05/01/2017 by Brian Dolinar

Richard B. Turner (Left) with his brother John Turner.

No matter how much training or technology they get, the cops just can’t stop killing Black people. On a Wednesday morning, November 16, 2016, at approximately 8:30 a.m., Champaign police received a call about a “disorderly” subject, Richard “Richie” Turner, a homeless man well known by many students and community members in Campustown.

Richie was chased by police into the back alley of Penn Station. There he was tackled and pinned down by four officers from the Champaign Police Department (University of Illinois Police were not involved in the incident): Officer Christopher Young, Officer Andrew Wilson, Officer Michael Talbott, and Sergeant Thomas Frost. Police pushed Richie’s face into the concrete, cuffed him by his wrists and ankles, what is known as being “hog-tied.” After a short struggle, Richie stopped breathing and laid motionless. Richie’s death was called an accident, but his sister is not willing to accept this explanation. “To me, it was not an accident,” Chandra Turner told me.

What follows is a look into Richie’s death from an investigation conducted by the Illinois State Police obtained by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, a report released by the office of Champaign County Coroner Duane Northrup, and correspondence with Richie’s sister, Chandra Turner, who is determined to find out what happened to her brother.

“Out of Sorts”

Police were responding to a call made by a woman who later told police she was “familiar” with Richie and saw him “almost every day.” On this morning, Richie was in front of the Firehaus bar on Sixth Street with a bottle of wine at 8:30 a.m.. She called police to check on him because he seemed “out of sorts.”

When Officer Christopher Young arrived, Richie was sitting on the ground in front of the Home Town Pantry convenience store at Sixth and Green. As soon as he saw the police, Richie “abruptly moved around trying to stand up.” He is described by police as “yelling” and “largely unintelligible.” After Young approached him, Richie grabbed a construction sign and threw it on the ground. Young “yelled” at him to put it back and told Richie to “leave the area.”

Richie crossed the intersection at Sixth and Green and headed north. Police then “followed” Richie yelling at him to stop. Richie is described in police reports as “running.” But according to Richie’s sister, Chandra Turner, he had a bad leg from falling one winter and could not have run too fast.

Officer Andrew Wilson called an ambulance, seeking an “involuntary submittal for evaluation.” This story is partly about the failure of police to adequately address people with mental illness, or if they should be called upon at all to deal with people often afflicted by paranoia.

In the alley behind the Penn Station restaurant, police stopped Richie. Officer Wilson was the first to put his hands on Richie, grabbing his right arm. Wilson was aware of Richie’s history of “mental illness” from “several interactions” with him in the past.

Sgt. Thomas Frost wrote in his report that Richie appeared “very manic and was thrusting his arms up and down, back and forth. Additionally, he when he moved his head it moved rapidly from side-to-side.” His said this behavior was a “mirror image” from April 2016 when police took him to Carle hospital for a mental health evaluation.

Relax

At this point, as Officer Young describes it, they all three “fell to the ground.” Police had Richie face down on the concrete. Officer Wilson turned Richie’s right arm around his back. Officer Young was on top of him, with his right knee on Richie’s left shoulder. Young wrote in his report, “I used my right hand to stop Richie’s head from lifting/turning.” While pushing his face into the concrete, Officer Young was “constantly telling Richard to relax.”

Officer Michael Talbott then took hold of Richie’s legs, while Officer Thomas Frost put a “hobble” around his ankles. A police hobble can be tied around the feet, and then connected by a rope to handcuffs. This restraining of an individual by hands and feet is known as “hog tying.” This practice has contributed to other deaths in police custody in Los Angeles and Memphis.

Although Sgt. Frost had a Taser with him, he did not use it. Whether the outcome would have been different is questionable, as Tasers have been linked to deaths in custody.

“At that time,” Officer Young reported, “we noticed Richard was no longer resisting or moving.” When police rolled Richie over on his back, “he did not seem to be breathing.” Richie was pronounced dead shortly after being transported to Carle hospital.

Deputy Coroner Sara Rand concluded that Richie’s death was “accidental,” but a contributing factor was “physical and mental stress during restraint by law enforcement.”

Police interviewed witnesses who give another perspective. Two homeless men were nearby, and although they did not see police kill Richie, they witnessed events before and after. One man followed police in their pursuit of Richie and said they “tackled” him. A second man said he saw police put Richie into an ambulance and heard one of the officers say, “who had they knee on his neck?”

A University of Illinois student was also interviewed. In his opinion, police were “a little aggressive” in the way “one officer kneeled on him.”

None of the four Champaign officers had body cameras.

“Something ain’t right”              

Richie’s sister Chandra reached out to me after receiving the coroner’s report. She was surprised at the test results. Richie was found to have a minimal blood alcohol content (0.004%), he was clearly not drunk. There were also no drugs in his system, only coffee and tobacco.

“He would not be dead if it wasn’t for [the police]” Chandra explained to me. She pointed out that police had Richie’s hand behind his back, and his feet tied. “They didn’t try to save him,” she said. “Something ain’t right.”

I spoke with Champaign Police Chief Anthony Cobb about the incident. He told me there was an internal investigation still underway and he could not comment. Asked when his investigation would be done, he could not provide a timeline.

Richie’s death raises the question of whether police should be used to respond to individuals with mental illness. As I have reported, during the 1990s, Champaign County operated an award-winning Crisis Team, made up of trained professionals who answered calls about people who were suicidal or mentally ill, whether in the local jail, or on the street. Such mental health services were eliminated and privatized by Sheriff Dan Walsh soon after he came into office. Since then, CU has seen a rise of deaths in police custody. In 2015-2016, there were three deaths in the county jail.

In recent years, out of the debate over a new jail, local mental health services providers, county officials, and local police briefly attempted to create a Detox Center for people in need of drug addiction and mental health services, but the idea has been abandoned by several bureaucratic committees.

Sunny Ture, an organizer with Black United Front UIUC, responded, “The murder of Richard Turner is a tragedy for his family and another reminder of the Champaign Police Department’s destructive relationship with the Black community. The many mistakes their officers made have been obscured and ignored because Richard was Black, poor, and homeless. His life did not matter to Sheriff Dan Walsh, who has a history of cutting mental health services in favor of more tools of criminalization. Richard Turner’s murderers should be held accountable for their crimes, and the Champaign Police Department should immediately end the practice of commanding armed officers to interact with people that have mental illness.”

 

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Our Seniors Are Still Not For Sale

Posted on 04/20/2017 by Josh Hartke

(Josh Hartke is a lifelong progressive activist and a member of the Champaign County Board from central Champaign. He serves on the Nursing Home Board of Directors, and cared for both his father and grandmother before they passed in Nursing Homes.)

Josh Hartke

The Champaign County Nursing Home, with its long, storied history and its extensive ties to the community, is far from being the last choice for those who cannot afford the private Cadillac homes. With its tax support and the charitable support of the community, it provides so much more than the average home that it is indeed of prime quality. When you examine the home, you see that, for the price paid by private-pay residents and for the money generated by Medicaid, it really provides care that is better than most private nursing homes in the county, by almost any measure. That is more quality per dollar, and that is the entire goal of public health care.

The data are there. Public nursing homes, on a consistent basis, provide a higher quality of care in almost every measure taken nation-wide. They have fewer major infractions during inspection, lesser rates of fines, and a lower level of lawsuits laid against them by residents and their families. They often have better paid staff with higher levels of training and benefits, both things which are key to quality care measures.

Staffing is key here. At Champaign County Nursing Home, we not only provide better nursing staff with higher levels of training, but we also put more of them on the floor than almost any other local nursing home. Our ratings show this, when properly entered. Once the state corrected their data entry error, our star rating reflected this increased measure. Plus, anyone who has actually had a friend or family member stay at a nursing home, knows that the quality and caring of the individuals who work with their loved one are paramount to anything. When someone obviously cares for your family member like you do, you feel better leaving her or him at the home. That is why we continuously strive to improve our relationship with our employees and improve their levels of training and knowledge as they move forward in their career.

At the home, we also provide some very specific services that no other home on a similar cost level provides. One is a dental hygienist on staff full-time, as well as regular visits by a dentist. Those in health care, and especially those in geriatric care, know how key mouth and teeth health are to those in nursing homes. It allows them to eat with pleasure, it prevents further disease, and it is key to getting the nutrients needed by those on specific or limited diets. Regular cleanings, simple maintenance, and any necessary extractions are done by staff on site at the home, preventing the need to move any residents. That is especially important for residents with dementia.

Champaign County Nursing Home also provides onsite rehabilitation, something you will not find at private homes. This helps us to bring in Medicare patients from hospitals, which is key to maintaining financial stability, especially with constant Medicaid delays from the state. This keeps our residents out of the hospital, and it helps them get back home in many cases, and that’s where they and their families want them to be. It helps reduce wounds, and it is key to recovery from surgery, especially orthopedic. With our better-trained and higher levels of staff, the home can help folks get back to their full potential.

We also provide full-time psychological staff, which, as anyone who has had a loved one go through the experience of living in a nursing home, is key to any long term health and success of a resident. Keeping their mind healthy is as important as keeping their body so. With our professional staff and years of experience in geriatric psychology, we can provide therapy and activity, as well as medication when it is warranted.

Our in-house optometry is also key to keeping quality of life as important as basic health in our nursing home. Patients having the ability to see their family clearly during visits is key to their mental well-being. Many of our residents love to read, and keeping their glasses prescription current is very important to keeping them at their favorite pastime, especially since reading helps them to keep their mental acuity. Having a regular visit to our optometrist is a part of that.

We also have full-time Nurse Practitioners on staff who provide full levels of care every weekday, including the ability to monitor and prescribe medication. Along with our high level of Licensed Practical Nurse and Registered Nurse staffing, as well as our extremely caring Certified Nursing Assistants, we provide a level of care that is not maintained at any location that takes Medicaid patients, or that does not cost upwards of $500 per day.

There are also quite a few perks at Champaign County Nursing Home that you will not find at any similar private home. We have the General Store, where residents can pick up snacks, toiletries, and the other necessities of the day without needing to venture away from the home. We have the Beauty Salon, which provides all of our residents with hair care and the dignity that comes with looking good. We have regular outings into the community, including shopping trips, trips to the park, and visits to the movies and other events. Our social director plans onsite excitement as well, including cookouts and parties with music and lots of other activities. Birthday parties, for both staff and residents, are often everyone’s favorites.

But that again leads to the magic that is Champaign County Nursing Home. In our campaign to raise its revenue due to a manufactured crisis by the State of Illinois, we have had so many stories of the loving care people received at the home. Everyone from spouses to siblings to children have stories of how their loved one was treated at our home, and most of these stories feed directly into the people that work there. Some of those employees have been there only a few months, some longer than thirty years, but they all make a commitment to caring, they deserve the credit for what happens at the home, not the blame for financial woes caused by a failure of the state.

It therefore becomes the responsibility of the county board to step up and manage this public asset so that it does not become a private for-profit center. If it does, the very advantages that have made Champaign County Nursing Home such a special place for over a century will disappear in the name of personal profits for share-holders or board members of a private entity.

Those who stand for public health care and its many facets must unite around the home. It is our local extension of the greater progressive movement and a desire for a “Medicare for All” system, a single-payer option just like the rest of the industrialized world. Because if we do not care for our own folks in Champaign County, who will? The same people that made promises that failed in the privatization of the nursing home in Vermilion County? Not while I’m a county board member, and not while so many of my colleagues stand with me. While this election may not have worked the way we wanted, it was by no means a mandate. And as far as we are concerned, our seniors are still not for sale.

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Equal Pay Now, We Cannot Afford to Wait

Posted on 04/07/2017 by Julie Laut

By Julie Laut

On Tuesday, April 4, 2017, I will observe Equal Pay Day, a day that symbolizes how far into the new year women must work to earn as much as men did in 2016. According to the latest statistics, women in the United States who work full time year-round earn just 80 cents for every dollar made by men. The gap has closed significantly since the 1980s, when women earned just 60 cents to the dollar, but even at this current pace the American Association of University Women (AAUW) estimates the gender wage gap will not close until 2152. Data from multiple sources shows that hetero-normative white men continue to dominate pay in 98% of job categories, just one way in which the patriarchal nature of our economic structure continues to devalue women’s work and worth within our society. Women cannot wait 135 years to achieve economic parity. We must educate ourselves on the extent of the issue and find ways to take action now, individually and at the state and national levels.

However useful 80 cents to the dollar is as a reference due to its simplicity, that number flattens an extremely complex issue that impacts women throughout the United States in a myriad of ways. A pay gap persists in every state in the country and throughout 98% of occupations, from the best paid (medicine and law) to the least (janitorial work and service jobs). Statistics show that the gender wage gap is smallest at the top of the socio-economic ladder and widens in lower-paid and lower-skilled jobs. Exceptions to the rule include social work, health education, elementary and middle school teachers, and other so-called “pink collar” jobs where wages historically have decreased as women came to dominate the job category. The gender wage gap also increases as women age, a generational gap that tends to undermine women’s unity on this issue.

While the fight for pay equity will continue at all socio-economic levels, closer attention must be paid to the fact that women in low-income occupations, women whose education stopped after high school, and women of color endure the largest pay gaps. According to the AAUW, the pay gap in 2015 was largest for Hispanic and Latina women, who received only 54% of what white men were paid, meaning Equal Pay Day for Latinas does not come until November! Stretched over a lifetime of work, this gap results in earning losses nearing $1,000,000. Similarly, African American women are estimated to lose nearly $900,000 throughout their work lives as a result of unequal pay.

Parenthood also remains a major detriment to equal pay, with working mothers in the lowest income brackets subject to a higher “motherhood penalty” than higher-income earners and women without children. According to research by Michelle Budig, a professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, working mothers’ income decreases by 4% with each child, whereas fathers with at least one child reap an average pay increase of 6%. The impact of this wage gap on our communities cannot be underestimated. Nearly one quarter of children in the U.S. are being raised by single mothers, according to U.S. census reports, and nearly half of these families live below the poverty line. Without a dependable living wage, single working mothers struggle to afford basic housing and healthful food for their families, and are forced to rely on substandard childcare.

Organizations such as the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and the National Organization for Women (NOW) have fought for pay equity for decades and continue to bring attention to this persistent discriminatory issue year after year. As a result some progress has been made, especially for upper-middle-class women with college degrees. A 2013 report from the Senate Executive Committee Task Force on Faculty Issues and Concerns at the University of Illinois found that a 6-10% gender pay gap persists on campus across units and faculty ranks, far below the 21-23% national median wage gap. Also, legislative action has been taken to attempt to close the gap. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed the Equal Pay Act into law in 2009, which prohibits employers from paying men and women differently for doing the same work, and provides options for filing complaints against discriminatory employers. But the Act clearly has not solved the problem. The AAUW currently ranks Illinois just 24th in the nation in regards to the pay gap. And the problem exists right here in Champaign County where, according to Data USA, a website and visualization engine of public U.S. Government data, the average male salary is approximately $58,500 compared to the average female salary of $48,231, an 18% gap. As recently as 2015, wages for female workers in our area lagged behind males in high-skilled jobs requiring advanced degrees as well as in service industry and manual labor occupations.

So where do we go from here? First, require transparency from employers so that companies and institutions have a harder time denying discriminatory pay practices. We hope that the executive action announced by President Obama in 2016 requiring pay data collection by gender, race, and ethnicity from employers with more than 100 employees will take effect this year as proposed. Second, encourage Congress to update the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to close existing loopholes and “create incentives for employers to follow the law, empower women to negotiate for equal pay, and strengthen federal outreach and enforcement efforts.” Third, work locally to urge our leaders to pass legislation prohibiting employers from utilizing past pay history to determine future pay. Discriminatory pay should not follow an employee from job to job. Fourth, address the “motherhood penalty” through generous parental leave with job protection, subsidized childcare, and options for flexibility in work hours.

And finally, perhaps most importantly, support and encourage women to seek leadership positions. A smaller gender leadership gap will result in a smaller gender pay gap.

Julie Laut, a working mother of two, lives in Urbana

Posted in Feminism, Women | Comments Off on Equal Pay Now, We Cannot Afford to Wait

Save Our Safety Net!

Posted on 04/01/2017 by Nancy Dietrich

A large number of mobilizations, actions, and educational programs have been planned and organized recently in response to attacks on many of our cherished government programs. One such event, entitled “Saving the Social Safety Net,” took place at Channing-Murray Foundation in early March. As the description of the program stated, “A massive assault is underway on social safety net programs like the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.” The program’s focus was to inform the audience about these programs, the myths behind current attacks on them, and what can be done to save them, and featured Claudia Lennhoff, Executive Director of Champaign County Health Care Consumers, speaking about the ACA; Patricia Simpson, Emerita Professor, Loyola University Chicago, speaking about Social Security; and Belden Fields, a member of Champaign County Care, who discussed the upcoming local referenda on the April 4th ballot concerning the future of the Champaign County Nursing Home.

The Affordable Care Act

Claudia Lennhoff explained what the ACA has done and what it was intended to do. Many insurance benefits and protections enacted by the ACA benefitted those who already had insurance, including those with employer-based health plans. Some of these important (and popular) benefits and protections include:

– Allowing adult children to remain on their parents’ health insurance until age 26

– No annual or lifetime caps or limits on coverage

– Insurance companies cannot drop coverage because of illness

– People with pre-existing conditions cannot be denied insurance or charged more

– Medical loss ratio (80% or more of your premium dollars must be used to pay for care you receive)

– Out-of-pocket maximum limits for consumers.

According to Lennhoff, the plan put forward by the House Republicans—the American Health Care Act (AHCA)—on March 5, 2017, would cut coverage for millions and make it more expensive for millions more. She explained that, in a nutshell, this plan would repeal vital parts of the ACA with no replacement, end Medicaid as we know it by radically altering the Medicaid funding structure, harm the Medicare program, defund Planned Parenthood, and give massive tax cuts to the very wealthy, including pharmaceutical and insurance companies. It would also end the ACA’s tax credits, which are progressive based on income, starting in 2020 and replace them with tax credits that only go up with age.

Lennhoff wants consumers to know, “The AHCA is not just a repeal of the ACA but a ‘bait and switch’ that would end Medicaid as we know it. The AHCA would radically restructure Medicaid funding to turn it into a per capita cap program, and this would result in billions of dollars lost. The Medicaid program pays for half to two-thirds of all long-term care (i.e., nursing home care), half of all births in our nation, and health care for low-income children, elderly folks, and people with disabilities.”

What can consumers do? According to Lennhoff, make phone calls to your Representatives and Senators, write letters, and make in-office visits. There is hope. Millions of Americans are getting involved in the efforts to #ProtectOurCare! Republicans have already changed their message from “repeal” to “repeal and replace,” and now to “repeal and repair”—they know that Americans don’t want to lose their coverage. In addition, people with Medicare and employer-based health insurance are beginning to understand that they, too, will be affected, and are joining these efforts.

The Champaign County Nursing Home

Belden Fields talked about the Champaign County Nursing Home, specifically the two questions that will be on the April 4 election ballot. Question 1 will ask voters whether or not to raise the property tax levy to support the nursing home, and question 2 asks whether the county board should sell or otherwise dispose of the nursing home.

Fields made the case for voting “Yes” on question 1 and “No” on question 2. He stated that one of the main reasons the nursing home is having financial difficulties is that the state of Illinois has been behind on Medicaid payments to the home, not because of any financial mismanagement by the home administration itself. In fact, he stated that the nursing home was breaking even until the state budget crisis resulted in delays in downstate Medicaid processing and payments by the state.

Another reason Fields stated for supporting the county home is the quality of care residents receive there compared with the local for-profit homes. Claudia Lennhoff mentioned that studies show care is generally better at public institutions than at private ones that have to focus on making a profit for their shareholders, potentially resulting in cuts to staffing and other needed services.

Other reasons: one-third of all people in nursing homes in Champaign County are in the Champaign County Nursing Home, and local private homes would not be able to absorb that number of people if the county home was closed; and the physical and psychological cost to residents of having to move from a home they are familiar with would be great. The financial cost of raising the property tax levy would be approximately $30 on a $150,000 house. More information about saving the county nursing home and how to get involved can be found at champaigncountycare.org or the Champaign County CARE Facebook page.

Social Security at Risk

Patricia Simpson started her presentation by showing a “Bernie Brief,” a video of Bernie Sanders making the case for not just strengthening, but expanding Social Security (https://berniesanders.com/issues/strengthen-and-expand-social-security/).

With half of workers aged 55-64 having no retirement savings at all, and one-third of senior citizens currently relying on Social Security for all of their income, he explains in the video that Social Security needs to be expanded, not cut. Sanders has introduced the Social Security Expansion Act, detailed below. After explaining the context of how the current climate, political and otherwise, is creating a situation ripe for concern about Social Security, Simpson explained some of the myths and realities surrounding Social Security.

Myth #1: Social Security is going broke.

Social Security has enough funds to fully cover benefits through the 2030s, and 75% of benefits over the short term thereafter. The Social Security trust fund currently has a $2.8 trillion surplus. So Social Security is not going broke; it simply needs to be shored up to continue providing full benefits after the 2030s.

Myth #2: Social Security contributes to the deficit.

Social Security doesn’t contribute one penny to the federal deficit, because it is taxed separately and held in a fund separate from the general operating funds of the government. Because it is not part of the general operating funds, cutting Social Security would do nothing to help the deficit.

Myth #3: Social Security is inefficient.

Social Security has the lowest administrative costs of any social program at 0.7%.

Simpson outlined the provisions of the Social Security Expansion Act, introduced by Bernie Sanders. The Act would increase cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients and provide a minimum Social Security benefit to significantly reduce the senior poverty rate. It would be paid for by lifting the payroll tax cap on income (currently, income above $127,000 is not taxed). She stated that the Chief Actuary of Social Security estimates that making the changes outlined in this Act would fully fund Social Security until 2077.

Simpson stated that one of the most important things you can do to support Social Security is to call your congressional representatives and tell them you do not support any cuts to Social Security, and, in fact, you support strengthening and expanding this important social program. Check out the Social Security Works website (socialsecurityworks.org) for more information. In addition, monitor AARP to make sure it continues to oppose any cuts, including for future Social Security recipients. And finally, work to protect all social safety programs. We’re all in this together.

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Daughters of the Dust and the Place of the Gullah/Geechee

Posted on 04/01/2017 by Krystal Ashlee Smalls

I was first introduced to Julie Dash’s exquisite film in 2000, about nine years after its release. One of my dear friends at the time, underground hip hop legend Percee P, was an avid collector of black cinema and was providing me with a rich education in the genre. We started with Haile Gerima’s Sankofa, and after discussing my Gullah/Geechee background, immediately moved on to Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991). I was in my early twenties and had recently begun to examine my family’s culture through informal textual and ethnographic methods (reading books by mostly white scholars and probing my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles whenever I got the chance). To see a filmic depiction of my ancestors, and to see the region I’ve come to know as “home” so beautifully captured, was transformative to say the least. But, as I was reminded during The Art Theater’s recent screening of the re-mastered film, it’s the particular tale Dash told that always puts my heart in my throat.

The film centers around the Peazant family as they grapple with the threat and promise of change as some of the younger generation decide to leave their remote barrier island for the mainland (and northern industrial cities, specifically). The land, and the Peazants’ relationship with it, are primary characters in the film. The majestic live oaks draped in Spanish moss or decorated with multicolored bottles, the white sandy shores, and the brackish marshes are not a backdrop to the events of the film but are very much parts of the story. Across the South Carolina and Georgia sea islands and coast, communities struggle to hold onto family land bought and obtained immediately following emancipation, as real estate developers continue to seize land via unethical practices. Many islands have been completely annexed by middle-class and wealthy white Americans and turned into high-income residential areas and/or recreational areas. The vast majority of the golfer’s paradise called Hilton Head was once owned by slave-descendent Gullah/Geechee, for example, as was Fripp Island, a now-gated resort community on which virtually no Gullah/Geechee people live. Land loss also means less access to the waterfront and maritime practices that are crucial for many Gullah/Geechee people’s livelihoods (fishing, crabbing, oyster farming, and gathering wetland grasses and other fibers for making sweetgrass baskets for tourists). Meanwhile, in the lowcountry’s increasingly gentrifying cities like Savannah and Charleston, young Gullah/Geechee people are being barred from city resources and from a sense of safety and well-being as they are increasingly criminalized. When one is familiar with the economic impetuses (then, slavery and other global trades, and now late capitalism), along with the related migration patterns and modes of labor that have conditioned the lives of Gullah/Geechee families like the Peazants, then the significance of place in this story becomes painfully clear.

The Gullah/Geechee are a kind of subset of African American people from the coastal and insular southeastern United States (from southern North Carolina to northeastern Florida), a region referred to as “the lowcountry.” The community is heterogeneous and its practices are in constant flux, but can be identified by some unique phenomena—certain foodways, language practices, spiritual practices, and handicrafts, for example. One of the most significant foodways was/is the cultivation and consumption of rice. After the mid-18th century, when the rice trade became one of the more lucrative in the global market, coastal landowners began to specifically seek out Africans from the Windward Coast of western Africa (from Senegambia to Liberia, approximately), where rice cultivation had been in existence for centuries, as scholars like Judith Carney and Edda Fields-Black have documented. Some historians have also noted that many of these landowners and their enslaved laborers came by way of the Caribbean (Barbados, specifically) and were familiar with the tropical climate and its most suitable crops (sugar, rice, and indigo). It’s not surprising then, that, like for many Liberians, for more traditional Gullah/Geechee folk, an afternoon or evening meal isn’t really a meal without a heaping bowl of rice on the table.

Most Americans are familiar with our cultural offerings like shrimp n’grits or the song “Kumbaya,” but few know where they come from or much else about the community’s history or present. For example, we speak a language variety called Gullah (or Geechee), which was first documented by the African American linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner in the 1930s, and that exists on a continuum ranging from a distinct language (a “creole” according to most linguists), to dialect (a variety that has distinctive pronunciation and vocabulary but is mutually intelligible with the dominant or “standard” variety), to accent (distinct pronunciation).

Given my informal and formal study of Gullah/Geechee over the past few years, I expected to find a few inaccuracies in the film—namely, that most of the accents don’t resemble any of the varieties of the Gullah/Geechee continuum. But, many aspects of Dash’s film would and continue to resonate with my understandings of my community (especially the significance of women as stewards of family and culture). Enough of its historical content matches up with some of the many scholarly accounts in circulation, and the core sentiments it conveys about belonging, change, and loss reflect some of my own family’s experiences. Much like my appreciation for Sankofa, I’m grateful for Daughters as a project of spiritual restoration through art, rather than as an educational text. It manages to speak the unspeakable, primarily through image and sound, and by re-creating memory, helps bridge a gaping hole in the African American historical imagination and contemporary self-conceptualization. That is to say, it helps to suture some of the wounds of slavery by fashioning a history that perceptibly connects African Americans to the African continent, but that also attends to the very intense way we belong to this land—even though it has never belonged to us. With the love affair between young Iona and the Native American character St. Julien Lastchild, Dash also hints at the ways America’s origin story is very much about the simultaneous creation/annihilation of the indigenous and the creation/objectification of the “negro”: projects that often overlapped. In many ways, Daughters’ insurgent romanticism is a mode of survival that has animated Afrocentricity, and everyday blackness around the world, since the 1960s and continues to be a valuable tool for surviving an antiblack world.

Daughters also clearly depicts how and why it is that numerous African languages and other cultural practices are often conflated by some members of the African Diaspora (those in the Americas, in particular). These individuals are not confused or misinformed, nor are they appropriating a past and present that is not theirs. Instead, Daughters urges us to remember the disorder of slavery and the meaning that Africans in the Americas made of this, and the film compels us to (re)consider any and all self-making labor among the descendants of the enslaved as resistance to the forced erasure of our history carried out by Atlantic slavery. These are the ways that we compose black humanity—that is to say, this is how we attempt to create a way to be both black (as we were made through slavery) and human at the same time.

 

 

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The Politics of Looking at Women’s Rights in the Middle East

Posted on 04/01/2017 by Janice Jayes

As someone who has lived in and studies the Middle East I am often asked my opinion on the situation of women in that region. Of course it’s impossible to comment on “women” anywhere, even in Champaign or Urbana, without simplistic overgeneralizations, but discussing the women of the Middle East, a region we appear to be both physically and culturally at war with, is akin to entering a hall of mirrors. We can see many things, but we can never be sure how many illusions contribute to our view.

There are many ways current global politics affect how we in the U.S. see the situation of women in the Middle East, and the most familiar pattern is the newly reborn Orientalist trope of victimized women in need of rescue. Fighting to liberate the women of Afghanistan from the oppressive reign of the Taliban was an easy sell after 9/11, and those who argued that the U.S. should have instead pursued an international criminal case against Bin Laden looked downright unchivalrous. The Taliban certainly deserved their sexist reputation, but as an international community we have hardly made defending human rights a consistent plank of foreign policy. In 2001, however, images of women under Taliban control appeared in abundance. They certainly fed the American need to see the invasion in the most positive light, but they also implicitly denigrated local males who had apparently been either complicit in the abuse or incapable of ridding their country of the Taliban scourge. Women under the Taliban did endure horrific restrictions, but looking at the larger context of these depictions of victimization, it’s clear that the women of Afghanistan were exploited not only by the Taliban, but by the conscious and unconscious needs of the U.S. after 9/11.

Morocco, a country touted for its “moderate and progressive Islam,” presents a different form of exploitation of women. In 2004 King Mohamad VI led the reform of the Mudawana, or family law code, an act that won him wild praise in the international press. The reforms left family law under the control of traditional Islamic courts, however they did improve women’s legal situation. Reforms included the new right to initiate divorce, to have a legal identity (as opposed to having to round up a male relative if you wanted to do business at the bank or sign marriage papers), and raising the minimum age for marriage to 18. While they weren’t perfectly conceived or applied, they have helped open up a space for debating the topic of women’s rights and marital happiness in the public sphere.

On another level, unfortunately, the reforms have helped gloss over inconvenient questions of privilege. Women with job opportunities, literacy, and access to legal advice will certainly benefit far more than rural women, who struggle with crushing poverty and inequitable access to school and the courts. Do these women really have more concerns in common with urban women than with their male neighbors? Or would they have been better served by a serious commitment to rural poverty alleviation? Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive, but every time Morocco’s income inequality attracts domestic or international attention, the monarch can respond by pointing to the 2004 Family Law reforms as evidence of his progressive reign. Addressing the issue of women’s rights was a convenient way for the king to win positive marks (and investment and aid) from the U.S. and Europe, and deflect attention from corruption and inequality.

Poor women are not completely neglected in the debates over women’s situation in the Middle East. In Morocco and other areas women’s artisan cooperatives have gained fame for helping many individuals support their families, but, again, the broader context both of the cooperatives and the topic of the cooperatives must be acknowledged.

Rug weaving, argan oil production, and lavender cultivation are just some of the industries that have latched on to the label of the co-op in Morocco. “Cooperative,” however, is an inexact term, and not all cooperatives are equal in allowing local participants control over their industry. In some cases, the new groups contribute to overuse of local resources, degradation of the environment, and the absence of girls from school, all without necessarily contributing to women’s independence. “Cooperative,” in short, has become a marketing term that appeals to many who wish to reframe their consumption of goods as a political, not a personal, act. It is an easy form of solidarity that elides the inequities of producer and consumer. It feels good. And if our enthusiasm is focused on the appeal of helping women achieve independence, from whom are we saving them? Are we unwittingly participating in part of a long tradition of denigrating the unnamed, but clearly deficient local male?

These women’s industries are often also marketed through claims of timeless, female-controlled knowledge of natural remedies. Beauty products, especially for the hair and skin, that promise to reverse the signs of aging are curiously associated with female empowerment. Besides the irony of using anti-aging products to achieve liberation, our idealization of a world far removed from our own ignores the brutal realities of high child mortality and the physical compromises of poor health that are often the lot of many rural communities in the world. It’s an easy escapism that we may occasionally desire from our lives, but it also contributes to a vision of the world that stresses female solidarity while discounting profoundly different circumstances. Consuming responsibly means looking past both the marketing and our own illusions.

While the pitfalls involved in looking at the situation of women in other contexts than our own are aptly illustrated in the examples above, this doesn’t mean that we should abandon the effort. It just means that, especially in the cross-cultural context of the Middle East and the West, there is a great need to be wary of the ways in which women are explicitly and unconsciously exploited for story lines and purposes that are not their own.

 

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Manifesto: In Review

Posted on 04/01/2017 by Rachel Storm

By Rachel Lauren Storm

Nestled in the Armory Free Theater on campus, captive audiences witnessed a theatrical performance this March that urged an examination of feminist histories and futures.

“How do you talk about 300 years in four minutes? [sighs, laughter, applause] Was it ever so apparent we need this dialogue? [laughter, applause]”

Lorraine Hansberry, the first Black woman to have a show produced on Broadway, A Raisin in the Sun; introduction to her speech at “The Black Revolution and the White Backlash,” forum at Town Hall sponsored by The Association of Artists for Freedom,
New York City, June 15, 1964.

Manifesto is the latest production from INNER VOICES Social Issues Theatre, an educational theater project that addresses contemporary social justice issues through performances followed by post-performance dialogues. A meditation on the necessity of intersectionality in feminism, Manifesto centers the perspectives of renowned women of color, trans women, women with disabilities, and those who have been marginalized by white, middle-class feminist discourse. By weaving a call to action from the wisdom of those at the margins of feminist discourse, Manifesto successfully invites the viewer to consider that a feminism that embraces intersectionality ought to emerge through our collective understanding of how our dynamic, overlapping identities (race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, culture, ability, immigration status, etc.) inform both our experiences of oppression and create a road map for feminist theory and activism.

Lisa Fay, INNER VOICES Social Issues Theatre ensemble director and program coordinator for the INNER VOICES Social Issues Theatre program, has been writing and performing social issues theater for years. Her work in devising and producing INNER VOICES performances varies, ranging from encouraging preproduction conversations that lead to the production of collective new work to writing scripts and directing projects such as Side-Eye that investigate racial micro (and macro) aggressions. “I invite and support the production of the work of other artists for INNER VOICES Social Issues Theatre ensemble, for instance Tell It, the work of Dr. Durell Callier, last spring, and Endangered Black Girls by Dr. Ruth Nicole Brown some years ago,” said Fay.

Fay hopes Manifesto achieves its mission of educating the campus community about the framework of intersectionality. “The term ‘intersectionality’ was not coined as an academic term, rather it was a way of framing an issue in order to see the issue, as Kimberly Crenshaw states,” said Fay, who encourages students to explore the work of the prominent civil rights lawyer, as well as her subsequent activism with #sayhername.

Daisianee Minenger, who attended a performance of Manifesto at the Armory Free Theater, said the experience was affirming. “Manifesto taught me that my feelings are valid. I learned that even though we all experience similar struggles, we are not the same people. Race and background add their own dynamics.”

Tianshu Zhao, who serves as the Assistant Director of INNER VOICES, has found the experience of working with the ensemble to be both personally and politically fulfilling. “It’s a platform for me, in terms of theatre arts practice and social participation. And here I find people who are fighting for a better society.”

Due to the sensitive nature of many of the topics, INNER VOICES always includes a post-performance dialogue at each show. Tekita Bankhead, an instructor for the Leading Post-Performance Dialog course, is the Director of Animateurs, facilitators who lead the post-performance dialogues. “Because our shows typically tend to deal with sensitive and potentially triggering topics, I train the animateurs to provide context for the shows, provide counseling resources if needed, and to lead dialogue in a way that is thought-provoking and enlightening,” she said.

Tekita began teaching with the ensemble this semester and has found the experience rewarding. “It has been a labor of love for me. Manifesto truly showcases how beautiful and impactful feminism can be when all voices are included.

“Feminism that is not intersectional is simply not feminism,” said Bankhead. “To fully highlight the unique experiences of every type of woman, you must honor their truth in every way possible. No two women are alike, so it’s imperative that we examine our feminism to truly ensure that all women are invited to the table, have a seat, and have plenty to eat (and seconds, too). The fight to end patriarchy is different for all of us, but when shared equally, is much more likely to be dismantled.”

INNER VOICES Social Issues Theatre’s next performance is entitled “Break the Silence,” and will discuss sexual violence, premiering in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month this April.

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A Black Herstory Slam Redux

Posted on 04/01/2017 by Kerry Wilson

A Black Herstory Slam Redux

This past February, the Women’s Resources Center at the University of Illinois sponsored Black Herstory Slam, an open mic devoted to poetry, spoken word, and performance that highlights Black women’s history and black feminist thought. Held at the University of Illinois Women’s Resources Center, Writ n’ Rhymed is described as “a transformative poetic space created at the University of Illinois. It is a space for art, poetry, spoken word, music, movement, prose, rhyme, performance, and critical engagement.” The Black Herstory Slam brought together over 150 attendees, featured performances from twelve talented poets, and was co-hosted by Jameelah McCrigg and Dominique Coker.

The following represent selected works performed during this year’s Black Herstory Slam, published here with permission from the poets in honor of Women’s History Month:

 

BLACK GIRL BLUES

By Kerry Wilson

 

My hair is long but it’s nappy

I never match my socks

My hands stay out my pockets everywhere except the bookstore

So you can accuse me of stealing this knowledge

The figment of my imagination is a stigmatism that I use to justify those overpriced glasses I get from LensCrafters…

Or is grad school just effing with my vision?

I act like your BS is a non-factor

But it keeps me up at night

When my diction contradicts your fiction of my black girl truths

My tongue bleeds from holding back my black girl blues

 

I’ve cracked cell phone screens and shattered my momma’s champagne glasses

I’ve broken hearts by taking the wrong chances

My actions divide like fractions

Tell the story like close captions

“Eff what ya heard” is my usual reaction

I want to be free to do what I choose

Cause I get so tired of this black girl blues

 

If I’m being realistic, I look in the mirror and I still see a statistic

The stigma of teenage motherhood is so fatalistic that there isn’t a damn thing I can do to get away from it

I woke up like this

A dark-skinned, thick-chick who refuses to measure her worth in sex, drugs, and rock and roll

And on judgement day I’ll end up bargaining for my soul

This I know for true

I’ll live and I’ll die singing this black girl blues

 

 

CRESCENDO (CHOPPED & SCREWED)

by Kerry Wilson

My swagger cut you like daggers until it don’t

2pac foreshadowed his end but see I won’t

Instead I think I’ll heed the call

To quick fucking with those waterfalls

I’m looking for my crescendo

 

You know the “that’s my part” part of the song

When the notes get extra long

The oh God give me a reason,

Wanya throwing chairs and ish cuz we’ve come to End of the Road

My crescendo

The place of pure emotion, the place to let it go

 

Give me a crescendo

Like when he say “I effed up and I need you to stay with me”

Or when she say “yeah you effed up, I still love you but you gots to leave”

I need my break it down to the nitty, gritty

No Bad Boy Remix, and No P. Diddy

You think you know, but do you really

These pinned up emotions inside could actually kill me

But it’s time to let it go…

 

Like parachute pants and the humpty dance

It was fun while it lasted

I can’t live my live all chopped and screwed

Just cuz I like it when the beat gets spastic

These plastic emotions cause oceans of pain

There’s absolutely nothing to gain

From putting out the fire with acid rain

Instead give me a crescendo

 

And I need it…

I need it like I need

Hip-hop before the bling

Michael Jordan before the ring

Lauryn Hill before that thing

Chews me up and swallows me whole

Find my crescendo

Save another black woman’s soul

 

 

I REFUSE TO BE SILENCED

by Anne Namatsi Lutomia

I refuse to be silenced

I will speak so that I and others can be heard

You do not want me to speak

You say I am too noisy, uncontrollable and bad mannered

You call me a lesbian, a man hater, a witch, a mad woman

You call me a slut, uncircumcised, barren, childless, foolish, ugly, a prostitute

You slap me so as to discipline me

You tell me that I have a long mouth

You tell me to shut up

You not only want to silence me

You silence others like me

You instill fear in us

You want us to keep quiet

You say no one will believe me if I speak

You want me to say nothing

I who you have raped, molested, battered, butchered, undressed, beaten, slapped, abused and shamed

I who is gazed at, shunned, goaded, stared at, and whispered about

You coin stereotypes about me that silence me as you all laugh at me

Forcing me to laugh with you as I hurt

I am your sister, mother, friend, lover, niece, grandmother, daughter, and wife

You want me to be quiet because you are powerful, famous, privileged and respected

You want me to dust myself and move on

Today I choose to speak

I want the world to hear and listen to my pain

I speak because together we can stop this hurt

I refuse to be silenced

 

Kerry Wilson is a doctoral student in the Institute for Communications Research in the College of Media and Anne Namatsi Lutomia is a doctoral student in Human Resource Education in the College of Education. The Black Herstory Slam was co-sponsored by the Women’s Resources Center, the Bruce D. Nesbitt African-American Cultural Center, W.O.R.D. and Black Students for Revolution (BSFR) in honor of Black History Month.

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White Male Patriarchy + Misogyny – Feminism = Trump’s Election

Posted on 04/01/2017 by Pauline E. Kayes

Not many know that in 1982 Champaign-Urbana played a notable role in a “chain-in” protest against the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment at the State Legislature in Springfield, Illinois. This passionate feminist action gained widespread national media coverage, including a centerfold photo by renowned photographer Annie Leibowitz in Life Magazine. It was driven mostly by women from the Champaign-Urbana area: Mary Lee Sargent, former Women’s History professor at Parkland College; Berenice Carroll, former Director of Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois; Jane Mohraz, former editor at the University of Illinois Press; Kari Alice Lynn, cleaning business owner; and me, Pauline Kayes, former Women’s Studies professor at Parkland College. Along the way, a number of other local women, like Anne Casey, Loretta Manning, Joyce Meyer, Nila Blair, Sue Yarber, Pat Cramer, Nancy DeLew, and Marlena Williams, joined us for a milestone in women’s history that proved feminism can be the guiding light not only to resist white male patriarchy but also to advance women’s equality in every realm.

Thirty-five years later, we are living in a surreal epilogue to Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale (how appropriate that a Hulu television version will premiere this coming April). As one of my “sister chainers” recently remarked, “We are watching everything women worked for in the past 40 years unravel in just a few months.” How did we get here? My view is that we underestimated the devious tactics of a white male supremacist patriarchal culture and society to deprecate and repress women in order to hold on to power. My view is that we let the light of feminism dim so much that we did not realize how imperative it would be to counteract the insidious, deeply- rooted hatred of women that Hillary Clinton’s candidacy provoked in both men and women.

If misogyny is a key operating ideology of patriarchy, feminism would be the antidote. But during the campaign, feminism was mostly lost in a “bewilderness” of what we called in the eighties M (male) A (approval) D (desire): MAD women and men speaking in tongues to distract and bamboozle us. And so misogyny was left unencumbered, to become one of the main fuels (along with racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and classism) to fire up the “election” of a white male patriarch-in-chief with a warped misogynist world view that “grabbing women’s pussies” is a way to “respect” women.

I won’t list here all the ways that Hillary Clinton was held to an impossible double standard, insulted and maligned, threatened and hated, vilified and misrepresented, lied about and stereotyped. What we need to realize is that the common malicious thread to all of this propaganda was the personification of Hillary as the frightening female stereotype that undermines many intelligent, ambitious women: cartoons of her being burned at the stake; chants of “lock her up”; doctored video loops portraying her as old and sick; constant name-calling as bitch, witch, cunt; nicknames of “Killary,” “Shrillary,” and “Crooked Hillary.” It was no surprise that those who are privileged by the white male patriarchy would resort to misogyny to prevent Hillary from being elected. But most disconcerting for me was the fact that this same misogynist propaganda originated by right-wing media was repeated by some progressives on the left, both men and women (think Susan Sarandon) to rationalize why they would vote for any other woman but Hillary (think Jill Stein).

And then we wonder how an ignorant, incompetent, crude, bigoted, and lying white man was “elected”? Obviously the rules of the patriarchy make any unqualified, inexperienced white man superior to any qualified, experienced woman. Obviously, Hillary Clinton was expected to be perfect with no flaws or mistakes whatsoever while the white man who landed in the White House could be “bad to the bone.” Sound familiar?

A favorite mantra of the feminist movement in the ’70s and ’80s was “the personal is the political”—meaning that every aspect of life could be analyzed through a feminist lens to reveal the subordination, inequity, and objectification of women in patriarchal culture: housework, sex, politics, education, law, advertising, film, music, family, child care, employment, art, marriage, rape, literature, communication, religion, etc. And from this lens came an incredible wealth of new women’s studies knowledge, courses, and organizations. In 1976, I wrote one of the first Women’s Studies theses in the country for my Master’s in English at Purdue University: “The Evolution of the Authentic Female Voice in Women Writers.” When I attended the founding convention of the National Women’s Studies Association in San Francisco in the late 1970s, I was just one of a small group of feminist academics and activists sharing this new knowledge in just a few disciplines. By 1986, when the University of Illinois hosted the National Women’s Studies Conference, women’s studies knowledge was burgeoning in hundreds of colleges and universities across the world in almost every discipline.

Three concepts were pivotal to women’s studies knowledge and feminist activism in the ’80s: patriarchy, misogyny, and feminism. To appreciate the radical nature of these concepts, I would recommend reading their definitions in A Feminist Dictionary (1985), compiled by Cheris Kramarae, Paula Treichler, and Ann Russo (also from the U of I). Patriarchy is described as systemic and institutionalized dominance of white males and subordination of females in every aspect of life. Misogyny is the hatred of and disgust for actual women, girls, and females as well as for any trait or abstraction associated with the female or the feminine—all used to justify the mistreatment and disempowerment of women. Although these concepts were the backbone of second-wave feminism, for the millennial generation they were no longer seen as essential to understanding and improving women’s lives. Big mistake, because these crucial constructs for analyzing what writer Adrienne Rich termed the “lies, secrets, and silence” of a dysfunctional, conspiratorial patriarchy went missing at one of the most pivotal moments in history.

Unfortunately, the kind of feminist activism and power we needed to counteract the treachery of the one-two punch of patriarchy and misogyny against Hillary Clinton before the election only came one day after the “inauguration” of Trump. Five million women and men protested in 946 towns and cities around the world because it became all too clear that now the “political was the personal,” with civil liberties, women’s rights, health care, environmental regulations, etc. about to erode daily by the swipe of his pen. In a telephone interview, Sargent reflected on the emergence of a new women’s movement: “It fills me with hope, especially since the movement arising from the January 21 women’s marches is led by women of color, who grasp in a way that the earlier white-led movement did not: womanists and feminists must confront all forms of subordination as they intersect with our oppression as women.”

(To learn more about the 1982 action, visit the website for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library to listen to my oral history interviews conducted in 2013 (ERA Fight in Illinois) with Mark DePue, Director of Oral History for the Lincoln Library, https://www.illinois.gov/alplm/library/collections/oralhistory/illinoisstatecraft/era/Pages/Kayes,Pauline.aspx)

Pauline E. Kayes was a professor of Women’s Studies at Parkland College for 35 years. Since 2002, she has been President of DiversityWorks Inc., a coalition of educational consultants providing comprehensive diversity education to colleges, universities, K-12 schools, communities, organizations, and businesses (www.diversityworksinc.net).

 

 

 

 

 

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