Netroots Nation Debrief et. al
Commentary by Chitown Kev
As I write this NN19 debrief closer to deadline than I would like, I am on the second leg of my East Coast Tour in Washington D.C., soaking in how…different Washington looks and, yet, it kinda does look like the same city I lived in for for three years in my early 20’s.
My East Coast Tour will take me to two of the cities that are a pretty intimate part of my biography.
For the most part, these brief notes will concern the one city that I had never visited...the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and my adventures at Netroots Nation #19.
1) I arrived in Philly on a flight from Chicago in a state of general confusion because I assumed that my plans for a grand tour of the East Coast had gone bust and I was at a loss of what to do...and I was already losing out on money.
Special thanks to my Overnight News Digest buddy, side pocket, along with Miss Denise and shanikka for clearing out the clouds enough so that I was able not to worry...and once I stopped worrying, it seemed that everything else fell into place on Thursday night (when the storm clouds hovered over Philly and the skies opened up and poured, poured, poured!) and the East Coast Tour was back on...and a really special thanks to my Mom who, I now know, seriously hit the phones on my behalf.
2) I’d heard so much about the Cheers and Jeers dinner that I missed last year in New Orleans that I decided not to miss C& J this year, so I arrived on Wed. It was great to meet old friends from last year’s NN (or they seem like old friends) and to meet new friends that I had only known from diaries and comments from here at DK or over on Twitter including mconvente, Adam Bonin and, though we didn’t formally meet, I did see Bill in Portland Maine.
3) Last Thursday’s meeting of the Black Caucus showed Netroots to be more colorful than ever and that’s a good thing. I will say that the Black Caucus was appropriately nicknamed and (it being a caucus) was a bit, shall we say, unruly.
I do have to agree that there were a number of caucuses that were scheduled at the same time that I would have liked to attend and I, unfortunately, was forced to pick one. I know that there have been previous complaints about workshops overlapping others and it’s a serious problem.
As far as the Black Caucus, itself, I wished that they were a more limited number of topics because the caucus easily drifted from one item to another, seemed to settle on a topic that didn’t seem quite appropriate and was largely unsatisfying...perhaps someone more familiar with the history of the Black Caucus at previous NN should be one of the moderators...just a suggestion.
The highlight for Thursday (and for the entire trip to be honest) was a visit with Miss Denise, shanikka, and dopper to mallyroyal’s t-shirt shop in the Germantown (?) section of Philly, right when the skies began to open and the pouring started. mally introduced us to another of his relatives (an uncle, I think) and we began shooting the political breeze outside of the Netroots bubble. It sounded quite different...and refreshing. Later, we went to the pizzeria next door to the shop fr some relatively normal fare...well, other than Miss Denise’s garlic cinnamon rolls knots
4) I didn’t stay for the entire Keynote Session on Thursday 7/11 but I did get to hear DC Delegate-At-Large Eleanor Holmes Norton speak passionately in favor of DC statehood; an issue which, as a former resident and current visitor of the District, I am quite familiar with. Simply put, DC is in need of better and more powerful leadership to represent itself at the federal level. Statehood is one way to do it; there are others. But most of the people in the District that I knew and know favor statehood and have for some time.
5) At the Daily Kos Caucus Friday morning...I finally got to meet Markos somewhere between various people making jokes about Markos scaring Bernie away from the Netroots Presidential Candidate Forum. The session was pretty good, with Markos and the introduction and addition of Prism to the Daily Kos universe...but the highlight of that Friday was easily...lunch…
Honestly, I didn’t even want to touch this beef brisket pho at first because when it came to the table it smelled soooooooooooooo good!...and believe me, it tasted even better. Thanks to sista shanikka, I am a believer and devotee in the power of...pho!
5) I went to two or three more sessions/panels but honestly, at this moment, I don’t remember much about them as they weren’t the highlight of the trip to me; this was also true of my first NN in New Orleans in 2018. The real highlights, at least to me, were outside of the sessions, in the halls of the Pennsylvania Convention Center and in volunteering to help stuff the swag bags. In between sessions are the time for serious political discussions, meeting and greeting, and even shade (I need to make a mental note of not ever getting on Miss Denise’s bad side politically and then trying to think that I look cute and put together...chile!)
OK, I need to lose some weight.
6) The presidential forum was nice and since I was an attendant of Miss Denise in her scooter, I got to sit in the front row for the presidential forum on Saturday. It was...OK (my own personal favorite in the presidential race this year gave a rousing keynote last year in New Orleans that had a few of us act as if we were catching The Spirit!). Elizabeth Warren, of course, receive the most rousing applause. I do have to say that Senator Warren has more of a stage presence than I had given her credit for; she’s still not my favorite in the 2020 Democratic nomination race but...I do think that I understand her appeal a little better.
7) Armando brought some amazing guests to the dinner the we had at Smokin’ Bettys Saturday night (and we ate there the night before)...more good conversation and good eatin’...
8)...Then finally, Sunday morning and the interfaith service where I had to cut out a little early in order to catch my train to DC...but I was very glad that I stayed long enough for a Yoruba ritual that Miss Denise performed this year and last...the interfaith service is also a good time for me to sit and contemplate...what Netroots Nation does for my spirit...without which I wouldn’t be able to do or be interested in much.
and at 11:18 am 7/14/2019 I left Philadelphia for the second leg of my tour...
DC Public Library/Library Express
20th and K Street NW
Washington DC
7/16/2019 4:27 EST
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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An Ohio police officer in full uniform, you know, the uniform that clearly identifies him as a police officer and as such gives him reason to have a radio, taser, and gun, faced some scary and tense moments when a security guard pulled a gun on him and tried to arrest the POLICE OFFICER for carrying a gun.
Lucas County Sheriff’s deputy Alan Gaston stopped by a local IRS office on May 31 to ask a question about a letter he received. I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier but Gaston was in full uniform including his police badge and belt and his police-issued holster that housed his police-issued gun.
Gaston was on duty and trying to get a phone number when he came very close to losing his life. See, this is America and Gaston is a black man.
Full stop.
That’s it.
That’s the crime.
Didn’t matter that he was in a police uniform. How did the guard Seth Eklund aka “Paul Blart” know that Gaston hadn’t stolen it? How was Blart to know that Gaston was an actual officer? Sure he was wearing an officer’s uniform but don’t they sell those around Halloween? And yes he had a badge, but was that an official police badge?
Gaston told ABC 13 that Blart asked him to leave his gun in his car and Gaston informed the fake cop that as a real cop he can’t do that. That’s when Blart drew his weapon and the conversation ended. Gaston left the office.
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On Wednesday in Florida, former sheriff’s deputy Zachary Wester was arrested and charged with fabricating evidence, racketeering, and other misconduct. He is accused of stopping dozens, if not hundreds, of motorists for supposed traffic offenses and then planting drugs while searching their cars. Back in the mid-20th century, civil-rights lawyers had a word for this kind of shenanigans: “dropsy.” Some of the motorists whom Wester arrested went to prison. One driver ended up losing custody of his daughter after being convicted of felony meth possession—essentially on the deputy’s word. Wester has been described as a “bad apple,” but his case is a symptom of the vast discretion individual officers wield over motorists every day.
Officers’ power is fundamentally at odds with the notion of freedom on the open road. In American culture, driving is an expression of personal liberty. But under the law, driving is a privilege, not a right, and drivers are subject to extensive police surveillance. For years, legal minds have tried to resolve this paradox, which often comes up in challenges to police action. Should police be allowed to search the entire car when, after pulling a motorist over for speeding, the officer suspects illegal drugs or evidence of crime? Should a minor traffic violation open the door to a broader investigation of unrelated criminal charges? If there are limits on police conduct while enforcing laws on the operation of motor vehicles, what should those limits be?
These questions have proved exceedingly difficult for courts to answer. So instead, jurists have usually punted on the question—as the Supreme Court didas recently as last month—and deferred to the judgment of the police. The consequences for our civil liberties have been serious. For example, nearly a century’s worth of punting gave rise to “driving while black,” the racial profiling of African-American motorists for traffic stops. Even as Americans have built a society around cars, judges have abdicated their role of limiting law enforcement’s power over people’s daily lives.
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President Donald Trump attacked liberal, minority Congresswomen in a nativist tweet thread Sunday telling them to “go back” to the “crime infested countries from which they came.”
Although the president did not tweet at any Congresswomen in particular, he was likely referring to a group of progressive freshmen that includes Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, all of whom are US citizens. Omar was born in Somalia and became a naturalized citizen as a teenager. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx (neighboring Trump’s birthplace in Queens), Tlaib hails from Detroit, and Pressley was born in Chicago.
Omar, Tlaib, and Pressley recently spoke at the progressive Netroots Nation conference, alongside Rep. Deb Haaland. There, they strongly criticized Trump and his policies, and shared their visions for the country.
“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” Trump wrote, adding he would like the Congresswomen to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
The tweet prompted swift condemnation from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who Trump wrote “would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements.” The speaker chastised progressive caucus members last week for openly criticizing Democratic leadership, but quickly came to their defense in response to Trump’s attack.
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The Center for American Progress released a report on Tuesday (July 9) that shows evidence of a direct connection between the lack of diversity in the teaching profession and the impact of student loan debt on Black and Latinx college graduates.
The authors of the report point out clear barriers for Black and Latinx grads who desire careers as educators. According to the research, “studies have shown that teachers of color, and especially Black teachers, leave the profession at a higher rate than their White peers.” One crucial reason why they are often unable to maintain jobs as teachers is “the unequal student loan debt that educators of color face.” From the report:
Studies have shown that Black students are more likely to borrow federal student loan money to finance their undergraduate education. According to a Brookings Institution analysis, before they have even earned their first dollar, Black college graduates already have $7,400 more student loan debt than White graduates. For teachers, that means entering a profession that requires significant education but does not compensate well compared with other professions…. One study found that acquiring student debt reduced the probability that students would pursue lower-salary public interest jobs; this correlation was particularly acute in the education industry.
The study shows that Black teachers in particular may have trouble paying off student loan debts. “Black students who trained to teach had higher median federal student loan debt in 2012 ($26,405) than they had in 2008 ($22,699),” the report indicates. Additionally, Black teachers on average earn less money than their White peers.
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In the Spring of 2011 the brothers Melvin Davis and Licurtis Reels were the talk of Carteret County, on the central coast of North Carolina. Some people said that the brothers were righteous; others thought that they had lost their minds. That March, Melvin and Licurtis stood in court and refused to leave the land that they had lived on all their lives, a portion of which had, without their knowledge or consent, been sold to developers years before. The brothers were among dozens of Reels family members who considered the land theirs, but Melvin and Licurtis had a particular stake in it. Melvin, who was 64, with loose black curls combed into a ponytail, ran a club there and lived in an apartment above it. He’d established a career shrimping in the river that bordered the land, and his sense of self was tied to the water. Licurtis, who was 53, had spent years building a house near the river’s edge, just steps from his mother’s.
Their great-grandfather had bought the land a hundred years earlier, when he was a generation removed from slavery. The property — 65 marshy acres that ran along Silver Dollar Road, from the woods to the river’s sandy shore — was racked by storms. Some called it the bottom, or the end of the world. Melvin and Licurtis’ grandfather Mitchell Reels was a deacon; he farmed watermelons, beets and peas, and raised chickens and hogs. Churches held tent revivals on the waterfront, and kids played in the river, a prime spot for catching red-tailed shrimp and crabs bigger than shoes. During the later years of racial-segregation laws, the land was home to the only beach in the county that welcomed black families. “It’s our own little black country club,” Melvin and Licurtis’ sister Mamie liked to say. In 1970, when Mitchell died, he had one final wish. “Whatever you do,” he told his family on the night that he passed away, “don’t let the white man have the land.”
Mitchell didn’t trust the courts, so he didn’t leave a will. Instead, he let the land become heirs’ property, a form of ownership in which descendants inherit an interest, like holding stock in a company. The practice began during Reconstruction, when many African Americans didn’t have access to the legal system, and it continued through the Jim Crow era, when black communities were suspicious of white Southern courts. In the United States today, 76% of African Americans do not have a will, more than twice the percentage of white Americans.
Many assume that not having a will keeps land in the family. In reality, it jeopardizes ownership. David Dietrich, a former co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Property Preservation Task Force, has called heirs’ property “the worst problem you never heard of.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture has recognized it as “the leading cause of Black involuntary land loss.” Heirs’ property is estimated to make up more than a third of Southern black-owned land — 3.5 million acres, worth more than $28 billion. These landowners are vulnerable to laws and loopholes that allow speculators and developers to acquire their property. Black families watch as their land is auctioned on courthouse steps or forced into a sale against their will.
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