Fwd: This wouldn't happen in a rich, white community

Amen

---------- Forwarded message --------

Race Is in the Air We Breathe and the Water We Drink by Jim Wallis How would you feel if you realized your children's water was being poisoned, and your government didn't seem to care? That's the story of the parents of 8,000 mostly poor and black children in Flint, Mich., (which means most all of the children in urban Flint) that has finally hit our media front pages. The evening news I am watching as I write warns the parents of Flint not to bathe their young children in city water. But the fact that most Americans realize this would never happen in affluent white Michigan suburbs (or any other white affluent communities in our country), still doesn't penetrate our very souls. This fundamental contrast between black and white experiences in Michigan, just north of my home town of Detroit, points to the structural racism that is still the primary moral contradiction of American life. The news about Flint is just the most recent consequence of America's Original Sin, the title of the new book we have just launched. The poisoning of the majority-black population of the city is a product of a system failing the people of Flint on many levels over a long period of time. To really start unpacking the historical roots of the crisis, you have to go back to slavery itself, which debased the humanity and devalued the lives of black people from well before our nation's founding; followed by the Jim Crow era of legal segregation, discrimination, and violence against black Americans, which resulted in early 20th century migrations of black people from the segregated south to urban manufacturing centers of the northern United States. When they got there, they found cities without legal segregation, yet with de facto segregation and discrimination alive and well in both white attitudes and systems. The arrival and growth of black populations in northern cities was followed shortly thereafter by white flight to the suburbs, aided by discriminatory housing policies that effectively prevented the vast majority of black people from joining them and blocked the financing of black homes even in the cities. As manufacturing jobs left cities like Detroit and Flint over the years, unemployment soared, property values declined, and the people who remained found themselves trapped in poverty in cities whose tax revenue was eclipsed by the services these cities are responsible for providing for their citizens. The result? Drastically inferior employment prospects, inferior education, both leading to higher crime, and inferior health outcomes for people of color in many urban centers across the country. Racial ghettos, it must be said and understood, have never been an accident, but are the results of public policy. This is a necessarily short but accurate explanation for a very complex confluence of systems that together represent structural racism. In my new book, I explain in greater depth how some of this came to be, the history behind it, and the moral challenge it presents especially to people of faith.  READ THE FULL ARTICLE Forward Share Comment ADVERTISEMENT   OUR LATEST Dr. Larycia Hawkins on the 'Inquisition' at Wheaton and Why She Wants to Stay (by Sandi Villarreal) "I think that on very hard issues and questions, we all often want certainty. But that's not the purpose of the Christian liberal arts — it's to think through and live in the tension of very difficult questions, including theological questions." Confessing Our Cotton Candy Christianity (by Derek Flood) Brian Zahnd's new book Water to Wine tells the story of his own personal journey out of the "grape juice Christianity" he had known, characterized by American values of consumerism and military might, toward a deeper and richer understanding of faith. 'Making a Murderer:' The Justice System Non-White Americans Have Been Dealing with for Generations (by Stephen Mattson) For many white American citizens, what they're actually witnessing — without even realizing it — is what non-white Americans have been suffering from for decades. God help us. How the Nation Responds to 'America's Original Sin' (by Jim Wallis) Jim Wallis will be traveling the country to places that have become the frontlines of a new movement — places like Ferguson, Chicago, Minneapolis, Baltimore, and more — to participate in town hall meetings and discuss how churches should be at the forefront of change. These are his notes from the road. ADVERTISEMENT   FROM THE MAGAZINE Can You Hear It? (by Dr. Valerie Miles-Tribble) Hip-hop, spoken word, and the voice of prophetic ethics.   RESOURCES America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America  Racism is truly our nation's original sin. Jim Wallis' newest book offers a prophetic and deeply personal call to action in overcoming the racism so ingrained in American society. He speaks candidly to Christians — particularly white Christians — urging them to cross a new bridge toward racial justice and healing. ORDER NOW! ADVERTISEMENTS Are you an author? Reach our loyal readership by advertising in Sojourners magazine. Click the link above to learn more about this special, cost-effective advertising opportunity. Turn this moment into a movement. Support Sojourners today! The world, more than ever, needs leaders changing the conversation and providing a new way forward. 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Making Mondragon (Open Library)

https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1547300M/Making_Mondragon

From Mondragon To America: Experiments In Community Economic Development

From Mondragon To America: Experiments In Community Economic Development

Quote from The future of fundraising: Three keys to engaging millennials - The Globe and Mail

"millennial generation is different – no doubt about it. They're always connected and in constant feedback loops with friends, family and the community at large. However, this connectedness is achieved through technology, which is why charities find it so difficult to reach millennials using traditional channels and donation options. While boomers continue to be a generous group, millennials will soon begin to fill their donation shoes as they move into their prime earning years. To take advantage of the rising spending power of this tech savvy demographic, charities must evolve and adapt to the latest innovations and trends."

From: The future of fundraising: Three keys to engaging millennials - The Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/leadership-lab/the-future-of-fundraising-three-keys-to-engaging-millennials/article28110896/

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Bernie Sanders and Reparations - The Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/bernie-sanders-reparations/424602/

The Atlantic

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Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations?

The Vermont senator's political imagination is active against plutocracy, but why is it so limited against white supremacy?

Bernie Sanders speaking at the Iowa Black and Brown Forum on January 11, 2016Aaron P. Bernstein / Reuters

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    TA-NEHISI COATES  JAN 19, 2016  POLITICS

Last week Bernie Sanders was asked whether he was in favor of "reparations for slavery." It is worth considering Sanders's response in full:

No, I don't think so. First of all, its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil. Second of all, I think it would be very divisive. The real issue is when we look at the poverty rate among the African American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African American community, we have a lot of work to do.

So I think what we should be talking about is making massive investments in rebuilding our cities, in creating millions of decent paying jobs, in making public colleges and universities tuition-free, basically targeting our federal resources to the areas where it is needed the most and where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African American and Latino.

For those of us interested in how the left prioritizes its various radicalisms, Sanders's answer is illuminating. The spectacle of a socialist candidate opposing reparations as "divisive" (there are few political labels more divisive in the minds of Americans than socialist) is only rivaled by the implausibility of Sanders posing as a pragmatist. Sanders says the chance of getting reparations through Congress is "nil," a correct observation which could just as well apply to much of the Vermont senator's own platform. The chances of a President Sanders coaxing a Republican Congress to pass a $1 trillion jobs and infrastructure bill are also nil. Considering Sanders's proposal for single-payer health care, Paul Krugman asks, "Is there any realistic prospect that a drastic overhaul could be enacted any time soon—say, in the next eight years? No."

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The Case for Reparations

Sanders is a lot of things, many of them good. But he is not the candidate of moderation and unification, so much as the candidate of partisanship and radicalism. There is neither insult nor accolade in this. John Brown was radical and divisive. So was Eric Robert Rudolph. Our current sprawling megapolis of prisons was a bipartisan achievement. Obamacare was not. Sometimes the moral course lies within the politically possible, and sometimes the moral course lies outside of the politically possible. One of the great functions of radical candidates is to war against equivocators and opportunists who conflate these two things. Radicals expand the political imagination and, hopefully, prevent incrementalism from becoming a virtue.

Unfortunately, Sanders's radicalism has failed in the ancient fight against white supremacy. What he proposes in lieu of reparations—job creation, investment in cities, and free higher education—is well within the Overton window, and hisplatform on race echoes Democratic orthodoxy. The calls for community policing, body cameras, and a voting-rights bill with pre-clearance restored— all are things that Hillary Clinton agrees with. And those positions with which she might not agree address black people not so much as a class specifically injured by white supremacy, but rather, as a group which magically suffers from disproportionate poverty.

This is the "class first" approach, originating in the myth that racism and socialism are necessarily incompatible. But raising the minimum wage doesn't really address the fact that black men without criminal records have about the same shot at low-wage work as white men with them; nor can making college free address the wage gap between black and white graduates. Housing discrimination, historical and present, may well be the fulcrum of white supremacy. Affirmative action is one of the most disputed issues of the day. Neither are addressed in the "racial justice" section of Sanders platform.

Sanders's anti-racist moderation points to a candidate who is not merely against reparations, but one who doesn't actually understand the argument. To briefly restate it, from 1619 until at least the late 1960s, American institutions, businesses, associations, and governments—federal, state, and local—repeatedly plundered black communities. Their methods included everything from land-theft, to red-lining, to disenfranchisement, to convict-lease labor, to lynching, to enslavement, to the vending of children. So large was this plunder that America, as we know it today, is simply unimaginable without it. Its great universities were founded on it. Its early economy was built by it. Its suburbs were financed by it.Its deadliest war was the result of it.

One can't evade these facts by changing the subject. Some months ago, black radicals in the Black Lives Matters movement protested Sanders. They were, in the main, jeered by the white left for their efforts. But judged by his platform, Sanders should be directly confronted and asked why his political imagination is so active against plutocracy, but so limited against white supremacy. Jim Crow and its legacy were not merely problems of disproportionate poverty. Why should black voters support a candidate who does not recognize this?

Reparations is not one possible tool against white supremacy. It is the indispensable tool against white supremacy.

If not even an avowed socialist can be bothered to grapple with reparations, if the question really is that far beyond the pale, if Bernie Sanders truly believes that victims of the Tulsa pogrom deserved nothing, that the victims of contract lending deserve nothing, that the victims of debt peonage deserve nothing, that that political plunder of black communities entitle them to nothing, if this is the candidate of the radical left—then expect white supremacy in America to endure well beyond our lifetimes and lifetimes of our children. Reparations is not one possible tool against white supremacy. It is the indispensable tool against white supremacy. One cannot propose to plunder a people, incur a moral and monetary debt, propose to never pay it back, and then claim to be seriously engaging in the fight against white supremacy.

My hope was to talk to Sanders directly, before writing this article. I reached out repeatedly to his campaign over the past three days. The Sanders campaign did not respond.

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Fwd: Ta-Nehisi Coates Reparations is not one possible tool against white supremacy. It is the indispensable tool against white supremacy.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Ta-Nehisi Coates | The Atlantic <noreply+feedproxy@google.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 6:16 AM
Subject: Ta-Nehisi Coates
To: <brianlbanks@gmail.com>

Ta-Nehisi Coates

---

Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations? Posted: 19 Jan 2016 04:16 PM PST Bernie Sanders speaking at the Iowa Black and Brown Forum on January 11, 2016 Aaron P. Bernstein / Reuters Last week Bernie Sanders was asked whether he was in favor of "reparations for slavery." It is worth considering Sanders's response in full: No, I don't think so. First of all, its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil. Second of all, I think it would be very divisive. The real issue is when we look at the poverty rate among the African American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African American community, we have a lot of work to do. So I think what we should be talking about is making massive investments in rebuilding our cities, in creating millions of decent paying jobs, in making public colleges and universities tuition-free, basically targeting our federal resources to the areas where it is needed the most and where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African American and Latino. For those of us interested in how the left prioritizes its various radicalisms, Sanders's answer is illuminating. The spectacle of a socialist candidate opposing reparations as "divisive"  (there are few political labels more divisive in the minds of Americans than socialist) is only rivaled by the implausibility of Sanders posing  as a pragmatist. Sanders says the chance of getting reparations through Congress is "nil," a correct observation which could just as well apply to much of the Vermont senator's own platform. The chances of a President Sanders coaxing a Republican Congress to pass a $1 trillion jobs and infrastructure bill are also nil. Considering Sanders's proposal for single-payer health-care, Paul Krugman asks, "Is there any realistic prospect that a drastic overhaul could be enacted any time soon—say, in the next eight years? No." Sanders is a lot of things, many of them good. But he is not the candidate of moderation and unification, so much as the candidate of partisanship and radicalism. There is neither insult nor accolade in this. John Brown was radical and divisive. So was Eric Robert Rudolph. Our current sprawling megapolis of prisons was a bipartisan achievement. Obamacare was not. Sometimes the moral course lies within the politically possible, and sometimes the moral course lies outside of the politically possible. One of the great functions of radical candidates is to war against equivocators and opportunists who conflate these two things. Radicals expand the political imagination and, hopefully, prevent incrementalism from becoming a virtue. Unfortunately, Sanders's radicalism has failed in the ancient fight against white supremacy. What he proposes in lieu of reparations—job creation, investment in cities, and free higher education—is well within the Overton window, and his platform on race echoes Democratic orthodoxy. The calls for community policing, body-cameras, and a voting-rights bill with pre-clearance restored— all are things that Hillary Clinton agrees with. And those positions with which she might not agree address black people not so much as a class specifically injured by white supremacy, but rather, as a group which magically suffers from disproportionate poverty. This is the "class first" approach, originating in the myth that racism and socialism are necessarily incompatible. But raising the minimum wage doesn't really address the fact that black men without criminal records have about the same shot at low-wage work as white men with them; nor can making college free address the wage gap between black and white graduates. Housing discrimination, historical and present, may well be the fulcrum of white supremacy. Affirmative action is one of the most disputed issues of the day. Neither are addressed in the "racial justice" section of Sanders platform. Sanders's anti-racist moderation points to a candidate who is not merely against reparations, but one who doesn't actually understand the argument. To briefly restate it, from 1619 until at least the late 1960s, American institutions, businesses, associations, and governments—federal, state and local—repeatedly plundered black communities. Their methods included everything from land-theft, to red-lining, to disenfranchisement, to convict-lease labor, to lynching, to enslavement, to the vending of children. So large was this plunder that America, as we know it today, is simply unimaginable without it. Its great universities were founded on it. Its early economy was built by it. Its suburbs were financed by it. Its deadliest war was the result of it. One can't evade these facts by changing the subject. Some months ago, black radicals in the Black Lives Matters movement protested Sanders. They were, in the main, jeered by the white left for their efforts. But judged by his platform, Sanders should be directly confronted and asked why his political imagination is so active against plutocracy, but so limited against white supremacy. Jim Crow and its legacy were not merely problems of disproportionate poverty. Why should black voters support a candidate who does not recognize this? Reparations is not one possible tool against white supremacy. It is the indispensable tool against white supremacy. If not even an avowed socialist can be bothered to grapple with reparations, if the question really is that far beyond the pale, if Bernie Sanders truly believes that victims of the Tulsa pogrom deserved nothing, that the victims of contract lending deserve nothing, that the victims of debt peonage deserve nothing, that that political plunder of black communities entitle them to nothing, if this is the candidate of the radical left—then expect white supremacy in America to endure well beyond our lifetimes and lifetimes of our children. Reparations is not one possible tool against white supremacy. It is the indispensable tool against white supremacy. One cannot propose to plunder a people, incur a moral and monetary debt, propose to never pay it back, and then claim to be seriously engaging in the fight against white supremacy. My hope was to talk to Sanders directly, before writing this article. I reached out repeatedly to his campaign over the past three days. The Sanders campaign did not respond.

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