#Jamaican immigrant in DC | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

alwaysmarilynmonroe · 4 years ago

Text

Firstly, I want to apologize in advance for any insensitivity or inaccuracies in this post. I cannot pretend I am as educated as I would like to be, but I am extremely passionate in learning about others and using my privilege for good.

Since the horrific murder of African American, George Floyd on May 25th 2020, rightful outrage has broken out worldwide over the injustice and disgraceful blatant racism that is still going on in 2020. Fifty seven years since Martin Luther King Jr. spoke his, “I Have A Dream” speech during the March On Washington For Jobs And Freedom on August 28th 1963. Fifty one years since Marsha P. Johnson, a Black Trans Woman, Sylvia Rivera, a Latina American Transgender Activist, Raymond Castro, a Latino gay man, Miss Major Griffin – Gracy, a Black Trans woman and Storm Delaverie, a Mixed Raced lesbian, fought during the Stonewall Riots on June 28th 1969. Which begs the question, why is it half a century later so many Black Lives are being taken mercilessly each day?

With June being the month of PRIDE and as I am hugely passionate about LGBTQ+ Rights, I feel it is important to note that the first riot protesting was led by Black Trans Women and Gay Men. I must mention that Black Trans Women have an average life span of 35 YEARS – just let that sink in for a moment.

We are all the same, we are all human, nobody is born racist. It is so wonderful to have so many colours and cultures within our world and yet a huge number of people are hurting this. Without variety we would not be able to educate one another and learn about each others history.

For the people that are posting about how, “All Lives Matter” I can’t emphasize enough how frustrating this is. No one is saying that white people don’t matter, the injustice is not harming white people, there is no racial prejudice and harm coming to myself because of the colour of my skin. Yes, every single person in the world suffers and has hard times, but BAME are the only ones being persecuted because of their skin. The “Black Lives Matter” movement is bringing awareness to the dangers so many people suffer every single day, living in fear doing the most mundane things that we so often take for granted. It is worth noting that white people will never understand this pain and fear, but we can understand the suffering so many people of colour go through and try and prevent it from continuing. I have started a thread on my Twitter, to share each petition I have signed, hoping that others will take a few minutes to do the same – it is the least we can do.

I’m also going to share each of the petitions in this post, with information about the victims who have suffered such pain. People may have seen the murder of George Floyd and think this is the first of it’s kind and tragically, it is not. Police brutality is extremely real and not only is it happening in the USA, it is happening in the UK too. Inquest, have stated there have been 1741 DEATHS in police custody or otherwise following contact with the police in England and Wales since 1990, with 14% and 183 of them being of BAME . In 2019, mappingpolicebrutality states there were only 27 DAYS IN 2019 where police did not kill someone, 24% of the victims were black, despite being 13% of the population and in 99% of the killings NO ONE HAS BEEN CHARGED.

I simply must take the time to thank the amazing Nico, who runs blacklivesmatters, because of you I have been able to educate myself and sign petitions on incredible people, that I admittedly had no idea existed. Thanks to thehindu website, I have learnt that between 2013 – 2019, 42 PER MILLION populations of African Americans were killed in police shootings – the highest among races, with statistics showing they are THREE TIMES more likely to be murdered than white people. Furthermore, over 17% of African American victims were UNARMED.

Here are a few of the many lives which have been lost and families which have been destroyed. It is important to remember these victims and share their stories. I’m ashamed to say that I had only heard about one of the stories that I am posting, which goes to show how many are ignored, and never spoken about. This is not acceptable, no one deserves such inhumanity and suffering. I am aware that these facts are hard to read and may be triggering to some, which I do apologize for, not because they have to be read, but because they ever happened in the first place. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves and not turn a blind eye to the injustices and tragedies which is happening daily in our world.

Marsha P. Johnson (left) and Sylvia Rivera (right) at the Christopher Street Liberation Day Gay Pride Parade photographed by Leonard Fink on June 24th 1973.

Black Trans American Gay Rights Activist, Marsha P. Johsnon.

Derek Charles Livingston walks in the Million Man March in Washington DC by Roderick Terry on October 16th 1995.

Black Lives Matter Artwork by @Beccallen_design

I can’t find any information on the people, protest or photographer, if anyone knows please contact me!

______________________________________________________________________________

SAY THEIR NAMES.

TRAYVON MARTIN:

A 17 year old African American teenager, who was fatally shot in Sanford, Florida by George Zimmerman, on February 26th 2012. Trayvon was walking alone to his father’s fiancée’s house from a store and Zimmerman, a member of the community watch, saw Trayvon and reported him to the Sanford Police as suspicious. Several minutes later, there was an altercation and Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon in the chest. Zimmerman was NOT charged at the time and when he eventually was tried, he was ACQUITTED of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

SANDRA BLAND:

A 28 year old African American woman, who was found hanged in her jail cell in Waller County, Texas, on July 13th 2015. Sandra had been pulled over for a minor traffic violation, three days earlier by State Trooper Brian Encinia, who ended up arresting her with the charge of assaulting a police officer. Part of the exchange was recorded and after authorities reviewed the footage, Encinia was placed on administrative leave for failing to follow proper traffic stop procedures. However, in December 2015, a grand jury decided AGAINST indicting the country sheriff and jail staff for any misdemeanors regarding Sandra’s tragic death. Encinia was eventually indicted for making false statements about Sandra’s arrest and was fired. However, in June 2017 the perjury charges against him were DROPPED, with the confirmation he would end his law enforcement career.

KATHRYN JOHNSTON:

A 92 year old African American woman, who was killed by undercover police in her home on Neal Street in northwest Atlanta on November 21st 2006. They broke down her door and fired 39 SHOTS at her, with five or six hitting – she fired one, which didn’t harm anyone. The officers were found to have falsified evidence, stating drugs were present in her home, which was the original cause for the raid. Jason R. Smith, Gregg Junnier, and Arthur Tesler were tried for MANSLAUGHTER and sentenced to only 10, 6 and 5 YEARS.

SEAN BELL:

A 23 year old African American man, who was killed the morning before his Wedding, on November 25th 2006. Detective Paul Headley fired one shot, officer Michael Carey fired three times, officer Marc Cooper shot FOUR TIMES, and officer Gescard Isnora shot ELEVEN TIMES and officer Michael Oliver shot 31 TIMES, reloading his gun AT LEAST once. Two of Sean’s friends, JOSEPH GUZMAN and TRENT BENEFIELD were severely wounded but thankfully survived. Isnora and Oliver were charged with first and second degree MANSLAUGHTER, whilst Cooper was charged with RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT. All three were ACQUITTED, only being fired or forced to resign from the force.

ERIC GARNER:

A 43 year old African American man, who was killed by New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo, after he was placed in a chokehold whilst being arrested on July 17th 2004. The medical examiners actually RULED HIS DEATH AS A HOMICIDE however, Pantaleo was NOT charged with murder and was only fired on August 19th 2019, MORE THAN FIVE YEARS after Eric’s death.

REKIA BOYD:

A 22 year old African American woman, who was killed by an off-duty Chicago police detective, Dante Servin, on March 21st 2012. Rekia’s friend, ANTONIA CROSS was also shot in the hand. Over a year later, in November 2013, Servin was charged with INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER, but was CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES, by Judge Dennis J. Porter on April 20th 2015. Servin resigned two days before his departmental hearing on May 17th 2016, FOUR YEARS after Rekia’s murder.

AMADOU DIALLO:

A 23 year old Guinean immigrant, who was murdered by four New York City plain clothed police officers, Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon, and Kenneth Boss, on February 4th 1999. They fired 41 SHOTS, of which 19 HIT AMADOU and were charged only with SECOND DEGREE MURDER – all ended up being ACQUITTED. In 2015, Boss was PROMOTED to sergeant – he had already murdered PATRICK BAILEY, a 22 year old Jamaican born American Citizen on October 31st 1997.

MICHAEL BROWN JR.:

A 18 year old African American man, who was murdered by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, on August 9th 2014. Michael was UNARMED with his friend, DORIAN JOHNSON and his body was left in the street for FOUR HOURS before he was removed. On August 11th, a Civil Rights Investigation was opened, but on March 4th 2015, CLEARED Wilson of any civil rights violations. He was NOT charged. On November 29th, Wilson resigned from the force, citing security concerns.

KIMANI “KIKI” GRAY:

A 16 year old African American boy, who was murdered by two plain clothed New York City police officers, Mourad Mourad and Jovaniel Cordova, on March 9th 2013. He was shot at ELEVEN TIMES, and was hit by SEVEN of them. Mourad was nominated for, “Cop Of The Year” in 2014, despite being named in THREE FEDERAL LAWSUITS FOR VIOLATING CIVIL RIGHTS along with another shooting in 2011. Both have NOT been charged.

KENNETH CHAMBERLAIN SR.:

A 68 year old African American man, who was murdered by police officer, Anthony Carelli after inadvertently triggering his LifeAid medical alert necklace. The officers broke down his door, even after Kenneth stated he did not need assistance and had asked them to leave. They stayed for one hour trying to force the door open and an officer called Stephen Hart, swore at him and called him horrific racist words. Kenneth was UNARMED, which DNA evidence has proven and was TASERED and shot at TWICE. In 2012 the case was reviewed by a grand jury and the officers were NOT charged.

TRAVARES MCGILL:

A 16 year old African American boy, who was murdered by security guards, William Patrick Swofford and Bryan Ansley, in a parking lot on July 16th 2005. Originally, the two men were NOT charged, it wasn’t until FOUR MONTHS later in November, that Swofford was charged with MANSLAUGHTER and both with SHOOTING INTO AN OCCUPIED VEHICLE. The charges later ended up being DISMISSED.

TAMIR RICE:

A 12 year old African American boy, who was SHOT TWICE in Cleveland, Ohio by police officer Timothy Loehmann, on November 22nd 2014. He was simply playing with a TOY GUN and ended up dying in hospital the next day. Loehmann was NOT CHARGED and was only fired THREE YEARS LATER in 2017, after it was revealed that he had been labelled an EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE RECRUIT and UNFIT FOR DUTY in his previous job.

AIYANA STANLEY-JONES:

A 7 year old African American girl, who was murdered by police officer, Joseph Weekley, during a house raid, on May 16th 2010. In October 2011, Weekley was charged INVOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER and RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT WITH A GUN. Weekley ended up having two mistrials and the judge actually DISMISSED the involuntary manslaughter charge in the second one. Five years later, on January 28th 2015, Weekley was CLEARED of his reckless endangerment with a gun charge, meaning the third retrial would not happen.

FREDDIE GRAY:

A 25 year old African American man, who was arrested on April 12th 2015 by lieutenant Brian W. Rice, officer Edward Nero, and officer Garrett E. Miller, after running away from them, whilst they were patrolling. Freddie was subsequently charged with having a knife in his possession, although no harm was caused and the knife was not used. Freddie was then placed in a transport van within 11 minutes of his arrest and half an hour later he was IN A COMA. He died on April 19th, a week after his arrest, with his cause of death being stated as injuries to his spinal cord. The medical examiners ruled his death a HOMICIDE, saying that his injuries had been sustained whilst being transported and that the officers FAILED TO FOLLOW SAFETY PROCEDURES. Six officers were filed with various criminal charges, including MANSLAUGHTER, ILLEGAL ARREST, RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT and SECOND DEGREE “DEPRAVED-HEART” MURDER for officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., who was driving the van. Each officer was granted a separate trial, Porters resulted in a MISTRIAL, whilst Nero, Rice and Goodson were all ACQUITTED. Any of the various other charges were subsequently DROPPED.

SEAN RIGG

A 40 year old black man, who died following a cardiac arrest whilst in police custody, in South London, England on August 28th 2008. Sean suffered with paranoid schizophrenia and was in a vulnerable mental state, resulting in the hostel staff he lived with calling 999 FIVE TIMES over a period of THREE HOURS. They were informed by operator, Maurice Glove that Sean was NOT A POLICE PRIORITY. Response was eventually made after members of the public had observed Sean acting strangely in the street. Four police officers chased him and he was handcuffed and restrained in a face down position, being LENT ON FOR 8 MINUTES. FOUR YEARS LATER in 2012, Southwalk Coroner’s Court concluded police had used, “UNSUITABLE AND UNNECESSARY FORCE” and their failings, “MORE THAN MINIMALLY” contributed to his death. In March 2013, sergeant Paul White and officer Mark Harratt were arrested on perverting the court of justice, regarding the evidence presented at Sean’s inquest. However, in October 2014, the CPS decided NOT to charge them. Sean’s family did request a Right To Review policy and White was charged with PERJURY – ultimately, he was ACQUITTED in November 2016.

______________________________________________________________________________

PETITIONS TO SIGN:

Here are some of the petitions I have came across to support, it simply takes a few seconds of your time and every signature helps. Please also take the time to read the victims stories and share, together our voices have power and can hopefully help in moving towards a happier and healthier society.

• MINNEAPOLIS DISTRICT ATTORNEY: RAISE THE DEGREE • JUSTICE FOR GEORGE FLOYD (1) • CHARGE MINNEAPOLIS POLICE OFFICERS FOR MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD (2) • JUSTICE FOR GEORGE FLOYD (3) • GET THE OFFICERS CHARGED: JUSTICE FOR GEORGE FLOYD (4) • SENATOR BLUMENTHAL: GEORGE FLOYD: WE NEED NATIONWIDE POLICE DE-ESCALATION (5) • JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR (1) • JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR (2) • JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR (3) • JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR (4) • JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR (5) • DISBARMENT OF GEORGE E. BARNHILL • JUSTICE FOR AHMUAD ARBERY (1) • DISTRICT ATTORNEY TOM DURDEN: JUSTICE FOR AHMAUD ARBERY (2) • GOVERNOR BRIAN KEMP: JUSTICE FOR AHMAUD ARBERY (3) • DEFUND MPD • MANDATORY LIFE SENTENCE FOR POLICE BRUTALITY • JUSTICE FOR REGIS KORCHINSKI-PAQUET • JUSTICE FOR TONY MCDADE (1) • JUSTICE FOR TONY MCDADE (2) • JUSTICE FOR TONY MCDADE (3) • JUSTICE FOR JOAO PEDRO • SAVE INNOCENT JULIUS JONES FROM DEATH ROW • JUSTICE FOR BELLY MUJINGA • GOVERNOR KAY IVEY: FREE WILLIE SIMMONS • HANDS UP ACT • NATIONAL ACTION AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY AND MURDER • ILLINOIS GOVERNOR: CORRECT WRONGFUL CONVICTION OF KYJUANZI HARRIS • JUSTICE FOR ALEJANDRO VARGAS MARTINEZ • CENSORSHIP OF POLICE BRUTALITY IN FRANCE • JUSTICE FOR SEAN REED • MAYOR JOE HOGSETT: JUSTICE FOR SEAN REED • JUSTICE FOR KENDRICK JOHNSON • JUSTICE FOR TAMIR RICE (1) • JUSTICE FOR TAMIR RICE (2) • FIRE RACIST CRIMINAL FROM THE NYPD • JUSTICE FOR JAMEE JOHNSON • JUSTICE FOR DARIUS STEWART (1) • JUSTICE FOR DARIUS STEWART (2) • ABOLISH PRISON LABOR • FREE SIYANDA MNGAZA • JUSTICE FOR CHRYSTUL KIZER (1) • JUSTICE FOR CHRYSTUL KIZER (2) • JUSTICE FOR ANDILE “BOBO” MCHUNU • FREE ERIC RIDDICK • JUSTICE FOR AMIYA BRAXTON • JUSTICE FOR EMERALD BLACK • JUSTICE FOR ELIJAH NICHOLS • JUSTICE FOR ZINEDINE KARABO GIOIA • RETRIAL FOR WRONGFUL CONVICTION OF ANGEL BUMPASS • SCOTLAND POLICE: INVESTIGATE THE DEATH OF SHEKU BAYOH IN POLICE CUSTODY • JUSTICE FOR JENNIFER JEFFLEY • FREE ALBERT WILSON • MADISON SOUTHERN HIGH SCHOOL: JUSTICE FOR MACIE • JUSTICE FOR AMARI BOONE • JUSTICE FOR CRYSTAL MASON • JUSTICE FOR RASHAD CUNNINGHAM • GOODWOOD MAGISTRATE COURT: JUSTICE FOR TAZNE VAN WYK • PORTLAND POLICE: JUSTICE FOR TETE GULLEY • DROP CHARGES ON MARSHAE JONES & CHARGE THE SHOOTER OF HER & HER UNBORN BABY • TEMPLE POLICE DEPARTMENT: JUSTICE FOR MICHAEL DEAN • STAND WITH #BLM • MOVEMENT4BLACKLIVES • PHOENIX POLICE DEPARTMENT: JUSTICE FOR DION JOHNSON • FIRE RON FREEMAN • MANCHESTER POLICE: JUSTICE FOR SHUKRI ABDI • DISTRICT ATTORNEY JIM WARD: JAIL TIME FOR DYLAN MOTA AND JACOB ROBLES • NSW POLICE: MANDATE THE POLICE FORCE ACADEMIES TO TAKE RACIAL BIAS TEST • JUNK THE ANTI-TERRORISM BILL AND UPHOLD HUMAN RIGHTS • NIGERIA POLICE FORCE: JUSTICE FOR YOUNG UWA • SCHOOLS MUST SPEAK UP NOW • SEATTLE POLICE: ARREST JARED CAMPBELL (1) • TERMINATE JARED CAMPBELL (2) • POLICE DE-ESCALATION TRAINING • PARDON CRYSTAL MASON IMPRISONED FOR VOTING. • JUSTICE FOR CAMERON GREEN • UNITED NATIONS: BAN THE USE OF INHUMANE RUBBER BULLETS (1) • UN AND US GOVERNMENT: BAN THE USE OF RUBBER BULLETS (2) • STOP USING ICE TO POISON IMMIGRANTS • THE TRAYVON MARTIN LAW – STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING AGAIN • COOKS COUNTY ILLINOIS POLICE: FREE CHAFFIN DARNEL Y • SUPPORT FORMER BUFFALOE POLICE OFFICER CARIOL HORNE TO RECEIVE HER PENSION • IMPROVE WORKING CONDITIONS FOR BLACK PEOPLE IN ITALY • DEFUND DALLAS POLICE DEPARTMENT AND INVEST IN THE LARGER DALLAS COMMUNITY • JUSTICE FOR BRITTANY CHRISHAWN WILLIAMS • RICHMOND CITY COUNCIL & MAYOR STONEY: MARCUS ALERT & CIVILIAN OVERSIGHT OF RPD • JUSTICE FOR QUENTIN SUTTLES • SAVE INNOCENT KENNETH REAMS FROM DEATH ROW • KING COUNTY POLICE OFFICERS GUILD: REQUIRE DASH AND BODY CAMERAS • DEFUND THE POLICE • JUSTICE FOR JAMES SCURLOCK (1) • JUSTICE FOR JAMES SCURLOCK (2) • CLASSIFY WHITE SUPREMACISTS AS TERRORISTS • JUSTICE FOR DAVID MCATEE • NO POLICE PRESENCE AT TACOMA BLM PROTEST • DEFUND SDPD • FIRE LAPD CHIEF MICHAEL MOORE • MAKE WASHINGTON STATE POLICE ACCOUNTABLE FOR POLICE BRUTALITY • FIRE OFFICER CAMILLE STEPHENSON • STOP ILLEGAL EXPORT OF RIOTING EQUIPMENT • JUSTICE FOR SHELLEY FREY • JUSTICE FOR ASHTON DICKSON • BAN/RESTRICT TEARGAS • KNOCK DOWN SLAVE MARKET CENTER • FREE ANTHONY WITT • JUSTICE FOR SANDRA BLAND • PROTECT UK BLACK TRANS WOMEN • REJECT TRUMP’S VIOLENCE TOWARDS PROTESTORS • MAKE POLICE BRUTALITY ILLEGAL • FIRE AUSTIN CHIEF POLICE • JUSTICE FOR BRAD LEVI • JUSTICE FOR JONAS JOSEPH • JUSTICE FOR DOMINIQUE CLAYTON • JUSTICE FOR ANDERSON ARBOLEDA • FREE CURTIS PRICE ______________________________________________________________________________

DONATIONS:

From reading various sources of information, it is advised to not donate to change.org, as it is a private corporation and none of the funds go towards the organizations or people that have put the petitions together. Of course, continue to sign the petitions, but please take the time to read their FAQ regarding donations.

Here is a list of recommended websites via blacklivesmatters: ______________________________________________________________________________

VICTIMS:

• GEORGE FLOYD MEMORIAL FUND • GEORGE FLOYD’S SISTERS FUND • GEORGE FLOYD’S DAUGHTERS FUND • BREONNA TAYLOR FUND • AHMAUD ARBERY FUND • REGIS KORCHINSKI FUND • JAMEE JOHNSON FUND • DESTINY HARRISON FUNERAL FUND • ERIC ROSALIA FUND • BELLY MUJINGA FUND • DION JOHNSON FUND • AARON JAMES FUND • TONY MCDADE FUND • HEALING FOR DARNELLA • DESTINY’S DREAM SCHOLARSHIP • JAMES SCURLOCK FUND • SUPPORT FOR LESLIE FUND • TREVER BELLE FUND • TAMPA BAY COMMUNITY SUPPORT • BRAD LEVI AYALA FUND • ALAJUNAYE DAVIS FUND • SAID JOQUIN FUND • DAVID MCATEE FUND • ITALIA KELLEY FUND ______________________________________________________________________________

* PROTESTORS *

• BALI FUNDS BY STATE • TAMPA BAY COMMUNITY SUPPORT • SPLIT DONATION TO 37 BAIL FUNDS • NATIONAL BAIL FUND NETWORK • BAIL FUND GOOGLE DOC • BAIL FUND TWITTER THREAD • GAS MASK FUND • UNICORN RIOT FUND • MESSIAH YOUNG AND TANIYA PILGRIM • EZEQUIEL VALDERAS BAIL FUND • BLM FRONTLINE FUND • FUND PROTESTORS IN THE UK • SUPPLIES FOR DC PROTESTORS • VENMO: FEMME EMPOWERMENT PROJECT ______________________________________________________________________________

* BLACK OWNED BUSINESSES *

• BLACK OWNED BUSINESSES THREAD • BLACK OWNED BUSINESSES ATLANTA • BURGERIM DALLAS TEXAS • EMW WOMEN’S

* EMW is the ONLY abortion clinic in Kentucky and is 1 OF THE 6 black owned clinics in the country.

• REBUILD SCORES SPORTS BAR FUND • REBUILD SACDELUX CONSIGNMENT STORE FUND • HELP TRIO THRIVE • ATLANTA BLACK OWNED BUSINESS RELIEF • REBUILD GUNS & ROSES BOUTIQUE FUND • SOMALI OWNED BUSINESSES • REBUILD SHOE MOUNTAIN FUND • REBUILD THE BLOCK FUND • MINNEAPOLIS BLACK OWNED BUSINESSES • LONG BEACH BLACK OWNED BUSINESSES ______________________________________________________________________________

* ORGANIZATIONS *

• Reclaim The Block • North Star Health Collective • NAACP Legal Defense Fund • Black Visions Collective • Black Disability Coalition • The Marshall Project • ACLU • Campaign Zero • Advancement Project ______________________________________________________________________________ * OTHER IMPORTANT PLACES *

• SUPPORT SYBRINA FULTON, TRAYVON MARTIN’S MOTHER WHO IS RUNNING FOR OFFICE IN FLORIDA • SUPPORT LUCY MCBETH FOR RE-ELECTION HER SON JORDAN DAVIS WAS MURDERED AT 17 BY A RACIST • BLM FUND • BLM LA FUND • SMALL BUSINESSES REBUILD • BAY AREA BLACK BUSINESSES FUND • LOVELAND THERAPY FUND • BLACK TRANS WOMEN FUND • NATIONAL POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT • CHANGE THE NYPD • LAKE STREET CLEANUP • UNTIL FREEDOM • REBUILD NATIVE AMERICAN YOUTH CENTER • REBUILD VIETNAMESE RESTAURANT FUND • CAMBODIA TOWN RELIEF FUND • REBUILD JOY’S BEAUTY SALON FUND • LOCAL RICHMOND BUSINESSES (VA) • FORDHAM CLEANUP FUND • REDISTRIBUTION TO BLACK CENTERED GROUPS • DONATE TO END PERIOD POVERTY ______________________________________________________________________________ * USEFUL RESOURCES * • BLACK LIVES MATTER • BLACK MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES (1) • BLACK MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES (2) • CAPTAINS FOR DEAF OR HOH ______________________________________________________________________________

“PLEASE, I CAN’T BREATHE. MY STOMACH HURTS. MY NECK HURTS. EVERYTHING HURTS. THEY’RE GOING TO KILL ME.”

– George Floyds last words.

BLACK LIVES MATTER. Firstly, I want to apologize in advance for any insensitivity or inaccuracies in this post. I cannot pretend I am as educated as I would like to be, but I am extremely passionate in learning about others and using my privilege for good.

#black lives matter #black trans lives matter #black trans women #blackout tuesday #BLM #equality for all #i stand with you #lgbt #LGBT rights #LGBTQ #say their name #say their names

62 notes · View notes

babylon-crashing · 5 years ago

Text

SANTA MUERTE'S BROWN CANDLE: DEATH CLOSE TO HOME

While Santa Muerte and her followers have yet to make headlines here in the United States, the extent to which her cult has expanded here in the past few years is astonishing. When I started thinking about her growing presence in this country, I assumed that I would have to head to the border or to cities such as Los Angeles and Houston to find the White Sister being venerated by her Mexican and Central American adherents. From my home in central Virginia I figured the closest I might find the skeleton saint would be in the Washington, DC, area, ninety miles to the north. And sure enough, on one of my recent trips to the capital city I found her fairly easily in the hip Adams-Morgan neighborhood. Sharing vibrant 18th Street with an Ethiopian, Peruvian, and even a Oaxacan restaurant, Botanica Yemaya y Chango carries a wide selection of Saint Death paraphernalia, including a two-feet-tall statue in which the saint’s robe is made of a patchwork of miniature hundred-dollar bills. The old Panamanian woman … told me that in the past three or four years the Skinny Lady has taken over more and more shelf space at the expense of Yemaya, Chango, and the other orishas (spirits) of this Cuban-born religion. The well-heeled young hipsters who wine and dine in Adams-Morgan occasionally stop in the shop to check out the religious exotica, but it is the Latino, mostly Salvadoran, residents of the neighborhood who purchase the hundred-dollar-bill-draped Santa Muerte and other articles that they pray will bring them, health, wealth, and love.

The easy discovery of the Powerful Lady in DC led me to rethink my dismissal of the possibility of finding her in the former capital of the Confederacy. Perhaps there were enough Salvadoran and Mexican immigrants in Richmond for me at least to find a few votive candles for sale at a local Latino grocery. The more I thought about the prospect of finding her here, the more excited I became. For to discover her here in central Virginia, where the Latino population is under 5 percent, would be really significant. It would mean that the Pretty Girl had moved beyond the barrios of the big cities and the border and into the American heartland. And sure enough, the two Latino grocery stores on the same block as my favorite Vietnamese restaurant, on Richmond’s West End, were selling an assortment of votive candles, and even a few figurines at the Salvadoran-run market. Even more impressive, though, was the discovery that the skeleton saint had a semi-public altar in my new hometown. Lupe (short for Guadalupe), the mother of one of my wife’s third-grade students and a new devotee of Saint Death, told me to check out Botica El Ángel where she gets all her devotional paraphernalia.

Wearing a flashy gold medallion of Santa Muerte on her chest, Cristina, the energetic owner of the religious esoterica shop on the city’s hardscrabble south side, gave me a tour of Botica El Ángel. A Salvadoran immigrant, she hadn’t heard of the saint of death in her homeland, but became a believer in 2005 when she started to sell Santa Muerte merchandise at her newly opened shop. While looking for a Saint Death book in English for me, an item I hadn’t requested, she enthusiastically stated that the Grim Reapress accounts for approximately 40 percent of her total sales. Santa Muerte candles, incense, and figurines outsell the other Catholic and Santería paraphernalia at the well-stocked little store. After a lengthy search, Cristina produced an overpriced bilingual devotional manual that she carries for her Jamaican and African American clientele. This was the first and is still the only reference to non-Latino devotees that I’ve come across. I wondered how many English-speaking believers in the White Girl had left dollar bills in the bony hands of the four-foot statue in the center of the altar at the back of the shop. Politely declining her twenty-two-dollar English/Spanish booklet, I instead opted for a bilingual red jar candle. A former middle school spelling bee champion, I was naturally drawn to the misspelling at the base of the glass candle jar, right beneath Santa Muerte’s bony feet. Manufactured in North Hollywood, California, by the General Wax Company, my candle and all the bilingual candles on the shelf read “Holly Death.”

(R. Andrew Chestnut, Devoted to Death, pages 47-49)

#santa muerte #andrew chestnut #devoted to death #brown candle #folk saint

13 notes · View notes

womenofcolor15 · 4 years ago

Text

BYE-DEN! Trump Is Out, President-Elect Joe Biden & VP-Elect Kamala Harris Make History & Bold Victory Speeches, & America Is On 100

It's been a long road, but the Trump presidency is giving very much one term. And nobody is happier than Americans dancing & celebrating in the streets with impromptu parades, champagne popping and the ultimate turn-up (with masks). Joe Biden's & Kamala Harris' historic President-Elect and VP-Elect victory speeches and their reactions the moment the election was called, inside.

Get the oxtails ready, Kamala Harris is your first woman Vice President-Elect of the United States, along with the first HBCU grad, first woman of color, first black woman, first Asian woman and first child of immigrants in that position. The half Jamaican, half East Indian Senator from California definitely burst through that glass ceiling, but made sure to give thanks to the women who poked all the holes in that ceiling before her - from Shirley Chisholm and beyond.

View this post on Instagram

VICE PRESIDENT AUNTIE

A post shared by Meena Harris (@meena) on Nov 7, 2020 at 6:57pm PST

On Saturday night, hours after the media called the election for Biden-Harris after multiple days of waiting until almost 100% of the votes were tallied in the major battleground states, Kamala took the stage for the first time as VP-Elect. She walked out to Mary J. Blige's "Work That" (her campaign theme song) and rocked a white Carolina Herrera 2021 Resort suit. And her speech had folks in tears, even from the moment she walked out. She said:

"I’m thinking about my mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, and the generations of Black women who came before me who believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible."

youtube

Kamala, as well as Biden, specifically thanked the black community and black women for having their backs - and that's the first time we've ever heard a Prez/VP ticket do that on a national stage. We were the major force in flipping states like Georgia, Pennsyvania and Arizona blue.

Kamala made it known this moment of many firsts is not lost on her, but while she is the first, she will make sure she is not the last.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kamala Harris (@kamalaharris) on Nov 7, 2020 at 6:01pm PST

Biden told the record breaking 161 million people who voted in this election that he will be the President of all Americans, not just those who voted for him. Kamala told their supporters specifically, "You delivered a clear message, you chose hope."

View this post on Instagram

To the American people—no matter who you voted for—I will strive to be a Vice President like @JoeBiden was to President @BarackObama: loyal, honest, and prepared, waking up every day thinking of you and your families.

A post shared by Kamala Harris (@kamalaharris) on Nov 8, 2020 at 7:58am PST

President-Elect Biden reflected on his extremely arduous road to get here, a story that no one, no matter your political affiliation - as long as you're a reasonable human, can say doesn't prove he is a wholly empathetic human being who has lived grief and loss most of his life. So he knows our pain as Americans, and has no reason to turn his back on that.

Securing the election with 270+ electoral college votes on the same day he was sworn in as Senator decades ago is a touching coincidence. Joe lost his then wife and child in a car crash not long after he was elected, and he was actually sworn in while standing at their bedside. He told the story of perseverance and faith getting him through, making him a commuter Senator - taking the train to and from DC from Delaware every night so he could be at home with his other children who needed him as a single and widower father. He also revealed how important healthcare was at that time for him, as he wouldn't have been able to get the care his injured children needed if he didn't have it. So your healthcare is at the top of his priority list as well.

And also, his faith. We will have only our second Catholic President in our history, one who actually attends church almost every Sunday as opposed to claiming he's a Christian but not living by that faith daily like the incumbent. Joe says his former run for President didn't pan out for a reason - because God said it wasn't the time. Suffering a brain aneurysm during brain surgery just days after voluntarily ending his campaign decades ago, something that could have killed him had he remained on the campaign trail, was proof to him that following his faith saved his life. And he promises to lead in that same way - with faith at the helm.

View this post on Instagram

I am humbled by the trust and confidence you have placed in @KamalaHarris and me. We’re reminded tonight of all those who fought so hard for so many years to make this happen. It is long overdue, but once again, America has bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice.

A post shared by Joe Biden (@joebiden) on Nov 7, 2020 at 9:02pm PST

Both Biden and Harris made it known they are hitting the ground running on Monday, forming a Covid -19 Response taskforce (which Biden has lowkey savagely already named the Surgeon General that Trump fired as the head of said taskforce) and a transition team immediately. Clearly, they aren't waiting for Trump's multiple lawsuits - all of which have been kicked out of the courts almost immediately when filed for not having any merit - to pan out first.

According to the Constitution, a President must be officially named by the electoral college on December 15th, no mater what. So Trump and his cronies have until then to "come up with evidence of voter fraud", something they said they "need time" to do. Who actually files lawsuits saying they know there was voter fraud but don't have any proof yet?! The political theater of it all.

View this post on Instagram

America, I’m honored that you have chosen me to lead our great country. The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a President for all Americans — whether you voted for me or not. I will keep the faith that you have placed in me.

A post shared by Joe Biden (@joebiden) on Nov 7, 2020 at 8:52am PST

While the GOP - meaning Trump, his sons and Lindsay Graham because the others have already chucked deuces or remained quiet - figures out how to take this L, America is starting the process of healing from not only an abusive 4 year relationship, but from the 400 years of racial and sexist trauma that has been finally brought to the surface. There's a LONG way to go.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joe Biden (@joebiden) on Nov 7, 2020 at 8:52am PST

The moment Kamala and Joe found out they secured 270+ is one for the books. Check it:

View this post on Instagram

We did it, @JoeBiden.

A post shared by Kamala Harris (@kamalaharris) on Nov 7, 2020 at 9:27am PST

The work begins now, with Senate runoff races in Georgia on deck in January and the black community expecting their demands to be met by the new White House in some way. If the Dems win both of those Senate races, Dems will have tied up the Senate, with the tie breaker vote being served by VP-Elect Kamala Harris. Securing those two seats will limit the power of current Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, who has already said he will not "allow" cabinet appointments or legislation that are "too progressive." He has no issue with overtly conservative ish though.

View this post on Instagram

The turn up is real in Brooklyn and Manhattan. #bidenharris2020 #SpikeLee

A post shared by TheYBF (@theybf_daily) on Nov 7, 2020 at 11:46am PST

Register to vote if you're not already registered - there's upcoming state and local elections on deck in 2021 - and keep up the fabulous work, America!

Photog Credit: Steve Sanchez Photos, Johnny Silvercloud, Jai Agnish, Phil Pasquini/Shutterstock.com, Getty

[Read More ...] source http://theybf.com/2020/11/09/bye-den-president-elect-joe-biden-vp-elect-kamala-harris-make-history-bold-victory-speech

0 notes

expatimes · 4 years ago

Photo

How will Indian Americans vote on November 3?

South Asian Americans are one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups in the United States, and their participation in politics has increased significantly in recent years.

Bobby Jindal served as the governor of Louisiana from 2008 to 2016, and Nikki Haley was Trump's first choice for the role of US ambassador to the United Nations. Huma Abedin was Hillary Clinton's right-hand woman during her presidential campaign, and Saqib Ali served as a state delegate in Maryland when Obama was president. Pramila Jayapal and Ro Khanna are serving in Congress, and the number of South Asian Americans active in local politics is also on the rise. Belal Aftab is running for city council in California, and last year, Sadaf Jaffer became the first South Asian female mayor in America. Most importantly, Kamala Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, is the first-ever Black and South Asian vice presidential nominee.

While South Asian Americans are now more visible on the political stage than ever before, their loyalties remain diverse, resisting easy classifications.

Recent polls have shown that while most Indian Americans will vote blue in the upcoming election, 28 percent gravitate towards Trump, a notable jump from the 16 percent that voted red in the last presidential election.

Despite Trump's hostile rhetoric towards minority communities and immigrants, the support he continues to receive from a significant percentage of Indian Americans is not surprising.

Unlike South Asian Americans who come from Muslim countries, Indian-Americans, especially those who are not Sikh or Muslim, have not been subjected to the same levels of racialised surveillance as part of the US government ongoing global “war on terror”. While Indian-Americans have certainly faced racism, their roots in secular India afforded them a level of acceptance in America that Muslims fundamentally lack. As a result, while most Muslim Americans oppose Trump for his pernicious Islamophobia, Hindu Indian-Americans are more open to pledging their support to him.

Trump, after all, has pandered to the Indian-American vote, forming a close political friendship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi has built his entire political career on the basis of Hindu nationalism (also known as “Hindutva”), an exclusionary ideology that asserts India is a homeland principally for Hindus, and consequently denigrates marginalized religious groups, ethnicities and castes.

Earlier this year, Trump embarked on a two-day visit to India, where he praised Modi for protecting “religious freedoms” in the country and underscored the importance of US-India ties in the fight against “radical Islamic terrorism.” When Trump reached New Delhi, the city was burning in a pogrom against Muslims, which left more than 50 people dead. The violence came on the heels of nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), laws that institutionalise exclusion of Muslims from Indian citizenship and violate the country's secular constitution.

In 2019, Modi was re-elected as prime minister by stoking nationalist sentiments - threatening war with Pakistan and revoking the semi-autonomous status of Kashmir, which its inhabitants consider to be under military occupation. That same year, Trump welcomed Modi in a Houston stadium, drawing 50,000 Indian-Americans in rapturous support.

Today, the spike in Indian-American support for Trump is likely linked to the political alliance between Trump and Modi that was built on their shared hatred of Muslims, policies of increased neoliberal privatisation, and right-wing populism.

But while Trump and Modi's diplomatic friendship is now at the center of US-India relations, support for Hindu nationalism, and normalization of its adherents in US politics, is not limited to conservative circles.

Liberal politicians from the Democratic Party, who claim to champion democratic values, inclusion and multiculturalism, also have deep ties to Modi, which is reinforced by the network of Indian-American organizations that support him. These organizations are linked to the Sangh Parivar, an umbrella term that encompasses Hindu nationalist groups, such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its paramilitary progenitor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Democratic nominee Joe Biden, widely celebrated as the antidote to Trump, or viewed as the lesser evil in yet another election that fails to offer new options for American voters, may not appear to be as enthusiastic in cooperating with the Indian prime minister as his conservative opponent. But Trump was not the first president to honor Modi with an invitation to the White House.

In September 2014, just a few months after Modi's ascent to the top of India's government, then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden welcomed Modi to Washington, DC, with full fanfare, including a visit to the Martin Luther King, Jr memorial and A lunch prepared by an Indian-American chef at the State Department.

The day before, 19,000 Indian-Americans had greeted Modi at Madison Square Garden in what Secretary of State John Kerry called “a rock-star reception”. Prominent liberal Indian-American personalities, such as Nina Davuluri, the first South Asian American Miss America and contributor to Michelle Obama's public health campaign, and Hari Sreenivasan, a PBS anchor, hosted the gathering.

Throughout Modi's visit, neither the members of the Obama administration nor the Indian-Americans celebrating his arrival, tried to take Modi to task for his actions during the Gujarat pogroms. Modi had been banned from entering the US for nine years - from 2005 to 2014 - due to his alleged complicity in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogroms in his home state of Gujarat, which left more than 1,000 people dead. The policy was implemented thanks to the efforts of Indian-American Muslims and Sikhs, according to Kashmiri-American intellectual Hafsa Kanjwal, but was swiftly overturned when Modi became prime minister.

America's diplomatic alignment with Modi - or any leader at the helm of Indian democracy, even as it slips rapidly into fascism - remains bipartisan, and Biden himself has been at the center of efforts to form a strong economic and security partnership with India since days as a senator. The Democratic presidential hopeful was one of the primary architects of the US's nuclear trade agreement with India in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which laid the foundation for the current political and economic partnership between the two countries. During this time, India started to receive aircraft, naval ships and other defense technology exports from the US.

In 2014, Biden praised Modi's “support for economic reforms” which, as of 2018, enabled a trade relationship worth $ 142b between the two countries. To this day, India remains the fifth-largest market for American defense exports.

Biden is the only alternative to four more years of a Trump presidency, and his acceptance of Modi and lack of sensitivity to Kashmiri, lower-caste and Indian Muslim suffering appear still to be as strong as they were six years ago.

In February, the Biden campaign appointed Amit Jani, an Indian-American political organizer with strong family and political links to Modi and the BJP, as director of outreach for the Asian-American Pacific Islander community; His duties included Muslim outreach.

Jani's ties to the BJP surpass mild apologia or well-intended ignorance of Indian politics. His father, Suresh Jani, is a founder of the Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP), an organization lobbying for Modi's BJP in the West. In 2019, his mother, Deepti, actively campaigned for Modi's re-election in India. When Modi visited the US, he stayed at the Janis' Jersey City home.

Amit Jani does not dissociate himself from his parents' ideology or activism. In fact, he appears to support it. In a 2014 article for The Huffington Post, Jani glorified Modi for reviving interest in Indian politics among the diaspora and compared his election win to that of Obama.

In May 2019, Jani was listed as an organizer for an event celebrating the Indian government draconian decision to revoke the special status accorded to Indian-administered Kashmir in its constitution. As Jani was working to organize the celebratory event, Modi had already put Indian-administered Kashmir under lockdown, cutting the region's internet and electricity, and thousands of troops there to quash protests.

Given Biden's strong political relationship with India and past praise of Modi, his appointment of Jani, a Modi supporter, was hardly shocking, but it poured salt in the wound of Muslim Americans, especially those of South Asian descent, as well as Dalit Americans.

A hashtag calling for his dismissal, #RejectAmitJani, trended on Twitter and Equality Labs, a South Asian progressive organization, published an open letter calling for Biden to “terminate Amit Jani's employment from the campaign”, which drew signatures from several grassroots Asian-American groups and respected academics.

Following the backlash, Jani was relieved of his duties and a former Muslim adviser to the 2016 Clinton campaign, Farooq Mitha, was assigned to do outreach within the Muslim American community. Mitha's appointment also stirred some controversy, as he is a board member of the controversial organization Emgage, which has been criticized for its ties to pro-Israel lobbies that have tried to censor the work of Palestine solidarity activists.

Biden has since catered to the Muslim American vote by name-dropping various atrocities against Muslims around the world in his online agenda for Muslim-American communities, such as the Uighur internment camps in China, the Saudi war in Yemen, and human rights violations in Kashmir. In July, Biden's foreign policy adviser promised the presidential hopeful would put pressure on India to change its policies regarding Kashmir and the civil liberties of Indian Muslims.

Kamala Harris, Biden's running mate, has also criticized Modi's annexation of Kashmir and has said that American cooperation with India is possible only with an appreciation for human rights and "religious pluralism." Harris is of Indian descent, but traces her roots to Tamil Nadu in South India, while most of the BJP's base is concentrated in the northern part of the country.

However, despite rhetorical support for progressive activists fighting the BJP's fascism, the constant underlying factor in both Biden and Harris's views is the importance of the US-India partnership.

If Biden truly wanted to hold Modi accountable for human rights violations, he probably would not have elevated an open Modi supporter on his campaign team. Biden aims to win both Hindu-American and Muslim-American votes, especially when lobbies, community leaders, and organizations in each demographic are powerful, moneyed donors to political campaigns.

Modi will be in power for the next few years, if not more, and a Biden-Harris presidency will inevitably broker an alliance with him, regardless of whether he changes his policy minorities facing occupation and / or marginalized by Hindu nationalism.

For liberals and leftists, who want all voting Americans to unite against the evil of Trump on the day of the election, the siren song of Modi's fascism is too far away to inspire any real outrage. Perhaps it is an indication of the conservatism of the dominant political system that both Biden and Trump possess equal proximity to a right-wing populist encouraging violence against India's minorities and steamrolling military occupation in Kashmir.

But all is not lost. The assault on minorities in India has inspired progressive Democrats to take a stand. Ro Khanna, an Indian-American congressman from California, stated that Hindu-American politicians have a “duty” to reject Hindutva. Pramila Jayapal introduced a resolution recognizing human rights abuses in Kashmir and also sponsored a Congressional hearing on caste oppression in the US, and Bernie Sanders, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar have criticized the Modi government for its violence against Kashmir and Indian Muslims.

Thousands of South-Asian Americans and their allies protested against Modi this year, and a multicultural resistance demonstrated in solidarity with Kashmir when Modi spoke at the UN last year.

The mobilisation to seek unity against Trump will end on November 3. Once that happens, young South Asian Americans will focus less on voting, and return their efforts and attention to movement-building instead.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

. #world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=13168&feed_id=13571

#Opinions #UnitedStates #USampCanada #USElections2020

0 notes

johnboothus · 4 years ago

Text

At D.C.s Domestique Rebekah Pineda Is Working to End Inequality in Wine

When you first step foot in Washington D.C.’s premiere natural wine shop Domestique, bottles of Fuchs Und Hase Pet Nat and biodynamic sparkling wines like Bianco Frizzante and Kmetija Stekar’s “IZI” Sparkling Rebula will likely catch your eye. The enchanting decor almost seems to whisper, “Look around, and stay for a while,” and when you do (surely, you’ll be inclined to), it’s the staff that stands out the most — employees are an ensemble of natural-wine aficionados from a range of backgrounds. That’s largely thanks to Domestique’s manager, Rebekah Pineda.

As Domestique’s manager, Pineda oversees the store’s daily operations, staffing, and social initiatives. Along with co-manager Eric Moorer, she ensures that every person who walks through the doors feels welcome and wanted, starting with the very people who work there.

In an industry that’s given far too small a space to people of color, Domestique prides itself on being a frontrunner for diversity and inclusion. Domestique is the retail love child of Jeff Segal, who launched the shop in partnership with New York’s Selection Massale in 2018. This year, Pineda has played a pivotal role in the shop’s commitment to taking even bigger steps to make the wine industry more accessible and equitable; most recently, by spearheading The Major Taylor Fellowship. The fully funded apprenticeship aims to help industry hopefuls, specifically people of color, break into the wine industry by teaching them the tricks of the retail trade. In August, Pineda named Kayla Mensah, a Bronx-born child of Jamaican and Ghanaian immigrants, the program’s inaugural fellow.

VinePair chatted with Pineda about her and Domestique’s shared mission, and how the shop is leaving an imprint for change in the wine industry.

1. How did your career in wine start?

Like most people, I was working in restaurants when I became interested in wine. I couldn’t really afford to buy wine, so I asked a friend at a wine store if I could help break down boxes, stock shelves, and things like that so I could buy wine. Getting into retail early helped my knowledge and growth exponentially. Retail is a good way to access really great wine. You get to try lots of wine and meet distributors and importers.

2. How did you end up managing at Domestique?

I emailed Jeff [Segal, owner] that I wanted to work at the store part-time. When I started, I loved the spirit of the store, and I felt really connected to it. Over time, my role grew.

3. What’s the mission of the wine shop?

It’s a natural wine store. Everything we sell is organically farmed, and everything we do is in support of the producers — there’s a strong connection to who makes the wine, and we try to communicate that to customers who come in. Before Covid-19, we had a lot of producer visits in our store and partnerships with importers. It’s not just about knowing how the winemakers make the wine — customers also got to learn who these people are, about their kids and families, the whole story. That really impacts how you communicate wine to customers, and how it informs their buying decisions.

4. What makes Domestique different compared to traditional wine shops?

When the store opened — and this is really all Jeff — it was designed a bit differently. In D.C. and a lot of places, wine retail can be really unattractive. The setup can sometimes be not-so pretty or customer-friendly, just kind of like a grocery store. We have a seating area in the front, beautiful windows. Most bottles are at eye level, so you don’t have to hunt through shelves. We have a tasting bar. It’s really meant to be a place you can spend some time browsing. Also, the people who work there look different: There [are] so few people of color in wine, especially in retail. In D.C., it’s definitely a white-male-dominated industry, but we have a very diverse staff at our store.

4. What do you love the most about your experience working at Domestique?

We have such an amazing staff. We’re really diverse, and I mean that in a very broad sense: Women, all different types of people with different backgrounds, people of color. Taking my experience from restaurants and other wine stores that maybe haven’t been that inclusive and being able to be a part of a place like this has helped me grow. And to be able to be in a position to give an experience opposite of mine to my employees and other people interested in wine is a blessing. That’s what I love the most — even if it’s just someone who’s worked for us for three months — having a workplace that is really geared to support people from all walks of life in wine.

5. How did the Major Taylor Fellowship get started?

The store has always been very conscious about the inequity in our world, and also the wine world. As a primarily POC staff, it’s something all of us, on some level, experience in our daily lives all the time. It’s really hard to break into retail, and it’s one part of the industry that isn’t really diverse. So we wanted to do a fellowship that gave someone the tactical skills to start their own thing, or get into wine with the hope that it launches them into a role of management or ownership. The goal of it is to provide a platform like the one I was given at Domestique, to make decisions and create impact in our field. And really, it can’t happen if it doesn’t start with someone in a position of leadership.

The fellowship utilizes Domestique as a tool to provide really practical information about running a retail store, and we’ve partnered with a couple of different organizations that will teach the fellows what it means to work in wine. There isn’t a lot of diversity in wine [making], but there also isn’t a lot of diversity in people who own wine stores. We want to share that knowledge that sometimes is just not accessible.

6. How has the coronavirus pandemic impacted the store?

Very early on, we closed the shop, I think because Selection Massale is in New York, and the fact that we’re on a corner where there’s a lot of foot traffic all the time — we just wanted to be very cautious. Since we can do delivery, and we have an online store, it seemed crazy not to close the shop. The first month and a half was extremely challenging. Almost every wine store in the country was really, really busy, and because we are a young shop, I don’t think we were prepared for how busy we were. But it also helped us realize all the things we needed to put in place to do delivery and shipping at a much larger level. It was a lot of work the first few months, on top of everyone just being stressed about the virus and our friends and family being laid off. It was a really challenging time, but we also felt lucky to be working.

7. Since working at Domestique, do you find yourself drinking mostly natural wine now?

I want to try everything that we have, so if a customer asks me what something tastes like, I’m not like, “Oh, I don’t know.” I buy a lot of wine from the store, but I’ve always liked natural wine. At the store we buy wine from different regions and I tend to buy a lot of the natural wines from the Loire Valley. That’s my favorite region.

8. Are there any misconceptions about natural wine that you’d like to see cleared up?

There are a ton of them, but I don’t really care that much about the misconceptions of natural wine. I think the industry is so insular, and I just want people to start drinking really good wine. There’s a million things to nit-pick and complain about, but natural wine is such a small, niche thing. We should really just be focused on how to reach consumers outside of this tiny, insular, elitist group. If you come in and say something crazy about natural wine, I’ll just send you home with a bottle that’s really good and organically farmed.

9. What are your hopes for Domestique going forward?

As we become bigger and busier, I hope we continue to figure out ways to implement everything we’ve learned in these last two years. I think we’ll look at more education, things that will enable people to pick great wine, and better tastings, where we provide everyone with information to learn more about wine; figuring out things to implement that will allow us to provide a nurturing learning environment as the business grows. Through Covid-19, we’ve found a lot of opportunities for that, and ways we can still be connected with an internal goal of reaching a diverse audience.

The article At D.C.’s Domestique, Rebekah Pineda Is Working to End Inequality in Wine appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/domestique-rebekah-pineda/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/at-dcs-domestique-rebekah-pineda-is-working-to-end-inequality-in-wine

0 notes

dipulb3 · 4 years ago

Text

Progressive activists are wary over criminal justice under a Biden-Harris administration

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/progressive-activists-are-wary-over-criminal-justice-under-a-biden-harris-administration/

Progressive activists are wary over criminal justice under a Biden-Harris administration

In a series of interviews this summer, organizers told Appradab their angst over the records of Biden, who wrote the 1994 crime bill, and Harris, a former prosecutor, along with the pair’s outwardly supportive rhetoric for law enforcement, fuels their concerns about the future. And while Biden choosing Harris, a daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, was in part a nod to influential Black women who wanted to see a reflection of themselves — Black and highly qualified– in the highest office in the land, the young activists said representation alone is not enough.

After a wide open primary that showcased the diversity of the Democratic Party, it ended with the nomination of the 78-year-old Biden, a moderate whose 1994 bill is often cited as one driver of mass incarceration, in part because of the “three strikes” law that ensured mandatory life terms for defendants with at least three federal violent crime or drug convictions.

Yet Democrats of all stripes have largely set aside their misgivings about Biden to focus on ousting Trump. That focus was amplified and sharpened following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Republicans’ rush to fill her seat. It was buoyed further this week by the lack of charges brought against three officers for the killing of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year old woman shot in her own home while Louisville police were executing a search warrant, signaling the limits of this summer’s pressure campaign on legislative and judicial change.

View Trump and Biden head-to-head polling

Young progressive activists are reasoning that they stand a better chance of successfully pressuring Biden into taking up key elements of their cause than Trump, who has lambasted peaceful protesters and refused to condemn all but the most egregious acts of police violence.

“There are a lot of people, including myself, who aren’t excited,” Gicola Lane, a 31-year-old Black woman and criminal justice organizer from Nashville, told Appradab in an interview. “Because of what we have seen happen in courtrooms, in our own neighborhood and all over this country. And we know that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have played a part in that system.”

Still, she plans to vote for the Democratic ticket in the fall.

The lack of enthusiasm for Biden and Harris points to deeper concerns over their ability to unite the party absent what many perceive as an existential threat posed by four more years of Trump. Demonstrators on the front line of a wildly invigorated social justice movement see movable objects in Biden and Harris, where the current administration looms like a stone wall blocking their push for change.

“Voting is not an expression of my moral values, it’s a decision to choose the political terrain that we fight on,” Aaron Bryant, a 28-year-old Black man from Durham, North Carolina, told Appradab.

Bryant, an organizer and electoral justice fellow with Movement for Black Lives, plans to vote for Biden and Harris, but only as a means to an end.

“Do we want to fight on a political terrain that advantages the worst among the capitalist class and the right wing? Or do we want to fight on the terrain that advantages the middle of the road centrist moderate option? I think one of those options gives us as a movement a better opportunity to strategize and move forward,” Bryant said.

A blueprint

Simran Chowla, a 20-year-old Indian woman whose parents are of Punjabi and Bengali descent, said that she’s never before seen a South Asian woman like Harris reach this level of American politics.

“It’s been pretty monumental for me as a young Indian woman,” Chowla told Appradab.

Still, despite their similar backgrounds, Chowla said she does not have full confidence that a Vice President Harris — whom she plans to vote for — would represent her interests if elected.

An organizer with March For Our Lives DC and a lobbying lead for Team ENOUGH, a pair of gun violence prevention organizations, Chowla hopes to bring up her proposals to a Biden-Harris administration. She would like to see a defunding or redistributing of funds within the police, among other initiatives.

Neither Biden nor Harris support defunding the police, contrary to Trump’s insistence otherwise. Biden has voiced support for conditioning federal aid to police based on behavior and Justice Department intervention against departments who violate civil rights standards. Harris has often said the US needs to “reimagine” public safety and how the police and the communities they serve interact but has said violent crime should stay the remit of trained officers.

Biden has also voiced support for a federal ban on police chokeholds, reestablishing a Justice Department oversight panel that investigated police practices established during the Obama administration, and other steps to increase police accountability.

Alongside New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Harris introduced the Justice in Policing Act in June, at the height of a national uprising against racism and the police killing of George Floyd and other unarmed Black people. The bill would create a National Police Misconduct Registry, provide incentives for local governments to conduct racial bias training for officers, and set caps on the transfer of military-grade equipment to law enforcement, among other initiatives.

And during her primary campaign, Harris released a plan that sought to end mandatory minimum sentences on the federal level, legalize marijuana, end the death penalty, and end the use of private prisons– a far cry from the policies she once enforced as California’s attorney general and the district attorney for San Francisco, positions that led to her being labeled a “cop” by young Black activists.

Among a litany of issues, she was criticized for disagreeing with a bill that would have required her AG office to appoint a special prosecutor to probe all deadly police-involved shootings in 2015, saying that the decision should be kept in the hands of local prosecutors. A year later, she pushed a law to expand the AG’s ability to appoint special prosecutors if district attorneys consented.

Some criminal justice activists say they have been heartened by the Biden campaign’s willingness to take some increasingly progressive positions on climate change — and believe that, with pressure and time, they could push a Biden-Harris administration in the same direction.

Zina Precht-Rodriguez, the deputy creative director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, highlighted Biden’s revamped climate change platform, the product of deep engagement with leading activists and progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who co-chaired a task force on the issue that brought together Biden allies and supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“Biden’s climate plan is unrecognizable from the plan he entered the race with, and you could say that extends to his rhetoric and how he speaks to young people,” Precht-Rodriguez said.

But asked if the Biden-Harris ticket is doing enough, she said, “I think the short answer would be, they could always do more.”

“It sort of speaks to the point of, you know, how we will push the ticket to the left,” Precht-Rodriguez said. “Voting is only one basic part of organizing, and we won’t win the Green New Deal just by voting one President or congressperson in.”

‘I don’t have faith that they’re fighting for my revolution’

Organizers have highlighted Biden’s stance that “not all cops are bad cops” as part of their critique that the ticket has not engaged in enough “deep listening” from those who are victimized by the police. It is evidence, they say, that Biden and Harris are more concerned with pushing back on attacks from Trump and the GOP than representing their movement’s priorities.

“It’s very clear that what they’re saying is completely opposite of what the movement is saying right now,” Lane said.

She works for Free Hearts, a Tennessee organization run by formerly incarcerated women that provides support to impacted families. Lane, who supported Sanders during the primary, challenged the pair to be open to a litany of policies produced over the summer to combat the current carceral state, like the BREATHE Act, which would divest federal funds from incarceration and policing and invest in community safety. That legislation is supported by progressive Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

“I would like to see them not talk down on the movement. Instead of making it seem outrageous, actually challenge themselves to listen and adopt them on a federal level to really gain confidence of the people,” Lane said.

Rukia Lumumba, co-director of the Electoral Justice Project of the Movement for Black Lives, credited Harris for meeting with M4BL organizers to hear about the BREATHE Act before her selection as Biden’s running mate. But neither Harris nor Biden has endorsed it.

Ty Hobson Powell, a 25-year-old Black man and founder of Concerned Citizens DC, said Democrats’ current message doesn’t give him “faith that they’re fighting for my revolution in this moment.”

Though Hobson Powell says Biden and Harris have not aligned themselves with his desired policy changes, he acknowledged that the other side is further away from his vision of reform.

“When we talk about voting for anybody, that is understanding, that I will be settling,” he said.

In response to young organizers’ criticism of the lack of policy shaping to match their needs, Harris press secretary Sabrina Singh told Appradab the campaign understands “the need to address systemic injustices facing communities of color in criminal justice, housing, health care, and other aspects of society.”

“They’ve held listening sessions and virtual meetings with activists and community leaders to listen and learn and are committed to enacting their concerns into real and meaningful systemic change to achieve racial justice,” she added.

Additionally, both Biden and Harris have visited the battleground state of Wisconsin, speaking with Jacob Blake — a 29-year-old who was shot by police seven times in the back by a Kenosha police officer — over the phone and meeting with his family. Biden held a community meeting on September 3, where he condemned Blake’s shooting, as well as the violence and damage done to the city during subsequent protests.

‘She’s shown up to address these issues’

Jeremiah Wheeler, the 22-year-old Black Student Union President at Wayne State University, asked Harris how she would resolve injustices in the Black community at a recent campaign event in Detroit.

“I’m gonna need your help,” Harris told organizers and participants at the gathering on 7 Mile Road.

Wheeler told Appradab that Harris later reiterated the need to work both inside and outside the system to create change, something that Harris has said she’s done throughout her career as a prosecutor. He credited Harris for her engagement, but said this moment is less about the candidates’ individual backgrounds than their policy vision.

Like so many others, Wheeler said he will be voting for Biden and Harris, and encouraging others to do so, but that decision was as much about ousting Trump as an endorsing the Democratic ticket.

“We need to vote,” said Wheeler, who supported Sanders in the primary. “I don’t want to offer any more reasons on why not to vote, whether I feel we’re getting the gourmet meal that we rightfully deserve or we’re getting some fast food. Participation is key.”

Chelsea Miller, a 24-year-old Black woman and co-founder of civil rights organization Freedom March NYC, applauded Harris for convening an “intimate” video conference with racial justice organizations from around the country.

“She asked questions, we asked questions. It came from a place of understanding. I think it’s commendable that [Harris] would step into that space and create this opportunity for activists and organizers,” Miller said. “She’s shown up to address these issues.”

Asked what Biden and Harris could do to prove that they are serious about delivering change, Porche Bennett, an activist, mother and small businesses owner who spoke passionately at the community meeting with Biden in Kenosha, said the nominee’s time there “changed how people view him,” and called on Biden and Harris to hit the streets to make their case.

“Get out here and go through these neighborhoods. Without cameras,” she said. “Treat us like we matter.”

0 notes

dailykhaleej · 5 years ago

Text

10 women said to be on Biden’s list of potential vice presidents | USA News

After Bernie Sanders dropped out of the US presidential race final week, former Vice President Joe Biden turned the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to take on Donald Trump within the November Three elections.

Now, he should title his decide for a operating mate. Throughout the last debate simply earlier than the coronavirus took over the headlines and airwaves, Biden dedicated to selecting a girl and he has held quick to that promise since. Consequently, the list of Biden’s potential operating mates is solely women.

Choosing a operating mate is a essential determination for any presidential candidate, however it’s an particularly essential calculation for the 77-year-old Biden, who if elected would develop into the oldest American president in historical past. The choice carries extra weight amid the coronavirus pandemic, which, past its excessive human toll, has devastated the US economic system to an extent that may be felt effectively into the primary time period of the subsequent president and past.

Beneath are 10 of the women Biden is extensively reported to be contemplating.

1. Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris talking in the course of the fifth Democratic major debate of the 2020 presidential marketing campaign season. [Saul Loeb/AFP] [

A Senator from California, Harris is a former rival who endorsed Biden and started campaigning for him after she ended her bid in December. She has been on the centre of vice-presidential hypothesis since. Harris, 55, was elected California legal professional normal in 2010 and has been a rising star within the Democratic Celebration. A daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, she may assist rally black voters, an important Democratic voting bloc, behind Biden.

2. Amy Klobuchar

Amy Klobuchar talking in the course of the ninth Democratic major debate of the 2020 presidential marketing campaign season. [Mark Ralston/AFP]

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, 59, one other former rival to Biden, defied expectations within the Democratic major by performing higher than anticipated in New Hampshire however finally couldn’t compete along with her better-financed opponents. She dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden simply hours earlier than a pivotal Tremendous Tuesday major contest in her residence state, tipping it in Biden’s favour. It’s a gesture Biden could keep in mind when it comes time to decide a operating mate. Her politics are additionally in step with Biden’s, and choosing her may assist him win northern swing states, together with Minnesota, which Trump misplaced to Hillary Clinton by lower than Three share factors in 2016.

3. Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren talking to reporters after asserting she had shaped an exploratory committee to run for president in 2020, outdoors her residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. [Brian Snyder/Reuters]

Not like Klobuchar and Harris, Warren, who additionally vied for her occasion’s nomination, didn’t endorse Biden after she ended her marketing campaign in March. Warren, 70 is a Massachusetts Senator and an instructional who specialised in chapter and industrial legislation. Her coverage proposals are rather more progressive than Biden’s. Choosing her as his operating mate may assist sway some of the extra liberal voters within the Democratic occasion in his favour.

4. Catherine Cortez Masto

US Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, speaks to the media after attending a closed-doors assembly of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. [File: Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo]

Cortez Masto, a US Senator from Nevada, is lesser-known nationally than many of the opposite candidates said to be on Biden’s list. However Cortez Masto, 55, turned the primary Latina senator within the US when she took workplace in 2017, after serving as Nevada’s legal professional normal. Earlier than being elected to that publish, she labored as a civil litigator in Las Vegas and a US legal prosecutor in Washington, DC. Her title on the poll would assist Biden enchantment to Latino voters, a major demographic group within the upcoming election.

5. Gretchen Whitmer

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer delivering her State of the State handle to a joint session of the Home and Senate, on the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan. [File: Al Goldis/AP Photo]

Whitmer has been a rising Democratic Celebration star since successful a decent race in Michigan in 2018 to develop into that state’s governor, a lot in order that occasion leaders tapped her to ship the response to Trump’s State of the Union handle final yr. Whitmer, 55, has nevertheless already tamped down hypothesis she may be the nominee, saying on MSNBC that she is completely satisfied to assist vet attainable Biden operating mates, however “It’s not going to be me. But I am going to have a hand in helping make sure that he has the rounded-out ticket that can win.” Relying on how she manouevres by means of the coronavirus pandemic in her state, choosing Whitmer may assist Biden win again the state of Michigan, a state that Trump gained – to nearly everybody’s shock – simply barely in 2016.

6. Tammy Duckworth

Democratic US Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois arriving on the Capitol in Washington, DC. [File: Cliff Owen/AP Photo]

Duckworth, an Illinois native, was elected to the Home in 2012 and the US Senate in 2016, turning into the second Asian American lady within the Senate. The 52-year-old misplaced each her legs and the total use of her proper arm when the Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting in the course of the Iraq battle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. She is the primary feminine double amputee elected to the Senate and the primary senator to give beginning whereas in workplace. She would additionally be the primary Asian American to be nominated by a serious occasion to be a vice-presidential operating mate.

7. Stacey Abrams

Stacey Abrams, a Georgia state legislator who turned the primary black lady to win a serious occasion gubernatorial nomination in US historical past, applauding a dignitary on the College of New England in Portland, Maine. [Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo]

Abrams narrowly missed turning into the primary African American feminine governor in US historical past when she misplaced the 2018 Georgia governor’s race. The 46-year-old Abrams is common amongst youthful Democrats, a bunch Biden struggled to win over within the major. Whereas she has restricted govt authorities expertise – she served as a legislator within the Georgia state home from 2007 to 2017 – Abrams has lengthy championed efforts to finish voter suppression and register voters. In January 2019, she turned the primary African American lady to reply to the president’s State of the Union message, in addition to the primary individual not in public workplace to achieve this because the custom started within the 1960s.

8. Val Demings

Consultant Val Demings questioning constitutional students throughout a Home Judiciary Committee listening to on the impeachment of US President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. [Drew Angerer/Pool via Reuters]

The African American congresswoman from Florida rose to nationwide prominence after Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected her as one of seven Democrats to function a supervisor within the impeachment proceedings in opposition to Trump. Earlier than coming to Congress, she labored her method up by means of the ranks of the Orlando, Florida police division to develop into its first feminine chief. Demings, 63, was first elected to workplace in 2016. The truth that she hails from a state deemed essential in November helps, however her background in legislation enforcement could not please some who’ve been essential of Biden’s observe document on legal justice.

9. Tammy Baldwin

US Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin talking on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. [File: Alex Brandon/AP Photo]

A relative unknown nationally, Baldwin has been serving because the junior Senator from Wisconsin since 2013. Earlier than that, she served three phrases within the Wisconsin state legislature, then 14 years within the US Congress. Baldwin, 58, is the primary overtly homosexual Senator and in addition represents a essential swing state. Her politics fall firmly into the progressive wing of the Democratic occasion, and her voting document whereas in Congress persistently put her on the list of that physique’s most liberal members.

10. Michelle Lujan Grisham

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, indicators a gun management measure in February 2020. [File: Morgan Lee/AP Photo]

The New Mexico governor is one other unknown nationally however hails from a household distinguished in New Mexico politics. However Luhan Grisham, 60, served three phrases within the Home earlier than being elected governor in 2018 and can also be one of the highest-ranking Latina elected officers within the US. Previously, she has been a powerful supporter of abortion rights, dedicated her state to push for decrease greenhouse gasoline emissions, and, as a congresswoman, referred to as for a better minimal wage and restrictions on the sale of semi-automatic rifles.

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments); if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window,document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');

fbq('init', '320402738661210'); fbq('track', 'PageView');

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2VlpVoA via IFTTT

0 notes

thats-just-dantastic-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Free immigration questions online from Riley Aviles

Does it matter whether we get married in the UK or USA if my fiance is British and wishes to move here with me?

My fiancee is British. She comes over here on a tourist visa a couple of times a year. My target would be to get her live with me here. I am a naturalized citizen, employed full time. Does it make any difference whether we get married here or there, if she were to apply to reside here? A: Make any difference for what goals? Your question lacks sufficient detail. The best first step is an Initial Consultation with an Attorney. You can read more about me, my qualifications, awards, honours, testimonials, and media appearances/ publications on my law practice web site. I practice law in these areas of law in CA, NY, MA, and DC: Company & Contracts, Criminal Defense, Divorce & Child Custody, and Education Law. This response will not constitute legal advice; make warranties, guarantees, or any predictions; or create any Attorney-Client relationship.

How can I protect my illegal husband of 20 years from deportation? I'm a US born citizen and we have 3 children.

He entered illegally before we married and got caught, so he'd orders. After we married, he voluntarily left, but came back 18 months after, and was not found the second time. He's no criminal record other when compared to a seatbelt ticket. Our children are ages 19, 15, and 12. He has no visa. How can he get legalized without having to leave? We've been married 20 years. I'm scared for him. Will someone please reply me? A: Consider contacting an attorney for a consultation. Situations in this way are highly fact specific. It is challenging to figure out without more info, although there could possibly be a means to help your husband. I am US citizen who married my wife in Jamaica. What is the best choice to bring my wife to the US? Affordable attorneys? What exactly is the avg. fee rate from start to finish? To understand the procedure. Is the green card the same as partner visa? Is there any who applied for Visa has the procedure slowed down as a result of Trump's new executive order? A: The Trump EO should not slow down the processing of the I-130 petition for a Jamaican citizen. Best way to appraise your wife's scenario would be request price quotes during the consult and to discuss in a consultation setting with numerous solicitors. Many immigration attorneys offer free consultations. Decide the one you feel most comfortable with and preferably who's an AILA member (American Immigration Lawyers Association).

I m a US citizen married a Nigerian and petition for him to come to US. separated after 6 month. How can I divorce him?

May 2015 we married in his nation. After I petitioned for him to come, he arrive in US May 2016. He has a 2 year green card. We separated Nov 2016 due to his hostile behaviour and hints that he might have married me to come to US. I had to phone law enforcement at that time and he volunteered to leave and told policeman that's is giving up his right to live in the house I've owned for 8 years. The policemen assisted him to remove what private things that were left in the house. He had removed most things a week prior to me having to call the authorities. What's my responsibility and can I file for divorce in the customary manner? Thanks A: Yes, your divorce would be filed the same regardless.

Immigration Law Questions & Answers :: Justia Ask a Lawyer

I won a green card through Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. My question is do I have to maintain my F1 status?

I'm F1 student. I gained a green card through Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. My question is do I have to maintain my F1 standing while looking forward to my Interview? A: YES! While living in the USA, you need to always keep status.

Real estate lawyer

Does my wife need to update her name on her green card before filing an I-130 for me (husband/spouse)?

I myself am a foreign national who married my wife who's a US permanent resident. We got married in the US and she chose my surname upon marriage. (1.) Does my wife, as the I130 need to submit an application for a new permanent resident card with her surname that is upgraded before filing the I-130 or will our US marriage certificate suffice? (2.) Also, she's 3 middle names (Example: Jane Alexandria Victoria Elizabeth Doe). Her permanent resident card has all her old names; yet, our marriage certificate merely has her first name, first middle name, second middle name initial and my new surname (Example: Jane Alexandria V Thomas). Which name should she comprise on the I-130 in accordance with my first question? Thank you. A: Almost daily is changing and it's unwise to put it to attempt to represent yourself in an immigration issue. Only an Immigration attorney has the expertise to properly fill out immigration forms and put together the right bundle of records and other evidence to support the immigration gains you are striving to get. Nonetheless, particularly in these troubled times, you really should keep an immigration lawyer. This isn't a do it yourself job! You should concentrate on retaining experienced immigration counsel, particularly now that immigration is a whole lot more prohibitive since Trump is now President.

I have my green card and want to apply for my Citizenship but I have a juvenile record will I get denied automatically?

A: Not automatically. But you need to work with an immigration lawyer to find out whether the criminal record is problematic for naturalization. It depends on the offense.

LPR documents requirement when travel outside U.S.

My mom is LPR, and she plans to travel outside U.S. in this summer. After reading the file "Traveling outside of the U.S. - Documents needed for Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR)/Green Card holders" on U.S. Customs and Border Protection web site. it says," Foreign nationals who have applied for permanent residency may need to be qualified for advance parole ahead of traveling out of the U.S. In order to be readmitted when traveling back to the U.S. (H1, H4, L1, L2, K3, K4 or V2, V3 holders don't require advance parole to travel abroad after applying to adjust status." I wonder, does my mother should file parole prior in advance to be able to be readmitted when traveling back to the U.S. ? Another concern, her green card will expire on March 2018. Is she okay to travel outside U.S. in December? As an LPR, how long can she remain outside U.S.? Just how many days can she stay outside U.S. if she travels multiple times during a year? Thank you in advance for your response A: For every one of the details either contact an immigration lawyer or go to the USCIS office in Denver (schedule a meeting online because they do not meet non-scheduled parties). An attorney will charge a fee and also the USCIS will not charge you (but you'll have to wait). Complex parole is for those who are applying for PR status, but haven't been given formal PR acceptance. In other words, provided the green card remains valid advanced parole isn't normally needed.Within the bounds of "temporary" traveling, there are really no constraints of how many times a permanent resident leaves the US, provided that they still meet the minimal period of time in the US required to keep the PR standing (i.e. 6 months or longer outside the US can result in LPR abandonment).For the details of PR requisites review the PR program directions. The USCIS webpage should also have this information available.Determined by when your mother is outside the US and when she files for a renewal an advanced parole may be deemed necessary.Finally, remember a valid green card ALONG WITH a valid foreign passport have to leave and reenter the US for green card holders.

My husband received a waived deportation document from a immigration judge, what to do with that document?

My husband is ex Marine grant or but to recieved for citizenship and green in USA, so we have to carry on to fill I 130 and I 485 or what we should do? A: Do you mean the judge terminated proceeding? Or did he or she allow you a waiver? If so, what type of waiver? (there are many!) You need to take a seat with an immigration lawyer for a consultation. Free consultations are offered by many people as these problems can be very fact specific.

Can I file I-130 for my 15 year-old daughter whose mother is not my legal wife?

I am a US citizen. I have a 15 year-old daughter who was born in Hong Kong. Her mom isn't my legal wife. Can I bring her into the USA for permanent residency? A: Yes. So long as she's your biological daughter below the age of 21, you may file for her to get a green card. She'll probably derive citizenship from you under the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 as long as you have shared legal custody, if she enters the USA before the age of 18. If not, until she is qualified to file for naturalization on her own, she'd continue to be permanent resident. Consider working with an attorney to sort this out.

1 note · View note

sputtanare-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Immigration questions online free from Riley Aviles

How can I protect my illegal husband of 20 years from deportation? I'm a US born citizen and we have 3 children.

He entered illegally before we married and got found, so he'd orders to be deported. He left, but came back 18 months later, after we married, and was not found the second time. He's no criminal record other than a seatbelt ticket. Our kids are ages 19, 15, and 12. He doesn't have an visa. Without having to leave, how can he get legalized? We have been married 20 years. I am scared for him. Will someone please reply me? A: Consider contacting an attorney for a consultation. Scenarios similar to this are highly fact specific. There can be a method to assist your husband, but it is difficult to figure out without more information. I 'm US citizen who married my wife in Jamaica. What's the best alternative to bring my wife to the USA? Affordable lawyers? What exactly is the avg. fee rate from start to finish? To comprehend the process. Is the green card just like partner visa? Is there any who applied for Visa has the process slowed down due to Trump's new executive order? A: The Trump EO shouldn't slow down the processing of the I-130 petition for a Jamaican citizen. Best way to appraise your wife's scenario is always ask for price quotes during the consult and to discuss in a consultation setting with multiple lawyers. Many immigration attorneys offer free consultations. Decide the one you feel most comfortable with and rather who is an AILA member (American Immigration Lawyers Association).

LPR documents requirement when travel outside U.S.

My mom is LPR, and she plans to travel outside U.S. in this summer. After reading the file "Traveling outside of the U.S. - Documents needed for Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR)/Green Card holders" on U.S. Customs and Border Protection website. it says," Foreign nationals who have applied for permanent residency may need to be approved for advance parole ahead of traveling out of the U.S. In order to be readmitted when traveling back to the U.S. (H1, H4, L1, L2, K3, K4 or V2, V3 holders don't require advance parole to travel abroad after applying to adjust status." I wonder, does my mom need to file parole earlier in advance to be able to be readmitted when traveling back to the U.S. ? Another concern, her green card will expire on March 2018. Is she okay to travel outside U.S. in December? As an LPR, how long can she stay outside U.S.? Exactly how many days can she remain outside U.S. if she travels multiple times during a year? Thank you in advance for your answer A: For every one of the specifics either contact an immigration lawyer or go to the USCIS office in Denver (schedule a meeting online since they don't meet non-scheduled parties). A lawyer will charge a fee as well as the USCIS is not going to charge you (but you will need to wait). Complex parole is for individuals who are applying for PR standing, but haven't been given proper PR approval. In other words, provided the green card continues to be legal advanced parole is not usually required.Within the boundaries of "temporary" journey, there are not any limitations of how many times a permanent resident leaves the US, provided that they still meet the minimal amount of time in the US required to keep the PR standing (i.e. 6 months or more outside the US can result in LPR abandonment).For the details of PR requisites review the PR application instructions. The USCIS webpage should also have this info accessible.Depending on when she files for a renewal and when your mom is outside the US an advanced parole may be demanded.Eventually, remember a legal green card AND ALSO a valid foreign passport are required to leave and reenter the US for green card holders.

Immigration Law Questions & Answers :: Justia Ask a Lawyer

I m a US citizen married a Nigerian and petition for him to come to US. separated after 6 month. How can I divorce him?

May 2015 we wed in his nation. After I petitioned for him to come he arrive in US May 2016. He's a 2 year green card. We split Nov 2016 due to his aggressive behaviour and signs he may have married me to come to US. I needed to call the police at that time and he offered to leave and told policeman that is is giving up his right to live in the house I've owned for 8 years. The officers helped him to remove what private things that were left in the house. He'd removed most items a week prior to me having to call the authorities. What's my duty and can I file for divorce in the typical manner? Thanks A: Yes, your divorce would be filed the same regardless.

Real estate lawyer

Does it matter whether we get married in the UK or USA if my fiance is British and wishes to move here with me?

My fiancee is British. She comes over here on a tourist visa a couple of times per year. My target would be to get her live with me here. I myself am a naturalized citizen, employed full time. Does it make any difference if she were to apply to dwell here, whether we get married here or there? A: Make any difference for what purposes? Your question lacks sufficient detail. The best first step is a First Consultation with an Attorney. You can read more about me, my credentials, awards, honors, testimonials, and media appearances/ publications on my law practice web site. I practice law in these areas of law in CA, NY, MA, and DC: Education Law & Contracts, Criminal Defense, Divorce & Child Custody, and Business. This answer doesn't constitute legal advice; make any predictions, guarantees, or warranties; or create any Attorney-Client relationship.

I won a green card through Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. My question is do I have to maintain my F1 status?

I'm student that is F1. I acquired a green card through Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. My question is do I have to maintain my F1 status while awaiting my Interview? A: YES! While living in the USA you ought to always keep standing.

I have my green card and want to apply for my Citizenship but I have a juvenile record will I get denied automatically?

A: Not mechanically. Nevertheless, you need to work with an immigration lawyer to find out whether the criminal record is debatable for naturalization. It depends on the crime.

Can I file I-130 for my 15 year-old daughter whose mother is not my legal wife?

I'm a US citizen. I 've a 15 year old daughter who was born in Hong Kong. Her mom isn't my legal wife. Can I bring her into the USA for permanent residency? A: Yes. For her to get a green card, as long as she's your biological daughter under the age of 21, you can file. She is going to probably derive citizenship from you under the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 as long as you have shared legal custody, if she enters the USA before the age of 18. If not, until she is eligible to file for naturalization on her own, she'd continue to be permanent resident. Consider working with an attorney to sort this out.

My husband received a waived deportation document from a immigration judge, what to do with that document?

My husband is ex Marine grant or but to recieved for green and citizenship in USA, so we have to carry on to fill I-130 and I 485 or what we should do? A: Do you mean the judge terminated proceeding? Or did he or she grant a waiver to you? If so, what kind of waiver? (there are many!) You should take a seat with an immigration attorney for a consultation. As these issues can be quite fact specific, free consultations are offered by many of us.

Does my wife need to update her name on her green card before filing an I-130 for me (husband/spouse)?

I am a foreign national who married my wife who's a US permanent resident. We got married in america and she took my surname upon marriage. (1.) Does my wife, as the I130 petitioner, need to make an application for a new permanent resident card with her updated surname before filing the I-130 or will our US marriage certificate suffice? (2.) Additionally, she has 3 middle names (Example: Jane Alexandria Victoria Elizabeth Doe). Her permanent resident card has all her old names; nevertheless, our marriage certificate just has her first name, first middle name, second middle name initial and my new surname (Example: Jane Alexandria V Thomas). Which name should she contain on the I130 in accordance with my first question? Thank you. A: Almost daily is changing now and it's unwise to put it charitably to try and represent yourself in an immigration matter. Only an Immigration attorney has the expertise to correctly fill out immigration forms and put together the right package of files and other evidence to support the immigration advantages you are attempting to get. Nevertheless, especially in these turbulent times, you should retain an immigration lawyer. This really isn't a do-it-yourself project! You need to concentrate on keeping experienced immigration counsel, particularly now that immigration is a great deal more prohibitive since Trump is now President.

1 note · View note

dcnativegal · 8 years ago

Text

I miss Black people

A tall Black man came into the office in Christmas Valley last week to introduce himself as a social services worker for parts of Deschutes County and north Lake County, too. My door and my fellow therapist’s door were open, and we introduced ourselves and chatted amicably. When he and I discovered we had both lived in DC, I became Chatty Cathy, waxing poetic about Ethiopian Food. It became clear that he wasn’t that familiar with it, couldn’t remember the word ‘injera’… but that was okay. I was talking to a Black man who knew DC. I’m pretty sure I embarrassed myself. My colleague was friendly and professional. I was irrationally glad to see him out of all proportion to the occasion.

He probably left thinking to himself, white people are weird. Guilty as charged.

I am one of those white people who study Black people. Their experience, history, personalities, and the systemic, systematic way in which they’ve been imprisoned in one big internment camp called the United States of America. Everything about them, with the possible exception of current music beyond a superficial point. My kids listen to nothing but music made by Black people, so we, as a family, have that covered.

Formative books: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The Color Purple. Beloved. Also, Why do all the Black kids sit together in the Cafeteria, and When Race Became Real. Between the World and Me is the most recent.

Formative movies: Sounder (with music by Taj Mahal). Anything by Spike Lee (with the possible exception of Inside Job, which is excellent, but not about Black experience.) Moonlight. Daughters of the Dust. I am Not Your Negro is the most recent. Anything by Ava DuVernay, most recently, 13th. (I dare you, white reader, to watch it, on Netflix, and not have your mind blown.)

Music: Otis Redding. Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder. Early Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five. Tracy Chapman. India Arie.

I could go on and on… Perhaps I’ll stop with this link to 100 Woke Black women to follow: http://www.essence.com/news/woke-100-women

“Study” does not mean to keep at arms-length. I have been a marshmallow in a sea of cocoa since I can remember being alive. And since, many times, in different schools and neighborhoods, I was one of the few white kids, it behooved me to observe how we are similar and different. When you are the minority, you study the majority.

Little differences, in hygiene practices (Black women are more fastidious), in pronunciation (Andrea is pronounced An DRE uh by Black folks, AN dreeah by white. Darrell is DaRELLE for Black people and DAR rul for white.) In Happy Birthday songs: Black folks sing the Stevie Wonder version. In mythical secret jokes. Some Black people think that white people smell bad when wet. I’m serious. Based on how stinky the white men were when they came across the Atlantic to kidnap Black people. I mentioned this one day to a church friend, a PhD in Math, descended from Jamaicans, and she gasped! How did I know?! (I read it in a book, silly.)

I notice how much African American Vernacular English is used by white people. “You go, girl.” “24/7.” “I’m down.” “Word.” White folks don’t necessarily notice. I do. I try not to use AAVE. For fear of being scolded by my daughter. But also, because it is not appropriate. I struggle with this appropriateness thing. Because it’s the right thing to do. I keep learning how much culture has been stolen from Black Americans. Elvis Presley is just the tip of the iceburg. White people have stolen from Black people for millennia, and not just culturally. I look for examples of this, and find it, daily. I look out of long habit, so that I can give credit where credit is due.

It is absolutely true that Black people have transformed my life again and again. A Black 10th grade English teacher told me I was a good writer and should check out the Urban Journalism Workshop. I did, I applied, I got in, I learned to write, and the article I wrote earned an honorable mention from the Robert Kennedy Journalism awards. It was about the gentrification of Mount Pleasant, a neighborhood in DC. In 1976. I’m pretty sure I got into Oberlin College because of the Urban Journalism Workshop. Because I had zero extracurriculars besides running away from home. Thank you, Mrs. Feely.

I spent 40 years in the grooviest episcopal church on the planet (IMHO) because of a Black seminarian I almost married. He was 9 years my senior, I was 17, when we met. St Stephen & the Incarnation became my spiritual home because he was assigned there. And after I realized I was too young to marry, it stayed my parish home until I moved to the Oregon Outback in August 2016. Thank you, Eddie.

I miss my Black friends. Gay and straight women, with a few gay Black men in there, too. I know a lot of wonderful straight Black men, but I can’t say I’d call any of them in the middle of the night to take me to the emergency room. (One of my criteria for being a real friend. I’m sure they’d take me; I would just be so embarrassed.) Each of my friends is amazing. Of course, that is also true of my white friends. I’ve been mulling over the difference between my white and Black friends.

I’m reminded of something I read years ago about being friends across the racial chasm: the Black woman’s advice to her white friend was, “Forget I am Black. And, never forget that I am Black.” The zen koan of being friends with a Black person.

I feel lucky when a Black person will deign to be my friend. They could so easily reserve their precious energies for other people of color, especially people of the African diaspora. Out of self-care. (deign: verb, do something that one considers to be beneath one's dignity. "she did not deign to answer the maid's question" Archaic condescend to give [something.] "He had deigned an apology.") When I am hanging out with my Black friends who are activists and seemingly tireless in their work for justice in all kinds of situations, I am amazed that they have time for me. I know in fact that they are tired. And I do my best to be someone they can relax with. Even though I am white.

I have a Black friend who grew up in Crown Heights Brooklyn, where my son lives now in an apartment with many roommates. Her parents were from Guyana, an African-Caribbean country. Crown Heights is gentrifying, but it seems to still hold a special mix of Caribbean immigrants and Hasidim. S is a little younger than I am, and also has 2 kids, one in college (same one as my daughter) and the other graduated (as is my son.) My kids’ dad and I met their family when we each had only one baby in diapers and one parent each were home, and craving adult conversation. Play group in Brookland DC used to meet once a week until the community-organizing father of my children got hold of it, and then it met 3 times a week.

Our oldest boys were friends. We had second children. We developed a tradition of going to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for a week every summer and sharing an old beach house that was right on the water, one family per bedroom. We’d have 4 families give or take, and take turns cooking, looking after munchkins, and going on field trips to the Wright Brothers Museum, Walmart, and movies.

When it was time to figure out where to have the oldest boys go to school, our two families combined forces. In DC, finding a decent public school requires a strategy. We got pretty elaborate: what are our criteria for excellence? How much did each value weigh in the decision? We teamed up, with S and I spending the night in her car one icy January to get on the list for a popular bilingual Spanish/English immersion school (Oyster Elementary). My kids’ dad and her husband hit a number of schools that were apparently much less popular but still made our list. My kid got into Oyster, and S, who was right after me, did not. We decided that our boys would go to a DC public Montessori program instead of risking separation.

By the way, S met a nice Jewish young man from Iowa when they both attended Harvard, and married him. After many years, she decided to convert to Judaism, and both boys had bar mitzvahs, which were very cool to attend.

Both families switched to another DC public Montessori program when the original one seemed in steep decline, and enjoyed that community for a while. It became clear that my son wasn’t doing as well in that context, so I got him on a waiting list for a phenomenal charter school that uses the Expeditionary Learning model (affiliated with Outward Bound.)

We remained friends as families, going to the beach, joining the pool just over the DC line that many Brooklanders belonged to. Our boys grew apart, but we still hung out. One amazing bit of fate is that it was S and her son who introduced my boy to film-making at around 6th grade. He now makes his living as a filmmaker and is a Tisch film school graduate.

S is one of those women who is rather butch, and also straight. She is not femme: never wears make up, keeps her hair very short for minimum of fuss, and never wears skirts or dresses (except in her wedding.) I taught her to knit on one of our beach weeks, and she’s gone on to become expert and imaginative. I figured out at one point that I had a crush on her, but I stomped that out, and we have had a great 20+ year friendship.

When my marriage ended, S and her husband extended dinner invitations to both me and my ex, separately, but only I responded. My ex is introverted, and for some reason he let his connection to these folks wither. I was grateful to hold onto the friendship, and enjoyed coming to their house for amazing food prepared by Ed, the son of the Iowan baker. Lots of far ranging conversation. We’d solve the problems of the world, and then I’d go home. We also share a love of movies. I had to call Ed once to get me to an emergency department, and he did with calm kindness.

Neither S nor her husband are on Facebook much, which is where I keep in touch with most of my social connections from DC. I’ll have to actually write them a letter, which I used to do routinely. I miss these people very much. Maybe I should just call them up. How novel.

S was my friend first, and Black incidentally.

B became my friend and her Blackness was way more prominent. Whereas S never uses AAVE, B uses it a lot, and with her I feel like I can say “GIIRRRRRLLLL” in greeting.

B is from a large African-American Catholic family, originally from Florida. Old school Black, which is to say, ancestors enslaved and brought to the mainland United States, then reared here after Emancipation, and always in the minority. Whereas Island folks, from what was formerly known as the West Indies, were also enslaved, they freed themselves from colonial power, and became majority Black countries. B taught me that some Caribbean folks look down on the old school Black folks. I learned a lot about hierarchies within Blackness from Brigette.

We met at a card game for women in our neighborhood. Her son was a year older than mine, and she lived within a block of us. I started to pursue her as a friend; we attended a Black-taught “all sizes welcomed” yoga class in the neighborhood, and would walk there and back every Saturday morning. On those walks we got to know each other.

She is so accomplished; a law degree, an all but dissertation PhD drop out, an author, a management consultant, a philanthropist. I was honored to be the one white person present for a discernment committee she gathered, Quaker style, to help her make a decision. She influenced me a great deal. I hope I was a good friend to her. She was, probably still is, extremely busy, always, involved in one justice-promoting effort after another. I felt like a slacker in her presence. And she was not judging me. She simply lived every waking moment as an opportunity for social change. I also know there is pain underneath that activity, not just ‘post-traumatic slavery syndrome.’ Our sons are out in the world making art. She is making change. I miss her.

There are many others… Imani, D, Isaiah, Fern, Paulette, Liane…and powerful Facebook friends... Claudia, Alan, Reuben, KM

When I see a Black person out here in Oregon, I am riveted and try not to stare. Black people in white places are used to this, it is the ‘white gaze’, just like women are conscious of the ‘male gaze.’ For the observed, this vigilance is automatic and barely conscious until there is a perceived danger. Is that man (of whatever color) following me down this street? Is that white woman following me in this store? I regret that I am adding to this vigilance for people of color in Oregon.

In Eugene Oregon at a huge hippy extravaganza called Country Fair, I took to counting Black people. Less than 20. I follow the SURJ-Eugene Chapter on Facebook. It’s the closest chapter to where I live. (Standing up for Racial Justice is a white person’s organization that hopes to support Black Lives Matter efforts. White folks can ask other white folks to call each other out and help each other grow. This is not the job of Black People.) Oregon is a very white place.

I am an anti-racist organization of one. Which is not to say I am the only one who cares about racism against Black people, systemic and individualized here in Lake County. I have not yet met anyone as steeped as I am, but it’s always possible. (Where are you?) Anybody out here willing to start a book club to read Witnessing Whiteness? It’s for white people who want to reveal and counteract the racism that lives within all of us.

From the context of my upbringing, and my choice, the collective and multi-hued Black American World is my north star. The Black/white conversation, the current animosity, the centuries-long history, is my cosmology: “noun, the science of the origin and development of the universe.” My social universe. The foundation upon which I build my politics, my theology of justice, my self-image. My corrective. Also, my joy.

I am a white person who works on her racism. Even when there are no Black people in my Oregon Outback world, except a phlebotomist, one former client, and the girlfriend of another. My moral universe is constructed around the fact of the injustice of slavery and its current unjust sequelae. (Noun. se·que·la. a condition that is the consequence of a previous disease or injury.) Part of the post-slavery curse is the anti-government bias that is ripping further the tattered safety net. It is hard work to help white folks in mostly white contexts to see how anti-Black racism seeps into every bit of politics and also harms them individually. I’m working on this. I find it exhausting when the occasional conversation starts with “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.” I was so spoiled in D.C.

Yes, I believe in reparations. TaNehisi Coates’ work on this in The Atlantic is a paradigm-shifter. (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/)

I only recently read a book on the native American experience, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s epic, “An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States.” Now I can include the injustice wrought against native peoples into my cosmology. Except I did not grow up as a white person in a majority First Nation context. A whole new arena to familiarize myself with. First Nations are deeply relevant to life out here due to water rights. (You can watch Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz read from the book here: https://youtu.be/Pn4QTS6S3WU.) And you can read about water rights and the Klamath Nation here: (https://www.rotary.org/en/rotarian-helping-klamath-river-dispute)

I will continue to be a Black-identified white woman living in Whitelandia. I will try not to be obnoxious when I hear something flatly racist, although I will counter it. Someone said something about Black on Black crime early on. I said something, and now she knows I’m a ‘liberal.’ I share about Black experience on Facebook because I rejoice at the artistry and profound accomplishments of people who Overcome, every day. Maybe my new friends in Oregon will have a couple of stereotypes dashed by following my Facebook posts. Maybe not. Some of the clients at our mental health center are white ex-offenders with Aryan nation tattoos. Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

My job is to enlighten white people, somehow, with humility, because i know next to nothing. I need to tell the truth, but tell it slant, as Emily Dickinson wrote, so the truth will dazzle gradually. My job is to live with integrity wherever I am, as inclusively as possible, mining my own deep veins of ignorance (see, Native American History, also, the racist history of Oregon vis a vis Sundown laws, et al.) Counteracting the deep ignorance of the public discourse about the roots of our current politics in my own thinking. And praying to know how to be a bridge builder.

Written on the immensely tall wall of the Lincoln Memorial are words from the 2nd Innaugural address. To quote Wikipedia, “Lincoln suggests that the death and destruction wrought by the [Civil] war was divine retribution to the U.S. for possessing slavery, saying that God may will that the war continue "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword", and that the war was the country's "woe due".’ What I believe is that the great Civil War in the USA right now is the price we are paying for the sin of slavery, the divide of have and have not, early white immigrant/imperialist versus newer immigrant especially from South and Central America, the disconnect of white republican voters-for-trump and the fact of their deep dependence on the government. My cousin, President Lincoln, (4th cousin, 5 times removed) was more right than he knew.

I will be an ally no matter where I am, however (deeply) imperfect. I can’t help it.

1 note · View note

mantis777 · 4 years ago

Text

FOR THE RECORD...

Kamala Harris's father is an African-Jamaican immigrant who is an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford University, her mother is an immigrant from India who was a breast cancer scientist who emigrated to pursue her doctorate in endocrinology at US Berkeley.

Harris was reared in Oakland California where her parents were divorced when she was seven. She and her only sibling, a younger sister named Maya, were raised by their mother, growing up going to both a black Baptist church and a Hindu temple.

When Harris was twelve her mother accepted a research position at Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, Canada and started teaching at McGill University there. Harris graduated high school in 1981 in Westmount, Quebec. She later graduated from Howard University in Washington DC with a double BA major in political science and economics. She earned her Juris Doctor from USC Hastings College of the Law and passed her California State Bar in 1990.

Harris's sister, Maya, is also an attorney, from Stanford, and has served as the Executive Director of the Northern California American Civil Liberties Union. Both sisters married lawyers. Harris has two grown step children, Maya has one daughter, Meena, who is the founder of the Phenomenal Women Action Campaign.

When Kamala Harris was the Attorney General of California she appointed Katie Porter to investigate banking practices in California. The Katie Porter we all know and love, who studied economics with professor Elizabeth Warren. Get it?

There is a large group of the most educated, effective, clear speaking, visionary women in the world gathered in the United States to help lead us out of this pit we have been dragged into.

From medical science, to nation-wide economics, to experts who know all the legal loop holes being used by Trump and his hands-in-the-treasury cronies. This dynamic group of women are ready to clean up the mess and help build a prosperous future for AVERAGE AMERICAN WORKERS.

They have the grit and are fearless to face the slanders and lies that make male politicians shudder in terror. These women - and there are dozens and dozens - are tough as nails, and make no excuses for bad behavior. They know where the bodies are buried and they are willing to tell.

Kamala Harris is the vision of the future. This is the beginning of a dynamic chapter of healing and reviving America's dreams and strengths.

Get the vote out! Be inspired! Believe in America's Future. Confidence is in the air. Have faith in the American people.

"We have a criminal living in the White House, a predator, there is no doubt about it. Justice is on the ballot in 2020."- Kamala Harris, during the 2019 Democratic debate.

Biden-Harris 2020!!

0 notes

i-globalone · 5 years ago

Quote

Kamala Harris is one of the leading Democratic candidates in the 2020 Presidential election campaign. If she wins the election, she will be the first Female President of the United States of America. Kamala has worked hard achieving her dreams as an attorney and in politics while pushing for the causes she believes in. After graduating with a double major Bachelor Degree and a Juris Doctorate degree, Harris worked as a Prosecutor for the city of San Francisco. She was later elected as the Attorney General of California and then into the United States Senate. Since announcing her candidacy for President of the United States of America, Harris has debated fiercely with the other Democratic candidates. Here’s how Kamala Harris achieved a net worth of $4 million:Net WorthIt was recently reported that Kamala Harris’ net worth totals $4 million. Much of her wealth comes from her salary, investments, property and retirement funds. It’s been reported that Harris has between $500,000 and $2 million in assets with Wells Fargo bank. She has a large retirement fund for her work with the City of San Francisco. It’s estimated to be about $800,000. She had her husband, Douglas Emhoff own valuable real estate with homes in Brentwood, California, San Francisco, California and Washington DC. Her husband also has approximately $3.5 million in investment assets. Kamala Harris has published 3 books, a children’s book, “Superheroes Are Everywhere”, and non-fiction books “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer” and “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey”.Early Life and EducationKamala Devi Harris was born in Oakland, California on October 20, 1964. Her mother, Shymala Gopalon, is an Indian immigrant who graduated from the University of California, Berkley with a doctorate in endocrinology. Her mother is a breast cancer researcher. Harris’ dad, Donald, is a Jamaican immigrant who is a professor of Economics at Stanford University. Kamala Harris has a sister, Maya, who is a political analyst for MSNBC and is married to Tony West, the General Counsel for Uber. Following her parents’ divorce, Kamala and her sister moved to Montreal, Canada where their mother worked in a research position at McGill University. Kamala Harris graduated from high school in 1981 and pursued a double major at Washington DC’s Howard University. She majored in political science and economics. Next, Harris studied lawat the University of California’s Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. Knowing she wanted to pursue a career as a prosecutor, Harris would become Almeda County’s Deputy District Attorney specializing in cases of child abuse.Personal LifeKamala’s career path was guided by her parents and her belief in social justice. She was also influenced by her grandfather, P.V. Gopalon, a diplomat. While working for the District Attorney’s office, Harris dated Willie Brown. Brown was the California Assembly Speaker and became a mayoral candidate for San Francisco. She met Brown through a network of other black politicians and helped him campaign for mayor. He appointed Harris to California’s Unemployment Insurance Appeal’s Board and Medical Assistance Commission. Harris also taught at Stanford University. Although their relationship didn’t last, it did help Harris connect with others in political and social circles. Kamala Harris married Douglas Emhoff in 2014. Emhoff is a California attorney who once was a partner-in-charge at Venable LLP’s Los Angeles. The couple do not have children together, but Harris is step mom to Emhoff’s children, Ella and Cole. Kamala Harris has received two honorary degrees from Howard University and the University of Southern California.District Attorney and Attorney GeneralIn 2000 Kamala Harris was elected as San Francisco’s City Attorney. She replaced Katherine Feinstein who was nominated as a state Superior Court Judge. As city attorney, Harris also ran the Family and Children’s Service Division. A few years later Harris ran for election as District Attorney. Despite a campaign spending violation, Harris won the election. As District Attorney, Harris helped establish the “Back on Track” Initiative, a re-entry program for non-violent offenders. Harris was re-elected, unopposed, in 2007. In 2010 Kamala Harris ran for Attorney General of the state of California. She published her first book “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer” which dealt with the issues of crime and truancy prevention as well as treating children for post traumatic stress disorder. She won the election and was re-elected in 2014. SenatorIn 2016 Kamala Harris announced her candidacy for Senator of the United States. She aimed to replace retiring Senator Barbara Boxer. Harris obtained financial contributions and support from her home state of California. Harris was elected and has served on several Congressional Committees including Budget, Judiciary, Intelligence and Homeland Security. She also serves as a member of the Black Caucus, the Asian Pacific American Caucus and the Privacy, Technology and Law Caucus. Since her election, Harris has opposed several of President Donald Trump’s policies including immigration. Harris has opposed several of President Trump’s cabinet choices. She’s questioned several public figures in investigations. These include Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen (on immigration policy), Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosestein (on Director of FBI James Comey’s firing), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (on interference in elections through social media), and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanough’s nomination by President Trump despite accounts of sexual assault. As a Senator, Kamal Harris was the target of one of several mail bombing attempts.Presidential CandidateKamal Harris has received a lot of financial support since announcing her candidacy on January 21, 2019. In fact, the funds raised for her campaign the following day tied with Bernie Sander’s funding after his announcement to run in the 2016 election. Harris limits corporate donations to her campaign. Harris has been a rigorous debater in the Democratic Presidential debates. Among her political stances includes pro-choice, pro-LGBT support, pro-medical leave policy, pro-“Medicare for All”, pro-gun control, increased disaster relief, opposition to the death penalty and support of environment and election security. Drawing from her experiences as a prosecutor and attorney general, Harris is in support of educational issues like busing and anti-truency, putting the blame on the parent, not the child.

http://www.globalone.com.np/2019/11/how-kamala-harris-achieved-net-worth-of.html

#SEO #Local SEO training

0 notes

torontotravelblog · 5 years ago

Text

THE CHEAPSKATE GUIDE TO: TORONTO

Toronto is sort of Canada's New York City ... so you 'd believe it 'd be expensive, would not you? Well it is! Type of. However if you're searching for Cheap Toronto, you're in luck! I drew in a neighborhood to offer us the low-down.

Hi! I'm Rebecca Esther. I blog regarding taking a trip with a special needs at TheSpoonInTheRoad.com. I've lived in Toronto all my life, and also I still can not get sufficient of exploring this city, finding brand-new things to do and also positions to go-- and eating as well as Instagramming as I go.

Toronto has something for everybody: Whether you're a background lover, a musician, or a shopaholic on a budget, this city is for you. Few places in the world resembled being as welcoming and modern.

The most heavily populated city in Canada, Toronto is likewise the 4th most populous city in The United States and Canada, after Mexico City, New York as well as LA. We have lots of green space, a well-connected public transit system consisting of a train, buses and trams, and also various walkable communities, so it's easy and enjoyable to navigate (specifically if you stay clear of rush hour). The New York Times named Toronto a leading travel destination for 2016. So what are you awaiting?

Reward: If you're visiting Canada from the United States, currently is the best time! The American dollar has a strong exchange rate, and also the weather here is stunning. It's ultimately beginning to feel like springtime.

CHEAP LODGING IN TORONTO

Sadly, Toronto can be really expensive-- practically on the same level with the similarity New York and also Washington, DC (particularly if you are going to from someplace apart from America). Most hotels cost upwards of $150 CAD/night ... But there are some means around that

HOUSE SIT-- FREE!

Envision staying in a spotless mansion on Millionaire's Row, or in a chic beachfront home-- without paying a penny! If you agree to do a little commit a couple of months ahead of time, and have the ability to deal with the homeowner's pets, plants and also residential or commercial property while they're away, housesitting might be the best opportunity for you.

Look into this housesitting overview to begin. (Note: most housesitting websites charge for a yearly membership, but housesitting itself is totally free).

AIRBNB-- $13+ CAD/NIGHT

Airbnb has lots of options, from sleeper sofa to whole provided homes, beginning at simply $13 CAD per night. Rates go up to over $500 CAD per night, so make sure to utilize the toggle on the left side of the page to pick your cost range.

And also if you have actually never ever used Airbnb previously, right here's a $40 debt in the direction of your very first reservation!

HOSTELS-- AROUND $25-40 CAD/NIGHT

Hostels are an excellent way to conserve cash on accommodations and meet brand-new individuals. You'll share a dorm room as well as restroom facilities with a few other individuals (often areas are divided by sex), basically dividing the cost for lodgings, as well as being in the ideal area to make fast close friends.

Below are a couple of highly rated hostels to begin your search with: All the times Hostel, College Backpackers, and HI Toronto Hostel.

THE BOND PLACE RESORT-- $105 CAD/NIGHT

If you can manage a bit of a splurge this boutique hotel in the heart of midtown Toronto (near dynamic Yonge and also Dundas Square and also the globe well-known Eaton Centre shopping center) is an incredible worth. The areas fit and also airy, as well as the beds are very soft. Just make certain you book at least a pair weeks beforehand. I've scored a room for $90 CAD by doing this!

CHEAP FOOD IN TORONTO

Being a top quality city of immigrants (our motto is "Variety Our Stamina"), you won't be tough pressed to locate scrumptious food from all over the world at a range of rate factors. Here are some of the best, most budget friendly choices:

HOSU DINER-- $8.50 CAD FOR A 10 PIECE SUSHI LUNCH

If you're a follower of Japanese and also Korean food, provide HoSu a shot. With two practical locations (one at Yonge & Eglinton as well as one on Queen Road West) as well as a scrumptious specials menu, you certainly will not leave hungry. If the sushi lunch doesn't attract you, try the Jab Chae (just $3.95 for a surprisingly hearty section) or Vegetarian Bibim Bap ($ 7.95 CAD).

STEELES PASTRY SHOP-- $3 CAD FOR AN SUBSTANTIAL LEMON DANISH OR BLUEBERRY BUN

I've been mosting likely to Steeles Pastry shop since I was a kid, as well as I can not withstand the huge, luscious pastries they've been offering since the 1960s. You'll likewise find Challah, fresh buns and also numerous varieties of cakes and cookies at this Jewish pastry shop.

BEAVERTAILS TORONTO-- $5.09 TO $6.52 CAD FOR AN GENUINE CANADIAN BEAVERTAIL

Unwind, relax ... A BeaverTail is a pastry formed like a beaver's tail. We would certainly never eat the adorable animal beautifying our nickels! This popular dough pastry is covered with toppings like cinnamon sugar, bananas and chocolate, or a decadent mix of hazelnut spread, peanut butter as well as Reese's Parts.

BeaverTails has actually been open in neighboring Ottawa because 1980, yet Toronto obtained its first irreversible area simply last month. It deserved the delay!

FALAFEL-- $5.49 CAD AT TOV LI

Tov Li is a kosher dining establishment concentrating on Israeli and also Mediterranean food. They're understood for having much healthier, vegan choices, consisting of an incredible falafel sandwich. The breaded cauliflower ($ 3.99 CAD) and apple crumble ($ 3.99 CAD) are likewise scrumptious. Two places (both on Bathurst St).

LOW-COST THINGS TO DO IN TORONTO

It's very possible to miss pricey as well as predictable attractions like the C.N. Tower, Canada's Paradise as well as the Toronto Zoo, as well as not also miss them, thanks to the extraordinary free and super affordable tasks Toronto needs to supply. And hi, with all the cash you conserve, you'll be able to pay for some Justin Bieber merch, a massive jug of syrup, or a Maple Leafs jacket (all proudly Ontarian!).

KENSINGTON MARKET-- FREE

Among the most multicultural and also distinctive neighbourhoods in Toronto, Kensington is a National Historic Website of Canada. The neighbourhood is house to unusual cafes as well as eclectic vintage as well as independent stores. Browse Blue Banana for budget-friendly and also unforgettable gifts as well as uniqueness, as well as Guts My Love for one-of-a-kind vintage things.

The many markets and also bakeshops in the neighbourhood (as well as close-by Chinatown) are extremely vibrant and Instagrammable, and are best for grabbing a piece of pie, fresh fruit or a Jamaican patty.

THE ROM-- $10 CAD ON FRIDAY AFTERNOONS

Dinosaurs. Old Egypt. A simulated bat cave. The Royal Ontario Gallery is seriously riveting. Any person who matured in southerly Ontario most likely saw the ROM on an institution trip or a family getaway, and covertly (or not!) locates it equally as enchanting as well as immersive as a grownup. This is not your common, stale gallery. You'll discover, as well as you'll have a wicked amazing time doing it.

THE DISTILLERY AREA-- FREE

The Distillery District is home to the biggest and best-preserved collection of Victorian commercial design in The United States and Canada. The pedestrian-friendly location is home to art galleries, cute cafes, shops as well as art setups. My much-loved way to spend a day in the District is taking pleasure in a cupcake at Sugary food Escape, checking out a couple boutiques, and also walking outside, taking in the art and also design. I have actually seen lots of times, however never ever tire of it.

EARL BALES PARK-- FREE

Obtainable by regional bus, this urban green space is perfect for outdoorsy kinds, or anybody that just desires a break from the hustle and bustle. The park supplies barbecue sites, play areas and also numerous strolling and also cycling routes. In the summer season there's a splash pad, as well as in winter, you can even go skiing or snowboarding!

WEST QUEEN WEST-- FREE

In 2014, Vogue placed Toronto's West Queen West the 2nd coolest area on the planet. Lonesome Earth calls it "Toronto's innovative heart". Residence to galleries, stores and cafes, it's clear to see why citizens and also visitors alike jump on the Queen tram to spend their days right here.

Be sure to quit at Dufflet (787 Queen St West) for coffee as well as a fresh bread, Graffiti Street to have a look at street art, as well as the Drake General Store (1144 Queen St West) to browse unusual Canadian made souvenirs.

The post “ THE CHEAPSKATE GUIDE TO: TORONTO “ was seen first on Yes and Yes

The IV Lounge - IV Therapy Toronto Service Provider

1 note · View note