Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

By Richard A. Johnson III| Austin American-Statesman

Would the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. recognize the civil rights movement of today92 years after his birth, and more than 57 years after his famous I Have a Dream speech?

I dont believe he would. The just goals he fought for, equal opportunity for all and a color-blind society, have been set aside by modern critical race theorists, in favor of divisive identity politics and collective grievance.

The logical outcome of these progressive policies wont be the world King dreamed of where the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

It will instead be a dystopia not far removed from the reality that so deeply disappointed King, with segregation that is at once educational, societal and economic.

Let me explain.

Kings calls were for integration and justice. Separate was never equal, he knew. He also knew that integration wouldnt be easy.Segregation is a cancer in the body politic which must be removed before our moral and democratic health can be realized, he said in a speech at SMU in 1966.

And its here he loses the critical race theorists. They are in fact, advocating a new segregation. At Rice University, for example, some students are demanding a designated space for Black students to hold gatherings. The National Association of Scholars has a report detailing 173 colleges and universities acquiescing to similar demands for segregated centers, spaces and programs.

The quality of education is also becoming resegregated.In the San Diego public school district, where three-quarters of the students are non-white, critical race theory and its nom de guerre, anti-racism, arelowering the expectations for a generation of young learners.

Students there will no longer see their academic grades penalized for disrupting class, turning in work late or not turning it in at all. Those issues are reflected, instead, in students' "citizenship grades." But the real world requires punctuality and efficiency. These requirements should be reflected in academic standards.Without them, I fear that students will be put at a severe disadvantage.

The civil rights movement of today is also out of touch with justice. While the theorists calls for defunding and the outright abolition of the police, Black families dont agree. A full 81% of Blacks surveyed say they dont want fewer cops; some want an increased police presence to make their neighborhoods safer.

And these two demands of the new civil rights movement a separate and unequal education system, along with lawless neighborhoods to grow up in will lead to my third point, worsening economic segregation. When children of color cant compete in the job market, when businesses fear opening and operating in lawless neighborhoods, we will be further than ever from the mountaintop that Kingenvisioned.

My own life has been spent in the arena of civil rights. Ive seen much progress, and Ive seen some setbacks. But Ive never lost sight of the true goal: equality. Critical race theory threatens all that leaders like King achieved.

Johnson is the director of the Texas Public Policy Foundations Booker T. Washington Initiative, which examines the effects of public policy on African American communities.

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Two Views: Critical race theory threatens what King achieved - Austin American-Statesman

Madalena Gordiano was just eight years old when she knocked on Maria das Graas Milagres Rigueiras door to beg for food in Minas Gerais, a state in southeastern Brazil. She was invited in and Maria, a white teacher, promised to adopt her. Gordianos mother, who had eight other children, one of whom was Madalenas twin, agreed.

But Gordiano was never adopted or allowed to go to school. For the next 38 years, she cooked, washed, scrubbed bathrooms, dusted and tidied for Maria das Graas Milagres Rigueiras family. A victim of racial exploitation, she became a 21st-century slave for a wealthy family in an apartment building in Patos de Minas, a town of 100,000 inhabitants. She was never paid nor allowed time off, according to prosecutors investigating the case. When Gordiano was rescued on November 27, she was 46 and had great difficulty in expressing herself.

I went to ask for bread because I was hungry, but she told me she wouldnt give me any if I didnt come and live with her, Gordiano told Fantstico, the Brazilian TV show that broke the story ahead of Christmas, while a news site called UOL revealed other alarming details of the story.

What Gordiano went through is an extreme example of the legacy of more than 300 years of slavery in Brazil. As one of the slave trades main destinations, it was the last American country to free the labor force forcibly brought from Africa; the so-called Golden Law forbade slavery in all its forms in 1888. Almost 133 years later, domestic work is still traditionally done by Black women.

I went to ask for bread because I was hungry, but she told me she wouldnt give me any if I didnt come and live with her

The ostensibly respectable Milagres Rigueira family not only took advantage of Gordianos services, they turned her into a source of income, arranging her marriage to an elderly relative when Gordiano was still in her twenties. The relative was 78 and had a military pension one of the best pensions in Brazil of more than 8,000 reais a month (1,300). Gordiano, who never actually lived with the Second World War veteran, inherited this pension upon his death, but she saw hardly any of the money it went almost entirely into the familys coffers. According to UOL, the family used the pension to cover the costs of one daughters medical degree.

At one point, in the tradition of past slave owners, Gordiano was given as a gift to Maria das Graas Milagres Rigueiras son, veterinary professor Dalton Milagres Rigueira. During the slavery era, it was common to donate slaves to children as a wedding gift or to include them in a will along with other assets. In fact, slaves were often the most valuable part of the estate.

Historian Claudielle Pavo considers the case of Gordiano to be an extreme incidence of structural racism forged by a system of slavery that exposes in a very instructive way what it is to be white in Brazil. Many people will say that taking in a girl to do household chores in exchange for food and a place to sleep is much better than leaving her on the street, adds Pavo. It is a social pact that is so commonplace that people do not find it offensive.

Investigative journalism has revealed that Gordianos twin sister, Filomena, also lived as a domestic worker with another branch of the same family, but received a salary. She left her employers 10 years ago.

After the abolition of slavery, the Brazilian state attracted European labor by granting land and promising other benefits with the explicit purpose of making Brazilian society whiter. Meanwhile, according to Pavo, the slaves who had been set free had no recourse to public aid and were left to fend for themselves. The deep-seated inequality that persists in Brazil in 2021 is a direct consequence of slavery and its aftermath.

Black and mixed-race Brazilians are far poorer than their white compatriots; while they make up 56% of the population, they account for 75% of those murdered, 64% of the unemployed, 60% of prisoners, but just 15% of judges and 1% of award-winning actors, according to data from fact-checking agency Lupa. Their families earn half as much money as their white counterparts and they have a shorter life expectancy.

Gordianos case has caused a stir in Brazil, as did the death of a Black supermarket customer a month earlier who was beaten by two white guards outside the shops doors.

More than 55,000 Brazilians working in slave-like conditions have been rescued in the last 25 years

The enslaved Gordiano was located by the authorities in the home that the professor of veterinary medicine Dalton Milagres Rigueira shared with his wife Valdirene Lopes in Patos de Minas. Gordiano had been kept in a small room with no window. She had no cell phone or television. Her only possessions were three T-shirts. Her only relief going to Mass in a Catholic Church where apparently nobody suspected what she was going through. Her rescue was due to a complaint filed by a neighbor living in the same building with whom she was forbidden to speak but who knew of her situation from the papers she pushed under their door, asking for money to buy soap and other toiletries. Authorities suspected there was something suspect about Gordianos widows pension years earlier, but the matter was shelved due to lack of evidence.

When questioned, Professor Dalton Milagres Rigueira, blamed his mother, Maria das Graas, for keeping Gordiano in slave-like conditions. He then argued that she was like family, explaining that he had not encouraged her to study because he did not think it would be to her benefit, according to Fantstico. The professor has been suspended from his post at the university where he teaches. Meanwhile, the familys lawyer considers the disclosure of the prosecutors case to be premature and irresponsible as there has been no conviction as yet and urges cautious reflection.

More than 55,000 Brazilians working in slave-like conditions have been rescued in the last 25 years, including 14 domestic workers last year.

Domestic workers, who are mostly Black women, are an integral part of Brazilian society. Recognition of their labor rights in 2013 was a celebrated milestone for millions but it provoked the indignation of a number of their employers. One of the first slaves known to denounce mistreatment was Esperana Garcia, who wrote in September 1770 to the governor of the Brazilian state Piau. Having been taught illegally by the Jesuits to read and write, Garcia complained of physical abuse and begged to be allowed to join her husband and baptize her daughter. She is believed to have succeeded.

Gordianos captivity ended thanks to an anonymous neighbor, allowing her to enjoy Christmas in a womens shelter while waiting to be reunited coronavirus restrictions permitting with some of the siblings she begged for something to eat with 38 years ago.

English version by Heather Galloway.

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The Brazilian woman kept as a slave for 38 years - EL PAS in English

While deprecating the separation of a place from its history, novelist Alan Moore rightly said: A place is much more than the bricks and mortar that go into its construction. I think its more than the accidental topography of the ground it stands on. With the apex court giving its stamp of approval to the Rs 2,000 crore Central Vista project it includes a glittering new Parliament to be built at a cost of Rs 971 crore an analysis of the Narendra Modi governments track record on respecting Parliaments soul and substance is relevant. Has the BJP and the Modi government imbibed the true spirit of our temple of democracy or have they treated it as a necessary evil, to be formally bowed down to while increasingly marginalising it?

During last years budget session, Parliament was allowed to work despite the Covid-19 outbreak because the MP Assembly had to be summoned for the formation of a BJP government against the popular mandate. A full-fledged monsoon session was convened when the virus was at its peak in Delhi because anti-farmer ordinances had to be ratified. Almost all states had their Assembly sessions during the pandemic, exposing the Covid-19 excuse for curtailing Parliament as the fig leaf it was. But when farmers, not allowing the winter to dampen their resolve, sit on roads demanding restoration of MSP for their produce, the winter session of Parliament becomes dispensable. If Parliament is not allowed to become the appropriate forum for the consideration of demands that affect nearly two-thirds of the countrys population, it can hardly qualify as democracys heartbeat, one that was Nehrus priority, the subject of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayees undying respect and, indeed, PM Modis floor-kissing obeisance, when he first entered its hallowed portal.

Perhaps, BJPs social and political agendas take precedence over such democratic pillars. In 2017, the winter session was delayed because of the Gujarat Assembly elections. Since the government is currently investing all its energy in election management in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Puducherry, it has no time for Parliament. Political priorities seem to have replaced constitutional propriety. The government is fully aware that people across the country are agitated. Therefore, despite the pendency of many important pieces of legislations the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, Dam Safety Bill, 2019, Medical Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill, 2020, Anti-Maritime Piracy Bill, 2019, Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Bill, 2019 the winter session has been guillotined.

The BJPs undermining of Parliament has a long legacy in its relatively short life as a ruling party. Its policies and actions have frequently been antithetical to Parliamentary democracy. In Opposition, its disruption of parliamentary proceedings and blockage of legislations was elevated to a fine art remember the vigorous defence of disruption as a legitimate democratic tool by the late Arun Jaitley. During the 2013 budget session, of the 163 hours available, 146 hours were lost due to disruptions by the BJP.

Since 2014, there have been more subtle stratagems to undermine Parliament. Ordinance, as the preferred legislative route, is being misused as a constitutional tool and Parliament is increasingly ceasing to be a place for debates. Important bills are moved and passed on the same day or rushed through, thus depriving members of their parliamentary rights to contribute effectively. During the 2018-19 budget, 100 per cent of the demands for grants were passed without discussion. The Farm Bills passage was the apogee of all brazen violations and subterfuges.

Parliament has an effective committee system and new bills introduced in the House are generally referred to department-related standing committees for detailed scrutiny. Having been privileged to chair such a committee, one of us (Singhvi) can testify to their sterling non-partisan contributions. Invited domain experts also scrutinise the bills. In the 14thand 15th Lok Sabhas, 60 percent and 71 percent bills, respectively, were referred to such committees, whereas in the 16th Lok Sabha, only 25 percent bills were referred. Not a single bill has been referred to committees in 2020.

Accountability and scrutiny have unfortunately been perceived as irritants by the Modi government. Subversion of the constitutional spirit was evident when the Aadhaar Bill was certified as a Money Bill. Having nothing to do with the imposition, abolition or alteration of taxes nor with financial obligations of the government, it was so certified simply to avoid Rajya Sabha scrutiny. That issue is now pending before a larger apex court bench, but judicial delays are inevitably used to bypass Parliament. During the last monsoon session, the Question Hour was suspended to avoid legislative scrutiny. If every other business could be transacted in both the Houses, there was no plausible reason to suspend the Question Hour except avoiding processes designed to hold the government to account.

The Modi governments decision to freeze the entire MPLAD funds scheme was less about economics or welfare and much more about politics. The impact was disproportionately larger on Opposition MPs who, being out of power, will have no say in any development work in his/her area. Despite marginal aberrations and abuses, the MPLAD scheme, to the co-authors (Singhvi) knowledge as a three term MP, has surpassed all expectations at the grassroots.

Meanwhile, there is the unaudited PM Care Fund to take care of the ruling dispensation. Hopefully, the new Central Vista will signify a more meaningful realisation of the true ethos and pulsating spirit of Parliamentary democracy and not merely creation of brick, mortar and concrete structures.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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The government and BJP have consistently undermined Parliament - The Times of India Blog

Initially, he and the host spoke about the management of the epidemic and statements by immunologist Dr Alojz Ihan who said that he saw no alternative other than the country going into a full lockdown, that there had been enough of coordinating the interests of various groups and that stricter restrictions on movement should be adopted. "I think this is the last resort," was the Prime Ministers assessment of this statement, and he went on to say that when he spoke with his colleagues in other European countries who have been forced to confine people to their residences and restrict them to half an hour of exercise once a day within a range of 50 metres from home, they emphasised that these were drastic measures. "We monitor the epidemic very closely with the help of experts such as epidemiologists, so well know if stricter restrictions are really necessary." It they are, then this is what well do. But we still hope that it wont be necessary," said the Prime Minister.

He also highlighted that the positive effects of rapid testing are already apparent as this option was particularly used during the Christmas and New Years holidays by those who, for example, displayed the symptoms, but were not certain if they should take PCR tests. "Many of those tested positive. Due to this measure, we are counting on overcoming the January or February wave without imposing drastic measures," said Prime Minister Jana, adding that, "We all hate the restriction of freedom, but we should still consider that the more seriously we comply with the current measures, the less need there will be for more drastic ones."

To the question of whether the issuing of quarantine decisions should continue and not be abolished, the Prime Minister replied that everyone who was in contact with an infected person or crossed the border in a certain period received instructions on how to behave. "There was supervision as well, but with regard to the legal restrictions, the Information Commissioner and everything else, the supervision could not be implemented effectively. The number of cases was high, and the Health Inspectorate was unable to handle everything despite being allocated inspectors from other inspectorates," explained the Prime Minister. "In the spring wave of the epidemic, tracking stopped due to limited capacity. This cannot be rectified overnight. Now, the number of daily infections is over 1,500, which is more than twenty times the limit, thereby exceeding functionality," continued Jana. "When the number of infections exceeds a certain threshold, some measures are no longer efficient and need to be replaced with others," stressed the Prime Minister, adding that we are forgetting the fact that there was also a political crisis arising from the Minister of Health resigning during the autumn wave when the situation was at its worst. "We tried to resolve this issue as fast as possible, so I assumed the relevant ministry," said Jana, adding that certain matters from the past year were discovered only recently.

"When speaking about staffing and staffing reserves in health care, a major problem during the cold wave was the large proportion of health professionals falling ill," claimed the Prime Minister and continued that in certain health-care institutions this number was incomprehensibly high. "This was likely in part due to exhaustion and partly to the rules being too loosely interpreted as up to ten per cent of staff members were absent in certain institutions," explained Prime Minister Jana, adding that the situation was now improving. "For this reason, too, health professionals are being vaccinated first. The effects of the vaccine are slowly becoming apparent and we believe that medical staff infected with COVID-19 will no longer pose such a great problem," concluded the Prime Minister.

To the question of the introduction of a vaccination record booklet, Jana responded that such an introduction would likely occur but would be nothing new as a certificate of vaccination was already necessary when travelling to certain countries.

"So, this is nothing new and I think it would benefit everyone. Theres probably not a single person who wouldnt be pleased that they can travel, and they only have to prove that they have been vaccinated," said the Prime Minister.

To the question of why the Government decided to remove Government spokesperson Jelko Kacin, the Prime Minister responded that the replacement did not occur overnight. "After Decembers session of the European Council, it became certain that the vaccine would arrive, and the vaccination procedure would have to be carried out in a way that would ensure everyones prompt protection against the virus. This is an activity for which no country in the world is ready as special preparations are required on a day-to-day basis and for this a top logistics organiser, such as Mr Kacin, is required," said Prime Minister Jana, going on to say that great coordination efforts are also required concerning contacts between Slovenia and the European institutions. "Communication about the measures will not be affected in any way," reassured Jana. He noted that many people would miss Kacins clear messages. There were also some criticisms regarding his communication, but "ten times more commendations." "Mr Kacin and I have belonged to different political sides for several decades and I am personally grateful to him that he decided to help at the most critical time of the epidemic, as there were others whom we asked, but who declined," said Prime Minister Jana.

When speaking about the vote of no confidence, the Prime Minister said that he saw the text of the motion of no-confidence on a website and assessed it as "a concentrated brutal outburst of ideological hatred in which I see no facts." "Its ironic that the deputies of the Minister of Healths party have signed this vote of no confidence in which the main issue in the text is incorrect conduct during the fight against the epidemic," stated the Prime Minister and proposed that the authors of the text take a look in the mirror. "The Minister of Health resigned based on his partys exiting the coalition when the situation was at its most strenuous," he further noted.

The Prime Minister agreed with Minister Poivaleks statements that they would "do a recount" and the situation would somewhat calm down at least for a while as it is difficult to work in the conditions that have prevailed since the vote of no confidence was announced last April. "I still believe that, in spite of the problems and obstructions, the Government will contain the epidemic, successfully preside over the EU Council and successfully complete its term, too," said Jana and pointed out that substantial European funds were ensured for the post-epidemic recovery and "it would be ironic that those who, within their one-and-a-half-year term, were unable to complete a single anti-corona package would then spend EUR 12 billion of European funds for various studies and clientelistic sources of financing, which is the only programme of certain left-wing parties."

Finally, Prime Minister Jana addressed the publication of police wages and the payment system reform. "The idea of the reform is based on the assumption that taxpayers would not be charged more. Its not about the complete abolition of the uniform wage system, but keeping the entire administrative section of the public sector within the uniform wage system with grading levels because no great anomalies exist in this system," said Jana. "When dealing with specific sections of the public sector, such as the police, the armed forces, health care, etc., this uniform wage system disintegrated a long time ago," said the Prime Minister and proposed that a comparison of ratios from 2008, when the wage system was first introduced, and now be implemented. Regarding the reaction to the publication of police officers wages, the Prime Minister responded that the taxpayers have the right to know how much of their money goes to certain public employees, and "whoever denies this is in conflict with the fundamental aspects of democracy."

He further added that the adverse reaction to the publication of wages would not have occurred if the appropriate ratios had been in place. "The police officers work in cold and rain. They risk their lives and receive the same bonuses as someone who is sitting in an office. Of course, people also work hard in the offices, but if these ratios were arranged accordingly, no one would be upset," said Prime Minister Janez Jana, who believes that changes in the wage system are urgent, "Not so much because of the police, but mostly because of the health care sector as we have seen that the staffing problem in health care is to a great extent the result of an unfair wage system in this sector."

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Prime Minister Janez Jana: The more seriously we comply with the current measures, the less need there will be for more drastic ones - Gov.si

The Trump Administrations 2020-21 execution spreecame to an end on Friday with the execution of the Dustin Higgs. Higgs was the 13th person put to death since federal executions resumed in July, 2020.

A close look at those executedover the last six months shows that the federal death penalty is not reserved for the worst of the worst as some of its proponents contend. Instead it targets the most disadvantaged and disabled of those charged with capital crimes.

Having an intellectual disability, a mental illness, or a history of childhood abuse and trauma turns out to be a very important, though often unappreciated, factor in explaining both who ends up on death row and who gets executed.

That is just one of the reasons why President-Elect Joe Biden should take decisivesteps to endthe federal death penalty and lead a campaign for nationwide abolition of capital punishment.

Criticism of the death penalty often rightly highlights its discriminatory application or, in the case of the federal governments use of this punishment, its geographic arbitrariness. In addition, the Trump administrations recent rush to execute disregarded the rights of the condemned to adequate legal representation, and in several cases ignored the wishes of victims families.

And it did not let the difficulties and dangers caused by the COVID-19 pandemic derail its plan.

Much has been made of the unprecedented nature of carrying out lame duck executions, especially since the federal government ramped up the death penalty just as its use is declining in states across the country.

Less visible, though no less important, in understanding the injustice and inhumanity of what Trump did and of the death penalty system in general is that the overwhelming majority of those facing execution today suffer from significant intellectual disabilities, mental illnesses, or a disabling history of childhood abuse and trauma.

Last summer, just before the resumption of federal executions, the Death Penalty Information Center found that 85 percent of those on federal death row had at least one serious impairment that significantly reduces their culpability, and 63 percent had two or more of these impairments.

The DPIC also reported that one-half were mentally ill, suffering from diseases such as schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or psychosis. Three quarters had been the victims of physical abuse and trauma during their childhoods. As a result, one-third had developmental brain damage or traumatic brain injury.

It is thus not surprising that a similar pattern would appear among those the feds chose to put to death. Nine of the 13 of those individuals had significant intellectual disabilities, severe mental illness, and/or histories of abuse.

Despite the seriousness of the crimes for which they were convicted and sentenced, they look less like societys most dangerous or morally culpable and more like people who were neglected and abandoned by society.

Take Daniel Lewis Lee, the first of those Trump executed. Lee was neglected and severely abused by his stepfather throughout his early life. He had profound learning disabilities which went undiagnosed throughout his childhood and contributed to serious educational deficits. In addition, he suffered from borderline personality disorder.

The man who followed Lee, Wesley Purkey, was similarly disabled. In and out of psychiatric hospitals since he was 14, he had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of childhood abuse as well as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. His father paid prostitutes to fondle him when he was a child, and his mother joined in the sexual abuse.

By the time of his July execution, he had Alzheimers and dementia, and was delusional.

Purkey believed that he was going to be put to death not for his crime but because he had filed too many grievances against the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He thought he was the victim of dark, conspiratorial forces. As a psychiatrist who examined him concluded, Purkey lacks a rational understanding for the basis for his execution.

But the Trump administration executed him anyway.

Lisa Montgomery, the first woman executed by the federal government since 1953, was the victim of severe physical abuse as child which resulted in brain damage. As one commentator noted, She was gang-raped repeatedly as an 11-year-old girl by her stepfather and his friends. Her mother trafficked her in exchange for plumbing and electrical work. (H)er stepfather smashed her head against the concrete floor of a room he built to rape her.

Montgomery had also been delusional throughout her life as a result of the mental illnesses she inherited from her parents.

That people like Lee, Purkey, and Montgomery could be put to death may seem surprising since, almost two decades ago, the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Atkins v. Virginia, that executing offenders with intellectual disabilities violates the Constitutions prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments.

The court said that people suffering from such disabilities can still know the difference between right and wrong andbe punished. But because of their disabilities in areas of reasoning, judgment, and control of their impulsesthey do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct.

Yet the Supreme Court refused to offer a clear definition of what constituted a disqualifying illness, leaving that judgment to judges and juries untrained in and unfamiliar with intellectual disabilities, mental illness, and the lifelong consequences of childhood trauma. And it has refused to do so from then until now.

The cases of those put to death by the federal government illustrate the failure of the courts approach.

Judges and juries often cannot comprehended how intellectual disability, mental illness, and childhood abuse could explain why people commit serious offenses. And far from making those who suffer from abuse or illness seem less culpable, they may lead decision makers to conclude that they are more dangerous. Judges and juries can put them, as the Trump administration did, at the head of the line among those who get a death sentence.

Experience has shown that law alone cannot combat such stereotypes and misunderstandings.

As a result, disadvantaged and intellectually disabled people continue, as the Trump administration execution spree shows, to be among the offenders who are most likely to be subject to Americas ultimate punishment.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy captured the injustice and inhumanity of this practice in 2014, when he said that to impose the harshest of punishments on an intellectually disabled person violates his or her inherent dignity as a human being. Imposing the death penalty upon offenders with these kinds of functional impairments, he continued, serves no legitimate penological purpose.

The incoming Biden administration should acknowledge Kennedys wisdom. It should act urgently to stop executions of the impaired, indeed of all who have been convicted of capital crimes, by ending the federal death penalty and lending its weight to abolishing capital punishment throughout the United States.

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Trump Targeted the Mentally Ill With His Lame Duck Execution Spree - Slate

Business rates replaced by VAT hike proposed pie in the sky

A Tory MP is calling for business rates to be scrapped and replaced by an increase in VAT in order to save high street businesses.

Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) said increasing VAT from 20% to 23% would fill the 30 billion annual gap created from the abolition of business rates.

He is calling for immediate change as he introduces his Abolition of Business Rates Bill, saying the legislation would replace business rates completely with an increase in VAT Thereby fundamentally levelling the playing field between online and our precious local high street businesses.

This flies in the face of his partys general election manifesto pledge not to increase VAT during this Parliament but Hollinrake claims the scale and the pace of change to businesses today necessitates a new approach.

He went on: Business rates as they are today were designed for a bygone era, a long time ago where business went hand-in-hand with high street premises. Covid has quickly made that time seem even more distant and the trends already in train have been accelerated due to our forced house arrest. Online sales now account for 33% of all retail sales, up from 20% only a year ago.

What Mr Hollinrake hasnt thought through is how the new system and funding work in respect of all occupations, not just retailers or businesses. What about the Police, libraries, hospitals etc? The hike in VAT would have to be huge and essentially passing on the tax burden to every member of the general public regardless of income or circumstances. Imagine having to sell the fact that Tesco is saving hundreds of millions of pounds in business rates each year while their shopping bills, car service and house repairs go through the roof. Furthermore, there would be no certainty for Local Government funding as VAT would flex depending on the economy. In recession VAT would have to be increased still further

Hollinrake mentions a small increase which just wouldnt fill the hole left behind by business rates. To couch the increase in these terms is disingenuous at best.

By all means lets have a serious debate about the reform options, and lets do it quickly, but headline grabbing stunts like this are merely that and act as a distraction not a credible solution. The Bill was introduced without a vote, with a second reading scheduled for today. It has little chance of making further progress in its current form without Government backing which is highly unlikely as we wait for the outcome of the latest business rates review.

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Business rates replaced by VAT hike - proposed pie in the sky - Place North West

Now that the UK and the EU have finally signed up to a trade agreement, it would be amiss of us not to mark the occasion with a short article covering the key Brexit issues which we believe will be of most interest to employers and HR professionals.

There has been much debate around how employment laws may change in the future given the UKs new found freedom but it comes as no real surprise to learn that the trade agreement will limit those freedoms to some extent, in view of the level playing field commitments. Also in this article, Jonathan Chaimovic gives a brief summary of the new immigration regime to help employers understand what they need to do in order to recruit EU/EEA nationals in the UK. And finally, for employers who need to transfer employee information into and out of the UK, Mark Williamson looks at the practical steps organisations should take to ensure there is no breach of data protection laws.

Employment law

The UK/EU trade agreement

The trade and co-operation agreement reached by the UK and EU covering the post transition period arrangements was finally signed on 30 December 2020. The level playing field commitments in the agreement have been designed to ensure that neither party obtains a competitive edge in various regulatory areas. In relation to employment law, it was agreed that neither party will weaken or reduce their labour and social standards below the levels in place at the end of the transition period in a manner that would affect trade or investment, including by a failure to enforce those standards. This applies to fundamental rights at work, health and safety standards, fair working conditions, employment standards, information and consultation rights, and restructuring of undertakings. Separate commitments in the section on road transport require both parties to comply with working time rules (including rest periods and breaks) for drivers transporting goods between the UK and EU.

The trade agreement also includes rebalancing measures to address future divergence of laws which have a material impact on trade or investment. Such divergence of laws will need to be significant and supported by reliable evidence of the impact, not mere conjecture or remote possibility. Importantly for the UK government, any disputes will not come under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice but will be referred to a panel of experts following a 90-day discussion period. The rebalancing mechanism set out in the agreement allows the parties to apply tariffs where there are significant divergences in the level playing field. There is also a provision allowing for the review and suspension of trade in certain circumstances.

The UK government will therefore have to avoid any weakening of employment rights that has a significant impact on trade or investment, since this could lead to a major dispute and a risk of tariffs or suspension of trade. This is unlikely to preclude minor changes to legislation, even where employee protections are reduced, providing there is no impact on trade and investment. It does, however, mean that the UK government will not have complete freedom to change employment laws in the future, despite having left the EU.

So what, if anything, is likely to change in UK employment law?

There has been much speculation as to which aspects of employment law future UK governments might change. In particular, its been suggested by some commentators that the Agency Workers Regulations, which give equal rights to agency workers after 12 weeks, could be abolished. This is now less likely, as abolition of these rights could give the UK a clear competitive advantage which would affect trade. Other laws susceptible to change are aspects of the Working Time Regulations (such as abolishing the 48 hour week) and a re-setting of the long line of holiday pay cases which have caused much confusion over the past 10 years, since the momentous ECJ decision of Williams v British Airways. Whereas a wholesale repeal of the Working Time Regulations is now highly unlikely, some minor amendments, for example the abolition of the 48 hour maximum working week may be possible as that is unlikely to have much impact on trade (particularly given the UKs opt-out). Arguably, a resetting of the holiday pay rights so that commission and overtime are not included in the calculation of holiday pay might also be acceptable. In the main, other EU derived rights such as TUPE and collective redundancy consultation may see some amendments in time, but we are unlikely to see a full scale abolition. Finally, discrimination laws and family friendly rights are highly unlikely to be weakened, although a future government may be tempted to introduce a cap on maximum tribunal awards.

For more information on any employment or workplace related issue, please contact James Major or your usual contact at Clyde & Co.

Immigration

The new immigration framework means that many organisations will have to revise some of their recruitment processes. The changes to the Immigration Rules were mostly agreed as part of the Withdrawal Agreement in 2020 and were therefore independent of, and largely unaffected by the Trade Agreement. Nevertheless, we set out a brief summary of the new framework below.

What are the implications of Brexit for EU, EEA and Swiss (EES) nationals?

Free movement of EES nationals to the UK ended at 11pm on 31 December 2020. EES nationals residing in the UK before 1 January 2021 may apply for immigration status under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) allowing them to remain in the UK, depending on eligibility, for Pre-Settled or Settled Status. Applications under the EUSS must be submitted by 30 June 2021. Post 31 December 2020, EES nationals entering the UK for employment/self-employment purposes must meet the same requirements to work in the UK as non-EES nationals. In many cases, this will require sponsorship by their prospective employer to work in the UK under the new Points Based System (PBS) framework. Irish nationals are unaffected by the changes and will continue to enjoy the unfettered right to work and reside in the UK.

What are the key features of the UKs new post Brexit Points Based System (PBS) framework?

How should employers assess and record the right to work from 2021?

For more information please see the Home Office guidance on the right to work checks.

If you have any queries on this or any other immigration topic please contact Jonathan Chaimovic or any member of the immigration team.

Data Protection

Multinational companies seeking to transfer personal data relating to their staff across borders, whether to or from the UK must ensure that they comply with data protection laws.

What is the effect of Brexit on the application of the GDPR to the UK?

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) lies at the core of Europes digital privacy legislation, setting out guidelines for the collection and processing of personal data of individuals. As a European Regulation, it has direct effect. This meant it automatically came into effect in the UK in May 2018, and applied in the UK until 31 December 2020 (the end of the transition period). The Data Protection Act 2018 sets out the framework for data protection law in the UK. In addition to the 2018 Act, which is still in force, the GDPR will continue to apply post Brexit because it was directly incorporated into UK law by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 on 31 December 2020. The Information Commissioners Office (ICO), which publishes data protection guidance on its website, now distinguishes this from the EUs GDPR by referring to it as the UK GDPR.

Post 1 January 2021, can employers still transfer employee personal data between the UK and EU countries?

Up until 31 December 2020 UK employers could transfer personal data freely between the UK and the EEA under the EU Withdrawal Agreement. From 1 January 2021, the UK became a third country and two sets of rules apply in relation to data transfers. In essence these rules mean that UK organisations do not need any new arrangements for transfers from the UK, but will need to put in place safeguards to maintain data flows from the EEA to the UK:

The ICO advises that usually the simplest way to provide an appropriate safeguard for a restricted transfer from the EEA to the UK is to enter into standard contractual clauses with the sender of the personal data. Some organisations may have in place binding corporate rules covering a UK based entity which are authorised under the EU process. These will continue to provide an appropriate safeguard for restricted transfers but will need to be updated to recognise the UK as a third country. A different safeguard, such as provisions inserted into an administrative arrangement, will be appropriate for transfers from an EEA public body to a UK public body where one of the parties is unable to enter into a contract. The ICO has published guidance for businesses to help with this.

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Brexit: The key implications for Employers and HR Professionals - Lexology

The federal death penalty will almost certainly be suspended under President Biden, and great strides have been made to reduce the use of the death penalty at the state level. But the work of putting an end to capital punishment is far from done, and recent events have pointed to the need for a conversion of U.S. culture from death and vengeance.

These were some of the themes that surfaced during a panel discussion on Jan. 8 sponsored by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown. The panel, Killing In Our Name: Federal Executions and Pro-life Witness, hosted by Initiative director John Carr, took the federal executions in the final days of the Trump presidency as its point of departure.

The Trump administration executed 10 people in 2020, the first federal executions in 17 years. Federal inmate Lisa Montgomery became the first woman executed by the federal government since 1953 when she was killed by lethal injection in the early morning hours on Jan. 13. Two more federal executions are scheduled for 2021.

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, the executive director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, described this rush of federal executions as an aberration, as it does not reflect the great successes of the death penalty abolition movement in recent years: 22 states have abolished the death penalty, and 12 others have imposed moratoria or have not carried out an execution over the last 10 years.

As Kevin Clarke reported for America, Only seven statesArizona, California, Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texasimposed death sentences [in 2020] and just threeCalifornia, Florida and Texasimposed more than one.

Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy told America, There is already signifcant momentum at the state level to move away from the practice of capital punishment. During the discussion at Georgetown, Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy urged online participants to make the fight to end the death penalty their own, a point that the Most Rev. Daniel Flores, bishop of Brownsville, Tex., and chair-elect of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops doctrine committee, echoed in noting that advocacy against the death penalty has to be integrated into parish life.

Indeed, such opportunities were as much part of the reason for the panel as the Trump executions. The participants at the Georgetown discussion evinced a measured optimism about what could be done under the Biden administration.

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Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy laid out some of those possibilities for America:

The Challenge of ConversionThe recent progress toward ending the death penalty is owed in no small part to the life and mission of Helen Prejean, C.S.J., one of the most famous anti-death penalty advocates in the United States, who spoke at Georgetown of the challenge of changing public opinion on capital punishment, calling it a journey of conversion. She spoke of the difficulties many have in seeing not only the dignity of innocent life, but also the dignity of those guilty of crimesalthough she also noted that many on death row have been exonerated of crimes.

Sister Prejean suggested that this conversion has to be preached to and undertaken by the entire people of God, not just priests and other faith leaders. She thus implicitly raised the question: How does the church reach members who are no longer regularly in the pews or parish halls?

This challenge of conversion was also addressed by Bishop Flores, who called for a change in how Americans understand the human condition. Bishop Flores said that the one time in his public ministry Jesus had a chance to say yes, the death penalty is justified, is when they brought the woman caught in adultery, and they said, The Law of Moses says. And he didnt deny the law, but he addressed himself to the condition of the ones who were condemning.

The bishop drew this question from Scripture: How can we presume to be the ones who execute this judgment about who deserves to live and who deserves to die?

The Rev. Dr. Jack Sullivan Jr., the executive director of the Ohio Council of Churches, noted the close connection between death penalty, race and poverty. He noted that in his early work he was discouraged from linking death penalty abolishment to racial justice because no one would be willing to take the message seriously.

But he refused to ignore the connection, instead seeing it as key to changing hearts and minds: Anybody who espouses our faith must find himself interested in addressing the evils of racism and white supremacy. As Dr. Sullivan told America, If we Christians were to articulate and authenticate a vision of love for all of humanity in the public policy arena, we could see a plethora of unjust policiesfrom executions to the seemingly acceptable extrajudicial executions of unarmed Black peoplecoming to an end.

Dr. Sullivans witness on the panel underlined that anti-death-penalty work is ecumenical, as has been all of his work. Challenges would have occurred if we elected to allow our theological and cultural differences to discount and trivialize our areas of agreement, he told America. Fortunately, I experienced no challenges, just an appreciation for our willingness to work together and thus project a stronger anti-death-penalty witness together than any of us could have projected if restricted to our own groups.

Changing CatechismDespite whatever opportunities the Biden administration might offer for opposing the death penalty, Catholics continue to be divided by the issue, including in their reaction to Pope Francis changes to the Catechism in 2018. The Georgetown panel did not shy away from this challenge.

This controversy, Bishop Flores wrote recently in America, centers around the historical fact that Scripture and tradition acknowledge the authority of the civil authority to administer [capital punishment]. How, then, can the church say it cannot justly be administered today by the public authority?

On the panel, Bishop Flores offered an answer to that question. He noted that John Paul II focused on the question What good does the death penalty serve in terms of protecting the wider community? and concluded that in most cases, the good can be served without the extreme measure of taking a human life.

Pope Francis, he said, prudentially judged that not only does it not serve a good, but you can protect society in other ways without going to the extreme measure of taking someones life.

Bishop Flores emphasized that the church has always seen the death penalty as an extreme measure, even if the sense of the dignity of the condemned person has slowly unfolded, as Sister Prejean noted later, comparing the changing understanding of the death penalty to a similar process addressing slavery.

Returning to the discussion of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, Bishop Flores reminded the audience that Pope Francis has said that we are in a throwaway culture and we have a way of justifying heinous things because it is the law.

Mr. Carr noted that St. John Paul II called upon the United States to end the death penalty in 1999 during his visit to Saint Louis. The pope made that plea in a homily that focused on the need for the churchs new evangelization to be unconditionally pro-life: The dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.

A Culture of Death

The panel sought to offer a broader vision of human dignity to challenge those who support the death penalty. Given Bishop Floress description of Pope Francis and Christ as addressing themselves to the condition of the ones who were condemning, one might think the mixed reception in the United States to Pope Francis on the death penalty reflects more than just a love of scriptural tradition narrowly construed, for it arises in a culture with a strong affinity for violence. Indeed, the panel happened only two days after the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

In a widely-circulated piece in The New York Times on Dec. 20, Elizabeth Bruenig reflected on the challenge of changing public opinion on the death penalty:

Ultimately, the Georgetown panelists urged a similarly visceral approach, with Sister Prejean noting the importance of stories and sharing experiences, and Bishop Floress call to humanize those subject to execution. Dr. Sullivan attributed his work to personal experiences of the murder of his sister, and Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy to the witness of advocates like Sister Prejean.

That visceral approach would seem to resonate with the Biden administrations focus on reconciliation and compassion, but it will be challenged by all of the obstacles raised by the panelists: fear, anxiety, suspicion and the culture of violence evidenced by the Capitol Hill insurrection.

And thinking more generally about protecting human life, what can the movement to end the death penalty illuminate for the possibilities of resisting and converting the culture of death? How can the broader pro-life movement benefit from that work? These will be questions that anti-death-penalty efforts in the Biden years might help to answer.

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What will it take to end to the death penalty? Catholic activists say a more visceral approach is needed. - America Magazine

Beside the long path to the Wappoo Creek stand symmetrical rows of Southern live oaks, arranged like the pillars of a temple. Down the dirt road below, shaded by the leaves and long beards of Spanish moss, Toby Smith leads her first tour of the morning to the Wappoos marshy banks. Then she asks them to look right.

Miles away, past mud flats, fishing boats, and the Ashley River, sits Charleston, South Carolina. If they drifted on the water for about an hour, theyd hit the city harbor. If they floated past for another three months, she says, theyd arrive on the West Coast of Africa.

Thats how Ms. Smith says she starts her tours of McLeod Plantation Historic Site, where shes worked as a guide for the past two years. Her trip to the milky green waters of the Wappoo Creek is a regular pilgrimage, designed to help visitors imagine the journey of enslaved Africans who once stood on the same land. Starting near the water, she says, lets the tour walk in their footsteps.

For the next hour, Ms. Smith explains in a phone interview, she guides her group through the plantation grounds and lets them ask questions about its 37 acres. They pass the cramped slave quarters and palatial manor house. They pause at the slave cemetery and walk into the fields of sea island cotton, still growing. Inside the cotton gin house, they gaze at small dimples in the walls. Some days, Ms. Smith lets the group know that those are fingerprints left by enslaved children who hand-molded the bricks.

We are walking on the blood, sweat, and tears of real human beings, she often tells visitors. That has a very profound impact on people. ... Sometimes you dont have to say anything. Its just the presence.

McLeod is among a growing number of sites that recognize the power of that presence. Its vision is to interpret the legacy of slavery, where slavery took place. Behind that, the focus is a recognition that the history of American slavery has been insufficiently and inaccurately told, often privileging the enslavers over the enslaved. Gradually, thats changing as historians acknowledge that every life on plantations like McLeod mattered.

Reconstructing the lives of enslaved people is difficult, but from Wallace, Louisiana, to Medford, Massachusetts, many sites on the ground zero of slavery are accepting their role in that effort. Recent calls for racial justice have demanded a reckoning with wrongs that date back centuries. Places like McLeod harbor that history and with it hope for catharsis.

We are the stewards of spaces that can offer answers, says Michelle Lanier, director of the North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites and Properties. Theres a grand healing that I think is attempting to emerge through our nations greatest wound.

Courtesy of Charleston County Parks

The main house at McLeod Plantation is empty, and the tour does not take visitors inside. Interpreters teach about the plantations owner, but they focus on the 100 or so people who were enslaved there.

For many Americans, that wound has grown more painful with the way it has historically been taught, says Derrick Aldridge, a professor at the University of Virginias Curry School of Education and Human Development.

Dr. Aldridge recently chaired Virginias Commission on African American History Education, charged with auditing the states efforts to teach Black history. Released last August, its 80-page report identifies faults endemic to curricula across the country.

Long dominant have been so-called master narratives, which teach American history through the lives of U.S. presidents or other great men. People of color and especially African Americans are often segregated into sections that cover only messianic figures, like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Regular Black Americans, including enslaved people, are rarely given space.

You cant erase history. You can ignore it, which is something weve done for centuries, says Jody Allen, an assistant professor of history at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Theres a real understanding that basically weve been miseducated in this country.

Understanding the legacy of slavery, says Professor Aldridge, is crucial to addressing its impacts today. Connecting historical dots from the Black Lives Matter movement to the civil rights movement to abolition puts the present in context and makes history real, he says.

At a place like McLeod, where that history is as real as it can get, the stakes for getting it right are high.

Just as the historical narrative has traditionally focused on the owning class, plantation museums have orbited the big house, says Shawn Halifax, cultural history interpretation coordinator for the Charleston County Park & Recreation Commission, which runs McLeod.

Typically, visitors marvel at the opulent homes of slave owners, he says, while enslaved people are treated as footnotes.The furnishing of these former dwellings oftentimes tends to create a type of nostalgia, which is the very thing that through our interpretation were trying to move beyond, says Mr. Halifax.

At McLeod, the big house is empty, and the tour does not take visitors inside. Interpreters teach about William Wallace McLeod the plantations owner and a Confederate soldier but they focus on the 100 or so people enslaved on the site, telling their stories and saying their names.

More than 800 miles southwest, Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana, takes the same approach. Before the pandemic, the former sugar cane plantation attracted around 100,000 visitors each year, says Ashley Rogers, director of museum operations.

It, like McLeod, teaches slavery from the perspective of enslaved people and will soon empty its big house.Were trying to use this plantation as a vehicle to get people to understand the system of slavery more broadly, says Ms. Rogers.

One way they do that is by making sure Whitneys history speaks to today. Only two of the original 22 slave quarters are still standing, but they arent relics. After the Civil War, many of Whitneys enslaved people had little choice but to keep farming sugar cane and living in their same quarters. Some of their descendants stayed until 1975.

Our entire point of what were trying to do is to teach people about the past so that they understand the present, says Ms. Rogers. If history doesnt have an impact that you can still feel, then its just an interesting story.

Sometimes the past and the present collide.

Jennifer Stacy grew up near Charlottesville, Virginia, about 10 miles from Highland, the plantation of President James Monroe. Her family used to drive past the site on their way into town, and she would read the sign: Home of James Monroe. She knew about slavery, and she knew her grandfather was also a Monroe. Even as a girl, she sensed the two were somehow connected.

Decades later, Ms. Stacy learned that shes a descendant of Ned Monroe, an enslaved man at Highland who helped build the University of Virginia. Three years ago, she joined the estates newly formed Council of Descendant Advisors, a group of 10 descendants who advise the site on its efforts to tell a fuller story.

Its now shared authority, where the goal is to reinterpret the history there and to get it right, Ms. Stacy says. The true, deep-down hope is that this could be a roadmap to something bigger that our whole country can get behind and start doing, because it is who we are.

Highland, like other plantation sites across the country, is researching the lives of those enslaved on its land constructing genealogies, reviewing oral histories, and panning streams of centuries-old documents. The task, though, requires swimming against the currents of history. Researchers engaged in this work often face a dearth of primary sources, low funds, and small staffs.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Kyera Singleton, director of Royall House and Slave Quarters, poses by the slave quarters, in Medford, Massachusetts, on Jan. 13, 2021. Ms. Singleton is working to expand the sites role in present-day social justice movements.

This is especially true in the North.

Records show slavery is central to Northern states histories. Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, andother influential figuresin the North who supported abolition owned slaves,and New England colonies played a critical role in the transatlantic slave trade. There were enslaved people in every Rhode Island township, historians say, and local merchants bankrolled more than 500 voyages to West Africa during the Colonial period. All the other colonies combined sent 189.

But Americans postbellum memory associates slavery almost exclusively with former Confederate states. Research on slavery outside the South is thin, and long-held notions of Northern heroism can chill attempts to learn more.

There is this great desire for people to want us to have made greater strides, but we are working against 50-plus years of Americas educational system, says Lavada Nahon, interpreter of African American history for the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

While many sites in the North are adopting an approach similar to Whitneys or McLeods, rediscovering an entire states role in slavery is a massive effort in historical forensics.

Artifacts have been mislabeled and misinterpreted, and important history has been lost in translation. In New York, this could mean translating early documents from Dutch to English or interpreting confusing terminology a recent paper published by the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany argues that the servants listed in Alexander Hamiltons cash book were actually enslaved people. Even cursive handwriting can challenge the newer generation of historians.

It is not as if we are choosing not to honor our ancestors, Ms. Nahon says. It is time-consuming work.

Its also work that evolves. Heidi Hill, historic site manager at Schuyler Mansion, says the site has been compiling research on free and enslaved Africans since the 1980s. Theyve long incorporated names, numbers, and the type of work enslaved people did into their tours and other events.

But now were asking different questions, says Ms. Hill.Who were these people? Where did they come from? Who were their family members? How did they connect?

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

The manor house and slave quarters (right) at Royall House and Slave Quarters, in Medford, Massachusetts, are pictured on Jan. 13, 2021. These are the only surviving slave quarters in the Northern United States.

When communicating with a largely miseducated public, making the historical narrative more inclusive requires a powerful commitment.

Kyera Singleton heard about the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford, Massachusetts, at a conference in 2019. Shed grown up in the Northeast, studied slavery, and still had no idea there were freestanding slave quarters in the North. But while the scholar in her wanted to visit, Ms. Singleton had a familiar fear: that the history would be whitewashed and the trip would be more painful than illuminating.

Still, she decided to go and soon learned that the site had undergone a dramatic rebranding in 2005, bringing enslaved people into focus.

Every room that we went in, we talked about the enslaved people, she says. It shows that their names matter, their lives matter, their history matters.

Ms. Singleton was so impressed that she applied to work at the museum, and since April of last year, she has served as executive director. In her new role, Ms. Singleton is eager to uncover how the enslaved people who lived at the site experienced slavery, resisted it, and advocated for their freedom a challenging mission that includes archaeological and archival research, partnering with universities, and a lot of guesswork.

You might not find all of the information that you want, she admits. And thats a part of the cruelty of history in many ways whose lives were deemed important enough to document versus those whose lives were deemed unimportant.

The paucity of first-person accounts of slavery has long been an excuse to avoid difficult conversations, says Cordell Reaves, historic preservation programs analyst for New Yorks Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

That is a terrible disservice to the general public, he says. [Visitors] can be engaged in having a conversation around ongoing research, even if we are not absolutely certain about the outcome.

Lately, Ms. Singleton has been working to increase the visibility of the Royall House and Slave Quarters, hoping to expand the sites role in present-day social justice movements by helping communities understand that last years assaults against Black people, including by the police, were not unique.

This history of injustice has been happening long before 2020, says Ms. Singleton. It will keep happening if we dont actually confront systemic inequalities and racism in this country.

Courtesy of Charleston County Parks

Toby Smith ends her tours of McLeod Plantation at the Wisdom Oak. She asks visitors to imagine what memories are caught in the branches of the tree, which is thought to be at least 200 years old.

The country has chosen not to confront the history before, and the history repeats. Generations come; generations go. The next sometimes forgets the last.

But places like McLeod remember, says Ms. Smith, the interpreter near Charleston.

Her tour ends, she says, at the Wisdom Oak, thought to be at least 200 years old. Ms. Smith asks her group to imagine what memories are caught in its branches.

Ms. Smith tells her group that she is a direct descendant of slaves, some of whom may have lived just 20 miles from McLeod. Her great-great-grandmother Idella was taken from modern-day Ghana in the 1840s, after the slave trade was illegal in America. Ms. Smith is alive today because Idella survived that voyage at the age of 8, mourned her losses alone, and started a family, living until 1941.

This work is a way for me to keep them alive, share their memories, and also to give them a measure of honor and dignity that they never had in life, says Ms. Smith.

Then, at the roots of the Wisdom Oak, she tells her group about a visitor to McLeod six years ago. A month before Dylann Roof killed nine members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, he visited McLeod and took pictures of himself there.

People physically recoil at the fact that he was on the property, says Ms. Smith. But it gives us an opportunity to talk about hatred and why we cannot let hate end the conversation.

Theres no agenda, no judgment, no attempt to sanitize what went on then or now, she says. Its just a moment to pause, to acknowledge the pain, and to ask what theyll do about it.

Maybe listen to each other, or the ancient oak above them.

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Ultimately, we hope that it could be a place always of conversation and healing, says Ms. Smith, and people will leave better than when they came.

Walter Houston Robinson contributed to this report.

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Plantation tours bypass the big house to focus on the enslaved - The Christian Science Monitor

In December it was revealed that the San Diego Unified School District had hired Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, two brazen race hustlers posing as trainers to jam their radical racial separatist agenda down the throats of the citys public school teachers. As reported by Christopher Rufo inCity Journal,The training begins with a land acknowledgement, in which the teachers are asked to accept that they are colonizers living on stolen Native American land. Then they are told they will experience guilt, anger, apathy, [and] closed-mindedness because of their white fragility.

It gets worse. Much worse.

A whistleblower secretly took notes and recorded screen shots of another teacher training session in San Diego. This one was held by Bettina Love, a race-obsessed college professor, who claims that American schools are guilty of the spirit murdering of Black children. She also insists that Whiteness reproduces poverty, failing schools, high unemployment, school closings, and trauma for people of color, and stealing a page from George Orwells1984, that white educators must undergo antiracist therapy. As if the above were not despicable enough, because too many black students are failing in San Diego schools, the district will no longer letlate work or bad behavioraffect a childs grade.

Seattle is no better. At a recent training in the Emerald City, lowly Caucasians were told that they possess lizard-brains, which makes them afraid that [they] will have to talk about sensitive issues such as race, racism, classism, sexism, or any kind of ism. The trainers also instructed educators that they should work toward the abolition of whiteness. Lest you think this conference was a one-off, a visit to theSeattle Public Schools websitewill disabuse you of that notion.

Like Covid, the indoctrination pandemic is not location-specific. In New Jersey,S2781, a bill which passed 26-13 in the State Senate, ensures that students will examine the impact that unconscious bias and economic disparities have at both an individual level and on society as a whole.

In Minnesota, St. Paul public schools are on their way to making an ethnic studies class mandatory for graduation. But at the same time, as reported by the Center of the American Experiment, a draft of the new state social studies standards shows the standards arevery light on World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, the American Revolution, the Civil War, etc.

In California, the latestEthnic Studies Model Curriculumdraft, which will make taking an ethnic studies class a requirement to graduate high school, has been released for public comment. Though not as vile as earlier versions, there is still plenty here to be concerned about. Critical race theory, which maintains that racism is pervasive and permanent, and divides students into oppressor and oppressed factions, is omnipresent.

The question becomes, what can be done to stop the careening indoctrination train?

In California, parents and the general public can weigh in andtell the California State Board of Education(by January 21) to oppose using critical race theory in our schools.

Also, the Family Policy Alliance has released a new book available for free online, Back to Schoolfor Parents, which takes a journey through each part of the school system where student andparental rights violations are trending, and explains how to fight back against the radical agenda that is running rampant in our schools.

And on a most interesting note, a Nevada mother has filed a lawsuit against her sons charter school for refusing to let him opt out of a mandatory class that promotes hostility toward whites as a race. In the federal lawsuit, Gabrielle Clark claims that the schools teachers and administrators coerced her son William to accept and affirm politicized and discriminatory principles and statements that he cannot in good conscience affirm. The litigation also alleges several constitutional violations including compelled speech, viewpoint discrimination, retaliation, etc.

Its worth noting that the student, who has a black mother and a (deceased) white father, is very light-skinned. His whiteness and refusal to lick the indoctrinators boots earned him a D-minus in the class, and he was subsequently suspended for committing racism according to the lawsuit. Ironically, the mother only learned about the indoctrination attempt by attending a distance learning class with her son.

Too much of our education system has turned into1984-style brainwashing, and will continue unabated until parents the schools customers stand up and learn their rights, run for school board, litigate, and best of all, homeschool if possible. Your children, taxpayers and the country are depending on you.

[Originally posted on California Policy Center]

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Spirit Murder, Lizard Brains and the Abolition of Whiteness - The Heartland Institute