Category Archives: Wage Slavery

Left to right: Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Tarana Burke and Stacey Abrams. (Photo: Getty Images)

Extraordinary courage, self-sacrifice, and defiant determination are the common threads binding together a beautiful tapestry of Black women throughout history, who have tirelessly fought on the front lines of nearly every American sociopolitical movement.

The thread began with Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Sarah Parker Redmond, and other brave souls combating the evils of slavery during the abolitionist movement. It then continued to be woven by Francis Ellen Watkins Harper, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Ida B. Wells, and countless others who paved the way for women to vote during the womens suffrage movement.

Intertwined by their unrelenting resolve for racial equality, Septima Clark, Fannie Lou Hamer, Dr. Dorothy Height, and dozens more were the life force of the civil rights movement.

We underestimate the bravery of Black women in times when truly everything they did could have led to their death, reflects Stefanie Brown James, co-founder of The Collective PAC, the largest political action committee in the nation dedicated to supporting and funding Black candidates at the local and federal level.

Read More: April Ryan pays tribute to Black women in new book: Its a love letter

Ive always looked at the women in those spaces as the blueprint when it comes to advocating for freedom and justice and progress for Black people.

While their collective missions and strategies may have differed over the decades, their plights and passions remained the same, tying both the past and present intrinsically together. From Shirley Chisholm and Kamala Harris shattering political glass ceilings to Storme DeLarverie fighting for LGBTQ rights and Tarana Burke inspiring the masses to take back their power through Me Too.

The echoes of their battle cries are heard in Elaine Brown promoting Black Power and Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi inspiring an entire nation to simply say Black Lives Matter.

When you step back and admire the masterpiece these threads have composed, its quite clear Black women are superheroes.

The model hasnt necessarily changed much for Black women, explains Dr. Nadia Brown, a faculty scholar and associate professor specializing in the study of Black womens politics at Purdue University. Our soul refuses to dieand we know that if we dont do it (the work) in our generation its not going to be better for our children.

I saw so many connections to Fannie Lou Hamer and Stacey Abrams, she continued. Both women are daughters of Mississippi empowering their communities to become politically engaged, by listening and deeply loving them, and pushing the system to include them.

Read More: Stacey Abrams wins inaugural Social Justice Impact award at NACCP Image Awards 2021

And yet for all the blood, sweat, and tears they have poured into this country, what have Black women received in return?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for Black women has nearly doubled since the start of the pandemic and now sits at 9.2% compared to the national average of 6.2%. Meanwhile, other studies show when Black women are working they can expect to receive only 62 cents for every dollar a white man earns in the same position.

Often perceived as pillars of strength, even the strongest amongst us need help and protection. Black women are killed in domestic violence incidents at a significantly higher rate than other races according to a CDC report. Not to mention, Black mothers are four times more likely to die of complications during childbirth compared to white mothers, and Black infants are 3.8 times more likely to die of complications than white infants.

You cant call yourself in solidarity with women if youre not recognizing the ways that economic disparities hurt Black women, Dr. Brown noted while pointing to the recent national debate on increasing the minimum wage.

There are white women whose lifestyles depend on the labor of women of color, so seeing white feminists not support the fight for $15 I think is one of those examples of Black women being at the lower end of the social hierarchy still fighting knowing they have no other choice but to fight and find allies.

James agreed and put it bluntly: Cash is King and it needs to go to the Queens! Black women dont need congratulations we need resources.

Through her work with The Collective PAC, James and her colleagues were able to raise more the $2.5 million for the 151 Black candidates they endorsed in November. The majority of those endorsements went to Black women. Additionally, The Collective PAC recently raised $100,000 for a new Justice For All Initiative with the goal being to recruit, train, and fund more Black candidates in criminal justice positions.

Incremental change is happening, the rate at which Black women are signing up to say yes Im going to run for office has skyrocketed in literally less than five years, so that makes me extremely hopeful, she added.

However, if more progress is to be made Dr. Brown emphasized history must be the compass that guides us. Shes written two books, Sisters in the Statehouse: BlackWomen and Legislative Decision Making and Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance of Black Women Political Elites, and yet she wonders how many more books could and should have been written about lesser-known Black women who made critical contributions to each movement and deserve to be remembered.

Unsung heroes who for Dr. Brown brought to mind the famous words of activist Anna Julia Cooper, which she believes still ring true today as much as they did when first published in 1892:

Only the Black woman can say when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.

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From abolitionism to womens suffrage, Black women are the pioneers of movements - TheGrio

Last week, a white man targeted three Asian-run massage parlors in the Atlanta region, and killed eight people. Six of the victims were Asian women. We must never forget their names: Soon Chung Park (74),Hyun Jung Grant(51), Suncha Kim (69), Yong Ae Yue (63),Delaina Ashley Yaun(33),Xiaojie Tan(49) and Daoyou Feng (44).The victims were disproportionately older Asian women. They were sisters, mothers, and grandmothersand all people who worked in low-wage jobs.

As two South Asian immigrant women living in the United States, these attacks are sadly familiar and hit home.These shootings, along with the marginalization of women by the junta in Myanmar, and the rise of gender-based violence in India and Latin America this past year, underscore a broader global crisis we all find ourselves in today.

While many in the media and law enforcement were quick to flatten the Atlanta shooters story to one motive, they ignored the most toxic intersecting factors plaguing society today and contributing to rampant violence: white supremacy, misogyny, permissive gun culture, and classism.

Last year, former President Donald Trump reinforced white supremacist narrativeswith his insinuations about the origins of COVID-19,which he termed Chinese Virus. Experts warned that his dehumanizing and xenophobic rhetoric wouldexacerbatethe possibility of violent attacks in the midst of a global pandemic.

It turns out that words do indeed have consequences. We have watched in anger and dismay as Asians and people who appear Asian have become victims of a spate of violence across America.Between March 2020 and February 2021, Open Society grantee Stop AAPI Hate documented nearly3,800 self-reports of anti-Asian hate incidents. Asian women were more thantwice as likelyto be attacked asAsian men.

These senseless murders also underscore the ways in which women, and particularlywomen of colorand migrant women, are blamed or even killed because of their identity. Instead of looking to mens lack of ability to deal with sexual rejection or shame, women are frequently blamed by virtue of what they wearor in the case of the Atlanta shootings, simply because of who they are.

During a press conference, the police repeated the shooters own narrative of his alleged, sex addiction, without questioning the rampanthypersexualization of Asian womenthroughout U.S. history and in American culture and media. These stereotypes have perpetuated, and even normalized, misogynistic racism against Asian women. In particular, massage and spa workers that providehealing services. Whether or not they were actually sex workers or self-identified under that label, we know that as massage workers, they were subjected to violence stemming from the hatred of sex workers, Asian women, working-class people, and immigrants.

Recognizingthe history of Americas sanctioned bigotry against people of Asian descent is an important starting place for the learning needed to prevent violence.After slavery was formally abolished in the United States, thousands of Chinese people were brought to the country to work in industries such as railroads, sugar plantations, and mining.Americas first immigration law, the Page Act of 1875, unapologetically excluded East Asian women from the country because of stereotypes that they were sex workers and temptations for white men,making their immigration illegal and barring existing Chinese-American women from becoming citizens.In 1882, the U.S. government also excluded Chinese men. Those laws were not repealed until 1943, a time that roughly coincided with President Franklin Delano RooseveltestablishingJapanese-American internment camps during World War II.

In 1933, mobs of white peopleattacked Filipino farmworkersafter they were seen dancing with white women in Watsonville, California. The state later enacted a law to prohibit marriages between the two groups. And in 1934, Congress restricted Filipino immigration to the United States to just 50 people per year, even as the United States completed almost 40 years of military domination over the Philippines.

Thisdiscrimination expanded over time to include Islamophobia and anti-South Asian violence. After the September 11 attacks, the U.S. Congress passed theUSA PATRIOT Act, which conflated immigration and national security policy, and forced80,000men from predominantly Arab and Muslim countries to register with the agency then called the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The NYPD and FBI were actively surveilling and harassing Muslims across New York City for years after the event.

Most recently, in 2017, former President Trumppromiseda total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S. While court challenges watered down the administrations initial plans for the ban, people from Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela were barred from the country until President Joe Biden reversed the ban in an executive order earlier this year.

Ironically, Asians have been used politically in the United States, and across the globe, to create a middle ground between Black and white communities. In the 1980s, the stereotype of Asians as amodel minority was consciously used to create hierarchies between Asians and Black Americans. Prominent leadersplaced blame on the Black community for failing to escape systemic poverty and build wealth in comparison to selective immigrant success stories.

This myth also erases the real struggles faced by Asian communities. The harsh reality is that more than12 percentof the Asian American population officially lives below the federal poverty level.These numbers do not include the informal economy (domestic workers orsex work) orthe roughly1.7 million undocumented community members.

Even in recent years, as mainstream society has begun to acknowledge the need to address white supremacy and systemic racism, Asians and Asian Americans are often left out of the conversation. The spike in racial scapegoating and hate crimes has now exposed the intimate connections between anti-Black and Asian racism, white supremacy, and xenophobia.

To end racist and sexist violence, the United States will need to recognize and embrace the diversity of all its communities as a strength.We see hope for this in a new administration, but we will need to keep civil society voices and movements strong to realize a truly open society here in the United States, and across the globe.

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A History of Anti-Asian Hate in the United States - Open Society Foundations

Brighton and Hove City Council revoked the premises licence for the Premier Express Saltdean Convenience Store, formerly known as Saltdean News.

The council revoked the licence after a request from Sussex Police who said that two people working at the shop, in Longridge Avenue, Saltdean, were found living there in unsafe conditions.

The police said that the owners and joint premises licence holders Krunal Chandrakant Patel and Kirma Krunal Patel had also breached licensing rules.

One of the two people working at the shop said that they did not have a national insurance number, and their earnings were paid into someone elses bank account, with their permission.

The account holder then paid their money to someone else to clear a debt, a council licensing panel was told.

The police said that they were paid 200 each for a 96-hour week and, including accommodation, earned the equivalent of 2.60 an hour. The minimum wage is 8.21.

Peter Savill, counsel for Sussex Police, told the licensing panel hearing that their wages were a pittance.

One of the people found staying at the shop did not have the right to live or work in the UK, according to the police.

Neither of them had passports, saying that they had been lost over the course of several moves, and immigration checks found that one was an overstayer.

A police report prepared by Inspector Rob Lovell said: Both (staff members) state they have not been threatened with violence.

But it became obvious to officers that they do not understand what financial exploitation is or that they may be being coerced to work due to the outstanding debt.

(The staff members) were crying during this explanation, stating that they needed to pay the debt back.

The two staff members lived at the back of the shop in a small room with a double bed and a microwave and had access to a separate toilet.

At the licensing panel hearing, on Tuesday March 9, Mr Savill said that Saltdean News was one of three premises owned by the Patels to have been raided in December.

The Portslade premises was not named and the name and location of the third premises was not disclosed.

He said that police raided Saltdean News on Wednesday December 16 after receiving a Home Office crime report and found a worker with no right to be in the UK.

Officers also found another illegal immigrant at the Patels Portslade premises.

A week later, on Wednesday December 23, East Sussex Fire and Rescue inspected the Saltdean premises and said that the workers living conditions were dangerous.

The fire service issued a prohibition notice banning sleeping on the premises.

When police revisited the Saltdean convenience store on Monday February 8, they found the illegal immigrant who had been working in Portslade.

Mr Savill said: On any interpretation, it is a serious case because it concerns the use or employment of staff at these premises who have no right to work.

The police say this is significantly worse than that. Police believe this to be a case of modern slavery.

The staff who are employed illegally are paid a pittance and are living in wholly unacceptable and dangerous accommodation.

Licensing consultant Surendra Panchal, for Mr and Mrs Patel, accepted that proper checks had not been carried out when employing staff.

But the Patels denied allegations of modern slavery and they denied that the illegal immigrant found in their Saltdean shop on Monday February 8 was employed there.

Mr Savill said that there were several breaches of the alcohol licence dating back to February 2019 although details of these breaches were not discussed during the public part of the hearing.

In its decision, the panel of three councillors said that it was concerned about the circumstances of the two individuals found working at the shop in December.

It was also concerned about other persistent breaches of the licence conditions relating to the closed-circuit television (CCTV) system and lack of training. The cameras showed the wrong time and shop staff could not access the footage.

The panel said: Fundamentally, the panel do not have confidence in the premises licence holders to uphold the licensing objectives and prevent further crime in view of the serious nature of the criminal activities and allegations associated with these premises which have come to light in this review.

A number of discrepancies were apparent during the account and explanation given by and on behalf of the licence holders so that we cannot rely on them or be assured that matters would improve after any suspension.

The Patels have 21 days to appeal against the panels decision.

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Brighton shop stripped of licence as police believe this to be a case of modern slavery - Brighton & Hove Independent

Netflixs new anime series DOTA: Dragons Blood packs a bunch of loose pieces together to form a series thats a good way to kill time, but is hard to get into. In that way, its true to its video game inspiration.

Defense of the Ancients, the original WarCraft III mod that created the MOBA genre, is built out of repurposed parts that were molded into something greater over the years. Its a game where youre supposed to believe a trio of goblin pyrotechnics can blow up the literal embodiment of light, and for some reason, Kimahri Ronso from Final Fantasy X is there. Its a messy, cobbled-together beast, but its a captivating concoction, and Ive played close to 4,000 hours of its remake/sequel, DOTA 2. The story isnt the main draw of the game, but given that each of the games 120 playable heroes, demons, and godlike entities has a personal backstory, its easy to wonder what it would look like if they were all brought together in a narrative.

The Dragons Blood anime series, developed by Thor and X-Men: First Class co-writer Ashley Edward Miller, doesnt hide from DOTAs messiness, but it smartly starts off simple. The storys premise is drawn from the game: two aspects of the same omnipotent mind use all kinds of powerful warriors to wage war against each other over the philosophical question of whether its better to think, or act. After briefly introducing that idea, Dragons Blood tells the story of Davion (Yuri Lowenthal), a young member of an order of dragon knights dedicated to hunting down the beasts. He isnt the most exciting choice among DOTAs 120 characters, but Davions story is one of the more relatable subplots in the fiction, so it makes sense to start with him.

Even in its first episode, though, Dragons Blood starts to pull on several of the DOTA games lingering threads, and at first, it pays off. The series starts with a kinetic dragon fight where Davion gets to show off his hunting skills in front of a crowd, egged on by his squire Bram (Josh Keaton). The action scenes are well-directed, even if the animation by Studio Mir (The Legend of Korra) isnt quite fluid enough to keep up with some tricks the direction wants to pull off. While there are some great tracking shots in an airbound dragon fight, the camera shakes are a little too frequent, and the mix of 3D and 2D effects are often distracting.

As the high-level concepts from the opening start catching up with Davions story, however, the narrative gets complicated. After a meet-cute at a tavern with the moon kingdom princess Mirana (Lara Pulver) and her mute assistant Marci, Davion is thrust into the pairs quest to recover a set of magical lotuses stolen from the kingdom of Selemene (Alix Wilton Regan), the usurper goddess of the moon. Thats all minutes before Davion himself is bound to Eldwyrm dragon Slyrack (Candymans Tony Todd) and confronts the powerful demon Terrorblade (JB Blanc).

The story only gets more intricate from there, and even for a longtime DOTA fan, there are one too many plotlines to keep up with. The main thrusts of the first season are the intertwining tales of Davions search to kick the dragon out of his body and Miranas quest to recover the lotuses, which are tied to a longstanding conflict between Selemene and the followers of the goddess she overthrew.

Dragons Blood is at its most comfortable when it explores Davion and Miranas relationship. Both have faith in the orders theyve devoted themselves to, and for both of them, that faith wavers in intriguing ways. The writers put some depth into the ways different characters react as their beliefs are tested. Lowenthal gives a decent enough performance as Davion, but Pulvers Mirana, while going for a very different voice performance than her in-game counterpart, deftly moves between quipping with Davion and struggling with the weight of recovering the stolen lotuses. Marci also acts as a fun catch-all for the show, scoring points with a cool fight scene, or a blink-and-youll-miss-it facial reaction. Davions and Miranas incidental conversations and flirtation are a more engaging part of the season than their backstories.

But when the story veers away from that trio, it loses focus in favor of packing in layer after layer of plot. Davion, Mirana, and Marci eventually have to seek out the Invoker (Troy Baker), a powerful sorcerer whos kept himself alive through magic long enough to know nearly every kind of magic. Of all the major characters from the game, Bakers take on Invoker seems furthest from the original, and hes given the least interesting arc. (His in-game dialogue paints him as a more self-obsessed scenery-chewer rather than the contemplative mumbler hes played as here.) Another short side story involves Mirana encountering a glowing red stone and the zombies its driven insane, a thread that only lasts around one episode before its discarded. DOTA players will know this is likely meant to set up a plotline for something down the road, but newbies are going to have a hard time knowing whats wheat and whats chaff.

More importantly, while these story threads offer clever ways to show off game elements like Town Portal scrolls and the Gems of True Sight, while giving the DOTA characters a more fleshed-out world, they dont do enough to set this fantasy world apart from any other. Fans of the game franchise may get a thrill of seeing familiar characters face off (especially in the last episode), but in general, fantasy fans have probably already seen most of what this show has to offer. Elves used as a metaphor for racism, men waking up next to prostitutes whose names they dont remember, women facing the risk of being sold off into slavery even in in the increasingly crowded streaming series based on fantasy video games field, Castlevania and The Witcher make better cases for why their worlds are more than just excuses for beating up monsters.

Dragons Blood will have to lean into its strong cast and dialogue if Miller and company want it to be more than an animated backstory for DOTA fans to take into their next match. In spite of the plodding storyline, dense with lore, theres just enough depth to its writing to make Dragons Blood feel like more than a cash grab. But if Miller hopes to bring new fans into the fold and keep longtime fans engaged, the next season will to have to focus more on the characters that define the DOTA world, instead of getting so lost in its myriad details.

The eight-episode opening season of DOTA: Dragons Blood is now streaming on Netflix.

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DOTA: Dragons Blood review: An anime as messy as the games lore - Polygon

While we should expect no better from the ghouls at Fifa, it remains an enduring ignominy that more than a decade after their decision to grant the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, apparently widespread global indifference means the tournament remains fully on course to take place in the new-build stadiums of the Arab state. So much so that a qualification process some thought might never happen began this week.

Thousands of migrant workers have died in Qatar since Sepp Blatter gifted them their Fifa-approved golden ticket. The states own official figures for deaths specifically related to construction for World Cup stadiums are small three work-related and 34 nonwork-related fatalities, it says but the danger in this building boom feels present and very real.

In 2018 the Norwegian journalist Hvard Melns visited Qatar for Josimar magazine and, in a move that would almost certainly have been stymied had local officialdom got wind of it, interviewed an obliging construction worker from the Czech Republic. The site foreman revealed he had witnessed so many deaths he had actually become inured to them. He recalled one accident in which a wall had collapsed, killing six workers and severely injuring eight more. The dead and wounded were immediately collected by ambulances and driven away, he said. Then we kept working, as if nothing had happened. Qatar says legal action was taken over this incident.

Like most of Qatars two million-strong migrant workforce, the labourers tasked with clearing the rubble which temporarily entombed their colleagues are likely to have paid big fees they could not afford to recruitment agents. Many would have arrived to learn they were being paid far less than they had been promised, often doing different, more perilous jobs to the ones for which they had applied.

Domiciled in heavily guarded labour camps surrounded by high concrete walls, they would have been bussed to work each morning at daybreak and forced to work long hours, six days a week in temperatures of up to 50C. Some, but not all, employers appear to observe the local law that designates the hottest hours during which you can hear your own skin crackle a rest period. The Qataris insist that companies found to be violating the laws on summer working hours or overtime payments are penalised.

Wages vary depending on work but mainly on nationality. Some workers earn as little as 130 a month, while all are prevented from seeking more lucrative employment elsewhere by the Kafala system. It isnt slavery, but the conditions appear to have sinister echoes of the stratification of apartheid-era South Africa. Readers of a certain age will recall the seriously dim international view that was taken of any touring parties who put money before morals and chose to compete there.

A country fabled for its habit of loudly trumpeting labour reforms then appearing to fail to act on them, Qatar appeared to take a small but significant step in the right direction last August by announcing a minimum monthly wage of 198.56 and making it easier for workers to change jobs. However, the Migrant-Rights.org has now revealed the new laws, due to come into effect this month, are being reviewed by the states legislative body, the Shura Council.

Well aware of the revulsion and criticism their winning bid to host World Cup 2022 created 11 years ago, Qatars Supreme Committee of Delivery and Legacy, the organisation responsible for delivering the competition, has done everything in its power to discourage negative reporting ever since. A spokesperson for the committee told the Guardian: Preparations for the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East and Arab world have already brought significant benefits to workers on SC [supreme committee] and non-SC projects in Qatar. But the sense that much more could have been done to help them remains.

So far so depressing, but in Norway a storm of indignation has been whipped up and is spreading. Recently, the top-flight club Troms issued a statement voicing their disgust at the corruption and modern slavery surrounding the Qatar World Cup and called on the Norwegian Football Federation to boycott the competition. Their appeal has since been echoed by several other high profile Eliteserien teams. These are bold calls, coming as they do from clubs and supporters whose success-starved national football team are currently spearheaded by a player as gifted as Erling Haaland. Whether or not those who run Norwegian football will pay any heed remains to be seen but it will be intriguing to see if clubs and fans elsewhere follow their lead. On Wednesday night, Norways players wore T-shirts flagging up human rights abuses before their qualifier against Gibraltar. Earlier in the day, the England defender John Stones answered questions about Qatar in a pre-match press conference.

This week the Dutch Football Association issued a statement in which it condemned human rights abuses in Qatar but said it will not boycott the World Cup, promising instead to take its corporate responsibilities seriously and participate in a socially responsible way. It claims to have partly based its decision on advice from various human rights groups who claim a boycott would lead to already impoverished workers further losing out. The English FA has yet to take a stance on the issue of migrant workers in Qatar but seems likely to adopt a similar party line to the Dutch, which would almost certainly be widely supported by fans.

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A boycott seems unthinkable if recent history at Manchester City and Newcastle United is any sort of guide, football supporters seem prepared to look the other way as far as human rights abuses are concerned if the alternative is the possibility of on-field success. While most national governing bodies, footballers and fans would almost certainly claim to find the dangers and indignities visited upon migrant workers in Qatar abhorrent, their reservoirs of empathy are perhaps understandably not bottomless. Following our moral compass and railing against obvious discrimination is all very well until it threatens to derail the possibility of travelling to and winning the World Cup.

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When it comes to the Qatar World Cup, look north to find a moral compass - The Guardian

downloaded from http://www.marxist.comOur task now is to learn from the Paris Commune and think what needs to be done in the coming decades so that many of the debacles that the workers had the courage to face before will be turned into a situation wherein there is nothing else to do but turn down the existing state power.

By MENCHANI TILENDOBulatlat.com

March of this year marks the 150th anniversary of the historic Paris Commune. A lot has been said and theorized on the failures and the victories of the months-long uprising, but, without a doubt, the Paris Commune was a result of the struggle of the working class in France at a time when capitalism and industrialization were taking off.

The capitulation of the French government in the first German-French war in 1870-1871 has brought dire socio-economic consequences to the Parisians. Amid an ongoing siege, the population of Paris experienced massive unemployment and government-imposed anti-social measures making people pay for reparations through war tax while demoralizing them. At this heat of social crisis, the working class of Paris wielded great influence on the building of the Commune that mainly aimed at destroying the existing state apparatus.

In the new millennium, the teachings of the Paris Commune of 1871 still hold true in the ongoing mass struggles being waged by the peoples of the world in response to continued exploitation and oppression. In this light, the democratic and anti-imperialist International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS) is dedicating the month of March and the next five months in commemoration of the revolutionary spirit of the Commune. Its significance, lessons, legacy and continuing validity will again be debated in the media, the academe, political parties, and social movements. As the world faces an unprecedented crisis amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the byproducts of imperialism state terrorism, wars of aggression, neoliberal policies against the poor, and so on, demand stronger peoples resistance resembling that of the Paris Commune uprisings.

The Paris Commune showed the boundless capacity of the revolutionary masses for creating new things after destroying the bourgeois state machine with their own armed power. They created a new government based on a truly democratic exercise of universal suffrage among the workers. They put up a leadership from their own ranks, working conscientiously and receiving pay equal to that of the worker, with no representation allowances and discretionary funds, ILPS Chairperson Emeritus Jose Maria Sison said during the March 20 webinar and launch of the ILPS Paris Commune at 150 Global Campaign.

We see today the growing turbulence in the world capitalist system. All major contradictions are intensifying, such as those between labor and capital; those between the imperialist powers and the oppressed peoples and nations; those between the imperialist powers and states that assert national independence and the socialist cause; and those among the imperialist powers themselves, Sison said, giving the current context of the global capitalist system.

Similar to the attempts of the French government in 1871 to monopolize power over the Western European continent, Sison discussed that among the imperialist powers today, the US and China have emerged as the two main contenders in the struggle for a re-division of the world. And it seems like history is repeating itself when this struggle puts the heaviest burden on the most vulnerable and exploited classes.

They (US and China) have developed the neo-colonial ways and means of shifting the burden of crisis to the underdeveloped countries. They are afraid of any direct war between imperialist powers because they are afraid of mutual destruction with their own nuclear weapons of mass destruction. They give vent to their aggressiveness by waging wars against underdeveloped countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Sison added.

Communes relevance to the Black liberation movement

Frank Chapman, executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, discussed the significance of the lessons of the Paris Commune in his time as a grassroots organizer of the workers and Black liberation movement in the US.

The Paris Commune was a heroic momentous event in history, and perhaps the most defining one of the 19th century wherein workers seized power. However, there is another defining event in the 19th century happening directly in the wake of slavery being abolished in the United States, occurring under the same framework of history. That is the transition period when monopoly capitalism has given rise to imperialism, and was characterized by the conquest of workers for its ultimate decay, Chapman said.

The civil war in France and the US were comparable but of different measure, time, place, and circumstance. The Black reconstruction lasted from 1872 to 1877, it suffered the same character of bloody massacres and this kind of crime against our people continues to this day. The Paris Commune and the Black reconstruction are two related powerful events to our class and our people; and they speak a profound historical truth. That truth is that white workers of Europe cannot free themselves from wage slavery so long as Black and Brown workers suffer from national and economic oppression, Chapman added.

Escalating resistance movements by the working class

German philosopher and economist Friedrich Engels has drawn lessons from the teachings of Karl Marx in his Introduction to the Civil War in France by Karl Marx (1891), stating that the commune had to recognize from the outset that the working class, once in power, could not continue to work with the old state apparatus.

According to Karl Marx, during the second half of the 19th century, in most of Europe, the bourgeois state apparatus became a bureaucratic-military apparatus of the ruling class against the proletariat. Thus, one of the first social measures undertaken by the Commune was the abolition of the standing army of the state, which was replaced by the popular militia, also known as the National Guard. The commune has become the organ of power in Paris, the armed people secured and defended the power of the working class.

Today, with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it triggered the rise of resistance movements in the face of fascist regimes, the working class continues to be at the vanguard.

There is now widespread discontent among the people. Of course, the workers and the peasants across the world are coming to the forefront; there is no doubt that much of their unrest is hidden and brushed aside. The failure of the capitalist system is now very vivid to everybody. It has failed for decades to provide decent livelihoods and this is triggering the movements to escalate, Azra Sayeed of the Roots for Equity said during the webinar and launch.

Our task now is to learn from the Paris Commune and think what needs to be done in the coming decades so that many of the debacles that the workers had the courage to face before will be turned into a situation wherein there is nothing else to do but turn down the existing state power, Sayeed added.

It is quite clear that it is going to happen again, the capitalist system will result in total failure, and it is for the revolutionaries, the proletariat, to come forward and take on the world as ours, Sayeed ended.

References:

(1) F. Engels, Introduction (1891) to the Civil War in France by Karl Marx. Pegasus, Amsterdam, 1978, p.19.

(2) F. De Maegd (2021) 150 Years since the Paris Commune, the First Socialist State (Primer)

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Paris Commune at 150: Reliving lessons of the revolution - Bulatlat

Just as the Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable, the Asch Building was supposed to be fireproof. Built of iron and steel, the 10-story structure was one of New York City's growing number of "skyscrapers" when it was completed in 1901, a modern wonder with its freight elevators and its brightly-lit lofts.

But "fireproof" was strictly a legal term, offering assurances of the building's durability but no such guarantees for those who toiled inside. On a bright spring afternoon in 1911, nearing the end of the six-day workweek, a fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a garment company that primarily employed immigrant women and girls, some as young as 14. The Asch Building burned for just half an hour: "The walls are as good as ever," wrote The New York Times afterward, "so are the floors." In fact, "nothing is the worse for the fire except the furniture and 141 of the 600 men and girls that were employed in its upper three stories."

The Asch Building was so durable that it still stands today, on the 110th anniversary of what was America's greatest workplace disaster up until 9/11. But while the latter tragedy is remembered by a magnificent, $700 million memorial, you could pass by the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire without even realizing it (the event is only noted on easily missed plaques on the side of the building). I know, because I have, multiple times: for a full semester, I took art history classes at New York University in the neighboring building, without ever realizing how close I was to the historical site.

What does it say about our country's value of those kinds of workers low-wage-earning immigrant women if we've failed to meaningfully memorialize them?

Though workplace conditions were terrible in 1911, and on-the-job deaths not uncommon, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was uniquely horrific and captivating for the American public. Trapped on the factory floors, out of reach of the fire department's inadequate, seven-story ladders, the workers panicked; 49 suffocated or burned to death inside the building, and another 36 were found in the elevator shaft, having unsuccessfully attempted to slide down the cable to safety. Worst of all, 58 others jumped to their deaths on the sidewalks below in desperation. Though outrage over the deaths spurred labor reforms, and fortified fire codes, workers' rights advocates today insist the fight is not over.

The Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, thankfully, has been pushing since 2008 to erect a worthy monument outside the NYU-owned building (which is now called the Brown Building; the garment factory's former floors house the university's science classrooms). The group is, by all accounts, getting close to their goal. "We need a poignant, powerful work of art that draws people to the site and calls out to casual passersby, 'Hey! A terrible thing happened here on March 25, 1911. One hundred forty-six people died. And you should know about it,'" Mary Anne Trasciatti, the president of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, told The Gotham Center for New York City History. But that it's taken this long in the first place remains a disappointing testament to how little the country has historically valued people like the victims.

Today, "an estimated 12.3 million immigrant women, including 2.5 million undocumented women, are members of the workforce," the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, reports. But often these workers, who predominately work as maids and housecleaners, have few protections: "The work of nannies, in-home caregivers, housekeepers, and other domestic laborers is amongst the most undervalued and under-regulated industries in the United States a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and the undervaluation of 'women's work,'" the ACLU explains. In New York City, for example, of 200,000 domestic workers, 93 percent are women and 99 percent are immigrants. Many such women "are in the country on exploitative visas or do not have a documented status, which makes it difficult for them to protest dangerous working conditions," The Atlantic adds.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory tragically isn't distant history, then. In fact, it even had reverberations in the shooting in Atlanta last week, when a gunman murdered immigrant women at the spas where they were employed; as May Jeong wrote in a recent opinion piece, the victims "almost certainly died because they were at work." The women were already employed in a job that was dangerous; Yvonne Chen, an advocate for sex trafficking victims who works with Asian women employed by massage businesses, told The New York Times that even with spa employees who aren't sex workers, "I don't think there's enough discussion of the violence that comes from the buyers." Female immigrant workers, even today, are dehumanized and considered disposable.

But it's a faceless violence, too. In the case of the Atlanta shooting, the murderer's name and biography was available long before there was any information about the victims (and when there finally was more information about the people killed, it was more readily available for the murdered clients than the employees). So too were the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory anonymous; it took until historian David Von Drehle published his 2004 book Triangle: The Fire That Changed America for the names to even be fully compiled.

A monument, especially a monument featuring those names, admittedly couldn't have stopped a shooting and won't fix a century-old system designed to exploit vulnerable women workers but it could serve as a recognition of their humanity and value.

Until that day, though, the physical building has stood, for 110 years, as the only significant monument to what happened. The labor of those long-ago immigrant women, like the so many thousands who've lived and worked and died since, simply isn't visible, isn't even a fleeting thought when you walk past the former factory on the way to class.

Over a century later, we are still acting as if those words from the news report are largely true: Nothing is the worse for the fire.

More:

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire's tragic resonance - The Week

There are four open Milwaukee School Board seats on the April 6 ballot, with no incumbents running.

Two of the races are competitive. Aisha Carr and Dana Kelley are facing off for District 4. Alex Brower and Jilly Gokalgandhi are vying for District 5. The other two seats only have one candidate Marcela "Xela" Garcia in District 6 and Henry Leonard in District 7.

View a map of MPS districts here.

To help you get to know the candidates, we sent them the same list of questions. Here are their responses (in alphabetical order by district race.) The responses have not been edited by WUWM.

Courtesy of Aisha Carr

Tell voters about yourself, and what makes you uniquely qualified to be an MPS board member?

I have devoted my entire personal and professional career to support and promote the advancement of educational and racial equity for all students. I am running for Milwaukee School Board because I have experienced education on every level as a former Capitol Hill Legislative Staffer for a former WI State Senator; an Alumni of MPS schools; a single mother of a current MPS student; an MPS Special Education and English Teacher, and currently, as the Opportunity Youth Re-Engagement Director with the Silver Spring Neighborhood Center. I have witnessed the inequitable and unjust treatment of students in MPS and I am committed to serving on their behalf until each one of them has access to an equitable and high quality educational experience.

What would your priorities be if elected?

Some of my priorities include establishing the COVID-19 reopening plan; addressing the racial/social/academic/economic disparities impacting students throughout the city; the recruitment and retention of black and brown educators; overworked, under-resourced, under-compensated educators; the under-utilization of vacant MPS buildings and what its costing tax-payers etc. Simply put, there are so many important issues facing the district and that is why representation is needed to ensure these issues are being brought to the attention of students, families, educators and communities who are all in positions to change the narrative and create high quality educational experiences for all students throughout the District.

Should MPS reopen for in-person education this school year? What measures do you think need to be in place for that to happen?

The health, safety and wellbeing of our students and staff is my top priority. Before we allow our children and Educators to return to school a month before summer break, we must develop a district-wide pandemic Crisis Intervention Team to respond to and address the immediate needs of students, families and educators, provide in-person instruction to students with special needs, with proper building sanitation and social distancing measures in place, following the guidance of National Health and Scientific experts for school reopening clearance. On the contrary, our District has failed to present a solid academic plan of action to address the achievement gap that existed pre-COVID and has widened since then. This is absolutely absurd.

Looking ahead to this summer and next school year, what should MPS do to help students recover academically and emotionally from a year without in-person school?

I dont believe that transitioning students back to school for a month is a good use of funding and resources. Instead, I would support an intense, rigorous Summer Academy leading to fall instruction or the start of an early fall academy to transition students in that have demonstrated the greatest struggles followed by the traditional launching of school. This requires revising each schools budget to train Educators, Support Staff, Administrators, students and families for extensive, rigorous, high-quality academic instruction. A strategic plan of action will be necessary to address the academic skill deficiencies pre-and-post COVID-19, and I am not confident that the District has developed that just yet. This too is problematic.

What would you do as a school board member to improve education for Black and brown children?

To address the disproportionate representation of black and brown students, we need to: recruit, retain and provide competitive compensation to high quality Black and Brown Educators; allocate funding to invest in the mandatory training and development of school safety personnel and designated community leaders to promote restorative practices to reduce suspensions and expulsions and dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline -- we will not succeed with fostering an equitable, safe educational community unless the number of suspensions and expulsions to Black students is reduced; and lastly, invest in a more culturally responsive curriculum that is conducive to and reflective of the different cultural backgrounds represented in MPS.

Do you think MPS should continue authorizing independently-operated charter schools? What is your stance on charter schools and choice schools?

In the past, the MPS Board has made poor decisions with chartering entities who did not serve the best interest of MPS students and families. As a result, taxpayer dollars, families and children have suffered greatly. Further, I do not support the expansion of entities who use public dollars to fund private initiatives. Instead, I will advocate for universal accountability for entities using public, tax paying dollars. As a future Board member, I vow to hold the Board accountable for working on behalf of MPS students and families. The Board is in need of an independent Champion who will fight to prioritize the needs and desires of each and every child and family over any highly politicized public educational agenda.

Learn more about Aisha Carr here.

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Tell voters about yourself, and what makes you uniquely qualified to be an MPS board member?

The role of School Board Director is to manage, regulate and enforce legislation and policies concerning budget, staff, curriculum and most importantly the students of Milwaukee Public Schools. What sets me apart from my opponent is that I have been a Manager and Trainer since 1994 at Bakers Shoe Store, Grand Ave Mall. Corporately, I trained employees during the upgrade from Coaxial to Digital Cable in 1997 at TWC in Wauwatosa. I have hired, trained and managed many as Assistant Manager of McDonalds on 27th and Capitol since 2002. As a Co-op organizer of North Side Rising with 30 people was able to Keep the Lights On in Wisconsin allowing many students of District 4 and WI the ability to attend school Virtually during the pandemic.

What would your priorities be if elected?

Once elected I will work to ensure educational success for students of color, special needs/special education students and marginalized students including fighting for funding to support all stakeholders and supply Full time PE, Music and Art Teachers and Mental Health Professionals in every school.

Should MPS reopen for in-person education this school year? What measures do you think need to be in place for that to happen?

No, MPS should not reopen this year for in-person education. We must first provide a safe and healthy infrastructure which a lot of Milwaukee Public Schools cannot provide currently due to old and outdated air filtration systems. Another issue is class room overcrowding which is not conducive for social distancing. Also, proper PPE like masks, hand sanitizers and hand washing stations are needed in each class. Teachers and students need plexiglass dividers on every desk. Teachers and students also need to have the option to be vaccinated if so desired before returning back to in-person instruction.

Looking ahead to this summer and next school year, what should MPS do to help students recover academically and emotionally from a year without in-person school?

This is a time for the community to come together and invest in our youth. Utilizing resources like Gates Family Youth Center, where I served as Administrative Assistant offering Distance Learning and Tutoring for free. Along with Entrepreneur Workshops teaching were we teach youth how to start their own business and earn cash while helping their community.

What would you do as a school board member to improve education for Black and brown children?

I will fight for funding for public schools to remain in public schools; not allow privatization to pilfer resources from public schools; ensure quality education through smaller class sizes, higher wages adding mental health and social workers in MPS; continue seeking funding for music, arts and PE teachers full time in every school; generate revenue for books, computers and science labs; implement the Green New Deal in Milwaukee Public Schools-generating living wage jobs in the Community of Color, provide healthy schools/food programs, introduce a Climate Equity Curriculum and generate revenue by producing power through solar panels and achieve MPS energy independence from WE Energies and fossil fuels.

Do you think MPS should continue authorizing independently-operated charter schools? What is your stance on charter schools and choice schools?

Privatization continues to pilfer from our public school funds at the detriment and despair of our public school students. Milwaukee County by law must provide adequate education to public residents of Milwaukee County. To fund a private education system with public Federal and Local tax dollars causes MPS to fail to comply to State Law. We must remove the parasite of privatization from public school systems and restore resources to the communities that have been left behind and marginalized disproportionately due to a racist system that continues to oppress the oppressed.

Learn more about Dana Kelley here.

Courtesy of Alex Brower

Tell voters about yourself, and what makes you uniquely qualified to be an MPS board member?

As an MPS educator, Ive taught for seven years at nearly 50 schools at all grade levels - K-3 through 12th grade. As past president of the substitute teachers union, I defeated efforts to privatize our jobs to a temp agency and won healthcare benefits for most subs by going on a 21-day hunger strike. As a co-parent, I understand the challenges of balancing work and supporting our childs virtual learning. With my diverse experience in MPS, I have seen firsthand how current policies criminalize student behavior and how privatization, over-testing and underfunding diminish education quality and equity in our schools. MPS is in need of transformative change and I have the experience, vision and political courage to deliver that change.

What would your priorities be if elected?

My top priority will be to hold MPS administration accountable to ensure a safe reopening for MPS students and families. In addition, I have six platform points:

1) democratize education so that MPS students, parents and workers have more of a voice in our schools2) stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter at School and end the school-to-prison pipeline3) fight for public schools against privatization4) create a Green New Deal for MPS and create healthier school environments5) demand smaller class sizes and fight for more funding for arts, ELL, bilingual and special education programs6) champion the struggle of MPS workers so that we can attract and retain the best educators for our students - especially teachers of color.

Should MPS reopen for in-person education this school year? What measures do you think need to be in place for that to happen?

I am very uncomfortable with the plan that was approved by the current board on March 23 because it lacks important details and doesnt assure safety in schools. The lives of our Black, Brown and Indigenous students and families matter and, seeing how these groups have been disproportionately impacted by this virus due to centuries of systemic racism in this country, a premature reopening would be incredibly irresponsible and could result in more lives being lost to this pandemic. I want to see concrete evidence that all of the things the administration said are or will be in place are truly in place. We need safety measures in place and as a school board director I will hold administration accountable to ensure this.

Looking ahead to this summer and next school year, what should MPS do to help students recover academically and emotionally from a year without in-person school?

As a co-parent and MPS educator, Im incredibly concerned about the wellbeing of our students and staff after this traumatic year. MPS should prioritize supporting student mental health by having mental health professionals available in all schools and avoid any programs that are drill and skill or computer based. We should offer a wide range of summer programs at all grade levels that allow students to focus on specific academic areas that families and teachers see as important and make sure students who arent able to participate are allowed to repeat any course work the next academic year without stigma. In addition, MPS should offer programs for children to socialize with others and gain comfort being outside of their homes.

What would you do as a school board member to improve education for Black and brown children?

First, I will fight to end policies that criminalize students of color and lead to the school-to-prison pipeline and invest in classrooms and counselors. I will demand a culturally relevant curriculum that includes more honest accounts of the contributions of Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples in our country, and that tells the true story of racial capitalism, native genocide, slavery and immigrant exploitation. I will expand and mandate anti-racist training to all staff and students. I will work to reduce class sizes and to attract and retain more high quality educators - especially teachers of color - to ensure our majority Black and Brown student population gets the best education we can offer.

Do you think MPS should continue authorizing independently-operated charter schools? What is your stance on charter schools and choice schools?

I oppose the voucher program and oppose any entity other than MPS chartering new schools in Milwaukee. As a school board director, I will openly call for entities like the City of Milwaukee to voluntarily cease chartering new schools and turn their existing charter school portfolios over to MPS. I think MPS charters should be governed by the democratically elected MPS school board, and as a director I will be very critical of new non-instrumentality charter applications with MPS, but not completely closed to reauthorizing existing ones. However, I will invite existing non-instrumentality charters to become MPS operated charter schools. Generally, I am against using public funds to support private schools.

Learn more about Alex Brower here.

Courtesy of Jilly Gokalgandhi

Tell voters about yourself, and what makes you uniquely qualified to be an MPS board member?

I am a millennial, multilingual immigrant woman of color. I know what it means to experience bias and also to benefit from good public education. As a Community School Coordinator, I gained a unique understanding of one of MPS most sought-after school models. I worked every day with educators, students, families, and staff, and in school operations including with budgets and state compliance issues. I worked with Community School organizers across the district, gaining perspective on supporting and improving all MPS schools. I have leveraged philanthropic support for STEM programming in MPS, particularly for young women of color. I understand how the school board functions and commit to fighting for justice and public education.

What would your priorities be if elected?

My priorities are to make sure every child has access to quality public education and reduce the opportunity gaps that affect so many kids, especially Black and Brown children. To do that, we must ensure the health and safety of our students, families, educators, and staff by having a strong COVID-19 relief plan that includes the social and educational supports families need. We must fight for equitable funding, resisting all privatization that steals resources from public school kids. We must address racial inequities by ensuring mandatory, on-going anti-racist professional development for all staff, create inclusion for women and gender-non-conforming students and invest in true community schools which incorporate shared decision making.

Should MPS reopen for in-person education this school year? What measures do you think need to be in place for that to happen?

Families and educators should be fully engaged in the decision making process on re-opening in person education. I support: ensuring the health & safety of our students, families, teachers, & staff by providing needed supplies and equipment for those in schools and robust technology services to those who choose virtual learning. I appreciate the effort to get staff vaccinated we must also safeguard staff with personal or family health issues. Underfunding has left MPS dealing with old ventilation systems, lack of space for distancing, and shortages in key staffing areas. We must target spending in these areas to protect educators, students and families, including additional staffing needed to support students.

Looking ahead to this summer and next school year, what should MPS do to help students recover academically and emotionally from a year without in-person school?

We must be aware of the experiences our children had this past year and be prepared for their return. They lost community, witnessed tragedy, and lived through an experience unlike anything we have known. Students also created new ways of learning and new skills. We must help them process, celebrate their lives, and support them through the transition. That means making sure schools are staffed with professional educators and social workers, psychologists, therapists, nurses, counselors, speech and language pathologists and others to provide the additional care our children may need. This crisis has heightened opportunity gaps for our children and we must be vigilant and constant in our providing culturally competent, effective responses.

What would you do as a school board member to improve education for Black and brown children?

We must implement anti-racist, professional development that trains all staff, including administration, teachers, paraprofessionals, support staff and other school workers. I will work with educators to implement curriculum that reflects, celebrates, protects our diverse student body and community. This includes continuing to advocate for the Black Lives Matter, bilingual, and equity work that has been initiated in MPS. We need to address the cultural gaps by recruiting more staff and educators who look like and share the experiences of the students. Fully integrated restorative practices creates an environment where Black and Brown students can focus on education rather than racially biased disciplinary processes.

Do you think MPS should continue authorizing independently-operated charter schools? What is your stance on charter schools and choice schools?

I oppose all schemes to privatize public education and would fight to sunset the voucher program. Vouchers and charters are a decades-old experiment that has drained resources from our public schools and miserably failed our children. A publicly-elected school board is the best steward of taxpayer dollars to provide excellent public instruction. I will oppose new non-instrumentality charters at MPS and work with other board members to provide more accountability for current non-instrumentality charters. The Board and the District must stand together and fight to expand state funding and oppose public dollars going to private schools. MPS should become the sole chartering body for Milwaukee.

Learn more about Jilly Gokalgandhi here.

Courtesy of Xela Garcia

Tell voters about yourself, and what makes you uniquely qualified to be an MPS board member?

I am a proud product of MPS, the bilingual education program and I am an active lifelong District #6 community member--my roots in this community run deep. My candidacy for the Milwaukee Public Schools Board Director position is the result of my desire to further serve my community. I believe education is central to the empowerment of marginalized communities, specifically during this critical time where minoritized students and families are disproportionately affected by the systems that have historically failed them.

What would your priorities be if elected?

It is important to understand that we are living through dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racism, which have amplified the persistent inequities that we see disproportionately affect black, brown and indigenous communities in Milwaukee. MPS has the duty to support students in all aspects of their development while prioritizing their physical and emotional safety and that of their families. I believe that racial trauma-informed practices should be embedded into operations and protocols moving forward especially as our communities center healing.

Should MPS reopen for in-person education this school year? What measures do you think need to be in place for that to happen?

Remote learning and working need to continue to be enforced until the virus is mitigated and vaccinations are widely available. The communities that MPS serves have been disproportionately impacted by this virus, and community health should be our priority. I will continue to support recommendations by the CDC and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services as it relates to COVID-19 mitigation measures (e.g. continue remote work and learning) and I believe that racial trauma-informed practices should be embedded into operations and protocols moving forward especially as our communities center healing. We must continue to build trust with organizations and key community leaders as we uncover the short and long term impact of this virus.

Looking ahead to this summer and next school year, what should MPS do to help students recover academically and emotionally from a year without in-person school?

We must invest in the infrastructure needed to adequately support students social-emotional learning. Secondly, we must push for culturally congruent staff and the implementation of culturally responsive teaching through an anti-racist curriculum. Finally, policies that protect students from physical and mental harm/trauma within our learning environments will require the adequate staffing of professionals including psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, physical therapists and nurses.

What would you do as a school board member to improve education for Black and brown children?

As a society, we must confront the institutional racism within the structure of our educational system. Racial discrimination is systemic and is embedded within the policies and practices of institutional structures. I plan to work alongside teachers, parents and students to review and update curriculum that centers social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion. These efforts should not be performative but rather be sustained and reflected in every aspect of operations, policies and procedures.

Do you think MPS should continue authorizing independently-operated charter schools? What is your stance on charter schools and choice schools?

Public schools provide access to an education for every child in our communityand their vibrancy is essential to the economic, civic and social health of our communities. We must be critical of how public funds are used, demand accountability, and oppose privatization. MPS has authorized 21 charter schoolsboth instrumentlity and non-instrumentalitycontracts and partnerships that reflect efforts to accommodate the varied needs of our families and students. The current legislation that dictates funding policies that have resulted in the divestment of public schools, including the MPCP, are legislative issues that must be reconsidered in order to safeguard the equitable distribution of funding into our public schools.

Learn more about Marcela Garcia here.

Courtesy of Henry Leonard

Tell voters about yourself, and what makes you uniquely qualified to be an MPS board member?

Nearly 30 years of experience in all aspects of MPS. That includes every age level as well as, leadership positions. I have lived what works and does not work with our students, staff and parents. I am objective and fair but very passionate and highly concerned about how much inequity exists within MPS. I have always been an advocate for my students and their families and have already used my campaign to build relationships and develop some common ground to get support in reducing those inequities.

What would your priorities be if elected?

1. Reducing classroom sizes is imperative to generating increased face to face time with teachers and students (this generates more growth and teacher to student relations than any other factor), reducing classroom behavior issues that are exacerbated by overcrowding, (pipeline to prison), more adequate distribution of limited resources and a major asset to retaining teachers. 2. Developing a much stronger network of parent relationships with the purpose of empowering their voice and creating dual ownership to being part of the solutions. 3. Developing more opportunities for High School students (ex. job training with MATC and trade unions).

Should MPS reopen for in-person education this school year? What measures do you think need to be in place for that to happen?

The board just voted to reopen with 20 required conditions. I believe that with most staff vaccinated and class sizes set at 15-18 students we will be safe enough to open schools IF we keep a careful watch over infection rates in the city and classrooms. The staggered start and opening extra sites reduce student density which helps. Unfortunately, we dont know how many students are virtual versus in-person. 3 major concerns; the board made this decision without knowing accurate return numbers, we do not have enough staff and havent had enough staff for nearly 10 years and input from the MTEA and parents has not been consistent due to administrators not fully supporting their input. Success of this plan is still dependent on these concerns being resolved.

Looking ahead to this summer and next school year, what should MPS do to help students recover academically and emotionally from a year without in-person school?

Many of our staff and students have done an excellent job with virtual learning. Yes, there were academic and socio-emotional deficits that need addressing but the question assumes that all have fallen behind which is simply not true. Needed recovery efforts require a long-term approach by increasing funding for mental health and academic supports. Covid revealed and compounded the inequities. We need new funding formulas to reduce the deficits. Wisely, we should be using Covid relief funds to hire more educators and reduce student density. Then increase instruction time to generate real growth. That should be a permanent model. Reverting back to 30+ students in under staffed classrooms is just as damaging as the shutdown or worse.

What would you do as a school board member to improve education for Black and brown children?

Reduced class size will significantly improve the quality of education that every MPS child receives. 89% of our students are COC. Improvement hinges on this and increasing our teachers of color leading class instruction at MPS. Imagine reaching a point where our COC become successful in MPS and we then recruit from our own base of COC to become the next leaders in our classroom. In addition, we need to find a way to reduce the costs of becoming an educator. I have recruited numerous Paras/EAs into teacher prep programs but for adults raising their own children while working 2+ jobs, and taking a full academic load the obstacles can be too much. In order to meet the needs of hiring teachers of color we need to modify some policies.

Do you think MPS should continue authorizing independently-operated charter schools? What is your stance on charter schools and choice schools?

It is financially unwise for MPS to expand NICs/ICs especially when a charter school leaves MPS to go into the voucher system.Between that and the expansion of voucher schools MPS is becoming insolvent. MPS and the voucher system pull their money from the same source but many voucher schools have private money sources while MPS does not.This creates an unfair condition financially and the results go well beyond MPS.Insolvency will negatively affect every public worker including eventual pension reductions.Add the low accountability measures, class size advantages and yearly migration of voucher students back into MPS; the result is ever widening inequities hurting our COC again.Capping enrollments defends against that damage.

Learn more about Henry Leonard here.

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Meet The 2021 Milwaukee School Board Candidates - WUWM

If you could measure a countrys worth by the number of vapid start-ups it has produced, Italy would come up short. While Britain once produced half a million mostly obscure technology companies over the course of a single year, Italy has only just edged nine thousand in total.

So, when new Italian prime minister Mario Draghi promised to expand on his predecessors work of digitalizing Italian infrastructure and encouraging foreign investment, pundits foamed approvingly. Entrepreneur Matteo Berlucchi hailed the premiership of Draghi, the former chief of the European Central Bank, as an incredibly exciting opportunity, while Vittorio Colao, a former Vodafone executive and Italys new minister of innovation, had already spent pretty much the whole year tweeting breathlessly about innovation, or, as he puts it in his imported LinkedIn-ese, #innovation.

But while it is true that much of Italian life is blighted by technological inefficiencies vendors dont accept debit card, bus routes bear no earthly relation to their schedules on Google Maps, local government seems scarcely able to use email the digitalizzazione trope has proven over the years to be an obscenely wasteful canard, a dead horse that has been beaten, exhumed, revived, and then beaten again.

Mostly, when neoliberals talk about digitalization, it means investing in unproven startups. Its a trend that began in earnest in 2012, when Corrado Passera, then the Italian minister of economic innovation under the technocrat Mario Monti, passed legislation to deliver 200 million along with various tax incentives to young, underfunded startups, the aim being to promote social mobility and attract foreign talent and capital.

But the millions spent in an effort to compete with Silicon Valley were apparently millions wasted. While venture funding has grown in the years since, that didnt translate economically: the number of young people leaving the country continued to soar, and Italy is still written off as a technological backwater with the exception, perhaps, of the affluent North, where much of the taxpayer-subsidized Italian tech industry is based.

Meanwhile, as the number of tech workers and available tech jobs increased, youth unemployment rose regardless, reaching 30 percent last year. Nevertheless, the government has continued to hip-spray money in the general direction of tech, especially over the course of the pandemic, during which it was under the influence of a consortium of corporate lobbyists. Since 2019, the National Fund for Innovation, an investment arm of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (the Italian government bank), has committed around 245 million, out of over 1 billion under management, to over 480 startups.

But the barest of glances at the sorts of businesses being funded puts the lie to the notion that digitalization produces any social benefit beyond its titillating effect on venture capitalists bottom line. In the portfolios of Italian venture funds themselves often propped up by government funding are businesses that provide such dazzlingly useful services as offer[ing] mobility solutions by turning all kinds of vehicles into connected cars and help[ing] leading enterprises extract actionable insights from any kind of consumer data, saving them 90 percent of the time when doing research about the consumer experience. Tellingly, the funds involved have grown rapidly since their inception; the rest of the economy hasnt.

Digitalization can, of course, entail positive change. There has been a well-intentioned effort to digitize the Italian bureaucracy, primarily by means of the SPID (Public Digital Identity System), which seventeen million Italians have adopted despite the fact that, unhelpfully, the majority of public bodies havent. PagoPA, similarly, performs tax functions online again, though, uptake is wanting.

How much of the EU recovery fund money earmarked for digitalization will go into public rather than private coffers remains unclear. But Draghi heads a coalition which has so marginalized the Italian left that a great deal is certain to end up not only with startups and venture capital funds but incubators and innovation hubs and accelerators.

The previous government, under the dizzying influence of the techno-utopian fantasists of the Five Star Movement the former minister for innovation Paola Pisano was a member grew so infatuated with digitalization that, in focusing much of its energy on building digital super-banks and rolling out credit card cash-back schemes, it managed to leave the pandemic-struck health care system desperately underfunded.

Often, when pundits and politicians talk about digitalization, theyre actually talking about foreign investment. The perennial pleas for American megacorps to annex Italys workforce betray more than a hint of desperation. Recently, there was much adulation upon news that Elon Musks next big Gigafactory the biggest in Europe had been approved to be built in the province of Turin. Amazon, too, has been welcomed into Italy, although far from revitalizing the tech sector, the multinational is more likely to eat into small competitors.

Digitalization, viewed in this way, entails gig-economy wage slavery and unfulfilling work at the fulfillment center.

Such is the disease of the American cultural and economic monopoly. Gazing wistfully at California, countries like Italy feel the need to produce analogous Silicon Valleys of their own. But the real Silicon Valley doesnt care, and the result is a hopeless, sallow knockoff, leeching off the money and energy that could be used to actually make things better.

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Italy's Masses of Unemployed Can't Live Off Start-Ups Alone - Jacobin magazine

After an eventful 2020 marked by anti-slavery initiatives and a successful crowdfunding campaign, Outland Denim is continuing its goals of expansion in 2021. The B Corp-certified company is making its foray into ready-to-wear with Reset, a Spring/Summer 2021 capsule collection that demonstrates its range.

Reset is defined by luxurious fluid shapes with a subtle edge and Outlands know-how in sustainable and ethical manufacturing.All of the garments are crafted usingThe Maeka Standard, a set of guidelines established by the label that include providing a living wage and education for garment workers, ethical sourcing and more.

Our goal this year was to expand into ready-to-wear and provide more options for our customers who want to wear sustainably made clothes; clothes that match their values, said James Bartle, the companys founding CEO. This collection is about pieces youll look forward to wearing when youre not wearing denimstaples for your closet, and feel good, do good fashion.

The Reset collection includes 100 percent Tencel slip dresses, cotton button-down shirts and linen A-line skirts. Effortless swing dresses and shirt dresses are made with a blend of organic cotton and linen. Select fabrics were made using handlooms sourced from sustainable clothing manufacturer Five P, which honors the textile weaving heritage in Chennimalai, Southern India and creates an authentic, unique finish that cant be duplicated on modern machines.

Its color palette follows suit, with a collection of neutrals and faded rose punctuated by stripes and blue leopard print.

Though Outland has introduced a new logo T and the Origins T-shirt, which features original artwork by Australian artist Nelson Nokela, Reset is a departure from the number of denim brands venturing into sweats and loungewear. Considered a celebration of getting dressed, the line checks all of the boxes for the post-pandemic consumer looking to invest in fewer but more meaningful pieces for social events.

Denim remains a focus for Outland, however.The brands popular Harriet black jean, as made famous by Meghan Markle, is also back in stock, upgraded with SaveBlack technology that uses 85 percent less water in the dying process.

After learning about the global human trafficking epidemic, Bartle founded the company to employ women at risk and provide them with the skills they need to break out of the cycle of abuse. The brand has since earned recognition for its efforts and was short-listed for the Thomson Reuters Foundation Stop Slavery Award for Small and Medium Enterprises.

The Reset capsule collection is now available exclusively on Outlanddenim.com and retails for $135 to $295.

Read more here:

Outland Denim Ventures into Ready-to-Wear Territory with New Capsule Sourcing Journal - Sourcing Journal