Category Archives: Wage Slavery

EDITORS NOTE: The opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views ofLatino USA.

By Mauricio Sellmann Oliveira, Dartmouth College

Brazil has emerged as one of the worst-hit countries in the coronavirus crisis, with hundreds of thousands of cases affecting people from all backgrounds. But in the early weeks of the pandemic, in March, many victims of the disease had a similar profile: a maid infected by her employer.

The first confirmed COVID-19 patient in Brazils northeastern Bahia state was a woman recently returned from Italy. She infected her maid, who then infected her own 68-year-old mother.

On March 17, a 62-year-old live-in maid died from the novel coronavirus in Rio de Janeiro. Her COVID-19 positive employer had also traveled to Italy.

Domestic workers are central figures in Brazil, a hidden workforce that keeps society running. Most upper- and middle-class Brazilian households and even many lower-middle class homes employ an empregada domstica, or domestic employee. Brazil, with 209 million people, has 6 million maids, according to the government.

COVID-19 is bringing this enormous, often invisible workforce into sharp focus.

Brazilian domestic workers earn US$128 a month on average less than minimum wage though salary and working conditions vary greatly across social strata.

Some domestic employees are live-in maids, who usually work their entire adult lives for one family. Others are paid monthly, and commute daily to work. Then there are daily maids who serve multiple households, akin to U.S. house cleaners.

The tradition of domestic help can be traced back to the abolition of slavery in 1888, as I analyzed in my recent study on the evolution of Brazilian maids and their role in society.

After slavery ended in Brazil, the government left an estimated 1 million newly freed black people to survive with their own resources, which were usually none. Ninety-nine percent of black Brazilians were illiterate, according to Brazils 1890 census. Most took menial jobs, with black women largely relegated to live-in domestic work serving mostly white homes.

Black women still make up the majority of Brazils domsticas63% in 2018. Domestic work is so explicitly racialized in Brazil that, in 1994, soon-to-be Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso told reporters he had one foot in the kitchen to signal his mixed-race heritage.

These days, having two feet in the kitchen signals a disproportionate COVID-19 risk.

In April, the Health Ministry reported that black Brazilians made up a quarter of those hospitalized with severe COVID-19 but about a third of COVID-19 fatalities. And officials in So Paulo, the epicenter of the pandemic in Brazil, recently reported that black residents were 62% more likely to die of COVID-19 than the general population.

But Brazilian maids of all races are vulnerable in this crisis because most generally lack employment safeguards, commute long distances and are poor, with limited access to quality health care.

All intensive care beds in public hospitals from five states Par, Maranho, Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco and Cear are either occupied or soon will be, according to states reports. While wealthy COVID-19 patients can pay to be transported to top private hospitals in So Paulo or abroad, poorer Brazilians rely on the overwhelmed public health system.

Brazilian domestic workers exposure to the pandemic is economic as well as physical.

Approximately 4.3 million of Brazils 6 million maids are employed informally, meaning they arent registered with the government. As such, labor rights which include the $178 national minimum monthly wage and 30-day paid vacations do not apply.

Since early March, 39% of daily maids in Brazil have been let go. They are among the estimated 15 to 20 million Brazilians expected to be unemployed by July, according to several projections.

Though the Office of the Federal Labor Attorney officially recommends that maids receive paid leave to stay at home during the pandemic, only 39% of regular maids and 48% of daily maids have been given that benefit, according to the pollster Locomotiva.

Some states in Brazil have listed domestic work as an essential service, allowing them to continue workingassuming their employers will still pay them.

The plight of domestic workers is one of many ways the pandemic is shining a hard light on inequality in Brazil.

Brazils Congress in March passed an aid bill authorizing a monthly $102 emergency basic income payment to the newly unemployed, including informal workers. So far, however, little more than half of the 55 million people whove applied have received funds, due to faulty execution and bureaucratic delays. Lack of internet access and other poverty-related factors may prevent many millions more from even applying.

Brazilian maids are suffering in this pandemic, but not in silence. A federation of domestic workers unions called Fenatrad is challenging the state decrees that established domestic workers as essential service providers, pushing instead for this high-risk population to receive paid leave.

In early May, the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled that COVID-19 qualifies as an occupational illness for the purposes of workers compensation. This decision applies to maids.

Communities have created their own grassroots initiatives to support domestic workers, too. An Adopt a Daily Maid donation campaign is underway in So Paulos Paraispolis favela a slum settlement that abuts an upper-class district urging people with means to support house cleaners in the area.

And in a sign of the remarkable social mobility Brazil fostered in the boom years of the early 21st century, the first-generation college-educated children of maids started a Change.org petition asking employers to give domestic workers paid leave, advance vacation pay and isolate live-in maids who are at high COVID-19 risk. They later added a donations option to support vulnerable maids.

Maids belong to a group of workers that represents Brazil, reads the petition, which urges everyone raised by domestic workers to join their cause. So far, more than 90,000 people have signed on, for the lives of all our mothers.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Link:

In Brazil's Raging Pandemic, Domestic Workers Fear For Their LivesAnd Their Jobs - Latino USA

Click here to read the full article.

Brazil has emerged as one of the worst-hit countries in the coronavirus crisis, with hundreds of thousands of cases affecting people from all backgrounds. But in the early weeks of the pandemic, in March, many victims of the disease had a similar profile: a maid infected by her employer.

The first confirmed COVID-19 patient in Brazils northeastern Bahia state was a woman recently returned from Italy. She infected her maid, who then infected her own 68-year-old mother.

On March 17, a 62-year-old live-in maid died from the novel coronavirus in Rio de Janeiro. Her COVID-19 positive employer had also traveled to Italy.

Domestic workers are central figures in Brazil, a hidden workforce that keeps society running. Most upper- and middle-class Brazilian households and even many lower-middle class homes employ an empregada domstica, or domestic employee. Brazil, with 209 million people, has 6 million maids, according to the government.

COVID-19 is bringing this enormous, often invisible workforce into sharp focus.

High risk, no safety net

Brazilian domestic workers earn US$128 a month on average less than minimum wage though salary and working conditions vary greatly across social strata.

Some domestic employees are live-in maids, who usually work their entire adult lives for one family. Others are paid monthly, and commute daily to work. Then there are daily maids who serve multiple households, akin to U.S. house cleaners.

The tradition of domestic help can be traced back to the abolition of slavery in 1888, as I analyzed in my recent study on the evolution of Brazilian maids and their role in society.

After slavery ended in Brazil, the government left an estimated 1 million newly freed black people to survive with their own resources, which were usually none. Ninety-nine percent of black Brazilians were illiterate, according to Brazils 1890 census. Most took menial jobs, with black women largely relegated to live-in domestic work serving mostly white homes.

Story continues

Black women still make up the majority of Brazils domsticas 63% in 2018. Domestic work is so explicitly racialized in Brazil that, in 1994, soon-to-be Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso told reporters he had one foot in the kitchen to signal his mixed-race heritage.

These days, having two feet in the kitchen signals a disproportionate COVID-19 risk.

In April, the Health Ministry reported that black Brazilians made up a quarter of those hospitalized with severe COVID-19 but about a third of COVID-19 fatalities. And officials in So Paulo, the epicenter of the pandemic in Brazil, recently reported that black residents were 62% more likely to die of COVID-19 than the general population.

But Brazilian maids of all races are vulnerable in this crisis because most generally lack employment safeguards, commute long distances and are poor, with limited access to quality health care.

All intensive care beds in public hospitals from five states Par, Maranho, Rio de Janeiro, Pernambuco and Cear are either occupied or soon will be, according to states reports. While wealthy COVID-19 patients can pay to be transported to top private hospitals in So Paulo or abroad, poorer Brazilians rely on the overwhelmed public health system.

Economic devastation

Brazilian domestic workers exposure to the pandemic is economic as well as physical.

Approximately 4.3 million of Brazils 6 million maids are employed informally, meaning they arent registered with the government. As such, labor rights which include the $178 national minimum monthly wage and 30-day paid vacations do not apply.

Since early March, 39% of daily maids in Brazil have been let go. They are among the estimated 15 to 20 million Brazilians expected to be unemployed by July, according to several projections.

Though the Office of the Federal Labor Attorney officially recommends that maids receive paid leave to stay at home during the pandemic, only 39% of regular maids and 48% of daily maids have been given that benefit, according to the pollster Locomotiva.

Some states in Brazil have listed domestic work as an essential service, allowing them to continue working assuming their employers will still pay them.

Solidarity networks

The plight of domestic workers is one of many ways the pandemic is shining a hard light on inequality in Brazil.

Brazils Congress in March passed an aid bill authorizing a monthly $102 emergency basic income payment to the newly unemployed, including informal workers. So far, however, little more than half of the 55 million people whove applied have received funds, due to faulty execution and bureaucratic delays. Lack of internet access and other poverty-related factors may prevent many millions more from even applying.

Brazilian maids are suffering in this pandemic, but not in silence. A federation of domestic workers unions called Fenatrad is challenging the state decrees that established domestic workers as essential service providers, pushing instead for this high-risk population to receive paid leave.

In early May, the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled that COVID-19 qualifies as an occupational illness for the purposes of workers compensation. This decision applies to maids.

Communities have created their own grassroots initiatives to support domestic workers, too. An Adopt a Daily Maid donation campaign is underway in So Paulos Paraispolis favela a slum settlement that abuts an upper-class district urging people with means to support house cleaners in the area.

And in a sign of the remarkable social mobility Brazil fostered in the boom years of the early 21st century, the first-generation college-educated children of maids started a Change.org petition asking employers to give domestic workers paid leave, advance vacation pay and isolate live-in maids who are at high COVID-19 risk. They latter added a donations option to support vulnerable maids.

Maids belong to a group of workers that represents Brazil, reads the petition, which urges everyone raised by domestic workers to join their cause. So far, more than 90,000 people have signed on, for the lives of all our mothers.

Mauricio Sellmann Oliveira, Visiting Scholar, Dartmouth College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

Click here to read the full article.

Read the original here:

COVID-19 is Threatening Brazil's Domestic Workers and their Jobs - Yahoo News

With a knee to his neck and head against the concrete, George Floyd became the face of one of the largest uprisings in modern American history. His final moments at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers was replayed on social media and television all across a country that was already in crisis.

America is in an economic free fall as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. And it is black Americans who have been disproportionately impacted by mounting deaths and crushing job losses, making up a disproportionate number of the 42 million people left unemployed.

Black Americans, already subjected to generations of systemic racism, were now more likely to die from the coronavirus and also faced losing their jobs in higher numbers as a result of record unemployment.

George Floyd, then, was no exception.

State medical examiners confirmed this week that Floyd had contracted the coronavirus by late-April. He had also lost his job. But that didnt cause his death.

Instead, Floyd died from what historian Carol Anderson called the longest ongoing saga in American history.

We saw racial terror: a cop with a knee in [Floyds] neck, a soulless look and a casual disregard for life, she said. That angst and hurt came before we ever knew that [Floyd] had the virus, because it resonated with us as people.

At his memorial service on Thursday, family attorney Ben Crump said that Floyd had not died from coronavirus but that the pandemic of racism had taken his life.

While his death has come to symbolize the plight of black people navigating the criminal justice system, for many, Floyds life and the timing of his killing underscores the burden of being black in America, and created the spark that lit this weeks uprising.

It was bound to happen here in Minneapolis and all across the country, said Dara Beevas, a restaurateur and activist who has lived in the city for more than 15 years. She said that black communities are rendered nearly invisible, silencing inequality.

When you give people so many signals that their history, culture and humanity does not matter, you will see a rejection, a revolt, Beevas said.

Floyds life is a familiar story of falling or being knocked down and picking yourself back up as a black man in America. Although imperfect, he was a man described as hard-working by his peers in Minneapolis and a community staple and mentor, in his native Houston.

He left Texas for Minnesota in 2014, in search of better opportunities after being released from prison for aggravated robbery. The Great Migration of much of the 20th century saw millions of African Americans make that same journey, mostly attempting to escape racism in the south and in search of upward mobility in the north.

When you give people so many signals that their history, culture and humanity does not matter, you will see a rejection, a revolt

Instead racism violently confronted Floyd in Minnesota, a state in which black residents are more than 13 times more likely to be killed by police.

The states African American residents are only 6.8% of the population, concentrated primarily in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul. Like much of black America in densely populated cities, that is also where coronavirus cases have been highest. Black Minnesotans are 16% of the states nearly 25,000 confirmed cases and deaths.

The cardiovascular disease and hypertension cited in Floyds official autopsy are also underlying risk factors that make black Americans more susceptible to contracting and dying from the virus. Other risks factors include obesity and diabetes.

For Beevas, the multiple iniquities that face black Americans fell on deaf ears until they were amplified by screams of I cant breathe as Floyd lay dying on a Minneapolis street.

By standing up for [Floyd], an overlooked, yet over-policed community of people accustomed to not being seen stood up for themselves and that message spread all over, she said.

A report from the Economic Policy Institute unpacks how inequities exacerbated the impact of the coronavirus crisis on black communities.

Black people are twice as likely to lack health insurance and to live in medically underserved communities. They also represent a majority of workers in most essential industries, often putting them at the frontlines of the pandemic.

Elise Gould, lead researcher and senior economist, said when black workers lose their jobs, a history of discrimination and inequality can make rebounding harder.

[Black Americans already] experienced a much higher unemployment rate, larger wage gaps, have lower median household incomes and higher poverty rates, all things that keep them from being able to weather the storm of job loss.

When the restaurant where he worked shut down due to Minnesotas stay-at-home order, Floyd became one of the 44% of Africans Americans to lose their jobs.

Black Americans like him have felt the brunt of the economic spiral. The Federal Reserve found that of households making less than $40,000 a year, nearly 40% of those employed in Februarylost their jobs in Marchor at the beginning of April.

Thats nearly half of all black households.

Author and academic Carole Anderson contends that usually, multiple national crises happening at once sparks unrest. While headlines may describe these as unprecedented times, especially for African Americans, this is nothing new.

Were going to survive and there will be no turning back

Abolitionists were essential to getting America into a Civil War, Anderson noted. They refused to let the US slide by pretending that slavery wasnt a horrific practice.

Still, she acknowledges theres a different energy this time, and not just because Floyds is one of the most egregious modern examples of the contradiction between what [the US] says it stands for versus what it really is.

Anderson places the difference squarely on who is leading a preventable, yet unprecedented crisis: Donald Trump.

She fought back tears as she recalled watching Floyds last moments, weeping in horror as she heard a man call out for his mother who had died two years earlier. For her, it was the cry of a man who had given up.

For others, it was a call to action.

Dionne Smith-Downs traveled from California to attend one of Minneapolis many protests since Floyds death. She lost her own son to police violence in 2010, so when Floyd called out for the mothers, she felt it personally.

When he said Mama, I knew I had to come, she told Breakthrough News. I heard him and that is why Im here.

All four police officers involved in his arrest have been fired. Derek Chauvin, the 19-year veteran seen kneeling on Floyds neck, has been charged with second degree murder and manslaughter while the other three officers were charged as witnesses.

American history is littered with promises of atonement and reform, but theyve been mostly left unfulfilled, even after the police killings that gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Protests are bigger this time because theres finally more of an understanding that the onus isnt on black people to resolve this, Beevas said. Were no longer questioning the existence of oppression. Our communities have been saying I cannot breathe for centuries.

Its just a matter of America listening now, she said. Floyds life and death resonated because, for many, the story of struggle, triumph, and perseverance only to fall victim to an unequal system is that of black history in America.

Georgia congressman John Lewis, one of the original Freedom Riders who was notoriously beaten by mobs during the civil rights movement, remarked on the NBCs Today Show Thursday that while he been down this road before, this time gives [him] hope as a nation, and as a people.

Were going to get there. Were going to make it, he said, signaling to a new generation of leaders combating a generational struggle. Were going to survive and there will be no turning back.

Continue reading here:

In life and death, George Floyd's plight reflected the burden of being black in America - The Guardian

The issue of reparation for slavery has been raised by descendants of slaves in the Americas and the Caribbean for several years now. The belief that white Americans owe black Americans amoral debtfor compensation for slavery, Jim Crow and long-standing racism has been ongoing since emancipation.

Critics of reparation say that it would be difficult to make fair calculations as to how much victims would take and in what form, considering the years involved. And though attitudes towards reparations for slavery tend to polarize the U.S., BET founder Robert Johnsonbelieves that now is the time to go big on reparations to help prevent the country from splitting into separate and unequal societies.

In an interview with CNBC on Monday, Johnson said the U.S. government should provide $14 trillion of reparations for slavery to help reduce inequality.

His comments come on the back of protests across the U.S. that have largely focused on racial injustice, the wealth divide and police brutality following the death of unarmed black man George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer.

Wealth transfer is whats needed, said Johnson. Think about this. Since 200-plus-years or so of slavery, labor taken with no compensation, is a wealth transfer. Denial of access to education, which is a primary driver of accumulation of income and wealth, is a wealth transfer, said the entrepreneur and media mogul, who became Americas first black billionaire when he sold BET toViacomin 2001.

The 74-year-old philanthropist argued that paying reparations or what he calls the affirmative action program of all time, would demonstrate that white Americans acknowledge damages that are owed for the injustices slavery created.

Damages is a normal factor in a capitalist society for when you have been deprived for certain rights, he said. If this money goes into pockets like the [coronavirus] stimulus checks that money is going to return back to the economy in the form of consumption, adding that there will also be more black-owned businesses.

Federal Reserve data show that Black and Hispanic families have considerably less wealth than white families. Black families median and mean net worth is less than 15 percent that of white families, at $17,600 and $138,200, respectively.

Johnson, who has been supporting reparations for some time now, said hes not advocating more bureaucratic programs that dont deliver and dont perform, adding Im talking about cash. We are a society based on wealth. Thats the foundation of capitalism.

The topic of reparations made headlines last year when Democratic presidential hopefuls began throwing their weight behind the idea.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who announced her full support for reparations for black Americans affected by slavery, said last February: We must confront the dark history of slavery and government-sanctioned discrimination in this country that has had many consequences including undermining the ability of Black families to build wealth in America for generations.

Over the years, those who have supported reparations say it is necessary to help redress the wrongs of slavery and racial discrimination. It would also help to resolve the continuing troubles of Americas black community. It is documented thatblack Americans continuing poverty is a result of America deliberately frustrating the efforts of black Americans to accumulate and retain wealth until the 1980s.

Nationwide polling shows, however, that compensation for those affected by slavery is an unpopular policy.

In the journalSocial Science Quarterly, a University of Connecticut researcher, Thomas Craemer estimated that it would cost between $5.9 trillion and $14.2 trillion to give historical reparations.

The journal, cited byNewsweek, said Craemer came up with those figures by tabulating how many hours all slaves worked in the United States from when the country was officially established in 1776 until 1865 when slavery was officially abolished.

He subsequently multiplied the amount of time they worked by average wage prices at the time, and then a compounding interest rate of 3 percent per year to calculate the reparation figure.

Reparations will never bring one life back, and its totally inadequate to the terror of the [past], but having a meaningful symbol of reparations is a good thing, not just for recipients but for the people who provide it,Craemersaid.

See the rest here:

'Now is the time' - BET founder Robert Johnson wants US to pay $14 trillion in slavery reparations - Face2Face Africa

Mass protests and rioting following the killing of yet another African-American by a white police officer have compounded multiplying crises in the United States. Between the COVID-19 pandemic, a looming economic depression, and persistent racism, the American social contract has never been in more need of reform.

MEXICO CITY The wave of anger and indignation sweeping the United States in response to George Floyds death at the hands of a Minneapolis policeman exposes the myriad contradictions of American society. With a presidential election less than six months away, the US is gripped by despair and violent polarization. Yet if one looks through the triple crisis of COVID-19, economic depression, and mass protests and rioting, one can glimpse enormous potential opportunities.

As I show in my new book, America Through Foreign Eyes, since the US ceased to be a middle-class society, starting in the early 1980s, it has been incapable of thriving. Without a full-fledged welfare state, it has consistently failed to adapt to a fundamental shift in its founding paradigm. Its Athenian-inspired political system was built for a society that treated everyone within the circle of enfranchisement as roughly equal, while excluding many others whom it deemed less equal (to borrow from George Orwells biting description of Bolshevism). The out-groups included women, Native Americans, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and many others.

As a result of these founding conditions, the US political system has long proved ill-equipped to retool its safety net, let alone its broader social contract. To take the most recent example, consider then-President Barack Obamas attempts to fix the US deeply flawed and dysfunctional health-care system. Though the Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010, it contained many loopholes and half-measures, and has since been systematically undermined by Donald Trumps administration.

Race is a central flashpoint in Americas political evolution. Racial disparities have always underscored why the social contract needs to be expanded to beyond the fully employed white males of yesteryear. But the persistence of these disparities indicates that there are immense hurdles standing in the way of change. Trumps cynical effort to stoke racial resentment in response to the current protests is emblematic of the deeper problem. But so, too, was the Democratic Partys primary, which quickly winnowed out all candidates of color.

Race is a key factor not just in demands for reparations for slavery, but also in debates about universal health insurance and childcare, tuition-free public higher education, the minimum wage, immigration, gun control, and Electoral College reform. All of these issues touch on the fundamental question at the heart of Americas political identity: Can the countrys original sin (slavery, followed by Jim Crow) be expiated without a proper welfare state?

The outpouring of frustration and anger following Floyds death has once again brought these questions into sharper focus. Over the past year, polls have consistently shown that Americans support proposals to expand the safety net, tighten gun control, and provide tuition-free college. The public also increasingly accepts the idea that African-Americans continue to bear the costs of systemic racism, from red-lining of neighborhoods and workplace discrimination to mass incarceration and abuse at the hands of police. The current explosion of rage will solidify these shifts in sentiment, whatever the electoral consequences.

Enjoy unlimited access to the ideas and opinions of the world's leading thinkers, including weekly long reads, book reviews, and interviews; The Year Ahead annual print magazine; the complete PS archive; and more all for less than $2 a week.

Subscribe Now

The same is true of the COVID-19 pandemic and the broader economic collapse. The racial and socioeconomic disparities revealed by both crises have led political leaders, experts, and commentators from left to moderate right to agree that Americas safety net is in tatters.

From insufficient testing and inadequate supplies of personal protective equipment to the disproportionately higher mortality rate among African-Americans, the pandemic has laid bare the weaknesses of the US health-care system. And at the same time, the economic debacle has highlighted the shortcomings of US unemployment insurance and other social programs, as well as a lack of coordination between federal, state, and local governments. Just as the pandemic has demonstrated the efficiency of the German, Scandinavian, and even French safety nets, it has exposed the gaping holes in the US system.

Owing to the triple crisis posed by the pandemic, depression, and civil unrest, there is a growing awareness among Democrats that beating Trump in November will not be enough. The focus groups that Joe Biden, the partys presumptive nominee, has set up, and his campaigns ongoing discussions with potential running mates, all point to a realization that the crisis is even deeper than originally anticipated, and will require radical change.

Biden may not be the ideal candidate to mobilize and excite young black and Hispanic voters, but he is certainly capable of leading the kind of coalition needed to defeat Trump and launch a New Deal-like overhaul of US social, economic, and political structures. Americans may not want socialism, but they will no longer be content with a return to normalcy (Bidens primary-season slogan, which he will now have to discard).

Winston Churchills aphorism about not letting a good crisis go to waste is relevant once again. With the COVID-19 death toll above 100,000, 40 million unemployed, and another black man killed by a white cop, Americas crises are multiplying. For now, the country is beset not just by protests and rioting over police abuses, but also by a resurgent white-supremacist alt-right. The underlying crises will come to a head politically on Election Day. Not since 1932 has America been more in need of radical change and sound leadership than it is today.

Link:

From Riots to Reform in America by Jorge G. Castaeda - Project Syndicate

George Floyds death at the hands of Minneapolis police has become emblematic of the potentially deadly risk of being black in America. But its not just his death that illustrates the countrys racial disparities. His life, especially amid the coronavirus, did as well.

Floyd, 46, had lost his job as a restaurant bouncer due to stay-at-home orders in his state. Of the millions of Americans laid off or furloughed during the coronavirus crisis, black workers are likelier to be affected than white workers.

The medical examiner who examined Floyds body said that underlying conditions likely contributed to his death, which came after now-former police officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd to the ground with his knee for several minutes. They are among the underlying health conditions that black Americans disproportionately suffer from and that have contributed to higher rates of illness and death from Covid-19.

Centuries of racism and systemic inequality continuously disadvantage, disrupt, and cut short black lives in the United States. Currently, black Americans are experiencing multiple crises layered on top of one another. Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and, most recently, Floyd have lost their lives to white violence and police in recent weeks. Now mass protests are sweeping the country as a pandemic is wreaking havoc on black communities, in terms of both health and economics.

A new report from the Economic Policy Institute delves into the myriad ways racial and economic inequality have exacerbated the impact of the coronavirus crisis on black communities.

Millions of black workers have lost their jobs during the pandemic, putting them at a high degree of economic insecurity, in part because theyve had lower incomes and less savings already.

Of those whove kept their jobs, many more are putting their health at risk black workers are less likely to have jobs that allow them to work from home a risk magnified by inequalities in the health care system and a higher prevalence of underlying health conditions.

Yes, people are dying across the country, but it is concentrated among certain areas, said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, who produced the report with Valerie Wilson, director of EPIs program on race, ethnicity, and the economy. This is not some sort of great equalizer.

These many inequalities work in tandem, and centuries and decades of systemic racism and disadvantages play out in multiple damaging and tragic ways. The Covid-19 mortality rate for black Americans is 2.4 times the rate it is for white Americans. Black people are nearly three times likelier to be killed by police than whites.

The coronavirus story is one about both health and the economy, and EPIs report delves into both to look at how black workers and their families have been impacted.

Although the current strain of the coronavirus is one that humans have never experienced before, the disparate racial impact of the virus is deeply rooted in historic and ongoing social and economic injustices, the researchers write. Persistent racial disparities in health status, access to health care, wealth, employment, wages, housing, income, and poverty all contribute to greater susceptibility to the virus both economically and physically.

Covid-19 has sort of split workers into different groups: people who have lost their jobs, people who have been deemed essential workers, and people who have kept their jobs and have been able to work from home. Black workers are likelier to find themselves in the first two groups than the third.

The unemployment rate for black workers was higher than whites pre-pandemic and now. From February to April, more than one in six black workers lost their jobs, and as of April, less than half of the adult black population had jobs. Black workers unemployment rates are higher than white workers at every level of education.

And because of longstanding inequities, when black households lose incomes, the situation for them is extra precarious.

There is a wage gap between black workers and white workers that holds across gender, wage percentile, and education. The overall average wage for black workers in 2019 was $21.05; for white workers, it was $28.66.

Black households have lower incomes and higher poverty rates than white households, theyre less likely to have multiple earners, and they have less cash reserves to draw on in times of need.

As of 2016, black households had on average $8,762 in reserves, and white households had $49,529, five times that amount.

According to one recent University of Chicago study, 55 percent of black households say they dont have savings for unexpected shocks, compared to 38 percent of white households, and black families struggle more to be able to spend on the goods and services they need in moments of crisis.

Where black workers havent lost their jobs, many of them have been deemed essential during the pandemic. According to EPI, black workers generally make up one in nine workers, but theyre one in six front-line workers right now. And theyre disproportionately in essential jobs that are also low-wage ones at grocery stores and pharmacies, in public transit, in health care, and in child care.

That leaves them at greater exposure to the virus and contributes to higher rates of illness and death from Covid-19 among black communities. Per EPI:

African Americans share of those who have died from COVID-19 nationally is nearly double (1.8 times higher than) their share of the U.S. population. The ratios are even higher in some states: in Wisconsin and Kansas, the rate of African American deaths is more than four times as high as their share of the population in those states. ... By comparison, whites account for a smaller share of deaths than their share of the population.

Black workers are less likely to have paid sick leave than whites, theyre less likely to be insured, and they have higher rates of chronic illnesses that may make them more vulnerable to coronavirus. EPI notes that black workers and their families are also likelier to live in densely populated housing, and they often live in multigenerational households. Younger members of the family who go to work then risk coming home and making older members sick.

As Fabiola Cineas wrote in April for Vox, just a smidgen of Covid-19 data on race tells the story of systemic oppression of black people in the United States. Hundreds of years of slavery, racism, and discrimination have compounded to deliver poor health and economic outcomes for black people heart disease, diabetes, and poverty, for starters that are only being magnified under the unforgiving lens of the coronavirus pandemic. And negligible efforts to redress black communities are being agitated like a bees nest prodded with a stick, she wrote.

In Minnesota, the epicenter of the Floyd protests, black people make up 7 percent of the states population but 16 percent of its confirmed coronavirus cases, my colleague Dylan Scott notes, though its not clear whether theyre dying at a higher rate. And nonwhite Minnesotans have experienced more economic pain during the pandemic as well.

On Monday, former President Barack Obama penned a Medium post on the Floyd protests. He outlined his thoughts on how to transform the moment into meaningful change and also acknowledged the anguish of the current moment. I recognize that these past few months have been hard and dispiriting that the fear, sorrow, uncertainty, and hardship of a pandemic have been compounded by tragic reminders that prejudice and inequality still shape so much of American life, he wrote.

The country is experiencing a cascade of compounding crises and the weight of the moment is falling on the shoulders of black Americans in countless ways.

Support Voxs explanatory journalism

Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Voxs work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.

Go here to read the rest:

George Floyd, coronavirus, and the cascade of crises in black America - Vox.com

But the death toll only tells one side of the story. The other side is the anger of being unable to see or touch your deceased loved one for the last time. Its a different type of grief, says Carolyn Whigham, my mothers longtime partner and co-owner of Whigham Funeral Home in Newark, N.J. This is where you snot. Cry. Stomp. Shout. Cuss. Spit.

I asked Carolyn and my mom, Terry Whigham, about their experiences as Black undertakers during the coronavirus outbreak. The stories they shared speak to the scandalous nature of the pandemic. Were not only grieving our dead. Were grieving the inability to properly grieve.

This is not our new normal. This is the death of normal.

THERE WAS NEVER a dull moment growing up in a Black funeral home. After school, my brother and I played hide-and-seek between and inside caskets. Our chores included rolling old Star-Ledger newspapers used to prop up bodies for wakes. In the summers, when I wasnt at basketball camp, I passed out peppermints and tissues to family members of the deceased. I knew I didnt want to make a living burying the dead. But I was spellbound by the way we mourn.

Service after service I witnessed the electricity and elegance of Black grief. The adorned body laid out in an open casket. Elders dressed in their Sunday best tarrying and telling stories of the good ol days. Teenagers with a classmates face emblazoned on R.I.P. T-shirts. A spirited eulogy followed by a festive repast where soul food is served and family drama unfolds.

Its a ritual of death transformed into a celebration of life.

For Black communities, who have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, bans on funerals have been particularly devastating. I understand why. Not only did I grow up in a Black funeral home, but Im currently finishing my dissertation on African American mourning.

Burial traditions have long animated African American culture, politics, and resistance. During slavery, insurrectionists like Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner plotted rebellions at slave funerals. A year before the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Mamie Till held an open-casket service for her slain son so the world could see what they did to my baby. The publication of the images of Emmett Tills mutilated body, many historians argue, was the match that sparked the civil rights movement.

Three years ago, white supremacist Dylann Roof walked into Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., and slaughtered nine black parishioners. The day after President Barack Obama eulogized pastor and state senator Clementa Pinckney, activist Bree Newsome scaled a 30-foot pole at the South Carolina State House and removed the Confederate flag. I was hoping that somehow they would have the dignity to take the flag down before his casket passed by, she said in an interview after her arrest.

What does this have to do with the coronavirus? Black grief does not begin or end at the funeral procession regardless of how someone has died. Our dead live on in the food we eat, the songs we sing, the children we raise, the ballots we cast, the movements we build, and the dreams we struggle to make real. But how can African Americans work through the psychological wage of unfathomable grief without the sound of a Hammond B-3 organ, or tender touch of an auntie, or the smell of cornbread and candied yams, or the sight of our loved ones beautified body?

Could your big mama cook? Did you save any of her recipes? Carolyn asks a family friend whose grandmother, who was known for her peach cobbler, passed away from COVID-19. No, because it was all in how big mama did the crust, the granddaughter explained.

Well, maybe grandma couldnt write down how to do the crust but did you stand over her shoulder and watch how she kneaded that flour? Carolyn asks. She wants to make sure that what remains in the wake of loss doesnt pass away with grandma.

The great poet and activist Amiri Baraka, whom my family funeralized in jazzy splendor, spoke to this in his book Eulogies: I want to help pass on what needs to live on not just in the archive but on the sidewalk of Afro-America itself.

How do we keep that tradition alive amid deserted sidewalks and overcrowded morgues? Hell, how do we keep ourselves alive as we witness, once again, Black death go viral?

I HEARD ABOUT the killing of Ahmaud Arbery the day after my friends father died of COVID-19. Then I heard about the killing of Breonna Taylor by police officers who burst into the wrong home to look for a suspect who was already in custody in Louisville, Ky. Then 21-year-old Dreasjon Reed and 19-year-old McHale Rose, two Black men killed by Indianapolis police within an eight-hour stretch. Then, before I could finish writing this story, George Floyd, another Black man, was killed by a white police officer, who pinned him to the ground for eight minutes as he pleaded for his deceased mother and yelled I cant breathe, echoing Eric Garners last words.

I refuse to watch the videos of the killings of Ahmaud, Dreasjon, or George. Ive seen the reel too many times. Different city, different cop, different circumstances. Same horror story. But when I heard that a detective in Indianapolis said its going to be a closed casket, homie, evidently referring to Dreasjons funeral, I lost it.

Unfortunately, Im used to police playing judge, jury, and executioner. But this officer had the audacity to assume the role of an undertaker, too. Its nauseating.

Black people are not only dying at alarming rates from the virus. Were still dying from pre-existing conditions of racial injustice. There is no ban on police brutality during this pandemic. We are losing jobs and loved ones. Police are dragging us off buses for not wearing masks, while prison officials are withholding personal protective equipment to our loved ones behind bars.

Truth is: The pandemic is unprecedented but all too familiar. The endless grief hits close to home. In one year, my family buried my brother, father, and grandmother. My mom visits my brothers crypt almost every day. Between funerals, she steals away and sits with his remains. For Thanksgiving she brings him pork chops smothered in gravy. His favorite. On the anniversary of his transition, as she likes to call it, she gives his shrine a makeover and sings Sam Cookes A Change Gon Come. Chad had an old soul.

I last saw my brother on his 32nd birthday, four days before a heart attack took his last breath away. My memory of his funeral comes in shards. I remember the sound of the drums and the look on my moms face and me laughing quietly to myself at the idea that he had won our final game of hide-and-seek.

In the midst of our own grief, my family has provided dignified memorial services to Black people in New Jersey, including Sarah Vaughan, Amiri Baraka, Whitney Houston, and the countless beautiful lives whose names and stories dont make national headlines. Like the daughter of the woman who banged on the funeral home window. A week later, the woman held her shirt still as my mom, standing a short distance away in personal protective equipment, pinned a brooch that contained a photo of her daughter whod just been cremated.

The woman wept and said, Its the little things that mean so much.

Shes right. A spirit of care and compassion sits at the heart of our heroic efforts to stay alive, too.

In the midst of all of the death and violence, Black people continue to fight back, risking our lives to save others. I witnessed hundreds of protesters wearing face masks chanting Whose streets? Our streets! at the intersection of West 62nd Street and Michigan Road in Indianapolis, where Dreasjon was shot and killed. I thought about the residents of Canfield Drive in Ferguson, Mo., who, before Mike Browns blood had dried, planted flowers between teddy bears and empty liquor bottles to commemorate his death. I pictured Bree bringing down the Confederate flag, and the heartaches and heartbeats of Black joggers as they ran with Ahmaud. Today, I marvel at the bravery of people across the country protesting Georges killing and resisting patterns of police violence amidst the deadliest pandemic in over a century.

Even Carolyn and my mother who dont consider themselves activists provided a hearse for a funeral procession protest honoring the memory of the 45 inmates who have died from the virus in New Jersey prisons.

My familys funeral home embodies the incredibly essential work before us all today: burying our dead while refusing to let death have the last word.

Nyle Fort is a minister, activist, and Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University. Follow him on Twitter @nylefort.

Excerpt from:

Refusing to give death the last word - The Boston Globe

Like white-collar professionals across the nation, I have had to fumble through my fair share of mind-numbing Zoom meetings over the past two and a half months. But last week, a friend and colleague put together what proved to be a particularly enjoyable and constructive meeting for black faculty.

The meeting began, as they often do, with a round of introductions. But because this was a check-in meeting, the organizer asked that attendees share a word that best described our feelings at the moment.

Unnerved by both the murder of George Floyd and the uncertainties COVID-19 has created for higher education, a number of my coworkers used words like anxious and cynical to describe their state of mind.

I shared my colleagues frustrations and anxieties; however, when it was my turn to take the virtual mic, the first word that came to mind was validated. Validation might seem an odd choice in a moment punctuated by yet another painful example of police brutality and President Donald Trumps dictatorial posturing. But since this was a meeting of tenured and tenure-track black professors a group that, by definition, works in a world of well-educated and purportedly enlightened people I wasnt reflecting on the brutal and senseless murder of George Floyd in that moment. My thoughts centered on black bird-watching enthusiast Christian Coopers recent encounter in New York Citys Central Park with white investment banker Amy Cooper (no relation).

Amy Cooper, as everyone knows at this point, attempted to have Christian Cooper arrested, if not swatted by the NYPD, because he had the temerity to insist that she leash her dog in compliance with park rules. If Mr Cooper had not recorded the incident on his smartphone, who knows what tragedy Amy Coopers despicable behavior might have wrought? But thanks to the video evidence, Ms Cooper has not only been fired from her job, but the New York City Commission on Human Rights has announced that it is launching a probe into her actions.

As a leftist, I cant rejoice in the termination of workers even a racist investment banker who engage in off-the-clock behavior their employers frown upon, because of the chilling implications, for all of us, of granting our bosses this kind of power. Nevertheless, I have derived a sense of affirmation from this event as it has unfolded to date. Why?

Well, as an African American who is fortunate enough to have a fulfilling career, I have had many encounters with Amy Coopers over the years one of which instantly came to mind when I saw the video.

My first year in a tenure-track academic job, I was ABD (all but dissertation) on an active tenure clock. For those who are not familiar with academia, this meant that I had yet to complete my doctoral thesis when I was hired. It also meant that there were simply not enough hours in the day during my first year on the job.

I loved my job. But after a few months, I started to pick up on an uncomfortable vibe from some in and around my department. Specifically, I was frequently subjected to questions about how I was spending my time away from the office. In fact, one coworker regularly greeted me with, What are you doing here? Youre never around.

I wasnt sure what to make of the refrain, since I was always in the office when I needed to be. I taught my classes and held my office hours, but at the end of each workday, I went straight home to write the remaining chapter of my dissertation and a semesters worth of lectures. So the characterization was not only perplexing, but the frequency of the claim made clear that something was amiss.

I eventually learned, at the start of my second year (think about how long this was going on), that a more senior colleague a white woman with whom I had rarely spoken had taken to telling colleagues I was never around the office because I was too busy enjoying the single life.

I was shocked and, frankly, deeply hurt that a colleague would have attempted to undermine me in this way. I had resisted the urge to confront her for a couple of weeks, until two of my students asked me one day after class, Dr Reed [obviously, I finished my dissertation on schedule], are you okay? Apparently, I seemed so sad and deflated that they thought I was in mourning.

Since the situation was beginning to undermine my job performance, I knew I had to speak with my coworker. But I was afraid to confront her. I was afraid because I had already witnessed this person successfully cast a colleague who was also a man of color as the aggressor in a conflict that she had not only initiated but in which she was actually the aggressor.

Simply put, my fear was rooted in the fact that I had already seen my colleague Amy Cooper a male colleague of color.

I spent days crafting and rehearsing a carefully constructed opening, as well as talking points that would discourage her from casting me as an aggressor. In the absence of witnesses smartphones did not yet exist only her account and mine would serve as the record of our exchange, and I knew from both recent and not-so-recent experiences which one of us was likely to get the benefit of the doubt in the trial of public opinion.

Thankfully, the situation resolved favorably. My now former colleague was contrite and, ultimately, dialed back. Still, she did damage to me in the workplace, as her characterization followed me even after my (tor)mentor left the university.

Although I am not a fan of the constant surveillance we live with today, I am grateful that Christian Coopers video has impressed upon many white Americans something that I, and other black people, have long known. Racists and racial opportunists come in many packages.

Indeed, Ms Cooper is the antithesis of what many people would think of as a racist. She is a well-educated, cosmopolitan, white-collar professional who supported President Barack Obama and the presidential ambitions of Mayor Pete Buttigeig. She is, moreover, polished enough that even at the height of her anger, she called the black man she falsely identified as a threat an African American rather than using a racial slur.

Since the incident went viral, Ms Cooper has indicated that she is both mortified by her actions and does not understand herself to be a racist. I have no reason to doubt either the sincerity of Ms Coopers apology or the depth of the shame that informs it. Still, I also know that when it comes to racism, peoples stated beliefs, attitudes, and behavior often occupy different planes.

Americans tend to think of racists as ignorant and/or hateful people. This is probably why so many equate noncollege educated whites with racists. But since only the most self-loathing among us would describe ourselves as ignorant or hateful, even racists tend not to identify as such hence the perennial paradoxical disclaimer: Im not a racist, but Ms Cooper is, of course, neither ignorant nor is there reason to presume her to be a fundamentally hateful person. Still, her treatment of Christian Cooper revealed her commitment, conscious or not, to a racialist understanding of the world one in which black men are predators and white women are their prey.

There were no doubt many factors condensed in this encounter that Ms Cooper sought to use to her advantage. Women, of whatever race or class, can be subject to aggressive or dangerous male behavior in public settings. A class and cultural context that fosters a popular understanding of microaggression that can blur the distinction between hurt feelings and criminal assault may have also helped Ms Cooper convince herself at least enough to sound persuasive to a 911 dispatcher that her life was in danger. Finally, broken windows stress policing normalized in the 1990s by the Giuliani administration has long encouraged individuals of Ms Coopers race and class to expect the NYPD to protect them from generic threats, or even annoyances, posed by mainly black and brown social and economic inferiors.

This approach to law enforcement which is common in cities characterized by neoliberalisms stark inequities has not only contributed to the militarization of municipal police forces, but it has likely reinforced the inclinations of police officers such as Derek Chauvin to take on the additional roles of judge, jury, and executioner.

Amy Cooper attempted to take advantage of a toxic, potentially deadly racial stereotype for an ephemeral gain (not being held accountable for her violation of park rules).

Worse yet, she knew as evinced by the fact that she forewarned Christian Cooper of her intention to falsely accuse an African American man of threatening her just how dangerous the possible outcome of her lie could have been.

If Ms Coopers actions represent an extreme example of racially informed and self-serving behavior, they also offer a window onto the quotidian experiences of black and brown men in the United States that not only makes plain the problems with characterizing African American men as a privileged class, but also highlights the enduring importance of affirmative action and other anti-discrimination policies.

As I have argued elsewhere, policies like affirmative action are important not as a form of reparations for past wrongs, but as a check on the prejudicial actions of individuals and the discriminatory effects of institutional practices in the present.

I stress this point because I am among a group of left black and brown scholars who are sometimes erroneously cast as class reductionists because we insist on following through on the full implications of the social constructiveness of race.

Race is not a useful biological category, if only because the continental groupings that comprise the races are far too large and fluid to share meaningful genetic commonalities. Instead, laws and customs informed by demographic, political, and economic developments determine the parameters of so-called racial groups. Simply, race is a two-centuries-old ideological project that insists on treating inequities that are the product of human endeavors slavery, colonialism, and inequities organic to capital accumulation as if they were hatched by natural processes.

Racism is thus not about ignorance or even hatred, though racists can be guilty of both, of course, but is, at its core, an attachment to the existence of biological or quasi-biological races.

If racism is an unambivalent or even vague belief in the existence of races, then to suggest that race is not real is not to deny the existence of racism. Since we are social animals, peoples commitment to a belief system ensures an ideologys influence its realness in the realm of social interactions.

For example, by definition, Christians believe that Christ was the son of God. The fact that billions of Jews, Muslims, and atheists necessarily reject this belief does not change the fact that billions of Christians embrace it. Likewise, the fact that more than half the worlds population rejects this fundamental tenet of Christianity is inconsequential to Christianitys influence over political and social movements ranging from colonialism to the modern civil rights movement.

To cut to the quick, racism the belief in races is unquestionably real, even if races are not.

By demonstrating the potential deadly implications of racial discourse that casts black men as dangerous predators, Christian Coopers video validates long-standing complaints about racism and shines harsh light on a chronic source of anxiety felt by African Americans across class lines. Indeed, Christian Coopers video amplifies the realness of racism and offers a glimpse onto its consequences.

Since racial discrimination can have a devastating effect on peoples lives, anti-discrimination policies are necessary. But to insist on the necessity of policies like affirmative action is not to imply that they are sufficient.

Anti-discrimination legislation such as the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 has mitigated racial inequities by opening pathways, principally, at this point, for well-educated blacks to the middle and upper classes. But these and other anti-discrimination policies have failed to eliminate disparities, because earning power for all but top wage earners has been on a fifty-year decline.

According to sociologist Robert Manduca, median black household income increased, between 1968 and 2016, from the 25th percentile to the 35th percentile, while median white household income moved from the 54th to the 57th percentile. Despite the relative gains blacks have made with the aid of anti-discrimination policies the wage and wealth gap has barely budged since 1968 because automation, the slow death of the union movement, and public-sector retrenchment have contributed to a decline in real income for the bottom 80 percent of American workers.

The good news is that the relative gains blacks have made over the past few decades have prevented the racial income gap from worsening. Indeed, according to Manduca, had blacks not made any relative progress over a period in which income gains have been confined to the top 20 percent of wage earners, the ratio of median black to white household income would have fallen from 57 percent to 44 percent between 1968 and 2016.

But had wages remained constant over the past fifty years, black-white family income ratio would have risen from 57 percent to 70 percent.

Its not unreasonable to attribute neoliberalisms disproportionate impact on blacks, in part, to the historic legacy of racism. But it is important to situate African Americans historic and contemporary experiences within the broader currents of American political economy.

The Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were enacted more than a decade into what would eventually be known as deindustrialization. Practically, this meant that the pathways working-class whites had traveled from the tenements to the suburbs a trail blazed by a strong union movement and robust public expenditures for housing and education had already narrowed by the time the civil rights movements greatest legislative victories cleared the formal barriers to black upward mobility.

Had this legislation been passed a generation earlier, it is likely the racial wealth gap either would not exist or would be far less pronounced.

So those of us who insist that the elimination of racial disparities requires social-democratic policies a right to a job at a living wage, taxpayer-funded (free) higher education, and national health care are not denying the existence of racism, even if race is only about as real as the Easter Bunny. Nor are we suggesting that there is no longer a need for anti-discrimination policies far from it. I may not know Amy Cooper personally, but I am very familiar with her modus operandi.

We do insist, however, that narrow demands for policies intended to redress disparities, at the expense of policies centered on downward redistribution of wealth, are the equivalent of demands for berths on a higher deck on a sinking ship.

Link:

Why I'm Still Thinking About the Amy Cooper Black Birder Episode in Central Park - Jacobin magazine

The events of the past week in the United States, beginning with the death of Afro-American George Floyd by police abuse in Minneapolis, are generating concern and analysis throughout the country, and in the rest of the world. Beyond demanding justice in the Floyd case, the protests express rejection of a system with various levels of citizenry and inequalities regarding their protection and the application of justice.

In the midst of so many social network contesters in which Tyrians and Trojans use police violence and that of the protesters to fuel their ideologies, it is convenient to reiterate a set of convictions at the center of the traditions that have made the United States advance, like the great country it is. Those convictions are central to the republican and democratic culture to which it is convenient to return:

1- Discriminatory treatment of minorities as an institutional pattern constitutes a structural injustice that denies the citizen equality enshrined in amendment XIV of the constitution. The policemans knee on George Floyds neck was not an accident by an official, nor was it by chance. Addressing the structural causes where this institutional discrimination originates must be a matter of citizen integrity and decency. Returning to order cannot be returning to that normality. The rejection of police violence and its patterns of racial discrimination need to be at the center of the electoral campaign that is beginning.

2- The right to civil protest is an essential component of the United States republican and democratic order. Expressing dissent in the face of abuses by the government or its representatives has been an American tradition since the declaration of independence. That said, democracy is not based on the disturbance of the crowd in the streets or squares, but on their orderly participation in political institutions. All the respect that peaceful protest deserves does not justify violence against order, property and people. Condemning that violence, and the radical agitators and provocateurs, right and left, who encourage it, is also a matter of citizen integrity.

3 To demand as citizen culture the condemnation of violence by radical protesters as well as that of the police does not imply addressing the issues as equivalent. Police violence is structural, institutionalized. It is directed against the life of a segment of the citizenry and permanently limits their freedom. In the second case, it begins with attacks on property, which, important as it is, to live civilly in a state of law, is not the same as an institutional attack on life.

There is considerable statistical evidence on the institutional nature of violence and discrimination. Randy Balko endorses in The Washington Post several studies with marked differences against minorities in terms of police persecution. If seven out of ten white people believe that the police authorities exercise force with justice, only one of three Afro-Americans think so.

In the book Suspect Citizens, political scientists Baumgartner, Epp, and Shoub study how the police treat their citizens, using data from 20 million stops for traffic violations in North Carolina. Traffic violations are the most frequent interaction between police authorities and citizens. The study found that Afro-Americans are twice as likely to be stopped for this than whites, despite the fact that, on average, the latter drive more. Once stopped by the police, Afro-American cars are searched four times more. Although Hispanics in North Carolina are stopped as much as whites, once stopped, the probability of being checked increases significantly. These disparities increase with gender (men more than women) and age (the younger, more stops and checks).

The rest of the social, economic, prison population and political participation indicators show that racial inequality between whites and minorities is overwhelming. In the wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is also evident that Afro-American and Latino minorities have been the hardest hit in numbers of deaths, illness, loss of income and employment. In Chicago, a city that is thirty percent Afro-American, that groups deaths from the pandemic have been seventy percent. The unemployment rate among Afro-Americans was twice that of whites before the pandemic, with no hope that it will change. A third of Afro-American children are born into poverty, while (just as unfortunate) twelve percent of white children, in the richest country in the world.

The fact that notable progress has been made in a country that has already elected its first Afro-American president and that such discrimination is not legal as it was at the time of racial segregation does not make it any less real. It must be addressed.

Police abuse is the ultimate expression of that discrimination, with clear historical origins. Discussions on TV by experts, even when addressing foreign policy issues, assume a policy of giving crumbs in addressing the legacy of slavery and the Anglo-Saxon occupation of the southwest after the 1948 Mexican-American War. The knee on George Floyds neck is not an individual act, it is the weight of a political system in which Afro-Americans, in addition to being poor and discriminated against, first appear as a criminal suspect than as a good citizen to protect.

Lets recall that Colin Kappernicks gesture, going down on one knee, peacefully, not on anyones neck, but on the ground of American football stadiums, was precisely against police violence. What was the governments response? President Trump carried out a campaign in which, far from recognizing the merits of the protest, what he tried to do was mobilize club owners against the players, describing them as unpatriotic. What was the NFLs response? Leaving Kappernick without a contract. What was the attitude of the public? The opponents of Kappernick returned to the stadiums, when he was expelled. Those who supported his protest kept going. Those winds of indolence sowed these storms of protest.

A riot is the language of the unheard, said Martin Luther King. Repeating the mantra of the supposed equality of opportunities is not going to make it real if policies and resources are not dedicated to creating a platform of equivalent access to health, education and a minimum wage. Isnt it time to speak in a country as developed as the United States, for example, of a universal minimum wage, an idea proposed in the 1970s even by Richard Nixon? Isnt it time to have a sensible discussion about the need for equal access to health and education as an essential condition for full citizenship? Why continue to stigmatize as radical and utopian the search for a system of universal health coverage, which has clearly produced better results at lower costs in most developed countries? Of course, that costs taxes and budgets. Its also hard to cope today with the disgraceful cost of lives due to the pandemic, job losses, political, institutional and protesters violence.

None of the above, however, implies an uncritical attitude towards the excesses of a minority of the protesters. Those behave like criminals, sometimes of their own free will, others under the influence of agitators and provocateurs. The cause of progress and civil rights are not served with acts of destruction that, in the first place, harm communities where there is violence. The solutions to the problems of racism are not found in the blindness of destruction but in the construction of a new normality.

The advance against inequality is not the fruit of the hopes of the impatient radical, but of the use of protest and negotiation based on historical experience. Isnt there already enough evidence to understand the psychology of President Trump, and how he has always won in the blowing ill winds of polarization? Isnt there enough evidence of the Republican Partys so-called southern strategy victoriously invoking law and order, with well-calibrated racist whistles from Nixon to Trump, and from Bush and his campaign manager Lee Atwater? Isnt it already evident that the Republican Partys strategy is to present Democrats and their candidates as the branch in the United States of left-wing radicalism, with no room to discuss the experiences of the welfare state even with its own European allies? The unabashed condemnation of those who have turned peaceful protests into violent ones is not only a matter of citizen ethics but also instrumental reason.

Why are the two condemnations not the same? Because the levels of citizen responsibility are different. An objective and reasonable policy is not equivalent to a diagonal in a parallelogram, half distributing responsibilities. The violence of radical protesters against property and wreaking havoc in our cities is their sole responsibility. They have not received any mandate from society. These provocateurs and professional agitators of an unfair opposition seek to make the United States do poorly so they can do well, at their own risk.

That is not the case with institutional violence. Thats by the government, by law enforcement, its in a certain sense ours. Most Americans have not elected white supremacists or anti-capitalist radicals. They dont have our mandate. Another is the case of racial inequality in opportunities, deaths from the pandemic, and police abuse. Citizens have given a certain level of consent for the actions of the authorities that reproduce and exacerbate these problems. Police officers who abuse minorities collect their wages from our taxes. The elected officials or delegates who establish social welfare plans or even police behavior in an arrest situation are not vigilantes implementing their own ideas, they are our representatives.

President Trump doesnt do justice to the dignity of his office, setting fire with rhetoric to a handsome neighborhood. To speak of vicious dogs and that the looting will be answered with shots, is an insult to the countrys highest magistracy. In the United States, the president is the head of government, but in times of crisis he is, first of all, the head of state. The institutional leader of all citizens, not just those who voted for him. The president has chosen to escalate the confrontation, creating more problems for everyone, even for law enforcement, who are mostly worthy professionals, wanting harmony in their communities.

The first lesson from these riots in an election year is citizens importance in the functioning of democratic institutions. A republic, if you can defend it, was Ben Franklins answer to those who at the gates of a constitutional convention asked him in Philadelphia about the type of government they had created. Several of the Afro-Americans deaths and the disasters of the protests could have been avoided had those who, for months, have peacefully denounced the issue of police violence and racial discrimination been paid attention to.

A line of responsibility can be drawn from ignorance and punishment to Kappernicks kneeling on the ground, to the abuse of the police officers knee on Floyds neck. Indolence in the face of others pain, and the deaf ear in the face of the peaceful protest, has ended in a loss for the republic, for all.

Original post:

Three ideas on the death of George Floyd and the protests in the United States - OnCubaNews

Through the public health crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are witness to another massive tragedy of workers being abandoned by their employers and, above all, by the state. The workers right to go home was curbed using the Disaster Management Act, 2005. No provisions were made for their food, shelter, or medical relief. Wage payments were not ensured, and the states cash and food relief did not cover most workers.

Full coverage | Lockdown displaces lakhs of migrants

Staring at starvation, lakhs of workers started walking back home. Many died on the way. More than a month later, the Centre issued cryptic orders permitting their return to their home States. Immediately employer organisations lobbied to prevent the workers from leaving. Governments responded by delaying travel facilities for the workers to ensure uninterrupted supply of labour for employers.

Employers now want labour laws to be relaxed. The Uttar Pradesh government has issued an ordinance keeping in abeyance almost all labour statutes including laws on maternity benefits and gratuity; the Factories Act, 1948; the Minimum Wages Act, 1948; the Industrial Establishments (Standing Orders) Act, 1946; and the Trade Unions Act, 1926. Several States have exempted industries from complying with various provisions of laws. The Confederation of Indian Industry has suggested 12-hour work shifts and that governments issue directions to make workers join duty failing which the workers would face penal actions.

Thus, after an organised abandonment of the unorganised workforce, the employers want the state to reintroduce laissez-faire and a system of indenture for the organised workforce too. This will take away the protection conferred on organised labour by Parliament.

The move is reminiscent of the barbaric system of indentured labour introduced through the Bengal Regulations VII, 1819 for the British planters in Assam tea estates. Workers had to work under a five-year contract and desertion was made punishable. Later, the Transport of Native Labourers Act, 1863 was passed in Bengal which strengthened control of the employers and even enabled them to detain labourers in the district of employment and imprison them for six months. Bengal Act VI of 1865 was later passed to deploy Special Emigration Police to prevent labourers from leaving, and return them to the plantation after detention. What we are witnessing today bears a horrifying resemblance to what happened over 150 years ago in British India.

Also read | The face of exploitation

Factory workers too faced severe exploitation and were made to work 16-hour days for a pittance. Their protests led to the Factories Act of 1911 which introduced 12-hour work shifts. Yet, the low wages, arbitrary wage cuts and other harsh conditions forced workers into debt slavery.

The labour laws in India have emerged out of workers struggles, which were very much part of the freedom movement against oppressive colonial industrialists. Since the 1920s there were a series of strikes and agitations for better working conditions. Several trade unionists were arrested under the Defence of India Rules.

The workers demands were supported by our political leaders. Britain was forced to appoint the Royal Commission on Labour, which gave a report in 1935. The Government of India Act, 1935 enabled greater representation of Indians in law-making. This resulted in reforms, which are forerunners to the present labour enactments. The indentured plantation labour saw relief in the form of the Plantations Labour Act, 1951.

By a democratic legislative process, Parliament stepped in to protect labour. The Factories Act lays down eight-hour work shifts, with overtime wages, weekly offs, leave with wages and measures for health, hygiene and safety. The Industrial Disputes Act provides for workers participation to resolve wage and other disputes through negotiations so that strikes/lockouts, unjust retrenchments and dismissals are avoided. The Minimum Wages Act ensures wages below which it is not possible to subsist. These enactments further the Directive Principles of State Policy and protect the right to life and the right against exploitation under Articles 21 and 23. Trade unions have played critical roles in transforming the life of a worker from that of servitude to one of dignity. In the scheme of socio-economic justice the labour unions cannot be dispensed with.

The Hindu Explains|How can inter-State workers be protected?

The Supreme Court, in Glaxo Laboratories v. The Presiding Officer, Labour (1983), said this about the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946: In the days of laissez-faire when industrial relations was governed by the harsh weighted law of hire and fire, the management was the supreme master, the relationship being referable to a contract between unequals... The developing notions of social justice and the expanding horizon of socio-economic justice necessitated statutory protection to the unequal partner in the industry namely, those who invest blood and flesh against those who bring in capital... The movement was from status to contract, the contract being not left to be negotiated by two unequal persons but statutorily imposed.

Any move to undo these laws will push the workers a century backwards. Considering the underlying constitutional goals of these laws, Parliament did not delegate to the executive any blanket powers of exemption. Section 5 of the Factories Act empowers the State governments to exempt only in case of a public emergency, which is explained as a grave emergency whereby the security of India or any part of the territory thereof is threatened, whether by war or external aggression or internal disturbance. There is no such threat to the security of India now. Hours of work or holidays cannot be exempted even for public institutions. Section 36B of the Industrial Disputes Act enables exemption for a government industry only if provisions exist for investigations and settlements.

Also read | Are Indias labour laws too restrictive?

The orders of the State governments therefore lack statutory support. Labour is a concurrent subject in the Constitution and most pieces of labour legislation are Central enactments. The U.P. government has said that labour laws will not apply for the next three years. Even laws to protect basic human rights covering migrant workers, minimum wages, maternity benefits, gratuity, etc. have been suspended. How can a State government, in one fell swoop, nullify Central enactments? The Constitution does not envisage approval by the President of a State Ordinance which makes a whole slew of laws enacted by Parliament inoperable in the absence of corresponding legislations on the same subject.

Almost all labour contracts are now governed by statutes, settlements or adjudicated awards arrived through democratic processes in which labour has been accorded at least procedural equality. Such procedures ensure progress of a nation.

In Life Insurance Corporation v. D. J. Bahadur & Ors (1980), the Supreme Court highlighted that any changes in the conditions of service can be only through a democratic process of negotiations or legislation. Rejecting the Central governments attempt to unilaterally deny bonus, the Court said, fundamental errors can be avoided only by remembering fundamental values, as otherwise there would be a lawless hiatus.

Also read | RSS affiliate BMS to protest against labour laws suspension in U.P., M.P., Gujarat

The orders and ordinances issued by the State governments are undemocratic and unconstitutional. The existing conditions of labour will have to be continued. Let us not forget that global corporations had their origins in instruments of colonialism and their legacy was inherited by Indian capital post-Independence. The resurgence of such a colonial mindset is a danger to the society and the well-being of millions and puts at risk the health and safety of not only the workforce but their families too.

In the unequal bargaining power between capital and labour, regulatory laws provide a countervailing balance and ensure the dignity of labour. Governments have a constitutional duty to ensure just, humane conditions of work and maternity benefits. The health and strength of the workers cannot be abused by force of economic necessity. Labour laws are thus civilisational goals and cannot be trumped on the excuse of a pandemic.

R. Vaigai and Anna Mathew are advocates practising at the Madras High Court

Read more:

Stop the return to laissez-faire - The Hindu