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Tag: Race and ethnicity

  • Fact-checking Donald Trump at the NABJ conference

    Fact-checking Donald Trump at the NABJ conference

    In a contentious appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists annual conference in Chicago, former President Donald Trump argued with moderators and opened the conversation by baselessly accusing Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, of only recently identifying as Black.

    Asked whether he agreed with some Republicans characterizing Harris as a “DEI hire,” Trump said, “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” 

    The crowd gasped, and Trump went on to make more dubious assertions, some borrowed from his campaign rallies, during the 34-minute interview conducted by ABC News’ Rachel Scott, Semafor’s Kadia Goba and Fox News’ Harris Faulkner. After a late start, Trump took umbrage when Scott read a series of statements Trump had made over the years about Black people, including the “birther” conspiracy that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States and that certain Black journalists are “losers” and ask “stupid” questions.

    “You don’t even say, ‘Hello, how are you?’” Trump said to Scott, later adding, “I love the Black population of this country.”

    Harris was invited to address NABJ attendees but did not come because of scheduling conflicts, NABJ leaders said, though they were working on an in-person or virtual appearance in September.

    PolitiFact partnered with NABJ to fact-check his statements.

    Claims about Harris

    Trump: Kamala Harris was “Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden, she made a turn and she went, she became a Black person.”

    Pants on Fire! 

    Harris has long identified as a Black woman who grew up in a multicultural household.

    Her father, Donald Harris, immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica after he got into the University of California, Berkeley, Kamala Harris wrote in her 2019 autobiography. Her mother, Shyamala Harris, was born in Chennai, India, and moved to California after graduating from the University of Delhi to pursue a doctorate in nutrition and endocrinology at Berkeley. 

    Harris attended college at Howard University, an historically Black university, in Washington, D.C., and earned her law degree at the University of California, Hastings in 1989. Harris pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha, a historically Black sorority. As a U.S. senator from California, Harris was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

    In 2010, when Harris was months from being elected as California’s attorney general, one story described her as being raised in a Black neighborhood, where she attended Black churches and also worshiped in her mother’s Hindu temple and had visited her family in India.

    “Running for office, you have to simplify or condense or put into preexisting boxes who you are, so people will have a sense of you based on what they easily and quickly identify,” Harris said. “I grew up in a family where I had a strong sense of my culture and who I am, and I never felt insecure about that at all. Slowly, perhaps, with each of us taking on more prominent positions, people will start to understand the diversity of the people.”

    Trump, upon being asked whether he would take a cognitive test: Harris “didn’t pass her bar exam.”

    Half True.

    Harris didn’t pass her bar exam the first time, according to a 2016 New York Times profile. When she retook it, she passed and was admitted to the California state bar in June 1990. Harris graduated from the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly known as University of California, Hastings) in 1989. She served as California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017. 

    Trump: Of Harris, “She’s the border czar. She’s the worst border czar in the history of the world.”

    We’ve rated claims that Harris oversaw efforts to stop illegal immigration in a “border czar” role Mostly False.

    In March 2021, Biden assigned Harris to work alongside officials in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to address the issues driving people to leave those countries and come to the United States. These issues include economic insecurity, corruption, human rights and violence. Border security and management is the Homeland Security secretary’s responsibility.

    In June 2021, Harris visited El Paso, Texas, with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. They outlined their responsibilities to reporters. Harris said she was addressing “the root causes of migration, predominantly out of Central America.” 

    Mayorkas said, “It is my responsibility as the Secretary of Homeland Security to address the security and management of our border.”

    Claims about Black Americans and programs

    Former President Donald Trump talks with ABC’s Rachel Scott on July 31, 2024, at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. (Sylvia Powers)

    Trump: “I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.”

    Historians generally agree that Abraham Lincoln accomplished the most for Black Americans, by prosecuting the Civil War to end slavery. But a more recent president who accomplished a lot for Black Americans was Lyndon B. Johnson.

    “His accomplishments on behalf of African Americans — the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act — were historic,” University of Texas historian H.W. Brands told PolitiFact in 2019. Johnson, a skilled legislator from his years in the Senate, deliberately crafted his agenda and pushed it through Congress with personal persuasion, to a far greater degree than Trump, historians say. (Republicans played a key role in passing the Democratic Johnson’s agenda.)

    Harry Truman, who moved to desegregate the military, was also ahead of his time on racial equality.

    In June, we extensively analyzed a wide variety of economic metrics during the Trump and Biden presidencies and — excluding the pandemic period — we found that Black Americans fared well by historical standards during Trump’s presidency but fared even better under Biden across almost every metric. However, no president is all-powerful in shaping economic or other policy outcomes, making it hard to rate who “accomplished more.”

    Trump said: “Historically Black Colleges and Universities were out of money. They were stone-cold broke and I saved them, and I gave them long term financing, and nobody else was doing it.”

    We rated Trump’s campaign promise to ensure funding for HBCUs a Promise Kept after Trump signed the FUTURE Act in 2019. The act ensured that the original science, technology, engineering and math funding for HBCUs from then-President George W. Bush’s 2007 College Cost Reduction and Access Act would continue to be awarded without having to go back to Congress annually. The act ensured that HBCUs would receive an annual $255 million in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)  funding for the next 10 years.

    It’s an exaggeration, however, to say that “nobody else was doing it.” In the House, Democrats were unanimous in their support, while two more Republicans voted against the bill than for it. And Biden has taken financial support for HBCUs further, including investments in the 2021 American Rescue Plan and new research grants.


    Former President Donald Trump shakes hands with panel moderators ABC’s Rachel Scott, Semafor’s Nadia Goba and Fox News’ Harris Faulkner, on July 31, 2024, at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. (Sylvia Powers)

    Immigration

    Trump: “They’re invading. It’s an invasion of millions of people, probably 15, 16, 17 million people. I have a feeling it’s much more than that.”

    False.  

    During Biden’s presidency, immigration officials have encountered immigrants illegally crossing the U.S. border nearly 10 million times. When accounting for “got aways” — people whom border officials don’t stop — the number rises to about 11.6 million. 

    Encounters don’t equal admissions. Encounters represent events, so one person who tries to cross the border twice counts for two encounters. Also, not everyone encountered is let in. The Homeland Security Department estimates about 4 million encounters have led to expulsions or removals.

    About 3.3 million people have been released into the U.S. to await immigration court hearings under Biden’s administration, Department of Homeland Security data shows. About 415,000 children who crossed the border alone were also let in.

    Experts have told PolitiFact that it is wrong to describe illegal immigration as an invasion. Many immigrants crossing the border illegally turn themselves into Border Patrol agents voluntarily.

    Trump: “Right now, you have illegal aliens coming into our country, many from prisons, and many from mental institutions, and they want to give them votes.”

    Pants on Fire!

    When Trump made a similar comment in January, his campaign did not provide evidence of this scheme. Only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections, and proven incidents of noncitizens casting ballots are rare. Even immigrants who arrive now and eventually become U.S. citizens won’t be able to vote this election year, because of the lengthy citizenship process.

    Some municipalities allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, such as for school board positions. But they don’t allow them to vote in state or federal elections.

    Trump didn’t specify who he meant by “they,” but he was answering a question about Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance’s comments that people with children should be able to cast votes on their children’s behalf.

    On his claim that immigrants are coming from prisons and mental institutions, experts have told PolitiFact there’s no evidence that countries are deliberately doing this.

    When Trump said earlier this year that Biden is letting in “millions” of immigrants from jails and mental institutions we rated it Pants on Fire. Immigration officials arrested about 103,700 noncitizens with criminal convictions (whether in the U.S. or abroad) from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, federal data shows. That accounts for people stopped at and between ports of entry.

    Not everyone was let in. “Noncitizens” includes people who may have legal immigration status in the U.S., but are not U.S. citizens.

    Trump: “Coming from the border are millions and millions of people that happen to be taking Black jobs.” 

    When ABC News’ Scott asked what he meant by “Black jobs,” Trump responded, “A Black job is anybody that has a job, that’s what it is. Anybody that has it.”

    It does not make the claim accurate. Commonly used employment data does not include information specific enough to confirm or deny this pattern, but broader economic statistics cast doubt.

    Foreign-born workers — many of whom are U.S. citizens and immigrants here legally — have made unusually fast employment gains during Biden’s tenure. But native-born workers, including Black workers, have made gains, too. (The category “foreign-born workers” in federal statistics counts anyone who was born in a foreign country.)

    Since Biden took office in early 2021, the number of foreign-born Americans who are employed has risen by about 5.6 million. But over the same period, the number of native-born Americans employed has increased by almost 7.4 million.

    If foreign-born workers were eating into Black workers’ opportunities, it would reflect in unemployment rates. But the unemployment rate for Black Americans is low by historical standards; it hit a record low under Biden, although it has risen since then. Also, the unemployment rate for native-born workers overall under Biden is comparable to what it was during the final two prepandemic years of Trump’s presidency.

    Trump: “Unions are being very badly affected by all of the millions of people that are pouring into our country.”

    Mostly False.

    Economy and labor experts told PolitiFact that immigrants who recently crossed the U.S. border illegally are unlikely to take union jobs because these jobs are highly competitive. Instead, they tend to work in nonunion jobs that Americans don’t want, such as day laborers.   

    Experts agreed that immigration and union membership numbers move in concert: As immigration rises, unionization drops. As union membership has fallen, some experts said immigrants have filled jobs left by union workers who disagreed with their employers’ labor practices.


    Former President Donald Trump walks onstage July 31, 2024, at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. (AP)

    Economy

    Trump: “Inflation is the worst it’s been, I think, in over 100 years. And they’ll fact-check it, they’ll say it’s only 58, whatever it may be.”

    False.

    In summer 2022, year-over-year inflation was around 9%, the highest since the 1970s and early 1980s, when the annual price increase sometimes hovered between 12% and 15%. That’s not 100 years.

    Since then, inflation has fallen. It was at 3% year over year in June 2024, the most recent month with available data. That’s higher than the Federal Reserve would like, but it’s down by two-thirds from its 2022 peak.

    Trump said, “We have more liquid gold — gasoline, oil — under our feet than any other country. More than Saudi Arabia. More than Russia. More than any other country.”

    False.

    According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Venezuela ranked first in 2021 with 304 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, followed by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Canada, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Russia. The U.S. ranked ninth internationally, with 61 billion barrels.

    The U.S. ranks higher internationally in coal reserves (No. 1) and natural gas (No. 4),  administration data shows.

    Trump: “Your grocery bills are up 40%, 50%, 60%, right?”

    Mostly False. 

    Food prices have risen on Biden’s watch, by 21.5% since he was inaugurated. That’s about a 6% rise per year, and it’s higher than recent presidents have witnessed on their watch.

    But 21.5% is about half the lowest figure Trump cited. 

    Abortion

    Trump: Democrats “are allowing the death of a baby after the baby is born.”

    False.

    Willfully terminating a newborn’s life is infanticide and is illegal in every U.S. state, as the moderators pointed out. Most elected Democrats who have spoken publicly about this have said they support abortion under Roe v. Wade’s standard, which provided abortion access up to fetal viability. This is typically around 24 weeks of pregnancy, when the fetus can survive outside of the womb. Many of these Democrats have also said they support abortions past this point if the treating physician deems it necessary.

    Medical experts say situations resulting in fetal death in the third trimester are rare — less than 1% of abortions in the U.S. occur after 21 weeks — and typically involve fatal fetal anomalies or life-threatening emergencies affecting the pregnant woman. For fetuses with very short life expectancies, doctors may induce labor and offer them palliative care. Some families choose this option when facing diagnoses that limit their babies’ survival to minutes or days after delivery.

    Trump: “Everybody wanted abortion brought back. They didn’t want Roe v. Wade in the federal government.”

    False. 

    Roe v. Wade was a contentious legal issue that inspired legions of supporters and opponents. Before the ruling to overturn it came down from the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022, numerous legal scholars wrote briefs urging the Supreme Court to uphold Roe. 

    Some legal scholars who favor abortion rights have criticized the 1973 ruling’s legal underpinnings, saying that different constitutional arguments, based on equal protection, would have provided a stronger case. But legal experts, including some who held this view, say those scholars would not have advocated for overturning Roe on this basis.

    Polling since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022 shows support for Roe has outpaced support for dismantling it.

    Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack

    Trump, when asked whether he would pardon convicted Jan. 6 rioters: “What about the police that are ushering, ushering everybody into the Capitol? ‘Go in. Go in. Go in.’ What about that?”

    We have looked into similar claims that police willingly let Trump supporters into the Capitol and found no basis for that description. Rioters attacked police, destroyed windows and doors, and ransacked offices. The Justice Department charged more than 1,200 people in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riots, 452 of whom were charged with “assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees.”

    Online, some people circulated footage that appeared to show police letting rioters past barricades, but it was misrepresented. Journalist Marcus Diapola, who shot some of the footage, said pro-Trump rioters “made a fist like they were going to punch the cops,” which made the police back off.

    PolitiFact Staff Writers Grace Abels, Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu, Madison Czopek, Mia Penner and Loreben Tuquero and Researcher Caryn Baird contributed reporting.

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  • Trump’s Pants on Fire claim that Harris ‘became Black’

    Trump’s Pants on Fire claim that Harris ‘became Black’

    In a contentious appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists annual conference in Chicago, former President Donald Trump argued with moderators over their questions and opened the conversation accusing Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, of recently becoming Black.

    When asked whether he agreed with some Republicans characterizing Harris as a “DEI hire,” Trump launched into an unwieldy attack, claiming Harris had always promoted being Indian and that he “didn’t know” whether she was Black.

    “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said July 31. “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t because she was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden, she made a turn and she went, she became a Black person.”

    Trump tried to double down on Truth Social after the event, sharing a video of Harris with Indian actress Mindy Kaling, in which Harris says she is Indian. The video isn’t evidence that she didn’t also identify with her Black heritage.

    This is a false mischaracterization of Harris’ background and heritage, and how she has spoken about, and identified with, her race and ethnicity.  

    Trump’s attack isn’t new, and harks to the “birtherism” conspiracies he and others baselessly pushed about former President Barack Obama for years.

    Harris, born of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, has identified as a Black woman who grew up in a multicultural household.

    These kinds of claims reflect a poor understanding of history and the fluid nature and various interpretations of racial identity in the United States, race and politics experts say.

    “The approach to Harris in this instance, the attempt to ‘other’ her, is a common practice in American politics,” said Keneshia Grant, a political science professor at Howard University. “These tactics will continue because they work. People have to prepare themselves to check their own biases and fears and use logic and facts to guide their decision-making when these kinds of attacks occur.”

    The Harris campaign sent PolitiFact its statement on Trump’s NABJ appearance. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who is Black, called the comments “repulsive” and “insulting.”

    The Trump campaign did not respond with evidence to support his assertions.

    Harris’ background

    Harris is the daughter of an immigrant mother from India, Shyamala Gopalan, and an immigrant father from Jamaica, Donald Harris. She grew up in a Black middle-class neighborhood in Berkeley, California, where her parents would often join civil rights protests.

    Donald Harris immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica after he got into the University of California, Berkeley, Kamala Harris wrote in her 2019 autobiography, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.” Shyamala Harris was born in Chennai, India, and moved to California after graduating from the University of Delhi to pursue a doctorate in nutrition and endocrinology at Berkeley. The couple separated when Harris was 5 and divorced a few years later, Harris wrote in her book.

    Kamala Harris lived in California until she was in middle school, when she moved to Montreal after her mother was offered a teaching position at McGill University.

    Harris attended college at Howard University, an historically Black university, in Washington, D.C., and earned her law degree at the University of California, Hastings in 1989.

    Harris has identified as Black woman from a multicultural family

    Harris has embraced her Black identity and multicultural background in several ways.

    When she was at Howard University, Harris pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha Inc., a historically Black sorority. As a U.S. senator, Harris was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, supporting her colleagues’ legislation to strengthen voting rights and policing reforms.

    The New York Times in 2020 spoke with some of Harris’ high school classmates from Montreal. They told reporters Harris identified as Black back then, too, while navigating complicated racial and social divisions at the school.

    “In high school, you were either in the white or the Black group,” Wanda Kagan, her best friend from Westmount High School, who had a white mother and a Black father, told the Times. “We didn’t fit exactly into either, so we made ourselves fit into both.”

    Although Harris was able to navigate her intersectionality, Kagan told the newspaper that “she identified as being African-American” and found belonging in the Black community there, adding that she and Harris would attend Black community dance parties and gripe about having to be home by 11 p.m.

    In 2007, when questions arose about former President Barack Obama’s Blackness as he ran for president, Harris, then San Francisco’s district attorney, said many Americans have a limited perception of Black people. “We are diverse and multifaceted,” Harris said. “People are bombarded with stereotypical images and so they are limited in their ability to imagine our capacity.”

    In 2010, when Harris was months away from being elected as California’s attorney general, one story described her as being raised in a Black neighborhood, where she attended Black churches, but also worshiped in her mother’s Hindu temple and had made visits to her family in India.

    “Running for office, you have to simplify or condense or put into preexisting boxes who you are, so people will have a sense of you based on what they easily and quickly identify,” Harris said. “I grew up in a family where I had a strong sense of my culture and who I am, and I never felt insecure about that at all. Slowly, perhaps, with each of us taking on more prominent positions, people will start to understand the diversity of the people.”

    Harris told The Washington Post in 2019 that she identifies as “an American,” and that she’s been comfortable with her identity from an early age, something she credits to her Hindu immigrant single mother, who adopted Black culture and immersed her daughters in it. Harris said she grew up embracing her Indian culture while proudly living as a Black girl. She said the same in her book.

    She told the Post that she hasn’t spent much time dwelling on how to categorize herself, but being forced to define herself was more of a struggle when she first ran for office.

    When Harris and President Joe Biden campaigned together as running mates in summer 2020, they highlighted the historic nature of Harris’ candidacy: the first Black woman and the first South Asian American to be nominated for national office by a major party in the United States.

    Our ruling

    Trump said Harris was Indian and then “made a turn” and “became a Black person.”

    This is blatant mischaracterization of Harris’ heritage and how she has spoken about, and has identified with, her racial background and ethnicity.

    Harris, born of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, has long identified as a Black woman who grew up in a multicultural household. She attended a historically Black university, pledged an historically Black sorority, and has given interviews and written about her experience embracing her Indian culture while living as a Black woman.

    Pants on Fire!

    Related: Kamala Harris is again facing attacks on her racial identity. Here’s more about her background.

    PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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  • Income gap between Black and white US residents shrank between Gen Xers and millennials, study says

    Income gap between Black and white US residents shrank between Gen Xers and millennials, study says

    The income gap between white and Black young adults was narrower for millenials than for Generation X, according to a new study that also found the chasm between white people born to wealthy and poor parents widened between the generations.

    By age 27, Black Americans born in 1978 to poor parents ended up earning almost $13,000 a year less than white Americans born to poor parents. That gap had narrowed to about $9,500 for those born in 1992, according to the study released last week by researchers at Harvard University and the U.S. Census Bureau.

    The shrinking gap between races was due to greater income mobility for poor Black children and drops in mobility for low-income white children, said the study, which showed little change in earnings outcomes for other race and ethnicity groups during this time period.

    A key factor was the employment rates of the communities that people lived in as children. Mobility improved for Black individuals where employment rates for Black parents increased. In communities where parental employment rates declined, mobility dropped for white individuals, the study said.

    “Outcomes improve … for children who grow up in communities with increasing parental employment rates, with larger effects for children who move to such communities at younger ages,” said researchers, who used census figures and data from income tax returns to track the changes.

    In contrast, the class gap widened for white people between the generations — Gen Xers born from 1965 to 1980 and millennials born from 1981 to 1996.

    White Americans born to poor parents in 1978 earned about $10,300 less than than white Americans born to wealthy parents. For those born in 1992, that class gap increased to about $13,200 because of declining mobility for people born into low-income households and increasing mobility for those born into high-income households, the study said.

    There was little change in the class gap between Black Americans born into both low-income and high-income households since they experienced similar improvements in earnings.

    This shrinking gap between the races, and growing class gap among white people, also was documented in educational attainment, standardized test scores, marriage rates and mortality, the researchers said.

    There also were regional differences.

    Black people from low-income families saw the greatest economic mobility in the southeast and industrial Midwest. Economic mobility declined the most for white people from low-income families in the Great Plains and parts of the coasts.

    The researchers suggested that policymakers could encourage mobility by investing in schools or youth mentorship programs when a community is hit with economic shocks such as a plant closure and by increasing connections between different racial and economic groups by changing zoning restrictions or school district boundaries.

    “Importantly, social communities are shaped not just by where people live but by race and class within neighborhoods,” the researchers said. “One approach to increasing opportunity is therefore to increase connections between communities.”

    ___

    Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform X: @MikeSchneiderAP.

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  • Museums closed Native American exhibits 6 months ago. Tribes are still waiting to get items back

    Museums closed Native American exhibits 6 months ago. Tribes are still waiting to get items back

    NEW YORK — Tucked within the expansive Native American halls of the American Museum of Natural History is a diminutive wooden doll that holds a sacred place among the tribes whose territories once included Manhattan.

    For more than six months now, the ceremonial Ohtas, or Doll Being, has been hidden from view after the museum and others nationally took dramatic steps to board up or paper over exhibits in response to new federal rules requiring institutions to return sacred or culturally significant items to tribes — or at least to obtain consent to display or study them.

    The doll, also called Nahneetis, is just one of some 1,800 items museum officials say they’re reviewing as they work to comply with the requirements while also eyeing a broader overhaul of the more than half-century-old exhibits.

    But some tribal leaders remain skeptical, saying museums have not acted swiftly enough. The new rules, after all, were prompted by years of complaints from tribes that hundreds of thousands of items that should have been returned under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 still remain in museum custody.

    “If things move slowly, then address that,” said Joe Baker, a Manhattan resident and member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, descendants of the Lenape peoples European traders encountered more than 400 years ago. “The collections, they’re part of our story, part of our family. We need them home. We need them close.”

    Sean Decatur, the New York museum’s president, promised tribes will hear from officials soon. He said staff these past few months have been reexamining the displayed objects in order to begin contacting tribal communities.

    The museum also plans to open a small exhibit in the fall incorporating Native American voices and explaining the history of the closed halls, why changes are being made and what the future holds, he said.

    Museum officials envision a total overhaul of the closed Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains halls — akin to the five-year, $19 million renovation of its Northwest Coast Hall, completed in 2022 in close collaboration with tribes, Decatur added.

    “The ultimate aim is to make sure we’re getting the stories right,” he said.

    Lance Gumbs, vice chairman of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, a federally recognized tribe in New York’s Hamptons, said he worries about the loss of representation of local tribes in public institutions, with exhibit closures likely stretching into years.

    The American Museum of Natural History, he noted, is one of New York’s major tourism draws and also a mainstay for generations of area students learning about the region’s tribes.

    He suggests museums use replicas made by Native peoples so that sensitive cultural items aren’t physically on display.

    “I don’t think tribes want to have our history written out of museums,” Gumbs said. “There’s got to be a better way than using artifacts that literally were stolen out of gravesites.”

    Gordon Yellowman, who heads the department of language and culture for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, said museums should look to create more digital and virtual exhibits.

    He said the tribes, in Oklahoma, will be seeking from the New York museum a sketchbook by the Cheyenne warrior Little Finger Nail that contains his drawings and illustrations from battle.

    The book, which is in storage and not on display, was plucked from his body after he and other tribe members were killed by U.S. soldiers in Nebraska in 1879.

    “These drawings weren’t just made because they were beautiful,” Yellowman said. “They were made to show the actual history of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people.”

    Institutions elsewhere are taking other approaches.

    In Chicago, the Field Museum has established a Center for Repatriation after covering up several cases in its halls dedicated to ancient America and the peoples of the coastal Northwest and Arctic.

    The museum has also since returned four items back to tribes, with another three pending, through efforts that were underway before the new regulations, according to spokesperson Bridgette Russell.

    At the Cleveland Museum in Ohio, a case displaying artifacts from the Tlingit people in Alaska has been reopened after their leadership gave consent, according to Todd Mesek, the museum’s spokesperson. But two other displays remain covered up, with one containing funerary objects from the ancient Southwest to be redone with a different topic and materials.

    And at Harvard, the Peabody Museum’s North American Indian hall reopened in February after about 15% of its roughly 350 items were removed from displays, university spokesperson Nicole Rura said.

    Chuck Hoskin, chief of the Cherokee Nation, said he believes many institutions now understand they can no longer treat Indigenous items as “museum curiosities” from “peoples that no longer exist.”

    The leader of the tribe in Oklahoma said he visited the Peabody this year after the university reached out about returning hair clippings collected in the early 1930s from hundreds of Indigenous children, including Cherokees, forced to assimilate in the notorious Indian boarding schools.

    “The fact that we’re in a position to sit down with Harvard and have a really meaningful conversation, that’s progress for the country,” he said.

    As for Baker, he wants the Ohtas returned to its tribe. He said the ceremonial doll should never have been on display, especially arranged as it was among wooden bowls, spoons and other everyday items.

    Museum officials say discussions with tribal representatives began in 2021 and will continue, even though the doll technically does not fall under federal regulations because it’s associated with a tribe outside the U.S., the Munsee-Delaware Nation in Ontario.

    “It has a spirit. It’s a living being,” Baker said. “So if you think about it being hung on a wall all these years in a static case, suffocating for lack of air, it’s just horrific, really.”

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    Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.

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  • California date palm ranches reap not only fruit, but a permit to host weddings and quinceañeras

    California date palm ranches reap not only fruit, but a permit to host weddings and quinceañeras

    COACHELLA, Calif. (AP) — Claudia Lua Alvarado has staked her future on the rows of towering date palms behind the home where she lives with her husband and two children in a desert community east of Los Angeles.

    It’s not solely due to the fleshy, sweet fruit they give each year. Their ample shade and the scenic backdrop they form draw scores of families seeking an event space to host celebrations ranging from weddings to quinceañeras, traditional coming-of-age events for girls’ 15th birthdays that are observed in Latin American cultures.

    Lua Alvarado is one of several dozen owners of small ranches that produce dates and double as event venues catering to the Coachella Valley’s predominantly Latino community.

    “This is what sells our property,” said Lua Alvarado, a 42-year-old fashion designer who bought the 8-acre (3.2-hectare) plot seven years ago. “It feels like we’re in Hawaii or some other tropical place.”

    While the region is known for blistering heat and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival that draws thousands of people each year, it’s also responsible for more than 80% of the country’s dates thanks to the arid climate and ample groundwater, according to the California Date Commission.

    Most dates are grown by large-scale producers that also pack and ship the fruit. Lua Alvarado and other small producers harvest dates from their land and sell them to big producers, but that’s not enough to make ends meet.

    Many have other jobs ranging from landscaping to horse training and run the ranches, or ranchos as they’re known in Spanish, as event venues providing large outdoor spaces for family gatherings at a more affordable price than posh hotels in the resort areas around Palm Springs.

    Ranchos have existed for decades in the Coachella Valley and have grown in number along with the region’s population and a desire by many in the Latino community and others to host more events outdoors, especially since the coronavirus pandemic.

    But the weekend parties began drawing complaints from some neighbors seeking rural quiet, which prompted local authorities to cite the venues for noise and code violations.

    Mounting fines drove rancho owners to organize and seek special rules authorizing them to host private events — much like other properties do for concertgoers to the annual music festival — and keep their date palms thriving.

    Riverside County’s board of supervisors voted in June for a plan that would allow ranchos at least 4.5 acres (1.8 hectares) in size that remain 40% dedicated to agriculture and 20% to dates to do so, and includes provisions for parking and safety.

    V. Manuel Perez, a county supervisor, compared the plan to efforts to develop wine country in a nearby community known for grapevines and hot air balloon rides. He said it’s vital in a region home to Latino farmworkers and their children who want to celebrate family milestones and their culture on a budget.

    About 70% of the area’s population is Latino and the median household income was $65,000 a year in 2022, about $20,000 less than in the county as a whole, U.S. Census Bureau data show.

    “In 10 years, the Coachella Valley will be seen as date country,” said Perez, who recalled attending parties at ranchos as a child. “We felt this would be a unique way to ensure the success and the continuance — the further expansion if you will — of having something accessible, an event space that is accessible, that is affordable for people.”

    Dates have been cultivated in the Coachella Valley for more than a century since offshoots were brought from the Middle East to see if they would grow in the Southern California desert due to similarities in climate. The valley is the top date-growing region in the country, and last year Riverside County had nearly 10,000 acres (4,046 hectares) of date palms that produced more than 38,000 tons (34,473 metric tons) of the fruit, according to the country agricultural commissioner’s office.

    Mark Tadros, who hosts educational events and grows dates at Aziz Farms, said ranchos aren’t the biggest growers but when you calculate the fruit they sell to packing houses, it makes a difference. He plans to apply for the new permit for his 10-acre (4-hectare) farm and hopes that requiring landowners to devote a set share of their properties to the trees will encourage those who may not have enough date palms to plant more of them.

    “I think the more people who have stake in this industry and in this game, the better off we’ll be,” Tadros said, adding he has seen many date growers get out of the business.

    Carlos Ulloa has come to appreciate date palms after buying land seven years ago in Thousand Palms. His vision was to create a place where he could keep his horses and have a working ranch with lambs and peacocks while hosting events where families could have ample space to invite their relatives to a celebration without going broke.

    Dates didn’t figure into the equation, so Ulloa had the prior landowner — a date farmer — take most of his 500 palms and leave only about 150 behind. Ulloa later learned that each tree sold for as much as $1,000. He enjoyed their shade so much that he’s now taking offshoots to grow more palms and repopulate his ranch with them, something he is especially eager to do since only date properties will qualify for the new permit.

    Ulloa, who previously worked as a hotel event coordinator, said the ranchos fill a niche by allowing families to pay a few thousand dollars for an event and bring their own food or make decorations to cut costs, and they do so beautifully.

    “We’re providing the opportunity to people that are not as well off to, you know, have their celebrations, and not just our celebrations, but to follow our traditions, because a quinceañera — it’s more Latino than no other,” he said.

    ___

    This story has been updated to correct that Alvarado is 42, not 49.

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  • Arab American leaders are listening as Kamala Harris moves to shore up key swing-state support

    Arab American leaders are listening as Kamala Harris moves to shore up key swing-state support

    DEARBORN, Mich. — Osama Siblani’s phone won’t stop ringing.

    Just days after President Joe Biden withdrew his bid for reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination, top officials from both major political parties have been asking the publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News if Harris can regain the support of the nation’s largest Muslim population located in metro Detroit.

    His response: “We are in listening mode.”

    Harris, who is moving to seize the Democratic nomination after Biden stepped down, appears to be pivoting quickly to the task of convincing Arab American voters in Michigan, a state Democrats believe she can’t afford to lose in November, that she is a leader they can unite behind.

    Community leaders have expressed a willingness to listen, and some have had initial conversations with Harris’ team. Many had grown exacerbated with Biden after they felt months of outreach had not yielded many results.

    “The door is cracked open since Biden has stepped down,” said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. “There’s an opportunity for the Democratic nominee to coalesce the coalition that ushered in Biden’s presidency four years ago. But that responsibility will now fall on the vice president.”

    Arab American leaders such as Hammoud and Siblani are watching closely for signals that Harris will be more vocal in pressing for a ceasefire. They’re excited by her candidacy but want to be sure she will be an advocate for peace and not an unequivocal supporter of Israel.

    But Harris will need to walk a fine line not to publicly break with Biden’s position on the war in Gaza, where officials in his administration have been working diligently toward a ceasefire, mostly behind the scenes.

    The divide within Harris’ own party was evident in Washington last week during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to address Congress. Some Democrats supported the visit, while others protested and refused to attend. Outside the Capitol, pro-Palestinian protesters were met with pepper spray and arrests.

    Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress whose district includes Dearborn, held up a sign that read “war criminal” during Netanyahu’s remarks.

    Harris did not attend.

    Some Arab American leaders interpret her absence — she instead attended a campaign event in Indianapolis — as a sign of good faith with them, though they recognize her ongoing responsibilities as vice president, including a meeting Thursday with Netanyahu.

    Her first test within the community will come when Harris chooses a running mate. One of the names on her short list, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, has been public in his criticism of pro-Palestinian protesters and is Jewish. Some Arab American leaders in Michigan say putting him on the ticket would ramp up their unease about the level of support they could expect from a Harris administration.

    “Josh Shapiro was one of the first ones to criticize the students on campus. So it doesn’t differentiate Harris very much if she picks him. That just says I’m going to continue the same policies as Biden,” said Rima Meroueh, director of the National Network for Arab American Communities.

    Arab Americans are betting that their vote holds enough electoral significance in pivotal swing states like Michigan to ensure that officials will listen to them. Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation, and the state’s majority-Muslim cities overwhelmingly supported Biden in 2020. He won Dearborn, for example, by a roughly 3-to-1 margin over former President Donald Trump.

    In February, over 100,000 Michigan Democratic primary voters chose “uncommitted,” securing two delegates to protest the Biden administration’s unequivocal support for Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Nationally, “uncommitted” garnered a total of 36 delegates in the primaries earlier this year.

    The groups leading this effort have called for — at a minimum — an embargo on all weapons shipments to Israel and a permanent ceasefire.

    “If Harris called for an arms embargo, I would work around the clock every day until the election to get her elected,” said Abbas Alawieh, an “uncommitted” Michigan delegate and national leader of the movement. “There’s a real opportunity right now to unite the coalition. It’s on her to deliver, but we are cautiously optimistic.”

    Those divisions were on full display Wednesday night when the Michigan Democratic Party brought together over 100 delegates to pitch them on uniting behind Harris. During the meeting, Alawieh, one of three state delegates who did not commit to Harris, was speaking when another delegate interrupted him by unmuting and telling him to “shut up,” using an expletive, according to Alawieh.

    The call could be a preview of tensions expected to surface again in August, when Democratic leaders, lawmakers, and delegates convene in Chicago for the party’s national convention. Mass protests are planned, and the “uncommitted” movement intends to ensure their voices are heard within the United Center, where the convention will be held.

    Trump and his campaign, meanwhile, are keenly aware of the turmoil within the Democratic base and are actively seeking the support of Arab American voters. That effort has been complicated by Trump’s history of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy during his one term as president.

    A meeting between over a dozen Arab American leaders from across the country and several of Trump’s surrogates was convened in Dearborn last week. Among the surrogates was Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-born businessman whose son married Tiffany Trump, the former president’s younger daughter, two years ago. Boulos is leveraging his connections to rally support for Trump.

    Part of the pitch that Boulos and Bishara Bahbah, chairman of Arab Americans for Trump, made in Dearborn was that Trump has shown an openness to a two-state solution. He posted a letter on social media from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and pledged to work for peace in the Middle East.

    “The three main points that were noted in the meeting were that Trump needs to state more clearly that he wants an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and that he supports the two-state solution, and that there is no such thing as a Muslim ban,” said Bahbah. “This is what the community wants to hear in a clear manner.”

    Before a July 20 rally in Michigan, Trump also met with Bahbah, who pressed him about a two-state solution. According to Bahbah, Trump responded affirmatively, saying, “100%.”

    But any apparent political opportunity for Trump may be limited by criticism from many Arab Americans about the former president’s ban on immigration from several majority Muslim countries and remarks they felt were insulting.

    “I have not heard any individuals saying I’m now rushing to Donald Trump,” said Hammoud, Dearborn’s Democratic mayor. “I have yet to hear that in any of the conversations I’ve had. They all know what Donald Trump represents.”

    Siblani, who organized Wednesday’s meeting with Trump surrogates, has spent months serving as an intermediary between his community and officials from all political parties and foreign dignitaries. Privately, he says, almost all express the need for a permanent ceasefire.

    “Everybody wants our votes, but nobody wants to be seen as aligning with us publicly,” Siblani said.

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  • Deputy who killed Sonya Massey was removed from the Army, had DUIs and needed ‘high stress decision’ classes, records show

    Deputy who killed Sonya Massey was removed from the Army, had DUIs and needed ‘high stress decision’ classes, records show

    (CNN) — Years before sheriff’s deputy Sean Grayson gunned down Sonya Massey in her own home, he had been discharged from the Army for serious misconduct and had a history of driving under the influence, records show.

    He also failed to obey a command while working for another sheriff’s office in Illinois and was told he needed “high stress decision making classes,” the agency’s documents reveal.

    Grayson, who was a Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy before he was fired and charged with murder, responded to a report of a prowler at Massey’s home July 6. Bodycam footage from another deputy showed Massey saying she rebuked Grayson, and Grayson responded by threatening the 36-year-old. The exchange ended with Grayson shooting Massey and failing to render aid.

    Massey’s death stirred memories of other Black women who have been killed by police in their homes in recent years, including Breonna Taylor and Atatiana Jefferson.

    Massey’s autopsy report, which was publicly released Friday, said she was killed by a gunshot wound to her head.

    Her family’s attorney emphasized the angle at which the deputy shot Massey.

    Massey “was shot beneath her eye, and the bullet (exited) at the back of her neck, under her ear,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump told CNN. “What it tells us is that he shot her in a downward trajectory.”

    When asked for comment Friday, Grayson’s attorney Daniel Fultz told CNN: “I don’t wish to comment.”

    Grayson, 30, was indicted by a grand jury last week on three counts of first-degree murder and one count each of aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct. He has pleaded not guilty and was denied pretrial release, according to court records.

    As more details emerge about Grayson’s DUIs and previously documented incidents from the military and law enforcement, Massey’s family members are tormented.

    They have one nagging question, their attorney Crump said: “Why was he even on the sheriff’s department in the first place?”

    The Army discharged him after a serious offense, personnel file says

    Grayson previously served in the US Army but was discharged due to “misconduct (serious offense),” according to a Department of Defense document included in Grayson’s personnel file during his time at the Kincaid Police Department in Illinois. The personnel file was obtained by CNN affiliate KSHB.

    The document says Grayson was separated from the Army under a general discharge after he served as a private first class at Fort Riley in Kansas. The file did not detail the alleged misconduct.

    CNN asked the Army for more details. In response, Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee wrote: “Sean P. Grayson was a 91B (Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic) in the Regular Army from May 2014 to February 2016. He had no deployments and left the Army in the rank of private first class.”

    Grayson was on the Kincaid police force for only three months before he was let go “because he refused to live within a 10-mile radius,” KSHB reported.

    Grayson pleaded guilty to 2 DUIs before working at law enforcement agencies

    Court records show Grayson was charged with two DUI misdemeanor offenses in Illinois’ Macoupin County – one in 2015 and the other in 2016.

    The first incident occurred in August 2015. Grayson’s vehicle was impounded after he was charged with driving under the influence. He pleaded guilty and paid more than $1,320 in fines, according to court records.

    In July 2016, Grayson was charged with another DUI. He pleaded guilty and paid more than $2,400 in fines, court records show.

    Grayson acknowledged his DUI charges when he applied to be an officer at Auburn Police Department in Illinois in 2021. He worked there from July 2021 to May 2022, and CNN’s review of Grayson’s records there did not reveal any major problems or disciplinary issues.

    In May 2022, Grayson started working at the Logan County Sheriff’s Office in Illinois, records show. He wrote the sheriff a brief letter detailing his “terrible decision to drink and drive.”

    Grayson’s letter also said he lost his driving privileges for one year after pleading guilty to his second DUI, in 2016.

    Grayson worked at six Illinois law enforcement agencies since 2020, records show. He started working part-time with Pawnee police in August 2020, followed by the Kincaid and Virden police departments. Then he started working full-time with Auburn police, the Logan County Sheriff’s Office, and finally the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office in May 2023.

    A review of his employment records from the Auburn Police Department indicates why Grayson said he left previous positions. In some cases, he wanted to work full-time but could only get part-time hours. In another case, he said he didn’t want to move.

    While Grayson did not appear to have any disciplinary issues while he was an Auburn police officer, records from the Logan County Sheriff’s Office said he needed to take “high stress decision making classes.” The recommendation came after Grayson failed to slow down after his boss called off a vehicle pursuit. Grayson was driving about 110 mph before striking a deer, the records say.

    “Deputy Grayson pursued the truck through Lincoln at a high rate of speed, reaching speeds of 63/30 MPH zone and, in my opinion, failed to show due caution while driving through stop intersections,” a Logan County chief deputy wrote in the file.

    Grayson’s supervisor “terminated the pursuit,” and Grayson turned off his emergency lights, the report states. But Grayson “continued at a high rate of speed (110/55 mph zone) prior to striking the deer.”

    “Deputy Grayson acknowledged he lacks experience,” the report said. It also listed a series of recommendations, including “additional traffic stop training, report writing training, high stress decision making classes, and needs to read, understand and discuss issued Logan County Sheriff’s Office Policy.”

    It was not immediately clear if Grayson followed through with those recommendations. He resigned from the Logan County Sheriff’s Office in April 2023. The next month, he joined the sheriff’s office in Sangamon County – where he would later have the fatal encounter with Massey.

    Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell fired Grayson after Massey’s death.

    “Sonya Massey lost her life due to an unjustifiable and reckless decision by former Deputy Sean Grayson,” Campbell said in a statement Monday.

    “Grayson had other options available that he should have used. His actions were inexcusable and do not reflect the values or training of our office.”

    ‘He had no regard for my mom’

    Massey’s 17-year-old son, Malachi, must now live the rest of his life without his mother.

    He said his mom was a “ball of energy” who always reminded him to read his Bible.

    “She’s the person who taught me how to love,” Malachi told CNN.

    The teen said he’s so grief-stricken by his mother’s death that he can’t describe the pain.

    “I really don’t have words,” he said. “I feel sick.”

    Bodycam footage from the night of his mother’s death initially showed a calm encounter between Massey, Grayson and another deputy.

    When the deputies were inside the home speaking with Massey, they noted a pot of boiling water on the lit stove. Massey got up and went to the kitchen to turn off the heat and take the pot off the stove.

    “We don’t need a fire while we’re here,” one deputy said.

    When Massey picked up the pot, the other deputy stepped back – “away from your hot steaming water,” he said.

    “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” Massey replied.

    “Huh?” the deputy responded.

    “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” Massey said.

    “You better f**king not,” Grayson replied, “or I swear to God I’ll f**king shoot you in the f**king face.”

    Grayson then drew his gun and pointed it at Massey. She ducked and said, “I’m sorry” while lifting the pot, the video shows.

    “Drop the f**king pot!” both deputies yelled. Then three shots are heard.

    After Massey was mortally wounded, the other deputy said he was going to get a medical kit to help. Grayson replied: “Nah, she’s done. You can go get it, but that’s a headshot.”

    Later, Grayson spoke to a group of law enforcement officers outside. “Yeah, I’m good,” he said on the bodycam footage. “This f**king b*tch is crazy.”

    Massey’s son said he wants Grayson locked up behind bars for as long as possible.

    “He had no regard for my mom,” Malachi said. “So we need to have no regard for him.”

    CNN

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  • Group says photos of reclusive tribe on Peru beach show logging concessions are ‘dangerously close’

    Group says photos of reclusive tribe on Peru beach show logging concessions are ‘dangerously close’

    An advocacy group for Indigenous peoples has released photographs of a reclusive tribe’s members searching for food on a beach in the Peruvian Amazon, calling it evidence that logging concessions are “dangerously close” to the tribe’s territory.

    Survival International said the photos and video it posted this week show members of the Mashco Piro looking for plantains and cassava near the community of Monte Salvado, on the Las Piedras River in Madre de Dios province.

    Several logging companies hold timber concessions inside territory inhabited by the tribe, according to Survival International, which has long sought to protect what it says is the largest “uncontacted” tribe in the world. The proximity raises fears of conflict between logging workers and tribal members, as well as the possibility that loggers could bring dangerous disease to the Mashco Piro, the advocacy group said.

    Two loggers were shot with arrows while fishing in 2022, one fatally, in a reported encounter with tribal members.

    An advocacy group for Indigenous peoples has released images of a reclusive tribe’s members searching for food on a beach in the Peruvian Amazon, calling it evidence that logging is moving “dangerously close” to the tribe’s territory.

    Cesar Ipenza, a lawyer who specializes in environmental law in Peru and is not affiliated with the advocacy group, said the new images “show us a very alarming and also worrying situation because we do not know exactly what is the reason for their departure (from the rainforest) to the beaches.”

    Isolated Indigenous tribes may migrate in August to collect turtle eggs to eat, he said.

    “But we also see with great concern that some illegal activity may be taking place in the areas where they live and lead them to leave and be under pressure,” he said. “We cannot deny the presence of a logging concession kilometers away from where they live.”

    Survival International called for the Forest Stewardship Council, a group that verifies sustainable forestry, to revoke its certification of the timber operations of one of those companies, Peru-based Canales Tahuamanu. The FSC responded in a statement Wednesday that it would “conduct a comprehensive review” of the company’s operations to ensure it’s protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples.

    Canales Tahuamanu, also known as Catahua, has said in the past that it is operating with official authorizations. The company did not immediately respond to a message Thursday seeking comment on its operations and the tribe.

    A 2023 report by the United Nations’ special reporter on the rights of Indigenous peoples said Peru’s government had recognized in 2016 that the Mashco Piro and other isolated tribes were using territories that had been opened to logging. The report expressed concern for the overlap, and that the territory of Indigenous peoples hadn’t been marked out “despite reasonable evidence of their presence since 1999.”

    Survival International said the photos were taken June 26-27 and show about 53 male Mashco Piro on the beach. The group estimated as many as 100 to 150 tribal members would have been in the area with women and children nearby.

    “It is very unusual that you see such a large group together,” Survival International researcher Teresa Mayo said in an interview with The Associated Press. Ipenza, the attorney, said Indigenous people usually mobilize in smaller groups, and a larger group might be a “situation of alarm” even in the case of legal logging.

    In January, Peru loosened restrictions on deforestation, which critics dubbed the “anti-forest law.” Researchers have since warned of the rise in deforestation for agriculture and how it is making it easier for illicit logging and mining.

    The government has said management of the forests will include identifying areas that need special treatment to ensure sustainability, among other things.

    Ipenza also noted a pending bill that would facilitate export of timber from areas where species such as the Dipteryx micrantha, a tropical flowering plant, have been protected.

    “At present, there are setbacks in forestry and conservation matters. With an alliance between the government and Congress that facilitates the destruction of forests and the Amazon,” he said.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Kamala Harris facing racial identity attacks

    Kamala Harris facing racial identity attacks

    Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, is facing a reprisal of attacks from some conservatives and their surrogates on her racial and cultural heritage, ethnic background and gender.

    A list recently shared across social media titled “Kamala Harris Facts,” contains wrong or missing-context claims about her background, including that she is “Not African American — Indian & Jamaican.” These attacks — similar to ones raised when she was named President Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020 — misrepresent Harris’ heritage.

    On television and social media, some people have also falsely and repeatedly claimed Harris isn’t eligible for the presidency because of her family’s immigrant background. Harris was born in 1964 in Oakland, California, and as someone born in the U.S., is constitutionally eligible to be president. 

    All of this reflects a poor understanding of history and the fluid nature and various interpretations of racial identity in the United States, race and politics experts say.

    “The approach to Harris in this instance, the attempt to ‘other’ her, is a common practice in American politics,” said Keneshia Grant, a political science professor at Howard University. “These tactics will continue because they work. People have to prepare themselves to check their own biases and fears and use logic and facts to guide their decision-making when these kinds of attacks occur.”

    According to a October 2022 report by the Center for Democracy & Technology, a nonprofit that seeks to advance civil rights and liberties in technology, women of color candidates in the 2020 general elections “were twice as likely as other candidates to be targeted with or be the subject of mis- and disinformation, and more likely to receive sexist and racist abuse than any other group.”

    We consulted experts in Caribbean and Africana studies, political science professors and anthropologists to learn more about how Harris’ gender, multicultural and multiracial background offers a unique glimpse into how American politics grapples with issues of race and identity.

    Harris’ background: From California to Canada and back again

    Harris grew up in a Black middle-class neighborhood in Berkeley, California, where her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris and father, Donald Harris, would often join civil rights protests.

    Donald Harris was born in Jamaica and immigrated to the U.S. after he got into the University of California, Berkeley, Kamala Harris wrote in her autobiography, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.” Shyamala Gopalan Harris was born in Chennai, India, and moved to California after graduating from the University of Delhi to pursue a doctorate in nutrition and endocrinology at Berkeley.

    The couple separated around the time Harris was 5 and divorced a few years later, Harris wrote in her book.

    Kamala Harris lived in California until she was in middle school, when she moved to Montreal after her mother was offered a teaching position at McGill University. Kamala Harris attended college at Howard University, an historically Black university, in Washington, D.C., and earned her law degree at the University of California, Hastings in 1989.

    African ancestral connections

    Several experts told us that the implication that Jamaicans aren’t African or connected to Africa is wrong on its face.

    According to a 2011 census, 92.1% of Jamaicans are Black, with genetic studies showing that the vast majority are descendants of people from sub-Saharan Africa.

    “Jamaica is a country where more than 90% of the population is of African ancestry,” Judith Byfield, a Cornell University professor who teaches Caribbean and African history, previously told PolitiFact. “So the idea that because her dad is Jamaican she has no African ancestry is completely false.”

    Byfield said people scrutinizing Harris’ ethnic background often conflate several different categories.

    “Jamaican is a national identity at the same time that it’s also a cultural identity and you can say the same for her Indian heritage,” she said. “Those are her parents, but she’s born here, and I think for first-generation people, there’s always a bit of tension between the extent that they are American, and by the extent they’ve been shaped and framed by their parents’ cultural affiliations.”

    The African diaspora refers to the many communities of people of African descent dispersed throughout the world as a result of historic movements, both voluntary and involuntary.

    During the more-than-400-years-long trans-Atlantic slave trade, an estimated 15 million African men, women and children were kidnapped from their homelands, forced into ships, and forced to endure a weekslong journey in crowded. filthy conditions before being sold into enslavement. The slave trade took millions of people to different regions throughout the Americas and the Caribbean.

    In a 2020 op-ed, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie described how Jamaica was home to a brutal and violent plantation system and was a pivotal point in the slave trade.

    “Many Jamaicans trace their origins directly to slavery and the mass importation of African captives,” Bouie wrote. “Based on a genealogical account by her father, there is a strong chance Kamala Harris is one of them. What’s more, many descendants of enslaved people in the Americas have European ancestry on account of the pervasive sexual violence whites perpetuated wherever slavery took root.”

    Some anthropologists and ethnographers consider the African American identifier more broadly to encompass Black people who come from a wide range of countries, while others see it as being limited to Americans descended from people who were enslaved in America.

    Grant said that claims that say Jamaican people are not African are unaware of slavery’s global reach.

    “Slavery impacted many people from Africa, and we went to many places,” Grant said. “Harris’ father’s people got dropped off in Jamaica. Mine got dropped off in Haiti. The African diaspora is huge, and it is worldwide, so to suggest that a Jamaican is not African, or connected to Africa is not acknowledging the vestiges of slavery.”

    Harris on being raised and living as a Black woman in America

    Harris told The Washington Post in 2019 that she identifies simply as “an American,” and that she’s been comfortable with her identity from an early age, something she credits to her Hindu immigrant single mother, who adopted Black culture and immersed her daughters in it. Harris said that she grew up embracing her Indian culture while proudly living as a Black girl. She said the same in her book, “The Truths We Hold.”

    She told the Post that she hasn’t spent much time dwelling on how to categorize herself, but being forced to define herself was more of a struggle when she first ran for office.

    We have plenty of ways to categorize people, but racialized categorization has structural implications, Tracie Canada, a sociocultural anthropologist and an assistant professor of cultural anthropology and gender, sexuality, and feminist studies at Duke University, previously told us when she taught at Notre Dame.

    “Anti-Black racism, anti-Black violence, those are the things that actually matter,” Canada said. “Those are systemic problems and structural issues, so no matter how she identifies or how we identify her, is she going to be implicated in that systemic problem?”

    Dianne Pinderhughes, a professor of Africana studies and political science at the University of Notre Dame, had told PolitiFact that the subject of racial identity is complex, especially for Harris, because she was immersed in Black culture and community since she was very young.

    “You have a person who was socialized from her earliest years to be socially, culturally African American and also was supported and immersed in African American organizations,” Pinderhughes said. “I think the way race is played out in the United States, it’s just been the case for centuries, that people who have some color are usually assimilated in an African American community of some sort, and that community recognizes people who are willing to look in the mirror and recognize them as well.”

    Another aspect of racial identity has a lot to do with where a person grew up or now lives. People’s local community tends to weigh heavily on how they identify themselves, experts said.

    Byfield, who is of Jamaican descent and grew up in Queens, New York, said her life experience involved a blended community of Black individuals who came from countries all over the world. But they banded together in their identity and shared experiences. That may have been Harris’ experience, too.

    “She has chosen to define herself in terms of the American landscape, and I think those of us who have had a multinational, cultural lifestyle, we’ve all had to figure out individually how to come to terms with it,” Byfield said. “You have all these different groups from different African countries, as well as Caribbean countries. African American community in the U.S. is not from one place, everyone is from everywhere.”

    RELATED: Fact-checking ‘Kamala Harris Facts’

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  • Historically Black town in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley is divided over a planned grain terminal

    Historically Black town in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley is divided over a planned grain terminal

    WALLACE, La. — Sisters Jo and Dr. Joy Banner live just miles from where their ancestors were enslaved more than 200 years ago in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. Their tidy Creole cottage cafe in the small riverfront town of Wallace lies yards from property their great-grandparents bought more than a century ago.

    It’s a historic area the sisters have dedicated themselves to keeping free of the heavy industry that lines the opposite shore of the Mississippi River.

    “We have all these little pockets of free towns surrounding these plantation cane fields. It’s such a great story of tenacity and how we were able to be financially independent and economically savvy,” Joy Banner said.

    Today, miles of sugarcane borders homes on Wallace’s west side. Eastward, two plantations tell the story of enslaved people: One has more than a dozen slave quarters, the other a memorial commemorating a slave revolt.

    Directly across the Mississippi, refineries and other heavy industry crowd the view, showing Wallace residents exactly what the Banners are fighting against taking over their side of the river. Together, they created a nonprofit called The Descendants Project to preserve Black Louisianans’ culture. The immediate goal is to stop a 222-acre (90-hectare) proposed grain export facility from being built within 300 feet (91 meters) of the Banners’ property and near several historic sites.

    “It would essentially pave the way for the whole entire West Bank area that doesn’t have any heavy industry on it to just be industrialized,” Jo Banner said. “We have a lot of heritage, and that’s going to be decimated if we get these plants.”

    Their sentiments echo those of residents who live in other towns along Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, an 85-mile (135-kilometer) corridor along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. It’s filled with industrial plants that emit toxic chemicals, including known carcinogens.

    The Descendants Project has tangled with Greenfield Louisiana LLC, the company proposing the grain terminal, as well as the local St. John the Baptist Parish Council, for nearly two years, seeking to prevent the Greenfield Wallace Grain Export Facility from being built.

    It would receive and export grain byproducts via trucks, trains and barges. While some town residents support the project, the Banners and other neighbors fear it will eradicate historic landmarks and pollute the area.

    “We already have issues with industry from the other side of the river,” said Gail Zeringue, whose husband’s family purchased their property in the late 19th century. “To add to that with a grain elevator is just piling it on.”

    The Parish Council recently rezoned nearly 1,300 acres (526 hectares) of commercial and residential property for heavy industry. Another swath along a residential zone was redesignated for light industry. All the tracts are owned by the Port of Louisiana and have been leased to Greenfield Louisiana LLC.

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found the grain facility could adversely affect several historic properties in and around Wallace, including the Evergreen, Oak Alley and Whitney plantations. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the terminal could add to the “many existing manufacturing industries and other existing sources of environmental burden for the St. John the Baptist Parish community.”

    After nearly two years, Greenfield is still waiting for the permitting process to be complete.

    “It appears to me that the Army Corps wants to make sure that everyone is heard,” said Lynda Van Davis, counsel and head of external affairs for Greenfield Louisiana. “Before we did anything, we talked to the community first, and so our system is safer, and it’s green.”

    The facility will be used for transportation, and there will be no chemicals or manufacturing on site, something Greenfield representatives said sets it apart. They also plan multiple dust collection systems to minimize emissions.

    They are aware of Wallace’s historical significance, Van Davis said.

    “We had testing done. We made sure that there were no remains of any prior slaves that were maybe buried in the area,” Van Davis said. “In the event that we do find any remains or maybe some artifacts, we would stop and make sure that the right people come in and preserve any artifacts that are found.”

    Specifically, Greenfield said, the State Historic Preservation Office would step in. The Amistad Research Center, the Louisiana Civil Rights Museum and the state park system are also potential partners to help decide what to do with any artifacts or remains that might be discovered.

    Some neighbors are more worried about Wallace’s future than its past. They’re concerned the town’s prosperity hangs on whether the facility is approved. Wallace doesn’t even have a gas station, and school enrollment has been declining.

    “The only changes I’ve seen in my community are people leaving. We have absolutely nothing on our West Bank,” said Willa Gordon, a lifelong resident.

    “It automatically meant to me jobs coming into my community and economic development and growth, so I was very excited. I’m disappointed that, years later, it’s still not here,” Nicole Dumas said.

    Greenfield plans to create more than 1,000 new jobs during construction and 370 permanent positions once the site opens. The company also has promised to host local job fairs, training and certification programs.

    St. John the Baptist Parish Council members Virgie Johnson and Lennix Madere Jr., the elected officials who represent Wallace, declined to comment on the proposed construction. Both voted in favor of the zoning change.

    The tug-of-war between past and present is a familiar one across the country, with small, historic Black towns dwindling because of gentrification, industry or lack of resources.

    Through their nonprofit, the Banners want to create a network of historic communities and economic opportunity. They recently moved a plantation house their ancestors once lived in to their property in hopes it can be given a historical marker and of preventing any industrial building on their land.

    “We are doing what we can to protect and to hold on, but it’s so crucial that we keep these plants out,” Jo Banner said.

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  • Merck’s Dr. Adrelia Allen emphasizes need for clinical trial diversity, especially for African Americans

    Merck’s Dr. Adrelia Allen emphasizes need for clinical trial diversity, especially for African Americans

    NEW ORLEANS – While the ESSENCE Festival of Culture is known for fun times, great food, and link-ups with friends. However, it is a time for poignant conversation. Dr. Adrelia Allen is the Executive Director of Clinical Trial Patient Diversity at Merck, Inc. Merck is a global biopharmaceutical company. Before she spoke at the Global Black Economic Forum, Allen discussed how the lack of representation in the research of new treatments can impact our lives.

    First and foremost, clinical trials are research studies that test a medical, surgical, or behavioral intervention in people. These trials are the primary way that researchers determine if a new form of treatment or prevention, such as a new drug, diet, or medical device (for example, a pacemaker), is safe and effective in people.

    “We know that there are differences in how drugs work in different races,” Allen explained. “And for African Americans, knowing that we have the highest mortality of many diseases and cancers, we cannot wait. So it was definitely imperative for Merck to be here. And when we think about who’s attending ESSENCE, and knowing that [the audience is largely] Black women. When you educate a man, you educate an individual. But when you educate a woman, you educate the entire community.”

    How does historical traumas affect participation in clinical trials?

    According to a 2021 study by Johns Hopkins Medicine,  75% of research participants are White. Even though White Americans make up 60% of the United States population. By comparison, 8% of research participants are African-American/Black. Currently,  African-American/Black people are 13% of people in the U.S. There are a lot of historical prejudices, and those traumas do get passed down. Reports and those stories were amplified during the COVID-19 era, when people would bring up the Tuskegee experiment relative to the vaccine. 

    Allen acknowledged the existence of those traumas. However, there is no solution that directly fits all experiences and conditions.  Most Americans are distrustful of medicine. This is not a Black problem. COVID-19 and the anti-vax sentiment that we all ran up against to tell us enough that it’s not about the skin we’re in. it’s about the conditions, the systems, and the processes of care that failed to speak to the wounds.

    Dr. Adrelia Allen, the Executive Director of Clinical Trial Patient Diversity at Merck, Inc., poses for photographs outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center during the 2024 ESSENCE Festival of Culture on Saturday, July 6, 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo: Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice)

    She described a moment in which her father, while being diagnosed with prostate cancer, refused to take an MRI. Why? Because it was a trigger for him because of the Tuskegee experiment. He believed that he would be treated as a guinea pig. But, Allen says, the key is building trust.

    “Educating and making sure that we’re talking in communities working with trusted voices, because we can’t go in and simply start talking,” Allen explains. “Helping them understand so that they can be the relay for their communities and talking about clinical trials and in that means we are, keeping patients at the center of what we’re doing. And, we make sure we have community advisory boards that we bring and share recruitment materials, protocols, even procedures that are involved with the clinical trial.” 

    Other Barriers to Entry

    Trust is also the vehicle that allows for the doctor-patient relationship to flourish. The doctors will know what trials will be relevant as long as the patient is willing to disclose family histories and so on.

    In addition to race, disability and socioeconomic status are factors that play a role in lack of participation. To that end, Congress has passed the Diverse and Equitable Participation in Clinical Trials Act (also known as the DEPICT ACT) in 2022. Allen says the Federal Drug Administration’s guidance is pending. However, she’s looking forward to building Merck’s action plans. 

    Allen says Merck is working to operate clinical trials at the four historically Black medical schools. Included is Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. These trials will be conducted by investigators and managers of color with participants from underrepresented populations. Additionally, Allen says Merck is also removing financial barriers to reimburse out-of-pocket travel costs for trial participants and providing a solution to ease transportation barriers.

    “Although the finalization of the FDA Diversity Action Plan guidance is pending, we are working across our clinical trial sites to implement mandatory, multi-pronged diversity action plans for all late-stage clinical trials,” Allen said. “We are taking concrete steps to help historically underrepresented communities access our clinical trials.”

    What’s Next

    In the end, every medicine that resides in the medicine cabinet, there must be more African-Americans to ensure that drug is going to be safe for us. 

    “We want to be a part of that,” Allen said while describing the clinical trial process. “The scientific medical innovations that are occurring today are the differences between life and death. Having access to that information is powerful, and we want to have that information before having to make the critical decision.”

    Itoro N. Umontuen

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  • Atlanta Black Pride Weekend Welcomes Global Black Pride to Host “Love and Legacy Pride Fundraiser” on Friday, July 19

    Atlanta Black Pride Weekend Welcomes Global Black Pride to Host “Love and Legacy Pride Fundraiser” on Friday, July 19

     Atlanta Black Pride Weekend is set to make history with the “Love and Legacy Pride Fundraiser,” a prestigious event celebrating the rich cultural heritage and shared legacy of the Black LGBTQIA+ community. This memorable evening, scheduled for Friday, July 19, 2024, from 6:30 – 10 p.m. EST, will be held at a private mansion in Brookhaven, with the location to be revealed upon RSVP confirmation.

    A Night to Remember

    Marking a historic collaboration between Atlanta Black Pride Weekend and Global Black Pride, the fundraiser promises an unforgettable night filled with celebration, connection, and community. Attendees will immerse themselves in a sophisticated “Casino Royale” themed evening, featuring live entertainment, delectable cuisine, and inspiring stories that highlight the resilience and vibrancy of the Black LGBTQIA+ community.

    Why We Are Hosting the Fundraiser

    The “Love and Legacy Pride Fundraiser” is being hosted to support vital upcoming Atlanta Black Pride Weekend initiatives and programs in August and to uplift the Black LGBTQIA+ community. The funds raised from this event will also go towards the Pure Heat Community Festival and The Annual Youth Festival, both taking place on Sunday, September 1 at Piedmont Park.

    Entertainment and Elegance

    The evening will be hosted by the renowned comedian, radio host, and actress Miss Sophia, who will bring her unique flair and humor to the event. Guests will enjoy a Vegas-style experience with casino games, raffles, and a silent auction, all designed to create an atmosphere of fun and philanthropy.

    Get Involved

    For those interested in attending, detailed event information and tickets are available at www.abpwfundraiser.com. In addition, the organizers are calling for vendors to participate in the week-long Black Pride celebration in August. This is an excellent opportunity for businesses to showcase their products and services to a vibrant and diverse audience. More information can be found at www.atlantaprideweekend.com/vendors.

    Staff Report

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  • How did Latinos do economically under Trump, Biden?

    How did Latinos do economically under Trump, Biden?

    The presidential candidates are heavily courting Latino voters in 2024, a year in which some polls show this voting bloc’s support may be more up for grabs than at any point in at least two decades.

    Historically, Latino voters have backed Democrats, though that differs by place of ancestry. For example, a majority of Cuban Americans identify as Republicans, Pew Research Center data shows, while Mexicans and Puerto Ricans tend to lean Democratic. 

    In 2020, Joe Biden won 65% of Latino voters, compared with 32% for Donald Trump, according to the national exit poll. Latino support for the Democratic presidential nominee has fallen below 60% only twice in the past half century, exit polls show: 59% in 1980 and 53% in 2004.

    Could this year be different? Some polls show Latino support for Biden as low as 40%. When given a third-party option, one poll sponsored by Voto Latino, a Latino advocacy group, found Biden at 47%, Trump at 34% and third-party candidates collectively taking 17%.

    During the June 27 debate, Trump made a play for Latino voters, blaming Biden for high inflation, which he said is “killing Black families and Hispanic families.” He added that Biden’s economic policies are “taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs” and that Biden has “done a horrible job for Hispanics.”

    Biden, by contrast, has touted his policies’ positive impact on Latinos. At a campaign event in March in Phoenix, he said, “We achieved the lowest unemployment rate for Latinos in a long, long time. We cut Hispanic child poverty to record lows. We lowered the health care costs. We made historic investments in Latino small businesses.”

    At a White House reception for the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo, Biden said his administration had “expanded health coverage through the Affordable Care Act, doubling the number of Latinos enrolled since 2020.”

    Does either candidate have a clear edge on boosting the economy for Latino voters? We decided to take a close look, much as we did June 25 with the question of how Black Americans have experienced the economy under both presidents.

    In our analysis of the economy for Black Americans, we concluded that — setting aside the immediate coronavirus pandemic era, which skewed some economic statistics — Black Americans fared well by historical standards during Donald Trump’s presidency but fared even better under President Joe Biden.

    Trump’s catastrophic warnings about Latinos and the economy lack support. Biden edged out Trump in three key statistics: inflation-adjusted wages, homeownership and health insurance coverage. On balance, we found that in most of the areas, both presidents posted similar results. 

    “The verdict is out on whether Trump or Biden is a better fit for Hispanics,” said Belinda Román, an associate professor of economics at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and a member of the American Society of Hispanic Economists. By the numbers, she said, “it’s a tie.”

    Although the numbers may be similar, George Washington University economist Tara Sinclair said that, given the pace of past economic recoveries, there was hardly any certainty that Americans broadly, and Latinos in particular, would recover economically as well as they did after the pandemic. 

    “Trump’s presidency was at the end of a long, slow economic recovery, whereas Biden’s presidency started in an incredibly weak economy,” said Sinclair, who recently completed a stint as deputy assistant secretary for macroeconomics in the Treasury Department’s Office of Economic Policy. “The fact that they come out similar outside the pandemic on some of the measures is still a win for Biden’s policies. Forecasters did not expect the economy to recover nearly as quickly as it did, and that fast recovery particularly benefited Hispanic households.”

    “Hispanics fared well in the Trump administration up until the Covid pandemic but have seen a further improvement in their fortunes under President Biden,” added Brookings Institution economist Gary Burtless.

    Meanwhile, we found a similar long-term pattern for both Blacks and Latinos: Persistent gaps separating whites and Latinos have remained, with neither Trump nor Biden managing to close them significantly.  

    Román cautioned about the ability of either Trump or Biden to claim too much credit. She said that although inflation, interest rates, and property taxes weigh heavily on Americans, including Latinos, “neither Trump nor Biden can fix these. Interest rates are the purview of the Federal Reserve. Property taxes are a legislative matter. Inflation is an amalgamation of everything.”

    A reminder in analyzing the data: The category “Latino” is diverse. Beyond differences in national ancestry, this group also includes some people whose forebears have been in the United States for generations and others who have arrived much more recently. 

    With those caveats in mind, here’s our rundown of several key economic metrics.

    The unemployment rate

    Setting aside the coronavirus pandemic’s swift, severe disruptions, both Trump and Biden had relatively low Latino unemployment rates during their presidencies. Both presidents share the record low for Latino unemployment — 3.9%. It reached that level under Trump in September 2019 and for Biden in September 2022.

    On balance, the Latino unemployment rates under Biden have been lower than under Trump, though only slightly. Not counting the peak pandemic period of March 2020 to December 2021, Latino unemployment has averaged 4.51% under Biden, which is marginally lower than the 4.69% level under Trump.

    Nevertheless, there has been a persistent gap in the unemployment rate between Latinos and white Americans. Excluding the peak pandemic period of March 2020 to December 2021, the average difference between Latino and white unemployment rates was 1.19 percentage points under Trump and 1.24 percentage points under Biden.

    Labor force participation rate

    The labor force participation rate measures what share of the population is employed or looking for work. A higher rate is economically desirable, because more workers produce more goods or services and can spend the money they earn elsewhere in the economy.

    For Latinos, labor force participation ranged from 65.5% to 68% before the pandemic under Trump. Under Biden, the postpandemic rate has generally ranged from 65.5% to 67.5%. 

    The highest Latino labor force participation under Trump was 67.9% in January 2020; the highest under Biden 67.3%, most recently in May 2024.

    Meanwhile, the averages for both presidents, excluding the peak pandemic period, have been virtually identical: 66.5% for Trump and 66.7% for Biden.

    Partly because of  Latinos’ younger age profile, there’s a longstanding gap in labor force participation rates between Latinos and whites: Latinos have tended to work at higher rates than whites. A younger population means fewer retired workers. But this discrepancy between Latinos and whites has changed little under either Trump or Biden.

    Wages and income

    Biden’s single biggest challenge economically has been inflation, which hit 40-year highs of about 9% in summer 2022 before falling to around 3% within a year.

    Despite this, wage growth has been healthy for Latinos — and more so under Biden than under Trump.

    After adjusting for inflation, weekly earnings for full-time Latino workers under Trump averaged $271.30 before the pandemic. Despite higher inflation, take-home pay for Latino workers starting in 2022’s first quarter has averaged $284.30, a level almost 5% higher under Biden.

    Latino earnings have continued to trail white earnings by fairly consistent margins, and Latino earnings have also usually trailed Black earnings, but only slightly.

    Another metric, inflation-adjusted household income for Latinos, peaked in 2019 under Trump, then receded slightly during his final year in office. It remained almost identical to that 2020 level during the first two years of Biden’s tenure, which are the most recent years with available data. 

    Neither Trump nor Biden presided over any significant narrowing of the five-decade household income gap between Latino and white households.

    Poverty

    The government releases poverty data only once a year, and the last year available is 2022. 

    The poverty rate for Latinos hit a record low in 2019 under Trump, then backslid in 2020 before seeing little change in 2021 and 2022 under Biden.

    Homeownership

    This is one of the clearest wins for Biden. 

    Homeownership rates for Latinos began rising under Trump and, setting aside the pandemic period, they have continued rising during Biden’s tenure. The current level, 49.9% for the 2024’s first quarter, is just a hair under the record of 50.1% set in two quarters during 2007, when George W. Bush was president.

    Not counting the peak pandemic period, the Latino homeownership rate under Trump averaged 46.9% and averaged 49.2% under Biden.

    Still, the Latino homeownership rate continues to trail that of whites and Asians; it only exceeds that of Black Americans. That gap has been little changed under either president. 

    Health insurance coverage

    After Democratic-led passage of the Affordable Care Act, which included health insurance marketplaces and federal premium subsidies, the share of Latinos without health insurance declined in 2014 and continued to fall through 2016, Barack Obama’s last year in office.

    In Trump’s first year in office, the Latino uninsured rate dropped again but then rose during his second and third years. (Data for his fourth year, the pandemic year of 2020, is unavailable.) 

    Once Biden took office, the Latino uninsured rate began falling again, hitting a record low in 2022 of 18%.

    Latinos and Native Americans have the highest rates of uninsurance among racial and ethnic groups. However, the gap in uninsurance between Latinos and white Americans has narrowed slightly under Biden.

    At the Trump presidency’s onset, the gap was 11.6 percentage points. In 2022 under Biden, it was 11.4 percentage points.

     

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  • Vice President Kamala Harris highlights impact of abortion bans and HBCU investments at ESSENCE Festival

    Vice President Kamala Harris highlights impact of abortion bans and HBCU investments at ESSENCE Festival

    NEW ORLEANS – Vice President Kamala Harris is keeping up a busy schedule these days. Before traveling to her sorority’s annual conference, Alpha Kappa Alpha’s Boule, in Dallas, she made a stop in the Crescent City to speak at the 30th Annual ESSENCE Festival of Culture. 

    Harris’s visit to the Global Black Economic Forum comes at a time after President Joe Biden faces questions regarding his age and mental acuity. While Harris was not asked from the age debate during her conversation with Caroline Wanga, CEO of ESSENCE Ventures. The Vice President did point out the ramifications of another President Trump administration and its threats on Democracy. 

    “Who has talked about being proud of taking from the women of America a most fundamental right to make decisions about your own body,” Harris asked the audience.  “And then last week, understand, sadly, the press has not been covering it as much as they should, in proportion to the seriousness of what just happened when the United States Supreme Court. Essentially telling this individual who has been convicted of 34 felonies that he will be immune. Essentially the Activity he has told us he is prepared to engage in if he gets back into the White House. Understand we all know: 122 days, we each have the power to decide what kind of country we want to live in.”

    The Vice President of the United States, Kamala D. Harris, speaks with Caroline Wanga, CEO of ESSENCE Ventures, during a roundtable discussion inside the Global Black Economic Forum at the 2024 ESSENCE Festival of Culture on Saturday, July 6, 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo: Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice)

    However, during the lead-in fireside chat, U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, D-Ca., laid out why she’s not having any of the ageist debate. 

    “But we’re now at a point in time where people are talking about how Biden is too old. Hell, I’m older than Biden,” exclaims Waters. 

    Harris also pointed out the hypocrisy among those on the right. She said there is a direct connection between strict abortion bans in southern States  and the high Black maternal mortality rates. 

    “And what I find is the hypocrisy by some of these extremists who are saying they’re passing these abortion bans because they care about women and children,” Harris explained. “So don’t come to us gaslighting us about where you’ve been and where you haven’t been on important issues that relate to what we know every day affects our sisters, our mothers, our aunties, our grandmothers, and could affect our daughters.”

    The ESSENCE Festival’s importance in Black Culture

    The ESSENCE Festival has been a place for African-Americans to have frank and honest conversations regarding issues in the community. The crowd was filled with mostly Black women, a group that has been the moral backbone of the Democratic Party.  Saturday, Harris discussed to a standing room audience that her background has prepared her for this moment. 

    “When I talk about the family that raised me: yes, they took me in a stroller as they were marching and shouting for justice,” Harris said. “Knowing that justice will not be achieved unless we are prepared to march and shout and fight for it. And one of the ways we do that is through our vote.”

    Actress Jenifer Lewis took the microphone during the lead-in conversation and instructed the crowd to do one thing: vote.

    “So repeat this: I will vote because I love my children,” Lewis instructed. “Now, get your ass out and vote.”

    The Vice President of the United States, Kamala D. Harris, speaks during a roundtable discussion inside the Global Black Economic Forum at the 2024 ESSENCE Festival of Culture on Saturday, July 6, 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo: Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice)

    The Biden Campaign goes after undecided and Trump-leaning Black voters

    The Biden-Harris administration successfully capped the cost of insulin for $35 for seniors. They expanded the child tax credit to $300 per child, per month, and $1,400 in-person checks to Black families. Moreover, According to PolitiFact and The Poynter Institute, the Biden administration invested more than $7 billion in HBCUs. 

    “Our Vice President has shown up talking about the issues that matter to us,” said U.S. Congresswoman Nikema Williams, D-Ga. “She reminds us who has been at the forefront of defending our freedoms every day and that is the Biden-Harris administration. I could not be more grateful to call her my Vice President, my Soror and my friend.”

    Included is $1.7 billion for grants to support low-income students and make HBCUs more affordable. By comparison, former President Trump did reauthorize the $250 million funding stream that lapsed under his watch. 

    The Biden-Harris campaign will continue to speak directly African-Americans who are on the fence during election season. The campaign is highlighting the clear differences between theirs and the Trump campaign. Representative Waters, the former leader of the House Financial Services Committee, supported more African-Americans to enter financial services. Also, she pushed for equal representation in lending and funding, which will allow more African-Americans to own homes and businesses. 

    What’s next?

    According to a 2021 study by the National Association of Realtors, the Black American homeownership rate is 44%. It lags far behind Hispanic Americans (50.6%), Asian Americans (62.8%) and White Americans (72.7%). Waters believes there is a solution. 

    “Ladies and gentlemen, we can do all of this,” exclaimed Waters. “If you don’t vote, you don’t understand your power. If you don’t vote, you don’t understand your influence. And don’t tell me when you see me in the street, ‘you got my back,’ if you ain’t voting!” 

    Itoro N. Umontuen

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  • North Dakota tribe goes back to its roots with a massive greenhouse operation

    North Dakota tribe goes back to its roots with a massive greenhouse operation

    BISMARCK, N.D. — A Native American tribe in North Dakota will soon grow lettuce in a giant greenhouse complex that when fully completed will be among the country’s largest, enabling the tribe to grow much of its own food decades after a federal dam flooded the land where they had cultivated corn, beans and other crops for millennia.

    Work is ongoing on the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s 3.3-acre (1.3-hectare) greenhouse that will make up most of the Native Green Grow operation’s initial phase. However, enough of the structure will be completed this summer to start growing leafy greens and other crops such as tomatoes and strawberries.

    “We’re the first farmers of this land,” Tribal Chairman Mark Fox said. “We once were part of an aboriginal trade center for thousands and thousands of years because we grew crops — corn, beans, squash, watermelons — all these things at massive levels, so all the tribes depended on us greatly as part of the aboriginal trade system.”

    The tribe will spend roughly $76 million on the initial phase, which also will includes a warehouse and other facilities near the tiny town of Parshall. It plans to add to the growing space in the coming years, eventually totaling about 14.5 acres (5.9 hectares), which officials say would make it one of the world’s largest facilities of its type.

    The initial greenhouse will have enough glass to cover the equivalent of seven football fields.

    The tribe’s fertile land along the Missouri River was inundated in the mid-1950s when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the Garrison Dam, which created Lake Sakakawea.

    Getting fresh produce has long been a challenge in the area of western North Dakota where the tribe is based, on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The rolling, rugged landscape — split by Lake Sakakawea — is a long drive from the state’s biggest cities, Bismarck and Fargo.

    That isolation makes the greenhouses all the more important, as they will enable the tribe to provide food to the roughly 8,300 people on the Fort Berthold reservation and to reservations elsewhere. The tribe also hopes to stock food banks that serve isolated and impoverished areas in the region, and plans to export its produce.

    Initially, the MHA Nation expects to grow nearly 2 million pounds (907,000 kilograms) of food a year and for that to eventually increase to 12 to 15 million pounds (5.4 million to 6.4 million kilograms) annually. Fox said the operation’s first phase will create 30 to 35 jobs.

    The effort coincides with a national move to increase food sovereignty among tribes.

    Supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic led tribes nationwide to use federal coronavirus aid to invest in food systems, including underground greenhouses in South Dakota to feed the local community, said Heather Dawn Thompson, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Tribal Relations. In Oklahoma, multiple tribes are running or building their own meat processing plant, she said.

    The USDA promotes its Indigenous Food Sovereignty Initiative, which “really challenges us to think about food and the way we do business at USDA from an indigenous, tribal lens,” Thompson said. Examples include indigenous seed hubs, foraging videos and guides, cooking videos and a meat processing program for indigenous animals.

    “We have always been a very independent, sovereign people that have been able to hunt, gather, grow and feed ourselves, and forces have intervened over the last century that have disrupted those independent food resources, and it made it very challenging. But the desire and goal has always been there,” said Thompson, whose tribal affiliation is Cheyenne River Sioux.

    The MHA Nation’s greenhouse plans are possible in large part because of access to potable water and natural gas resources.

    The natural gas released in North Dakota’s Bakken oil field has long been seen by critics as a waste and environmental concern, but Fox said the tribal nation intends to capture and compress that gas to heat and power the greenhouse and process into fertilizer.

    Flaring, in which natural gas is burned off from pipes that emerge from the ground, has been a longtime issue in the No. 3 oil-producing state.

    North Dakota Pipeline Authority Director Justin Kringstad said that key to capturing the gas is building needed infrastructure, as the MHA Nation intends to do.

    “With those operators that are trying to get to that level of zero, it’s certainly going to take more infrastructure, more buildout of pipes, processing plants, all of the above to stay on top of this issue,” he said.

    The Fort Berthold Reservation had nearly 3,000 active wells in April, when oil production totaled 203,000 barrels a day on the reservation. Oil production has helped the MHA Nation build schools, roads, housing and medical facilities, Fox said.

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  • Analysis: Supreme Court grants Trump ‘absolute’ immunity, raising concerns about potential dictatorship

    Analysis: Supreme Court grants Trump ‘absolute’ immunity, raising concerns about potential dictatorship

    Happy Independence Day! Where’s the potato salad and the ribs?

    July 2, 1776 was the day that the Continental Congress actually voted for independence. John Adams noted that July 2 would be remembered in the annals of American history. 248 years later, the United States Supreme Court extended sweeping powers to the executive branch in a way that would make King George III blush.

    The Supreme Court in TRUMP vs. United States, the high court granted the executive branch “absolute” presidential immunity for “his core constitutional powers.” Additionally, the president “enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does if official.” The six conservatives voted for and the three liberal-minded justices dissented.

    In layman’s terms, the executive branch has a greater level of immunity than police officers. Police officers can be charged with murder. However, the President is cloaked by the separation of powers as outlined in Article II of the United States Constitution, according to the Supreme Court decision. 

    So, what does that mean for the Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump? It means he can fulfill his promise of being a dictator on ‘day one.’

    One historical figure compares to Trump in this moment

    Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger meets with President Mobutu of Zaire in his Pentagon office in 1983.

    In 1960, Mobutu Sese Seko was the second in command in the Congolese Army. In November 1965, Mobutu led two successful coups, with the backing of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). And in 1971, Mobutu Sese Seko consolidated power unto himself. He launched a ‘national authenticity’ program in Congo, previously known as the Democratic Republic of Zaire. He rid his country of all colonial influence and re-established a national identity. 

    In a speech in Dakar, Mobutu described his plan as, “an experience drawn from the anarchy caused by the plurality of political parties and by the ascendancy of imported ideologies, spread through empty slogans. We have had to wipe the slate clean of all previously existing parties.”

    Essentially, Mobutu Sese Seko established a unitarian government. He had the backing of Chairman Mao and the support from Apartheid South Africa. He was a major cult of personality, an overseer of a bereft kleptocracy, while his government was full of corruption. His friends, family members, and benefactors ran government agencies. Mobutu embodied big man rule. What he said was law. 

    During his thirty-two year rule, Mobutu plundered nearly $5 billion of his country’s wealth and resources. He would take himself shopping in Paris, fly the famed Concorde supersonic jet, and entertain the world’s best and brightest. Meanwhile, his country was crumbling. The paved roads his country had in the sixties, devolved into bush in less than twenty years. In the mid-1990s, the AIDS epidemic and famine ravaged his nation. In a country that did not have clean drinking water, affordable medical infrastructure, and lacked security, the disease brought the country and Mobutu to its collective knees.  According to UNAIDS, an estimated 410,000 Congolese children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. 

    Mobutu’s government fell in 1997 when he was forced into exile. He was suffering from prostate cancer and he died from his illness on September 7, 1997. 

    Mobutu and Donald Trump love what the government could do for them. Both men had an insatiable desire for power and established autocracies. And both men were willing to destroy the economic prospects of their countries in the name of putting their pursuits first. 

    Project 2025 is happening right now

    Kevin Roberts, the President of the Heritage Foundation and architect of Project 2025, said this on national television: 

    “The reason that so many anchors on MSNBC, for example, are losing their minds daily is because our side is winning. And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the Left allows it to be.”

    Project 2025 will destroy women’s rights, civil rights, voting rights, plus LGBTQ+ rights and protections. It will slice and dice environmental protections and regulations. And it does not stop there. The Family Research Council is leading a new initiative called the “Platform Integrity Project.” It calls on the public to pressure the Republican Party to adopting a hardline anti-abortion, anti-LGBT stance ahead of the election.

    Donald Trump, after the Supreme Court handed immunity over to him, amplified calls for mass violence directed at his enemies. He also “ReTruthed” a post using the QAnon slogan, “Where we go one, we go all.” Trump’s MAGA movement believes African-Americans, women, and ethnic minorities, will “replace” White people in society. 

    This goes on while the corporate and mainstream media continue to shake their hands and whine about how President Biden is too old to be president. And yes, the corporate and mainstream media is still whining over the President’s poor debate performance. Why? They need a two-horse race in order to drive ratings and ad sales while ignoring what will be the most nakedly obvious power grab in the history of western civilization.

    What’s Next?

    Here is the good news: The choice will be yours on November 5, 2024. It may be the last chance for Americans to exercise that right at the ballot box. 

    Itoro N. Umontuen

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  • Detroit paying $300,000 to man wrongly accused of theft, making changes in use of facial technology

    Detroit paying $300,000 to man wrongly accused of theft, making changes in use of facial technology

    DETROIT — The city of Detroit has agreed to pay $300,000 to a man who was wrongly accused of shoplifting and also change how police use facial recognition technology to solve crimes.

    The conditions are part of a lawsuit settlement with Robert Williams. His driver’s license photo was incorrectly flagged as a likely match to a man seen on security video at a Shinola watch store in 2018.

    “We are extremely excited that going forward there will be more safeguards on the use of this technology with our hope being to live in a better world because of it,” Williams told reporters, “even though what we would like for them to do is not use it at all.”

    The agreement was announced Friday by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Civil Rights Litigation Initiative at University of Michigan law school. They argue that the technology is flawed and racially biased. Williams is Black.

    Detroit police will be prohibited from arresting people based solely on facial recognition results and won’t make arrests based on photo lineups generated from a facial recognition search, the ACLU said.

    “They can get a facial recognition lead and then they can go out and do old-fashioned police work and see if there’s actually any reason to believe that the person who was identified … might have committed a crime,” said Phil Mayor, an ACLU attorney.

    There was no immediate comment from Detroit police on the settlement. Last August, while the litigation was still active, Chief James White announced new policies about the technology. The move came after a woman who was eight months pregnant said she was wrongly charged with carjacking.

    White at that time said there must be other evidence, outside the technology, for police to believe a suspect had the “means, ability and opportunity to commit the crime.”

    The agreement with Williams says Detroit police will go back and look at cases from 2017 to 2023 in which facial recognition was used. A prosecutor will be notified if police learn that an arrest was made without independent evidence.

    “When someone is arrested and charged based on a facial recognition scan and a lineup result, they often face significant pressure to plead guilty,” Mayor said. “That is all the more true if the individual — unlike Mr. Williams — has a criminal record and thus faces longer sentences and more suspicious police and prosecutors.”

    ___

    Follow Ed White on X at https://twitter.com/edwritez

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  • Was fastest growth of Black small businesses under Biden?

    Was fastest growth of Black small businesses under Biden?

    As President Joe Biden ramps up efforts to win over Wisconsin voters, one of Milwaukee’s leading Democratic officials lauded the gains Black Americans made under the Biden administration.

    On May 16, during an event for Vice President Kamala Harris, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley claimed: “Under (the Biden) administration we have witnessed the fastest growth of black-owned small businesses in more than 30 years.”

    Let’s dig into the numbers.

    Crowley quoting the White House?

    What Crowley said might have sounded very familiar. Why?

    In early 2023, Biden spoke of the record numbers of new Black entrepreneurs during campaign speeches Jan. 27 in South Carolina and Feb. 4 in Las Vegas. The White House even released a factsheet discussing similar claims on Feb. 6. 

    Here’s what the fact sheet laid out:

    Since the President entered office, a record 16 million new business applications have been filed, and the share of Black households owning a business has more than doubled. Building on this momentum, the Biden-Harris Administration has: 

    Achieved the fastest creation rate of Black-owned businesses in more than 30 years — and more than doubled the share of Black business owners from 2019 to 2022.

    PolitiFact National did an earlier fact check on the Biden Administration’s statements on Black entrepreneurs from the fact sheet and rated it True. 

    Census Bureau and the Federal Reserve Board datasets found record levels of Black business ownership in 2021 and 2022. Independent analyses say that some of Biden’s policies likely played a role.

     PolitiFact cited a Brookings Institution analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Business Survey that showed the number of Black-owned businesses with more than one employee has increased every year since 2017.

    In the same fact check, PolitiFact cited the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances from 2022. It reported that 11% of Black households held equity in a business.

    When PolitiFact contacted the Biden administration for comment for their fact check, the White House “shared independent analyses suggesting that some Biden policies helped spur these increases.”

    The analyses in question focused on changes the Biden administration made to a pandemic-era initiative, the Paycheck Protection Program, which provided loans to small businesses in need.

    Our ruling

    On May 16, Crowley said: “Under (the Biden) administration we have witnessed the fastest growth of black-owned small businesses in more than 30 years.”

    Crowley had been referring to a statement made by the White House earlier this year. That claim had previously been fact checked by PolitiFact and 

    was found to be supported by data from the Census Bureau and the Federal Reserve Board and independent analysis.  

    We rate this claim True.

     

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  • NNPA Annual Convention Ignites with Powerful Civil Rights Exhibit at Baltimore City Hall

    NNPA Annual Convention Ignites with Powerful Civil Rights Exhibit at Baltimore City Hall

    In a stirring commencement to its annual convention, officials from the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) were feted during the unveiling of the “Marylanders Cry Freedom, Civil Rights at Home and Abroad” exhibit at Baltimore City Hall.

    This unveiling of the touching exhibit included remarks by Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, Democratic Maryland Rep. Kweisi Mfume, NNPA President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., National Chairman Bobby Henry, AFRO Publisher Dr. Toni Draper, and other dignitaries. The exhibit marked the 40th anniversary of Maryland’s groundbreaking divestment from South Africa’s apartheid regime in 1984, a pioneering act of defiance that set a powerful precedent for other states.

    Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

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  • Fans gather at Willie Mays Plaza at Oracle Park to remember Giants legend

    Fans gather at Willie Mays Plaza at Oracle Park to remember Giants legend

    SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — Tributes of all sounds and meaning poured into Willie Mays Plaza at Oracle Park in San Francisco to commemorate the passing — and legacy — of its namesake, Willie Mays, who died Tuesday.

    Fans, including Carrie Brandon, stopped by the statue of the Say Hey Kid to pay their respects and reflect on the impact he had on each person passing through.

    “I was born and bred a Giants fan, coming to games since I was seven years old,” she told CBS News Bay Area. “For me, at my age it’s hard to imagine living in a world that he’s not here, but it means to much to have his statue and his legacy as part of the Bay Area.”

    Lauren Toms

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