politics

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) is speaking out after being arrested along with eight other protesters for peacefully demonstrating their support of voting rights, MSNBC reports.Beatty, who also is the Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, was arrested on Thursday while marching in support of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act that has failed to gain traction in Congress. The two bills seek to expand and protect voting accessibility as Republican-led states have passed legislation to restrict voting. Because of the Democrat’s razor-thin majority in the Senate and forceful Republican opposition, both bills have slim chances of becoming law. Just before her march, Beatty spoke on the Hill saying that the present moment is reminiscent of the civil rights movement that mobilized the fight for voting rights.“We might as well have the dogs and the hoses because we don’t have the Voting Rights Act, and that’s why we need to march in these streets, we need to march as those who were followers of Martin Luther King and John Lewis,” she argued before heading into  the Hart Senate Office Building.  Wearing a T-shirt that read "Protect Our Voting Rights," Beatty addressed her colleagues in Congress about the urgency of the issue that was before them. “That’s what today is about: It’s about fighting for everyone,” she said. “It’s about fighting for justice. It’s about fighting for you.”Less than an hour later, she was arrested by the Capitol police. Beatty took to Twitter to share her thoughts about her arrest at the U.S. Capitol.“You can arrest me. You can’t stop me. You can’t silence me,” she tweeted.You can arrest me. You can’t stop me. You can’t silence me.— Joyce Beatty (@RepBeatty) July 15, 2021In an official statement after her arrest, Beatty said she wouldn't relent in her fight to secure voting rights. “I stand in solidarity with Black women and allies across the country in defense of our constitutional right to vote,” her statement read. “We have come too far and fought too hard to see everything systematically dismantled and restricted by those who wish to silence us.”“Be assured that this is just the beginning. This is Our Power, Our Message,” she continuedAppearing on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on Thursday, Beatty was asked to explain the difference between her protest and the insurrection that took place on Jan. 6.“What we see is the disparity of treatment, we see the disparities when it comes to Black Americans and majority Americans,” she said. “We were there protesting but the rules of engagement changed.”“We need to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act,” she explained.“That’s the only way we can make a change when we get more people to vote without voter suppression.”Since June 21, 17 states had passed 28 new laws this year that restrict access to voting, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. As Blavity previously reported, in Texas, House Democrats left the state in protest of laws enacted to limit voting.“We need to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act,” she continued. “That’s the only way we can make a change when we get more people to vote without voter suppression.”Beatty plans to continue her fight against restrictive voting policies that seek to disenfranchise Black Americans and people of color across the country.“It is our voices that will make a difference,” she said. “And we know...

For the past week, protests across South Africa have left at least 70 dead and hundreds more arrested.Per CNN, unrest came as a result of the jailing of former South African President Jacob Zuma, who was given a sentence of 15 months in jail for contempt of court after failing to appear in a corruption case concerning his presidency. The 79-year-old Zuma, who was President of South Africa from 2009 to 2018, had long been a revered figure in South Africa, having spent 10 years in prison alongside Nelson Mandela during the apartheid era.However, Zuma’s political career has been dogged by legal troubles and accusations of corruption, but he continues to have many supporters who believe he has been unfairly targeted by political enemies. As he now sits in jail for charges relating to one of these corruption cases, the country has become engulfed by levels of unrest not seen since the end of apartheid.Here are five things to...

Earlier this month, a group of heavily-armed Black men were confronted by Massachusetts police and engaged in an hours-long standoff with police before surrendering. No shots were fired and no one was injured during the confrontation, but the detained individuals – now identified as members of the Rise of the Moors group -- face a variety of charges. The entire incident is shining light on a little-known group and movement within the Black community.Here are five things to know about the Rise of the...

A man from Texas who said he waited "a little over six hours" at a polling center in Houston last year, was arrested and charged with two counts of illegal voting, CNN reports.Hervis Earl Rogers voted back on Nov. 6, 2018, and again on March 3, 2020, despite being on parole after serving a 25-year sentence for a crime. Because he was on parole as a felon, Rogers was ineligible to vote under Texas law, the office of the Texas attorney general...

In an effort to block Republicans from passing controversial election laws, Democratic state legislators in Texas fled the state to deny the House a chance to pass legislation that's being criticized as a blatant attempt at voter suppression. According to NBC News, at least 51 members of Congress took off on a pair of charter jets and arrived at Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. on Monday. By leaving town, the Democrats are denying the House a quorum, which is the minimal number of congresspersons needed in-session to pass a bill. The Democrats, who vowed to stay in town through August to run out the clock on the special session, are urging Congress to pass federal legislation to protect voting rights.According to the Texas Constitution, two-thirds of lawmakers must be present to conduct state business in either chamber. However, lawmakers who are absent can be legally compelled to return to the Capitol. "Our democracy is on the line," state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer told NBC News. "It became very clear to us that this weekend that any attempts to negotiate some Democratic concessions were cut off, making it very clear that Republicans were hellbent on having it their way."ON BOARD: Texas Democrats on their way to D.C., where they plan to stay for more than three weeks to deny the state House a quorum pic.twitter.com/hTE0mfxveZ— Jane C. Timm (@janestreet) July 12, 2021While in D.C., the group plans to urge Congress to pass the For The People Act, a bill which seeks to protect Americans from the voter suppression attempts the Democrats fled the state to block. "Texas Democrats’ decision to break a quorum of the Texas Legislature and abandon the Texas State Capitol inflicts harm on the very Texans who elected them to serve," Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said. "As they fly across the country on cushy private planes, they leave undone issues that can help their districts and our state." Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan vowed to "use every available resource under the Texas Constitution and the unanimously-passed House Rules to secure a quorum.""The special session clock is ticking," Phelan added.According to Politico, Republicans are rushing to pass bills which contain similar provisions as SB7, the election legislation that failed earlier in the year. Similar to the efforts of lawmakers in Georgia, who aimed to pass new legislation after former president Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection last year, Texas Republicans are looking to impose stricter policies for absentee ballots and also striving to enforce new limits on election officials.As Democrats now flee in the state in an effort to block a quorum for the special session, Republicans are pointing to the state House law which outlines consequences for absent legislatures. It would also impose harsh consequences for anyone who even slightly violate election laws in the state.Vice President Kamala Harris, however, supports the Texas Democrats. "I applaud those standing for the rights of all Americans and all Texans to express their voice through their vote, unencumbered," Harris said. "They are leaders who are marching in the path that so many others before did, when they fought — and many died — for our right to vote."State Rep. Chris Turner (D-Grand Prairie), the chair of the state House Democratic caucus, said his colleagues are "determined to kill this bill in this special session, which will end on Aug. 7.""We will stay out until then in order to do that," Turner...

If you’re interested in sharing your opinion on any cultural, political or personal topic, create an account here and check out our how-to post to learn more.Opinions are the writer’s own and not those of Blavity's.____We face a fraught and perilous moment for our democracy. Though Black and brown voters navigated incredible obstacles and pandemic health risks to cast their votes, to repudiate white supremacy and fight for a more just democracy, our nation remains locked in a dangerous, anti-democratic cycle with devastating impacts for Black and brown people.We have seen this cycle play out too many times over the last year.Earlier this month, members of the House committee to investigate the January 6th insurrection on Capitol Hill were announced, a stop-gap solution after Senate Republicans voted against creating a commission several weeks ago. On June 22, Republicans in the United States Senate filibustered simply debating the For The People Act, crucial legislation to strengthen and protect voting rights for Black and brown Americans. Republicans were not even willing to have a bipartisan conversation about voting rights — but, they were willing to propose nearly 400 state-level bills attacking the right to vote.Soon after, the Supreme Court — packed with three Trump justices — announced a 6-3 decision to uphold voting restrictions in Arizona. As Justice Kagan described in her dissent, the Court has severely damaged a provision intended to end racial discrimination in voting, opening the door for increased suppression of Black and brown Americans’ right to vote.These are not isolated events. These anti-democratic impulses are outgrowths of a system that has intentionally excluded Black and brown voters since our country’s founding. From Texas to Arizona, dangerous fringe right-wing actors are working hard to decimate voting rights for Black and brown Americans, and the Senate is watching idly as our democracy crumbles around us. Just as we cannot walk through a closed door, we cannot pass laws to strengthen our democracy through a system designed to undemocratically block those very laws. If we’re ever going to break the anti-democratic cycle and truly uphold our purported founding values, we need to start with unrigging the United States Senate.With only 11 Black Senators serving in Congress throughout the entirety of U.S. history, the Senate is a deeply unrepresentative institution that not only makes policy, but also shapes all other democratic structures, from the courts to voting. We’re left with a system entrenched by minority rule that exists to block progress on issues favored by the vast majority. Black and brown people pay an even steeper price for this power imbalance. Our communities won’t see progress on the issues and institutions that directly impact us — voting rights, health care, criminal justice, gun violence, climate change, police violence — until we balance power in the Senate and break this dangerous anti-democratic cycle by abolishing the filibuster.The numbers tell the concerning truth. The Senate's 50 Republican Senators represent 41 million fewer people than the 50 Democrats do, diluting the representative power of Senate Democrats millions of times over. It's hard to believe that in 2021, there is no anti-lynching legislation that has become law in the U.S. because of the power of the filibuster. Nor do 700,000 mostly Black and brown residents of D.C. have representation in the Senate.The Senate is no longer “the saucer that cools the tea.” Thanks to gerrymandering, stacked courts and the filibuster, the Senate stops the tea from even being poured. For 200 years, the filibuster has blocked progress on civil and voting rights, allowing a Senate loophole to stop fundamental rights from being conferred unto our marginalized citizens. It has become completely untenable for our democracy.The Court’s anti-democratic decision in Brnovich v. DNC makes it all the more important that Democrats in Congress swiftly restore and strengthen one of the most important pieces of legislation it has ever passed: the Voting Rights Act. But it also makes it all the more crucial that Senate Democrats take major steps to fix our Senate by dismantling the Jim Crow filibuster to pass critical voting rights legislation like the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and the Washington, D.C. Admissions Act.Democracy is under attack in America, but we have the tools to strengthen the foundation upon which our democracy is built. We need reforms that bring us closer to a more inclusive “We, the people,” and an equal opportunity to participate in the great experiment that is American democracy. As President Biden reminded Congress, strengthening the foundation of our democracy demands urgently and boldly strengthening voting rights protections. Lawmakers must take all action necessary to pass critical voting rights legislation — the sanctity of our democracy depends on it.____Dr. Rev. Stephany Spaulding is a Just Democracy spokesperson and founder of Truth &...

Civil rights attorney Lee Meritt has formally announced his candidacy for attorney general of Texas, the Dallas Morning News reports.Merrit will face off in the Democratic primary against Joe Jaworski, former mayor of Galveston whose also a lawyer, with the hopes of unseating the Republican incumbent Ken Paxton. Other Republicans, including Land Commissioner George P. Bush and former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, are also challenging Paxton.If elected, Merritt would be the first Black attorney general in the history of Texas and the first Democrat since former Attorney General Dan Morales won reelection in 1994.  Back in March, Merritt said he would run for attorney general but would make the official announcement at a later date, as Blavity previously reported.“Texas Republicans have launched an all-out assault on voter rights and civil liberties,” Merritt said in a message on Twitter. “General Paxton, Governor Abbott and the Republican-dominated Texas legislature are blatantly attempting to turn back progress in the Lone Star State using the familiar tactics of voter suppression, divisive rhetoric and corporate money.”Merritt said that the state of Texas deserves leaders who put the interest of their constituents first. “We are fighting for an executive branch in Texas that serves the needs of all its citizens and not just the elite. It’s our turn,” he added.I’m Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney and community organizer.I’m running against Ken Paxton to be the next Attorney General of Texas.Are you ready to bring justice to Texas? Chip in here: https://t.co/Umu7erHbt1 pic.twitter.com/bQrWrosM6K— Lee Merritt (@MerrittForTexas) July 13, 2021The Real Justice PAC, an organization that supports progressive prosecutors who advocate for equal justice, announced their endorsement of Merritt, Newsweek reports.“America has never had an Attorney General like Lee Merritt. Lee is a civil rights attorney who has worked for years on the frontlines of ending police violence by representing families killed by cops," the PAC’s statement read."He knows the impacts of our injustice system firsthand and as AG, will fight to hold police accountable, reduce incarceration, support crime survivors, and invest in a non-violent approach to confronting mental health,” the statement continued.The announcement of Merritt is coming at a time of political upheaval in Texas. On Monday, Democrats left the state in protest of the GOP’s restrictions on voting. Additionally, Gov. Greg Abbot passed a bill that places limits on how teachers teach racism in public schools, as Blavity previously reported. Merritt has gained national attention for representing the families of Black people killed by police. Recently, he served as co-counsel for George Floyd’s family and provided legal counsel to the family of Botham Jean, the Dallas man shot dead by an off-duty cop in his apartment in...

If you’re interested in sharing your opinion on any cultural, political or personal topic, create an account here and check out our how-to post to learn more.Opinions are the writer’s own and not those of Blavity's.____It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the Black community. Compared to white Americans, Black Americans were almost three times as likely to be hospitalized and two times as likely to contract a fatal case of the virus. Unfortunately, many of us have loved ones and community members in our network who were impacted by COVID-19.One of the reasons that Black Americans were at higher risk of severe COVID-19 infections was because of the increased risk associated with obesity. As director of the Wake Forest Baptist Health Weight Management Center, I see firsthand how obesity impacts a person’s entire health profile, making my patients more susceptible not only to COVID-19 but other chronic diseases. Nearly half of Black Americans live with obesity, a serious, chronic disease that puts us at higher risk for heart disease, stroke and cancer. Obesity has a disproportionate impact on my Black patients; in part due to obesity, Black Americans are 77% more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes and more likely than any other group to have high blood pressure. That makes us extremely vulnerable to serious cases of COVID-19, and also puts us at greater risk of long-term health issues and lower quality of life.In the wake of the pandemic, the medical community and lawmakers are finally beginning to acknowledge that systemic health inequities are a pre-existing condition for Black people. Yet they are still behind in recognizing obesity as a health equity issue that disproportionately impacts the Black community — and this complacency has cost dear lives during the pandemic.As we have seen during the pandemic, the systemic problems that we have ignored for far too long have left the most vulnerable communities exposed to death, disease and disaster. Addressing obesity as a serious health condition is something we should have been doing more broadly a long time ago. I had high hopes, as did many of my colleagues, that in 2013, when the American Medical Association (AMA) took a historic step to recognize obesity as a disease — and not just a personal failing — that we would be able to make treatment for obesity more accessible to everyone. Before that point, high-quality obesity treatment was really only available to those who could afford to pay out of pocket because most insurance plans excluded coverage or had limited benefits. Unfortunately, much of the hope we had has not been realized in terms of substantive changes in who has access to obesity treatment, and our society is being devastated by this failing.Even though the AMA updated their position to be consistent with the most current science, this has not translated to changes in how individual health care practitioners approach obesity. Black Americans still face stigma from inadequately trained physicians who believe obesity is the result of individual choices or behaviors. A recent study found that up to 74% of people living with obesity felt shamed or belittled when visiting a doctor, making them less likely to seek care in the future, further jeopardizing the scant trust that Black people have in the healthcare system.And despite the conclusive evidence that obesity is a treatable disease, Medicare and some private insurance plans are still not covering comprehensive treatment approaches that include safe, FDA-approved anti-obesity medications. This prevents millions of Black Americans from accessing life-saving care, including many of my patients. And these outdated laws are based on harmful biases instead of following the science.This is a clear example of how a systemic inequity perpetuates disparities that have terrible consequences for Black Americans. Continuing to deny coverage for obesity treatment disproportionately affects Black Americans because of the higher rates of obesity in our community. We have to change policies to not only catch up with science, but to directly address the systemic inequities that continue to deprive Black Americans of health and wellbeing. That’s why I’m supporting a new campaign, Obesity Care Now, that calls for Medicare to provide more comprehensive treatment for people living with obesity and presses Congress to pass legislation like the Treat & Reduce Obesity Act (TROA) that would make obesity care more accessible and affordable.I got into medicine because I wanted to help people. Every day at the Weight Management Center, I get to do that for countless patients, providing high-quality obesity medicine treatment and the full continuum of care. Yet, outdated regulations shouldn’t prevent me from getting my patients the care they need.My patients deserve a chance to live happy, healthy lives, free of preventable diseases. They deserve the best quality obesity care, free of stigma and discrimination. They deserve obesity care now.____Dr. Jamy Ard is the co-director of the Wake Forest Baptist Health Weight Management Center. He works with specific populations who suffer from obesity disparities, including Black Americans, older adults, and those with severe...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and creator of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, recently announced her decision to decline the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill's offer to be a tenured faculty member. She'll instead be heading to Howard University.Days after her announcement, Hannah-Jones joined Blavity News for a Facebook Live discussion about her move to Howard, the need for Black journalists to defend democracy, and the balance between fighting racial inequality and maintaining self-care.The New York Times Magazine correspondent gave more insight into the situation that led to her refuting her alma mater's offer and choosing to teach at Howard, instead. After being recruited to UNC for a Knight Chair – a tenured position offered to practicing journalists around the country – Hannah-Jones was initially denied the tenure that comes with this position. Once the story became a “national scandal,” a number of schools reached out to her with offers, leading Hannah-Jones to decide to join the faculty of an HBCU."I decided that if I wasn't going to go to the University of North Carolina, that I was going to go to a historically Black college," she told Blavity. “Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is a good friend of mine, we started to have some conversations,” Hannah-Jones recalls, “and he introduced me to Dr. Wayne Frederick, who is the President of Howard, and everything just kind of came together to help me fulfill my lifelong dream of being part of the HU family.”Coates, a fellow award winning journalist and MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner, will be joining Hannah-Jones at Howard. Hannah-Jones will be founding the Center for Journalism and Democracy at Howard, which she believes will serve a critical purpose for the school and the country.“I really do believe that journalism is the firewall for our democracy,” Hannah-Jones said of her profession. “We’re the ones that provide the check against our institutions and our politicians.”The Iowa native feels that the current generation of journalists are not prepared to tackle the attacks on democracy that are currently underway across the country.“So many journalists come from communities where they don’t believe that democracy is being threatened, because that’s never been their experience,” she noted, “or they really have a fundamental belief that American institutions will hold, that they will self-correct.”By contrast, Hannah-Jones says, “Black journalists have never really had that luxury.”The Center for Journalism and Democracy will seek to train a future generation of journalists at Howard and HBCUs across the country, providing them with the investigative and historical research skills needed for the current moment.Discussing the backlash against both her work and the academic framework known as critical race theory, she argues that this current set of attacks resembles previous periods in history.“We’re not in an unprecedented moment at all. In fact, we’re in a very predictable moment because we’ve seen these patterns historically. I think we’re in a very dangerous moment.”For Hannah-Jones, this present moment is reminiscent of the Redemption period that began in the late 1800s, in which there was a backlash against the gains of Black people during Reconstruction and an attempt to whitewash history.“I don’t think journalists are covering this with the proper urgency or the proper historical insight,” she warns, reminding that the establishment of Jim Crow and segregation took place gradually over a number of years.Concerning the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and the spate of voter suppression laws being past across the country.“We need to look right now at what’s happening and ensure we’re fighting back before it’s too late," Hannah-Jones added.Returning to Hannah-Jones' move from UNC to Howard, she has advice for her fellow academics as well as students dealing with hostility and systemic racism."Every person has to decide when and how and where they want to fight and not allow these institutions to lay the burden of fixing the racial inequality that they created on our backs," she added. The seasoned journalist will be joining the faculty of Howard University this fall. She will hold the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism, a tenured faculty position within the Cathy Hughes School of Communications. She'll also serve as founder of the Center for Journalism and Democracy. Hannah-Jones is also the editor and one of the authors of the upcoming book, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, which will be out in...

Update (July 9, 2021): Gwen Levi, a 76-year-old woman who was sent back to prison last month because she missed a phone call from her probation officers, is celebrating being a free woman."If He can do it for me, He can do it for more," Levi said shortly after being released. "I just want everyone to know I thank them for all you did for me and know we still got work to do for others left behind." Levi was previously accused of violating the terms of her release when she missed a call from her probation officers. The elderly woman has now been granted a compassionate release by a federal judge while her sentence has been reduced to time served, USA TODAY reported. Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said it was shameful to send the woman back to prison for missing a phone call while attending a computer class for a few hours.“She deserves to be home. But the fight is far from over. It's time for the Biden administration to ensure that the 4,000 people on home confinement get to stay home with their families, too," Ring said, advocating for those who were released last year in an effort to help slow the spread of the coronavirus among prisoners.Gwen Levi's heartwarming reaction to being released from jail and also her message to her many supporters. pic.twitter.com/mrhcsINt3W— Ray Strickland (@realraystrick) July 7, 2021 U.S. District Judge Deborah C. Chasanow, who handed the ruling on Tuesday, said the 76-year-old has done well on home confinement. "During her incarceration, she took many courses, worked, and completed drug education," Chasanow wrote.The judge also said "it would do little" to issue a severe punishment against Levi who's in remission from lung cancer and whom the Justice Department had declared nonviolent. “Because of her release to home confinement, the most pressing initial concerns (COVID, age, and health) were addressed,” Judge Chasanow wrote in her opinion. “The court concludes that it would do little (if anything) to serve the goals of sentencing to require her to return to full custody.” Levi’s lawyer, Sapna Mirchandani of Maryland’s Office of the Federal Public Defender, said the Baltimore resident will report to a probation officer for five years and can request early termination of supervision after one year, the Atlanta Black Star reported.Original (June 28, 2021): A 76-year-old woman was sent back to prison because her probation officials couldn’t contact her for a few hours,  the Washington Post reports. The woman had been in a computer class. Gwen Levi qualified as one of the 4,500 federal inmates who were released early from prison because of a nationwide effort to release some incarcerated individuals to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among prison populations. But now, Levi's back in custody because of a miscommunication with her supervising officials. This is 76 yr old Gwen Levy who was returned to prison for not answering a call from her federal probation officer while in this computer class. They told her lawyer, “because she could have been robbing a bank, [we’re] going to treat her as if she was robbing a bank.” pic.twitter.com/sJvo9I5fVo— Dyjuan Tatro (@DyjuanTatro) June 27, 2021According to reports, Levi was attending a computer-processing class in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. During her time in class, it was discovered at 10:51 a.m. that she was not home by tracking done on her ankle monitor. After not responding to calls for a few hours, her monitor revealed that she was back at her mother’s home at 1:17 p.m. The Bureau of Prisons defined the incident on their report as an “escape.”She's now in a Washington, D.C. jail awaiting a transfer to a federal facility, her attorney Sapna Mirchandani told The Post.“There’s no question she was in class,” Mirchandani said. “As I was told because she could have been robbing a bank, they’re going to treat her as if she was robbing a bank.”Kristie A. Breshears, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, told The Post that the bureau staff has the authority to decide if a former prisoner should be sent back to “secure custody.” Additionally, when the pandemic is over, the Bureau of Prisons can decide to release prisoners to home confinement if they’re nearing the end of their sentences.“I feel like I was attempting to do all the right things,” Levi said in a statement through her attorney. “Breaking rules is not who I am. I tried to explain what happened, and to tell the truth. At no time did I think I wasn’t supposed to go to that class. I apologize to my mother and my family for what this is doing to them.” Levi said she was “devastated.”In 2004, she was charged with conspiracy to sell at least one kilogram of heroin, as part of a drug enterprise that operated in Maryland, D.C, California, New York, Texas and Wyoming per NBC News. She pled guilty on April 19, 2005, to the drug conspiracy and was sentenced on Oct. 6, 2006, to 35 years in prison. In different facilities in Maryland, Texas, and  Alabama, she served 16 years of a 24-year sentence.After being released to home confinement, she moved back to Baltimore with her 94-year-old mother where she volunteered at prison advocacy organizations, with hopes of gaining...