Civics 4/11

2023 Civics Edition

April 11, 2023

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News and information about politics, government, civic participation and engagement from URL Media's network of Black and Brown publishers.

Ed Jones for Agence France-Presse 

🚨 "2 years after Atlanta spa shootings Asian massage workers remain criminalized in NYC": In New York, which employs one of the highest numbers of massage therapists in the country, getting into the field of licensed massage therapy requires overcoming many legal hoops, reports Prism. But many working-class Asian migrant women who are disproportionately represented in the profession face financial and other discriminatory barriers that prevent them from working under safe conditions. Now advocates are reintroducing the Massage License Decriminalization Act — first introduced last February — that would remove criminal charges for individuals who operate without a license. Hear from the experts.

+: Schools are grappling with pandemic learning loss. How are teachers serving BIPOC student populations faring?

📝 New report urges federal government to rethink how it collects data in Indian Country: A new Brookings report suggests that the government could exclude more than three-quarters of Native Americans from official data sets, reports Native News Online. The report, which compared racial data from the 2010 and 2020 census, found that many Native Americans also identified themselves as belonging to another race. “This is problematic because government agencies and non-governmental researchers often choose to aggregate all multiracial individuals into a single ‘two-or-more-races’ category,” the report said. “When that happens, it removes a majority of Native Americans and lumps them into a catch-all category with groups that have significantly different backgrounds and life experiences.” Read recommendations from the authors of the report on how the government can change its data collection practices.+ 🦬 : Bisons are saved from slaughter by Indigenous groups during controversial Yellowstone National Park hunt (Via Smithsonian Mag)

⛓️ There will be no letter from a Riverside County Jail… but maybe there should be: With the 60th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" approaching, Black Voice News executive editor S.E. Williams asks whether a similar letter would appeal to today's conscience. She cites the ongoing investigation into rumors of maltreatment at Riverside County Jail as one of the "most pressing Civil Rights issues of our time." Williams writes, "Men and women confined to these facilities do not have the megaphone of King and the way mail is inspected it would probably never leave the confines of the jail." Read her latest column here. 

ICYMI: This year, let’s not water down Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s revolutionary messaging (Alicia Ramirez for URL Media)More: Letter from Birmingham Jail (California State University, Chico)

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Scholar Jelani Cobb on rebuilding trust in the news media: Guest host for Our Body Politic and Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah sits down with writer, historian and educator Jelani Cobb at the 2023 Just Economy Conference in Washington to discuss the challenges facing journalists of color in today’s media landscape. Listen to the full episode.