Civics 6/18

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Share

New to URL Media? Subscribe below to receive our weekly newsletters.

News and information about politics, government, civic participation and engagement from the URL Media network.

Demonstrators protest and argue outside the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year. (Credit: Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket for Getty Images via Capital B)The Black reproductive justice leaders in a post-Dobbs era: Living in a post-Dobbs era has been challenging, to say the least. With the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade two years ago and limiting access to abortion in many states, Marsha Jones, executive director of the Afiya Center in Dallas, says many people don't know where to go or how to navigate the available resources if they experience a miscarriage. The Afiya Center is in Texas, one of the first states to pass extreme restrictions on access to reproductive care. In 2021, Senate Bill 8, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, barred physicians from performing abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

And since the 2022 Dobbs decision, similar restrictive policies have spread nationwide, affecting medication availability and sparking debates about in-vitro fertilization. Last week, the Supreme Court struck down a lawsuit seeking to restrict access to mifepristone, a mail-order drug used to end pregnancies or manage miscarriages. The Court will soon rule on whether patients have a constitutional right to an abortion when their health is at risk.

“We already were in a health care crisis,” said Monica Simpson of SisterSong. With federal protections gone, she says the situation has worsened. 

Capital B spoke with advocates who say protecting Black women’s access to reproductive care calls for creativity and innovation, drawing on inspiration from the reproductive justice movement, which was developed in Chicago during the 1990s to include the perspectives of marginalized communities.

Hear more personal stories about the fight to protect Black women’s access to reproductive justice from Capital B →

On Juneteenth let us remember that racial terror did not end with slavery: Terence Crutcher's tragic death at the hands of Tulsa police in 2016 echoed the city's dark history of racial violence, writes Black Voice News contributor Ben Jealous. This tragedy reminded Terence’s sister, Dr. Tiffany Crutcher, of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, which is the deadliest race massacre in American history post-slavery. During the massacre that began on May 31, 1921 and went on for about two days, a racist white mob murdered 300 Black residents, displaced 10,000, and burned down over 1,250 Black homes, businesses and churches in the predominantly Black and thriving neighborhood of Greenwood, Tulsa.

The Crutchers are direct descendants of a survivor of the massacre, which obliterated Tulsa’s Greenwood District, known at the time as “Black Wall Street.” Despite its historical significance, this event was long buried in what Dr. Crutcher calls a “conspiracy of silence.” In his Black Voice News op-ed, Ben Jealous reveals that Dr. Crutcher only learned about the massacre after leaving for college.

Now as a leading advocate for official recognition and restitution for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Dr. Crutcher continues to fight for justice. Last week, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a reparations lawsuit for the last living survivors of the massacre. However, efforts persist to establish a national monument at the historic Greenwood site. Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) have introduced bipartisan legislation, and President Biden could designate the monument under the 1906 Antiquities Act.

On this year’s Juneteenth, Dr. Crutcher reminds us that the promise of freedom remains unfulfilled. And the fight for a national monument is not just about honoring past atrocities but about confronting ongoing systemic racism and ensuring these horrific events in history are neither repeated nor forgotten.

Read the full op-ed here →    More: Freedom Isn't Free (URL Media)

After waiting decades for asylum, Chinese undocumented immigrants face a "stateless" reality: On July 4, 2023, Lin, an undocumented cook in NYC, was violently attacked by three men. Following the incident, he was unable to work for months due to health issues stemming from the attack. Yet amid the sleepless nights and loss of income, Lin found a silver lining: the possibility of applying for a U visa. The U visa is a nonimmigrant visa for victims of certain crimes who have suffered abuse and are willing to assist law enforcement. A U visa holder can live and work in the U.S. for up to four years and apply for lawful permanent residence after holding the U visa for three years. 

As such, Lin had the chance to gain the legal status he had longed for during his three decades in the U.S. However, despite being a strong candidate for the U visa after the attack he endured last year, he still hasn’t received one. As Documented reported last year, the backlog of people waiting for U visas has grown to 326,000, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

And throughout the past three decades, Lin worked tirelessly in low-income jobs in garment factories and restaurants in NYC. But his life took a turn during the pandemic when he lost his job, his income and contact with his family back home. “During the pandemic, I lost my income, perhaps they stopped contacting me because they no longer see value in me,” he tells Documented. 

Now, at 68, Lin must navigate the complexities of aging without legal immigration status and basic social benefits in the U.S. or China, where he is unable to return due to family estrangement and canceled “household registration” status in China. “I have never stopped paying taxes during the past years, and I have never really used the public benefits before. But now when I need [the benefits], I don’t have access,” says Lin. 

Documented’s story about Lin sheds light on the challenges faced by many long-term undocumented immigrants who contribute to society but lack a clear path to U.S. citizenship. 

Read more here →Plus: Parole in Place Update: Biden expands eligibility for undocumented immigrant spouses (Documented)

Humans vs. machines: How language workers are resisting AI: Julie Tay's journey in the language services industry began in the 1990s, a time when formal language services were virtually nonexistent in New York. Back then, immigrants were expected to assimilate into U.S. culture. But when word got out that Tay was fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin, she found herself naturally pulled into the role of interpreter and translator, often working on assignments in courts.

Today, the landscape for language workers has shifted dramatically with the advent of AI and machine-assisted translation tools. While these new technologies promise efficiency, they also pose significant threats to language workers' job security. Some worry machine translation will make their jobs obsolete, and students entering the field are second-guessing their choice.

As the director of Hunter College's Master of Arts in Translation and Interpreting (MATI) program, Tay is part of a group of industry leaders fighting to help language workers tech-proof their careers and assert their role beyond supporting the dominance of the English language. Some advocate for language workers to embrace technology rather than fear it, especially during a time of increased demand for translation and interpretation services in New York.

Tay tells Epicenter-NYC that co-existing with AI means changing the way language workers think about their jobs. 

Read more here →

In the latest episode of URL Media's Twice as Good podcast, hosts Sara and Mitra are joined by guests Madiba Dennie, author of the new book "The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution And How We The People Can Take It Back," and Brandon Tensley, national politics reporter at Capital B News, to delve into the Supreme Court's alarming rollback of civil rights. Together, they explore what we’re calling the "great retrenchment" — the ongoing assault on Black political power — and spotlight the states that are fighting back. Drawing on the wisdom of Frederick Douglass, they affirm the critical importance of persevering in the struggle for equity and justice for all. 🎧 Listen to the full episode here →

Check out our Currency of Impact dashboard, a new tool designed to revolutionize media buying conversations and put community impact on the foreground. Dive into our impact tracker and case studies highlighting demonstrated impact across the URL Media network. This project was co-produced with the Reynolds Journalism Institute. Visit it here.