Tuesday, July 30, 2024
New to URL Media? Subscribe below to get our weekly newsletters.
A View From the Ground
News and information about politics, government, civic participation and engagement from URL Media's network of Black and Brown publishers.
Renee Collymore (far left), a local resident active with the Brooklyn Democratic Party, speaks during a June 13 protest against the 47 Hall Street migrant shelter. Photo via Documented
Clinton Hill’s migrant welcome reaches tipping point: Signs declaring “Shelters are not helping the neighborhood,” “New York is not the only sanctuary city,” and “Taxpayers first” have become common in this Brooklyn neighborhood that initially embraced thousands of asylum seekers when a shelter opened at 47 Hall Street, reports Documented’s Rommel H. Ojeda. What changed? A mix of things.
A second shelter opened and residents say they weren’t notified early enough to plan ahead. There’s been more trash on streets as well as concerns of overpopulation and public safety, especially after a series of shootings killed two people, including a shelter’s resident, according to Documented.
But Clinton Hill residents, like 61-year-old Jorge Santos, want to make one thing clear: “We are not against immigrants.”
They’re asking for better communication from their representatives, and they want better shelter conditions for the migrants who hail from South America, the Caribbean, and Morocco. They’re also advocating for smaller shelter sites. About 3,500 asylum seekers live in the neighborhood.Documented has more here →
A recent court ruling would allow 18- to 20-year-olds to publicly carry guns in Minnesota. What happens now?: The Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 16 ruled that Minnesota residents between 18 and 20 can publicly carry guns in the state. But, they can’t start applying for a permit to carry just yet. They’ll have to wait until the appeals process concludes, according to Sahan Journal. Still, this ruling has a range of Minnesotans worried, from the police chief of Minneapolis to advocates working with families impacted by gun violence.
Maggiy Emery, the executive director of Protect Minnesota, a statewide group that works to prevent gun violence, foresees the ruling disproportionately affecting people of color, particularly young Black men.
“This ruling really is taking aim at this community that’s already suffering from gun violence, that is already so much more likely to bear the brunt of the firearm violence epidemic,” Emery told Sahan Journal.
In a statement, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said he was concerned the ruling would lead to young adults carrying concealed handguns in public. “We need common sense gun laws to protect the public and this ruling seems to defy common sense,” his statement said.More in Sahan Journal here →
The crackdown on antisemitism doesn’t actually have much to do with antisemitism: For Prism, journalist Anna Lekas Miller explores how Republican lawmakers have conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism as a way to limit pro-Palestine speech and criticism of Israel.
In her piece, Miller breaks down the definition of antisemitism as a hatred of Jews—“the kind manifested in the Holocaust and that has resulted in sweeping generalizations and stereotypes about Jews.” Meanwhile, she writes, anti-Zionism focuses on criticism of the state of Israel and the state of Israel’s expansion into Palestinian land.
However, Miller notes, organizations like the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance have worked to combine these two ideas — pushing for a definition of antisemitism that includes “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.”
As the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hannah Gais tells Prism: “The U.S. was ultimately primed for a moment like this.”
Gais also noted that Trump’s presidency and the right-wing figures who have stood by the former president, have, as Miller writes, “brought both antisemitism and the need to crack down on it into the mainstream.”
“It has helped drive antisemitism into the public conversation but also opened it up for [white nationalists] to be able to manipulate the terms,” Gais said.Prism has more here →
New initiative to disaggregate AAPI data, reveal diverse needs: Asians in the U.S. are often stereotyped as being a model minority. That’s why a new effort seeks to disaggregate data on the AAPI community, a diverse group that, as AsAmNews notes, “cannot be reduced to a single, homogenous cohort.” The Asian and Pacific Islander umbrella term encompasses a range of ethnic groups, including people of Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese descent.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has launched a new funding opportunity, inviting proposals to enhance the representation of Asian American communities by disaggregating data, according to AsAmNews. These kind of initiatives are crucial, said the Foundation’s senior program officer Tina J. Kauh, in order to capture the diverse backgrounds and needs within the Asian American population.
“It helps to make populations that are currently invisible visible,” Kauh told AsAmNews. “There’s a vicious cycle where, because everyone’s assuming that Asian Americans are doing well, nobody is being put in to collect more data, and then sadly that’s not going to show the need.”AsAmNews has more here →
Affordable housing lottery for seniors, apartments 1K a month (Epicenter NYC)
How AI is destabilizing elections from Mumbai to Miami(India Currents)
In the latest episode of URL Media's Twice as Good podcast, hosts
Sara Lomax and Mitra Kalita discuss the stakes of the presidential election after President Joe Biden stepped down in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris on the 2024 Democratic ticket. What contradictions exist in the Democratic Party and within VP Harris’ legacy? And what lessons can the American left learn from the global fight against the far right? Joining the discussion are Epicenter NYC editorial director Femi Redwood and Scroll’s politics editor Shoaib Daniyal.
🎧
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.
