Tuesday, September 17, 2024
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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.
A view of the Southgate Shopping Center in Springfield, Ohio, on the afternoon of Sunday, September 15. Many immigrants, including Haitians, patronize the center for Caribbean and Latin grocery products, cuisine and beauty services. Photo by Macollvie J. Neel
Haitians in Springfield: A tale of Black immigration in ‘Anytown USA’: While Haitians have helped boost economic growth in Springfield, racial furor now threatens the Ohio town’s revitalization. The Haitian Times highlights how this conflict reflects America's age-old battle with newcomers, and how these tensions could have been avoided with collaboration between government and the established Haitian community.
Ideally, all immigration policies should come with a budget for an education and assimilation support effort, writes The Haitian Times’ Macollvie J. Neel.
Neel notes that there have been such efforts around the resettlement of Ukrainian and Afghani refugees with the help of groups like the nonprofit Welcome.us. In Indianapolis, as The Haitian Times has reported, a City Hall liaison and neighborhood advocates have helped folks settle. And in Columbus, the mayor launched the New American Program during the pandemic.
In Springfield, that model is non-existent, Neel writes, adding that instead, fear and resentment established themselves. “It trumped any fear seen even in larger cities nearby, triggering some people to actually act on their hatred.” Neel also turns the spotlight to Haitian Americans. “We also should have built programs to assist newcomers in any new community, many have said … But no one did that.”
Regardless, Neel writes, there’s still hope.
“Haitian Americans across generations and geographies can turn this current of moral outrage into proactive measures to protect immigrants’ civil rights,” according to Neel, pointing to how Haitians in Indiana were able to sue for the right to have state ID cards. “That took education, alliances with other expert groups and guts.”
Why didn’t the mainstream media warn people about Project 2025?: It’s been more than a year since the publication of the 900-page book of policy proposals known as Project 2025, a conservative manifesto outlining how a future Republican president should navigate an administrative transition. As Prism notes, Project 2025 is an attempt to withhold political power from people who would benefit from accurate climate change information and who would use that insight to mitigate climate impacts.
However, that’s not the focus of media coverage of Project 2025, according to Prism.
In a recent article, Prism writes how the media’s focus on the most sensationalistic parts of Project 2025—like a states’ rights approach to marriage equality—shields the public from understanding the most dangerous elements of Project 2025: its attempt to control public knowledge and circulation of information. As an example, Prism highlights the ways conservative factions have sought to restrict critical race theory and implementation of affirmative action.
“It’s not a simplistic cause and effect, but years and years of this kind of media coverage … does disempower us,” says Victor Pickard, professor at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
AAPI voters set to shape the 2024 election: By Election Day on Nov. 5, it’s estimated that more than 15 million Asian Americans will be eligible to vote. This influx of voters, according to AsAmNews, suggests that Asian Americans could significantly impact political races and address issues important to Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities.
Additionally, the Pew Research Center reports that Asian Americans are the fastest growing ethnic group with an 81% increase from 2000 to 2019. Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders also saw significant growth at 70% and 61%, respectively.
“What these results show is that despite Asian American voters’ growing influence and decisive role in recent elections, they are largely still being ignored by campaigns and political parties,” Christine Chen, co-founder and CEO of APIAVote, said in an interview with AAPI Data. “And while there’s little evidence of a broad political realignment of Asian American voters, recent elections have shown that their political identities are more tenuous than their voting habits imply, and that when candidates make concerted efforts to engage them, Asian American voters are persuadable.”
Jobs and the economy, inflation, healthcare, crime, education, Social Security and Medicare, housing costs, national security, gun control, and immigration reform are among issues that resonate most with Asian Americans, according to AAPI Data.
‘We have something to say’: Young Black voters want attention on Gaza: While younger Black voters are excited over the prospects of Vice President Kamala Harris becoming president of the United States, many are also urging the Democratic Party not to ignore the plight of Palestinians.
“Seeing a Black woman on the cusp of making history is so exciting, and it makes me excited to be a part of this work,” Briana Thomas, with Georgia Youth Justice Coalition, tells Capital B. Still, Thomas says, some younger Black voters “definitely want to see” Democrats be more active in ending conflicts abroad by, for instance, pushing to restrict arms sales to Israel.
Capital B highlighted a poll – reported by the New York Times – that found a nearly 30-point gap in support for Democrats between Black voters from the ages of 18 through 49 and Black voters 50 and over. Closing this gap, Capital B noted, will require Democrats to engage more intentionally and directly with frustrated voters, or else they might sit out the election altogether.
At the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Deyona Burton, with the College Democrats of America, recently told an audience of younger and older Black voters that her mother often asks why she cares so much about what’s going on elsewhere in the world.
“It’s mostly because I see [the violence] almost every single day,” Burton said. “I open up my feed, and even if I’m looking for a laugh or trying to find a meme or a reel, I always see something about what’s happening in Gaza.”
Inland Empire not prepared to accommodate aging population (Black Voice News)
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