As states ban abortion with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, women’s rights advocates in New York and beyond are raising awareness of the disproportionate impact these policies will have on black women — and they’re setting a framework for economic and health justice moving forward.
The Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls has created a legislative agenda to put Black women at the center of these policy discussions, to address their long-standing economic barriers.
Azza Altiraifi, senior policy officer of the Liberation in a Generation group, co-chaired the task force that put together the report and said dismantling any structure of oppression is necessary to create collective economic prosperity and strengthen democracy.
“It is futile to focus solely on narrowing racial gaps, whether in wealth, health, housing or education,” Altiraifi said, “unless they are equally willing to uproot and dismantle the root causes of these inequalities in the first place”.
The report built on the “Black Women Best” intersectional framework coined by Janelle Jones, the first black woman to serve as chief economist at the Department of Labor. Altiraifi said it draws on a rich history of black women’s feminist scholarship and includes ties to disability, reproductive and economic justice.
In addition to centering black women, Altiraifi said it’s important to follow their leadership on these issues that have disproportionately affected them, adding that in the post-Roe landscape, advocates will look to women’s care networks. abortion that have been built by black women over the years. time.
“Black women have, in the face of such organized abandonment – both historically and currently – created their own systems, networks of care and community support to meet the needs of one another,” Altiraifi said, “at a time and in places where the state was failing to do so.”
The report highlighted policies such as guaranteed income that have proven effective in reducing economic disparities. Members of the congressional caucus, including U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke, DN.Y., also introduced a resolution encouraging their colleagues to follow the plan of the Black Women Best report.
Disclosure: Liberation in a Generation contributes to our fund for reporting on civil rights, housing/homelessness, poverty issues and social justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.
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Pride month in June shines a light on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities, who have long faced discrimination. Residents of these communities say they continue to face bias in Montana, especially in finding housing.
Pam Bean, executive director of the nonprofit Montana Fair Housing, said LGBTQ people only recently won a major victory in federal housing.
“Given that it has only been a year and a half since under the Fair Housing Act, it is illegal to discriminate against this population on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation,” said she said, “there is still a lot of education that needs to take place with housing providers.
A 2020 report from UCLA found that LGBTQ people face significant barriers to finding housing. Young adults in this population experience homelessness at a rate more than twice that of the general population. The number is even higher for people under the age of 18.
Bean noticed that people moving from out of state may not understand some of Montana’s landlord-tenant laws or local city ordinances, which has sometimes led to conflict. For example, she spoke to a tenant who hung LGBTQ Pride flags outside his residence.
‘He and the housing provider ended up with a very conflicted relationship,’ she said, ‘because he didn’t realize he had to get permission to hang things on the house. ‘outside the unit’.
Bean said it was important to understand the laws governing housing. But she also notes that organizations like hers can provide resolution of disputes between landlords and tenants.
“We can share information with both parties and educate them on the issues that need to be resolved,” she said, “and hopefully come to a resolution where, especially in this housing market, the household is able to keep his accommodation”.
Bean said Montana Fair Housing can also help people file administrative complaints with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. However, she noted that it was not a quick process, usually taking months or years to resolve.
Disclosure: Montana Fair Housing contributes to our fund for reporting on disabilities, housing/homelessness, human rights/racial justice, social justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.
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There’s $1 trillion in the philanthropy sector, but only a small portion of the money goes to reducing racial disparities across the country.
Edgar Villanueva, author of the book ‘Decolonizing Wealth’, said the sector should rethink the way it gives. He pointed out that less than a tenth of philanthropic donations go to nonprofits run by Black, Indigenous or people of color working specifically on issues of racial or social equity.
“We still think about philanthropy and give the old fashioned way, which is charity, and put a band-aid on the issues,” Villanueva argued. “Compared to funding organizations that are on the front lines pushing for more transformative change in our communities, and especially around issues of racial justice.”
Villanueva is the keynote speaker at a Montana Nonprofit Association summit this Thursday in Helena.
Villanueva acknowledged that her ideas on redistributing money came from indigenous wisdom on restorative justice. Her book outlines seven stages of healing: grieving, apologizing, listening, building relationships, representing, investing, and repairing. He noted that the money now available to philanthropic foundations was built largely on the slave trade and indigenous lands.
“Not returning some of this wealth to the descendants of the people who helped build it is an injustice, in my view,” Villanueva said. “That’s what healing looks like. It’s about righting a wrong that would help close a race and wealth gap that exists in our communities because of history.”
Villanueva’s book includes the story of a North Carolina woman who discovered that her wealth came from land taken from Native Americans and her family owned slaves. He said she wrote letters of apology to their descendants and decided to focus her philanthropy on supporting the communities her family had harmed.
“And not only has that been great for the people who have had that support, but she has been transformed into this person who has just been freed from some kind of guilt and shame of history that is tied to her family. “, explained Villanueva.
He added that the woman is now one of 500 members of a community of donors within the wealth decolonization project known as Liberated Capital. Four Montana nonprofits have received funding from Liberated Capital.
Villanueva emphasized that anyone can make more meaningful choices about the causes they donate to.
“There are small decisions we can make every day that would really help address the hundreds of years of marginalization that many of our communities have faced,” Villanueva concluded.
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Saturday is National Drug Take Back Day, and there will be more than 135 events across Wisconsin where people can get rid of controlled and uncontrolled prescription drugs.
In part, the annual event aims to combat the spread of illicit opioid prescriptions, which have long plagued Wisconsin and the country.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said at a Stand Up for Recovery ceremony this week that the state is seeing fewer new opioid prescriptions.
“There has been a significant drop in opioid prescriptions over the past few years,” Kaul observed. “It’s been really encouraging to see. There’s definitely an increased awareness that prescriptions can lead to substance use disorders.”
According to a press release, residents can bring e-cigarette devices with the batteries removed,
aerosols, inhalers and pet medications, among others. Illegal drugs, needles and anything containing bodily fluid will not be accepted.
Although new prescriptions are down overall, the data indicates that Wisconsin is still grappling with the opioid crisis. According to the state Department of Health Services, there were more than 1,200 opioid-related deaths in Wisconsin in 2020, the last full year of data available, the highest annual death toll since at least 2014. .
Kaul pointed out that the pandemic has exacerbated underlying mental health issues for those with substance use disorders.
“The pandemic has led, as we all know, to increased isolation, increased mental health issues,” Kaul noted. “It has caused many people to lose loved ones to the pandemic, and it has had a major impact on mental health and substance use disorders.”
As authorities encourage people to dispose of unused prescriptions this weekend, there are nearly 500 permanent drug disposal boxes scattered across the state.
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