Dear friends,
I’ve been thinking about the proper way to celebrate Juneteenth, which is the reason that schools, public libraries, and other public institutions are closed today.
[I]magine how those roughly 250,000 enslaved Texans must have felt when they found out they had been the victims of horrendous overtime fraud.
Gerald points out that holiday celebrations in the US are generally laden with irony, since we celebrate workers on Labor Day while trying to cut their benefits, give thanks without acknowledging that after colonists feasted with Indigenous people, they committed genocidal raids and their descendants made centuries of genocidal policies, including ‘Indian. He highlights the absurdity of the FBI’s absurd wishes for a happy MLK birthday.
Last year, he celebrated by going to the beach with his boyfriend and tweeting
Love to the ancestors. Lemme know when the reparations check arrives.
The Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives voted to advance HR 40 to the House floor in April 2021 and there are 215 legislators already committed to vote yes. HR 40 would create
a federal commission to examine the impacts of the legacy of slavery and recommend proposals to provide reparations. The bill does not authorize payments or any other remedies. It creates a commission to study the problem and recommend solutions—a first and necessary step given the variety of ways to remedy specific harms.
It would never get to the Senate floor, however.
Call on President Biden to use an executive order to create a Reparations Commission. This 15-second action is from Human Rights Watch.
If you’re skeptical about the politics of pushing for a Reparations Commission at this time, you can take direct action by signing the Fund for Reparations Now’s statement of apology:
It is important for people of European descent, white Americans, to acknowledge that we are collectively and individually the benefactors of a legacy rooted in the enslavement of Africans and the creation of the myth of white superiority that began long before we were born. We recognize that the free labor brutally extracted from Black bodies was the foundation for the commercial, industrial and financial revolutions that built the American Capitalist economy.
While the wealth disproportionately accrued to the white elites, the jobs and economic opportunities generated by the system of chattel slavery trickled down to benefit whites of every class, even among those who had no direct relationship to this exploitative, oppressive and dehumanizing system. . . .A culture of white supremacy and white privilege emerged as a deeply ingrained thread in the fabric of American society. . . .
We recognize that the living legacies of African enslavement in America are manifested today in the gross inequalities between whites and Blacks in wealth, health, education and an array of social welfare indicators. . . .
We further recognize that we have and continue to benefit disproportionately from social and economic privileges and entitlements based on white-skin color that are the real-life consequences of 400 years of white supremacy.
Sign the statement of apology. Make a reparations contribution.
A Reparations Commission is important because it is necessary to do the work of showing the facts. As with the work of the January 6 committee, there is no possibility of accountability until the facts come to light. Too many people are content to hide behind their ignorance.
We need to know how the nation got made, just as we need to examine our recent undoing. If we don’t show what’s going on, we lose sight of the people whose rights are at stake.
Yesterday, I attended a screening of Turn Every Page: the Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb, which tells the story of the writer-editor relationship behind Caro’s extraordinarily well-researched tomes about Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson.
The title refers to a lesson Caro learned about investigative research, when he was still a journalist. His editor at the time told him to turn every page in a file. He has found historical gold in the archives and used it to tell us the compelling, true stories about how people have used their power to shape our reality.
Last week, I was not the only person astonished to learn that the NYC budget was passed without adequate time for many members of the council to read it. Shahana Hanif, who is not my representative, described the process in her newsletter.
According to Hanif, the Mayor and the Council Speaker made a ‘handshake agreement’ on Friday, June 10, which meant that the Budget Negotiating Team (council members allied with Speaker Adrienne Adams) had accepted the terms of the agreement.
Per the City Charter (our City's constitution), we must pass a budget by July 1, so on Friday, my team and I assumed we’d have many more days to review the final document before any vote. On Sunday, we learned that a vote was scheduled for Monday evening before we had even seen the budget documents themselves.
I lay out this timeline because I want to bring some transparency to this complicated and challenging process. It benefits those in power to move quickly, to force a vote on a $101 billion budget before any of us have had time to read the fine print. It puts all of us Council Members in an incredibly difficult position.
[On Monday night], I voted yes on this complicated, flawed budget. I am surprised by how this process was conducted, and it will undoubtedly serve as a learning experience for the future. The truth is, until last night I still had not seen everything in this budget, and yet had to vote on it.
I applaud Hanif for telling the story. I was baffled by the timing of the vote.
But Speaker Adams explained that she simply removed those six council members names from funded projects.
“It is not a punishment to your community to not have your name attached to an additional allocation of funding that you voted against,” Adams said at a press conference on Thursday. “It is simply a distinguishing indication of your vote against the entire budget that includes this allocation.”
This is not the retaliatory behavior we saw by the previous speaker, Corey Johnson, in 2020, but it’s a strong-arm move. Of course, I wish national Democrats were more effective at letting voters know that Republicans continue to take credit for the programs paid for by the American Rescue Plan that they voted against.
But still. I would like all council members to have adequate time to read the budget (or organize to reject the budget) before being asked to vote on it.
Among the things we didn’t get in the budget was the 1% for the Parks Department that Mayor Adams had promised. The Lifeguard Division is part of the Department of Parks and Recreations.
There’s been a proper dust-up over the lifeguard shortage, which is national AND also local.
The lifeguard division has been beset by decades of systemic mismanagement and dysfunction, a blistering report released in December by the city's investigative agency found.
City Hall is denying waivers that previously allowed city first responders to also work swim shifts for the Department of Parks and Recreation.
Lifeguards in the city earn just $16/hour when they start, while those at Jones Beach start at $19/hour. The Y offers seasonal signing bonuses and starting pay at $18/hour.
There are also issues of transparency with swim test results to qualify as a lifeguard and calls to make two distinct tests — one for pools, and one for beaches.
Tell the mayor to extend the waivers and increase the pay for lifeguards. This is a ready-made action. Summer starts tomorrow!
Early voting has begun for the June primary. It took me a while to find the early voting hours, but since I did, I thought I’d let you know! If you’re off from work today, you can vote until 5 PM. Hours are longer on weekdays and different next weekend.
Check early voting hours.
I heartily endorse Jumaane Williams and Ana Maria Archila, the Working Families Party ticket for Governor and Lieutenant Governor. Letitia James is running unopposed for reelection as Attorney General. Vote for them on the Working Families Party ballot line.
There are some competitive primaries for Assembly districts; I’m still researching my own, in Brooklyn’s District 43.
Brian Cunningham, who won the seat in a special election in March, is facing three candidates in his run for reelection. They include Pierre Albert, a community activist; Jelanie Deshong, a former aide to Governor Hochul; and Tim Hunter, a high school teacher and community organizer.
Once I sort through, I will let you know how I will cast my ballot. If you are having trouble researching a race in your district OR wish to weigh in on a race, feel free to get in touch.
Have a beautiful day!
with love,
L