Dear friends,
We have achieved Friday. We are not done with tragedy, however. The mass murder hate crime that occurred in Atlanta has again shaken us. A hearing in the House of Representatives yesterday, which was planned before the massacres at two different spas, focused on anti-Asian violence.
Representative Doris Matsui, Democrat of California, who was born in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans, described how hearing politicians including former President Donald J. Trump use xenophobic phrases to describe the coronavirus brought back memories of the discrimination her parents faced from the federal government decades ago.
Back then, Ms. Matsui said, “many leaders advanced the myth that the Japanese community was inherently the enemy. Americans across the country believed it, acceded to institutionalized racism, and acted on it.”
“Last year,” she continued, “as I heard, at the highest levels of government, people use racist slurs, like ‘China virus,’ to spread xenophobia and cast blame on innocent communities, it was all too familiar.”
Matsui’s point was that we should not be surprised that this political climate resulted in violence. On Wednesday night, Trevor Noah made the same point, with his characteristic moral clarity. Noah’s rage is bracing.
Support Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
Rafael Warnock spoke with similar clarity on the Senate floor this week to promote the For the People Act, of which he is a co-sponsor, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act:
I’m here to say that this issue is bigger than the filibuster. I stand before you saying that this issue—access to voting and preempting politicians’ efforts to restrict voting—is so fundamental to our democracy that it is too important to be held hostage by a Senate rule, especially one historically used to restrict the expansion of voting rights. It is a contradiction to say we must protect minority rights in the Senate while refusing to protect minority rights in the society.
Usually, I link to the transcripts of speeches, but here, I have linked only to the video of Warnock’s speech. It’s worth listening to, from start to finish.
Warnock’s understanding of the stakes — the rights of people to life and liberty — is both sophisticated and uncomplicated. Access to housing is similar to the matter of access to voting: it is, like voting, “preservative of all other rights.” It is almost impossible to participate as a citizen without an address.
A federal lawsuit was filed this week against brokers who “refused to rent to investigators posing as low-income tenants.” During the investigation, conducted by Housing Rights Initiative,
nearly half of all calls by investigators posing as [Section 8] voucher holders were met with discrimination, according to the organization.
The investigators found that discrimination was most prevalent in higher-income, majority-white neighborhoods, including the Brooklyn properties, which were in Clinton Hill, Boerum Hill, Coney Island, Midwood, and Kensington.
More than 80 percent of New Yorkers who use housing vouchers are Black and Hispanic, HRI said.
"When you discriminate against tenants with rental assistance, you discriminate against tenants of color," Aaron Carr, the founder of the Housing Rights Initiative, said in a news conference this week.
Support Housing Rights Initiative, a non-profit organization that targets, investigates, and fights fraudulent real estate practices.
This week, NYC purchased a rowhouse on Duffield Street in downtown Brooklyn. The building, which was recently landmarked by the Landmarks Preservation Commission,
represents a rare surviving home to known abolitionists, while also marking the borough’s greater role in the abolitionist movement.
Although some accounts of the house list it as a stop on the Underground Railroad, the commission said they could not confirm this. The danger and secrecy of housing fugitive enslaved people during this time makes Underground Railroad activity difficult to confirm.
Duffield Street was renamed Abolition Place in 2007, during a battle to stop the house at 227 from being razed to make way for development. There has been talk for years of establishing the building as a Heritage Center, in partnership with the city. Landmarks recognition and this purchase are important steps.
Have a good weekend.
with love,
L