newyorker--2020-06-09--The Secret Project That Led to Black Lives Matter Murals Coast to Coast

This past Thursday , at 6 P.M. , Keyonna Jones received an unexpected call from a fellow-artist , about a secret project starting in just a few hours .
Was Jones available ?
The mother of two kids under ten , Jones scrambled to find child care .
At eight o ’ clock , she joined a Zoom call ; the lead artist explained that Muriel Bowser , the mayor of Washington , D.C. , had commissioned eight artists to paint a mural of fifty-foot-high letters spelling out “ Black Lives Matter ” across two blocks of the street leading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needed to be perfect , ” Jones , the executive director of the Congress Heights Arts and Culture Center , told me .
The group plotted how to make the mural—in a bold shade of yellow—where to get supplies , and the logistics of finishing by midday .
Several were nervous about the political consequences .
“ Some were unsure of the possible backlash—if it was a political play between the mayor and President Trump .
They didn ’ t know if the mayor would back them up if something happened , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jones recalled .
Four days earlier , federal and local law-enforcement officials had used flash grenades , chemical spray , and smoke to drive hundreds of mostly peaceful protesters out of the area around the White House so Trump could walk to St. John ’ s Church and wave a Bible , briefly , in front of photographers .
The mural was supposed to finish in front of the church .
“ In the Zoom call , it got a little uncomfortable , ” Jones , who is African-American , recalled .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if they could remain anonymous .
Jones was the only member of the group who would talk to me on the record .
That night , Washington was also hit by a torrential storm with crackling thunder and lightning that struck the Washington Monument and injured two National Guardsmen stationed near the White House .
The giant mural was to be painted on city streets that spanned two blocks .
The artists feared that the pavement might not dry in time .
Sworn to secrecy , the eight artists met at 3:30 A.M. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ B ’ took us three hours , ” Jones recalled .
“ I kept saying , ‘ Oh , my goodness , are we going to make it in time ?
’ ” Once they figured out the measurements and proportions , four of the artists moved down the street blocking letters while the other four painted .
Then they ran out of paint—they had only three gallons—partway through the “ L ” in “ Black.
” They didn ’ t get more paint until 7 A.M.—and it was a different shade of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hours away .
Then the rollers started breaking .
As the city came to life , people on Sixteenth Street , which leads to the White House , stopped to watch .
Word quickly spread on social media .
“ People were coming up from all over , asking if they could help .
We didn ’ t know what to say , ” Jones said .
At the time , the small multiracial crew had no idea that the mayor intended to speak publicly after the mural was finished or that a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that declared the area “ Black Lives Matter Plaza.
” Running out of time , Jones and the other muralists started directing volunteers where to paint .
Among them was a guy named Toby who was in a suit and on in-line skates .
“ The community took over , ” Jones said .
“ I don ’ t know how many there were in the end.
” Three days later , Jones was still processing the history she ’ d helped to make with a mural that has since landed on front @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from space .
“ I didn ’ t prepare myself for what I was doing .
This went from an internal assignment to a communal experience to global really quick , ” she said .
“ The mayor knew what she was doing .
She had this planned , but she kept it low , which is what helped make it as bold as it was .
You woke up , and there it was.
” The street sign was the other key part of the project .
It was created by Wayne @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the D.C. government by day , and a rapper , under the name Benxett , in his off-hours .
Pettus ’ s supervisor asked him to make the “ Black Lives Matter Plaza ” sign .
“ It really was a secret , ” he told me .
The complication was that all street signs in Washington are a bright green substrate vinyl with white lettering—to make them reflective , for visibility—and the mayor ’ s office wanted the sign in black and white .
“ I had to figure a workaround , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it.
” Pettus toyed with ink to adapt the available materials and still make the sign reflective .
It took several trials .
“ The rest is history , ” he told me .
After we talked , Pettus sent me lyrics from several of his songs that respond to the spate of killings of African-Americans by police .
They were all written before George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police , on May 25th .
Among them was this one : The Washington , D.C. , chapter of Black Lives Matter condemned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sign .
In a tweet , the group called the project “ a performative distraction from real policy changes ” and said , “ Bowser has consistently been on the wrong side of BLMDC history.
” The movement added , “ This is to appease white liberals while ignoring our demands .
Black Lives Matter means defund the police.
” Pettus said he understood .
“ We don ’ t want this to be a vanity project , ” he told me .
“ People have a feeling of joy from these signs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We want to see what is next—and hoping that this is not it.
” In the end , the mural and the street sign were completed on time .
Afterward , Bowser held a press conference .
“ There are people who are craving to be heard and to be seen and to have their humanity recognized , ” she said .
“ We had the opportunity to send that message loud and clear on a very important street in our city .
”

This past Thursday, at 6 P.M., Keyonna Jones received an unexpected call from a fellow-artist, about a secret project starting in just a few hours. Was Jones available? The mother of two kids under ten, Jones scrambled to find child care. At eight o’clock, she joined a Zoom call; the lead artist explained that Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C., had commissioned eight artists to paint a mural of fifty-foot-high letters spelling out “Black Lives Matter” across two blocks of the street leading to the White House. “This needed to be perfect,” Jones, the executive director of the Congress Heights Arts and Culture Center, told me. The group plotted how to make the mural—in a bold shade of yellow—where to get supplies, and the logistics of finishing by midday. Several were nervous about the political consequences. “Some were unsure of the possible backlash—if it was a political play between the mayor and President Trump. They didn’t know if the mayor would back them up if something happened, or if President Trump would retaliate,” Jones recalled. Four days earlier, federal and local law-enforcement officials had used flash grenades, chemical spray, and smoke to drive hundreds of mostly peaceful protesters out of the area around the White House so Trump could walk to St. John’s Church and wave a Bible, briefly, in front of photographers. The mural was supposed to finish in front of the church. “In the Zoom call, it got a little uncomfortable,” Jones, who is African-American, recalled. The artists agreed that they would participate only if they could remain anonymous. Jones was the only member of the group who would talk to me on the record.
That night, Washington was also hit by a torrential storm with crackling thunder and lightning that struck the Washington Monument and injured two National Guardsmen stationed near the White House. The giant mural was to be painted on city streets that spanned two blocks. The artists feared that the pavement might not dry in time.
Sworn to secrecy, the eight artists met at 3:30 A.M. on Friday. “The first ‘B’ took us three hours,” Jones recalled. “I kept saying, ‘Oh, my goodness, are we going to make it in time?’ ” Once they figured out the measurements and proportions, four of the artists moved down the street blocking letters while the other four painted. Then they ran out of paint—they had only three gallons—partway through the “L” in “Black.” They didn’t get more paint until 7 A.M.—and it was a different shade of yellow. The deadline was only four hours away. Then the rollers started breaking.
As the city came to life, people on Sixteenth Street, which leads to the White House, stopped to watch. Word quickly spread on social media. “People were coming up from all over, asking if they could help. We didn’t know what to say,” Jones said. At the time, the small multiracial crew had no idea that the mayor intended to speak publicly after the mural was finished or that a new street sign was being put up that declared the area “Black Lives Matter Plaza.” Running out of time, Jones and the other muralists started directing volunteers where to paint. Among them was a guy named Toby who was in a suit and on in-line skates. “The community took over,” Jones said. “I don’t know how many there were in the end.”
Three days later, Jones was still processing the history she’d helped to make with a mural that has since landed on front pages across the world and been photographed from space. “I didn’t prepare myself for what I was doing. This went from an internal assignment to a communal experience to global really quick,” she said. “The mayor knew what she was doing. She had this planned, but she kept it low, which is what helped make it as bold as it was. You woke up, and there it was.”
The street sign was the other key part of the project. It was created by Wayne Bennett Pettus, a sign-fabrication technician for the D.C. government by day, and a rapper, under the name Benxett, in his off-hours. Pettus’s supervisor asked him to make the “Black Lives Matter Plaza” sign. “It really was a secret,” he told me. The complication was that all street signs in Washington are a bright green substrate vinyl with white lettering—to make them reflective, for visibility—and the mayor’s office wanted the sign in black and white. “I had to figure a workaround, and no one thought we could do it.” Pettus toyed with ink to adapt the available materials and still make the sign reflective. It took several trials. “The rest is history,” he told me.
After we talked, Pettus sent me lyrics from several of his songs that respond to the spate of killings of African-Americans by police. They were all written before George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police, on May 25th. Among them was this one:
They told us tuck our head, and don’t say shit
Told us play the game, so we tried being patient
Told us “appreciate the arrangement”
Forget about the past, as if all their crimes were ancient
So swept under the rug, it’s in the basement
Had us shot and killed all for their entertainment
I ain’t even talkin’ reparations
System got a problem, and we need to make some changes.
The Washington, D.C., chapter of Black Lives Matter condemned the mural and Pettus’s street sign. In a tweet, the group called the project “a performative distraction from real policy changes” and said, “Bowser has consistently been on the wrong side of BLMDC history.” The movement added, “This is to appease white liberals while ignoring our demands. Black Lives Matter means defund the police.” Pettus said he understood. “We don’t want this to be a vanity project,” he told me. “People have a feeling of joy from these signs but also a lot of skepticism. We want to see what is next—and hoping that this is not it.”
In the end, the mural and the street sign were completed on time. Afterward, Bowser held a press conference. “There are people who are craving to be heard and to be seen and to have their humanity recognized,” she said. “We had the opportunity to send that message loud and clear on a very important street in our city.”
Steve Hansen, a city-council member in Sacramento, was watching news coverage of the new Washington mural on CNN. He was inspired. “New art for Capitol Mall?” he posted, on his Facebook page, at 9:09 A.M. Pacific Time. Hansen had previously sponsored art projects in support of other political issues, including immigration. His first instinct, he told me, was that the project was a good fit for BAMR, a local African-American artist whose real name is Demetris Washington. (BAMR stands for Becoming a Man Righteously.) But Hansen didn’t know how to reach him. He contacted Atrium, a local artist collaborative, with an offer to fund and facilitate a mural along the grassy plaza around Sacramento’s capitol. Atrium contacted several artists, who also suggested BAMR. The muralist initially turned it down, but, by 11:08 A.M., he agreed to do it.
The Sacramento story mirrored the speed of the Washington project—with its own challenges. BAMR arrived at the plaza at 2 P.M. “I saw how big it was, and I said, ‘Holy shit, I’m supposed to do this before curfew at 8 P.M.?’ ” he told me. He had no finalized design, no supplies, no help—and the area was roughly the size of three football fields. To fill the space, each letter would have to be roughly twenty feet by thirty feet, with five feet between letters. “We did a lot of quick math,” he told me. BAMR scrambled to get supplies; he and a friend were back by just after 4 P.M., with only four hours left before a curfew went into force. The day was unusually windy; then the paint didn’t stick. “We were in the middle of the grass, and we tried rollers, but it was useless,” he told me. The muralist put out an SOS on Instagram.
As in Washington, complete strangers showed up. BAMR still doesn’t know from where. They came with rakes and brooms and blowers to remove the dead grass from the plaza. Volunteers brought weed sprayers to use for the paint; they initially worked but then started clogging. “Out of nowhere, someone showed up with an airless sprayer for paint,” BAMR said. “Someone else brought a generator. There were conversations among people. Some were running home to get other things.” In the end, at least three hundred volunteers participated. “People were giving me credit for coördinating, but it was spontaneous,” BAMR said. “I have never seen anything like this in my life.”
In the middle of the mayhem, a local d.j. came out with a turntable. Someone else provided a snack booth. “It was like a flash party,” BAMR said. Shira Lane, the founder of the Atrium art group, called the turnout “magical.” Hansen insured that permits were obtained and that they could work past curfew. “Everyone was confident that they wouldn’t be shot,” BAMR said. By 8:45 P.M., the huge mural was finished—in just under five hours.
The artist described it as a paradigm shift. “As a black man, you feel so suffocated all your life. It’s unspoken. Portrayals of black males center on the hood or selling drugs or crime,” he told me. Blacks have been taught that you grow up in the conditions to which they are exposed. To be given a platform to tell the world what is happening—and the world should listen—was different, he said. “So, for us, this was empowerment, to put this message on the front lawn of our capitol,” he told me. “This is a shift of energy on our planet.” Over the last four days, other murals have been painted in big public spaces in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Oakland, California. They are unlikely to be the last.
Race, Policing, and Black Lives Matter Protests


newyorker--2020-06-09--Trump Puts Nation on Alert for Terrorists Posing as Peaceful Seventy-Five-Year-Olds

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Announcing that he was putting the nation on a “ double-red threat level , @ @ @ @ @ the American people on Tuesday to be on the lookout for terrorists posing as peaceful @ @ @ @ @ these terrorists was already identified by the police in Buffalo , ” Trump said .
@ @ @ @ @ to your town next.
” Trump listed some “ telltale signs of Antifa , ” @ @ @ @ @ identify septuagenarian terrorists in their midst .
“ If the person appears to be seventy-five @ @ @ @ @ hair and a peaceful demeanor , call the authorities immediately , ” Trump said .
@ @ @ @ @ are infiltrating American society “ everywhere , ” even on Zoom .
“ If you @ @ @ @ @ family and an elderly person suddenly appears with a friendly smile , a string of @ @ @ @ @ ‘ Grandma , ’ you have been attacked by Antifa , ” he said .

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Announcing that he was putting the nation on a “double-red threat level,” Donald J. Trump warned the American people on Tuesday to be on the lookout for terrorists posing as peaceful seventy-five-year-olds.
“One of these terrorists was already identified by the police in Buffalo,” Trump said. “They may be coming to your town next.”
Trump listed some “telltale signs of Antifa,” in order to help Americans identify septuagenarian terrorists in their midst.
“If the person appears to be seventy-five or older, with white hair and a peaceful demeanor, call the authorities immediately,” Trump said.
He warned that Antifa terrorists are infiltrating American society “everywhere,” even on Zoom.
“If you are on Zoom with your family and an elderly person suddenly appears with a friendly smile, a string of pearls, and the nickname ‘Grandma,’ you have been attacked by Antifa,” he said.


newyorker--2020-06-09--A Brief, Entirely Real History of Suffering Endured by People Who’ve Been Called Racist

An early Colonial settler was mysteriously labelled racist for throwing a smallpox-infected blanket into a Native American home while screaming , “ Die , Injuns.
” He slowly succumbed to a broken heart from being called racist once , unlike the Native Americans he attacked , who had the good fortune to perish quickly , from the smallpox .
A former Confederate soldier was completely offended when he was asked to attend two days of mandatory diversity training after the Civil War .
A woman called racist for supporting the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 suffered the indignity of getting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agreed with her .
A white man who helped lynch a black man who might have briefly looked at a white woman , but probably didn ’ t , heroically dragged himself through seven minutes of depression after some white kids who knew what he did called him racist .
The owner of a whites-only lunch counter once had to hold out his arms for a couple of minutes so that people could see there weren ’ t any racist bones in them .
A two-year-old kid cried for a solid hour after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ build the wall ” and then building a wall out of Legos so that he didn ’ t have to look at the brown kid down the street .
When someone claimed a woman was racist for using the N-word , that woman tragically lost her appetite for the last three forkfuls of brunch .

An early Colonial settler was mysteriously labelled racist for throwing a smallpox-infected blanket into a Native American home while screaming, “Die, Injuns.” He slowly succumbed to a broken heart from being called racist once, unlike the Native Americans he attacked, who had the good fortune to perish quickly, from the smallpox.
A former Confederate soldier was completely offended when he was asked to attend two days of mandatory diversity training after the Civil War.
A woman called racist for supporting the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 suffered the indignity of getting promoted at work by a boss who agreed with her.
A white man who helped lynch a black man who might have briefly looked at a white woman, but probably didn’t, heroically dragged himself through seven minutes of depression after some white kids who knew what he did called him racist.
The owner of a whites-only lunch counter once had to hold out his arms for a couple of minutes so that people could see there weren’t any racist bones in them.
A two-year-old kid cried for a solid hour after a three-year-old called him racist for saying “build the wall” and then building a wall out of Legos so that he didn’t have to look at the brown kid down the street.
When someone claimed a woman was racist for using the N-word, that woman tragically lost her appetite for the last three forkfuls of brunch.


newyorker--2020-06-09--A Seattle Activist’s Fight to Keep the Focus on Police Abuse

On Saturday , May 30th , shortly before Seattle joined other cities in feeding images of unrest to the insatiable maw of cable news , Andrè Taylor , the organizer of one of the protests that would wind its way through downtown and into national headlines , stood on a small stage at Westlake Park , mike in hand .
Taylor is black , in his early fifties , and keeps his hair buzzed close to the skull , beard neatly trimmed .
On this afternoon , he wore a long wool , camel-colored coat over a yellow shirt emblazoned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rain whipped around him .
The sky was a moody slate gray .
Taylor warned the crowd of several thousand , which were soon to march in honor of George Floyd , to remain vigilant .
“ I want you to look constantly around you , ” he said .
There will be people , he cautioned , who will no doubt cause trouble , a reference to past Seattle protests .
Anarchists and right-wing groups and even well-intentioned but misguided allies who were sure to derail the message of justice and police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ violence .
“ We must not allow some white folks , [ who ] think that ’ s the way to do things , to destruct real change , ” Taylor told the diverse gathering , which included black , white , Asian , Latinx , and Native American protesters .
“ If anybody is operating outside of the purpose here today , they are outliers .
And we can not be accountable for them.
” Taylor took up activism after Seattle police officers shot and killed his brother , in 2016 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ aftermath , Not This Time and De-Escalate Washington , were instrumental in the creation and passage of Initiative 940 , which proposed , among other things , changing state law to make it easier to prosecute cops who kill civilians .
Taylor ’ s profile has been rising ever since , putting him at the table with elected officials , including Seattle ’ s mayor , Jenny Durkan , and Washington ’ s governor , Jay Inslee .
His words on Saturday afternoon would prove prescient .
As Taylor and thousands of peaceful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. District Court building , other participants , with decidedly different approaches and aims , smashed windows , picked fights , and lit cars on fire , including several Seattle police vehicles .
The maelstrom played out live on cable-news channels and local-television broadcasts , and , at least for the night , hijacked the focus of the peaceful march .
The images were too seductive for television to pass up : a row of squad cars engulfed in flames , people running amok inside closed businesses .
A woman , clad in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a looted Cheesecake Factory on Pike Street with an entire cheesecake , immaculate with white-frosted trim and strawberries on top .
Elsewhere , a TV camera caught a young rioter—clad in black except for the red Rolling Stones lips-and-tongue logo across his chest—holding an AR-15 that he ’ d apparently just pulled from the back of a burned patrol vehicle .
A security guard protecting a TV-news crew rushed in with a raised pistol and ripped the rifle from the rioter ’ s hands .
Such telegenic sideshows owned the night , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asking people to disperse from downtown starting at 5 P.M. , an order that hit cell phones throughout the city as an AMBER Alert-style warning—two minutes after five o ’ clock .
Lost in it all was the message that Taylor and the majority of the protesters had hoped to express—and , at first , the actions of the Seattle Police Department .
On Saturday night and the days that followed , people on the ground had captured on their phone cameras the kinds of tactics that sparked the rally in the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already detained and on the ground , and dousing peaceful protesters , including a young girl , with pepper spray .
One officer pinned down a man with a knee pressed to his neck , the same maneuver that killed George Floyd , in Minneapolis .
The images went viral .
Old wounds reopened .
When Seattle police shot Che Taylor , Andrè ’ s younger brother , the city was four years into a federal consent decree .
The arrangement was the result of an Obama Administration Justice Department investigation into numerous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s use of excessive and deadly force , including in the death of John T. Williams , a renowned Native American wood carver .
Williams was walking across a downtown street , on a hot August afternoon in 2010 , when a Seattle police officer rushed from his squad car and fired four bullets , killing him on the spot .
Next to William ’ s body lay a piece of wood and the pocketknife that he had been using to carve it .
The officer resigned , but was never charged with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ released in 2011 , federal investigators wrote , “ When S.P.D .
officers use force , they do so in an unconstitutional manner nearly 20 % of the time.
” The D.O.J .
also found that Seattle cops tended to escalate rather than deëscalate encounters with suspects , and that they carried out a “ disproportionate number of street checks on people of color.
” The city agreed to the consent decree , which involved the installation of an independent monitor who would keep tabs on the department and regularly report on its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who was suspected of possessing a firearm , a violation of his parole , was shot by two officers in Seattle ’ s Wedgwood neighborhood , on February 21 , 2016 .
( The King County prosecutor later declined to press criminal charges against the officers . )
Andrè Taylor , Che ’ s older brother , who was living in Los Angeles at the time , flew to Seattle to console his family and seek justice .
At a press conference , hosted by the N.A.A.C.P.
, Taylor announced , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war ” —war against a system that allows the police to kill black people without consequence .
It was an unlikely role for Taylor .
Seventeen years earlier , he ran a Las Vegas-based escort service .
He approached his profession with such flare—Versace suits , Rolex watches—that the filmmakers Albert and Allen Hughes ( who directed “ Menace II Society ” and “ The Book of Eli ” ) tapped Taylor to consult on and appear in their documentary “ American Pimp , ” from 1999 .
When investigators discovered that one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ underage—he insists that she lied and told him she was eighteen—his eight-year career ended .
Convicted in January , 2000 , on multiple prostitution-related counts and money laundering , Taylor served about a year of a five-and-half-year sentence in federal prison , before being released .
After his incarceration , Taylor was the picture of reform .
He spoke to college classes .
He appeared on “ The Montel Williams Show , ” where he told the audience , “ My mom was a prostitute , and my father was a pimp , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ life style.
” Over the next decade and a half , he built a new career as an L.A.-based life coach and motivational speaker who sold self-published books .
Then the police killed Che .
The war that Taylor declared in Seattle involved speaking out for African-Americans killed by police , most notably Charleena Lyles , a pregnant mother who was shot seven times while in the kitchen of her apartment , in 2017 , by two officers who alleged that she lunged at them with a knife .
As in Che ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charged with a crime .
A flaw in state law had , for decades , set a nearly impossible bar for prosecutors in such cases ; they could only introduce criminal charges against an officer who used deadly force if they could prove malice , or “ evil intent.
” Initiative 940 , introduced by Taylor and his allies , proposed , among other things , the removal of that prosecutorial requirement .
In 2018 , voters passed the measure with sixty-two per cent of the vote , the first comprehensive statewide law @ @ @ @ @ @ @ era of Black Lives Matter .
Taylor ’ s work on the initiative , and his push for more reforms , earned him the trust of the region ’ s power brokers .
“ He ’ s always going to be committed to the underlying cause , which is to hold people accountable and responsible , ” Lorena González , the president of Seattle ’ s city council , told me .
“ He also believes in the power that a community has when it can work together with elected officials and others @ @ @ @ @ @

On Saturday, May 30th, shortly before Seattle joined other cities in feeding images of unrest to the insatiable maw of cable news, Andrè Taylor, the organizer of one of the protests that would wind its way through downtown and into national headlines, stood on a small stage at Westlake Park, mike in hand. Taylor is black, in his early fifties, and keeps his hair buzzed close to the skull, beard neatly trimmed. On this afternoon, he wore a long wool, camel-colored coat over a yellow shirt emblazoned with an African print. A light rain whipped around him. The sky was a moody slate gray. Taylor warned the crowd of several thousand, which were soon to march in honor of George Floyd, to remain vigilant. “I want you to look constantly around you,” he said. There will be people, he cautioned, who will no doubt cause trouble, a reference to past Seattle protests. Anarchists and right-wing groups and even well-intentioned but misguided allies who were sure to derail the message of justice and police reform with smashed glass, fire, violence. “We must not allow some white folks, [who] think that’s the way to do things, to destruct real change,” Taylor told the diverse gathering, which included black, white, Asian, Latinx, and Native American protesters. “If anybody is operating outside of the purpose here today, they are outliers. And we cannot be accountable for them.”
Taylor took up activism after Seattle police officers shot and killed his brother, in 2016. Two organizations that he founded in the aftermath, Not This Time and De-Escalate Washington, were instrumental in the creation and passage of Initiative 940, which proposed, among other things, changing state law to make it easier to prosecute cops who kill civilians. Taylor’s profile has been rising ever since, putting him at the table with elected officials, including Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan, and Washington’s governor, Jay Inslee. His words on Saturday afternoon would prove prescient. As Taylor and thousands of peaceful protesters made their circuitous march to the U.S. District Court building, other participants, with decidedly different approaches and aims, smashed windows, picked fights, and lit cars on fire, including several Seattle police vehicles.
The maelstrom played out live on cable-news channels and local-television broadcasts, and, at least for the night, hijacked the focus of the peaceful march. The images were too seductive for television to pass up: a row of squad cars engulfed in flames, people running amok inside closed businesses. A woman, clad in black, face covered, walked away from a looted Cheesecake Factory on Pike Street with an entire cheesecake, immaculate with white-frosted trim and strawberries on top. Elsewhere, a TV camera caught a young rioter—clad in black except for the red Rolling Stones lips-and-tongue logo across his chest—holding an AR-15 that he’d apparently just pulled from the back of a burned patrol vehicle. A security guard protecting a TV-news crew rushed in with a raised pistol and ripped the rifle from the rioter’s hands. Such telegenic sideshows owned the night, especially after Durkan ordered a curfew, asking people to disperse from downtown starting at 5 P.M., an order that hit cell phones throughout the city as an AMBER Alert-style warning—two minutes after five o’clock.
Lost in it all was the message that Taylor and the majority of the protesters had hoped to express—and, at first, the actions of the Seattle Police Department. On Saturday night and the days that followed, people on the ground had captured on their phone cameras the kinds of tactics that sparked the rally in the first place: police punching suspects who were already detained and on the ground, and dousing peaceful protesters, including a young girl, with pepper spray. One officer pinned down a man with a knee pressed to his neck, the same maneuver that killed George Floyd, in Minneapolis. The images went viral. Old wounds reopened.
When Seattle police shot Che Taylor, Andrè’s younger brother, the city was four years into a federal consent decree. The arrangement was the result of an Obama Administration Justice Department investigation into numerous complaints about the Seattle Police Department’s use of excessive and deadly force, including in the death of John T. Williams, a renowned Native American wood carver. Williams was walking across a downtown street, on a hot August afternoon in 2010, when a Seattle police officer rushed from his squad car and fired four bullets, killing him on the spot. Next to William’s body lay a piece of wood and the pocketknife that he had been using to carve it. The officer resigned, but was never charged with a crime. In their report, released in 2011, federal investigators wrote, “When S.P.D. officers use force, they do so in an unconstitutional manner nearly 20% of the time.” The D.O.J. also found that Seattle cops tended to escalate rather than deëscalate encounters with suspects, and that they carried out a “disproportionate number of street checks on people of color.” The city agreed to the consent decree, which involved the installation of an independent monitor who would keep tabs on the department and regularly report on its progress toward greater accountability.
Che Taylor, who was suspected of possessing a firearm, a violation of his parole, was shot by two officers in Seattle’s Wedgwood neighborhood, on February 21, 2016. (The King County prosecutor later declined to press criminal charges against the officers.) Andrè Taylor, Che’s older brother, who was living in Los Angeles at the time, flew to Seattle to console his family and seek justice. At a press conference, hosted by the N.A.A.C.P., Taylor announced, “I’m here to go to war”—war against a system that allows the police to kill black people without consequence.
It was an unlikely role for Taylor. Seventeen years earlier, he ran a Las Vegas-based escort service. He approached his profession with such flare—Versace suits, Rolex watches—that the filmmakers Albert and Allen Hughes (who directed “Menace II Society” and “The Book of Eli”) tapped Taylor to consult on and appear in their documentary “American Pimp,” from 1999. When investigators discovered that one of the escorts whom Taylor managed was underage—he insists that she lied and told him she was eighteen—his eight-year career ended. Convicted in January, 2000, on multiple prostitution-related counts and money laundering, Taylor served about a year of a five-and-half-year sentence in federal prison, before being released.
Andrè Taylor took up activism after Seattle police officers shot and killed his younger brother, in 2016. Photograph by Lindsey Wasson / Reuters
After his incarceration, Taylor was the picture of reform. He spoke to college classes. He appeared on “The Montel Williams Show,” where he told the audience, “My mom was a prostitute, and my father was a pimp, so actually I grew up in the life style.” Over the next decade and a half, he built a new career as an L.A.-based life coach and motivational speaker who sold self-published books. Then the police killed Che.
The war that Taylor declared in Seattle involved speaking out for African-Americans killed by police, most notably Charleena Lyles, a pregnant mother who was shot seven times while in the kitchen of her apartment, in 2017, by two officers who alleged that she lunged at them with a knife. As in Che’s killing, the officers were not charged with a crime. A flaw in state law had, for decades, set a nearly impossible bar for prosecutors in such cases; they could only introduce criminal charges against an officer who used deadly force if they could prove malice, or “evil intent.” Initiative 940, introduced by Taylor and his allies, proposed, among other things, the removal of that prosecutorial requirement. In 2018, voters passed the measure with sixty-two per cent of the vote, the first comprehensive statewide law concerning police training and accountability in the era of Black Lives Matter. Taylor’s work on the initiative, and his push for more reforms, earned him the trust of the region’s power brokers. “He’s always going to be committed to the underlying cause, which is to hold people accountable and responsible,” Lorena González, the president of Seattle’s city council, told me. “He also believes in the power that a community has when it can work together with elected officials and others to effectuate systemic change.”
The death of George Floyd, on May 25th, was, to Taylor, like no other police killing. “This was something that we really haven’t seen before,” he told me. The officer who murdered Floyd was aware of the witnesses around. “He was also cognitive of the fact that there were cameras there. He was saying that ‘I don’t care nothing about that. I’m about to show you the power of a white male police officer. I’m going to show you that I have the power to kill this unarmed black man and nobody is going to do nothing about it.’ And he has his hands in his pocket so cavalierly, like, ‘This is just something I do.’ ”
Five days after Floyd’s death, Taylor led the protest in downtown Seattle, the one that gained so much television attention, first owing to the small fraction of outliers that Taylor predicted—though no evidence has emerged that far-right groups played a role in stoking the chaos—and then for the police conduct that mirrored the very behavior the protest set out to end. At a televised press conference with Durkan and Inslee, the following afternoon, Taylor spoke of the importance of unity. “People Trump calls thugs . . . I call family,” Taylor said from the lectern. He acknowledged his own checkered past but said that, in the twenty-odd years between his old life and this one, he had learned to bridge the gulf between two worlds. He spoke of being able to walk among both the powerful and those most vulnerable to police violence: the black community, and particularly young black people. “You have somebody on your side fighting for you,” Taylor said, hand to his chest. “Stay engaged. Because we all have a lot of work to do.”
Like other cities around the country, Seattle has held massive rallies every day since. The police response has remained aggressive. On Monday, June 1st, a block from the police department’s East Precinct, on Capitol Hill, protesters gathered in front of a barricade separating them from a phalanx of cops in riot gear. The crowd chanted, “We don’t see no riot here, take off your riot gear.” Unprovoked, the cops showered them with tear gas, hurled flashbangs, and chased thousands of peaceful protesters for blocks. In nearby Cal Anderson Park, cops fired tear-gas canisters directly at individuals, singeing the clothing of a national TV correspondent—during a live broadcast—and burning the face of a man who is homeless and was trying to sleep in the park. The next day, I spoke with González, the city-council president, whose disappointment was palpable. “We had spent years . . . working to reform this police department in a way that rebuilds and cultivates trust with community,” she said. “All of those years of work are now gone, in a matter of twenty-four hours.”
Meanwhile, the city’s independent Office of Police Accountability announced that it had received some twelve thousand complaints about police behavior during the rallies. Many of the issues concerned the pepper-spraying of the young girl. Others complaints included police officers punching protesters, injuring them with flashbangs, and covering up badge numbers. Last week, the city attorney announced that he was cancelling an application for Seattle to withdraw from the Justice Department consent decree. The protesters have achieved some successes. On Wednesday, June 3rd, Durkan cancelled her curfew order after negotiating with protest leaders, a move that most residents, again, learned via their phones. She and the city’s police chief, Carmen Best, also announced a thirty-day moratorium on the use of tear gas. It didn’t last long.
During a rally in Capitol Hill on Sunday night, a man drove a black Honda Civic down a side street and into a crowd of protesters. Demonstrators chased the car to prevent the driver from running over people. One protester, a young black man, reached through the open driver-side window. A shot rang out, and the protester, hit in his right shoulder, fell back. The driver emerged, handgun drawn, and made his way through the crowd and toward the police line, where he surrendered to officers. Footage of the shooting and surrender quickly spread online, where some Seattleites noted that when the police detained the shooter, still armed, they handled him more delicately than they had so many peaceful protesters. The young man who stopped the driver was taken to Harborview Medical, reportedly in stable condition. After midnight, with much of the crowd still lingering, police warned the protesters to disperse, citing officer safety. “The crowd is throwing bottles, rocks, fireworks, and other projectiles at officers,” S.P.D. announced on its Twitter account. “The crowd is shining green lasers into officers’ eyes.” Tear gas soon filled the intersection of Pine Street and 11th Avenue, leaving the peaceful protesters gasping for air. Once again, police chased people through the streets.
Through it all, Taylor has remained hopeful and characteristically on message. Since we’d first spoken, a movement to defund and even disband police departments has gained momentum, locally and nationally. Taylor’s work on Initiative 940 convinced him that it is more fruitful to work with coalitions, including the police and politicians, than to work against them, he told me, a position that he acknowledged puts him at odds with many of the protesters. We were speaking on the morning after Sunday’s shooting. The gunman’s identity had not yet been released, and his motives remained unclear. For Taylor, the incident was a dark fulfillment of what he had warned about in the minutes before that first rally: outside forces bent on derailing the message of unity and justice and reform. Distractions. He struck the same note again. “Be focussed,” he said.
Race, Policing, and Black Lives Matter Protests


newyorker--2020-06-09--The Viewing of George Floyd, in Houston

The Viewing of George Floyd, in Houston

Just after eleven o ’ clock on Monday morning , in the Texas heat , a line of cars were at a standstill on Houston ’ s Hillcroft Avenue , headed toward the Fountain of Praise Church , where the body of George Floyd would be present for a public viewing .
Other memorials had been held , in Floyd ’ s home state of North Carolina and in Minneapolis , the city where he made a life before he was murdered by cops , two weeks ago ; a private funeral would take place on Tuesday , also in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and is remembered as a light of his community .
Ultimately , he would be buried beside his mother .
His name has now become synonymous with the ongoing demonstrations throughout the country and the world , at which protesters are fighting against police impunity and the killing of unarmed black people .
Only last week , the most tense mass uprising of our generation took place .
But the mood on Monday morning , in Floyd ’ s home town , was decidedly still .
The viewing was scheduled to run from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Praise Church expected thousands of visitors to attend throughout the day , and lines were expected to begin forming hours in advance of the doors opening .
So the church released its protocol well ahead of time : everyone entering would have to wear a mask ; there ’ d be no congregating or sitting in the sanctuary itself .
Fountain of Praise was founded in 1959 , under the name of South Post Oak Baptist Church .
By the church ’ s count , between 1991 and 2016 , its membership @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to more than twenty-seven thousand , making it one of the country ’ s fastest-growing congregations .
Driving to Fountain of Praise from the city proper , the church ’ s expansiveness makes itself plain : a slick , pale curvilinear structure , towering among fields of grass and open space .
Entrances to the church grounds were blocked off when I arrived ; local police and church employees stood in pairs along the road , waving us along .
I parked at a Home Depot about ten minutes away by foot .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ patchy trail alongside the road , employees from neighboring stores handed out bottles of water and masks ; a group of black folks sold shirts with Floyd ’ s face airbrushed across the front .
When we reached Fountain of Praise ’ s lawns , church staff shepherded visitors toward the building .
As we drew near , several people walked by , crying , with their faces in their hands , and people filing in reached out to touch their shoulders , or made eye contact , or just bowed their heads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leaving the church made their way on walkers , fanning themselves with their free hands and laughing about something I couldn ’ t hear .
The church ’ s parking lot was set up for a spectacle : tents , porta-potties , camera crews , an ambulance .
There were easily several hundred people present before noon , and most were dressed casually .
In contrast to the diversity of Houston ’ s protests so far , this crowd was largely black .
An older dude behind me caught my eye and waved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fell into a line that wrapped around the church .
Another man standing beside us told me that he ’ d come from Miami .
Other folks in our vicinity had ventured from Atlanta , Dallas , Brooklyn , Jackson , and Galveston .
A family of seven stopped for folks in line to take their photo—every member sported a Black Lives Matter T-shirt , cap , and pants .
Some women in front of me stood holding umbrellas overhead , adjusting their masks .
The lady behind me wondered , seemingly to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so well adorned when others all over the city were struggling for resources .
A white man next to her said that he didn ’ t know where the money came from .
“ It came from us , ” the woman said , narrowing her eyes .
“ It came from the people.
” Eventually , the line weaved under an awning at the church ’ s main entrance , where we were asked to put away our cell phones .
Inside , the building ’ s rhythms were deeply efficient .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ man checked our temperature .
Another guy ran a metal detector along our waists .
We filed past a hand-sanitizer station , maintaining our spacing before the sanctuary ’ s doors , and then we were separated into two lines .
An Asian lady standing parallel to me looked at the arches above us , saying , “ Can you believe ?
” We entered the sanctuary , and the two lines filed down toward the pulpit , toward the light , each of us standing on a circle placed six feet from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; dimly lit , its pews were entirely empty .
Staff waved us toward the casket .
As I inched down the aisle , I realized I ’ d been to this church before—a few times , even—back when I was a kid .
I hadn ’ t attended an actual church service in nearly a decade .
But here I was now , and here we all were , to see a man many of us had never known .
The air of the viewing itself wasn ’ t nearly as solemn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was quiet .
A light hum pervaded the room .
Whispers made their way from the pulpit to the back of the line .
We stepped from one circle to another , stopping when we finally reached the casket , whose lid was open .
Staff stood on either side of the body , silently looking on .
I looked at Floyd ’ s face for a moment , and then I looked away .
I thought about looking back , and I thought I ’ d regret not looking back , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who wanted to stand and take in the whole of this man , with all of the implications that his death had wrought—the sheer enormity of a man being denied the gift of an anonymous life .
But I did not look back .
Black men in the U.S. are nearly two and a half times as likely to die in an encounter with police .
I have watched—for my entire adult life—black folks die on camera at the hands of policemen , filmed by hands that were shaky or steady , smooth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ loud or muted , crystal-clear or blurred .
At this point in my life , I ’ ve attended more funerals than I have baby showers .
None of the deceased , all of them my friends , made it to old age .
But it ’ s strange—in a way that will likely , inevitably , only grow less so over time—to know as much about someone as we know about George Floyd , a man who isn ’ t our kin , and then to stand before him , never having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We watched Floyd die on a video shot by a young woman .
We ’ ve watched the world attempt to turn itself right-side up in the aftermath of his death .
And , suddenly , I stood before him , no longer a part of the collective observance of his injustice , just one body to another .
Above all , what I felt was cold .
Not despair , exactly .
But here was a man who had actually changed the world .
He had done it .
It happened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and now he was not here to see it .

Just after eleven o’clock on Monday morning, in the Texas heat, a line of cars were at a standstill on Houston’s Hillcroft Avenue, headed toward the Fountain of Praise Church, where the body of George Floyd would be present for a public viewing. Other memorials had been held, in Floyd’s home state of North Carolina and in Minneapolis, the city where he made a life before he was murdered by cops, two weeks ago; a private funeral would take place on Tuesday, also in Houston, where Floyd came of age and is remembered as a light of his community. Ultimately, he would be buried beside his mother. His name has now become synonymous with the ongoing demonstrations throughout the country and the world, at which protesters are fighting against police impunity and the killing of unarmed black people. Only last week, the most tense mass uprising of our generation took place. But the mood on Monday morning, in Floyd’s home town, was decidedly still.
The viewing was scheduled to run from noon to 6 P.M. The Fountain of Praise Church expected thousands of visitors to attend throughout the day, and lines were expected to begin forming hours in advance of the doors opening. So the church released its protocol well ahead of time: everyone entering would have to wear a mask; there’d be no congregating or sitting in the sanctuary itself. Fountain of Praise was founded in 1959, under the name of South Post Oak Baptist Church. By the church’s count, between 1991 and 2016, its membership grew from a hundred and fifty people to more than twenty-seven thousand, making it one of the country’s fastest-growing congregations. Driving to Fountain of Praise from the city proper, the church’s expansiveness makes itself plain: a slick, pale curvilinear structure, towering among fields of grass and open space.
Entrances to the church grounds were blocked off when I arrived; local police and church employees stood in pairs along the road, waving us along. I parked at a Home Depot about ten minutes away by foot. On the walk back, on a patchy trail alongside the road, employees from neighboring stores handed out bottles of water and masks; a group of black folks sold shirts with Floyd’s face airbrushed across the front. When we reached Fountain of Praise’s lawns, church staff shepherded visitors toward the building. As we drew near, several people walked by, crying, with their faces in their hands, and people filing in reached out to touch their shoulders, or made eye contact, or just bowed their heads. A trio of elderly black women leaving the church made their way on walkers, fanning themselves with their free hands and laughing about something I couldn’t hear.
The church’s parking lot was set up for a spectacle: tents, porta-potties, camera crews, an ambulance. There were easily several hundred people present before noon, and most were dressed casually. In contrast to the diversity of Houston’s protests so far, this crowd was largely black. An older dude behind me caught my eye and waved me over to him, and we fell into a line that wrapped around the church. Another man standing beside us told me that he’d come from Miami. Other folks in our vicinity had ventured from Atlanta, Dallas, Brooklyn, Jackson, and Galveston. A family of seven stopped for folks in line to take their photo—every member sported a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, cap, and pants. Some women in front of me stood holding umbrellas overhead, adjusting their masks. The lady behind me wondered, seemingly to everyone, why this particular church was so well adorned when others all over the city were struggling for resources. A white man next to her said that he didn’t know where the money came from. “It came from us,” the woman said, narrowing her eyes. “It came from the people.”
Eventually, the line weaved under an awning at the church’s main entrance, where we were asked to put away our cell phones. Inside, the building’s rhythms were deeply efficient. Just past the front doors, a man checked our temperature. Another guy ran a metal detector along our waists. We filed past a hand-sanitizer station, maintaining our spacing before the sanctuary’s doors, and then we were separated into two lines. An Asian lady standing parallel to me looked at the arches above us, saying, “Can you believe?” We entered the sanctuary, and the two lines filed down toward the pulpit, toward the light, each of us standing on a circle placed six feet from the next. The room felt massive; dimly lit, its pews were entirely empty. Staff waved us toward the casket. As I inched down the aisle, I realized I’d been to this church before—a few times, even—back when I was a kid. I hadn’t attended an actual church service in nearly a decade. But here I was now, and here we all were, to see a man many of us had never known.
The air of the viewing itself wasn’t nearly as solemn as I’d imagined, but it was quiet. A light hum pervaded the room. Whispers made their way from the pulpit to the back of the line. We stepped from one circle to another, stopping when we finally reached the casket, whose lid was open. Staff stood on either side of the body, silently looking on. I looked at Floyd’s face for a moment, and then I looked away. I thought about looking back, and I thought I’d regret not looking back, because there was a version of me who wanted to stand and take in the whole of this man, with all of the implications that his death had wrought—the sheer enormity of a man being denied the gift of an anonymous life. But I did not look back.
Black men in the U.S. are nearly two and a half times as likely to die in an encounter with police. I have watched—for my entire adult life—black folks die on camera at the hands of policemen, filmed by hands that were shaky or steady, smooth or wrinkled, in footage that was loud or muted, crystal-clear or blurred. At this point in my life, I’ve attended more funerals than I have baby showers. None of the deceased, all of them my friends, made it to old age. But it’s strange—in a way that will likely, inevitably, only grow less so over time—to know as much about someone as we know about George Floyd, a man who isn’t our kin, and then to stand before him, never having known him. The feeling escapes words. We watched Floyd die on a video shot by a young woman. We’ve watched the world attempt to turn itself right-side up in the aftermath of his death. And, suddenly, I stood before him, no longer a part of the collective observance of his injustice, just one body to another. Above all, what I felt was cold. Not despair, exactly. But here was a man who had actually changed the world. He had done it. It happened because he was murdered by the state, and now he was not here to see it.
And then, just as quickly, my time as a viewer was over: I stood there, beside another viewer, and then I walked away. I was led outside, surrounded by smiling ushers. Several staffers stood by the exit. A man beside a hand-washing station greeted me. And then I was back outside, back into the heat and the world, where the line heading into the church stretched three times as long as the one that I’d stood in ten minutes before.
The walk back to the car was scalding. I passed incoming visitors as they made their way to the church. A group of men stood huddled and crying, holding one another upright. A dude standing beside me bemoaned the heat, and the woman beside him groaned loudly in annoyance, and I took a moment walking back through the dirt to check my phone. One friend had posted photos from a protest in Sydney, another had posted a video of her kid’s protest signs in San Francisco, and a third had sent a photo of himself with his mother at a Shinto shrine, where they’d prayed for Floyd’s family. The world truly, brilliantly, despairingly, goes on. We’re here for a minute, and then we are gone. For a few hours, many of us headed to the same place, walking away from it in our own time.
Race, Policing, and Black Lives Matter Protests


newyorker--2020-06-09--Georgia Primary Election 2020: Live Results, Maps, and Analysis

© 2020 Condé Nast .
All rights reserved .
Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement ( @ @ @ @ @ Policy and Cookie Statement ( updated 1/1/20 ) and Your California Privacy Rights .
Do @ @ @ @ @ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as @ @ @ @ @ with retailers .
The material on this site may not be reproduced , distributed , @ @ @ @ @ used , except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast .
Ad Choices

The state’s primaries are June 9th. Follow the latest results ahead of the 2020 Presidential election.


newyorker--2020-06-09--West Virginia Primary Election 2020: Live Results, Maps, and Analysis

The state’s primaries are June 9th. Follow the latest election results ahead of the 2020 Presidential election.


newyorker--2020-06-09--The Mimetic Power of D.C.’s Black Lives Matter Mural

This past Friday , at around 3:30 A.M. , staff from the District of Columbia Department of Public Works began painting the stretch of Sixteenth Street directly in front of Lafayette Square , which protesters of police violence had been occupying for days .
In bright-yellow road paint , the kind used for street centerlines , they outlined and then filled in fifty-foot , all-capital letters that stretched from sidewalk to sidewalk , over two blocks , that read “ Black Lives Matter.
” D.C. ’ s mayor , Muriel Bowser , also renamed the area Black Lives Matter Plaza @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white text on black metal .
That same afternoon , I went down to see what had quickly become the newsiest piece of public art in recent memory .
And public art it is—of a very civic , poetically simple , almost brutalist variety .
It highlighted the protest with a visual field of color , demarcating a space that now seemed officially sanctioned for the protesters , beyond the reach of the military-police squads that patrolled the surrounding blocks with dun-colored Humvees .
You could call the mural a political Instagram trap @ @ @ @ @ @ @ posing and a graphic pattern to enliven the background of selfies .
Most protesters still carried cardboard signs , but the mural was an omnipresent sign of its own , the phrase reiterated with every glimpse .
For the city , it is also a blatantly anti-Trump symbol .
As you gaze south down Sixteenth Street , the letters merge toward the horizon , until the field of yellow collides with the white structure now hidden behind several layers of fencing and guards , like an arrow identifying the current face of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bowser ’ s clash with the President last week , after Trump used tear gas to clear protesters from Lafayette Square for the sake of a photo op at St. John ’ s Church .
Last week , Bowser also requested that the President pull the National Guard troops that he ’ d deployed in response to the protests as an occupying force on the streets of D.C .
In this sense , the mural might be interpreted as a marker of territory .
The mayor ’ s clearest statement of purpose came @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staff , John Falcicchio : “ There was a dispute this week about whose street this is .
Mayor Bowser wanted to make it abundantly clear that this is DC ’ s street.
” The idea for the mural was conceived late on Wednesday , when Bowser asked her staff to find a way to reassure protesters that the space would be safe for them , in advance of the larger protests planned for the weekend , Falcicchio told me .
Bowser decided to rename the plaza ; a mural painted directly on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ further highlight the new name , the mayor ’ s office reasoned .
The Department of Public Works convened a group of eight local artists involved with its Murals D.C. project , who collectively proposed the “ Black Lives Matter ” text in yellow .
( The artists have decided to stay anonymous . )
“ I think the mayor liked it because it stood out , ” Falcicchio said .
On Friday morning , the artists directed city workers in outlining the letters , then gave instructions when passersby volunteered to grab @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A D.C. flag was added after the letters to show that the government was responsible .
The mural has been criticized as a superficial gesture , given Bowser ’ s failings on the very issues the Black Lives Matter movement is fighting for .
She has proposed a more than fifty-per-cent increase in the 2021 capital budget for the Metropolitan Police Department ; planned to double the size of the cadet program , from a hundred and seven to two hundred ; and allocated more than three million dollars to growing the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the D.C. chapter of Black Lives Matter released a statement disavowing the mural as “ lip service.
” “ I saw it as a pissing contest between her and Donald Trump , ” Mckayla Wilkes , a criminal-justice-reform activist and candidate in a recent Maryland congressional race , who is black , told me .
She first saw news of the mural spreading in viral tweets and news headlines ( John Lewis called it “ a powerful work of art ” ) but didn ’ t share the enthusiasm .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pretty painting in the middle of the street ; we need politics , ” she said .
She pointed out that Bowser has explored the idea of building a new jail in D.C .
Without action , the mural is window dressing .
But the meaning of a public work of art belongs more to its viewers than to its author .
Walking across the painted stretch of Sixteenth Street , one experiences it as something deeper than its role as a photo-friendly symbol would suggest .
Aerial and satellite images downplay the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a footnote on the White House .
On the street , however , it is immersive and overwhelming , the sharp intersecting angles of the sans-serif letters evoking a massive version of a monochrome Ellsworth Kelly canvas .
Standing at street level , a pedestrian never sees the full phrase at once .
It ’ s an abstract—not the same as contentless—installation that you have to experience on foot , as a landscape .
It reminded me of the artist Robert Irwin ’ s series of sculptures , “ Who ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” in which large rectangles of primary-colored aluminum lie on the floor and are suspended from the ceiling , an implacable composition .
Such art works generate visual force fields that make us more aware of our bodies in space .
( Think , too , of the late Christo ’ s work festooning natural geography or urban monuments with monochromatic fabric , another precedent for art as intervention . )
This has always been an accomplishment of minimalist art ; in the Black Lives Matter mural , it also speaks to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mural reminds us that , by marching these recent weeks , we are using our physical presence in public to communicate , an action that ’ s even more potent given the long isolation of quarantine and the lack of access to art caused by the shuttering of museums .

This past Friday, at around 3:30 A.M., staff from the District of Columbia Department of Public Works began painting the stretch of Sixteenth Street directly in front of Lafayette Square, which protesters of police violence had been occupying for days. In bright-yellow road paint, the kind used for street centerlines, they outlined and then filled in fifty-foot, all-capital letters that stretched from sidewalk to sidewalk, over two blocks, that read “Black Lives Matter.” D.C.’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, also renamed the area Black Lives Matter Plaza with a gleaming new road sign, white text on black metal.
That same afternoon, I went down to see what had quickly become the newsiest piece of public art in recent memory. And public art it is—of a very civic, poetically simple, almost brutalist variety. It highlighted the protest with a visual field of color, demarcating a space that now seemed officially sanctioned for the protesters, beyond the reach of the military-police squads that patrolled the surrounding blocks with dun-colored Humvees. You could call the mural a political Instagram trap: the yellow provided a stage for posing and a graphic pattern to enliven the background of selfies. Most protesters still carried cardboard signs, but the mural was an omnipresent sign of its own, the phrase reiterated with every glimpse.
For the city, it is also a blatantly anti-Trump symbol. As you gaze south down Sixteenth Street, the letters merge toward the horizon, until the field of yellow collides with the white structure now hidden behind several layers of fencing and guards, like an arrow identifying the current face of the problem. It also serves to punctuate Bowser’s clash with the President last week, after Trump used tear gas to clear protesters from Lafayette Square for the sake of a photo op at St. John’s Church. Last week, Bowser also requested that the President pull the National Guard troops that he’d deployed in response to the protests as an occupying force on the streets of D.C. In this sense, the mural might be interpreted as a marker of territory. The mayor’s clearest statement of purpose came in a tweet from her chief of staff, John Falcicchio: “There was a dispute this week about whose street this is. Mayor Bowser wanted to make it abundantly clear that this is DC’s street.”
The idea for the mural was conceived late on Wednesday, when Bowser asked her staff to find a way to reassure protesters that the space would be safe for them, in advance of the larger protests planned for the weekend, Falcicchio told me. Bowser decided to rename the plaza; a mural painted directly on the street would be a way to further highlight the new name, the mayor’s office reasoned. The Department of Public Works convened a group of eight local artists involved with its Murals D.C. project, who collectively proposed the “Black Lives Matter” text in yellow. (The artists have decided to stay anonymous.) “I think the mayor liked it because it stood out,” Falcicchio said. On Friday morning, the artists directed city workers in outlining the letters, then gave instructions when passersby volunteered to grab paint rollers and help fill them in. A D.C. flag was added after the letters to show that the government was responsible.
The mural has been criticized as a superficial gesture, given Bowser’s failings on the very issues the Black Lives Matter movement is fighting for. She has proposed a more than fifty-per-cent increase in the 2021 capital budget for the Metropolitan Police Department; planned to double the size of the cadet program, from a hundred and seven to two hundred; and allocated more than three million dollars to growing the police force in 2021. On Saturday, the D.C. chapter of Black Lives Matter released a statement disavowing the mural as “lip service.” “I saw it as a pissing contest between her and Donald Trump,” Mckayla Wilkes, a criminal-justice-reform activist and candidate in a recent Maryland congressional race, who is black, told me. She first saw news of the mural spreading in viral tweets and news headlines (John Lewis called it “a powerful work of art”) but didn’t share the enthusiasm. “It’s not enough to have a pretty painting in the middle of the street; we need politics,” she said. She pointed out that Bowser has explored the idea of building a new jail in D.C.
Aerial and satellite images downplay the mural’s scale; on the street, it is immersive and overwhelming. Source: Apple Maps
Without action, the mural is window dressing. But the meaning of a public work of art belongs more to its viewers than to its author. Walking across the painted stretch of Sixteenth Street, one experiences it as something deeper than its role as a photo-friendly symbol would suggest. Aerial and satellite images downplay the mural’s scale, reducing it to a footnote on the White House. On the street, however, it is immersive and overwhelming, the sharp intersecting angles of the sans-serif letters evoking a massive version of a monochrome Ellsworth Kelly canvas. Standing at street level, a pedestrian never sees the full phrase at once. It’s an abstract—not the same as contentless—installation that you have to experience on foot, as a landscape. It reminded me of the artist Robert Irwin’s series of sculptures, “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue,” in which large rectangles of primary-colored aluminum lie on the floor and are suspended from the ceiling, an implacable composition.
Such art works generate visual force fields that make us more aware of our bodies in space. (Think, too, of the late Christo’s work festooning natural geography or urban monuments with monochromatic fabric, another precedent for art as intervention.) This has always been an accomplishment of minimalist art; in the Black Lives Matter mural, it also speaks to the act of protest itself. The mural reminds us that, by marching these recent weeks, we are using our physical presence in public to communicate, an action that’s even more potent given the long isolation of quarantine and the lack of access to art caused by the shuttering of museums.
In the nineteen-sixties, the Brazilian neo-concrete movement also turned abstract art into a disruptive social and political strategy, partly in response to the country’s 1964 military coup. Artists like Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Pape made wearable art works and brightly colored sculptures that were interactive and activated in public performances. In Pape’s “Divisor,” from 1968, a huge, parachute-like expanse of white cloth was cut through with many small holes. In its début in Rio de Janeiro, dozens of people poked their heads through the holes at the same time and were briefly united, as well as constrained, by the cloth. The work provided an experience of collectivity, on the street rather than in the rarefied space of a gallery.


newyorker--2020-06-10--To the Lady Who Shared Thirteen Pictures of Black Babies and White Babies Holding Hands on My Facebo

To the Lady Who Shared Thirteen Pictures of Black Babies and White Babies Holding Hands on My Facebook Wall

Oh , hey , I remember you !
We met at that neighborhood-association meeting last year .
You called me “ girlfriend ” a lot , and then later sent me a friend request , along with a message about getting lunch .
( I ’ m sorry I never responded to that , by the way—things have just been so crazy ! )
I know you ’ re probably busy , so I ’ ll make this quick .
I ’ m writing to say thank you for the thoughtful posts on my Facebook page today .
With just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black babies and white babies holding hands , you ’ ve helped me understand race in a way that I , a black woman , have never understood it before .
Yesterday , when I shared a post that read , “ Ask yourself if the white people in your life are allies or part of the problem , ” I ’ ll admit that I initially considered turning off the comments .
As you ’ ve no doubt noticed , tense arguments about racism and police brutality are popping up all over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are losing friends both on Facebook and I.R.L .
I worried that problem-solving dialogue couldn ’ t happen on the Internet , but you ’ ve proved me wrong .
Your first comment was “ Try not to use words like ‘ white ’ because racism hurts all people.
” Usually , unsolicited advice rubs me the wrong way , but I knew you had good intentions because you added a smiley-face emoji .
That small , yellow face told me that , finally , I ’ d found someone willing to have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I took a deep breath , clicked “ Reply , ” and prepared myself to discuss the centuries-long oppression of my people with you , my newfound confidante .
But before I could finish typing—another notification !
This time , you ’ d shared something directly on my page .
When I clicked the link to find thirteen photos of black babies and white babies holding hands , I swear to you , I actually gasped .
You see , my friend , I ’ ve had it all wrong !
First @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even know that black babies and white babies could hold hands .
I assumed that racism was in their DNA from the moment of conception , making their tiny palms repel like matching poles on two magnets .
A more stubborn person might say that these images were Photoshopped , but I ’ ve never been one to argue with conclusive evidence .
You even took the time to add the caption “ Racism is taught , ” a profound idea that will forever alter the way I think about and discuss both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can ’ t thank you enough .
Here I was , relying on my own lived experiences in order to interpret race relations , when you had actual proof .
P.S .
: You might notice that now no one can leave comments on my Facebook page , but that is simply because I feel there is nothing to add .
Together , you and I have figured this out .

Photograph by Ewa Ahlin / Getty
Oh, hey, I remember you! We met at that neighborhood-association meeting last year. You called me “girlfriend” a lot, and then later sent me a friend request, along with a message about getting lunch. (I’m sorry I never responded to that, by the way—things have just been so crazy!)
I know you’re probably busy, so I’ll make this quick. I’m writing to say thank you for the thoughtful posts on my Facebook page today. With just a few words and thirteen photos of black babies and white babies holding hands, you’ve helped me understand race in a way that I, a black woman, have never understood it before.
Yesterday, when I shared a post that read, “Ask yourself if the white people in your life are allies or part of the problem,” I’ll admit that I initially considered turning off the comments. As you’ve no doubt noticed, tense arguments about racism and police brutality are popping up all over social media this month, and people are losing friends both on Facebook and I.R.L. I worried that problem-solving dialogue couldn’t happen on the Internet, but you’ve proved me wrong.
Your first comment was “Try not to use words like ‘white’ because racism hurts all people.” Usually, unsolicited advice rubs me the wrong way, but I knew you had good intentions because you added a smiley-face emoji. That small, yellow face told me that, finally, I’d found someone willing to have the tough discussions in a civil manner. I took a deep breath, clicked “Reply,” and prepared myself to discuss the centuries-long oppression of my people with you, my newfound confidante.
But before I could finish typing—another notification! This time, you’d shared something directly on my page. When I clicked the link to find thirteen photos of black babies and white babies holding hands, I swear to you, I actually gasped.
You see, my friend, I’ve had it all wrong! First of all, I didn’t even know that black babies and white babies could hold hands. I assumed that racism was in their DNA from the moment of conception, making their tiny palms repel like matching poles on two magnets. A more stubborn person might say that these images were Photoshopped, but I’ve never been one to argue with conclusive evidence. You even took the time to add the caption “Racism is taught,” a profound idea that will forever alter the way I think about and discuss both racism and babies.
Really, I can’t thank you enough. Here I was, relying on my own lived experiences in order to interpret race relations, when you had actual proof.
P.S.: You might notice that now no one can leave comments on my Facebook page, but that is simply because I feel there is nothing to add. Together, you and I have figured this out.


newyorker--2020-06-10--Jane McAlevey’s Vision for the Future of American Labor

On Monday , January 14 , 2019 , Los Angeles ’ s thirty-four thousand public-school teachers went on strike .
They demanded smaller classes ( the average classroom had forty-six students ) , a full-time nurse in every school , modest pay increases , and a cap on the district ’ s rapidly growing number of charter schools .
Four days later , Alex Caputo-Pearl , the president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles ( U.T.L.A . )
, spoke to sixty thousand educators , parents , and community members who were gathered in downtown L.A. ’ s Grand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feel your power ?
” he bellowed .
“ We have never been at a more critical moment for public education .
You all know this , that brewing for a very long time has been a movement to privatize our schools , and it is here now , trying to take over L.A .
If we allow this movement to win , then our schools will be privatized , our students will have less equity and less access , and our jobs and our health care will be attacked .
Are we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ No , ” the crowd roared in response , stretching one syllable to three .
In 2017 , a slate of corporate-backed self-declared “ education reformers , ” who sought to restructure school districts according to market prerogatives , had taken over the city ’ s school board .
The election in which they came to power was the most expensive school-board race in history .
Almost immediately , the board appointed a new superintendent , Austin Beutner , the billionaire former investment banker and brief C.E.O .
of the Los Angeles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Beutner declared that L.A. ’ s public-school teachers , who made an average salary of seventy-five thousand dollars , the lowest among similarly sized cities , were overpaid .
He went on to announce a plan to create a “ portfolio model ” school district , in which public and private schools would be rolled into a financial-management system , operated like a private company .
Schools would receive funds or be shut down according to performance metrics , akin to how a hedge-fund manager opens and closes accounts .
In cities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such as New Orleans , Newark , and Indianapolis , public schools , especially in communities of color , have closed , increasing racial segregation .
Los Angeles public-school supporters , including the teachers ’ union , wanted more public funding for schools , not private management .
But how to stop a political project backed by seemingly infinite corporate dollars ?
Between 2004 and 2017 , the Walton Family Foundation alone had donated more than a hundred and thirty-nine million dollars to L.A ’ s charter networks , and also made contributions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the L.A. teachers ’ union was to build a movement strong enough to push forward something better .
For years , U.T.L.A.
’ s leadership had operated without a cohesive vision , much less a strategy to address the looming changes in L.A. ’ s education landscape .
Then , in 2014 , a progressive caucus of teachers called Union Power , many of whom were women of color , won leadership elections—part of a new generation of teachers ’ unions that swept the country after the Chicago Teachers Union strike in 2012 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ education model , in which resource-starved schools in predominantly black and brown neighborhoods were deemed “ failing ” and ordered to shutter , only to be reopened under private management .
Instead , they worked with parents and communities to demand more funding for art , gym , nurses , and librarians .
But what most distinguished the new generation of teachers ’ unionists was their willingness to fight .
They understood that winning the public schools that their students deserved meant standing up not just for their jobs but also for public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ generations of teachers ’ unions wrought power by sending a negotiating team into a closed room , the new teacher unionism turned power inside out by seeking to build high-participation , high-action unions .
It was radical in the most etymological sense : it returned to the root elements of unions—organizing people , forging solidarity , leading strikes .
These teachers ’ groups were hardly the first unions committed to building democratic , high-participation labor movements .
This strategy was fundamental to the labor organizing of the nineteen-thirties , led by the Congress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a tradition within civil-rights movements , pioneered by leaders such as Ella Baker , who referred to organizing as “ the spadework ” of movements—the tending necessary for growth .
But it has been teachers ’ unions in recent years that have brought it to life .
One of this new movement ’ s midwives is Jane McAlevey , a longtime labor organizer and strategist .
In 2011 , McAlevey spoke to teachers in L.A. at their annual union convention about the importance of deep organizing and even deeper community engagement .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took these points to heart .
Under Union Power leadership , the U.T.L.A .
conducted a series of “ structure tests ” —mini-campaigns designed to gauge the depth and breadth of worker participation—such as pickets for new contracts and rallies for health care .
The “ biggest worst ” areas , schools with low union membership or neighborhoods with few allies , became focal points in the next round of organizing .
When teachers went on strike , in January of 2019 , they won the things they demanded within six days—all of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ school district could not afford .
“ There was and is money here within L.A.U.S.D .
that is now going toward class-size reductions , librarians , nurses , counsellors , ” Caputo-Pearl said .
“ It ’ s because of the strike .
None of this would have happened without a strike.
” The story of how Los Angeles teachers ’ unions rebuilt their union is the crown-jewel chapter of McAlevey ’ s newest book , “ A Collective Bargain : Unions , Organizing and the Fight for Democracy.
” McAlevey , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and a senior policy fellow at the U.C .
Berkeley Labor Center , is both a coach of today ’ s labor movement and a chronicler of its key plays .
Her first book , “ Raising Expectations ( and Raising Hell ) : My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement , ” is a memoir of her years working as a labor organizer .
Her second book , “ No Shortcuts : Organizing for Power in the Gilded Age , ” offers a critical analysis of recent labor and social movements , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organizing .
Her latest book argues that systematic grassroots organizing is the key to repairing today ’ s ravaged democracy .
It is a glossier , more generalized account than her previous works , but its publication marks the arrival of her core ideas into the liberal mainstream .
McAlevey argues that , despite decades of diminishment , unions are not a thing of the past , some sepia-tinted club for men who wear twill coveralls to work .
Rather , they are for all who must work .
Today , unions ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ education and health care .
As these people struggle to make ends meet , they—along with coders , taxi drivers , hotel cleaners , journalists , professors , radiographers , and doctoral students—increasingly understand themselves to be workers .
McAlevey describes how she believes unions can win , even in today ’ s Trumpian post-democracy .
“ Power for ordinary people can be built only by ordinary people standing up for themselves , with their own resources , in campaigns where they turn the prevailing dogma of individualism on their head , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us in the direction we need to go and produce the solidarity and unity desperately needed to fight and win.
” McAlevey began her labor-organizing career in her late twenties , when , after years of environmental and anti-globalization activism , she was recruited to work for the A.F.L.-C.I.O .
From 1997 to 2001 , she ran what was known as the Stamford Organizing Project , which brought together community and union members to address health care , affordable housing , and workplace rights in southwestern Connecticut .
During those years , McAlevey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ whole-worker ” organizing , which is based on the plain truth that workers and community members are not two different sets of people : workers belong to communities ; community members must work .
In Stamford , union organizers joined the fight for affordable housing ; housing advocates were enlisted in a campaign for local workers , such as health-care workers ’ contract demands .
By the end of McAlevey ’ s time in Connecticut , her organizing project had helped forty-five hundred workers form unions and win new contracts , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for public housing .
McAlevey then went to work for Service Employees International Union , and soon became the chief negotiator and executive director of a Las Vegas health-care union .
Building this union brought McAlevey into conflict with hospital management , but it also put her face to face with union leadership , whose preferred method of workplace empowerment , McAlevey recounts , was to cut deals with the boss .
McAlevey was after something else .
“ The idea is to demonstrate to the boss and to the workers themselves that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ union is in charge , ” she writes in her account of those years .
In McAlevey ’ s vision , “ everyone feels like they ’ re part of something much bigger—a labor movement , ” rather than the more common variation : a cog in a labor bureaucracy .
In Nevada , McAlevey ’ s union won strong contacts and safety protections—victories that her bosses had told her would be nearly impossible .

On Monday, January 14, 2019, Los Angeles’s thirty-four thousand public-school teachers went on strike. They demanded smaller classes (classrooms had as many as forty-six students), a full-time nurse in every school, modest pay increases, and a cap on the district’s rapidly growing number of charter schools. Four days later, Alex Caputo-Pearl, the president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles (U.T.L.A.), spoke to sixty thousand educators, parents, and community members who were gathered in downtown L.A.’s Grand Park. “U.T.L.A., do you feel your power?” he bellowed. “We have never been at a more critical moment for public education. You all know this, that brewing for a very long time has been a movement to privatize our schools, and it is here now, trying to take over L.A. If we allow this movement to win, then our schools will be privatized, our students will have less equity and less access, and our jobs and our health care will be attacked. Are we going to let that happen?” “No,” the crowd roared in response, stretching one syllable to three.
In 2017, a slate of corporate-backed self-declared “education reformers,” who sought to restructure school districts according to market prerogatives, had taken over the city’s school board. The election in which they came to power was the most expensive school-board race in history. Almost immediately, the board appointed a new superintendent, Austin Beutner, the billionaire former investment banker and brief C.E.O. of the Los Angeles Times. Two months into the job, Beutner declared that L.A.’s public-school teachers, who made an average salary of seventy-five thousand dollars, the lowest among similarly sized cities, were overpaid. He went on to announce a plan to create a “portfolio model” school district, in which public and private schools would be rolled into a financial-management system, operated like a private company. Schools would receive funds or be shut down according to performance metrics, akin to how a hedge-fund manager opens and closes accounts. In cities that have adopted the portfolio model, such as New Orleans, Newark, and Indianapolis, public schools, especially in communities of color, have closed, increasing racial segregation.
Los Angeles public-school supporters, including the teachers’ union, wanted more public funding for schools, not private management. But how to stop a political project backed by seemingly infinite corporate dollars? Between 2004 and 2017, the Walton Family Foundation alone had donated more than a hundred and thirty-nine million dollars to L.A’s charter networks, and also made contributions to sympathetic politicians. The answer for the L.A. teachers’ union was to build a movement strong enough to push forward something better.
For years, U.T.L.A.’s leadership had operated without a cohesive vision, much less a strategy to address the looming changes in L.A.’s education landscape. Then, in 2014, a progressive caucus of teachers called Union Power, many of whom were women of color, won leadership elections—part of a new generation of teachers’ unions that swept the country after the Chicago Teachers Union strike in 2012. This new movement opposed the corporate-backed education model, in which resource-starved schools in predominantly black and brown neighborhoods were deemed “failing” and ordered to shutter, only to be reopened under private management. Instead, they worked with parents and communities to demand more funding for art, gym, nurses, and librarians. But what most distinguished the new generation of teachers’ unionists was their willingness to fight. They understood that winning the public schools that their students deserved meant standing up not just for their jobs but also for public education as a whole.
Whereas previous generations of teachers’ unions wrought power by sending a negotiating team into a closed room, the new teacher unionism turned power inside out by seeking to build high-participation, high-action unions. It was radical in the most etymological sense: it returned to the root elements of unions—organizing people, forging solidarity, leading strikes. These teachers’ groups were hardly the first unions committed to building democratic, high-participation labor movements. This strategy was fundamental to the labor organizing of the nineteen-thirties, led by the Congress of Industrial Organizations. It was also a tradition within civil-rights movements, pioneered by leaders such as Ella Baker, who referred to organizing as “the spadework” of movements—the tending necessary for growth. But it has been teachers’ unions in recent years that have brought it to life.
One of this new movement’s midwives is Jane McAlevey, a longtime labor organizer and strategist. In 2011, McAlevey spoke to teachers in L.A. at their annual union convention about the importance of deep organizing and even deeper community engagement. The educators who formed their Union Power slate took these points to heart. Under Union Power leadership, the U.T.L.A. conducted a series of “structure tests”—mini-campaigns designed to gauge the depth and breadth of worker participation—such as pickets for new contracts and rallies for health care. The “biggest worst” areas, schools with low union membership or neighborhoods with few allies, became focal points in the next round of organizing. When teachers went on strike, in January of 2019, they won the things they demanded within six days—all of which they had repeatedly been told the school district could not afford. “There was and is money here within L.A.U.S.D. that is now going toward class-size reductions, librarians, nurses, counsellors,” Caputo-Pearl said. “It’s because of the strike. None of this would have happened without a strike.”
The story of how Los Angeles teachers’ unions rebuilt their union is the crown-jewel chapter of McAlevey’s newest book, “A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing and the Fight for Democracy.” McAlevey, who is the strike correspondent for The Nation and a senior policy fellow at the U.C. Berkeley Labor Center, is both a coach of today’s labor movement and a chronicler of its key plays. Her first book, “Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement,” is a memoir of her years working as a labor organizer. Her second book, “No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the Gilded Age,” offers a critical analysis of recent labor and social movements, proposing a theory of change through mass organizing. Her latest book argues that systematic grassroots organizing is the key to repairing today’s ravaged democracy. It is a glossier, more generalized account than her previous works, but its publication marks the arrival of her core ideas into the liberal mainstream.
Jane McAlevey. Photograph by Alice Attie
McAlevey argues that, despite decades of diminishment, unions are not a thing of the past, some sepia-tinted club for men who wear twill coveralls to work. Rather, they are for all who must work. Today, unions’ strength comes from female-dominated professions such as education and health care. As these people struggle to make ends meet, they—along with coders, taxi drivers, hotel cleaners, journalists, professors, radiographers, and doctoral students—increasingly understand themselves to be workers. McAlevey describes how she believes unions can win, even in today’s Trumpian post-democracy. “Power for ordinary people can be built only by ordinary people standing up for themselves, with their own resources, in campaigns where they turn the prevailing dogma of individualism on their head,” she writes. “Good unions point us in the direction we need to go and produce the solidarity and unity desperately needed to fight and win.”
McAlevey began her labor-organizing career in her late twenties, when, after years of environmental and anti-globalization activism, she was recruited to work for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. From 1997 to 2001, she ran what was known as the Stamford Organizing Project, which brought together community and union members to address health care, affordable housing, and workplace rights in southwestern Connecticut. During those years, McAlevey honed her model for what she calls “whole-worker” organizing, which is based on the plain truth that workers and community members are not two different sets of people: workers belong to communities; community members must work. In Stamford, union organizers joined the fight for affordable housing; housing advocates were enlisted in a campaign for local workers, such as health-care workers’ contract demands. By the end of McAlevey’s time in Connecticut, her organizing project had helped forty-five hundred workers form unions and win new contracts, and had secured fifteen million dollars for improvements for public housing.
McAlevey then went to work for Service Employees International Union, and soon became the chief negotiator and executive director of a Las Vegas health-care union. Building this union brought McAlevey into conflict with hospital management, but it also put her face to face with union leadership, whose preferred method of workplace empowerment, McAlevey recounts, was to cut deals with the boss. McAlevey was after something else. “The idea is to demonstrate to the boss and to the workers themselves that the workers are standing together and the union is in charge,” she writes in her account of those years. In McAlevey’s vision, “everyone feels like they’re part of something much bigger—a labor movement,” rather than the more common variation: a cog in a labor bureaucracy. In Nevada, McAlevey’s union won strong contracts and safety protections—victories that her bosses had told her would be nearly impossible.
McAlevey left Nevada triumphant, but also sick. McAlevey’s mother had died of breast cancer when she was a toddler; years later, McAlevey’s sister died of the same disease. In 2009, McAlevey tested positive for a BRCA1 gene mutation, and a preventative surgery revealed that she had early-stage ovarian cancer. McAlevey spent a year in intensive surgery and recovery, during which she began to write about her experiences as a labor organizer. This rangy, first-person manuscript became her first book. It was the result, McAlevey writes, in the afterword, “of a year being forced to lie down.”
When Frances Fox Piven, a sociologist of social movements at the City University of New York, read McAlevey’s memoir, she told McAlevey, in so many words, to drop everything and come to graduate school, where she could translate her experiences into a theory of movement strategy. In 2015, McAlevey earned a Ph.D. in sociology from CUNY under Fox Piven. Her dissertation became “No Shortcuts,” which has become a handbook in workers’ reading groups across the country. U.T.L.A.’s entire executive board read it as they rebuilt their union. A teachers’ reading group based around it reportedly catalyzed West Virginia’s teachers’ strike in 2018. The book, which was my first introduction to McAlevey’s work, is readable and sharp, a taut braid of labor theory and case-study research. Her academic and theoretical analysis rings with the voice of an organizer: clear-eyed, conversational, direct, and occasionally prodding.