therealnews--2020-07-29--America’s Brutal Police State Expands Its Reach In Portland

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
JACQUELINE LUQMAN : By now , most of you have seen the video that has gone viral of a lone man in a Navy sweatshirt standing quite like a statue as he is being assaulted by heavily-armed , unidentified , and obviously brutal agents of the state in Portland , OR .
You ’ ve seen the lines of moms , some pregnant , arms linked , standing between the federal agents and the protesters , getting teargassed for their trouble , and growing in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seen The Portland Dads now join them , leafblowers in hand to repel the teargas teargas canisters thrown at protesters .
All in response to shadowy state agents snatching protesters off the streets and whisking them away in unmarked vans , as protests after the public lynching of George Floyd have continued in Portland for more than 50 days , as they have across the country .
But there is so little national coverage of all the ongoing protests that people think they ’ ve stopped unless they live directly in a city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overall the media black out of these protests makes the ongoing coverage of Portland all the more interesting .
One might think that the media is focusing on this area because of what federal agents are doing , practically kidnapping people under nefarious circumstances and holding them in unknown locations , accusing or charging them with flimsy alleged crimes , but honestly this kind of thing is actually quite normal and has been going on for decades – if not centuries – in this country .
When the bodies of Schwerner , Goodman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who were murdered by the Klan during the Freedom Summer in the late 60s , were discovered in that infamous earthen dam in Philadelphia , MS , the search for those young men had already revealed the bodies of at least eight other Black men and boys from the rivers in the area that were dredged .
Eight Black men and boys who were snatched up by mobs of white vigilantes – the klan , their sympathizers and friends and apologists , and the cops who gave them cover or who were klan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alive again by their families , until their bloated and water-logged bodies were dragged out of some murky river in the search for more high-profile victims .
My Grandma would tell me about the Night Riders tearing through the Black neighborhoods , brandishing torches while riding horses , and in dark cars riding through town when she was a little girl , this is the terrorism that they imposed on Black people who didn ’ t stay in their place – they could and would snatch you or a family member up , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ never see them again , or if you did , what you might find would only be their mutilated remains .
If you think this kind of thing only happened in what you believe is the distant past in this country , I must remind you that the Guardian broke the story about Homan Square in 2015 , the secret interrogation and detention facility where the Chicago PD held over 7,000 people they had snatched up and detained with little if any documentation or even booking records to prove a person was there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them to be found by an attorney or even their families .
It ’ s interesting to note that over half of the arrests that were documented took place under Rahm Emanuel ’ s tenure as mayor of Chicago .
Officials did not have any information on people who were detained but not ultimately charged , though , and there were NO records for any activity at the facility BEFORE 2004 , although it absolutely existed before then .
And this was in the same city that agreed to pay a multi-million dollar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chicago commander John Birge and his reign of terror for the unlawful detention and torture – including beatings , electric shock , suffocation with typewriter covers and games of Russian roulette – of over 100 mostly Black Chicagoans between the 1970s and 1993 .
When the allegations began to become public Birge was fired , but with his $ 4,000 a month pension intact .
While other cities may not have had the kind of high-profile operation like Homan Square or a monster as prolific as John Birge in their police departments , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Black and Latino and Native people who are old enough to know the history , they will tell you that there have been little Homan Squares and John Birges all over this country .
People think they understand the law by citing that deploying the US military against US citizens is illegal under the 1878 federal law known as the Posse Comitatus Act , which generally bars the use of the active-duty U.S. military — the Army , Navy , Air Force and Marines — from carrying out domestic law enforcement .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ National Guard units , which are state militias , basically .
And the 1807 Insurrection Act is the exception to the Posse Comitatus Act that allows a president to deploy federal troops anywhere in the country to put down what they consider to be an insurrection .
The Insurrection Act has been used by several presidents to deploy the National Guard to break strikes in the 1800s and 1900s , often resulting in atrocities such as the Great Railroad Strike massacres in 1877 , the Ludlow Massacre in 1914 , the Bay View @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And remember that the National Guard was deployed to the Greenwood District in Tulsa , OK in 1921 where over 6,000 targets of the worst racist massacre in the history of this country were held without due process for up to eight days in the destruction and massacre of Black Wall Street .
In more recent history , in May of 1970 Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes ordered the National Guard to the Kent State campus to quell protests against the Vietnam War , where they opened fire with live ammunition and murdered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Police and the militia assaulted students protesting the war across the country during this time , as “ police wounded a dozen protesters at the State University of New York at Buffalo with shotgun fire .
National Guard troops attached bayonets to their rifles before charging demonstrators in both Albuquerque , New Mexico and Carbondale , Illinois .
In Madison , Wisconsin , guardsmen indiscriminately fired tear gas into student housing blocks.
” Just a few days after the Kent State massacre , Mississippi state police opened fire into Alexander Hall on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But this wasn ’ t about anti-war protests .
Students had protested years of racist harassment from white residents in neighboring Fayette .
Cops alleged that a dump truck being set on fire on campus was actually a riot , though no students were in the street at the time .
But Mississippi highway patrolmen carried state-issued shotguns and double-aught buckshot , personal weapons , and even “ two 9mm submachine guns ” to the campus anyway , and fired on the students who were in a dormitory .
Two students were killed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after the earlier racist slaying of Ben Brown near the Jackson State campus in 1967 , the State Patrol ’ s murder of three black students and wounding of 28 others at South Carolina State College at Orangeburg in 1968 , the assassination of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in 1969 , and the police ’ s fatal shooting of six young black men—all shot in the back—during a moment of civil unrest in Augusta , Ga. , just a few days earlier .
The National Guard was also deployed during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by decades of racist police violence and social oppression across the country in the late 1960s and 70s , and they abused and killed citizens then , too .
Incidents that were the straw that pushed poor , Black residents over the edge included a Black cab driver being brutally beaten by police in Newark ; a 16 year old unarmed Black kid shot dead by a white cop in San Francisco ; the mass arrest of 82 partygoers who were assembled to celebrate the return of GIs from Vietnam in an unlicensed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nowhere else in segregated Detroit for Black citizens to socialize .
The images and accounts of the cops and the Guard ’ s brutality toward citizens has been documented in books and dramatized in movies .
Our own Eddie Conway recounts his own experience seeing National Guard troops on the streets of Newark , NJ , with a 50 calibre machine gun pointed at women protesting on a street corner that caused him to refuse to go to Vietnam .
And it was just 2016 that heavily armed , private security forces , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knows who else violently assaulted water and land protectors at Standing Rock .
Few know that The Emergency Management Assistance Compact ( EMAC ) that was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1996 in response to Hurricane Andrew to facilitate interstate cooperation between agencies was used by Jack Dalrymple , then the governor of North Dakota , to convene a multi-state , multi agency force that was unleashed against protesters trying to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from being built on sacred Indigenous land .
And it needs to be noted that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gov .
Larry Hogan a year earlier in 2015 to summon police forces from neighboring jurisdictions in Philadelphia and New Jersey to repel protesters in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody .
So why is America suddenly absolutely shocked and outraged at what is honestly just the natural progression of authoritarian police abuse and the deployment of the military or federal agents against US citizens going on in Portland now ?
Let ’ s be honest here : it is because of who it is being done to this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ viral video is a Navy veteran who had never been to a protest in his life , but had heard about the abuses by law enforcement against the protesters , and said that he went down there to see for himself what was going on .
Christopher David went down to the federal courthouse to see women – a lot of them pregnant he saw – linking arms in protest against police brutality and to ask the armed agents why they were ignoring their oath .
They women were there , they said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ targeting and abusing and literally kidnapping Portland kids in these protests .
What he and the other mostly white women experienced instead of what they were sure was their right to peacefully protest , and a right they were sure would be respected , was what we Black , Latino , and Native American citizens have experienced in the entirety of our “ relationshIp ” with agents of the state in this country when we stand up for our rights – indiscriminate , violent , terroristic abuse ; violations of our rights ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were teargassed and knocked to the ground , and David , as we saw in the video , was beaten with batons by the camouflaged thugs , to the point that his hand was broken in two places .
I hate to say it , friends , but what you ’ re seeing in Portland has been done to other people in this country who don ’ t look like Christopher David and the moms he saw being assaulted .
As I watched this unfold , I couldn ’ t help but think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , German Lutheran minister and public critic of Adolf Hitler : First they came for the socialists , and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist .
Then they came for the trade unionists , and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist .
Then they came for the Jews , and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew .
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me .
Remember that it was only within the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ICE detention facilities were being held , as people learned about secret immigration raids , ICE agents snatching suspected “ illegals ” off the streets , raiding workplaces , schools , churches , dragging people away from their jobs , families and communities , only to disappear them in facilities that had been secretly built and were shrouded in political and legal cover .
But as much of the recent attention to the secret police tactics of “ immigration agents ” has been trained on the Trump administration , the truth is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ undercover detention activities that were carried over from the Bush Administration .
The entire history of law enforcement in this country has led us to this moment , and as much as oppressed people have tried to warn the rest of the country that this was coming , few would listen .
Are you listening now ?
Because our future not only depends on knowing this history , but it also depends on what YOU do from here on out .

The way white moms in Portland are being treated has long been the norm for BIPOC people.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: By now, most of you have seen the video that has gone viral of a lone man in a Navy sweatshirt standing quite like a statue as he is being assaulted by heavily-armed, unidentified, and obviously brutal agents of the state in Portland, OR. You’ve seen the lines of moms, some pregnant, arms linked, standing between the federal agents and the protesters, getting teargassed for their trouble, and growing in number in response. You’ve seen The Portland Dads now join them, leafblowers in hand to repel the teargas teargas canisters thrown at protesters. All in response to shadowy state agents snatching protesters off the streets and whisking them away in unmarked vans, as protests after the public lynching of George Floyd have continued in Portland for more than 50 days, as they have across the country.
But there is so little national coverage of all the ongoing protests that people think they’ve stopped unless they live directly in a city where they are still happening, so overall the media black out of these protests makes the ongoing coverage of Portland all the more interesting. One might think that the media is focusing on this area because of what federal agents are doing, practically kidnapping people under nefarious circumstances and holding them in unknown locations, accusing or charging them with flimsy alleged crimes, but honestly this kind of thing is actually quite normal and has been going on for decades – if not centuries – in this country.
When the bodies of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney, the three students who were murdered by the Klan during the Freedom Summer in the late 60s, were discovered in that infamous earthen dam in Philadelphia, MS, the search for those young men had already revealed the bodies of at least eight other Black men and boys from the rivers in the area that were dredged. Eight Black men and boys who were snatched up by mobs of white vigilantes – the klan, their sympathizers and friends and apologists, and the cops who gave them cover or who were klan members themselves – never to be seen alive again by their families, until their bloated and water-logged bodies were dragged out of some murky river in the search for more high-profile victims. My Grandma would tell me about the Night Riders tearing through the Black neighborhoods, brandishing torches while riding horses, and in dark cars riding through town when she was a little girl, this is the terrorism that they imposed on Black people who didn’t stay in their place – they could and would snatch you or a family member up, take them away, and you may never see them again, or if you did, what you might find would only be their mutilated remains.
If you think this kind of thing only happened in what you believe is the distant past in this country, I must remind you that the Guardian broke the story about Homan Square in 2015, the secret interrogation and detention facility where the Chicago PD held over 7,000 people they had snatched up and detained with little if any documentation or even booking records to prove a person was there, and that made it impossible for them to be found by an attorney or even their families. It’s interesting to note that over half of the arrests that were documented took place under Rahm Emanuel’s tenure as mayor of Chicago. Officials did not have any information on people who were detained but not ultimately charged, though, and there were NO records for any activity at the facility BEFORE 2004, although it absolutely existed before then.
And this was in the same city that agreed to pay a multi-million dollar reparations package to 57 victims of former Chicago commander John Birge and his reign of terror for the unlawful detention and torture – including beatings, electric shock, suffocation with typewriter covers and games of Russian roulette – of over 100 mostly Black Chicagoans between the 1970s and 1993. When the allegations began to become public Birge was fired, but with his $4,000 a month pension intact. While other cities may not have had the kind of high-profile operation like Homan Square or a monster as prolific as John Birge in their police departments, I am confident that if you ask Black and Latino and Native people who are old enough to know the history, they will tell you that there have been little Homan Squares and John Birges all over this country.
People think they understand the law by citing that deploying the US military against US citizens is illegal under the 1878 federal law known as the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally bars the use of the active-duty U.S. military — the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — from carrying out domestic law enforcement. But this law does not apply to state National Guard units, which are state militias, basically. And the 1807 Insurrection Act is the exception to the Posse Comitatus Act that allows a president to deploy federal troops anywhere in the country to put down what they consider to be an insurrection. The Insurrection Act has been used by several presidents to deploy the National Guard to break strikes in the 1800s and 1900s, often resulting in atrocities such as the Great Railroad Strike massacres in 1877, the Ludlow Massacre in 1914, the Bay View Massacre in 1886, and several others. And remember that the National Guard was deployed to the Greenwood District in Tulsa, OK in 1921 where over 6,000 targets of the worst racist massacre in the history of this country were held without due process for up to eight days in the destruction and massacre of Black Wall Street.
In more recent history, in May of 1970 Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes ordered the National Guard to the Kent State campus to quell protests against the Vietnam War, where they opened fire with live ammunition and murdered four students and injured nine others. Police and the militia assaulted students protesting the war across the country during this time, as “police wounded a dozen protesters at the State University of New York at Buffalo with shotgun fire. National Guard troops attached bayonets to their rifles before charging demonstrators in both Albuquerque, New Mexico and Carbondale, Illinois. In Madison, Wisconsin, guardsmen indiscriminately fired tear gas into student housing blocks.”
Just a few days after the Kent State massacre, Mississippi state police opened fire into Alexander Hall on the campus of all-Black Jackson State College. But this wasn’t about anti-war protests. Students had protested years of racist harassment from white residents in neighboring Fayette. Cops alleged that a dump truck being set on fire on campus was actually a riot, though no students were in the street at the time. But Mississippi highway patrolmen carried state-issued shotguns and double-aught buckshot, personal weapons, and even “two 9mm submachine guns” to the campus anyway, and fired on the students who were in a dormitory. Two students were killed and 12 injured.
And that happened after the earlier racist slaying of Ben Brown near the Jackson State campus in 1967, the State Patrol’s murder of three black students and wounding of 28 others at South Carolina State College at Orangeburg in 1968, the assassination of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in 1969, and the police’s fatal shooting of six young black men—all shot in the back—during a moment of civil unrest in Augusta, Ga., just a few days earlier.
The National Guard was also deployed during the racial unrest that was already fueled by decades of racist police violence and social oppression across the country in the late 1960s and 70s, and they abused and killed citizens then, too. Incidents that were the straw that pushed poor, Black residents over the edge included a Black cab driver being brutally beaten by police in Newark; a 16 year old unarmed Black kid shot dead by a white cop in San Francisco; the mass arrest of 82 partygoers who were assembled to celebrate the return of GIs from Vietnam in an unlicensed after-hours club that existed because there was nowhere else in segregated Detroit for Black citizens to socialize. The images and accounts of the cops and the Guard’s brutality toward citizens has been documented in books and dramatized in movies. Our own Eddie Conway recounts his own experience seeing National Guard troops on the streets of Newark, NJ, with a 50 calibre machine gun pointed at women protesting on a street corner that caused him to refuse to go to Vietnam.
And it was just 2016 that heavily armed, private security forces, local and state police, and who knows who else violently assaulted water and land protectors at Standing Rock. Few know that The Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) that was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1996 in response to Hurricane Andrew to facilitate interstate cooperation between agencies was used by Jack Dalrymple, then the governor of North Dakota, to convene a multi-state, multi agency force that was unleashed against protesters trying to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from being built on sacred Indigenous land. And it needs to be noted that this same law was used by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan a year earlier in 2015 to summon police forces from neighboring jurisdictions in Philadelphia and New Jersey to repel protesters in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody.
So why is America suddenly absolutely shocked and outraged at what is honestly just the natural progression of authoritarian police abuse and the deployment of the military or federal agents against US citizens going on in Portland now? Let’s be honest here: it is because of who it is being done to this time around. The man in the viral video is a Navy veteran who had never been to a protest in his life, but had heard about the abuses by law enforcement against the protesters, and said that he went down there to see for himself what was going on. Christopher David went down to the federal courthouse to see women – a lot of them pregnant he saw – linking arms in protest against police brutality and to ask the armed agents why they were ignoring their oath. They women were there, they said, to demand that federal agents stop targeting and abusing and literally kidnapping Portland kids in these protests. What he and the other mostly white women experienced instead of what they were sure was their right to peacefully protest, and a right they were sure would be respected, was what we Black, Latino, and Native American citizens have experienced in the entirety of our “relationshIp” with agents of the state in this country when we stand up for our rights – indiscriminate, violent, terroristic abuse; violations of our rights; violence against our bodies. The women were teargassed and knocked to the ground, and David, as we saw in the video, was beaten with batons by the camouflaged thugs, to the point that his hand was broken in two places.
I hate to say it, friends, but what you’re seeing in Portland has been done to other people in this country who don’t look like Christopher David and the moms he saw being assaulted. As I watched this unfold, I couldn’t help but think of that famous poem by MARTIN NIEMÖLLER, German Lutheran minister and public critic of Adolf Hitler: First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Remember that it was only within the last two years that mass protests at ICE detention facilities were being held, as people learned about secret immigration raids, ICE agents snatching suspected “illegals” off the streets, raiding workplaces, schools, churches, dragging people away from their jobs, families and communities, only to disappear them in facilities that had been secretly built and were shrouded in political and legal cover. But as much of the recent attention to the secret police tactics of “immigration agents” has been trained on the Trump administration, the truth is that the Obama Administration carried out very similar undercover detention activities that were carried over from the Bush Administration.
The entire history of law enforcement in this country has led us to this moment, and as much as oppressed people have tried to warn the rest of the country that this was coming, few would listen. Are you listening now? Because our future not only depends on knowing this history, but it also depends on what YOU do from here on out.
Studio: Taylor Hebden
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therealnews--2020-07-30--Why You Should Give a F*ck | Ep. 8 | Crime

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Coming from a background in video production and filmmaking, Tunde Ogunfolaju was a studio tech for TRNN from 2018-2020. He operated, monitored, and adjusted audio, video, lighting, and broadcast equipment for the purposes of handling day-to-day production of in-studio, remote and live streamed interviews involving current political news for TRNN. He is a Baltimore native and great enthusiast of 90’s R&B as well as old school wrestling.


therealnews--2020-07-30--COVID-19 Threatens Maryland Campaign To Bring Mass Transit To Black Neighborhoods

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Jaisal Noor : Welcome to The Real News , I ’ m Jaisal Noor .
Transportation has always been central to the struggle for equality , from Frederick Douglass seeking to ride a whites-only train in 1841 to the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott , and that fight has never ended .
In a clip that ’ s gone viral , Maryland governor Larry Hogan was confronted over his civil rights record , including transit equity , by Sunny Hostin on The View .
Sunny Hostin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when you were here last I mentioned to you that I lived in Maryland and in Baltimore particular , so it ’ s a city that ’ s very dear to my heart .
My son was born there .
And reading your book , you describe Freddie Gray as a Crips gang connected street level drug dealer .
There ’ s no evidence that he was affiliated with any Crips gang , and I ’ m sure you didn ’ t intend to imply that his death was deserved .
But the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about Black deaths at the hands of police , right ?
It ’ s about systemic racism .
And you ’ ve been accused of contributing to the problem by killing the Red Line Transit Project that would have connected thousands of Black Baltimore residents to better jobs and improve air quality , because I live there and I know that would have helped .
And you also proposed cuts to the public school system and , in fact , you cut , I think , about $ 36 million from school budgets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ build a youth jail in Baltimore .
Jaisal Noor : Well , residents continue to fight back against all of Hogan ’ s attacks on Baltimore , including the cancellation of the Red Line , a mass transit project that would have connected disinvested Black neighborhoods with badly needed jobs and opportunities .
Well , now joining us to discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic is endangering Baltimore residents ’ push for better transportation is Samuel Jordan , president of the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition .
Thank you so much for joining us .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ you so much , Jaisal .
Jaisal Noor : So , the August 3rd deadline is fast approaching to collect 10,000 signatures to put the creation of a regional transportation authority on the November ballot .
Baltimore is one of the few major cities without a regional transportation authority and , for anyone that hasn ’ t been to Baltimore , the transportation system here , compared to any other big city , is just appallingly bad .
Having a transportation authority that ’ s connected regionally would be a first step in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where we stand right now .
Samuel Jordan : Well , first , Jaisal , you ’ re correct .
The loss of the red line was a dramatic , colossal error on the part of the governor .
It is an example , as we see it , as an example of structural racism , in that it follows Baltimore ’ s tradition of segregationist transportation policy since the earliest part of the 20th century , as a matter of fact .
And what we have decided , of course , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make an appropriate , appropriate and proportionate response to Hogan ’ s cancellation of the red line .
That is , we want to recover from the damage done by the loss of the red line .
I can tell you that it was tremendous a boost to the regional economy .
What we ’ re doing is , first , transportation is lived and experienced at the regional level .
That ’ s where decisions should be made .
So , we are opposing and we seek to abandon the commandist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ M.MTA model , and substitute it with a regional transportation authority .
We ’ re doing that , one , because we want to improve and address the transit equity issues that have arisen and have been with us for awhile .
But we also want to take advantage of one important fact , that over the past four decades , the most robust generator of economic development in this country has been light rail .
In fact , the mantra in the industry is development follows rail , buses follow development .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ banks don ’ t invest in bus stops .
So , we ’ re pursuing the Red Line Light Rail Project .
I was a nine year volunteer planner and community educator on the red line project .
I went to Portland , Seattle , Denver , Boston , Los Angeles , Miami , Charlotte , to make sure we had best practices .
So , we ’ re taking this step to force , compel , the city of Baltimore to take the first steps toward the creation of a regional transportation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : So , when Hogan … Well , first of all , you ’ re approaching this deadline .
Where do you stand right now ?
You need 10 , at least 10,000 signatures , probably closer to something like 14,000 , of voters in the area , to be able to get this in on the ballot November .
How far do you have to go to get that ?
Samuel Jordan : Jaisal , you mentioned it earlier .
The COVID pandemic has played a great role .
We were underway @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we launched our campaign officially on February 29th , we began collecting signatures , but we had to abandon it shortly after the governor imposed his executive directives , ordering a shelter in place , and it was impossible .
We couldn ’ t keep social distancing and do in-person canvassing , so we had to suspend our campaign .
We could only reopen after the state approved electronic petitioning , and it took also another two weeks before we were approved for the app program that we had to conduct electronic petitioning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before we could begin the electronic petitioning , alert networks of our allies and get them to distribute the link to our petition as widely as possible .
So , we ’ re just under , we ’ re under 3000 petitions .
Now , the goal , or the required goal is 10,000 valid petitions .
Now , there are fewer mistakes or errors in petitions with the electronic method , as we have determined and have provided with our app .
But nevertheless , the statewide campaigns of the Green party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to submit 10,000 valid petitions , but they got relief from the state to 5,000 valid petitions .
We haven ’ t been able to get that relief .
The governor himself can actually order his own state board of elections to accept 5,000 petitions from us .
But even so , time is short , as you mentioned .
August 3rd is a deadline for submission and we ’ re running close .
It ’ s not over until it ’ s over , but it is uphill from here .
Jaisal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many signatures you still need ?
Samuel Jordan : I just said that we have under 3000 signatures .
Jaisal Noor : Okay , so you need to get more than a thousand a day in these last few days .
Samuel Jordan : Absolutely , we need that many .
Jaisal Noor : So , one of the challenges to the red line , when governor Hogan vetoed it in 2015 , at the same time , he also green-lighted expansion of mass transit in the wealthy DC suburbs , but he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this was a waste of taxpayer money .
So , critics say throughout Hogan ’ s tenure , he ’ s appealed to racial resentment , right ?
Because his argument is that suburban taxpayers shouldn ’ t subsidized services for the inner city .
The racial resentment , those appeals are , critics say , have been throughout his administration .
But regardless , you ’ re going to have to win over some , some suburban voters to get mass transit expanded in Baltimore .
What do you say to those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ let ’ s sort of take it piece by piece .
First of all , you ’ re correct .
He did call it a boondoggle , but he ’ s never documented why he ’ s called it a boondoggle .
In fact , you ’ re correct .
He canceled the red line , but he you approve the more expensive purple line in the Maryland , DC/Maryland suburbs going from Montgomery County , Bethesda to New Carrollton , a 15 mile corridor longer than the Red Line and more expensive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what know to be almost standard practice when you ’ re in a racist regime , anything for Black people and children is always too expensive .
Okay ?
In fact , what we always say , and make sure that it ’ s clear , racism is the most important suppressor of investments in public transportation .
One .
And two , public transportation is racially conflicted wherever people of color live in this nation .
This is not a new phenomenon .
What we ’ re doing is undertaking a challenge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decision-making process is structured .
Structural racism is that racism complicit , that has complicity with and from the government .
So , we ’ re changing .
We want to change the locus of decision-making in transportation policy and services from Annapolis to the Baltimore region , where transportation is lived and experienced and where the decisions should be made .
Now , with respect to this boondoggle , it ’ s also very close to Koch brothers language , that ’ s Koch brothers terminology .
We have followed the Koch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a rail project , there ’ s Koch opposition .
In fact , I went down to Phoenix in August and September to celebrate with them after a historic victory over the Koch brothers , the very same .
You see , Hogan holds himself out as a moderate Republican , but keep in mind , after all the demonstrations in Charlottesville in 2017 that outraged the nation , the skinheads , the Klans , and the neo-Nazis , not one of them threw away 10,000 jobs , about 7,000 of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Okay ?
In Charlottesville , not one skinhead , not in one neo-Nazi sentenced an entire metropolitan region to economic decline .
Larry Hogan did .
That economic decline in a region which featured Baltimore , the state ’ s a city with the highest Black population , and , in fact , it nevertheless was 49 % of the state ’ s economy .
So , what he ’ s done is he ’ s Balkanized the state ’ s economy as well .
Baltimore to decline the purple line corridor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic vitality .
In fact , the purple line has already attracted $ 12 billion in project commitments .
That is the type of money that should have been spent , and will be spent when we complete the red line project , here in Baltimore .
That ’ s the generator .
That ’ s the power that can power the economy for Baltimore .
In fact , we have greater chances of transit equity when such a system is built .
Hogan never said in your clip from Hostin , what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 10,000 jobs , dramatically reduce commute times .
Right now , two out of three jobs in Baltimore require 90 minutes or more by public transportation .
We ’ ve asked MTA to calculate the loss to the general economy , to the regional economy .
They refuse to do so , of course .
But there ’ s also , with that , six and a half billion dollars in transit oriented development and an additional 3000 jobs .
The red line itself was planned to do just that , transform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ line course , 14.2 miles , 19 stations from Bayview in the east to Woodlawn CMS in the west , also passed through communities where over 30 to 40 % of the residents don ’ t have access to automobiles .
Okay , when you have a red line that would get from Bayview to CMS Woodlawn in 45 minutes , we reduce dramatically those commutes that go out into other areas in the region requiring 90 minutes or more .
We call that transit detention .
Well , you see , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to have command over transit policy and conditions , and addition address issues like the environment , the connection between housing and transportation services , the public health issues with respect to the harmful emissions by the transportation sector , which you know generate 40 % of the country ’ s harmful emissions and greenhouse gases .
So , we have every good reason to promote the creation of a regional transportation authority .
It ’ s in Baltimore ’ s best interest .
In fact , we make a case against the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of reasons why it is not suitable for our region .
Jaisal Noor : Now , if people want to learn more about this campaign , what ’ s the website ?
Samuel Jordan : Moretransitequity.com .
That ’ s our website at the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition , moretransitequity.com .
Jaisal Noor : All right .
Well , Samuel Jordan , president of the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition , thank you so much for speaking with us .
And we ’ ll keep up coverage of this important topic .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ August 3rd , the fight will continue .
So , thank you so much for joining us .
Samuel Jordan : Thank you so much , Jaisal .
Structural racism must be met with structural change .
Jaisal Noor : Thank you for joining us at The Real News Network .

Third parties are required to gather just 5,000 e-signatures to gain ballot access during the pandemic, while a transit equity campaign in Baltimore, where 40% of residents don’t have reliable internet access, is being forced to gather 10,000.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Jaisal Noor: Welcome to The Real News, I’m Jaisal Noor. Transportation has always been central to the struggle for equality, from Frederick Douglass seeking to ride a whites-only train in 1841 to the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, and that fight has never ended. In a clip that’s gone viral, Maryland governor Larry Hogan was confronted over his civil rights record, including transit equity, by Sunny Hostin on The View.
Sunny Hostin: Governor, as you know, when you were here last I mentioned to you that I lived in Maryland and in Baltimore particular, so it’s a city that’s very dear to my heart. My son was born there. And reading your book, you describe Freddie Gray as a Crips gang connected street level drug dealer. There’s no evidence that he was affiliated with any Crips gang, and I’m sure you didn’t intend to imply that his death was deserved. But the Black Lives Matter movement is not just about Black deaths at the hands of police, right? It’s about systemic racism. And you’ve been accused of contributing to the problem by killing the Red Line Transit Project that would have connected thousands of Black Baltimore residents to better jobs and improve air quality, because I live there and I know that would have helped. And you also proposed cuts to the public school system and, in fact, you cut, I think, about $36 million from school budgets but you approve $30 million to build a youth jail in Baltimore.
Jaisal Noor: Well, residents continue to fight back against all of Hogan’s attacks on Baltimore, including the cancellation of the Red Line, a mass transit project that would have connected disinvested Black neighborhoods with badly needed jobs and opportunities. Well, now joining us to discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic is endangering Baltimore residents’ push for better transportation is Samuel Jordan, president of the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition. Thank you so much for joining us.
Samuel Jordan: Thank you. Thank you so much, Jaisal.
Jaisal Noor: So, the August 3rd deadline is fast approaching to collect 10,000 signatures to put the creation of a regional transportation authority on the November ballot. Baltimore is one of the few major cities without a regional transportation authority and, for anyone that hasn’t been to Baltimore, the transportation system here, compared to any other big city, is just appallingly bad. Having a transportation authority that’s connected regionally would be a first step in trying to remedy that. Talk about where we stand right now.
Samuel Jordan: Well, first, Jaisal, you’re correct. The loss of the red line was a dramatic, colossal error on the part of the governor. It is an example, as we see it, as an example of structural racism, in that it follows Baltimore’s tradition of segregationist transportation policy since the earliest part of the 20th century, as a matter of fact. And what we have decided, of course, with our Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition, is to make an appropriate, appropriate and proportionate response to Hogan’s cancellation of the red line. That is, we want to recover from the damage done by the loss of the red line. I can tell you that it was tremendous a boost to the regional economy.
What we’re doing is, first, transportation is lived and experienced at the regional level. That’s where decisions should be made. So, we are opposing and we seek to abandon the commandist, sort of dictatorial approach of the M.MTA model, and substitute it with a regional transportation authority. We’re doing that, one, because we want to improve and address the transit equity issues that have arisen and have been with us for awhile. But we also want to take advantage of one important fact, that over the past four decades, the most robust generator of economic development in this country has been light rail. In fact, the mantra in the industry is development follows rail, buses follow development. Another way we put it is that banks don’t invest in bus stops.
So, we’re pursuing the Red Line Light Rail Project. I was a nine year volunteer planner and community educator on the red line project. I went to Portland, Seattle, Denver, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, Charlotte, to make sure we had best practices. So, we’re taking this step to force, compel, the city of Baltimore to take the first steps toward the creation of a regional transportation authority with regional jurisdictions.
Jaisal Noor: So, when Hogan … Well, first of all, you’re approaching this deadline. Where do you stand right now? You need 10, at least 10,000 signatures, probably closer to something like 14,000, of voters in the area, to be able to get this in on the ballot November. How far do you have to go to get that?
Samuel Jordan: Jaisal, you mentioned it earlier. The COVID pandemic has played a great role. We were underway with in-person canvassing. In fact, we launched our campaign officially on February 29th, we began collecting signatures, but we had to abandon it shortly after the governor imposed his executive directives, ordering a shelter in place, and it was impossible. We couldn’t keep social distancing and do in-person canvassing, so we had to suspend our campaign. We could only reopen after the state approved electronic petitioning, and it took also another two weeks before we were approved for the app program that we had to conduct electronic petitioning. So, we were in May before we could begin the electronic petitioning, alert networks of our allies and get them to distribute the link to our petition as widely as possible. So, we’re just under, we’re under 3000 petitions.
Now, the goal, or the required goal is 10,000 valid petitions. Now, there are fewer mistakes or errors in petitions with the electronic method, as we have determined and have provided with our app. But nevertheless, the statewide campaigns of the Green party, the Libertarian party, were required to submit 10,000 valid petitions, but they got relief from the state to 5,000 valid petitions. We haven’t been able to get that relief. The governor himself can actually order his own state board of elections to accept 5,000 petitions from us. But even so, time is short, as you mentioned. August 3rd is a deadline for submission and we’re running close. It’s not over until it’s over, but it is uphill from here.
Jaisal Noor: Can you tell us how many signatures you still need?
Samuel Jordan: I just said that we have under 3000 signatures.
Jaisal Noor: Okay, so you need to get more than a thousand a day in these last few days.
Samuel Jordan: Absolutely, we need that many.
Jaisal Noor: So, one of the challenges to the red line, when governor Hogan vetoed it in 2015, at the same time, he also green-lighted expansion of mass transit in the wealthy DC suburbs, but he called this a boondoggle. He said this was a waste of taxpayer money. So, critics say throughout Hogan’s tenure, he’s appealed to racial resentment, right? Because his argument is that suburban taxpayers shouldn’t subsidized services for the inner city. The racial resentment, those appeals are, critics say, have been throughout his administration. But regardless, you’re going to have to win over some, some suburban voters to get mass transit expanded in Baltimore. What do you say to those voters?
Samuel Jordan: Well, let’s sort of take it piece by piece. First of all, you’re correct. He did call it a boondoggle, but he’s never documented why he’s called it a boondoggle. In fact, you’re correct. He canceled the red line, but he you approve the more expensive purple line in the Maryland, DC/Maryland suburbs going from Montgomery County, Bethesda to New Carrollton, a 15 mile corridor longer than the Red Line and more expensive. So, this is repetition of what know to be almost standard practice when you’re in a racist regime, anything for Black people and children is always too expensive. Okay? In fact, what we always say, and make sure that it’s clear, racism is the most important suppressor of investments in public transportation. One. And two, public transportation is racially conflicted wherever people of color live in this nation.
This is not a new phenomenon. What we’re doing is undertaking a challenge to the way the decisions and the decision-making process is structured. Structural racism is that racism complicit, that has complicity with and from the government. So, we’re changing. We want to change the locus of decision-making in transportation policy and services from Annapolis to the Baltimore region, where transportation is lived and experienced and where the decisions should be made.
Now, with respect to this boondoggle, it’s also very close to Koch brothers language, that’s Koch brothers terminology. We have followed the Koch brothers around the country. Wherever there’s a rail project, there’s Koch opposition. In fact, I went down to Phoenix in August and September to celebrate with them after a historic victory over the Koch brothers, the very same. You see, Hogan holds himself out as a moderate Republican, but keep in mind, after all the demonstrations in Charlottesville in 2017 that outraged the nation, the skinheads, the Klans, and the neo-Nazis, not one of them threw away 10,000 jobs, about 7,000 of which would have gone to Black people. Okay? In Charlottesville, not one skinhead, not in one neo-Nazi sentenced an entire metropolitan region to economic decline. Larry Hogan did. That economic decline in a region which featured Baltimore, the state’s a city with the highest Black population, and, in fact, it nevertheless was 49% of the state’s economy.
So, what he’s done is he’s Balkanized the state’s economy as well. Baltimore to decline the purple line corridor in Montgomery and Prince George’s economic vitality. In fact, the purple line has already attracted $12 billion in project commitments. That is the type of money that should have been spent, and will be spent when we complete the red line project, here in Baltimore. That’s the generator. That’s the power that can power the economy for Baltimore. In fact, we have greater chances of transit equity when such a system is built.
Hogan never said in your clip from Hostin, what the benefits of the red lines are, 10,000 jobs, dramatically reduce commute times. Right now, two out of three jobs in Baltimore require 90 minutes or more by public transportation. We’ve asked MTA to calculate the loss to the general economy, to the regional economy. They refuse to do so, of course. But there’s also, with that, six and a half billion dollars in transit oriented development and an additional 3000 jobs. The red line itself was planned to do just that, transform the economy. Remember, the red line course, 14.2 miles, 19 stations from Bayview in the east to Woodlawn CMS in the west, also passed through communities where over 30 to 40% of the residents don’t have access to automobiles.
Okay, when you have a red line that would get from Bayview to CMS Woodlawn in 45 minutes, we reduce dramatically those commutes that go out into other areas in the region requiring 90 minutes or more. We call that transit detention. Well, you see, we understand clearly that if we’re to have command over transit policy and conditions, and addition address issues like the environment, the connection between housing and transportation services, the public health issues with respect to the harmful emissions by the transportation sector, which you know generate 40% of the country’s harmful emissions and greenhouse gases.
So, we have every good reason to promote the creation of a regional transportation authority. It’s in Baltimore’s best interest. In fact, we make a case against the M.MTA model. There are a number of reasons why it is not suitable for our region.
Jaisal Noor: Now, if people want to learn more about this campaign, what’s the website?
Samuel Jordan: Moretransitequity.com. That’s our website at the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition, moretransitequity.com.
Jaisal Noor: All right. Well, Samuel Jordan, president of the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition, thank you so much for speaking with us. And we’ll keep up coverage of this important topic. It’s not going to be over on August 3rd, the fight will continue. So, thank you so much for joining us.
Samuel Jordan: Thank you so much, Jaisal. Structural racism must be met with structural change.
Jaisal Noor: Thank you for joining us at The Real News Network.
Studio: Taylor Hebden
Production: Taylor Hebden
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therealnews--2020-07-30--Democracy Delayed Is Democracy Denied

Democracy Delayed Is Democracy Denied

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therealnews--2020-07-30--Black Americans, Black Brazilians Suffer More From COVID-19. Structural Racism Is To Blame.

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Kim Brown : Welcome to The Real News , I ’ m Kim Brown .
The United States and Brazil are both former European colonies founded in large part based off the removal and extermination of its native Indigenous people , also built in large part of the labor of millions of imported Africans for the purpose of slavery .
And the descendants of those black and Brown people are now experiencing the burden of COVID-19 , the global pandemic that is disproportionately killing black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Brazil .
But what commonalities do these two countries have that they are now experiencing similar outcomes in these very distinct populations ?
Well , joining us today to discuss this is professor Kia Lilly Caldwell .
She is a professor of African , African American and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill .
She recently co-authored a piece detailing how structural racism and the legacy of slavery is making COVID more deadly for Afro-Brazilians , and she joins us today , I ’ m assuming from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t ask you that beforehand , where you ’ re joining us from today ?
Kia Lilly Caldwell : Absolutely I ’ m here in North Carolina in Durham .
Kim Brown : Fantastic , we appreciate you making some time for us .
So when I was reading your piece , I was looking at it and I said , “ Wow , this could actually be written about how COVID-19 is impacting Black Americans as well .
Talk to us about the particularities of how structural racism in Brazil is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Indigenous people there .
Kia Lilly Caldwell : Well thank you , Kim , for the opportunity to speak with you today .
I do think it ’ s really important to put a racial lens on what ’ s happening in Brazil , because we do see the number of cases skyrocketing .
We know that the US and Brazil are first and second in the world in terms of the number of confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 .
And back in late March , I was really concerned about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was having , even at that time , on Afro-Brazilians .
And so when we think about structural racism , it has not been commonplace to talk about structural racism in Brazil , sort of in a widespread manner .
Black activists certainly have called attention to racism and the existence of racism .
But because for most of the 20th century , Brazil was viewed as a racial democracy , or basically as a non racist society and a mixed race , non racist society .
It ’ s been much harder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of racism .
However , I think what we ’ re seeing with the COVID-19 pandemic in both the US and Brazil , is that it ’ s highlighting and bringing sort of to the forefront , the racial inequities that exist in both societies , which are pretty glaring , not only for Afro-Brazilians , but also for the Indigenous communities in Brazil .
Kim Brown : And when we talk about the number of Afro-Brazilians and Indigenous people that have been either infected with COVID or have died from COVID , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down because the government of Jair Bolsonaro is not necessarily forthcoming with that information .
In fact , the government is recording that information , but not distributed it .
And it was so familiar compared to the release of data earlier in July from the New York Times , which had to sue the Centers for Disease Control in order to get racial data about COVID-19 infections .
And it found that Black and Latinx people here in the US are three times more likely to get COVID and twice as likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have any such data similarly that is coming out of Brazil , as it relates to how COVID , or at least the number of Afro-Brazilians and Indigenous Brazilians that this virus has killed ?
Kia Lilly Caldwell : Right , so that is really an important question and issue and the data is lacking .
Not only is it not being fully distributed or transparent , a lot of times the race or color , the term color , is typically used on the Brazilian census in terms of census categories and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the term that ’ s used .
And when we think about Afro-descendant in Brazilians , they are classified as [ foreign language 00:04:40 ] , which means black and then [ foreign language 00:04:43 ] , which means mixed or brown .
So there are actually two categories that are used to refer to people of African descent .
You have to combine both of those categories to kind of get a black category , and then the Indigenous communities are classified under the Indigenous category .
But what my colleagues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the data is that a lot of these cases are not… the color , skin color , of the patient , or the person who has died is not recorded .
So anywhere from 25 to 30 % of the cases do not include any color or race data at all .
But we also do know that in late June , early July , 40 % of the total sort of COVID cases were of [ foreign language 00:05:31 ] and [ foreign language 00:05:32 ] , so African descendant Brazilians .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ not only are the number of cases much higher , the number of deaths much higher for Afro-Brazilians , but the number of COVID cases for White Brazilians has been going down .
So it went down from late May to early July , from 50 % of the total cases to 25 % of the total cases .
Kim Brown : What does that kind of erasure of racial data ?
What does that do ?
Kia Lilly Caldwell : Right , so this has been an ongoing challenge in Brazil in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most of the 20th century in Brazil , they did not collect census data by race or skin color .
And this was in an effort to really hide in many ways , the size of the African-descendant population and to portray Brazil as a predominantly white nation .
In 2010 , for the first time , it was shown that over 50 % of the population was black or brown , at least 50 % , right ?
Because there are also White Brazilians who have African ancestry , but they identify @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Afro-Brazilians who might self identify as white because of the way that race is constructed there in racial and color categories .
So this is a form of erasure , or a form of what Latin Americans call invisibilization .
And it also means that you can ’ t pinpoint health disparities , educational disparities , income inequalities , if you don ’ t have the data .
And we ’ re facing something similar here in the US unfortunately .
Kim Brown : The drivers of COVID-19 amongst Black Americans , at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we have has a lot to do with the fact that Black Americans are by and large essential workers , people who are not able to work from home , people who have to take public transportation to get back and forth to work , and also people who live in multigenerational homes .
What are some of the drivers of COVID-19 in similar ways , as it relates to Afro-Brazilians and Indigenous person , Kia Lilly Caldwell : There are many parallels .
And in fact , there was an article that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pointed out that the number of cases was much higher amongst the elderly , as we know , but also Black and Brown Brazilians , Afro-Brazilians .
And so this article was also calling for the need to kind of cross tabulate the data and find out whether these are elderly Afro-Brazilians , who were being disproportionately affected .
The article also pointed out multigenerational housing , and the fact that you have elderly people living with much younger people , which then exposes them to the virus .
All of the things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the US with regard to African Americans and the Latinx community , being essential workers , being in high risk occupations are also true of Afro-Brazilians .
And in fact , I think it ’ s even more pronounced in many ways because of the high rates of unemployment in Brazil , the fact that people work in the informal economy , often doing things like recycling cans and really doing whatever types of labor they can , but also a high number of Afro-Brazilian women still work in domestic service in Brazil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in people ’ s homes and in that way , being exposed to the virus .
And in fact , the first known person to have died from coronavirus in Brazil , COVID-19 in Brazil , was a domestic worker in Rio .
So all of those things lead to heightened exposure to the virus .
Kim Brown : So in both countries , I don ’ t think it ’ s hyperbole to say that the virus is being handled poorly by the federal officials and the elected leaders .
They ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Donald Trump overseeing a just bad management of the virus , as we ’ re seeing coronavirus cases spike in a number of places also in Brazil , President Bolsonaro has now contracted COVID himself twice now .
And both of these leaders are right-wing and authoritarian .
And I ’ m just curious as to your opinion as to whether or not there are any policies that could be enacted that could either stem the amount of transmission of COVID through black and brown populations .
Or is it , are we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entrenched that it will be so hard to sort of right the ship at this point , because this is the outcome of hundreds of years of neglect by black and brown people from the mostly white federal government .
Kia Lilly Caldwell : Yeah .
I mean , I am hopeful that things can be improved , but swift action is really needed .
I ’ ll focus on Brazil first .
Testing has not been widespread in Brazil .
And as you mentioned , Jair Bolsonaro did not take the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take the virus seriously .
He kept calling it a little flu , which led people to not really protect themselves .
But also if we think about the high density within favelas , right , which are communities that many Afro-Brazilians live in , in major cities , places like Rio , over 2 million people live in favelas in Rio .
So you ’ re talking about , again , densely populated communities that don ’ t have proper sanitation or running water for all residents kind of on a normal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people that they should wash their hands and distance and use sanitizer none of that is very realistic .
So having an infrastructure in place that can provide water to people is really important in addition to the testing and encouraging social distancing and allowing people to actually be on lockdown .
And that ’ s not really a possibility for a lot of people who rely on their jobs .
So I do think if this pandemic had been approached from the perspective of kind of the least of these , right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could have been addressed differently .
It ’ s not too late to do that , it ’ s not too late to think about the Indigenous communities , particularly in the Amazon , but that political will needs to be there .
And unfortunately , with both presidents , what we ’ ve seen is a lot of racism , racist rhetoric , and racist policies , which really kind of counteract any attempt to make this pandemic have more equitable impact , if that ’ s at all possible .
Kim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Black Lives Matter movement lives in Brazil .
What steps politically , and I guess from a grassroots level are Black Brazilians and Indigenous Brazilians doing to either protect themselves at this point or to make it clear to the federal government that these level of inequities are no longer tolerable .
Kia Lilly Caldwell : Right , absolutely .
So there was certainly organizing happening before the pandemic around police violence in Brazil , which is also epidemic proportions .
It ’ s estimated that 33,000 people were killed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ past 10 years .
So when we think about just the horror and the trauma caused by that , but also that , as a public health issue , that has been on many people ’ s radars for a long time .
And then also if we sort of think about the political situation , and Jair Bolsonaro coming to power , the fragility of Brazil ’ s democracy in this moment , there have been calls for him to be impeached and even calls that he could be charged with genocide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic .
And so certainly there was organizing , taking place around racism , around police brutality , around the marginalization and discrimination experienced by indigenous communities .
Around the Amazon also , and what ’ s been happening with the Amazon , which affects all of us .
Ultimately , I was reading an article that said that the burning and the deforestation that ’ s been taking place in the Amazon will lead to new novel viruses , right , or more novel viruses .
And so Brazil really needs to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , right , because of the pandemic , because of the Amazon , because of police brutality , and because it has the largest African diaspora community in the world , the second largest African descendant community in the world with Nigeria , having the first .
All of these things are affecting what ’ s happening to Afro_Brazilians , not to mention the political situation as well .
Kim Brown : I ’ m glad you mentioned the G-word , genocide because that is sort of been my observation of what ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then looking about what ’ s happening in Brazil , it ’ s almost the same thing and are we witnessing a soft genocide of black and brown people on two continents where inaction by the federal government is in effect causing the mass deaths of tens of thousands and not to mention what the push here , state side to reopen the economy , to get people back to work , to reopen schools without first getting a handle on the level of transmission of coronavirus , is this the intentional or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of black and brown people without having to march them into concentration camps , so to speak ?
Kia Lilly Caldwell : Yeah , I mean , it ’ s very alarming , right ?
We should be alarmed and we should also be alarmed by the inaction of both government , Bolsonaro is now onto his third health minister during the pandemic , and the current health minister is a general who has no healthcare experience , right ?
And so when we think about that , when we think about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we can connect that to genocide .
And the fact that genocides don ’ t always have to be intentional , it ’ s about impact , it ’ s not always about intention .
So whether or not they ’ re planning or have been planning to kill people , we know that people are dying , but we also know that black people are dying disproportionately , right ?
And the callousness with which this is being treated is also really problematic .
And so I do think that genocide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think we have to be cautious about using the term .
But when we look at 140,000 confirmed deaths for the US and 80,000 confirmed deaths for Brazil , and I think saying confirmed deaths is important because in Brazil , it ’ s likely that the number of deaths has been much higher , possibly five times higher .
It ’ s also people are saying , researchers are saying that the number of confirmed cases is probably 12 times or 15 times what the data is saying , right ?
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I often think where does the accountability come in , right ?
Who are these two presidents in these two governments accountable to , and who should they be accountable to ?
And that is a major problem .
Kim Brown : Well , Professor break it down for us because I mean , the reason why we are seeing mirror images of outcomes for black and brown people in the US and in Brazil is because of the legacy of slavery and hundreds of years of violence and neglect .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2020 , that very little of this has been rectified , at least when it comes to health outcomes .
Does this all originate from slavery or are our other colonies that have black and African descendants in it , are we seeing similar things there ?
What ’ s up with the US and Brazil in this instance ?
Kia Lilly Caldwell : That is such a good question .
The US and Brazil has sort of been mirror images of each other for a long time , for better or worse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in terms of their histories of slavery .
Typically Brazil was seen , especially during the early and mid 20th century , as being ahead of the US because there was no Jim Crow , right , there was no legalized racial segregation .
However , I think what we ’ re seeing today shows that they ’ re really not all that different and these are legacies of slavery .
With Brazil , having the largest and longest involvement in slavery and in the transatlantic slave trade of any single country , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forcibly taken to Brazil .
Sometimes the estimates go up to five million .
Whereas the S brought in 300,000 to 500,000 enslaved Africans .
But I think a question is why are these black communities in both countries , so oppressed , which is not to say that Afro-Venezuelans are not , or Africa-Colombians , we ’ re certainly not hearing as much about what ’ s happening in those two countries .
But I think that in Brazil , there has certainly been a vested interest in the oppression of black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the majority of the population is black and white elites have known that .
And so even if we think about Jair Bolsonaro ’ s rise to power , it came on the heels of over a decade of two leftist administration ’ s .
Lula and Dilma Rousseff , right ?
So there was backlash there .
If we think about Trump coming to power , there was backlash against the Obama era .
And so in this era of backlash , in this moment of backlash , black communities are really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we think about voting rights and so many other things in this country , as well as in Brazil .
So it ’ s something that I do believe we need to have our eyes on as folks here in the US but also abroad .
And there is a push to really restore democracy in Brazil , which I also think is essential to addressing this global health crisis or the impact of the global health crisis in the pandemic there .
Kim Brown : Incredible .
And it ’ ll be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this moment , unfortunately , we are in the midst of it so we don ’ t know when it ’ s going to end , but right now , black and brown people , two continents in the Western Hemisphere , not fairing well in the US and in Brazil , and it ’ s roots and causes go back hundreds of years to slavery and colonialism .
We ’ ve been speaking today with Kia Lilly Caldwell .
Her piece is titled COVID-19 is deadly or for black Brazilians , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to slavery .
It appeared originally on the conversation.com and it was co-written with Professor Caldwell and Edna Maria de Araujo , who is a Professor Public Health and Epidemiology at the State University of Feira de Santana .
And professor Caldwell has been joining us today from North Carolina .
Thank you so much for making the time to talk about this , because it ’ s extremely important what we ’ re witnessing at this moment in time to black and brown people as a result of COVID .
So thank @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And thank you for watching The Real News Network .

“Genocides don’t always have to be intentional. It’s about impact. Whether or not they have been planning to kill people, we know people are dying and Black people are dying disproportionately.”
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Kim Brown: Welcome to The Real News, I’m Kim Brown. The United States and Brazil are both former European colonies founded in large part based off the removal and extermination of its native Indigenous people, also built in large part of the labor of millions of imported Africans for the purpose of slavery. And the descendants of those black and Brown people are now experiencing the burden of COVID-19, the global pandemic that is disproportionately killing black and brown people and both the US and Brazil. But what commonalities do these two countries have that they are now experiencing similar outcomes in these very distinct populations?
Well, joining us today to discuss this is professor Kia Lilly Caldwell. She is a professor of African, African American and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She recently co-authored a piece detailing how structural racism and the legacy of slavery is making COVID more deadly for Afro-Brazilians, and she joins us today, I’m assuming from North Carolina Professor Caldwell, I didn’t ask you that beforehand, where you’re joining us from today?
Kia Lilly Caldwell: Absolutely I’m here in North Carolina in Durham.
Kim Brown: Fantastic, we appreciate you making some time for us. So when I was reading your piece, I was looking at it and I said, “Wow, this could actually be written about how COVID-19 is impacting Black Americans as well. Talk to us about the particularities of how structural racism in Brazil is fueling the death toll among Afro-Brazilians and Indigenous people there.
Kia Lilly Caldwell: Well thank you, Kim, for the opportunity to speak with you today. I do think it’s really important to put a racial lens on what’s happening in Brazil, because we do see the number of cases skyrocketing. We know that the US and Brazil are first and second in the world in terms of the number of confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19. And back in late March, I was really concerned about the impact that the pandemic would have and was having, even at that time, on Afro-Brazilians. And so when we think about structural racism, it has not been commonplace to talk about structural racism in Brazil, sort of in a widespread manner. Black activists certainly have called attention to racism and the existence of racism.
But because for most of the 20th century, Brazil was viewed as a racial democracy, or basically as a non racist society and a mixed race, non racist society. It’s been much harder to talk about structural and institutionalized forms of racism. However, I think what we’re seeing with the COVID-19 pandemic in both the US and Brazil, is that it’s highlighting and bringing sort of to the forefront, the racial inequities that exist in both societies, which are pretty glaring, not only for Afro-Brazilians, but also for the Indigenous communities in Brazil.
Kim Brown: And when we talk about the number of Afro-Brazilians and Indigenous people that have been either infected with COVID or have died from COVID, that number is really hard to pin down because the government of Jair Bolsonaro is not necessarily forthcoming with that information. In fact, the government is recording that information, but not distributed it. And it was so familiar compared to the release of data earlier in July from the New York Times, which had to sue the Centers for Disease Control in order to get racial data about COVID-19 infections. And it found that Black and Latinx people here in the US are three times more likely to get COVID and twice as likely to die from it. Do we have any such data similarly that is coming out of Brazil, as it relates to how COVID, or at least the number of Afro-Brazilians and Indigenous Brazilians that this virus has killed?
Kia Lilly Caldwell: Right, so that is really an important question and issue and the data is lacking. Not only is it not being fully distributed or transparent, a lot of times the race or color, the term color, is typically used on the Brazilian census in terms of census categories and also for health data. So color is the term that’s used. And when we think about Afro-descendant in Brazilians, they are classified as [foreign language 00:04:40], which means black and then [foreign language 00:04:43], which means mixed or brown. So there are actually two categories that are used to refer to people of African descent. You have to combine both of those categories to kind of get a black category, and then the Indigenous communities are classified under the Indigenous category. But what my colleagues in Brazil have found from looking at the data is that a lot of these cases are not… the color, skin color, of the patient, or the person who has died is not recorded.
So anywhere from 25 to 30% of the cases do not include any color or race data at all. But we also do know that in late June, early July, 40% of the total sort of COVID cases were of [foreign language 00:05:31] and [foreign language 00:05:32], so African descendant Brazilians. The other thing that has happened is not only are the number of cases much higher, the number of deaths much higher for Afro-Brazilians, but the number of COVID cases for White Brazilians has been going down. So it went down from late May to early July, from 50% of the total cases to 25% of the total cases.
Kim Brown: What does that kind of erasure of racial data? What does that do?
Kia Lilly Caldwell: Right, so this has been an ongoing challenge in Brazil in terms of the census. So for most of the 20th century in Brazil, they did not collect census data by race or skin color. And this was in an effort to really hide in many ways, the size of the African-descendant population and to portray Brazil as a predominantly white nation. In 2010, for the first time, it was shown that over 50% of the population was black or brown, at least 50%, right? Because there are also White Brazilians who have African ancestry, but they identify as white or there are brown in Afro-Brazilians who might self identify as white because of the way that race is constructed there in racial and color categories. So this is a form of erasure, or a form of what Latin Americans call invisibilization. And it also means that you can’t pinpoint health disparities, educational disparities, income inequalities, if you don’t have the data. And we’re facing something similar here in the US unfortunately.
Kim Brown: The drivers of COVID-19 amongst Black Americans, at least initially, from the information that we have has a lot to do with the fact that Black Americans are by and large essential workers, people who are not able to work from home, people who have to take public transportation to get back and forth to work, and also people who live in multigenerational homes. What are some of the drivers of COVID-19 in similar ways, as it relates to Afro-Brazilians and Indigenous person,
Kia Lilly Caldwell: There are many parallels. And in fact, there was an article that was published in the Lancet recently that pointed out that the number of cases was much higher amongst the elderly, as we know, but also Black and Brown Brazilians, Afro-Brazilians. And so this article was also calling for the need to kind of cross tabulate the data and find out whether these are elderly Afro-Brazilians, who were being disproportionately affected. The article also pointed out multigenerational housing, and the fact that you have elderly people living with much younger people, which then exposes them to the virus. All of the things that we’re seeing here in the US with regard to African Americans and the Latinx community, being essential workers, being in high risk occupations are also true of Afro-Brazilians.
And in fact, I think it’s even more pronounced in many ways because of the high rates of unemployment in Brazil, the fact that people work in the informal economy, often doing things like recycling cans and really doing whatever types of labor they can, but also a high number of Afro-Brazilian women still work in domestic service in Brazil. So you were talking about working in people’s homes and in that way, being exposed to the virus. And in fact, the first known person to have died from coronavirus in Brazil, COVID-19 in Brazil, was a domestic worker in Rio. So all of those things lead to heightened exposure to the virus.
Kim Brown: So in both countries, I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that the virus is being handled poorly by the federal officials and the elected leaders. They’re here in the US, President Donald Trump overseeing a just bad management of the virus, as we’re seeing coronavirus cases spike in a number of places also in Brazil, President Bolsonaro has now contracted COVID himself twice now. And both of these leaders are right-wing and authoritarian. And I’m just curious as to your opinion as to whether or not there are any policies that could be enacted that could either stem the amount of transmission of COVID through black and brown populations. Or is it, are we dealing with systems that are so deeply entrenched that it will be so hard to sort of right the ship at this point, because this is the outcome of hundreds of years of neglect by black and brown people from the mostly white federal government.
Kia Lilly Caldwell: Yeah. I mean, I am hopeful that things can be improved, but swift action is really needed. I’ll focus on Brazil first. Testing has not been widespread in Brazil. And as you mentioned, Jair Bolsonaro did not take the virus seriously. And he still does not take the virus seriously. He kept calling it a little flu, which led people to not really protect themselves. But also if we think about the high density within favelas, right, which are communities that many Afro-Brazilians live in, in major cities, places like Rio, over 2 million people live in favelas in Rio. So you’re talking about, again, densely populated communities that don’t have proper sanitation or running water for all residents kind of on a normal day. And so then to tell people that they should wash their hands and distance and use sanitizer none of that is very realistic.
So having an infrastructure in place that can provide water to people is really important in addition to the testing and encouraging social distancing and allowing people to actually be on lockdown. And that’s not really a possibility for a lot of people who rely on their jobs. So I do think if this pandemic had been approached from the perspective of kind of the least of these, right, who is most vulnerable, it could have been addressed differently. It’s not too late to do that, it’s not too late to think about the Indigenous communities, particularly in the Amazon, but that political will needs to be there. And unfortunately, with both presidents, what we’ve seen is a lot of racism, racist rhetoric, and racist policies, which really kind of counteract any attempt to make this pandemic have more equitable impact, if that’s at all possible.
Kim Brown: You speak about political will and the Black Lives Matter movement lives in Brazil. What steps politically, and I guess from a grassroots level are Black Brazilians and Indigenous Brazilians doing to either protect themselves at this point or to make it clear to the federal government that these level of inequities are no longer tolerable.
Kia Lilly Caldwell: Right, absolutely. So there was certainly organizing happening before the pandemic around police violence in Brazil, which is also epidemic proportions. It’s estimated that 33,000 people were killed by the police throughout the country over the past 10 years. So when we think about just the horror and the trauma caused by that, but also that, as a public health issue, that has been on many people’s radars for a long time. And then also if we sort of think about the political situation, and Jair Bolsonaro coming to power, the fragility of Brazil’s democracy in this moment, there have been calls for him to be impeached and even calls that he could be charged with genocide just because of his mishandling of the pandemic. And so certainly there was organizing, taking place around racism, around police brutality, around the marginalization and discrimination experienced by indigenous communities.
Around the Amazon also, and what’s been happening with the Amazon, which affects all of us. Ultimately, I was reading an article that said that the burning and the deforestation that’s been taking place in the Amazon will lead to new novel viruses, right, or more novel viruses. And so Brazil really needs to be on our radars for multiple reasons, right, because of the pandemic, because of the Amazon, because of police brutality, and because it has the largest African diaspora community in the world, the second largest African descendant community in the world with Nigeria, having the first. All of these things are affecting what’s happening to Afro_Brazilians, not to mention the political situation as well.
Kim Brown: I’m glad you mentioned the G-word, genocide because that is sort of been my observation of what’s happening here in the US and then looking about what’s happening in Brazil, it’s almost the same thing and are we witnessing a soft genocide of black and brown people on two continents where inaction by the federal government is in effect causing the mass deaths of tens of thousands and not to mention what the push here, state side to reopen the economy, to get people back to work, to reopen schools without first getting a handle on the level of transmission of coronavirus, is this the intentional or perhaps unintentional killing of tens of thousands of black and brown people without having to march them into concentration camps, so to speak?
Kia Lilly Caldwell: Yeah, I mean, it’s very alarming, right? We should be alarmed and we should also be alarmed by the inaction of both government, Bolsonaro is now onto his third health minister during the pandemic, and the current health minister is a general who has no healthcare experience, right? And so when we think about that, when we think about the lies and mismanagement of the pandemic here, we can connect that to genocide. And the fact that genocides don’t always have to be intentional, it’s about impact, it’s not always about intention. So whether or not they’re planning or have been planning to kill people, we know that people are dying, but we also know that black people are dying disproportionately, right? And the callousness with which this is being treated is also really problematic. And so I do think that genocide is appropriate in many ways.
I think we have to be cautious about using the term. But when we look at 140,000 confirmed deaths for the US and 80,000 confirmed deaths for Brazil, and I think saying confirmed deaths is important because in Brazil, it’s likely that the number of deaths has been much higher, possibly five times higher. It’s also people are saying, researchers are saying that the number of confirmed cases is probably 12 times or 15 times what the data is saying, right? So it’s an alarming situation and I often think where does the accountability come in, right? Who are these two presidents in these two governments accountable to, and who should they be accountable to? And that is a major problem.
Kim Brown: Well, Professor break it down for us because I mean, the reason why we are seeing mirror images of outcomes for black and brown people in the US and in Brazil is because of the legacy of slavery and hundreds of years of violence and neglect. It’s difficult to fathom that here in 2020, that very little of this has been rectified, at least when it comes to health outcomes. Does this all originate from slavery or are our other colonies that have black and African descendants in it, are we seeing similar things there? What’s up with the US and Brazil in this instance?
Kia Lilly Caldwell: That is such a good question. The US and Brazil has sort of been mirror images of each other for a long time, for better or worse. And researchers have often compared them in terms of their histories of slavery. Typically Brazil was seen, especially during the early and mid 20th century, as being ahead of the US because there was no Jim Crow, right, there was no legalized racial segregation.
However, I think what we’re seeing today shows that they’re really not all that different and these are legacies of slavery. With Brazil, having the largest and longest involvement in slavery and in the transatlantic slave trade of any single country, right, over four million Africans were forcibly taken to Brazil. Sometimes the estimates go up to five million. Whereas the S brought in 300,000 to 500,000 enslaved Africans. But I think a question is why are these black communities in both countries, so oppressed, which is not to say that Afro-Venezuelans are not, or Africa-Colombians, we’re certainly not hearing as much about what’s happening in those two countries.
But I think that in Brazil, there has certainly been a vested interest in the oppression of black people and in anti-black racism, because the majority of the population is black and white elites have known that. And so even if we think about Jair Bolsonaro’s rise to power, it came on the heels of over a decade of two leftist administration’s. Lula and Dilma Rousseff, right? So there was backlash there. If we think about Trump coming to power, there was backlash against the Obama era. And so in this era of backlash, in this moment of backlash, black communities are really suffering that the impact of that if we think about voting rights and so many other things in this country, as well as in Brazil. So it’s something that I do believe we need to have our eyes on as folks here in the US but also abroad. And there is a push to really restore democracy in Brazil, which I also think is essential to addressing this global health crisis or the impact of the global health crisis in the pandemic there.
Kim Brown: Incredible. And it’ll be something when we finally get out of this moment, unfortunately, we are in the midst of it so we don’t know when it’s going to end, but right now, black and brown people, two continents in the Western Hemisphere, not fairing well in the US and in Brazil, and it’s roots and causes go back hundreds of years to slavery and colonialism. We’ve been speaking today with Kia Lilly Caldwell. Her piece is titled COVID-19 is deadly or for black Brazilians, a legacy of structural racism that dates back to slavery. It appeared originally on the conversation.com and it was co-written with Professor Caldwell and Edna Maria de Araujo, who is a Professor Public Health and Epidemiology at the State University of Feira de Santana. And professor Caldwell has been joining us today from North Carolina. Thank you so much for making the time to talk about this, because it’s extremely important what we’re witnessing at this moment in time to black and brown people as a result of COVID. So thank you Professor Caldwell.
Kia Lilly Caldwell: Thank you.
Kim Brown: And thank you for watching The Real News Network.
Studio: Taylor Hebden
Production: Taylor Hebden, Andrew Corkery
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