thenation--2020-06-29--Black Liberation and Indigenous Sovereignty Are Interconnected

The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on a visual chronicle of untold stories of the coronavirus crisis and the struggle for racial justice—read more from The Invisible Front Line.—The Editors ortland , —I haven ’ t seen this kind of energy since Standing Rock .
In the weeks since George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis , my city has exploded with anger , empathy , and a level of organizing that is long overdue .
With Black youth leading the fight , this movement is demanding justice for Floyd , justice for Breonna Taylor , justice for Ahmaud Arbery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lives have been cruelly cut short by the police and vigilantes .
At first I joined these demonstrations just to show my support .
As a photographer , I believe strongly that my work should give rather than take , and I didn ’ t want to be jumping in to document a movement without understanding what my role could be in it .
There were plenty of Black photographers already documenting the protests across the country ; how did I fit in as an Indigenous storyteller ?
So I showed up : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , talked to activists , and slowly started making images that I thought could be helpful for the movement .
Usually , my work focuses on stories about Indigenous peoples .
The seven months I documented the Standing Rock movement created the foundation for how I now approach any story : Intention is crucial .
At Standing Rock , we had hundreds of photographers at some points , most of them parachuting in for a weekend and then heading out .
The images they made were superficial , relying on stereotypes and clichés @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movement .
That experience cemented my belief that your intention as a photographer matters to the quality of the images you make : the amount of work you do to educate yourself on the issue you ’ re documenting , the time you spend making connections with the people you ’ re photographing , always shows itself in the images .
And if you believe , as I do , that photographs don ’ t simply document our world but can also help bring new possibilities into being , that work is worth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that power can be for good or for bad .
I know the pain racist , stereotypical mascots cause for me , I know the shameful example those set for my son .
So while I can ’ t fathom the particular pain that my Black relatives feel when , year after year , videos of Black people being murdered by police are repeated ad nauseam and lead to only piecemeal reforms , I know that if we ’ re going to create the change we need for all of our liberation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the movement .
When I began to document the demonstrations in Portland , I saw similarities between Black and Indigenous movements .
I ’ m a guest in their movement .
It ’ s not my story to tell ; it ’ s my story to contribute to as best I can .
In the first few days , I made sure to share copies of the photos with Black relatives in the demonstrations .
I wasn ’ t on assignment ; I wasn ’ t making the work for a publication or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make images for the people .
After a few days , some of the folks I had taken photos of agreed to let me enlarge several of the images to paste them in downtown Portland .
I asked people on my Instagram stories if they knew of any large walls to paste on , and the response was overwhelming : I found multiple spaces to put up the photos .
This is my way of showing solidarity with Black lives and bringing these images and the people in them beyond our screens and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this movement is represented will have a big impact on whether it succeeds .
We need to take care with our image making ; we need to build trust ; we need to get consent whenever possible ; we need to understand the goals the movement is fighting for .
Ultimately , our sovereignty as Indigenous peoples is interwoven with Black liberation .
When their image is honored , we are all honored .

Josué Rivas, The Nation, Magnum Foundation

This article appears in the July 27/August 3, 2020 issue.
The Nation and Magnum Foundation are partnering on a visual chronicle of untold stories of the coronavirus crisis and the struggle for racial justice—read more from The Invisible Front Line.—The Editors
P ortland, Ore. —I haven’t seen this kind of energy since Standing Rock. In the weeks since George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis, my city has exploded with anger, empathy, and a level of organizing that is long overdue. With Black youth leading the fight, this movement is demanding justice for Floyd, justice for Breonna Taylor, justice for Ahmaud Arbery, justice for all African Americans whose lives have been cruelly cut short by the police and vigilantes.
At first I joined these demonstrations just to show my support. As a photographer, I believe strongly that my work should give rather than take, and I didn’t want to be jumping in to document a movement without understanding what my role could be in it. There were plenty of Black photographers already documenting the protests across the country; how did I fit in as an Indigenous storyteller? So I showed up: I went to the marches and listened, talked to activists, and slowly started making images that I thought could be helpful for the movement.
Usually, my work focuses on stories about Indigenous peoples. The seven months I documented the Standing Rock movement created the foundation for how I now approach any story: Intention is crucial. At Standing Rock, we had hundreds of photographers at some points, most of them parachuting in for a weekend and then heading out. The images they made were superficial, relying on stereotypes and clichés and staying on the surface of the movement. That experience cemented my belief that your intention as a photographer matters to the quality of the images you make: the amount of work you do to educate yourself on the issue you’re documenting, the time you spend making connections with the people you’re photographing, always shows itself in the images. And if you believe, as I do, that photographs don’t simply document our world but can also help bring new possibilities into being, that work is worth it.
Images have power, but that power can be for good or for bad. I know the pain racist, stereotypical mascots cause for me, I know the shameful example those set for my son. So while I can’t fathom the particular pain that my Black relatives feel when, year after year, videos of Black people being murdered by police are repeated ad nauseam and lead to only piecemeal reforms, I know that if we’re going to create the change we need for all of our liberation, we’ll need images that serve the movement.
When I began to document the demonstrations in Portland, I saw similarities between Black and Indigenous movements. I’m a guest in their movement. It’s not my story to tell; it’s my story to contribute to as best I can. In the first few days, I made sure to share copies of the photos with Black relatives in the demonstrations. I wasn’t on assignment; I wasn’t making the work for a publication or a brand; I was there to make images for the people. After a few days, some of the folks I had taken photos of agreed to let me enlarge several of the images to paste them in downtown Portland. I asked people on my Instagram stories if they knew of any large walls to paste on, and the response was overwhelming: I found multiple spaces to put up the photos. This is my way of showing solidarity with Black lives and bringing these images and the people in them beyond our screens and into our daily lives.
The way this movement is represented will have a big impact on whether it succeeds. We need to take care with our image making; we need to build trust; we need to get consent whenever possible; we need to understand the goals the movement is fighting for. Ultimately, our sovereignty as Indigenous peoples is interwoven with Black liberation. When their image is honored, we are all honored.


thenation--2020-06-29--Trump’s Geriatric Race War

Trump’s Geriatric Race War

If the Trumpist political movement has a heartland , it is surely The Villages , a retirement community in Florida just an hour ’ s drive away from Disney World .
Like the famous theme park , The Villages is a sumptuous capitalist utopia , a meticulous tribute to the ability of big business to create an immersive artificial reality .
Writing in Politico in 2018 , Michael Grunwald described it as a “ groomed dreamscape of gated subdivisions , wall-to-wall golf courses , adult-only pools and old-fashioned town squares.
” Grunwald credited it as the key to Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ indeed the robustness of the Republican Party in the Sunshine State .
The blue wave of 2018 came up short in Florida , with Democrats losing a Senate seat and the gubernatorial race .
Republicans squeezed through victory in these close races thanks to The Villages and other retirement communities , which provide an eager and growing voting bloc for the GOP .
The Trump campaign seems to agree with Grunwald ’ s analysis and has been eager to lock down the support of The Villages .
Trump held a rally in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ touted his support for Medicare .
On Sunday , Trump tweeted out , “ Thank you to the great people of The Villages .
The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall .
Corrupt Joe is shot .
See you soon !
!
!
” Accompanying this tweet was a link to a video showing rival protesters in The Villages .
Anti-Trump Villagers were yelling “ racists , ” while a pro-Trump Villager driving a golf cart shook his fist and yelled “ white power.
” The tweet was taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere saying , “ President Trump is a big fan of the Villages .
He did not hear the one statement made on the video .
What he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters.
” Trump Is Trying to Remake the Military in His Own Ugly Image How Long Can William Barr Get Away With Laughing at Justice ?
Trump has so often used his Twitter account to foment racism that we owe him no benefit of the doubt .
There ’ s no reason @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any knowledge of the “ white power ” slogan .
It is just as likely that the video was deliberately put up as a signal to the president ’ s racist supporters that he ’ s on their side .
In this scenario , the tweet ’ s deletion and the staffer ’ s insistence that Trump didn ’ t hear the “ white power ” slogan was a minimal form of plausible deniability to help moderate Republicans ease their conscience .
One such Republican , South Carolina Senator Tim Scott , called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Deliberately tweeted or not , the video of an elderly Trump supporter in a golf cart yelling “ white power ” is a potent distillation of our moment .
Age and race are two major sources of political division , and they are intertwined .
A 2019 study from the Pew Research Center noted that the most common age for white Americans was 58 .
By contrast , “ the most common age was 11 for Hispanics , 27 for blacks and 29 for Asians.
” If we look at median age , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but it is still substantial .
The median age for white Americans is 44 , compared to 31 for people of color .
White Americans are much more likely to be senior citizens than are people of color .
The political success of the Republican party and of Trump has come from exploiting the fears of older white Americans in segregated retirement communities when faced with cultural and demographic change .
What attracts the Villagers to Trump , Grunwald observed , In some ways , the fact that the social base of Trumpism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fascism has traditionally been a youth movement , successful in channeling the aggression of the young into paramilitary organizations .
There have been scattered examples of this in the Trump era , such as the alt-right marchers in Charlottesville in 2017 .
But on the whole , the Trump fans excited by his race war rhetoric are safely ensconced in retirement communities , which blunts the possibility that they will join militias or terrorist groups .
Also , Covid-19 seems to be spoiling Trump ’ s chance to repeat his success of 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s recent surge in polling has owed much to the fact that he ’ s doing unusually well among the over-65 cohort .
As The New York Times reports , Trump and Biden “ are tied among seniors , according to a poll of registered voters conducted by The New York Times and Siena College .
And in the six most important battleground states , Mr. Biden has established a clear upper hand , leading Mr. Trump by six percentage points among the oldest voters and nearly matching the president ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The same poll shows that 52 percent of seniors disapprove of Trump ’ s handling of Covid-19 , as against 45 percent who approve .
The fact that senior citizens are the major swing voters in the election is further evidence that America has become a gerontocracy .
Joe Biden is 77 , Trump is 74 , Nancy Pelosi is 80 , Mitch McConnell is 78 .
Two Supreme Court justices ( Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito ) are septuagenarians .
Two other justices ( Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ victory in the primaries shows that older voters have a stranglehold on both political parties .
Biden won overwhelmingly among voters over 45 ; his closest rival , Bernie Sanders ( himself no spring chicken at 78 ) , led by a commanding margin among voters under 45 .
Because older voters turn out more regularly , Biden won .
America sometimes feels like the Soviet Union in the early 1980s : a decrepit empire whose aging leaders are locked into antiquarian ideological positions and lack the capacity to understand the dynamic forces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the USSR in the 1980s and the USA in the 2020s found themselves trapped in a quagmire in Afghanistan .
Matt Christman , a cohost of the satirical podcast Chapo Trap House , recently voiced dismay at this situation .
“ The electorate is old , ” he noted : The electorate is dying .
The country is dying .
The contest is between two different ways to be a dying old person .
There is the Trump method of raging against the dying of the light and refusing to admit your diminished @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way of slowly assimilating the understanding that you don ’ t have it anymore , which is exemplified by his tendency in the middle of sentences when he gets lost to give up and apologize to the person he is talking to , a thing Donald Trump would never do in a million years .
Biden , Christman predicted , would govern as a “ eulogizer in chief.
” There is something to Christman ’ s anxieties , despite their being expressed half in jest .
But no gerontocracy can last forever , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by well-to-do Americans .
There are already signs of renewal among the cohort of young Democrats elected in 2018 , most famously Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez .
The politics of the coming years will hinge on whether there can be an orderly shift from the older generation to the young .
If Biden does win the presidency , he ’ ll have done a service in helping push offstage Trump ’ s geriatric racism .
That will help create the preconditions for the next needed development , the move away from Biden ’ s generation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who share the politics—and in many cases the demographics—of young America .

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If the Trumpist political movement has a heartland, it is surely The Villages, a retirement community in Florida just an hour’s drive away from Disney World. Like the famous theme park, The Villages is a sumptuous capitalist utopia, a meticulous tribute to the ability of big business to create an immersive artificial reality. Writing in Politico in 2018, Michael Grunwald described it as a “groomed dreamscape of gated subdivisions, wall-to-wall golf courses, adult-only pools and old-fashioned town squares.”
Grunwald credited it as the key to Trump’s victory in Florida in 2016 and indeed the robustness of the Republican Party in the Sunshine State. The blue wave of 2018 came up short in Florida, with Democrats losing a Senate seat and the gubernatorial race. Republicans squeezed through victory in these close races thanks to The Villages and other retirement communities, which provide an eager and growing voting bloc for the GOP.
The Trump campaign seems to agree with Grunwald’s analysis and has been eager to lock down the support of The Villages. Trump held a rally in the retirement community last October, where he touted his support for Medicare. On Sunday, Trump tweeted out, “Thank you to the great people of The Villages. The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!!” Accompanying this tweet was a link to a video showing rival protesters in The Villages. Anti-Trump Villagers were yelling “racists,” while a pro-Trump Villager driving a golf cart shook his fist and yelled “white power.”
The tweet was taken down after three hours, with White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere saying, “President Trump is a big fan of the Villages. He did not hear the one statement made on the video. What he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters.” More From Jeet Heer The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution August 14, 2023 Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? August 11, 2023 When Phallocrats Go Limp August 4, 2023
Trump has so often used his Twitter account to foment racism that we owe him no benefit of the doubt. There’s no reason to credit the White House denial of any knowledge of the “white power” slogan. It is just as likely that the video was deliberately put up as a signal to the president’s racist supporters that he’s on their side. In this scenario, the tweet’s deletion and the staffer’s insistence that Trump didn’t hear the “white power” slogan was a minimal form of plausible deniability to help moderate Republicans ease their conscience. One such Republican, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, called for the tweet’s deletion.
Deliberately tweeted or not, the video of an elderly Trump supporter in a golf cart yelling “white power” is a potent distillation of our moment. Age and race are two major sources of political division, and they are intertwined. A 2019 study from the Pew Research Center noted that the most common age for white Americans was 58. By contrast, “the most common age was 11 for Hispanics, 27 for blacks and 29 for Asians.” If we look at median age, the divide is not as sharp, but it is still substantial. The median age for white Americans is 44, compared to 31 for people of color. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
White Americans are much more likely to be senior citizens than are people of color. The political success of the Republican party and of Trump has come from exploiting the fears of older white Americans in segregated retirement communities when faced with cultural and demographic change. Current Issue View our current issue
What attracts the Villagers to Trump, Grunwald observed,
were issues that had little to do with their pocketbooks or their daily lives—like his opposition to sanctuary cities, or his insistent rhetoric about strength, or his attacks on Muslims, MS-13 and protests by black athletes. They feel like Trump is on their side in a cultural war against cop-haters, their perception of scheming foreigners, global warming alarmists, and other politically correct avatars of disorder and decline; they thought President Barack Obama was on the other side, standing with transgender activists, welfare freeloaders and Islamic terrorists.
In some ways, the fact that the social base of Trumpism skews towards older voters is reassuring. Fascism has traditionally been a youth movement, successful in channeling the aggression of the young into paramilitary organizations. There have been scattered examples of this in the Trump era, such as the alt-right marchers in Charlottesville in 2017. But on the whole, the Trump fans excited by his race war rhetoric are safely ensconced in retirement communities, which blunts the possibility that they will join militias or terrorist groups.
Also, Covid-19 seems to be spoiling Trump’s chance to repeat his success of 2016 among white senior citizens. Joe Biden’s recent surge in polling has owed much to the fact that he’s doing unusually well among the over-65 cohort.
As The New York Times reports, Trump and Biden “are tied among seniors, according to a poll of registered voters conducted by The New York Times and Siena College. And in the six most important battleground states, Mr. Biden has established a clear upper hand, leading Mr. Trump by six percentage points among the oldest voters and nearly matching the president’s support among whites in that age group.” The same poll shows that 52 percent of seniors disapprove of Trump’s handling of Covid-19, as against 45 percent who approve.
The fact that senior citizens are the major swing voters in the election is further evidence that America has become a gerontocracy. Joe Biden is 77, Trump is 74, Nancy Pelosi is 80, Mitch McConnell is 78. Two Supreme Court justices (Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito) are septuagenarians. Two other justices (Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer) are octogenarians.
Biden’s political victory in the primaries shows that older voters have a stranglehold on both political parties. Biden won overwhelmingly among voters over 45; his closest rival, Bernie Sanders (himself no spring chicken at 78), led by a commanding margin among voters under 45. Because older voters turn out more regularly, Biden won.
America sometimes feels like the Soviet Union in the early 1980s: a decrepit empire whose aging leaders are locked into antiquarian ideological positions and lack the capacity to understand the dynamic forces that are changing the world. Both the USSR in the 1980s and the USA in the 2020s found themselves trapped in a quagmire in Afghanistan.
Matt Christman, a cohost of the satirical podcast Chapo Trap House, recently voiced dismay at this situation. “The electorate is old,” he noted:
The electorate is dying. The country is dying. The contest is between two different ways to be a dying old person. There is the Trump method of raging against the dying of the light and refusing to admit your diminished capacities. Or there is the Biden way of slowly assimilating the understanding that you don’t have it anymore, which is exemplified by his tendency in the middle of sentences when he gets lost to give up and apologize to the person he is talking to, a thing Donald Trump would never do in a million years.
Biden, Christman predicted, would govern as a “eulogizer in chief.”
There is something to Christman’s anxieties, despite their being expressed half in jest. But no gerontocracy can last forever, even with the expanding life expectancy enjoyed by well-to-do Americans. There are already signs of renewal among the cohort of young Democrats elected in 2018, most famously Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The politics of the coming years will hinge on whether there can be an orderly shift from the older generation to the young.
If Biden does win the presidency, he’ll have done a service in helping push offstage Trump’s geriatric racism. That will help create the preconditions for the next needed development, the move away from Biden’s generation to a new cohort of political leaders who share the politics—and in many cases the demographics—of young America.


thenation--2020-06-29--What Does It Really Mean to Invest In Black Communities?

Since the murder of George Floyd on may 25 and in the absence of a legitimate government response , laypeople armed with little more than cardboard signs have quickly become the arbiters of justice .
The simple nature of their presentation—a combining of poster board and Sharpie—masks the incredibly sophisticated nature of their demand : “ Divest and invest.
” 1 With breathtaking speed , it seems , this radical cry has gained greater currency .
Many who once argued fervently for police reform now declare the time has come to defund the police .
Through campaigns like Philly We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demanding the reallocation of funds from local police departments to city services such as libraries and the arts .
They have been joined by activists in Los Angeles calling for greater mental health services and public transportation and a diverse coalition in New York City urging greater investment in core social services and infrastructure .
The recent explosion of terror by violent , riotous police officers has only deepened the conviction that there are surely better ways to spend taxpayer funds than on the weapons used against us for exercising our right to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ invest ” side of “ divest and invest.
” I want to explore what that word can mean , because “ investment ” hasn ’ t caught up to “ divestment ” in public discussions , leaving a whole side of the equation underexplored .
Everyone knows that “ divest ” means less money going to police ; what is less clear is what “ invest ” really means .
Do those calling for investment mean simply moving money from one column in the budget to another , taking tax revenues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ directing them to a different one ?
Do they envision a completely different financial process , like using public debt for schools instead of police stations and jails ?
Is it about more funding for basic services like education and health care ?
Or is it about funding the infrastructure that makes services possible ?
Or all of the above ?
3 There is a difference between the delivery of public services , the facilities to which people turn for those services , and the submerged infrastructure on which those facilities rely .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and invest ” want is greater and transformed services , then shifting funds from one government agency to another makes sense.4 But what will maintain the infrastructure in which we seek revitalized services and through which we travel in our communities—the pipes , roads , bridges , and subway tunnels ?
These are the foundations on which any public service depends , and covering the cost of building and maintaining them can not be so easily met by rearranging budgets .
Indeed , this kind of transformative investment depends on a kind of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t been encouraged to think much about.5 We need to be precise , not just about the aims or agencies but also about the mechanisms through which investment takes place .
Only by doing so will black communities avoid exchanging police violence for the violence of finance capitalism , whose grip is already so tight and devastating.6 The “ divest and invest ” vision of safety and community is part of a long-overdue engagement with policing and municipal finance .
For years , scholars and activists have decried the use of regressive fees @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In Minneapolis , the Committee for Professional Policing pushed a local ballot initiative requiring police officers to carry liability insurance—a move intended to shift the costs of compensating victims of police brutality onto the police .
And across the left and right , others have demanded an end to qualified immunity , a suspect legal doctrine that basically gives carte blanche to officers who use excessive force.7 We owe these ideas—and this larger opportunity to remake policing in the United States—to the work , study , and organizing by groups like Critical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ young black activists .
In her foreword to the Agenda to Build Black Futures , Charlene Carruthers , then serving as national director of the Black Youth Project 100 , made the link between reparations for past and present systemic violence and support for black “ women who hold our households together , and…queer and trans* folks.
” In that report , Cedric Lawson , a founding member of BYP100 , insisted it was not enough to defund the police “ and reallocate residual funds to the people ’ s vision of public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divest from the prison-industrial complex and a system of “ administrative fees for probationers and parolees.
” Janaé Bonsu , an activist and scholar , stressed the importance of reallocating funds for schools and after-school programs.8 The Agenda to Build Black Futures , released in 2016 , was just one contribution to a larger vision that pushed the scope of divestment and investment further .
The Movement for Black Lives demanded divestment from all “ exploitative forces including prisons , fossil fuels , police , surveillance and exploitative corporations.
” The Vision for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy platform , imagined equitable health care that would include “ comprehensive health centers ” and investing savings from the catastrophic War on Drugs in “ restorative services [ and ] mental health services.
” 9 When activists , scholars , and ordinary citizens demand divestment and investment , they ’ re inserting themselves into matters of public finance , a technocratic sphere profoundly insulated from democratic input .
There the needs of real people are abstracted , turned into bloodless numbers and bottom lines .
With the call to “ divest and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ substance back to these abstractions , infusing a socially conscious position into the classical questions of public finance : when , where , and how funds are invested and who bears the cost.10 Cities obtain public funds primarily through two channels : taxes and borrowing .
( Though we might also note the earnings they reap from the sale of public properties as well as commercial enterprises , financial assets , special administrative charges , and of course , “ plunder , ” which currently takes the form of civil asset forfeiture .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ related processes .
Ultimately , to quote one prominent 1950s textbook on public finance , funds “ must come from the income and accumulated wealth of the people.
” Debt , in other words , is repaid through “ the same inevitable transfer of funds as taxation ” —though not always by the same segments of society.11 The municipal bond market , which enables cities to fund infrastructure , is a politically constructed network that links government borrowers , sellers of financial information , and institutional and individual investors .
During the 19th @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wealthy elites in the Northeast and across the Atlantic but also working people .
Throughout the 20th century , however , the holding of municipal debt was more likely to be the preserve of wealthy individuals and institutional investors like commercial banks and insurance companies .
Offering tax-exempt interest income , they were precursors to the plethora of offshore tax shelters .
12 Today ’ s municipal bond market is robust .
“ An average of nearly $ 435 billion in new municipal securities were issued each year in the last decade , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board .
And although the corporate securities market is more than twice as large ( $ 9.6 trillion ) , the $ 3.9 trillion municipal bond market is nevertheless a major capital market through which state and local governments raise funds and investors collect interest income on the debt they hold.13 And it has distinct advantages for cities .
While resorting to taxation allows them to avoid the interest burden that comes with borrowing , borrowing permits a distribution of the costs over the life of major capital projects like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and sewage systems .
Cities sometimes float bonds for specific purposes , such as affordable housing or transportation improvements .
In other instances , they issue so-called various purpose bonds , which bunch multiple infrastructure projects into a single bond issue .
These are typical bond issues , though as we will see , borrowing power is not always used for the critical infrastructure on which cities rely.14 Taxation and borrowing unlock revenues that are then directed toward municipal expenditures for the protection of life and property , education , health , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these expenditures reflect decisions by some designated authority to redistribute income to certain activities and not others .
If during the late 1940s expenditures for public safety were “ subject to close competition by the public schools and health and sanitation programs , ” to return to that 1950s textbook , this competition has since been decisively settled .
Somehow , legislative and executive authorities across the country , backed by different constituencies and power blocs , have decided that the public should float huge police departments.15 Police violence and bloated police budgets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but perhaps no city represents this intersection better than Chicago .
Well before the city ’ s infamous police commander John Burge and his marauding Midnight Crew terrorized black Chicagoans through beatings , electric shocks , and suffocation during the 1970s and ’ 80s , the Chicago Police Department ( CPD ) was routinely accused of torture .
And it continued to torture and brutalize long after .
Thus the execution of Rekia Boyd in 2012 , the murder of Laquan McDonald in 2014 , and the killing of Bettie Jones in 2015 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bad apples .
Their deaths , like those of so many other black Chicagoans , were rooted in a callous systematic indifference to black life .
And this system was propped up , in turn , by financial decisions.16 Before the wars—on crime , drugs , and terrorism—the CPD was already “ flush with cash , and possessed extraordinary power and autonomy , ” wrote historian Simon Balto in his book Occupied Territory : Policing Black Chicago From Red Summer to Black Power .
The 1950s proved to be the pivotal decade for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for investment in new vehicles and crime control technologies .
“ By 1970 , ” he wrote , “ the CPD ’ s budget was more than 900 percent larger than in 1945 , approaching $ 200 million per year.
” Since then , the numbers have only continued to climb—and climb .
In 2018 , Chicago appropriated more than $ 1.57 billion for the police ( some 18 percent of the city ’ s overall budget of nearly $ 8.9 billion , not including grant funds ) .17 The disproportionate funds allocated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trade-offs .
In the city ’ s 2019 budget overview , 41 percent of the proposed expenditures from its corporate fund , which supports basic operations and services , were allotted for the police .
Meanwhile , 2 percent of the expenditures were slotted for transportation and 4 percent for streets and sanitation.18 Again , cities like Chicago borrow for the sake of infrastructure improvements .
But with hefty sums allocated for policing and for servicing debt ( $ 632 million in 2018 ) , it is worth asking : What improvements ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ asking this very question for years .
In June 1978 , one Chicago Tribune journalist spoke to motorists about the city ’ s pothole problem .
“ The stretch from 55th to 51st is as bumpy as [ expletive deleted ] , ” said one driver .
“ There are holes all over and the car is rattling all over.
” More than 40 years later , the city remains as pocked with potholes as ever.19 Yet , while successive administrations have ignored some of its residents ’ most basic needs , somehow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ money to compensate the victims of police brutality .
The city said it has borrowed hefty sums “ to pay for expenses incurred in connection with claims and judgments ” against it .
Indeed , the Action Center on Race and the Economy estimated that Chicago borrowed more than $ 709 million to cover these costs from 2010 to 2017 .
And “ most of the city ’ s police related settlement and judgment costs , ” the group said— $ 360 million from 2010 to 2016—were “ covered by bond borrowing.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cost taxpayers millions more in interest payments to bondholders .
Other cities have borrowed for police body cameras and to rebuild local jails , the debt-financed extensions of the carceral state.20 Black Chicagoans have been conscripted into a nasty compact .
As taxpayers , they fund a police department that makes their lives more dangerous .
And as tax and fee payers , many of those harmed by police brutality effectively pay for their own reparations , with bond financiers taking the cream off the top in the form of underwriting fees.21 The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the kind of infrastructure that black communities so desperately need is understandable .
This temptation is all the more alluring , given the prevailing low interest rates .
And surely there will be some financiers who seek to co-opt the radical “ divest and invest ” demand by underwriting the revolution in spending priorities .
But as tempting as it might be to invest in community needs through the bond market , there ’ s a fly in that particular ointment : Doing so would continue to render black futures subject to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weigh community demands against technocratic ratios.22 New York City is often remembered as the poster child for bond market implosions .
Before being subjected to “ shock therapy , ” as Mayor Abraham Beame described it in 1975 , the Big Apple was just one of a number of cities—including Baltimore , Boston , Cleveland , Detroit , and Philadelphia—that had their general obligation bonds downgraded by Moody ’ s from 1955 to 1970 .
Chicago maintained its strong credit profile during these years , but soon it , too , fell victim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Standard & Poor ’ s downgraded Chicago ’ s bonds from AA to A-plus .
As S & P ’ s Robert Geier explained , the firm lowered the city ’ s bond rating because of operating and cash deficits .
What ’ s more , the Windy City incurred and rolled over liabilities , drawing on future budgets to pay for existing hospital expenses .
And though we have come to see privatization as a hallmark of neoliberalism , the analysts at S & P , at least in 1979 , were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to finance city operations .
Financing operations through the sale of “ city-owned parking ” and the Bridewell Farm—a 311-acre that once housed the Bridewell Prison— “ are considered a poor financial move because the sales are once-only transactions , ” as two journalists summarized.24 The Chicago Tribune said the S & P downgrade meant that the city would have to pay higher interest rates on the “ bonds it sells.
” The downgrade could also compel city officials to delay much-needed infrastructure improvements .
In February 1980 , Edwin Yeo III , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Byrne , said that wiping out the deficit by means of austerity would ultimately “ provide the basis for a higher bond rating in the future.
” 25 Decades later , the city ’ s credit rating is once again less than stellar .
By November 2019 , Fitch rated Chicago debt BBB-minus , while S & P Global Ratings gave it a BBB-plus .
For these rating analysts , the outlook for Chicago debt was stable , though Moody ’ s rated Chicago bonds “ one notch below investment grade.
” While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the impact of a declining population on the city ’ s revenue base , Moody ’ s cited “ pension challenges ” as the city ’ s biggest problem .
And this happened before Covid-19 obliterated projections of Chicago ’ s economic future.26 The general hostility toward deficits in this country amounts to an ideology ; it ’ s part of a system of beliefs deployed with vigor , especially when such deficits are linked to social spending .
The ideological aversion to deficits , the outsize power of rating analysts , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the effect of these dynamics on the cost of borrowing suggests that investment , particularly in the context of revenue shortfalls , will invariably come with strings attached—strings that could strangle any attempt to build a more just society in the cradle.27 Even if the current campaign to defund the police is successful , without also decoupling our cities from the private bond market , credit-rating analysts will soon punish our communities for budget deficits , making it more difficult to invest in the very facilities that will keep black communities safe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bond market and leverage completely new financial mechanisms in order to realize an alternative investment in community infrastructure.28 Given these dangers , how should we fund infrastructure ?
How can we reinvest ?
In addition to the now familiar progressive , redistributive visions—taxing the rich , doing away with tax abatements for huge corporations , converting private utility companies into a public power utility—we need to leverage federal financial power.29 In April , many , myself included , expressed excitement over the Federal Reserve ’ s new Municipal Liquidity Facility , which allowed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s short-term debts .
Although groups such as Employ America remain hopeful , it is unclear if the Federal Reserve is either able or willing to respond adequately to the needs of local governments crushed by revenue shortfalls .
But we should not wait .
More than 50 years ago , Representative Wright Patman of Texas offered a plan worth revisiting .
His Municipal Capital Market Expansion Act of 1968 was designed to do more than remedy the failings of rating agencies .
He aimed to correct a system that “ punishes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ debt in order to provide adequate public services for its citizens while supporting its poor residents.
” 30 Patman imagined a new federal corporation to aid all states , the District of Columbia , all US territorial possessions ( including Puerto Rico ) , and “ any Indian tribe.
” He effectively sought to lend the sterling credit standing of the federal government to contracting state and local borrowers .
The proposed corporation would “ guarantee the payment of principal and interest ” on debt issued by state and local governments borrowing “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facilities.
” It would also offer interest-rate-reduction grants and turn the federal government into a clearinghouse for municipal information , obviating the capricious opinions of credit analysts.31 As we imagine alternative forms of investment , Patman ’ s idea is one place to start .
We must be creative as we look for ways to decouple infrastructure from the private market .
But it is not enough to devise new mechanisms to enable investment in the built environment .
During the 20th century the “ deference to localism ” that structured many federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of power in city and state governments , ” as historian Tom Sugrue wrote .
This meant that federal funds often followed local , racist routes.32 To guard against this , it is essential that local groups—especially the black activists to whom we owe this momentous opportunity to remake the meaning of safety in America—have a seat at the table in determining where investments are made .
In the 1960s we called this maximum feasible participation , a contested term with an equally contested history .
Today , as the very terms of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ unencumbered by past failures and buoyed by their connection to the ruckus in the street , ” as scholar-activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor recently put it , we might simply call it insurgent black politics.33 As communities divest from the police and invest in local infrastructure through alternative means , we should lean on the efforts of activists and other engaged citizens who have already fused the energy of the streets to the painstaking work of examining municipal budgets .
For real change to come at last , we must refuse to cede control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ business degrees.34

This article appears in the July 13/20, 2020 issue.
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Since the murder of George Floyd on May 25 and in the absence of a legitimate government response, laypeople armed with little more than cardboard signs have quickly become the arbiters of justice. The simple nature of their presentation—a combining of poster board and Sharpie—masks the incredibly sophisticated nature of their demand: “Divest and invest.”1
With breathtaking speed, it seems, this radical cry has gained greater currency. Many who once argued fervently for police reform now declare the time has come to defund the police. Through campaigns like Philly We Rise, movement organizers have taken to demanding the reallocation of funds from local police departments to city services such as libraries and the arts. They have been joined by activists in Los Angeles calling for greater mental health services and public transportation and a diverse coalition in New York City urging greater investment in core social services and infrastructure. The recent explosion of terror by violent, riotous police officers has only deepened the conviction that there are surely better ways to spend taxpayer funds than on the weapons used against us for exercising our right to protest.2
I want to focus here on the “invest” side of “divest and invest.” I want to explore what that word can mean, because “investment” hasn’t caught up to “divestment” in public discussions, leaving a whole side of the equation underexplored. Everyone knows that “divest” means less money going to police; what is less clear is what “invest” really means. Do those calling for investment mean simply moving money from one column in the budget to another, taking tax revenues used to fund one government agency and directing them to a different one? Do they envision a completely different financial process, like using public debt for schools instead of police stations and jails? Is it about more funding for basic services like education and health care? Or is it about funding the infrastructure that makes services possible? Or all of the above?3
There is a difference between the delivery of public services, the facilities to which people turn for those services, and the submerged infrastructure on which those facilities rely. If what the advocates of “divest and invest” want is greater and transformed services, then shifting funds from one government agency to another makes sense.4
But what will maintain the infrastructure in which we seek revitalized services and through which we travel in our communities—the pipes, roads, bridges, and subway tunnels? These are the foundations on which any public service depends, and covering the cost of building and maintaining them cannot be so easily met by rearranging budgets. Indeed, this kind of transformative investment depends on a kind of financial wizardry that most people haven’t been encouraged to think much about.5 Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
We need to be precise, not just about the aims or agencies but also about the mechanisms through which investment takes place. Only by doing so will black communities avoid exchanging police violence for the violence of finance capitalism, whose grip is already so tight and devastating.6
The “divest and invest” vision of safety and community is part of a long-overdue engagement with policing and municipal finance. For years, scholars and activists have decried the use of regressive fees and fines to plug local budget shortfalls. In Minneapolis, the Committee for Professional Policing pushed a local ballot initiative requiring police officers to carry liability insurance—a move intended to shift the costs of compensating victims of police brutality onto the police. And across the left and right, others have demanded an end to qualified immunity, a suspect legal doctrine that basically gives carte blanche to officers who use excessive force.7 Current Issue View our current issue
We owe these ideas—and this larger opportunity to remake policing in the United States—to the work, study, and organizing by groups like Critical Resistance and especially to the efforts of young black activists. In her foreword to the Agenda to Build Black Futures, Charlene Carruthers, then serving as national director of the Black Youth Project 100, made the link between reparations for past and present systemic violence and support for black “women who hold our households together, and…queer and trans* folks.” In that report, Cedric Lawson, a founding member of BYP100, insisted it was not enough to defund the police “and reallocate residual funds to the people’s vision of public safety.” He said we must also divest from the prison-industrial complex and a system of “administrative fees for probationers and parolees.” Janaé Bonsu, an activist and scholar, stressed the importance of reallocating funds for schools and after-school programs.8
The Agenda to Build Black Futures, released in 2016, was just one contribution to a larger vision that pushed the scope of divestment and investment further. The Movement for Black Lives demanded divestment from all “exploitative forces including prisons, fossil fuels, police, surveillance and exploitative corporations.” The Vision for Black Lives, M4BL’s official policy platform, imagined equitable health care that would include “comprehensive health centers” and investing savings from the catastrophic War on Drugs in “restorative services [and] mental health services.”9
When activists, scholars, and ordinary citizens demand divestment and investment, they’re inserting themselves into matters of public finance, a technocratic sphere profoundly insulated from democratic input. There the needs of real people are abstracted, turned into bloodless numbers and bottom lines. With the call to “divest and invest,” engaged citizens are bringing substance back to these abstractions, infusing a socially conscious position into the classical questions of public finance: when, where, and how funds are invested and who bears the cost.10
Cities obtain public funds primarily through two channels: taxes and borrowing. (Though we might also note the earnings they reap from the sale of public properties as well as commercial enterprises, financial assets, special administrative charges, and of course, “plunder,” which currently takes the form of civil asset forfeiture.) Taxation and borrowing are distinct but related processes. Ultimately, to quote one prominent 1950s textbook on public finance, funds “must come from the income and accumulated wealth of the people.” Debt, in other words, is repaid through “the same inevitable transfer of funds as taxation”—though not always by the same segments of society.11
The municipal bond market, which enables cities to fund infrastructure, is a politically constructed network that links government borrowers, sellers of financial information, and institutional and individual investors. During the 19th century, municipal bondholders included not only wealthy elites in the Northeast and across the Atlantic but also working people. Throughout the 20th century, however, the holding of municipal debt was more likely to be the preserve of wealthy individuals and institutional investors like commercial banks and insurance companies. Offering tax-exempt interest income, they were precursors to the plethora of offshore tax shelters. 12
Today’s municipal bond market is robust. “An average of nearly $435 billion in new municipal securities were issued each year in the last decade,” noted a recent report by the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board. And although the corporate securities market is more than twice as large ($9.6 trillion), the $3.9 trillion municipal bond market is nevertheless a major capital market through which state and local governments raise funds and investors collect interest income on the debt they hold.13
And it has distinct advantages for cities. While resorting to taxation allows them to avoid the interest burden that comes with borrowing, borrowing permits a distribution of the costs over the life of major capital projects like the construction of bridges, streets, and sewage systems. Cities sometimes float bonds for specific purposes, such as affordable housing or transportation improvements. In other instances, they issue so-called various purpose bonds, which bunch multiple infrastructure projects into a single bond issue. These are typical bond issues, though as we will see, borrowing power is not always used for the critical infrastructure on which cities rely.14
Taxation and borrowing unlock revenues that are then directed toward municipal expenditures for the protection of life and property, education, health, and sanitation, among other services. But these expenditures reflect decisions by some designated authority to redistribute income to certain activities and not others. If during the late 1940s expenditures for public safety were “subject to close competition by the public schools and health and sanitation programs,” to return to that 1950s textbook, this competition has since been decisively settled. Somehow, legislative and executive authorities across the country, backed by different constituencies and power blocs, have decided that the public should float huge police departments.15
Police violence and bloated police budgets are endemic to the United States, but perhaps no city represents this intersection better than Chicago. Well before the city’s infamous police commander John Burge and his marauding Midnight Crew terrorized black Chicagoans through beatings, electric shocks, and suffocation during the 1970s and ’80s, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) was routinely accused of torture. And it continued to torture and brutalize long after. Thus the execution of Rekia Boyd in 2012, the murder of Laquan McDonald in 2014, and the killing of Bettie Jones in 2015 did not occur at the hands of bad apples. Their deaths, like those of so many other black Chicagoans, were rooted in a callous systematic indifference to black life. And this system was propped up, in turn, by financial decisions.16
Before the wars—on crime, drugs, and terrorism—the CPD was already “flush with cash, and possessed extraordinary power and autonomy,” wrote historian Simon Balto in his book Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago From Red Summer to Black Power. The 1950s proved to be the pivotal decade for the dramatic expansion of police personnel and for investment in new vehicles and crime control technologies. “By 1970,” he wrote, “the CPD’s budget was more than 900 percent larger than in 1945, approaching $200 million per year.” Since then, the numbers have only continued to climb—and climb. In 2018, Chicago appropriated more than $1.57 billion for the police (some 18 percent of the city’s overall budget of nearly $8.9 billion, not including grant funds).17
The disproportionate funds allocated to the CPD have come with important trade-offs. In the city’s 2019 budget overview, 41 percent of the proposed expenditures from its corporate fund, which supports basic operations and services, were allotted for the police. Meanwhile, 2 percent of the expenditures were slotted for transportation and 4 percent for streets and sanitation.18
Again, cities like Chicago borrow for the sake of infrastructure improvements. But with hefty sums allocated for policing and for servicing debt ($632 million in 2018), it is worth asking: What improvements? It seems as if Chicagoans have been asking this very question for years. In June 1978, one Chicago Tribune journalist spoke to motorists about the city’s pothole problem. “The stretch from 55th to 51st is as bumpy as [expletive deleted],” said one driver. “There are holes all over and the car is rattling all over.” More than 40 years later, the city remains as pocked with potholes as ever.19
Yet, while successive administrations have ignored some of its residents’ most basic needs, somehow it became acceptable for Chicago to borrow money to compensate the victims of police brutality. The city said it has borrowed hefty sums “to pay for expenses incurred in connection with claims and judgments” against it. Indeed, the Action Center on Race and the Economy estimated that Chicago borrowed more than $709 million to cover these costs from 2010 to 2017. And “most of the city’s police related settlement and judgment costs,” the group said—$360 million from 2010 to 2016—were “covered by bond borrowing.” These “police brutality bonds” will cost taxpayers millions more in interest payments to bondholders. Other cities have borrowed for police body cameras and to rebuild local jails, the debt-financed extensions of the carceral state.20
Black Chicagoans have been conscripted into a nasty compact. As taxpayers, they fund a police department that makes their lives more dangerous. And as tax and fee payers, many of those harmed by police brutality effectively pay for their own reparations, with bond financiers taking the cream off the top in the form of underwriting fees.21
The temptation to leverage financial markets to deliver the kind of infrastructure that black communities so desperately need is understandable. This temptation is all the more alluring, given the prevailing low interest rates. And surely there will be some financiers who seek to co-opt the radical “divest and invest” demand by underwriting the revolution in spending priorities. But as tempting as it might be to invest in community needs through the bond market, there’s a fly in that particular ointment: Doing so would continue to render black futures subject to the power of unelected bond-rating analysts who would weigh community demands against technocratic ratios.22
New York City is often remembered as the poster child for bond market implosions. Before being subjected to “shock therapy,” as Mayor Abraham Beame described it in 1975, the Big Apple was just one of a number of cities—including Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia—that had their general obligation bonds downgraded by Moody’s from 1955 to 1970. Chicago maintained its strong credit profile during these years, but soon it, too, fell victim to a downgrade.23
In September 1979, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Chicago’s bonds from AA to A-plus. As S&P’s Robert Geier explained, the firm lowered the city’s bond rating because of operating and cash deficits. What’s more, the Windy City incurred and rolled over liabilities, drawing on future budgets to pay for existing hospital expenses. And though we have come to see privatization as a hallmark of neoliberalism, the analysts at S&P, at least in 1979, were dismayed by the sale of certain assets to finance city operations. Financing operations through the sale of “city-owned parking” and the Bridewell Farm—a 311-acre that once housed the Bridewell Prison—“are considered a poor financial move because the sales are once-only transactions,” as two journalists summarized.24
The Chicago Tribune said the S&P downgrade meant that the city would have to pay higher interest rates on the “bonds it sells.” The downgrade could also compel city officials to delay much-needed infrastructure improvements. In February 1980, Edwin Yeo III, the chief financial adviser to Mayor Jane Byrne, said that wiping out the deficit by means of austerity would ultimately “provide the basis for a higher bond rating in the future.”25
Decades later, the city’s credit rating is once again less than stellar. By November 2019, Fitch rated Chicago debt BBB-minus, while S&P Global Ratings gave it a BBB-plus. For these rating analysts, the outlook for Chicago debt was stable, though Moody’s rated Chicago bonds “one notch below investment grade.” While some pointed to public sector costs and the impact of a declining population on the city’s revenue base, Moody’s cited “pension challenges” as the city’s biggest problem. And this happened before Covid-19 obliterated projections of Chicago’s economic future.26
The general hostility toward deficits in this country amounts to an ideology; it’s part of a system of beliefs deployed with vigor, especially when such deficits are linked to social spending. The ideological aversion to deficits, the outsize power of rating analysts, the ups and downs of letter grades, and the effect of these dynamics on the cost of borrowing suggests that investment, particularly in the context of revenue shortfalls, will invariably come with strings attached—strings that could strangle any attempt to build a more just society in the cradle.27
Even if the current campaign to defund the police is successful, without also decoupling our cities from the private bond market, credit-rating analysts will soon punish our communities for budget deficits, making it more difficult to invest in the very facilities that will keep black communities safe. We need to avoid the private bond market and leverage completely new financial mechanisms in order to realize an alternative investment in community infrastructure.28
Given these dangers, how should we fund infrastructure? How can we reinvest? In addition to the now familiar progressive, redistributive visions—taxing the rich, doing away with tax abatements for huge corporations, converting private utility companies into a public power utility—we need to leverage federal financial power.29
In April, many, myself included, expressed excitement over the Federal Reserve’s new Municipal Liquidity Facility, which allowed the Fed to purchase an eligible city’s short-term debts. Although groups such as Employ America remain hopeful, it is unclear if the Federal Reserve is either able or willing to respond adequately to the needs of local governments crushed by revenue shortfalls. But we should not wait.
More than 50 years ago, Representative Wright Patman of Texas offered a plan worth revisiting. His Municipal Capital Market Expansion Act of 1968 was designed to do more than remedy the failings of rating agencies. He aimed to correct a system that “punishes the larger city that goes heavily into debt in order to provide adequate public services for its citizens while supporting its poor residents.”30
Patman imagined a new federal corporation to aid all states, the District of Columbia, all US territorial possessions (including Puerto Rico), and “any Indian tribe.” He effectively sought to lend the sterling credit standing of the federal government to contracting state and local borrowers. The proposed corporation would “guarantee the payment of principal and interest” on debt issued by state and local governments borrowing “to finance one or more needed public facilities.” It would also offer interest-rate-reduction grants and turn the federal government into a clearinghouse for municipal information, obviating the capricious opinions of credit analysts.31
As we imagine alternative forms of investment, Patman’s idea is one place to start. We must be creative as we look for ways to decouple infrastructure from the private market. But it is not enough to devise new mechanisms to enable investment in the built environment. During the 20th century the “deference to localism” that structured many federal social programs often “preserved a concentration of power in city and state governments,” as historian Tom Sugrue wrote. This meant that federal funds often followed local, racist routes.32
To guard against this, it is essential that local groups—especially the black activists to whom we owe this momentous opportunity to remake the meaning of safety in America—have a seat at the table in determining where investments are made. In the 1960s we called this maximum feasible participation, a contested term with an equally contested history. Today, as the very terms of governance are challenged by young black leaders “unencumbered by past failures and buoyed by their connection to the ruckus in the street,” as scholar-activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor recently put it, we might simply call it insurgent black politics.33
As communities divest from the police and invest in local infrastructure through alternative means, we should lean on the efforts of activists and other engaged citizens who have already fused the energy of the streets to the painstaking work of examining municipal budgets. For real change to come at last, we must refuse to cede control over the budgeting process to technocrats with business degrees.34


thenation--2020-07-01--A Small Victory for Reproductive Rights

A Small Victory for Reproductive Rights

“ WE WON , ” read the heading on the e-mail from Women with a Vision , a queer Black women ’ s group based in Louisiana .
“ We Won !
” cheered the New Orleans Abortion Fund .
All day long , triumphant messages flitted across my screen—from the ACLU , the Center for Reproductive Rights , Vote ProChoice , Vote Mama , and many more .
“ We Are Shook , ” was the headline from Rewire , the online reproductive justice news service .
“ SCOTUS just protected abortion access.
” Whew .
June Medical Services @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feared would devastate abortion rights in Louisiana and give the signal for open season on abortion around the nation .
A win for the state would have meant upholding a law requiring abortion clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital , something all but impossible to obtain ; all but one of Louisiana ’ s three clinics would have been shuttered .
The strange part is , in 2016 , the court decided an identical case from Texas , Whole Woman ’ s Health v. Hellerstedt .
That year , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the law served no health purpose but only made abortion harder to get .
That the court would revisit the issue now that hard-line conservative Bret Kavanaugh has replaced moderate Anthony Kennedy seemed like a bad omen .
But surprise .
John Roberts , who had voted to uphold the restriction in Whole Woman ’ s Health , voted against it this time—not because he has changed his mind about abortion restrictions ( he has been opposed to abortion for his entire public career , and in his separate opinion wrote that Whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decided ” ) but on the narrow ground of respecting precedent .
Should a different restriction make its way to the court , one that hasn ’ t already been struck down , there ’ s nothing in Roberts ’ s opinion today that would require him to reject it .
“ Roberts ’ s opinion is less an endorsement of the right than it is a warning that litigants should not overreach , ” writes Ian Millhiser in Vox .
“ We ’ ll take our small victories where we ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be repealed tomorrow , ” reproductive justice theorist and activist Loretta Ross told me when I reached her by phone .
“ There ’ s always a Sword of Damocles hanging over our head.
” Too right .
That ’ s why I ’ m breaking out the champagne , but only allowing myself one glass .
The next case to come before the court—and there are several in the pipeline—might strike Roberts differently .
He is the swing vote now .
John Roberts Is Not Your Friend Naturally , everyone is trying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Is he trying to shore up the Supreme Court ’ s nonpartisan reputation , battered by nakedly pro-Republican decisions like Bush v. Gore , Citizens United , and Shelby County v. Holder ( which gutted the Voting Rights Act and for which he wrote the majority decision ) ?
Does he want to help Trump get reelected ?
Is he laying the groundwork for anti-abortion decisions down the road ?
Does he not want to go down in history as the man who overturned Casey , the 1992 decision that reaffirmed Roe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ undue burden ” on a woman ’ s ability to get an abortion ?
Maybe a bit of all four .
I have a different question : How has it happened that the right of millions of women to decide whether and when to keep a pregnancy depends on one man—a man who actually doesn ’ t believe they should have that right ?
That 70 percent of Americans support Roe , that one in four women will have had an abortion by menopause , that countless women still living had illegal abortions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every aspect of modern women ’ s lives , and men ’ s lives too—none of that has the traction in our politics or our legal system that you would expect .
Donald Trump was pro-choice before he ran for president , a fact that reassured a lot of naive people during the campaign , but he has done more to restrict access to birth control and abortion than any president in modern American history .
In his three years and change , he has nominated Kavanaugh and Gorsuch to the Supreme Court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ judges , the most recent of whom , Cory Wilson , has called for a “ complete and immediate reversal ” of Roe , and seeded departments and agencies like Health and Human Services with anti-choice fanatics .
Little by little , like that proverbial frog relaxing in slowly heating water , we ’ ve gotten used to abortion being hard to find and hard to pay for .
“ Louisiana has three clinics that serve a million women of reproductive age , ” the abortion sociologist Carole Joffe told me .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there were five .
Joffe ’ s eye-opening new book , Obstacle Course : The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America , co-authored with David Cohen , describes in minute detail the effect on real people of the more than 1,000 abortion restrictions passed since Roe was decided .
Especially for poor and low-income women , who make up the majority of abortion patients , restrictions that might not seem so onerous to a better-off woman within reach of a clinic—a 36-hour waiting period , for example—can make for serious problems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ access are part of the reason anything short of a direct threat to Roe has often failed to excite a critical mass of pro-choice voters .
“ I worry that people who don ’ t obsess about abortion 24/7 will think , well okay , it ’ s safe , ” Joffe told me .
“ I worry that the pro-choice movement will overstate the victory , and part of the electorate that would have been particularly motivated to vote won ’ t be so now.
” I worry about that too .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ we got on Monday was less a victory than a temporary reprieve .
If Trump ekes out a win in November , Roberts may not be the swing vote for long .
Trump will almost certainly get the chance to replace at least one and possibly more of the liberals of the Supreme Court with hard-liners like his previous nominees Gorsuch and Kavanaugh , and nominate enough federal judges to turn the appeals courts hard-right and anti-abortion for a generation or even longer .
Perhaps Roe will be overturned outright ; perhaps it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the land , while the court simply upholds every restriction that comes before it .
Pro-choicers have one chance to stop this .
Let ’ s not waste it .

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“WE WON,” read the heading on the e-mail from Women with a Vision, a queer Black women’s group based in Louisiana. “We Won!” cheered the New Orleans Abortion Fund. All day long, triumphant messages flitted across my screen—from the ACLU, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Vote ProChoice, Vote Mama, and many more. “We Are Shook,” was the headline from Rewire, the online reproductive justice news service. “SCOTUS just protected abortion access.”
Whew. June Medical Services v. Russo was the case that pro-choicers feared would devastate abortion rights in Louisiana and give the signal for open season on abortion around the nation. A win for the state would have meant upholding a law requiring abortion clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, something all but impossible to obtain; all but one of Louisiana’s three clinics would have been shuttered. The strange part is, in 2016, the court decided an identical case from Texas, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. That year, the court ruled 5 to 4 that the law served no health purpose but only made abortion harder to get. That the court would revisit the issue now that hard-line conservative Bret Kavanaugh has replaced moderate Anthony Kennedy seemed like a bad omen.
But surprise. John Roberts, who had voted to uphold the restriction in Whole Woman’s Health, voted against it this time—not because he has changed his mind about abortion restrictions (he has been opposed to abortion for his entire public career, and in his separate opinion wrote that Whole Woman’s Health was “wrongly decided”) but on the narrow ground of respecting precedent. Should a different restriction make its way to the court, one that hasn’t already been struck down, there’s nothing in Roberts’s opinion today that would require him to reject it. “Roberts’s opinion is less an endorsement of the right than it is a warning that litigants should not overreach,” writes Ian Millhiser in Vox.
“We’ll take our small victories where we’ve got them, even if they might be repealed tomorrow,” reproductive justice theorist and activist Loretta Ross told me when I reached her by phone. “There’s always a Sword of Damocles hanging over our head.” Too right. That’s why I’m breaking out the champagne, but only allowing myself one glass. The next case to come before the court—and there are several in the pipeline—might strike Roberts differently. He is the swing vote now. courtroom drama John Roberts Is Not Your Friend Elie Mystal
Naturally, everyone is trying to get inside Roberts’s head. Is he trying to shore up the Supreme Court’s nonpartisan reputation, battered by nakedly pro-Republican decisions like Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, and Shelby County v. Holder (which gutted the Voting Rights Act and for which he wrote the majority decision)? Does he want to help Trump get reelected? Is he laying the groundwork for anti-abortion decisions down the road? Does he not want to go down in history as the man who overturned Casey, the 1992 decision that reaffirmed Roe and barred restrictions that placed an “undue burden” on a woman’s ability to get an abortion? Maybe a bit of all four. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
I have a different question: How has it happened that the right of millions of women to decide whether and when to keep a pregnancy depends on one man—a man who actually doesn’t believe they should have that right? That 70 percent of Americans support Roe, that one in four women will have had an abortion by menopause, that countless women still living had illegal abortions before Roe, that legal abortion underwrites every aspect of modern women’s lives, and men’s lives too—none of that has the traction in our politics or our legal system that you would expect. Donald Trump was pro-choice before he ran for president, a fact that reassured a lot of naive people during the campaign, but he has done more to restrict access to birth control and abortion than any president in modern American history. In his three years and change, he has nominated Kavanaugh and Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, placed on the federal bench 200 judges, the most recent of whom, Cory Wilson, has called for a “complete and immediate reversal” of Roe, and seeded departments and agencies like Health and Human Services with anti-choice fanatics.
Little by little, like that proverbial frog relaxing in slowly heating water, we’ve gotten used to abortion being hard to find and hard to pay for. “Louisiana has three clinics that serve a million women of reproductive age,” the abortion sociologist Carole Joffe told me. In 1992 there were 17; in 2014 there were five. Current Issue View our current issue
Joffe’s eye-opening new book, Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America, co-authored with David Cohen, describes in minute detail the effect on real people of the more than 1,000 abortion restrictions passed since Roe was decided. Especially for poor and low-income women, who make up the majority of abortion patients, restrictions that might not seem so onerous to a better-off woman within reach of a clinic—a 36-hour waiting period, for example—can make for serious problems. Class and geographical disparities in abortion access are part of the reason anything short of a direct threat to Roe has often failed to excite a critical mass of pro-choice voters. “I worry that people who don’t obsess about abortion 24/7 will think, well okay, it’s safe,” Joffe told me. “I worry that the pro-choice movement will overstate the victory, and part of the electorate that would have been particularly motivated to vote won’t be so now.”
I worry about that too. So let me be clear: What we got on Monday was less a victory than a temporary reprieve. If Trump ekes out a win in November, Roberts may not be the swing vote for long. Trump will almost certainly get the chance to replace at least one and possibly more of the liberals of the Supreme Court with hard-liners like his previous nominees Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and nominate enough federal judges to turn the appeals courts hard-right and anti-abortion for a generation or even longer. Perhaps Roe will be overturned outright; perhaps it will be allowed to remain the law of the land, while the court simply upholds every restriction that comes before it.
Pro-choicers have one chance to stop this. Let’s not waste it.