thenation--2020-07-15--Where I Live, Hostility Toward Black Lives Matter Is Often Indirect

reene ounty , .—White people around here generally don ’ t come right out and say they oppose the Black Lives Matter movement , but it ’ s pretty clear that a lot of them are far from enthusiastic .
Sometimes the hostility is indirect , as when officials in the next-door town of Greenville told the organizer of a proposed July 18 BLM event that she would need a $ 1 million insurance policy .
( They backed down , she told me , after being contacted by the local weekly newspaper and criticized in the community . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to my requests to discuss the situation .
At other times , the hostility is more explicit .
When a white woman in Cobleskill , in neighboring Schoharie County , tried recently to quietly organize a BLM event , a local businessman announced the effort on Facebook , prompting such threatening comments that she ended up dropping her plans .
On June 11 , a mainly white group of Black Lives Matter marchers in the town of Kinderhook , in nearby Columbia County , were threatened by a white couple brandishing a gun @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Johnson , who is Black , and who participated in the march , said in a video he posted on Facebook that one police officer told him that if the marchers were concerned for their safety , they should “ walk down the road.
” Johnson said that the incident illustrated “ the reason for these protests.
” What ’ s happening here in my heavily white corner of rural America is hardly unique .
But it has brought home for me the extent to which the push for a non-racist society @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out not just in big cities like New York and Minneapolis but also in every small town in the country .
It has also led me to think about how often white public officials may not even be aware of their true feelings .
Rural New York Is in the Streets , Marching for Black Lives In Rural America , Opioids Kill Many More Than Covid-19 Where I Live , the Pandemic Can Feel Remote More in this series Sooner or later , however , someone lets the cat out of the bag @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a Black-led group called the Hudson/Catskill Housing Coalition asked the village of Catskill to allow them to paint “ Black Lives Matter ” on Main Street , as has been done in a variety of cities across the country .
Catskill , including the village and several hamlets , has a population of close to 12,000 , of which about 15 percent are Black and Latino , and is the county seat .
In response , the trustees , all of whom are white , proposed that the painting be done on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be substituted .
When the group rejected this proposal , saying that they wanted to “ link Catskill with the broader national movement , ” the trustees responded , in effect , that things had gone far enough : It was a banner or nothing .
In a lengthy statement , the trustees claimed that the street painting , a petition in favor of which has gathered nearly 4,000 signatures , would interfere with traffic and harm business .
Not wise enough to leave things there , they also claimed that this “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ town ” would “ severely erode ” support for the BLM movement .
In other words , as I read it : We know what ’ s best , and you people are being too pushy .
I wasn ’ t the only one .
Claire Cousin , a member of the Housing Coalition and the chair of another social justice group , said that she was angry about the statement for several reasons , including the fact that it suggested that the trustees feel their Black constituents “ aren ’ t smart @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saying.
” In her opinion , she said , the statement showed the town ’ s long-standing “ underlying racism , ” which is only now beginning to be confronted .
At a meeting of the village trustees a few days after their statement , a self-identified white local resident ( nonofficial participants were attending by phone ) suggested that the trustees might want to think of the street painting as “ part of reparations ” to the Black community .
His suggestion was brushed off , as was that of a self-identified @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consider taking a racism-training course .
The furthest the chair of the trustees went was to say that the village was still “ in conversation ” with the group who wanted to do the street painting .
Cousin said that the issue of the street painting is “ definitely not going to die.
” But even if the painting doesn ’ t get done , she added , “ they are going to hear from us on other matters.
” At the same time that this issue was playing out , the Greene @ @ @ @ @ @ @ committee meeting , a resolution that conflated local opposition to the state ’ s coronavirus regulations with objections to the Black Lives Matter movement .
The resolution , after describing how responsible the county had been and how unreasonable the state government was being regarding Covid-19 , veered off into arguing that “ a single tragic death ” had led to a situation in which “ looters in many parts of the country , seemingly , were allowed free rein , while honest store and business owners were chastised , even arrested ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ town ’ s representative to the legislature told me she supported the resolution ’ s position on the coronavirus .
But , she said , she regarded the paragraph referring to Black Lives Matter as inappropriate , and it was for this reason that when the resolution came to the full board , she voted to against it .
“ I understand Black people feeling discriminated against , ” she said .
Nonetheless , she said , “ I don ’ t think Black lives matter any more than red lives or white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Citing an incident in Albany in which a Black liquor store owner appealed to looters not to destroy his store , she said that some people are using the Black Lives Matter movement “ as an excuse to do horrible things .
It ’ s just a good excuse to trash businesses.
” I ’ m ready to believe our representative when she says she has never discriminated against anyone in her personal life or in her family-owned business .
I ’ m ready to also believe that most officials in other towns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same .
Yet the fact remains that I ’ ve seen numerous racist posts on local Facebook pages , that local people I know have told me about racist incidents they ’ ve experienced , that there are no teachers of color in our local high school , and that there are few people of color in local governments and police forces .
I ’ m glad that people here are talking about Black Lives Matter , and that many people , both Black and white , are joining demonstrations and speaking up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ m worried that white officials are simply not ready to examine their personal and institutional racial biases .
And I ’ m also worried that incidents like the one in Kinderhook suggest that it is only a matter of time until something really ugly happens .
It ’ s clear that in rural America , just as in Washington , D.C. , we still have a long way to go .

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G reene C ounty, N.Y .—White people around here generally don’t come right out and say they oppose the Black Lives Matter movement, but it’s pretty clear that a lot of them are far from enthusiastic.
Sometimes the hostility is indirect, as when officials in the next-door town of Greenville told the organizer of a proposed July 18 BLM event that she would need a $1 million insurance policy. (They backed down, she told me, after being contacted by the local weekly newspaper and criticized in the community.) The town supervisor didn’t respond to my requests to discuss the situation.
At other times, the hostility is more explicit. When a white woman in Cobleskill, in neighboring Schoharie County, tried recently to quietly organize a BLM event, a local businessman announced the effort on Facebook, prompting such threatening comments that she ended up dropping her plans. On June 11, a mainly white group of Black Lives Matter marchers in the town of Kinderhook, in nearby Columbia County, were threatened by a white couple brandishing a gun, according to Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson. Johnson, who is Black, and who participated in the march, said in a video he posted on Facebook that one police officer told him that if the marchers were concerned for their safety, they should “walk down the road.” Johnson said that the incident illustrated “the reason for these protests.”
What’s happening here in my heavily white corner of rural America is hardly unique. But it has brought home for me the extent to which the push for a non-racist society has to be argued over and fought out not just in big cities like New York and Minneapolis but also in every small town in the country. It has also led me to think about how often white public officials may not even be aware of their true feelings. All Politics Is Local My Neighbors Certainly Didn’t Celebrate Biden’s Win, but They Also Didn’t Publicly Mourn Trump’s Loss Karen Rothmyer Trump’s Response to Losing the Vote Calvin Trillin One Black Lives Matter Protest in Rural New York Opens the Door to Change Karen Rothmyer
Sooner or later, however, someone lets the cat out of the bag.
As one example, in mid-June, a Black-led group called the Hudson/Catskill Housing Coalition asked the village of Catskill to allow them to paint “Black Lives Matter” on Main Street, as has been done in a variety of cities across the country. Catskill, including the village and several hamlets, has a population of close to 12,000, of which about 15 percent are Black and Latino, and is the county seat. In response, the trustees, all of whom are white, proposed that the painting be done on a side street or that a banner be substituted. 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
When the group rejected this proposal, saying that they wanted to “link Catskill with the broader national movement,” the trustees responded, in effect, that things had gone far enough: It was a banner or nothing. In a lengthy statement, the trustees claimed that the street painting, a petition in favor of which has gathered nearly 4,000 signatures, would interfere with traffic and harm business. Not wise enough to leave things there, they also claimed that this “interference with the daily vitality of our town” would “severely erode” support for the BLM movement. Current Issue View our current issue
In other words, as I read it: We know what’s best, and you people are being too pushy.
I wasn’t the only one. Claire Cousin, a member of the Housing Coalition and the chair of another social justice group, said that she was angry about the statement for several reasons, including the fact that it suggested that the trustees feel their Black constituents “aren’t smart enough to understand what they’re saying.” In her opinion, she said, the statement showed the town’s long-standing “underlying racism,” which is only now beginning to be confronted.
At a meeting of the village trustees a few days after their statement, a self-identified white local resident (nonofficial participants were attending by phone) suggested that the trustees might want to think of the street painting as “part of reparations” to the Black community. His suggestion was brushed off, as was that of a self-identified Black resident who proposed that the board consider taking a racism-training course.
The furthest the chair of the trustees went was to say that the village was still “in conversation” with the group who wanted to do the street painting.
Cousin said that the issue of the street painting is “definitely not going to die.” But even if the painting doesn’t get done, she added, “they are going to hear from us on other matters.”
At the same time that this issue was playing out, the Greene County Legislature approved, in a June committee meeting, a resolution that conflated local opposition to the state’s coronavirus regulations with objections to the Black Lives Matter movement. The resolution, after describing how responsible the county had been and how unreasonable the state government was being regarding Covid-19, veered off into arguing that “a single tragic death” had led to a situation in which “looters in many parts of the country, seemingly, were allowed free rein, while honest store and business owners were chastised, even arrested” for opening their businesses.
My own town’s representative to the legislature told me she supported the resolution’s position on the coronavirus. But, she said, she regarded the paragraph referring to Black Lives Matter as inappropriate, and it was for this reason that when the resolution came to the full board, she voted to against it.
“I understand Black people feeling discriminated against,” she said. Nonetheless, she said, “I don’t think Black lives matter any more than red lives or white lives. Every single life matters.” Citing an incident in Albany in which a Black liquor store owner appealed to looters not to destroy his store, she said that some people are using the Black Lives Matter movement “as an excuse to do horrible things. It’s just a good excuse to trash businesses.”
I’m ready to believe our representative when she says she has never discriminated against anyone in her personal life or in her family-owned business. I’m ready to also believe that most officials in other towns and at the county level feel the same.
Yet the fact remains that I’ve seen numerous racist posts on local Facebook pages, that local people I know have told me about racist incidents they’ve experienced, that there are no teachers of color in our local high school, and that there are few people of color in local governments and police forces.
I’m glad that people here are talking about Black Lives Matter, and that many people, both Black and white, are joining demonstrations and speaking up for the first time ever. But I’m worried that white officials are simply not ready to examine their personal and institutional racial biases. And I’m also worried that incidents like the one in Kinderhook suggest that it is only a matter of time until something really ugly happens.
It’s clear that in rural America, just as in Washington, D.C., we still have a long way to go.


thenation--2020-07-15--This Pandemic Is Already Hitting the Homeless Hard. It’s About to Get Worse.

The novel SARS-CoV-2 has roared through the American landscape leaving physical , emotional , and economic devastation in its wake .
By early July , known infections in this country exceeded 3 million , while deaths topped 135,000 .
Home to just over 4 percent of the global population , the United States accounts for more than a quarter of all fatalities from Covid-19 , the disease produced by the coronavirus .
Amid a recent surge of infections , especially across the Sun Belt , which Vice President Mike Pence typically denied was even occurring , the Centers for Disease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the daily total of infections had reached a record 60,000 .
Arizona ’ s seven-day average alone approached that of the European Union , which has 60 times as many people .
Making matters much worse , the pandemic erupted during the presidency of Donald J. Trump , whose stratospheric self-absorption , ineptitude , denial of science , and callousness have reached heights even his most ferocious critics couldn ’ t have imagined .
His nostrums , including disinfectant , sunlight , and hydroxychloroquine , could be dismissed as comical if they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possibly fatal experimentation , while breeding false hopes .
Public health safeguards that should have been initiated early on were neglected , above all testing and contact tracing .
At the end of April , when President Trump first crowed that “ we are the best in the world in testing , ” the United States ranked 22nd in tests per 1,000 people in the 36-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development , the club of the globe ’ s wealthy states .
Although testing nationwide had increased from 250,000 a day in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that ’ s still less than half the number needed to begin to lock down the virus .
By portraying mask-wearing as effete and elitist , even as those who come near him are tested , disparaging social distancing ( recall his reckless rally in Tulsa , Oklahoma , and unmasked Fourth of July celebration at South Dakota ’ s Mount Rushmore ) , and downplaying the danger of a second wave of infections , President Trump has been the problem , not the solution .
It would be hard to imagine a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of a public health catastrophe .
His eternal spin , tweets , and fulminations about “ fake news ” can ’ t obscure the obvious : His administration ’ s management of the pandemic has been shambolic .
It ’ s common to hear that we ’ re all caught in the Covid-19 crisis , that we ’ re all its victims .
Having spread across the country , afflicting people of all backgrounds , it certainly qualifies as a national security crisis , a concept that , militarized for so long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pandemic .
The coronavirus , of course , has neither tanks , nor missiles , nor roadside bombs , and that may help explain the government ’ s abject failure to plan for and contain it .
Still , take a deeper look at Covid-19 ’ s destructive path and you ’ ll see that it ’ s been highly selective in the suffering it ’ s caused and the lives it ’ s taken .
Adjusted for age , fatalities per 100,000 have been significantly higher for African Americans , Hispanic-Latinx @ @ @ @ @ @ @ across all age groups , as detailed studies demonstrate : for Blacks , 3.6 times higher and for Hispanic-Latinx , 2.5 times .
The disparity becomes even greater when the comparison is made by age groups .
Ditto hospitalization rates : 40.1/100,000 for whites , 160.7 for Hispanic-Latinx , 178.1 for African Americans , and a whopping 221.2 for Native Americans .
In addition , places with the highest income inequality have had the highest death rates .
New York state , which surpasses its counterparts in income disparity , has had a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Utah , which has the least inequality .
In big metropolitan areas like Los Angeles , New York , and Chicago , where the number of infections has been particularly high , the death rate has unsurprisingly been steepest in low-income communities .
People living in such neighborhoods , most of them minorities , are significantly less likely to have health insurance or access to good health care services and far more likely to have underlying respiratory ailments , including asthma , in part because the air in their communities tends to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less chance of surviving Covid-19 because the quality of care in hospitals closely matches the wealth of the neighborhoods they ’ re in .
National economic statistics help highlight Covid-19 ’ s uneven effects .
Thirty-nine percent of those who have lost their jobs since March made less than $ 40,000 a year , compared to 19 percent of those earning $ 100,000 or more .
In addition , social distancing works for those whose jobs can be done from home , but bus drivers , cabbies , janitors , meat-packers , caregivers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health aides , and the like can ’ t use Zoom to sever themselves from their workplaces .
If you don ’ t have to work on-site ( and can afford grocery deliveries to your doorstep ) , you ’ re undoubtedly on the upper rungs of the income ladder .
Nearly 62 percent of those in the 75th income percentile managed to work from home , compared to 9.2 percent of those in the 25th percentile .
There are race-based differences as well : 37 percent of Asian Americans and 30 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ versus 19.7 percent of African Americans and 16.2 percent of Hispanic-Latinx .
Then there ’ s age .
The CDC reports that 80 percent of those who died from Covid-19 in the United States were 65 or older .
The disease has particularly ravaged the elderly in nursing homes ( as well as the personnel staffing them ) , accounting for about 43 percent of countrywide deaths attributable to the virus .
The upshot : If you ’ re old , poor , and African American or Hispanic-Latinx , your chances of infection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ survival significantly lower .
So , no , we aren ’ t really all in this together , especially since not everybody can easily take elementary safety precautions , certainly not the 2 million Americans who don ’ t even have running water at home and so can ’ t regularly wash their hands , let alone the Navajo , 30 percent of whom must drive an hour or more to fetch water .
Covid-19 , anything but blind to color and class , has visibly hit the most vulnerable segments of American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hard-pressed to avoid infection and death are people who sleep in shelters , on the street , in deserted buildings , in subway cars , or—and they are perhaps the “ lucky ” ones—in their own cars .
The homeless don ’ t get all that much Covid-19-related media coverage , in part because they are a sliver of the population ( 0.2 percent ) and so lack a significant political voice : You won ’ t find pricey lobbyists working for them in Washington .
They can ’ t even take that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , sheltering in place .
To do that , you need dependable shelter , which the homeless , by definition , lack .
If you live in a big city , you can hardly miss the homeless , and you ’ re undoubtedly familiar with the rituals of passersby .
Some simply walk on , perhaps at a slightly quickened pace ; others glance at the homeless but ignore , or pretend not to hear , their pleas for help .
Some do give them money or food from time to time , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Band-Aid on a serious wound .
Even those who see the homeless daily generally know very little about them—who they are , how they ended up on the street , how they manage to survive—and even less about the homeless who , having found a place in a shelter , are out of sight .
While statistics can ’ t substitute for this lack of knowledge , they can help us grasp the magnitude and nature of homelessness .
According to the Department for Housing and Urban Development ( HUD ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 560,715 people were homeless .
Nearly two-thirds of them lived in shelters .
The rest slept wherever they could , often on sidewalks , relying , if in places with cold winters , on steam grates to stay warm .
About a quarter of them were deemed “ chronically homeless , ” which , by the definition HUD adopted in 2015 , meant that they had been “ living in a place not meant for human habitation , a safe haven , or in an emergency shelter ” for 12 months running @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stretch .
Since 2007 , when the compilation of data began , homelessness decreased by 12 percent until 2018–19 when it rose by 3 percent , chiefly because of a 16 percent jump in California .
The economic damage done by Covid-19 will , however , ensure yet more future increases .
Four states alone—California , Florida , New York , and Texas—contain nearly half of the homeless .
Add Massachusetts , Oregon , Pennsylvania , and Washington , and you ’ ll hit two-thirds .
The vast majority of them live in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ County , Los Angeles County , Seattle/King County , San Jose/Santa Clara County , and San Diego County—accounting for 29 percent of the homeless nationwide .
A clutch of cities ( in descending order , Washington , Boston , and New York ) have a homelessness rate six times the national figure of 17 per 10,000 , with San Francisco barely escaping this list of ill-fame .
So , though homelessness exists in every state , as well as in suburbs and rural areas , spatially it ’ s highly concentrated—and that concentration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Whites comprise 76 percent of the American population , but only 49 percent of its homeless .
For African Americans , the corresponding figures are 13 percent and 40 percent , for Hispanic-Latinx Americans 18 percent and 21 percent .
Native Americans and Native Alaskans , a mere 1.2 percent of the population , make up nearly 9 percent of all homeless people .
The homelessness rate is similarly skewed : 66.7 per 10,000 for Native Americans and Native Alaskans , 55 for African Americans , 21.7 for Hispanic/Latinx , 11.5 for whites @ @ @ @ @ @ @ From the start , the homeless were among the groups most threatened by the coronavirus .
Compared to other adults , a far higher proportion of them have respiratory or cardiovascular illnesses , which increase the risk of being infected and reduce chances of survival .
Because of the physical wear and tear produced by exposure to the elements , poor nutrition and hygiene , and the stress of living on the streets or in shelters ( while fearing being robbed or assaulted ) , the state of their health resembles that of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Moreover , an estimated 38 percent of the homeless are addicted to alcohol and 26 percent of them to drugs .
Substance abuse can , of course , weaken the body ’ s immune system , putting the homeless at an added disadvantage in warding off the virus .
Some experts claim that infections and deaths among the homeless have belied the direst predictions .
Still , by mid-May , the Covid-19 death rate for New York City had reached 187/100,00 .
In the city ’ s homeless shelters , however , it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A CDC study covering March and April found that in Boston , San Francisco , and Seattle , 25 percent of the residents and 11 percent of the staff in homeless shelters tested positive for the virus .
None of this should be surprising .
After all , regular handwashing , hard enough for the homeless who don ’ t live in shelters , became especially so once bathrooms in places like libraries , restaurants , and bus stations were ever less available as the pandemic revved up .
Hand sanitizer can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but not if you don ’ t have enough money to eat regularly , much less buy such products .
Psychological disorders create an added barrier to self-protection , as about 25 percent of the homeless—some studies report even higher numbers—suffer from severe mental illness , and fewer than half receive any treatment .
Testing and contact tracing have reduced the virus ’ s spread substantially in a number of countries , but considering how far behind the United States has been in both realms , you can bet that the homeless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the line for either .
In addition , many of the organizations that care for them lack the money , kits , disinfectants , protective gear , and trained personnel ( relying as they often do on volunteers ) needed for an effective test-and-trace regimen .
Fever and coughing were used as markers for testing early in the pandemic , so those in shelters who exhibited neither symptom but were infected transmitted the virus to others unnoticed .
A single individual in a San Francisco shelter , for instance , infected 90 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tested positive .
Not surprisingly , the homeless sleeping rough didn ’ t rush to such shelters in these months , deterred by news that the coronavirus had hit places particularly hard where people were packed together and slept in close quarters , often in bunk beds .
The chances of dodging Covid-19 seemed better on the outside .
Moreover , once infections soared , many shelters went into emergency mode .
To implement social-distancing mandates and create space to isolate the infected , they froze new admissions or substantially reduced the number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shut down .
People seeking beds faced long waiting lists .
Meanwhile , cities , already under financial strain from the economic effects of the virus , scrambled to house their homeless in hotels , convention centers , or even in RVs , as the shelters disgorged people , leaving them to fend for themselves .
In places like San Francisco ’ s Tenderloin district ( already teeming with the homeless ) , they sleep on the streets or in makeshift tents , whose number increased nearly threefold citywide .
Before long , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and lack of space .
It was one thing for mayors to insist that the unsheltered homeless would be protected , quite another to foot the bill for hotel rooms and basic amenities in places designated for their housing , not to speak of supervisory staff and security .
Could It Get Any Worse ?
Covid-19 ’ s staggering economic effects will make it ever harder to manage homelessness , especially if its numbers increase due to an upswing in unemployment .
Job losses in this country have already been estimated at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fall in the June unemployment rate , the virus ’ s recent surge across significant parts of the country will make matters worse .
Another 10 million workers have seen their work hours or wages cut .
Put it all together—the unemployed , those whose earnings have been slashed , and those who have simply stopped looking for work—and the real unemployment rate for May reached something like 21 percent .
Unsurprisingly under such circumstances , in June , 20 percent of renters and 18 percent of home owners couldn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while an additional 10 percent in each category could pay only part of what they owed .
Those earning $ 24,000 or less had the hardest time , with 20 percent of them unable to pay and 18 percent paying only in part .
Rent strikes have proliferated , and many localities have banned the eviction of those who fall behind on their rent because of pandemic-related circumstances .
Yet , while such moratoriums can be extended , there ’ s nothing permanent about them .
In fact , they have already expired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a dozen states .
Nationally , as many as 23 million renters could face eviction as the fall gets underway , and those with low incomes run the greatest risk .
Congress included financial assistance ( plus a 120-day stay on evictions ) for tenants and owners in its March Coronavirus Aid , Relief , and Security bill , but that legislation will expire this summer and Senate Republicans are anything but keen to support a follow-up bill .
The Federal Housing Finance Agency ( FHFA ) and the Federal Housing Administration ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ August 31 on mortgages backed by them .
More than 30 states have also prohibited the filing of home-foreclosure proceedings against , and the eviction of , owners who haven ’ t paid their mortgages for Covid-19-related reasons , though the provisions vary greatly , with lots of fine print , and not all will last until the end of the pandemic emergency .
Once such moratoriums lapse , renters and owners will be on the hook for missed payments .
Together , prolonged unemployment , reduced earnings for those who retain their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for workers in the bottom 40 percent—a trend anyway over the past three decades—are likely to increase homelessness , especially if an eviction spiral begins .
Columbia University economist Brendan O ’ Flaherty , who shared his data with me , estimates that the economic downturn caused by the virus could drive the number of homeless to 800,000 , an increase of 40 percent to 45 percent from 2019 .
Homelessness could increase for noneconomic reasons as well in the Covid-19 era .
Take recent moves to reduce the number of people in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ top hot spots for the spread of the virus .
Three-quarters of the inmates at Ohio ’ s Marion Correctional Institution , for instance , tested positive for the disease .
At the Cummins prison in Arkansas , 891 inmates and 65 employees tested positive .
From mid-May to mid-June alone , infections at US prisons doubled , to reach a total of 68,000 , while deaths rose by 73 percent to 616 and had reached 651 by July .
In a rush to diminish population density , prisons and jails started releasing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country ’ s 2.1 million prisoners , only about 20,000 have been freed so far , the vast majority from local jails .
Keep in mind that people leaving prison have difficulty finding jobs in the best of times , so some of those released to manage the pandemic will undoubtedly find themselves both poverty-stricken and homeless .
Even in the pre-pandemic moment , former prisoners were 10 times more likely to become homeless than other Americans , and according to a 2019 study by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition , striking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shelters soon after their incarceration ends .
In short , as the coronavirus continues to rage , this country is ill prepared to handle a surge in homelessness , let alone help those already homeless .
The pandemic massively increased the federal deficit .
The Congressional Budget Office projects that it could reach $ 3.7 trillion in this fiscal year , while other estimates go as high as $ 4.3 trillion .
Meanwhile , without exception , states face steep drops in revenue .
Sadly , even if the plight of the homeless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it will barely register in the corridors of power .
The homeless are a minuscule fraction of the population and have zero political clout .
Politicians can safely ignore them , particularly because they know that most voters do and that the media covers homelessness sporadically at best .
The homeless , society ’ s all but invisible castaways , can hope for little at a time when they will need more help than ever .

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy. This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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The novel SARS-CoV-2 has roared through the American landscape leaving physical, emotional, and economic devastation in its wake. By early July, known infections in this country exceeded 3 million, while deaths topped 135,000. Home to just over 4 percent of the global population, the United States accounts for more than a quarter of all fatalities from Covid-19, the disease produced by the coronavirus. Amid a recent surge of infections, especially across the Sun Belt, which Vice President Mike Pence typically denied was even occurring, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the daily total of infections had reached a record 60,000. Arizona’s seven-day average alone approached that of the European Union, which has 60 times as many people.
Making matters much worse, the pandemic erupted during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, whose stratospheric self-absorption, ineptitude, denial of science, and callousness have reached heights even his most ferocious critics couldn’t have imagined. His nostrums, including disinfectant, sunlight, and hydroxychloroquine, could be dismissed as comical if they weren’t downright dangerous, encouraging possibly fatal experimentation, while breeding false hopes.
Public health safeguards that should have been initiated early on were neglected, above all testing and contact tracing. At the end of April, when President Trump first crowed that “we are the best in the world in testing,” the United States ranked 22nd in tests per 1,000 people in the 36-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the club of the globe’s wealthy states. Although testing nationwide had increased from 250,000 a day in early May to a current 571,574, that’s still less than half the number needed to begin to lock down the virus.
By portraying mask-wearing as effete and elitist, even as those who come near him are tested, disparaging social distancing (recall his reckless rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and unmasked Fourth of July celebration at South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore), and downplaying the danger of a second wave of infections, President Trump has been the problem, not the solution. It would be hard to imagine a less suitable helmsman to steer this country out of a public health catastrophe. His eternal spin, tweets, and fulminations about “fake news” can’t obscure the obvious: His administration’s management of the pandemic has been shambolic. 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
The Variability of Vulnerability
It’s common to hear that we’re all caught in the Covid-19 crisis, that we’re all its victims. Having spread across the country, afflicting people of all backgrounds, it certainly qualifies as a national security crisis, a concept that, militarized for so long now, seems odd when applied to the pandemic. The coronavirus, of course, has neither tanks, nor missiles, nor roadside bombs, and that may help explain the government’s abject failure to plan for and contain it.
Still, take a deeper look at Covid-19’s destructive path and you’ll see that it’s been highly selective in the suffering it’s caused and the lives it’s taken. Adjusted for age, fatalities per 100,000 have been significantly higher for African Americans, Hispanic-Latinx, and Native Americans than for whites across all age groups, as detailed studies demonstrate: for Blacks, 3.6 times higher and for Hispanic-Latinx, 2.5 times. The disparity becomes even greater when the comparison is made by age groups. Ditto hospitalization rates: 40.1/100,000 for whites, 160.7 for Hispanic-Latinx, 178.1 for African Americans, and a whopping 221.2 for Native Americans.
In addition, places with the highest income inequality have had the highest death rates. New York state, which surpasses its counterparts in income disparity, has had a Covid-19 death rate 125 times that of Utah, which has the least inequality. In big metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, where the number of infections has been particularly high, the death rate has unsurprisingly been steepest in low-income communities. People living in such neighborhoods, most of them minorities, are significantly less likely to have health insurance or access to good health care services and far more likely to have underlying respiratory ailments, including asthma, in part because the air in their communities tends to be more polluted. Poor people also have less chance of surviving Covid-19 because the quality of care in hospitals closely matches the wealth of the neighborhoods they’re in. Current Issue View our current issue
National economic statistics help highlight Covid-19’s uneven effects. Thirty-nine percent of those who have lost their jobs since March made less than $40,000 a year, compared to 19 percent of those earning $100,000 or more. In addition, social distancing works for those whose jobs can be done from home, but bus drivers, cabbies, janitors, meat-packers, caregivers, hairdressers, farm workers, home health aides, and the like can’t use Zoom to sever themselves from their workplaces. If you don’t have to work on-site (and can afford grocery deliveries to your doorstep), you’re undoubtedly on the upper rungs of the income ladder. Nearly 62 percent of those in the 75th income percentile managed to work from home, compared to 9.2 percent of those in the 25th percentile. There are race-based differences as well: 37 percent of Asian Americans and 30 percent of whites can work from home, versus 19.7 percent of African Americans and 16.2 percent of Hispanic-Latinx.
Then there’s age. The CDC reports that 80 percent of those who died from Covid-19 in the United States were 65 or older. The disease has particularly ravaged the elderly in nursing homes (as well as the personnel staffing them), accounting for about 43 percent of countrywide deaths attributable to the virus.
The upshot: If you’re old, poor, and African American or Hispanic-Latinx, your chances of infection are especially high and your odds of survival significantly lower. So, no, we aren’t really all in this together, especially since not everybody can easily take elementary safety precautions, certainly not the 2 million Americans who don’t even have running water at home and so can’t regularly wash their hands, let alone the Navajo, 30 percent of whom must drive an hour or more to fetch water. Covid-19, anything but blind to color and class, has visibly hit the most vulnerable segments of American society most fiercely.
Devastating the Homeless
Among those especially hard-pressed to avoid infection and death are people who sleep in shelters, on the street, in deserted buildings, in subway cars, or—and they are perhaps the “lucky” ones—in their own cars. The homeless don’t get all that much Covid-19-related media coverage, in part because they are a sliver of the population (0.2 percent) and so lack a significant political voice: You won’t find pricey lobbyists working for them in Washington. They can’t even take that most basic precaution advised by medical experts, sheltering in place. To do that, you need dependable shelter, which the homeless, by definition, lack.
If you live in a big city, you can hardly miss the homeless, and you’re undoubtedly familiar with the rituals of passersby. Some simply walk on, perhaps at a slightly quickened pace; others glance at the homeless but ignore, or pretend not to hear, their pleas for help. Some do give them money or food from time to time, knowing that the gesture amounts to slapping a Band-Aid on a serious wound. Even those who see the homeless daily generally know very little about them—who they are, how they ended up on the street, how they manage to survive—and even less about the homeless who, having found a place in a shelter, are out of sight.
While statistics can’t substitute for this lack of knowledge, they can help us grasp the magnitude and nature of homelessness. According to the Department for Housing and Urban Development (HUD), on any given night in January 2019, 560,715 people were homeless. Nearly two-thirds of them lived in shelters. The rest slept wherever they could, often on sidewalks, relying, if in places with cold winters, on steam grates to stay warm. About a quarter of them were deemed “chronically homeless,” which, by the definition HUD adopted in 2015, meant that they had been “living in a place not meant for human habitation, a safe haven, or in an emergency shelter” for 12 months running or for that total over a three-year stretch. Since 2007, when the compilation of data began, homelessness decreased by 12 percent until 2018–19 when it rose by 3 percent, chiefly because of a 16 percent jump in California. The economic damage done by Covid-19 will, however, ensure yet more future increases.
Four states alone—California, Florida, New York, and Texas—contain nearly half of the homeless. Add Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington, and you’ll hit two-thirds. The vast majority of them live in large urban areas, with five—New York County, Los Angeles County, Seattle/King County, San Jose/Santa Clara County, and San Diego County—accounting for 29 percent of the homeless nationwide. A clutch of cities (in descending order, Washington, Boston, and New York) have a homelessness rate six times the national figure of 17 per 10,000, with San Francisco barely escaping this list of ill-fame.
So, though homelessness exists in every state, as well as in suburbs and rural areas, spatially it’s highly concentrated—and that concentration is racial, not just spatial. Whites comprise 76 percent of the American population, but only 49 percent of its homeless. For African Americans, the corresponding figures are 13 percent and 40 percent, for Hispanic-Latinx Americans 18 percent and 21 percent. Native Americans and Native Alaskans, a mere 1.2 percent of the population, make up nearly 9 percent of all homeless people. The homelessness rate is similarly skewed: 66.7 per 10,000 for Native Americans and Native Alaskans, 55 for African Americans, 21.7 for Hispanic/Latinx, 11.5 for whites, and 4 for Asian Americans.
Covid-19 and the Homeless
From the start, the homeless were among the groups most threatened by the coronavirus. Compared to other adults, a far higher proportion of them have respiratory or cardiovascular illnesses, which increase the risk of being infected and reduce chances of survival. Because of the physical wear and tear produced by exposure to the elements, poor nutrition and hygiene, and the stress of living on the streets or in shelters (while fearing being robbed or assaulted), the state of their health resembles that of people who are two decades older. Moreover, an estimated 38 percent of the homeless are addicted to alcohol and 26 percent of them to drugs. Substance abuse can, of course, weaken the body’s immune system, putting the homeless at an added disadvantage in warding off the virus.
Some experts claim that infections and deaths among the homeless have belied the direst predictions. Still, by mid-May, the Covid-19 death rate for New York City had reached 187/100,00. In the city’s homeless shelters, however, it was 291/100,000, or 56 percent higher. A CDC study covering March and April found that in Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle, 25 percent of the residents and 11 percent of the staff in homeless shelters tested positive for the virus.
None of this should be surprising. After all, regular handwashing, hard enough for the homeless who don’t live in shelters, became especially so once bathrooms in places like libraries, restaurants, and bus stations were ever less available as the pandemic revved up. Hand sanitizer can, of course, substitute for water, but not if you don’t have enough money to eat regularly, much less buy such products. Psychological disorders create an added barrier to self-protection, as about 25 percent of the homeless—some studies report even higher numbers—suffer from severe mental illness, and fewer than half receive any treatment.
Testing and contact tracing have reduced the virus’s spread substantially in a number of countries, but considering how far behind the United States has been in both realms, you can bet that the homeless weren’t anywhere near the head of the line for either. In addition, many of the organizations that care for them lack the money, kits, disinfectants, protective gear, and trained personnel (relying as they often do on volunteers) needed for an effective test-and-trace regimen. Fever and coughing were used as markers for testing early in the pandemic, so those in shelters who exhibited neither symptom but were infected transmitted the virus to others unnoticed. A single individual in a San Francisco shelter, for instance, infected 90 fellow residents and 10 employees before he tested positive.
Not surprisingly, the homeless sleeping rough didn’t rush to such shelters in these months, deterred by news that the coronavirus had hit places particularly hard where people were packed together and slept in close quarters, often in bunk beds. The chances of dodging Covid-19 seemed better on the outside.
Moreover, once infections soared, many shelters went into emergency mode. To implement social-distancing mandates and create space to isolate the infected, they froze new admissions or substantially reduced the number of residents they held. Some even shut down. People seeking beds faced long waiting lists. Meanwhile, cities, already under financial strain from the economic effects of the virus, scrambled to house their homeless in hotels, convention centers, or even in RVs, as the shelters disgorged people, leaving them to fend for themselves. In places like San Francisco’s Tenderloin district (already teeming with the homeless), they sleep on the streets or in makeshift tents, whose number increased nearly threefold citywide. Before long, cities were overwhelmed by costs, logistics, and lack of space. It was one thing for mayors to insist that the unsheltered homeless would be protected, quite another to foot the bill for hotel rooms and basic amenities in places designated for their housing, not to speak of supervisory staff and security.
Could It Get Any Worse?
Covid-19’s staggering economic effects will make it ever harder to manage homelessness, especially if its numbers increase due to an upswing in unemployment. Job losses in this country have already been estimated at up to 40 million and, despite the fall in the June unemployment rate, the virus’s recent surge across significant parts of the country will make matters worse. Another 10 million workers have seen their work hours or wages cut. Put it all together—the unemployed, those whose earnings have been slashed, and those who have simply stopped looking for work—and the real unemployment rate for May reached something like 21 percent. Unsurprisingly under such circumstances, in June, 20 percent of renters and 18 percent of home owners couldn’t make their rent or mortgage payments, while an additional 10 percent in each category could pay only part of what they owed. Those earning $24,000 or less had the hardest time, with 20 percent of them unable to pay and 18 percent paying only in part.
Rent strikes have proliferated, and many localities have banned the eviction of those who fall behind on their rent because of pandemic-related circumstances. Yet, while such moratoriums can be extended, there’s nothing permanent about them. In fact, they have already expired in all or parts of more than a dozen states. Nationally, as many as 23 million renters could face eviction as the fall gets underway, and those with low incomes run the greatest risk. Congress included financial assistance (plus a 120-day stay on evictions) for tenants and owners in its March Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Security bill, but that legislation will expire this summer and Senate Republicans are anything but keen to support a follow-up bill.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) have banned home foreclosures until August 31 on mortgages backed by them. More than 30 states have also prohibited the filing of home-foreclosure proceedings against, and the eviction of, owners who haven’t paid their mortgages for Covid-19-related reasons, though the provisions vary greatly, with lots of fine print, and not all will last until the end of the pandemic emergency. Once such moratoriums lapse, renters and owners will be on the hook for missed payments.
Together, prolonged unemployment, reduced earnings for those who retain their jobs, and a decline in savings for workers in the bottom 40 percent—a trend anyway over the past three decades—are likely to increase homelessness, especially if an eviction spiral begins. Columbia University economist Brendan O’Flaherty, who shared his data with me, estimates that the economic downturn caused by the virus could drive the number of homeless to 800,000, an increase of 40 percent to 45 percent from 2019.
Homelessness could increase for noneconomic reasons as well in the Covid-19 era. Take recent moves to reduce the number of people in American prisons, one of the five top hot spots for the spread of the virus. Three-quarters of the inmates at Ohio’s Marion Correctional Institution, for instance, tested positive for the disease. At the Cummins prison in Arkansas, 891 inmates and 65 employees tested positive. From mid-May to mid-June alone, infections at US prisons doubled, to reach a total of 68,000, while deaths rose by 73 percent to 616 and had reached 651 by July.
In a rush to diminish population density, prisons and jails started releasing certain categories of inmates, though of this country’s 2.1 million prisoners, only about 20,000 have been freed so far, the vast majority from local jails. Keep in mind that people leaving prison have difficulty finding jobs in the best of times, so some of those released to manage the pandemic will undoubtedly find themselves both poverty-stricken and homeless. Even in the pre-pandemic moment, former prisoners were 10 times more likely to become homeless than other Americans, and according to a 2019 study by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, striking numbers of them end up in homeless shelters soon after their incarceration ends.
In short, as the coronavirus continues to rage, this country is ill prepared to handle a surge in homelessness, let alone help those already homeless. The pandemic massively increased the federal deficit. The Congressional Budget Office projects that it could reach $3.7 trillion in this fiscal year, while other estimates go as high as $4.3 trillion. Meanwhile, without exception, states face steep drops in revenue.
Sadly, even if the plight of the homeless worsens and their number rises dramatically, it will barely register in the corridors of power. The homeless are a minuscule fraction of the population and have zero political clout. Politicians can safely ignore them, particularly because they know that most voters do and that the media covers homelessness sporadically at best. The homeless, society’s all but invisible castaways, can hope for little at a time when they will need more help than ever.


thenation--2020-07-16--US Intelligence Turns to the Boogaloo Movement

The US Intelligence Community , the consortium of spy agencies you most often hear about in the context of things like Russian espionage or Chinese cyberattacks , has a new target : the Boogaloo movement .
Widely known for their provocative memes and penchant for Hawaiian shirts paired with military fatigues , Boogaloos are a loosely affiliated coalition of far-right anti-government groups who aim to prepare for—or even instigate—a second American civil war .
Their love of guns and zealous opposition to government allegedly resulted last month in the murder of two security guards and a police officer .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the formation of a task force to investigate the group .
Last month , the Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) published a report obtained by The Nation , which begins by stating , “ The Intelligence Community reports that Domestic Violent Extremists ( DVEs ) who support ‘ Boogaloo ’ could exploit the current political and social environments to conduct attacks in the United States , and pose a potential threat to law enforcement.
” The intelligence report , dated June 1 , 2020 , and marked “ For Official Use @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal law enforcement official on condition of anonymity to avoid professional reprisal .
The DHS did not respond to a request for comment .
How Red Meat Became the Red Pill for the Alt-Right The Boogaloo movement has been implicated in a string of horrific murders in the past several months , so it ’ s not surprising that federal agencies would be monitoring them .
The report does not disclose which agencies produced the intelligence , but the Intelligence Community isn ’ t a typical organization—it includes within it top-tier intelligence bodies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the FBI .
These agencies are often tasked with spying on nation-state adversaries as well as countering their respective intelligence services .
Many employees possess top secret security clearances and access to such sensitive information that they are routinely given polygraph tests to ensure that they haven ’ t disclosed secrets without authorization .
That the Intelligence Community is monitoring the Boogaloo movement speaks to the seriousness of the threat .
In June , Steven Carrillo , an active duty US Air Force sergeant who had served as a team leader in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Raven security unit , allegedly used a silenced machine gun and pipe bombs to kill one police officer and two Federal Protective Service security guards .
Several other police officers were also injured .
Carrillo , who is alleged to have worked with another Boogaloo accomplice , reportedly scrawled in blood the word “ boog ” on his car along with a phrase popular among Boogaloo members : “ I became unreasonable.
” As a consequence of the violence , the Defense Department has been quietly debating how to better monitor military personnel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a senior department official who was not authorized to speak publicly .
Many among the department ’ s leadership believe that simply monitoring personnel ’ s social media accounts would be effective , but privacy rules often prevent them from doing so , the official explained .
Asked if the Pentagon has updated its policies for detecting violent extremists in its ranks , a Defense Department spokesman cited its Insider Threat Management and Analysis Center , saying , “ Individuals expressing affiliation , allegiance or ideological symmetry to an organization associated with extremism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terrorism , or gang association ) could qualify as demonstrating a concerning behavior ( s ) under the DoD ’ s insider threat program.
” Forty other Pentagon subdivisions have their own additional insider threat programs , the spokesman added .
Despite this , as my senior Defense Department source explained , the Pentagon ’ s capabilities remain inadequate to the threat posed by domestic extremists , which he believes is rapidly evolving .
In fact , none of the policies that the spokesman mentioned appeared to be new , though he didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ updating the program .
Still , that the Pentagon is even debating a response to the wave of far-right violence may represent an inflection point for an administration that has often appeared reluctant to address the threat .
While President Trump has repeatedly inveighed against “ the radical left , ” including antifa , which he vowed to label a terrorist organization , he has yet to address the Boogaloo attack , as well as others carried out by individuals motivated by far-right ideologies .
As one former senior counterterrorism official told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that as long as Trump ’ s in office , homegrown violent extremism isn ’ t going to be a priority .
He ’ s more concerned about an immigrant who overstayed his visa .
”

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The US Intelligence Community, the consortium of spy agencies you most often hear about in the context of things like Russian espionage or Chinese cyberattacks, has a new target: the Boogaloo movement.
Widely known for their provocative memes and penchant for Hawaiian shirts paired with military fatigues, Boogaloos are a loosely affiliated coalition of far-right anti-government groups who aim to prepare for—or even instigate—a second American civil war. Their love of guns and zealous opposition to government allegedly resulted last month in the murder of two security guards and a police officer. This prompted Attorney General William Barr to announce the formation of a task force to investigate the group.
Last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a report obtained by The Nation, which begins by stating, “The Intelligence Community reports that Domestic Violent Extremists (DVEs) who support ‘Boogaloo’ could exploit the current political and social environments to conduct attacks in the United States, and pose a potential threat to law enforcement.”
The intelligence report, dated June 1, 2020, and marked “For Official Use Only,” was provided by a federal law enforcement official on condition of anonymity to avoid professional reprisal. The DHS did not respond to a request for comment. the right stuff How Red Meat Became the Red Pill for the Alt-Right Eamon Whalen
The Boogaloo movement has been implicated in a string of horrific murders in the past several months, so it’s not surprising that federal agencies would be monitoring them. The report does not disclose which agencies produced the intelligence, but the Intelligence Community isn’t a typical organization—it includes within it top-tier intelligence bodies like the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI.
These agencies are often tasked with spying on nation-state adversaries as well as countering their respective intelligence services. Many employees possess top secret security clearances and access to such sensitive information that they are routinely given polygraph tests to ensure that they haven’t disclosed secrets without authorization. That the Intelligence Community is monitoring the Boogaloo movement speaks to the seriousness of the threat.
In June, Steven Carrillo, an active duty US Air Force sergeant who had served as a team leader in the Air Force’s elite Phoenix Raven security unit, allegedly used a silenced machine gun and pipe bombs to kill one police officer and two Federal Protective Service security guards. Several other police officers were also injured. Carrillo, who is alleged to have worked with another Boogaloo accomplice, reportedly scrawled in blood the word “boog” on his car along with a phrase popular among Boogaloo members: “I became unreasonable.” Current Issue View our current issue
As a consequence of the violence, the Defense Department has been quietly debating how to better monitor military personnel for signs of extremism, according to a senior department official who was not authorized to speak publicly. Many among the department’s leadership believe that simply monitoring personnel’s social media accounts would be effective, but privacy rules often prevent them from doing so, the official explained.
Asked if the Pentagon has updated its policies for detecting violent extremists in its ranks, a Defense Department spokesman cited its Insider Threat Management and Analysis Center, saying, “Individuals expressing affiliation, allegiance or ideological symmetry to an organization associated with extremism (including white supremacism, neo-Nazism, terrorism, or gang association) could qualify as demonstrating a concerning behavior(s) under the DoD’s insider threat program.” Forty other Pentagon subdivisions have their own additional insider threat programs, the spokesman added.
Despite this, as my senior Defense Department source explained, the Pentagon’s capabilities remain inadequate to the threat posed by domestic extremists, which he believes is rapidly evolving. In fact, none of the policies that the spokesman mentioned appeared to be new, though he didn’t mention the internal debate about updating the program.
Still, that the Pentagon is even debating a response to the wave of far-right violence may represent an inflection point for an administration that has often appeared reluctant to address the threat. While President Trump has repeatedly inveighed against “the radical left,” including antifa, which he vowed to label a terrorist organization, he has yet to address the Boogaloo attack, as well as others carried out by individuals motivated by far-right ideologies.
As one former senior counterterrorism official told me, “It’s pretty clear that as long as Trump’s in office, homegrown violent extremism isn’t going to be a priority. He’s more concerned about an immigrant who overstayed his visa.”


thenation--2020-07-16--Schools: To Open or Not to Open? That Is Not the Question.

The US safety net is made up of an interlocking network of means-tested programs ( like Medicaid or food stamps ) and government entitlements ( like Social Security ) .
It guarantees the welfare of folks rendered vulnerable—by deprivation , devastation , or deterioration .
Yet this vital state function is chronically defunded and nearly defunct .
As a result , inequality is extreme and growing in the United States .
The wealth gap between the richest and poorest families has more than doubled since 1989 .
And the top 1 percent of earners now hold more wealth than the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mobility of nearly every American , including kids .
And it isn ’ t color-blind .
A recent study found that for every dollar of wealth held by a household with white children , households with Black children have just one penny .
Current debates about reopening schools must be placed in this context , because they illuminate broader and longer fights to remedy racially apportioned access to mobility , and thus longevity , in this country .
For example , efforts to meet the basic needs of neighborhoods dogged by residential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forms of what scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “ organized abandonment and organized violence ” have long used schools as a back door to resources .
This is because front doors to resources are too often barricaded by a crushing mix of austerity , racism , and violence .
And so schools have become depots for food , health care , broadband Internet service , and accessible services for kids with special needs .
They have also become critical sanctuaries to protect children from domestic violence and child abuse .
In this way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and public spaces—has become a critical terrain of struggle for greater equality in the United States .
And decades of efforts have used public schools , as both a mechanism and a physical site , to expand access to safety net supports and protections—for kids , their families , and communities .
There Are Literally No Good Options for Educating Our Kids This Fall Yet as schools expanded their safety net footprint , calls to cut school funding followed , district by district , year after year , generation after generation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ American tradition .
It is normalized as necessary and sometimes even celebrated as “ innovation , ” when privatized models peel away the precious and limited resources the public system offers .
This parasitic practice not only neglects the needs of our nation ’ s public school students , teachers , and staff .
It also undermines the viability of the communities public schools serve .
And it isn ’ t color-blind either .
“ Rampant school segregation ” ensures that schools with inadequate resources predominantly serve Black and Latinx neighborhoods .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country lack protection from the brutalization of privatization and the state-sanctioned violence that protects corporate greed , others are shrinking the safety net for profit .
The consequence is grave .
Many were ensnared in a “ slow death ” before this pandemic began .
And ultimately , America ’ s entanglement with racism and capitalism is incompatible with life .
No delusion of individual economic redemption or safety plans that allow the richest schools to reopen will save us .
America needs a stronger safety net and a massive redistribution of wealth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Without a strong social safety net to buffer the effects of extreme inequality , societies , and their children , are made vulnerable to early death from a host of causes—new coronaviruses included .
This is why , as inequality grows in the United States , life expectancy is decreasing , suicides and overdoses are alarmingly common and increasing , and our rates of chronic disease now outpace all other wealthy nations ’ .
Our unfettered inequality—racial , social , and economic—has made “ America first ” in deaths across the globe .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ undercuts the tax base that supports the safety net .
This furthers its laceration .
But this is the most devastating part .
Despite the poorly funded safety net , folks who fall on hard times are not just victims of a “ broken system.
” Inequality is the point .
“ Hard times ” are mass-engineered .
And the reason recent attempts at safety continue to come up short in this country—even in the face of existential threats to human existence like Covid-19—is that in an extractive economy , taking safety from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This upward distribution of life-saving relief is what allows corporations to grab hundreds of millions of dollars , at a time when some households received a “ trickle down ” one-time payment of $ 1,200 .
It is what allowed wealthy , mostly white New Yorkers to take refuge in second homes as the city ’ s lower classes were forced to walk to work past street morgues , lined with refrigerated trucks potentially holding their loved ones and neighbors .
It is what allows the nation ’ s powerful elite essentially unlimited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suffering the ills of segregation continue to languish without a test in sight .
It is what allows this nation to valorize hard-work while simultaneously sacrificing the laborers who do it .
So to plan how schools can safely reopen in the midst of a pandemic , we must first address the manufactured precarity that threatens human well-being and already renders some parents , teachers , students , staff , and neighborhoods more vulnerable to early death than others .
That starts with rebuilding the safety net and extending it to everyone in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safety net is the only intervention that can enable everyone to safely adhere to the restrictions internationally demonstrated to limit Covid-19 transmission and spread .
A reduction of the local burden of Covid infection to below 1 percent of the population is the necessary condition for schools ( or many businesses , for that matter ) to safely reopen .
So here ’ s how to do it .
Recent evidence indicates that presymptomatic and asymptomatic transmission cause more than 50 percent of Covid infections during outbreaks .
That means current isolation efforts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the symptomatic are actually insufficient .
Instead , the United States needs to develop the capacity to test , trace , and treat the entire population , probably not just once but repeatedly , as exposure patterns change .
This requires an expansion of test production and lab capacity , and the workforce to support each of these measures .
It also requires universal access to health care .
The 13 states still holding out need to follow Oklahoma ’ s lead and expand Medicaid .
While they do , federal legislators must @ @ @ @ @ @ @ help ensure access to testing , treatment , and chronic care independent of income or employment status .
Even with expansions in testing and care , everyone would still need to take precautions to limit their potential exposures because test inaccuracies , result delays , and “ inevitable imperfections ” in tracing and isolation efforts can increase risks for Covid spread .
The CDC has outlined guidelines for institutions of higher education to promote behaviors that reduce spread , maintain healthy environments , maintain healthy operations , and prepare for when someone gets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ practicable for some populations than for others , and their success depends on everyone participating .
Targeted efforts could help ensure that those rendered most vulnerable are also protected .
To start , the United States could distribute free masks to everyone , as South Korea has done .
We could also repurpose hotels and corporate office buildings to house the homeless , offer physical distancing to those who live in crowded , congregate settings , and provide adequate quarantine facilities for those who lack them .
We could decarcerate the enormous US @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the nation ’ s early outbreaks .
And we could ensure a clean water supply that serves Black , Latinx , and Indigenous households so everyone has access to clean , running water for hand-washing .
Controlling the pandemic is possible .
It just requires enormous federal and state investments to ensure that those made most vulnerable have the resources they need to protect themselves and others .
Providing federal financial relief directly to US households , indefinitely , would redistribute resources downward if financed by taxing the wealthiest corporations and private @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from eviction as current temporary moratoriums on such practices end , and support those newly and chronically unemployed .
Such efforts should be coupled with broad expansions in eligibility for federal and state nutrition programs , home-delivery options for food supports , and home-based interventions for special education needs .
States and localities should also work to provide universal broadband Internet access that makes remote learning , telehealth , and working from home possible—for students , teachers , staff , and parents .
And school districts could augment local safety nets to additionally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parents to compare their school ’ s plan with those of other states and territories .
Mandated worker protections that extend across states and industries are critical to limiting Covid spread , such as paid sick leave , parental leave , hazard pay , and access to PPE .
Private companies should increase workers ’ pay , and the government should raise the federal minimum wage and pay teachers more , now , to address the Covid inequities that accompany income inequality .
Providing universal health care and guaranteed income , adequate job @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enable parents , teachers , and school staff to effectively adhere to mandated precautions , limit the spread of infection between their workplace and their home , and receive regular Covid testing and necessary care .
Interventions at this scale enable testing , tracing , and treating ; home-based quarantine without the threat of bankruptcy ; sick leave without the risk of eviction ; health care access for parents , students , teachers , and staff , regardless of their exposure status ; and distance learning for classrooms most safely convened remotely .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ also outlined careful and thoughtful recommendations to guide schools and clinicians as they navigate the possibility of safe reopening .
But to be clear , what is required to open schools safely is neither radical , nor unaffordable , in a nation as wealthy as the United States .
What is radical are calls to continue to defund public education and the already shredded US safety net in the middle of a global pandemic .
And what we can no longer afford is to pretend that the solutions are not fully evident .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation ’ s existing anti-poverty programs .
Expanding those programs makes sense in every way .
Children are the physical embodiment of our collective future .
Their well-being and the health of this nation now rely on a guaranteed and robust national safety net and significant wealth redistribution .
This is what it would really take to safely reopen schools .

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The US safety net is made up of an interlocking network of means-tested programs (like Medicaid or food stamps) and government entitlements (like Social Security). It guarantees the welfare of folks rendered vulnerable—by deprivation, devastation, or deterioration. Yet this vital state function is chronically defunded and nearly defunct. As a result, inequality is extreme and growing in the United States.
The wealth gap between the richest and poorest families has more than doubled since 1989. And the top 1 percent of earners now hold more wealth than the bottom 80 percent. This chasm constrains the mobility of nearly every American, including kids. And it isn’t color-blind. A recent study found that for every dollar of wealth held by a household with white children, households with Black children have just one penny.
Current debates about reopening schools must be placed in this context, because they illuminate broader and longer fights to remedy racially apportioned access to mobility, and thus longevity, in this country. For example, efforts to meet the basic needs of neighborhoods dogged by residential segregation, job losses, and other forms of what scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “organized abandonment and organized violence” have long used schools as a back door to resources. This is because front doors to resources are too often barricaded by a crushing mix of austerity, racism, and violence. And so schools have become depots for food, health care, broadband Internet service, and accessible services for kids with special needs. They have also become critical sanctuaries to protect children from domestic violence and child abuse. 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
In this way, public education—like public health, utilities, and public spaces—has become a critical terrain of struggle for greater equality in the United States. And decades of efforts have used public schools, as both a mechanism and a physical site, to expand access to safety net supports and protections—for kids, their families, and communities. Covid and School There Are Literally No Good Options for Educating Our Kids This Fall Elie Mystal
Yet as schools expanded their safety net footprint, calls to cut school funding followed, district by district, year after year, generation after generation. Defunding schools has now become a draconian American tradition. It is normalized as necessary and sometimes even celebrated as “innovation,” when privatized models peel away the precious and limited resources the public system offers. This parasitic practice not only neglects the needs of our nation’s public school students, teachers, and staff. It also undermines the viability of the communities public schools serve. And it isn’t color-blind either. “Rampant school segregation” ensures that schools with inadequate resources predominantly serve Black and Latinx neighborhoods.
In short, while some people in this country lack protection from the brutalization of privatization and the state-sanctioned violence that protects corporate greed, others are shrinking the safety net for profit. The consequence is grave. Many were ensnared in a “slow death” before this pandemic began.
And ultimately, America’s entanglement with racism and capitalism is incompatible with life. No delusion of individual economic redemption or safety plans that allow the richest schools to reopen will save us. America needs a stronger safety net and a massive redistribution of wealth. Our lives depend on it. Current Issue View our current issue
Rebuild the Social Safety Net
Without a strong social safety net to buffer the effects of extreme inequality, societies, and their children, are made vulnerable to early death from a host of causes—new coronaviruses included. This is why, as inequality grows in the United States, life expectancy is decreasing, suicides and overdoses are alarmingly common and increasing, and our rates of chronic disease now outpace all other wealthy nations’. Our unfettered inequality—racial, social, and economic—has made “America first” in deaths across the globe.
To make matters worse, inequality also undercuts the tax base that supports the safety net. This furthers its laceration.
But this is the most devastating part. Despite the poorly funded safety net, folks who fall on hard times are not just victims of a “broken system.” Inequality is the point. “Hard times” are mass-engineered. And the reason recent attempts at safety continue to come up short in this country—even in the face of existential threats to human existence like Covid-19—is that in an extractive economy, taking safety from some people hoards it for others.
This upward distribution of life-saving relief is what allows corporations to grab hundreds of millions of dollars, at a time when some households received a “trickle down” one-time payment of $1,200. It is what allowed wealthy, mostly white New Yorkers to take refuge in second homes as the city’s lower classes were forced to walk to work past street morgues, lined with refrigerated trucks potentially holding their loved ones and neighbors. It is what allows the nation’s powerful elite essentially unlimited access to Covid testing, while populations suffering the ills of segregation continue to languish without a test in sight. It is what allows this nation to valorize hard-work while simultaneously sacrificing the laborers who do it.
So to plan how schools can safely reopen in the midst of a pandemic, we must first address the manufactured precarity that threatens human well-being and already renders some parents, teachers, students, staff, and neighborhoods more vulnerable to early death than others. That starts with rebuilding the safety net and extending it to everyone in the United States.
A truly robust safety net is the only intervention that can enable everyone to safely adhere to the restrictions internationally demonstrated to limit Covid-19 transmission and spread. A reduction of the local burden of Covid infection to below 1 percent of the population is the necessary condition for schools (or many businesses, for that matter) to safely reopen.
So here’s how to do it.
Pass Universal Health Care
Recent evidence indicates that presymptomatic and asymptomatic transmission cause more than 50 percent of Covid infections during outbreaks. That means current isolation efforts that focus only on identifying and treating the symptomatic are actually insufficient. Instead, the United States needs to develop the capacity to test, trace, and treat the entire population, probably not just once but repeatedly, as exposure patterns change. This requires an expansion of test production and lab capacity, and the workforce to support each of these measures. It also requires universal access to health care. The 13 states still holding out need to follow Oklahoma’s lead and expand Medicaid. While they do, federal legislators must pass universal health care. This will help ensure access to testing, treatment, and chronic care independent of income or employment status.
Enable Masking, Physical Distancing, and Hand-washing
Even with expansions in testing and care, everyone would still need to take precautions to limit their potential exposures because test inaccuracies, result delays, and “inevitable imperfections” in tracing and isolation efforts can increase risks for Covid spread.
The CDC has outlined guidelines for institutions of higher education to promote behaviors that reduce spread, maintain healthy environments, maintain healthy operations, and prepare for when someone gets sick. But such recommendations are more practicable for some populations than for others, and their success depends on everyone participating. Targeted efforts could help ensure that those rendered most vulnerable are also protected. To start, the United States could distribute free masks to everyone, as South Korea has done. We could also repurpose hotels and corporate office buildings to house the homeless, offer physical distancing to those who live in crowded, congregate settings, and provide adequate quarantine facilities for those who lack them. We could decarcerate the enormous US prison population that accounts for 80 percent of the nation’s early outbreaks. And we could ensure a clean water supply that serves Black, Latinx, and Indigenous households so everyone has access to clean, running water for hand-washing.
Controlling the pandemic is possible. It just requires enormous federal and state investments to ensure that those made most vulnerable have the resources they need to protect themselves and others.
Redistribute Wealth to Support Parents, Teachers, and School Staff
Providing federal financial relief directly to US households, indefinitely, would redistribute resources downward if financed by taxing the wealthiest corporations and private citizens. It would also safeguard families from eviction as current temporary moratoriums on such practices end, and support those newly and chronically unemployed.
Such efforts should be coupled with broad expansions in eligibility for federal and state nutrition programs, home-delivery options for food supports, and home-based interventions for special education needs.
States and localities should also work to provide universal broadband Internet access that makes remote learning, telehealth, and working from home possible—for students, teachers, staff, and parents. And school districts could augment local safety nets to additionally provide information about the coronavirus and enable parents to compare their school’s plan with those of other states and territories.
Strengthen Worker Protections
Mandated worker protections that extend across states and industries are critical to limiting Covid spread, such as paid sick leave, parental leave, hazard pay, and access to PPE. Private companies should increase workers’ pay, and the government should raise the federal minimum wage and pay teachers more, now, to address the Covid inequities that accompany income inequality.
Providing universal health care and guaranteed income, adequate job protections, and access to PPE would enable parents, teachers, and school staff to effectively adhere to mandated precautions, limit the spread of infection between their workplace and their home, and receive regular Covid testing and necessary care.
Interventions at this scale enable testing, tracing, and treating; home-based quarantine without the threat of bankruptcy; sick leave without the risk of eviction; health care access for parents, students, teachers, and staff, regardless of their exposure status; and distance learning for classrooms most safely convened remotely.
A number of experts and communities have also outlined careful and thoughtful recommendations to guide schools and clinicians as they navigate the possibility of safe reopening.
But to be clear, what is required to open schools safely is neither radical, nor unaffordable, in a nation as wealthy as the United States. What is radical are calls to continue to defund public education and the already shredded US safety net in the middle of a global pandemic. And what we can no longer afford is to pretend that the solutions are not fully evident. Households with children disproportionately benefit from the nation’s existing anti-poverty programs. Expanding those programs makes sense in every way.
Children are the physical embodiment of our collective future. Their well-being and the health of this nation now rely on a guaranteed and robust national safety net and significant wealth redistribution. This is what it would really take to safely reopen schools.