thenation--2020-11-19--We Still Live In 2 Americas, Not 1

We Still Live In 2 Americas, Not 1

In the two weeks since Election 2020 , the country has oscillated between joy and anger , hope and dread in an era of polarization sharpened by the forces of racism , nativism , and hate .
Still , truth be told , though the divisive tone of this moment may only be sharpening , division in the United States of America is not a new phenomenon .
Over the past days , I ’ ve found myself returning to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , who , in 1967 , just a year before his own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The Other America ” in which he vividly described a reality that feels all too much of this moment rather than that one : “ There are literally two Americas .
One America is beautiful…and overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity .
This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies ; and culture and education for their minds ; and freedom and human dignity for their spirits… “ But tragically and unfortunately , there is another America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebulliency of hope into the fatigue of despair .
In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist .
In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested , vermin-filled slums .
In this America people are poor by the millions .
They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
” In Dr. King ’ s day , that other America was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the nation through mass social unrest and political change , through the bold actions of the freedom fighters who won the Voting Rights Act and then just kept on fighting , as well as governmental programs like the War on Poverty .
And yet , despite the significant gains then , for many decades since , inequality in this country has been on the rise to previously unimaginable levels , while poverty has remained locked in and largely ignored .
Today , in the early winter of an uncurbed pandemic and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are 140 million poor or low-income Americans , disproportionately people of color but reaching into every community in this country : 24 million Blacks , 38 million Latinos , eight million Asians , 2 million Native peoples , and 66 million whites .
More than a third of the potential electorate , in other words , has been relegated to poverty and precariousness , and yet how little of the political discourse in recent elections has been directed at those who were poor or one storm , fire , job loss , eviction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poverty and economic chaos .
In the distorted mirror of public policy , those 140 million people have remained essentially invisible .
As in the 1960s and other times in our history , however , the poor are no longer waiting for recognition from Washington .
Instead , every indication is that they ’ re beginning to organize themselves , taking decisive action to alter the scales of political power .
For years , I ’ ve traveled this country , working to build a movement to end poverty .
In a nation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wealthiest and freest in history , I ’ ve regularly witnessed painful divisions caused by hunger , homelessness , sickness , degradation , and so much more .
In Lowndes County , Ala. , for instance , I organized with people who lived day in , day out with raw sewage in their yards and dangerous mold in their homes .
On Apache land in Oak Flats , Ariz. , I stood with native leaders struggling to cope with generations of loss and plunder , most recently at the hands of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Harbor , Washington , I visited millennials living in homeless encampments under constant siege by militia groups and the police .
And the list , sadly , only goes on .
As the future administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris heads for the White House ( no matter the recalcitrant loser still ensconced there ) , the rest of us must equip ourselves with both courage and caution , living as we do in a divided nation , in—to be exact—two very different Americas .
Keep in mind that these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of MSNBC and Fox News , of Republicans and Democrats , of conservatives and liberals .
All of us live in a land where there are two Americas , one of unimaginable wealth , the other of miserable poverty ; an America of the promised good life and one of almost guaranteed premature death .
Unleashing the Power of Poor and Low-Income Voters One enduring narrative from the 2016 election is that poor and low-income voters won Donald Trump the White House , even if the numbers don ’ t bear it out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among voters who made less than $ 30,000 a year and by 9 points among voters who made less than $ 49,999 ; the median household income of Trump voters then was $ 72,000 .
Four years later , initial estimates suggest that this trend has only intensified : Joe Biden attracted more poor and low-income voters than President Trump both in the aggregate and in key states like Michigan .
Trump , on the other hand , gained among voters with annual family incomes of more than $ 100,000 .
Last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Data and Science Lab noted that this “ appears to be the biggest demographic shift I ’ m seeing .
And you can tie that to [ Trump ’ s ] tax cuts [ for the wealthy ] and lower regulations.
” In 2016 , there were 64 million eligible poor and low-income voters , 32 million of whom did not vote .
In 2020 , it ’ s becoming clear that poor and low-income voters helped decide the election ’ s outcome by opting for a candidate who signaled support for key @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , expanding health care , and protecting the environment .
In down-ballot races , every congressional member who endorsed Medicare for All won reelection , even in swing states .
Imagine how many dispossessed and disenfranchised voters might have turned out if more candidates had actually been speaking to the most pressing issues of their lives .
Seventy-two percent of Americans said that they would prefer a government-run healthcare plan and more than 70 percent supported raising the minimum wage , including 62 percent of Republicans .
Even in districts that went for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only a few years ago would have been unheard of .
In Mississippi , people voted to decriminalize medical marijuana , while in Florida a referendum for a $ 15 minimum wage got more votes than either of the two presidential candidates .
If nothing else , the 2020 election revealed a deeply divided nation—two Americas , not one—though that dividing line marked anything but an even or obvious split .
A startling number of Americans are trapped in wretched conditions and hungry for a clean break with the status quo .
On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suppression and racialized gerrymandering of the last decade of American politics suggests that extremists from the wealthier America will go to remarkable lengths to undercut the power of those at the bottom of this society .
They have proven ready to use every tool and scare tactic of racist division and subterfuge imaginable to stop poor Black , Latino , Asian , Indigenous , and white potential voters from building new and transformative alliances , including a new electorate .
It ’ s time to move beyond the defeatist myth of the solid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Midwestern “ blue wall.
” Across the South and the Midwest , there are voter-suppression states still to win , not for a party but for a fusion movement of the many .
The same could be true for the coasts and the Southwest , where there remains a sleeping giant of poor and low-income people yet to be pulled into political action .
If this country is ever going to be built back better , to borrow Joe Biden ’ s campaign pledge , it ’ s time to turn to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is , the other America of Martin Luther King that still haunts us , whether we know it or not .
Fusion Politics in the Other America When Dr. King gave his “ Other America ” speech , he was preparing for what would become the last political project of his life : the Poor People ’ s Campaign .
At a time when the nation appeared to be fraying at the seams , he grasped that a giant social leap forward was still possible .
In fact , he envisioned a protracted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a new era of human rights and revolution not through sanguine calls for unity , but via a rousing fusion of poor and dispossessed people from all walks of life .
And that , as he imagined it , would also involve a recognition that systemic racism and other forms of hate and prejudice were crucial to the maintenance of the two Americas and had to be challenged head-on .
The idea of such fusion politics echoed earlier chapters of political reckoning and transformation in this country .
From the post–Civil War era @ @ @ @ @ @ @ emancipated Blacks built unprecedented , if fragile , alliances with poor whites to seize governing power .
Across a new South , fusion parties expanded voting rights , access to public education , labor protections , fair taxation , and more .
In North Carolina in 1868 , for instance , legislators went so far as to rewrite the state constitution to codify for the first time the right of all citizens to “ life , liberty , and the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor.
” For nearly 30 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a modern version of fusion organizing , even as I studied earlier examples of it—and this country ’ s history is rich with them .
Indeed , the modern Poor People ’ s Campaign that I cochair is itself inspired by such past fusion movements , including the version of politics I was first introduced to by multiracial welfare rights and homeless organizing in the 1980s and 1990s .
Organizations like the National Welfare Rights Union and the National Union of the Homeless first grew in response to the neoliberal politics of President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poor , especially the Black poor , or , as he put it , “ welfare queens.
” In response to such myths and deep , divisive cuts , out of shelters and from the streets , poor people began to organize projects of mutual aid and solidarity , including “ unions ” of the homeless .
By the 1980s , the National Union of the Homeless had been created and had upwards of 30,000 members in 25 cities .
Meanwhile , organizers across the country soon escalated their efforts with waves of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ owned buildings at a time when the government had abdicated its responsibility to protect and provide for its poorest citizens .
Those poor and homeless leaders also helped the Homeless Union secure guarantees from the federal government both for more subsidized housing and for protections of the right of the homeless to vote .
Today , in the middle of an economic crisis that could , in the end , rival the Great Depression , I ’ m reminded not just of those moments that first involved me but also of the fusion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all , in those years , shanty towns called “ Hoovervilles ” —since Herbert Hoover was still president—cropped up in cities across the country .
Not unlike the tent cities of the Homeless Union and the Welfare Rights Movement in the 1980s and the ones appearing today , those Hoovervilles were where masses of the unemployed and homeless gathered to survive the worst of that depression and strategize on how to resist its misery .
Multiracial Unemployed Councils organized and fought for relief for workers without jobs then , preventing thousands of evictions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the abandoned fields of the Southern Delta from Arkansas to Mississippi , groups like the Southern Tenant Farmers Union pioneered the dangerous work of organizing Black and white tenant farmers and sharecroppers .
When the New Deal coalition bet its future on compromise with white Southern extremists , members of that union were among the last guardians of the rights of poor agrarian workers .
Their lonely clarity on the significance of fusion politics in the South stood in stark contrast to the rise of an unmitigated politics of white reaction there .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer claim the legacy of Great Depression–era President Franklin Delano Roosevelt , remember the fusion organizing that helped bring him to power and pushed him to enact change .
I ’ m thinking in particular of the more than 40,000 unemployed veterans of World War I who arrived in Washington , D.C. , in 1932 to demand the early payment of promised bonuses , previously only considered redeemable after 1945 .
That Bonus Army , as the veterans called it , collected many of the fraying threads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , sometimes with wives and children , on seized public land just across the Potomac River from the capital ’ s federal office buildings , while holding regular nonviolent marches and rallies .
Eventually , President Herbert Hoover ordered the US Army to tear down the camp in a violent fashion .
The mistreatment of those poor and war-weary veterans in the process proved to be a lightning rod for the public , and Hoover lost to FDR in the presidential election later that year , setting the stage for a decade defined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national policy .
The Mandate of the Poor Today There are already those in the media and politics who are counseling restraint and a return to the pre-Trump days , as if he were the cause , not the consequence , of a nation desperately divided .
This would be nothing less than a disaster , given that the fissures in our democracy so desperately need mending not with nice words but with a new governing contract with the American people .
The battleground states that won Joe Biden the presidency have also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against the poor .
In Michigan , hit first and worst by deindustrialization , millions have struggled with a failing water system and a jobs crisis .
In Wisconsin , where unions have been under attack for years and austerity has become the norm , both budgets and social welfare policies have been slashed by legislatures .
In Pennsylvania , rural hospitals have been closing at an alarming rate and , even before the pandemic hit , the poorest large city in the country , Philadelphia , had already become a checkerboard of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1.3 million renters—45 percent of the households in that state—were at risk of eviction this year .
And in Arizona , the climate crisis and Covid-19 have ravaged entire communities , including the members of Indigenous nations who recently turned out to vote in record numbers .
The people of these states and 15 more helped elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris , and you can count on one thing : With their votes , they were calling for more than just an end to Trumpism .
They were demanding that a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and marginalized .
The first priority in such an era should , of course , be to pass a comprehensive relief bill to control the pandemic and buoy the millions of Americans now facing a cold , dark winter of deprivation .
The House and the Senate have a moral responsibility to get this done as soon as the new administration takes office , if not before ( but just tell that to Mitch McConnell ) .
The first 100 days of the Biden administration should then be focused , at least in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to secure permanent protections for the poor , including expanded voting rights , universal health care , affordable housing , a living wage , and a guaranteed adequate annual income , not to speak of divestment from the war economy and a swift transition to a green economy .
That should be the mandate of our next government .
And that ’ s why we , the overflowing millions , must harness the fusion politics that was so crucial to the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and organize in the best @ @ @ @ @ @ @ progress rarely comes slowly and steadily but often in leaps and bounds .
The predictable stalemate of the next administration and its Republican opposition can ’ t be broken by grand speeches in the House or Senate .
It can only be broken by a vast social movement capable of awakening the moral imagination of the nation .
It ’ s time to get to work .

EDITOR’S NOTE: 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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In the two weeks since Election 2020, the country has oscillated between joy and anger, hope and dread in an era of polarization sharpened by the forces of racism, nativism, and hate. Still, truth be told, though the divisive tone of this moment may only be sharpening, division in the United States of America is not a new phenomenon.
Over the past days, I’ve found myself returning to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who, in 1967, just a year before his own assassination, gave a speech prophetically titled “The Other America” in which he vividly described a reality that feels all too much of this moment rather than that one:
“There are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful…and overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies; and culture and education for their minds; and freedom and human dignity for their spirits…
“But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebulliency of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”
In Dr. King’s day, that other America was, for a time, laid bare to the nation through mass social unrest and political change, through the bold actions of the freedom fighters who won the Voting Rights Act and then just kept on fighting, as well as governmental programs like the War on Poverty. And yet, despite the significant gains then, for many decades since, inequality in this country has been on the rise to previously unimaginable levels, while poverty has remained locked in and largely ignored.
Today, in the early winter of an uncurbed pandemic and the economic crisis that accompanies it, there are 140 million poor or low-income Americans, disproportionately people of color but reaching into every community in this country: 24 million Blacks, 38 million Latinos, eight million Asians, 2 million Native peoples, and 66 million whites. More than a third of the potential electorate, in other words, has been relegated to poverty and precariousness, and yet how little of the political discourse in recent elections has been directed at those who were poor or one storm, fire, job loss, eviction, or health care crisis away from poverty and economic chaos. In the distorted mirror of public policy, those 140 million people have remained essentially invisible. As in the 1960s and other times in our history, however, the poor are no longer waiting for recognition from Washington. Instead, every indication is that they’re beginning to organize themselves, taking decisive action to alter the scales of political power. 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
For years, I’ve traveled this country, working to build a movement to end poverty. In a nation that has so often boasted about being the wealthiest and freest in history, I’ve regularly witnessed painful divisions caused by hunger, homelessness, sickness, degradation, and so much more. In Lowndes County, Ala., for instance, I organized with people who lived day in, day out with raw sewage in their yards and dangerous mold in their homes. On Apache land in Oak Flats, Ariz., I stood with native leaders struggling to cope with generations of loss and plunder, most recently at the hands of a multinational copper mining company. In Gray’s Harbor, Washington, I visited millennials living in homeless encampments under constant siege by militia groups and the police. And the list, sadly, only goes on. Current Issue View our current issue
As the future administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris heads for the White House (no matter the recalcitrant loser still ensconced there), the rest of us must equip ourselves with both courage and caution, living as we do in a divided nation, in—to be exact—two very different Americas. Keep in mind that these are not the insulated, readymade Americas of MSNBC and Fox News, of Republicans and Democrats, of conservatives and liberals. All of us live in a land where there are two Americas, one of unimaginable wealth, the other of miserable poverty; an America of the promised good life and one of almost guaranteed premature death.
Unleashing the Power of Poor and Low-Income Voters
One enduring narrative from the 2016 election is that poor and low-income voters won Donald Trump the White House, even if the numbers don’t bear it out. Hillary Clinton won by 12 points among voters who made less than $30,000 a year and by 9 points among voters who made less than $49,999; the median household income of Trump voters then was $72,000.
Four years later, initial estimates suggest that this trend has only intensified: Joe Biden attracted more poor and low-income voters than President Trump both in the aggregate and in key states like Michigan. Trump, on the other hand, gained among voters with annual family incomes of more than $100,000. Last week, the director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab noted that this “appears to be the biggest demographic shift I’m seeing. And you can tie that to [Trump’s] tax cuts [for the wealthy] and lower regulations.”
In 2016, there were 64 million eligible poor and low-income voters, 32 million of whom did not vote. In 2020, it’s becoming clear that poor and low-income voters helped decide the election’s outcome by opting for a candidate who signaled support for key anti-poverty issues like raising the minimum wage, expanding health care, and protecting the environment. In down-ballot races, every congressional member who endorsed Medicare for All won reelection, even in swing states. Imagine how many dispossessed and disenfranchised voters might have turned out if more candidates had actually been speaking to the most pressing issues of their lives.
Seventy-two percent of Americans said that they would prefer a government-run healthcare plan and more than 70 percent supported raising the minimum wage, including 62 percent of Republicans. Even in districts that went for Trump, voters passed ballot measures that only a few years ago would have been unheard of. In Mississippi, people voted to decriminalize medical marijuana, while in Florida a referendum for a $15 minimum wage got more votes than either of the two presidential candidates.
If nothing else, the 2020 election revealed a deeply divided nation—two Americas, not one—though that dividing line marked anything but an even or obvious split. A startling number of Americans are trapped in wretched conditions and hungry for a clean break with the status quo. On the other hand, the rampant voter suppression and racialized gerrymandering of the last decade of American politics suggests that extremists from the wealthier America will go to remarkable lengths to undercut the power of those at the bottom of this society. They have proven ready to use every tool and scare tactic of racist division and subterfuge imaginable to stop poor Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous, and white potential voters from building new and transformative alliances, including a new electorate.
It’s time to move beyond the defeatist myth of the solid South or even the dulling comfort of a Midwestern “blue wall.” Across the South and the Midwest, there are voter-suppression states still to win, not for a party but for a fusion movement of the many. The same could be true for the coasts and the Southwest, where there remains a sleeping giant of poor and low-income people yet to be pulled into political action. If this country is ever going to be built back better, to borrow Joe Biden’s campaign pledge, it’s time to turn to its abandoned corners; to, that is, the other America of Martin Luther King that still haunts us, whether we know it or not.
Fusion Politics in the Other America
When Dr. King gave his “Other America” speech, he was preparing for what would become the last political project of his life: the Poor People’s Campaign. At a time when the nation appeared to be fraying at the seams, he grasped that a giant social leap forward was still possible. In fact, he envisioned a protracted struggle that might catapult this country into a new era of human rights and revolution not through sanguine calls for unity, but via a rousing fusion of poor and dispossessed people from all walks of life. And that, as he imagined it, would also involve a recognition that systemic racism and other forms of hate and prejudice were crucial to the maintenance of the two Americas and had to be challenged head-on.
The idea of such fusion politics echoed earlier chapters of political reckoning and transformation in this country. From the post–Civil War era of Reconstruction into the 1890s, newly emancipated Blacks built unprecedented, if fragile, alliances with poor whites to seize governing power. Across a new South, fusion parties expanded voting rights, access to public education, labor protections, fair taxation, and more. In North Carolina in 1868, for instance, legislators went so far as to rewrite the state constitution to codify for the first time the right of all citizens to “life, liberty, and the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor.”
For nearly 30 years, I’ve been part of a modern version of fusion organizing, even as I studied earlier examples of it—and this country’s history is rich with them. Indeed, the modern Poor People’s Campaign that I cochair is itself inspired by such past fusion movements, including the version of politics I was first introduced to by multiracial welfare rights and homeless organizing in the 1980s and 1990s.
Organizations like the National Welfare Rights Union and the National Union of the Homeless first grew in response to the neoliberal politics of President Ronald Reagan and his attacks on the poor, especially the Black poor, or, as he put it, “welfare queens.” In response to such myths and deep, divisive cuts, out of shelters and from the streets, poor people began to organize projects of mutual aid and solidarity, including “unions” of the homeless.
By the 1980s, the National Union of the Homeless had been created and had upwards of 30,000 members in 25 cities. Meanwhile, organizers across the country soon escalated their efforts with waves of coordinated and nonviolent takeovers of vacant federally owned buildings at a time when the government had abdicated its responsibility to protect and provide for its poorest citizens. Those poor and homeless leaders also helped the Homeless Union secure guarantees from the federal government both for more subsidized housing and for protections of the right of the homeless to vote.
Today, in the middle of an economic crisis that could, in the end, rival the Great Depression, I’m reminded not just of those moments that first involved me but also of the fusion movements of the early 1930s. After all, in those years, shanty towns called “Hoovervilles”—since Herbert Hoover was still president—cropped up in cities across the country.
Not unlike the tent cities of the Homeless Union and the Welfare Rights Movement in the 1980s and the ones appearing today, those Hoovervilles were where masses of the unemployed and homeless gathered to survive the worst of that depression and strategize on how to resist its misery. Multiracial Unemployed Councils organized and fought for relief for workers without jobs then, preventing thousands of evictions and utility shutoffs.
Meanwhile, in the abandoned fields of the Southern Delta from Arkansas to Mississippi, groups like the Southern Tenant Farmers Union pioneered the dangerous work of organizing Black and white tenant farmers and sharecroppers. When the New Deal coalition bet its future on compromise with white Southern extremists, members of that union were among the last guardians of the rights of poor agrarian workers. Their lonely clarity on the significance of fusion politics in the South stood in stark contrast to the rise of an unmitigated politics of white reaction there.
Today, as top Democrats like Joe Biden and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer claim the legacy of Great Depression–era President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, remember the fusion organizing that helped bring him to power and pushed him to enact change. I’m thinking in particular of the more than 40,000 unemployed veterans of World War I who arrived in Washington, D.C., in 1932 to demand the early payment of promised bonuses, previously only considered redeemable after 1945. That Bonus Army, as the veterans called it, collected many of the fraying threads of the American tapestry, making camp, sometimes with wives and children, on seized public land just across the Potomac River from the capital’s federal office buildings, while holding regular nonviolent marches and rallies.
Eventually, President Herbert Hoover ordered the US Army to tear down the camp in a violent fashion. The mistreatment of those poor and war-weary veterans in the process proved to be a lightning rod for the public, and Hoover lost to FDR in the presidential election later that year, setting the stage for a decade defined by militant organizing and major shifts in national policy.
The Mandate of the Poor Today
There are already those in the media and politics who are counseling restraint and a return to the pre-Trump days, as if he were the cause, not the consequence, of a nation desperately divided. This would be nothing less than a disaster, given that the fissures in our democracy so desperately need mending not with nice words but with a new governing contract with the American people.
The battleground states that won Joe Biden the presidency have also been battlegrounds in the most recent war against the poor. In Michigan, hit first and worst by deindustrialization, millions have struggled with a failing water system and a jobs crisis. In Wisconsin, where unions have been under attack for years and austerity has become the norm, both budgets and social welfare policies have been slashed by legislatures. In Pennsylvania, rural hospitals have been closing at an alarming rate and, even before the pandemic hit, the poorest large city in the country, Philadelphia, had already become a checkerboard of disinvestment and gentrification. In Georgia, 1.3 million renters—45 percent of the households in that state—were at risk of eviction this year. And in Arizona, the climate crisis and Covid-19 have ravaged entire communities, including the members of Indigenous nations who recently turned out to vote in record numbers.
The people of these states and 15 more helped elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and you can count on one thing: With their votes, they were calling for more than just an end to Trumpism. They were demanding that a new era of change begin for the poor and marginalized. The first priority in such an era should, of course, be to pass a comprehensive relief bill to control the pandemic and buoy the millions of Americans now facing a cold, dark winter of deprivation. The House and the Senate have a moral responsibility to get this done as soon as the new administration takes office, if not before (but just tell that to Mitch McConnell). The first 100 days of the Biden administration should then be focused, at least in part, on launching a historic investment to secure permanent protections for the poor, including expanded voting rights, universal health care, affordable housing, a living wage, and a guaranteed adequate annual income, not to speak of divestment from the war economy and a swift transition to a green economy.
That should be the mandate of our next government. And that’s why we, the overflowing millions, must harness the fusion politics that was so crucial to the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and organize in the best tradition of our predecessors. Real social progress rarely comes slowly and steadily but often in leaps and bounds. The predictable stalemate of the next administration and its Republican opposition can’t be broken by grand speeches in the House or Senate. It can only be broken by a vast social movement capable of awakening the moral imagination of the nation.
It’s time to get to work.


thenation--2020-11-19--‘I Experience a Hollowing Fear Any Time I’m Stopped by Police’

A few months back , I was pulled over by a Massachusetts state trooper on a Saturday night as I turned off the highway to get gas .
It was around 10 pm and dark , and the stop was off an exit in a remote area , about 30 minutes outside Boston .
The trooper approached the car cautiously , as if he assumed I might be dangerous .
He took my license and registration and asked where I was coming from and headed to.1 I told the trooper that I had just left Yale University , where I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was headed to Boston to visit friends .
His energy seemed anxious .
He asked if my car was a rental , as I noticed him shining a flashlight into the back seat.2 He ran my documents , came back , and said that he didn ’ t want to “ make this into something it ’ s not or get my mind turning.
” But , he added , because of the way I switched lanes and got off the highway and since I-84 in Massachusetts is a drug trafficking route , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the car and asked to search it.3 Bewildered , I asked him how he had arrived at the conclusion that I was trafficking drugs after I said I had just left school to go to Boston and had merely pulled over to get gas .
He responded that he didn ’ t think I had actually exited to get gas , since my phone ’ s GPS—which he looked at through the window—didn ’ t seem to show a destination on it , and added , “ I just hate being lied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could reach for my wallet and show him my Yale ID to verify my story.4 The trooper seemed unmoved .
He said my profession had nothing to do with his suspicion and asked , again , if he could search my car .
I tried to control my response , but feeling confused , angry , and knowing he had no right to search the car without my consent , I said indignantly , “ No , you can ’ t search my car.
” 5 Without offering much of a response , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still holding my license and registration .
I recorded a video explaining the situation to my mom and sisters and sent it to them .
I let them know that , if anything happened , I loved them and that I was trying my best to navigate the situation .
I was afraid for my life .
Was he going to let me go , or would he make the situation worse ?
6 My mother and two sisters texted me back after seeing the video , afraid that if they called and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rang , it might cost me my life .
They asked if I could share my location and told me to breathe .
They were as worried as I was that the situation might escalate and that the video would be the last they would see of me.7 After some minutes , the officer came back with a written warning for speeding and an improper lane change .
He told me to drive safely and sidestepped my question about what had led him to believe I had drugs in the car .
After @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said that there were many reasons for his suspicion and added , preemptively , that it wasn ’ t a result of racial profiling , despite data showing the Massachusetts State Police troopers routinely do so .
He left , and I drove off , shaken .
I called my family to tell them I was OK.8 In the months since my encounter with the trooper—months during which we witnessed the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor as well as the resurgent movement challenging police violence—the memory of the experience has continued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since I know it could happen again .
In fact , I ’ ve been pulled over twice since then .
One stop was for allegedly parking too far from the curb ; as the officer explained it , he ran my plates , saw I wasn ’ t from the area , and pulled me over as I drove off to see “ what was going on.
” He proceeded to ask me questions that were almost as intrusive as the state trooper ’ s.9 Far from being unusual , these experiences @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country .
All across the United States , Black people are pulled over at higher rates than other drivers—a phenomenon so pervasive , it has earned its own catch phrase : driving while Black .
According to one recent study of 14 years of traffic stops in North Carolina , Black drivers were 95 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers .
Another study , published this year by Stanford ’ s Open Policing Project , found that Black drivers were about 20 percent more likely to be pulled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they were one and a half to two times as likely to be searched .
Police frequently justify these searches by claiming they suspect the driver possesses drugs or weapons.10 Like many Black drivers , I experience a hollowing fear anytime I ’ m stopped by police .
My body tenses , it ’ s hard to breathe , and I genuinely wonder if I ’ ll make it through the situation .
When police approach slowly and cautiously , as if they think I ’ m a potential threat , and ask @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drugs or weapons , those feelings intensify.11 The fact that these invasive stops and searches are even possible is the result of a special automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment .
The amendment guarantees “ the right of the people to be secure in their persons , houses , papers , and effects , against unreasonable searches and seizures , ” which is another way of saying it protects our right to privacy against the unchecked power of the police .
But under the automobile exception , first codified in 1925 and then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Court rulings , drivers are considered to have a reduced expectation of privacy ; the full protections of the amendment are weakened.12 The implications of this reduced expectation are many .
But among the most far-reaching is the practice , affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1996 in Whren v. United States , by which drivers can be temporarily detained—that is , stopped—by officers on the basis of a flimsy pretext , like a broken taillight , even if the officer ’ s real purpose is to look for evidence of criminal activity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an easy cover for rank bias and routine racism .
They ’ re a green light for racial profiling .
And while some protections are supposed to remain in place to prevent the police from escalating these stops into fully arbitrary searches ( officers , for instance , must obtain consent from a driver before searching a car , unless evidence is in plain view ) , it ’ s easy for the police to sidestep those protections.13 Consider how the process often unfolds , quickly transforming from simple traffic stops into investigatory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pull over a car , they are supposed to allow the driver to go on their way as soon as they are able to verify that the driver can operate the vehicle ( and , all too often , as soon as the police give a ticket ) .
But police are also allowed to ask off-topic questions to probe for potential criminal activity or ask the driver to get out of their car and wait in the patrol car while they run criminal records , all in the context of a simple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that leads police to have reasonable suspicion of criminal activity—a vague concept that is , once again , easily manipulated by bias and racism—an officer can extend the stop and request consent to search for evidence .
In some states , if officers smell marijuana , they can bypass asking for consent altogether , a potential problem since police have been known to lie about smelling marijuana in order to execute a search without a warrant or consent.14 The request for consent , which is supposed to be a safeguard against invasive or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the process .
For consent searches to pass constitutional muster , they must be free of coercion .
But police power , particularly in the context of the long legacy of police violence and corruption , is inherently coercive , especially for Black drivers .
From Philando Castile , Sandra Bland , and Maurice Gordon to countless unknown Black drivers , routine traffic stops have too often turned into instances of police violence .
This reality can make people consent , out of pure terror , to a search they would rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suspicion and escalation.15 In my case , that fear made me contemplate letting the officer search my car , even though I knew it would lead me to feel more violated and traumatized than I already was.16 The story of pretextual stops and consent searches is similar , in many ways , to the story of stop-and-frisk .
In both instances , officers need to have only reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to begin an investigatory stop .
And because of the vagueness of that reasonable suspicion standard , both practices have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communities.17 Moreover , as with stop-and-frisk , the solution to the problem of consent searches is often framed as a simple matter of instituting reforms like community policing and procedural justice : If police can just be trained to behave in ways that are professional , neutral , and fair , people will feel better about police interactions , and encounters with them will be less likely to go awry .
The limits of these efforts are perhaps best illustrated by Minneapolis , a city that implemented all the often touted progressive reforms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Floyd.18 But there are solutions that are at once direct and powerful and are being embraced by a growing number of organizers and activists around the country.19 The first and perhaps most obvious of these is a judicial one and involves nothing less than challenging everything from the legality of the way stops and searches are conducted to the legal foundations on which they stand .
Such cases can be brought in federal or state courts .
What is essential is that they “ should challenge existing precedent at every turn , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ACLU of Massachusetts , wrote in The Guardian several years back.20 One precedent that must be challenged is the one that allows for pretextual stops in the first place .
There are various ways to argue against them , but one critical tool is the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment .
This clause prohibits discrimination on the basis of race and other categories .
In the case of consent searches , there is clear evidence in cities and states throughout the country that Black drivers are targeted for stops and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case can be made that pretextual stops are being carried out in an unconstitutional manner and that this way of conducting them , if not the fact of the stops themselves , must be addressed.21 Next , consent searches must be challenged .
An argument can be made that , in the context of police violence and alongside the fact that police are not always required to let individuals know they have the right to refuse a search , many consent searches are not truly free of coercion and thus are not constitutional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ case is that a judge would rule against the use of consent searches altogether .
But a more realistic outcome might be that officers would be required to state that individuals are free to refuse the search , similar to the way police are required to read people their Miranda rights before interrogating them while in custody.22 Versions of both of these approaches were used successfully in New York City in Floyd et al .
v. City of New York , which famously forced the city to rein in its stop-and-frisk program .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Constitutional Rights argued that the New York Police Department violated the Fourth and 14th Amendment rights of thousands of Black and Latinx New Yorkers through a pattern and practice of racial profiling and unconstitutional stops .
Judge Shira Scheindlin agreed , concluding in a 2013 decision , “ The City ’ s highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner .
In their zeal to defend a policy that they believe to be effective , they have willfully ignored overwhelming proof @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right people ’ is racially discriminatory and therefore violates the United States Constitution.
” 23 Scheindlin ’ s decision was a landmark legal victory for Black and Latinx New Yorkers , but it was also limited .
While her ruling forced New York to reform how it approached stop-and-frisk , dramatically reducing its use across the city , it nonetheless allowed the practice to continue under the pretext that it could be done in a constitutional way .
To this day , racial disparities persist , highlighting one of the challenges of relying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they can also be slow-moving and onerous .
And at a time when so many of our courts , including the nation ’ s highest , have been stacked with conservative appointees , the judicial system seems an increasingly unfriendly place to seek redress.24 These are among the reasons that activists and advocates have begun to explore a range of city- and state-level policy changes to mitigate and occasionally even end the scourge of pretextual stops and consent searches .
In Texas , for example , Democratic legislators are planning to introduce a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ banning pretextual stops .
Virginia recently passed legislation prohibiting police from stopping drivers for such minor infractions as broken taillights or brake lights , tinted windows , and loud exhaust systems .
Meanwhile , some localities , such as Durham , N.C. , have shifted from allowing verbal consent for searches to requiring written consent as a way to try to curb manipulation and coercion.25 But even with these necessary interventions , organizers—particularly those working toward police abolition and a complete reimagining of public safety—have begun to argue that there is a need @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alternatives to the way we deal with traffic concerns .
They have begun pressing for police to be removed from the area of traffic safety altogether.26 Today one of the most reliable functions of traffic stops is to provide revenue for cities and states .
Another is to serve as a basis for fishing for more serious crimes .
But imagine if alternatives were created to address concerns about traffic safety ( which remains an undeniable problem ) through a public health framework centered on safe driving education and outreach , as opposed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This vision might have appeared implausible just a few months ago , but it has been gaining momentum in both New York City and Los Angeles , where activists have begun waging campaigns to remove police officers from traffic oversight and replace them with Department of Transportation workers , among others .
In Berkeley , Calif. , in July the City Council approved a plan to remove police from traffic stops and instead use unarmed city workers to respond to traffic safety matters.28 We now know that the only way to ensure police @ @ @ @ @ @ @ avert encounters of drivers with officers .
If someone does need to be stopped for a matter related to traffic safety , that stop can be made by someone who handles the situation with a public health approach , not by someone with a gun and the license to kill with impunity .
The roads might be a lot safer , and many fewer people would have to experience the fear or reality of police violence .
People shouldn ’ t have to fear that they will lose their life over a taillight.29

This article appears in the November 30/December 7, 2020 issue.
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A few months back, I was pulled over by a Massachusetts state trooper on a Saturday night as I turned off the highway to get gas. It was around 10 pm and dark, and the stop was off an exit in a remote area, about 30 minutes outside Boston. The trooper approached the car cautiously, as if he assumed I might be dangerous. He took my license and registration and asked where I was coming from and headed to.1
I told the trooper that I had just left Yale University, where I’m finishing my PhD, and was headed to Boston to visit friends. His energy seemed anxious. He asked if my car was a rental, as I noticed him shining a flashlight into the back seat.2
He ran my documents, came back, and said that he didn’t want to “make this into something it’s not or get my mind turning.” But, he added, because of the way I switched lanes and got off the highway and since I-84 in Massachusetts is a drug trafficking route, he believed that I could have drugs in the car and asked to search it.3
Bewildered, I asked him how he had arrived at the conclusion that I was trafficking drugs after I said I had just left school to go to Boston and had merely pulled over to get gas. He responded that he didn’t think I had actually exited to get gas, since my phone’s GPS—which he looked at through the window—didn’t seem to show a destination on it, and added, “I just hate being lied to.” So I asked if I could reach for my wallet and show him my Yale ID to verify my story.4
The trooper seemed unmoved. He said my profession had nothing to do with his suspicion and asked, again, if he could search my car. I tried to control my response, but feeling confused, angry, and knowing he had no right to search the car without my consent, I said indignantly, “No, you can’t search my car.”5 Current Issue View our current issue
Without offering much of a response, he went back to his car, still holding my license and registration. I recorded a video explaining the situation to my mom and sisters and sent it to them. I let them know that, if anything happened, I loved them and that I was trying my best to navigate the situation. I was afraid for my life. Was he going to let me go, or would he make the situation worse?6
My mother and two sisters texted me back after seeing the video, afraid that if they called and I reached for my phone when it rang, it might cost me my life. They asked if I could share my location and told me to breathe. They were as worried as I was that the situation might escalate and that the video would be the last they would see of me.7
After some minutes, the officer came back with a written warning for speeding and an improper lane change. He told me to drive safely and sidestepped my question about what had led him to believe I had drugs in the car. After I asked him again, he haltingly said that there were many reasons for his suspicion and added, preemptively, that it wasn’t a result of racial profiling, despite data showing the Massachusetts State Police troopers routinely do so. He left, and I drove off, shaken. I called my family to tell them I was OK.8 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
In the months since my encounter with the trooper—months during which we witnessed the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor as well as the resurgent movement challenging police violence—the memory of the experience has continued to shake and unnerve me, especially since I know it could happen again. In fact, I’ve been pulled over twice since then. One stop was for allegedly parking too far from the curb; as the officer explained it, he ran my plates, saw I wasn’t from the area, and pulled me over as I drove off to see “what was going on.” He proceeded to ask me questions that were almost as intrusive as the state trooper’s.9
Far from being unusual, these experiences are typical for many Black drivers in this country. All across the United States, Black people are pulled over at higher rates than other drivers—a phenomenon so pervasive, it has earned its own catch phrase: driving while Black. According to one recent study of 14 years of traffic stops in North Carolina, Black drivers were 95 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers. Another study, published this year by Stanford’s Open Policing Project, found that Black drivers were about 20 percent more likely to be pulled over and that, once stopped, they were one and a half to two times as likely to be searched. Police frequently justify these searches by claiming they suspect the driver possesses drugs or weapons.10
Like many Black drivers, I experience a hollowing fear anytime I’m stopped by police. My body tenses, it’s hard to breathe, and I genuinely wonder if I’ll make it through the situation. When police approach slowly and cautiously, as if they think I’m a potential threat, and ask for consent to search my car for drugs or weapons, those feelings intensify.11
The fact that these invasive stops and searches are even possible is the result of a special automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment. The amendment guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” which is another way of saying it protects our right to privacy against the unchecked power of the police. But under the automobile exception, first codified in 1925 and then expanded over the decades by successive Supreme Court rulings, drivers are considered to have a reduced expectation of privacy; the full protections of the amendment are weakened.12
The implications of this reduced expectation are many. But among the most far-reaching is the practice, affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1996 in Whren v. United States, by which drivers can be temporarily detained—that is, stopped—by officers on the basis of a flimsy pretext, like a broken taillight, even if the officer’s real purpose is to look for evidence of criminal activity. The problem is these pretexts are an easy cover for rank bias and routine racism. They’re a green light for racial profiling. And while some protections are supposed to remain in place to prevent the police from escalating these stops into fully arbitrary searches (officers, for instance, must obtain consent from a driver before searching a car, unless evidence is in plain view), it’s easy for the police to sidestep those protections.13
Consider how the process often unfolds, quickly transforming from simple traffic stops into investigatory stops and searches. When police officers pull over a car, they are supposed to allow the driver to go on their way as soon as they are able to verify that the driver can operate the vehicle (and, all too often, as soon as the police give a ticket). But police are also allowed to ask off-topic questions to probe for potential criminal activity or ask the driver to get out of their car and wait in the patrol car while they run criminal records, all in the context of a simple traffic violation. If additional information arises that leads police to have reasonable suspicion of criminal activity—a vague concept that is, once again, easily manipulated by bias and racism—an officer can extend the stop and request consent to search for evidence. In some states, if officers smell marijuana, they can bypass asking for consent altogether, a potential problem since police have been known to lie about smelling marijuana in order to execute a search without a warrant or consent.14
The request for consent, which is supposed to be a safeguard against invasive or abusive searches, is another weak spot in the process. For consent searches to pass constitutional muster, they must be free of coercion. But police power, particularly in the context of the long legacy of police violence and corruption, is inherently coercive, especially for Black drivers. From Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, and Maurice Gordon to countless unknown Black drivers, routine traffic stops have too often turned into instances of police violence. This reality can make people consent, out of pure terror, to a search they would rather decline, if only to avoid further suspicion and escalation.15
In my case, that fear made me contemplate letting the officer search my car, even though I knew it would lead me to feel more violated and traumatized than I already was.16
The story of pretextual stops and consent searches is similar, in many ways, to the story of stop-and-frisk. In both instances, officers need to have only reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to begin an investigatory stop. And because of the vagueness of that reasonable suspicion standard, both practices have a racially disproportionate impact on Black and Latinx communities.17
Moreover, as with stop-and-frisk, the solution to the problem of consent searches is often framed as a simple matter of instituting reforms like community policing and procedural justice: If police can just be trained to behave in ways that are professional, neutral, and fair, people will feel better about police interactions, and encounters with them will be less likely to go awry. The limits of these efforts are perhaps best illustrated by Minneapolis, a city that implemented all the often touted progressive reforms, yet the police still murdered George Floyd.18
But there are solutions that are at once direct and powerful and are being embraced by a growing number of organizers and activists around the country.19
The first and perhaps most obvious of these is a judicial one and involves nothing less than challenging everything from the legality of the way stops and searches are conducted to the legal foundations on which they stand. Such cases can be brought in federal or state courts. What is essential is that they “should challenge existing precedent at every turn,” as Matthew Segal, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, wrote in The Guardian several years back.20
One precedent that must be challenged is the one that allows for pretextual stops in the first place. There are various ways to argue against them, but one critical tool is the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. This clause prohibits discrimination on the basis of race and other categories. In the case of consent searches, there is clear evidence in cities and states throughout the country that Black drivers are targeted for stops and searches at disproportionate rates. A strong case can be made that pretextual stops are being carried out in an unconstitutional manner and that this way of conducting them, if not the fact of the stops themselves, must be addressed.21
Next, consent searches must be challenged. An argument can be made that, in the context of police violence and alongside the fact that police are not always required to let individuals know they have the right to refuse a search, many consent searches are not truly free of coercion and thus are not constitutional. The dream in bringing such a case is that a judge would rule against the use of consent searches altogether. But a more realistic outcome might be that officers would be required to state that individuals are free to refuse the search, similar to the way police are required to read people their Miranda rights before interrogating them while in custody.22
Versions of both of these approaches were used successfully in New York City in Floyd et al. v. City of New York, which famously forced the city to rein in its stop-and-frisk program. In that case, the Center for Constitutional Rights argued that the New York Police Department violated the Fourth and 14th Amendment rights of thousands of Black and Latinx New Yorkers through a pattern and practice of racial profiling and unconstitutional stops. Judge Shira Scheindlin agreed, concluding in a 2013 decision, “The City’s highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner. In their zeal to defend a policy that they believe to be effective, they have willfully ignored overwhelming proof that the policy of targeting ‘the right people’ is racially discriminatory and therefore violates the United States Constitution.”23
Scheindlin’s decision was a landmark legal victory for Black and Latinx New Yorkers, but it was also limited. While her ruling forced New York to reform how it approached stop-and-frisk, dramatically reducing its use across the city, it nonetheless allowed the practice to continue under the pretext that it could be done in a constitutional way. To this day, racial disparities persist, highlighting one of the challenges of relying on legal solutions: Although essential, they can also be slow-moving and onerous. And at a time when so many of our courts, including the nation’s highest, have been stacked with conservative appointees, the judicial system seems an increasingly unfriendly place to seek redress.24 Related Articles Police Terror Won’t End With the Trump Administration Chris Gelardi How to Dismantle White Supremacy Barbara Smith Defunding the Police Is a Reparations Issue Dreisen Heath
These are among the reasons that activists and advocates have begun to explore a range of city- and state-level policy changes to mitigate and occasionally even end the scourge of pretextual stops and consent searches. In Texas, for example, Democratic legislators are planning to introduce a package of criminal justice measures that includes banning pretextual stops. Virginia recently passed legislation prohibiting police from stopping drivers for such minor infractions as broken taillights or brake lights, tinted windows, and loud exhaust systems. Meanwhile, some localities, such as Durham, N.C., have shifted from allowing verbal consent for searches to requiring written consent as a way to try to curb manipulation and coercion.25
But even with these necessary interventions, organizers—particularly those working toward police abolition and a complete reimagining of public safety—have begun to argue that there is a need to go further, to experiment with alternatives to the way we deal with traffic concerns. They have begun pressing for police to be removed from the area of traffic safety altogether.26
Today one of the most reliable functions of traffic stops is to provide revenue for cities and states. Another is to serve as a basis for fishing for more serious crimes. But imagine if alternatives were created to address concerns about traffic safety (which remains an undeniable problem) through a public health framework centered on safe driving education and outreach, as opposed to police stops and tickets?27
This vision might have appeared implausible just a few months ago, but it has been gaining momentum in both New York City and Los Angeles, where activists have begun waging campaigns to remove police officers from traffic oversight and replace them with Department of Transportation workers, among others. In Berkeley, Calif., in July the City Council approved a plan to remove police from traffic stops and instead use unarmed city workers to respond to traffic safety matters.28
We now know that the only way to ensure police violence doesn’t occur is to avert encounters of drivers with officers. If someone does need to be stopped for a matter related to traffic safety, that stop can be made by someone who handles the situation with a public health approach, not by someone with a gun and the license to kill with impunity. The roads might be a lot safer, and many fewer people would have to experience the fear or reality of police violence. People shouldn’t have to fear that they will lose their life over a taillight.29


thenation--2020-11-20--Poland’s Women Are in the Streets

Poland’s Women Are in the Streets

rakow— “ We go right to TVP Krakow !
Truth instead of lies !
” The updates in the secret Telegram chat kept pinging in .
Our next protest target : the headquarters of TVP—the Polish state media corporation that since 2015 has been a mouthpiece of the ruling Law and Justice ( PiS ) party .
It was the second big action on a dreary night some two weeks after Poland ’ s Constitutional Tribunal placed a near-total ban on abortion .
The first protest—an automobile and bicycle blockade—was already a success .
A seemingly endless phalanx of honking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ north to the south end of the Vistula River , snarling rush-hour traffic along a major thoroughfare .
The initial Strajk Kobiet ( Women ’ s Strike ) movement emerged in 2016 in response to proposed anti-abortion legislation that PiS later withdrew in the face of demonstrations .
What the party ’ s hard-liners couldn ’ t achieve legislatively they ’ ve now won through the courts .
Before the tribunal ’ s ruling , Poland already had one of Europe ’ s most restrictive laws regarding abortion , banning it except in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incest , or threats to a mother ’ s health .
Last year , terminations due to congenital defects accounted for 97 percent of the 1,110 legal abortions in Poland .
Now , with the high court finding the first exception unconstitutional , legal abortions would drop to near zero .
Opinion polls before and after the new ruling have consistently found that a clear majority of Poles oppose further restrictions , with the court ’ s decision enshrining a minority opinion in a manner somewhat paralleling the fears of many American progressives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appointment could threaten abortion access in the United States .
Building on momentum from past fights , within a matter of days of the October 22 ruling , the decentralized Women ’ s Strike channeled simmering anger at the right-wing direction of Poland into mass demonstrations drawing hundreds of thousands of Poles into the streets in defiance of coronavirus restrictions .
The daily protests deploy cohesive , Internet-friendly organizing tactics and symbols : umbrellas and wire hangers jutting out of car windows in the blockades ; banners with pink lightning bolts hanging from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encrypted messaging apps letting protesters know where not to be when the police show up .
The Telegram group in Krakow is called Solidarność nasza bronią : “ Solidarity is our weapon.
” And much like the Solidarity movement strikes in the 1980s , the current Women ’ s Strike movement is clamoring to remake a divided Poland .
So far—during the current battle in an ongoing culture war—the protesters seem to be winning .
On November 4 , the government backtracked in the face of the unrest , delaying implementation of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is just the tip of the iceberg of discontent—a symbol for the wider rollback of rights and the rule of law under the Law and Justice government .
Now , a month since the court ruling , my Telegram keeps pinging , and the daily protest actions churn on with a growing list of demands .
Kasha , an undergraduate I meet at one of the protests , puts it bluntly : “ It ’ s not only about the abortion ban at this point .
It ’ s about overthrowing the government.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ PiS and its conservative coalition partners have only eked out small majorities in the past few elections .
As rhetoric heats up , each side trades blame and digs in , further polarizing the country in what feels like the sort of existential cultural battle currently wracking American politics .
While many protest chants keep the focus on women ’ s rights— “ I think , I feel , I decide ” —the most prevalent mantra , screamed out of windows and spray-painted on walls , is simply “ Jebać PiS ” : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski inflamed them in a fiery speech to parliament calling on supporters to “ defend Poland , defend patriotism ” and “ defend Polish churches ” against the atheistic mob : “ This is the only way we can win this war.
” While Kaczynski ’ s bellicose language is hyperbolic , he does accurately pinpoint a defining feature of the current movement : its willingness to challenge the Catholic Church , long the third rail of Polish politics .
Activists are actively targeting the powerful institution—from disrupting Sunday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a local priest ( as seen in one viral video ) .
While the church was instrumental in the fight against Communism in the 1980s , many now blame it for facilitating the country ’ s contemporary rightward drift .
A new encrypted message came though on my phone following the protest against the state media company : “ We have had enough !
The same people who celebrate the pseudo-tribunal ’ s verdict defended pedophiles for years , reaping financial benefits .
Are you surprised ?
We aren ’ t !
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ link for a vigil in remembrance of the “ victims of church abuse.
” An hour later , a somber crowd of several hundred people occupied the street outside the archbishop ’ s palace here .
Organized by the activist group DOŚĆ Milczenia ( Enough Silence ) , the gathering turned religious symbolism against the church .
Protesters ripped up chrysanthemums , funerary flowers , throwing the petals on three child-size wooden coffins surrounded by a sea of votive candles in allusion to traditional Polish Day of the Dead rituals .
One by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ microphone to speak for perceived victims of the church : for women whose lives have been lost in botched illegal abortions , for children sexually abused by priests , for LGBT teenagers driven to suicide .
Police in riot gear separated the crowd from a group of male counterprotesters loudly intoning Catholic prayers .
At one point , in response to the counterprotesters , the main crowd chanted , “ Jesus Christ stands with us.
” Through her megaphone , Kartarzyna Wojtowicz , a lead organizer , urged the crowd , “ Throw @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re the evil ones , not us.
” While church leaders may be caught off guard by the intense anger , their alliance with PiS ’ s right-wing agenda has been far from subtle .
Marek Jedraszewski , the current archbishop of Krakow , recently expressed disbelief at the “ aggression unknown so far in Poland , when the sanctity of churches , of sacred places is being violated.
” Yet just last year , he labeled the gay rights movement a “ rainbow plague ” that would inflect Poland much like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In an announcement unfortunately timed for the embattled priests , last week the Vatican released the long-awaited McCarick Report implicating Pope John Paul II—Poland ’ s heretofore unimpeachable modern saint—in the cloud of sexual-abuse scandals hanging over the Catholic Church .
Using tools like Facebook and Instagram Live , Małgorzata Halber , a leftist writer and activist , has been reporting on protests taking place outside of the media spotlight in dozens of smaller cities deep in PiS-voting regions .
When I spoke with her via Zoom , she expressed hope that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ church signaled a greater realignment away from the conservative consensus that has dominated Polish politics since the fall of Communism .
“ No one in those conservative places ever had any power before to criticize the church , ” she explained .
“ Even in 2016 , when women were marching against the proposed abortion restrictions , they were saying : ‘ Okay , we just want things as they were , ’ meaning the compromise ” —a 1993 deal between the church and Poland ’ s post-Communist leaders that enshrined the strict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ruling .
This time around , the movement demands far more .
Yet despite all the posturing , symbolism , and the invocations of “ war , ” many find it hard to imagine what new social “ compromise ” will take root .
Poland ’ s domestic fight is amplified by a European-level battle between Brussels and the self-proclaimed “ illiberal democracies ” of Central Europe .
Poland , together with Hungary , is threatening to veto the current European Union budget because of new enforcement mechanisms included to explicitly target the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law that allowed PiS to pack Poland ’ s Constitutional Tribunal in the first place .
The EU Council , meanwhile , launched a fact-finding mission last month against LGBT discrimination in Poland .
According to Halber , this bureaucratic tit-for-tat is a sideshow to the real work of building power in the streets—and then victory at the ballot box .
“ Revolution is a woman ” goes one of the popular chants .
And , so far , many women in Poland show no signs of letting up in their drive to @ @ @

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K rakow—“We go right to TVP Krakow! Truth instead of lies!” The updates in the secret Telegram chat kept pinging in. Our next protest target: the headquarters of TVP—the Polish state media corporation that since 2015 has been a mouthpiece of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. It was the second big action on a dreary night some two weeks after Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal placed a near-total ban on abortion. The first protest—an automobile and bicycle blockade—was already a success. A seemingly endless phalanx of honking cars and whooping cyclists snaked from the north to the south end of the Vistula River, snarling rush-hour traffic along a major thoroughfare.
The initial Strajk Kobiet (Women’s Strike) movement emerged in 2016 in response to proposed anti-abortion legislation that PiS later withdrew in the face of demonstrations. What the party’s hard-liners couldn’t achieve legislatively they’ve now won through the courts. Before the tribunal’s ruling, Poland already had one of Europe’s most restrictive laws regarding abortion, banning it except in cases of fetal defects, rape, incest, or threats to a mother’s health. Last year, terminations due to congenital defects accounted for 97 percent of the 1,110 legal abortions in Poland. Now, with the high court finding the first exception unconstitutional, legal abortions would drop to near zero.
Opinion polls before and after the new ruling have consistently found that a clear majority of Poles oppose further restrictions, with the court’s decision enshrining a minority opinion in a manner somewhat paralleling the fears of many American progressives about how Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment could threaten abortion access in the United States. Building on momentum from past fights, within a matter of days of the October 22 ruling, the decentralized Women’s Strike channeled simmering anger at the right-wing direction of Poland into mass demonstrations drawing hundreds of thousands of Poles into the streets in defiance of coronavirus restrictions.
The daily protests deploy cohesive, Internet-friendly organizing tactics and symbols: umbrellas and wire hangers jutting out of car windows in the blockades; banners with pink lightning bolts hanging from apartment windows; and minute-by-minute updates via encrypted messaging apps letting protesters know where not to be when the police show up. The Telegram group in Krakow is called Solidarność nasza bronią: “Solidarity is our weapon.” And much like the Solidarity movement strikes in the 1980s, the current Women’s Strike movement is clamoring to remake a divided Poland.
So far—during the current battle in an ongoing culture war—the protesters seem to be winning. On November 4, the government backtracked in the face of the unrest, delaying implementation of the controversial ruling. Yet the abortion issue is just the tip of the iceberg of discontent—a symbol for the wider rollback of rights and the rule of law under the Law and Justice government. Now, a month since the court ruling, my Telegram keeps pinging, and the daily protest actions churn on with a growing list of demands. Kasha, an undergraduate I meet at one of the protests, puts it bluntly: “It’s not only about the abortion ban at this point. It’s about overthrowing the government.” 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection 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 How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Facing demographic and cultural change, PiS and its conservative coalition partners have only eked out small majorities in the past few elections. As rhetoric heats up, each side trades blame and digs in, further polarizing the country in what feels like the sort of existential cultural battle currently wracking American politics. While many protest chants keep the focus on women’s rights—“I think, I feel, I decide”—the most prevalent mantra, screamed out of windows and spray-painted on walls, is simply “Jebać PiS”: Fuck PiS. Rather than calm tensions, party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski inflamed them in a fiery speech to parliament calling on supporters to “defend Poland, defend patriotism” and “defend Polish churches” against the atheistic mob: “This is the only way we can win this war.”
While Kaczynski’s bellicose language is hyperbolic, he does accurately pinpoint a defining feature of the current movement: its willingness to challenge the Catholic Church, long the third rail of Polish politics. Activists are actively targeting the powerful institution—from disrupting Sunday services to screaming in the face of a local priest (as seen in one viral video). While the church was instrumental in the fight against Communism in the 1980s, many now blame it for facilitating the country’s contemporary rightward drift. Current Issue View our current issue
A new encrypted message came though on my phone following the protest against the state media company: “We have had enough! The same people who celebrate the pseudo-tribunal’s verdict defended pedophiles for years, reaping financial benefits. Are you surprised? We aren’t!” This was accompanied by a Facebook event link for a vigil in remembrance of the “victims of church abuse.” An hour later, a somber crowd of several hundred people occupied the street outside the archbishop’s palace here. Organized by the activist group DOŚĆ Milczenia (Enough Silence), the gathering turned religious symbolism against the church. Protesters ripped up chrysanthemums, funerary flowers, throwing the petals on three child-size wooden coffins surrounded by a sea of votive candles in allusion to traditional Polish Day of the Dead rituals.
One by one, activists stepped up to the microphone to speak for perceived victims of the church: for women whose lives have been lost in botched illegal abortions, for children sexually abused by priests, for LGBT teenagers driven to suicide. Police in riot gear separated the crowd from a group of male counterprotesters loudly intoning Catholic prayers. At one point, in response to the counterprotesters, the main crowd chanted, “Jesus Christ stands with us.” Through her megaphone, Kartarzyna Wojtowicz, a lead organizer, urged the crowd, “Throw flowers, not stones. Because they’re the evil ones, not us.”
While church leaders may be caught off guard by the intense anger, their alliance with PiS’s right-wing agenda has been far from subtle. Marek Jedraszewski, the current archbishop of Krakow, recently expressed disbelief at the “aggression unknown so far in Poland, when the sanctity of churches, of sacred places is being violated.” Yet just last year, he labeled the gay rights movement a “rainbow plague” that would inflect Poland much like the “red plague” of communism. In an announcement unfortunately timed for the embattled priests, last week the Vatican released the long-awaited McCarick Report implicating Pope John Paul II—Poland’s heretofore unimpeachable modern saint—in the cloud of sexual-abuse scandals hanging over the Catholic Church.
Using tools like Facebook and Instagram Live, Małgorzata Halber, a leftist writer and activist, has been reporting on protests taking place outside of the media spotlight in dozens of smaller cities deep in PiS-voting regions. When I spoke with her via Zoom, she expressed hope that the marked shift in tone towards the church signaled a greater realignment away from the conservative consensus that has dominated Polish politics since the fall of Communism. “No one in those conservative places ever had any power before to criticize the church,” she explained. “Even in 2016, when women were marching against the proposed abortion restrictions, they were saying: ‘Okay, we just want things as they were,’ meaning the compromise”—a 1993 deal between the church and Poland’s post-Communist leaders that enshrined the strict abortion laws in place before the recent ruling. This time around, the movement demands far more.
Yet with all the posturing, symbolism, and the invocations of “war,” many find it hard to imagine what new social “compromise” will take root. Poland’s domestic fight is amplified by a European-level battle between Brussels and the self-proclaimed “illiberal democracies” of Central Europe. Poland, together with Hungary, is threatening to veto the current European Union budget because of new enforcement mechanisms included to explicitly target the type of erosion of the rule of law that allowed PiS to pack Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal in the first place. The EU Council, meanwhile, launched a fact-finding mission last month against LGBT discrimination in Poland.
According to Halber, this bureaucratic tit-for-tat is a sideshow to the real work of building power in the streets—and then victory at the ballot box. “Revolution is a woman” goes one of the popular chants. And, so far, many women in Poland show no signs of letting up in their drive to prove it.