Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
May 30, 2021
Hello All – Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. In a sense, this anniversary was a Memorial Day for our war at home. It has been a long war, from 1619 through the Civil War and Reconstruction, and then through the Second Reconstruction of the 1960s and the civil rights movement. Throughout what is now five centuries, the war has been shaped by rising and falling patterns of White Supremacy and Black Resistance.
The anniversary of Floyd's murder was to be the deadline for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. This legislation has passed the House of Representatives, but is stalled in the Senate, where the issue of "qualified immunity" – a legal doctrine that shields police from being held responsible for reckless violence - divides Republicans from Democrats.The importance of "qualified immunity," of course, goes beyond legal technicalities, and makes manifest the front-burner role of the police in maintaining the status quo of white supremacy.
Since Floyd's murder, more than 1,000 people – about three a day – have been killed by police, an average that has been sustained for years. Since the beginning of 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive, some 17,000 people have been killed by guns (more than half being suicides), and there have been 237 "mass shootings" in five months. Little has changed.
Today's New York Times reports a pandemic "surge" of gun buying, with more than one million sales each week. More than one-third of American households now own a gun. While there are many reasons why people might be guns, one can't help but think that the fear of social breakdown, perhaps overlaid with the fear of race war, is a contributor to this trend.
It is in this context, I think, that the insights of the "defund the police" movement are so important. Efforts to address traffic violations or mental health crises without a posse of armed responders represent a step in the right direction. Ending "qualified immunity" will also send a message to police forces – and perhaps to individual officers as well – that the police do not have a license to kill. And more broadly, the demand that Black Lives Matter – the wallpaper of the year of struggle since the murder of George Floyd – must be maintained in the continuing struggle.
The state of policing one year after George Floyd's murder
(Video) George Floyd's Murder Was "Clarion Call" to Defund Police. What's Changed in Year Since His Death?
From Democracy Now! [May 25, 2021]
---- George Floyd's murder on May 25, 2020, sparked a global uprising against systemic racism and police brutality and put the spotlight on decades-long movements dedicated to abolition and criminal justice reform. Memorial events and marches are celebrating George Floyd's life and commemorate the first anniversary of his murder, and negotiations continue in Congress over legislation that bears his name, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. [See the Program] Also useful from Democracy Now! this week was "America on Fire": Historian Elizabeth Hinton on George Floyd, Policing & Black Rebellion" [May 26, 2021] [Link].
Also useful/interesting – "Congress Misses Symbolic Deadline for Police Reform" by Akela Lacy, The Intercept [May 25, 2021] [Link] and "Campaigns to Defund Police Have Seen Major Wins" by Asha Ransby-Sporn, Truthout [May 25, 2021] [Link].
Things to Do/How to Help
Please help CFOW in our campaign to support drone whistleblower Daniel Hale, who faces up to 10 years in prison for giving information about the USA drone assassination program to The Intercept. His act of conscience is similar to and of equal import to the action of Edward Snowden when he informed the world about the USA surveillance programs. Information about Daniel's case and details about how he can be supported can be found on his website, https://standwithdanielhale.org/. (Right now, the main "ask" is to write some letters.) A helpful and illuminating statement from a member of Daniel's legal defense team can be heard on a recent webinar beginning at 38:48. For background on the alarming developments in weaponized and surveillance drones, go to www.bankillerdrones.org.
Although the rate of incarceration in NY State prisons has been dropping, recently released data from the Vera Institute of Justice makes it clear that the legacy of racism remains with us. Specifically, of those who were convicted in the Westchester and are now serving sentences in New York State prisons:
· 90.6% (724 out of 799 total) are people of color
· 89.8% (389 out of 433 total) of those serving indeterminate sentences are people of color
· 80.5% (107 out of 133 total) of incarcerated people aged 55 or older are people of color
· 88.6% (62 out of 70 total) of people serving life sentences without the possibility of parole are people of color
CFOW is working with the NYS group Release Aging People in Prison to provide pathways for parole for older prisoners who have served 15+ years of their sentence. One bill pending in Albany is "Elder Parole" (A3475a). Rivertowns Assemblyman Tom Abinanti has yet to give his support to this legislation. Please call his office in Albany (518-455-5753) or in Tarrytown (914-631-1605) and say you would like the Assemblyman to support Elder Parole. And do it soon! The legislative sessions ends in two weeks.
The USA is on a path to put more than $1 trillion into a new generation of nuclear weapons that would put the world (and us) in greater danger of terminal disaster. On Tuesday, June 1st (8 pm) Code Pink will have a user-friendly webinar about what's going on and some steps that we can take to oppose this. For more information and to register for the Zoom, go here.
Finally, if you would like to make a financial contribution to help Palestinians, congresswoman Rashida Tlaib's website recommends the direct-aid organization Baitulmall and the Institute for Middle East Understanding. Learn more and make a donation here. For a more activist support group, check out Grassroots International.
Some Items of Interest
For those who missed it, the front page of Friday's New York Times was dominated by a photo gallery of pictures of the 65 children killed in the recent war in Israel/Palestine. All but two of them were Palestinian. The website Mondoweiss called this an "extraordinary moment" …"The accompanying report is almost impossible to look at, it is the face of innocence, beauty, hope, all defiled." The pictures were also published in the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz; read Gideon Levy's comments here.
More than two months ago progressive Democrats queried President Biden about just what he meant in stating that the USA would no longer support Saudi Arabia's "offensive actions" in the war in Yemen. On Wednesday they finally received a reply to their letter that, according to this article from The Intercept, "sidesteps the question — and provides almost none of the other details members sought." We must assume that, in Yemen, Biden is doing things that he does want us to know about. It's time for Congress to act!
The genocide underway in Tigray, the northern part of Ethiopia, has killed thousands of people and made two million people refugees. I think I speak for the 99 percent in saying we know nothing about what is going on there. Westchester's Andom Ghebreghiorgis, whose family came to the USA from neighboring Eritrea (also a partner in the genocide), spoke about the Tigray crisis on a recent edition (video) of the Breakfast Club.
Finally, today is the birthday of Randolph Bourne, a brave opponent of the First World War who died too young in the influenza epidemic of 1918. In the last month of his life, Bourne wrote his greatest essay, "War is the Health of the State." In wartime, he wrote, "the citizen throws off his contempt and indifference to Government, identifies himself with its purposes, revives all his military memories and symbols, and the State once more walks, an August presence, through the imaginations of men." Read more about him here.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Taking the Covid Crisis into account, we meet (with safe distancing) for a protest/rally on Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil takes place every Monday from 5:30 to 6 pm, in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. In this time of coronavirus, we are meeting by Zoom conference; if you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, Tuesday and Thursday at noon and/or Sunday at 7 pm., please send a return email. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. If you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
Last week Bob Dylan turned 80. How is this possible? For this week's Rewards, here of some Dylan songs/performances from back in the day, when he (and I) were forever young: "Blowing in the Wind"; "Don't Think Twice"; and "Hard Rain." Happy birthday, Bob Dylan.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW WEEKLY READER
The Way of the Conscientious Objector
---- It was a book of Buddhist parables that put Michael Rasmussen over the edge. In March 2017, Mr. Rasmussen was living near a naval base in Japan, six years into training as a Marine pilot, reading and experimenting with meditation. … Some 2.7 million American service members have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of our "forever wars" in 2001. Tens of thousands have gone AWOL. Countless others have finished out their service disenchanted and depressed, or turned to drugs and alcohol to ease re-entry into a society that would rather ignore war's moral injuries, often losing their benefits in the process. After seeing the horrors of war and the contradictions of American foreign policy up close, many enlisted men and women are compelled to re-examine the ideals that first drew them to military service. Very few soldiers, however, take the path that Mr. Rasmussen eventually did. [Read More]
The Climate Crisis
Biden's Fossil Fuel Moves Clash With Pledges on Climate Change
May 28, 2021]
---- Despite President Biden's pledge to aggressively cut the pollution from fossil fuels that is driving climate change, his administration has quietly taken actions this month that will guarantee the drilling and burning of oil and gas for decades to come. … On Wednesday, the Biden administration defended in federal court the Willow project, a huge oil drilling operation proposed on Alaska's North Slope that was approved by the Trump administration and is being fought by environmentalists. Weeks earlier, it backed former President Donald J. Trump's decision to grant oil and gas leases on federal land in Wyoming. Also this month, it declined to act when it had an opportunity to stop crude oil from continuing to flow through the bitterly contested, 2,700-mile Dakota Access pipeline, which lacks a federal permit. The three decisions suggest the jagged road that Mr. Biden is following as he tries to balance his climate agenda against practical and political pressures. [Read More] But the People's Fightback made some progress this week; read "Big Oil Loses Big in a Day of Game-Changing Climate News" by Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation [May 27, 2021] [Link].
Israel/Palestine
The Myth of Coexistence in Israel
May 25, 2021]
[FB - Ms. Buttu is a lawyer, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Palestinian citizen of Israel.]
---- The truth is that the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the Jewish majority of the country have never coexisted. We Palestinians living in Israel "sub-exist," living under a system of discrimination and racism with laws that enshrine our second-class status and with policies that ensure we are never equals. This is not by accident but by design. The violence against Palestinians in Israel, with the backing of the Israeli state, that we witnessed in the past few weeks was only to be expected. Palestinian citizens make up about 20 percent of Israel's population. We are those who survived the "nakba," the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, when more than 75 percent of the Palestinian population was expelled from their homes to make way for Jewish immigrants during the founding of Israel. [Read More]
Our History
(Video) U.S. Marks 100th Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre, When White Mob Destroyed "Black Wall Street"
From Democracy Now! [May 28, 2021]
---- Memorial Day marks the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, one of the deadliest episodes of racial violence in U.S. history, when the thriving African American neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma — known as "Black Wall Street" — was burned to the ground by a white mob. An estimated 300 African Americans were killed and over 1,000 injured. Whites in Tulsa actively suppressed the truth, and African Americans were intimidated into silence. But efforts to restore the horrific event to its rightful place in U.S. history are having an impact. Survivors testified last week before Congress, calling for reparations. President Biden is set to visit Tulsa on Tuesday. [See the Program] Also interesting are the 3-D models of "What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed," from the New York Times [May 24, 2021] [Link].
