So much has changed in our nation’s Capital since my last Letter from D.C. That time of hope turned bleak, and is hopeful once again. It brings forth many questions for me about where the United States of America is as a country, and where my people, Black people, are in this time of unrest, anger, trauma and a true uprising against systemic racism and police brutality. Since May 29, people have gathered in front of the White House to demand justice for George Floyd, the unarmed Black man murdered by Minneapolis police, and to elevate a simple truth: Black Lives Matter. Our current President is either incapable or unwilling to hear this. So along with thousands of People’s Action members all across the country, I will join the Movement For Black Lives’ SIX NINETEEN nationwide mobilization this Friday, June nineteenth. Juneteenth is a sacred day for African-Americans/Blacks, as it commemorates the date in 1865 when news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached Texas, the last state in the defeated Confederacy. There will be SIX NINETEEN gatherings on Friday and throughout the weekend in D.C., in local communities all across the country, and online: so wherever and whoever you are, you can participate. We hope you will join us! We will celebrate, and we will claim our freedom. I hope to see you there. Because, as Malcom X reminds us, “Nobody can give you freedom… you take it.”
Workers throughout Alabama are reaching out to me to sound an alarm on what they are seeing inside meatpacking plants.There are dangerous sanitary and environmental conditions affecting major meat suppliers in Alabama, many of which were a problem long before the COVID-19 pandemic. These plants provide the perfect environment for transmission of highly contagious viruses. The environment is very cold, and workers just inches from each other can easily transmit the virus. At the Hometown Organizing Project, part of the People's Action national network of grassroots groups, we have spent the past weeks working in the rural areas of Alabama in support of the workers in these plants. We’ve learned a great deal about why plants are a perfect vector for this virus, and how hard it’s going to be to contain the virus while keeping these workers safe. This is a very real and present danger in many communities throughout the United States right now. There is great potential — and a near inevitability — for it to worsen in the coming days and weeks.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a spotlight on disturbing injustices in our food system—reaffirming the need for systemic change. Slaughterhouses continue to lead the U.S. viral spread. Indeed, workers often stand elbow-to-elbow, not six feet apart. Worse, the meat lobby continues to seek a government handout to prop up their fragile industry—and our nation’s political leaders seem eager to bail them out. On May 8, a group of U.S. representatives, including the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, sent a letter to President Donald Trump asking him to direct the precious Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) public assistance funds to the mass killing and disposal of farmed pigs. Just a few days later on May 15, House Democrats unveiled their latest stimulus proposal, the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (Heroes Act), which seeks funds for depopulating the backlog of animals in factory farms. “Depopulation” is an industry euphemism for particularly cruel mass killings. The industrial meat complex has created an oppressive and hopelessly fragile system that cannot withstand even the slightest disruption. The chicken industry, for example, breeds chickens to grow six times faster than they did a century ago to maximize profits. Now, this practice has rendered the system unable to cope with any reduction in slaughter rates—despite the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approving at least 15 new requests, in April alone, from plants to exceed the maximum regulatory line speeds to keep up—and chicken farmers want taxpayers to cover their losses.
The signs kept coming that Georgia’s June 9 primary would not go well. On the last day of early voting, the Friday before the election, Jon Ossoff, a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, waited for more than three hours to vote on Atlanta’s west side. It took Nikema Williams, the Georgia Democratic Party chair and a state senator from the city, more than five hours—on her wedding anniversary. ““If we view the primary election as a dry run for November, then Georgia gets an ‘F’ today,” said Helen Butler, executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda. "Georgia is a repeat offender when it comes to voter suppression efforts and actions that undermine voting rights. With political will, they can get this right. My hope is that we will use the lessons that we take from today to ensure that every voter can exercise their voice in the November general election in Georgia.”
As American deaths from COVID-19 crested 100,000, the New York Times reported U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos declared her intention to “force” public school districts to spend a large portion of federal funds they’re receiving through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act on private schools. Going beyond the traditional practice of education secretaries to issue guidance on how states should interpret federal law, she now wants to write the laws herself. DeVos is twisting the language of congressional law so that public schools with high percentages of students from low-income households get less assistance, and private school students get more. DeVos’s rewiring of the law could also lead to more federal aid to pay for “extra services” in private schools, such as hiring tutors. Should DeVos get her way, the impact will be devastating on struggling school districts.
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