Speakeasy
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In regards to the recent election when voters approved marriage equality measures in Maryland, Washington state, and Maine and defeated an anti-marriage equality constitutional amendment in Minnesota, the one thing that will not be talked about but needs to be discussed is the utter failure of the National Organization for Marriage's attempt to play the black and gay communities against each other.
We've witnessed the organization garnering much success with this tactic in the past, most recently in North Carolina. However on election day, the tactic failed miserably. The following are three reasons why NOM's strategy failed:
1. The wedge strategy becomes public - Ironically enough, the seeds of yesterday's embarrassment were sowed in March of this year when lgbt bloggers (myself included) published a secret memo from the National Organization of Marriage detailing how the organization plotted to specifically divide the gay and black communities by seeking out black spokespeople to publicly speak out against marriage equality in hopes of using these spokespeople as targets for the ire of gays:
The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks - two key democratic constituencies. We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; to develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; and to provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party.
Marriage equality supporters long suspected that the partnership between NOM and the black leaders who supported their cause was less noble than suspected (at least on NOM's part) and this memo confirmed it. While the revelation was too late to save NC from falling to an anti-marriage equality vote, the constant mention of this memo in later articles and interviews every time NOM trotted out a black leader to speak against marriage equality could have proved ultimately devastating because it was a constant reminder to the African-American community that NOM was using them.
2. NOM overestimated its power - Though the National Organization for Marriage never publicly declared it to be so, the organization had a lot to do with the plan of asking African-Americans to withhold their votes. While the front organization for this plot was the Coalition of African-American Pastors, it wasn't too difficult to discover that the leader of CAAP, Bill Owens, was NOM's religious liasion and that he was on salary with NOM. It was a plot that was doomed to failure from the start and it gave an indication of what NOM truly thought about the black community and the civil rights movement. NOM seems to have thought that they could trot out several black pastors who would tell African-Americans what to do and that the community would follow lockstep. One of the biggest misconceptions about black people is that we are ruled by what pastors say. While we see pastors as spiritual advisors, we are not monolithic. And we are also not stupid to note simple irony. Or more specifically, allow me to reveal a few questions that ran through the mind of black Americans - What's more insulting to the legacy of the civil rights movement? Marriage equality or refusing to vote even though a hallmark of the civil rights movement was to receive the right to vote in the first place? What's more of an insult to Fannie Lou Hamer, Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner and the thousands of people beaten or killed for American-Americans to be able to vote? Marriage equality or refusing to vote at all. These were two questions which NOM conveniently did not address, but trust me when I say that they ran through the minds of millions of African-Americans.
3. The Obama factor - Let's be honest. There was no way in the world that black people were going to miss this election. People can gripe about black people voting for Obama simply because he is black but you know what? Big deal. So what. That was only a small portion of it. The fact of the matter is that Obama is a very popular person in the black community. He has passed legislation that many African-Americans considered important. In my church, when the Supreme Court declared Obamacare to be legal, several folks called that decision an "act of God." He has been personalized as a brother, son, or comrade by millions of African-Americans, which means many African-Americans took what they felt disrespect given to him very personally. When AZ governor Jan Brewer had that argument with him on the tarmac, all I heard in my community, particularly from old black women, was how dare she stick her finger in his face. To us, Obama became the personification of the trials and tribulations that African-Americans face in this country, i.e. no matter how intelligent we are or how successful we become, there will be always folks who will look at us as if we are second-class citizens and will treat us accordingly. Every time Fox News came out with something ugly about Obama or the tea party marched with their signs, it sent a message to black folks; messages that while we didn't make any noise about, we quietly noted. And we didn't forget. To those not supporting marriage equality, standing against it played second fiddle to supporting "our president." And when he announced his support of marriage equality, it wasn't a strong enough factor for him to lose support in the black community. We either rationalized his support away or began to take a second look at the issue. In other words, Obama is so strong of a hero in the black community, NOM's plans to make him a pariah was doomed from the start.
Written by Kirsten Moore for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
Last week's announcement from the esteemed American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), suggesting it's time to make oral contraceptives accessible without a prescription, is the perfect way to re-ignite and re-engage public conversation about making emergency contraception (EC) available without restriction. We cannot afford another decade of political delays when it comes to common sense measures to improve women's health.
Doctors are taking the lead by acknowledging they've become unnecessary obstacles between women and their birth control. That is an example politicians need to follow. Medical science, not political ideology, should govern which products are safe and effective. It is clear women of all reproductive ages will be better off when emergency contraception is easily accessible and in their hands.
One year ago next week the Food and Drug Administration was poised to announce that EC had been approved for on-the-shelf access, such that it could appear at your local pharmacy between condoms and pregnancy test kits. But Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stepped in at the last minute and ruled that Plan B One-Step and its generic equivalent must remain behind-the-counter. That decision led to confusion and unnecessary obstacles for women, teens, and couples at the very moment clarity was needed most.
Check out this nauseating tweet from the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins:
What Perkins is referring to is the Ugandan anti-gay bill which would give persecute people in that country simply for being gay. This awful bill may pass the Ugandan Parliament very soon. When it initially introduced, the bill contained a provision for the death penalty. According to Think Progress:
Many news outlets — notably the BBC, among others — reported last week that lawmakers had dropped the death penalty provision, but without confirmation of a language change, it’s impossible to conclude whether this is another bait-and-switch that basically isn’t true.
According to the BBC, “substantial amendments” were made, but MP Medard Segona could provide no further details. It is just such a proposed amendment that has repeatedly caused confusion about the fate of the death penalty in the bill, replacing the word “death” with a reference to a preexisting Penal Code Act that does allow for the death penalty. Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda; the sole purpose of this bill is to enhance the extent of the punishment and number of ways offenses can be prosecuted. It is irresponsible to suggest that the death penalty has been removed without a thorough investigation of the bill’s new language.
Think Progress also points out that the site Box Turtle Bulletin "dissected the bill" and found some alarming facts, including:
- Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
- Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
- Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
- Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
- Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
- Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
- Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
- Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
But apparently Perkins and FRC doesn't see this as persecution. That's bad enough.
However, we get into seriously ugly territory when we see the following on FRC's homepage:
If, while on FRC's homepage, you clicked on that graphic, you would be taken to a page entitled The Cry of the Martyrs: The Threat to Religious Liberty Around the World.
The page includes a webcast and information and links regarding the worldwide persecution of Christians worldwide. One link, Voice of the Martyrs, includes stories of Christians being persecuted in other countries. The page is also called A Global Perspective on the Persecution of God's Children.
That confuses me. I thought we were all God's children.
Let me be clear. No one should be attacked or persecuted because of their religious beliefs. And by that same token, no one should be attacked or persecuted because of their sexual orientation.
Hate is hate and violence fueled by that hate is just as wrong when it is aimed at a Christian, a gay or lesbian, or a gay or lesbian Christian.
There is no difference between the two. And any true Christian person or organization would recognize this.
So perhaps Perkins and FRC would be best advised to hush up before they drown out the voices of the true Christians.
Hypocrisy on its own is bad enough. Brazen hypocrisy, particularly on the part of people calling themselves Christians, leaves an especially pungent stench.
The Walking Dead TV series exists in a universe apart and separate from the comic book. Season Three's storyline with The Governor has reinforced this fact. However, both of these stories are a version of "The Walking Dead." As such, they provide an example of what Culture Studies types call "intertextuality." Here, the comic book and TV series reference each other, while also signaling to other examples of storytelling in the zombie genre.
[For example, the TV series character named "Milton" is a clear allusion to Dr. Logan's character in George Romero's classic film Day of the Dead and his "pet" zombie Bub.]
As I wrote about here, The Walking Dead TV series has little to no interest in developing its African-American characters. The graphic novel has several black male characters who are integral to the story, and are not sideshow stand-ins that are included because of a sense of multicultural political correct noblesse oblige. By contrast, the AMC series has (the now dead) "T-Dog"--a character that was a glorified black man servant chauffeur to the white characters, a black gollum mute with few lines, who lived only to serve and protect the other survivors.
Michonne, a fan favorite, and a richly developed, full, interesting, and challenging character in the graphic novel, was first introduced as a black caretaker and best friend/magical negro to Andrea on the TV series.
There, this iconic character is a black pit bull warrior, unfeeling, laconic, and damaged. Michonne, has a few more lines of dialogue than T-Dog; but she is dangerously close to being a two-dimensional figure whose only plot purpose is only to serve as a weapon to be unhinged at the command of Rick, the leader of the intrepid group of zombie apocalypse survivors.
In future episodes, I would suggest that it will be even more clear that Michonne is only a slightly more under control version of the X-Men's Wolverine for Rick. Wolverine was Weapon X; Michonne is a Samurai sword wielding loyal negress.
Glenn is the Asian fix it man, former pizza delivery man, and loyal friend of the white men in the party. Glenn is a post apocalyptic version of the model minority myth. Glenn is not a full "Hop Sing"; however, he is very close to that archetype.
To point. For two seasons, he remains "feminized"--"sneaky, evasive, and stealthy"--until being forced into "manhood" by Merle's interrogation in the most recent episode "When the Dead Come Knocking." Glenn's loyalty to Rick, and the system of white male patriarchal authority he embodies in the show, was symbolically "rewarded" by the former's sexual union with Maggie, a white woman.
In The Walking Dead universe, upward racial mobility would seem to have its "perks."
The Walking Dead TV series is ultimately a story about how white male authority is enduring in a world populated by the undead. As a premise, this is a fine, interesting, and potentially fascinating framework for genre storytelling (I wonder how many viewers understand that this is the not so subtle subtext of the series?).
As further proof of the continuing dominance of white masculinity in a world where the dead now walk the Earth, this season's villain has also surrendered to the white racial frame, where The Governor, who was originally Hispanic in the graphic novel, has been rewritten as a white character.
I can accept that The Walking Dead TV series occupies its own universe and narrative space. I can also accept that people of color are peripheral in this universe, and as such, the roles played by them will be different than the vision offered by the graphic novel. But, I am less forgiving of how a character such as Michonne has been robbed of her power and complexity. My claim is a challenging and provocative one: if you love a character and respect them, then you, the author/creator, must at times let bad things happen to your beloved creation.
Suffering and loss are often part of an iconic character's arc and (eventual) greatness. To allow these moments is to respect both the character and the reader.
Michonne, who was brutally raped by The Governor in The Walking Dead comic book series, has to suffer in order to have her revenge and triumph over him. Michonne is made by pain; it tempers and refines her like an alloy or fine blade of steel.
If you remove her personal challenges, tragedies, and triumphs, you remove Michonne's power in The Walking Dead. This is disrespectful to the character. Considering that Michonne is one of the most compelling characters in any recent comic book, and who also happens to be a person of color (a group marginalized in graphic novels), the insult is very much magnified.
The centuries of sexual exploitation, rape, and violence suffered by black women in the United States as human chattel, also as free people, and later as full citizens, are socially and politically combustible elements in our public discourse. This history and present are not be treated lightly. The racialized and gendered body--to be both female and black--occupies a very potent, and in many ways precarious location in the body politic.
I am unsure if the writers of The Walking Dead TV series are either cowards, or if they are just afraid of controversy. Perhaps, they are both? The White Gaze can do wrong even as it explains itself by an appeal to "kindness."
Michonne has to suffer at the hands of The Governor so that she can evolve and grow into an even more essential character who is (at least) as important and capable a leader as Rick. Michonne's role is doubly important because Tyrese, who in The Walking Dead comic book is every bit the leader and masculine authority figure as Rick (if not more so), is not present in the story.
[This will finally be corrected. Tyrese, has been cast. He will be portrayed by Chad Coleman, who played Cutty on The Wire, in the next episode.]
There is a deep fear of black justice and righteous revenge in America's collective subconscious. Is Michonne's character hamstrung and neutered by this anxiety? Or alternatively, are the writers, directors, and producers of The Walking Dead TV series (where at least one of them is African-American) afraid that characters such as Michonne and Tyrese will discourage white viewership? Are white audiences really that fickle? Are strong and dignified black characters that off putting?
In all, The Walking Dead TV series is operating under a logic that I am unable to fully comprehend.
A white female character such as Maggie can be threatened with rape, and quite likely allowed her revenge. Michonne, a black female character, in a society which systematically devalues people of color, and black women in particular, is not raped by The Governor.
Is this progress? Political correctness run amok? Lazy writing? Is the suffering of a white female character noteworthy, and the rape and abuse of a black female character anticlimactic and uninteresting? Are matters really that (ironically) retrograde?
Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker is set to take on a food stamp challenge between Dec.4-11. Today, he confirmed his participation on Twitter and promised to document his experience:
Booker proposed the challenge after getting into a Twitter discussion with a user named TwitWit, who describes herself on Twitter as a “Daughter of the American Revolution, fighting against any and all forms of socialism/communism.. Army Veteran, Army Daughter, Army Wife.”
At first, Booker had tweeted a Greek proverb:
An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.
TwitWit accused Booker of wanting to redistribute wealth, and then the two eventually began talking about the government’s role in funding school breakfast and lunch programs. TwitWit stated that nutrition is not the responsibility of the government.
Booker responded:
We have a shared responsibility that kids go to school nutritionally ready 2 learn.
Eventually the conversation turned to food stamps when TwitWit wrote:
why is there a family today that is "too poor to afford breakfast"? are they not already receiving food stamps?
That’s when Booker followed up with the challenge:
Lets you and I try to live on food stamps in New Jersey (high cost of living) and feed a family for a week or month. U game?
TwitWit agreed to the challenge.
In New Jersey, according the 2011 fiscal year, the average monthly food stamp benefit was $133.26 a person. Meaning, those taking the challenge will have to live on about $4 dollars a day.
According to the Associated Press, Booker told reporters, "This will not be a gimmick or a stunt," but provides an opportunity "for us to grow in compassion and understanding" and dispel stereotypes. A few months ago, a Phoenix Mayor also tried to live on a food stamp budget and noted that he was “tired” and it was “hard to focus.”
The AP also landed an interview with TwitWit, who is a 39-year-old woman from North Carolina and who said she does not oppose food stamps, but thinks that the more taxpayer money designated to the food stamp program, the more people will need them.
She told the AP, “There is going to be a lot more of us needing those food stamps if it doesn't stop.”
Ironically, she seemed in need of some financial relief as well, stating that her family is “Six months away from being in debt and on welfare ourselves."
She added, "Most of us are in the same boat. … Some of us just aren't getting the assistance."
Meanwhile, FOX News has reported on Booker’s challenge with an extreme insensitivity toward food stamp recipients.
Media Matters reported that FOX pundit Andrea Tantaros disgustingly said she “would ‘look fabulous’ if she were forced to on a food stamp diet.”
Watch the video here:
FoxNews also published an ignorant piece titled “Food stamp menu ideas for Newark Mayor Cory Booker,” in which they randomly list off burritos, casseroles and soup as cheap and easy meals. They even suggest French Toast — because “being on food stamps doesn’t mean denying yourself a treat.”
They continue:
French toast is best made with stale bread, which is always a bargain at the store.
Hopefully, Booker’s challenge can begin to chip away at the classism and stereotypes that often come along with food stamps. Perhaps then, people like TwitWit can see that government assistance does not rid people of struggle. Instead, assistance is so meager that those who were born into poverty find it difficult to ever get out. And nobody, not even TwitWit, who is struggling herself, should be embarrassed about receiving aid. Instead they should fight for more — until hopefully we don’t live in a society where people can’t afford food.
Written by Sheila Bapat for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
Many view the 2012 election as a mandate on the Democrats' vision for the poor and middle class. Tammy Baldwin, for example, clearly won her Senate seat because she campaigned on two words: middle class. Elizabeth Warren, elected in Massachusetts, has been one of the most forceful advocates for economic justice. And of course, President Obama's re-election is also validation of his first four years.
Women and non-white voters played a critical role in these victories, but their interests may not be well-served if Democrats do not unite and flex their muscle during the looming "fiscal cliff" negotiations to protect these coalitions. The fiscal cliff is a concocted concept, or at least an exaggerated one, referring to the effective end-date of put in place by the 2011 Budget Control Act. This law requires an end to Bush era tax cuts, Obama's payroll tax cuts, and particularly troubling as the National Women's Law Center points out, extended unemployment benefits, along with sequestration (automatic, across-the-board cuts to a number of federal programs). Negotiations on what these cuts will actually look like are set to begin in earnest this week.
The terms of the Budget Control Act could raise a good amount of revenue, but at what cost? For many of the nation's women and people of color, the possibility of deep cuts to the unemployment provision and other social programs is particularly disturbing. As of October 2012, the unemployment rate is holding steady at 7.9 percent, with 7.2 percent women unemployed, and a staggering 10 percent of Hispanic Americans and 14.3 percent of African Americans unemployed. It's clear that women and people of color have had a tougher time regaining their footing in the economy -- and cuts to the unemployment extension could exacerbate this.
If no agreement is reached, the emergency unemployment compensation program -- costing about $26 billion -- would be automatically cut along with a number of other programs.
The holiday season is upon us, and one thing that means for us at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is that we'll be getting reports of alleged improper promotions of religion. We'll check out these reports, and, as always, we'll find some cases where there are legitimate issues that need to be addressed and others where no lines are being crossed. But that's not what this post is about. This is about something that started out as a routine look at a possible holiday-related military religious issue, but ended up leading one of MRFF's research volunteers to stumble upon one of the worst cases of hypocrisy from a self-proclaimed "Christ-centric" company that I've ever seen.
A little background:
It's a pretty common practice in the military for officers and senior NCOs to do things during the holiday season to help those on their bases who are struggling financially -- typically the young enlisted service members who have families to support. Many bases set up "angel trees," for example, where people can take a tag off the tree with the name of a child to buy a gift for. (Incidentally, MRFF gets a lot of emails about these "angel trees" every year, but we've never once found any of them being used to inappropriately promote religion.)
One such holiday program is at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, where the First Sergeant's Council runs a Thanksgiving basket program, which this year will provide 300 young airmen with families with turkeys and everything else for their Thanksgiving dinners. A story about this Thanksgiving basket program on the base's website raised a red flag, not because of what the First Sergeant's Council is doing, but because of who this year's turkeys are being donated by -- a Christian ministry called FLOCK, which stands for "Faithful Love Offering for Christ's Kingdom."
There's nothing wrong, of course, with a religious organization donating things for our troops, and there are many good organizations out there that do this out of nothing but genuine generosity and support for the troops. There are others, however, that have ulterior motives, and that's where MRFF steps in. We check to make sure that donations like this don't come with any evangelical strings attached, as they unfortunately sometimes do.
So, Mark, a research volunteer for MRFF, began our routine procedure of checking out this turkey-donating ministry to see if they have a track record of using their donations as opportunities to proselytize. As long as Mark didn't find any indication that the airmen at Whiteman Air Force Base were going to be getting turkeys that were accompanied by a note saying "This turkey brought to you by your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" or something like that, that would have been the end of it. And Mark's quick checking-out of this FLOCK ministry actually was the end of it as far as it being a typical MRFF issue goes, but that was only because what he found out about this ministry was much worse than anything he expected. At this point Mark emailed MRFF president Mikey Weinstein and myself to let us know what he had found.
The article on the Whiteman Air Force Base website had said that the FLOCK ministry was run by House of Raeford which is one of the country's largest poultry companies. It is also a very Christian company, with a CEO who started a ministry "dedicated to bringing youth and people of our nation to a personal salvation experience with Jesus Christ through music, testimony, and God’s word," chaplains at all of its facilities, and of course, its FLOCK ministry.
News releases on the company's website tout all the wonderful charitable things this nice Christian company does. Also touted is the company's unbelievable safety record, with press releases like the one from September 2012 announcing that one of its facilities had reached the milestone of "one million man hours without a lost time accident."
How is it that this company is able to receive awards for things like "OSHA recordable rates less than the industry average?" Well, as an investigation of this company by the Charlotte Observer uncovered, it's through the unconscionable way these nice Christians have found to get around having to report things like "lost time accidents." They simply force injured employees to keep working. If the injured employee returns to work the same day, it's not a lost time accident and the company doesn't have to report it.
We're not talking about minor injuries here. One of the cases uncovered by the Charlotte Observer was that of a woman whose arm got caught in a conveyor belt. Her arm was broken and part of one of her fingers was cut off. Now, an injury that serious would certainly put an employee out of work for a while, right? Well, not at House of Raeford. That would make it a "lost time accident" that would have to be reported as such. So, this injured woman was forced to return to work for the next shift. Since she didn't miss a complete shift, her broken arm and amputated finger didn't have to be reported as a "lost time accident." Problem solved.
From the Charlotte Observer's 2008 report on its investigation:
The company has compiled misleading injury reports and has defied regulators as it satisfies a growing appetite for America's most popular meat. And employees say the company has ignored, intimidated or fired workers who were hurt on the job.
House of Raeford officials say they follow the law and strive to protect workers.
But company and government records and interviews with more than 120 current and former employees show:
• House of Raeford's 800-worker plant in West Columbia, S.C., reported no musculoskeletal disorders over four years. Experts say that's inconceivable. MSDs, including carpal tunnel syndrome, are the most common work-related injuries afflicting poultry workers.
• Its Greenville, S.C., plant has boasted of a five-year safety streak with no lost-time accidents. But the plant kept that streak alive by bringing injured employees back to the factory hours after surgery.
• The company has broken the law by failing to record injuries on government safety logs, a top OSHA official says.
• At four of the company's largest Carolinas plants, company first-aid attendants and supervisors have dismissed some workers' requests to see a doctor -- even when they complained of debilitating pain.
Companies have a financial incentive to hide injuries. Ignoring them lowers costs associated with compensating injured workers for medical care and lost wages.
Also, the government rewards companies that report low injury rates by inspecting them less often. And regulators rarely check whether companies are reporting accurately.
But James Mabe, the manager of that 800-worker House of Raeford plant in West Columbia, S.C that reported no musculoskeletal disorders over four years, had an explanation for the apparent immunity of the company's employees from these injuries that are so common for everyone else in the industry -- Hispanics are good with knives! Seriously, this Mabe guy actually told the Observer: "Hispanics are very good with their hands and working with a knife. We've gotten less complaints," and "It's more like a natural movement for them." Yep, it's not because all those immigrants who make up so much of House of Raeford's workforce don't report injuries for fear of losing their jobs or getting deported -- it's that Hispanic people don't get injured because they're just naturally good with knives!
The article from Whiteman Air Force Base about the House of Raeford FLOCK ministry's donation for those Thanksgiving baskets says that when "the first sergeants started calling companies to get an estimate for 300 turkeys and Thanksgiving supplies, some were discouraged by the prices they were receiving - upwards of $13,000." So, what's $13,000 to House of Raeford? Well, that's only a little more than the $12,400 fine they paid last month for their latest violation of child labor laws, when they were caught having two teenagers operating an electric knife on a chicken processing line.
Federal and state labor laws prohibit anyone under 18 from working on a poultry processing line, another law that those nice Christians at House of Raeford don't seem to think applies to them. According to the Charlotte Observer, this was not the first time House of Raeford has been caught using underage workers. During a 2008 immigration raid of the company’s plants, federal officials found six juveniles working on the chicken line, including a 15-year-old who was working 10-hour shifts. During its investigation, the Observer was told by current and former workers that "the company frequently hired underage workers" and six supervisors said that "top managers allowed the hiring to secure cheap, compliant labor."
And then there's all the environmental law-breaking. In August 2012, House of Raeford was convicted of 10 counts of knowingly violating the Clean Water Act for sending contaminated wastewater to a municipal treatment plant in Raeford. According to the Department of Justice: "House of Raeford allowed plant employees to bypass the facility’s pretreatment system and send its untreated wastewater directly to the city of Raeford’s wastewater treatment plant, without notifying city officials. In addition, House of Raeford failed to prevent employees from sending thousands of gallons of wastewater into a pretreatment system that did not have the capacity to adequately treat the wastewater before it was discharged to the city plant. The untreated wastewater that was discharged directly to the city plant was contaminated with waste from processing operations, including blood, grease and body parts from slaughtered turkeys. A House of Raeford former employee admitted that the facility would continue to “kill turkeys” despite being warned that the unauthorized bypasses had an adverse impact on the city’s wastewater treatment plant."
According to a 2008 Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety hearing, "House of Raeford has repeatedly been cited by State and Federal occupational safety and health agencies: 130 serious safety violations since 2000, among the most of any U.S. poultry company." And it appears that the violations continue, as with this one from June 2011 where OSHA found that House of Raeford "did not furnish to each of his employees conditions of employment and a place of employment free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees, in that employees were exposed to extended exposure to anhydrous ammonia due to improperly maintained/fitted doors where the broken doors allowed emergency ventilation of the atmosphere in the engine rooms to be reduced."
But amazingly, in spite of having no regard for federal laws, House of Raeford has received nearly $100 million in government contracts from the Department of Agriculture from the Department of Agriculture from 2006 to 2012.
And now, of course, this "Christ-centric" bunch of law-breaking employee abusers is getting some good press from the Air Force because of those 300 turkeys their FLOCK ministry is donating.
Would that first sergeant at Whiteman Air Force Base still be "amazed how generous FLOCK was by providing free turkeys" if he knew how the workers who processed those turkeys are treated by the hypocrites who are supplying this "Faithful Love Offering for Christ's Kingdom"?
By Meera Subramanian
This article is cross-posted from The Revealer, a publication of The Center for Religion and Media at New York University
I am overly pragmatic. Each day seems so finite, and there is so much work to do. Big work, made out of endless little work. Schools to construct. Minds to make literate. Wells to dig and water to purify. Inoculations to give and hair to braid and food to feed growing bodies. So many streets to sweep and toilets to build.
Instead, it is time for aarti, the Hindu puja taking place this night, and every night, in hundreds of little temples like this one in Varanasi, India. Someone led me here to this place, tucked into the labyrinth of alleyways behind the Manakarnika Ghat, where bodies are burning. On the way, along the other ghats on the water’s edge, we passed a series of Ganga Aartis – floodlights! amplification! – that attract Indian and foreign tourists alike for the full pilgrimage experience. The masses were stacked on the steps that link city to water and packed into handmade wooden boats just offshore, cameras flashing.But the power went out moments after we passed and we found our way by flashlight to the temple building dimly lit with the inverter’s stored energy.
The Hindu priest is kind, allowing my camera and my curious eyes as I witness the rituals I have watched since I was young. Shiva is the focus here, the stone lingam – more breast than phallus – the centerpiece set in a square of silver embedded into the floor like a pious pit. The priest spends more time in careful preparation for the ritual than it will take to enact it, when three other priests join him and, together their hand bells thunder in unison in rhythm to their chants. As a child, the smell of flowers and fire and the hypnotic sound of the chants would transfix me. Now I can appreciate that this ritual incorporates the five elements into one seamless act. Always I have viscerally loved the moment when, at the end, I can place my cupped hands over the heat of the flame and bring them to my face, my eyes closed.
But I have grown old and I think too much. Now, each day is finite. Now, each and every thing of beauty has a cost. What did it take to bring this beauty here? I watch the meticulous preparations leading up to the aarti, and each object the priest touches whispers its past to me, a hidden history of labor diverted from other work that wouldn’t have been destined for fleeting flames. I think of the…
…seed that was sown that grew the plant that yielded the flower. The hands that plucked the flowers – orange marigold, pink rose, white jasmine, purple petunia, red carnation – and threaded each one onto a garland. The priest’s hands undoing the work as he places each blossom around the lingam. Someone mined the silver and mined the gold, and a boy with too-big jeans has been polishing the metals for an hour. It was likely a woman who gathered the fodder that fed the cow that made the milk that was churned into butter, who stoked the fire that transformed the butter into ghee. Perhaps a farmer in Punjab grew the cotton and a day laborer harvested the crop, which a man now twists into wicks for the oil lamps, fueled with the ghee. Did a child’s small fingers make the match that he strikes to make the flame? Who forged the bell that hangs overhead? Who harvested the sandalwood and ground it into the powder that made the paste daubed onto the lingam? Who grew the fruit set on the platter in offering? The priests took the time to learn the prayers, tongues wrapped around Sanskrit. The worshippers took the time to come to temple, winding through the footpath galis, between the cows and over the dung in the dark during a blackout so ordinary that a flashlight was already in hand. They reach up to ring the bell and bow their heads, calling to the gods. They bring sweets or a few rupee coins to leave on the priest’s rug, woven from wool that someone sheared from a sheep. When it is all done, the priest sweeps the air with tail hairs from a water buffalo, bundled together into a silver-handled broom.
I think too much. For the men who attend, and the few women who venture out in the night (most women come in for the daylight aartis), it was just a few minutes of their time, a few coins from their pocket as offering. A moment of respite and reverie, god-love and grace in a messy world. But multiply the moments. The bills and coins, stacked into a roll and folded deftly into the waistline folds of the priest’s dhoti. The temple visit, every day or even more than once, the minutes turned hours turned days of devotion. Imagine that energy harvested and turned to cleaning up and transforming a nation, for ridding the waterways of the waste that causes 1600 people to die each day in India from simply having the shits[1].
Others are thinking along the same lines. India’s former environment minister Jairam Ramesh caused a stir recently when he complained there were more temples than toilets in India. The Hindu right raised their hackles, blaming the government for their failed job of helping alleviate the fact that two-thirds of India’s citizens defecate in the open, and there are only so many temples, they said defensively, because Hindus have used their own resources to build them. Both sides have a point. The government’s Total Sanitation Campaign aims to have 125 million toilets across the country by 2017. Thirteen years into the effort, recent accounting shows that at least 35 million toilets seem to have already gone missing. I see an image of rolled coins, disappearing into cloth.
So the government can be blamed, but what of the private energy of this predominantly Hindu country? The founding fathers had a different vision. Gandhi had a simple but contained toiletwith a septic tank that led to the fields. He cleaned it himself, defying caste boundaries that relegated such work to the lowest in society. ”Our Indian toilets bring our civilization into discredit,” he wrote in 1925, of the open defecation that was nearly as common then as it is today. “They violate the rules of hygiene.” Gandhi, I think, would have wanted more toilets than temples.
My days in Varanasi came at the end of a three-month breakdown in sanitation because of a contract dispute between the city and the private waste management company responsible for cleaning the streets. The settlement effect was immediate. One night, I stepped past the cow that stationed itself outside my guesthouse each night, and the piles of her once-chewed cud now turned into dung, over and through the layers of plastic bags, food peelings, and other debris of humanity. The next morning, the narrow Old City gali was swept clean, not just outside the guesthouse but everywhere I went. On the main roads and along the riverbanks, an army of workers gathered the detritus into piles. In the water, garbage seiners used wicker baskets to strain out the soggy garlands and aluminum bowls that carried glowing prayers through the holy and wholly polluted water the night before, looking so spectacular and romantic. The utter transformation made it evident what can be accomplished if given priority.
I was told there was a time when the entire community would come down to the riverbank for a two-day communal cleanup. Now, the duty falls to the government and when they contract out to companies who may or may not actually do the work, everything seems to break down in a corrupt quagmire.
Varanasi is a place of pilgrimage. India is a country of worship. And Varanasi, Banaras, is – in the words of scholar Diana Eck – a place where “the atmosphere of devotion is improbable in its strength.”
But what if, my inner pragmatist asks, just a fraction of the energy, money and time that went into building the temples, enacting the rituals, making the pilgrimages, and organizing the festivals, one after the other, was instead spent on improving the most basic elements of human necessity needed in this life? Can digging a latrine be an act of worship? Can placing the plastic bag in the garbage be as much of an offering as casting the flowers it held into the Ganga? Can setting the stones that cover the open sewers be as important as setting the stones for a temple? Isn’t it a blessing to give a child access to water that won’t make her sick?
Each day is finite and there is so much work to do in this life. There are so many streets to sweep. Instead we sweep air.
Meera Subramanian is an independent journalist who writes about culture, faith and the environment. Her work has appeared in national and international publications includingNature, Virginia Quarterly Review, the New York Times, Salon, Smithsonian, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, The Caravan and India Today. She is a senior editor at Killing the Buddha.
This article is cross-posted from The Revealer, a publication of The Center for Religion and Media at New York University
With support from the Henry R. Luce foundation.
St. Louis-based Arch Coal obviously didn't get the memo last week.
As fellow absentee coal company Patriot announced its intentions to phase out large scale strip mining operations in central Appalachia, and a renewed effort was launched in Washington, DC to get Congress and the White House to deal with the mounting health and humanitarian crisis and pass the ACHE Act moratorium on all mountaintop removal, Arch displayed its Big Coal hubris by moving forth with a permit application to strip mine the historic confines of Blair Mountain in West Virginia.
Another Blair Mountain Thanksgiving, another outlandish, toxic and unnecessary strip mining permit to fight in an area that virtually every historian and archaeologist and coal miner considers to be one of the most important and sacred sites for labor history--the site of largest armed insurrection for labor rights in the country.
Residents in the Blair Mountain region need you to speak now against the destruction of their history--and their health and livelihood.
Here's a link to the writing letter campaign to the West Virginia DEP on the proposed permit, which is due at the end of this week.
“The Adkins Fork permit would destroy one of the most important areas of the battlefield,” said Brandon Nida, an archaeologist from UC Berkeley and organizer with the Blair Mountain Heritage Alliance (BMHA) located in Blair. “From archaeological surveys, this is the one of the only areas we positively know was occupied by the miners. We’ve found ammunition from the miners, we know where they fought and died. This is some of the most hallowed ground in labor history.”
Earlier this spring, West Virginia-raised Nida gave an overview of Blair Mountain and its historical significance and the latest battle against Arch Coal.
“This permit adds to the cumulative impacts for the Spruce Fork watershed which has an estimated 17,000 acres permitted or with current operations,” said Kenneth King, a local resident who has worked to preserve Blair Mountain for the last twenty years. “And it's not just the environment, I’m also really concerned about how this is going to affect people’s health.”
King cited numerous peer-reviewed health studies linking mountaintop removal mining to health hazards and risks, including rare forms of cancer, respiratory issues, and birth defects.
Here's a video overview of the campaign, featuring local resident King:
King added: “We need everyone to write in, but that is just the first step. This is going to be a tough campaign against one of the largest coal companies in the world. We need people to stay involved as we take this campaign to the national level."
Last week, Forbes’ Tim Worstall wrote a commentary titled “Finally, An Occupy Wall Street Idea We Can All Get Behind, The Rolling Jubilee.” Of course, I’m always wary of anything Forbes “gets behind.” And so as I read such a positive review of this new Occupy action by a capitalist, my initial concerns about the Rolling Jubilee grew.
In case you haven’t heard, the Rolling Jubilee is, according to its site, is a “Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it.” So far, it has raised enough to forgive almost $7 million of debt.
So, I wonder, why is the Occupy movement, a movement whose most significant goal was being able to properly identify and speak out against the root cause of oppression — capitalism, hierarchy and the concept of a 1 percent, now meddling in the financial sector? Why is it acting as a charity, which can only ever provide reform, when it is supposed to be a group focused on revolution?
Worstall actually called the Rolling Jubilee “a profoundly conservative” idea.
He continued:
It isn’t Progressive, it’s not liberal (in the modern sense although it certainly is in the classical liberal or libertarian sense) it is conservative. And isn’t that wondrous? That the only time the progressive liberals of Occupy get something right is when they’re not progressive liberals?
Biting.
But maybe he has a point.
In an enlightening email exchange between Andrew Ross, an organizer with Strike Debt, and Seth Ackerman, editor of Jacobin, Ackerman wrote that erasing debt is actually an essential part of capitalism.
He wrote:
Debt relief is an integral and recurring part of capitalism. Every so often, the burden of debt gets too high for the good of the creditors themselves, or for the interests of business as a whole, and with clockwork regularity debts are written off and forgotten.
But Ross insisted that the project isn’t meant to resolve the problems with our economic system. He wrote that the Rolling Jubilee was not:
…intended to be anything like a large-scale solution to the debt economy. Its primary purpose is to expose the depravity of the system while doing some good too. Based on feedback we’ve received, there are lots of people who get it, in that sense. Many others misinterpret it as a serious, potentially scalable effort to provide mass debt relief. We don’t have the resources to do anything like that, and, besides, we have more radical aspirations.
Through the Rolling Jubilee, the “depravity of the system” has certainly gotten much exposure. And the creators are well aware that the project is not going to change this system. So then, should Occupy participate in both radical revolutionary actions and reformative charitable actions?
Well, my inclination is “yes” under a few stipulations. One is that the charitable actions don’t take up much time. There are already hundreds of thousands of charities, non-profits, social workers, volunteers, etc. that provide charitable acts around the world. If we took all of the time and energy we spend on these acts and fought for real change, we might have had new economic, social and political systems already.
Therefore, it’s vital that charitable projects do not allow the Occupy movement to stray away from organizing the community and participating in direct action. Consequently, it’s just as important to always frame charitable projects in terms of the larger context of systematic oppression. For example, the Rolling Jubilee must always contextualize debt in terms of our lack of access to free health care and education — both of which cause huge amounts of debt. Occupy Sandy must always contextualize the disaster in terms of climate change. Occupy Homes must always contextualize foreclosures in terms of Big Banks. And they must all ultimately critique capitalism, for all these failures lead to Wall St.
Perhaps, most importantly, Occupy’s charitable actions must work to bring together communities, showing people that they are not alone in their struggles. After all, real change can only occur when we feel united.
I’ve witnessed Occupy members achieve this. I’ve seen those whose homes were saved from foreclosure by Occupy groups join Occupy to fight against other foreclosures. And I’m sure Sandy victims helped by Occupy Sandy will also be more attuned to serving their community.
Will the Rolling Jubilee have the same effect?
Kathleen Geier of Washington Monthly shares my skepticism.
She wrote:
But it very much remains to be seen if Rolling Jubilee’s debt relief effort is a promising way to organize a political movement. As a community building exercise, it may prove a bust. The debtors who are being helped out have no organic ties to the movement and may not care to participate in it.
Still, I’m inclined to support the project in hopes that those who do get their debt paid off use the liberation of that huge burden to join the fight.
There has always been a tough balance between reform and revolution, especially as we see suffering all around us. But I think if we spend only a small amount of time on reforms, and with those make sure we are fostering a community that will help fight for revolution — for real change — they can be worthwhile.
