Return-Path: <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Received: from literacy (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id i5ADL6915028; Thu, 10 Jun 2004 09:21:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 09:21:06 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <3.0.6.32.20040610092148.01ebaae0@mail.psnyc.com> Errors-To: listowner@literacy.nifl.gov Reply-To: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Originator: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Sender: nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov Precedence: bulk From: Ira Yankwitt <iray@lacnyc.org> To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-povracelit@literacy.nifl.gov> Subject: [NIFL-POVRACELIT:1386] Questions for Candidates X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.6 (32) Status: O Content-Length: 12934 Lines: 299 Hi All: This is from the Racism Watch listserv. I thought it would be of interest to many of you, and that it is a rich text for classroom discussion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Racismwatch@topica.com From: Ted Glick <indpol@igc.org> Subject: 2004 Racism Watch Candidate Questions Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 20:04:19 -0400 Below are questions for candidates running for federal office that the 2004 Racism Watch task force has put together. We're reaching out to the Presidential candidates to ask for them to answer the 10 questions, and we'll be doing the same for U.S. Senate candidates. We would welcome others taking these questions and using them in whatever ways are helpful to your organizing. We would appreciate, if you do so, hearing from you. We'll be posting answers and research we do about positions on our website, www.racismwatch.org. We be happy to post any information sent to us by local or state activists who do the same for their areas. Ted Glick Questions To Ask of Candidates: Racism and the Legal/Prison System The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. With 5% of the world's people we hold 25% of the world's prisoners. Over two-thirds of these prisoners are African American or Latino. Over 2 million people are now behind bars, a 600% increase since 1972. The majority of those going to prison are convicted of non-violent crimes, particularly illegal drug possession. The U.S. spends over $40 billion a year on state and federal prisons while funding for schools, job training, jobs programs, hospitals and housing are cut back or elimnated. What is needed are programs within prisons for education and personal development, treating drug addiction as an issue of public health, an end to the use of prison labor for private profit, and the development of a legal system whose participants-judges, lawyers, court personnel, police, penal staff, jurors-reflect the class, race and gender composition of the affected community and individuals. Question: Will you support comprehensive legislation to correct the deep-seated racism and class bias within our legal and prison system? Racism and Education 50 years after Brown vs. Board of Education a recent study by Harvard's Civil Rights Project reports that schools in the United States are becoming increasingly segregated. A disproportionate percentage of public schools in inner cities are in need of major repair or replacement. These same schools are often short of the financial resources needed to attract and retain good teachers and to provide a quality learning environment for children. The steady attacks on affirmative action policies are eroding the number of qualified teachers of color, who are needed to provide role models for children of color. There is a continuing need to change public school curricula to correct racist conceptions that persist in many subject areas. The No Child Left Behind Act with its high-stakes testing emphasis is counter-productive and, for tens of thousands of children, highly deleterious to their emotional and intellectual development. Thousands of school districts are being forced to sacrifice many other critical components of education. Question: What policies will you propose to correct the disparity in resources provided to students of color and predominantly people of color schools and to promote more rational, pedagogically-sound education and assessment methods in U.S. schools? Racism and Jobs The Community Service Society recently issued a lenghty study finding that about 50% of African American males in N.Y. State between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five are unemployed. Sadly, "last to be hired, first to be fired" is still the order of the day. This catastrophic unemployment situation is clearly the result of entrenched racism, in addition to the increased productivity and outsourcing of jobs that affect all workers regardless of color. Only massive government and government-private industry partnership programs designed to solve the unmet needs of our country can put to work the many millions of currently unemployed and underemployed workers, such as by investing in rebuilding our public schools (particularly in urban centers), developing a modern, high speed railroad and public transportation systems, and a Manhattan Project type program for alternative energy. Living wage jobs can be provided for unskilled, semi- and highly skilled workers, professionals and executives. Job training at all levels would be an integral part of such programs. Question: Do you support a government jobs program similar to FDR's public works projects in the thirties, and what specific safeguards would you recommend to prevent any racial discrimination? The War on Drugs No national policy has been a greater failure over the last 50 years than the futile attempts to stop the entry and distribution of drugs within our country. Hundreds of billions of our tax dollars have been expended to no avail, despite the many thousands of DEA and federal, state and local law enforcement personnel involved. These huge expenditures continue today at a time when essential social services are being curtailed for lack of funds. Drug profits are so great that the drug barons of Columbia and our Northern Alliance Warlords of Afghanistan are able to produce and ship a steady stream of drugs into our country and its cities and schools. Perhaps the worst aspect is the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of our young men, disproportionately African American and Latino, sentenced to long terms for non-violent drug offenses. New York State's draconian Rockefeller law is a classic example. The national legislation that deemed the use of 'crack cocaine' to be more dangerous than powdered cocaine is clearly racist and has been used to destroy the lives of large numbers of African American and Latino young people through draconian sentences for crack cocaine users versus little or even no punishment for powdered cocaine users. Today, we know that alcohol and tobacco, which kill and cripple far more Americans each year than "illegal drugs", can be controlled only by massive public education and treatment programs. Question: Do you support the decriminalization of drug use and drug use being dealt with not as a criminal matter but as a major public health problem, as well as repeal of existing discriminatory drug laws like the differential prosecution of crack-cocaine users and powder-cocaine users? The Death Penalty Throughout recorded history the rulers of various societies have put men and women to death for a wide variety of reasons: murder, crimes against persons and property, rape, adultery, religion, racism, heresy, political dissent and vengeance. At the beginning of the 21st Century, what is crystal clear is that the death penalty as a deterrent to any of the above "crimes" has been and is a total failure. In recent years, with the advent of DNA testing, scores of innocent men have been released from Death Row, some only hours or days prior to their scheduled execution. Many governments have already outlawed capital punishment as a barbaric institution. Question: If you are elected what concrete steps will you take to initiate an immediate moratorium for all prisoners on death row and what legislation will you propose to effectively end the death penalty in our country? Racial Injustice in Our Electoral System The U.S. electoral system has a disturbing number of structural barriers that discriminate against communities of color. Approximately four million ex-felons, predominantly of color, are not able to vote despite having served their time in prison. Exclusionary winner-take-all elections and redistricting schemes often reduce the chances for voters of color to have representation proportional to their numbers. Voter purges, as happened in Florida in 1999-2000, can disenfranchise huge numbers of legal voters. Election officials and poll workers can be culturally discriminatory with little training to counter this. Hundreds of thousands of African American and other voters in the District of Columbia have no voting representatives in Congress. Question: Will you call for public disclosure, prior to November, by state and local election officials of all plans related to voting, including voter registration procedures, purges of voter rolls, ballot design, location of voting sites, poll worker training, where lap top computers and advanced communications equipment will be placed, and provisions for paper ballots in case voting machines malfunction? Racial Profiling in the USA Patriot Act The USA Patriot Act, passed hastily following 9-11-01, is a seriously flawed set of changes to our laws and rights. A number of its provisions are especially discriminatory against immigrants of color, particularly those from the Middle East. Once open immigrations hearings are now closed. Many hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been secretly detained without charges for many months. It allows the Attorney General or Secretary of State to designate individuals or groups as "terrorists" without any means for review of those decisions. Law-abiding immigrants were fired en masse from jobs as baggage handlers solely because of their immigrant status. Immigrants can now be deported if they do nothing other than forget to file a change of address within ten days of moving. And thousands of male immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries, only, were required to register with local immigration offices. Question Do you support the repeal of the USA Patriot Act, Congressional hearings on what its effects have been, and new anti-terrorism legislation, if necessary, that protects basic Constitutional and human rights? Affirmative Action In many areas of our society, legislative bodies, corporate and non-profit boards, educational institutions, business organizations, contracts, bank lending, public leadership positions, publishing, journalism and employment, certain segments of the U.S. population are under-represented. As a result, some of the same segments are over-represented in areas like poverty, unemployment, and the criminal justice system. Practices involving Affirmative Action have been employed to remedy this current imbalance and to encourage a broader range of social participation and representation at all levels. These intentional activities have recently been under attack through judicial challenges and popular referenda in the states. Question: How would you ensure that vigorous and effective affirmative action practices are effectively implemented throughout our society to achieve greater equity and opportunity for all? Native American Issues Native American sovereignty and treaty rights have long been disrespected in the U.S., and federal government obligations in American Indian health services, education, and management of Native American trust funds have been sources of lawsuits and mismanagement. A recent court-ordered settlement has been defied by the current Secretary of the Interior, adding to the poverty and suffering associated with this longstanding injustice in U.S. society. Question: What are the basic outlines of your policy towards the Indigenous peoples of the United States and its territories and commonwealths? International Poverty Many of the poorest nations in the world are deeply in debt to institutions in the U.S. or international bodies over which the U.S. has a great deal of influence such as the World Bank. Interest on loans for these countries paid to the U.S. is often several times greater than any aid received from the U.S., and often, what aid there is comes in the forms of military equipment or restricted credits that must be used to purchase U.S. goods and services. This cycle of control and impoverishment greatly destabilizes these countries and the global political and social system creating conditions that breed hostility and hopelessness as well as tremendous physical human suffering. These conditions also lead to tremendous environmental degradation and struggles over scarce resources. Question: What policies would you implement to improve the standard of living in the poorest nations of the world where the bulk of the world's population lives? --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: iray@lacnyc.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a2jcdi.bnsoUG.aXJheUBs Or send an email to: racismwatch-unsubscribe@topica.com For Topica's complete suite of email marketing solutions visit: http://www.topica.com/?p=TEXFOOTER --^---------------------------------------------------------------- Ira Yankwitt Director of Professional Development Literacy Assistance Center 32 Broadway, 10th Floor NY, NY 10004 (212) 803-3356 iray@lacnyc.org
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