Workers of the World Unite Against Amazon

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WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE AGAINST AMAZON

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ON THE COVER Workers of the World Unite Against Amazon 18

There’s a Rural Steel Mill to Family Ties and Housing Crisis, Too Windmills Trans Justice For many in rural Wisconsin, A former steel town in the Baltimore The Congress members speaking finding decent, affordable area feels the winds of change up for their trans children

housing is a “nightmare” BY DHARNA NOOR BY HERON GREENESMITH BY JACK KELLY 30 26 6

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 1 No political movement can be healthy unless it has its own press to inform it, educate it and orient it. “ — IN THESE TIMES FOUNDER JAMES WEINSTEIN ” TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOUNDING EDITOR & PUBLISHER JAMES WEINSTEIN (1926–2005)

DISPATCHES FEATURES EDITOR & PUBLISHER Joel Bleifuss EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jessica Stites 6 The Rural Housing Crisis 18 LABOR EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER Christopher Hass BY JACK KELLY Workers of the World INTERIM MANAGING EDITOR Alex DiBranco Unite Against Amazon Guilt by “Gang” WEB EDITORS Miles Kampf-Lassin, 7 BY LUIS FELIZ LEON Jacob Sugarman Association WISCONSIN EDITOR Alice Herman BY MAURIZIO GUERRERO 26 Family Ties LABOR REPORTER Hamilton Nolan INVESTIGATIVE FELLOW Indigo Olivier BY HERON GREENESMITH Replacing Police COPY EDITOR Bob Miller 9 PROOFREADERS Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin, with ... Police 30 Steel Mill to Windmills Rochelle Lodder BY SAM MELLINS BY DHARNA NOOR SENIOR EDITORS Patricia Aufderheide, Susan J. Douglas, David Moberg, Salim Muwakkil, Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Kate Aronoff, VIEWPOINT DEPARTMENTS Theo Anderson, Michael Atkinson, Frida Berrigan, Michelle Chen, Jude Ellison S. Doyle, Pete Karman, Kari 12 Georgia Needs More Than 4 In Conversation Lydersen, Moshe Z. Marvit, Jane Virtue Signaling Miller, Shaun Richman, Slavoj Žižek This Month in BY ANOA CHANGA 7 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Dean Baker, Late Capitalism Rebecca Burns, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jeremy Gantz, Leonard C. Goodman, Mindy UP FOR DEBATE 9 By the Numbers: Isser, Naomi Klein, Chris Lehmann, John Asian Americans Nichols, Rick Perlstein, Micah Uetricht ASSISTANT TO THE MANAGING EDITOR 14 Just Give People Money 10 In Case You Missed It Clara Liang EDITORIAL INTERNS Catherine Henderson, BY PREMILLA NADASEN 13 The Big Idea: Daniela Ochoa-Bravo, Maryum Elnasseh, Paco Alvarez, Sadie Morris 15 By All Means, Means-Test Civilian Climate Corps CREATIVE DIRECTOR Rachel K. Dooley BY MAX B. SAWICKY DESIGN ASSISTANT Matt Whitt CARTOONS EDITOR Matt Bors ON THE COVER CARTOONISTS Terry LaBan, Dan Perkins CULTURE DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Art Direction by Rachel K. Dooley Lauren Kostoglanis Illustration by Ryan Olbrysh DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR Jamie Hendry 36 What Nomadland Gets PUBLISHING ASSISTANT Caroline Reid Wrong About Poverty CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Rebecca Sterner BY ARUN GUPTA AND IN THESE TIMES BOARD OF DIRECTORS MICHELLE FAWCETT M. Nieves Bolaños, Tobita Chow, Kevin Creighan, Dan Dineen, James Harkin, 38 Comics Anand Jahi, Robert Kraig, Paul Olsen, Rick Perlstein, Steven Saltzman, Stacy Sutton, David Taber, William Weaver 40 In Those Times: Our New (Old) Look The work of In These Times writers is supported by the Puffin Foundation.

Our staff and writerspms 3015 pmsare 130 represented by these unions:

2 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 EDITORIAL Asian Women Speak Up he March 16 massage parlor The 20th century brought a new twist to 19th- shootings in the Atlanta area, in which six century racism. With the “model minority” myth, of the eight people killed were Asian wom- white people constructed Asian American iden- en, emerge from the hypersexualization, tity as a neat, apolitical monolith: universally fetishization and stigmatization of Asian smart, striving, wealthy and law-abiding. In real- Twomen’s bodies. They were the violent outcome ity, more than one million AAPI women (many of of a larger problem. them immigrants) work in jobs that pay less than Spurred by former President Donald Trump’s $15 an hour. By casting all Asian Americans as “Chinese virus” drumbeat, violence and hate wealthy and privileged, the stereotype has acted crimes against Asian American and Pacific Is- as a wedge that has obscured the need and pos- lander (AAPI) communities have increased sibility for Asian people to build interracial, by 149% during the pandemic. Asian working-class solidarity. women, at the intersection of misogy- ny, racism and xenophobia, accounted Racialized disease narratives for 68% of reported anti-Asian incidents scapegoating Asian women have since the coronavirus hit. Racialized disease narratives scape- deep roots in the United States. goating Asian women have deep roots in the United States. As Chinese immi- Yet, AAPI labor organizing has a long grants arrived on the West Coast in history. In 1867 in California, thou- the mid-19th century, public health sands of Chinese railroad workers officials developed racist and sexist went on strike to demand better conditions “theories” linking Asian people with physi- and equal pay to white workers. In the early cal (and moral) disease. In San Francisco, the offi- 1900s in Hawaii, Filipino and Japanese plantation cials who failed to mitigate smallpox, tuberculosis workers organized unions. In 1982 in New York’s and syphilis crises in the city asserted that Chi- Chinatown, 20,000 garment workers, primarily nese women “brought in especially virulent strains immigrant women, went on strike. of venereal disease … and enticed young white Progressive labor protections must priori- boys to a life of sin,” Chinese American historian tize the marginalized and criminalized field of Sucheng Chan writes. sex work, along with adjacent industries, such as Shades of these 19th century “theories” could be massage parlors. These workers consist primarily heard in the alleged Atlanta gunman’s confession to of women who are often vulnerable to police raids police. The 21-year-old white man said a “sexual ad- and arrest. In a statement after the shootings, diction” drove him to frequent massage parlors and Red Canary Song, an Asian migrant sex worker that he killed these women to abate “temptation.” rights group, declared, “We see the effort to in- White men continue to hypersexualize Asian visibilize these women’s gender, labor, class, and women, stereotyping us as submissive and exot- immigration status as a refusal to reckon with the ic. Chinese American filmmaker Debbie Lum, in legacy of United States imperialism.” her 2012 documentary Seeking Asian Female, pro- In the wake of these shootings, Asian Americans files one white man with such a fetish (“yellow with less power—the ones who labor and live in ways fever”). “Growing up as an Asian American wom- our society does not value, made invisible through an, you cannot live without encountering so many America’s flattened concept of Asian-ness—are fi- men like the main character of my film,” she told nally being included in the progressive discourse. NPR. After the shootings, many AAPI women In the immortal words of radical Chinese Amer- shared their own stories of objectification and ha- ican labor activist Grace Lee Boggs: “In our bones rassment. Asian American journalist Karen Ho we sense that this is no ordinary time. It is a time tweeted about a “prominent white male broadcast of deep change, not just of social structure and journalist” who said she “shuffled like a concu- economy, but also of ourselves.” bine” after she gave a lecture. — CLARA LIANG

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 3 IN CONVERSATION

NHS PUTS U.S. NINA TURNER’S WILL GITMO EVER PLUS: THE 7,081 READERS WHO TO SHAME P. 9 TURN P. 7 CLOSE? P. 56 PUBLISH IN THESE TIMES P. 28 100 people and the Unit- ɯ COMING FULL CIRCLE ed States in 8th place—not a huge difference. even years ago, In THE FRONTLINE These Times told the WORKERS WE The United States has FAILED also vaccinated far more story of a family living Taking stock of in the aftermath of a a bitter year people than anyone—it’s BY HAMILTON NOLAN S chemical spill in Charleston, administered over 161 mil- W.Va. Ten thousand gallons of lion doses—while other the compound MCHM, used countries with a nation- to clean coal, had seeped into + al healthcare (Finland, the Elk River and contami- Tina Vásquez on the migrants whisked Iceland, etc.) have signifi- away in the night nated the water supply (“The APRIL 2021 cantly lower vaccine distri- Waterborne Toxic Event,” bution numbers. June 2014). I don’t disagree about “I won’t cook with [the wa- A GRATEFUL CUSTOMER the benefits of the Nation- ter] or even brush my teeth Thank you, Hamilton No- al Health Service, but the with it,” a single mother of lan, for your story (“A argument that the U.S. is two told us. She spent hun- Year in the Life of Safe- significantly failing in com- dreds of dollars on bottled way 1048,” April). I live in parison to the UK in terms water and prepared food just former lawyer analyzes the tar- the Rosslyn neighborhood of vaccination is untrue. so “we don’t get sick again.” geted suppression of Black vot- of Arlington, Va., and have Kevin Hostert That woman, Anoa Changa, ers in Georgia and across the country. been going to that store for San Francisco, Calif. returns to the pages of ITT as Writing for ITT after once six years. our “Viewpoint” author this issue (p. 12). The indepen- being featured in a story “is Everyone who works EDITORS’ NOTE: dent journalist, organizer and kind of full circle,” Anoa says. there is kind, gracious and The United States lagged wonderful. They deserve behind on vaccinations at the recognition and public- first, but after this arti- ity you were able to so re- cle went to press, ITT was ɯ RECEIVING THEIR JUST AWARDS spectfully give them, as pleased to see the rate pick ong gone are the days well as the support of their up. As this issue shipped on when every newspaper community. Your feature April 11, the U.S. was in 9th in the country had a la- resonated with me and I place and had administered bor reporter on staff, have shared it widely. L over 171 million doses. but award-winning labor jour- —Chris Olsen nalism continues at In These Arlington, Va. RIGHT TO CHEAT Times. And in June, the Labor and Employment Relations So-called right-to-work Association (LERA) is recogniz- U.S. NOT DOING THAT BAD regulations (“Right To ing two of our finest—the in- Your recent article (“The Work Cleaves the Gran- defatigable Hamilton Nolan NHS Gives Britain a Shot ite State,” April) are a lie. and long-time ITT contributor in the Arm,” April) claim- Right-to-work laws are de- Jeff Schuhrke—with its annual ing the United States is far signed to break unions; Media Award. The award is pre- below the vaccination suc- they require that unionized sented for “outstanding contri- cess of the UK (and thus workplaces be “open shop.” butions” to labor journalism. shows the need for national These laws state you Jeff, a history lecturer at the because of its relevance to all healthcare) does not match don’t have to join a union University of Illinois at Chicago, that is “wrong with America.” recent data from the New or pay union dues, even says the people he works As a reader-supported, non- York Times (and other data as that union negotiated with and their oft-overlooked profit magazine, our mission is sources). This data shows a better pay rate, working stories keep him inspired. to tell stories like these, to ex- the UK in 6th place in terms conditions and bene- Hamilton says he was drawn to pose corruption and to im- of doses administered per fits for you. The law cuts the beat almost a decade ago prove the lives of workers.

4 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 IN CONVERSATION into union funding by the ed States—because there ɯ LEAVING THEM WANTING MORE members and, long term, are no regulations. group (which actually ad- defeats the union’s ability —Gus Escobedo vocates violence as one of to fight for employees. Brookline, Mass. via its core tenets). Another I’m in Florida, an open- Facebook of his comics was re- shop state. But business- moved for “spreading es don’t want to locate here There is a certain irony misinformation.” because of the lack of qual- to America’s abandoned Matt is one of many ified employees willing counties being farmed off cartoonists who face to work for lousy wages— to foreign companies with these challenges, a pre- to say nothing of the high big PR teams for cheap la- dictable consequence cost of insurance, includ- bor and lax environmental of Facebook’s poor- ing vehicle, home, wind- standards. ly mapped out campaign storm, flood, etc. —Andy Deer against misinforma- —Christina Dupuy via Facebook n a world gone mad, how tion and hate speech. Miami, Fla. via Facebook do you know where the As he told the Times, “If so- My, how the tables have punchlines are? That’s cial media companies are turned. This is what Amer- the problem faced by going to take on the respon- WE DON’T GIVE A HOOT I sibility of finally regulat- ica used to do, and still our very own cartoons editor It used to be American sometimes does. With all Matt Bors (also a two-time ing incitement, conspiracies and hate speech, then they companies were the ones the lowered regulations Pulitzer Prize finalist and ed- are going to have to develop polluting the environment from the Trump adminis- itor at the Nib), whose work keeps getting erroneous- some literacy around satire.” in less developed coun- tration, companies are pret- ly flagged on social media (or, In April, Matt announced tries, because there were ty much free to pollute the more likely, flagged intention- he’s retiring his weekly po- no regulations (“The Fac- hell out of the air. tory Next Door,” March). ally by right-wing trolls). litical comic after 18 years —Leif DeWolf Matt, recently featured in and more than 1,600 car- Now, we have foreign com- via Facebook panies doing it in the Unit- the New York Times, found toons, marking this issue as himself on probation from the last time his regular com- Facebook in December for al- ic will appear within our pages (p. 38). TELL US HOW YOU REALLY FEEL legedly “advocating violence” Q through one of his cartoons, Matt will continue running Tell us what you like, what you hate and what you’d like to which was taken down. The The Nib and stay on as our see more of by emailing [email protected] or tweeting cartoon in question mocks cartoons editor, accepting @inthesetimesmag, or reach us by post at 2040 N. Milwaukee the far-right Proud Boys pitches for original comics. Ave., Chicago, IL 60647.

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MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 5 DISPATCHES

en difficult since the family of three started renting in Decem- ber 2019. After six months in a comfortable apartment, Slat- er’s lease expired, forcing her and her granddaughters to move May 31, 2020. With the U-Haul already packed, Slater discovered their landlord-to-be had extended his current tenant’s lease by a month, leaving them with nowhere to go and triggering the family’s first stint at the hotel where Slater works. Eleven days later, Slater found a different, sizable three-bed- room unit renting for $650 a month. She signed the lease and moved in with the girls, but things quickly went wrong. Dam- age to the building left the unit without gas; the living room car- pet was worn and stained with grease; eventually, the fridge

PHOTO BY SV HEART PHOTOGRAPHY stopped working. Despite numerous, urgent calls to her landlord, no repairs were made. come renters, according to 2019 “If I don’t do it, it’s not going to The Rural data from the National Low In- get done,” Slater says, regarding come Housing Coalition. The property maintenance. Housing Crisis Covid-19 pandemic has only Without gas, the family PLATTEVILLE, WIS.—Kim Slat- made things worse. Additional- turned to space heaters to keep er has been living at work lately. ly, a commission on rural pros- warm. Frozen and burst pipes Literally. perity created by Gov. Tony Evers forced the family into the ho- On the morning of Friday, (D) found there is a “significant tel for stretches of time in De- March 26, she spoke to In These shortage of rural workforce hous- cember and again in February, Above: Times from a room in the ho- ing” in parts of the state. where they remained into April. Kim Slater sits tel where she spends most of In 2015, Slater became the Slater’s stay in the hotel has in front of the her days behind the front desk. primary guardian of her two been subsidized by the South- apartment she is When Slater signed her current granddaughters, ages 14 and 11. western Wisconsin Communi- leasing—which lease in early summer 2020, she Recently divorced, she decided to ty Action Program (SWCAP), a has broken pipes never imagined she would find move to her hometown of Platte- nonprofit that provides financial and lacks heat- herself seeking refuge in a ho- ville, a small city 20 miles north- assistance to low-income fami- ing—March 30 in tel—but like many others in ru- east of Dubuque, Iowa. lies in five Wisconsin counties. Platteville, Wis- ral Wisconsin, she discovered “I thought, ‘If I’m going to Michelle Friedrich, who over- consin. Like many in rural Wisconsin, that good, affordable housing [raise the girls] by myself, I sees the organization’s emergen- Slater has fought isn’t easy to come by. want to do it in my hometown,’” cy housing program, says stories an uphill battle to Statewide, Wisconsin lacks Slater says. “I needed to be in like Slater’s are commonplace safely house her nearly 120,000 affordable and my home.” in rural Wisconsin. When SW- family this year. available rental homes for low-in- Finding a home has prov- CAP ran its own Section 8 hous-

6 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 DISPATCHES THIS MONTH ing program, from 1983 to 2019, to do even basic maintenance. Friedrich says the waitlist to ac- Now, given the disrepair, Slat- cess federally supported rent er is effectively using the rent- IN LATE CAPITALISM vouchers was two years long. ed apartment as a storage unit Steven Deller, a profes- for the family’s belongings. She sor at University of Wisconsin- says she and the girls “100%” ? “AS [CORONAVIRUS] SHIFTS FROM PANDEMIC Madison and expert on rural will be living at the hotel until TO ENDEMIC, we think there’s an opportunity,” economies, says one factor con- June 1, when SWCAP is going to says Pfizer CFO Frank D’Amelio. What he tributing to Wisconsin’s rural help them get settled into a new means is Big Pharma will hike Co- vid-19 drug prices as soon as it housing crisis is the sharp de- home. And while Slater is com- can, even though the virus will crease in construction of new af- mitted to finding secure hous- likely mutate into a perennial fordable housing since the Great ing for her family, the constant issue. Just another reminder Recession. He says developers moving and uncertainty sur- that, in for-profit healthcare, are focused instead on building rounding their living situation sick people are money. luxury homes because they pro- have taken a toll. duce higher profits. “I just want all my clothes in ? WEALTHY AMERICANS PAY EVEN “The number of developers one place,” Slater says of the LESS IN TAXES THAN WE THOUGHT: [building new homes] has real- constant back-and-forth be- New research suggests the top 1% ly dropped like a rock, because tween the hotel and the house. of households avoid reporting around 21% of they got crushed in the Great “I want my shoes in one place, I their income, using techniques like offshore Recession and they haven’t want my shit in one place, I just accounts, pass-through “businesses” and come back,” Deller says. “The want everything in one place— real estate partnerships. Say what you will developers that are out there are it’s a nightmare.” about America’s ruling class, they are excel- lent at hoarding money. working at building higher-end JACK KELLY reports on politics, homes because they can make healthcare, agriculture and more in ? ELON MUSK WANTS YOU TO CALL HIM more money that way.” Wisconsin and the Midwest. “TECHNOKING.” Tesla even filed the requisite Meanwhile, rent prices have 8-K form with the Securities and Exchange been growing faster than wag- Guilt by “Gang” Commission, required to inform company es. From 2007 to 2017 in Wis- shareholders of significant events, to make consin, the median increase in Association the title official. It perhaps comes as no sur- rent was 21.7% while the medi- prise that a person known for being horrible an increase in income was only CHICAGO—Wilmer Catalan- to workers also identifies as a monarch. 17.3%, according to a report from Ramirez had lived in the Unit- University of Wisconsin-Madi- ed States for more than 10 ? “THE HUMAN STOCK MARKET” IS HERE! That son regional planning professor years when Immigration and nightmarish tagline comes to us from new Kurt Paulsen. “When housing Customs Enforcement (ICE) social platform NewNew, which is appar- costs are growing faster than in- agents entered his home and ently blissfully unaware a “real” human comes, fewer families can afford forcefully arrested him without stock market already exists in a home,” he writes. a warrant in 2017. He spent the the form of the $150 billion Beyond affordability, Fried- next 10 months in the McHen- human trafficking industry. NewNew users buy “shares” of rich says the low quality of ry County Adult Correctional an influencer’s decisions and available housing is also a bur- Facility. He was never charged then “vote” on what they do. den for low-income families with a crime and was released Jen Lee, who runs a creator in southwestern Wisconsin. in January 2018. economy community, tells the According to Friedrich, SW- The Chicago Police Depart- New York Times, “By monetiz- CAP avoids placing families in ment had erroneously entered ing each aspect of their life, need of housing with certain Catalan-Ramirez’s name into [content creators] can extract landlords because—similar to its database of gang members, value from everyday interac- Slater’s experience—their prop- then shared that information tions.” Late-stage capitalism erties are decrepit and they fail with ICE, which acted on the truly knows no bounds.

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 7 RESIST

MINNEAPOLIS—Protesters march on the first day of the trial of former officer Derek Chauvin over the killing of George Floyd. Last May, Floyd’s death reignited the international Black Lives Matter movement. Since the trial began March 29, the jury has heard from witnesses about their grief and from police officers on whether Chauvin violated police policy, among others. Protesters have gathered at the courthouse every day of the trial to demand justice for Floyd, though many remain skeptical of a conviction. (Christopher Mark Juhn/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images).

bad intelligence. Federal immi- ganizing and advocacy around are comfortable with targeting gration authorities can access [gang] databases and all of their and putting through this really similar secret gang databases problems, their inaccuracies, the harmful, cruel process of depor- around the country. Critics say really problematic ways they are tation and detention is kind of the the databases rely on flimsy ev- used by both law enforcement backbone of the modern immi- idence and all but criminalize and immigration.” gration system,” Shim says. being a young person of color. Often all it takes for a Black The Policing and Social Jus- And if the Biden administra- or Brown person to be added to tice Project at Brooklyn College tion’s stated immigration priori- a gang database is to stand on reports that, between 2013 and ty of cracking down on criminal a specific street corner, have a 2018, more than 17,000 people organizations is any indication, certain tattoo or meet with a were added to New York City’s the practice may be here to stay. suspected gang member. Once gang database, 98% of whom “It is not surprising,” says Jane in the database, they are offi- were Black or Latinx. A 2019 Chi- Shim, senior policy attorney at cially “a threat to public safety.” cago Office of Inspector Gen- the Immigrant Defense Project, If their immigration status is in eral’s report found that 95% of a nonprofit working to expand question, they become a depor- individuals designated as gang migrant rights. “It was disap- tation priority. members during arrests in the pointing, however. … There has “Identifying certain categories city were Black or Latinx. The been so much research and or- of people who we [as a society] names in Boston’s gang data-

8 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 Asian Americans base are 90% Black or Latinx, ac- includes “every Black or Latinx cording to records obtained by the immigrant standing on a street BY THE NUMBERS ACLU of Massachusetts in 2019. corner with their friends whose anti-Asian violence, discrimina- Kerry Doyle, a Boston attorney name was put in a gang database tion and hate incidents were and former chair of the New Eng- because of the color of their skin.” 3,795 reported by Stop AAPI Hate between March land Chapter of the American While advocates push the fed- of last year and February of this year Immigration Lawyers Associa- eral government to end the use tion, says that information from of these databases in immigra- local gang databases is often too tion matters, people like Catalan- more anti-Asian hate unreliable to hold up in criminal Ramirez remain vulnerable. Even 149% crimes occurred in cases, but “immigration judges so-called sanctuary cities like Bos- 2020 than 2019 in the nation’s take it as the truth.” ton offer federal agents access to 16 largest cities, despite overall In 2017, Doyle represented a these unreliable databases. hate crime numbers dropping 7% young Central American mi- But in some cities, activist pres- grant who was detained in the sure is building. The Boston City of harass- of Pacific United States for 30 months with- Council recently held a hearing on 2/3+ ment and hate 27% Islander and out criminal charges. Her client’s its gang database. And in Chica- incidents against Asian Asian American mistake was socializing with al- go, democratic socialist aldermen people were reported women are considered leged gang members. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa and Rossa- by women this year essential workers Gang databases have drawn na Rodriguez Sanchez led a suc- criticism from national civil cessful campaign to ban city police of Asian Americans have experienced ra- rights groups including Human from cooperating with ICE. 30% cial slurs and jokes during the pandemic Rights Watch and Detention “We are focusing right now on Watch Network, which co-signed engaging with local representa- of Asian American youth report an April 1 petition calling on the tives and other people in Chicago,” 25% being the victims of racist Department of Homeland Securi- says Xanat Sobrevilla of Organized bullying or shunning at school this year ty to end its discriminatory “pri- Communities Against Deportation oritization” practices. (OCAD), a group of undocument- days after the coronavirus was declared Data from the Transaction- ed activists that campaigned for 5 a pandemic, former President Donald al Records Access Clearinghouse Catalan-Ramirez’s release. “We Trump started saying “Chinese Virus” (TRAC), a research organization are hoping to work to pass [a city] on Twitter at Syracuse University, finds ICE ordinance that would eliminate the detained and booked into civil im- local database … to further discon- more Twitter migration detention 62% fewer nect this tool from ICE.” 8,351% users posted with #chinesevirus the week people in February (1,970), the first MAURIZIO GUERRERO is a journalist whole month of the Biden adminis- based in New York City. He covers mi- after Trump started using it tration, than in January (5,119), the gration, social justice movements and last of the Trump administration. Latin America. Chinese immigrants But gang databases could still play 10 entered the United States, total, in 1887, an outsize role in the future of im- five years after the Chinese Exclusion Act of migration. The American Dream Replacing 1882; in 1882, that number was 39,500 and Promise Act, which passed the House in March, would open Police with Pacific Islander a path to citizenship for 2.5 mil- 1,400,000+ and Asian American lion undocumented immigrants— ... Police women work in jobs with a median but anyone in a gang database will ROCHESTER, N.Y.—On January 21, hourly wage of less than $15 likely be excluded. city officials launched a new Per- “Legislators have chosen to turn son in Crisis (PIC) team of 14 men- of unemployed Asian American their backs on those who are most tal health professionals and social 50% workers, approximately, had been harmed by the immigration sys- workers to provide non-police re- out of work for six months by the end of tem,” the National Immigration sponses to behavioral health cri- 2020, the highest long-term rate Project says about the bill. That ses. Eight days later, the Rochester of any racial demographic

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 9 Police Department (RPD) ar- announced demonstrates that been unable to access PIC aid. rested and pepper-sprayed a the team is either underfunded Rochester has been the site of 9-year-old in crisis. Videos show and therefore ill-equipped, or large—and ongoing—Movement the girl crying out for her father. intentionally toothless and ill- for Black Lives protests since “Please don’t do this to me,” the conceived,” says Stanley Mar- Daniel Prude, 41, was killed by girl says. “You did it to yourself, tin, an organizer with Free the the RPD in March of 2020 while hon,” an officer replies. People Rochester, a Black liber- undergoing what his family’s Then, on February 22, Roch- ation group. The PIC team was lawyer called a “psychotic ep- ester officers tackled and pep- not called in any of these inci- isode.” Prude’s brother had ini- per-sprayed a woman with her dents, according to Martin. tially called 911 seeking help. 3-year-old after she allegedly While activists were initial- One of Rochester protest- shoplifted. On March 10, Roches- ly hopeful that the PIC program ers’ primary demands was ter police shot and killed Tyshon would prevent police violence, investment in police alterna- Jones, 29, who was threatening to they say that it has been unreli- tives that would treat people in hurt himself with a knife outside able in practice, in part because of mental health crises “with re- a homeless shelter, reports say. strict criteria limiting who it can spect and dignity, and also uti- All three individuals in these assist. Individuals under the in- lize some of the trainings like police encounters were Black. fluence of substances—often the unconditional positive regard “That these incidents oc- people who most require behav- that mental health therapists curred after the PIC team was ioral health intervention—have are grounded in,” Martin says.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ALL THE NEWS THAT WAS FIT TO PRINT— HYPED AND WHAT GOT PRINTED INSTEAD The British monarchy is searching for a diversity czar in response to Poor countries may not be vaccinated claims of racism. As if the claims until 2023, if at all—especially with the were news to anyone. U.S. blocking an effort to waive patent rules in order to boost production.

The over 1,300-foot cargo ship stuck in The uneventfulness of President the Suez Canal was great meme fodder Joe Biden’s first press conference and a more serious reminder of the became a news cycle in itself.

unsustainable global supply chain. VITAL

TRIVIAL Donald Trump is rebranding Military forces in Myanmar have as “45”:his new official website, killed more than 600 civilian 45Office.com, just launched, his protesters (at press time) since PAC lives at SaveAmerica45.com, the February 1 coup began. and his White House’s old tweets are at @WhiteHouse45.

The governor of Arkansas Right-wing evangelicals are not thrilled signed into law a near-total about “Old Town Road” singer Lil Nas abortion ban; supporters of X’s new line of “Satan Shoes,” which the measure hope the law contain a drop of human blood. will test Roe v. Wade. IGNORED

10 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 The PIC program is a direct response to these demands. In a statement announcing PIC’s launch, Rochester May- or Lovely Warren said it would “revamp … the way we respond to non-violent crises” and “ensure that those in crisis receive treatment rather than punish- ment.” Activists who pushed for the PIC team were particularly excited about its source of funding: $350,000 of the $650,000 budget comes from a contingency fund the city created by cutting the RPD’s re- cruit class in half. The program After police in Rochester, N.Y., pepper-sprayed a 9-year-old January 29, Diallo Payne holds a “Black operates under the purview of Lives Matter” flag at a protest organized by the Community Justice Initiative outside the Rochester Police Locust Club on February 3. the Department of Recreation and Human Services (DRHS), not the police department. aid more than three times from Similar police alternative Residents are supposed to be her workplace. Police were dis- efforts elsewhere have prov- able to get immediate support patched twice. The PIC team en more effective. In Eugene, from social workers and mental wasn’t sent at all. Ore., for example, the Cri- health counselors by calling 211, “Police are still responding to sis Assistance Helping Out on a crisis line operated by a local mental health calls, police are the Streets (CAHOOTS) pro- Goodwill, rather than 911. still responding to issues of sub- gram is the default response to But those who have tried call- stance use disorder in our com- nonviolent behavioral health ing 211 say PIC rarely shows up. munity,” Martin says. and substance abuse crises. In Elora Kang, a resident of Roch- While 211 is the publicized PIC 2019, CAHOOTS teams, each ester’s Corn Hill neighborhood, number, 911 is the line that ac- made up of a medic and a cri- says she was “elated” about the tually dispatches PIC workers. sis worker trained in de-esca- launch and watched the press Some of the early mishaps may lation, responded to 24,000 conference live, hopeful the team be due, in part, to a lack of clarity calls—about 20% of all 911 calls could help people struggling to from city government about the in the area. Fewer than 1% of access mental healthcare. But a PIC team’s jurisdiction and the calls to CAHOOTS required recent experience has deflated relationship between 911 and 211. police assistance. her enthusiasm. Residents and organizers also PIC is now in a 180-day pi- On January 28, Kang called worry the program’s strict eligi- lot phase, which administrators 211 to help a friend and neigh- bility criteria could prevent peo- say will likely extend to perma- bor in crisis, but no PIC agents ple who need care from getting nent implementation. RPD and were available after 45 minutes. it. Individuals who are under DRHS did not respond to re- Soon, another neighbor called the influence of drugs or alcohol quests for comment. the police; seven officers ar- have been told they are ineligible Despite initial disappointment, rived in minutes. for PIC assistance. Martin isn’t giving up. “We do Kelly Ann Sciarratta, who “They need to change those see hope on the horizon,” Mar- works at a Rochester detox cen- harsh stipulations,” Kang says. tin says. “With adequate funding ter, has had similar experienc- “That’s the whole point of a men- and adequate resources, the [PIC] es. She says the PIC idea “sounds tal health crisis [response team]. program could be successful.” like a dream,” but so far, the pro- You need to think of the demo- SAM MELLINS is an NYC-based jour- gram has fallen short. Sciarrat- graphic of folks that you are try- nalist and associate editor of New

LIBBY MARCH/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES ta has called for crisis response ing to help.” York Focus.

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 11 VIEWPOINT

ANOA CHANGA among other measures aimed toward voter suppression. Conservative pundits in- Georgia Needs More sist the critics are exaggerat- ing, cherry-picking examples to Than Virtue Signaling show that the law isn’t that bad. (They also use distractions, like he scourge of ing rights should be compared attacking Major League Base- disinformation has to the way Southern white poli- ball’s decision to move its All- risen from campaign ticians blocked Black voters af- Star Game out of Georgia and tactic to major civ- ter Reconstruction. New York into Colorado, as a smoke- ilT rights issue in Georgia. False Times columnist Jamelle Bou- screen.) An April 5 editorial in claims of voter fraud are be- ie agrees, noting that Jim Crow the right-leaning New York Post ing used as justification to laws did not explicitly ban Black even claimed New York has challenge existing voter pro- people from voting but were stricter election laws than Geor- tections, opening the door for more insidious—using “a web gia—completely ignoring New voter harassment and intimi- of restrictions and regulations York’s new suite of election re- dation. Even nonpartisan or- meant to catch most Blacks (as forms meant to expand voting ganizing efforts—such as access in the state. “line warming” activities, like We cannot allow these mis- passing out water to voters to characterizations to gain encourage civic engagement— ground. are being attacked. Georgia is a microcosm of a With the passage of Geor- crisis of democracy across the gia’s SB 202 (which Repub- country. Every other issue of so- licans titled the Election cial justice, from workers’ rights Integrity Act of 2021) and simi- to economic and reproductive lar bills underway in Missouri, justice, connects back to voting Florida and other states, the rights and ballot access. All of GOP is clearly striving to sup- the new momentum for justice press the vote. In this way, the well as many whites) and keep for Black, Brown, Indigenous Right is following its decades- them out of the electorate.” and other marginalized com- long legacy of shoring up its de- Now, those same strategies munities is at stake. Some of the ANOA clining support by preventing are underway in Georgia. same donors and entities that CHANGA access to voting. “I don’t want Again. have led obstructionist fights is an Atlanta- everybody to vote,” right-wing The 98-page Georgia law against equity and justice— based indepen- strategist Paul Weyrich said in launches a raft of provisions such as DonorsTrust and Susan dent journalist, 1980. “As a matter of fact, our that will prevent Black peo- B. Anthony List—are the ones focused on leverage in the elections quite ple from democratic partici- now challenging the expansion voting rights candidly goes up as the voting pation. In its sights is Fulton of voting rights and democracy. and electoral populace goes down.” County, home to Atlanta and While much of the recent lib- justice. A re- The floodgates for these re- a large share of Black voters, eral focus on “saving democ- tired attorney, cent bills opened in 2013, when which former President Don- racy” has fixated on Congress she hosts The Way with Anoa the Supreme Court decision ald Trump targeted in 2020 and the presidency, it is the podcast. Chan- Shelby County v. Holder re- with false claims of ballot states that run elections and ga has bylines scinded the parts of the Vot- stuffing and fraud. decide who does and does not in Truthout, ing Rights Act of 1965 that had Now, the state will be able to wield the right to vote. Right- The Appeal, addressed racial voting dis- take over local boards of elec- wing political movements have Essence, and crimination in the South. Ac- tion as well as prohibit third- long recognized state-level Scalawag cording to Cliff Albright of the party funding for election power, with organizing efforts Magazine. Black Voters Matter Fund, to- administration (from non- that have yielded GOP control day’s attacks against Black vot- partisan grants, for example), in 23 states—where legislators

12 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 THE BIG IDEA and governors are attacking line to their constantly rotating workforce. racial, gender, economic and ci•vil•ian We need something that offers good wages social justice. and a long-term commitment for projects Well-meaning liberals have clim•ate corps with substantial local support and input. rushed to declare boycotts noun An alternative model is the one allud- ed to in the name: the Civilian Conservation against Georgia tyranny, but a A new, national program to put 1. Corps (CCC), established by FDR in 1933, boycott without a strategic eco- Americans to work on environ- which employed around 3 million men in nomic objective will leave im- mental projects that slow cli- its nine years. Roosevelt’s famous “Tree pacted communities in the mate change and mitigate Army” planted 3 billion trees in that lurch. In op-eds and social me- its effects. time as part of the program. dia posts, people continue to + Is this an actual thing California already has a state ver- invoke images of famous boy- yet? Kind of, yes! President sion of this. More than 120,000 cotts, strikes and related ac- Joe Biden’s January executive people have served in the California tions—without engaging with order on climate change quietly Conservation Corps in its 45-year history. the organizing behind those fa- directed the Secretary of Agriculture and Members get a monthly stipend of $1,905 mous moments. Now is not the the Secretary of the Interior to draw up plus health insurance. time to cosplay as our heroes; plans for a Civilian Climate we must take the lessons from Corps to “mobilize the next Young people need jobs [and] their work and lives in full. generation of conservation “ Organizers of color, especial- and resilience workers.” time with each other, and the ly, are fighting back against SB There are plenty of ideas land needs healing. But the 202. So far, Georgia civil rights for what these workers devil will be in the detail. The organizations have collectively could do: “Conserve and re- filed four lawsuits challenging store public lands and wa- jobs have to pay a living wage … the Georgia law. In the mean- ters, bolster community [and] no green colonialism. time, local organizers contin- resilience, increase refor- ” —NAOMI KLEIN, JOURNALIST AND ACTIVIST ue their year-round work to estation, increase carbon expand civic engagement and sequestration in the agricul- tural sector, protect biodiversity, improve + How do we avoid the mistakes counteract the stifling of the access to recreation, and address the of New Deal-era programs? While Black vote. At the federal level, changing climate.” Roosevelt’s CCC enjoyed broad popularity, it the For the People Act of 2021 The bigger question is how to make it had problems. Work camps were segre- could alleviate many of the is- happen. It’s possible we could see more de- gated and women were excluded entirely. sues raised by Georgia law. The tails emerge in a Biden infrastructure plan. Eleanor Roosevelt’s “She-She-She” camps, John Lewis Voting Rights Ad- the equivalent program for women, were vancement Act, named after + So, like AmeriCorps, but for the cli- short-lived. Most of the projects ultimately the late congressmember and mate? Ideally, no. AmeriCorps and other benefited predominantly white, rural areas. civil rights icon, would help cor- service programs geared toward young The new Civilian Climate Corps must cen- rect the injustice of Shelby. people dole out grant funding to nonprofits ter Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous for them to pay a stipend near the poverty Fighting voter suppression communities, which have been dispropor- and protecting democracy re- tionately affected by environmental injus- quires more than virtue sig- tice (and Covid-19). That means ensuring the jobs themselves are well-paying and naling and canceled baseball open to everyone. It also means the proj- games. It requires listening to ects must address issues like Indigenous people directly impacted on the land sovereignty and remediation in fence- ground. A larger battle is loom- line communities. ing that needs our collective at- According to recent polling from Data tention. Free and fair elections, for Progress and The Justice Collaborative and democratic participation, Institute, 79% of likely voters support the are not partisan activities; there creation of a Civilian Climate Corps. If done can be no common ground right, it could be a game-changer. with those who restrict people’s rights through deceit. ILLUSTRATIONS BY TERRY LABAN

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 13 THIS MONTH: UP FOR DEBATE Biden’s tax credits for the poor AN OPEN FORUM FOR PROGRESSIVE CONVERSATION

PREMILLA NADASEN Just Give People Money resident Joe constant hurdles and mea- it because of racism, lack of Biden’s $1.9 tril- ger monthly assistance, TANF training or education, discrim- lion American Res- has been of limited benefit to ination, illness, a history of in- cue Plan expands two the poor (though huge sums of carceration or household care taxP credits for parents and low- TANF funding have been spent responsibilities—receive no income workers—tax credits on such “assistance” as mar- EITC benefit. We need a sturdi- being the go-to method to “res- riage classes). er safety net for them. cue” Americans from pover- Meanwhile, tax credits like Obscured, too, in all this ty for the past several decades. the EITC deflect from the real discussion about jobs and tax But as much as poor people problem—low wages. Why credits, are the workers (often need that money, tax credits should the government provide underpaid or unpaid) on the still fail to address fundamen- a subsidy for working Ameri- other side: the household la- tal problems: Not everyone can cans? Why aren’t workers paid bor to care for the young, the work, and work often doesn’t enough to not live in pover- elderly, those with disabili- pay a living wage. ty in the first place? The seem- ties. Both welfare rights activ- The expansion of the Child ing contradiction between a ists in the 1960s and “Wages Tax Credit (CTC) will include booming stock market and for Housework” movement more money for poor families stagnating wages is not a con- activists in the 1970s insisted with children. The expansion of tradiction at all; low wages are that household labor and child PREMILLA the Earned Income Tax Cred- simply more profit for share- care—for one’s own family NADASEN it (EITC) makes more work- holders. The EITC then serves or another’s—should receive is a profes- ing, childless people eligible for as a taxpayer-funded subsidy a living wage. Undocument- sor of history more federal money. for cheapskate employers. Sub- ed care workers are especial- at Barnard First enacted in 1975, the sidizing low-wage work doesn’t ly vulnerable to exploitation College. She EITC was conceived as a way solve the problem of low wag- (and yet undocumented work- has published to get people in low-paying jobs es; it encourages the expansion ers were all but shut out of extensively on off welfare, which faced push- of low-wage work. pandemic relief). the multiple back premised on racist argu- One clear solution is to raise With the pandemic shut- meanings of ments that stereotyped African the minimum wage. Although down of schools and day cares, feminism, alternative labor American and other women of the $15 wage didn’t make it America is finally waking up to movements color as lazy. The conversation into the American Rescue the “essential” nature of this and the ways presaged the 1996 demolition Plan, progressives have not work. According to the Nation- in which poor of welfare in favor of the Tem- given up the fight. al Women’s Law Center, more and working- porary Assistance to Needy But even a higher minimum than 2.3 million women have class women Families (TANF) program, a wage doesn’t account for those left the labor market since the of color have “welfare to work” model that unable to work. The EITC em- onset of the pandemic. fought for attaches work requirements phasizes “earned income.” The The $775 billion Biden social justice. and a five-year lifetime limit to marginally employed—those pledged for care labor on the benefits. With its asinine rules, who seek work but can’t find campaign trail is direly needed

14 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 Biden expanded the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Are they the best way to lift people out of poverty?

but was absent from his Ameri- mum income. The targeted er know when they might be can Jobs Plan (except for an ex- and means-tested welfare sys- laid off, evicted, unexpected- pansion of home healthcare tem designed nearly a century ly need child care or receive an under Medicaid). ago was for an economy better unpayable medical bill. The CTC begins to address equipped to ensure long-term We need an anti-poverty this. It has no earnings require- stable employment for most plan without conditions. One ment and allocates a generous Americans. Job insecurity, low attuned to the challenges of $3,000 per child ($3,600 for wages, marginally attached our uncertain times. One that children under 6) but its expan- workers, and an unmet need recognizes the paid and un- sion is a timid foray that phases for child and elder care are fea- paid care work that so many out next year. A slightly better tures of today’s economy. Black, people do. One not tied to age, plan comes from a surprising Brown and other communi- personal status, employment MAX B. quarter: The Family Securi- ties of color have been especial- or “worthiness.” ty Act, from Sen. Mitt Rom- ly hard hit by pandemic layoffs. SAWICKY ney (R-Utah), would allocate up Extreme poverty is on the rise. is a senior to $1,250 a month for families Tax credits and other assistance MAX B. SAWICKY research fellow with children. These payments programs have lifted the work- at the Center are not tied to employment and ing poor out of poverty, but not for Economic and Policy do not require filing taxes, so precarity. Many Americans are By All Means, Research. He function much like a univer- unsure if they will have a job Means-Test has worked at sal basic income (UBI) for chil- next year. The moment feels the Economic dren. Although Romney’s plan ripe for a basic income. or anyone who Policy Insti- would end federal funding for The stop-gap solutions of- has followed welfare tute and the TANF, it has no mandates, less fered by the Biden administra- F politics since the 1960s, Government scrutiny and is more dignified. tion to jumpstart the economy the prospect of a “children’s al- Accountabil- All in all, it is a better deal. Its may tide people over until the lowance” in the United States ity Office, and major weakness: It does noth- next crisis—but they will not is heady stuff. The expanded has written ing for people without children. resolve the deep-seated pre- Child Tax Credit (CTC), en- for numerous The best long-term solution carity of work and life that is acted in March, will provide progressive to poverty is a true UBI—or, a reality for many families to- $3,000 per child per year to outlets.

ILLUSTRATION BY KIM RYU at least, a guaranteed mini- day, one in which people nev- most families—including those

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 15 with no income—without a gressive change, including the but they are not and never have work requirement. At the same Electoral College, the Senate been. Each requires a worker to time, this welcome surge in pro- and the Supreme Court. Rac- “pay in” and report a record of gressive anti-poverty policy en- ism is a plague on our politics. earnings and payroll tax pay- courages some to “get out over And so, advancing the interests ments. They also exclude un- their skis,” so to speak. of the U.S. working class has documented immigrants and The U.S. welfare state is a relied not on big-picture sys- some unpaid caregivers in the cruel master, but it provides tem changes but on defensive home. And yet, Social Securi- benefits worth defending. In re- strategies, on preemptively ty and Medicare have still been cent years, the Left has risen making a claim as to why a per- the targets of attacks for de- up against means-testing, and son “deserves” assistance. cades (and, incidentally, the tar- more pointed attacks have been When it comes to supple- gets of now-President Joe Biden launched against the Earned menting market wages, the for most of his political career). Income Tax Credit (EITC). overarching defensive strategy It’s true that the public ani- Matt Bruenig, among others, has been social insurance. In- mus against welfare culminat- has been sounding this alarm stead of aiming for perfect, co- ed, in 1996, in the destruction in Jacobin magazine and else- operative altruism (the sharing of the leading means-tested where. Bruenig reserves partic- of resources without qualifica- program of cash assistance, ular venom for the EITC’s work tions or conditions), with social Aid to Families with Depen- requirement and phase-in of insurance, those who partici- dent Children, thanks to Pres- benefits, which “continue to ex- pate are guaranteed protection ident Bill Clinton. However, clude the poorest kids.” from adverse financial contin- the three largest remaining A common gambit by gencies—what President Frank- means-tested programs—Med- such critics is to unfavor- lin D. Roosevelt called “the icaid, the Supplemental Nutri- ably compare actually exist- great disturbing factors in life.” tion Assistance Program and ing programs to idealized, Despite being insurance, the the EITC—have grown signifi- non-existent and exponen- scheme is (intentionally) not ac- cantly over the past 30 years. tially pricier ones, such as a tuarially perfect: Those with The current progressive national Universal Basic In- lesser means pay less and get wind, however, encourages a come (UBI). A widely shared more and vice versa. That’s the yearning to forsake the defen- view on the Left is that univer- “social” part of social insur- sive postures of the past. This sal cash assistance programs ance—a feature, not a bug. view urges a precipitous rejec- would prove more political- In the U.S. public sector, the tion of past victories in favor of ly robust and reach more poor greatest source of measurable an overenthusiastic embrace of people than means-tested pro- poverty (and inequality) reduc- new, progressive paradigms. grams (like the EITC). tion has been Social Security, a In her column, Nadasen ad- Professor Premilla Nadasen social insurance program. vances several such ambitious takes this argument a step fur- The “defensive shield”—the paradigms. One is the goal of ther. She criticizes the EITC for ability to protect public bene- a guaranteed income. Anoth- failing to solve the problems of fits against attacks—is stronger er is wages for housework. At precarity and the proliferation for means-tested benefits, also the same time, she discounts of low-wage jobs. The EITC known as the safety net. The the value of the U.S. safety net, doesn’t cure cancer, either. Pub- design of means-tested bene- since it relies on means-testing. lic benefits are not a likely tool fits rests upon the premise that We should certainly consider for generating living wages, but the benefits are “deserved.” improvements in the safety net, they can supplement wages and This concession to popular but in the here and now, it still they can protect families from prejudice requires the bene- helps a lot of people. Means- financial adversity. fits be restricted to those with tested benefits are income But let’s step back. The Unit- low income—“means-tested”— guarantees by other means. ed States has never had a so- and, to some extent, condi- The EITC is real. UBI is not. cialist party comparable to tioned on paid employment. UBI exists nowhere in the Unit- those in Europe. Our labor Social insurance programs ed States except for the unique movement is a shadow of its like Social Security, Medicare, case of Alaska’s Permanent former self. Our constitution- unemployment insurance and Fund and a few rinky-dink ex- al system presents formidable worker’s compensation are periments in California. A UBI institutional obstacles to pro- commonly cited as universal— that genuinely provides a “ba-

16 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 sic” income—say, $1,000 a by questionable “pay-fors”— Meanwhile, sectarians on month—to absolutely every- cuts in other programs. As I the Left like to elevate ideal al- body would rival the size of the have calculated elsewhere, ternatives against the rotten entire federal budget. In that some of these cuts would status quo. Medicare for All vs. sense, UBI is a pipe dream—and have meant millions of sin- Obamacare. Socialism vs. bar- is especially intoxicating to lib- gle-parent families (most barism. What they are really ertarians who dream of it blow- headed by women, of course) against is pursuing meaning- ing a huge hole in their hated would see reductions in bene- ful, incremental reform. A rad- welfare state. By contrast, the fits and increases in taxes. ically different political period new CTC and EITC expansions Libertarians like the idea might offer bigger opportuni- fit within the federal budget. of UBI just because it elim- ties for substantial breaks with Nadasen also describes the inates other programs. And our conservative history, but EITC as a subsidy for low-wage embedded in right-of-cen- now we find ourselves in a life- employers, but this is an exag- ter child allowance advoca- and-death struggle simply to geration. Empirical research cy is natalism, the support secure the right to vote. shows the EITC does increase for a higher birthrate. I sup- With or without an expand- incomes and reduce poverty. pose it should be praised for ed CTC, the general paucity of And regardless, most any ben- its heroic efforts to sell a chil- U.S. social insurance and the efit—means-tested or other- dren’s allowance to conserva- scantiness of our safety net wise—enables lower wages. tives, but natalism supposes mean our remaining means- In the fantastical world of that America’s birthrate is too tested programs still provide universal programs, where “ev- low. I have to ask, if we want- essential sustenance to the erybody” is eligible, supposed- ed more children, aren’t there most impoverished members ly the program’s administration many families around the of the working class. would be easy and the politics world eager to move here? They deserve defense. congenial. But that’s wrong, too. Even on the “easy” side, there is no current mechanism to provide a cash benefit to “everybody.” There is no big list of everybody and their address. The SSA has no such list, and neither does the post office. The politics of “everybody” are harder. Does it include the foreign-born? The incarcerated? What looks like an obvious moral imperative to us on the Left is not seen in the same way by most Americans, and perhaps even more skeptically by their risk-averse representatives. We will see this divide when the Biden administration’s CTC comes up for renewal. Making the new CTC permanent would be, to borrow a phrase from Biden, a “big fucking deal.” By all means, we should embrace it—but we should mind the price the opposition would have us pay. Romney’s model, for example, has beguiled some progressives even though the proposal would be financed

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 17 WORKERS OF THE WORLD

18 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 UNITE AGAINST AMAZON

s this issue went to press, the votes were still being counted in the union election at Amazon’s 885,000-square-foot warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. But the histor- ic union drive had already nabbed global headlines and added fuel to ongoing workers’ revolts across the world. AStrikes by Amazon workers in Italy, Germany and India are coalescing into an international struggle against the world’s fourth-most valuable company and its grueling working conditions and intensive surveillance. Since the dawn of capitalism, bosses have found innovations to oversee and extract more work from the overstressed bodies of their labor force. But Ama- zon’s minute surveillance of workers—who, at the Bessemer facility, are mostly Black and women—would make the Stasi blush. At the com- BY LUIS FELIZ LEON pany’s warehouses, workers use hand-held devices that track their every move and assess their speed and accuracy. What is particularly novel about Amazon, as Joe DeManuelle-Hall writes in the movement publication Labor Notes, is how it brings together productivity innovations to create a regime of terror on the shop floor, with pressures that infamously force workers to pee in bottles rather than take breaks. Amazon, along with Walmart, its fiercest competitor, is the 21st century’s quintessential factory floor. Blue-collar Amazon workers keep the cascade of goods around the world flowing; they are the muscle that fulfills consumer desire as it barrels down the arterial lanes of Amazon.com. These ground logistics leave behind more than just pixel dust, wreaking devastating environmental havoc: a carbon footprint in the millions of metric tons, rivaling roughly the annual emissions of Norway.

Left: Wearing “angry Amazon” masks, demonstrators in Berlin lament Amazon’s poor working conditions with the motto, “Make Amazon pay.” The rally was in response to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos receiving the Axel Springer Award for his “visionary entrepreneurship” on April 24, 2018. MARKUS HEINE/SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 19 Through the alchemy of supply chain management, the A GLOBAL RESISTANCE goods sold through Amazon—everything from PlaySta- tions to yoga pants—travel via cargo vans, airplanes and orkers around the world—from Co- ships across a global infrastructure of roads, skies and lombia to Nigeria to Myanmar—have expressed oceans on their voyage to customers’ doorsteps. solidarity with Amazon’s workers in Alabama. Like the 19th-century workers forging steel for Andrew When Italy’s largest labor federation, Confeder- Carnegie, refining oil for John D. Rockefeller or building cars azione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (CGIL), went for Henry Ford, Amazon workers are up against a titan of in- Won strike March 22 at 15 Amazon warehouses (alongside oth- dustry: Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man in the world. Bezos er unions), workers carried a banner that read, “From Piacen- took advantage of the new and unregulated terrain of e-com- za to Alabama—One Big Union.” merce to behave as ruthlessly as those titans of yore. “Amazon workers in Europe understand that an orga- “Jeff Bezos and his crew of techies and quants simply nized workforce in the United States would be a game- did what robber barons have always done: Raise, spend changer,” says Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI and sometimes lose other people’s money, dodge taxes, Global Union, which has coordinated international Ama- swindle suppliers and avoid unions,” Kim Moody writes zon worker actions. in the essay collection, The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon Of Amazon’s estimated 1,538 facilities of all types world- in the Global Economy. wide, 290 are in Europe, 294 are in India, and 887 are in Now, understanding how critical they are to fulfilling Am- North America. The bulk of those are in the United States— azon’s promise of just-in-time delivery, Amazon workers are with more on the way as Amazon expands into urban areas. organizing for control of their workplaces. Their indispens- (Amazon also has a smaller presence in Brazil, Egypt, Ku- ability is their leverage to negotiate safer working conditions, wait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.) dignity on the job and pay commensurate with the value “The campaign in Bessemer has grabbed the globe’s imag- they’ve produced: $21.33 billion in net income for Amazon in ination,” Hoffman says. “It is an inspiration to see workers in 2020 (a $9.7 billion increase during the pandemic) and $67.9 Amazon’s home country, in a hostile environment, stand up billion more for Bezos’ already obscene oodles of wealth. for change. If they can bring the company to the table there, And the spark ignited in Alabama is catching on. Perry workers can do it anywhere.” Connelly, a 58-year-old Bessemer worker, says the union Above: Members of Italy’s Uiltrasporti trade union demonstrate for campaign received an outpouring of support from around better working conditions at Amazon as part of a 24-hour strike the world. He realized that, by challenging Amazon in the March 22, which included 9,500 warehouse workers and 15,000 South—a regional stronghold of anti-union fortification— drivers. Right: Organizers Syrena (left) and Steve, with the Retail, “we’ll be making a huge difference not only in Alabama, Wholesale and Department Store Union, greet workers outside an

but globally.” Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., on March 27. RIGHT: PATRICK FALLON/AFP T. VIA GETTY IMAGES, ABOVE: NICOLÒ CAMPO/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES

20 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 In the United States, labor law largely favors employ- and safety regulations. The unions say 75% of Amazon’s ers, with rampant illegal infractions against collective 40,000 delivery workers in Italy participated (Amazon bargaining rights common and punished by a slap on the claims that figure was only 10%). wrist. Amazon has aggressively exploited this advantage The strike snarled Amazon’s logistics operations, delayed to shut out unions, demanding nothing short of complete deliveries for days and prompted the head of Italy’s Minis- surrender from workers: “If workers became anything try of Labor and Social Policies to compel the company and less than docile, managers were told, it was a sign there the trade unions to negotiate. could be union activity,” according to a story in the New Like Hoffman from the UNI Global Union, Tartaglia views York Times. It doesn’t stop at union-busting. There’s also organizing in the United States as critical to worker power at wage theft: Amazon was fined $61.7 million by the Fed- Amazon internationally. “International solidarity is in our eral Trade Commission for stealing tips from its drivers. DNA,” he wrote of Italy’s trade federations. In Europe, Hoffman says, workers are covered by collec- International efforts against Amazon have been build- tive-bargaining agreements as part of sectoral bargaining, ing for some time. The UNI Global Union helped mobilize which enables unions to set standards for all employers in thousands of Amazon workers in four European countries an industry, regardless of union membership at any one in- to strike on Black Friday 2018. Like the workers in Alabama, dividual employer. But even with these safeguards in Eu- their rallying cry was, “We are not robots!” rope, sectoral bargaining isn’t a panacea. The grassroots organizing group Amazon Workers Inter- The Italian strike, for example, was mainly motivated to national, formed in 2015 in Germany, has brought workers “[improve] the general working conditions of the subcontrac- together from six European Union countries. In 2020, under tors,” according to an email statement from Leopoldo Tart- the banner of Make Amazon Pay, trade unions, warehouse aglia, a representative of CGIL’s international department. workers and activists came together in an international co- Most subcontractors in Italy have union representation as alition to coordinate strikes, work stoppages and protests part of national collective-bargaining agreements, but Ama- in Bangladesh, India, Australia, Germany, Poland, Spain, zon can still exploit loopholes, and self-employed drivers en- France, the U.K. and the United States. ter contractual relationships directly with Amazon. “Amazon is able to build power by operating on a global “Amazon has always refused to discuss with unions the level without opposition,” Casper Gelderblom, a Dutch trade conditions of the subcontractors,” Tartaglia wrote. unionist with Make Amazon Pay, told The Intercept in the fall The strike’s demands included a reduction in drivers’ of 2020. “We have to match the transnational scope of its or- workloads and hours, bargaining over shifts and sched- ganization with an internationalist strategy.” uling, and compliance with pandemic-related health Organizing at Amazon’s 233 U.S. fulfillment, supplemental

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 21 and return centers and 404 delivery stations was long nascent at best, giving Amazon an enormous buffer against international coordination. But the union drive in Bessemer, the first at an Amazon facility since 2014, may signal a tipping point. PANDEMIC PANDEMONIUM he International Brotherhood of Teamsters has begun conversations with Amazon delivery drivers around the country, as it considers Am- azon a drastic threat to the union jobs of its 1.4 million members. In Iowa, Teamsters are organizing hundreds Tof warehouse workers and drivers at Amazon distribution centers in Grimes and Iowa City. To avoid a drawn-out union election, they are threatening strikes to gain recognition. More than 1,000 Amazon workers reached out to the Re- tail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) seeking to organize in early 2021—galvanized by Bessemer—from Baltimore, New Orleans, Portland, Ore., Denver, Southern California and other localities. On Easter Sunday, 30 Ama- zon drivers in Rochester, N.Y., walked off the job. “This is lighting a fuse, which I believe is going to spark an explosion of union organizing across the country, regardless of the results,” RWDSU President Stuart Appel- baum told the Associated Press. Pandemic-motivated concerns also accelerated efforts to form worker committees, with organizing in Chicago and New York serving as two prominent examples of bottom-up resistance. Amazonians United, an autonomous, worker-led collective, formed in Chicago during a struggle for access to drink- ing water and air conditioning at Amazon’s delivery station DCH1 in April 2019. Amazonians United then used the leverage created by the pandemic to win paid time off for part- time warehouse workers. They won these victories through shop floor action. Work- ers occupied managers’ offices, walked off the job and coordinated a blockade in which a caravan of community supporters prevented delivery vans from leaving the warehouse. “When I say victories,” says a Chicano organizer with Amazonians United who goes by the nickname Zama, “Amazon never acknowledges our organizing as the rea- son for why it is that they made any change.” The company’s usual response, according to Zama, is that it was a problem management already had planned to change. “But we know it’s due to our actions,” Zama says. These worker actions, even if small and isolated for now at least, are threatening because they are ultimately about workers seizing control. Amazon’s model of maximizing profits at all costs depends on the total submission of its workforce, cheap labor and complete domination of the workplace. “That kind of control is at the heart of the Amazon enterprise. The idea of surrendering it is the company’s greatest horror,” according to New York Times technology reporter David Streitfeld.

22 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 “We need more control over our work,” Zama says. “We need more say over how we do our work.” He believes other Amazon warehouses can learn from the Chicago playbook of building up capacity to fight through small-issue campaigns, flexing their muscles to exert greater shop floor control. Through a sort of “propa- ganda of the deed,” workers across facilities in the Unit- ed States have reached out for guidance, finding common cause with the workers in Chicago, and a shared experience of grueling working conditions. “We’re sharing with fellow workers what we’re experiencing and how we’re resisting,” Zama says. These conversations, in turn, lead to organizing, or “guiding fellow workers [on] how to create basically their own Amazoni- ans United at their own facility, through issue fights.” In Queens, New York, Amazon worker Ira Pollock read news stories of Amazonians United in Chicago and Sacra- mento “fighting the boss to make changes in their warehouses.” Pollock and other workers formed an organizing committee and started using similar tactics, launching pe- titions for improvements on the job, marching on the boss to demand immediate changes, and building community to bind workers together as a fighting union. They staged two safety walkouts during the height of the pandemic and continue to organize new members. The Queens workers were so effective that a former FBI agent attempted to intimidate and interrogate Amazon worker Jonathan Bailey, who led the walkouts. Amazonians United has largely been focused on delivery centers—the last layover on a product’s trip from fulfillment center to customer delivery and the linchpin in Amazon’s last-mile logistics chain. Packages that arrive at a delivery station must be turned around the same day. Many are “cross-docked,” a model Amazon borrowed from Walmart, in which “goods move in one door and out another without being racked or stored,” as Kim Moody explains in The Cost of Free Shipping. That last mile in the logistics chain represents a key site of disruption. Worker slowdowns and sabotage could throw the whole just-in-time delivery service into disarray. “We are crucial to Amazon’s ability to deliver on its promises to its consumers,” Pollock says. “We have a decent amount of power in terms of whether or not it can fulfill those operations. So our goal is to use that power as workers to bring Amazon to the table and negotiate over our working conditions. “We also recognize we can’t do it at just one warehouse. So we need to grow.”

Above: A member of the Verdi trade union looks on outside an Amazon warehouse during a two-day strike in Werne, Ger- many, on March 5, 2018. The vest reads, “For better pay!” Left: Members of the Sommilito Garments Sramik Federa- tion in Dhaka, Bangladesh demand fair wages and union rights for all workers in the Amazon supply chain Nov. 27, 2020. BOTTOM: MAMUNUR RASHID/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES, TOP: GUIDO KIRCHNER/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 23 THE POWER OF A CLICK house—a sortation center—where it was sorted. It was then transported to the third kind of Amazon warehouse, an mazon has addicted its consumers to Amazon delivery center, where the U.S. Postal Service took speedy fulfillment. More than 150 million people sub- it the last mile to Nocera’s doorstep. Today, the package scribe to Amazon Prime, jonesing for the convenience would more likely be delivered by Amazon Flex (indepen- of one-day delivery. dent contractors) or Amazon Delivery Service Partners (a One of them is former New York Times colum- third-party contractor that hires its own workers). Anist Joe Nocera. In a 2008 panegyric, “Put Buyers First? This delivery process relies on seamless, interlocking net- What a Concept,” Nocera swoons over Amazon’s ability works of warehouses and logistic operations. to deliver on-time packages Christmas Day. In a good set “They’ve got to be able to fulfill these package orders to piece for workers to read aloud at picket lines, Nocera ef- different parts of the country,” Joshua Brewer, RWDSU’s fusively reports on the company’s rush to replace a Play- lead organizer, says about Amazon’s model. “It’s very simi- Station 3, his son’s Christmas present, that went missing lar to the automotive supply chains of the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. from his doorstep after delivery. He called Amazon cus- Those [plants] couldn’t afford to have kinks.” tomer service December 21, and workers delivered a “lit- Back in 1936, workers at General Motors recognized tle Christmas miracle” Christmas Eve. the leverage they had in Flint, Mich., and Cleveland, Let’s use Nocera’s order to illustrate how Amazon’s de- with a sit-down strike against the world’s largest com- livery network operates. We can follow the likely path of pany. GM, with 250,000 workers, was “not big but co- the PlayStation by drawing from the essays in The Cost of lossal,” according to Fortune magazine, which described Free Shipping, edited by Jake Alimahomed-Wilson and Ellen the company as “the world’s most complicated and most Reese, which describes Amazon’s delivery process in detail. profitable manufacturing enterprise.” After Nocera placed his Amazon Prime order, the deliv- GM plants, like Amazon warehouses, were sites of dismal ery process kicked off at an Amazon fulfillment center, one working conditions. “Where you used to be a man … now you of three basic categories of Amazon warehouses. At the ful- are less than their cheapest tool,” one Chevrolet worker said. fillment center, a worker picked the PlayStation and packed “We didn’t even have time to go to the toilet … if there it into a box with a shipping label. wasn’t anybody to relieve you,” one Buick worker complained. Then the box went to the next type of Amazon ware- Like Amazon, GM’s power seemed supreme. But organizers with the United Auto Workers (UAW) identified a key point of leverage: a vulnerability in the supply chain in Beyond the Corporate Media’s limited Spectrum: Flint and Cleveland, where GM stamped out auto bodies and parts for Chevy, Buick, Pontiac and Oldsmobile. The News That Didn’t Mae the News “We knew that if we could tie up these two shops, then General Motors would come to a halt,” said Wyndham Inside Project Censored’s State Mortimer, a leading UAW organizer. of the Free Press: The six-week sit-down concluded February 11, 1937, • The year’s Top 25 news stories, uncovering topics and and brought GM to the bargaining table, setting the stage issues buried by the corporate for the UAW to become one of the most powerful unions press; in the country. • Junk Food News—the The key, then, to defeating Amazon’s oppressive work sensational stories the system may very well rest on chokepoints like the delivery corporate news covered instead; and stations, where workers are as indispensable now as the au- • Media Democracy in Action toworkers in Flint and Cleveland were 84 years ago. —leading voices in promoting But no single delivery station has the power to bring Ama- relevant, trustworthy news and zon to a halt. Coordination across the United States and glob- critical media literacy. ally would be necessary. Some labor experts and organizers A timely primer on how to see a more recent precedent for this kind of coordination in identify—and contest—the corporate media’s narrow the solidarity actions of dock workers’ unions. definitions of who and what “Just as the labor movement has been successful in orga- count as newsworthy. nizing on the waterfront by employing internationalist strategies to slow the flow of marine cargo, similar strategies can “A clarion call for truth telling”—Daniel Ellsberg block or delay the flow of Amazon deliveries,” according to Peter Olney, retired organizing director for the International State of the Free Press 2021 Longshore and Warehouse Union, and union organizer Rand Available at your local book shop, Wilson in The Cost of Free Shipping. A 2000 strike by longshore workers in Charleston, S.C., or directly from projectcensored.org

24 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 Members of the Teamsters Local 630 rally in Los Angeles on March 22, demonstrating in solidarity with the “Bamazon Union” vote in Bessemer, Ala.

offers an example. International Longshoremen’s Associa- Julián Andrés Marval Arrue, a native of Venezuela, be- tion Local 1422 organized a picket in protest of a shipping gan working for Amazon in 2012 in Germany as a “pick- line at the docks using non-union labor. The largely Black er,” Amazon’s term for a warehouse worker who picks workforce faced off against state troopers who had helicop- items from coded shelves and places them in a bin for ters and armored personnel. That battle drew support from shipping preparations. Marval Arrue worked alongside longshore workers on the West Coast, who fundraised to immigrants from Turkey, Russia, Pakistan and Poland. In free the jailed Charleston workers. And “that kind of soli- Germany, he says, the workplace protections were strong darity effort caught the eyes of Spanish dockworkers,” re- and managers were forbidden from stringently enforcing calls longshore worker Leonard Riley, now 68. “They said, productivity quotas. ‘If their ships were [using] non-union labor in South Caroli- But when Marval Arrue began working for Amazon in na, they weren’t going to unload them in Spain.’ ” Spain in 2016, he encountered crushing workloads and The solidarity action in Spain was decisive in the dock abusive supervisors. One manager would “smash boxes if workers’ victory. They brought the rogue non-union shipping they weren’t prepared to his taste,” he says. line back to the negotiating table. These experiences led Marval Arrue to become a union “Charleston, South Carolina, was one of the major plac- representative with Confederación Sindical de Comisio- es that imported slaves,” Riley says, reflecting on the win. nes Obreras, or Workers’ Commissions, the largest trade “We were once the cargo on those ships. But now we control union in Spain. He got involved in international solidar- the shipping on those ships—thanks to workers’ organizing.” ity forums with Amazon workers across Europe and the Internationalism and the disruption of delivery stations United States. are complementary strategies. When German workers went “To hear all those stories,” Marval Arrue says, reflect- on strike in 2013, for instance, Amazon opened three fulfilling on the struggles of his U.S. counterparts. “That there ment centers across the border in Poland. To combat Ama- were double shifts, people weren’t given masks, no tem- zon’s union-busting tactics, workers must leave Amazon no perature checks, no disinfectant gel”—these gruesome re- safe harbor to divide and exploit workers. alities drove home a unifying consensus, from Spain to the United States, that “one of the most profitable companies DELIVERING THE FUTURE wouldn’t care about its workers.” “[As long] as not all Amazon warehouses are unionized ometimes, internationalism is built … the company takes advantage of that and does whatever into the composition of the labor force itself. Just as they want with overtime, working schedules and over-de- Amazon moves around the world—threatening to con- manding productivity rates,” Marval Arrue says. quer every node in the global supply chain and drive ri- “We never have to lose sight of what we can manage if vals out of business—so, too, have displaced workers we unite.” Smoved with it. That highly mobile workforce Amazon helped create may very well lend strategic leverage for workers to LUIS FELIZ LEON is a freelance journalist from New York City and

AL SEIB / LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES unite and fight the hegemon. an educator at Labor Notes.

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 25 FAMILY TIES The parents representing their trans children in Congress BY HERON GREENESMITH

irst-term congressperson Rep. The interaction is a microcosm of a larger culture war Marie Newman (D-Ill.) drew unexpected centered on transgender and nonbinary people, as vir- attention in February—both gratitude and ulence against gay, lesbian and bisexual people has lost virulent attacks—for discussing her transgen- its luster in stirring up the right-wing base in a post-mar- der daughter while speaking in favor of the riage equality era. Greene’s video is intended to shock, Equality Act in the House. to sow fear, to send a message—and to rally the Chris- “I rise today on behalf of the millions of tian Right. On video, she smugly dusts off her hands. Americans who continue to be denied hous- Attacking trans people’s right to exist has become ing, education, public services and much, a major rallying issue for the Right. Christian Right- much more because they identify as mem- affiliated lawmakers and advocacy organizations— bers of the LGBTQ community; Americans bolstered by anti-trans feminists, the alt-right and like my own daughter who, years ago, brave- QAnon—have begun in effect hanging signs like ly came out to her parents as transgender,” Greene’s across the country with their attacks on trans Newman said. “I knew from that day on, my daughter justice. Outside sports arenas, doctors’ offices, school- would be living in a nation where, in most of its states, rooms, college dorms and HR departments, they de- F she could be discriminated against merely because of mand: “There are only two genders,” “Biology isn’t who she is. And yet, it was still the happiest day of my bigotry,” and “You’re not welcome here.” life, because my daughter has found her authentic self.” On social media, right-wing outlets dominate the In response, first-term congressperson and QAnon conversation around trans rights. According to Bren- supporter Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) at- nan Suen, LGBTQ program director for Media Mat- tacked Newman’s family online by tweeting anti-trans ters, “Right-leaning pages earned nearly two-thirds of vitriol at Newman’s daughter, a college sophomore, in- interactions on posts about the Equality Act and 88% tentionally misgendering her. of interactions on posts about [Dr. Rachel] Levine,” the When Newman then installed the blue, pink and new assistant secretary for health and the first openly white trans flag outside her office, across the hall from trans person confirmed for any position by the Senate. Greene’s, the Republican legislator responded to the The Right has declared war on a community in des- symbol of equality with a pointed sign: “There are perate need of protections. Trans people face barriers TWO genders: Male & Female. Trust The Science!” and discrimination in every aspect of life, from jobs Greene recorded herself hanging the sign and posted and housing to healthcare, education and social ser- the video for her Twitter followers. vices. Three in 4 trans people report workplace dis-

26 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 A sign hangs on the wall outside the office of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) across from a Transgender Pride flag outside the office of Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) (R) in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill, on February 25, 2021 in Washington, DC.

crimination; 1 in 4 report that discrimination resulted CONGRESSIONAL TENSIONS in job loss. Trans people are three times more likely “You know, I’m immensely proud of my daughter,” to be unemployed than the general population, and Newman told CNN on February 25. “All anyone is ask- Black trans people are up to four times more likely. ing for is to be treated as anyone else and that’s what I Twenty-nine percent of trans people live in poverty. want Rep. Greene to see.” To be a trans person is to live with the constant Only a few months into her term, Newman gained na- threat of harassment and violence. The 2015 U.S. tional attention as a candidate going against her party’s Transgender Survey reports 46% of trans people had establishment in primarying an anti-choice incumbent been verbally attacked in the past year; 9% had been Democrat. She has yet to make her mark policy-wise, physically attacked. The list goes on. Their workplaces but after speaking in support of the Equality Act, New- are vandalized; they are denied healthcare; one-third man is on the radar of LGBTQ rights organizations. report experiencing homelessness; 40% have attempt- In a letter coordinated by Human Rights Campaign, ed suicide. When incarcerated, most trans people are an LGBTQ lobbying group, more than 2,800 “par- held in cells that don’t match their gender, making ents of transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive them highly vulnerable to sexual abuse (and often de- youth” thanked Newman for “publicly representing our nied hormone treatments). pride in and love for our children.” The letter goes on, Trans people, especially Black trans people and trans “Your presence in the Capitol gives us hope for the hun- sex workers, are statistically more likely to be murdered. dreds of thousands of transgender children and adoles- The Equality Act does not begin to solve all of these is- cents throughout our country and that they will soon be sues, but it adds a layer of protection by updating feder- treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve.” al civil rights law to prohibit discrimination on the basis Rep. Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. It’s a start. Caucus, tweeted her support to Newman as “the mom Meanwhile, trans people are notably absent in con- of one trans kid to another.” Jayapal was an original versations at the federal level. There has never been cosponsor of the Equality Act in 2019. When the bill a trans or non-binary person serving openly in Con- first came up for debate, she shared, “My beautiful, gress. But Newman—along with Rep. Pramila Jayapal now 22-year-old child told me last year that they were (D-Wash.)—is part of a small number of congressmem- gender nonconforming. The only thought I wake up bers (so far all women) vocally in support of their trans with every day is: My child is free. My child is free to

AL DRAGO/GETTYAL IMAGES and nonbinary family members. be who they are, and in that freedom comes a respon-

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 27 sibility for us as legislators to protect that freedom.” ADVANCING (Her child has since come out as trans.) TRANSPHOBIA IN THE STATES As Jayapal tells In These Times, “I think of [the family Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch ruined every- of trans people] as being bridges. ... We don’t yet have a one’s “fantasy SCOTUS pool” in 2020 by writing member of Congress who is trans, so the next closest is the decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, holding those of us who have [trans] family members.” that Title VII’s protection against employment Jayapal, who leads the left wing of the House as discrimination on the basis of sex also forbids chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is well discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation known within LGBTQ advocacy circles for her com- and gender identity. Legal experts say the rul- mitment to the kinds of laws and policies that would ing opens the door for stronger anti-discrimina- create a vital safety net for transgender people, in- tion protections in arenas beyond the workplace, cluding healthcare, anti-poverty, migrant justice and such as housing, banking and healthcare. justice for those harmed and targeted by law enforce- The Christian Right responded by ramping ment. She introduced the House Medicare for All bill up its anti-trans attacks. The number of state in 2019 and 2021, which would specifically prohib- bills directly threatening justice for trans peo- it discrimination on the basis of “sex, including sex ple jumped from 18 introduced in 2018 and 22 stereotyping, gender identity, sexual orientation, and in 2019 to 54 in 2020 and 73 in in the first three pregnancy and related medical conditions (including months of 2021. National organizations, such termination of pregnancy).” as the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family While only a few months into her first term, Newman Policy Alliance and the Family Research Coun- has been clear about her support for social safety nets and cil, are working with GOP state legislators to human rights. “Whether we are talking about LGBTQ+ push anti-trans bills. With a trifecta of control equality or ensuring affordable healthcare, progressive in 23 states, the GOP can push through anti- policies have always been about recognizing that there trans and other right-wing legislation. are millions of Americans in our own communities that Meanwhile, only seven states in the country are not afforded the same rights as everyone else in this even have a single trans or gender-nonconform- country,” Newman tells In These Times. ing person in the legislature (New Hampshire Newman is already a cosponsor of more than 100 piec- alone has multiple trans or nonbinary represen- es of legislation, including Jayapal’s 2021 Medicare for tatives). On April 6, Arkansas became the first All bill, Rep. Chuy García’s (D-Ill.) New Way Forward state to enact a law banning medical profession- Act (which would abolish private detention centers), and als from providing or even referring trans youth the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act to life-saving trans-affirming care, when the Re- (which includes explicit funding for anti-violence and republican-controlled legislature overturned Re- covery services for LGBT people, which triggered oppo- publican Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto. sition from the Right). In Mississippi (which, like Arkansas, is a Newman and Jayapal are joined by Rep. Jennifer state with no trans or nonbinary representa- Wexton (D-Va.), aunt to a trans child, in co-chairing tives and a GOP trifecta in control), a new law bans the Transgender Equality Task Force of the Congres- trans and nonbinary student athletes from playing on sional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus. In a public state- the school sports team that matches their gender iden- ment March 26, Wexton wrote that she hopes the task tity. Though opponents of trans rights often appropri- force can provide sustained resistance against the ate feminist language—claiming they want to protect “dehumanizing bills going through state legislatures girls and women—the Mississippi law goes further. As and false narratives being amplified by the Right and introduced, it required an assessment of a student ath- some Members of Congress.” lete’s “internal and external reproductive anatomy,” Rep. Greene is also not isolated in her party. Though “normal endogenously produced levels of testoster- the Equality Act passed the House, it is expected to die by one” and “genetic makeup” to determine their “sex” filibuster in the Senate. Several opposing congressional and team membership. The process sounds invasive bills, amendments and resolutions threaten to enshrine and violating for any student. (The much briefer text anti-trans discrimination into law—by withholding fed- of the bill signed into law does not delve into these as- eral funds from states practicing nondiscrimination, sessments, but the original version is telling.) “condemning” social media platforms for opposing an- Mississippi’s Republican governor, Tate Reeves, po- ti-trans attacks, ending public health insurance cover- sitioned this law as a reaction against one of President age for trans-affirming care, banning trans athletes from Joe Biden’s first executive orders, which reinforced the school teams that match their gender identity, and under- SCOTUS decision on trans rights. mining proposed federal nondiscrimination protections “But for the fact that President Biden as one of his through broad religious exemptions. first initiatives sat down and signed an executive or-

28 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 tion’—people with beloved trans family and friends—is wonderful,” trans civil rights lawyer and law professor Remy Green tells In These Times. “But it is no sub- stitute for trans people speaking and advocating for ourselves. And there remain tragically few trans voices speaking from positions of political or legal power.” Even when clear opportunities exist to bring trans and nonbinary people into the congressional conversation to talk about our lived experiences, Congress falls short. Out of the five witnesses called to testify in the federal Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Equality Act, only one, Stella Keating, is trans. The high school sophomore was forced to sit through anti-trans disinformation spouted by the two witnesses testifying against the bill, as well as the senators opposing the legislation. True justice is won by those who demand it. And there will be no justice for transgender and nonbinary people as long as others are making decisions for us. Without trans and nonbinary people making policy decisions and weaving gender identity into progressive policy—replacing neoliberal au- Elijah Baay, a student who is trans, attends a rally at the Alabama State House to draw at- thoritarianism with justice-driven tention to anti-transgender legislation introduced on March 30 in Montgomery, Alabama. democratic policy—leftist advoca- There are so far 192 anti-LGBTQ bills under consideration in state legislatures across the cy will fail to protect trans people’s United States. Of those, 93 directly target transgender people. right to live safely. A wave of trans people are running for local office—the start of der—which, in my opinion, encourages transgender- a potential, growing pipeline into higher office—and ism amongst our young people—but for that fact, we some are explicitly making these connections. Lawyer wouldn’t be here today,” Reeves said. (The term “trans- and activist Alejandra Caraballo recently ended a cam- genderism” is widely considered offensive and fre- paign for New York City Council that would have made quently used as an anti-trans dog whistle.) her the city’s first out trans legislator. “The fight for trans rights isn’t just about nondiscrimination, it’s about access to economic equity,” Caraballo BRIDGING THE DIVIDE tells In These Times. “We need our healthcare covered. “When it comes to my daughter and the experienc- We need to stop having our bodies policed. And most es she’s had over the past several years, without her I importantly, we need economic security so we can would not know the extent to which transgender Amer- thrive, not just survive.” icans face hate and discrimination every single day of their lives,” Newman tells In These Times. HERON GREENESMITH is an attorney, an advocate, an au- But as important as “bridges” like Newman and Jay- thor and the Senior Research Analyst for LGBTQI Justice at

JULIE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES apal are, they are not enough. “ ‘Secondary representa- Political Research Associates.

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 29 BY DHARNA NOOR Steel Mill to Windmills Sick of pollution, a former steel town fights for green jobs

arry Bannerman was 11 when his neighborhood, Turn- er Station, got its own beach in spring of 1964. “On opening day, it was a madhouse,” he said. “You could just barely see the water, it was so many people.” Across the water was the old steel mill, Bethlehem Steel, where his father and uncle worked. From the beach, its smokestacks looked like birthday candles that had just been blown out.

Bannerman’s brother, Butch, got a job as a life- Back then, Bannerman estimates, more than Lguard. But within months, Butch began getting 80 percent of the men in Turner Station worked large lesions on his face and infections that made at the plant, including his father. He would come his ear swell to four times its normal size. He home each day and collapse in the living room, wasn’t the only one. The town’s doctors called exhausted and short of breath. Often, he’d only up the county health department, which agreed have eight hours off between shifts. He died just that the water was contaminated. People suspect- two years after he retired. ed the steel mill’s runoff had something to do Bannerman’s mother was a member of the Turn- with it; they had seen how the facility’s emissions er Station Development Corporation, founded in filled the sky with thick orange dust that made the 1970s to fight for tenants’ rights, pushing the ab- it hard to breathe. (Water-quality studies con- sentee landlords and administrators of the two big firmed their suspicions years later.) housing complexes in the neighborhood to address By the following summer, county officials closed the asbestos-filled walls and faulty electricity. The the beach. But the mill remained open, spewing tox- tenants later turned to other issues of fair develop- ins into the air and water and exposing thousands of ment, pushing officials to replace broken sidewalks nearby residents and workers to lead, asbestos, sul- and drainpipes. The one entity they never went up furic acid and other chemicals that increased their against was Bethlehem Steel. “My mother and fa- risk of respiratory disease and cancer. ther used to argue,” Bannerman said. “My father would say, ‘Don’t make waves. I need my job.’ ” *** Bannerman was the only man in his family who TURNER STATION IS A BLACK ENCLAVE didn’t get a job at the mill. “Just looking at my in Sparrows Point, a mostly white, unincorpo- dad, I made my mind up I wouldn’t spend my life rated community just southeast of Baltimore. working like that,” he said. Instead, he worked for Sparrows Point’s Bethlehem Steel mill, once the Baltimore Gas and Electric as a utility worker and largest in the world, employed 30,000 people at then as an electrician. its height in the late 1950s. By the mid-2000s, the mill was cutting opera-

30 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 The Bethlehem Steel mill at Sparrows Point outside Baltimore stands in decay, pictured here in 2018. For decades, residents of the majority Black community of Turner Station worked in the toxic mill—toxic for the workers and for the broader community. America’s infrastructure depended on the sacrifices workers made, from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to the George Washington Bridge in New York, which both featured steel from Bethlehem facilities.

tions and laying off workers by the thousands. The employees at his former employer, Baltimore Gas industry was changing. The United States was be- and Electric, which provides mostly fossil-based en- ginning to favor imported steel from Europe and ergy. “That wasn’t even BG&E’s domain; the guys Asia. Bannerman’s brother, Butch, who worked at who came in just did it as an act of good will.” the mill, accepted a buyout equal to just a fraction of his yearly salary. His union’s membership funds *** were dwindling, so his pension got cut in half. In TODAY, TURNER STATION CONSERVA - 2012, the mill closed for good, leaving unemploy- tion Teams is led by a group of volunteer Black re- ment and environmental devastation in its wake. tirees from the neighborhood, and Bannerman The contaminated air, soil and water left residents spearheads their environmental work. With Mary- with increased rates of cancer, respiratory disease land Environmental Health Network, which has a and birth defects. research budget and staff, the organization suc- Bannerman, retired, is now in his mid-60s. He cessfully pressured corporations to re-line leaky still lives in his old neighborhood and sits on the storm drains under a local shipping facility that board of Turner Station Conservation Teams (the were spilling carcinogenic chromium into wa- successor to the Turner Station Development Cor- terways. With green groups Clean Water Action, poration), a local environmental group that works Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and the En- to clean, depollute and beautify the area and ensure vironmental Integrity Project—groups with full- that new development projects are environmentally time organizers and national connections—they just. They’ve formed many alliances, some less like- worked on a successful ban on crude oil terminals. ly than others. To procure needed streetlights, for On other issues, they played a supporting role:

JIM WATSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES instance, Bannerman relied on relationships with Bannerman assisted the youth-led environmental

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 31 still meant that somewhere people would be exposed to dangerous chemicals. The facility where the turbines’ fiberglass and resin blades were man- ufactured could still include smokestacks, though far fewer than those at Bethlehem Steel. U.S. Wind’s project could put thousands back to work, but some of those jobs would be tem- porary—some people would be out of work once construction was complete. Nevertheless, Bannerman and the Conservation Teams were on board. If U.S. Wind’s project was approved, they could eventually expand it, employing more people to set up more turbines that could create more clean energy. Other developers might follow suit and build new wind farms in the state. Maryland could become a leader in the new clean energy economy. To Bannerman, this seemed like an obvious win. But he would soon learn that not everyone agreed. Workers labor at the Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard outside Baltimore in 1918, the year Bethlehem acquired the industrial site. On a cloudy Saturday in March 2017, Bannerman drove two and a half hours to a middle school on Maryland’s East- organization Free Your Voice and worker justice ern Shore—10 miles from Ocean City, where the group United Workers with outreach in their suc- turbines would be built—to testify at a Maryland cessful fight against a proposed trash incinerator. Public Service Commission (PSC) meeting about The struggles were diverse, but most were the competing wind proposals. They met in the about what they didn’t want. So Bannerman was gymnasium, where the scene resembled a school curious when he heard that two companies had assembly, with five state commissioners seated on proposed separately to construct offshore wind the stage in suits and ties, and dozens of business energy farms in Maryland’s coastal waters. Deep- representatives, union leaders and environmental water Wind was proposing a 120-megawatt proj- organizers from local groups such as the Chesa- ect that they called the Skipjack Wind Farm. U.S. peake Climate Action Network, regional ones such Wind’s proposal would generate more than six as Clean Water Action, and national ones such as times that. Bannerman was even more intrigued Earthjustice, seated below. when he learned that the projects included a pos- Bannerman joined them in the rows of metal sible new steel fabrication facility in Sparrows chairs, and when his turn at the microphone fi- Point where the old steel mill once stood. nally came, he related his experience working In summer 2016, a representative from U.S. in the energy sector. He said he was grateful for Wind came to a Turner Station Conservation his job at Baltimore Gas and Electric. Like Beth- Teams meeting. He said his company’s proposed lehem Steel, it had provided thousands of people wind project could employ thousands. Its tur- with steady employment. But U.S. Wind could do bines would be made from imported steel, so fab- so too, he said—and without the enormous costs rication plant workers would only be responsible to public health and the climate. for assembly and wouldn’t be exposed to as many Bannerman took his seat and listened to doz- harmful pollutants—a major plus for Bannerman. ens of other Marylanders who supported offshore And U.S. Wind had the support of local unions, wind as well as a few naysayers. “There was one which could ensure workers had safe working guy who didn’t even live there except on vaca- conditions and fair wages. tion,” Bannerman said. The man was from Ca- Bannerman knew the projects wouldn’t be per- tonsville, a Baltimore suburb two and a half hours fect. Health regulations had gotten stricter since from Ocean City, and was nervous that the wind

Bethlehem Steel closed down, but imported steel turbines would be an eyesore. BETTMAN/CONTRIBUTOR/GETTY IMAGES LEFT:

32 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 A representative from U.S. Wind showed a ren- and federal levels. In a Maryland bill, state leg- dering of the wind turbines from the shore; each islators from Ocean City argued that the sight looked to be roughly the size of a fingertip. Ocean of the windmills would dampen tourism and en- City Mayor Rick Meehan found the rendering ob- courage visitors to head to the Jersey Shore or jectionable, but he was nearly the only one. Virginia Beach instead. In Congress, U.S. Repre- Bannerman left the meeting feeling confident sentative Andy Harris, a Republican from Mary- that the PSC would approve U.S. Wind’s project. land’s Eastern Shore who is backed by Koch But he and his fellow Turner Station Conservation Industries, introduced a federal appropriations Teams members didn’t rest. budget amendment to block federal funding for That May, the Public Service Commission inspections on windfarm projects located closer issued their decision: they approved both off- than 24 nautical miles from the coast. Those in- shore wind proposals to be built off Maryland’s spections are necessary for the construction of Eastern Shore. These wind farms would be the new wind energy projects, and U.S. Wind said the largest of their kind in the nation, with 77 tur- amendment would, in effect, kill their proposal. bines set to produce 368 megawatts of energy For the most part, these opponents weren’t “av- that could power more than 500,000 homes erage, ordinary people,” said Bannerman. The op- and reduce Maryland’s carbon output by at least position was driven by a few powerful politicians. 19,000 tons per year for the project’s twenty The proposed wind projects forged ties between years. They would create some 9,700 jobs for jobs and the environment—a divide Bannerman steelworkers, ironworkers, dockworkers and oth- had known since he was a child. Bannerman ers. Both companies would be required to make found himself allied with an organization he had use of the local port and invest in a Maryland- fought against on other environmental issues. based facility to assemble the turbines. For once, environmental organizations and labor After the PSC decision, opponents tried to unions were in agreement that no one could af- block the projects with two measures at the state ford to miss out on this opportunity.

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MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 33 and the machine—bigger lathes can weigh several tons—toppled. “One guy got pulled into it,” he THERE AREN’T MANY*** GOOD JOBS LEFT said. The worker hit his head on a part of the main Sparrows Point. In 2014, Amazon opened a chinery and was crushed by molten steel. A cor- product warehouse and distribution center, cre- oner came to the mill and pronounced the man ating hundreds of positions, but their workers are dead. “He was just gone,” said Beckman. not unionized, and the starting wage only reached Beckman sees all ironworkers as his brothers, $15 after years of worker-led organizing. “Unless but his union’s 300 apprentices are more like his you’re exceptional, you’re going to be staying at children—“grown, hard-headed children,” he that $15 an hour until a supervisor leaves,” said said, chuckling. Bannerman. “It’s not like if you’re a steelworker. Beckman still believes in the Ironworkers’ ap- It’s not like if you’re an ironworker. [It’s] not like prenticeship program’s ability to transform kids’ being an electrician.” lives. The four-year program allows students to Jobs at the Bethlehem Steel mill had been take night classes and earn a decent living dur- unionized, but hadn’t been easy. Black workers ing the day. Today, students’ pay starts around like Bannerman’s relatives were subject to dis- $40,000 a year, and it can double by graduation. crimination and were not often considered for the Still, without the steel mill, job prospects aren’t facility’s managerial or “skilled labor” positions, nearly as abundant as when Beckman was an ap- which paid the best and required the least expo- prentice. The opportunities that remain, con- sure to pollutants. But conditions were frequently structing bridges and other infrastructure, don’t dangerous for white workers, too. Will Beckman, provide the same level of security. As a result, the the president of the Ironworkers Local 16, who Ironworkers Local 16’s membership is declining. also testified at the hearing at the Eastern Shore Beckman is beginning to think about his re- middle school, knows that firsthand. tirement, but with membership dwindling, Beckman began working at the mill in the late there are twice as many retirees to draw from 1980s. One day, just a couple of years into his ca- his union’s pension fund as there are members to reer, Beckman’s co-workers were shaping steel pay into it. More work could change that, ensur- with a huge lathe. Someone took one misstep, ing that his apprentices can retire comfortably

Tradepoint Atlantic and U.S. Wind agreed in 2019 to convert the former site of Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point, outside Baltimore, into a wind energy hub. The deal includes an offshore wind farm as well as onshore manufacturing.

34 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 The proposed wind projects forged ties “ between jobs and the environment—a divide Bannerman had known since he was a child. ... For once, environmental organizations and labor unions were in agreement that no one could afford to miss out on this opportunity.”

in the future. Years ago, he’d supported the con- Beckman and Gauvin agree that the apprentic- struction of a new trash incinerator and liqui- es can’t wait for the wind projects to get under- fied natural gas infrastructure to create more way. “It’s a clean project. It’s new. It’s state of the “man hours” for his guys, but thanks to the work art. It’s adventurous,” said Gauvin, gesticulating of Bannerman, the Turner Station Conservation with his large, rough hands. “They want to be sev- Teams, and their allies in the environmental en hundred feet in the air out in the middle of the movement, neither was ever constructed. So he ocean, hooking that stuff up.” was cautiously optimistic when he heard about “Adventure,” said Beckman, chuckling. “They the proposed wind energy projects in 2016 at want to be that cowboy in the sky.” the Ironworkers Local 16’s union hall, and an- “I want to put my belt back on.” gry when, the following year, he heard legisla- “I’d be chomping at the bit to get a job like that!” tors were trying to stop them from being built. Ørsted, the Danish company that acquired Beckman, the Ironworkers’ apprenticeship co- Deepwater Wind in 2018, announced in March ordinator Jim Gauvin, and four of their nervous 2021 that they have completed a major renova- apprentices drove to Maryland’s capital to testi- tion at the new wind turbine assembly plant in fy against the measure to block the offshore wind Sparrows Point where the steel mill once stood. farms. They were joined by other members of The plant is expected to create 11,000 perma- the offshore wind coalition, including organiz- nent jobs. Bannerman, Beckman and Gauvin all ers from the local Pipeworkers, Operating Engi- felt somewhat reassured. neers and Electricians and Carpenters unions, “But there’s more to do to make sure these guys and Earthjustice. In the hearing room, Beckman work with the unions,” added Beckman. listened with pride as his four young apprentic- Bannerman agrees, but he is confident that es described how the turbines could bring them they won’t be alone as those challenges arise. the stability the mill had afforded their families “Everybody, every family in Turner Station, has before it shut down. With little fanfare, the Gen- somebody who worked at Beth Steel, who was in eral Assembly rejected the state bill in spring the union,” Bannerman said. “I think that there’s 2017, and a few weeks later, federal policymakers always going to be support from this community pulled Rep. Harris’ amendment. for those union jobs.” The effort to bring offshore wind power to Mary- land isn’t over. The two wind developers haven’t DHARNA NOOR is a journalist based in Baltimore, even broken ground yet, and in April 2020, the Md., and a staff writer at Gizmodo’s climate change projects were delayed due to complications with vertical. federal permitting. Then in February 2021, the firms postponed it again. Copyright © 2021 by Dharna Noor and The New The developers say the project is still on track Press. This edited excerpt originally appeared in The for completion by the end of 2026. But the delays World We Need edited by Audrea Lim and is re-

SHUTTERSTOCK make Beckman anxious. printed here with permission.

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 35 CULTURE

What Nomadland Gets Wrong About Poverty

BY ARUN GUPTA AND MICHELLE FAWCETT

or much of the past decade, we Many are caring for young kids or elderly parents, or reported on the human fallout of the helping the next generation through college. Great Recession, crisscrossing the Then there are the nomads that Zhao and Bruder country in a white Corolla nicknamed do not show in the imagined Nomadland. As of 2019 Cloud 9. We saw collective hope and ac- in Los Angeles alone, where most unhoused people tion in Occupy Wall Street, in low-wage are Black or Latino, more than 16,000 people were workers organizing and in a home-fore- living out of their automobiles. When Bruder final- closure defense movement. ly notices that people of color are “a micro-minori- There was desperation, too. Families in Califor- ty in the subculture,” she neither explores why nor Fnia pilfered napkins from McDonald’s for toilet pa- acknowledges other nomadic communities of peo- per. Warehouse workers near Chicago squatted in ple of color, like Latino migrant workers. abandoned homes. Couples in Kentucky scraped Zhao’s adaptation weaves facts from the lives of by on $25 a week for food. Many workers were in real nomads with the fictional story of Fern, played dire shape: cancer, advanced diabetes, respirato- by Frances McDormand. Struggling with grief over ry problems. Frank, a 37-year-old factory worker in her long-dead husband, Fern leaves Empire, Nev.— Indiana, had survived three heart attacks. Randal, a real company town that nearly collapsed after the an ailing 61-year-old retiree in Oklahoma, was try- Great Recession—and joins the nomad life of gig ing to eke out four more years of life so his wife, a work. The film lyrically portrays Fern letting go of Walmart worker, could qualify for his pension. the past and conventional burdens with wordless What would these workers think of Nomadland, reveries, wild panoramas, floating naked in a river the award-winning film directed by Chloé Zhao, and gazing at towering redwoods. based on the similarly named book by reporter But to make the on-screen fantasy feel real, the Jessica Bruder? real lives of nomads become fantasy. Fern doesn’t After the Wall Street casino went bust, Bruder struggle with injury or illness or fatigue or shame. took to the highway as well, in a white van named Most of her time is leisure, not labor: makeshift Halen. She profiled “nomads”—some who play spas, wildlife tours, park hikes, campfires, star themselves in the film—reduced to living out of watching. The cost of working the sugar-beet har- vehicles after losing jobs, savings, homes. They vest in Nebraska is the dirt washing off Fern’s neck. faced “impossible choices”: food or dental work, The reality for Bruder, “in reasonably good shape”

mortgage or electric bill, car payment or medi- in her thirties, was harsher. Of her first full shift, she STUDIOS CENTURY 20TH 2020 cine. But they embraced the minimalist lifestyle: writes, “My whole body hurt.” Injuries were com- © “You have a choice—you can be free, or you can mon. Most workers quit. be homeless,” says one. The film does show Linda May, a real-life nomad It’s a tiny subculture, as little as a few thousand who plays herself, confronting impossible options. people who are hired by campgrounds and Ama- Faced with living on $550 a month, she considers zon, “the most aggressive recruiter” of nomads. It’s suicide by booze and propane stove. But the many not an option for the vast majority of workers. Stay- tales of monetary woes in Bruder’s book are other-

ing close to doctors can be a matter of life and death. wise ignored. One character’s stint in the hospital PHOTO BY JOSHUA JAMES RICHARDS/

36 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 for a serious illness resolves without bills or mon- In the film, Amazon becomes as natural as the ey. Other nomads in the movie are motivated by in- land. Wide-angle shots of the Amazon warehouse dividual grief like Fern, not economic woes: the loss make it appear to rise up like the mountains in the of parents to cancer, a son to suicide. Nevada desert. It is a neutral feature on the terrain Fern turns down offers of housing, culminating that one can only navigate, not change. in her rejection of a gorgeous communal homestead To film inside a warehouse, the producers on a Mendocino hilltop filled with family, farm an- “made it clear” to the trillion-dollar corporation imals and laughter. Fern chooses to be a nomad. that Zhao’s “never going in with her films with an In the real world, many nomads desperately want agenda.” The tradeoff leaves Amazon’s agenda a house. One admits “there is not so much differ- front and center. It tells nomads they can “make ence between” the van dweller and the homeless new friends and reacquaint with old ones, share person. By making Fern’s story one of personal re- good food, good stories and good times.” It doesn’t sponsibility and freedom, the movie erases the tell them, as Bruder describes, of injuries incurred, causes of the nomads’ economic pain. Individual anti-union lectures from management, and “Or- suffering becomes individual triumph; the crisis of wellian slogans, including ‘Problems Are Trea- capitalism is also the solution. sures,’ ” plastered on walls. If nomads are refugees from the subprime mort- Gone is the Linda May of the book, who excori- gage crash, the perilous landscape they travel was ates Amazon as “probably the biggest slave own- shaped by the tectonic social upheavals that be- er in the world” and declares, “I hate this fucking gan in the Reagan era. Fern’s exile from Empire, job.” (Adding insult to injury, Linda May, playing owned by a gypsum-mining company, is a nod an edited version of herself in the film, is shown to the deindustrialization that accelerated under scanning goods—with no mention of the excruci- Reagan. The landscape of permanent homeless- atingly painful repetitive stress injury she incurred ness that nomads exist in was born of Reagan gut- from this work in real life.) ting funds for social welfare and cities. Nomads “There is no alternative” to an economy that trade leads on jobs flipping burgers at tourist spots crushes people as easily as it does gypsum. There Frances McDormand and cleaning toilets in national parks like they are only personal choices and quirks. Some peo- as Fern, who trade can openers for potholders at desert meet- ple are wired differently, some are brave pioneers, chooses life ups. Gig work is another Reagan-era legacy; his some choose to be homeless. America is a place on the road assault on organized labor made it easier for cor- where defining your own future is always possible— in Zhao’s porations to expand contingent labor. yet, somehow, forever down the road. Nomadland.

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 37 COMICS

MATT BORS

38 IN THESE TIMES + MAY 2021 COMICS MATT LUBCHANSKY CHARIS JB

BRIAN MCFADDEN

MAY 2021 = IN THESE TIMES 39 Our New (Old) Look

s a “deep dive into our archives,” ITT Creative Direc- adapts our “first-ever newspaper front page” to our current tor Rachel Dooley explains, our “In Those Times” sec- magazine format. tion is meant to offer a moment to reflect and “really The following excerpt from our debut issue—published embrace our 45-year history”—through words and November 15, 1976—articulates our commitment “as a social- A pictures. In this updated style, debuting here, Rachel ist organ of news and opinion.”

IN 1976, ITT WROTE: Capitalism is the cy in the everyday practice and in the con- unspoken reality of American poli- victions of the people. … tics. That is the one thing the major • We proceed on the premise that socialism is parties agree upon: praise capital- not the private property of self-proclaimed ism (not too often and preferably by vanguards but represents the struggles, the another name) but don’t discuss it. experiences, the thinking of the working Preclude serious discussion of the class and ultimately the entire people as a central reality of our times. … democratic citizenry. It remains to be seen whether the At the heart of our approach is the conviction Democratic and Republican parties that diversity is the soul and basis of any demo- will succeed in keeping corporate cratic socialist unity: power out of electoral politics. If they • The diversity of the working class now and do they will only be doing their job, of a healthy people in a socialist society and socialists will not be doing theirs. • The diversity within socialism—the diversity ... of ideas, outlooks, experiences, and values That job is to bring capitalism into politics as among socialists and socialist organizations the great issue of our time. This newspaper is Because these are our principles, we anticipate committed to beginning the job and to seeing and favor a diversity of movements for socialism it through. It is a job whose time has come. … that will have to forge unity among themselves The first step is to break with both the sectarian in mutual consent and with respect for differenc- legacy of the socialist left, and the timidity and in- es and disagreements. capacity of the social reform tradition. We intend We favor multiparty politics in capitalist to speak to corporate capitalism as the great issue America and in a socialist America. of our time, and to socialism as the popular move- • Finally, we are committed to the principle of ment that will meet it. … civic initiative through freedom of associa- • Our overriding commitment is to democra- tion, conscience, advocacy, and travel. We cy, to socialism as the means to its attain- take as fundamental the principle that sov- ment, and to the inseparability of the two in ereignty resides with the people, not with modern industrial society. the government, the state, the party. Cor- • We are convinced that capitalism is irrec- porate-capitalism has made the sovereign- oncilable with liberty, and equality, and ty of the people a dead letter. The socialism democracy. deserving our commitment will rejuvenate, • We recognize the urgency of moving toward honor, and practice it. socialism to preserve and extend democra- This is where we stand.

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