Louisiana Justice Institute Co-Director Honored as Black Leader

The Root, a daily online magazine published by Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive and edited by prominent academic Henry Louis Gates Jr, has has named Louisiana Justice Institute Co-Director Tracie Washington as one of it's "Twenty Leading Black Women Advocating Change."

The Root writes about Washington:

"After Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, Washington was displaced, like nearly 500,000 other residents. But the civil rights attorney returned to her native New Orleans and has been fighting for the rights of the displaced and disadvantaged there ever since. As president of the Louisiana Justice Institute, a legal-advocacy organization devoted to social-justice campaigns, Washington is working to make sure that New Orleans' most vulnerable communities have access to housing, education and health services."

Louisiana Justice Institute is a nonprofit, civil rights legal advocacy organization, devoted to fostering social justice campaigns across Louisiana for communities of color and for impoverished communities. You can follow their blog here.

Child Prodigy and Grandmother Show Hidden Face of Poverty

Marquise Cormier, in photo, shows posters announcing from his younger days as a child author and motivational speaker. Photo: Charlene Muhammad.

On the surface, Marquise Cormier seems like an average teenager—he’s happy, plays on his high school football team and likes going to parties. But underneath his 16-year-old shoulder pads is a weight of poverty and want brought on by the death of his grandfather and the severe illness of his grandmother.

The Los Angeles youth’s grandparents, Paul and Kenny Jones, had raised him since he was about a year old, at the request of Kenny’s son from an earlier marriage, who became the boy’s father when he was only 17. Marquise’s teenage mother did the best she could, Kenny said, but was simply unable to provide for him and her daughter.

The aging couple was uniquely qualified for their unexpected new parenthood of their grandson. Before retiring, both worked with young people. Kenny directed an at-risk youth center and Paul managed a gang intervention program in L.A.’s low-income and largely African American South Central section.

Marquise and his grandparents lived comfortably until Kenny, now in her late 60s, became ill, and Paul, in his mid-70s, died of a heart attack a year ago.

Prior to Paul’s death, he and Kenny relied on their two Social Security checks, and both Kenny and Marquise earned money through motivational speaking engagements and the sale of books they’d each written.

An Author at 7

By age 7, Marquise achieved recognition worthy of a child prodigy. To occupy himself on the weekends and stay out of trouble, the child entrepreneur bought wholesale products and created a company to sell them called Unique Treasures.

At the same age, he wrote the book, I Am Not a Problem Child (Milligan Books, 2002), about how he successfully fought his school’s plan to put him on medication and in special education classes.

Marquise was secure financially, mentally and spiritually in a home with two loving grandparents. He and Kenny were inseparable.

Then, in August 2009, Kenny began bleeding from her brain. About three weeks after she returned home, she was hospitalized again due to a severe allergic reaction to medication she took for an unrelated infection. Kenny found she’d developed a rare condition called Steven Johnson Syndrome, which causes severe allergic reactions to medication. She fell into a coma for 21 days, and emerged from it partially blind. Today, she continues receiving treatment.

Marquise’s stability was shaken. Kenny was everything to him -- grandmother, caregiver, publicist, manager, transporter and cheerleader. His grandparents meant a lot to him. The proud grandmother chronicled his life and accomplishments in several large-sized photo albums and scrapbooks, volumes that eventually took on special meaning for him.

“To go from where I was has been very, very difficult for me because I can’t see,” Kenny said. “I’m not able to get around like I used to, and I do things around my house based on memorization.”

Payday Loan “Hell”

Kenny detailed how her life with Marquise spiraled downward after Paul’s death. “Here I am, basically handicapped. I don’t have any money.”

Besides the emotional blow, Paul’s death slashed the household income by $3,000 a month – Paul’s Social Security and disability checks.

Her remaining income “doesn’t go very far,” she said. “It totals $1,164, and I still have a grandson I need to take care of.”

Kenny worried over costs, such as her past-due gas bill of $94 and utility bills. “I’m not able to help Marquise buy anything like I used to, nor take him around where he was very independent and earned his own money,” she said, adding: “Sometimes I feel very inept and inadequate. But I say, to God be the glory.”

A devout person, Kenny stressed that she doesn’t throw “pity parties,” and doesn’t blame God for her troubles.

Kenny tried to hold on to the home she and her husband had rented for years, but her reduced income made that hard.

Now, living at a low-income housing unit for seniors, she recalled, “When I came in here, I was so behind in debt due in part to medical bills after my husband died, I started getting payday loans, and that is bondage. That is straight out of the pit of hell! I found myself having to go back and continuously get a payday loan to pay off another payday loan, and another, and that’s how I had to balance it for a while to pay off all the payday loans,” she said.

Although Kenny was able to move into the senior complex, her lease agreement restricts the number of days visitors can stay overnight. As a result, Marquise must shuttle between her apartment and the homes of his maternal grandmother— who is also stretched thin helping both him and her other grandchildren.

“He’s Changed”

“He’s changed,” Kenny said of Marquise. “He’s not a little boy anymore.”

She lamented, “Here he is, a junior in school. It’s winter time. He only has two pair of long pants that he’s outgrown because over the summer he shot up. He got thicker and taller. He has about two pair of sweats, one pair of jeans and some shorts. He has no clothes because I don’t have the money right now to let him go buy three or four pair of slacks. He plays football, and he does not complain because he wasn’t raised that way.”

Despite their hardships, Jones said she gets by because of her faith in God and help from family. Her daughter and a few friends make sure they have food, she said.

Marquise said he views the ordeal as a blessing in disguise because it helped him to mature. In these tough times, he said, he began to understand life in a different way and view it from others’ perspectives and experiences. He feels he became more humble and less selfish, and that the experience built up his leadership skills.

Marquise started taking buses and learned “when and when not to use my resources,” he said. He began selling candy because “I didn’t have any money at all to eat. I had to go the whole day without eating until I got home and hopefully, there was something to eat,” he said.

“It was just a process of me becoming I guess a man, if that’s what it is,” Marquise said.

He continued, “I adjusted by staying with God, first of all. That’s what kept me grounded and focused on what I needed to do. . . . I had to really sit down and think about what’s going to happen. What’s not going to happen. What I was going to allow to happen. What I cannot control and how to accept that.”

“This is Who I Am”

Marquise also found strength in the scrapbooks his grandmother had put together.

“I really went back to my book and was like, man, so this is who I am. This is what I really am, and I’ve got to prove to people this is who I still am. I really have a talk with myself,” he said.

Wistfully Marquise recounted: “Sometimes, subconsciously, I’d walk around with my shoulders back and my head up like, yeah, I’m not a problem child. I used to do the speaking engagements. I used to sign autographs all the time. Every time I sign my name on a paper, I write in cursive just because I feel like I’m signing a book again, and I feel like it’s my signature and it’s important.”

“I never thought I’d be in the situation I’m in now, looking back on my life,” said the 16- year-old.

Charlene Muhammad wrote this series through a New America Media Fellowship on the Hidden Face of Poverty. Part 2 will show that Marquise and his grandmother are far from unique, as generations struggle to get by in America.

Charlene Muhammad wrote this series through a New America Media Fellowship on the Hidden Face of Poverty. Part 2 will show that Marquise and his grandmother are far from unique, as generations struggle to get by in America. Read Part 2 here.

Exit Interview

Because she has been deemed a suspicious person, I am uncomfortable using her real name. For the purposes of this tale, I will call her “Sara.”

She is a Canadian, and she had come to the Rio Grande Valley with eight other colleagues to see what she could learn about how our community cares for its children. She is a physician, and her life’s work is to care for others. In her case, she carries a special interest in the poor and to the little ones—those who are “other” in our health care system.

Sara is also a faithful Muslim woman, someone who each day wears a hijab, a veil, which covers her hair.

Last week, we traveled together to Austin, to participate in a march protesting Texas’ pending anti-immigrant legislation.

It was 4am when we hit the highway in Brownsville, aiming to join the march by noon.

“Ok,” I said, driving north, “I know nothing about Islam. Help me understand.”

“OK,” she echoed, and for the next five hours we talked about God and faith and community, about mercy and forgiveness, about hard choices and fundamentalists.

We covered prayer and fasting, the Muslim restrictions on interest (on loans) and its insistence on charity.

The conversation circled again and again to the basic tenet of religious faith—it is love in action that frees us from ourselves, and brings us peace.

After a couple of hours, it was Sara’s turn to drive. We had been discussing the notion of submission as the key virtue in Islam as she put the car into gear. She went from 0 to 70 miles an hour in fifteen feet, cutting off a tractor trailer, merrily skipping up the entrance ramp onto the expressway. “My mom is a driving instructor,” she noted, as the tires squealed, “but I never really got the hang of driving.”

I submitted myself, rather irreligiously, to total body fright, as she cut across two lanes of traffic and settled into the last part of the drive.

When I recovered my breath, I asked her about women’s role in Islam.

She smiled and said, “Let’s start with the veil—it is my choice to wear hijab, and to follow this commandment from God. It reminds me of my faith, it’s like the veil that nuns wear and orthodox Jews. With the veil, I can be an ambassador of Islam to those around me. And because women have become objects in this society—judged on their looks—the veil takes me away from the superficial realm and allows me to be judged based on my character, on my contributions to society and not on my appearance. It is a form of modesty in the midst of a world that seems to have lost its mind. It is not just my head that I cover—I take care not to put my body on display. It is a way to help me and others keep the right focus in life.”

I discovered that Sara talked the same way that she drove—quickly and daringly. Unlike her driving, which had made me think about whether or not my will was up to date, the conversation with her left me thinking about life and all of its possibilities.

We made it back to Brownsville; Sara and her colleagues finished up their work and their month-long coursework. They were impressed by the solidarity in the border communities, worried about children held in detention, overwhelmed by the need and the lack of resources. It seemed to me, as well, that they had fallen in love with this corner of the United States.

Sara was the last one to depart. As she approached airport security, she realized that she was going to have to submit to the indignity of the body scan machine. Like everyone else that was traveling that day, she was electronically strip searched. Sara’s one consolation was that she would, at least, be spared the shame of being patted down.

But no, her silken-polyester veil, although worn as an effort at modesty, and as a sign of respect for others, made her “other”, and, therefore, suspicious. She was pulled out of line. Her head was patted down, a silly, demeaning act, given that the scanner had already searched her entire body. There were no scanner-invisible weapons concealed under her scarf, and Sara was allowed to head home to Canada.

Sara called it her exit interview from the course on the Valley, for she had come to our home to discover what it was like to be outside systems of care, to be “other.” As she left, she was examined and judged to be, “other.”

The lessons of that experience would take hours to tell, and I pray one day to get to have that conversation with her.

This post was written by Michael Seifert, originally posted on his blog, Musings Alongside the Border.

Raising Hope featured on KNME's New Mexico in Focus

KNME, Albuquerque’s PBS station, released video of its recent show featuring Raising Hope: The Equal Voice Story. The episode aired on February 25, 2011 on the station’s public affairs show, New Mexico in Focus.

The show featured a panel of Equal Voice partners who discussed topics around the documentary and other policy issues in New Mexico. Panelists were: Diana Dorn-Jones of United South Broadway; Jeff Chalan, Equal Voice Participant; Marcela Diaz of Somos un Pueblo Unido; and Kathy Sanchez of TEWA Women United. The panel talked extensively about the 2008 Equal Voice for America’s Families campaign, the unity felt across organizations, races, and regions during the campaign, and the obstacles still facing New Mexico’s low-income families today.

New Mexico in Focus blog posts about Equal Voice:

Breaking the Cycle of Poverty and The Equal Voice Story Tie-In

Watch the show in segments:

1. Commercial for upcoming show.

2. Clips of Raising Hope: The Equal Voice Story.

3. Panel Discussion about Raising Hope.

4. A story about United South Broadway’s Fair Lending Center.

5. Panel discussion about the Fair Lending Center with same panel as above.

6. A story about breaking the cycle of poverty through community schools.

7. Panel talks about financing work on issues concerning working families.

State Groups Tackle Tax Fairness

This column appeared in the Fall 2010 issue of The Nonprofit Quarterly.

It’s July 2010, and organizers from 10 state-level grassroots groups have traveled to Washington, D.C. Rob Brown of Opportunity Maine is at the front of the room addressing the crowd. “Firefighters and other local law enforcement are key allies in property tax-cap campaigns,” Brown says, as listeners scribble in notebooks and clack on laptops. “Their perspective tends to be universally appealing to even the staunchest skeptic.”

At the event, Brown shared best practices and lessons from Maine’s successful campaign to defeat a property tax-cap ballot initiative with leaders of grassroots state tax-fairness organizations from across the country. All groups are members of the Tax Fairness Organizing Collaborative (TFOC), a coalition of 28 grassroots groups in 24 states working to promote progressive-tax reform. Progressive taxes, such as the federal income tax, require upper-income people to pay more of their income in taxes than those with lower-incomes. This is different from a flat tax, such as a sales tax, which applies the same tax rate to all individuals regardless of income level. Thus, flat taxes take a higher portion of income from low-income people than from high-income people.

The TFOC is a project of United for a Fair Economy, a national economic-justice advocacy organization. The TFOC operates in stark contrast to the brassy, anti-tax, antigovernment Tea Party. The TFOC believes that government enhances quality of life and that collecting government revenue through taxes is a necessity that should be done fairly, responsibly, and through policies that reflect our society’s values.

In some communities, organizing work to promote tax fairness has taken place for decades. But in early 2000, the movement came to a head, following the bursting of the technology bubble and waning government support for public services. As more people felt the effects of severe budget cuts and imbalanced tax policies, the movement gained momentum. By 2004 the TFOC launched to strengthen state-level efforts and facilitate connectivity across state lines. The TFOC has filled an important role in the progressive movement by providing a national infrastructure for tax-fairness organizers to collaborate, share best practices, problem-solve, and learn the latest in communications from pollsters and researchers. Through the TFOC, grassroots leaders regularly convene in affinity groups to tackle common issues, such as no-income-tax states, conservative states where taxes are limited, and states fighting corporate tax loopholes. The emphasis on grassroots organizing distinguishes the TFOC from other progressive tax-policy organizations and networks.

In the states, the tax fairness movement is firmly in place. And the work is more important than ever. From New York to Nevada, grassroots organizations have led the fight for progressive and adequate revenue to support the schools, bridges, parks, and other public resources that keep our communities strong. To a large extent, these organizations are part of coalitions that include teachers, seniors, human-service associations, community organizations, unions, faith-based organizations, and various nonprofit advocacy groups. A snapshot of the work taking place in states across the country paints a hopeful picture:

• Washington. Washington Community Action Network has led the field campaign to pass I-1098, a November 2010 statewide ballot initiative to cut property taxes and taxes on small businesses to benefit the middle class and establish a high-earners income tax for the wealthiest 1.2 percent of households (that is, families earning more than $400,000 annually, or individuals earning more than $200,000 a year).

• Alabama. Alabama Arise has worked to remove the state sales tax from grocery purchases and to pay for it by eliminating the state tax deduction for federal taxes paid, which benefits primarily the wealthy.

• Colorado. The Colorado Progressive Coalition (CPC) has co-led the fight to defeat three measures on the ballot in November 2010 that would cut state and local taxes, fines, and fees and prevent the funding of long-term infrastructure projects. CPC plays an integral part in the campaign to defeat these initiatives by running the fieldwork operation, coordinat- ing messaging throughout the state, and providing community-level education.

• Tennessee. Tennesseans for Fair Taxation’s overarching goal is to modern- ize the state’s tax system. This includes working to reduce the general sales tax, eliminate the tax on food, and implement a personal income tax with generous exemptions for low-income families.

• Nevada. The Silver State has been hit hard by the recession, unemployment, and the foreclosure crisis, particularly because of its long-standing reliance on gaming taxes and regressive sales taxes. The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada advocates creating new sources of revenue to support critical public services, including extraction taxes on the state’s gold-mining industry.

In communities across the country, great grassroots work is happening, but the challenges remain acute. As more families are having trouble making ends meet, countering the anti-tax rhetoric is particularly challenging. But we all have a vested interest in our government’s tax system, since fair and adequate revenue is critical for our communities to thrive. And through the tax fairness movement, state-level grassroots organizations and their allies are working to rebuild—from the bottom up—a more progressive tax system that reflects values of fairness, responsibility, and sustainability.

Karen Kraut is a coordinator at the Tax Fairness Organizing Collaborative. Shannon Moriarty is the TFOC’s communications director.

Don't Mess With Texas

Two weeks ago, the Texas Legislature began its session in Austin, the state capitol. The state is in big trouble.

Thanks to a series of foolish tax cuts set in place a couple of years ago, as well as the generally poor national economy, the state now faces a $27 billion deficit.

As the session opened, instead of focusing on this pending disaster a dozen legislators spent an enormous amount of time and energy in filing over 60 bills seeking to punish immigrants. Apart from insisting that local police do the federal government’s job of enforcing immigration law (without offering a penny in return for the costs that this would incur), the laws propose that teachers and principals investigate school children’s immigration status, and that the state tax any money being sent, for example, to a man’s hungry wife and children in Mexico.

The sheer number of the laws that were filed, along with the extraordinary nastiness of the language that followed their introduction, is alarming. Texas politics will always have a few ducks in the crowd, but the quacking has reached a deafening pitch.

The normal reaction to politicians and government waving big sticks is to duck and cover. We have learned, rather well, to be helpless in the face of undeclared wars and of macro-economic decisions.

This is particularly true for the “working poor” (as if a poor person living in Texas has any other option than to be working).

Last Saturday, however, more than a 100 folks braved a chilly, rainy morning to gather in a local Chamber of Commerce meeting room. They came to stand up and be counted in a rousing protest against the anti-immigrant legislation being filed.

There were the usual players there: the good guardians of the commonweal that are the churches and the community organizations. But on this morning there were also some less-typical voices.

“The Alamo Dollar Store denounces these laws!”

“El Gato Bakery formally protests the introduction of such legislation.”

“Papo’s Wrecker Service from Alton is against these laws.”

More than eighty small businesses joined in the protest against a series of laws that would cast suspicion over anyone who “seemed” to be of “foreign extraction.” They offered resolutions which were signed and delivered to our state legislators who came to meet with us, their constituents.

This was a week to the day that, in a similar gathering in Tucson, several people were shot while meeting with their government representative.Yet I found no fear in this room. What I did discover was outrage at the idea that someone would dare to mess with Texas.

Our Texas.

As I was leaving the meeting, I saw an older fellow that I knew from other protests. “How about them Cowboys?” I said to him, teasing him about the disaster of that football team.

“No te preocupes,” he said to me in Spanish, “¡Verémos el año que entra! Es el equipo nuestro--no se puede fallar!"

"That's our team," he had said, weirdly joining at least one part of his life to that of the East Texas legislator and long-time Cowboy fan who wants other Texans to fear this fellow.

The Spanish-speaking Cowboy fan said good bye to me, and walked out into the misty rain. He was smiling, his step confident. He had refused to follow the orders to "duck and cover."

It was a good day.

This post was written by Michael Seifert, a network weaver with Equal Voice in the Rio Grande Valley.

59% Hike? Thank You, Blue Shield Insurance

Insurer says the increases result from fast-rising healthcare costs and other expenses resulting from new healthcare laws. The move comes less than a year after Anthem Blue Cross tried and failed to raise rates as much as 39%.

Another big California health insurer has stunned individual policyholders with huge rate increases — this time it's Blue Shield of California seeking cumulative hikes of as much as 59% for tens of thousands of customers March 1.

Blue Shield's action comes less than a year after Anthem Blue Cross tried and failed to raise rates as much as 39% for about 700,000 California customers.

San Francisco-based Blue Shield said the increases were the result of fast-rising healthcare costs and other expenses resulting from new healthcare laws.

"We raise rates only when absolutely necessary to pay the accelerating cost of medical care for our members," the nonprofit insurer told customers last month.

In all, Blue Shield said, 193,000 policyholders would see increases averaging 30% to 35%, the result of three separate rate hikes since October.

Nearly 1 in 4 of the affected customers will see cumulative increases of more than 50% over five months.

While most policyholders received separate notices for the successive rate hikes, others were given the news all at once because they had contracts guaranteeing their rate for a year, Blue Shield spokesman Tom Epstein said.

Michael Fraser, a Blue Shield policyholder from San Diego, learned recently that his monthly bill would climb 59%, to $431 from $271.

"When I tell people, their jaws drop and their eyes bug out," said Fraser, 53, a freelance advertising writer. "The amount is stunning."

Like many people who hold individual policies, Fraser is self-employed. Others who carry such insurance include people who aren't covered by employer plans or who have been laid off.

The Blue Shield increases triggered complaints to new Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, and they could prove to be an early test of how the former Democratic state assemblyman deals with rate hikes and the insurance industry.

Anthem's attempt to raise rates by up to 39% led to national outrage and helped President Obama marshal support for his healthcare overhaul. The insurer was ultimately forced to back down, accepting maximum rate hikes of 20%.

Jones said the Blue Shield move underscored the need for the Legislature to give the insurance commissioner legal authority to regulate insurance rates the same way he does automobile coverage.

At present, the commissioner can block increases only if insurers spend less than 70% of premium income on claims. Jones' office said Blue Shield's March 1 increase was under review.

Photo: Dave Jones, CA Insurance Commissioner, says the Blue Shield move underscored the need for the Legislature to give the insurance commissioner legal authority to regulate insurance rates the same way he does automobile coverage.

Article By Duke Helfand

Copyright LA Times 2011

On Seeing

Gaspar is a tall, handsome young man who grew up amongst a large family in a crowded rental home in a tough neighborhood near Brownsville.

In middle school, he decided that he really, really wanted to play the clarinet, and so he joined the band class.

On the first day of class, the teacher apologized, telling him that there weren’t enough instruments to go around and that he, being amongst the youngest students, would have to come back next year.

The gleam in Gaspar’s eye, as well as his disappointment, allowed the teacher a creative moment. He told Gaspar, “Look, I don’t have an instrument you can play, but you can mark out time for us by tapping on your desk.”

Gaspar eventually got to borrow a clarinet from the school.

He went on to receive a full scholarship to the university, and, later, won the offer of a scholarship to the Julliard School of Music.

Gaspar turned down the Julliard offer, opting instead to teach high school band.

“Just returning a favor,” was his take on a courageously unselfish career move.

Tradition considers Gaspar (“Caspar”, in English) to be the name of one of the three wise men who, searching the skies for a sign of Divine Intention, came upon the infant Jesus. Gaspar, the wise man, saw something in this child born into a crowded stable. In an unselfish gesture, Gaspar gave the newborn a gift of gold.

Tradition does not tell us what the poor family did with this gold. Perhaps they paid for a couple of nights in a local hotel. Perhaps they put the money away against troubled times.

I quietly hope that they invested in clarinets.

This post was written by Michael Seifert from his blog, Musings From Alongside the Border.