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Black Kos, Week In Review [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-11-03

Voices & Soul

by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Poetry Editor

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the day I finally learned how to tie my shoes, and the immediate sense of independence. Mom had spent some time going over the movements of the laces, and the little song that went with it, and when I finally accomplished the puzzle, instead of giving Mom a hug for a job well done, I ran. It was only a little circle, but I felt free and grown up. Later, when my son was born, I cited that day, when still a toddler, as the first day I took Mom for granted.

I graduated early from high school, and the week after I turned eighteen, I moved to a small apartment in a fairly large complex several miles from the family home. Mom and my sisters gave me a little house warming to set me up, but it hit me again how much I took Mom for granted when I went to the store and bought my first rolls of toilet paper to replenish the supply she gifted me. I didn’t realize how easy I had it until I was barely on my own.

I went off to college shortly after that, tried to play a little football and run a little track. I hitch hiked from So Cal to Greenwich, CT with some college chums for a Thanksgiving dinner, instead of going home. I decided to follow a girl to Paris for Christmas for a couple of weeks, but I did send some cards to the family about how special the City of Lights was that time of year.

I was so full of myself.

I’m caring for Mom now as she gradually declines, and she doesn’t remember the slights, small and great. She lives in the Now and compliments me on how well I care for her, and what a good son I am. But I still linger on that day I tied my own shoes, and how I ran away. I remember the holidays spent abroad with just a little regret. I’ve tried to apologize, but she doesn’t recall it.

I’ve been back for awhile. Not out of a penance to pay for the little neglects, but because there is little time to take life for granted. There is little time to hug those we love. No matter how we run.

Lately, my friends ask me, out of love, have I written about my mother, who suffers under the storm of Alzheimer’s disease, and I tell them, “I don’t write about my family, never directly, at least.” To write this poem seems so out of character for me, but it’s not about my mother, as much as it’s about how, as a son, the disease measures the changing rituals of family. And 28 lines—all I’ve provided myself—seems so anemic. Now, I barely have 18 lines left for a love I don’t have the vigor to describe. Reticence is a disease I’ve suffered from throughout my life. Without family, I don’t know what it means to live as myself, and, so, I hide in the reflection of others, which, after all, others love: people care more about themselves than a friend’s mother. I mean, how does one explain to someone who’s not family how you now see the patterns into which a parent would sew a quilt to lay over a child, the child neither hip to love nor Hayden’s “austere and lonely offices”? My mother’s silence seems like indifference except I know the disease, which changes our relationship, the parent and child; I sow healing from my memory of how she taught me to love, not knowing her movement through a day as a mother, as someone whose sole gig was to keep me alive, free of disease and, whenever possible, embarrassment. But now, family means playing the parent; I’m still just a son, writing about love, but, lowering my eyes from the trauma, I lift her body, her disease, for a shower, straining under all the love she sowed. - A Frank Jordan “Fourth Wall Arpeggio” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor

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Between the 1970s and early 2000s the United States saw a 700 percent increase in incarceration, which disproportionately targeted Black and low-income people.

Now, reform efforts in recent years are beginning to reduce imprisonment rates for the most affected communities. A new report by The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, unpacks these declines and some of the policy changes driving them.

Black women and Black men saw the most significant differences. From 2000 to 2021, the imprisonment rate fell by 70 percent for Black women and by 48 percent for Black men. In comparison, Latinas saw an 18 percent decrease, Latinos saw a 34 percent decrease, White women increased by 12 percent and White men decreased 27 percent.

Even with these changes, the imprisonment rate among Black people remains the highest, and associations between crime, race and gender affect Black men and women in different ways. In 2021, Black women were imprisoned at 1.6 times the rate of White women, and Black men were imprisoned at 5.5 times the rate of White men, according to federal data cited in the report.

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Records obtained and analyzed by POLITICO reveal the practice failed to identify suspects a majority of the time and is disproportionately used against Black people. Politico: ‘Wholly ineffective and pretty obviously racist’: Inside New Orleans’ struggle with facial-recognition policing

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In the summer of 2022, with a spike in violent crime hitting New Orleans, the city council voted to allow police to use facial-recognition software to track down suspects — a technology that the mayor, police and businesses supported as an effective, fair tool for identifying criminals quickly.

A year after the system went online, data show that the results have been almost exactly the opposite.

Records obtained and analyzed by POLITICO show that computer facial recognition in New Orleans has low effectiveness, is rarely associated with arrests and is disproportionately used on Black people.What if you had one cold chain partner that handled more aspects of transportation at major ports? You already do—it's Lineage. Ask about our reliable drayage services.​

The first facial recognition search under the new policy occurred on October 21, 2022, using surveillance footage to help identify a Black man suspected of a shooting by matching his picture with a database of mugshots. The results: “Unable to match, low quality photo.” Over the next year, the NOPD would see a string of largely similar results. A review of nearly a year’s worth of New Orleans facial recognition requests shows that the system failed to identify suspects a majority of the time — and that nearly every use of the technology from last October to this August was on a Black person.

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President Joe Biden taps Judges Julie S. Sneed and Jacquelyn D. Austin to serve as district court judges in the Deep South. The Grio: Biden hits another milestone for Black female judicial nominees

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President Joe Biden announced two more Black female judicial nominees on Tuesday, theGrio is exclusively reporting.

Judge Julie S. Sneed, nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, and Judge Jacquelyn D. Austin, nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, are the latest judges added to the president’s historic number of Black women nominated to the federal bench.

“The Biden-Harris administration continues to set records when it comes to professional and demographic diversity,” said Stephen Benjamin, director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, in a statement provided to theGrio.

To date, 32 Black women appointed by Biden have been confirmed by the Senate to lifetime judgeships.

Benjamin, who is also a senior adviser to the president, noted that the number of Black female federal judges is “more than any single administration in history.”

The former mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, continued, “Today’s announcement includes two more Black women in Southern states – with bipartisan backing – both of whom are exceptionally well qualified and ready to hit the ground running once confirmed.”

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King Charles has spoken of Britain’s “abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence” committed against Kenyans during their fight for independence, but stopped short of an apology despite human rights groups demanding one.

The monarch made the comments in a speech, delivered during a banquet in Kenya held in his honour, in which he referred to the “greatest sorrow” and “deepest regret” for the “wrongdoings” of the past.

While Kenya’s president, William Ruto, praised the king’s “exemplary courage” in shedding light on “uncomfortable truths”, he described the colonial reaction to African struggles as “monstrous in its cruelty”. He added that “much remains to be done in order to achieve full reparations”.

Earlier, the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) urged King Charles to offer an “unequivocal public apology”.

“We call upon the king, on behalf of the British government, to issue an unconditional and unequivocal public apology (as opposed to the very cautious, self-preserving and protective statements of regrets) for the brutal and inhuman treatment inflicted on Kenyan citizens,” the KHRC said.

The commission has claimed 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the British administration’s counter-insurgency.

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Experts say a measure in President Joe Biden's executive order offers a vital opportunity for empowering Africa and growing the U.S. economy. The Grio: Biden’s AI order could bring opportunity to Black immigrants

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President Joe Biden’s new and historic executive order signed this week includes a measure that could bring what African and tech policy experts hope will be economic and educational benefits to immigrants from the continent.

In the first-ever presidential order targeting the swiftly advancing artificial intelligence industry, Biden calls for the secretary of Homeland Security to “review and initiate” any policy changes that could “clarify and modernize immigration pathways for experts in AI and other critical and emerging technologies.”

The order calls for Homeland Security to consider pathways to the U.S. for immigration statuses including noncitizens of exceptional abilities, advanced-degree holders, and entrepreneurs.

Biden also ordered a public report to be conducted with data on how experts in AI and other technologies have utilized the immigration system.

“What is integral to this country is making sure that we continue to be a place that people seek to come to make a contribution here, but also to realize their full potential,” Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, told theGrio.

“AI is an exciting place to come do that,” she said. “The president’s taking the action that makes it a little bit easier for that to happen.”

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