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A tedious familiarity: Why even the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine has been a hot mess

A tedious familiarity: Why even the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine has been a hot mess

Posted by | Jan 29, 2021 |

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” – A quote improperly attributed to Albert Einstein Back in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic it was clear that a lack of coordination between the federal, state and local governments led to not just delays, but major confusion. Well guess what? Here we are again. Despite the promise that 20 million Americans would be inoculated with the first dose of vaccine from either Pfizer or Moderna by year end, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that...

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Research finds that People of Color are subject to the most punitive enforcement of public health orders

Research finds that People of Color are subject to the most punitive enforcement of public health orders

Posted by | Jan 29, 2021

COVID-19’s spread is neither colorblind nor colorless, sending Black, Latinx and Indigenous people to the hospital at a rate four times higher than white people. To make matters worse, the people of color and immigrant communities who already bear the brunt of the Covid-19 outbreak are also subject to the most punitive enforcement of emergency public health orders. The co-occurring pandemics of Covid-19 and state violence are deeply interconnected. The COVID-19 Policing Project launched in May 2020 to monitor how cities, states, territories and tribal jurisdictions police the pandemic. As we watched cops drag a Black man off a...

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The Coming Storm: My greatest fears about the future of Black Milwaukee

The Coming Storm: My greatest fears about the future of Black Milwaukee

Posted by | Jan 28, 2021

In 2005, a catastrophic hurricane named Katrina, hit Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana with a ferocity rarely seen. We witnessed the infrastructure designed to protect the city of New Orleans, fail miserably. It should have been a wake up call about the impact of disinvestment in Black communities around the country. Instead, it gave rich developers and the politicians that do their bidding, an opportunity to get rid of a great segment of the Black residents of the city. The Black people who gave New Orleans its unique “soul” were discarded and sent across the country as so-called “refugees.” The...

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Trump’s MAGA influence on police threatens multiracial democracy in Southeastern Wisconsin

Trump’s MAGA influence on police threatens multiracial democracy in Southeastern Wisconsin

Posted by | Jan 26, 2021 |

We do not know how many, if any, sworn police officers from Southeastern Wisconsin were among the MAGA mob who stormed the Capitol to try to overturn a free and fair election. Unlike many police departments across the country, the Milwaukee Police Department will not investigate whether its members traveled to DC for Trump’s “Save America” rally, participated in the violent attack on Congress, or made inciting or supportive statements on social media. Neither will the Kenosha Police Department, nor others in the area. But with on-going investigations into more than 32 members of law enforcement for their role...

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From ideology to democracy: Lessons from Germany for America to heal after the Trump era

From ideology to democracy: Lessons from Germany for America to heal after the Trump era

Posted by | Jan 26, 2021 |

By Sylvia Taschka, Senior Lecturer of History, Wayne State University Comparisons between the United States under Trump and Germany during the Hitler era are once again being made following the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Even in the eyes of German history scholars like myself, who had earlier warned of the troubling nature of such analogies, Trump’s strategy to remain in power has undeniably proved that he has fascist traits. True to the fascist playbook, which includes hyper-nationalism, the glorification of violence and a fealty to anti-democratic leaders that is cult-like, Trump launched a conspiracy theory...

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Data shows that police are three times more likely to use force against peaceful leftwing protesters

Data shows that police are three times more likely to use force against peaceful leftwing protesters

Posted by | Jan 26, 2021

Police in the United States are three times more likely to use force against leftwing protesters than rightwing protesters, according to new data from a non-profit that monitors political violence around the world. In the past 10 months, US law enforcement agencies have used teargas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and beatings at a much higher percentage at Black Lives Matter demonstrations than at pro-Trump or other rightwing protests. Law enforcement officers were also more likely to use force against leftwing demonstrators, whether the protests remained peaceful or not. The statistics, based on law enforcement responses to more than 13,000...

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