Ben Jealous and Marc Morial: Two Black Community Leaders Who Aren't the Reverends

I have an assignment for all those concerned about the so-called crisis of civil rights activist leadership in the black community. Your assignment, should you decide to accept it, is to learn the names of other black leaders.

When we say black leaders Rev Al Sharpton and Rev Jesse Jackson are the first names to come to mind. As PolicyMic pundit Camira Powell discovered, finding examples of black leadership beyond Sharpton and Jackson is just a matter of digging a little deeper.

The day and age of the single iconic figure, the quintessential black leader/spokesperson for all of black Americans has passed. Black leaders are diverse and spread throughout the community.

Black leaders can be found in all walks of life from education (Dr. Zoe Spencer, Steve Perry) and technology (Tristan Walker), to politics (Corey Booker) and media (Dr. Marc Lamont Hill). There are grassroots hip hop leaders such as Rosa Clemente and KRS-One. And then there are the traditional civil rights leaders.

Civil rights leaders are the ones most closely aligned with the notion of black leadership and there still are civil rights leaders that are providing leadership roles in the black community.

Ben Jealous is the president and CEO of the NAACP. The Oxford Rhodes Scholar is the youngest to ever have held that post. Under his leadership the NAACP registered over 1.2 million new voters for the 2012 election. The number of donors has increased from 16,000/year to 132,000. The number of online activists has increased from 175,000 to 675,000, and the total amount of activists now tops one million. Jealous has led the efforts against voter suppression laws and evangelizing African American support for marriage equality. Jealous has led the NAACP in efforts to fight “stop and frisk” laws in New York City and their report on over incarceration “Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate” has been endorsed by leading conservatives such as Grover Norquist, former American Conservative Union President David Keene and Newt Gingrich.

Marc Morial is the president and CEO of the National Urban League and the former mayor of New Orleans Under his leadership the New Orleans business sector thrived, driven by a hearty tourism and convention center economy. Violent crime was reduced by 60%, the minority business sector grew and as a result Morial’s approval ratings hung around 70% during his tenure. As leader of the National Urban League he oversees the annual production of one of the most widely read and comprehensive reports on the state of the black community in America. The NUL is actively involved with transforming conditions in the black community. They partner with grassroots organizations and industries to bring solutions to some of the systemic problems in the community. Open Doorways is a partnership with the National Association of Professional Women to offer inner-city middle-school girls a chance to work with professional women as role models. The NUL is an active member of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. The 48-member group consists of religious organizations, child welfare advocacy groups, public health professionals, social justice, and political action organizations. Stop the Violence Movement is a hip hop led organization that has donated all the proceeds from its record “Self-Destruction” to the coalition.

Jealous and Morial are just two in a long list of hands-on black civil rights leaders well worth knowing. So the next time you feel your knee jerk when you hear the phrase “black leader," just remember there’s more to black leadership than the “Revs.”

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Keystone XL Pipeline: How Montana Sold This Environmental Disaster to Its People

One year ago, former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer told the Washington Post how he wrangled TransCanada into building an on-ramp onto its proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

The on-ramp, owned by TransCanada subsidiary MarketLink LLC, of Houston, Texas, would inject American oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and Montana into the pipeline at Baker, Montana.

The way Schweitzer, a cowboy, tells the story, he simply had to treat the multinational company like a problem horse that wouldn't let his constituents ride.

He told the paper, "I’m a rancher. And when you got a horse, a 4- or 5-year-old coming along pretty good, and you come to a point where it locks up, and it weighs 1,200 or 1,300 pounds, and I weigh only 210. Then you just saddle it up, put a bridle on, tie a front leg to a saddle horn, and they’re standing there on three legs. Then you walk up and give them a push, and they just about fall down. When that happens, they listen.’ ”

And just like that, problem solved. Schweitzer "broke" TransCanada and in 2011 it secured contracts to ship 65,000 barrels of oil per day from North Dakota and Montana to refineries in Texas once the pipeline starts shipping fuel, granted, of course, if it gets approved and built. The on-ramp has a planned 100,000 barrel per-day capacity.

However, TransCanada had plans to ship American oil in the northern Keystone line from the get go and a presentation by the North Dakota Pipeline Authority in 2010 outlines several projects in the Bakken, suggesting producers and TransCanada had long courted each other.

The Bakken MarketLink is one of those projects. The pipeline runs 132 miles through four counties in North Dakota to a rail loading point in Fryburg. Although it doesn't connect at Baker due to the Keystone's delay, it could if the pipeline is built.

TransCanada Spokesman Shawn Howard said Schweitzer was certainly an advocate for the Baker on-ramp but making sure it had enough customers to satisfy investors played a big role as well.

Howard said injecting American oil into the Keystone XL had always been part of its strategy and once Baker was selected, the route could be nailed down.

With well drilling growth in the Bakken "like crazy," TransCanada "has the confidence to invest."

Letting Schweitzer play the hero and making it appear as if the company had to be strong armed into taking American oil may have helped boost initial support in the early yearrs.

Getting producers to support the Keystone was easy, they just need affordable transportation to get their oil to market. By mixing American oil with Canadian bitumen, now citizens feel invested in the pipeline. It's "their" pipeline too and Schweitzer, their hero.

Sadly, no one cares about global warming or that the oil will be sold on the global market, so forget about the promises that the Keystone is supposed to help America get off foreign oil.

A defeat of the Keystone XL doesn't mean that a Baker facility is DOA, either.

Local officials are optimistic TransCanada could explore a stand-alone facility gathering multiple oil lines for distribution although Spokesman Shawn Howard said the company's plans currently revolve around getting its Presidential Permit approved and the pipeline constructed.

Fallon County Commissioner Bill Brandash believes TransCanada officials when they say they're in it for the long haul. He said, "TransCanada will go through the regulatory process after the pipeline is approved and if it isn't we're hopeful they'll build an on-ramp anyway. There's a lot of oil up here. Have to move it somehow, even if it's not the Keystone."

Bring up economic reports ( here and here.) showing how fast shale well production plays out and the concern over the coming industry "bust" and Brandash quips, "The Bakken isn't going to peter out."

Except, according to those very reports, the Bakken could very well peter out. Investors in the Utica Shale figured this out, pulling out of a pipeline project as ROI estimates were disappointing.

Perhaps, Bakken Marketlink investors had the same insight when they decided not to build all the way to Baker.

On-ramps for American oil, built on American soil, may have helped rally support for the Keystone XL but that was one horse Schweitzer didn't need to ride, let alone tie up and push over. Besides, I thought TransCanada was the bully.

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Mia Macy Won a Battle For Transgender Rights, But It Will Be a Long War Against Discrimination

It has been over a year since I last wrote about Mia Macy and her lawsuit, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), and the state of employment discrimination for transgender people like Macy. In that year, her high-profile lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) for their rescinding of a job offer has resulted in a long and arduous battle of court proceedings. Now her work has finally paid off.

Earlier this month, a Department of Justice decision was handed down in favor of Macy, ruling that the ATF broke the law in not offering her a job as a ballistics expert, a move the ruling says was motivated by a direct discrimination based on her gender identity status. The ruling requires the ATF to again offer the job to Macy, pay her back pay and benefits with interest, and cover all of her legal costs. Even better, the decision stipulates the agency must implement its own anti-discrimination policies to be applied to all its other employees and future job applicants.

Macy’s hallmark challenge was already considered a victory last year when the complaint she filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) prompted the agency to independently rule that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act bans employers from discriminating based on an employee’s gender identity or expression. Her Department of Justice suit win this year only extends and celebrates the progress she began in ultimately ensuring a more just and equitable body of employment law for the United States labor force.

The benefit this has for employer-employee relations, employee productivity, and general satisfaction with job environment safety and morale is obvious. I have written previously why more inclusive employment anti-discrimination protections are both sound social policy and sound business policy — employees and job applicants feel less anxiety about their workplace environments, employers reap the benefits of happier and more qualified applicant pools, and diverse workplaces encourage a respectful and productive mode of labor that better mirrors the country’s diversity outside of the workplace.

All of those outcomes remain even truer with Macy’s DOJ win. What is unique about Macy’s case is that, for the first time, the federal government is backing challenges of private and government employers by the transgender community. The DOJ decision in Macy’s case represents a significant precedent in the government’s interest in and implementation of more aggressive anti-discrimination policies than have yet to be seen, especially at the federal level.

The federal government’s sudden activism on behalf of transgender employees is curious, then, as it also continues to stall the passing of the ENDA at the federal level. While Macy’s DOJ win is significant, it is ultimately a reactionary response of the courts. It only applies to her individual case and to her particular employer. The ENDA, as a more comprehensive plan to protect all of the nation’s employees, is instead a preventative measure, and thus absolutely necessary. If the government wishes to remain consistent with the spirit of its findings in Macy’s case, ongoing stagnation of ENDA consideration is not an option. Its passage is an important next step for extending benefits of protection past Macy to all other persons fired, not hired, or denied a promotion or salary increase as a result of their gender and sexuality identity statuses.

The ENDA even has its limits, however, and at the detriment to employment and labor law in this country more broadly. While the ENDA certainly has a symbolic significance and a legal usefulness for transgender employees, real change cannot only rely on the jurisdictions of the court system. The effectiveness of employment protections for everyone, not just transgender people, is less than satisfactory. While proponents of ENDA push its necessity by pointing out that it is legal to fire someone for identifying as transgender in 34 states, they fail to more broadly notice that, in the 49 states where “at-will” employment law is still the overarching standard, it is completely legal to fire someone for any reason at all and without explanation.

As we move away from Macy’s case, it is economically, socially, and legally important than transgender activists mobilizing within workers’ rights causes have a stake in the larger, more structural state of employment law for everyone, and vice versa. It is only when we finds the ways to consider all critiques across the board can we better find the change-oriented solution the transgender community has been fighting for throughout Macy’s legal battles. Working from such a nexus is, ultimately, the strongest place to continue advocating for the most just and equitable workplaces for transgender people, and indeed, all people.

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Baz Luhrman and The Met Erased the True Feminist Histories of Flappers and Punks

This summer promised to be the “summer of Gatsby” and when that fizzled out, we still had the opportunity to revisit the punk era at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Punk: Chaos to Couture” show. While an era revolving around opulence and the elusive American dream and another centered on rebellion seem to have little in common, their 21^st century revivals are strikingly similar in one aspect: the complete erasure of feminist histories.

The Flapper and Punk movements for women were distinctly feminist. Flapper style was formed through a rejection of the societal norm; shorter hemlines and hair, replaced more traditionally feminine styles. Similarly, the punk movement could be seen as distinctly unfeminine, as the women adopted masculine haircuts and silhouettes and became more androgynous. The clothing and styles of each movement reflected the larger ideas at hand, rather than the other way around.

But the Met completely misses this. There is an acknowledgment of women as creators of punk clothing — the replication of Vivienne Westwood’s tee-shirt shop and discussion of her contributions — but no representation of female influences. It should also be noted that the representation of female designers is minimal at best. There are photos of Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, and the Clash, but no photos of female punks. There were women in England at this creating music and influencing style, yet the Met chooses not to feature them. Vi Subversa, a member of a female punk band in England, looked back on the punk movement and said: “To me, that’s what being a female punk was all about, being a pioneer.”

The complete absence of women in the exhibit was a bit startling, especially after looking through the exhibit catalogue, which featured incredible photos of young punk women. There was literally not a single female face in the exhibit — even the mannequins, who all wore women’s clothes, were faceless. So what message is the visitor left with when an exhibit about clothes worn by women in a movement shaped by women — features almost no mention of women?

In comparison, Baz Luhrman’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, features lots of women in the style of the day. But they seem to serve as props to enhance the glitz of his grandiose production.

Of course, Luhrman had to work with Fitzgerald’s characters, which do not represent the true flappers of the day and are instead shallow caricatures concerned only with money and fashion. However, it is the modern day positioning of the film Luhrman takes that upholds this image, furthering the erasure of true feminist flapper history.

Luhrman attempted to reawaken a major commercial interest in the flapper style and jazz age with the release of the film. Catherine Martin, the costume director and Luhrman’s wife, partnered with Prada. The film also worked with Brooks Brothers to design a clothing line to be released along with the film. All of these partnerships further the flapper style, while erasing the feminist actions that created it.

Women’s choices influence the style of the day. It is impossible to ignore the significance of suffragettes abandoning the strict style of the day for bloomers. The same goes for punk and flapper fashion. What does it say about our chances of moving forward when we subtract women’s contributions from history and leave only the clothes?

It is important to note that within erasure of punk feminist movements, there is a significant amount of erasure of women of color. Mimi Thi Nguyen’s recent interview in Bitch Magazine is a great further read about this erasure, and how archiving contributes to it.

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These Survivor Stories Will Wake You Up to the Shocking Amount of Violence Against Women Worldwide

International agencies annually report statistics highlighting the continued struggle of women around the world. For example, the International Center for Research on Women reports 51 million girls under the age of 18 are married, while an additional 10 million are married underage — making that one girl every three seconds. Another ICWR publication surveyed six countries: Brazil, Chile, Croatia, India, Mexico, Rwanda. The results indicate that between 20-40% of men admitted to having perpetrated violence against a female partner. In these same countries, approximately 30-40% of women reported that they have been physically abused by an intimate male partner. UNICEF reports that 125 million girls and women throughout Africa and the Middle East have been victims of female genital mutilation and/or cutting. The World Health Organization has indicated that 150 million girls under the age of 18 have been forced into sexual intercourse. Additionally, 79% of the worldwide problem of human trafficking is focused on sex trafficking, of which women and young girls are the primary victims.

These statistics provide the world with the data, the factual proof that violence against women is a grave problem. What more is needed? If human beings were purely rational, perhaps this would be enough. However, the reality is that to get the world to pay attention, we need a news hook — a riveting story of a survivor who faced unimaginable horrors and triumphed — or a shock, something jarring that pulls at our innermost heartstrings.

Take, for instance, the case of Anene Booysen, a 17-year-old girl who was brutally raped and murdered. She was dumped by a construction site, her body bloodied with her internal organs spilling out of her body. The lack of legal justice in the ensuing case brought an onslaught of media coverage and even prompted remarks from South African president Jacob Zuma.

There is also the famous story of Malala Yousafzi, the then 15-year-old girl who the Taliban nearly fatally shot in the head and neck for her decision to pursue an education. Once her story reached the news, her courage and cause garnered international acclaim, including a UN petition held in her name by Gordon Brown.

Finally, there is the tale of Generose Namburho, a Congolese mother whose husband was murdered by Hutu militants, while she was punished for screaming by having her leg cut off, chopped to pieces, and cooked in a fire to be force fed to her children. Her story appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and prompted the founding of A Thousand Sisters, an advocacy organization aimed at ending violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

One striking commonality in these stories is that each woman’s story had an enormous ripple effect. Their experiences turned heads, both locally and internationally. At the very least, these tales initiated a worldwide dialogue — for a certain time. However, in the age of minute-by-minute news coverage, the latest headlines drown out yesterday’s news, and the international fervor these brave women generate also subsides until the next big story.

And yet, the statistics are available, indicating that these kinds of stories abound. Women are survivors each and every day. There are 120 million women and girls who have a story to tell about their most private body parts being mutilated. There are still an abundance of women in Brazil, Chile, Croatia, India, and Rwanda who have lived through physical abuse from someone they had grown to trust and grow intimate with. These women are very real, and their stories exist whether we hear about them or not. For them, these statistics are their reality. For at least one young girl, 10 million is not just a number because she might very well be the 10,999th underage girl who was unwillingly forced into marriage.

Violence against women is not just a statistic. Accordingly, while some brave and terrifying stories surface in the media and evoke international communities and organizations into action, the world’s response cannot be intermittent. The fight for women’s rights should not be just another item on a national leader’s agenda because the numbers mean something. Each number means one more human life, one more mother, one more sister, one more daughter, one more brilliant, irreplaceable asset to society being violated simply because she was born a woman.

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Will the End Of Muslim Brotherhood Lead to Civil War in Egypt?

The first democratically elected president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted in a coup on July 3. Egypt is now in chaos, and no one knows what direction the country will move forward in. After nearly three weeks of protests following the coup, over 50 people have died in the bloodshed, most of them Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Morsi, who was elected by a narrow margin in June 2012, has since been hidden from the public since he was ejected from power.

Brotherhood activists have said: “We have examples of Algeria and Syria in our minds. We don’t want it to become a civil war. If we take up arms it might become one. This is a religious belief."

But will the country rupture into a civil war similar to that of Syria? Hardly anyone thinks so. The country has no factions in ethnicity and religion reminiscent of the demographic issues present in Sryia. In Syria, the ruling Alawite minority has an advantage over Kurds, Sunnis, Christians, and Druze.

In Egypt, most of the people identify themselves as Egyptian Arabs. Most people live in Cairo or Alexandria, and belong to the same caste economically. There is little difference between the Sunnis and the Christian Copts. Many of the Sunnis are radicalized, but most of them are more liberal and are in opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood. They have seen that both Morsi and Mubarak are corrupt, and would like to distance themselves from both movements. The Muslim Brotherhood would have to gather a large support to start a civil war, but frankly, it will be just protests in the upcoming months.

A coalition of Islamists led by the Muslim Brotherhood said they would press ahead with their own rallies on Friday, while Tamarod (a new grassroots movement in opposition to Morsi) called on supporters to take the streets again in support of the army.

There are multiple problems in Egyptian society at the moment. There is a demographic boom, as the median age is 24. This is coupled by the fact that unemployment soars at 20%, and most people live on $2 a day.

There is also a rift of tensions between secular parties, who align themselves with the military and the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists. However, most of the Egyptian laymen wants to distance themselves from both groups- as they are equally corrupt- and calls for democracy. But in reality, their concept of democracy is very different from the one we are used in the West. And to add to that, most Egyptians do not know what they want when they refer to democracy.

Egypt’s road in the short term is clear: the military will prop up those who it feels comfortable leading the country and that is supported by the United States and Israel. They will also have the upper hand in the next couple months or so. Ahmed Shafik, who has lost the last election, may gather more support and lead the country. In that sense, we could see Egypt going back to nepotism and despotism akin to Mubarak leading the country.

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New Jersey Judge Makes it Legal for You to Be Fired For Being Too Fat

In a shocking decision that is demeaning to, and frightening for, all women in the workplace, an Atlantic County Superior Court judge has ruled that employers can fire women for gaining weight on the job.

Here are the facts of the case: 22 cocktail waitresses from the popular Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, popularly known as “Borgata Babes,” filed a joint lawsuit against their employer claiming weight discrimination. They say that Borgata Babes are subject to regular weigh-ins and, in order for some of the women to keep their jobs, they are were forced to adapt unhealthy eating and exercise habits. One woman says she had no choice but to stop taking her prescription medicine because one if its side effects is weight gain. Moreover, other women were instructed to take laxatives before their weigh-ins to quickly shed their excess weight. The potential health repercussions that accompany this lifestyle are what provoked the he Babes sued tobecause of the address the clearly offensive and dangerous restrictions that their employers imposed.

By contrast, Borgata claims claims all waitresses are contractually obligated to maintain their weight at the point of hiring, and that Borgata reserves the right to fire any waitress who gains more than seven percent of her body weight.

The judge ruled that because the women were all made aware of their contracts’ conditions before they were hired, their employers has every right to maintain the standards of that contract.

Joe Lupo, who is the senior vice president of operations at Borgata, claims that his company’s policies are neither discriminatory towards women nor unreasonable. Borgata endorses the court’s decision, explaining: “The court noted that our personal appearance standards are fully and openly disclosed to all team members, and that every plaintiff voluntarily accepted them before starting work.”

Indeed, the women were all aware of their contracts’ standards when they were hired, so they too are at fault for subjecting themselves to that work environment. That fact, nevertheless, does not rationalize the behavior that the Babes’ bosses were conducting.

It is unacceptable for an employee to be reprimanded and embarrassed for eating a cookie. It is also unacceptable for an employer to ask a pregnant employee if she is faking her pregnancy as an excuse “to get fat.” Both of these situations happened at Borgata. Although the Babes are contractually obligated to maintain their weight, their contracts still do not condone harassment.

Both parties are guilty in this case for disregarding human dignity. The women should not subject themselves to such low standards, and the Borgata employers should abandon their blatant misogynous biases and have higher standards for their own treatment of others.

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