Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Meet the Woman Who’s Fought Racism in the Mississippi Delta for 54 Years

DREW, MISS.—Inside what was the city’s last remaining high school before it closed in 2012, Gloria Dickerson, 65, leads me through the hallways she and her six siblings integrated back in 1965, when she was 12. She describes how frightening it was to be the only black student in class, surrounded by white peers who would hurl racial epithets and tell her she didn’t deserve to be there.

The building now houses a food pantry run by We2gether Creating Change, a nonprofit community hub Dickerson founded in 2011. The organization provides food and civic and financial education in a poor and working-class black community that suffers from a poverty rate of 43.7%.

Dickerson attributes the lack of resources in Drew and other black communities to a long legacy of neglect and racist policymaking. “It all goes back to the struggle that African Americans have had because of slavery,” she says. “And the racism … the white supremacy.”

In the state of Mississippi, upward of 55% of the population was once enslaved. The Lower Mississippi River Valley had more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the country in 1860—wealth created by forced labor. After the Civil War, Black Codes criminalized so-called mischief, and vagrancy laws forced unemployed freed people into essentially unpaid labor, ensuring black people remained poor or in jail. By 1960, more than a third of black people in Mississippi still worked land they didn’t own. As In These Timeshas reported, the low percentage of black land ownership contributes to “limited job opportunities, low education levels and low population density.” Black people in Mississippi continue to win settlements for the discriminatory way the state hands out farm subsidies.

The discriminatory distribution of resources in the state is “more subtle now,” Dickerson says, from vastly unequal state funding for education to one of the country’s cruelest histories of incarceration. “ZIP codes that don’t have very many people in them, ZIP codes where the people are poor—those people are not getting their fair share,” she says.

Going to school with white children “wasn’t about being around them,” Dickerson says—it was an opportunity to reclaim resources owed to black students. “That’s what Mama kept saying … ‘That school is just as much your school as it is their school.’ It was about claiming … what we were entitled to.” Dickerson’s mother, Mae Bertha Carter, fought to end school segregation, most notably as a plaintiff in an NAACP lawsuit that in 1969 overturned Mississippi’s “freedom of choice” law, which discouraged black families from sending their children to white schools.

But educational resources are still lacking in Drew. In 2012, the state of Mississippi scrapped Drew’s public school system by merging three school districts into one. While state takeovers may help with budget issues, they also strip the locally elected school board of decision-making power and have not been shown to improve academic performance. The state may then choose to close schools, as was the case with Dickerson’s old high school, which state officials say was closed due to poor academic performance and a hard financial situation. School closures further impoverish communities by reducing graduation rates and laying off longtime teachers.

Organizations like We2gether are working hard to fill the gaps. Where the state has failed or refused to invest in the futures of young people, for instance, We2gether’s “$$$ For Your Thoughts” program provides scholarships to young people who set goals for themselves, such as graduating from high school. The organization also provides classes for youth on leadership development. A host of adult programs help participants access resources, find economic footing and launch community projects. The food pantry serves around 900 people every month.

We2gether hosts regular community meetings to discuss plans for the city, with attendance upward of 100 people. The Drew Collaborative, also founded by Dickerson, brings together roughly 20 representatives of civic organizations across the city to make collective decisions, often “based on input from the community.” The collaborative is currently developing plans for more affordable housing units and a grocery store, both of which have the city’s backing and are grinding through a long process for space and funding.

Asked about the change she’d like to see, Dickerson doesn’t hesitate to think big, from major leaps in public transportation and affordable housing to rebuilding health and education infrastructure. “I’m talking about real change,” she says. “Societal change. Systemic change.”

Debates Matter More Than You Thought

It’s finally happening. On Wednesday, 10 Democratic candidates will take the stage in Miami for the first debate of the 2020 presidential campaign. On Thursday, 10 different Democrats will do it again. Sure, it will be entertaining. But do debates actually matter? Debates “can lose you the campaign if you mess up too badly.” According […]

Joe Biden Says He Can Work With the Senate. The Last Time He Tried, Mitch McConnell Picked His Pockets Badly.

In 2012, the GOP was in trouble. Mitch McConnell turned to his friend Joe Biden for a lifeline.

The post Joe Biden Says He Can Work With the Senate. The Last Time He Tried, Mitch McConnell Picked His Pockets Badly. appeared first on The Intercept.

Meditation Ruined My Life

Getting centered wasn’t a substitute for therapy and medication, and just brought my closer to self-harm.

The Exception Proves the Rule

That awful “straight pride parade” picked their grand marshal - Milo Yiannopoulos.

Why The Social Media Giants Could Be In Big Trouble
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/social-media-policy_ca_5d0e522ce4b07ae90d9df87e #privacy

Angry and Frustrated South Bend Residents Just Confronted Mayor Pete Over Fatal Police Shooting

In South Bend, Indiana, a nearly two-hour town hall turned tense when mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg took questions in the aftermath of recent police-involved shooting that killed a black man.  Sergeant Ryan O’Neill shot Eric Logan, 53, last Sunday while responding to reports that Logan was breaking into cars. Authorities say that Logan […]

Today's piece in the Mercury News:

Headline: New generation of tech firms urges stronger privacy laws

Reject Big Tech efforts to weaken California law and regulate us. Seriously.

By Purism CEO, @todd and Brave CEO, @BrendanEich

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/23/6139396/

The solution to antibiotic resistance could be in your kitchen sponge

Researchers have discovered bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, living in their kitchen sponges. As the threat of antibiotic resistance increases, bacteriophages, or phages for short, may prove useful in fighting bacteria that cannot be killed by antibiotics alone.

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/22/cbp-border-searches-journalists/

CBP agents: cops not bounded by the constitution, with near-unlimited power and visions of grandeur that make them the perfect fascist group to terrorize all that come through the border

A vision of a possible future in the whole US (not just the border) if neo-neo-conservatives continue to hold power in the US

Album Review: The Aggrolites “REGGAE NOW!”

The Aggrolites have returned with their sixth studio album REGGAE NOW! a continuation of their unique brand of funky soulful skinhead reggae. This organ driven “dirty reggae” has almost never felt so tight and cohesive as what they put on display here. “Pound for Pound” opens the album with a self-promotional dance number. “Boss of […]

The post Album Review: The Aggrolites “REGGAE NOW!” appeared first on Dying Scene.

André Staltz - Software below the poverty line
https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html @kyle good article @todd

“First-generation fact-checking” is no longer good enough. Here’s what comes next » Nieman Journalism Lab https://prismo.xyz/posts/3fdd826c-0a7a-48d7-9201-0212af75b79b

Protestors Want Mayor Pete to Address Racial Violence in His Hometown. On the Campaign Trail, He’s Dodging the Issue.

In one of his first appearances back on the campaign trail since a white police officer shot and killed a black man in his city, South Bend mayor and 2020 Democratic hopeful Pete Buttigieg addressed the violence before a crowd of Democrats in South Carolina, an early primary state with a large black population. Buttigieg […]

Scientists map huge undersea fresh-water aquifer off U.S. Northeast

In a new survey of the sub-seafloor off the U.S. Northeast coast, scientists have made a surprising discovery: a gigantic aquifer of relatively fresh water trapped in porous sediments lying below the salty ocean. It appears to be the largest such formation yet found in the world.

New study maps how ocean currents connect the world's fisheries

It's a small world after all -- especially when it comes to marine fisheries, with a new study revealing they form a single network, with over $10 billion worth of fish each year being caught in a country other than the one in which it spawned.

Upcycling process brings new life to old jeans

A growing population, rising standards of living and quickly changing fashions send mountains of clothing waste to the world's landfills each year. Although processes for textile recycling exist, they tend to be inefficient and expensive. Now, researchers have reported an efficient, low-cost method that can convert waste denim into viscose-type fibers that are either white or the original color of the garment.

U.S. military consumes more hydrocarbons than most countries -- massive hidden impact on climate

Research shows the US military is one of the largest climate polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more CO2e (carbon-dioxide equivalent) than most countries.

Gut bacteria associated with chronic pain for first time

A research team has shown, for the first time, that there are alterations in the bacteria in the gastrointestinal tracts of people with fibromyalgia. Approximately 20 different species of bacteria were found in either greater or are lesser quantities in the microbiomes of participants suffering from the disease than in the healthy control group.