From PACC
Hosted by the Young Friends of PACC
featuring Gabriel Thompson, author of Working In The Shadows
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 @ 7:30 pm
Greenlight Bookstore
686 Fulton Street
(@ the corner of South Portland)
What is it like doing the back-breaking work of low-wage immigrants? To find out, Gabriel Thompson spent the year working alongside Latino immigrants, who initially thought he was either crazy or an undercover immigration agent. He stooped over lettuce fields in Arizona and worked the graveyard shift at a chicken slaughterhouse in rural Alabama. He dodged taxis as a bicycle delivery “boy” for an upscale Manhattan restaurant and was fired from a flower shop in Chelsea. Combining personal narrative with investigative reporting, Working in the Shadows shines a bright light on the underside of the American economy, exposing harsh working conditions, union busting, and lax government enforcement—while telling the stories of workers, undocumented immigrants and desperate US citizens alike, forced to live with chronic pain in the pursuit of $8 an hour.
Working in the Shadows has been widely featured since its release on February 1st. Check out Gabriel Thompson’s interviews on Tavis Smiley on PBS, Salon.com’s Growers and Producers, and the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC.
Not so long before he went undercover as part of the low-wage immigrant workforce, Brooklyn-based author Gabriel Thompson was the director of community organizing at PACC. The Young Friends of PACC are thrilled to host this book reading at Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Greene. Light refreshments and wine will be served.
Young Friends of PACC is dedicated to engaging community members in their 20s and 30s in activities supporting affordable housing, tenant rights, community and economic development in Central Brooklyn.
For more info and to RSVP: rsvp@prattarea.org, 718-522-2613 x 14
Travel Info:
C train to Lafayette | G to Fulton
or Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street Station trains
B25/B26/B38/B52 run near the bookstore
or use www.hopstop.com for door to door directions
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Financial Course
Pratt Area Community Council Events
please click here to view all our upcoming events
hsbc financial course
Pratt Area Community Council Hosts:
HSBC's Financial Education Workshops
Sessions begin Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
6:30pm - 8:30pm
PACC's Community Room
226 Lefferts Place
at the corner of Franklin Avenue
Brooklyn, New York, 11216
Highlights Include:
Managing your money * Budgeting & Banking * Credit History & Using Credit Wisely * Basics of Borrowing & Preventing I.D. Theft * Homeownership & Managing your mortgage * Free Individual Credit Counseling
This is a free event - refreshments will be served
For More Info: 718-783-3549
Charrisse Smith Ext. 15
pacc@prattarea.org | www.prattarea.org
Travel Info:
C/S train to Franklin Avenue
B48/B49 stops right outside the building
B25 to Franklin Avenue
or use www.hopstop.com for door to door directions
Join Our Mailing List!
Pratt Area Community Council
201 Dekalb Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11205
718-522-2613*22
please click here to view all our upcoming events
hsbc financial course
Pratt Area Community Council Hosts:
HSBC's Financial Education Workshops
Sessions begin Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
6:30pm - 8:30pm
PACC's Community Room
226 Lefferts Place
at the corner of Franklin Avenue
Brooklyn, New York, 11216
Highlights Include:
Managing your money * Budgeting & Banking * Credit History & Using Credit Wisely * Basics of Borrowing & Preventing I.D. Theft * Homeownership & Managing your mortgage * Free Individual Credit Counseling
This is a free event - refreshments will be served
For More Info: 718-783-3549
Charrisse Smith Ext. 15
pacc@prattarea.org | www.prattarea.org
Travel Info:
C/S train to Franklin Avenue
B48/B49 stops right outside the building
B25 to Franklin Avenue
or use www.hopstop.com for door to door directions
Join Our Mailing List!
Pratt Area Community Council
201 Dekalb Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11205
718-522-2613*22
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Gentrification, Models of Whiteness, Ditmas Park Blog and what it means to you.
The website whiteantiracist.org has a pretty nice write up about the different models of whiteness in today's society. Reading this will give you a better perspective into the behaviors of gentrification blogs like the ditmas park blog and others similar to them. What I came away from reading this is that the world is a very complicated place. Some of us choose to be blinded by what goes around us, unless we are directly affected by it. What this mean is that African Americans in particular will feel frustrated and angered when they come in contact with certain white persons who may not see themselves as racist. See below:
Models of Whiteness
This page discusses some models of whiteness currently in use and available to whites in the United States. These are only models, and not real people. Any one white person could fall into more than one category, or change categories over time.
_________________________________________________________________________
White Supremacist
A person who believes that the white race is or should be supreme.
_________________________________________________________________________
What Whiteness?
There are many ways that white people avoid examining their whiteness and consequently, white racism. It is common practice in conversation for white people to mention the race of black or Asian friends, neighbors, or co-workers while never mentioning the whiteness of the white people they know (Dyer, 1997, p. 2). The effect of this and thousands of other cultural practices by whites is to position whites as the “human norm.” Dyer rightly points out, “As long as race is something only applied to non-white peoples, as long as white people are not racially seen and named, they/we function as a human norm. Other people are raced, we are just people” (1997, p.1). Dyer argues convincingly that “there is something especially white in this non-located and disembodied position of knowledge, and thus it seems especially important to try to break the hold of whiteness by locating and embodying it in a particular experience of being white” (1997, p.4).
Another way white people avoid naming whiteness is through a subtle manipulation of sentence structure. In “White Silence, White Solidarity,” Christine E. Sleeter gives two examples. When whites say, “racism causes poor education in inner-city schools,” it is unclear who is responsible for the poor education in inner-city schools. Another example to consider is: “Filipinos were brought to Hawaii to work as cheap laborers.” Again, the question remains: Who brought Filipinos to Hawaii and underpaid them? In this way, white people “personify racism, making it (rather than ourselves) the subject of sentences” (Sleeter, 1996, p. 260).
An effective strategy that many whites use to deflect attention from white racism, and their place in the power structure, is to “transmute many issues of racism into depoliticized questions of cultural difference” (Sleeter, 1996, p. 259). A similar strategy is to equate ethnicity with race. By turning race and racism into issues of culture, diversity, and difference, whites erase the story of power and privilege that pits them against people of color. The phrase "celebrate diversity" is often used by organizations and businesses to show their appreciation of difference - while effectively diverting attention from poor labor conditions, racist promotion and hiring practices, etc.
Advocates of colorblindness fall into this model of whiteness, as well. O'Brien (2001) writes that when whites pride themselves on not noticing others' race (as in “I didn't even notice she was black”) “there is an implicit ideology of white as the norm” (p. 46). When whites say things like “it wouldn't matter if she was black, green, yellow or pink,” they are employing a “strategy for avoiding race: it shifts attention away from color differences that make a political difference by embedding meaningful differences among nonmeaningful ones” (Frankenberg, 1993, p. 38).
_________________________________________________________________________
Guilty White
The “guilty white” model refers to a white person who is able to identify their whiteness and their position in the racial hierarchy, but is unable to identify their personal responsibility for racism or the manifestations of racism in their own life. Ellen Kaye Scott describes this phenomenon in “From Race Cognizance to Racism Cognizance” (2001). Scott begins by discussing the state of antiracist discourse in the United States . She believes that in this discourse
individuals occupy one of two subject positions: victim or perpetrator. This discourse of agency in racial politics paralyzes action. Activists tend to vie for membership in the victim category and attach a great deal of shame to belonging to the perpetrator category (2001, p. 126).
She analyzes two organizations that use racism awareness workshops for their employees and/or volunteers. Scott finds that even with these racism awareness workshops, “identifying individual agency within a system of racial domination and subordination proved very difficult for these [white] women, despite their willingness to recognize their own white racial identity as a political position” (2001, p. 146). This is the essence of the “guilty white”; she feels guilty for being white in a racist society, but cannot identify the effects of racism, her part in them, or what she can do to change the situation. She is paralyzed with guilt.
_________________________________________________________________________
Antiracist White: Standing Against Most Extreme Forms of Racism
In this model of whiteness, the antiracist white makes a public stand against the actions of groups like the KKK or the neo-Nazis. In her book Whites Confront Racism , Eileen O'Brien describes the group Anti-Racist Action (ARA) as fitting into this category. ARA focuses on “overt forms of racism” as can be seen in their main principles which include:
• We go where they go. Whenever racists/fascists are organizing or active in public, we confront them and do our best to stop them.
• We don't rely on the cops or courts to do our work or to protect us (O'Brien, 2001, p.12).
Groups such as ARA are sometimes criticized for focusing their energies on “fringe” groups like the KKK. However, it can be argued (and ARA does) that these groups are not so fringe in reality (O'Brien, 2001, p.12). Mab Segrest discusses the way that institutional racism allows Klan terrorism to happen, and quotes a black minister she worked with as saying “Our greatest danger is sympathy and cooperation by millions of American people with the Klan” (1994, p. 27). Another critique of groups like ARA and their approach to confronting racism is that members “are aware of institutional racism, but are not reflexive about their own role or position within these institutionalized arrangements” (O'Brien, 2001, p.102). Members also “are less likely to take activist stands within the institutions in which they live and work” because of a focus on overt forms of racism (O'Brien, 2001, p.101). John Garvey gives some examples of these inconsistencies in the lives of white antiracists:
Thus, gentrification in a neighborhood like Park Slope … and its sure-fire accompaniment of homelessness for some, have nothing to do with the movement into the neighborhood of numerous ex-members of the movement of the 1960s. We can live where we want and be advocates for the homeless and critics of governmental inaction. In the case of schools, we can send our children to elite programs within the public schools or to private schools and be teachers of non-white students in schools and colleges and lamenters of the poor quality of education (1996, p. 254).
__________________________________________________________________________
Antiracist White: Working against Internalized White Supremacy and External Manifestations of White Racism
This model of antiracism acknowledges that “race is not the work of racists” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 179). Another way of putting this idea is that white antiracists acknowledge that “we are the problem” (O'Brien, 2001, p.57). In this model, whites acknowledge that institutions in our society perpetuate racism, including “the schools (which define ‘excellence'), the labor market (which defines ‘employment'), the law (which defines ‘crime'), the welfare system (which defines ‘poverty'), and the family (which defines ‘kinship')” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 179-180). White people are a part of all these institutions, and in this model the white antiracist works to acknowledge, and take responsibility for, her part in reproducing racism in the institutions she finds herself a part of. The philosophy of this model can be summed up by Dyer's statement, “I did not invent racist thought, it is part of the cultural non-consciousness that we all inhabit. One must take responsibility for it, but that is not the same as being responsible, that is, to blame for it” (1997, p. 7). Rather than being a “guilty white,” this antiracist white takes responsibility for working on her own internalized white supremacy and racism, as well as standing with people of color against overt acts of racism.
__________________________________________________________________________
Race Traitor/Abolitionist
Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey founded the journal Race Traitor in 1992, with the guiding principle “treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” They do not identify themselves or their politics as antiracist. They believe antiracism is problematic because it still acknowledges and legitimates the existence of ‘race.' Rather, Ignatiev & Garvey, and their followers, believe that “the key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 10). By this, they do not mean the genocide of white people. In their view,
the existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender, or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its members to make it unreliable as a determinant of behavior will set off tremors that will lead to its collapse (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p.10).
Or, in other words, when enough white people start acting in unexpected ways, that will be the start of the abolition of the white race. In “Richmond Journal”, Edward H. Peeples, a white man, offers a few examples. As a young child, his father owned a small grocery business that Peeples was expected to work in. It was World War II, and there were shortages of items such as bread, sugar and butter. Peeple's father would hide these items in the store, and when asked by a white customer, would sell them. If a black customer requested one of these scarce items, he would deny having any. He instructed Peeples to do the same. At first, Peeples obeyed his father. But then, one day, a black woman came into the store and demanded a loaf of bread. Peeples sold her a loaf of bread, and from that day forward, secretly disobeyed his father's orders and sold bread to blacks. Another example Peeples gives of being a race traitor is an incident that occurred in 1960 at Richmond's Thalhimer's Department Store. A group of young blacks were challenging segregation. Peeples decided to join their group, and was promptly spat on by an elderly white woman. He stood in silent protest with the rest of the group until the store management summoned the police to throw him out of the store. The last example in “Richmond Journal,” involves Peeples trying to buy the “Richmond Afro-American,” a local alternative newspaper. When the cashier sees what newspaper Peeples has selected, she tells him he doesn't want that newspaper, because it's the “colored newspaper.” She goes on to instruct Peeples where to find the “white newspaper.” He responds, “You must think I'm white,” once again betraying the white race, and carrying out an act of racial sedition by acting outside of accepted norms for white people's behavior (Peeples in Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 82).
Source
Models of Whiteness
This page discusses some models of whiteness currently in use and available to whites in the United States. These are only models, and not real people. Any one white person could fall into more than one category, or change categories over time.
_________________________________________________________________________
White Supremacist
A person who believes that the white race is or should be supreme.
_________________________________________________________________________
What Whiteness?
There are many ways that white people avoid examining their whiteness and consequently, white racism. It is common practice in conversation for white people to mention the race of black or Asian friends, neighbors, or co-workers while never mentioning the whiteness of the white people they know (Dyer, 1997, p. 2). The effect of this and thousands of other cultural practices by whites is to position whites as the “human norm.” Dyer rightly points out, “As long as race is something only applied to non-white peoples, as long as white people are not racially seen and named, they/we function as a human norm. Other people are raced, we are just people” (1997, p.1). Dyer argues convincingly that “there is something especially white in this non-located and disembodied position of knowledge, and thus it seems especially important to try to break the hold of whiteness by locating and embodying it in a particular experience of being white” (1997, p.4).
Another way white people avoid naming whiteness is through a subtle manipulation of sentence structure. In “White Silence, White Solidarity,” Christine E. Sleeter gives two examples. When whites say, “racism causes poor education in inner-city schools,” it is unclear who is responsible for the poor education in inner-city schools. Another example to consider is: “Filipinos were brought to Hawaii to work as cheap laborers.” Again, the question remains: Who brought Filipinos to Hawaii and underpaid them? In this way, white people “personify racism, making it (rather than ourselves) the subject of sentences” (Sleeter, 1996, p. 260).
An effective strategy that many whites use to deflect attention from white racism, and their place in the power structure, is to “transmute many issues of racism into depoliticized questions of cultural difference” (Sleeter, 1996, p. 259). A similar strategy is to equate ethnicity with race. By turning race and racism into issues of culture, diversity, and difference, whites erase the story of power and privilege that pits them against people of color. The phrase "celebrate diversity" is often used by organizations and businesses to show their appreciation of difference - while effectively diverting attention from poor labor conditions, racist promotion and hiring practices, etc.
Advocates of colorblindness fall into this model of whiteness, as well. O'Brien (2001) writes that when whites pride themselves on not noticing others' race (as in “I didn't even notice she was black”) “there is an implicit ideology of white as the norm” (p. 46). When whites say things like “it wouldn't matter if she was black, green, yellow or pink,” they are employing a “strategy for avoiding race: it shifts attention away from color differences that make a political difference by embedding meaningful differences among nonmeaningful ones” (Frankenberg, 1993, p. 38).
_________________________________________________________________________
Guilty White
The “guilty white” model refers to a white person who is able to identify their whiteness and their position in the racial hierarchy, but is unable to identify their personal responsibility for racism or the manifestations of racism in their own life. Ellen Kaye Scott describes this phenomenon in “From Race Cognizance to Racism Cognizance” (2001). Scott begins by discussing the state of antiracist discourse in the United States . She believes that in this discourse
individuals occupy one of two subject positions: victim or perpetrator. This discourse of agency in racial politics paralyzes action. Activists tend to vie for membership in the victim category and attach a great deal of shame to belonging to the perpetrator category (2001, p. 126).
She analyzes two organizations that use racism awareness workshops for their employees and/or volunteers. Scott finds that even with these racism awareness workshops, “identifying individual agency within a system of racial domination and subordination proved very difficult for these [white] women, despite their willingness to recognize their own white racial identity as a political position” (2001, p. 146). This is the essence of the “guilty white”; she feels guilty for being white in a racist society, but cannot identify the effects of racism, her part in them, or what she can do to change the situation. She is paralyzed with guilt.
_________________________________________________________________________
Antiracist White: Standing Against Most Extreme Forms of Racism
In this model of whiteness, the antiracist white makes a public stand against the actions of groups like the KKK or the neo-Nazis. In her book Whites Confront Racism , Eileen O'Brien describes the group Anti-Racist Action (ARA) as fitting into this category. ARA focuses on “overt forms of racism” as can be seen in their main principles which include:
• We go where they go. Whenever racists/fascists are organizing or active in public, we confront them and do our best to stop them.
• We don't rely on the cops or courts to do our work or to protect us (O'Brien, 2001, p.12).
Groups such as ARA are sometimes criticized for focusing their energies on “fringe” groups like the KKK. However, it can be argued (and ARA does) that these groups are not so fringe in reality (O'Brien, 2001, p.12). Mab Segrest discusses the way that institutional racism allows Klan terrorism to happen, and quotes a black minister she worked with as saying “Our greatest danger is sympathy and cooperation by millions of American people with the Klan” (1994, p. 27). Another critique of groups like ARA and their approach to confronting racism is that members “are aware of institutional racism, but are not reflexive about their own role or position within these institutionalized arrangements” (O'Brien, 2001, p.102). Members also “are less likely to take activist stands within the institutions in which they live and work” because of a focus on overt forms of racism (O'Brien, 2001, p.101). John Garvey gives some examples of these inconsistencies in the lives of white antiracists:
Thus, gentrification in a neighborhood like Park Slope … and its sure-fire accompaniment of homelessness for some, have nothing to do with the movement into the neighborhood of numerous ex-members of the movement of the 1960s. We can live where we want and be advocates for the homeless and critics of governmental inaction. In the case of schools, we can send our children to elite programs within the public schools or to private schools and be teachers of non-white students in schools and colleges and lamenters of the poor quality of education (1996, p. 254).
__________________________________________________________________________
Antiracist White: Working against Internalized White Supremacy and External Manifestations of White Racism
This model of antiracism acknowledges that “race is not the work of racists” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 179). Another way of putting this idea is that white antiracists acknowledge that “we are the problem” (O'Brien, 2001, p.57). In this model, whites acknowledge that institutions in our society perpetuate racism, including “the schools (which define ‘excellence'), the labor market (which defines ‘employment'), the law (which defines ‘crime'), the welfare system (which defines ‘poverty'), and the family (which defines ‘kinship')” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 179-180). White people are a part of all these institutions, and in this model the white antiracist works to acknowledge, and take responsibility for, her part in reproducing racism in the institutions she finds herself a part of. The philosophy of this model can be summed up by Dyer's statement, “I did not invent racist thought, it is part of the cultural non-consciousness that we all inhabit. One must take responsibility for it, but that is not the same as being responsible, that is, to blame for it” (1997, p. 7). Rather than being a “guilty white,” this antiracist white takes responsibility for working on her own internalized white supremacy and racism, as well as standing with people of color against overt acts of racism.
__________________________________________________________________________
Race Traitor/Abolitionist
Noel Ignatiev and John Garvey founded the journal Race Traitor in 1992, with the guiding principle “treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.” They do not identify themselves or their politics as antiracist. They believe antiracism is problematic because it still acknowledges and legitimates the existence of ‘race.' Rather, Ignatiev & Garvey, and their followers, believe that “the key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race” (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 10). By this, they do not mean the genocide of white people. In their view,
the existence of the white race depends on the willingness of those assigned to it to place their racial interests above class, gender, or any other interests they hold. The defection of enough of its members to make it unreliable as a determinant of behavior will set off tremors that will lead to its collapse (Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p.10).
Or, in other words, when enough white people start acting in unexpected ways, that will be the start of the abolition of the white race. In “Richmond Journal”, Edward H. Peeples, a white man, offers a few examples. As a young child, his father owned a small grocery business that Peeples was expected to work in. It was World War II, and there were shortages of items such as bread, sugar and butter. Peeple's father would hide these items in the store, and when asked by a white customer, would sell them. If a black customer requested one of these scarce items, he would deny having any. He instructed Peeples to do the same. At first, Peeples obeyed his father. But then, one day, a black woman came into the store and demanded a loaf of bread. Peeples sold her a loaf of bread, and from that day forward, secretly disobeyed his father's orders and sold bread to blacks. Another example Peeples gives of being a race traitor is an incident that occurred in 1960 at Richmond's Thalhimer's Department Store. A group of young blacks were challenging segregation. Peeples decided to join their group, and was promptly spat on by an elderly white woman. He stood in silent protest with the rest of the group until the store management summoned the police to throw him out of the store. The last example in “Richmond Journal,” involves Peeples trying to buy the “Richmond Afro-American,” a local alternative newspaper. When the cashier sees what newspaper Peeples has selected, she tells him he doesn't want that newspaper, because it's the “colored newspaper.” She goes on to instruct Peeples where to find the “white newspaper.” He responds, “You must think I'm white,” once again betraying the white race, and carrying out an act of racial sedition by acting outside of accepted norms for white people's behavior (Peeples in Ignatiev & Garvey, 1996, p. 82).
Source
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Pratt Area Community Council Events
please click here to view all our upcoming events
Pratt Area Community Council
invites you to our first
Homeowner / Homebuyer Night of 2010
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
6:00pm - 9:00pm
First Baptist Church of Crown Heights
450 Eastern Parkway
at the SW corner of Rogers
Brooklyn, New York, 11225
Featuring Workshops on:
Affordable homes · grants for purchase and closing costs · financial preparedness home buyer workshops ·
foreclosure prevention · tax exemptions · repairs · loans · weatherization· minor home maintenance repairs · reverse mortgages · senior tenant programs · financial literacy for adults · Fireproof Your Home by NYFD · FHA 203K Loans · Plus, experts from local financial institutions and government programs will be on hand to assist you!
This is a free event - refreshments will be served
For More Info: 718-783-3549
Charrisse Smith Ext. 15 or
Divinity Pittman Ext. 11
Pratt Area Community Council
invites you to our first
Homeowner / Homebuyer Night of 2010
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
6:00pm - 9:00pm
First Baptist Church of Crown Heights
450 Eastern Parkway
at the SW corner of Rogers
Brooklyn, New York, 11225
Featuring Workshops on:
Affordable homes · grants for purchase and closing costs · financial preparedness home buyer workshops ·
foreclosure prevention · tax exemptions · repairs · loans · weatherization· minor home maintenance repairs · reverse mortgages · senior tenant programs · financial literacy for adults · Fireproof Your Home by NYFD · FHA 203K Loans · Plus, experts from local financial institutions and government programs will be on hand to assist you!
This is a free event - refreshments will be served
For More Info: 718-783-3549
Charrisse Smith Ext. 15 or
Divinity Pittman Ext. 11
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Personal Freedom
From NYCLU
We don't give up our personal freedoms or our values when we choose to fly by plane.
That may sound like common sense to you and me—but for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), it's up for debate.
In recent weeks, the TSA has subjected everyone born in—or just passing through—14 different countries to intense, personal airport screenings. They call it "national profiling," but it's really just racial profiling—a dangerous policy that violates our rights and diverts resources away from real threats.
No government official should have the power to target and harass you just for being born in or flying from a certain country.
Stand with the ACLU in calling on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to rein in the TSA and reject the policy of racial profiling.
The TSA is responsible for protecting us when we travel. But that shouldn't give them carte blanche to abuse and mistreat us for the language we speak or the country in which we were born.
Instead of profiling, we should focus on targeted investigations based on evidence and individualized suspicion. A person's behavior, rather than his or her ethnic or religious background, is a better indicator of criminal or terrorist activity and is more in line with closely held American values of fairness and justice.
This overbroad policy of racial profiling not only violates our rights and values, it also wastes valuable resources and diverts attention from real threats. Please speak out now against these abuses of power that make us less safe—and less free.
Tell Secretary Napolitano to end this misguided and wasteful policy.
Let's win this fight,
We don't give up our personal freedoms or our values when we choose to fly by plane.
That may sound like common sense to you and me—but for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), it's up for debate.
In recent weeks, the TSA has subjected everyone born in—or just passing through—14 different countries to intense, personal airport screenings. They call it "national profiling," but it's really just racial profiling—a dangerous policy that violates our rights and diverts resources away from real threats.
No government official should have the power to target and harass you just for being born in or flying from a certain country.
Stand with the ACLU in calling on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to rein in the TSA and reject the policy of racial profiling.
The TSA is responsible for protecting us when we travel. But that shouldn't give them carte blanche to abuse and mistreat us for the language we speak or the country in which we were born.
Instead of profiling, we should focus on targeted investigations based on evidence and individualized suspicion. A person's behavior, rather than his or her ethnic or religious background, is a better indicator of criminal or terrorist activity and is more in line with closely held American values of fairness and justice.
This overbroad policy of racial profiling not only violates our rights and values, it also wastes valuable resources and diverts attention from real threats. Please speak out now against these abuses of power that make us less safe—and less free.
Tell Secretary Napolitano to end this misguided and wasteful policy.
Let's win this fight,
Monday, February 15, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
NSA + Google= Bad Idea
From ACLU
Google and the NSA. It is hard to imagine a more potent—or frightening—combination when it comes to the collection and safety of Americans' private information.
But just such an alliance is underway. As reported by the Washington Post, Google—the world’s largest search engine company with access to intimate details of our lives—is negotiating an electronic surveillance deal with the National Security Agency (NSA)—the world’s largest spying network.
The implications of this deal are very troubling. The NSA—a component of the Department of Defense—is an intelligence collection agency with few effective checks against abuse and no public oversight of its activities. In the last decade, the NSA’s vast dragnet of suspicionless surveillance has targeted everyday Americans, in violation of the law and the Constitution.
Speak out and stop this dangerous partnership before it’s finalized. Tell Google CEO Eric Schmidt that you strongly object to any deal with the NSA.
We don’t want the NSA anywhere near all the sensitive information Google has about our lives.
The specific terms of the proposed deal are very unsettling. Google announced that they're asking the NSA to find "vulnerabilities."
What assurances do we have that a spy organization like the NSA would fix the holes they find and won’t instead use them to tap into our personal data? Cybersecurity for the American people should not be handed over to a military spy agency that has a history of secretly exploiting vulnerabilities, not fixing them.
Google needs to know that you do not want this deal to go through. Send a message to CEO Eric Schmidt that Google shouldn't be exposing its security vulnerabilities to a military spy organization like the NSA. Send a message to Google and speak out against a deal with the NSA.
Please act today before this dangerous collaboration goes a single step further.
Google and the NSA. It is hard to imagine a more potent—or frightening—combination when it comes to the collection and safety of Americans' private information.
But just such an alliance is underway. As reported by the Washington Post, Google—the world’s largest search engine company with access to intimate details of our lives—is negotiating an electronic surveillance deal with the National Security Agency (NSA)—the world’s largest spying network.
The implications of this deal are very troubling. The NSA—a component of the Department of Defense—is an intelligence collection agency with few effective checks against abuse and no public oversight of its activities. In the last decade, the NSA’s vast dragnet of suspicionless surveillance has targeted everyday Americans, in violation of the law and the Constitution.
Speak out and stop this dangerous partnership before it’s finalized. Tell Google CEO Eric Schmidt that you strongly object to any deal with the NSA.
We don’t want the NSA anywhere near all the sensitive information Google has about our lives.
The specific terms of the proposed deal are very unsettling. Google announced that they're asking the NSA to find "vulnerabilities."
What assurances do we have that a spy organization like the NSA would fix the holes they find and won’t instead use them to tap into our personal data? Cybersecurity for the American people should not be handed over to a military spy agency that has a history of secretly exploiting vulnerabilities, not fixing them.
Google needs to know that you do not want this deal to go through. Send a message to CEO Eric Schmidt that Google shouldn't be exposing its security vulnerabilities to a military spy organization like the NSA. Send a message to Google and speak out against a deal with the NSA.
Please act today before this dangerous collaboration goes a single step further.
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