Category: Women’s rights
Griselda Aguilera Cabrera: Women in Cuba: Our Achievements and Continuing Struggles
| January 17, 2018 | 8:34 am | Cuba, Education, Women's rights | Comments closed

Africa: African Feminism Past and Present
| April 10, 2017 | 8:32 pm | Africa, political struggle, struggle for the equality of women, Women's rights | Comments closed

AfricaFocus Bulletin
April 10, 2017 (170410)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“On February 18th I lost my grand aunt – my grandmother really …
This incredible woman, May Kyomugasho Katebaka left us at the age of
97. We last met in 2014 when I visited her. She’s a fierce woman.
Fierce in her religion but also fierce in her knowledge of what she
wanted from the world. And that is what moves me. Moves me every time
one claims feminism is foreign and for the educated, un-african. She
always came to mind when I met such arguments. I would tell myself
that if only they could hear half her life story, then they would
understand why I am such a rebellion.” – Rosebell Kagumire
(https://rosebellkagumire.com/)

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“Today as ever, African female activists are reshaping not just
African feminist agendas but global ones as well,” wrote scholar
Aili Mari Tripp in a March 8 article published in African Arguments.
But this was only a small sample of articles and web features that
have recently appeared highlighting different aspects of “African
feminism(s),” as well as a host of new books by both famous and
relatively unknown authors.

Among sources that have come to my attention in the last month, this
AfricaFocus Bulletin features the overview article by Aili Mari
Tripp, a reflection by Ugandan journalist and activist Rosebell
Kagumire, several additional links to web features from the African
Feminist Forum and OkayAfrica, and a listing of a selection of
recent related books, from 2017, 2016, and 2015.

The article from March 8, International Women’s Day, was the initial
impetus for this Bulletin. But it is appropriate that the Bulletin
comes only a few days after April 7 (Mozambican Women’s Day),
commemorated to honor the example of Josina Muthemba Machel (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josina_Machel), who I was privileged
to work with in Dar es Salaam in 1966-1967, a few years before her
death at the age of 25 on April 7, 1971. [I don’t know who wrote the
Wikipedia article, but it is substantive and, to my knowledge,
accurate).

Additional recent web references

African Feminist Forum, “Know Your African Feminists” and “African
Feminist Ancestors” Accessed March 2017
http://www.africanfeministforum.com/ – direct URLs:
http://tinyurl.com/mrlua9o and http://tinyurl.com/nxg3u8v

“Talking African Feminisms with Dr. Sylvia Tamale,”
Rosebell Kagumire blog, August 19, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/m9l3fav

“OkayAfrica’s 100 Women” Accessed March 2017
http://www.okayafrica.com/100-women/

“Ghana: Women are the new face of telecommunications’ players,”
Balancing Act Africa, March 17, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/ma3j2sr

“Malawi: Rural Women, Empowerment and Mining,” Publish What You Pay,
December 19, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/m35tt3k

Eunice Onwona, “Karen Attiah Is the ‘Warrior of Diversity’
Channeling Journalism Into Activism,” OkayAfrica, March 17, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/mwvggag

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Those who Defied the Odds, Those Who Stood True to their Beliefs
Till the End

by Rosebell Kagumire

African Feminism, March 22, 2017

http://africanfeminism.com – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/m3h7dhw

On February 18th I lost my grand aunt – my grandmother really
(English limitations) because in my culture a sister of my
grandmother is my grandmother. Both have almost equal roles and
space in your life.

This incredible woman, May Kyomugasho Katebaka left us at the age of
97. We last met in 2014 when I visited her. She’s a fierce woman.
Fierce in her religion but also fierce in her knowledge of what she
wanted from the world. And that is what moves me. Moves me every time
one claims feminism is foreign and for the educated, un-african. She
always came to mind when I met such arguments. I would tell myself
that if only they could hear half her life story, then they would
understand why I am such a rebellion.

Grandma May, always made it a point to tell us she got ‘saved/born
again’ in 1949. Religion was at the centre of her life. She always
told us had it not been for her selfless service in the church, she
would have ended up like most women of her time.  She was one of the
few among millions of women at the time who could read. And that
came through the colonial state where knowledge of the bible
accorded one certain privileges.

Her life is an inspiration. She was married, briefly, and quickly
figured out that married life wasn’t for her so she dedicated
herself to serving the church. Where she was married and even when
she didn’t have children of her own, she is known to have treated
the kids she found in the home like her own. Of course this is
something many women are required of by society and the conditions
are often not on their side – women should have choices – but the
love between her and her step children remained even when she was
longer part of their family. That love was demonstrated till the
end.

In my culture and many in Uganda still, unmarried and childless
women are scorned upon but Grandmother May commanded a certain
respect above all these. She managed to weave her life story, with a
church as her shelter, to be who she wanted to be. Of course many
would say she should ‘have had a child at least’ and god knows what
other pressures she faced. All these little narrow definitions of
what a woman’s life should be according to society wouldn’t dwindle
her.

I loved her and she lived an exceptional life and didn’t matter who
accepted it. She was beautiful too and a deep deep soul. In many
ways she was still traditional like I remember her asking me to
always wear long t-shirts over my jeans – you know – not to show
‘secret body parts’ like we call it in my Runyankole. I usually
laughed these off.

She is inspiration and the fact that her life in itself – some
aspects probably weren’t intentional – but she never followed the
crowd. And that’s enough to get me through this life. I thought in
the spirit of women’s history month, Grandma May fully represents
the people in my life that shattered those expectations. To
understand where we are going we must always look back for a lesson,
inspiration and sometimes caution.

********************************************************

How African feminism changed the world

Aili Mari Tripp

African Arguments, March 8, 2017

http://www.africanarguments.org – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/hrpzdbw

[Aili Mari Tripp is Professor of Political Science and Evjue Bascom
Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. She is the co-editor, with Balghis Badri, of
Women’s Activism in Africa (2017).]

Today as ever, African female activists are reshaping not just
African feminist agendas but global ones as well.

One of the great fallacies one still hears today is that feminism
started in the Global North and found its way to the Global South.
Another is that universal understandings of women’s rights as
embodied in UN treaties and conventions were formulated by activists
in the North.

International Women’s Day, however, provides an opportunity to
highlight the reality: that not only do feminisms in the Global
South have their own trajectories, inspirations, and demands, but
they have contributed significantly to today’s global understandings
of women’s rights. Nowhere is this clearer than in Africa, where
women are increasingly exerting leadership from politics to business
and have helped shape global norms regarding women’s rights in
multiple arenas.

For decades, African activists have rejected the notion that one can
subsume all feminist agendas under a Western one. As far back as the
1976 international conference on Women and Development at Wellesley
College, Egyptian novelist Nawal El-Saadawi and Moroccan sociologist
Fatema Mernissi challenged efforts by Western feminists to define
global feminism. In the drafting of the 1979 Convention on the
Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the All African
Women’s Conference was one of six organisations and the only
regional body involved.

African women have also been influencing national gender policies
for over half a century. In 1960, for example, Mail’s Jacqueline Ki-
zerbo had already developed the idea of considering the gender
impacts of policies. It was only decades later that this idea – now
commonly known as “gender mainstreaming” – gained international
currency, particularly in national budgetary processes.

In key UN conferences, African women activists have been visible
from the outset. Egypt’s Aida Gindy held the first international
meeting on Women in Economic Development in 1972. The Kenya Women’s
Group helped organise the 1985 UN Conference on Women in which
African women brought issues of apartheid and national liberation to
the fore. And Egypt’s Aziza Husayn helped organise the 1994 Cairo
International Conference on Population and Development, which
shifted the debate around population control away from a traditional
family planning emphasis on quotas and targets to one focused on
women’s rights and health.

Additionally, Sierra Leone’s Filomena Steady was one of the key
conveners of the Earth Summit in 1992. Tanzania’s Gertrude Mongella
was General Secretary of the pivotal 1995 UN Beijing Conference. And
African women peace-builders played a crucial role in the 2000
Windhoek conference, which paved the way for a UN Security Council
Resolution encouraging the inclusion of women in peace negotiations
and peacekeeping missions around the world.

Leading the world

Women in Africa have also set new standards for women’s political
leadership globally. The likes of Guinea’s Jeanne Martin Cissé,
Liberia’s Angie Brooks and Tanzania’s Anna Tibaijuka and Asha-Rose
Migiro have all held top positions at the UN. Meanwhile at a
national level, many African countries have made important gains in
women’s representation.

Rwandan women today hold 62% of the country’s legislative seats, the
highest in the world. In Senegal, South Africa, Namibia, and
Mozambique, more than 40% of parliamentary seats are held by women.
There are female speakers of the house in one fifth of African
parliaments, higher than the world average of 14%. Women have
claimed positions in key ministries throughout Africa. And women
have increasingly run for executive positions, with Liberia, the
Central African Republic, Malawi and Mauritius all having had female
heads of state. Moreover, these increases in female representation
are taking place across the continent, including predominantly
Muslim countries such as Senegal, where women hold 43% of
legislative seats.

These new patterns are found at the regional level too, with women
holding 50% of the positions at in African Union Commission,
compared to just one-third at the European Commission. South
Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma meanwhile chaired the AU Commission
from 2012 to 2017.

Women’s strong presence in African parliaments has resulted in new
discussions about strategies to enhance female political
representation worldwide. Scandinavian scholars such as Drude
Dahlerup and Lenita Freidenvall even argue that the incremental
model that led to high rates of female representation in Nordic
countries in the 1970s has now been replaced by the “fast track”
African model in which dramatic jumps in representation are brought
about by electoral quotas.

Shaping the world

African women have also been pioneering in business. Aspiring young
female entrepreneurs today have several role models they can follow
such as Ghana’s Esther Ocloo, who pursued the idea of formalising
local women’s credit associations and became a founding member of
one of the first microcredit banks, Women’s Worlds Banking, in 1979.

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, African countries
have almost equal numbers of men and women either actively involved
in business start-ups or in the phase of starting a new firm. And in
countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia, women are reportedly
more likely to be entrepreneurs than men.

These changes are evident not only at the grassroots but, to an
extent, at the highest levels. Female representation in boardrooms
worldwide is very poor, but Africa’s rate of 14.4% is only slightly
behind Europe (18%) and the US (17%), and ahead of Asia, Latin
America and the Middle East.

Finally, a younger generation of activists is emerging throughout
Africa today and redefining feminism from an African perspective.
One sees this not only in the work of the African Feminist Forum,
which first met in 2006, but also in the work of figures such as
novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who issued a clarion call to women
in her video We Should All be Feminist, adapted from her 2013 Ted
Talk, in which she explores what it means to be an African feminist.
Her book length essay by the same title is found on bookshelves in
major cities around the world, and the Swedish Women’s Lobby has
given it to every 16-year-old in Sweden to help them think about
gender equality.

Feminist discourse meanwhile has become commonplace throughout the
continent on websites, blogs, journals, and social media. New
feminist novels like Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Kenya), Kintu by
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (Uganda), and Americanah by Adichie
(Nigeria) have offered new ways of imagining women.

There are clearly still enormous hurdles for African feminists to
overcome in fighting for gender equality. But as they have over the
past half a century, Africa’s women activists of today are reshaping
not only African feminist agendas in tackling these challenges, but
global ones as well.

*********************************************

Books, 2017

[Thanks to Kathleen Sheldon for most of these suggested books.
Short quotes after each book are from the publishers’ descriptions
unless source is otherwise cited.]

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in
Fifteen Suggestions, 2017. “Adichie has partly written Dear Ijeawele
to reclaim the word feminism from its abusers and misusers. Her
advice is not only to provide children with alternatives—to empower
boys and girls to understand there is no single way to be—but also
to understand that the only universal in this world is difference.”
– Emma Brockes, The Guardian (UK)
http://amzn.to/2ndqp05

Balghis Badri and Aili Mari Tripp, eds. Women’s Activism in Africa:
Struggles for Rights and Representation, 2017. “Drawing on case
studies and fresh empirical material from across the continent, the
authors challenge the prevailing assumption that notions of women’s
rights have trickled down from the global north to the south,
showing instead that these movements have been shaped by above all
the unique experiences and concerns of the local women involved.”
http://amzn.to/2nJLhxq

Helene Cooper. Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf, 2017. “Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and
bestselling author Helene Cooper deftly weaves Sirleaf’s personal
story into the larger narrative of the coming of age of Liberian
women.”
http://amzn.to/2nCo0Nm

Linda M. Heywood. Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen
Hardcover, 2017. “Though largely unknown in the Western world, the
seventeenth-century African queen Njinga was one of the most
multifaceted rulers in history, a woman who rivaled Elizabeth I and
Catherine the Great in political cunning and military prowess.”
http://amzn.to/2nnklmd

Kathleen Sheldon. African Women: Early History to the 21st Century.
2017. “The rich case studies and biographies in this thorough survey
establish a grand narrative about women’s roles in the history of
Africa.”
http://amzn.to/2ndpiNS

Books, 2016

Berger, Iris. Women in Twentieth-Century Africa, 2016. “This book
introduces students to many remarkable women, who organized
religious and political movements, fought in anti-colonial wars, ran
away to escape arranged marriages, and during the 1990s began
successful campaigns for gender parity in national legislatures.”
http://amzn.to/2nJSnSC

Feldman-Savelsberg, Pamela. Mothers on the Move: Reproducing
Belonging Between Africa and Europe, 2016. “[The author”takes
readers back and forth between Cameroon and Germany to explore how
migrant mothers—through the careful and at times difficult
management of relationships—juggle belonging in multiple places at
once: their new country, their old country, and the diasporic
community that bridges them.”
http://amzn.to/2o5jC6c

Hunt, Swanee. Rwandan Women Rising. Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press, 2017. “[The author] shares the stories of some seventy
women—heralded activists and unsung heroes alike—who overcame
unfathomable brutality, unrecoverable loss, and unending challenges
to rebuild Rwandan society.”
http://amzn.to/2o56cY4

Mgbako, Chi Adanna. To Live Freely in This World: Sex Worker
Activism in Africa, 2016. “Well-written and elegant, Mgbako’s
research reveals the rise of African sex work activism and the
ongoing trials and tribulations of organizing in the face of
economic, social, and political adversity.” – Aziza
Ahmed,Northeastern University
http://amzn.to/2nVXb3V

Rhine, Kathryn A. The Unseen Things: Women, Secrecy, and HIV in
Northern Nigeria, 2016. “The book is especially innovative in its
rich detail about desire, pleasure and love, and the strategies men
and women use to reconstitute relationships after testing positive
for HIV.” – Carolyn Sargent, Washington University in St. Louis
http://amzn.to/2nCFqd1

Scully, Pamela. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Ohio Short Histories of
Africa), 2016. “A clear and concise introduction to the woman and to
the domestic and international politics that have shaped her
personally and professionally.” —Peace A. Medie, University of Ghana
http://amzn.to/2ndGpPI

Sylvanus, Nina. Patterns in Circulation: Cloth, Gender, and
Materiality in West Africa, 2016. “[The author] tells a captivating
story of global trade and cross-cultural aesthetics in West Africa,
showing how a group of Togolese women—through the making and
circulation of wax cloth—became influential agents of taste and
history.”
http://amzn.to/2nJW8Ye

Books, 2015

Galawdewos, Wendy Laura Belcher, and Michael Kleiner. The Life and
Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A Seventeenth-Century
African Biography of an Ethiopian Woman, 2015.
“This is the first English translation of the earliest-known book-
length biography of an African woman, and one of the few lives of an
African woman written by Africans before the nineteenth century.”
http://amzn.to/2nnpSco

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

GOP AND SUPER-REACTIONARIES
By A. Shaw
The GOP is splitting and the split pieces of the party are in turn splitting.
Four major factions seem to have emerged.
(1) The GOP establishment faction, consisting of
officeholders
major contributors,
political consultants,
party bureaucracy
Donald Trump is the boss of the Establishment.
(2) tea bag faction
Ted Cruz is the main leader of the tea bags.
After Trump humiliated Cruz in the primaries, a lot of tea bags defected to Trump.
Officeholders who are tea bags play dual roles — both tea bag and officeholder.
Before the rise of Trump, tea bags were widely regarded as the most reactionary or, if you prefer, the most conservative faction in the GOP.
The influence of the tea bags rests in large part on the tea bag capability to turn out a large number of individuals highly trained in campaign management. Ordinary tea bags are often the equals of political consultants connected to the GOP establishment.
(3) Trump faction
 
This faction is a personality cult based on Trump.
Trump has won over supporters from the three other factions.
The Trump faction is zealous but unorganized and untrained. It rides the personality of Trump.
(4) Alt-Right faction
On Aug. 25, 2016, Hillary Clinton said this about Trump:
“He is taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party.”
This “radical fringe” calls itself Alt-Right and it boasts that it is super-reactionary.
Alt-Right doesn’t have absolute control over the GOP because there are still representatives of the old establishment hanging around.
But the Alt-Right wallows in its relative control of the GOP.
In other words, lunatics and swine virtually control the GOP.  The old establishment in the GOP didn’t put up a fight.
Stephen Bannon is widely recognized as Alt-Right’s top leader.
Trump appointed Bannon to the post of “special advisor to the president.”
Alt-Right insists that it is far more reactionary, conservative, and lunatic than either the GOP establishment, tea bags, or  Trump faction.
Alt-Right has digested the whole body of reactionary propaganda, but it gives certain propaganda special emphasis.
Alt-Right singles out:
(1) Hate in general
(2) Racism
(3) Sexism
Alt-Right reactionaries hate with extreme intensity blacks, Latinos, and Jews.
These reactionaries hate women who are not docile to men.
Bernie Sanders’ Powerful Record on Civil and Human Rights

Election 2016

20 Examples of Bernie Sanders’ Powerful Record on Civil and Human Rights Since the 1950sBernie Sanders

From fighting segregation to standing against police violence.

By Zaid Jilani / AlterNet

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/20-examples-bernie-sanders-powerful-record-civil-and-human-rights-1950s?sc=fb

July 20, 2015

Over the past few months, one lingering attack on Bernie Sanders’ candidacy for the Democratic nomination is his supposed indifference to racial justice and civil rights issues.

But the truth is, Sanders has a 50-year history of standing up for civil and minority rights, as he told the attendants of Netroots Nation after he was interrupted by Black Lives Matter protesters. Of course, it’s understandable that they want to bring attention to the movement. Killings of people from Ferguson to New York City to Los Angeles to Atlanta have finally brought important issues like police brutality, systemic racism, mass incarceration and militarization of the police into the center of national dialogue.

It is up to all candidates for the presidency, including every Democrat, every Republican and independent candidates, to address these issues in a forthright manner and to do outreach and communicate with communities that are besieged by these problems. Although his events in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas, where he loudly condemned police brutality and racism were a start, Sanders owes it to pay attention to these activists and listen to the concerns of marginalized groups whose civil rights have historically been suppressed. Sanders does have a record of fighting on these issues, and it should be only natural for him to be able to comfortably address them before a diverse audience.

Here are 20 ways Sanders has stood up for civil and minority rights, starting in the early 1950s up to the present year.

  1. Raising Money For Korean Orphans: International solidarity was an unusual concept for any American to have in the 1950s, let alone a high school student. But one of Sanders’ first campaigns was to run for class president at James Madison High School in New York City. His platform was based around raising scholarship funds for Korean war orphans. Although he lost, the person who did win the campaign decided to endorse Sanders’ campaign, and scholarships were created.
  2. Being Arrested For Desegregation: As a student at the University of Chicago, Sanders was active in both the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1962, he was arrested for protesting segregation in public schools in Chicago; the police came to call him an outside agitator, as he went around putting up flyers around the city detailing police brutality.
  3. Marching In March On Washington:Sanders joined the mega-rally called by the leaders of the civil rights movement, a formative event of his youth.
  4. Calling For Full Gay Equality:40 years ago, Sanders started his political life by running with a radical third party in Vermont called the Liberty Union Party. As a part of the platform, he called for abolishing all laws related to discrimination against homosexuality.
  5. Standing Up For Victims Of U.S. Imperialism In Latin America: While mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Sanders formally protested the Reagan government’s policy of sending arms to Central America to repress left-wing movements. In 1985, he traveled to Nicaragua to condemn the war on people there. He writes about it in his book Outsider In The House: “The trip to Nicaragua was a profoundly emotional experience….I was introduced to a crowd of hundreds of thousands who gathered for the anniversary celebration. I will never forget that in the front row of the huge crowd were dozens and dozens of amputees in wheelchairs – young soldiers, many of them in their teens, who had lost their legs in a war foisted on them and financed by the U.S. government.”
  6. Condemned And Opposed Welfare Reform and Dog Whistle Politics:While President Bill Clinton and most Democrats in Congress supported so-called welfare reform politics, Sanders not only voted against this policy change, but wrote eloquently against the dog whistle politics used to sell it, saying, “The crown jewel of the Republican agenda is their so-called welfare reform proposal. The bill, which combines an assault on the poor, women and children, minorities, and immigrants is the grand slam of scapegoating legislation, and appeals to the frustrations and ignorance of the American people along a wide spectrum of prejudices.”
  7. Vocally Condemned and Opposed Death Penalty and Prisons His Entire Political Career:Sanders has long been a critic of “tough on crime” policies. Here he is in 1991 condemning a crime bill for promoting “state murder” through expansion of the death penalty:

“My friends, we have the highest percentage of people in jail per capita of any nation on earth….What do we have to do, put half the country behind bars? Mister Speaker, instead of talking about punishment and vengeance, let us talk about the real issue. How do we get to the root causes of crime? How do we stop crime? … I’ve got a problem with a president and Congress that allows five million people to go hungry, two million people to sleep out on the street, cities to become breeding grounds for drugs and violence. And they say we’re getting tough on crime. If you want to get tough on crime, let’s deal with the causes of crime. Let’s demand that every man, woman, and child in this country have a decent opportunity and a decent standard of living. Let’s not keep putting more people into jail and disproportionately punishing blacks.”

He also voted for an amendment in the crime bill to eliminate the death penalty with life imprisonment.

  1. Voted Against Cutting Off Prisoners From Federal Education Funds: In the 1990s, there was a successful effort to end the Pell Grant program for prisoners, which was one of the most effective ways to reduce recidivism. Only a handful of members of Congress voted against the legislation, and almost all of them were members of the Black Caucus. Sanders was one of the few white members who opposed this effort. It passed by 351 to 39. Of those in the House who opposed that vote, few are still serving; Reps. John Lewis, Jose Serrano, Charlie Rangel, and Bernie Sanders stood together at that time and continue to serve today.
  2. Took  IMF To Task For Oppressing Developing World Workers: In a 1998 committee hearing, Sanderstook Clinton administration official Robert Rubin to task for not enforcing a provision to protect the rights of workers in Indonesia. “Tell the world now that no more IMF money goes to that country, goes to [dictator] Suharto!” he thundered to Rubin, who later went on to be the chief architect of policies that led us to the Great Recession. “The IMF historically does not have a good record in terms of the poor people of various countries,” he noted, standing up for the poorest black and brown people on the planet, tackling an institution few in Congress dare to criticize.
  3. Achieved High Ratings From Leading Civil Rights Organizations: A frequent critique of Sanders is that he is from a very white state. While this is true, he certainly has not ignored issues that matter to people of color. In 2002, he achieved a 93 percent rating from the ACLU and a 97% rating by the NAACP in 2006.
  4. Voted Against the PATRIOT Act:The USA PATRIOT Act was passed in a 98-2 vote in the Senate and a 357-66 vote in the House. Sanders voted against it, and has voted against renewing it every single time. The law has been used to violate the rights of Arab and Muslim Americans, but few know how extensively it has been used in the drug war; from 2009 to 2010, the law was invoked for 3,034 narcotics cases and only 37 terrorism cases.
  5. Opposed Both Iraq Wars on Moral Grounds: Sanders was opposed to U.S. involvement in both Iraq wars. While many simply talked about the war in terms of the impact it would have on the United States, Sanders went further, saying that the “death and destruction caused” would “not be forgotten by the poor people of the Third World.”
  6. Traveled to Costa Rica to Defend Exploited Workers:Sanders traveled to Costa Rica to help organize workers opposing the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). While many critics of trade agreements do so on the grounds that Americans deserve jobs that could be lost to foreign countries, Sanders instead practices a form of solidarity politics, saying that workers in both countries are being exploited by corporations and so we must organize workers in both countries.
  7. Endorsed Jesse Jackson, Spoke Up For Palestinians: In 1988, Jesse Jackson was the first competitive black candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. He came under fierce attack for his advocacy of Palestinian statehood. Sanders came to his aid, organizing Vermonters and winning the state for Jackson. Sanders was asked about Jackson’s comments on Palestine and defended him, saying that the Israeli assault on Palestinians was “reprehensible.”
  8. Strongly Condemned Police Violence Over the Past Year: One criticism of Sanders is that he avoids talking about police violence in favor of talking about the economy. While the economy forms the bulk of his pitch, he has repeatedly condemned police violence during the duration of the Black Lives Matter movement. Here he is in mid-August 2014, before frontrunner Clinton ever spoke about the issue. Here (8/20/14) are (8/24/14) a (8/18/14) few (6/6/2015) more (4/30/2015) examples(6/2015).
  9. Embraced Immigrants When Hillary Clinton Refused To Talk To Them: In 2014, young immigration activists repeatedly tried to talk to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton to ask her about executive action. While Clinton did not talk to them, Bernie Sanders was not only willing to talk, but agreed with their call for executive action.
  10. Defended Voting Rights Against Voter Suppression Efforts: Sanders earned the endorsement of radical rapper Killer Mike by his leadership on defending the Voter Rights Act and calling for expanding voting rights.
  11. Fought Against Employment Discrimination: Sanders was a strong supporter of legislation to end workplace discrimination against LGBT Americans.
  12. Called For End to War On Drugs, For-Profit Prisons and Migrant Detention Quotas:  Sanders supportsdecriminalizing marijuna, and believes the war on drugs to be a failure. Additionally, he has vowed to end for-profit prisons and immigrant detention quotas.
  13. Put Out Detailed Plan to End Economic Crisis in Minority Communities: Many argue that Sanders views the issue of racial justice in too myopic a fashion by focusing on the economy. But polling of both Latinos and African Americans shows that jobs and the economy is either their top concern or tied for their top concern. Gallup polling shows that 13 percent of Hispanics say immigration is their top concern; 47 percent say the economy is. Meanwhile, among black Americans, 13 percent say “race relations” is their top concern, tied with “unemployment/jobs,” an additional 10 percentage points go to the “economy in general.” Combined, economic concerns make up 23 percentage points while race relations compose 13 percent. If you add in healthcare, at 6 percent, another major Sanders theme, it gets you up to 29 percent. Add in poverty at 7 percent and education at 5 percent  and you’re up to 41 percent of African Americans naming Bernie Sanders’ top issues as their top issues.

This validates Sanders’ strategy of looking to the economy as the top concern of minority communities. He has put out a detailed strategy to target unemployment across America and particularly to attack Hispanic and black youth unemployment, which he introduced in August 2014, long before he announced for president.

None of this is to say that the Sanders campaign doesn’t need to do more outreach to a broad array of people; the rallies in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas were a start, as they featured heavy presence of Latino and African Americans. The campaign is reportedly set to meet with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference next week, and will be campaigning heavily in the Southeast starting next month, with an event in New Orleans at the tail end of this month.

But much of the criticism of Sanders seems more rooted in who he is — an old white guy from Vermont — than what he has done. If anything, the fact that he has done so much for civil and minority rights despite the fact that his constituency is not one that would naturally demand it speaks to his character and wide empathy that isn’t shared by many politicians.

Zaid Jilani is an AlterNet staff writer. Follow @zaidjilani on Twitter.

Happy International Women’s Day
| March 8, 2015 | 6:18 pm | Communist Party Canada, political struggle, Women's rights | Comments closed

Communist Party of Canada

Parti communiste du Canada

Watch our C-51 campaign video:
Appeal from Miguel Figueroa – Stop Bill C-51

CPC supports Cross-Canada Day of Action on Bill C-51

Mar 04, 2015 11:21 pm
The Communist Party of Canada fully supports the various mobilizations of labour, community and student groups, as well as democratically-minded people, against omnibus Bill C-51. A cross-Canada day of Action has been proposed for Saturday, March 14th. The initiative is being promoted by Lead Now, Open Media, the BC Government Employees Union as well as […]
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Le Parti communiste du Canada soutient l’appel pour une journée d’action pan-canadienne contre le projet de loi C-51

Mar 04, 2015 12:06 pm
Le Parti communiste du Canada appuie pleinement les diverses mobilisations du mouvement syndical, des groupes communautaires et étudiants, ainsi que des forces démocratiques, contre projet de loi omnibus C-51. Une journée pancanadienne d’action a été proposée pour samedi 14 mars. L’initiative est promue par Lead Now, Open Media, le syndicat des employé(e)s du gouvernement de […]
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Empowering women, empowering humanity

Mar 02, 2015 12:12 pm
IWD 2015 greetings from the Communist Party of Canada March 8, International Women’s Day, is a time to celebrate our historic struggles for equality, and to unite around today’s challenges. On IWD 2015, the Communist Party of Canada extends our warm solidarity to all who stand for peace, equality, democracy and social progress. In September […]
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Émancipation des femmes, émancipation de l’humanité

Mar 02, 2015 12:05 pm
Greetings from the Communist Party of Canada on the occasion of IWD 2015. OnMarch 8, International Women’s Day is a time to celebrate our historical struggles for equality and unite to meet the challenges of today. On the occasion of IWD 2015, the Communist Party of Canada expresses its warmest solidarity with all those […]
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Winnipeg: International Women’s Day march and CPC greetings
| March 7, 2015 | 9:45 pm | Communist Party Canada, political struggle, Women's rights | Comments closed

The annual IWD march begins at 1:00 pm at Portage Place mall, near the escalators, and ends at the Union Centre.
Event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/723472897766915/

* * * * *
Dear Friends and Comrades,

On International Women’s Day, the Communist Party sends greetings and solidarity to all women in their struggles for equality and a fair society. Started by working class, socialist women in 1911, IWD has become a national holiday in many countries – a paid, statutory holiday, but not in Canada and the United States.

It was a utopian socialist, Charles Fourier, who was the “first to declare that in any given society the degree of woman’s emancipation is the natural measure of the general emancipation” (Engels).

The position of women here helps explain why North America is the bulwark of reaction and militarism in global politics, as much as our governments try to portray our countries as brimming over with human rights.

In Solidarity,
Darrell Rankin
Manitoba office, Communist Party of Canada

PCUSA salutes international working women’s day: March 8, 2015
| March 7, 2015 | 9:30 pm | National, political struggle, Women's rights | Comments closed

Party of Communists USA Salutes International Working Women’s Day: March 8, 2015

http://nymetrocommunistparty.org/?p=879

  The PCUSA honors the contributions working women have made internationally to our society; not just as white or blue collar workers, but also as agricultural workers, homemakers and mothers. We use this day to affirm our commitment to fighting capitalist exploitation. From the dawn of the industrial revolution, women were forced to work longer hours for less pay just because they were women. In many cases, locked inside the factories they worked in with little to no safety regulations. In fact, March 25th commemorates the deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, where 146 garment workers, nearly all women died because they were locked inside the building, which was then common. As early as 1857, women in the garment industry were demanding shorter work hours, equal pay, and safer and better work conditions. Today in 2015, little has changed. Women still are not paid equally for equal work and many women around the world still work in factories with little or no safety regulations. For example, the 2012 on the sweatshop fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh, over 111 female garment workers died from being locked in an unsafe factory. AFL-CIO_comp_time_bill Although many important and crucial gains were made during the late 1960’s and 1970’s in the US because of the militancy of the women’s rights movement, such as the right to enter the workforce, the rights of women to control their bodies and reproduction; the movement did not completely liberate women. Everyone has heard the expression: “A woman’s work is never done”. This statement is true in the US now more than ever. Whereas before women had one job, now they were saddled with two. One paid outside the home and the other unpaid inside the home after and before work; taking care of housework, the children, and often also their elderly parents.

Many American households consist of single women with children who receive no child support, so issues of low pay, long hours, chronic under and unemployment and lack of social services, such as child care are especially critical. To this day, women only earn 77 cents for every $1 a man makes. Although children are tomorrow’s wage slaves in a capitalist society, Capitalism does everything possible to make the labor behind childcare and housework invisible in order to get this labor for free. It does the same when it extracts labor from workers when they take care of sick relatives and parents, which should be a burden to the government. Women, rather than being respected and assisted, are heavily penalized in our society. They generally are delegated to what are considered “women’s work”: jobs in such fields as domestic work, home healthcare, as cashiers, store clerks, etc. These jobs usually pay little more than minimum wage.

Even when they do work in jobs that are not considered “women’s jobs”, they earn less than men for the same work and therefore receive less social security when they retire because they earned less. They are also doubly exploited because, unlike most men, women tend to be the primary caregivers in our society. If they did not work, because they were tending to sick children or parents, they are disqualified from receiving social security. If they did work, they receive less social security, because of the time they may have taken time off working on these unpaid jobs. Women also tend to be discriminated against by the lack of legislation requiring paid sick days in order to take care of sick children or relatives. Women should not be penalized for being mothers or caregivers. Moreover, there should be nothing more dignified in any society than being a caregiver or helping others. This has always been a primordial instinct in man. There is no reason why being a home healthcare aide should be a woman’s job, except that women are paid less than men, so women are hired instead of men for these jobs. There is also no reason why men should not take paternity leave or sick days to take care of children, except that they will be fired later for doing so. There is also no reason why war is glorified rather than taking care of your sick neighbor, except that capitalism profits from war, but not from taking of the elderly or disabled. We need to fight not only for equal pay for equal work; but most importantly for Socialism. Only under Socialism will everyone be entitled to a job, equal pay, and most importantly be respected for taking care of the family as a social function.