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38: Special 3-Part Series: Criminal Justice: 15 Going on 28, Part 2 Dec 18, 2019

Show notes

Sara and Misasha bring you the second part of their Criminal Justice series and another big issue affecting the 2020 Presidential election.

This episode focuses on the juvenile.

Pause for a moment and think about someone you know that's a juvenile. Maybe you think of your kid, or maybe you think of yourself at 13. What were you like? Did you ever make any poor choices?

Listen in for a shocking history lesson and find out how old laws are impacting our children in the court system even today.

Show Highlights:

Being 13 is a difficult age. You often think you know everything, how to do everything, hormones are raging, you encounter peer pressure. What you don't understand when you're 13 is the consequences of your actions.
There's a reason why car rental companies do not rent to those under the age of 25. Your brain does not fully develop until you're 25.
Misasha reads from an article regarding Jim Crow era laws resulting in a high rate of black kids being charged as adults in the State of Mississippi and shares her worst fears. She shares a story of a young teenager named Isaiah and his experience in the adult court system.
In the last 25 years, nearly 5,000 Mississippi children have been charged as adults. Three out of every four are black.
"Convict leasing", where the State loaned out its prison population to work on plantations and build railroads, became popular after slavery but was outlawed at the end of the Civil War.
In the late 1880's state laws made no distinction between punishing children and punishing adults.
By 1880, children and adolescents made up about one quarter of the prison population.
As a result of national pressure, the State of Mississippi ended convict leasing in 1890, but it gave way to the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman Farm.
Even the youngest inmates at Parchman picked cotton and cultivated other cash crops for the state's profits while incurring lashings from "Black Annie", the name given to a thick leather strap.
By the time the state got around to making separate jails for kids in 1916, the Governor was a well-known klansman by the name of Theodore Bilbo.
Bilbo created so-called "training schools," where the state could jail kids charged with breaking the law, homeless kids, abandoned kids, and even kids the courts thought might one day be criminals.
More than two decades later, the 1940 Legislature created a separate court system for kids and at the same time permitted children as young as 14 to face criminal charges in adult court. Lawmakers wanted to take it even further. In 1942, the all-white body wrote a bill to permit children of any age to face criminal charges in adult court.
But then-Governor Paul Johnson, Sr., vetoed this bill, arguing that the law was redundant. He already had approved $60,000 – nearly $1 million by today's standards – to fund a "negro reformatory at Oakley State Farm." This basically meant that there was no need to criminally prosecute younger kids when the state had a new plan in place to send black kids to Oakley.
Laws passed in 1946 permitted kids as young as 13 to face criminal prosecution as adults. Their legacy remains seven decades later in the form of "original jurisdiction" laws. They are not unique to Mississippi: Twenty-six states automatically put children into the adult system at the moment of arrest for certain charges.
Sara shares the impact on your brain of time spent in isolation, and the states that still allow solitary confinement as a disciplinary measure for juveniles: Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Texas, and Wyoming.
Solitary confinement of juveniles is prohibited under the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
There is no evidence that solitary confinement improves behavior.
There is, however, a lot of evidence that shows that it is harmful to children.
There are approximately 67,000 prisoners placed in these conditions in the United States and Canada at any given time.
Of the kids charged as adults who have gone before a Mississippi judge in the last quarter-century, nearly 75% are black. While boys make up most of the system, the racial disparity among Mississippi girls in the system also is stunning: 60% are black.
White kids are over twice as likely to get a plea bargain that's known as a "non-adjudication of guilt."
The laws need to change, and we should reflect on what the President can do, what Congress needs to do, and how the court systems can address these issues.
NEXT WEEK: Sara and Misasha share their thoughts on key issues relating to the criminal justice system surrounding the 2020 election.

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Suggested Reading

Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice by David M. Oshinsky

Before We Were Yours: A Novel by Lisa Wingate

37: Special 3-Part Series: Criminal Justice: Jaw-Dropping Stats You Should Know About Part 1 Dec 11, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to the first installment of a 3-part series where Sara and Misasha cover topics such as DWB, or driving while black, eye-popping traffic-stop statistics, and an overview of our criminal justice system. You'll even get to hear Sara rap!

Congratulations to Dear White Women Podcast, who was recently awarded "Best Episode" for the Inaugural Colorado Podcast Awards for the Crystal Echohawk episode!

Show Highlights:

Sara and Misasha discuss the anxiety of being pulled over while driving.
If you're driving while black, there's a strong likelihood that you'll be stopped, asked to step out of the car, forcibly searched and have your car searched during a routine traffic stop.
You need to know your rights because if you don't, you could be frisked, arrested, beat up, or even killed right in front of your family that is with you, as has happened recently.
Misasha covers your rights in a traffic stop, and what you should and should not do.
According to research based on 20 million traffic stops, blacks are almost twice as likely to be pulled over as whites, even though whites drive more, on average.
Blacks are more likely to be searched following a stop.
Just by getting in a car, a black driver has about twice the odds of being pulled over and about four times the odds of being searched.
They're more likely to be searched despite the fact that they're less likely to be found with contraband as a result of those searches.
The 2013 Justice Department study found that black and Latino drivers were more likely to be searched once they have been pulled over.
About 2% of white motorists are searched compared to 6% of black drivers and 7% of Latinos.
In 2015, the Charleston Post & Courier looked at incidences in which police stopped motorists but didn't issue a citation. These are called pretext stops and suggest that the officer was profiling the motorist as a possible drug courier or suspected the motorist of other crimes.
After adjusting for population, blacks in nearly every part of their state were significantly more likely to be the subject of these stops.
In 2017, a study of 4 1/2 million traffic stops by the 100 largest police departments in North Carolina found that blacks and latinos were more likely to be searched than whites, even though searches of white motorists were more likely than the others to turn up contraband.
Criminal justice is a big issue in the 2020 election with several candidates talking about specific reforms.
Sara and Misasha will be talking more in future episodes on what the President and the office of the President has power to do regarding criminal justice and what they need Congress for.
Once you have a basic understanding of the criminal justice system, it's easier to understand why this is so important for the upcoming election.
The criminal justice system has 3 components that work together to enforce the rule of law:
- Law enforcement
- The courts
- The correctional facilities
The criminal justice system operates at the local level, the state level, and the federal level.
Law enforcement works to prevent crime, courts strive to enact justice once a crime has been committed, and correction focuses on retribution and rehabilitation.
Misasha describes the hierarchy within the state and federal levels and delves into each separate branch.
Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff is a scientist who studies how our minds learn to associate blackness, crime, and misperceived black children as older than they actually are. He also studies police behavior and knows that every year, one in five adults in the United States will come in contact with law enforcement. Out of this number, about a million are targeted for police use of force. If you're black, you're 2 to 4 times more likely to be targeted for that force than if you're white.
The US Corrections System stands alone as the largest system of its type in the world. Though home to less than 5% of the world's population the US holds nearly 25% of the world's prisoners, which is the highest global per capita rate incarceration.
Parole, probation, community service, and recidivism.
Sara shares information on two organizations that are working to help people who are re-entering society from prison.
Along with corrections and our criminal justice system, it's also important to consider tribal law.
Federally-recognized Native American tribes possess a form of sovereign rule that preserves the inherent right of each tribe to form their own government, make and enforce civil and criminal law, collect taxes, and establish and regulate tribal citizenship.
Native American reservations have more than 90 correctional facilities.

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Listen to the Award-Winning "Best Episode" of the Inaugural Colorado Podcast Awards!

Transforming Relationships with Native American Culture with Crystal Echohawk

https://www.dearwhitewomen.com/episodes/crystal-echohawk

Book Mentioned:

Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race, by Frank R. Baumgartner, Derek A. App, and Kelsey Shoub

Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff TED Talk

https://www.ted.com/speakers/phillip_goff

Organizations That Are Helping People Coming Out of Prison

Second Chances Farm

Forgive Everyone

36: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend Dec 04, 2019

Show notes

You may not be familiar with the subject of today's show, but he is a senior advisor for policy for President Donald Trump.

Sara and Misasha are going to be digging deep into Stephen Miller, who has facilitated and created a lot of the Trump administration policies, both domestic and foreign. They're also going to be discussing his beliefs, which are largely rooted in racist and anti-immigrant ideology.

Listen in to learn more about the people who are in power in our current government.

Show Highlights:

Stephen Miller is descended from immigrants who came to this country to escape religious persecution in their own European countries.
Politico Magazine published an article written by Miller's uncle, who calls Stephen an "immigration hypocrite". Sara shares some highlights from the commentary and invites listeners to sign up for their weekly emails to receive the article link.
Miller is not just President Trump's political advisor, he is also a personal friend of his.
Misasha gives an overview of Miller's previously private 900 emails sent to the editors of the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016 regarding anti-immigrant ideology.
More than 80% of the emails that Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) Hatewatch reviewed related to race or immigration.
In preparing for their article, Hatewatch reached out to the White House and to Stephen Miller for comment about these emails and received no response.
When discussing crime, Miller focuses on offenses committed by non-whites.
When discussing immigration, he touches on the perspective of severely limiting or ending non-white immigration to the United States.
Hatewatch was not able to find any examples of Miller writing sympathetically (or even in neutral tones) about any person who is non-white or foreign-born.
Miller has cut off regular contact with most of his allies outside of the Trump Administration to limit leaks, and now favors phone calls over emails.
Sara and Misasha discuss Katie McHugh's part in the leak of the emails. McHugh was an editor for Breitbart who leaked the emails to Hatewatch and later got fired for anti-muslim tweets.
Misasha summarizes the content of some of the key emails to help provide an understanding of how influential Miller's beliefs were in shaping the Trump White House domestic and foreign policies, and Sara provides feedback with statistics.
The White House recently announced the US will only accept 18,000 refugees per year going forward. This is a 50% cut from previous years.
The Camp of the Saints, by Jean Raspail, is a racist French novel that is popular amount white nationalists and neo-nazis because of the degree to which it fictionalizes the "white genocide" or "great replacement" myth into a violent and sexualized story about refugees. This book was discussed between Miller, McHugh, and Julia Hahn, another Breitbart editor.
Hahn is now an aide to President Trump.
Misasha reflects on how the data from the US Census should and should not be used.
Miller attempted to incite action against amazon.com for removing the confederate flag as a sales item.
Sara provides perspective on what shapes this country.
Keep your eye on the pool of candidates coming up for the next election.
Sara explains the three different types of leadership, how each candidate will have a style of leadership to which they default, and the authoritarian leadership we currently have.
Miller's enemies seem to be everyone who isn't white, Christian or Protestant, and conservative.
By 2045 our Census statistics project that the nation will become "minority white".
There is a petition to remove Steven Miller from the White House.

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Book Mentioned:

The Camp of the Saints, by Jean Raspail

Did You Miss These Shows? Catch Them Here!

Dear White Women - Episode 34

Election Bootcamp Kickoff: How the F* Do I Make Sense of What's Coming in 2020?

Dear White Women - Episode 35

Election 101: Why Your Vote Does Matter

If You Would Like to Sign a Petition to Remove Stephen Miller from the White House:

https://front.moveon.org

35: Election 101: Why Your Vote Does Matter Nov 27, 2019

Show notes

If you've slept a night or two since Civics class, be sure to listen in to this part of their Election Bootcamp series as Sara and Misasha bring us all up-to-date on the electoral vote, how the voting process works, and why your vote DOES matter.

Show Highlights:

The Presidential election is less than a year away, and the primaries begin early next year.
An election for President of the United States happens every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
The next Presidential election will be November 3rd, 2020.
The election process begins with primary elections and caucuses. These are the two methods that states use to select a potential Presidential nominee. In general, primaries use secret ballots for voting.
Primary elections are held for most public offices when there are multiple candidates, usually from the same party, seeking office.
Primaries often offer a crucial opportunity for voters to weigh in on the issues that matter to them the most.
Most primaries are held February through June. Find out when your state primary is!
In many areas, the outcome of primary elections are really important and have a huge impact on the outcome of general elections.
Very few voters actually go to the polls or use a mail-in ballot for a primary election. If few voters go but these elections are really important, then any increase in participation in the primary election can have a significant impact.
The rules for primaries are state-specific. Who can participate in the primaries varies by state.
Generally speaking, individuals designate the political party whose primaries they will vote in when they register to vote or update their voter registrations. Some states let you choose this on election day.
There are four different types of primaries:
Open: where you can cast a vote in the primary regardless of your political affiliation.
Closed: only voters who are registered members of a political party prior to the primary may participate in choosing that party's candidates.
Semi-Closed: voters who have not previously chosen a political party have the option to choose which party primary to vote in. Voters registered with a party may only vote in that party's primary.
Top Two: voters select their choice for nomination from a list of all candidates regardless of party affiliation. The two candidates who receive the most votes become the candidates in the general election.
A minority of states hold a nominating caucus instead of a primary. Instead of having secrets ballots a small group of party leaders or a broader group of voters choose the party's nominee for the general election.
Nominating conventions are where political parties each select a nominee to unite behind.
In the two major political parties, Republican and Democrat, each Presidential nominee announces their Vice-Presidential running mate at that time.
For 2020 the Democratic National Convention ("DNC") will be held in July in Milwaukee, and the Republican National Convention ("RNC") will be held in late August in Charlotte.
General Election Day is when you go to your polling place to vote for President. The popular vote doesn't determine the actual winner of the election.
The Electoral College: to win the election, a candidate must receive the majority of the electoral votes. In the event no candidate receives the majority, the House of Representatives chooses the President, and the Senate chooses the Vice-President.
The Constitution does not provide for the popular election of the American President. It provides for the popular election of Presidential electors. Each candidate who qualifies for a given state's ballot must designate certain individuals who will serve as his or her electors if that candidate wins the popular vote in that state.
When each state certifies a winner of its overall popular vote, that winner is entitled to send all of their electors to that state's Capitol, where they will officially record their votes for the candidate, and all electors in all the states do this on the same day, the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December.
Maine and Nebraska have instituted a different system, whereby they have given two electoral votes to the statewide winner and one to the winner of each of the state's congressional districts.
A congressional district is an electoral constituency that elects a single member of Congress. It is a physical area and based on population, so census information is important.
The Electoral College apportions votes to the states in a very specific way: each state is given a number equal to its Senate seats, which are always two, plus its seats in the House of Representatives.
The total number of Electoral College seats is 538. Since there is an equal number of electoral votes, you could have an even split.
NPR compiled a list in 2018 of many elections where ONE VOTE was the deciding factor. Join Sara and Misasha's email list to have this mailed to you! Your vote counts!
Sara and Misasha go over a Huffington Post article from 2016 that counts the reasons why people don't vote.
Why should you vote? Sara and Misasha cover the answers to this question, too!
Voter suppression: why are certain states working so hard to block minority votes? Sara and Misasha discuss the Southern Poverty Law Center's exposé on this subject.
Keep listening! Sara and Misasha will unpack more key issues on future episodes!

Resources / Links:

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Suggested Podcast

Dear White Women - Episode 34

Election Bootcamp Kickoff: How the F* Do I Make Sense of What's Coming in 2020?

One-Stop-Shop for Voter Information

Brought to You by The League of Women Voters' Education Fund

https://www.vote411.org

Federal Election Committee on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/fec

34: Election Bootcamp Kickoff: How the F* Do I Make Sense of What's Coming in 2020? Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

Join Sara and Misasha in the Election Bootcamp Kickoff!

They've got questions, and they have some answers, and they're not speaking as Democrats, Republicans, or unaffiliateds, they're just focusing on the issues that this country is facing.

Are you fired up yet? Listen in for some passionate, thought-provoking conversation!

Show Highlights:

Sara gets put in the hot seat with some election questions!
Misasha points out that at the time this episode was recorded, there were a lot of unknowns, such as the impeachment inquiry. It's difficult to not know what's going to happen next.
The most important issue, of many, in this upcoming election, is immigration and how we look at our citizens, according to Misasha.
The United States is used to being the number one power in the world, but that could tank in the near future.
Sara believes that the most important issue, of many, in this upcoming election is women's rights.
Sara and Misasha discuss two recent cases of people being impacted by the same issue and then having opposing viewpoints with regard to supporting the President.
Tariffs, imports, and the effects it will have on consumers.
Farm bankruptcies are up this year, yet the majority of farmers support Trump.
The latest statistics on how well the President is doing.
Misasha provides an impeachment overview and modern-day inquiries.
Misasha brings up a Washington Post article about Congressional Districts, and how little people know or want to know about what's going on. You can get this article emailed to you when you sign up for their weekly email!
How Trump has damaged the image of the Office.
42% of Republicans say there is nothing that Trump could do to lose their approval.
On Twitter, Trump referred to the impeachment proceedings as "a lynching". This is a very offensive description, and Sara reads from Ida B. Wells's description of an actual lynching.
What are the questions we need to be asking right now in 2019 and going into 2020 to be able to make educated decisions and not just vote on party lines?
Questions to consider: 1) What matters to you? 2) What are you going to do about it?
Don't miss next week's episode "Election 101"!

Resources / Links:

Website: https://www.dearwhitewomen.com

GET ON OUR INSIDER'S LIST! Sign up for our weekly emails!

Podcast: https://www.dearwhitewomen.com/listen

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Books Mentioned

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond

33: Special 3-Part Series: Domestic Terrorism: Then and Now Part 3 Nov 13, 2019

Show notes

On today's episode, Sara and Misasha close out their 3-part series on Birmingham, hate in this country, and why you need to vote in 2020.

Warning: explicit content, not meant for younger ears.

Show Highlights:

Misasha provides a detailed look at an altercation after a minor accident between a white teacher and a black parent in a racially diverse school parking lot in the Upper Darby School District in Philadelphia. The teacher berates the parent and eventually lobs the n-word.
Sara points out that there's nothing that a black person could say to a white person that is as effective and as insulting as the n-word.
Entitlement plays a huge role in what comes out of your mouth when something doesn't go your way. There's a psychology that runs very deep from the time of this country's founding.
In the recent El Paso mass shooting in which a gunman killed 22 people, he claimed the shooting was in response to the "Hispanic invasion of Texas".
From the moment Donald Trump was a Presidential candidate and he announced in his campaign some warnings about some Mexican immigrants "bringing drugs into the country" and "being rapists", Latinos have been worried about how such characterizations would affect them as one of the nation's fastest-growing populations.
A Pew Research Center study this year says that 58% of Hispanic adults say that they have experienced discrimination or been treated unfairly because of race or ethnicity.
Across racial and ethnic groups, about 2/3 said that it had become more common for people to express racist views since Trump became President.
Researchers say that victims of racism experience negative health outcomes.
One out of six adults will have depression at some time during their life.
In this country, suicide is the second leading cause of death among those aged 10 - 34.
Worldwide, depression is the leading cause of disability.
The total economic burden for depression is estimated to be two hundred and ten billion dollars per year.
35% of adults with depression receive no treatment at all.
Long term depression means an increased risk of heart attack, heart disease, digestive issues, and a decreased immune response.
US-born Hispanics report higher rates for most psychiatric disorders than Hispanic immigrants.
Over 20% of Hispanics are uninsured, compared with 7 1/2 percent of white, non-Hispanic Americans.
The American Psychiatric Association said insurance coverage for Hispanics is likely to be a function of ethnicity, immigration status, and citizenship status.
64% of Americans said that the United States will become a majority non-white nation by 2045. While 80% of Democrats say that the growth is positive, 61% of Republicans say that's a negative development.
From Adam Serwer's article, "The seed of Nazism's ultimate objective—the preservation of a pure white race, uncontaminated by foreign blood—was in fact sown with striking success in the United States. What is judged extremist today was once the consensus of a powerful cadre of the American elite, well-connected men who eagerly seized on a false doctrine of "race suicide" during the immigration scare of the early 20th century. They included wealthy patricians, intellectuals, lawmakers, even several presidents. Perhaps the most important among them was a blue blood with a very impressive mustache, Madison Grant. He was the author of a 1916 book called The Passing of the Great Race, which spread the doctrine of race purity all over the globe."
Serwer's article continues, "Grant's purportedly scientific argument that the exalted "Nordic" race that had founded America was in peril, and all of modern society's accomplishments along with it, helped catalyze nativist legislators in Congress to pass comprehensive restrictionist immigration policies in the early 1920s. His book went on to become Adolf Hitler's "bible," as the führer wrote to tell him."
The Nazis didn't understand how committed Americans were to democracy and did not want to buy into nazi Germany and live under a fascist government.
We can't ignore that we planted that seed that led to the extermination of so many millions in Europe due to the nazis.
White extremists, both in the United States and abroad, have embraced Grant's ideology and this isn't likely to change with the Presidency.
Through the actions we take and what we tell our kids, every day we have the ability to coexist and thrive together. Think about what you say and how you say it. We must be better than our past.

Resources / Links:

Website: https://www.dearwhitewomen.com

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DID YOU MISS PART 1 & PART 2 OF THIS SPECIAL SERIES?

HERE'S WHERE TO LISTEN!

Part 1 - Episode #31

Special 3-Part Series: Domestic Terrorism: Then and Now Part 1

https://www.dearwhitewomen.com/episodes/domestic-terrorism-pt1of3

Part 2 - Episode #32

Special 3-Part Series: Domestic Terrorism: Then and Now Part 2

https://www.dearwhitewomen.com/episodes/domestic-terrorism-pt2of3

Referenced Article

"White Nationalism's Deep American Roots"

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/adam-serwer-madison-grant-white-nationalism/583258/

32: Special 3-Part Series: Domestic Terrorism: Then and Now Part 2 Nov 06, 2019

Show notes

In Part 2 of a special series on hate and violence in the United States, Sara and Misasha continue the dialogue with Charleston, and how we normalized hate in 2015 and going forward, as seen in Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Poway, El Paso, and Gilroy.

Join Sara and Misasha as they discuss Dylann Roof and the church massacre that set off this current resurgence of hate in a way that we haven't seen in this country since the Birmingham bombings in 1963.

Show Highlights:

Roof was caught immediately and, unlike the Birmingham bombers' extreme delay of justice, put on trial within two years of committing the crime.
Sara and Misasha read selections from articles and discuss forgiveness from the perspectives of a survivor and family member.
In Columbia during the trial, there was a lot of gossip about what his real motivation might have been. Those who knew the Roof family said that there had been a rape of someone close to Roof at the hands of a group of black men.
A parallel is drawn to the 2016 movie, The Birth of a Nation.
The defense in court presented another twist, which was answers to Roof's rage lay in his unique psychopathology.
Although Roof was found to have a high IQ, it was 'compromised by a significant discrepancy between his ability to comprehend and to process information and a poor working memory'.
This was translated into some kind of OCD behavior that led him to fastidiously keep 88 friends and take 88 bullets to the church. This number reportedly has a link to Hitler and the Nazis.
The court-appointed psychiatrist found that a lack of a sensible network, how fast he was radicalized to this extreme hate level, coupled with his inability to form any known connections gave credence to a diagnosis of a schizoid personality disorder, a mixed substance abuse disorder, depression by history, and a possible autistic spectrum disorder.
Despite these disorders, he was declared competent to stand trial not once, but twice. That's why he was allowed to excuse his legal team and handle some of his capital murder trial, himself.
The white supremacists of today, having been kicked off Twitter, often have Instagram bios that offer this "warning" to their opposition: 'Goodnight, left side'. They're young, white, often brag about how many guns they have because these are the guns that will save them in the coming race war.
They're clearly armed and often under-educated, or somewhat educated but really socially awkward, or at least until they get sucked into these chat rooms in this world of white supremacy where they can find friends.
Roof was educated in a state whose educational standards from 2011 are full of lesson plans that focus on the viewpoint of slave owners and highlight the economic necessity of slave labor. When this is what you're learning at school, it's kind of hard to separate that when you're on the internet in white supremacists' chatrooms.
In the Massachusetts educational system, slavery is talked about more than 100 times in their curriculum, whereas Louisiana mentions it less than 5 times. There is a huge disparity in how we're taught in our schools.
The rise of what has happened politically since 2015 has emboldened men and women who have always been there, to come up and say that they are being supported.
The Anti-Defamation League wrote about 4 separate examples of individuals who may have been inspired by Roof.
Lone-wolf terrorism is notoriously difficult to catch and prevent. This is terrorism that comes from within that is young, white, and armed.
Sara and Misasha discuss the "Incel" movement. This stands for "involuntary celibate".
Next week in PART THREE of this 3-part series, Sara and Misasha will discuss the present acts that are occurring, the takeaways, and the psychology behind it.

31: Special 3-Part Series: Domestic Terrorism: Then and Now Part 1 Oct 30, 2019

Show notes

Join Sara and Misasha as they take a look back in time. This is the first part of a special three-part series, starting with the church bombings in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.

Just two months before President Kennedy's assassination, the Birmingham church bombings occurred, and four young girls lost their lives. That long-ago act of terrorism has implications in what has gone on in more recent years.

What do moments like this in history do to our psyche? Listen in to find out more.

Show Highlights:

September 15, 2019, marked 56 years since these four young girls were murdered at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
The Ku Klux Klan was trying to intimidate Civil Rights activists who used the predominantly African-American church as a rallying point and an organizing hub.
The KKK members planted a bomb under the building's steps and detonated at 10:22 AM on Youth Sunday, which was a day dedicated to the church's young members. These girls were getting ready for the service in a basement lounge.
Sarah Collins Rudolph was a survivor of the bombing and often called "The Fifth Girl". Sara recounts Ms. Rudolph's memory of that day and its lasting effects.
Addie Mae Collins, 14; Denise McNair, 11; Carole Robertson, 14; and Cynthia Wesley, 14, were killed by this bomb, and 20 others were injured.
Dr. Martin Luther King gave the eulogy at the funerals and called the attack "One of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity."
He sent a telegram to then-Alabama Governor George Wallace, who was known as the state's top segregationist, telling him that "the blood of our little children is on your hands". The reason for this is that ten days before the bombing, Wallace had railed against the Civil Rights Movement to the New York Times, saying, "What this country needs is a few first-class funerals."
About 100 years before the Birmingham church bombings, there was the Dred Scott Decision. Misasha provides an overview of Dred Scott, the slave whose owner had lived in a free state and territory. When his owner died, Mr. Scott filed suit on behalf of himself and his wife to gain their freedom. The court decision said that he was not free based on his residence because he was not considered a person, but property, under the U.S. Constitution.
One person who was publicly upset over the Dred Scott decision was Abraham Lincoln, a rising figure in the newly-formed Republican party. Misasha points out that this Republican party is not the same one that exists today.
In 1858, the Dred Scott case became a focal point of the famous debate between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. These debates are otherwise known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
This decision made the Republican party a national force and led to the division of what used to be called the Democratic party in the 1860 Presidential elections. This growing power of the Republicans, who received a lot of support from the north, directly led to fears in the south that slavery would be ended. Those fears snowballed and started the movement towards what would become the Civil War.
Dred Scott died in 1858, about a year after he and his family had gained their freedom. His owner, under pressure from her husband, sent the Scotts back to their original owners who promptly set him free.
Charles Sumner, a leading radical Republican at the time, said, "I declare that the opinion of the Chief Justice in the case of Dred Scott was more thoroughly abominable than anything of the kind in the history of the courts. Judicial-baseness reached its lowest point on that occasion."
Charles Sumner had been brutally beaten and almost killed on the Senate floor in 1856 when he made anti-slavery remarks.
After the Civil War, the 13th Amendment and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution effectively overturned the Dred Scott Decision.
Eighteen years post-Dred Scott, Black Americans would not only have citizenship but would be guaranteed the right to vote and equal access to transportation, housing, and other facilities by the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
This was short-lived, as in 1883, the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was found unconstitutional and in 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson established the Separate but Equal Doctrine.
This whole rollback and the struggle that ensued from that led to the Civil Rights Movement almost 100 years later.
Birmingham was dubbed "Bombingham" because violent attacks on the Civil Rights Movement in the city were common.
J. Edgar Hoover was FBI Director at the time and he blocked prosecution of the case, and the FBI failed to turn over thousands of files to prosecutors including audio surveillance tapes.
It wasn't until 1977 that the first of four Klansmen behind the crime was brought to trial by the State Attorney General and convicted. In the mid-1990s two others were convicted by Federal prosecutors. The fourth person died before being charged.
The last surviving Klansmen is still in prison and one of the two convicted in the mid-1990s. Thomas Edwin Blanton is 79 and has been up for parole twice. He has not expressed any remorse nor accepted any responsibility.
Misasha explains how money matters eventually brought down the KKK and how the Birmingham church bombings galvanized the nation and pushed the movement forward, whereby ten months after the bombing Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation in public accommodations.
Today, a memorial named "Four Spirits" stands across the street from the church where the bombing happened, with the description, "Love Forgives", which was the title of the pastor's undelivered sermon the date of the bombing.
Dr. King eulogy included these words, "This afternoon, in a real sense, the four girls have something to say to each of us in their death. They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred, and the spoiled meat of racism. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Hate is nothing new, we've known this for centuries, and many of us have experienced it firsthand. But it is on the rise, we are seeing a surge of white nationalism and racist violence across the country. This violence can mix anybody up into the fray. We have to all be thinking about this."
Next week in PART TWO of this 3-part series, Sara and Misasha will discuss one of the key instances that led into this modern wave of terrorism, which is the Charleston bombing in 2015, Dylann Roof, and the internet.

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Suggested Podcast

Episode #11 - Hate in America, Pt.1: The History of the Ku Klux Klan

https://www.dearwhitewomen.com/episodes/hate-in-america

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RBG

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7689964/

30: Crystal Echohawk: Transforming Relationships with Native American Culture Oct 23, 2019

Show notes

Sara and Misasha are so excited to bring you a conversation with Crystal Echohawk on today's podcast. Crystal is an advocate for Native American culture and respect and has a passion for building understanding and getting to know others. This episode is a perfect companion piece to Episode 29, Halloween and Cultural Appropriation, so if you missed that, please go check out the link provided.

Crystal is a member of the Kitkehahki Band of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, a mom, and Executive Director of IllumiNative, a national, native-led, non-profit organization born out of the "Reclaiming Native Truth Project", a research project from 2016-2018, and was the largest public opinion research project ever conducted about native people.

The focus on this project was based on the desire to educate Americans and transform relationships so that Native Americans are respected, included, and seen as a vital fabric of this country.

Show Highlights:

The public opinion research project, "Reclaiming Native Truth Project" focused on the following questions: 1) What do Americans really think about Native Peoples, and why is that? 2) How does that manifest itself in terms of the ways that we are treated and the way institutions treat us? and 3) How can we map this information, understand it, and change the narrative?
The heart-wrenching results of the project were the perception that Native Americans did not exist; they were an invisible people.
78% of Americans know little to nothing about Native Peoples.
72% of Americans rarely or never encounter information about Native People in this society where we're constantly inundated with information.
87% of schools in the United States don't teach about Native Peoples beyond 1900.
When asked an insensitive question such as, "Do you still live in teepees?", Crystal has begun to understand that the person asking the question is not necessarily trying to be hurtful or racist, as the last data point most people have for Native Americans is from learning in elementary school about the 1890s Wounded Knee.
27 states do not even mention Native Americans in their curriculum.
Representation in TV and film is between 0 - .04% of all representation. Within that sliver, the Native American is often shown in a stereotypical fashion. i.e. magical, mystical Indian, drunks, or savages.
One study found that when you type the words "Native American" in a search engine, 95% of those images that come up are pre-1900, and are almost always men.
This invisibility and erasure of the Native American culture creates bias and fuels racism.
There are 573 independent, sovereign nations within this country. Schools fail to teach this. Each nation has its own language, its own customs and cultures, and systems of government and elected officials.
Crystal shares with us some of her favorite traditions of the Pawnee Nation.
"Native American", "American Indian", and "Native Peoples" are all terms that are preferred over the word "Indian".
Sara and Crystal discuss Christopher Columbus, Thanksgiving, etc. from the Native American perspective.
Native Peoples have made incredible contributions in this country going all the way back to the Constitution, to introducing the incredible foods that make up the American diet, to doctors, scientists, professional athletes and others who are out there doing incredible things.
Misasha and Crystal review the issue of sports, redface and the "tomahawk chop". Some people think that this may be a way of honoring Native Americans, but to the majority of Native Americans, it is offensive.
"Indian" Halloween costumes are hurtful and tend to be an over-sexualization of Native women, who face the highest rates of sexual assault, rape, and murder. There are over 5,700 missing and murdered Indigenous women in this country.
In a recent survey, more than 90% of the women said that they had been sexually assaulted. Two-thirds of the perpetrators are non-Native people.
Traditional Native American dress is modest, but the Halloween industry pushes the myth of Native American women as being scantily-clad.
If you would like to truly honor Native Americans, Crystal suggests doing something around Joy Harjo, the first Native American poet laureate for the United States, or Wes Studi, a Cherokee actor and the first Native American in history to receive an Oscar on October 27th.
Ryan Helsley is a young Cardinals pitcher and an amazing athlete who played the Braves a few weeks ago. Right before the game, he told the media that the tomahawk chop was deeply insulting, for which he received a lot of criticism. He put his career on the line by standing up for what was right. The Atlanta Braves did take him seriously and they didn't do the tomahawk chop the next time he was on the mound.
Vote with your dollars: supporting Native American owned businesses.
Crystal brings us up to date on some significant current events.
The power of social media has been a game-changer in the industries of fashion, media, and entertainment, in that it allows us to organize within minutes and protest against important issues.
There are more than 5 million Native Americans in the US. Take a moment to google and learn about who the traditional Native Peoples in your area were.