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Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Abortion opponents are coming for mifepristone using what medical experts call ‘junk science'
Packages of Mifepristone tablets are displayed at a family planning clinic on April 13, 2023, in Rockville, Maryland. (Photo illustration by) Using flawed studies and scientific journal publications, abortion opponents are building a body of research meant to question the safety of the abortion pill mifepristone, a key target for the movement. The effort comes as federal officials have expressed a willingness to revisit the drug's approval — and potentially impose new restrictions on a medication used in the vast majority of abortions. This report was originally published by The 19th. The Illuminator is a founding member of the 19th News Network. Mainstream medical researchers have criticized the studies, highlighting flaws in their methodology and — in the case of one paper published by the conservative think tank Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) — lack of transparency about the data used to suggest mifepristone is unsafe. The vast body of research shows that the drugs used in medication abortion, mifepristone and misoprostol, are safe and effective in terminating a pregnancy. 'There's a proliferation of anti-abortion propaganda right now. I think it is a coordinated attack on mifepristone,' said Ushma Upadhyay, an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco who studies medication abortion. Released in April, the EPPC paper suggests that mifepristone results in serious adverse events for 1 in 10 patients — substantially higher than the widely accepted figure of .3 percent complication rate most research has attributed to the pill. The paper appears to count what other researchers say are non-threatening events, such as requiring follow-up care to complete the abortion, or visiting an emergency room within 45 days of an abortion — even if the patient did not end up requiring emergency care — as serious adverse effects. That paper also did not go through peer review, a standard process for scientific research in which other scholars review a study's findings and methodology before it can be published. Another paper, a commentary piece published this week in the journal BioTech, challenges the commonly cited statistic that mifepristone has a lower complication rate than acetaminophen, or Tylenol, tracing the history of the comparison and arguing that it is mathematically flawed. The paper's author, Cameron Loutitt, is a biomedical engineer by training and director of life sciences at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a research arm of the anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 'My hope is that this paper sparks action in my peers in the research and medical community to more critically evaluate these unfounded claims regarding abortion drug safety,' Loutitt said in a statement. Days later, a group of researchers from the institute published another study, this one arguing that emergency rooms are likely to identify medication abortions as miscarriages, which they say increases the risk of needing hospital care. A miscarriage and a medication abortion are medically indistinguishable, and patients will sometimes visit an emergency room to ensure the drugs worked, or if they suspect possible complications. In places where abortion is illegal, patients may also tell health care providers they experienced a miscarriage to minimize their legal risk. Studies like the Lozier Institute paper suggest complications from medication abortions are being undercounted. That study was rejected by another journal on April 12 before being published this week, noted Upadhyay, who had served as a peer reviewer in that rejection process. A similar paper written by many of the same researchers behind the Lozier Institute's was retracted a year ago by the journal that published it, along with two others suggesting mifepristone was unsafe. 'They keep trying to publish the same junk science,' Upadhyay said. James Studnicki, the Charlotte Lozier Institute's director of data analytics, who led the second of its new anti-abortion papers and the study retracted last year, did not respond to a request for comment. But a spokesperson for the institute said the organization is challenging last year's retraction through an arbitration process. This March, Studnicki said in a statement that the retraction placed 'politics over publication ethics.' These studies and papers all fall outside the scientific consensus. More than 100 studies over decades of research have found that mifepristone — and the medication abortion regimen as a whole — has a low complication rate and is very safe to use for abortions. Papers like these aren't new, and their scientific accuracy has long been questioned. But the bevy of new reports and analyses comes at a moment when abortion opponents may have more influence in shaping public policy. Mifepristone restrictions are a top priority for the anti-abortion movement. About two-thirds of all abortions in the United States are now done using medication. Even in states with abortion bans, pregnant people have increasingly turned to abortion medication, which they receive from health providers in states with laws protecting abortion. Nationwide, about 1 in 5 abortions are now performed using telehealth; almost half of those are for people in states with bans or restrictions. Mifepristone is currently approved for use through 10 weeks of pregnancy. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before a Senate committee that he has directed the Food and Drug Administration to review the approval of mifepristone, citing the EPPC paper specifically. Jim O'Neill, who is nominated for a deputy secretary role, has also said he is in favor of a 'safety review' of the drug — a move that could result in new restrictions on how it is prescribed. Meanwhile, physicians and researchers are highlighting the rigor of the FDA approval process. 'FDA approval of mifepristone must reflect the rigorous clinical evidence that has proven unequivocally that it is safe and effective for use in medication,' 13 reproductive medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, said in a statement after Kennedy indicated the drug may undergo a new FDA review. 'Mifepristone has been used for decades for abortion and miscarriage management by millions of patients, and complications are exceedingly rare, minor, and most often easily treatable.' The International Institute for Reproductive Loss, an anti-abortion nonprofit, has explicitly prioritized the publication of research that supports restrictions on medication abortion. Presenting at an anti-abortion conference last September, that organization's science director, Priscilla Coleman, highlighted strategies that she said could help result in the retraction of studies showing mifepristone's safety, such as finding 'agenda-driven, poorly developed and conducted studies published in peer-reviewed journals' and writing to journal editors. Coleman did not respond to a request for comment. Though no scientific consensus has changed, anti-abortion lawmakers have rallied around the suggestion that complications are common. In a private Zoom meeting reported on by Politico, abortion opponents cited the EPPC paper as a potential tool to justify further restrictions on mifepristone — even while acknowledging that the report is 'not a study in the traditional sense' and 'not conclusive proof of anything.' Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, cited the EPPC paper in a letter to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who had only a day before the report's publication indicated openness to reviewing mifepristone's approval if new evidence emerged. 'The time to act is now. It is time to revisit and restore the FDA's longstanding safety measures governing mifepristone,' Hawley wrote. His office did not reply to a request for further comment. 'They're producing this terrible 'science' because they don't have any real science that backs them up. And all they've gotten from the administration is, 'Yeah, we'll study it,'' said David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University who has advised state legislatures on crafting abortion-protetctive laws. Through the courts and Trump administration, abortion opponents have pushed to reverse a 2021 FDA decision allowing mifepristone to be distributed via telehealth. In addition to calling for the in-person requirement to be reinstated, abortion opponents are asking for restrictions such as the dispensation of the drug to require three in-person visits, and for mifepristone to only be approved for use only in the first seven weeks of pregnancy. Many have also argued the drug should be taken off the market entirely. The Trump administration said on the campaign trail that it would leave abortion policy up to the states. So far, there has been little indication from the federal government that such changes are imminent. 'Pills are kind of just spreading, as we predicted, without almost any restriction and so far the anti-abortion movement hasn't figured out what to do,' Cohen said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE This story was originally reported by Shefali Luthra of The 19th. Meet Shefali and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
As anti-trans laws get more extreme, here's where state laws stand in 2025
Since 2020, every new year has brought a new record of state bills attempting to roll back transgender rights. Most of that legislation has not become law. Even as the sheer volume of bills continues to grow, LGBTQ+ advocates continue to defeat the majority of them. But each year, Republicans introduce more and more bills. And each year, those bills become broader and more extreme, as politicians look for new ways to enforce a binary definition of gender — and that escalation is turning up in the bills that do pass. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is tracking 575 anti-LGBTQ+ state bills so far this year, most of which target transgender people. One hundred and five of those bills have failed and 54 have passed into law. Those newly passed laws include restrictions on trans students' ability to use school restrooms or play school sports, Pride flag bans on government property, gender-affirming care restrictions, and bans on updating personal identity documents like driver's licenses and birth certificates. Many of these laws define sex in ways that exclude trans and intersex people. Men and boys are defined as people who can produce sperm. Women and girls are defined as people who can produce eggs. Sex is defined in terms of reproductive capacity, with some exceptions for developmental or genetic anomalies that prevent having children. Throughout these different policies, regulating gender is a central goal. As summer draws near and more state legislative sessions come to an end, The 19th is tracking the emerging trends, firsts and surprises this year as statehouse Republicans brought a record-breaking number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Republicans have become more explicit in trying to create legal distinctions between men and women based on their characteristics at birth — in the name of protecting women's-only spaces or defining what a woman is. Now, 15 states strictly define sex based on reproductive anatomy, chromosomes or hormones. None of these laws were in place prior to 2023, and five of them went into effect this year. These laws exclude trans and nonbinary people from state nondiscrimination protections. They also have the potential to embolden public scrutiny and discrimination of women who don't fit into traditional gender roles. Nineteen states now ban transgender people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity in various government-owned buildings, including K-12 schools, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks LGBTQ+ policy. Several of the most far-reaching bans, which restrict access to bathrooms in public places like libraries, museums and colleges, were passed this year in states including Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming. Meanwhile, Republicans in other states want to expand pre-existing policies. This year, Idaho and Arkansas widened the scope of their K-12 bathroom bans to apply to colleges, jails and all government buildings. And while Arkansas had already stopped issuing driver's licenses with an 'X' gender marker in 2024, the state passed a law this year to require that gender be displayed on all licenses. In March, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued in a nonbinding opinion that driver's licenses and birth certificates previously updated for transgender Texans via court orders should be reverted back to reflect sex assigned at birth. Over time, the anti-trans bills that do make it into law are becoming more severe, said Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project. 'Especially now with the Trump administration signalling very strongly, throughout the campaign and since inauguration, that attacking transgender people is one of their top priorities, it's no surprise to me that state electeds continue prioritizing this in their own efforts,' Casey said. This year, Iowa became the first state in the country to completely rescind nondiscrimination protections for trans people. The Iowa Civil Rights Act previously protected trans people against discrimination in employment, housing, credit and lending, public accommodations and education. The law was a lifeline for many people, according to ACLU of Iowa Executive Director Mark Stringer. Now, those protections have been stripped from the state code. They had been in place since 2007 and were endorsed at that time by many Republican lawmakers. Iowa's new law also bans updates to gender markers on birth certificates and bans schools from teaching students about LGBTQ+ identities from kindergarten through sixth grade. It goes into effect on July 1. This moment was years in the making, according to Keenan Crow, director of policy and advocacy at One Iowa, a statewide LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. The political environment for trans people in the state has been bad and getting worse, as many Republican moderates have been replaced with extremists who want to embrace culture war issues, Crow said. 'It's escalated from things like the 'don't say gay, don't say trans' stuff and the book bans all the way up to removing an entire class of people from the Civil Rights Act,' they said. 'When I started this job almost 12 years ago, I was really proud of our state. We were one of the first states to add gender identity as a protected class. We were the third state for marriage equality.' For years, Iowa had been a good place for transgender people to live freely without facing much discrimination or political scrutiny, Crow said. It's no longer that way. 'I wouldn't anymore recommend that trans folks move here because their rights are being eroded, literally, as we speak,' they said. In Texas, where the legislative session ends on June 2, Republicans introduced a bill that would charge transgender people with a felony if they inform their employer or the government about their gender identity. This bill, which has not advanced through the state legislature, would subject trans people to up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine for the crime of 'gender identity fraud,' according to the Houston news site Chron. This legislation marks a dramatic escalation of Republican lawmakers' attempts to criminalize being transgender in America. Medical providers in six states face felony charges for providing gender-affirming care to minors, and in two states — Utah and Florida — it is a criminal offense for trans people to use bathrooms that match their gender identity in certain circumstances. Notably, 2025 has also marked a return of states attempting to overturn marriage equality. As of late April, half a dozen states had introduced bills asking the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, according to the New York Times. Marriage equality, or same-sex marriage, has been viewed as morally acceptable by most Americans for years, per Gallup. In response to a bill that would ban state spending on gender-affirming care for trans prisoners, Georgia Democrats organized a mass walkout in April. The frustration that fueled their walkout wasn't just about that bill, according to the Associated Press: This year, Republican lawmakers pushed and prioritized anti-trans bills like never before. Those efforts included restricting Medicaid coverage of gender-affirming care and rescinding care for state workers. That bill did not become law, as Georgia's legislative session ended early. One of the most public signs of Democratic resistance to anti-trans policies played out in Maine, as Gov. Janet Mills challenged President Donald Trump over his executive order threatening federal funding for schools that allow trans girls on girls' teams. When Trump personally threatened to cut state funding if Maine didn't comply with the order, Mills dug in. 'We'll see you in court,' she told Trump during a White House meeting with governors in February. In response, the Trump administration brought the hammer down: The Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture all opened investigations into Maine's university system and state education department, ProPublica reports. The USDA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration halted funding, while the Social Security Administration briefly canceled contracts. The Justice Department threatened to sue. All of that political pressure was exerted over two transgender girls competing in school sports, per ProPublica. In early May, the state reached an agreement with the Trump administration to restore some funding for Maine's students to have access to school meals. There have also been signs of Republican opposition to anti-trans policies this year. In March, as state legislators in Montana considered a bill to allow private citizens to sue drag performers, 13 Republicans flipped their votes following impassioned speeches from Democrats, including trans state Rep. Zooey Zephyr. Without those Republican votes, the bill failed. Another Montana bill, which would allow the state to remove trans kids from their parents' custody if they transition, was defeated after nonbinary state Rep. SJ Howell gave a floor speech in opposition to the bill. Twenty-nine Republicans flipped their votes. In Wyoming, the Republican governor allowed the state's sex definition bill to become law without his signature — which, he explained in a statement, was due in part to his opposition to how the legislation was drafted. In his letter to Wyoming's secretary of state, Gov. Mark Gordon said that the law 'oversteps legislative authority and encroaches upon the role of the courts.' Unlike previous bills he signed into law that banned trans people from using bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity, this new law 'has a different agenda,' he wrote — one that he could not put his signature behind. This law 'does not provide clear direction on how it would improve current policies or enforcement, nor does it outline any specific issues it seeks to resolve,' he said. In May, five Pennsylvania Democrats voted in support of a bill to ban trans girls and women from girls' sports in kindergarten through college. Their breakaway votes reflect a small but growing chorus of Democratic lawmakers ceding ground on trans rights — particularly when it comes to sports — following Trump's re-election. Some lawmakers, like Democratic state Sen. Paul Sarlo in New Jersey, have plainly said that they believe trans women should be banned from women's sports. Others have spoken more generally — California Gov. Gavin Newsom is one of the most high-profile Democrats to argue that trans women competing in women's sports is 'deeply unfair.' These comments were all made as part of discussions of how Democrats can better appeal to voters. Joelle Bayaa-Uzuri Espeut of the Normal Anomaly Initiative, one of the nation's leading Black LGBTQ+ nonprofits headquartered in Texas, said that anxiety, uncertainty and confusion are rampant in response to the extreme political attacks seen this year. But trans people are also feeling emboldened to fight back, she said. 'With these extreme bills that are being proposed, trans people and our allies are standing up and stepping up and saying, we won't be erased. We will still be visible, regardless of these proposed bills,' she said. To Espeut, visibility is an antidote to fear. 'We're being threatened just by making our identity a felony. Visibility is key. Visibility is an act of revolution. It's an act of resistance,' she said. 'It is showing that they are not going to win.' The post As anti-trans laws get more extreme, here's where state laws stand in 2025 appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How Trump's ‘One, Big, Beautiful' Tax Bill Could Impact Programs for Women, Kids
This article was originally published in The 19th. This story was originally reported by Amanda Becker of The 19th. Meet Amanda and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives approved a sweeping package early Thursday morning that contains what advocates call 'historic' cuts to government health insurance and nutrition programs that serve lower-income Americans. President Donald Trump wanted 'one, big, beautiful bill' and GOP Speaker Mike Johnson pushed to get the package through the House before the Memorial Day recess. The bill now moves to the Senate, where it is expected to undergo significant changes. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter The proposal approved in the House would slash $1.7 trillion in government spending to pay for the renewal of the tax cuts from Trump's first term, which largely benefited corporations and the wealthy. Some of the largest cuts would come from Medicaid, the popular government health insurance program that covers more than 70 million lower-income Americans. House Republicans also agreed on significant changes in eligibility to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, which helps more than 40 million Americans buy groceries every month. Both programs are disproportionately used by women and children. Democrats have been largely on the sidelines because Republicans in the Senate will use a process called reconciliation, which allows the majority party to bypass the 60-vote filibuster requirement and approve legislation by a simple majority vote. There are 53 Republicans in the 100-seat Senate. It has become common for both parties to take advantage of reconciliation when they control the White House and both chambers of Congress. Republicans used reconciliation to enact the 2017 Trump tax cuts that they are now attempting to renew. Democrats used it to enact President Joe Biden's COVID-19 stimulus bill and the Inflation Reduction Act. Here are the programs serving women and children that House Republicans' bill would change: House Republicans' proposal aims to slash $625 billion from Medicaid over the next decade, leading to an enrollment drop of more than 10 million people, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health organization. The federal-state health insurance program covers more than 40 percent of all births in the country, and about 37 percent of those enrolled are children. Three million Americans enrolled in Medicaid report that they are unable to work due to caregiving responsibilities, according to an AARP analysis. The legislation approved by the House would cut Medicaid spending in part by imposing a strict 80-hours-a-month work requirement for adults without children or disabilities. The 19th has reported on how these stepped-up work requirements would disproportionately impact middle-aged and older women. The bill also would make it easier for states to cancel Medicaid coverage if recipients do not provide additional paperwork to show they meet eligibility requirements; force states to require co-payments for some types of care for Medicaid enrollees who live above the federal poverty threshold; and reduce the reimbursement rate for states that use their own funds to cover immigrants not lawfully in the country, according to a detailed analysis by KFF. The version of the bill passed by the House would prohibit Medicaid from covering care for non-abortion services provided by Planned Parenthood clinics, which are already banned from using federal funds to pay for abortions. It also would limit coverage of gender-affirming care as an essential benefit under Affordable Care Act plans and prohibits Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) from covering the treatment. Earlier drafts limited this prohibition to care for minors; the approved bill extends it to care for all ages. The package passed by House Republicans would require more SNAP recipients in their 50s and 60s to work and provide fewer exemptions for parents. The proposal would lower the age at which work requirements end by a decade, to 54. Right now, parents with dependent children under 18 are exempt from working; the bill lowers that age to 7. Additionally, the Republican-approved legislation would require states to take on more of the costs of administering SNAP and limit the ability of future administrations to raise benefit amounts. Changes to SNAP could affect school nutrition programs, as many students qualify for free meals based on whether they and their families are eligible for food stamps. The Congressional Budget Office has not yet evaluated the SNAP provisions in the reconciliation bill. Their analysis of past similar legislation adding new work requirements showed that it could result in more than 3 million fewer people participating in the federal nutrition program. The House Republicans' tax bill would increase the amount of the child tax credit to $2,500 from $2,000 through 2028, the last year of Trump's term. The tax credit would then drop back down and be indexed to inflation. Another provision in the approved House version would require a child's parents to have a Social Security Number to access the credit, even if the child also has a Social Security Number. The intent is to block immigrant parents in the country illegally and without work authorization from claiming the benefit; these parents are already typically excluded from accessing the credit. In mixed immigration status households, where one parent has a Social Security Number and the other does not, the child would still be ineligible for the credit. The House version of the tax bill also caps the refundable portion of the child tax credit at $1,400 per qualifying child, down from $1,700. This change would limit the ability of the country's lowest-income parents to access the credit.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Yahoo
These mothers fought for their sons killed by police. Now they're fighting for the country.
Adrienne Hood sat back in her chair as she stared at the detective sitting across from her. 'I see your son wasn't a felon,' he said casually, glancing down at the notebook in his hand. It was June 8, 2016. Just two days prior, two plainclothes officers had fatally shot Hood's 23-year-old son in Columbus, Ohio. Henry Green V — her 'bubby,' as she calls him — was the person in the family to make everyone laugh. He loved to play basketball and taught himself how to dribble and shoot with his nondominant hand. He was a talented cook and had dreams of going to culinary school. Hood particularly loved Green's meatball sauce. She never got the chance to write down the recipe. Little of that appeared to matter to the police speaking with Hood about her son's death, she said. Right away she sensed they were fishing for information they could use to paint a public image of her son as the aggressor. 'For probably two and a half years, I was just full throttle,' Hood told The 19th. 'I knew that there was not going to be an opportunity for me to take a break or breathe, because I'm trying to rewrite this narrative that has been put out here now about my son.' Black people represent nearly 30 percent of fatal police shooting victims in the United States, though they are 13 percent of the general population. Black women, particularly grieving mothers like Hood, have always been at the center of the movement for police reform: fighting for justice not only for their own children, but for a safer and more equal America for all. It was against that backdrop that Collette Flanagan founded Mothers Against Police Brutality (MAPB) after her 25-year-old son, Clinton Allen, was killed by a Dallas police officer 12 years ago. Flanagan's group gave Black and Brown women a platform to build collective power and demand change alongside the growing Black Lives Matter movement in 2014, and a reckoning around systemic racism and institutional inequality in 2020 that included calls for police reforms. In that time, MAPB has expanded its reach and now leads a fellowship legacy program training 10 women across five states for the next decade of organizing. Fellows attend sessions unpacking the law-making process and legal protections for police. They also learn strategies for interacting with elected officials, handling news interviews and using social media to raise public awareness. The 19th spoke with the MAPB fellows, who expressed both pride in how their efforts have helped to shift conversations on race and policing, as well as disappointment in the current political moment. The work feels harder during President Donald Trump's second term, as the administration moves to limit accountability for police, and erase data that is crucial for developing solutions. But the MAPB fellows remain resolute in their mission. In sharing their own experiences navigating tragedy, MAPB fellows said they want to empower others and give them hope that change can happen, even when it's incremental or feels out of reach. 'We just hope and pray that we will be able to find a way for these police officers to be held accountable for the pain and suffering they have caused these families,' said Kathy Scott-Lykes, an MAPB fellow who lives in Columbus, Georgia. 'We hope that we will be able to say, 'We did it. It's finally happening.' We want to be able to still be alive to see it happen.' On the night of December 29, 2017, Scott-Lykes' 35-year-old son, Jarvis Lykes, was driving to work when he approached a police DUI checkpoint. He turned around before reaching the checkpoint, catching the attention of a Georgia state patrol trooper who then pursued Lykes to a dead-end street. There is no dashcam or body cam footage, so it's unclear exactly what led up to the shooting. Like Hood, Scott-Lykes felt that law enforcement wanted to portray her son as a villain, but she initially struggled with speaking publicly to tell the world about the Jarvis she raised. 'I was a nervous wreck. I couldn't talk without crying. I couldn't mention my son's story without having emotional fallouts,' she said. As a Black woman in America, Scott-Lykes heard stories of other Black people who lost their lives to police. But nothing could prepare her for when she lost her own son, she said. The grief and disbelief are only just the beginning. There's planning funeral arrangements, addressing questions from media outlets, processing different accounts of what happened, securing a lawyer, gathering documents for a potential lawsuit, and learning the state and local laws to see what protections police may have. In Hood's case, she learned that Ohio is a 'home rule' state, which gives local governments greater power to self-govern and oversee police investigations. This prompted her to push for a new policy that would require independent probes into cases involving fatal police use-of-force. Though Hood could not secure an independent investigation for her son's death, she continued to push for government action. Then, in 2020, the Columbus mayor signed an order mandating that all police-involved deaths be referred to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. 'It didn't happen for me, but I wasn't gonna stop it from happening for somebody else's family,' Hood said. 'It was not until this city got torn to pieces during the George Floyd protests that our mayor signed an executive order.' Jeralynn Brown-Blueford lost her son on May 6, 2012. Alan Blueford, 18, was standing with two other teens on the sidewalk when two officers with the Oakland Police Department approached them with suspicions that they might be up to something illegal. The officers ordered the teens to sit on the sidewalk, according to a report released by the district attorney's office following an investigation. After sitting for some time, Blueford reportedly tried to flee the area with officer Miguel Masso behind, chasing him on foot. Ultimately, Masso shot Blueford three times. Police initially claimed that Blueford had a weapon and initiated a gunfire exchange that also injured Masso. The department later admitted that Blueford did not fire a gun and that Masso shot himself in the foot. Brown-Blueford and her family pushed for months to get an investigation and a comprehensive report about the shooting, but faced stonewalling from the department, she said. 'It took protests. It took several months at the city council meetings, it took filing a lawsuit, they just tried to stop us at every turn,' Brown-Blueford said. When they finally did get a police report, it was redacted, she said, 'so the few little details that they did leave were not helpful to us.' The nonprofit newsroom The Oaklandside obtained a November 2013 letter addressed to Masso and signed by the Oakland police chief stating that Masso would be suspended without pay for three working days after an internal investigation found a 'preponderance of evidence' that indicated he used 'improper tactics' in his pursuit of Blueford. But Masso never faced criminal prosecution. In declining to move forward with the case, prosecutors argued at the time that the officer 'reasonably believed that his life was in danger.' Blueford's killing happened two years before Black Lives Matter and nationwide demonstrations forced state and local officials to reconsider policies that allow police misconduct to go unchecked. But legal pressures from families and civil rights organizations led to changes that have helped to give Brown-Blueford some answers. A 2019 law in California made certain police misconduct records publicly accessible. The following year, the American Civil Liberties Union of New York City obtain the misconduct complaint database, showing that Masso — who worked at the New York Police Department before moving to Oakland — faced 14 complaints in a two-year period at the NYPD. An investigation by the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board found three of the 14 complaints to be substantiated, including taking retaliatory action against someone who had previously filed a complaint against him. Masso was not disciplined for any of the substantiated complaints. Since her son's death, Brown-Blueford has learned that Masso's ability to freely move from department to department with a record of misconduct was not an isolated incident. In recent years, reports have revealed instances of officers with disciplinary records being fired by one department and hired by another. Activists have pushed for centralized databases to track police misconduct; they have also called for professional police licensing systems where states can revoke or decertify officers when they commit offenses. In 2021, the California legislature passed the Kenneth Ross, Jr. Police Decertification Act, which established a statewide system to decertify or suspend officers who have committed serious misconduct. Other changes happened throughout the country. State and local jurisdictions moved to ban the use of chokeholds, neck restraints and no-knock warrants that result in the deaths of people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. More officers have faced criminal charges, though prosecutions and convictions remain rare: Less than 3 percent of civilian deaths at the hands of police lead to criminal prosecutions. Sheila Banks' family is one of the few to receive that closure. Corey Jones, her 31-year-old nephew and godson, was killed by officer Nouman Raja 10 years ago in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Jones' mother died in 2006 when he was 22, which took a toll on his mental health, Banks said. 'It really kind of destroyed him,' she said. 'He was just getting back to himself. He joined a band and that was the band that he had his last performance with before his life was taken.' Jones was driving home from performing the early morning of October 18, 2015, when his car broke down and he had to call a tow truck. While Jones waited on the side of the road, an officer pulled over beside him wearing a normal t-shirt and jeans and driving an unmarked van. Police accounts claimed that Raja was 'confronted by an armed subject,' but Jones' family disputes this. While Jones did own a legally registered gun, Banks said, there were a number of details that didn't add up. Raja reportedly described Jones to a dispatcher as a Black male with dreadlocks and a gun in his right hand. Jones was left-handed and had a low haircut, Banks said. The exchange ended when Raja fired at Jones six times, hitting him three times. Raja was not wearing a body camera and did not have a dashboard camera on his vehicle. Jones happened to be on the phone with a roadside assistance service, which recorded the minutes leading up to and during the shooting and confirmed that the officer never identified himself as police. Banks said she found strength in meeting with other families facing similar tragedies, and she quickly became a public spokesperson for her family. 'We started traveling. We started in D.C. We went with community leaders. We went from D.C. to Tallahassee, and then we came back locally,' Banks said. 'We met with the late [Rep.] Alcee Hastings, we met with any and everybody we could meet with to help us get justice.' Raja was arrested on June 1, 2016, but wasn't convicted until three years later. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Banks understands that the outcome in her family's case is the exception and not the norm — she knows families who have not received an official police report 10 or 15 years in. Now, Banks tries to pass on the kind of support that others offered to her 10 years ago. She meets with mothers and family members, shares her experiences and what she's learned from the legal process and the MAPB fellowship. 'Sometimes you feel a little guilty because there's so many other families that haven't gotten justice or haven't gotten their day in court,' she said. 'Sometimes I can't rejoice out loud.' National attention on police brutality rushes in and fades away like waves, until another death sparks public outcry. Activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Ayọ Tometi created the Black Lives Matter hashtag on social media in 2013 after the killing of Trayvon Martin by a civilian in Florida. The slogan gained national prominence a year later when an officer killed Michael Brown, igniting the Ferguson uprisings in Missouri. The movement grew and gained international visibility in the aftermath of George Floyd's 2020 killing in Minnesota. Many hoped that the racial reckoning of 2020 would mark a major shift in public policy to address mass incarceration, overpolicing and economic inequality that all disproportionately affect Black and Brown communities. States collectively passed nearly 300 police reform bills within the first two years after Floyd's killing, according to an analysis by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland. But over time, the Black Lives Matter hashtags disappeared from Instagram posts, companies began to cut back on diversity programs and lawmakers fell silent on calls for police reform. Some returned to supporting tough-on-crime legislation. This week, the Department of Justice announced that it would begin the process of dismissing orders against police departments in Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis that aimed to address patterns of civil rights violations. And last year the Louisiana's governor signed a bill to strengthen qualified immunity, making it harder to sue officers for misconduct. Tennessee's governor also signed a bill blocking cities from implementing some police reforms. Even jurisdictions viewed as more politically progressive like Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles restored police funding cut after Floyd's killing. In October 2020, 76 percent of U.S. registered voters listed race relations as a 'very important' or 'important' consideration for their vote, according to a Gallup poll. Four years later, that number fell to 56 percent. 'I feel like, to a degree, it is kind of going backwards instead of forward. Now we're having to start all over again,' said Montye Benjamin. Jayvis Benjamin, her 20-year-old son, was killed by police in DeKalb County, Georgia, in 2013. 'Looking from then to now — even with George Floyd — and then considering who we have in the U.S. House and all of the changes that [President Donald Trump] has made. It's at a standstill.' As Benjamin and other members of Mothers Against Police Brutality prepared for an advocacy trip to Washington, D.C., this March, they braced for a potentially hostile environment. Within the first two months of his second term, Trump led a robust effort to eliminate diversity and inclusion programs, as well as any government policies with references to racial or gender inequities. The 11 women arrived in D.C. on March 21, led a rally and spoke with members of Congress about their support for a bill introduced by Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat, seeking to limit qualified immunity protections for government officials, including police officers. The measure has been introduced in each session of Congress since 2020 but has never proceeded to a vote. Despite some nerves leading up to the D.C. trip, MAPB fellows said they found the lawmakers they spoke with to be warm and receptive to hearing their stories. But they are uncertain whether that will translate into action. 'I need to see more representatives, especially state reps and county reps, be more hands on with bringing together programs that could bridge the gap between police officers and the community,' said Dalphine Robinson, the mother of 23-year-old Jabril Robinson, who was killed by Clayton County Police in Georgia in 2016. 'I also feel like qualified immunity needs to be dismantled. If the police know that they will be held accountable, or they could spend the rest of their life in prison, or their pensions could be taken away from them, I feel like they would think twice.' In this quiet period when police reform has less national spotlight, MAPB members said they remain committed to their work, even if it requires a different approach. Banks said it is a time to reflect and strategize, adding that she thinks Democratic leaders in federal government don't have much ability to take action on police reform without control of the White House and Congress. Janet Baker, whose 26-year-old son, Jordan Baker, was killed by an off-duty Houston police officer in 2014, thinks part of today's organizing strategy has to recognize that many people are desensitized and overwhelmed by the current political climate. She thinks it's important for MAPB and other groups to find ways to work together rather than operating in silos. 'I'm realistic, I know there will be others, and it's just so unfortunate that is our reality,' Baker said. 'But through each occurrence and each year, each decade, there's something that we learn a little bit more. The strategy now is to just keep working, keep moving, keep trying, keep focusing on our loved ones.' The post These mothers fought for their sons killed by police. Now they're fighting for the country. appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
New book attempts to untangle the deep roots of sexism and racism in America
When Roe v. Wade was overturned in the summer of 2022, Anna Malaika Tubbs was in the middle of writing her second book about how fabricated hierarchies of race and gender have become deeply ingrained – and unnoticed – in the United States. When federal protections for abortion access were lost, Tubbs said people were so shocked, asking 'How did this happen?' and 'Why did this happen?' 'It just really felt like I had to get this book out there,' Tubbs said. 'It's a book on understanding the system of American patriarchy, how that came from the minds of the founding fathers, how they systemized their vision and how we still see traces of it.' Tubbs, who holds a doctorate in sociology and master's degree in multidisciplinary gender studies from the University of Cambridge, again felt urgency to publish this book one year later when the Barbie movie came out in the summer of 2023. The film grossed over $1.4 billion worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing of all time and spurring widespread conversation about gender roles and societal norms. 'So many people saw this as sort of revolutionary, and there were so many people in the audience around me crying about this film,' Tubbs said. 'The only thing the film said was that women need to wake up to the fact that patriarchy exists, spread the word to each other and now everything's going to be just fine. And that is not the full picture. We're blaming the victim, especially mothers, and telling them they just need to become more empowered — and that's absolutely not the case.' The following year, as the presidential election was coming to a close, people around Tubbs, including her husband, were excited and hopeful for then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. But Tubbs, still working on her book, was fairly positive that President Donald Trump was going to win. She saw connections between her research and the whispers about Project 2025, Trump's rhetoric around what it means to make America great again and how his campaign spoke about people of color and immigrants. 'I was so angry in the sense that I kept hoping and wishing that this book could be out right now,' she said. 'This could help so many people understand what's going on and why this is happening. I think we can understand who to turn to for solutions, how we need to vote differently and what kind of policies we need in place so that this doesn't repeat itself.' Tubbs' new book, 'Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden From Us,' hit the stands on May 20. In an interview with The 19th, Tubbs discussed how an unjust system has been perpetuated and outlined concrete steps for how to create a new more equitable country. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Mariel Padilla: You mention in the book that American patriarchy is distinct from other countries and cultures. Can you elaborate on how? Anna Malaika Tubbs: When I say American patriarchy, I'm not trying to say that it's the only patriarchal system by any means at all. I have seen patriarchy across the world — the premise being that men should hold more power over women. What I am saying is that one of the reasons we haven't been able to really challenge patriarchy in the United States is that we haven't contextualized it. American patriarchy is going to be different than Mexican patriarchy, for instance, because of our history with slavery. Who is defined as a man and woman and how we define that binary is largely connected with our history: The founding fathers wrote into the Constitution that to be a man was to have control over other people, to own land and to have the ability to vote. Women were completely left out of that. Black men certainly didn't have access to this and even some poor White men weren't included. I think one of the primary ways in which patriarchy has persisted is by tricking us into thinking that race and gender aren't intertwined with each other. When we go back to that breakdown of what it meant to hold power in the United States, we were talking about White, cisgendered, able-bodied, privileged men. It was a very specific, very limited group on purpose because they wanted to maintain their own power. And so we can't think about humanity in the U.S. without understanding race, and we can't think about that without understanding gender. Let's appreciate the gains we've made. But also ask ourselves why we're still so vulnerable. We're still coming up against a system that is at the core of our nation, and we're not challenging it. We're only kind of putting band-aids on some of its symptoms and not really addressing the disease where all of those are stemming from. The title of the book is 'Erased.' For me, it called attention to the fact that there are actors actively doing the erasing, something is being erased and therefore what's left is not the full picture. Can you walk through how you came to this title? I feel like American patriarchy is doing the erasure, but it also has purposely erased itself from the picture so that we think that everything happening to us is natural and unavoidable. We think things have to happen a certain way, and we continue to sort of be surprised because we can't actually trace it. In another way, it's like a pencil mark that you try to erase, but it is still there. You can't ever fully erase it, and that's where the recovery part comes in. Because while you try to take something away, we can always access it by retracing the lines and piecing things together. This is especially important at a time when books are being banned and really blatant erasure is happening — we have to reclaim. The last several parts of your book discuss solutions. How can people — particularly women and people of color — take action, resist unjust systems and create a more equitable society? It's a step-by-step process. I always say we have to start individually. Once you've gone through the book and you understand what has been so ingrained, how even maybe our parents have parented us and our teachers have taught us — ask yourself how you see yourself. Do you see yourself as someone who's supposed to dominate other people? Do you see yourself on this trajectory of needing more power to finally be treated the way you want to be treated? Do you feel the need to wield control over people around you? Or do you see yourself as somebody who's supposed to be silenced? The individual piece of this is just a general reflection on how the system has already influenced you. The second part is our relationships. How are we interacting with each other as a result of this system? How are we parenting our children? Are we trying to dominate them? Are we trying to make them fit into this social order because we're afraid of what might happen to them otherwise? How are we allowing American patriarchy and its ideals to infiltrate our closest relationships, our marriages, our ties to our parents? The third part is a community-level reflection. What are the ways in which we can start fighting against the system by meeting each other's needs? You don't have to wait for a national shift. We can start making shifts in our own families and our immediate communities. We can think about how someone else's pain is hurting me and start to find solutions together. This will change how we vote and who we vote for and the policies we support that bring us back to the things that American patriarchy has taken from us. The 19th has a relationship with If you make a purchase through the Bookshop links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. The post New book attempts to untangle the deep roots of sexism and racism in America appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
