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And the clock is ticking: A court has already ordered the administration to start accepting new applications for the Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, that protects immigrants who came to the country illegally as children.

The result is that few people, if any, know what will happen. Administration officials are telling different things to different people involved in immigration policy. And staffers are going back and forth internally with just over 100 days from the election.

Whiplash is how Karen Tumlin, an attorney involved in one of the cases that the Supreme Court ruled on last month, summed it up.

Any action he takes is a political minefield. The Trump campaign wants to energize immigration hardliners in the presidents base who say DACA represents egregious executive overreach before the November election. But it also wants to win over the swing voters, evangelicals and Hispanics who support Dreamers.

Trump moved to end the program in 2017, offering a six-month wind-down period designed to give Congress time to pass legislation to make the program permanent. But lawmakers never acted and in June, the Supreme Court rejected Trump's action on relatively narrow grounds, leaving the door open for him to try to kill it again.

Trump initially acknowledged that he lost the Supreme Court case and said he would try to kill the program a second time by writing another memorandum rescinding DACA that would start the lengthy process.

He later appeared to change his mind, saying a different legal interpretation of the case actually gave him more authority to act unilaterally on immigration and other issues.

The latest news in employment, labor and immigration politics and policy.

He then confused even his own staffers when he appeared to not distinguish between executive and legislative actions, using the words executive order and bill interchangeably, and announcing on television that he would sign an immigration bill, though Congress had not passed one.

In the meantime, Trumps staffers have been crafting separate executive orders on immigration, health care and taxes after an outside lawyer counseled the president that the Supreme Courts DACA decision actually handed him more executive power despite a loss in the case.

The immigration order could be amended to offer protections for a more limited number of Dreamers, according to three people familiar with the discussions. But such a move risks backlash after Trump spent years arguing President Barack Obama acted illegally when he pushed through his own order to offer Dreamers legal protections in 2012.

Mara Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of the Latino political organization Voto Latino, who has spoken to the White House about DACA, said Trump is trying to end the program while appearing like hes trying to fix it as a way to appease Hispanics, independents and evangelicals.

He wants the headline to read hes trying to fix DACA, she said. What he's trying to do is neutralize the opposition.

Trumps politically risky position is arguably one he created himself by embarking on seemingly contradictory actions cracking down on immigrants but insisting he will treat Dreamers with compassion.

Trump made immigration the centerpiece of his 2016 campaign, promising to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico, deport millions of migrants who arrived in the country illegally and terminate DACA, which provides renewable work permits to 700,000 Dreamers. But once in office, he often spoke of his great heart and great love for the Dreamers.

As he runs for office a second time, Trump once again talks tough on immigration while his political advisers try to slice into Democrats advantage with Hispanic voters. His campaign has created an advisory board and a coalition focusing on recruiting volunteers, collecting data and fundraising. Campaign aides say Trumps hardline immigration policies appeal to Hispanic Americans, like all Americans, because they are worried about safety but they say little about Dreamers.

Meanwhile, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who was vice president when DACA was created, has vowed to reinstate the program, calling Trumps decision to end the program cruel and counterproductive.

A Trump campaign official blamed Obama for acting unconstitutionally by creating DACA and Democrats for stonewalling administration offers.

President Trump has repeatedly offered to find a bipartisan solution to protect Dreamers, but said it had to be done while securing our borders and fixing our immigration system, the official said, though it was Trump who actually ended up rejecting a bipartisan deal.

The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions.

Activists and lawmakers on both sides of the issue have lobbied the White House for weeks. Immigration advocacy groups, prominent evangelical leaders and major companies have all urged him to to keep the program until Congress passes legislation.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has been in touch with the White House, said he hopes Trump plans to follow through on his pledge to end the program but understands that he may be playing politics to throw his opponents off balance. The president seems to be trying to send intentionally conflicting signals, he said.

But Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a group working to protect Dreamers, said Trump will only hurt himself and Republicans in November if he continues to side with the few people who want Dreamers deported just 12 percent, according to a recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

The president, who is currently in open defiance of the Supreme Court, can either stop siding with those 12 percent by trying to end DACA, or continue his effort to harm DACA recipients and further crush his partys political chances this fall, he said.

Trump immediately said he would try to end the program again using a different explanation for killing DACA that would pass legal muster. They want us to refile if we want to win, he said in an interview with Fox News. So, I'm going to refile, and it's going to work out for DACA.

The paperwork to start the lengthy process has been widely expected for weeks but never came. Some administration officials said they were not able to file without first receiving a document from the Supreme Court, though immigration lawyers say that was not necessary. That order was filed Monday.

And the delay in paperwork doesnt explain why the administration didnt immediately start processing new applications. A Maryland court ordered the administration to do that and set a hearing Friday on the issue. If it fails to start accepting applications, the administration could be held in contempt, facing possible fines or other sanctions.

"From the Supreme Court down, the courts have made it clear: DACA stands, and now its doors are open to new Dreamers to apply, said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who led the multistate coalition at the Supreme Court on DACA.

Even as he planned to scrap the program, Trump insisted he would protect Dreamers as part of a broader immigration deal with Democrats. But more than half a dozen congressional offices involved in DACA discussions in the past, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosis office, say they have not heard from the White House.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said in a statement she hasnt heard from the White House on immigration but urged her colleagues to protect Dreamers. I have long supported a path to citizenship for Dreamers, she said. Congress should take up legislation so that these young people can stop living in fear.

Earlier this year, Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and senior adviser, had floated including protections for Dreamers as part of a broader immigration package, POLITICO reported in June. But administration aides knew a deal was unlikely and planned to use the lack of one to blame Democrats for being unwilling to come to the table, hoping the message would help the president appeal to Hispanic voters.

Finding a legislative solution is next to impossible for a divided Congress during an election year that has been dominated by the coronavirus pandemic. Democrats, already suspicious of any deals with Trump, have said they want to wait and see if their party wins back the White House and Senate in November before they proceed.

House Democrats have passed a bill that would provide legal status and eventual citizenship to 2.3 million Dreamers, including DACA recipients. But the Senate, which needs 60 votes to pass legislation, has ignored it.

In late June, Trump began to consider a different strategy altogether after reading a pair of op-eds by a former aide to President George W. Bush attorney, who said the Supreme Courts DACA ruling actually gave the president more power than he realized.

A general view of the U.S. Supreme Court. | Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images

John Yoo, who wrote the legal opinions that supported an expansion of presidential power after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, said that because the Supreme Court never said Obama was wrong to establish DACA it paved the way for another president to also act unilaterally. A president can reverse a predecessors decision, but the process is lengthy and could take years, he said.

The Supreme Court gave the president of the United States powers that nobody thought the president had, by approving, by doing what they did their decision on DACA, Trump said on Fox News Sunday. But the decision by the Supreme Court on DACA allows me to do things on immigration, on health care, on other things that we've never done before.

Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney who handled immigration issues at the Department of Justice under Obama, agrees that because the Supreme Court did not invalidate the program altogether it leaves the door open for Trump to determine by executive order how he wants to treat the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.

The White House is working on an executive order modeled after a bill pushed by Kushner that failed to garner support on Capitol Hill to give priority to high-skilled, well-educated immigrants over those who want to enter the U.S. based on circumstances involving their family or native country, according to two White House officials. Some have suggested a narrow DACA-like proposal could be added to the order.

The longer Trump waits to respond to the Supreme Court on DACA, the more his efforts to end DACA will hang around his neck like an anvil weighing him down with voters he and Republican senators need this fall, said Douglas Rivlin, director of communications for Americas Voice, an advocacy group. One could argue that defying the Supreme Court would be to his advantage if the American people were with him on DACA, but they arent.

More:
Whiplash: Trump and his team face an internal struggle over Dreamers - POLITICO

By Carmyn Polk Tuesday, July 28, 2020YWCA Cambridges building on Temple Street is shaded by Temple Place, 40 affordable units developed with a Cambridge Housing Authority affiliate. (Photo: Marc Levy)

Since 1891, the YWCA Cambridge has been paving the way toward eliminating racism and empowering women. As we move into the next decade, it is only proper to provide an overview of the successes and triumphs over the past decade, with contributions reached far and wide. Year after year, each of these accomplishments has supported the mission to eliminate racism, empower women and promote peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all.

2010: The YWCA Cambridge Rehabilitation Project begins. Renovations aimed to provide residents with the best accommodations possible by updating residential units, ensuring that each unit was fully furnished with new desks, beds, side tables, chairs, large dressers, energy-efficient refrigerators and air conditioners. It also helped 12 residents secure permanent housing and three to get home base rental assistance. Additionally, TD Bank awarded $10,000 to expand programming geared toward the mission of the organization, such as a leadership camp at the Marshfield branch where young women learned from experts on topics such as finance, law and health care.

2011: Cambridge YWCA was one of three recipients of state grants aimed at improving affordable housing in Cambridge, getting $3.9 million the largest award of the $9.5 million program. This grant supported the continuous improvement of precious affordable homes.

2012: YWCA Cambridge celebrated the 20th anniversary of its flagship fundraising event, Tribute to Outstanding Women. This event supports the work of the organization while highlighting the accomplishments of female leaders in the community. The Tribute has also been a time to recognize outstanding young adults, such as Cambridge Rindge and Latin School students and community leaders.

2013: The organization held a Marshfield summer camp that served more than 325 kids with activities including arts and crafts, archery, swimming lessons and hikes along nature trails. YWCA Cambridge has remained a prominent part of the community by remaining a meeting place for community engagement opportunities.

2014: Women throughout the Cambridge area were able to find a home for their artwork in the lobby of the Cambridge YWCA; the organization also highlighted women authors by hosting talks with them at the Marshfield and main locations with interested and diverse audiences. In conjunction with this community programming, the YWCA Cambridge Family Shelter housed 17 women and their 21 children throughout the year. With the organizations support, five families were able to find permanent housing.

2015: With the support and advocacy of family shelter staff, eight residents among the 14 mothers with 17 children housed this year moved into permanent independent residences, two got their GEDs, seven found full-time work, four began part-time work and one graduated from a medical assistant program. In addition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health student Anvita Kulkarni promoted better health with women living in a YWCA housing facility, hearing their experiences and bringing a voice to the need for assisted living and support for women and families across Cambridge.

2016: The Girls Only Leadership Development Program nearly doubled to 39 yearlong participants. In addition, the organization welcomed Darakshan Raja, co-director of the Washington, D.C., Peace Center, as the keynote speaker for the annual Stand Against Racism program. In collaboration with Transition House and Cambridge College, Cambridge YWCA sponsored a symposium on nonprofit community service for 25 African professionals from the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders Initiative.

2017: Board members, staff and friends of the organization marched in the Womens March Boston in support of legislation and policies supporting womens rights, human rights, LGBTQ+ rights, racial equality, health care and immigration reform and many other efforts. In this year alone, 257 participated in racial and social justice events. In addition, YWCA Cambridge kept its doors open to grassroots organizations geared toward equality and racial justice, such as the Cambridge Forum for Feminist Discussion of Masculinities, Black Lives Matter Cambridge, Anti-Racist Collaborative and Cambridge African American Heritage Alliance.

2018: In partnership with the citys Department of Human Services, the family shelter moved into a historic mansion transformed into short-term housing for homeless families. The new space provided a more homelike atmosphere to families in need. In addition, the organization had a voice at the 2018 Womens March in Cambridge through executive director Eva Martin Blythe, who spoke during the march.

2019: The YWCA Cambridge joined the Roe Act Coalition, which is committed to passing legislation to protect and expand access to abortion in Massachusetts, and the Menstrual Act Coalition, which exists to pursue equity, act for justice and build intersectional feminism in the state. As a central hub for the Cambridge community, YWCA Cambridge also was granted funding from Cambridge in Motion to provide free summer yoga to the Cambridge community. More than 160 events were provided, from meditation to support groups. In addition, there was a two-part salary negotiation series for women presented in partnership with the state Office of Economic Empowerment.

Only a few of the many accomplishments for each year of the past decade are highlighted here. The YWCA Cambridge has started out the new decade committed to continuously increasing its impact, programming and access to those that need it most. While in the past month the desire for knowledge about racism and systemic oppression has become more apparent, the accomplishments and efforts of YWCA Cambridge have always been at the forefront of fighting to eliminate racism and empower women, and the groundbreaking work will continue.

See original here:
YWCA Cambridge over the decade - Cambridge Day

by Abigail Mihaly | 7/30/20 2:00am

As some undergraduates prepare to return to the Upper Valley in September, the College has compiled a committee of students to help administrators understand student concerns.

Students have expressed frustration over the lack of student representation in College decision-making since COVID-19 first threatened in-person learning. For example, the Dartmouth Student Union a newly formed student advocacy group has called for students to have a seat at the table since mid-March.

Nearly two terms later, the Dean of the College Student Advisory Board, a group of 12 student leaders from organizations across campus nominated by College staff, will help Dean of the College Kathryn Lively and other administrators balance safety with social life as students officially return for the first time since March.

Since the big decisions have been made and most of these logistical challenges have happened, Lively said, now is the time to invite more people into the conversation.

Board member Miles Battle 21 said he feels it's an opportunity to tell administrators what students are seeing on the ground and hearing discussed among friends.

Student Advisory Board gets started

On Monday, the board had its second meeting. Members of the group said theyre still in the introduction and priority-setting phases, but Lively hopes they can soon dive into what she calls cultural messaging figuring out how to ensure that students on campus during the fall term dont tank the ship by violating protocol.

Lively said that two years ago, when Hanover issued restrictions on the Homecoming bonfire, student leaders from undergraduate advisors to the football team were highly influential in making sure students adhered to the new norms. Bonfires have been successful since, with no attempts by students to touch the fire.

Two years later, COVID-19 presents the same issues ensuring that students follow College and town safety regulations.

The board members were nominated by Student Affairs staff associate deans, graduate deans and directors and then handpicked by Lively and associate dean for student life Eric Ramsey, Lively explained. They aimed to find student leaders who had a wide swath of interests across organizations. She also said her staff sought students with experience working with administration or other school officials, who understand institutional constraints and are well-networked.

Members of the committee include representatives from Palaeopitus, Student Assembly, the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault and the Greek Leadership Council.

Lively, who is not the final decision-maker on COVID-19 policies, will cull information from the meetings and bring it forward to Provost Joseph Helble and other administrators, she said. She added that her job is to represent the student perspective to the senior administrators, and to run Student Affairs.

Students on the board will also discuss social life during the pandemic, Lively said.

Me and my staff, we could come up with all kinds of social events, but theyre going to be so much better if students do them, Lively said.

Down the line, she said theyll discuss budgetary changes due to COVID-19. In addition to the student board, Lively said a new faculty committee on priorities is also working with academic deans to deal with the Colleges coronavirus budget fallout.

Abigail Johnson 23, a member of the board, said that the group is focused on what the fall is going to look like from social distancing guidelines to which campus facilities will be open and who will have access to them.

Johnson, the secretary of the Dartmouth Outing Club as well as a member of the club cycling team and Glee Club, also said the group will look at Dartmouths response to the Black Lives Matter movement and discuss how to build a more anti-racist campus. Battle noted that the group is racially diverse.

Battle explained that the meetings are dual-ledby both students and Lively.

Lively said she will give students insight into how decisions are made and what the stakes and challenges are, and then students can share suggestions and concerns.

A late answer to a call for student voices

In a letter to administrators and the student body in March, members of the Dartmouth Student Union called for the formation of a student liaison committee. They wanted a group of students to sit on the COVID-19 task force, DSU co-founder Olivia Audsley 21 said.

That was our biggest goal, so that student groups don't have to be just reacting to College policy during the pandemic; they can be actively a part of shaping it, she said.

Audsley said Lively was not interested in a student committee at the time.

When it comes to major decisions like whether or not a term will be taught online, Lively said, Students cant make those decisions.

She said everyone, including students, are more focused on what they want in the current moment rather than the big picture.

Its an institution. It's the second biggest employer in the Upper Valley. We have relationships with the town that we have to maintain. We have to keep in mind that there is one hospital for the entire region. We have to keep in mind that there are [several] nursing homes in the Upper Valley, Lively said.

Audsley said the board is a step in the right direction, but that it isnt as high up in the decision-making process as DSU had originally hoped for.

Lively has continued to meet regularly with student groups from Palaeopitus and Student Assembly to international student groups and the Dartmouth Student Union throughout the last few months. She said its her job to listen to and advocate for students.

Over the summer, though, many of these groups have changed leadership, so Lively said she has been having table-setting meetings, exchanging introductions and priorities.

Students can also voice their frustrations through their elected Student Assembly members. Student Assembly compiles lists of questions to consolidate and send to the administration. Following the footsteps of previous Student Assembly administrations, current Student Assembly president Cait McGovern 21 and vice president Jonathan Briffault 21 have collected questions through an online form twice in response to the 2020-2021 academic year plan, and for questions regarding the shipping and storing process.

Students call for communication, transparency

When it comes to the new board, some students are critical of the way it was assembled.

Audsley said the board is made up of students representing organizations who already get a decent amount of airtime with the administration.

She said organizations like Palaeopitus and Student Assembly, who have members on the committee, already have routine meetings with Lively. Meanwhile, voices from student activist circles, like members of Divest Dartmouth, the Coalition for Immigration Reform and Equality at Dartmouth or Sunrise Dartmouth, are missing.

Co-moderator of Palaeopitus Marina Cepeda 21 said its difficult to believe the board will be able to represent the full student body when members were chosen by nomination rather than through an election.

I am a part of [Palaeopitus], and I am in circles of privilege where I do have that direct pipeline, Cepeda said, but I don't think it should be up to one person which student is worthy enough to speak to [the] administration.

Battle, who is on the football team and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, the Greek Life Council, Shabazz, the Afro-American Society and Palaeopitus, said Lively has emphasized that the students on the board are there to provide another set of student voices, not to represent the entire student body.

Dean Lively has made it very evident that her goal isn't for us to represent everybody else, but more so represent ourselves, he said.

Ian Scott 24, who is already working with the Dartmouth Student Union, said he hopes the administration will be more transparent about decision-making going forward.

He said his class is really in search of guidance, because there is not going to be a single, all-clarifying message, and it is really overwhelming to take in all this information.

One concrete step hed like to see? A transcript or meeting notes from the new board.

Audsley seconds his request. I hope it's not a closed door thing, she said.

Lively said she is currently in the midst of a negotiation with students on the board about what can and cant be shared.

McGovern said that Cornell University has been a model in transparency, releasing detailed reports from their COVID-19 committees.

Weve been very clear with the College that the decision-making process needs to be explained clearly to students, McGovern said. I hope that for decisions moving forward this information will be given to students to help us understand the logic behind certain decisions.

Read more:
New Student Advisory Board to consult on COVID-19 decisions - The Dartmouth

on July 27, 2020 at 10:04 am

In light of the civil unrest that is going on in this country, I want to focus on the unique experience of many African immigrants, like myself, who had no prior understanding of the history of racism and the seriousness of the issue in this nation. Many African immigrants have had to face some kind of discrimination to realize the complex nature of race relations in the United States, and to identify themselves as Black. African immigrants, like myself, go through a series of identity crises as we make the shift from being proudly African to a stage where the only way to navigate the system is by embracing blackness from the American point of view and accepting all of the negative consequences that come with it. This strategy requires being extremely cautious while also trying to prove the negative stereotypes wrong. There is a constant struggle not to avoid being judged by the way we look, because we cant escape from being judged any way but to prove that such misconceptions are wrong, and it is exhausting.

Race is a purely social construction, meaning that there is nothing biological or genetic to the social categories that have been created. We know this because the categories and what they mean change over time, and they are different in different places. In Brazil, for instance, they have dozens of racial categories, and sometimes I wish there were intermediate categories in the US, that would take into consideration the diversity of what it is to be Black. Being Black in America, regardless of where you are from, means all of the stress ascribed to race, all of the stereotypes, stigma, and experiences that are related to what it is to be seen as Black by others, including the legacy of racism, even when my ancestors (who were never enslaved nor colonized) never experienced them. Aster Osburn, an Ethiopian immigrant like myself, recently talked about a painful and confusing transition of her identity in a public Facebook post (2020 June 7 https://www.facebook.com/aster.osburn). She says that The raw truth is, I went through a phase where I denied my blackness and uttered the words Im not black, Im Ethiopian A few years of living here quickly taught me that being black was going to be a struggle. It meant now I would have to live a life not celebrating it but defending it. Oh, the identity after identity crisis Ive gone through to tear down my mindset from celebrating blackness to learning its new meaning for my life.

Such encounters might seem petty, but it has a big psychological impact when you have to deal with it daily.

My first encounter with this stigma was while I was still in my proud African phase, before I embraced my blackness. My 4-year-old daughter was told by a neighbor girl that she could not play with her due to her skin color. I didnt take it seriously. I just told my daughter, maybe the little girl has never seen Queen of Sheba, a beautiful African queen who looks like you before. My daughter will never forget what this little girl told her, though. Such encounters might seem petty, but it has a big psychological impact when you have to deal with it daily. I am very glad that other mothers, who do not have Black children, will not have to go through this painful reality and I regret that my children will.

As a Black person, I experience racially insensitive encounters every single day. From being asked at a grocery store recently if I am using an EBT card, simply because I look like people who presumably rely on government welfare, to a coworker who once asked me to hook him up with drugs, for no other reason than an assumption he clearly had about Black people. A woman told my son once that he should be very grateful that he is in the greatest country on earth not in a village in Africa, and that now he could be anything he wants to be. This seems to be a positive, empowering remark, but I know in my heart that it is not going to be easy for my Black son who also struggles with ADHD. One day I will have to sit down with him and deal with the painful and uncomfortable talk about what people who look like him experience, and guide him in how to navigate a system that is not really designed to treat him equally. But he is learning on his own, as well.

In 2017, my son worked on a history fair project focused on historically significant Americans. My son chose Jessie Owens and was very proud to represent the first Black man in the Olympics, who because of extreme racism had to fight against immeasurable odds despite being a highly skilled athlete. At this history fair, I saw the unresponsive and undisturbed reaction of the many parents, grandparents, and teachers when a grandfather of a student was literally parading around in front of my son holding the Confederate flag. I was disgusted and offended by the mans action of proudly holding a symbol that celebrates the enslavement of people who look like my son inside a public school. What made me especially angry was the silence and ignorance of how racially insensitive this was by the school and those in attendance. This might be because most people in my sons school have never experienced racial profiling, systemic racism, mass incarceration, or any other offense, just because of the color of their skin. People who have not had that flag flown to terrorize them, can simply pretend it is just about Southern pride. But it is terrifying to a Black person, because you dont know the intent behind it, only the history of the Confederacy that wanted to continue to enslave and dehumanize Black people.

A few weeks ago, I could not believe my eyes when my coworker (a very devoted LDS man who has served a mission) started wearing a Confederate flag bandana as a mask to work every single day. I was disgusted, but I did not speak up. I thought someone will stand up against this racially insensitive symbol at a time of social unrest like this and report this disturbing and offensive symbol to HR. I also tried to remind myself of the fact that my ancestors were never enslaved, not even colonized. But my new Black identity keeps telling me that it doesnt matter, this is a symbol of oppression that stood for the enslavement of people who look like me and it was painful. Finally, a coworker who had been on vacation, and happens to be an openly gay Mexican American, saw the symbol from far away and it didnt take him one minute to report it. I started asking myself why it somehow had to be another minority, who might have experienced some sort of discrimination, to notice, understand, and stand against racial insensitivity? I think this resonates with what Tim Wise, in White Like Me, has said white privilege is. It involves a lack of understanding of the complicated structural and systemic racism that Blacks experience daily. That privilege kind of covers many peoples eyes.

The irony is, many of my white friends claim to be color blind, which really just makes them blind to the daily life experiences of Black people like me, which is too often full of unconscious racial stereotyping with grave social, economic, and psychological impact.

Last year my mother in-law invited me to her church for a womens training session where a high-profile, respected Logan city police officer was teaching parents about internet safety. I loved most of his message, but I found the officers approach very insensitive, inconsiderate, and completely color blind to the fact that I am Black and the words he was using were disturbingly racist to me. For instance, at one point he was telling the women in the meeting not to be so nice to people who look strange, who maybe have dreadlocks, etc. and then says, dont be afraid of being called racist to protect yourself from strangers. Intentionally or unintentionally, this officer was using a Black persons profile as a symbol of threat to teach these women about safety. I wonder what kinds of perceptions these women will have about dreadlocks who are mostly worn by black men. The women in the meeting were mostly my neighbors and I keep wondering how this session will impact the way they see my own husband, his siblings and my children. What bothered me so much was that this respected officer might be the law enforcement agent whom my children, who perfectly fit into the very profile and symbol of what he labeled as strange, may encounter. Will they not be seen as normal and nonthreatening? I felt certain that just like this (implicitly-biased) police officer, others will definitely view my children as a threat and their actions will not matter at all. And what bothers me most was that these loving, caring and compassionate white mothers did not even bother to question his approach, let alone to confront his racially insensitive description. They were in fact applauding and cheering. I know my mother in-law felt awful, but she didnt speak up at the time. This is one of the moments that I felt that this is not the community where I want to raise my kids.

After the events surrounding the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minnesota, I asked my mother-in-law to write about her experiences of raising six (adopted) Ethiopian children after she and her husband raised their six (white) children here in Cache Valley. She remembers that when they first moved here to Utah they werent expecting the prejudices that they faced on a daily basis. As she remembers at the childrens school, Some students would ask them if they could touch their hair. Many students would ask them if they grew up in a jungle in Africa, or if they had ever seen a TV before. They grew up in Addis Ababa, the capitol city of Ethiopia, which is a modern city. These comments were innocent, but hurtful at the same time, she points out. As my children learned to drive and got their drivers licenses, she writes, they began to have more serious problems than hurtful innocent comments at school. Since I am white I didnt even have a clue that I was supposed to talk to them about how to act when you are stopped by the police because it might be dangerous for them because of the color of their skin. None of my white children had ever been pulled over on a regular basis for petty things while they were driving. My Ethiopian family members many times have been tailed for fifteen minutes by police officers before they finally pull them over to say that the light over their license plate is out, just so they can check out their car. (You cant legally pull someone over unless there is something wrong). When they would get home and check the light there would be nothing wrong with it.

She goes on to recall, One experience was for driving too slow, and they were pulled from their car, searched and frisked, put in the back of the police car to wait while the officers called in the drug sniffing dogs to check out their car for possible drugs. Of course the police cars lights were going while they waited for backup to bring the drug dogs, so everyone passing by would look to see what was going on. No drugs were found, and no ticket was issued, but what a devastating dehumanizing experience. I do believe people of color are often profiled because of the color of their skin, none of my white children have ever had any experiences while driving like their Ethiopian siblings have had. These are examples of white privilege, which gives white people immunity from certain kinds of negative experiences. It allows white people to avoid what my mother-in-law sees as the deep and soulful hurt of being dehumanized.

Tim Wise points out that white folks racial fears, resentments, and anxiety are also used to undermine their own wellbeing, making them numb to the pain and experience of others. The irony is, many of my white friends claim to be color blind, which really just makes them blind to the daily life experiences of Black people like me, which is too often full of unconscious racial stereotyping with grave social, economic, and psychological impact. Colorblindness is neglecting the truth of white privilege and keeping matters of racism under the rug, closing ones eyes to the reality of institutional racism and shifting the focus to less urgent issues. I think awareness about how race affects everybody is key. It is important to be color conscious in order to help racial minorities, walk with them in the journey for equality. Instead of color-blindness, we need to work on anti-racism, instead of avoiding discussing race and racism or claiming you are not racist while doing nothing to change a system that unfairly disadvantages people of color.

But I also want to say how being a student of anthropology and sociology has helped me in this painful journey. Where would I be without a sociological imagination and cultural relativism to help me to look at historical and cultural contexts and see the big picture?

Ta-Nehisi-Coates wrote in Between the World and Me, that black boys and girls are always told to work twice as hard, to be twice as good, but to be happy with half as much. In the 1937 essay Ethics of Living Jim Crow, Richard Wright talks about the numerous yes sirs and no sirs in his conversation with white people in his quest to please white folks at all times. I always ask myself why certain words are commonly used by African Americans in their day to day interaction with non-blacks. There are times I get mad at my African husband for overusing these extremely polite and seemingly subordinate words in his interactions with white people. What makes me mad is the fact that whether my husband uses such polite words or not, it is not going to prevent the presumed judgment and implicit biases he will encounter regardless in a racially divided country like the U.S. He still has to work extra hard to prove peoples misconceptions about him. To this day, he takes his (white) parents to the bank if he is making a big transaction just to avoid possible problems. And it always works, but it is infuriating. It is tragic to watch some of these videos of young black boys assaulted by police officers, while they responded to orders in an extremely polite way. It seems to me such kind of Jim Crow wisdom does not guarantee a black person the right to simply live a regular life.

I could go on and on talking about my experience as an African immigrant. But I also want to say how being a student of anthropology and sociology has helped me in this painful journey. Where would I be without a sociological imagination and cultural relativism to help me to look at historical and cultural contexts and see the big picture? But I am not going to lie, it is tiring to justify every petty ignorance and racial insensitivity when you face it on a daily basis and know that your children are more likely to pass through the same painful journey because we definitely have a long way to go to be a post-racial country. I do not want to pass on what Wright calls the Jim Crow wisdom to help my children navigate and survive a racist system. I want them to change the system! I do not want them to waste every single moment of their life trying to strategize their own mechanism to defend their blackness and prove peoples misconceptions wrong. Because I know it is not going to change until we all work together, and especially until white people choose to speak up against racism and racial insensitivity.

As my mother-in-law points out: Of course not all of my Ethiopian childrens experiences here have been negative. Many people have been kind and have helped them, but it would go a long way if white people around them would have the courage to speak up if they see someone doing something racist, and try to stop it. We can all make a difference to help our country change so that everyone is treated equally and fairly. I have hope that the country I love will be able to find the courage to face the things that need to be changed and go forward to make it a better place to live, no matter what color your skin is.

Referenced Sources:

Coates, T. (2015).Between the world and me(First edition.). New York: Spiegel & Grau.

Wise, T. J. (2005).White like me. Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press.

Wright, R. (1993 [1937]) The Ethics of living Jim Crow, An Autobiographic sketch. Harper-perennial Publishers page 1-18.

Recommended resources:

Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be anantiracist. First Edition. New York: One World.

An Antiracist Reading List curated by Ibram X. Kendi: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/books/review/antiracist-reading-list-ibram-x-kendi.html

About the Author:

Trhas Tafere graduated in Spring 2020 from Utah State University with a degree in both anthropology and sociology and was the Anthropology Programs Undergraduate of the Year. She was born in Eritrea and moved to the U.S. from Ethiopia in 2013.

Read more:
Featured Guest Column: An African Immigrants Experiences Learning What It Means to be Black in America - Utahstatesman

An electrical lineman for Southern California Edison works on replacing a transformer as a whole ... [+] block is rewired. Long Beach, California. April 2014.

Analytics are typically viewed as an exercise in data, software and hardware. However, if the analytics are intended to influence decisions and actions, they are also an exercise in organizational change. Companies that dont view them as such are likely not to get much value from their analytics projects.

One organization that is pursuing analytics-based organizational change is Southern California Edison (SCE). One key focus of their activity is safety predictive analyticsunderstanding and predicting high risk work activities by the companys field employees that might lead to a life threatening and/or life altering incident causing injury or death. Safety issues, as you might expect, are fraught with organizational perilpolitics, lack of transparency, labor relations, and so forth. Even reporting a close call runs counter to typical organizational cultures. These organizational perils are a concern to SCE as well, but the company has created an approach to address them. SCE hasnt completely mastered safety predictive analytics and the requisite organizational changes, but its making great progress.

A Structure for Producing Analytical Change

Key to the success of the SCE approach is the structure of the analytical team that is addressing safety analytics. It is small, experienced, and integrated. Two of the key members of the team are Jeff Moore and Rosemary Perez, and they make a dynamic combination. Moore is a data scientist who works in the IT function; Perez works in Safety, Security, and Business Resiliency, and is a Predictive Analytics Advisor. In effect, Moore handles all the analytics and modeling activities on the project, and Perez, who has many years of experience in the field at SCE, leads the change management activities.

Steps to manage organizational change started at the beginning of the project and have persisted throughout it. One of the first objectives was to explain the model and variable insights to management. Outlining the range of possible outcomes allowed Perez and Moore to gain the support needed for a company wide deployment. Since Perez had relationships and trust in the districts, she could introduce the project concept to field management and staff without the concern about Why is Corporate here?. Perez noted that its important to be transparent when speaking with the teams. That trust has resulted in the district staffs willingness to listen and share their ideas on how best to deploy the model, to address missing variables and data, and to drive higher levels of adoption.

The team took all the time needed to get stakeholders engaged. Moore came into the project in the summer of 2018, and he was able to get a machine learning model up and running in a month or so, but presenting it, socializing it, and gaining buy-in for it took far longer. Moore and Perez met with executives of SCE in November and December of 2018. Within days of these meetings the safety model analytics project became a 2019 corporate goal for SCE. Safety was the companys number one priority, and it was willing to try innovative ideas to move it forward. For such a small team to have their work made into a corporate goal is unusual at SCE and elsewhere.

The Risk Model and its Findings

SCE now has an analytical risk-based framework, and risk scores for specific types of work activities and the context of the work. The model draws from a large data warehouse at SCE with work order data, structure characteristics, injury records, experience and training, and planning detail. All those factors were not previously linked, and there wasas is often the case with analyticsconsiderable data engineering necessary to pull together and relate the data.

The machine learning model scores activities that teams in the field perform, like setting a new pole or replacing an insulator. Each activity may be more or less dangerous depending on the time of year, day of the week, weather, crew size and composition, and so forth. Replacing a pole, for example, may be only a moderate risk task in itself, but when done on the side of a hill in the rain with a crane it becomes very high risk. Instead of generic safety messages to employees, SCE can now get much more specific by describing the risk of particular activities they perform on the job in a particular context.

As the model learns it will recommend specific approaches to reduce the risk of a job, like altering the crew mix or crew size, requiring additional management presence, using specific equipment or rigging to perform the work, or creating a longer power outage in order to do the job more slowly. The latter recommendation runs counter to the culture of not inconveniencing customers, but if the model specifically recommends it, then the teams will discuss the contributing factors as well as their years of experience to mitigate the risk before executing the work.

The project has led to several more general findings, which are of greatest interest to SCE executives. For example, management has long been interested in using data to understand changing safety risk profiles of the field teams over time as a result of increasing/decreasing workloads or as weather patterns change. While the predictive model considers more than 200 variables, the findings from the model have been summarized into the top fifteen distinct drivers of serious injury and fatality. Some shifting of variables is expected over time, but there has been great interest in better understanding the initial set of risk factors.

Deploying the Model and Needed Organizational Changes

Moore and Perez are in the early stages of deploying the model; theyve rolled it out to six of 35 districts thus far. Each district has a unique personality, and they dont want cookie-cutter answers on how to deploy in their district.

Moore, whose primary role was to create the model, said he has realized that safety analytics are not just about a model. I started out thinking it was about an algorithm, but I realized many other factors were involved in improving safety. Moore said that he gets some pressure to move on to analytics in other parts of the business, but in order to see your models come to life you have to go through this kind of process. And everyone at SCE believes the safety work is critical.

Perez, whose primary focus is change management, listed some of the organizational changes in deployment. There might be training issuesnot only on analytics, but also communication, leadership and ownership. There might be process concernshow we plan and communicate work. There may be technology concerns in using the system.

Perez also says the process of working with a district is critical. You cant just walk into a district and disrupt their work flow for no reason, she says. They want to know your purpose and your objective. We try to connect, show transparency, and build trust that we are here to help, that we are here to observe how they mitigate risk, to share our findings, and to see how the findings might be integrated into their work practices. We hope they will help us understand the complexity they face every day.

Both team members say they learn something every time they visit a district. Moore notes, You can only see the data you can see in the data warehousetime sheets, work orders, etc. But when you talk to the people who do the work, you learn a lot about how the data is created and applied. With each visit I understand the drivers better and the complexity of the work. I can also speak the language better with each district visit, and I understand the process and the equipment better as well.

With the findings from the model, Moore and Perez are beginning to work with another partner at SCEthe HR organization. It is responsible for defining work practices, training needs, standard operating procedures, and job aids. Each of these is potentially influenced by findings about safety risks, so the goal is to incorporate analytical results into the practices and procedures.

The team is already working to modify the model to incorporate new factorsone of which, not surprisingly given the situation in California, involves the risk of wildfires. Moore and Perez are also trying to create more integration of the risk scores with the work order system. They also plan to try to incorporate the risk model into other SCE business functions like Engineering, which might be able to lower the risk in the planning and construction of the electric grid. All in all, using data and analytics to improve safety is a time-consuming and multifaceted process, but what could be more important than reducing injury and fatality among SCE employees and work crews?

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Machine Learning And Organizational Change At Southern California Edison - Forbes