One year after Congress made Juneteenth a national holiday, I and so many of my Black and Brown people still yearn for true justice. And we’ll never achieve it unless we harness our political power and invest in tomorrow’s leaders.
Police Violence
‘Rosa Parks Beyond the Bus’: The Art of Wielding Influence
An excerpt from Rosa Parks Beyond the Bus: Life, Lessons, and Leadership
Enforcing Criminal Abortion Bans Post-Roe: ‘A Massive Escalation of Surveillance’
Anti-abortion governments and private entities are already using cutting-edge digital technologies to surveil women’s search history, location data, messages, online purchases and social media activities by using geofencing, keyword warrants, big data and more.
“Every aspect of pregnant people’s digital lives will be put under the microscope, examined for any hints that they sought (successfully or otherwise) to end their pregnancy.”
Living With Dignity: Louisiana Black Women Demand Resources
Unrelenting storms are ravaging the world, including Louisiana. The attack on our reproductive rights is another storm threatening Black women in Louisiana and across the country.
Black women are being denied the resources, and the right to live and raise our families with dignity—and without state interference.
The Power of Women in Iran, Standing Up to the Morality Police
I was 16, on a trip to visit my family in Iran, when I was stopped and arrested by two morality guards. They plucked me off the street, loaded me into their car, and took me to the local station. My crime? I had my hair uncovered, showing it to their male gaze.
I still remember the searing mix of emotions that is familiar to millions of Iranian women who are arrested every year for this “offense.” But now, through social media, mobile apps, weblogs and websites, a growing movement of Iranian women are actively participating in public discourse and exercising their civil rights on the internet, which the patriarchal and misogynistic government has not yet figured out how to completely censor and control.
Celebrating the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act: A Conversation with Rep. Jackie Speier
Last week, President Biden signed the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act, bipartisan legislation included in the fiscal year appropriations package. Two of Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.)’s bills were included in the VAWA reauthorization: a bill closing the law enforcement consent loophole, and another requiring climate surveys for college and university students to assess efforts to address sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence, stalking and dating violence.
Speier, first elected to Congress in 2008, has announced that she will not seek reelection in November. She sat down with Ms. contributor Michelle Onello to discuss the improved VAWA and its critical importance for women, as well as her plans after she retires from Congress.
Texas Set to Execute Melissa Lucio Despite Credible Claims of Innocence
Texas plans to put Melissa Lucio to death on April 27, which would make her the sixth woman executed in the U.S. in the last decade and the first Hispanic woman in Texas history. Lucio was convicted of murder in 2008 for the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Mariah, which she and her family claim was instead a tragic accident. Her attorneys are fighting to overturn her conviction and set aside her execution date based on her continued innocence claims and other procedural issues.
“Research shows prosecutors frequently trivialize women’s experiences as victims of gender-based violence when they are charged with crimes,” said Sandra Babcock, director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and one of Lucio’s attorneys. “Yet Melissa was a victim long before she was a defendant.”
‘My Win Is Their Win’: Deqa Dhalac Makes History as Maine’s First Black, Muslim Somali-American Mayor
Thirty years ago, Deqa Dhalac fled her homeland of Somalia, right before the start of a devastating civil war which still lingers on. Last December, she made history when she became America’s first Somali American mayor; South Portland’s 11th woman mayor (the city’s first female mayor was in 1985); and the first African, Muslim, Somali American mayor in Maine and South Portland—a city where 90 percent of the population is white.
“It says a lot when six white Americans support and elect a Black Muslim immigrant to be their mayor,” said Dhalac about other South Portland City Council members.
As a Black American, I Am Tired. We Are Tired.
When I woke up on Tuesday, Feb. 1, I found myself scrolling through Instagram and seeing every other post celebrating Black History Month—from brands and organizations to politicians and friends in my feed. Three days later, in the early hours of the morning, Minneapolis police killed Amir Locke in his sleep while serving a no-knock warrant—the same type police used to kill Breonna Taylor in her sleep, and the same Minneapolis police that killed George Floyd in 2020 in front of all of our eyes. As I tried to understand why I was feeling incredibly cynical, I realized the reason: I am tired. We are tired.
Yet, despite being tired, we must keep going. We have to keep fighting. We have to keep organizing. Together we must continue to press forward, turning pain into purpose and purpose into power.
Reads for the Rest of Us: 2021 Best of the Rest
Each month, I provide Ms. readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups.
You’ve read the other “Best of” lists—now read the other one. You know, for the rest of us. Each year, I review my monthly Reads for the Rest of Us lists and choose my favorite books of the year. It was such a wonderful challenge to review all the lists and choose my top 50, but here they are.