It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, June 18, 2020
US Jobless claims dip to 1.51 million in mid-June, but layoffs remain stubbornly high
Slow drop in continuing jobless claims signals fresh wave of layoffs
Published: June 18, 2020 By Jeffry Bartash Unemployed workers line up in their cars to file applications for jobless benefits in the age of the coronavirus. GETTY IMAGES
The numbers: About 1.5 million people applied for traditional jobless benefits in mid-June, but the high number of people still seeking or receiving financial aid suggests a fresh wave of layoffs may be crashing over the economy and stunting an embryonic recovery.
Initial jobless claims filed the traditional way through state unemployment offices fell slightly in the seven days ended June 13 from 1.57 million in the prior week, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was the 10th decline in a row.
Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a seasonally adjusted 1.35 million new claims If people who applied for unemployment benefits through a temporary federal program are included, new claims totaled an unadjusted 2.19 million in mid-June.
Read:U.S. entered recession in February after end of longest expansion in history Yet the number of people who are actually receiving traditional jobless benefits barely fell to 20.54 million in the week ended May 30. These so-called continuing claims, reported with a one-week lag, had peaked in the middle of May at nearly 23 million, but are declining at an agonizingly slow pace.
What happened: New jobless claims have fallen steadily from a peak of almost 7 million in late March, but the decline has been much slower than economists had expected. They worry a second wave of layoffs is keeping the numbers elevated, posing a potential threat to an economic recovery that’s now in the early stages.
The grudging decline in continuing jobless claims appears to offer proof. They give a better idea of how many people are still out of work, whereas new claims only reveal how many people may have lost their jobs at some point during the crisis. At least several million people have since returned to their jobs as the economy has reopened.
Digging into the details of the latest claims report, 760,526 applications were submitted in the week of June 13 under a temporary federal-relief program put in place after the pandemic began. Forty-six states reported figures for federal claims under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.
If all eight state and federal assistance programs are included, continuing claims totaled an unadjusted 29.1 million in the seven days ended May 30, the most recent data available. That marks a small drop from 29.5 million in the prior week.
MarketWatch is also reporting select jobless claims data using actual, or unadjusted, figures to give a clearer picture of unemployment. The seasonally adjusted estimates typically expected by Wall Street have inflated jobless claims during the pandemic and become less accurate.
The more important figure to watch is continuing claims, and while they’ve begun to subside, they are not declining at a pace that points to a rapid recovery in lost jobs. Unless they fall more quickly, and soon, the nascent recovery could be stunted.
The latest claims report took place during the same week in which the government surveyed businesses and households for in preparation for the employment report for June. The small decline in new claims suggests that net employment gains in June might not be as strong as expected. The government said the economy regained 2.7 million jobs in May.
BP’s annual statistical review of energy has fascinating nuggets, even if the numbers represent the world before the pandemic ravaged the global economy. Energy consumption per person is still overwhelmingly larger in the U.S. than anywhere else, even though it has been falling for the last two decades. Last year, average global energy consumption inched up 0.2% on Middle Eastern and Asian-Pacific demand, BP said.
Powell urges Congressional help for unemployed, municipalities as economy recovers from coronavirus POWELL SAYS STATE CAPITALISM IS THE CURE Brian Cheung Reporter Yahoo Finance Powell calls for more fiscal support as recovery enters ‘critical ph Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday specifically recommended that Congress extend unemployment insurance benefits, support state and local governments, and funnel more help to cash-strapped small businesses. Historically, the central banker has shied away from providing recommendations on what policies Congress should pursue. However, Powell expressed concern that an emerging recovery from the coronavirus pandemic could prompt lawmakers to curtail support prematurely. “I would think that it would be a concern if Congress were to pull back from the support that it is providing too quickly,” Powell said in virtual testimony to the House Financial Services Committee. He repeated that both the Fed and Congress should be prepared to do more based on the trajectory of the recovery. Through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed in late March, those laid off from their jobs during the crisis are entitled to receive up to $600 a week in additional unemployment insurance. However, the additional payment only lasts through July. Powell added that while the May jobs report showed Americans going back to work fairly quickly, not all industries should expect to see rehiring right away. In high-contact services industries like food and accommodation, travel, and tourism, Powell warned that unemployment benefits may be needed past July, as unemployment could persist for a while. “I think better to keep them in their apartments, better to keep them paying their bills,” Powell said, declining to offer recommendations on specific policies. Over the last few weeks, the Fed has emphasized that more help may be needed from monetary policy in addition to fiscal policy. In a speech Tuesday night, Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida acknowledged the central bank’s unprecedented effort to ease financial conditions “may not prove to be durable, depending on the course that the coronavirus contagion takes.” There are over 2 million coronavirus cases in the U.S. (Graphic: David Foster/Yahoo Finance) Municipal help Fed chairs are usually reluctant to offer recommendations on fiscal policy, part of the central bank’s efforts to insulate its actions from the politics of Capitol Hill. But amid the COVID-19 crisis, Powell has gradually offered more commentary on Congressional actions, in part because much of the Fed’s emergency actions are rooted in the CARES Act. The Fed has launched eleven liquidity facilities as part of an unprecedented response to backstop a collapsing economy. Those include aid to corporate debt markets and loans to Main Street businesses, many of which are backed by over $200 billion of the $454 billion pot of money appropriated to the Fed and the U.S. Treasury via the CARES Act. In May, Powell deflected a question about what to do about municipalities across the country facing funding gaps, due to income and business tax bases drying up from the COVID-19 crisis. “We try to stick to our knitting over here,” Powell said in testimony to the Senate on May 19. Powell’s tone was markedly different on Wednesday, as he expressed concern that budget shortfalls are already leading to widespread layoffs in state and local governments. In April, 981,000 state and local government jobs were lost, and even the overall positive May jobs report detailed another 571,000 job losses in the sector. “It will hold back the economic recovery if they continue to lay people off and if they continue to cut essential services,” Powell warned. Powell said direct support for municipalities would be “worth looking at.” For the Fed’s part, the central bank has stood up a Municipal Liquidity Facility to offer loans to states, local governments, and even some public authorities (like the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority). Powell emphasized that small businesses would also need further support, warning that some businesses may not be “well served” by Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that cannot be converted into a grant. Based on recent tweaks to the program, a PPP loan is only forgiven if at least 60% of the borrowed amount is used towards keeping employees on payroll. “We don’t want to lose any more small businesses than we have to,” Powell said. Brian Cheung is a reporter covering the Fed, economics, and banking for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter @bcheungz.
A Black pastor was arrested after pulling out a gun while under attack. The sheriff apologized, and now 5 alleged assailants face hate crimes charges. THE SECOND AMENDMENT DOES NOT APPLY TO BLACK FOLKS
Rhea Mahbubani INSIDER•June 16, 2020 Black pastor arrested after pulling out a gun while under attack
A Virginia sheriff has apologized after deputies arrested a Black pastor who had pulled a gun on his attackers, and now five suspects have been charged with hate crimes.
The altercation began in Edinburg, Virginia, when the pastor stopped two white people from dumping an old refrigerator on his property on June 1.
Leon K. McCray Sr. told WHSV the people became angry, returned with 3 more people, and surrounded McCray, spouted racial slurs, head-butted him, and threatened to kill him.
But responding sheriff's deputies seized McCray's weapon and arrested him on allegations of brandishing a firearm. That charge has since been dropped.
Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter put two supervisors on unpaid leave while he investigates the incident.
This combination of undated booking photos from the Shenandoah County Sheriff's Office shows from left to right, Donny Salyers, Dennis Salyers, Farrah Salyers, Christopher Sharp and Amanda Salyers. Shenandoah County Sheriff's Office via AP
WHITE TRASH HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN BLACK FOLKS, THAT'S PRIVILEGE
Five people have been arrested on hate crimes charges and a Virginia sheriff has apologized, after a Black pastor was attacked earlier this month and arrested by the same deputies responding to his call for help.
Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter told Leon K. McCray Sr. that he was sorry for the way his deputies responded to the complaint and altercation in Edinburg on June 1, WVEC reported.
The issue began when McCray, 61, stopped two people from dumping a refrigerator in the dumpster at an apartment building that he owns, according to WHSV.
They "got irate" when he asked them to leave the premises, he said, and took off only to return with three others. They threatened McCray and called him "all types of racial slurs," WHSV said.
"Racial epithets, and the N word, and your Black life, your motherf---ing Black life don't make, it doesn't make a difference in this county, it doesn't make a difference to me, and we will kill you," McCray told WHSV.
McCray described being surrounded by them when one man started to headbutt him, adding, "One of the guys snatched his shirt off and circled behind me, that's when it got really bad."
McCray told WHSV that he felt unsafe and so felt he had no choice but to pull out his gun and call 911.
"It got to the point where this is really getting really, really bad," he said. "I couldn't leave, I couldn't do anything, and with the threats, I felt to save my life, I had to draw my gun."
When deputies arrived on scene, McCray said one of them spoke to him but no one sought his story. Instead, they spoke with the group of white people, confiscated McCray's weapon, and arrested him.
"How humiliating," McCray told NVDaily. "How dehumanizing … to look at this mob of individuals cheering on the sidelines waving as I was carted off to go to jail." The sheriff said he 'would have probably done the same thing' as McCray
Carter and McCray met on June 3 to discuss the encounter and the charge filed against McCray for brandishing a firearm, the sheriff said in a video shared on Facebook.
"After talking with him about the incident, it was apparent to me that the charge of brandishing was certainly not appropriate," Carter said. "Actually, as I told Mr. McCray, if I were faced with similar circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing."
Carter also talked to the Shenandoah Commonwealth's Attorney, who agreed with his assessment of dropping the baseless charge against McCray, he said.
Instead, the five people accused of assaulting McCray have been arrested and face a slew of charges, including hate crimes charges, according to the sheriff's office.
Donny Salyers, 43, Dennis Salyers, 26, Farrah Salyers, 42, and Christopher Sharp, 57, have been charged with assault - hate crime, assault and battery by mob, and felony abduction. Amanda Salyers, 26, was charged with assault - hate crime, and assault and battery by mob.
They were all been taken into custody without incident and are being held without bond, Carter said, noting that an investigation is ongoing. He said he also placed two supervisors in the sheriff's office on unpaid administrative leave while he investigates the initial incident.
Carter thanked McCray for "his patience as I have worked through these matters" and promised residents that he takes their grievances "very seriously."
"I want the people of Shenandoah County to know I and the sheriff's office staff appreciate and care about the minority communities, and especially our Black community, in Shenandoah County," he said. "Also, I continue to support and recognize the importance of your Constitutional rights, especially your Second Amendment right to protect yourself and your family."
Microsoft Says It Won't Sell Facial Recognition To The Police. These Documents Show How It Pitched That Technology To The Federal Government.
Last week, Microsoft said it would not sell its facial recognition to police departments. But new documents reveal it was pitching that technology to at least one federal agency as recently as two years ago.
In early June, Microsoft joined a growing list of tech companies that pledged not to sell facial recognition technology to police departments until the controversial technology was federally regulated. But that announcement left a loophole: selling facial recognition to the federal government.
Newly released emails show the company has tried to sell the controversial technology to the government for years, including to the Drug Enforcement Administration in late 2017.
Those documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union via a public records lawsuit, provide a rare look into how the Redmond, Washington–based company tried to sell artificial intelligence services to federal agencies six months before its July 2018 call for "public regulation and corporate responsibility" around facial recognition. Last week, Microsoft said "we do not sell our facial recognition technology to US police departments today” and committed not to do so “until there is a strong national law grounded in human rights.”
But that pledge did not address any potential or ongoing relationships with federal agencies. When asked by BuzzFeed News, Microsoft did not immediately provide comment on whether it has provided or is currently providing its facial recognition technology to federal law enforcement agencies.
The emails obtained by the ACLU show that the company pitched facial recognition as a law enforcement tool to the DEA in late 2017 as the company pushed to expand its offerings on its government cloud platform, Microsoft Azure Government Cloud. In September of that year, an individual whose name has been redacted, but listed their title as the DEA’s chief technology officer, stated that he was hosting the Microsoft Cognitive Services Group “to discuss use-cases for their Media Services.”
Obtained by ACLU
This September 2017 email from the DEA's chief technology officer shows Microsoft pitched facial recognition and other artificial intelligence services to the agency. The document was obtained by the ACLU public records lawsuit against the DEA.
“As you may be aware, Microsoft Azure has many of these services (Translation, Transcription, Video Processing, Facial Recognition, etc.) running in the Public Azure,” the person wrote on Sept. 15, 2017. “Microsoft has only some of these services running in the Microsoft Azure Government (MAG) Cloud and they are looking at what else needs to be transitioned over to MAG.”
The person later noted that MAG was approved for “Law Enforcement Sensitive things” and that they wanted to create a pilot project to test a variety of video and audio recording technologies.
A DEA spokesperson declined to comment on its conversations with Microsoft or the agency’s tests or deployment of facial recognition.
Other emails show that DEA representatives visited Microsoft’s office in Reston, Virginia, in November 2017 to see a demonstration of a suite of products including translation services, document transcription, “optical character recognition in video,” and Azure facial recognition. In a follow-up message after the meeting, a Microsoft employee, whose name was redacted, gave a brief overview of all the demos his team showed the agency including “Face API: Identify similar faces, develop a face database.”
“Please let us know when and how we can take the next step on a prototype,” they wrote. Based on the emails, it’s unclear if any prototype was built.
Eight months after those meetings, Microsoft President Brad Smith penned a blog post calling for “thoughtful government regulation and for the development of norms around acceptable uses” surrounding facial recognition.
“If there are concerns about how a technology will be deployed more broadly across society, the only way to regulate this broad use is for the government to do so,” he wrote, before acknowledging the possibility of racial profiling and misidentification.
Despite those concerns, Microsoft’s representatives continued to pitch facial recognition as part of its Azure Government offering. In November 2018, a “Sr. Microsoft SME,” whose name was redacted in the email, sent another note to a DEA representative requesting a meeting. Azure has a number of relationships with federal agencies including the Department of Defense and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
While it’s not clear if the DEA moved forward with Microsoft’s Azure AI offerings, the fact that Microsoft pitched such services in the first place “is concerning,” Kade Crockford of the ACLU Massachusetts told BuzzFeed News. In October, the ACLU sued the Department of Justice, FBI, and DEA after those agencies failed to comply with a public records request regarding their use of facial recognition and other biometric tracking technology.
Microsoft's recent decision not to provide facial recognition to police departments is “a positive step,” said Crockford, noting that it’s what civil rights organizations have demanded for years after studies showed the technology has high rates of misidentification among racial minorities.
“The DEA has a long history of racially disparate or racist practices and has been engaged in wildly inappropriate mass surveillance,” they said.
BuzzFeed News previously reported that individuals associated with the DEA tested Clearview AI, a controversial facial recognition software that’s been built using billions of photos scraped from social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. As of February, more than 20 users associated with the DEA have run about 2,000 searches according to data viewed by BuzzFeed News.
Following nationwide protests of racial injustices and police brutality faced by Black people, companies have pulled back on their facial recognition offerings. Earlier this month, Amazon said it would place a one-year moratorium on selling its biometric face identification service, Rekognition, to police, while IBM said it would stop developing or researching facial recognition.
Earlier this month, BuzzFeed News also reported that the Justice Department gave the DEA permission “to enforce any federal crime committed as a result of the protests over the death of George Floyd.”
Black trans people are more likely than their white counterparts to face employment discrimination and housing insecurity, and criminalization for their gender presentation under statues that permit police to profile people they think may be engaging in sex work. A staggering number of Black trans people — nearly half, according to a 2011 study from the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force — have also been incarcerated.
Those who sell sex face even greater criminalization and the possibility of violence at both the hands of the police and their clients.
Andrea Ritchie, who has written about the way that women and transgender or non-conforming people of color are marginalized even in conversations about racist police violence, has said, “We’re not trying to compete with [George] Floyd’s story, we’re trying to complete the story.”
BuzzFeed News spoke to four Black trans women who are current and former sex workers about what they’re fighting for right now, what they need people to understand, and what they see as the most urgent changes necessary to help their communities.
Courtesy Milan Sherry
Milan Nicole Sherry
Milan Nicole Sherry, 28, is a community organizer and former sex worker living with HIV. She is a founding member of BreakOUT, an organizer of the TGNC Peoples COVID Crisis Fund of Louisiana, and is launching a new for-trans-by-trans community organization called House of Tulip.
Sherry organized the Black Trans Lives Matter rallies in New Orleans on May 30 and June 5.
My name is Milan Nicole Sherry, and I would like for you to write it just as that. Milan Nicole Sherry. I think it’s very important that it’s my name, and for people to know it. Oftentimes when you hear the names of Black trans women it’s because we’re murdered. I think it’s very important people hear my name while I’m here.
Why did you become an activist?
As a trans woman, I’m fighting for my very own life, as well as my siblings. So I had no choice. I could no longer sit around and just cry and have these conversations with my girlfriends about what we don’t have. So my activism, yeah, it started in my experience and the things and trauma that came from me engaging in sex work.
But it also started as me saying I am a Black trans woman. I had no choice because I want to live. When you’ve got to constantly look over your shoulder when you leave out your door, and sometimes your own home isn’t safe.
I want to combat the image of this sensationalism and glorification of activism.
As a Black trans woman, I am personally tired. I am no longer interested in fighting for space within LGBTQ agencies, organizations. I am no longer interested in fighting for space in these cis-hetero spaces. I am now focused into building our own, for-us-by-us. I’m tired as a trans woman, giving my power to these cis individuals, these agencies that ultimately don’t care about us. They don’t value us for real. The only thing we good for is when they hire us into positions and now all of a sudden “we’re inclusive.” It’s only because at the end of the day we’re written into those grants that they’re getting funding for. But yet we get entry-level positions, we get outreach worker positions, we get recovery specialist positions. But we are the ones that’s doing the real work.
Have you been participating in the protests?
Yes, I’ve participated. And I’ve definitely been there to talk about police brutality. No one is above accountability. Black lives will never matter if you’re not including Black trans lives. As long as it continues to exclude Black trans and GNC [gender nonconforming] folks, there will always be a divide within the movement. This movement I describe as a chessboard. You have to strategically move your pieces so your king and your queen will be saved, most importantly the queen at all times, most importantly the queen, being Black trans women.
Many people have said the killings of trans people like Tony McDade and Nina Pop don’t get the same attention as cis men like George Floyd. Whose names do you think need to be said and remembered right now?
To be honest, there are so many. It’s one too many. It’s not about just Tony McDade, about just these current individuals who have lost their lives, whether to law enforcement or ignorant peers. This is years of girls and transgender men and women being murdered in the street.
’Cause the sad part about just saying their names is that when those individuals were alive — it’s just unfortunate it took those individuals’ death to know how worthy they were. Because when we die, when we’re murdered, when we’re slaughtered in the street...there’s “Black trans lives matter,” there’s “say her name.” Everybody takes to the streets, and they rally, they protest. But where was that same energy when that lady was alive? We could have prevented that death. We could have prevented that situation, but we didn’t.
Is there anything that’s bringing you joy or giving you hope right now?
It’s giving me hope to see a resilience in my community that has always been there. What gives me joy and hope is I know that not every trans woman is going to fall victim to hate. Because we have a lot of talent in our community. A lot. We have trans women who are brilliant, who are intelligent, who are doctors, nurses, lawyers, who are running for office, who are in office. Andrea Jenkins, who is a city councilwoman in Minneapolis. She’s a Black trans woman and she’s a city councilwoman. We have so many of what they consider success stories, but they love to sensationalize the murders and the beatings and the violence that we go through. But they don’t show us in a different light that we are, in fact, like you.
We’re like you. We go to work every day, we put our underwear on one leg at a time, if we’re not disabled. We get dressed, we start our morning routines. And, all we want to do is provide for our families and get home safe to our loved ones just like you.
But many of us don’t make it home. Many of us don’t have a home. Many of us don’t know what home is. And for many of us home isn’t safe.
Courtesy Tamika Spellman
Tamika Spellman
Tamika Spellman,53, is a former sex worker and sex workers' rights advocate and policy and advocacy director at HIPS in Washington, DC. She is the lead organizer of the Sex Worker Advocacy Coalition.
What are you fighting for right now?
That’s a lot. That’s a big question. Oh my.
I’m fighting for my very life at this moment. I’m fighting for the lives of Black people. I’m fighting for the lives of transgender women. I’m fighting for the lives of femme, nonbinary, androgynous people of color. I’m fighting for Black males that are being murdered by the police. I’m fighting for those that have mental health problems. I’m fighting for the homeless.
I’m fighting for the marginalized that this country tells this is the land of milk and honey, that this land is free, when it’s not. I’m fighting to change the systemic racism that is inherently built into the very fabric of this nation. I’m fighting for the reparations because my people are owed for building this nation, for building the wealth of the few. It is time for the equality that the Constitution guarantees, that the preamble decreed.
What are the most urgent changes that you’d like to see?
The most urgent change for the world right now, I would say, is to defund all police. Number one, that is something that is urgent.
Secondly, we need sensible legislation coming out of Congress. It is time for them to start putting impact studies on the laws. All of them should automatically come with impact studies to study their effectiveness — if it is actually meeting its objective. If it is not meeting the objective then we need to undo it, change it, alter whatever ill it does. See that’s where we come to the war on drugs. This war has been going on for decades and there is no end in sight, and there is no victory. And that is one law where many people in Congress have been saying how dreadful it is. Not one of them has had the courage to go and undo it or change it for the better. Instead they keep adding dumb shit to it.
When they implemented SESTA and FOSTA [a 2018 law that caused websites to restrict sex-related content], they didn’t think about the wide-ranging implications of what it could do to people who were not trafficking victims. And now we have Ro Khanna [a US House of Representative member from California] sponsoring that bill to have an impact study on that piece of legislation. Because it’s been damaging peoples’ lives and their livelihoods, consenting adults. But you broad-brush the law and don’t think about the impact overall. They broad-brushed laws for the drug war, and did not think about its impact. It devastated the urban communities of color. It’s the evolution of what they did to Black Wall Street. They just didn’t burn it. They put laws in place to keep it from thriving, to keep people from surviving. Because all the jobs left the cities. They moved into the suburbs just like the white people did with white flight. They left the inner cities to die. They did not want us to have anything of our own.
What do you need from people who are not trans or gender nonconforming?
I need everybody, Black and brown, to understand and to support fully their people, no matter what it is, just because I’m asking. And I need my Caucasian counterparts to have some understanding for why I’m asking. These things that we’re asking for are not — it’s not like we’re asking for you to give us the world. We’re asking for our freedom. We’re asking for the ability to thrive and to grow and to live my life unencumbered from barbaric laws. There are some laws that shouldn’t even be put on the books.
I need everyone to think and be rational in their reactions and to push our legislators in the right direction for everybody. This isn’t just for me. What goes on with me is a result of what can be done to you. If they’re willing to take away my rights, what makes you think that they won’t take yours?
Have you been going to the protests?
No. Too many people without masks. Too many people in close quarters. I have a heart condition. I have to be strategic. COVID-19 is still out there, and they don’t have a treatment. And then there is tear gas. I have asthma. And then I’m definitely scared of the police putting handcuffs on me again. It has been a looooong time since I’ve had handcuffs on. And I’m a big sore thumb. I have blond hair, honey, I’m a big girl. They would love to put handcuffs on me. I would love to have been down there if COVID-19 wasn’t out there.
But, as far as I’m concerned, burn it to the damn ground. They didn’t give a flying fuck about how they burnt up Black Wall Street, how they looted and ransacked, how they murdered people, how many times they hung us from trees — when they just go running through the neighborhood and just decide “oh we’ll just go over to this house, put a cross in their yard and set the house on fire.” Did they give a fuck about our stuff that they burnt? Burn that shit down. Until they stop killing us and abolish the police, there is not going to be an end to the unrest. They cannot conceive that this is not fair.
BuzzFeed News
TS Candii
TS Candii,26, is a sex worker and lead organizer with Decrim NY and the Repeal Walking While Trans Ban coalition, and the founder of Black Trans News.
TS Candii was also a lead organizer for the Justice for Nina Pop and Tony McDade protest at Stonewall Inn on June 2.
Why did you become an activist?
Growing up realizing that at heart I’m a woman and having to make my inner match my outer was a challenge, and be accepted with all of the above was a challenge. The acceptance of who I am as a woman was a challenge, the acceptance from the world. And so I started becoming an activist, the reason I started speaking up and speaking out was because a lot of the community was scared because we didn’t have a voice. So I had to come off the menu and get at the table. So I made my own seat.
A lot of us do not live to see 35. I became a voice for them because we were getting washed away. They silence us. We’re just now starting to be heard.
What are you fighting for right now?
What I’m fighting for right now is our humanity. I’m fighting for our pursuit of happiness, to just be. And to unknot our existence out of the criminal justice system and to reclaim our narrative and to reformulate — I’m trying to find a formula to rewrite the economic systems so it’s free for us all, so that we don’t have to sell sex for survival.
What are the most urgent changes that you’d like to see?
The most urgent changes that need to be made are the economic system first. And the criminal justice system. And the educational system. The economic system needs to be able to fit us all. The economic system is only written for white people. That’s the issue. We live day by day because of the economic system. That system needs to be rewritten. Everything that we do to support us, they criminalize it.
What kind of support do you need?
We need economic support. We need to abolish the jails. We know law enforcement from the beginning of time was always slave catchers.
So right now what we need, we need laws to be made, and for laws to be changed and created by those that have lived the experience. We have individuals that don’t understand because they don’t know, and refuse because they’re uneducated — a lot of people is not educated on certain things, so they automatically judge it and criminalize it and it’s done. Because they don’t know.
So now I gotta sit here and cry and I gotta tell you how the government assistance programs, how they give you pennies. How they give you pennies. And I make more money with my god-given body than they give me yearly. The social programs, you got food stamps, the WIC [a federal food program for women, infants, and children], those pennies. Those are pennies. And then you have to explain — what is WIC? What is that? You know? Some people are like what is EBT [electronic benefit transfer, similar to a debit card for government benefit programs]? What is food stamps? What is Section 8 [a federal rent assistance program]? And they tax the poor and don’t tax the rich. It’s just unfair. It’s unfair.
What do you need from people who are not trans or gender nonconforming?
I need all their money. And they can donate it to Black Trans News LLC. Please and thank you.
I can get everything I need. Just give me the money. That’s all we need. We need the money. If y’all give us the money, we good, trust me.
Courtesy Ceyenne Doroshow
Ceyenne Doroshow
Ceyenne Doroshow, fiftysomething, is a former sex worker and the founder and executive director of GLITS Inc., which provides housing and crisis services, and helps build sustainability for LGBTQ people in New York City.
Doroshow spoke at the Brooklyn Liberation rally on June 14.
What are you fighting for right now?
Sustainability, the policing laws, defunding police, trans lives, Black trans lives, equity within our community. Housing within our community — sustainable housing. Because often we’re displaced by landlords, if placed at all, but very often we’re displaced without support or recourse to the landlords. Trans folks, and the LGBTQIA community. But mainly trans folks.
What that looks like to me is not a project or a multi-dwelling building where there are other elements of harm. It’s dangerous for some trans people to live in some areas. When you think of housing someone, you think of the area, you think of the level of safety. I know I do when it comes to myself, so why wouldn’t I want that for my community?
This world is based on the who’s who, based on not growing, based on elements of disdain, not really on helping people of color or my community get to a place of comfort. We often have to fight, we often have to do sex work to get a degree to pay rent, and it’s a lot. I want to be the middleperson for this. I want to give people a chance to go to school, to be their best selves. To have the support of housing to get them there. Who knows better than me that these things are needed?
What are the biggest obstacles you’re facing right now?
I’m not usually one to let anything stand in my way, that’s why I’ve got lawyers. There are roadblocks everywhere. For people like me, you’re always facing a roadblock — and making it through. Resilient people!
It’s just overcoming, and always breaking a glass ceiling in one way or another. Society, ignorance, those are obstacles. Phobias, those are the obstacles. Police, those are more obstacles.
I honestly think, in my opinion, as a society we’re attacking the wrong vessel. We should be dismantling the police union. This is how they’re often allowed to do some of the things that they’re allowed to be doing. That’s an obstacle. With the police union being able to back them up, we fail. Without a civilian review board looking at the history and the background, we fail. Police need policing by civilians, not by theirselves.
We also need to be in rooms with politicians and senators and governors to change these bills and laws which are the chokeholds of our lives. We need to be a part of the conversation with politicians so they know that we’re human, to know that we matter.
What are the most urgent changes that you’d like to see?
The WWT bill — the “walking while trans” bill, because it wasn’t passed. The equity that we are trying to obtain for a better tomorrow, less trans deaths. Police reform. Defund police needs to happen immediately, and in my personal opinion, take guns away from police in New York. Give them Tasers the way they do in the UK.
What do you need from people who are not trans or gender nonconforming?
To do the footwork. I need them to be accountable. I need them to do the humane thing. It’s very simple. It’s: What would you want for yourself? Or what would you want for your children?
Is there anything that’s bringing you joy or giving you hope right now?
It gave me joy and it’s giving me hope that many people are donating to the work. It’s bringing me a lot of joy to see the collaboration on mass level being in support of my work last night. Somebody just donated $3K, instead of $1K.
It means they’ll be able to go on and sustain and possibly go to school and have everything they need. It’s not about me having anything. It’s about them having everything. It’s about them having the equity to build equity. Community taking care of community.
I think when [GLITS] hit $300,000 in a day, that was inspiring. I think it’s the work that makes them want to donate. It’s seeing the bigger picture. Because of all of the death, because of George Floyd, because of the degradation and the racism and the simple prejudice we’ve had to endure. But then you add in LGBT, it’s like last on the food chain. Finally people are understanding that it’s time to change. [On Sunday, June 14, Doroshow announced that GLITS reached its target of $1 million to buy housing.]
I’ve been doing this for so long with nothing. I would do it all again with nothing if I had to.
Stephanie Keith / Reuters
The Black Trans Lives Matter rally in Brooklyn.
Otillia Steadman is the world news operations manager for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
