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Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
New York's Sexual Assault Law Excludes the Intoxicated. This Bill Aims to Fix It.
After surviving rape twice, calling 911 for help wasn't Akia Nyrie Smith's first instinct. As a Black nonbinary person, they knew all too well how law enforcement might respond, especially when alcohol was involved, as it had been both nights in Michigan. When Smith moved to New York in 2020, in the depths of the pandemic, they never imagined experiencing a third assault. But that was their breaking point. 'When it happened in New York, I felt stupid. I didn't tell anyone,' Smith, who goes by they/them pronouns, told Capital B. They took deep breaths and shed a few tears before revealing the truths of their childhood, and young adulthood, during a May interview with Capital B. Prior experiences with police have stayed with them — and has made each consideration of calling 911 feel like a calculated risk — echoing concerns shared by many Black families across the country about the gamble of calling 911 for help. 'I didn't think anything would happen, because it was my word against theirs — and he's a white man,' the 29-year-old said, wiping away tears. 'I didn't know what happened was something I could fight for because I was putting myself in bad situations. Because I kept drinking.' Now, alongside a coalition of sex-crime survivors and human rights advocates, Smith is calling on New York lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to support legislation that ensures survivors who were voluntarily intoxicated at the time of an assault are still protected under the law. The bill, known as A101A in the Assembly, would close a legal loophole that currently allows prosecutors to dismiss cases where the survivor was drinking voluntarily — effectively denying justice. Advocates say the measure, similarly enacted in more than two dozen other states, is critical to affirming that choosing to drink alcohol should never disqualify someone from being believed or protected after a sexual assault. The bill passed through the state Senate Health Committee in May — a small feat advocates had long awaited since the bill's introduction in 2019. It was written in response to a letter penned in 2018 by former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who called on then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo to strengthen the state's laws sex crime laws. For privacy, the letter didn't cite a specific case that drew Vance to send the letter. 'Among the most common fact patterns that we have in sex crime investigations is this situation, where a woman is intoxicated because of her drinking at a party or a bar and then ends up being assaulted sexually by a man,' Vance told NBC-4 in 2018. 'There's a real problem that we have with people getting drunk and then being taken advantage of.' Nonetheless, Cuomo did not advance the Bill A101A to his desk, but did include it in his 2020 proposed budget. The following year, multiple women came forward with allegations of sexual harassment against Cuomo. He resigned in 2021 amid the scandal. He is now running for mayor of New York, a city of nearly 8.5 million people, where reports of sexual assault have risen in 2024 — though many cases still go underreported. Capital B has contacted Cuomo's campaign via email for comment on whether he would support efforts to move the bill forward for a hearing or vote. Rich Azzopardi, a campaign spokesman, said Cuomo's thoughts from 2019 supporting the legislation remains the same. Capital B has reached out via email to New York State Assembly members Carl E. Heastie, chair of the Rules Committee, and Jeffrey Dinowitz, chair of the Committee on Codes, for comment on whether the bill will be scheduled for a vote or hearing with committee members and advocates. We have not received a response from Heastie's office of this publication. Until now, New York law has included a loophole that made it difficult to prosecute cases where a victim was voluntarily intoxicated. This meant that people who were sexually assaulted while under the influence of alcohol or drugs were often denied justice, despite their inability to give consent. Dinowitz told Capital B over the phone that passing this bill is a 'no brainer.' The state had been enforcing a version of a 25-year-old federal law enacted under former President Bill Clinton, which was introduced in response to a rise in the use of date-rape drugs, commonly known as 'roofies.' Since its signing, 27 states and Washington, D.C., have laws enacted to allow people who voluntarily got drunk, and were sexually violated, to come forward to file a police report and have a rape kit administered, advocates with the coalition Justice Without Exclusion said. 'If somebody has several drinks or takes some drugs, it is not in and of itself an invitation to be raped,' said Dinowitz, a sponsor of the bill, in a statement to the coalition. 'It's not a get out of jail free card and we need to change the law to make sure that everyone is protected.' 'This is a predatory action' Chris Lake, executive director of the nonprofit Community for a Cause and leader of the advocacy coalition, said an overwhelming number of women in his life are survivors of sexual assault. 'It has always bothered me,' he said about his reason for joining in advocating for the legislation in 2020. The bill, originally introduced in 2019, aimed to close a legal loophole that made it difficult for law enforcement to investigate — or for prosecutors to pursue charges — when a person was voluntarily intoxicated before being sexually assaulted. Lake noted in an interview with Capital B that most bartenders in America can tell when a customer is in a stupor: 'If they are incapacitated, can't walk, can't talk, can't defend themselves. If they [the survivor] want to say, 'No,' they can't. If they want to push someone off and say, 'Cut it out,' they can't.' 'This is a predatory action, and we're targeting that specific predatory style that unfortunately is the most common form of rape,' Lake said. 'Far more than getting a drink spiked.' Studies have linked alcohol to most sexual assault crimes. Smith, who has remained sober and pursued mental health therapy since surviving a 2021 attack in New York, expressed frustration that the bill has been introduced six times without becoming law. Shortly after Smith joined the coalition, they thought it would be easy legislation to lobby for, but it hasn't been. They did not achieve justice through the legal system, and they do not want the same conclusion for other survivors. Admittedly, Smith said they did receive what they called 'student protections' through a Title IX complaint for an on-campus attack by someone, a Black student, who she thought was a friend. 'He was expelled,' Smith said. 'I was harassed for a bit because he was well known. … It wasn't my first time being drunk on campus. I had a rough senior year.' Smith, a manager and coordinator for CAMBA Inc. Brooklyn YAS (Youth Against Substance Misuse), believes the bill's struggle is due in part to 'those lawmakers [who] are worried that when this bill gets passed, they will be prosecuted.' Lake said the bill has stalled, based on conversations with lawmakers from both parties, because of myths and fearmongering such as claims of rising false accusations, wrongful convictions, and the targeting of Black and brown boys and men. Despite bipartisan support from more than 90 of the state's 150 Assembly members, including 17 of the 47 Republicans, this has remained the prevailing messaging, advocates said. But those numbers have fluctuated because some assembly members 'are skeptics on this bill, unfortunately,' Dinowitz said. And unless the chairperson of committees like Heastie 'feels that there's going to be enough votes among Democrats to pass it, the bill doesn't get brought to the floor,' he said. 'Because even — I mean, I hate to say it this way but — if Republicans see that there are enough Democratic votes, even if they support the bill, they may not support the bill. We really need to get a few supporters behind the bill from both sides.' The bill also has backing from the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, which represents 62 elected DAs, along with attorneys from law enforcement agencies across the state. Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, and the four other elected prosecutors of New York City, agree with the bill. 'Nobody should take advantage of somebody that you know is clearly too drunk to say yes,' Clark told WSKG, a local public broadcast station, in a June interview. A coalition expands to close the loophole In at least half of all sexual assault cases between 2000 and 2016, either the victim, the perpetrator, or both had consumed alcohol, research shows. The researchers, Katherine Lorenz and Sarah E. Ullman, also found that the most common reported survivor accounts were those of white, college-age women. 'But somehow, we think that once we escape college — when we believe these crimes are most prevalent and we're in our 20s — that type of risk is behind us,' said Lizzie da Trindade-Asher, president and director of policy for Cura Collective, a nonprofit women's advocacy organization. 'Rape is not about sex. Yes, it's a sex crime — but rape is a crime of power. It doesn't lapse in time if you're seen as prey to a predator.' While da Trindade-Asher was studying at Harvard Law School in January 2023, she came across a case in Minnesota, where that state Supreme Court in 2021 overturned the conviction of a man a jury had found guilty of raping an intoxicated woman. The court ruled that, under Minnesota law at the time, a victim who voluntarily consumed alcohol was not considered 'mentally incapacitated' — and therefore, legally, unable to consent. Stunned by the court's ruling, she immediately searched to see whether her home state of New York had similar legal protections. When she discovered the bill was stalled, she could only describe her reaction as 'an emoji mind blow.' 'It was even more affronting to me to learn that in this kind of fashion of progressiveness, as we tend to see ourselves in New York State, this was the law. And even worse, the solution was being ignored,' said da Trindade-Asher. She and her organization also joined Lake's coalition. New Jersey has had similar legislation on the books since 1978, advocates said. But on the other side of the tri-state area in Connecticut, as well as Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, legislation has yet to be passed to close the loophole. For Smith, their work in advocating for the passage of this legislation is part of some semblance of closure. It's a truth they've come to terms with in their healing journey. 'I know that what happened to me is not my fault. Even if I did voluntarily drink, that does not mean I consented,' Smith said. The post New York's Sexual Assault Law Excludes the Intoxicated. This Bill Aims to Fix It. appeared first on Capital B News.
The Guardian
22-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Disgraceful step backward': USDA ends support for Black farmers, saying it ‘sufficiently' handled discrimination
This story was originally published by Capital B, a nonprofit newsroom that centers Black voices. Lloyd Wright isn't shocked that the US Department of Agriculture is reversing a 35-year-old policy meant to help Black farmers in favor of a race-neutral approach. But the 84-year-old, who grows soybeans and vegetables in Virginia, knows his fellow Black farmers will feel the damage. Earlier this month, the agency announced that it's eliminating the term 'socially disadvantaged,' which describes farmers or ranchers who had been subjected to racial, ethnic or gender discrimination. It includes Black, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian groups. '[The government] is going to take back the money – the little bit we were getting – and some of the outreach money will be crawled back,' Wright said. 'Because they're eliminating 'socially disadvantaged' and anything else dealing with DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion].' The department adopted the language in the 1990 Farm Bill to deliver resources to minority farmers, including through the 2501 Program – an initiative that requires the USDA to ensure that historically underserved farmers have access to grants and other resources. Now, the agency will drop the use of the term entirely and will no longer consider race or sex-based criteria in its decision-making process for programs. According to the decision, this move will ensure that USDA programs 'uphold the principles of meritocracy, fairness, and equal opportunity for all participants'. The decision also said the department has 'sufficiently' addressed its history of discrimination through litigation that has resulted in settlements, relief and reforms. USDA officials did not respond to a question about the potential impact this policy will have on programs or on farmers of color, who represent about 4% of the nation's 3.3 million producers, according to the Census of Agriculture. However, a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement that Brooke Rollins, the USDA secretary, will follow the law while putting farmers first. 'Under President Trump, USDA does not discriminate and single out individual farmers based on race, sex or political orientation. Secretary Rollins is working to reorient the department to be more effective at serving the American people and put farmers first while following the law,' the statement said. Several Democratic congressional leaders are speaking out against the change and demanding the USDA be held accountable. Shontel Brown, an Ohio Democratic representative who is a vice-ranking member on the House committee on agriculture, said this is 'Trump's resegregation agenda'. Brown said the rule isn't about fairness, but stripping the tools to help level the playing field. 'It's no secret that the department has a long history of locking out and leaving behind Black, brown, and Indigenous farmers,' Brown wrote in a statement. 'Now, this administration is taking a deliberate and disgraceful step backward on the path to attempt to right the historic wrongs. The 'socially disadvantaged' designation was a long overdue recognition of the barriers to land, credit and opportunity that farmers of color have faced for generations.' Shomari Figures, a Democratic representative of Alabama who also serves on the House committee on agriculture, said that instead of reversing this rule, the administration should compensate Black farmers impacted by the USDA's past actions. 'It's no secret that Black farmers were economically disadvantaged by the past intentional discrimination by USDA,' Figures said in a statement. 'I believe this administration should take every opportunity to … implement criteria that ensure that Black farmers are not subjected to such treatment in the future.' For Wright, a retired USDA employee who has worked with 10 presidents dating back to the 1960s, the label 'socially disadvantaged' was never a good one because it included too many groups of people. He said Black people haven't benefited from the wording as much as other people. Wright said while he doesn't believe preferential treatment should be given to a person because of race or sex, the government shouldn't deny a person resources for the same reason. 'I don't think I'm socially disadvantaged. I just happen to be Black, and they discriminated against me because I'm Black, and so I think it's time that we straighten it out,' he said. 'There are people who deserve compensation – I wouldn't call it reparations – but they deserve to be compensated for the damages done to them in the past' by state, local and federal governments, he added. Tiffany Bellfield El-Amin, founder of the Kentucky Black Farmers Association, agrees that there needs to be a new definition, because not all Black people fit into the category of being disadvantaged. However, redefining the language of the policy is crucial to ensure that Black farmers, who often receive limited resources, are adequately supported, she said. She pointed out that some Black farmers with larger operations have been able to secure loans, even though they do not face disadvantages or discrimination. Additionally, she said that in some county offices, USDA officials prioritize outreach to white farmers – specifically those they are familiar with – leaving many Black farmers to navigate the system on their own. The most prominent concern for Bellfield El-Amin was the loss of inclusivity. 'That's why we adopt new ways of doing Underground Railroad-type situations. We're gonna figure it out one way or another,' she said. 'We just don't have time to fight with definitions that may or may not help us in the long run, just exhaust us even further … and we still end up here.' The new policy comes in response to two executive orders issued earlier this year by Trump, which terminates any mandates or programs that support DEI. 'We are taking this aggressive, unprecedented action to eliminate discrimination in any form at USDA,' Brooke Rollins, secretary of agriculture, said in a news release. 'It is simply wrong and contrary to the fundamental principle that all persons should be treated equally.' There's also been ongoing pressure from white farmers who have demanded the administration address what they describe as reverse discrimination. Just last month, a conservative law firm sued the Trump administration on behalf of Adam Faust, a white dairy farmer from Wisconsin. Faust alleges that he has experienced discrimination in three USDA programs – Dairy Margin Coverage Program, Loan Guarantee Program, and Environmental Quality Incentives Program. He claims the programs favor women and farmers of color, offering reduced administrative fees, higher loan guarantees, and more money for conservation efforts. In 2021, the farmer successfully sued Joe Biden's administration over similar claims. Faust, along with a group of white midwestern farmers, argued that a $4bn loan forgiveness program that would have helped farmers of color was unconstitutional because it discriminated against them. This suit was filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, the same firm representing him in the current case. Meanwhile, Black farmers are still suing for their due. Earlier this year, the Memphis, Tennessee-based Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association brought a case to the sixth US circuit court of appeals, alleging they were ineligible to apply for the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program. The program provided assistance to 43,000 farmers – of all racial backgrounds – who experienced discrimination prior to 2021. Raphael Warnock, a Democratic senator from Georgia who serves on the Senate agriculture committee, said that he pledges his support to help Black farmers receive equitable resources. 'Instead of working to create more certainty for our nation's farmers and adopting a stable trade agenda, this administration is focused on divisive publicity stunts that will hurt our agriculture industry long-term,' Warnock said. Given the current political climate, Wright isn't sure if he should see the glass as half empty or half full, but he remains pessimistic about this administration. However, he says this is an opportunity to get some things straightened out and implement a new definition. 'In some cases, they started to broaden the social disadvantage to include the historically underserved, and if you add it up, it was about 80% of the population,' Wright said. He added: 'We're going to have plenty of time to work on [a new definition]. You're not going to be able to get anything passed [unless] we get a different Congress and president, and you're really talking about the next administration at best. By then, we ought to be able to straighten it out.'
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Meet the Man Who Created the Juneteenth Flag
This story was part of a special Juneteenth project originally published in 2022 with Vox that explored the ongoing struggle for freedom for Black Americans. As the Juneteenth holiday approaches, you'll start to see various symbols of Blackness across the country. Front lawns, apartment balconies, and clothing with the pan-African flag, 'Black Power' fist, and other celebratory symbols will be everywhere. But did you know there's a specific flag for Juneteenth? In fact, it has a backstory that goes back to the late 1990s. Capital B spoke with Ben Haith, the flag's creator, and others to learn more about its history and impact. Haith, a community organizer and activist known better as 'Boston Ben,' created the flag in 1997. In an interview with Capital B Atlanta, Haith said once he learned about Juneteenth, he felt passionately it needed representation. 'I was just doing what God told me,' Haith said. 'I have somewhat of a marketing background, and I thought Juneteenth, what it represented, needed to have a symbol.' Haith wasn't impressed with the initial concept, but every Juneteenth holiday he would raise the flag near his son's middle school in Roxbury, a majority Black community in Boston. After getting his inspiration for the flag, he knew which colors and symbols he wanted in the flag — he just needed to finalize it. That's when he met illustrator Lisa Jeanne-Graf, who responded to an ad in a local newspaper and finalized the flag in 2000. Juneteenth is often associated with red, green, and black: the colors of the pan-African flag. However, those aren't the colors of the Juneteenth flag. The banner shares the colors of the American flag: red, white, and blue. In the past, Haith has said it was a purposeful choice — a reminder that Black Americans descended from slaves are exactly that: American. 'For so long, our ancestors weren't considered citizens of this country,' Haith said. 'But realistically, and technically, they were citizens. They just were deprived of being recognized as citizens. So I thought it was important that the colors portray red, white, and blue, which we see in the American flag.' Steven Williams, the president of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation, agreed with the sentiment. 'We're Americans of African descent,' Williams said. '[The National Juneteenth Observance Foundation's] mission statement is to bring all Americans together to join our common bond of freedom.' There's been some debate about whether the Juneteenth flag is the most appropriate symbol for the holiday. Haith said he understood why people could have some hesitancy around commemorating the freedom of slaves by using a red, white, and blue flag, which some see as a tribute to the oppressors of Black Americans. 'Some of us were raised to recognize the American flag, we salute the American flag, we pledged allegiance to the American flag,' Haith said when asked of the skepticism around the flag he created. 'We had relatives who went to war to fight for this country. We put a lot into this country, even when our ancestors were enslaved. They worked to help make this country an economic power in the world.' The star in the middle of the flag has a dual meaning. On June 19, 1865, Black slaves in Galveston, Texas, were informed of the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln's declaration of the freedom of enslaved people. The star on the Juneteenth flag is meant to represent Texas as the Lone Star state, but also the freedom of enslaved citizens. Williams also spoke of the use of stars in helping slaves escape to freedom. 'When people were escaping down the Underground Railroad … they used stars to navigate where they were at, when they were going up and down,' he said. With its dual meaning, it's meant to represent the role that Texas plays in the history of Juneteenth, but also as another reminder that Black people are free. The outline was inspired by a nova, which is an explosion in space that creates the appearance of a new star. In this instance, it represents both slaves being free and a new beginning for Black Americans, Haith said. The bottom half of the flag is red and shaped in an arch, which has similar meaning to the white outline around the star. The curve is meant to represent a 'new horizon.' Williams hopes the design reminds people to keep in mind that new beginnings take effort. 'I tell young people, 'You are free,'' he said. 'You might have obstacles, you might have hurdles, but you are free. … And you need to exercise that freedom, which is liberty.' Juneteenth is now a federal holiday, nearly 200 years after slaves in Texas were informed of their freedom. The change, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2021, came at the behest of demands for racial progress following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Cities across the country were forced to reckon with calls to remove and rename monuments and institutions honoring Confederate leaders of the past. In Richmond, Virginia, a capital of the former Confederacy, monuments of Confederate generals that were centuries old were dismantled after protester demands across the country. In metro Atlanta, there is an ongoing debate around the removal of Confederate leaders etched on the side of Stone Mountain. It is said to be the largest monument to the Confederacy in the world. In America, the Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that at least 160 Confederate symbols were dismantled in 2020. Individual states started to recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday prior to Biden's declaration. The first was Texas in 1980, and more states followed suit in 2020. Theo Foster, a professor of African American History at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, noted that symbols celebrating Black pride are important, but they're not enough. 'We tend to just hold on to symbols and let the material go,' he said. 'That's where I'm hypercritical of progress narratives, and flags, and 1619 projects, because we don't get to that point of where the rubber meets the road where the symbols meet the experience of Black boy joy or Black girl magic.' Williams recognizes the flag as a larger part of his organization's decades-long campaign to make Juneteenth a national holiday. The National Juneteenth Observance Foundation has been on the front lines of the fight to have Juneteenth nationally recognized since its founding in 1997. Haith himself is a member. Foster says he sees the Juneteenth flag as an attempt to honor Black Americans' enslaved ancestors. 'Racism exists, anti-Blackness exists. How do we respond to that problem?' he said. 'I think the Juneteenth flag is an attempt to respond to that harm that is ongoing. I think people are right to be critical of it, but also to be in conversation of what's useful about it.' Haith said he's been overwhelmed by the fact that Juneteenth is now a federal holiday, and feels honored when people use the flag. 'I believe we represent our ancestors,' Haith said. 'When we celebrate, we're celebrating for them, and we're celebrating for the future of our people. The flag represents the people of the past, it represents us, and it will represent the people in the future.' The post Meet the Man Who Created the Juneteenth Flag appeared first on Capital B News.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Hospitals Are Drug Testing Mothers Without Consent, Fueling Family Separations
By junior year of high school, Desseray Wright was already a mother and didn't expect to become pregnant again so soon. The Bronx, New York, teen was juggling raising a toddler and dreaming about becoming a lawyer. Sometimes, she would hang out with her friends and occasionally smoked weed. Then one day, despite still getting her period, she found out she was pregnant. She was more than 24 weeks along — too late to consider an abortion. Because Wright smoked weed for several months into her pregnancy, she told a health care provider during a routine prenatal visit. It would be an admission she'd later regret. After giving birth at a Bronx hospital in 1995, she noticed a bag on her baby's scrotum, and demanded answers. Hospital staff told her her son had been drug tested, but didn't explain why. Then a social worker entered her room, questioning her about marijuana use. Within the first hour of her newborn son Trayquan's life, she had lost custody. 'I was honest and truthful with this lady,' recalled Wright, now 47 and a family defense practice policy advocate for the Bronx Defenders. She explained that back then she believed child protective services were only called when there were allegations of abuse. While some policies have changed since Wright's case nearly 30 years ago, health care advocates and legal experts Capital B interviewed said across the country these types of interventions and drug testing without consent still disproportionately target Black and brown mothers. At the center of the disparities, they say, are gaps in federal privacy laws — including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) — which do not require hospitals to inform patients when they are tested for drugs. Civil rights organizations, including those led by justice-impacted Black women like Wright, argue that these covert tests have fueled a long-standing pattern of criminalizing Black and brown women in family courts and separating families under the guise of child protection. These women turned their personal pain into advocacy, calling for legislation to close HIPAA loopholes to prevent other mothers from being swept into both the criminal and family court systems instead of parenthood. There has been legislation introduced in recent years in states like California, New York, and Tennessee — where women have been prosecuted for using drugs while pregnant — to inform expectant mothers that they and their newborn are being tested for drugs. They also have the choice to opt out of those tests. 'Disproportionate drug screening of Black mothers and newborns, without consent, adds to the excessive surveillance of Black families, and leads to an increase in foster care placements,' according to a May 2024 report released by New York State's Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 'Examining the New York Child Welfare System and Its Impact on Black Children and Families.' Last month, the New York state Senate Health Committee passed the Maternal Health, Dignity, and Consent Act on an 11-2 vote. This bill 'is a clear statement that pregnant people do not deserve to be surveilled or criminalized,' Jamila Perritt, who is an OB-GYN and president & CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health, said in a statement after the bill's advancement on May 13. In Wright's case, child protective services required her to attend family court compliance hearings for parenting classes and a drug treatment program — even though, she said, in the 1990s those services weren't designed for adolescents or applicable to marijuana use. After months of juggling two children and long commutes on public transportation from the Bronx to mostly unhelpful referrals across most of the five boroughs, Wright made the difficult decision to drop out of high school to focus on getting her son back. Capital B has reached out to New York's Office of Child and Family Services via email for comment about its policies, but has not heard back as of publication. They did respond on June 10 to say that they do not comment on pending legislation. Advocates and survivors interviewed by Capital B often refer to the combined family, child welfare, and criminal legal systems as 'family-policing systems.' Pregnant people go into labor inside a hospital almost every day. Between contractions, they, or their partner, may be handed a flood of documents. Included may be a form with legal language that could authorize a nurse practitioner or physician to drug test both the birthing person and their newborn, without clear consent or probable cause. 'The hospitals that are participating in this, it's people of color who are more impacted, and at more disproportionate rates,' said Stephanie Jeffcoat, founder of Families Inspiring Reentry & Reunification 4 Everyone. The organization helps impacted parents navigate multiple interlocking systems such as the family and criminal justice systems, and is part of the steering committee working on establishing informed consent in California. Jeffcoat and Wright say the system is broken due to social workers and other professionals with mandated reporting credentials. Jasmine Sankofa, executive director of the nonprofit organization Movement for Family Power, which is dedicated to abolishing the family policing system, agrees with them. 'There really isn't any research that justifies the use of mandated reporting, the use of test and report,' Sankofa said, adding, 'It's bias based. It's not research based.' She added that 'studies have found that even if a pregnant person was using substances while they were pregnant — even if a child is born and is experiencing neonatal abstinence syndrome, for example — the recommended treatment is the approach is called, 'eat, sleep, and console.'' The best health care for a newborn isn't separation, nor is it to test and report their birthing parent to a family-policing system, Sankofa added. In cases where mom or baby test positive, child protective services are contacted. As the parent goes back and forth to court, the baby is first placed in a foster home, and because of the Adoption and Safe Families Act enacted by former President Bill Clinton in 1997, within 15 months 'states must initiate termination of parental rights proceedings, except in specified circumstances.' Despite her specific circumstances, the California child welfare system still took Jeffcoat's daughter, Harmony Faith Chase, from her nine years ago. Jeffcoat survived being raped, and found out she was pregnant too late for an abortion. At the time she was 28, unhoused, and struggled with substance use. She didn't have health insurance, couldn't afford an abortion, and had an estranged relationship with her mother, who had custody of her two older children. One day, she went to a hospital in Orange County for an eye infection. That's when she later learned she was tested for drugs. Jeffcoat's next visit to the hospital was when she delivered her daughter via C-section. The first hour of Harmony's life was interrupted when a social worker took her away from her mom's arms and was placed into the foster care system — never to be in the care of her mother again. 'I remember the feeling that I felt of losing my child,' said Jeffcoat, now 37. In 2023, a bill was introduced in California that would, in part, prohibit medical personnel from performing a drug or alcohol test or screen on a pregnant person or a newborn without prior written and verbal informed consent, and would require the test or screen to be medically necessary to provide care. That bill failed to advance from the state's Senate health committee in March 2023. Jeffcoat is currently studying law to become an attorney in dependency law. 'I feel like my own attorney failed me,' she said. 'I want to really be up in there [court] making sure that parents aren't losing their kids to the system. Especially in the timeframe of the adoption, it should not have been able to take place in six months. It takes longer for people to be sentenced to jail or prison.' Jeffcoat said she lost custody of Harmony in 2017 while incarcerated for 6½ months for a probation violation. Family court proceedings went on without her being present. Once released, she spiraled deeper into her addiction. In 2019, she had a fight with another unhoused person about her bike. After waking up nearby a dumpster, it was the moment she said she decided to turn her life around. She contested the adoption. In 2021, she found the adopting parents. For three years, Jeffcoat said she reached out to them with hopes to create a post-adoption agreement to at least regain visitation rights, to no avail. 'I needed to make sure that I get into a position to ensure that they do not continue to do this to other people,' said Jeffcoat, who launched her nonprofit in 2023. Perritt, the doctor who is also a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society of Family Planning, said people 'universally enter' health care professions 'because they want to change social justice issues, but during the course of medical education and training you are taught to conform to a system that exists already in order to survive it.' The history of the medical field being white and male, increases Perritt's beliefs that health care professionals teaming up with police goes back to the country's Founding Fathers. 'The police, to me, are not simply somebody in a police uniform. It's also the doctors, it's also the nurses, it's also the social workers. It's any and everybody who's a mandatory reporter.' Hospitals and health care providers often set their own drug testing and reporting policies — ones that can conflict with the ethical standards taught in medical training, particularly around informed consent and patient trust. In a notable shift, Mass General Brigham, a major hospital system in Boston, stopped automatically filing child neglect reports solely based on a newborn testing positive for drugs, citing a need to reduce unnecessary family separations. Drug testing shouldn't be considered a family testing system, advocates said. In 1996, after Wright lost custody of Trayquan, who was placed in her father's care, her troubles with the family-policing systems continued when she got pregnant with her third child and second son, Hassan. With an ongoing family court case, the newborn was immediately taken away and placed into a foster home in Brooklyn, New York. Hassan was there for nearly four years. Child protective services continued to return to Wright's life twice: when she went to federal prison for 10 years for a weapons and drug conviction, and survived a domestic violence incident by calling 911. After Wright was released from federal prison in 2013, she earned a criminal justice degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She mourned the loss of her oldest daughter to gun violence in 2018, and in 2021 held on tight to Hassan, now 28, when he survived being shot. 'I graduated at the top of my class,' Wright said. The post Hospitals Are Drug Testing Mothers Without Consent, Fueling Family Separations appeared first on Capital B News.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
PG County Has Long Been a Bastion of Black Wealth. Now It Faces an Uncertain Economic Future.
PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. — As a special education teacher, Ivan Johnson can't stop worrying about what might lie in store for his students. President Donald Trump has long vowed to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Though he says that his administration won't slash funds for students with disabilities, teachers and advocates worry that moving special education to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — which Trump wants to do — might interrupt the resources schools provide to these students to ensure their success in the classroom. 'One of my biggest concerns is: Will my students actually get their needs met?' Johnson, 38, told Capital B, referring to tools such as the individual education program for special education students. 'The Department of Education is on fire,' added Johnson, who moved from Atlanta to Maryland's majority-Black Prince George's County in 2009 and has been a teacher in the Washington, D.C., region for more than 15 years. 'The kids are going to be left behind.' This is just one of many concerns that Prince George's residents say that they'll be thinking about on Election Day on June 3, when they vote for the next county executive after U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland vacated the seat following her Senate victory last November. Early voting began last week. The race comes at a chaotic time for the county. Until around 2022, Prince George's was the wealthiest majority-Black county in the U.S., its affluence propelled by federal employment. But that prosperity is now in doubt, as the community where the median household income is around $100,000 reels from federal cuts. Residents told Capital B that they want a county executive who will fuel stability and also pay attention to other matters, including business development and public safety. These concerns aren't unique to Prince George's and its 947,000 residents, as other wealthy Black counties in the region, including Maryland's Charles County, face similar challenges. But the Prince George's race between Democratic nominee Aisha Braveboy and Republican nominee Jonathan White provides a snapshot of how Black political leaders across the U.S. are trying to address the needs of their communities at a moment rife with uncertainty. The highest-ranking official in Prince George's, the county executive manages the everyday operations of the county government, including delivering important services to residents and businesses and enforcing laws. Whoever wins this role could work alongside other leaders in the state to confront the fierce political headwinds from the Trump administration, as it takes a hammer to everything from education to health care. This volatile environment is gnawing at Talia Cadet in the run-up to the election. She moved to Prince George's in 2017, pulled by the possibility of living in an area where people who look like her are thriving and forging community. A lifestyle content creator who focuses on Black-owned businesses, she worries about the county's economic future. (She was one of the TikTok stars who joined a lawsuit against the U.S. government over the effort to ban the platform.) 'Given the news about [Prince George's losing] Northwest Stadium and Six Flags, my concern is: What will our next county executive do to bring opportunities here for residents? Not having those things will be significant,' Cadet, 35, told Capital B. 'Lots of Black Americans chose to make Prince George's their home because they saw how they could prosper here.' Officials estimate that these losses could cost Prince George's approximately $12 million in annual tax revenue, a small but not inconsequential portion of the county's $5 billion budget. Also being eliminated are the positions of 70 full-time employees and 700 seasonal employees at Six Flags, where young people often work during the summer. Prince George's 2024 unemployment rate was 3.3%, below the national rate of 4.2%. 'Even in a wealthy county like Prince George's, we experience disparities when it comes to opportunities and businesses,' Cadet said, adding that whenever a major retailer shows up in the county, they tend to settle near College Park, where the University of Maryland's main campus is located. 'No shade to UMD, because it's one of the things that makes Prince George's great, but other areas in the county want access to these things.' Residents believe that boosting economic and business opportunities for youth and adults would not only help Prince George's to maintain its status as a preferred destination for Black Americans during a critical period, but it could also address public safety worries. 'Many kids don't have anything to do, and for some of them, that can get them into trouble — crime, carjacking. The whole time I'm just wondering whether there are enough resources in the community for kids,' Johnson said. 'If we had more things — more attractions, more activities, more restaurants, because when I was in high school, I had a job at a restaurant — then I think that we'd have less crime.' While Cadet generally feels safe in Prince George's, she understands the concerns about public safety, specifically as they relate to investment in youth. The amount of crime, she explained, correlates with the level of investment in schools, recreational activities, housing, employment, social services, and more — all the things that people need to live comfortably. According to police, there's been an overall drop in crime in Prince George's over the past several years: Carjackings, for instance, are down by 33%, and robberies have dropped by 13%. But assaults have increased by 8%. 'If we pour money and resources into our communities — commit to helping parents and guardians and educators and administrators and counselors and all those folks who have a big impact on young people — I think that we'll naturally see a decrease in restlessness and certain kinds of behavior,' Cadet said. Both Braveboy and White have been zeroing in on these concerns on the campaign trail. Braveboy, who was born in Washington, D.C., said that the federal cuts are 'real' and 'serious' and that they'll have a deep impact on the county. There are some 65,000 federal workers in Prince George's, accounting for 17.4% of the county's total workforce and making the federal government Maryland's largest employer, according to a study by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. Braveboy said that she's determined to create and sustain wealth in the county. 'One of the ways I can do that is to ensure that our local businesses are actually able to do business with the Prince George's County government,' she told Capital B. 'What I hear too often from residents who do business with the federal government is that when they try to offer similar services to the county government, they can't get a call back — they're shut out. We have to focus on growing our own businesses.' Braveboy has received the enthusiastic backing of Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a fellow Democrat, who gained attention in recent months for signing legislation designed to connect fired federal employees with jobs across the state government. Given her work as the state's attorney since 2019, Braveboy also has highlighted how she wants to increase public safety. 'We've charged and prosecuted a number of gang leaders, people involved in organized crime, and people who commit violent crime and domestic abuse. We have very strong conviction rates in all those categories,' she said. 'But the reality is that the circumstances under which people live sometimes, unfortunately, inform their behavior.' In light of this reality, Braveboy noted that she's incorporated restorative programs in her office that encourage people to make better choices. If she wins the June 3 race, she said she hopes to expand on these kinds of programs. White is in alignment with his opponent on these issues. Born in Kentucky, he moved to Prince George's in 1993, and as a U.S. Air Force Veteran, he takes the gutting of the federal workforce personally. 'To be honest, I'm scared,' he told Capital B. 'If we suddenly lose those federal jobs, people's house payments are still due. We have to figure out how to bring additional businesses here to offset that, especially if we're losing the stadium and Six Flags.' One reason White, who volunteers as a football coach, is running is because a couple of kids he used to train were robbed when they got off the bus one day; their shoes and coats were stolen. He also pointed out where there used to be an Ace Hardware that was held up so many times that the owner, a Black man, closed it. This type of stuff shouldn't be happening, White said, echoing some of Braveboy's comments about how residents ought to feel safe in their own neighborhoods. Prince George's has dozens of community centers, he added, but he doesn't see enough emphasis from political leaders on using these centers to offer services and outreach to kids to keep them out of trouble. Compared with others who run under the Republican Party banner, White shows little loyalty to the GOP. According to local news sources, he was listed as a Republican candidate for the same race in 2022, but that same year, he ran as a Democratic candidate for Prince George's County Council, At-Large. He isn't deterred by the fact that, by his own admission, he hasn't got a 'chance in hell' of winning in the deep-blue county. 'It's about community — about putting people first,' White said. 'I'm not here for the Republican Party. I'm not here for the Democratic Party. I'm here for Prince George's County. I just want it better. We deserve better.' The post PG County Has Long Been a Bastion of Black Wealth. Now It Faces an Uncertain Economic Future. appeared first on Capital B News.
