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“Moonlight” Is a Rare and Beautiful New Film About Growing Up Black and Gay

by BrentonJanousek Posted on October 15, 2016

Mother Jones

The forthcoming film Moonlight, out October 21, is at once particular in its perspective and universally relatable. Set in Miami in the late 1980s and ’90s, the film chronicles the coming-of-age of a gay black boy—Chiron (“shy-rone”)—as he struggles with his sexuality, peer pressure, and a drug-addicted single mother. Over the course of the film, he is taken under the wing of a sympathetic local drug kingpin (Mahershala Ali), and he finds, loses, and finally reconnects with his first love, Kevin. The action unfolds in three acts—each one a different stage in the life of Chiron, whose conflicted teenage persona is captured beautifully by Ashton Sanders. Overall, the film is a moving reflection on black masculinity and human vulnerability.

Moonlight—directed by the rising filmmaker Barry Jenkins—was a breakout hit at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and is already the subject of Oscar talk. But that should come as no surprise. It is based on In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, a play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, a former international resident at London’s Royal Shakespeare Company, a 2013 recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship, and winner of numerous other accolades for plays highlighting the diversity of the African American experience. I caught up with McCraney to talk about his own coming of age and why it’s so important to tell stories about queer black identity. Watch the trailer, and then we’ll talk.

Mother Jones: Let’s start by talking about your own childhood and how that informed the play and the movie. Do you relate to Chiron?

Tarell McCraney: Yes. The movie is set in the neighborhood where I grew up. My family still lives there. A lot of what we depicted in the movie is what I saw on a daily basis. The process of growing into your own person is a pretty universal thread. I don’t know if one can write characters you don’t relate to.

MJ: I came out as bisexual in February. Even though I knew I liked boys in middle school, I didn’t apply that term to myself until my junior year in college, two years ago. In part, that had to do with the fact that people would call me gay or feminine, and it was always a word they used to hit me with. I think it was because I had to reject that label growing up that it took me so long to see myself in that space, and begin to identify with the community. So I could also relate to Chiron.

TM: That’s pressing. The film is that story of whether or not you were even allowed space to figure out for yourself.

MJ: How old were you when you knew you were gay, and were you allowed that space at home?

TM: I always knew. And there was no need for me to come out—I was out! Whenever I was bullied, it was understood why. I never hid—it more so made me feel like there was something in me that was not wanted, which is different from hiding. I can’t hide it because everybody can see it. But no is the answer—which is why this work is necessary.

Tarell McCraney

MJ: Would you say it’s harder to come out in the hood than in other places?

TM: It varies by person, the journey of coming out. It’s important for us to note that on all levels, in all parts of society, some people are able to be their full selves regardless. There were gay people in Liberty City when I was a kid. People we knew were gay, whom our parents talked to and talked about. There were people who cross-dressed. There were people who were transgender—I’m talking about the ’80s. That has always been a part of our community. Maybe people didn’t want to tell everybody that was a part of our community. But to say it’s harder to come out in the hood is not true. There’s bias everywhere.

MJ: Let’s talk about the movie. You’ve acted in and written a lot of plays. What was it like to see your work on the big screen?

TM: It was really exciting to see. It’s such a beautiful film. Those performances are earth-shatteringly good. I didn’t know you could find a young actor with that kind of power. The script was actually written in 2004, right before I went to grad school. I’ve always tried to have conversations about the difficulty in becoming one’s full self, and choosing one’s path, and what that means.

MJ: Are there any major plot points where the movie deviates from the play?

TM: There are no huge plot turns. But there are some, because it’s Barry’s movie just as much as it is mine.

MJ: In the first chapter, Chiron is looked out for by this drug dealer. In the hood, the hypermasculine gangster archetype seems like the antithesis of gayness. Rap music will tell you that. Why did this dealer feel compelled to take in this gay kid and make him feel comfortable with himself?

TM: What did you think?

MJ: I assumed he saw a vulnerability in Chiron that he recognized in himself—perhaps from a younger age.

TM: Yup. And he could see that past a perceived homosexuality, a trait they probably didn’t share. He could think back to when he was seven or eight and see himself. It’s important for all people to be able to recognize humanity.

MJ: In another scene, some boys make Kevin (Chiron’s love interest) beat him up in the schoolyard. Afterward, he cries when an administrator tells him that if he were a man he wouldn’t let the other kids pick on him. Why was that so triggering for him?

TM: Because the person he was closest to just punched him in the face and left him there.

MJ: My editor gave me the same answer and said it was obvious, but I didn’t read it that way. When Chiron keeps getting up even though Kevin is telling him to stay down, to me, Chiron is trying to show the boys he can take it like a man, but he’s also sticking it to Kevin—who cared for Chiron but opted to hit him anyway—by making Kevin do it even as Kevin tried to lessen the pain for both of them. He broke down because he felt like he’d failed at both tasks.

TM: So why did that trigger this in you?

MJ: Because my own femininity was ridiculed, and accepting my queerness meant embracing that I didn’t have to act in a conventionally masculine way.

TM: That’s one of the things in society that we don’t do well. We create a binary and try to fit everybody into it. And that’s a kind of insanity for both sides. But look at that moment in the film and see how many variations on the theme there are. You’ve got the personal: The person Chiron most trusts is hurting him the most. You’ve got the political: If I’m a man, I stand up to these people. And there’s the larger unknowable: What actually constitutes me in this moment? All those avenues pour into this section. Which is why it’s important to not just make it into one thing. Chiron cried because it was complicated.

MJ: The last time we see Kevin and Chiron together is the morning after they’ve reconnected for the first time in years. The film leaves a lot hanging. Where would you like audience members to go with this?

TM: I can only guess at what Barry wanted us to do. And I enjoyed that that leaves open possibilities about what happens next. As a storyteller, I enjoy when I’m brought to a place where I can imagine the infinite. It allows me to keep these people with me. I’m always going to be trying to figure out what’s next for them.

MJ: There’s been very little representation of queer black kids on screen. We’ve had Pariah and Tangerine most recently, but not much else. What would you want those kids to take away from the movie?

TC: The more colors we can add to the conversation the better. But kids in general are going through this. This representation is solidly for queer black kids to be able to see themselves. But I think it’s important for people to see how they’re intertwined in all of our lives. I was describing the community I came up in. It would be harmful for me to pretend that there were no gay people around. They were there. And their lives are important to be told. The transgender sex worker two doors down—her life is important. And not having it in the collective memory is dangerous. Because if we don’t remember that that’s a part of who we are, then there’s going to be somebody thinking that there’s nobody else out there like them.

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“Moonlight” Is a Rare and Beautiful New Film About Growing Up Black and Gay

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In New Jersey, Black and Hispanic Teens Are Far More Likely to Be Tried as Adults

by JeseniaVerran99 Posted on October 12, 2016

Mother Jones

Black and Hispanic minors in New Jersey are far more likely to be prosecuted as adults than those in other groups, according to a new analysis of court records by WNYC. The consequence? Far more black and Hispanic youths are given adult sentences or, in some cases, sent to adult prisons.

All states have some kind of measure that allows for teens to be tried or sentenced as adults. A prosecutor only needs to make a request and have it approved by the judge. If tried and found guilty in adult court, minors receive adult sentences, which are longer than juvenile sentences and give them permanent, public records, unlike juvenile records that are usually sealed.

Of course, not all the minors were found guilty and not all of them were sent to prison, but the numbers provide a powerful look into New Jersey’s racial disparities in sentencing. WNYC analyzed five years of New Jersey state court records and found that 87.6 percent of prosecutors’ requests were for black and Hispanic kids, some as young as 14. In some counties, judges were twice as likely to approve those requests for black and Hispanic kids than they were for white juveniles, and black youths were tried as adults more than any others.

WNYC

WNYC

The data fits into larger trends: Nationwide, kids of color are disproportionately represented among those transferred into the adult sentencing system, and African Americans represent 62 percent of minors prosecuted as adults, according to a 2008 study by the Campaign for Youth Justice. They’re also nine times more likely to receive an adult sentence than white kids.

Here are some other findings from the WNYC report:

At least 152 inmates are still in prison today for crimes they committed as kids in the past five years. 93 percent of them are black or Latino. The most common crime they committed was robbery. 20 percent of them have sentences of 10 or more years. 2 are female inmates.

For more on the story, head to WNYC and its series on kids in prison.

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In New Jersey, Black and Hispanic Teens Are Far More Likely to Be Tried as Adults

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The One Way Tuesday’s Debate Might Actually Be Interesting

by StevenKRGV Posted on October 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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Did you hear? The vice presidential debate is going to be a total snoozer. “Bland-to-bland combat,” says the Washington Post‘s Karen Tumulty. “The Thrilla in Vanilla,” says the Daily Beast. Neither Mike Pence nor Tim Kaine has ever gone on national TV to call a former Miss Universe fat, nor have they ever suggested at a campaign event that their opponent might get shot. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, have they encouraged their supporters to “check out sex tape” at 3 a.m. They are both middle-aged white men with law degrees who were raised Catholic, had three kids, and served in both Congress and as governors of large (but not unreasonably large) states. You can barely tell them apart:

Pence, notwithstanding his sweater vests and trips to Chili’s, is not just a jar of mayonnaise. As my colleague Hannah Levintova explained, he has a well-earned reputation as one of the most conservative governors in America, one whose one term has been defined by high-profile fights on abortion, gay rights, and a legal battle over refugee resettlement. Pence would be an exceptional figure in a normal year.

But the vice presidential debate isn’t really about the vice presidential candidates. If Pence says anything memorable on Tuesday night, it will most likely be on the subject he has the most trouble talking about: the positions and statements of his running mate, Donald Trump.

It has been an awkward relationship from the start. When he picked the Indiana governor as his running mate, Trump frantically tried to backtrack hours later, then held a press conference the next day announcing the selection that was mostly about himself, and finally did a joint interview on 60 Minutes in which Pence barely spoke. At other joint appearances, Pence has had to politely keep quiet as Trump trashes the trade deals Pence enthusiastically supported and rails against the war in Iraq that both of them backed.

Pence, a social conservative stalwart who launched his political career by condemning negative campaigning, has been put on perpetual cleanup duty in the service of a nominee who accused Hillary Clinton of cheating on her husband. He has had to endorse a Muslim ban he once called “offensive and unconstitutional.” When Trump got into a public feud with the parents of a Muslim soldier who was killed in Iraq, it fell to Pence to run interference. When Pence was asked about Trump’s claim that 95 percent of African Americans would support the Republican ticket, he could only muster a weak laugh.

Throughout the campaign Pence has struggled to defend his running mate with a straight face; on Tuesday, he’ll have to do it for 90 minutes.

An example of how things could go wrong for Pence came during Monday’s US Senate debate in New Hampshire, where Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte—who has said she is voting for Trump—was asked if she considered the presidential nominee a role model for children. There may be no good answer for someone in her position; no one would have taken her seriously if she reflexively said “yes,” but she would never hear the end of it if she said her choice for president was not. Ayotte fumbled awkwardly with the question before eventually saying, “absolutely.” Watch this and try not to wince:

It was 40 seconds of video she’ll have a hard time living down, and she seemed to recognize it. Almost immediately after the debate was over, Ayotte put out a new statement revising her answer: She “misspoke” during the debate, and believed that neither nominee was a good role model for children. Ayotte, at least, could fall back on a critique of both candidates. Pence won’t be so lucky.

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The One Way Tuesday’s Debate Might Actually Be Interesting

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This Newspaper Just Endorsed Its First Democrat for President in Almost a Century, Because Trump

by CarinEWPBavsc Posted on September 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Friday, the Cincinnati Enquirer endorsed Hillary Clinton, the first Democrat for president the paper has endorsed in almost 100 years.

“The Enquirer has supported Republicans for president for almost a century—a tradition this editorial board doesn’t take lightly,” the editorial board wrote. “But this is not a traditional race, and these are not traditional times. Our country needs calm, thoughtful leadership to deal with the challenges we face at home and abroad. We need a leader who will bring out the best in all Americans, not the worst.”

With this unexpected endorsement, the Enquirer joins several other newspapers who, due to fears of a Trump presidency, have bucked years of tradition and chosen not to endorse the GOP nominee: Earlier this month, the Dallas Morning News endorsed Clinton, the first Democratic nominee for president they’ve endorsed in 75 years. The New Hampshire Union Leader endorsed libertarian Gary Johnson, after endorsing Republican candidates for a century.

The Enquirer’s editorial outlines Hillary Clinton’s “proven track record of governing,” including her work fighting for women’s rights, children’s health coverage, LGBT equality, and to secure care for 9/11 first responders.

Of Trump, the editorial board points out that he has no history of governance—and rather than acknowledging his novice status, he purports to know more than the experts:

Trump is a clear and present danger to our country. He has no history of governance that should engender any confidence from voters. Trump has no foreign policy experience, and the fact that he doesn’t recognize it—instead insisting that, “I know more about ISIS than the generals do”—is even more troubling. His wild threats to blow Iranian ships out of the water if they make rude gestures at U.S. ships is just the type of reckless, cowboy diplomacy Americans should fear from a Trump presidency.

The editorial board acknowledges their reservations about Clinton, including her lack of transparency, and it makes clear that any reservations they have about Clinton “pale in comparison to our fears about Trump.” The board goes on to outline a host of other concerns about Trump: his insults about women, his offensive comments about Latino and African-American communities, his support of dictatorial leaders like Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein, his endorsements from white supremacist groups, and much more.

“Of late, Trump has toned down his divisive rhetoric, sticking to carefully constructed scripts and teleprompters,” the Enquirer notes. “But going two weeks without saying something misogynistic, racist or xenophobic is hardly a qualification for the most important job in the world. Why should anyone believe that a Trump presidency would look markedly different from his offensive, erratic, stance-shifting presidential campaign?”

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This Newspaper Just Endorsed Its First Democrat for President in Almost a Century, Because Trump

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Trump Ohio Deputy’s Racial Remarks Reveal a Hidden Reason for His Rust Belt Success

by AlvaroUnp7246036 Posted on September 23, 2016

Mother Jones

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People across America reacted with shock Thursday to a video of racially charged comments by Donald Trump’s campaign chairwoman for Ohio’s Mahoning County, who denied that racism existed there before Barack Obama became president—remarks that quickly led her to resign. But one group was probably less surprised to hear this kind of racially divisive language: the black residents of Mahoning County.

Mahoning County, in the heart of the Rust Belt, has received outsize attention this year for the exodus of once-loyal blue-collar Democratic voters into the Trump camp. The overwhelming focus of this attention has been economic: In this poster child of industrial decline, the prevailing narrative goes, residents opposed to free trade have flocked to Trump and his promise to restore the Rust Belt to better times. But the comments by Kathy Miller, Trump’s Mahoning chairwoman, reveal a different story that African American residents have been telling all along—one of political shifts driven by issues of race and racism.

“I don’t think there was any racism until Obama got elected,” Miller, a real estate agent, told the Guardian recently a video-taped interview posted Thursday. “Now, you know, with the people with the guns and shooting up neighborhoods and not being responsible citizens, that’s a big change, and I think that’s the philosophy that Obama has perpetuated on America.”

Miller continued, to the wide-eyed astonishment of the reporter, “And if you’re black and you haven’t been successful in the last 50 years, it’s your own fault. You’ve had every opportunity, it was given to you.”

Mahoning County is ground zero for Trump’s rise. It’s the home of Youngstown, famous for its decline from a booming steel town in the first half of the 20th century to a downtrodden playground for the mob in the second half. Now Youngstown is a struggling, down-and-out city where signs of rehabilitation are dwarfed by the lingering effects of the economic collapse and the poverty of many of the city’s black residents. Following white flight to the suburbs, Youngstown is nearly half black. Thanks to the strong influence of labor unions, for decades the region has been a Democratic stronghold. But in the Ohio Republican primary in March, Trump won the region handily, with the help of many Democratic voters who switched parties to support Trump.

I visited Youngstown in June. Most of the people I spoke with traced Trump’s appeal to the economy and particularly to the issue of trade. Union officials worried that if Hillary Clinton didn’t match Trump’s zeal in opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, she would lose Democratic votes in the region, and with them the state of Ohio. And that is essentially the story I wrote.

But a few people voiced a different view of Trump’s appeal in Youngstown. For them, Miller’s comments reflect what they’ve long said: that Trump’s popularity in Youngstown has a lot to do with race. Unsurprisingly, those people were black.

“I have some other strong personal feelings about this that nobody wants to talk about,” Jaladah Aslam, a former public sector union employee and former local Democratic Party official, told me this summer. “This whole racist rhetoric plays well with some people here.”

Aslam recalled footage she had seen of a clash between supporters and protesters at a Trump rally. “I saw a man screaming at this one guy, ‘Go back to Africa,’ and I’m like, ‘Really? We’re talking like that again?'” she said. “That means that people never gave up that thinking.” When it comes to Youngstown and its environs, Aslam believes nasty rhetoric toward African Americans never went away; it just went out of sight.

Aslam was born and raised in Youngstown. In the late 1990s, she left the city limits and bought a house in the suburb of Austintown Township. Her first summer in the neighborhood, she was in her backyard when she overheard a visitor at her neighbor’s house a few yards over. “I don’t believe this shit,” her neighbor’s friend said. “The nigger has the new pool in the neighborhood.” The incident alerted her to the way some locals think and talk about black people when they don’t think black people are listening: “In their mind, why should somebody of color have anything nice?”

Trump’s rise reminded Aslam of that summer day nearly two decades ago. “It comes back to me in the moment of Trump because it reminds me of that thought process, it reminds me people feel that way,” she said. “And unfortunately, there are a lot of people who feel that way in Youngstown. There are a lot of people who are comfortable with what Trump says about Hispanics and Muslims.”

Aslam’s hunches are borne out by academic research. Last year, a doctoral student at Cleveland State University found that the American metropolitan area where the N-word showed up most frequently as an internet search term was Youngstown. He published his findings in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, noting that research out of Harvard shows that search data “does actually correlate with other measures of racism” and that “the private use of coarse racial terminology is the first stage of prejudice.”

Youngstown might not be an obvious epicenter of American racism, but its history helps explain its racial tensions. There’s academic research demonstrating that support for far-right nationalist political parties in Europe correlates with a perceived loss of power at the hands of immigrants or other ethnic groups—a fact that helps explain Trump’s rise in Youngstown and the dynamic Aslam sensed for years. At 45 percent black and 9 percent Latino, Youngstown is a majority-minority city.

“The Trump phenomenon is basically a middle-class white movement because they feel disenfranchised, they feel like they are losing out,” Rufus Hudson, an African American former Youngstown city council member who serves on the local Democratic Party’s executive committee, told me when I visited. “I think there’s that quiet undertone that after eight years of Barack Obama, there’s people that think, ‘We’re falling behind, we’re not getting our fair share.'” With Miller’s remarks this week, all of a sudden it wasn’t so quiet anymore.

“Growing up in this community, there has always been a racist undertone here,” Hudson said. “I actually didn’t realize that until I moved away. When I moved to Houston, and I lived down there for 10 years and then I come back, and it’s like, wow, I mean, it’s like kind of in your face.” He nodded toward the car he drives, a Lexus. As a black man driving a nice car, he said he had been pulled over 17 times in the area but had never been issued a citation.

By Thursday evening, the Trump campaign had found a new Mahoning County chair, a black state GOP official from Youngstown named Tracey Winbush. Upon joining the campaign, she immediately deleted her entire Twitter history of about 17,000 tweets. Many of them had been critical of Trump. In February, following Trump’s first win of the Republican primary campaign, she tweeted out an article bearing the headline, “A Racist, Sexist Demagogue Just Won The New Hampshire Primary.”

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Trump Ohio Deputy’s Racial Remarks Reveal a Hidden Reason for His Rust Belt Success

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Donald Trump Can’t Stop Lying About His Birther Past

by Lashawnda33V Posted on September 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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When Donald Trump tried to pin the birther movement on Hillary Clinton during his Friday announcement, the media jumped in to factcheck, pointing out that he was rewriting history. Late Friday afternoon, the Trump campaign sent a press release to reporters in an attempt to back up its claims—but instead it only contradicted the GOP candidate’s entire argument.

Trump’s “evidence” was laughably lackluster. The campaign pointed to a Friday CNN interview with Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, in which she said when a low-level volunteer coordinator with the campaign sent an email advancing the birther conspiracy, the Clinton campaign immediately fired the person. Solis Doyle couldn’t even recall if the person, a volunteer-coordinator, was a paid staffer or a volunteer.

So basically, Clinton fired someone who spread the birther conspiracy, therefore, in Trump’s mind, it’s all Hillary’s fault. Meanwhile, Trump himself spent years claiming the first African-American president was illegitimate and Obama was lying about his place of birth. And once Obama did release his long–form birth certificate in 2011, it still didn’t satisfy Trump. He spent the subsequent years calling it a fake—making vague suggestions that Obama might have even killed elected officials to hide a cover up. “A lot of people don’t agree with that birth certificate,” Trump said in 2012. “A lot of people do not think it’s authentic.”

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Donald Trump Can’t Stop Lying About His Birther Past

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When the Food in Silicon Valley Isn’t Spicy Enough

by DominikSommers Posted on September 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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Listen to this story on Bite, Mother Jones’ new food politics podcast. You can access all our episodes here, or subscribe in iTunes, Stitcher, or via RSS.

In the back of an industrial park in Silicon Valley, Dewi Sutanto stands over a simmering pot of red and bright orange sauce. It’s over 80 degrees in the kitchen, and stacked food containers line the counter. Sutanto has filled about half of the day’s orders, mostly with beef rendang, a clove and cardamom-infused slow-cooked meat. She wipes her hands on her apron before lifting the lid off a steaming pot of white rice.

Sutanto, originally from an island near Sumatra, Indonesia, lives in Milpitas, California. When she moved to the United States 40 years ago, she brought her family’s recipes cooked for friends. Word of her food spread quickly among the Indonesian community, and Sutanto started a small catering business. But now, instead of relying on word-of-mouth to connect with customers, she’s using an app.

Nasi padang is a staple of Sumatra, a dish of steamed rice and miniature bites of fish, vegetables, and spicy meat. Photo courtesy TaroBites.com

Taro, named after the root vegetable commonly used in African and South Asian food, allows users to order straight from cooks who specialize in cuisine from regions around the world. About 50 chefs offer menus that range from Moroccan and West Indian, to Sumatran and Chinese fusion. Silicon Valley is in many ways the perfect place for these chefs to find loyal customers: Busy tech workers, often immigrants, don’t have time to cook but often yearn for the authentic tastes of home. Out of Sutanto’s estimated 300 customers, 250 are from Indonesia.

Krisha Mehra co-founded Taro earlier this year. He said after watching his aunt try to juggle orders for her Indian food via text message, he wanted to make the process easier—for her and her customers. She never wanted to open her own eatery, Mehra said; she just enjoyed making home-cooked Indian food.

“If somebody really cooks well, opening a restaurant is one of the worst things they can do for themselves,” Mehra said, citing high start-up costs and long hours. “A lot of the chefs are stay-at-home moms or people who have a family…they’re adventurous enough to try a business out once a week.”

Now that more people are finding Sutanto through the app, she admits there have been a few changes to her traditional menu, especially when she cooks for non-Indonesians: “Everyone says that my food is too spicy,” she says with a laugh.

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When the Food in Silicon Valley Isn’t Spicy Enough

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This Is the Most Heartbreaking News About Animals You’ll Read Today

by Jill Tsai Posted on September 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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Africa’s iconic savanna elephants are disappearing—and poaching is to blame. That’s the takeaway of the Great Elephant Census, an elephant count conducted by researchers from an array of conservation and zoological groups in Africa.

Between 2007 and 2014, Africa’s elephant population dwindled by 30 percent, down to a grand total of just over 352,000 elephants. According to the World Wildlife Fund, there were as many as 3-5 million elephants in the early twentieth century.

Over the past 5-10 years, because of mounting demand for ivory, largely in China, elephant poaching has increased dramatically, especially in eastern and western Africa.

Some of the highest carcass ratios—a metric that compares PDF the number of dead elephants to the total number of live and dead elephants in a given area—were found in Cameroon, Mozambique, Tanzania and Angola, which had not been surveyed before.

Other reasons linked to the decline are human-elephant conflict, habitat loss and fragmentation, and the isolation of populations.

The report raises concerns about how the animals are protected. “The clear implication is that many reserves are failing to adequately shield elephants from poaching and human-elephant conflict,” said the study.

While these revelations may bring more attention to poaching and other issues affecting savanna elephants, the problems will likely persist. Poachers are paid handsomely—as much as $1,500 per pound of ivory on the black market—and they don’t serve much time in jail.

“If we can’t save the African elephant, what is the hope of conserving the rest of Africa’s wildlife?” said Mike Chase, GEC principal investigator, in a statement.

A few breathtaking photos of these disappearing majestic creatures:

Imago via ZUMA Press

Imago via ZUMA Press

Imago via ZUMA Press

Imago via ZUMA Press

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This Is the Most Heartbreaking News About Animals You’ll Read Today

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The Supreme Court Just Blocked North Carolina’s Sweeping Voting Restrictions

by MarianMessina Posted on August 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Supreme Court turned down North Carolina’s request on Wednesday to implement a restrictive voting law that a lower federal court blocked last month. The law would have imposed strict ID requirements, shortened early voting periods, and eliminated same-day voter registration, among other barriers to voting. Critics had said the 2013 law was racially discriminatory, and the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals last month agreed, observing that the state legislature had targeted voting restrictions at African Americans “with almost surgical precision.”

The state waited 17 days after that decision to file an “emergency” request with the Supreme Court for a stay of the ruling, which would have allowed the state to proceed with the November election under the restrictive rules. The eight-member court deadlocked 4-4 on Wednesday on whether to grant that request, falling short of the majority required for a stay of the lower court’s ruling. The February death of Justice Antonin Scalia once again affected the outcome of a highly politicized case, as his vote with the court’s four-member conservative bloc would have allowed North Carolina to proceed with its law.

The North Carolina law was one of the most dramatic and restrictive voting measures enacted in any state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act prohibited discrimination against minorities in voting. The Supreme Court itself paved the way for its passage in 2013 with its decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the section of the Voting Rights Act that required preclearance by the Department of Justice to enact changes affecting minority voting rights in areas with a long history of discrimination. North Carolina was one of those areas, and it initiated its voting law the day after the Shelby County decision came down.

Allison Riggs, a senior attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice who helped argue the case before the appeals court, issued the following statement after the decision:

The Supreme Court acted in the best interest of North Carolina voters, allowing elections this fall to proceed absent the cloud and concern of racially discriminatory voting laws. This decision opens the door for fair and full access to the democratic process for all voters. Hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians will now be able to vote without barriers. The voting booth is the one place where everyone is equal and where we all have the same say.

Read the decision here:

US Supreme Court

Link: 

The Supreme Court Just Blocked North Carolina’s Sweeping Voting Restrictions

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Trump Visit to Black Church Will Feature Protests But No Speech

by RubySlavin Posted on August 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump is hoping that his upcoming appearance at a predominantly black church in Detroit will help him make inroads with black voters. But before Trump mingles with worshipers at Great Faith Ministries on Saturday, he will be welcomed by a protest organized by a black pastor critical of the presidential candidate.

On Monday, the Detroit Free Press reported that Rev. W.J. Rideout III, the leader of All God’s People Church and a community activist, is planning a “March on Donald Trump” protest for Saturday. Rideout told the paper that while he does not oppose Trump’s speaking in Detroit, “I don’t want him to think that he can come in here and get our votes.”

In a recent interview with CNN, Rideout said that Trump’s recent attempts to reach black voters are too little too late after more than a year of comments critical of Muslims, immigrants, and other minorities.

“How can I give him credit for the things that he has said about black African Americans, Latinos, gays, lesbians?” he said. “The things that he has said is not peaceful talk. He’s trying to build walls and we’re trying to build bridges.”

Rideout did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s upcoming appearance at Great Faith Ministries was initially billed as the candidate’s first speech before a black audience, an attempt to counter recent criticism that Trump’s black outreach consisted wholly of talking about black communities in front of white audiences. Earlier this week, Trump’s campaign manager said that the candidate is planning to visit several black churches prior to Election Day.

But on Wednesday, the Free Press reported that Trump actually won’t address the congregation during his time in the church on Saturday. Instead, he will attend a sermon and then sit down for a one-on-one interview with the congregation’s leader, Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, that will be broadcast on the Impact Network, a Christian television cable network owned by the minister. The network, which Jackson claims reaches some 50 million homes, usually broadcasts sermons and other religious programming, but will air the interview with Trump as a network special. The interview will not be open to the media and will not be filmed before an audience.

Jackson says that while Trump will not address the congregation during the service, the candidate’s appearance could lead to informal interactions. “He’ll be here Saturday,” Jackson told the paper. “He’s going to sit in service and have the experience in the black church, and then he and I will be in this office and do an interview for the Impact Network that will be aired later on. Just like any visitor, there will be fellowship at the service, and he can talk to people one-on-one.” Jackson has said that he has also invited Hillary Clinton to appear at the church and sit down for an interview.

Trump’s interview will be filmed on Saturday but won’t air for at least a week.

See original article here:

Trump Visit to Black Church Will Feature Protests But No Speech

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