by Brett Hamil
Brett Hamil is a writer, cartoonist and performer living on the South End of Seattle. He produces the weekly comedy show Joketellers Union and the political comedy talk show The Seattle Process. The Seattle Weekly (RIP) once called him “the city’s premier political comic.”
by Melia LaCour
This article is the first in a series of articles following Persist PAC’s efforts to support Black women running for the Washington State Legislature. We will follow their process and explain the tools used within the campaign process so that anyone can learn how to support candidates running for office.
The poisonous roots of white supremacy are anchored in every system in the United States. Its pernicious shoots thrive on systemic racism, secrecy, and confusion. Among its many destructive goals, white supremacy deftly obscures the path to power for Black people while clearing and paving a road for white people.
One need look no further than the Washington State Legislature as evidence the path has been obstructed for Black candidates. Currently there are only two Black women legislators, both in the House of Representatives. Representatives John Lovick and Jesse Johnson, both Black men, are also in the House of Representatives. There are currently no Black people in the State Senate.
Continue reading Persist PAC: Centering Black Women on the Campaign Path to the Washington State Legislatureby Roble Musse
Buying a home, being paid on time, getting a business loan. We often don’t think about the ways in which access to a bank account determines the course of our lives. Yet there are businesses, mostly operated by-and-for immigrants and communities of color, that are being shut out of the banking sector in a type of financial redlining.
Continue reading OPINION: The Right to Be Banked — Why Some Black and Immigrant Owned Businesses Are Being Redlined and What We Can Do About Itby Cindy Domingo
Amid the current worldwide pandemic, two presidents — over 8,000 miles apart — seem to have been trained from the same leadership course. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s State of the Union address delivered on July 27 was filled with rants against his critics and personal grudges against the media. There was no roadmap laid out to lead the country out of the health, political, and economic crisis facing the Filipino people. Issues of unemployment, poverty, and illness went unmentioned while Duterte focused on his drug war and the death penalty. Sound familiar? Unfortunately, this is a painful reminder of President Donald Trump and his lack of leadership in our nation’s time of crisis.
Both Trump and Duterte initially refused to acknowledge the seriousness of COVID-19, allowing the virus to spread unfettered and leaving governors, mayors, and other local officials to handle the pandemic without the appropriate funding or a unified national strategy. Finally, when the international and domestic pressure became too much to bear and the COVID-19 deaths and illnesses continued to mount, both presidents were forced to act.
Continue reading Dictator and Apprentice: Duterte and Trumpby Sharon Maeda
Cuba is one of many countries that has successfully addressed the COVID-19 coronavirus despite the U.S. embargo that prohibits the sale of ventilators and other medical equipment to Cuba.
Cuba is well known for its medical education and premiere medical school, the Latin American School of Medicine, commonly referred to as ELAM, and for sending medical teams to epidemic and disaster sites around the world. Cuban medical teams were dispatched to early COVID-19 hotspots, including China, Italy, and South Africa.
Continue reading What Cuba Can Teach the U.S. About Confronting the COVID-19 Pandemicby Sarah Stuteville
A month ago, I woke up to a man with a broken jaw and a story about being a secret CIA operative sleeping on my porch. Last week a woman amid a mental-health crisis followed me and my four-year-old to our car screaming. Over the weekend my husband was punched in the head by someone who appeared to be having a psychotic episode. A few nights ago, gunfire echoed through the hot, exhausted streets of my neighborhood.
In all these cases, people desperately needed help, and in none of these cases did I call the police.
Continue reading OPINION: Who You Gonna Call? Not the Cops.by Brett Hamil
Brett Hamil is a writer, cartoonist and performer living on the South End of Seattle. He produces the weekly comedy show Joketellers Union and the political comedy talk show The Seattle Process. The Seattle Weekly (RIP) once called him “the city’s premier political comic.”
by Sharon Maeda
Donnie Chin was one of a kind. In Seattle’s Chinatown International District (CID) he was an icon for decades and for many individuals, he saved their lives when they were faced with sudden health or violent events. Since he was still a teen, he walked the streets of the neighborhood, helping an elderly person who dropped a bag of groceries or fell on the sidewalk. That quickly evolved to administering first aid and alerting police to altercations requiring their presence. Over the years, he built the International District Emergency Center (IDEC) and trained teens and young adults of two generations – many latchkey kids who had no place to go after school. Those youth grew up to be productive members of the community – including one doctor and several other medical professionals. Continue reading Remembering Donnie Chin
by Carmen Rivera
I am the daughter of the first Puerto Rican police officer in the Seattle Police Department (SPD). He was hired when law enforcement organizations began fully implementing affirmative action hiring during the early 1970s, shortly after SPD did away with their height requirement. His police academy class was the first to train alongside women, all three of them. I was raised around Seattle Police officers and do not believe all cops are bad, and as an adjunct professor for the Criminal Justice Department for Seattle University, I know the institution of policing is problematic.
Continue reading OPINION: To Protect and Serve, Defund Policeby Roy Fisher
Question: I’m in an interracial relationship, I’m Black and he’s white. We’ve never explicitly spoken about our racial differences. I wouldn’t say we’ve taken a colorblind approach; I’ve shared many of my experiences as a Black woman, it’s just that we haven’t spent a lot of time talking specifically about race. We’re expecting our first child in a couple of months and with the recent events in our country we’ve realized there are many conversations that we need to have with each other. Any suggestions on where we should start?
Dear reader,
There seem to be a couple of different topics to explore 1) How do my partner and I discuss our racial differences? And 2) How might these differences inform how we parent?
Continue reading Ask a Therapist: As an Interracial Couple Expecting Their First Child, How Do We Begin Having Critical Conversations
