Raising the Bar with Iman

Vonetta, my lively Georgia resident and dear friend, is back to discuss the midterm elections, and why we couldn't be happier Stacey Abrams is exhibiting much needed #blackgirlmagic.

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On this episode I discuss a few cases on the Court's current docket.

Madison v. Alabama - does the 8th Amendment prevent a state from executing an inmate if the inmate is unable to remember the crime for which he is to be executed;

Gamble v. United States - should the Court overrule the separate sovereign exception of the double jeopardy rule);

Nielsen v. Preap - Whether the government can require that certain people are detained for the duration of their deportation proceedings — without a hearing — because they have past criminal records.

Three cases that dealt with the Armed Career Criminal Act. The ACCA imposes a mandatory minimum 15-year prison sentence on any federal firearms offender who previously has been convicted of three “violent” felonies.

Flowers v. Mississippi - well known case from Mississippi that questions if the Mississippi Supreme Court applied the Batson rule correctly. For more information on this case, please listen to the podcast, In the Dark.

Sources:

http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/10/argument-preview-justices-once-again-consider-proper-scope-of-immigration-laws-mandatory-detention-provision/

http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/09/criminal-cases-in-the-october-2018-term-a-law-professors-dream/

https://www.aclu.org/cases/nielsen-v-preap

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018

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On this episode I bring in my line sister to talk about the midterms, more specifically: why State Attorney Generals are extremely important, why you should think twice about voting for Marsy's Laws (victim rights laws), and why the GA's Governor race is the most embarrassing display of racist politics since... the last election.

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On this episode of Raising the Bar with Iman, I discuss The Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act, federal legislation aimed at providing women in federal prisons with access to hygiene products and increased communication with loved ones. While this legislation is a great start, it wouldn't impact the majority of incarcerated women in state jails and prison.

I discuss the often ignored fact that the incarceration rates for women are increasing in many states while the incarceration rate for men are decreasing. According to the sentencing project, between 1980 and 2014, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 700%, rising from a total of 26,378 in 1980 to 222,061 in 2014.

Women are often an afterthought in the mass incarceration conversation. This needs to end today.

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Sources:

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/incarcerated-women-need-dignity-freedom-more-free-tampons-ncna854631

https://wtop.com/maryland/2018/03/no-tampons-in-prison-metoo-helps-shine-light-on-issue/

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1524/text

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cory-booker-and-elizabeth-warren-want-to-treat-women-in-prison-like-human-beings_us_5964cce5e4b005b0fdc84b00

https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/overlooked-women-and-jails-report/legacy_downloads/overlooked-women-and-jails-fact-sheet.pdf

https://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Incarcerated-Women-and-Girls.pdf

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/women_overtime.html

On this episode of Raising the Bar with Iman, I sit down with Martinis Jackson author of the book, "Justice My Way: Memoirs Of A Black Prosecutor" to discuss the role of Black prosecutors in the criminal justice system. We also discuss the killing of Botham Jean in Dallas and how police are treated differently when accused of a crime.

Please go get Martinis' book! https://www.amazon.com/dp/1719485186/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_6gFHBbK4M8NFW

Follow him on IG: https://www.instagram.com/justicemyway/

Affirmation: https://blavity.com/10-self-affirmations-you-should-tell-yourself-everyday

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Recently, Senators Harris, Booker and Scott (the Black Senators) introduced a bill entitled “Justice for Victims of Lynching Act of 2018.” The bill is the latest installment in this country’s attempt to pass anti-lynching legislation. Despite lynching being “the ultimate expression of racism in the US following reconstruction,” the country has failed to pass anti-lynching legislation for 100 years, that’s right a century.

Lynching changed the fabric of this country. Honestly, I was very naïve before I began researching the topic. Lynching was a threat to all Black people who knew that for any reason or no reason whatsoever you could be killed, and the killers would never be brought to justice. Almost 5,000 people were victims of lynching in the United States between 1882 and 1968, 70% of whom were black.

On this episode, I discuss why it is so difficult to enact a law that would give people harsher crimes for this heinous, violent act. More importantly, what the inability to pass legislation says about our culture. We also uplift the Black women who were at the forefront of the anti-lynching movement.

Sources:

https://qz.com/1322702/the-us-has-tried-to-pass-anti-lynching-laws-240-times-and-failed-every-single-time/

https://www.harris.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ALB18773.pdf

https://www.naacp.org/history-of-lynchings/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/28/opinion/sunday/ida-b-wells-lynching-black-women.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/04/26/fearless-ida-b-wells-honored-by-new-lynching-memorial-for-fighting-racial-terror/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4f4722cf517e

https://qz.com/727602/the-naacps-a-man-was-lynched-yesterday-flag-has-been-reprised-and-hangs-in-new-york-city/

http://theconversation.com/lynching-memorial-shows-women-were-victims-too-95029

This current presidential administration set out to change America’s courts – and, unfortunately, it is succeeding. This episode discusses a recent Presidential executive order and DOJ memo that changes the way Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) are hired and fired in this country. The administration claims the changes are in response to a recent Supreme Court decision, but they aren’t. Lucia doesn’t require the changes (and they know it). The changes are the latest move in their campaign to change America’s courts.

We also dig deeper into the role of ALJs at the Social Security administration since most of the ALJs work in SSA. We discuss how this administration’s changes threaten the impartiality and independence of ALJs and how that is dangerous given the importance of social security benefits to minority populations.

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-otc-dojmemo/in-confidential-memo-to-agency-gcs-doj-signals-aggressive-stand-on-firing-aljs-idUSKBN1KD2BB

https://www.bna.com/supreme-court-leaves-n73014476762/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/do-you-have-a-social-security-card-then-take-this-executive-order-personally/2018/07/18/4d66339c-89d6-11e8-85ae-511bc1146b0b_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3c66ebe866bb

https://takecareblog.com/blog/the-trump-administration-s-newest-target-administrative-law-judges

Instrumental: "Pyro Flow" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

On Episode 2 of Raising the Bar with Iman, I discuss a lawsuit out of Washington, DC. Residents and a grassroots organization are suing the city for discrimination due to gentrification. The plaintiffs allege the District's policy agenda is discriminatory based on age and income, and have a disparate impact on the city’s Black communities.

Gentrification is a national threat to minorities in urban areas who have been living in their neighborhood for decades. As a Harlem native, this episode is extremely personal to me. My dad and stepmom join me to talk about Harlem in the 60s and 70s compared to now.

Links mentioned in this episode:

The complaint can be found here: https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/3c4af2ec-cd10-47a8-844a-0ab0babd0b9b

Right to City Alliance: Right To The City Alliance (RTC) emerged in 2007 as a unified response to gentrification and a call to halt the displacement of low-income people, people of color, marginalized LGBTQ communities, and youths of color from their historic urban neighborhoods. We are a national alliance of racial, economic and environmental justice organizations.

Instrumental: "Pyro Flow" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

In this introductory episode of Raising the Bar with Iman, I discuss a case from the Supreme Court's latest term. In Husted v. A Philip Randolph, the Court ruled the state of Ohio's practice of purging voters from its rolls after failing to vote didn't violate the National Voter Registration Act. I discuss how this flawed opinion ignores the history of voter suppression in this country, and why we should care that this took place in Ohio. Finally, we discuss how we can raise the bar to try to prevent this from happening in other states!