Does the State Party Matter?

Historically, state parties were the centers of partisan and campaign organization. When focus shifted to national contests and advertising, they were forced to reinvent themselves, and many are newly relevant.

By Seth Masket

The Colorado Democratic Caucus on 2008’s Super Tuesday in Denver. (Photo: Steve Dykes/Getty Images)

Scott Gessler, Colorado’s former Republican secretary of state, recently criticized the state’s formal Republican Party in the Denver Post. He wants to know if the state party is relevant anymore:

By nearly every measurement since 2014, the Colorado Republican Party has had no impact on Colorado’s politics….

Republican voter registration is nonexistent. For the first time in decades, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans. Unaffiliated voters outnumber Republicans, too.

The voter turnout operation was absolutely minimal. Over a million dollars in 2014, it dropped to less than a tenth of that for the entire 2016 election.

When was the last time the Republican Party — or the chair of the Republican Party — actually mattered in a public policy debate? Aside [from] some desultory press releases, the state party hasn’t engaged and influenced the outcome of any issue.

The same goes for legislation. The one time last session the party weighed in on an issue — a change to the nomination process in order to forestall two ballot initiatives — legislators roundly ignored it.

Gessler is ostensibly weighing in on the state party’s contest for a new chairperson, but the critique is an important one. And it raises the question of what, exactly, a state party is supposed to do.

Historically, in the United States, the state parties were the centers of partisan and campaign organization. It was within the state parties of the 19th century that most of the important competition for nominations and ideas and most of the campaigning activity occurred. National party organizations barely existed at all for most of that century, and, when they did, it was largely to provide a space for state parties to coordinate their efforts in support of a presidential ticket.

https://psmag.com/the-future-of-redistricting-in-america-dc9557104275

The mid-20th century saw a substantial decline in the fortunes of state parties across the country. Civil service reforms deprived them of many of the patronage jobs they’d previously relied upon for labor, and an increasing focus on television advertising and national presidential campaigns led most of the money in politics to be sent and spent elsewhere.

Yet despite some of Gessler’s accusations, many state parties have grown more capable and relevant in recent decades. As Shannon Jenkins and Doug Roscoe report, state party organizations have become more institutionalized, hired specialized staff, established permanent headquarters, and become more reliable and professional organizations that can recruit, train, and support candidates.

Party organizations have rarely been successful in influencing debates. They’e more effective in molding policy by nominating candidates who support certain beliefs.

But even as the capabilities of state parties have increased, they’ve not necessarily become the loci of political activity they once were. American political parties have evolved over the centuries in a way that makes them unusually decentralized and networked organizations. The formal parties, whether we’re talking about the Republican National Committee or the Colorado Republican Party or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee or anything else, are only parts of larger party networks. They are important parts, to be sure, and they can do things that other parts of the network can’t, but just because they’re not doing something important doesn’t mean it’s not being done.

A decade ago, one of the more significant things the Colorado Democratic Party did was develop an alliance with a group of wealthy liberals known as the Roundtable and help channel their funds in a way that would help Democratic state legislative candidates. The formal party’s own capacity to affect those contests wasn’t great, but it could help coordinate larger efforts by the party network to improve the party’s performance in elections.

https://psmag.com/the-future-of-redistricting-in-america-dc9557104275

That episode highlighted two key tasks that formal parties tend to be good at:

Research
This includes identifying who their voters are and where they live, and figuring out which districts are competitive or could be in the near future and which candidates would be most able to capitalize on that.
Channeling Resources
Parties control some of their own money and some federal party money, but they can also influence, via example and discussion, how other donors contribute. Formal parties are much more likely to assist in competitive races than other types of donors are.

Could the Colorado GOP be doing more? Possibly, but we should hold it to realistic standards. Gessler’s right that Republicans have lost their edge in voter registration in the state. But more Democrats than Republicans have been moving to the state in recent years, and independents have been gaining a share of voter registrants all across the nation, not just in Colorado. And, despite Gessler’s critiques, party organizations themselves have rarely been successful in influencing legislative debates. Usually they are far more effective in molding public policy by nominating candidates who support a certain set of beliefs and opposing the nomination of those who do not.

Yet it’s hard to disagree with Gessler’s main prescription that the party should do just a few things and do them competently:

Avoid things well beyond the party’s capability. Don’t think deep thoughts about policy. Don’t create that army of bloggers who will sit around in their basements and think up snarky Facebook comments. And don’t launch yet another project to develop the mother of all Big Data strategies that will be this year’s silver bullet. Stick to the basics.

Despite recent advancements, most state parties still operate in an environment of very limited resources. Formal parties don’t have to do everything. But they should recognize what they do that other parts of the party network don’t, and they should do those well.

What the House’s New Health-Care Bill Means for Americans With Mental-Health Needs

Some low-income mental-health patients may lose important coverage under the Republican replacement plan to Obamacare.

By Francie Diep

Republicans in the House revealed a replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act last week. It remains to be seen whether the “American Health Care Act” will become the law of the land — after the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that it would leave an additional 24 million Americans uninsured by 2026, it must still pass the House and Senate and get President Donald Trump’s signature. In the meantime, it’s the only tangible replacement to Obamacare that’s on the table. So what would the act mean for Americans with mental-health diagnoses, such as depression and substance use disorders? Below, three major takeaways:

1. Insurance Companies Would Still Have to Cover Treatment for Mental-Health Disorders — but State Medicaid Plans Might Not

In 2015, Obamacare created and implemented what it called the “10 essential health benefits,” which includes mental-health services and addiction treatment. Under the American Health Care Act, all the plans that companies sell in the individual marketplaces must continue to cover these essential benefits.

https://psmag.com/can-mental-health-apps-bring-therapy-to-a-wider-population-d7cae6fadeaf

In 2020, however, the American Health Care Act would allow states to stop covering the 10 essential benefits for people who became insured under Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Those individuals may then have to begin paying for services like addiction treatment or overdose-reversing drugs out of pocket, even if they’re insured.

2. Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion Would Come to a Halt, Which May Disproportionately Affect Those With Addictions to Prescription Painkillers and Heroin

Obamacare made more Americans eligible for Medicaid, so long as their states opted into the expansion. Eleven million adults gained Medicaid coverage this way, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. Under the American Health Care Act, in 2020, Medicaid requirements would become stricter, once again, for new enrollees. In addition, any adult who gained Medicaid under the expanded rules can keep their coverage, but only if they remain insured with no gap lasting longer than one month.

Addiction-care advocates say these rules may hurt many who are getting treated for an opioid use disorder. The five states hardest-hit by opioid overdoses in 2015 — West Virginia, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Ohio, and Rhode Island — all expanded Medicaid. Medicaid pays for 44 percent of buprenorphine-based opioid addiction treatment in Kentucky; 45 percent of it in West Virginia; and 49.5 percent of it in Ohio, the Washington Post reports.

https://psmag.com/can-mental-health-apps-bring-therapy-to-a-wider-population-d7cae6fadeaf

It’s not known exactly how many of those people would lose their Medicaid coverage should the American Health Care Act pass. (Remember, those who benefited from the expansion can keep their coverage, so long as they stay insured.) University economists estimate that almost 1.3 million Americans are getting mental-health, including substance use disorder, treatment through the Medicaid expansion, according to the Post.

3. Insurance Companies Still Wouldn’t Be Able to Discriminate Based on Pre-Existing Conditions, Which Is Good for Those With Mental-Health Diagnoses

The American Health Care Act keeps intact Obamacare’s “pre-existing condition” ban. Before Obamacare, behavioral-health disorders were the second-most common pre-existing condition insurance companies would use to charge people higher premiums or to deny them plans, the Department of Health and Human Services estimates.

https://psmag.com/can-mental-health-apps-bring-therapy-to-a-wider-population-d7cae6fadeaf

The Bottom Line

Under the American Health Care Act, many protections would remain for the estimated 43 million American adults who have some mental-health condition. Among those who have the most to lose may be people who got covered under Medicaid when their states expanded eligibility, namely those who earn a bit more than federal poverty wages.

How ‘Hidden Figures’ Provides a Model for Supporting Diversity in the Sciences

In recent years, the United States has doubled down on its commitment to diversity in STEM. But where would it need to focus?

By Manuela Ekowo

Actress/singer Janelle Monae onstage at a Hidden Figures Q&A discussion at Spelman College on November 17th, 2016, in Atlanta. (Photo: Paras Griffin/Getty Images)

Hidden Figures is the story of three black women — bona fide geniuses in the fields of mathematics, physics, and engineering — who were instrumental in the 1960s-era Space Race. The stories of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson unfolded during a time when few understood — let alone believed — that black women could help put the first American in space, in large part because Jim Crow — and not ability — often stood in the way of black Americans’ quest to make history. Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary’s time at NASA broke racial and gender barriers for black women with a talent for science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM. Hidden from the world for far too long, these women’s stories are hidden no more.

Yet this story lays bare a persevering disparity: The number of black women who study STEM is, still, far from where it should be, a grim reality reflected in the paltry number of black women with advanced degrees in STEM fields. As a result, the United States has, in recent years, doubled down on its commitment to ensure that historically underrepresented students — people like Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary — have the chance to study and succeed in STEM.

Where’s one place to start? On campuses.

Colleges hope that creatively using data — through predictive analytics — will help them pinpoint the potential of every student before it’s too late. In other words, this means finding patterns in a college’s data that can give them an idea of what might occur in the future based on what occurred in the past. The goal is to ramp up the odds of student achievement. Georgia State University, for example, closed the achievement gap for low-income and minority students by using data to identify and support — at the right time — students who may have struggled and failed without it.

https://psmag.com/what-social-science-grants-say-about-women-in-science-9c2d6cb34b8e

Yet as promising as predictive analytics may be, trouble may also lie ahead. A college’s historical data should be used to change the future, not repeat the past. Colleges need to focus on using these tools ethically to avoid disastrous pitfalls, like unintentionally perpetuating bias and inequity. As colleges try to predict students’ potential, it is critical that information about students isn’t used to tie their academic promise to their color, gender, or financial circumstances.

Last week, Iris Palmer and I released “Predictive Analytics in Higher Education: Five Guiding Practices for Ethical Use,” a new framework for helping colleges weigh ethics when using predictive analytics. The framework explores five key areas that can help ensure responsible use of data and algorithms on campus. If adopted, colleges will be well on their way to creating more students like the women portrayed in Hidden Figures. In fact, using predictive analytics ethically can prevent colleges from repeating history, by ensuring that the Katherines, Dorothys, and Marys of the future can be identified and supported.

As colleges continue to make use of data about students and their institution, they should consider these five elements: a clear vision, strong institutional support, sound data use, fair algorithms, and careful interventions. To accomplish these, colleges may have to look no further than the lessons from Hidden Figures.

Hidden Figures illustrates what happened when black women were propelled by a single vision to put the first American in space. However, a lack of a clear plan for how to achieve that vision can heighten the temptation to do anything. A college that has plans for its vision can help decrease the chances that predictive analytics will be used for any (and all) purposes. Lack of direction can not only stall progress, but it can also allow room for more unethical uses to take root, such as supporting barring admission to low-income students.

Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary had the support of close friends, family, and each other to steel them in their demand to be taken seriously as NASA computers (what female mathematicians were called back then). Predictive analytics can only be used ethically if it’s adequately supported by the staff, resources, and tools that an institution has at its disposal.

https://psmag.com/what-social-science-grants-say-about-women-in-science-9c2d6cb34b8e

As mathematicians, physicists, and engineers, the women of Hidden Figures understood the key to launching the first American astronaut in space was numbers — knowing them inside and out. Predictive analytics work in a similar fashion. A college’s staff should intimately know their data and how to use it to solve recruitment and graduation problems specific to their campus.

Katherine worked tirelessly to solve the equation that would make space travel safe. Not just any equation — but only the correct one — would work. Similarly, predictive analytics only function properly with the right models and algorithms. It’s crucial that colleges know and can prove that their models and algorithms are effective, as well as safe (and fair) for every student, not just to some. The equation that helped the first American orbit Earth could be used over and over again, allowing anyone to make the perilous journey safely.

One of the most intense scenes in the film is when astronaut John Glenn orbits the Earth, becoming the first American to do so. For a brief moment during his trip, the team at NASA lost the ability to communicate with him. On edge about what may have happened to John, the team quickly realizes how important it is to stay calm. Likewise, it’s essential that colleges carefully intervene, based on what they learn from predictive analytics, and maintain a positive attitude. At times, an advisor or faculty member may have to have challenging conversations with students about, say, their academic progress. However, a positive outlook should remain at the center of these conversations. It can make all the difference between whether a student decides to press on — or quit.

Hidden Figures is ultimately a story about excellence, breaking down barriers, and triumph. Used ethically, predictive analytics can — and should — be all of those things too.

This story originally appeared in New America’s digital magazine, New America Weekly, a Pacific Standard partner site. Sign up to get New America Weekly delivered to your inbox, and follow @NewAmerica on Twitter.

The Dangerous Delusion of the Big, Scary Black Man

New research shows black men are seen as larger, stronger, and more threatening than similarly built whites.

By Tom Jacobs

When a police officer shoots an unarmed black man, the justifications are usually quite similar: The guy was so large, seemed so strong, appeared so threatening.

Afterwards, when it is revealed that the victim is a young boy, or a man who is slight of stature, such statements seem transparently false. But newly published research suggests that, tragically, they may be an accurate account of the police officer’s perceptions.

In a series of seven studies, it provides the best evidence to date that Americans see black men as larger and stronger than whites of the same size and build. It further finds this misperception contributes to the belief that such men pose a threat, which in turn stimulates support for police use of force against them.

https://psmag.com/racism-in-the-diamond-mine-8bef5d10e1b3

“Americans demonstrated a systematic bias in their perceptions of the physical formidability imposed by black men,” concludes a research team led by psychologist John Paul Wilson of Montclair State University. Their findings are published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

For most of the studies, Wilson and his colleagues used a set of photographs featuring 90 male faces — 45 whites and 45 blacks. They portrayed high school football players who were being recruited by college athletic programs. As such, their height and weight was publicly available.

In one study, 30 non-black Americans recruited online looked at the photos and estimated each young man’s height and weight. They judged the black athletes as both taller and heavier than white ones.

In another, 58 non-black Americans rated the black players are stronger than the white ones. In still another, 168 non-black Americans “judged the black targets as more capable of harm than the white targets.”

https://psmag.com/racism-in-the-diamond-mine-8bef5d10e1b3

Another study featured 60 white and 60 black Americans, and found perceptions varied by race. “Although black and white perceptions perceived black targets as more physically muscular than white targets, the difference was significantly smaller for black participants,” the researchers write.

However, while white participants judged black men as “more capable of harm,” blacks “did not show this same pattern.” In other words, blacks had the same misperception of black men being strong, but they did not see this as a threat.

In another study, 77 non-black Americans were presented with those same faces and judged, for each, “the extent to which it would have been appropriate to use force to subdue him” if he was behaving aggressively.

“Participants rated the use of force against black men as more justified than the use of force among black men,” the researchers report. “People judged black men as larger and more harmful than white men, thus rendering them more suitable recipients of physical force.”

https://psmag.com/racism-in-the-diamond-mine-8bef5d10e1b3

The final two studies found this same bias for people who “looked prototypically black, regardless of their race,” and even for those who had stereotypically black-sounding names. That latter finding confirms the results of a 2015 study that found simply having a name associated with blacks makes people imagine a larger, more dangerous person.

Indeed, this research is the latest in a long line of studies that indicate biased perceptions of blacks. A 2009 study found black male faces are more likely to be seen as threatening, while a 2014 study found black boys are viewed as older and less innocent than whites of the same age. And in a University of Iowa study published last year, participants were more likely to misidentify a toy as a weapon after seeing a black face than a white face — even when the faces were of young children.

This body of research suggests the need for better training of police officers to allow them to recognize their own biases. The process won’t be easy, as ingrained prejudices tend to come to the surface in tense situations requiring split-second decisions. And as this latest study reiterates, racial prejudice remains depressingly pervasive.

Meet the Radical Disabled Americans Fighting the GOP Health Care Bill

I joined a group of ADAPT protestors outside House Speaker Paul Ryan’s offices in Wisconsin. They say they’re not going back to nursing homes without a fight.

By David M. Perry

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan holds up a copy of the American Health Care Act during a news conference on March 7th, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“Up with attendant care, down with nursing homes!”

After days of sun and warmth, the weather in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has returned to its traditional February fog. A few dozen men and women, some in wheelchairs and one with a guide dog, occupy the sidewalk outside Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s constituent services office. Bundled against the cold, they chant in unison as individual protestors wheel up the temporary ramp — likely not compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act — that takes them over the three stairs into a small room containing a single staffer, a desk, some kind of plant in a pot, and a couple of chairs. It’s a pretty typical small-town protest, the type that’s happening all over America, but this one involves more people in wheelchairs — plus a surprisingly detailed chant about “attendant care.” ADAPT, a decentralized disability rights group that has been staging direct actions and winning important battles since the 1980s, has come to Kenosha.

Over the last few months, following the inauguration of President Donald Trump, huge crowds of protesters have taken to the streets, airports, and town halls, seizing their share of media attention. But at Ryan’s little two-room office wedged against the yellow brick exterior of the Oriental Inn, there’s no national media, just a reporter from the local Kenosha paper who ran over from his office, without a coat, and me. I’ve been invited to see how disabled activists are organizing, in small acts of resistance, to fight for their right to live independently.

ADAPT — originally known as Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit — was founded in 1983 as a direct action group focused on getting wheelchair lifts in buses. Their tactics involved civil disobedience, including simply wheeling themselves in front and back of buses, trapping them; sometimes they have risked arrest. When accessible public transportation became part of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990, ADAPT shifted focus, rebranding as Americans Disabled Attendant Programs Today. The organization now advocates for other kinds of resources that enable independent, community-based living.

For these veteran protesters, federal disability policy is literally a matter of freedom versus incarceration, life versus death.

Throughout, direct action has been the group’s hallmark. In 2014, for example, ADAPT rolled into Little Rock, Arkansas, to fight what they characterized as the state’s legislative bias against institutional living. Ironically, the city police didn’t have enough wheelchair-accessible vans to arrest everyone, so the police chief appropriated a school bus instead—complaining all the time about how protest was pointless. Michael Bailey, one of the protesters present that day in Little Rock, told me that he was getting pretty angry and informed the police chief that, without ADAPT, the school bus wouldn’t have a lift in the first place. In 2015, around 60 ADAPT activists were arrested after chaining themselves to the White House fence, fighting to push the Obama administration to do more to combat “institutional bias” against community living.

https://psmag.com/how-disabled-americans-are-fighting-the-gop-health-care-bill-2c0688db77bc

The organization is decentralized. Mark Johnson, one of the founders of ADAPT, explains: “It’s a participatory model. You don’t have a staff, a board, an annual meeting. It’s a network, affiliates, supporters. Locus of control is still based on where the most energy comes from.”

Bruce Darling, one of the organizers behind the energy coming from New York, stresses that he’s not the leader; he merely “organizes the organizers.” Local chapters lead themselves.

Still, Darling says, with the GOP newly ascendent and targeting Medicaid, the focus has changed. “Primarily,” he says, “local work [over the past few years] has been about making restaurants accessible, fighting Uber, the usual fare. But with the shift in Congress, there’s a big push about pushing back against these congressional Republicans locally.”

While ADAPT broadly opposes the Republican assault on the Affordable Care Act, the protesters I met in Wisconsin are specifically concerned about Community First Choice, a component of the ACA that provides extra federal funding to states for moving people out of institutions. ADAPT is also concerned about the reduction of federal funds through the use of Medicaid per capita caps or block grants. Overall reductions could severely damage access to “long-term supports and services” that permit independent living, including personal care attendants. Without these programs, ADAPT fears, it’s back to the nursing home. Darling characterized it as a threat under the Fifth Amendment, because he (and the disability rights movement in general) sees institutions like nursing homes as just another form of incarceration.

An ADAPT protest, especially one where the plan is not to be arrested, is a lot like any other small act of resistance. There’s a lot of waiting around, chanting, and trying to figure out who should go where and do what. We all meet up at the Marina Garden Family Restaurant parking lot that’s just around the corner (so out of sight) from Ryan’s office. Aziza Nassar, a young woman who uses a wheelchair, heads over first to get the staffer to put out the temporary ramp. There’s some expectation that everyone will be able to simply roll or walk into the office, but once we encounter the polite young woman staffing the desk, the plan changes. She proffers forms where we can lodge grievances, and keeps intoning the rule that only one person is allowed inside at a time. It’s a pretty awkward space (and a dangerous ramp) for people in powered wheelchairs to enter or depart. So a few people file in politely while the rest stay outside, filling out forms and chanting.

https://psmag.com/how-disabled-americans-are-fighting-the-gop-health-care-bill-2c0688db77bc

After about an hour in Kenosha, everyone piles back into their vehicles and heads up the Lake Michigan shoreline to Racine, once again parking around the corner out of sight. A local Unitarian Universalist minister joins the gathering, guitar in hand, and his presence at the protest is never fully explained; later, he will ask me what the group was. The Racine office is perfectly accessible, but there’s no polite staffer in sight. Instead, it’s dark and locked, so the ADAPTers chant awhile, before before giving up and heading back around the corner. At that moment, a Ryan staffer gets out of her car and enters the office. I head inside and ask whether she’s been ducking the protest or if the timing was just a coincidence. She refers me to the press secretary (who has not returned requests for comment). Down the block, a Racine police officer keeps an eye on the situation, but nothing gets out of hand. This is a day for polite airing of views, not hardcore civil disobedience. Still, for these veteran protesters, federal disability policy is literally a matter of freedom versus incarceration, life versus death. Disobedience beckons in the near future.

Kevin McPhan, an African-American man with from Chicago wearing a blue ADAPT sweatshirt (the ADAPT logo is a figure in a wheelchair breaking the chains on their wrists), makes it clear to me that he’s not going back to institutional living without a fight. He uses a wheelchair, and tells me all the things he’s learned to do independently, including cooking. “I cook more now than before I got disabled,” while living in the community, he says. It’s all thanks to having people he trusts work with him. McPhan is smiling, but his voice gets more serious as he tells me, “I survived in four nursing homes in one year … one year and four months. I’m doing really good now.” He needs the care to keep making progress. He does not want to go back.

Was the Kenosha and Racine action a “success?” Darling tells me that you can’t judge these small rebellions on whether they flip an elected official’s position. Protests, he says, can strengthen a larger wave of momentum toward policy changes while also securing elected allies—but he adds that it’s equally important “whether folks were pumped up and felt good about it.”

“Because then they’ll come back?” I ask.

He replies that, yes, excitement can mean that you’ll get an individual back at the next action, but there’s something bigger here specific to the disability world. As Darling says: “It helps us combat our own internalized ableism about being broken.” He told me a story about a woman from his local chapter who had been institutionalized as a child and was later arrested for chaining herself to the White House fence in April of 2015. The woman told Darling, “Thank you; what ADAPT did today was help me transform years of oppression and being locked up into something positive.” Darling adds that, when ADAPT acts, everyone sees “people with significant disabilities inserting themselves in the world.” For disabled protestors, being visible in that way can be its own victory.

Back in Kenosha, Gloria Nichols, an elderly white woman in a wheelchair, with a blue coat and hat and a red-and-white blanket across her lap, tells me that she just wants “some sense of civility in this world. And we’re not getting it now.” Another protester calls Nichols a “long-time warrior — she never gives up.” I ask Nichols how long she’s been doing ADAPT actions, and she replies, ruefully, “Too many years.” Things get better, she tells me, and then they get worse. “They vacillate,” she says, but “now it seems we’re being attacked federal and state.” She gives me a thumbs up and lets me take her picture, then gets ready to roll.

Can a Nostalgic Ghostface Killah Concert Send a Radical Message in 2017?

After attending a concert starring the former Wu-Tang Clan member, Pacific Standard staffers discuss Killah’s subtle brand of subversive storytelling.

By Elena Gooray, Jack Denton, Carson Leigh Brown & Varun Nayar

Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan performs during the 2015 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive Festival on March 20th, 2015, in Austin, Texas. (Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

After writing on work and pay inequality and compiling a striking photo essay to honor A Day Without a Woman, Pacific Standard staffers did the obvious: attended a Ghostface Killah concert in Santa Barbara, California. That’s a town that is 75 percent white and whose newspaper was the first in America to have endorsed Donald Trump.

Killah, a member of the legendary East Coast rap collective the Wu-Tang Clan that last released an album in 2014, isn’t as politically outspoken as Killer Mike or Chance the Rapper. Nevertheless, he has voiced strong beliefs about poverty and police brutality in interviews: In 2013, he said that he wants to speak for “the have-nots” in his music, and the next year he called for Daniel Pantaleo, a defendant in the Eric Garner chokehold case, to go to jail. Killah, known offstage as Dennis Coles, rarely jumps straight into politics, though in February of 2016 he did tell Fox Business that he was considering voting for Hillary Clinton.

At Wednesday’s concert, Killah re-played songs from Wu-Tang’s 1993 album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Killah’s 2000 solo album Supreme Clientele to a crowd of around 400 at Santa Barbara’s SOhO club. After, four staffers convened to discuss gender in rap, Ghostface’s approach to black storytelling, and whether performing old favorites undermines Killah’s understated message.

Elena Gooray: So gang, how was spending “A Day Without a Woman” watching the great ’90s East Coast rapper Ghostface Killah perform in a small California town?

Jack Denton: I can’t speak authoritatively to the romantic preferences of most of the night’s attendees, but the room definitely gave off a vibe that was heavy on the traditionally masculine. It wasn’t hard to imagine a similar crowd turning out for a Rage Against the Machine show or a Fight Club screening.

Carson Brown: On the way to the women’s bathroom, I walked past a rambling line of men that extended out into the hallway. I definitely felt like the object of observation. The crowd was also older than us: We’re all four years or less out of college, and the some of the dudes there had us by a decade or two.

Varun Nayar: I noticed that too. I wonder who genuinely feels a connection to acts from the ’80s and ’90s even though their messages sometimes feel outdated. I mean, the very fact that Ghostface, at 46, is still packing clubs means there’s an enduring appeal.

Brown: I’d also note that the concert had the highest number of black men I’ve seen in one spot since moving to Santa Barbara, not counting the men on stage.

Denton: Great points here. But Wu-Tang’s ability to appeal to white fans obviously played a significant role in their initial and sustained commercial success — just think of all the white guys in the crowd who knew all the lyrics to songs from Ironman.

I’m also interested in what you mean by their messages sometimes feeling outdated. I see a direct lineage from Ghostface — with his tortured and sometimes cartoonish street storytelling — to rappers today like Ka and Freddie Gibbs who are getting a lot of love, at least from critics and committed cult followings.

Nayar: I agree. I think something that brought that out for me was when Ghostface clearly gestured at a distinction between “the old shit” and the “the new shit,” when he talked about how his style as a product of the “cloth he’s cut from,” paying homage to Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac in between the opening songs.

Gooray: I got the sense — from how many audience members around us were precisely rapping along to lyrics — that most of these fans were long-timers. Which made for a great show in terms of participation, but one that’s inherently nostalgic, rather than forward-looking.

Nayar: I wonder to what degree Ghostface’s fans feel connected to this lineage and see the whole old-new dichotomy as a choice you make. This is especially interesting when we think about all the new female hip-hop acts (Princess Nokia, Young M.A.) who would potentially also be selling out clubs like the one we were at Wednesday night.

Gooray: That whole tone struck me as an accidental contrast with the day on which the concert happened to fall — with women striking nationwide for political and economic justice and also continuing the sense of resistance launched with the Women’s March following Donald Trump’s inauguration. We’re in a moment where American political resistance is being led very visibly by women, even branded as such. So it was just funny to be in a room channeling this sense of, we’re a bunch of dudes who want to mess shit up. It felt like the late ’90s — old-fashioned — not just in terms of the music, but also for being so male.

Denton: Sorry about that, Elena, but when we saw the Mars symbol projected in the sky, we had to answer the call!

Gooray: And Wu-Tang’s style of politics in general is less overt than that of, say, A Tribe Called Quest, who chanted “Resist!” in their Grammy performance this year and were joined by Busta Rhymes, who referred to President Donald Trump as “President Agent Orange.”

Brown: I think there’s power in that less obvious style, so it’s a point in and of itself. Black life is inherently politicized and the act of simply existing, of telling our stories, is a political act. It requires staking a claim in the political realm.

Gooray: Yeah, it’s very Wu-Tang that buried in the hustle-to-make-it narrative of “C.R.E.A.M.,” one of their most famous singles — which Ghostface performed — is a line about trying to “kick the truth to black youth,” pointing to how seriously they take their storytelling. Though maybe it’s even more Wu-Tang for the MC to then complain that those darn kids just won’t listen.

Scenes From the Native Nations Rise March in D.C.

Marchers gathered today in Washington, D.C., to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Trump administration.

By Carson Leigh Brown

Thousands of First Nations members and allies took the streets of Washington, D.C., today to protest the Trump administration’s policy reversal on the Dakota Access Pipeline. The protest was the last of four days of activity, which also saw the activists set up teepees under the Washington Monument earlier this week. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe lead today’s march, carrying on modes of resistance from the protest camps in North Dakota.

The Sioux tribe started protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2014 after the plans became public, but the project gained national attention when calls on social media drew networks of protestors from across the country to occupy a camp on the proposed construction site, blocking construction of the nearly 2,000-mile pipeline. Protesters set up life at an elaborate camp there for months, with even a small school to teach indigenous history, culture, and language. The Facebook page says the volunteer run-school supports “parents choosing to homeschool their children in Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Camp.” The name translates to “Seven Council Fires,” referencing the tribes that comprise the Sioux Nation.

https://psmag.com/inside-the-battle-over-the-dakota-access-pipeline-2509fa77f23e

September marked a major victory for the #noDAPL crowd, when Barack Obama paused construction. Now, after an executive order from President Donald Trump, construction is on its way again, and the Sioux nation and its allies have picked up action in D.C. to protest the pipeline, which they say will detrimentally disrupt sacred land and threaten their water supply.

Protesters oppose the construction of the proposed 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipeline that runs within a half-mile of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

An activist adjusts his hat during the Native Nations Rise protest. (Photo: Brendan SmialowskiI/AFP/Getty Images)

Activists prepared for the Native American rights march past the Department of the Treasury by burning sage, among other traditions. (Photos: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

(Photos: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images & Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Left: Younger protesters gathered under historic monuments, markers of the very origins of modern questions of treaty-granted sovereignty and the right to land control. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images) | Right: Activists disassemble a teepee as they rally in front of the Trump International Hotel. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

A protester holds an oversized replica of a Make America Great Again hat in front of the White House. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Left: A police officer clears protesters off the sidewalk in front of the White House. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) | Right: An activist wears his father’s Marine uniform along with traditional regalia. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

Activists assembled teepees outside Trump tower during the protests, and used the space as a center for activity. (Photos: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe held the event with a march to the White House to urge for halting the construction of the project. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

The Chinese Government Has Big Plans for Its Migrant Worker Population

As the urban economy slows, the government is encouraging rural-to-urban migrants to open businesses in the countryside.

By Josh Freedman

The steep wooded hills across the valley from Shen Yongbiao’s childhood home are barely visible through a thick white mist. Clusters of waist-high tea bushes dot the landscape on all sides: Residents of this region in China’s Hunan province have been growing tea here for 2,000 years. As we set out to the fields carved along a ridge near his property, Shen, a bookish man of about 40 with close-cropped hair and thin-rimmed glasses, picks up a long, tapered tree branch and brandishes it about. “In case of poisonous snakes,” he tells me.

Stick-less, I ask him how to spot poisonous snakes on the ground.

“Oh, they are in the trees too,” he adds.

We walk on a narrow dirt path through the trees. Shen launches into a thorough explanation of the different flora surrounding us, noting the different species of bamboo growing along the path. I am trying to pay attention while scanning up and down. We pause suddenly; Shen calmly points upward. I assume a defense position. A brightly colored striped fruit, not much bigger than a peppercorn, hangs above our heads. He and his friends loved to eat these when they were kids, he says. We stroll along the edge of a smooth outcropping that slopes down to the valley: Rather than attempt to carry lumber along the snaking paths out of the steep forest, local residents simply slide tree trunks down to the bottom.

This story appears in the March/April 2017 issue of Pacific Standard. Buy a single-copy issue or subscribe to the magazine now.

Until recently, it had been nearly 20 years since Shen lived on these verdant slopes. Like nearly all of his peers, he left his impoverished village at a young age to find work in the city. He worked his way up from regional salesperson to vice director of the sales department at a company in Nanjing, a thousand kilometers away from his home in Hunan. He earned a base salary of around $44,000 per year — more than eight times the average income for migrant workers — and obtained urban hukou, or household registration, which allowed him and his children to access city services and schools. But when the government unveiled policies to encourage rural-to-urban migrants to open businesses in the countryside, Shen decided it was time to head back. He started a tea-processing company in the village called Seven Eyes Pond — named after a series of deep pools tucked in the ravine below his home.

China’s rapid economic development has been built on the backs of rural-to-urban migrants, and urbanization continues: The latest five-year plan calls for 60 percent of the population to live in urban areas by 2020, up from 56 percent. There are still far more job opportunities and social services in cities.

Yet as the urban economy slows, officials also want to steer people away from overcrowded megacities and reverse the brain drain in the countryside. The central government codified this “counter-urbanization” in June of 2015 with a policy to encourage migrant entrepreneurs to start businesses in rural areas, targeting people like Shen. Local governments have since followed suit.

“I’ve been away all of these years, but I have always been thinking about my hometown, where my parents live,” Shen says. “I’m worried about them. So when I saw the policy to encourage migrant workers to return to their homes, I came back.”

When Shen launched his business, the township government arranged a 15-day tea processing and manufacturing course for him. He went to Changsha, the provincial capital, as part of training for local leaders to help eliminate poverty. Local officials have offered to arrange financial support and favorable loans, supported by poverty-alleviation funds. The county government even has a department dedicated to promoting the local tea business, and artists have written a series of songs specifically about the county’s tea. They are, I admit, surprisingly catchy.

Shen invites me to observe the daily routine at his temporary processing facility, which is nestled among village houses along the road that snakes past his home. Shen’s two employees — his father and a neighbor from the village — wear royal-blue plastic uniforms and hats emblazoned with the Seven Eyes Pond logo. They pick out impure leaves by hand before rolling and pressing the rest in a machine that dances like a robotic spider. After the leaves are heated, pressed, rolled, and fermented, they will be dried in the traditional manner, over a wood fire, leaving a light, smoky flavor. Shen hands me a promotional brochure detailing the health benefits of his tea, which include clearer skin for women and stress relief for men. “I looked up the health benefits on Baidu encyclopedia,” he confides to me, referring to China’s version of Wikipedia.

https://psmag.com/china-is-creating-an-unprecedented-security-state-in-xinjiang-59d1c248e145

Two years ago, Shen’s father had a stroke. Shen and his brother both lived on the coast, and nobody was home to care for their parents, who have only known rural life and do not want to leave. Shen motions toward the steep, tree-covered slopes. “When people say that rural farmers don’t have skills, look at these mountains,” he says. “They managed to make a living out here. There’s no way they can move to the cities and take up other jobs. This is their skill.”

Migrants hope that counter-urbanization can help offset limited social security for children and the elderly. The rural safety net is expanding, but very slowly: Most rural seniors are now guaranteed monthly support of at least 70 yuan (just over $10) — barely enough for a few meals, let alone long-term economic security. Being able to work and care for family together in the countryside would, as the Chinese idiom says, yi shi er niao — kill two birds with one stone. Elsewhere in China, the movement has already started: 5.7 million people have moved from cities to the countryside to start businesses in the last few years, according to the agriculture ministry.

Shen is the first person from his village to have left and then returned to start a business, but he thinks there are more waiting in the wings. “They are watching my situation,” he says. If his tea business takes off, the rest of his generation may decide the trip home is worth it.

At the edge of the tea field, where the clearing turns again into forest, Shen kneels down to show us a broken stone stele that dates back to the imperial era. From what is left of the inscription, he knows the stone lists fines, but it is unclear for what violations, or exactly for when. It is, more than anything, a general marker of time. “My grandfather says it was here when he was a kid,” Shen says. It was there when Shen grew up — and now it will be there for his children too.

How Disabled Americans Are Fighting the GOP Health-Care Bill

Advocates warn that the American Health Care Act would “annihilate” Medicaid, spiraling millions of disabled Americans into poverty.

By David M. Perry

Kent Keyser talks about how the repeal of Obamacare would negatively affect him and other disable people during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on March 9th, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Within hours of Paul Ryan’s announcement of the American Health Care Act, press releases from disability rights organizations started to appear in my mailboxes and social-media feeds. The messages were consistent. First, the AHCA’s approach to Medicaid reform would end the program as we know it, spiraling millions of disabled Americans into poverty or back into institutions. Second, these advocates warned that too many Americans — including some who are disabled themselves or care for people with disabilities — don’t understand just how important Medicaid has been for improving millions of lives.

There are plenty of problems under the law as currently drafted, and disabled Americans in particular should have many concerns, as documented by s.e. smith for Esquire. The main concern among advocacy groups, though, is over the proposal to make Medicaid a capped, “per capita” system. Right now, states receive a certain amount of money based on how much they actually spend. The per capita system would allocate a set amount of money per person, regardless of how much meeting the needs of that person actually costs the state. The move would represent a huge transfer of costs to states, a transfer that would punish those most in need, as costs rise but resources remain fixed.

So what are people doing about it? The bill is making its way through three House committees at reckless speeds, and the disability rights world is mobilizing to fight back. Stephanie Smith Lee, senior policy advisor for the National Down Syndrome Congress, says there’s no reason to give up hope. “It appears to be on a fast track to be voted on without hearings,” she says, “but it’s not a done deal.” The thing most likely to change the trajectory, she says, is personal stories.

https://psmag.com/this-chart-shows-what-some-states-stand-to-lose-under-the-aca-replacement-plan-e0dee261d504

On Wednesday morning, the Center for American Progress hosted “What’s at Stake for Americans With Disabilities in the Trump Era?” to try and provide some of those stories. Anastasia Somoza, who became widely known after she spoke at the Democratic National Convention last summer, gave the keynote address, in which she linked the support she receives from Medicaid to her ability to succeed at life as an independent young woman. Somoza says that she’s been taking that message to Congress, hoping to put a human face on the numbers. “If we have any shot of convincing people” she says, “we need to remind everyone of the human impact.”

The panelists — a diverse group of disabled and non-disabled speakers with varying types of expertise — joined Somoza in meshing individual stories with the big policy picture. For example, in both a prepared video and her remarks, Andraea Lavant, inclusion senior specialist at Girl Scouts of Nation’s Capital, made it clear that she’s more than capable of living independently and holding down a job, but she does need a professional to get her day started and finished. Medicaid provides that professional.

“The disability community is a hand with many fingers,” Ne’eman says, “but what’s happening right now is that they are all closing together into a fist.”

Peter Berns, CEO of The Arc, the largest national organization advocating around developmental and intellectual disability, says that this kind of storytelling matters because so many people just have no clue how disability supports work. He says that organizations like his have tried to be “so careful about not playing the pity card, trying to present everything about people with disabilities in a positive way, all about opportunity and achievement. We tend to hold back on depicting the dire consequences or the potential for the dire consequences.”

This attack on Medicaid, in particular, is so dangerous that Berns wants to “message more sharply about the harm that is going to happen to people if some of these proposals go through.”

“We have to be willing to express our opinion about what is going to happen,” Berns says. “We think [the AHCA] is going to mean more people are going to be denied services. We think this will create incentives for more states to go back to institutional models of care.” The Arc is pouring resources into this fight, while trying to bring its 660 chapters from around the country to join together. A recent press release took a strident note, unusually so for this consensus-driven organization, claiming that, under the AHCA, “Medicaid will be decimated.”

Ari Ne’eman, who participated in the CAP panel, has an even grimmer view. “Medicaid will be annihilated,” says Ne’eman, who served as a disability appointee in the Obama administration and currently runs MySupport.com. “There is no scenario,” he says, “with cuts of this level and scope, in which people with disabilities won’t be substantially hurt.”

https://psmag.com/this-chart-shows-what-some-states-stand-to-lose-under-the-aca-replacement-plan-e0dee261d504

Amber Smock, director of advocacy at Access Living, posted on a closed Facebook group (quoted with her permission) that the Hill was “busier than I have ever seen it.” She notes that lots of different groups are lobbying against the bill, including Paralyzed Veterans of America (who have been tweeting out their meetings). Even the AARP, which is not always known for taking disability rights position, mentioned long-term supports and services as an issue.

Ne’eman agrees. “The entirety of the disability community, people with developmental disabilities, physical disabilities, psychological disabilities, veterans, seniors, are are all coming to the table to condemn and push back against these utterly wrongheaded proposals,” he says.

This kind of unity will be essential in the battle ahead, as the Republicans are going to try to play vulnerable groups off each other. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy put out a press release with a story of a disabled girl named Skylar whose family needs Medicaid, but is stuck on a waiting list, allegedly thanks to Obamacare. In McCarthy’s telling, massive cuts — it’s not really clear how — will make it easier for Skylar by booting lots of less deserving folks off the Medicaid rolls. Divide and conquer can work, but it might not this time, given the magnitude of the threat and these initial signs of unity.

“The disability community is a hand with many fingers,” Ne’eman says, “but what’s happening right now is that they are all closing together into a fist.”