Democratic debate to proceed after labor agreement reached

By ALEXANDRA JAFFE Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democrats’ next primary debate will proceed as scheduled this week, the Democratic National Committee announced Tuesday, after the party stepped in to help arrange a settlement to a labor dispute that had threatened the forum.
DNC Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement that he helped “bring all stakeholders to the table … to reach a deal that meets their needs and supports workers.”

All seven of the candidates who qualified for the Thursday night debate at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles said late last week that they would boycott the debate if it meant crossing a picket line. A union representing workers on campus threatened to continue picketing over their failure to reach a collective bargaining agreement with food service company Sodexo.

READ MORE: Cory Booker still sees ‘path to victory,’ despite not qualifying for debate

UNITE HERE Local 11 says it represents 150 cooks, dishwashers, cashiers, and servers working on the Loyola Marymount campus. It had been in negotiations with Sodexo since March for a collective bargaining agreement without reaching a resolution, and workers began picketing in November over the issue.

Perez, a former labor secretary under President Barack Obama, had expressed support for the candidates’ decisions not to cross the picket line and personally stepped in to help broker an agreement and avoid canceling the debate.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, environmental activist Tom Steyer and businessman Andrew Yang have all qualified for Thursday’s debate.

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Look Back At It: 10 Years A Black Hollywood Renaissance Resurgence

Remember when it seemed like the 1990s was the Black Hollywood Renaissance? We had epic dramas, comedies and beyond in film and television. Hell, y’all remember UPN?!

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Trump Sends Bubble-Gut Tweets as Impeachment Vote Looms

Whenever Trump is sending out massive amounts of tweets, which usually include retweets of far-right-wing bloggers praising him and calling for him to play Maverick in the reboot of Top Gun, you know that Trump is losing. This is what he’s done his entire presidency. So on the day that a vote is expected to call for…

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Black medical students depict ‘the dream and the hope of the slaves’ in powerful photo on plantation

A group of Black students from Tulane University’s School of Medicine posed for photos at the Whitney Plantation, a former slave plantation in Louisiana, according to PEOPLE magazine.

Dr. Russell Ledet, who has a Ph.D. and an MBA and is now working on his MD, came up with the idea to bring his medical school classmates after he visited the former plantation in Edgard with his friend and eldest daughter. The plantation is now a museum.

READ MORE: Pinterest and The Knot will change how they promote plantation weddings

 

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We are truly our ancestors’ wildest dreams. ✨ As physicians in training, we stood on the steps of what was once slave quarters for our ancestors. This was such a powerful experience, and it honestly brought me to tears. For black people pursing a career in medicine, keep going. For our entire community, keep striving. Resilience is in our DNA 🧬 #whitecoatsblackdoctors #blackdoctors #blackgirlmagic #blackboyjoy #blackdoctors #melanindoc #whitecoatsblackdoctors #thechocolatedocs #diversityinmedicine #tulanemed #tusomsnma #diversityinmedicine #whitneyplantation #blackX

A post shared by Sydney Labat (@_botttt) on Dec 14, 2019 at 12:43pm PST

“My 8-year-old daughter was like, ‘Dad, it means a lot to be a Black doctor in America. If you think about where we started… we made it pretty far,’” Ledet told PEOPLE. “I was like ‘You’re right, I think more of us should see this.’”

Ledet pitched his idea to his classmates, who are all part of the Student National Medical Association (SNMA) at Tulane. He told them the photoshoot at Whitney Plantation would connect “America’s past and America’s present,” and told them the photoshoot would “be iconic and a lot of people will relate to it — this idea of how far we’ve come and how far we’ve gotta go,” he told PEOPLE. “For us, the struggle in medical school is real.”

So 15 Black medical students donned their white coats and headed out to Whitney Plantation on Saturday. One student, Sydney Labat, told PEOPLE that she was overcome with emotion.

“Initially, I didn’t understand what was going on because the emotions rushed through me,” Labat said. “I started to cry thinking about (how) these people who were descendants of had the harshest life and the harshest conditions and wanted nothing but better for themselves and better for their children.”

READ MORE: Missouri teacher on administrative leave for slave trade homework

“I am grateful that they were resilient because that allows me to be resilient and that allows me to be in this position that I am today,” Labat added in the PEOPLE interview. “It was really overwhelming. I hope that I make them proud even in the smallest ways by living out my dream and being able to exercise my freedoms. A lot of us felt that way.”

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Jewish denomination passes reparations resolution for Black Americans

The largest Jewish denomination in North America has recently backed a resolution that would give reparations to address the enduring effects of slavery.

At The Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial meeting last Friday, delegates passed a resolution that calls for the creation of a federal commission to look into ways to atone for slavery and systemic racism against Black people, according to Huff Post.

READ MORE: Trump mocks Rep. Ilhan Omar in speech before Jewish Republican Group

The biennial meeting is the largest Jewish gathering in North America with more than 5,000 participants from 525 congregations. The participants come from 54 states and provinces and 75 international congregations, according to the Union for Reform Judaism.

The biennial event was held in Chicago.

The resolution addresses the history and impact of slavery in the United States and addresses how Black people are still subjected to racial inequities across many areas in the United States, from housing and education to criminal justice, jobs and healthcare.

“Such injustices will endure unless proactive steps are taken to acknowledge and eliminate them,” the resolution states, according to Huff Post.

The resolution stops short of calling for a particular form of reparations, but urges a few ideas to consider, such as “expressions of remorse, education, monetary compensation, and more.” It said Jewish texts state the “importance of restitution for wrongs committed,” according to Huff Post.

“The rabbis understood that the victim of a crime was made whole by financial repayment for damages done,” the resolution states. “Maimonides (a Jewish scholar) went one step further, linking the payment of damages to the concept of t’shuvah, noting that repentance must accompany the financial commitment.”

Yolanda Savage-Narva, a Black, Jewish woman who serves as vice chair of Reform Judaism’s Commission on Social Action, said the resolution acknowledges the “systemic oppression” in America that has been passed down for generations.

“Looking at something like reparations for Black people in this country is something that is very important when we’re thinking about healing the racial wounds that have been inflicted on this country for at least 400 years,” Savage-Narva told HuffPost.

READ MORE: Angela Davis shares her thoughts on Jewish community concerns after her human rights award was rescinded

The URJ claims to be the first major Jewish organization to endorse reparations for slavery. It says the United States needs to take a cue from other world leaders and governments that have repaid for their wrongdoing. The German government, for example, has given more than $70 billion in reparations to more than 800,000 Holocaust survivors, reported Huff Post.

Also, in 1980, the U.S. Congress backed reparations for Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II. The U.S. government apologized for this crime and paid $20,000 for each survivor.

 

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