Jeff Sessions Considering Indefinite Detention of Asylum Seekers

30th September 201830th September 2018 ~ mcequality

Jeff Sessions, a racist bloodhound, is considering indefinite detention of people who cross the U.S. border seeking asylum.

Over the past several months, Sessions has instructed judges to deny victims of domestic and gang-violence asylum, and now he is reportedly considering to deny bond hearings to asylum seekers, even if they have passed the credible fear interview. This means that anyone seeking safe haven in the U.S. could be detained indefinitely.

A decision set by a case called Matter of X-K, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) allows asylum seekers to be released on bond if they pass a “credible fear” interview, in which officials assess whether the asylum seeker is at risk of persecution in their home country. Sessions is reportedly trying to find a way to overturn the BIA’s decision.

via Jeff Sessions Considering Indefinite Detention of Asylum Seekers

UK Denies Windrush Generation Members Citizenship

30th September 2018 ~ mcequality

Some immigrants known as the Windrush generation, who have been living in the UK for decades, are now being denied citizenship because they lack the proper documentation proving they lived in the UK before 1973.

Seventy years ago, when the UK was recovering from World War II, Britain put out ads in Caribbean countries under its control, hoping to attract people to help rebuild the country. In 1948, 492 West Indians—as British subjects—boarded the vessel Empire Windrush, attracted by a promise of more stable work. They ushered in the Windrush generation—a generation of black and brown people from British Commonwealth nations that were invited to come work in the UK until 1971, only to face harassment, bullying, and racism when they arrived. According to Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, there are an estimated 500,000 people in the Windrush generation.

via UK Denies Windrush Generation Members Citizenship

Artist Sarah Lucas on Her New Museum Retrospective

30th September 2018 ~ mcequality

Having only known her as the cool, confrontational artist in photos, I suspected Lucas, 55, would be tough in person. But when I meet her at the New Museum where she’s currently installing over 150 works for her first ever U.S. retrospective open September 26, Au Naturel, she is cool as a cucumber, albeit frazzled by the installation (she’s currently figuring out the best placement for a set of gigantic concrete boots in the museum’s lobby.) Just last week, she invited a group of women (and men in drag or dressed as giant phalluses) to the New Museum to help her create One Thousand Eggs: For Women, in which women throw precisely 1,000 eggs at a wall to create a gooey, yellow painting. “Women, we’ve got eggs, but they’re limited,” she tells me over lunch. “It’s a different thing to be a bloke… your seed isn’t limited. You can produce more and more of it, you can spill any amount of it around, if you’re just having a wank, and it doesn’t cut off.”

via Artist Sarah Lucas on Her New Museum Retrospective

Criminal Justice Reform Is on the Midterm Ballot | American Civil Liberties Union

26th September 2018 ~ mcequality

This mass incarceration crisis wasn’t created by crime rates but by politics and racism. History shows us that mass incarceration went up when crime rates were low and went up when crime rates were high. It is the result of deliberate choices made by elected officials around the country, Democrats and Republicans alike, to lock up more people.

via Criminal Justice Reform Is on the Midterm Ballot | American Civil Liberties Union

Michaela Coel on MacTaggart lecture: ‘I feel better having shared’ | Television & radio | The Guardian

29th August 2018 ~ mcequality

“I’ve no mortgage, no credit card, no real kids, no car, happy with my bicycle; money’s nice, but I prefer transparency,” she explained. “My stories are my babies, I wanna look after them, so I asked to reserve a portion of my parental rights; my copyright … I used the only power I had; and declined.”

When asked to explain why she turned down the offer, she said the company’s response to the question of why they would acquire all the copyright wasn’t satisfactory. “The first thing I asked was: ‘Why do you want to take all the copyright?’” she said. “And when the answer is ‘that’s just the way it is’, then I’m out because that doesn’t sound like a good answer to me. It sounds cloudy. I don’t trust that.”

via Michaela Coel on MacTaggart lecture: ‘I feel better having shared’ | Television & radio | The Guardian

Forbes highest-paid actor: The Rock nearly doubles 2017 earnings – BBC News

23rd August 2018 ~ mcequality

Scarlett Johannson was revealed as the highest paid actress last week, earning $40.5m (£31.9m).
That would have placed the Black Widow star as seventh in the male rankings.
This is a departure from last year’s Forbes list, which saw highest paid actress Emma Stone fail to score in the top 10 male earnings.

via Forbes highest-paid actor: The Rock nearly doubles 2017 earnings – BBC News

BBC apologises to Carrie Gracie over pay – BBC News

26th July 2018 ~ mcequality

Image Copyright @BBCCarrie@BBCCARRIE
Report
The corporation said it had “reached an agreement to resolve their differences”.
Timeline: How the BBC gender pay story has unfolded

‘Today I can say I am equal’ – Carrie Gracie’s statement:
“This is a huge day for me. I love the BBC. It’s been my work family for more than 30 years and I want it to be the best. Sometimes families feel the need to shout at each other, but it’s always a relief when you can stop shouting.
“I’m grateful to the director general for helping me resolve this. I do feel he has led from the front today.
“In acknowledging the value of my work as China editor, the BBC has awarded me several years of backdated pay. But for me this was always about the principle and not about the money, so I’m giving all of that money away to help women who need it more than I do.
“After all, today at the BBC I can say I am equal.
“I would like women in workplaces up and down this country to be able to say the same. This has been an enormously long, hard road to get here. It has involved so much work by so many people, and I am proud of it.
“Cultural change takes time to help people think things through. It is an enormously difficult issue, not just for the BBC but for employers all over the country and all over the world. This is a win for me and a win for the BBC. I’m proud of all of us.”

Fellow broadcaster Clare Balding tweeted her appreciation for Gracie, saying: “To donate all of the agreed backpay confirms what we already knew – she is not fighting the fight for herself but for ALL.”
At her request, Gracie will now take up to six months of unpaid leave and will take on writing and speaking engagements about both China and gender equality.
Director general Tony Hall said: “I am pleased that we’ve been able to move past our differences and work through things together; we can now look to the future.”

Image caption
Tony Hall wants the BBC to “lead the way” for women in the workplace
Lord Hall added he was “glad” that she is contributing to a BBC project “to make the BBC a great place for women to work”.
“That really matters to me, and I want us to lead the way.”
When she resigned as China editor, Gracie said she had been dismayed to find the BBC’s two male international editors earned “at least 50% more” than their two female counterparts.
The BBC has now acknowledged she was told she would be paid in line with the North America editor when she took the role, and she accepted the role on that understanding.

Image caption
The BBC has said “fairness in pay” is “vital”
The corporation said it “has now put this right”.
Gracie: ‘I could not collude’ in pay discrimination’
Gracie quit because the two editors earned more than her £135,000-a-year salary. She said she had refused a £45,000 pay rise because it still left a “big gap” between her and her male counterparts, when all she wanted was to be “made equal”.
She went back to a job in the newsroom. The BBC said at the time that “fairness in pay” was “vital” to the corporation.
On 26 January, six of the BBC’s leading male presenters agreed to take pay cuts following the revelations about equal salaries.
The BBC said Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell, John Humphrys, Jon Sopel, Nick Robinson and Jeremy Vine had all accepted reduced wages.
The Fawcett Society said it would use the donated money to give women legal support to negotiate equal pay, and it will contribute to strategic legal cases and interventions aimed at strengthening the law.

Analysis – BBC media editor Amol Rajan
Carrie Gracie finished her tweet on today’s news with the words “I’m home”. This has been a long and difficult process for one of the BBC’s most distinguished journalists.
At base, today marks a moral and practical victory for an effective campaigner, and her donation of back pay to the Fawcett Society proves she meant it when she said this was about a principle rather than cash.
The narrow question is – what this means for the BBC. The corporation would like it to draw the matter to a close, and pointedly refers in its statement to the “specific circumstances” of her case.
While today might bring a close to this individual case, it is of course unclear what impact it will have on others at the BBC who are pursuing grievances.
The same applies beyond the BBC. As a significant victory for a high-profile campaigner, who came to have totemic status, today will give encouragement to others who have been denied equal pay for equal work.

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GenderBBCBBC payGender pay gapWomen
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via BBC apologises to Carrie Gracie over pay – BBC News