What has come to be commonplace when Betsy DeVos visits a campus or speaks publicly across the country, she is greeted by people who protest her policies and her presence.
Earlier in the week, DeVos gave the commencement address at the University of Baltimore. As has happened at other campuses where DeVos was scheduled to speak, students and faculty attempted to get the administration to cancel the Secretary of Education’s talk.
Before the graduation ceremony people gathered outside of the auditorium to protest the decision of the university to have DeVos as the commencement speaker, as you can see in some of these photos above.
During the commencement speech by DeVos, about 50 students that were graduating turned their back on DeVos, while others booed during her comments as can be seen in the photo below.
In addition, to the protests that confronted DeVos during her speech, it is worth looking a bot at what she had to say. In many ways, what the Secretary of Education had to say was what she has said in previous talks. However, there were a few things Betsy DeVos had to say that is worth discussing.
DeVos was talking about three character building points that will help students succeed in the world. These three are the challenge to be thoughtful, the challenge to be selfless and the challenge to persevere. She then set out to explain what she meant by each of these character building points.
On the matter of being thoughtful, she said:
Spend just a few minutes watching cable news and you’ll encounter folks who haven’t followed that advice. On social media and on many college campuses, groups and individuals pit themselves against each other — not to discuss and debate deeply held beliefs or ideas — but to raise decibels, score “got’cha” points or shout down an opponent’s voice.
But we will not solve the significant and real problems our country faces if we cannot embrace this paradox of silence.
There is an element of truth to what DeVos is saying here, but when you look at the context of the current political culture, it makes complete sense that people do not want to have a dialogue or a debate with white supremacists, misogynists or homophobes and transphobic people. In fact, there has been a push for people to be “civil,” when in fact this push for civility has led to compromise and complicity in hate speech and hate-based violence.
In addition, the DeVos Family is notorious for spending millions of dollars to buy candidates and lobby policies. This political spending is considered a form of speech that seeks to silence those who do not have deep pockets, like the DeVos Family. Betsy DeVos herself has said, “I have decided to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede that point…..we do expect something in return.” This admission should be understood from a class point of view that rich people, by virtue of their wealth, have the loudest voices in society today.
In regards to the second character building point, DeVos stated:
That brings me to a related challenge: to be selfless. This might also come off as counterintuitive in today’s “me-first” culture. But we would do well to recognize that we are — and always will be — greater than the sum of our parts.
I’m inspired by these lines from Scripture: “the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor.”
Too many try to invert the Golden Rule. “Don’t do to others what you would not want done to you.” The inversion suggests that if we just look out for ourselves, we’d all be better off.
Talking about being selfless, when one comes from a millionaire family and marries into a billionaire family seem rather hypocritical. The DeVos Family, which owns numerous homes across the country, has their own yacht, airplanes and helicopters seems a bit like the “me-first” culture the Secretary of Education is referring to. Betsy DeVos has lived her entire life in a me-first culture, where she has never known what it means to go without, to have to make the difficult decision as a parent to provide food to her children or a warm home to live in.
In fact, it is insulting for DeVos to refer to the “Golden Rule,” unless of course she means, that those with the Gold, should rule.
The third, and last character building principle the Secretary of Education elaborated on was:
The last challenge I’m going to lay out today – to persevere – may well be the most difficult to actually do. That’s because our culture seems to promote the ideal of a sheltered life, free of hardship. This siren song tempts us to always take the easy road, the path of least resistance.
Again, the idea of perseverance from someone who has known material comfort and excess her entire life, seems rather shallow. I’m not saying that billionaires never have to persevere, but it’s hard to take someone like Betsy DeVos seriously, when talking about avoiding the least path of resistance.
DeVos supported Michigan Freedom Fund says anti-gerrymandering group is hyper-partisan
A few days ago, the group Voters Not Politicians delivered 425,000 signatures to Lansing, hoping to get a 2018 ballot initiative that would put an end to gerrymandering of political districts. One organization that is opposing this effort is the Michigan Freedom Fund.
The Michigan Freedom Fund was the creation of Greg McNeilly, a DeVos political operative who also serves as the spokesperson for Dick & Betsy DeVos entity know as the Windquest Group. The Michigan Freedom Fund was created by the DeVos operative McNeilly right around the time that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder was deciding to make Michigan a Right to Work state. It is no coincidence that the Michigan Freedom Fund and Right to Work were happening at the same time. The Michigan Freedom Fund is essentially designed to promote and lobby to neoliberal economic reforms and attack working class efforts and labor unions, which becomes clear when you look at their Facebook page.
On the matter of the anti-gerrymandering ballot initiative, here is what the Michigan Freedom Fund had to say:
Voters Not Politicians, the organization submitting signatures today to put Michigan redistricting in the hands of partisan bureaucrats, potentially running afoul of the Voting Rights Act, is led exclusively by partisan Democratic donors, activists, and a Democratic trial attorney, according to public records, the Federal Election Commission and the Michigan Campaign Finance database.
According to campaign finance records, 7 of the 10 members of the ballot committee’s leadership have donated a combined $5,648 to Democratic candidates and causes, including Mark Schauer, Virg Bernero, Jennifer Granholm, Hillary Clinton, ACT BLUE, and many more. A list of the donations can be found here.
The Committee’s President, Katie Fahey, is a former Hillary Clinton activist who made national news last November when she traveled to New York to participate in Clinton’s later-scuttled victory party.
Jim Lancaster, the Committee’s attorney, is a longtime, prominent Michigan Democratic trial lawyer.
Vice President and Policy Coordinator Nancy Wang, Canvassing and Field Team Director Jamie Lyons-Eddy, Marketing and Communications Director Amelia Quilon, Advisory Council Director Walt Sorg, Outreach and Data Integrity Director Davia Downey, Education Director Lija Hogan, and Finance Director John Hanieski have all written personal checks to Democratic candidates or causes. Not one has contributed a penny to a Republican cause or candidate.
“Voters Not Politicians has been dishonest with voters from the start,” said Terri Reid, President of the Michigan Freedom Fund. “This organization was created by Democrats, run by Democrats, and, undoubtedly, bankrolled by Democrats. Voters deserve better than this kind of partisan masquerade. They deserve transparency. They deserve the truth.”
For an organization that is deeply partisan and is run by a DeVos political operative, the Michigan Freedom Fund has no credibility when it comes to calling out groups for being hyper-partisan.
Having said that, the fact that many Democratic Party operates are behind the anti-gerrymandering campaign is disconcerting. If the ballot initiative passes in 2018, it only means that Voters Not Politician’s wants to establish an Independent Citizen Redistricting Commission through a state constitutional amendment. However, what is to prevent that Commission from not being made up of partisan representatives and who will oversee their efforts.
CEO of group that promotes the business class, says that NAFTA did not eliminate jobs in Michigan
Last Thursday, the Right Place Inc hosted its annual economic forecast event in downtown Grand Rapids.
The function of the Right Place Inc. is to promote the business class in West Michigan and recruit new companies to operate in the area. Their board of directors is made up of people who are part of the West MI power structure, like John Kennedy (AutoCam Corp), David Van Andel (Van Andel Institute), Mike VanGessel (Rockford Construction), Hank Meijer (Meijer Inc.) and Blake Krueger (Wolverine Worldwide).
During the Right Place Inc event last week, their CEO Birgit Klohs made the following comment about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA):
“It was not a job killer for Michigan. In fact, in West Michigan alone, almost 50,000 jobs depend on exports and many of those are going to Canada.”
According to an article posted on MLive last Friday, Klohs also had this to say about NAFTA and the potential negotiations of that trade agreement that was adopted by the governments of Canada, Mexico and the US in 1994.
“The changes we’re looking at are very detrimental to our automobile, furniture and agricultural industries,” said Klohs. Any efforts to place tariffs on foreign made goods will either raise prices in the United States or result in a trade war that will harm the flow of trade, she said.
Acting as a stenographer, the MLive writer never bothered to question the claims made by The Right Place Inc CEO, nor did the writer verify the claims made about NAFTA not being a job killer for Michigan. The reporter didn’t even bother to seek out a contrasting source, which are not hard to find.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Michigan lost 182,288 manufacturing jobs (or 22.8 percent) during the NAFTA-WTO period (1994-2016). This figure is for total manufacturing employment, so it takes into account both jobs created by exports and jobs displaced by imports, among other causes of net job change. The percentage of all private sector jobs that are manufacturing jobs in Michigan declined from 24 percent to 16.4 percent during the NAFTA-WTO period.
The non-partisan group Public Citizen has the number of Michigan jobs lost to NAFTA even higher. According to a recent document published by Public Citizen, Michigan has lost more than 231,000 manufacturing jobs – about one out of three – since the 1994 NAFTA and the World Trade Organization agreements took effect. Nearly five million manufacturing jobs have been lost nationwide. U.S. manufacturing workers who lose jobs to trade and find reemployment are typically forced to take pay cuts. Three of every five who were rehired in 2014 took home smaller paychecks, and one in three lost greater than 20 percent, according to Department of Labor data. More than 154,000 specific Michigan jobs have been certified under the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program as lost to offshoring or imports since NAFTA. These numbers significantly undercount trade-related job loss as TAA only covers a subset of jobs lost to trade.
This information clearly is in contrast to the claims made by Birgit Klohs. Public Citizen, even provides a detailed look at what they refer to as the Trade Adjustment Assistance Database, where you can look at all the jobs lost due to NAFTA, based on company, the year and how many workers were laid off. There are pages and pages of job layoffs, when looking at the database. Here is a brief sampling from that database.
Community Responses to the GRPD violence against Honestie Hodges and the limits of reform politics
It has more than a week since the news that several Grand Rapids police officers handcuffed at gun point and 11 year old black girl while looking for a suspect.
Initially, Police Chief Rahinsky and other members of the Grand Rapids City Commission responded with concerns about how this 11 year old black girl was treated, with Rahnisky even saying he felt “nauseated” after watching the body cam footage. Our post last week made the point that the city and the police department would not make any fundamental changes because this is how policing is designed, especially when interacting with communities of color and poor working class white people.
Since then, the Grand Rapids Police Union has made it clear that they felt the officers responsible for handcuffing Honestie Hodges at gunpoint followed standard protocol.
According to MLive, on Friday, At the press conference, Rahinsky said he thought there was “good police work” at a quickly evolving scene where officers were responding to a stabbing with unknown factors in play. He also said they followed proper training. But at the same time, he hoped for a better outcome that would not traumatize an 11-year-old.
While the police union says it doesn’t think that Rahnisky has their trust, the responses from Rahinsky make it clear that he believes the officers involved with handcuffing the 11 year old black girl at gunpoint was how cops should handle this situation. We should not by lulled into believing that Chief Rahnisky has the community’s best interest in mind, just because he felt “nauseated” when viewing the video footage. Again, this is how the police function.
Community Responses
There have been several community responses since the GRPD handcuffed at gunpoint Honestie Hodges on December 6. On Tuesday, December 12 and last night, people spoke out against the way that this 11 year old girl was treated. In both cases, these comments came during the open public comment period, as there has not been a forum public hearing on this police abuse by the GRPD.
Last Wednesday, some 30 local clergy gathered at Brown-Hutcherson Ministries in Grand Rapids to discuss what the faith community ought to do in this case. According to a WOOD TV 8 story, the clergy stated:
“We are not asking for change now, we are cohesively demanding to have the Department of Justice to review the police practices and training mechanisms,” said Jerry Bishop, pastor of Lifequest Ministries.
One additional response is a campaign, initiated by Dana Knight, to have people donate gifts to Honestie Hodges, by dropping them off at the LINC office.
Linc also is calling for the suspension of all the GRPD officers involved in handcuffing at gunpoint Honestie Hodges, based on a Press Release from yesterday.
Lastly, at a press conference held yesterday at City Hall, the NAACP stated:
“The officers involved violated Honestie Hodges’ Fourth Amendment Constitutional right, in addition to using excessive force,” the Grand Rapids branch of the NAACP said in a statement.”
“The NAACP Grand Rapids Branch is greatly concerned with the disturbing trend in which officers have aggressively traumatized youth of color. Recently, five African American males between the ages of 12-14 were ordered to the ground, held at gunpoint and handcuffed for over 10 minutes on their way home from a community center.”
“The regional, state and national affiliates are also closely watching, expecting appropriate disciplinary actions be taken.”
The Limits of Reformist Politics
All of these responses are understandable given the current political culture we live in. We want the police department to be held accountable and to adopt policies and procedures that will not allow for this kind of behavior in the future. However, when we take a step back and look at what happened, do we honestly believe that there will be any real change because we ask the police to do better?
If we read Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, or familiarize ourselves with the Black Lives Matter movement, it becomes clear that the analysis that these people bring to the table, in addition to their own lived experience, should suggest to us that reformist politics are inadequate as a response to the function of policing in the US. Now, I’m not suggesting that we not make demands from local officials and the GRPD. We should, but we have to be more strategic about it.
What if, instead of just going to a City Commission and expressing our collective anger at what the police are doing to black people in this city, we went with the intention of not leaving until certain demands were met? What if we had 100 people willing to do civil disobedience and stay in city hall until we got what we wanted? This of course would mean we would need to devise a list of demands, which should really be part of a robust community conversation that questions the actual function of police departments.
Would it be wiser to ask for some kind of reprimand against the officers who handcuffed at gunpoint the 11 year old black girl or should we demand some radical shifts in how policing functions in this community and whether or not there are community-based solutions to safety that do not require heavily armed individuals that are trained to protect private property, power and privilege?
Of all the community responses so far, the best one is giving gifts to Honestie Hodges. I say this because, it is always good to practice mutual aid, where those who are victimized by systems of oppression (yes, the GRPD is part of a system of oppression) get some relief and care from the larger community.
What has happened in the past couple of years, both nationally and locally, with greater attention given to police violence against the black community, is that it has forced us to question the role of police departments. This violence by cops against the black community is nothing new and in fact, it is consistent with the history of policing from the beginning. What we need to do is to collectively come up with a strategy to challenge the way we think about cops and the way we think about public safety. Until then, we are not likely to change much of anything, since our responses are too often reactionary and reformist in nature.
DACA recipients organize protest in front of Rep. Huizenga’s office to demand renewal of the Dream Act
On Monday, about 30 people gathered outside the Grandville office of Rep. Bill Huizenga’s to demand that he support a renewal of the Dream Act.
The action was organized by DACA recipients, young Latino/Latinix activists who have been the beneficiaries of the Dream Act that was passed during the Obama administration after immigrant youth hounded the former President in cities across the country to adopt some protections for the children of immigrants who wanted to go to college.
The new Dream Act is similar to the one passed in 2012, with some notable changes that one can find at this link.
The action on Monday was organized by Dreamers, with several of them speaking with a megaphone. Two young Latinix organizers shared their story and spoke passionately about their dreams of getting a good education. These two young Latinix women (pictured here) demonstrated the courage it takes to be public with their demands of immigration justice, especially in a climate of tremendous anti-immigrant hostility, as was reflected in the hateful comments from a few white people driving passed the protest on Wilson Ave. in Grandville.
We were able to do a short interview with one of the other organizers, Danny Caracheo, who also organized a similar action in front of Rep. Justin Amash’s office last week.
There were a few other people who spoke at the action, notably 2nd Congressional Candidate Rob Davidson, who is challenging Huizenga in the 2018 election. Davidson has a few moderate positions on immigration at his website and did say that he would make the Dream Act a priority of elected next November. However, it has been a long time since the 2nd Congressional District has been won by a Democrat and Huizenga already has more than 10 times the amount of campaign money that Davidson has, according to the Center for Responsible Politics.
Class Action Lawsuit, Corporate Polluters and Erin Brockovich bring out hundreds to forum
On Saturday, hundreds of people came to Comstock Park High School to hear environmental activist and consumer advocate Erin Brockovich.
The forum was hosted by three law firms, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, Miller Law and Weitz & Luxenberg. The forum was designed to present information on a class action lawsuit filed jointly by these three law firms, a lawsuit that was filed on December 1st. A Press Release by the three law firms states:
A national team of law firms today announced a new class action lawsuit against Wolverine WorldWide, 3M Corporation and Waste Management Inc. for dumping toxic waste and polluting groundwater in Belmont, Rockford and other areas in Kent County. This is the first environmental class action lawsuit filed against these companies, and it seeks immediate blood testing, monitoring, and damages for residents who have been harmed by the pollution.
The fact that all three corporations – Wolverine Worldwide, 3M and Waste Management Inc – were the targets of the lawsuit was encouraging to many, since it recognizes the fact that while Wolverine Worldwide used the toxic chemicals which now plague area residents, 3M and Waste Management Inc also are complicit in the contamination. To read the full complaint filed in US District Court, to to this link.
There were several lawyers who spoke, but the main presenter was Erin Brockovich. She spoke to those in attendance for about 20 minutes, talking a little bit about her history, the types of chemicals used by Wolverine and why it is so important for people to be part of this class action lawsuit.
After Brockovich and the lawyers spoke, the forum was opened up for Q & A. Nearly two dozen people got up to speak. There were several people who just had clarifying questions about the lawsuit and the contamination. Many people asked about their children, the potential longterm health effects and whether or not their kids would benefit from the lawsuit, even if they no longer lived in the area.
There were a few people who believed that their current health condition is the result of the corporate pollution coming from Wolverine Worldwide, with 3M and Waste Management complicity. One woman said she had stage 4 cancer and was part of a citizens group that was demanding answers and demanding justice. Several people were with the group called Demand Action From Plainfield Township Regarding Unsafe Drinking Water. Some members of this group were handing out information as people entered the gym at Comstock Park High School.
Information that is being posted on the Demand Action From Plainfield Township group seems consistent with what the lawyers and Brockovich were saying in regards to how long Wolverine Worldwide has been using the toxic chemicals for shoe manufacturing and how long there has been evidence that the chemicals used were toxic. Brockovich said that as early as 1939, Wolverine Worldwide has been dumping waste from production that included the toxic chemicals that are named in the lawsuit.
There were others who were critical of the lawsuit and of Brockovich, but most people who asked questions were in favor of the legal action being taken against the 3 companies. However, there were several legitimate concerns raised about not limiting the lawsuit to the PFAS and PFOS chemicals, as there are other toxic chemicals that are showing up when people are testing their water. You can see from the map below, how large an area the toxic plume is, based on what is known now.
There was also some discussion at the forum about how people might be able to filter their water, once it has been tested. However, some responded with concerns about cost and the fact that the contamination may not show up now, because of the complexity of the underground aquifer in the area. All of the concerns raised by people were completely understandable and they demand to be answered.
There was one thing that left me feeling a bit concerned after leaving the forum. While I support the class action lawsuit that is seeking to hold Wolverine Worldwide, 3M and Waste Management Inc. accountable for their crimes, there was no real discussion or suggestion from anyone who spoke about other tactics and strategies that could be pursued in conjunction with the lawsuit. It seems that in this case, with the amount of people the contamination is impacting that it would be critical to think about and develop additional strategies that could be used in this struggle. It is possible that the Demand Actions from Plainfield Township Regarding Unsafe Drinking Water may be one of the places to discuss other tactics and strategies, but regardless of where these ideas are discussed, they need to be developed in order for justice to be realized.
Chief Rahinsky gets nauseated, but defends police violence against the black community in Grand Rapids
Let us be clear from the get go. What the GRPD did to the 11 year old black girl in Grand Rapids was violence. It was physical violence to put cuffs on her, it was psychological violence and it was emotional violence that will likely cause this 11 year old black girl to suffer for years to come.
What has been interesting to observe are the GRPD response to their act of violence and the local news media’s coverage of the police violence. In fact, a great deal of the reporting has centered around Chief Rahinsky’s response, like this channel 8 story. In fact, most of the comments in the coverage of this incident have been from Chief Rahinsky, which should tell us something about how power functions and who’s voices are important.
If you can stomach it, watch this video that is from a Press Conference that Rahinsky did on Tuesday, where he engages in a great deal of rhetorical jiu jitsu.
What Rahinsky is essentially saying is that they need to have more discussion and do more trainings in order to “fix” this problem. The problem with this approach is that it means that the GRPD will ask for more money that will not change anything about how policing is done. There is plenty of research that has been in recent decades on bias training for cops and that research concludes that it doesn’t change the outcomes of how cops engage in policing, especially in communities of color.
Alex Vitale, in his important book, The End of Policing, states: Well-trained police following proper procedure are still going to be arresting people for mostly low-level offenses, and the burden will continue to fall primarily on communities of color because that is how the system is designed to operate – not because of the biases or misunderstandings of officers.
In virtually every story that has come out about the police violence against the 11 year old black girl, has the Police Chief saying he was nauseated when he saw the body cam footage. So what. This should not be about Rahinsky’s feelings, but about the harm done to Honestie Hodges and her family. Even city leaders have been getting all emotional about GR cops abusing the 11 year old black girl and it doesn’t mean shit. It doesn’t mean shit, because the city leaders continue to give one third of the city budget to policing every year.
Part of the problem, which is both a liberal and conservative problem, is that people think that police department exist to protect people. This has never been true, from their role of rounding up people who escaped slavery all the way up to the present where police killings of black and brown people are outrageously high. Think about it. The last time you were at a protest, any protest, the function of the police to maintain order, to protect property and the interests of those in power. Cops are never on the side of those rising up, never! and it never will be. Police officers kill black and brown people all the time and all the bias training, body cams and other false solutions will not change a damn thing.
What we need is a serious discussion about community safety that is community-based. There are a lots of really good models that work, models that have been mostly developed by black and brown communities because they do not put their faith in the cops. A great resource on this topic of community-based solutions comes from the group INCITE! and it is entitled: Law Enforcement Violence Against Women of Color and Trans People of Color, as well as the resources that are provided by the group Safe OUTside the System Collective.
For those of us who are not likely to be victims of police violence, we need to begin to rethink the nature and function of policing, do our own investigations and particularly listen to the voices from black and other communities of color. White people shedding tears over the news that the police killed or brutalized another person of color won’t change a damn thing, but our willingness to dismantle White Supremacy is a step in the right direction.
3 Questions for ICCF since they acquired 177 homes in recent deal worth $14.5 million
In March, we reported on the corporatization of rental housing in Grand Rapids, based on a study we did in part of the southeast area of the city. We found that the private equity firm known as RDG Fund-5 LTH LLC, owned the most rental units in the Garfield Park area.
Then in May of this year, Michigan Radio came out with a documentary called Pushed Out, which also looks at how private equity companies and larger property management companies began buying hundreds of properties after the 2007/2008 economic crash. The Michigan radio documentary made the point that the corporatization of rental properties is one of the major contributing factors to the increased cost of rent.
A few months ago it was announced that the Inner City Christian Federation (ICCF) was in the process of buying all the homes that RDG Fund own in Grand Rapids and Lansing, a total of 177 homes. Last week, MLive reported that the deal has been finalized between ICCF and RDG Fund, totaling $14.5 million. After reading the MLive article, I have several questions for ICCF about the deal.
First, ICCF lists several “affordable housing agencies,” including LINC, the Kent County Land Bank, Habitat for Humanity and AmplifyGR. When did AmplifyGR become an affordable housing agency? AmplifyGR has no history of promoting or offering affordable housing, so why are they listed as an affordable housing agency? AmplifyGR has only existed for about 1 year and already has been questioned by many in the community on their intentions around development issues and transparency in the Boston Square and Cottage Grove neighborhoods.
Second, the MLive article lists several area foundations as contributing to the cost of the purchase of the RDG Fund properties – The Barnabas Foundation, CDV5 Foundation, Peter C. and Emajean Cook Foundation, Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation, Frey Foundation, National Christian Foundation West Michigan, David and Carol Van Andel Foundation, Jandernoa Foundation and the Wege Foundation.
Most, if not all, of these foundations were founded by members of the capitalist class and many of them, especially the DeVos, Van Andel and Jandernoa families all have a history of supporting public policies that benefit those with wealth and punish individuals and families who are struggling financially. These families have a history of funding political candidates which are supported policies like Right to Work, attacks on 
public sector pensions and doing away with minimum wage laws. You can see from this chart, that these families have been major contributors and those they contribute to have supported policies that promote austerity measures. (See the Michigan Campaign Finance Network report)
One question for ICCF, based on their funding sources for this deal, is how much money did they receive from each foundation and under what criteria did these foundations donate money?
The ICCF director is quoted in the MLive article as saying. “the foundations are investing in the housing market instead of the stock market or bonds, in what VerWys calls program related investment.” A third question would be, what does the ICCF director mean by program related investment? While the city of Grand Rapids is experiencing gentrification in many of the neighborhoods, what does it mean to have the most powerful families contribute to the ICCF deal?
These questions are particularly relevant considering the lack of transparency in the case of the AmplifyGR process, where millions of dollars were spent purchasing properties in two neighborhoods without people from those neighborhoods even being aware this was happening.
These questions arise from my own experience of working with those who have experienced homelessness and have been forced out of their neighborhoods because of the impact that gentrification has had. These questions are rooted in the spirit of housing justice, which not only includes the principle that housing is a right, but that the entire community should have a say in what happens with housing and development in this city. I am sharing these questions with ICCF and see if they respond.
Betsy DeVos Watch: The Education Secretary once again speaks to an organization that the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation gives money to
One pattern, which has emerged in the first year that Betsy DeVos has served as Secretary of Education, is that she has a tendency to speak at events hosted by organizations that she and her family foundations have provided substantial funding to.
In July, DeVos spoke at the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) annual gathering. Betsy, and several members of the DeVos Family have been a financial contributor to ALEC over the years. Then, just a few months ago, the Acton Institute hosted their annual gathering, where DeVos was again the keynote speaker. Betsy DeVos and other members of the family have contributed substantially, but the Secretary of Education used to sit on the board of the Acton Institute. Betsy’s mother, Elsa Prince Broekhuizen, is a current member of Acton’s board.
Less than two weeks ago, DeVos was the keynote speaker at the annual education summit hosted by the Foundation for Excellence in Education. DeVos was a member of the Foundation for Excellence in Education board of directors, until she was chosen by President Trump to run the Department of Education. As in the case of the other examples, the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation have contributed significantly the Foundation for Excellence in Education.
The Foundation for Excellence in Education is a group founded by former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush. The mission and focus of the group is around so-called School Choice, which essentially means they promote charter schools and school privatization. 
Like many of these right wing think tanks, the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE) works closely with the American Legislative Exchange Council on education reform policies. FEE also is a member of the State Policy Network, which provides resources and guidance on implementing neoliberal policies at the state level.
You can read the speech that DeVos delivered at the annual education summit, but there wasn’t anything new or terribly interesting. DeVos continued her usual talking points around making students and parents her priority and why education reform – charter schools, school privatization – are necessary.
There were two things that DeVos said, which are worth pointing out. First, DeVos thanked the woman who introduced her, Denisha Merriweather, was a recipient of at FEE scholarship while attending school in Florida and is now working for Betsy DeVos at the Department of Education.
The other comment from DeVos worth mentioning, also came at the beginning of her speech, when she said:
I’m happy to be back with so many friends at Excel in Ed, especially as you celebrate the 10th anniversary of this National Summit on Education Reform. The Summit has welcomed visionary and inspiring leaders from across government, business and academia, and, as those of you who attended the 2011 Summit in San Francisco will remember, even some friends from Sesame Street made an “unscheduled” guest appearance! I hope they’re not joining us again today!
What DeVos inadvertently does, is to acknowledge that people have been resisting the school privatization agenda for as long as she has been promoting it. Here is a short video, featuring the first Foundation for Excellence in Education summit speaker, Rupert Murdock, being interrupted in 2011.
When Betsy DeVos spoke at this year’s Foundation for Excellence in Education Summit, teachers again rallied to protest her visit to Nashville, where the summit was held just 2 weeks ago.
A Media Release from Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) from this past Friday begins by saying:
A Mexican national in the country illegally, who has a prior conviction for assault on a law officer, is among 27 foreign nationals taken into custody during a four-day operation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this week in western Michigan, targeting at-large criminal aliens, illegal re-entrants and other immigration violators.
Such statements from ICE are standard, as they want to communicate to the news media and to the public at large that what they are doing is to, “focus its enforcement resources on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.”
These media releases from ICE always make sure that they highlight the “worst” cases of immigration violations and in this case it was a Mexican national who had a prior conviction for assault on a law officer.
However, the reality is that most people that ICE has been targeting are people who entered or re-entered the US without documentation. There are many others with minor offenses, like driving without a license and other misdemeanor charges. For the most part, ICE is not arresting people who are a threat to national security. The people being arrested by ICE are often primary income earners with families and people who do work in the service sector, like migrant workers, food packers, janitors and restaurant workers.
This view that immigrants are portrayed as dangerous criminals is a strategy that was recently being promoted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). An article published in October by the independent publication, The Intercept, which included declassified e-mails from DHS, begins by saying:
“A directive to immigration officials across the country to try to portray undocumented immigrants swept up in mass raids as criminals came directly from then-Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, The Intercept has learned.”
Unfortunately, when ICE raids, the public will rarely get a perspective outside of government sources. As we have reported on in the past, the local news media relies almost exclusively on the information provided to them by the Department of Homeland Security. Here is the ICE Media Release, which is repeated in one form or another by MLive, WOOD TV 8, WXMI 17 and WZZM 13. The TV stations don’t have any video, since none was provided to them by ICE and only MLive has a picture (here on the right), which they sourced as being from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
What this means is that the public only gets to hear what government sources have to say and those sources are not questioned or challenged. In addition, the public is not provided any commentary from those who were arrested, their family members, immigration organizations or members of the immigrant community.
Since the news media recycles the perspective of ICE on these arrests, the public rarely is provided with information on immigration policy, the feat that these raids create in the community and how is impacts immigrant families.
In addition, since the news media does not question or challenge ICE officials, there are no follow up stories or investigation into the policies and practices of ICE. The news media could cite a new report from Human Rights Watch that was released last week, which challenged the ICE raids narrative.
Another simple connection on this issue would be for local news media to look at the upcoming vote that will impact DACA recipients and their families. However, such stories are not likely to appear in local news sources and we end up with only a very bias government perspective.
