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In ‘And She Could Be Next,’ Women of Color Take on Politics – The New York Times

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When the directors Grace Lee and Marjan Safinia talk about their new two-part documentary series, “And She Could Be Next,” they compare the process of getting it greenlit to mounting a political campaign.

They would know: In the series, which was executive produced by Ava DuVernay (premiering Monday on PBS and POV.org), Lee and Safinia track the actual campaigns — the door knocking, signposting, rallies and forums — of several women of color who ran for office in 2018.

The producers originally considered telling a story about women in politics, pegged to the first female president — Hillary Clinton was eying the White House at the time, and she was widely considered the favorite. But 2016 had different plans. So Lee reframed the project as something she found more enticing anyway: a documentary not only about women but more specifically about women of color and their communities, and the changes they are making in American politics.

While pitching the series to networks and some investors, however, the team faced pushback and questions about the relevance of such a narrative. Some suggested to Lee and Safinia, both women of color, that they focus on female politicians overall. But the filmmakers refused, Safinia said, because they had decided that keeping the focus on women of color was a “nonnegotiable point of clarity.”

Credit…PBS

“I think that there’s narratives that we hear, particularly in documentaries — they define entire communities, and as we know, these narratives have far too long been told from a white male gaze,” she said. Communities of color are too often relegated to victim narratives, she added, which “wasn’t the story we wanted to tell.”

The story being told is of the women who are pushing back against institutions at all political levels, their journeys interwoven to convey the sense of a larger shift, toward what Lee and Safinia call the “new American majority.” This, the series tells us, is what systemic change looks like.

There’s the cast of heroines: Stacey Abrams, running for governor in Georgia; Bushra Amiwala, for county commissioner in Illinois; Maria Elena Durazo, for California State Senate; Veronica Escobar, for a U.S. congressional seat in Texas; Lucy McBath, for a U.S. congressional seat in Georgia; and Rashida Tlaib, for a U.S. congressional seat in Michigan. “Episode One: Building the Movement” centers on the sprint toward the finish lines of their respective races, while “Episode Two: Claiming Power” focuses more on the end of Abrams’s campaign and on the poll closures, voter purges and voter ID laws that prompted accusations of rampant voter suppression in contests throughout Georgia.

The documentary spends plenty of time on the campaign trail. In California, Durazo delivers a speech in both English and Spanish while wearing a “Defeat Trump” T-shirt. Amiwala, a 19-year-old college student, tries to keep up with her studies when she’s not shaking hands and giving speeches.

More intimate moments are captured as well, particularly with Tlaib’s campaign. We watch her explain the workings of Congress to her two young sons in the car (and offer her elder son a position as her policy analyst), and we follow her through the night as she and her team anxiously await the results of a neck-in-neck race.

Lee, who had worked with Tlaib before on the PBS documentary “Makers: Women in Politics,” pushed for the close-quarters view.

“She really wanted to know me as a woman, as a mother, as a person, as a daughter,” Tlaib said in a phone interview earlier this month. In one scene, Tlaib gathers with her family to celebrate the end of Ramadan; the camera follows the family members as they break their fast and also float campaign strategies.

Credit…PBS

There are also glimpses of the opposition the candidates face along the way. McBath, who campaigns for common-sense gun laws because her son was killed in a senseless act of gun violence, faces backlash and personal attacks on social media. Abrams gives an unruffled response to a man in the crowd who demands to know how much money she owes to the IRS. (Abrams’s opponents tried to use a $54,000 federal tax debt, which she has since repaid, as a cudgel during the campaign.)

And Amiwala, while putting on makeup in her bathroom before an event, recounts how a man once criticized how much lipstick she wore in a campaign video — the kind of petty microaggression female politicians routinely endure. She also recalls the time when a debate tournament judge complimented her for being an “articulate” Muslim.

But this is part of what it looks like to disrupt a system in which you are “an anomaly,” DuVernay said by phone.

“The American political system was not built for or by us,” she said. “It was actually built against us. The actual architecture of the American political system was expressly built to oppress, to subjugate and to create a whole narrative of racial bias and oppression.”

“And She Could Be Next” depicts not only the experiences of candidates but also what Lee and Safinia call a whole campaign “ecosystem,” including activists, organizers, volunteers and other people who also soldier against the status quo but often go overlooked.

Early in the series, Nse Ufot, the executive director of the New Georgia Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to getting Georgians civically engaged and registered to vote, says, “I am so sick of people with limited imaginations and small minds telling us what’s possible, when I see how excited people are.”

Lee and Safinia say this focus on the teams behind the women is what makes the film unique. It took a team of their own, composed entirely of women of color, to pull it off. Lee and Safinia oversaw the operation while field directors and their crew followed the campaigns across the country. It was no small logistical task, but the producers believed a panoramic view was necessary to capture the scale of this political evolution.

Credit…PBS

“To me, it was never a film about ’18,” Lee said. “It’s about a movement, about women of color who have always been organizing.”

The word “movement” surfaces many times throughout the series, connecting the dots between these women and implying some transcendence of the immediate moment in which their races are happening. The future envisioned by “And She Could Be Next” isn’t just female; it’s African-American, Asian-American, Latino, multiracial. It looks a lot like the diverse and equally representative America the country declares itself to be.

In the beginning of the second episode, in front of the podium after her congressional win, Tlaib tells a room full of women of all ages: “It’s going to be this movement that is going to be in front of us, actually. You are in front of us, and we have to follow your lead.”

In the phone interview, Tlaib brought up a famous quote by Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to serve in Congress: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”

But as the country endures a pandemic, mass unemployment and widespread protests, Tlaib said, she thinks it might be time for a revision.

“I don’t know if it’s about bringing your own chair and making the table bigger,” she said. “I think it’s about shaking the table and taking someone else’s chair from them.”

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‘Disgraceful:’ N.S. Tory leader slams school’s request that military remove uniform

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5 days ago

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November 8, 2024

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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.

Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.

A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”

Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.

“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.

In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”

“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”

Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.

Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.

Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.

“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.

“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.

“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.

“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”

NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”

“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Saskatchewan NDP’s Beck holds first caucus meeting after election, outlines plans

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November 8, 2024

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REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.

Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.

She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.

Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.

Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.

The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

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Nova Scotia election: Liberals say province’s immigration levels are too high

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November 7, 2024

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HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.

Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.

“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.

Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.

“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”

The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.

In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.

“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”

In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.

“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”

Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.

Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.

“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”

In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.

In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.

“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”

Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.

“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”

The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.

“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.

“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.

— With files from Keith Doucette in Halifax

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