Politics

Three New Books by Women in the American Political Sphere – The New York Times

Published

4 years ago

August 8, 2020

THIS IS WHAT AMERICA LOOKS LIKE
My Journey From Refugee to Congresswoman
By Ilhan Omar
275 pp. Dey Street. $27.99.

“I am still trying to figure out where I fit in,” Omar writes in the prologue to her memoir. During her childhood in Somalia, her four years in a Kenyan refugee camp and her adolescence in Minneapolis, Omar felt at odds with her peers: as a tomboy, as the child of parents from two different Somali clans and as a teenager caught between American dating culture and family expectations of modesty. Adulthood brought more barriers to belonging. Somali elders in Minnesota opposed Omar’s entry into politics, deeming it an unsuitable venture for a woman. After she won her first political campaign — “the most painful and joyous thing I’ve ever done outside of giving birth” — a fellow legislator mocked her hijab. “This Is What America Looks Like” is the origin story of a leader who, finding no set path that would take a person like her to the places she wanted to go, was forced, and free, to chart her own.

The memoir offers breathing room for Omar, who has been the target of racist attacks and whose history-making tenure in Congress has been marked by disputes with colleagues, especially over their support for Israel, in the claustrophobic confines of Twitter threads. Her efforts to deter further outrage are evident throughout the book, which barely touches topics that have inflamed her critics. (She explains her criticism of Israel by quoting from a 2019 op-ed she published in The Washington Post.) But, with unrepentant recollections of schoolyard brawls with bullies, Omar bolsters her image as a scrapper constitutionally incapable of backing down. “Fighting didn’t feel like a choice,” she writes. “It was a part of me.”

The hardships Omar has endured in her adopted home country, which she recounts in unsparing detail, make a strong argument for the value of diversity in public office. Unfamiliar with the landscape of American higher education, she enrolled in an unaccredited college that didn’t give her adequate financial aid. Later, she struggled to cope with an unplanned pregnancy and her role as her family’s sole breadwinner and caregiver. These are common experiences in this country, but ones that remain unfamiliar to a large majority of federal legislators. The Somali-American congresswoman who fled a war zone overseas may be more representative of the average American than her colleagues who’ve lived here since birth.

SAY IT LOUDER!
Black Voters, White Narratives, and Saving Our Democracy
By Tiffany D. Cross
240 pp. Amistad. $23.99.

A free press works as a pillar of democracy only to the degree that it reflects the society it covers. So argues Cross, a political analyst, in this lively memoir and polemic, which traces the history of white media from Southern newspapers that facilitated lynchings in the early 20th century — precursors to Breitbart, Cross says — to the CNN newsroom she entered in the early 2000s, where white colleagues bonded over cultural references she didn’t share. Cross insists that, by ignoring Black perspectives and misrepresenting Black lives, the American press has never fully served its purpose as a driver of informed civic engagement. “If, as The Washington Post declares, democracy dies in darkness, it also dies in whiteness,” she writes.

“Say It Louder!” doesn’t offer much in the way of original reporting. Instead, Cross aggregates several generations’ worth of media trends — under-covering voter suppression, blaming the victims of police killings for their own deaths — to show how the industry has failed to earn Black Americans’ trust. Cross’s straight talk might be hard for some news editors and pundits to hear, but she makes clear that it’s in the country’s best interest for them to listen: In 2016, hungry for public voices that reflected and affirmed their lives, Black voters were especially vulnerable to Russian social media postings aimed at keeping them home on Election Day.

While Cross’s sense of the media’s impact on individual candidates may be exaggerated, her proposed solutions are practicable and wise. Pollsters should retire the imprecise concept of “the Black vote” with larger sample sizes and more disaggregation of Black respondents; journalists should spend less time parsing the “full-on minstrel show” of Black Trump supporters, who make up a vanishingly small proportion of Black voters. As for politicians, Cross’s book could be a wake-up call for those whose careers hinge on Black support — including Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who in May said Black voters “ain’t Black” if they’re still deciding between him and Trump. The way Cross tells it, taking Black voters for granted is the fastest way to lose them: “Black people are not loyal to any particular political party; Black people are loyal to ourselves.”

SHE WILL RISE
Becoming a Warrior in the Battle for True Equality
By Katie Hill
304 pp. Grand Central. $28.

Hill, a former congressional representative from California, has written her political manifesto as a battle plan. In this impassioned introduction to the gender inequities of 21st-century America, women are warriors, the battlefield is our lives and the mission is a policy agenda somewhat myopically aligned with bills Hill supported during her months in Congress. Early in “She Will Rise,” Hill grapples with the possibility that her resignation — in response to the publication of intimate photos of her with a campaign staffer — will discourage other young women from entering politics. (Hill maintains that her estranged husband leaked the photos; he claims he was hacked.)

Despite the strides made against de jure sexism in the past century, Hill argues, women’s lives remain hemmed in by policies — and, in some cases, a lack thereof — devised by men. Her solution is simple: “We should vote for women … *gasp* BECAUSE THEY ARE WOMEN.”

Her whirlwind recap of past feminist movements can be reductive, and her liberal use of the first-person plural — “when we are assaulted … our minds are already warped to the point that we are afraid it’s our fault if a man hurts us” — suggests a commonality of experience at odds with contemporary feminist thought. But if Hill’s intended audience is politically disaffected young women who could be nudged into action by a dismal cascade of data points, “She Will Rise” makes a decent primer. Hill heads off familiar lines of skepticism with frank explanations for why some women need abortions later in pregnancy, why rape survivors don’t always file police reports and why women often stay with perpetrators of domestic abuse. The last is a struggle Hill knows well; her personal revelations ground that chapter’s statistics in the urgency of real life.

Yet her self-reflection doesn’t extend to the scandal that prompted her book. Hill brushes off her relationship with the staffer as a “gray area” that can’t be explained in the “zero-tolerance” terms of the #MeToo movement, and insists that her husband constrained her social circles so completely that her campaign was her only outlet for intimacy. Her unwillingness to call her relationship with the staffer what it was — an unambiguous ethical violation — is all the more glaring in light of the book’s premise: that women in office conduct themselves better than the men who outnumber them.

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Politics

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

Published

1 day ago

November 8, 2024

Anne Joseph

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.

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Politics

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

Published

1 day ago

November 8, 2024

Anne Joseph

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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Politics

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

Published

2 days ago

November 7, 2024

Anne Joseph

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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