Janine Jackson interviewed the Joint Center’s LaToya Parker about the Trump budget’s racial impacts for the June 20, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

MarketWatch (3/7/25)

Janine Jackson: “Most Americans Can’t Afford Life Anymore” is the matter-of-fact headline over a story on Dow Jones MarketWatch. You might think that’s a “stop the presses” story, but apparently, for corporate news, it’s just one item among others these days.

The lived reality is, of course, not just a nightmare, but a crime, perpetrated by the most powerful and wealthy on the rest of us. As we marshal a response, it’s important to see the ways that we are not all suffering in the same ways, that anti-Black racism in this country’s decision-making is not a bug, but a feature, and not reducible to anything else. What’s more, efforts to reduce or dissolve racial inequities, to set them aside just for the moment, really just wind up erasing them.

So how do we shape a resistance to this massive transfer of wealth, while acknowledging that it takes intentionality for all of us to truly benefit?

LaToya Parker is a senior researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and co-author, with Joint Center president Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, of the recent piece “This Federal Budget Will Be a Disaster for Black Workers.” She joins us now by phone from Virginia. Welcome to CounterSpin, LaToya Parker.

LaToya Parker: Thank you so much for having me.

JJ: I just heard Tavis Smiley, with the relevant reference to Martin Luther King, saying: “Budgets are moral documents.” Budgets can harm or heal materially, and they also send a message about priorities: what matters, who matters. When you and Dedrick Asante-Muhammad looked at the Trump budget bill that the House passed, you wrote that, “racially, the impact is stark”—for Black people and for Black workers in particular. I know that it’s more than one thing, but tell us what you are looking to lift up for people that they might not see.

OtherWords (5/28/25)

LP: Sure. Thank you so much for raising that. This bill is more than numbers. It’s a moral document, like you mentioned, that reveals our nation’s priorities. What stands out is a reverse wealth transfer. The ultra-wealthy get billions in tax breaks, while Black families lose the very programs that have historically provided pathways to the middle class.

JJ: You just said “historic pathways.” You can’t do economics without history. So wealth, home ownership—just static reporting doesn’t explain, really, that you can’t start people in a hole and then say, “Well, now the Earth is flat. So what’s wrong with you?” What are some of those programs that you’re talking about that would be impacted?

LP: For instance, nearly one-third of Black Americans rely on Medicaid. These cuts will limit access to vital care, including maternal health, elder care and mental health services.

Nearly 25% of Black households depend on SNAP, compared to under 8% of white households. SNAP cuts will hit Black families hardest, worsening food insecurities.

But in terms of federal workforce attacks, Black Americans are overrepresented in the public sector, 18.7% of the federal workforce, and over a third in the South. So massive agency cuts threaten thousands of stable, middle-class jobs, undermining one of the most successful civil rights victories in American history.

LaToya Parker: “The ultra-wealthy get billions in tax breaks, while Black families lose the very programs that have historically provided pathways to the middle class.”

So if I was to focus on the reverse wealth transfer, as we clearly lift up in the article, the House-passed reconciliation bill is a massive transfer of wealth from working families to the ultra-wealthy. It eliminates the estate tax, which currently only applies to estates worth more than $13.99 million per person, or nearly $28 million per couple. That’s just 1% of estates. So 99.9% of families, especially Black families, will never benefit from this.

Black families hold less than 5% of the US wealth, despite being over 13% of households. The median white household has 10 times the wealth of the median Black household. Repealing the estate tax subsidizes dynastic wealth for the majority white top 1%, and does nothing for the vast majority of Black families who are far less likely to inherit significant wealth.

JJ: I feel like that wealth disconnection, and I’ve spoken with Dedrick Asante-Muhammad about this in the past, there’s a misunderstanding or just an erasure of history in the conversation about wealth, and Why don’t Black families have wealth? Why can’t they just give their kids enough money to go to school? And it sounds like it’s about Black families not valuing savings or something. But of course, we have a history of white-supremacist discrimination in lending and loaning and home ownership, and in all kinds of things that lead us to this situation that we’re in today. And you can’t move forward without recognizing that.

LP: Absolutely. Absolutely.

JJ: I remember reading a story years ago that said, “Here’s the best workplaces for women.” And it was kind of like, “Well, if you hate discrimination, these companies are good.” Reporting, I think, can make it seem as though folks are just sitting around thinking, “Well, what job should I get? Where should I get a job?” As though we were just equally situated economic actors.

But that doesn’t look anything like life. We are not consumers of employment. Media could do a different job of helping people understand the way things work.

LP: Absolutely. And I think that’s why it’s so important that you’re raising this issue. In fact, we bring it up in our article, in terms of cuts to the federal workforce and benefits. So, for instance, to pay for these tax breaks to the wealthy, the bill slashes benefits for federal employees, and it guts civil service protections, saving just $5 billion a year in the bill that costs trillions, right?

So just thinking about that, Black employees make up, like I said before, 18.7% of the federal workforce, thanks to decades of civil rights progress and anti-discrimination law. Federal jobs have long provided higher wages, stronger benefits and greater job security for Black workers than much of the private sector.

And the DMV alone, the DC/Maryland/Virginia region, more than 450,000 federal workers are employed, with Black workers making up over a quarter in DC/Maryland/Virginia. In the South, well over a third of the federal workers in states like Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Louisiana are Black. In Georgia, it’s nearly 44%. So federal employment has been a cornerstone for Black middle-class advancement, helping families build generational wealth, send children to college and retire with dignity.

JJ: And so when we hear calls about, “Let’s thin out the federal government, because these are all bureaucrats who are making more money than they should,” it lands different when you understand that so many Black people found advancement, found opportunity through the federal government when they were being denied it at every other point. And it only came from explicit policies, anti-discriminatory policies, that opened up federal employment, that’s been so meaningful.

LP: Exactly. Exactly. Federal retirement benefits like the pensions and annuities are a rare source of guaranteed income. Nearly half of Black families have zero retirement savings, making these benefits critical to avoiding poverty in retirement. So these policies amount to a reverse wealth transfer, enriching wealthy heirs while undermining the public servants and systems that have historically offered a path forward for Black workers. Instead of gutting the benefits and eliminating the estate tax, we should invest in systems that have provided pathways to the middle class for Black workers, and expand these opportunities beyond government employment. Ultimately, this isn’t just about policy, it’s about what kind of nation we want to be, right? So that’s what it’s all about.

JJ: And I’ll just add to that with a final note. Of course, I’m a media critic, but I think lots of folks could understand why I reacted to this line from this MarketWatch piece that said, “Years of elevated prices have strained all but the wealthiest consumers, and low- and middle-income Americans say something needs to change.” Well, for me, I’m hearing that, and I’m like, “So it’s only low- and middle-income people, it’s only the people at the sharp end, who want anything to change.”

And, first of all, we’re supposed to see that as a fair fight, the vast majority of people against the wealthiest. But also, it makes it seem like such a zero-sum game, as though there isn’t any shared idea among a lot of people who want racial and economic equity in this country. It sells it to people as like, “Oh, well, we could make life livable for poor people or for Black people, but you, reader, are going to have to give something up.” It’s such a small, mean version of what I believe a lot of folks have in their hearts, in terms of a vision going forward in this country. And that’s just my gripe.

LP: I agree. These aren’t luxury programs. They’re lifelines across the board for all Americans. The working poor—if you like to call it that, some like to call it that—cutting them is just cruel, right? It’s economically destructive, it’s irresponsible. Fiscally, states would lose $1.1 trillion over 10 years, risking over a million jobs in healthcare and food industries alone. So I agree 100%.

JJ: All right, we’ll end on that note for now. We’ve been speaking with LaToya Parker, senior researcher at the Joint Center. They’re online at JointCenter.org, and you can find her piece, with Joint Center president Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, on the impact of the federal budget on Black workers at OtherWords.org. Thank you so much, LaToya Parker, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

LP: Thank you again for having me.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

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CEPR (3/3/25)

This week on CounterSpin: We’ve always heard that racists hate quotas, yet Stephen Miller’s “3000 a day however which way” mandate is terrorizing immigrant communities—brown immigrant communities—around the country. The response from people of conscience can look many ways: linking arms around people in danger, absolutely; vigorously disputing misinformation about immigrants, whether hateful or patronizing, also. But another piece is gaining a deeper, broader understanding of migration. News media could help answer one implied question—“Why is anyone trying to come to the US anyway?”—by grappling with the role of conditions the US has largely created in the places people are driven from. We’ll talk about that largely missing piece from elite media’s immigration coverage with Michael Galant, senior research and outreach associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Inequality.org (5/29/25)

Also on the show: Anyone who pays attention and cares can see that the Trump budget bill is a brazen transfer of resources from those that are trying to meet basic needs to those that can’t remember how many houses they own. But corporate reporting rarely breaks out economic policy in terms of how it affects different people—especially how it affects communities for whom they show no consistent concern. Economic policy is itself racialized, gendered, regionalized, targeted. Humanistic journalism would help us see that.

LaToya Parker is a senior researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and co-author, with Joint Center president Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, of the recent piece “This Federal Budget Will Be a Disaster for Black Workers.”

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

What else would I abolish? Well, a list might start with war, fossil fuels, militaries, prisons, nuclear energy, police, nuclear weaponry, campaign bribery, health insurance companies, the death penalty, the livestock industry, Wall Street, borders, poverty, the NSA, the CIA, the United States Senate, Fox News, MSNBC, the Star Spangled Banner, the cyber truck. I could go on. Lists will vary around the world.

By abolitionism I mean,  primarily, persuading masses of people of the superiority of a new way of doing things, and effecting the political changes to create that new way of doing things. You can’t get rid of police or prisons or wars or Fox News by blowing up a building or zeroing out a budget, if people are all left believing that they need or want those institutions. The darn things will quickly be back stronger than before.

Persuading people that there is a better way than police or nukes or oil is a major project. Persuading them of several of these things at once may sound dramatically and senselessly more difficult. On the other hand, many of the same arguments that apply to one topic apply to several others. The survival of life on Earth actually requires a sort of panabolitionism. And if we were ever to combine the energies of all the people who each want one destructive, counterproductive institution abolished, together we’d have a lot of power.

The new books I have in mind are Talking About Abolition: A Police-Free World Is Possible by Sonali Kolhatkar; Skyscraper Jails: The Abolitionist Fight Against Jail Expansion in New York City by Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti; and No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement by Micah Herskind, Mariah Parker, and Kamau Franklin. These books are not the persuasive case for abolition, so much as accounts of the struggles of activists who work for abolition or for steps toward abolition. There are such things as partial steps toward abolition, just as there are such things as false steps that do not lead in that direction (even if they pretend to).

In Talking About Abolition, Cat Brooks is quoted as saying that “the data and the logic” establish that housing, mental health support, living-wage jobs, healthcare, and education reduce violent crime more than police and prisons do. But of course that doesn’t strike some people as “logic” at all. So the data becomes very important, including international and regional comparisons. One good source of data — here — establishes overwhelmingly that moving at least part of what gets spent on prisons and police into other programs would accomplish more, not less, of what prisons and police claim to be for, namely reducing violent crime — programs such as trauma assistance, hospital case workers, mentoring, training, jobs, courses on preventing sexual violence, and such as summer jobs, financial support, sports, positive parenting, early childcare, etc. The reason why it’s “logical” that general investment in better lives reduces crime more than police and prisons do, is in part because so many crimes arise out of misery, and in part because places that have made those investments tend to have less violent crime than places that have invested instead in police and prisons.

This is not a new discovery, or a truth that simply sets us free. There are a couple of major longstanding hurdles. First, U.S. city budgets often devote a huge percentage to police, and the primary reason seems to be antidemocratic corruption by profiteers, moneyed interests, and police unions. All of this is, of course, a perfect parallel to a national government’s war spending and its causes.

Second, just as when someone hears about war abolition they want to know what to do when Hitler comes to get them, when someone hears about police abolition, they want to know whom they should call in an emergency. Cat Brooks’ answer that you should deal with it yourself or “hush” is not likely to persuade everyone.

As with war, so with police, a major part of the answer will strike the skeptic as evasive. If you demilitarize the world, if you establish the rule of law, if you create nonviolent conflict resolution mechanisms, if you set up populations with training in unarmed civilian defense, if you get rid of the weapons, etc., life on Earth might survive and even prosper with the redirection of resources, and Hitler (long since dead, by the way) won’t get you. If you eliminate poverty, create universal public healthcare, provide free quality education from preschool to college, and ensure safe and stable lives for all, not to mention — and, surprisingly, it is hardly ever mentioned in abolish-police books — getting rid of the hundreds of millions of guns in the United States alone, the kind of emergency in which you’d want to call the police won’t come up.

But what if it does? Even if it’s as rare as lightning? What if it does and I have nightmares about it until it does? That’s where unarmed civilian defense, and nonviolent interrupters and de-escalators come in. There are, in fact, other ways to non-destructively prepare to confront that which may no longer need confronting. And these other methods will become both more understandable and less needed as partial steps toward abolition are taken.

In fact, one of the successes underway by police abolitionists is the establishment — already achieved in a number of U.S. cities — of alternative numbers to dial in emergencies, at which you can reach skilled providers of assistance with mental health, de-escalation, and other needs, and to which you can specify what kind of assistance you do or do not want. Other paths to success would seem clear if we had democracy. As with the federal budget and the Pentagon, so with local budgets and the police: when you show people what budgets look like, the majority of people want to move money out of the police and the Pentagon into useful things. The trick lies in building the power to make that majority will into governmental action.

While Talking About Abolition provides inciteful interviews with a dozen remarkable activists and academics, Skyscraper Jails and No Cop City each focuses on a particular campaign, respectively the efforts to close the jail on Rikers Island in New York City and to prevent the construction of the Cop City militarized police training facility outside Atlanta. The two campaigns have faced fierce opposition. To grossly oversimplify, the New York opposition has been slicker, slimier, more dishonest, and more successful. An astroturf campaign has been created in New York, not to oppose prison closures or abolition, but to claim the title of Abolitionist, even while pushing for new multi-billion-dollar jails in skyscrapers to “replace” Rikers, even while not closing Rikers at all, even while maintaining that these are all steps toward eliminating prisons. As you might have guessed, not everyone has fallen for that sales pitch, and a good deal of corrupt anti-democratic action has been required as well.

Nonetheless, the project of building a New York skyline of humans in animal cages stacked into the clouds has generally operated under the banner of “Close Rikers,” generating — it is my impression — less indignation around the country and world than has been merited and than has been gained by the resistance of the forest defenders opposing the creation of Cop City.

False steps that lead not toward abolition but often toward the strengthening of a destructive institution sometimes rely on distinguishing good prisons or wars or whatever from bad. In the case of wars this habit is strong even among passionate opponents of wars.

The problem with Rikers is not that it is an improper prison — though who wouldn’t choose a prison in Scandinavia if they had a choice? — just as the problem with Gaza is not that it is an improper war — though you might take your chances in Yemen if forced to pick. The problem with Rikers is not that it’s on an island or that it lacks some new technology. The problem is that Rikers puts people, some convicted of crimes and many (83% in 2023) not, in cages to dehumanize and brutalize them to no useful purpose. As Rikers began as a humane reform of an older prison, skyscraper prisons are now marketed as a humane reform of Rikers. But the whole system is incapable of humaneness.

One of the best features of Skyscraper Jails is that it quotes some of the powerful comments residents of New York City submitted to public officials who were required to pretend to seek public input but listened not a bit. Now we can listen for them.

One of the worst features of Skyscraper Jails is near the end of the book, where the authors claim that “there will be no peaceful transition” and “strife” will be required “equaling at least that of the French Revolution, guillotines and all — just as the abolition of slavery and realization of formal equality for Black people required a great, bloody, civil war.”

Fun times ahead, folks! At least for propagandistic nonsense. Some three-quarters of the world rid itself of slavery and serfdom within a century, much of it without a “great, bloody, civil war” which most certainly did not bring the degree of formal or informal equality brought by the Civil Rights movement. We should look to the wisdom and coherence of Ray Acheson’s book Abolishing State Violence: A World Beyond Bombs, Borders, and Cages, in which war is one of the institutions to be abolished.

It’s disconcerting to read that what needs opposing is “organized violence” but not war, or to see incarceration defined as “warfare,” but, you know, warfare not opposed as warfare. This pattern may provide a clue to the absence of the guns from these books. No Cop City, No Cop World is explicit about its support for property destruction, while hinting at openness to supporting serious violence, but never bringing up guillotines or civil wars. This topic, which I suggest is critically important, is, however a very small part of these excellent books. One of the reasons it is important is the need to build larger movements through bringing in large numbers of people who are mostly opposed to violence. Another reason is the need to grow stronger by combining the movements that oppose wars, prisons, police, etc. They have much to learn from each other in addition to creating larger numbers through joining together.

No Cop City gives us a rich understanding of the history, context, and players in the struggle in and outside Atlanta, as well as lessons that could prove very valuable for similar struggles in numerous other places. Cop City is not a national project but a model for a militarized war rehearsal ground coming soon to a metropolitan area near you. The book also makes clear the connections to war, the training of police by the Israeli military, the military equipment and language and thinking. Atlanta is our most unequal and most surveilled U.S. city with one of the deepest traditions of racism. But as it does, so others will follow.

And as the inspiring opponents of Cop City go, others should follow as well. While I question acceptance of all tactics, no matter how counterproductive, as the supreme activist value, I cannot help but marvel at the tremendously broad coalition (lawyers and children and campers and voters and protesters and saboteurs and a native American nation and environmentalists and peace activists and Central Americans, etc.) and variety of approaches that have taken on Cop City and at least partially and temporarily stopped it in its tank tracks. This is a movement — in the tradition of Occupy — with direct democracy, consensus, and a modeling of a better society on a smaller scale — a life-changing experience in multiple senses.

Imagine a world of growing numbers of encampments dedicated to creating a life without poverty, cruelty, or violence — with no exceptions, no exceptions for certain types of victims, no exceptions for violence on a large enough scale, no exceptions for structural violence hidden in systems of denial of healthcare or a safe environment, no exceptions for people labeled “felon” or “enemy” or “foreigner.” Does abolition sound like a “negative” idea? Think of the world it could give birth too and just try not to smile.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by David Swanson.

The exercise, conducted in international waters by a cruiser, frigate and replenishment ship, involved what is said to have been poor notice given to Australian authorities on February 21. But the matter has rapidly burgeoned into something else: that what the Chinese task fleet did was mischievously remarkable, exceptional and snooty to convention and protocols. It is on that score that incontinent demagogy has taken hold.

Media outlets have done little to soften the barbs. A report by ABC News, for instance, notes that Airservices Australia was “only aware of the exercises 40 minutes after China’s navy opened a ‘window’ for live-fire exercises from 9.30am.” The first pickup of the exercises came from a Virgin Australia pilot, who had flown within 250 nautical miles of the operation zone and warned of the drills. Airservices Australia was immediately contacted, with the deputy CEO of the agency, Peter Curran, bemused about whether “it was a potential hoax or real.”

Defence Chief Admiral David Johnston told Senate estimates that he would have preferred more notice for the exercises – 24-48 hours was desirable – but it was clear that Coalition Senator and shadow home affairs minister James Paterson wanted more. Paterson had thought it “remarkable that Australia was relying on civilian aircraft for early warning about military exercises by a formidable foreign task group in our region.” To a certain extent, the needlessly irate minister got what he wanted, with the badgered Admiral conceding that the Chinese navy’s conduct had been “irresponsible” and “disruptive”.

Wu Qian, spokesperson for the China National Ministry for Defence, offered a different reading: “During the period, China organised live-fire training of naval guns toward the sea on the basis of repeatedly issuing prior safety notices”. Its actions were “in full compliance with international law and international practice, with no impact on aviation flight safety”. That said, 49 flights were diverted on February 21.

Much was also made about what were the constituent elements of the fleet. As if it mattered one jot, the Defence Force chief was pressed on whether a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine had made up the task force. “I don’t know whether there is a submarine with them, it is possible, task groups occasionally do deploy with submarines but not always,” came the reply. “I can’t be definitive whether that’s the case.”

The carnival of fear was very much in town, with opposition politicians keen to blow air into the balloon of the China threat across the press circuit. The shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie warned listeners on Sydney radio station 2GB of “the biggest peacetime military buildup since 1945”, Beijing’s projection of power with its blue-water navy, the conduct of two live-fire exercises and the Chinese taskforce operating within Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone off Tasmania. Apparently, all of this showed the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to be “weak” for daring to accept that the conduct complained of was legal under international law. “Now that may be technically right, but that misses the deeper subtext, and that is China is now in our backyard, and they’ve demonstrated that we don’t have the will to insist on our national interest and mutual respect.”

There are few voices of sensible restraint in Australia’s arid landscape of strategic thinking, but one could be found. Former principal warfare officer of the Royal Australian Navy, Jennifer Parker, commendably remarked that this hardly warranted the title of “a crisis”. To regard it as such “with over-the-top indignation diminishes our capacity to tackle real crises as the region deteriorates.” Australia might, at the very least, consider modernising a surface fleet that was “the smallest and oldest we’ve had since 1950.”

Allegations that Beijing should not be operating in Australia’s exclusive economic zone, let alone conduct live-fire exercises in international waters, served to give it “a propaganda win to challenge our necessary deployments to North-East Asia and the South China Sea – routes that carry two-thirds of our maritime trade.”

The cockeyed priorities of the Australian defence establishment lie elsewhere: fantasy, second hand US nuclear-powered submarines that may, or may never make their way to Australia; mushy hopes of a jointly designed nuclear powered submarine specific to the AUKUS pact that risks sinking off the design sheet; and the subordination of Australian land, naval and spatial assets to the United States imperium.

Such is the standard of political debate that something as unremarkable as this latest sea incident has become a throbbing issue that supposedly shows the Albanese government as insufficiently belligerent. Yet there was no issue arising, other than a statement of presence by China’s growing navy, something it was perfectly entitled to do.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

I try to use the form as a method of curiosity. If curiosity is the spark, then I’m just figuring out which tools work. Playing around with the tools is really an experimental way of being curious about how the form can tell a story. What’s underneath the rock of a story I thought I knew, and what can I learn from the form?

How does your writing process differ for each genre? So how do you start an essay versus how do you start a poem? Or do you go into it not really knowing?

A little of both. Sometimes I have a skeleton of something. For both essays and poems, the conception process is very similar. So there definitely were some essays that started as poems. It’s just about realizing what the best container is for the thought. Sometimes I need more of an argument, even if it’s an argument with myself, but what’s cool is that I can think about utilizing those techniques no matter what form. It’s about exercising, learning how an essay thinks, and then being able to apply that to a poem if I need to or want to.

It is a learning process, but I love how you’re like, “What skills can I grab from either genre?”

Part of my draw to other genres is just—there’s a fascination with language and with the word and what it can do. That’s me as a poet. Just—what is possible? And where are the limits, if there are any? When I approach craft as a whole, and my career, that’s the spirit I’m carrying. When I’m looking at other forms, it’s, how can this thing stretch? What can language do here? I’m trying to think about all those techniques as available no matter what I’m working on.

What did you set out to explore with You Get What You Pay For? What was the inspiring idea, and how did you decide it was going to be a collection of essays?

It took some time for the book’s identity to reveal itself to me. I had an idea of what topics and references would be swirling around in there, but it was down to the wire of, what is the story? What’s the arc of it?

It really started with an essay that I wrote about my depression, being in therapy, and this argument for therapy as reparations. I was like, what if I play that out and try to make that claim and use myself as a case study. It really was this experience of being in therapy and realizing how much of what I had held as my own neuroses were by design and influenced by politics and racism. Thinking about this undoing of white supremacist thought, a psychological liberation.

That hope, that desire for psychological un-chainment for Black Americans was really what drove everything else. I wanted that to be the central argument or plea. Essays are cool because I like research and I wanted to include some other voices. I do that in my poems some, but being in conversation with another text felt like something that I could do in an essay.

It wasn’t that I wanted it to be this academic argument, but in the spirit of a personal essay, a creative nonfiction book is in conversation with a lot of thoughts out there about reparations and mental health of the Black community. And then there’s the other part—the evidence that I’m using from my life. I am backtracking in order to follow through the line that ends with me. What are all the systems and steps that were taken to create the psychological turmoil that I am in and have been in? I took this wider lens and presented pieces of my past and my story, but also brought in conversations about the larger systems that are inextricable from my story.

That makes it sound a little bit drier than it is. There’s a whole other piece about a slave ship—my way of explaining what the Black American condition is, and the problem of talking about the economics of us. I’m putting pieces of my story next to these larger ideas. I wanted to have it building through the book and have a lot of different threads following up on each other and have pieces work almost like in a poem where a different image shows up again and again—utilizing those poetic techniques to build more of an essay format argument. It was a big project in my mind, but the gut impulse of it was very clear.

You’re bringing up some of the themes that I’ve found in your work since There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé. Did writing this feel different than some of your previous books? Or did it feel like you were getting closer to what you set out to write? I guess I’m asking–

Am I in conversation with myself a little bit? Yes.

Writing this was frustrating. I was like, I already done said this to y’all. It taught me a lot about the poetic form, and it taught me a lot about prose and the sentence, because it was almost like self-translation. I feel like I could go from my first book and annotate, and it would be a nonfiction book. I already put this thought out there. It’s just that I did it in these three lines instead of 20 pages.

It was an interesting practice in, “what’s the other way of saying this?” At first, I was like, poems are the best. Why can’t everyone understand that I already said all that? I just put an image of a slave ship and an image of Big Pimpin’ and we’re done. But here I have to spend 20 pages talking about it.

So to then pull it apart and connect all the dots, dot by painstaking dot, the more I pulled it out, the more I’m like, but that also relates to this. And then I’m bringing in the Bible. The more you expand it, the more it expands. But the process of going through that gave me a newfound respect for each form and the different ways I can approach the same thought. It also forced me to double back and unpack those themes and see what I left out, and see what all the supporting cast members look like.

In a way, it is deepening what I’ve covered already and also pushing forward a little bit in the way that only prose maybe can do. And there’s value in repetition, obviously. The other frustrating part is that I’m saying these things that I already said, but then I’m also quoting people from 1901 saying it. So I’m like, well, what are we doing here?

That’s how writing is a lot of the time, especially when you’re dealing with past sources and other texts. If that person said it in an even better way, and that was 50 years ago when people were still acting a fool, then what am I up to? There’s also this sense of translating and updating these ideas and presenting them in a different context with different evidence and different examples—such as myself—and to a different audience. There is value in that. Sometimes it’s got to be said for 50 years, a million different kinds of ways. In a poem, in song, in skits. Maybe we just need to be hearing the same shit.

We as artists get so caught up in fresh and new, and this book taught me more than anything that the freshest shit is the oldest shit. We don’t look back enough.

How do you manage to weave cultural criticism and research into your work? And how can other writers practice this? You make it sound easy, but I imagine that it’s very difficult.

I mean, yes and no. It was, but my brain works that way. I really do like researching. Everything I’m learning applies to everything that I’m thinking about. The process of reading widely and reading specific things, and then living in the world through the lens of those things, makes the conversation with those texts a little bit more natural. I’m inserting these ideas into my own world versus trying to operate in some kind of academic or critical vacuum. When I started writing poems, I was in college and I double majored in creative writing and cultural anthropology. For that reason, I’ve always taken influence from other disciplines and used that in my work and used that as a launchpad to get ideas for my work.

In a lot of the cultural criticism that I’m doing, that comes in handy because I’m able to take a wider political view. Understanding my identity as a writer, and understanding the role of an ethnographer, was very critical, and it really shaped my writing practice. I was calling this book auto-psychologic ethnography. It’s like an auto-ethnography of my brain, of my mind.

That is a mode of my writing process. When I say writing process, I mean the collection of the ideas and not just typing stuff. The way that poems form in my head, they are interacting with larger ideas about the human condition and how we organize ourselves and bigger thoughts like that.

Mental health has played a large role in your work, especially in your YA novel. Tell me more about what made you be open with your mental health and how you continue to shape that writing.

Looking back, I’m like, Who Put This Song On? is a really sweet way to think about an Ars Poetica because I had to hide myself so much. The hero’s journey of that book is that she’s able to speak about it. And the conclusion is me. In the book, which is based on real life, of me writing this essay about my depression for my high school yearbook–to put that in fiction was a turning point for me and almost a pledge to myself that if I’m going to be living, I’m going to be writing about what I’m living through. And I can use my voice, so I will.

After having finished You Get What You Pay For, I’m really almost consciously not at the behest of therapists, et cetera. Everyone’s like, take a break, my dude. But I feel the weight of how long I was uncomfortable doing so and how ashamed I felt. So there’s a little bit of just wanting to avenge a teen version of me who didn’t feel like she could talk about these things.

It’s a guiding principle that I won’t sugarcoat my mental health journey. Because it’s not fair to me. Honestly, I don’t have time to play this game that I’m not disabled. It is what it is. I don’t want to stop talking about it because this is a real thing. It’s not, oh, it’s over because the book is over.

We want to see me as a character, but I am indeed myself, the author, and real people don’t have arcs. To that end, my artist statement that I live by is trying to describe to the reader as best I can—using all the tools I have—how it feels to be in this body during this time in this place. Just get as close as I can to reporting. To do that, you can’t just leave out a big old part or you can’t just diminish it. There isn’t any getting away from it. I never want to feel like I’m preaching a topic, but I do want to feel like I am bearing witness to myself. I think I owe that to myself if nothing else.

What has writing about Black womanhood, mental health, culture, and feminism taught you about yourself both as a person and as a writer?

I am part of something. I exist in a lineage. That is what I have found. I have found the ineffability of Black womanhood across ages. I hesitate to call it strength, even though it feels like strength, but that word just doesn’t feel right for us anymore.

But it’s a type of power for sure. There is something that I have gotten from reaching back into lineages and seeing how we’ve done it that allows me to be bigger than myself. There’s an elevation that we can get from each other, and that has been a really important lesson for me moving through the world, but also sitting at the typewriter or at the computer. I don’t always write alone.

How do you balance writing and discovering what to write about, with the exhaustion that sometimes comes with being a Black woman?

I am not a person who writes every day. I’m not good at doing that. I am also, once again, mentally ill, and I don’t necessarily like writing when I’m really depressed. In those times, that is where the typewriter comes in. I’m allowed to type because I want to hear the bell. I’m engaging in the exercise, but I’m not going to force myself to go there emotionally if it doesn’t feel safe.

In the past few years, I’ve had really long chunks where I was like, I don’t feel good. The world doesn’t feel good. I got nothing good to say. I’m not excited about language, and for me, it doesn’t work to write from that. It is a way of trying to first assess what I can make of this feeling, but sometimes the answer is nothing or I don’t want to. If I still feel like I need to exercise some kind of creative release, then I allow myself to, and I also allow that to not be writing. I am not a good visual artist, but I did get into doodling for that reason, because it’s a creative release and ain’t nobody checking for my drawings. There’s no pressure around it, and there’s very little politics around me drawing a plant.

Finding freedom in that and cleaning my typewriter. I also try to take in art in that time. I go record shopping and listen to records all day, stuff like that that feeds me. If I can’t release it, then at least I’m getting fed. I’m just reading June Jordan over and over and over trying to store up, basically.

I love the idea of storing up. Sometimes you just need to read for a month.

I always talk about my writing process in stages, and the first one is what I call the collecting stage, which is just living. Living, going to museums, watching movies, listening to records, reading liner notes. Just collecting, storing up, and then eventually it arranges itself and comes out as text, but you don’t really know how long that stage is going to take.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Arriel Vinson.

Former New Zealand attorney-general David Parker spoke on day 295 of Israel’ genocidal war on Gaza in Auckland today, condemning the National-led government’s inaction over the ongoing crisis.

Responding to the recent International Court of Justice’s landmark advisory ruling that Israel’s occupation of Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem — Occupied Palestine — was illegal and must end as soon as possible, Parker said he was disappointed in New Zealand’s “equivocal” response.

He also called on the government to recognise the state of Palestine, along with some 145 countries around the world that have already done so.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live — at least 66 killed across Gaza in past 24 hours
• Anzac massacre: The story of Surafend
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

Parker described the enthusiastic response to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the US Congress this week — at a time when the International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant accusing him of war crimes — “shameful”.

“I was appalled at the reception that Netanyahu was given in America . . .”

Cries of “shame” from the crowd greeted his words.

“. . . I agree that was shameful.

Applauding of Netanyahu ‘appalling’
“It was appalling that he was lauded the way that he was by the American parliament.

“It is a shame that the New Zealand government does not recognise Palestine.

“The Labour Party has called for the recognition of Palestine.”

The ICJ advisory judgment also ruled that Israel was an apartheid state.

This case was separate from the genocide one brought by South Africa against Israel in January which is still before the court.

A large banner at the rally illustrated the massive global support for Palestine statehood, with a map showing the main countries that have not supported recognition to be the white English-speaking settler colonial nations such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States.

Among the speakers were two Palestinian teenagers, Lujain Al-Badry, who spoke of the litany of the latest Israeli massacres in Gaza — but she also highlighted the “forgotten” atrocities by illegal settlers and the military in the West Bank — and the other a poet who spoke passionately of the constant evictions of Palestinians from their own homes and land.

More than 700 Israelis have illegally settled on Palestinian land since the territory was occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in defiance of repeated UN resolutions declaring the settlements unlawful.

Irish activist and trade unionist Joe Carolan, just back from a visit to Ireland, spoke of the political drift to the right in France and other European Union countries and reminded the crowd that support for the Palestinian cause and against colonialism was “liberation for all”.

The crowd marched around the block to protest outside the US consulate in Auckland, calling on Washington to end its support and funding for the Israeli genocide.

At least 39,324 Palestinians have been killed and 90,830 others wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Surafend massacre
Meanwhile, an RNZ podcast released at the weekend has revealed new insights into what has been described as the worst New Zealand military atrocity — the Surafend massacre during the First World War in Palestine in 1918.

According to the new season RNZ’s Black Sheep podcast, New Zealand and Australian soldiers “murdered upwards of 40 Arab civilians in a Palestinian village” in December 2018.

“But,” continued the podcast report, “more than 100 years later, we still don’t know exactly who did it, or why.

“We investigate what one military historian describes as ‘by far the worst war crime ever committed by New Zealand military personnel’ — The Surafend massacre — and other allegations of war crimes against Anzacs in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Dr David Robie is editor and publisher of Asia Pacific Report.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters is putting off recognition of Palestine as a state, despite opposition Labour’s formal request that he make the move.

Peters said diplomatic recognition of Palestine was a matter of “when not if”, but doing so now could impede progress towards a two-state solution — and the focus should be on aid for civilians.

Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker had written to Peters, calling for New Zealand to take “meaningful action” by recognising Palestine as a state.

• READ MORE: Gordon Campbell on Winston Peters’ pathetic speech at the UN
• Other reports on Palestine

He noted this did not mean a recognition of Hamas, “which is one political party in the Palestinian territories”.

“There can be no lasting peace without Palestinian statehood,” Parker wrote, pointing to 139 of the 193 member states of the United Nations having already recognised it.

“Recognition signals this. It doesn’t matter that the state is yet to be fully established, with agreed borders. Many states and much of the Western world recognised Israel well before it was established as a state. Similarly with Kosovo.”

Parker said New Zealand should do this by inviting the Palestinian Authority to send an ambassador to present their credentials to New Zealand, a role which could be performed by the Head of the General Delegation of Palestine based in Canberra Izzat Abdulhadi.

‘Immediate ceasefire’ needed
Peters, however, said the “immediate and urgent need is for an immediate ceasefire and the provision of aid to help alleviate the desperate plight of an innocent civilian population”.

“The government supports the establishment of a Palestinian state and has done so for decades. We must see momentum towards this goal and it’s a matter of ‘when not if’ we see Palestinian statehood,” he wrote.

However, he said they could not afford to take focus away from the current crisis.

“Bluntly asserting statehood unilaterally at this point, however well intentioned, would do nothing to alleviate the current plight of the Palestinian people. Indeed, it might impede progress.

“We would need to be sure that any change in our current settings would contribute credibly to a serious diplomatic push to achieve a two-state solution. We do not believe we are currently at that point.

“We are realistic that achieving this will require serious negotiations, including over the territory and political authority of a future Palestinian state. Statehood is neither a prerequisite for renewed negotiations, nor is it a guarantee they will progress faster.

“It is important for any Palestinian state that it does not contain elements that threaten Israel’s security, and that the Palestinian Authority can govern effectively. That is why we have said an organisation like Hamas — which commits terrorism — cannot be part of future governance in Palestine.”

Case for recognition
Parker had laid out his case for recognition, saying Israel had ignored two resolutions of the UN General Assembly backed by an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations, including “its closest ally, the United States, which has repeatedly said the loss of civilian life in Gaza is an unacceptable price to pay for Israel’s pursuit of Hamas”.

“The international community, including New Zealand, should not stand by and watch Israel breach international law and ignore entreaties without taking meaningful action,” he wrote.

“The absence of progress for many years, and the current war, make the status quo ever more untenable.

“The occupying Israeli government forces cannot legitimately continue to deprive Palestinians of basic rights to govern themselves.

“We believe it is time now for New Zealand to reinforce our opposition to the war and our support for a lasting peace including Palestinian independence.”

Parker said Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s recent statements also contemplating recognition was coincidental, and Labour had already decided to make the proposal to Peters.

He accepted it was unlikely Peters would be able to give an immediate response, other than to say no.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• Asia Pacific Report says that in the UN Security Council vote last week, only the US voted against Palestine becoming a full member of the United Nations by using its veto. But an overwhelming majority of 12 nations out of the 15 voted in favour of admission, including three of the permanent members (China, France and Russia). Only the fifth permanent member, UK, and Switzerland abstained.
• Palestine currently has had permanent observer status since 2012.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Exonerated for the Elderly Mother and Daughter Murders

Mr. Manning was unjustly condemned to death for two separate double murders and has been exonerated of the 1993, case of murdering an elderly mother and daughter in Starkville, Mississippi. The Mississippi Supreme Court recognized vital evidence was hidden, showing that the state’s main witness lied for self-benefit.

The State’s Case against Willie Manning

Two college students, Tiffany Miller and Jon Steckler were found murdered on December 11, 1992. Four months later, in April of 1993, Manning became a primary suspect. The Oktibbeha County Mississippi Circuit Court appointed post-conviction lawyers twice. Both times the attorneys withdrew because they were not familiar with state post-conviction and federal habeas corpus practices. Meanwhile, an exceptionally experienced attorney in post-conviction and federal habeas corpus practice had the desire to represent Mr. Manning, and the circuit court of Oktibbeha County Mississippi ignored the attorney’s motion.

In the parking lot of an apartment building, Tiffany Miller’s vehicle was discovered double-parked. The car was a two-seater and evidence that Jon Steckler had been run over was clear from his blood found underneath the vehicle.  Sheriff Dolph Bryan assumed a connection between the murders and a previous car break-in. Bryan’s theory lacked concrete evidence as he believed the murder victims interrupted a theft in progress from John Wise’s car burglary. The break-in occurred at a fraternity house parking lot on the campus of Mississippi State University. The burglarized car belonged to Wise, who reported missing items which included a leather jacket, a portable CD player, and a brass restroom token. Some of the local businesses used brass tokens for entering their restrooms, and one was found near the murder victims, about five miles from the house Willie lived in with his mother. John Wise declared that the discovered coin exhibited a shiny appearance, contrasting with his own, which did not.

The sheriff created a scenario of the perpetrator forcing Miller and Steckler into Miller’s car, with Tiffany Miller sitting on Willie Manning’s lap and Jon Steckler driving. After reaching the destination, the sheriff surmised that the victims were forced out of Miller’s car and shot, after which the murderer drove the car to an apartment complex and abandoned it. Sheriff Dolph Bryan orchestrated this entire crime scene without physical evidence or witnesses.

This investigation resulted in Manning’s conviction, which was partially based on the discovery of a hair fragment belonging to a Black individual in Miller’s car. The hair fragment was admitted as evidence, and as a result, the sheriff and prosecutor implied Mr. Manning’s presence in the vehicle. The Department of Justice has acknowledged that the FBI’s hair analysis testimony at Manning’s trial was unreliable and false.  Mr. Manning is actively contesting his conviction of the double homicide.

Fabricated Testimonies and Sheriff Dolph Bryan

The case against Willie Manning is fundamentally weak, as it’s characterized by speculative assumptions from Sheriff Bryan, fabricated testimonies, and questionable forensic analysis, including the use of discredited hair follicle science. Willie Manning was convicted on jailhouse informant testimony made by Earl Jordan, Frank Parker, and Renee Hathorn. Each of the sheriff’s informants was facing prison time for criminal charges. Every jailhouse informant gave fabricated testimonies in return for reduced sentences or total exoneration, with two of them receiving financial rewards.

According to Earl Jordan’s affidavit, the sheriff indirectly made it clear that he would assist Jordan with his habitual offender charges in exchange for helping him with Manning. The sheriff and Jordan met four or five times and Jordan’s testimony was fabricated under the sheriff’s influence. In exchange, Jordan received some reward money and a 3-year sentence reduced to time served. Jordan submitted an affidavit because Dolph Bryan was no longer the sheriff. Bryan served as sheriff of Oktibbeha County from 1976-2012.

Similarly, Frank Parker’s testimony included claims of overhearing Manning confess to a cellmate about disposing of a gun and admitting to the murders. An affidavit from Willie’s cellmate challenges the credibility of this statement. Parker also stated he was fleeing charges in Texas and turned himself in at the jail in Mississippi.

Parker’s uncle, who housed Frank for over a decade, informed law enforcement about his nephew’s longstanding dishonesty. He recounted an incident where, during their absence, Frank cleared out their house and pawned their valuables. Frank’s uncle filed charges against him and subsequently informed law enforcement in Oktibbeha County that he would not consider Frank as a witness in any case, due to his lack of trustworthiness.

Renee Hathorn was Willie’s girlfriend at the time and her role was particularly pivotal. Hathorn testified against Manning for the defense. In an affidavit, she states that Sheriff Dolph Bryan pressured her into getting Willie to confess to the murders of Steckler and Miller. He never did, he consistently maintained his innocence. She also visited with Willie in his jail cell at night from time to time, while wearing a wire. Sheriff Dolph Bryan also met with her to discuss and rehearse her trial testimony. Before testifying during the trial, the sheriff gave her money, paid her bills sometimes, and also paid for some furniture. He additionally picked her up and purchased food from a fast food restaurant. Hathorn was facing from 8-10 years in prison and additional years on parole for a total of 33 bad checks in Oktibbeha and Lowndes Counties. She additionally states that she accrued bad check charges in Macon, Clay, and Jackson counties. She owed more than $10,000 in fraudulent checks and court fees. All of this was erased in exchange for her fabricated testimony. Additionally, she received $17,500 in reward money.

No Witnesses, Physical Evidence, DNA, Fingerprints or Fibers

The forensic analysis of hair by the FBI failed to conclusively establish a match between the hair discovered in the vehicle, where two students from Mississippi State were allegedly apprehended, and Willie Jerome Manning. The initial classification of the hair as originating from a Black individual was a critical factor in implicating Mr. Manning in the murder. There is an absence of definitive physical evidence connecting Manning to the crime. There are no witnesses, fingerprints, DNA, or blood, and there are not any fibers. The prosecution’s argument hinged primarily on the testimony of prison informants and a hair that the FBI initially claimed was consistent with a Black person. However, the FBI later withdrew this claim, admitting that such a conclusion surpasses the scientific validity of hair analysis, thereby rendering it unreliable and scientifically unsound.  Mr. Manning underwent trial, was found guilty, and subsequently sentenced to death row, based on contrived testimonies from jailhouse informants, prepared and orchestrated by Sheriff Dolph Bryan.

The prosecution in Willie Manning’s case relied on several key pieces of fabricated evidence. Testimonies from informants such as Earl Jordan and Frank Parker, who later admitted their statements were false and put them under pressure in exchange for wiping their criminal slates clean.

The role of the prosecutor was crucial in assembling and presenting these elements as part of the case against Manning. The prosecution’s case against Mr. Manning included forensic evidence, deemed unreliable. An expert asserted that bullets recovered from a tree in Manning’s yard were discharged from the same firearm used in the students’ murder, claiming this to the exclusion of all other firearms globally. However, current forensic science discredits such bullet comparisons as invalid. Mr. Manning has submitted a new petition to the Mississippi Supreme Court to contest his convictions in this case. Should this petition be rejected, it could lead to the court setting an execution date for him.

This article was composed using information sourced from the following petition:

Willie Jerome Manning, Petitioner, v. State of Mississippi, Respondent. In The Supreme Court of Mississippi, No. 2023-DR-01076. Motion for Leave to File Successive Petition for Post-Conviction Relief. Attorneys: Krissy C. Nobile, Robert S. Mink, Sr., David P. Voisin,  Clocked: September 29, 2023, 19:24:16.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Nancy Lockhart, M.J..

Cabinet Minister David Parker recently told The Spinoff he’s reading The Triumph of Injustice – how the wealthy avoid paying tax and how to fix it, by Berkeley economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez.

The book complains that leftwing politicians throughout the world have forsaken their historic duty to innovate on taxation and force wealthy vested interests to pay their fair share. The authors say governments of both left and right have capitulated unnecessarily to the interests of the wealthy in setting policies on tax and spending.

Parker shares this ethos and it’s undoubtedly a big part of his decision to revolt against his leader.

• READ MORE: Other Bryce Edwards reports

First, Parker ignored constitutional conventions and spoke out against the Prime Minister’s decision last month to rule out implementing any capital gains or wealth taxes. And last week he resigned as Minister of Revenue, saying it was “untenable” for him to continue in the role given Hipkins’ stance on tax.

Clearly, Parker is highly aggrieved at Hipkins’ decision to rule out a substantially more progressive taxation regime, especially when there is such strong public openness to it.

In May, a Newshub survey showed 53 per cent of voters wanted a wealth tax implemented. And last week, a 1News poll showed 52 per cent supported a capital gains tax on rental property.

Parker has become the progressive voice of Labour
Parker has thrown a real spanner in the works for Chris Hipkins at a crucial time in Labour’s re-election campaign. Such dissent from a Cabinet Minister is highly unusual.

It’s also refreshing that it’s over a matter of principle and policy, rather than personality, performance, or ambition.

There will be some Labour MPs and supporters annoyed with Parker for adding to Labour’s woes, especially when the government is already looking chaotic. He’s essentially declared a “vote of no confidence” in his own party’s tax policy.

This is not the staunch loyalty and unity that Labour has come to expect over the last decade, whereby policy differences are suppressed or kept in-house.

But even though Parker was being criticised last week by commentators for throwing a “tantrum” in resigning his Revenue portfolio, this charge won’t really stick, as he just doesn’t have that reputation.

His protest is one of principle, not wounded pride or vanity, and it’s one that will be shared within the wider party.

In taking such a strong stance on progressive taxation, and so openly opposing Hipkins as being too cautious and conservative, Parker has become something of a beacon for those in Labour and the wider political left who are discontented over this government’s failure to deliver on traditional Labour concerns.

Is there a future for Parker in Labour?
Parker’s outspokenness may be a sign that he’s had enough, and is looking to leave politics before long. Being on the party list means he can opt out of Parliament at any time.

After the election, he may decide it’s time to retire, especially if Labour loses power. In fact, Parker has long been rumoured to be considering his retirement from politics, so it might just be that the time has finally come.

A private decision to leave might explain why Parker has decided to put up and not just shut up, and publicly distance himself from Labour’s decisions on tax for the sake of his reputation.

It’s also possible that Parker has chosen to try to pressure Labour towards a more progressive position on taxation, and this is the start of a bigger campaign. If so, he would be playing the long game.

Parker is now established as the most progressive voice in Labour, which could see him move up the caucus ladder when Hipkins eventually moves on — especially if Labour is defeated at the election in October.

And Hipkins might have inadvertently invited opponents to want to replace him with a more progressive politician when he made his “captain’s call” to rule out any sort of real tax reform for as long as he holds the role.

Given that they had an absolute majority in the last three years they can’t blame anyone else. And should they lose the election, the analysis from within Labour will certainly be that they were too centrist and didn’t do enough.

Parker would be a strong contender for the leadership sometime in the next term of Parliament. That is if he wants it and hasn’t simply had enough. There are signs that he would be keen — he ran for the top job in 2014, with Nanaia Mahuta as a running mate, but lost out to David Cunliffe.

Last week he reiterated that he was up for a fight, explaining his decision to stand down as Minister for Revenue, saying, “I’m an agent for change — for progressive change.

“I’ve been that way all of my political life and I’ve still got lots of energy as shown by the scraps that I’ve got into in the last couple of weeks on transport.”

Of course, when the time comes to replace Hipkins, the party will face the temptation to look for a younger and “fresher” leader. Until very recently, the likes of Kiri Allan and Michael Wood were seen as the future, but those options have disappeared.

And the party might do well looking to someone with more proven experience.

Parker could fit that bill — he’s been in Parliament for 21 years and served in the Helen Clark administration as Attorney-General and Minister of Transport. He is seen as an incredibly solid, reliable politician, with a very deep-thinking policy mind.

By contrast, the rest of the cabinet often seems anti-intellectual and bereft of any ideas or deep thinking, which means that they are too often captured by whatever new agendas the government departments have pushed on them.

Arguably that’s why the blunt approaches of centralisation and co-governance have so easily become the dominant parts of Labour’s two terms in power.

Labour needs Parker’s progressive intellectual politics
Regardless of whether Parker ever gets near the leadership again, it’s clear he has much to offer in pushing the party in a more progressive direction. Certainly, Labour could benefit from a proper policy reset and revival — which Hipkins hasn’t been able to achieve.

The new leader managed to throw lots of old policy on the bonfire, and he successfully re-branded Labour as being more about sausages and “bread and butter” issues, but Hipkins hasn’t yet been able to reinject any substantial positive new policies or ethos.

Parker’s dissent this week indicates that frustration from progressives in Labour is growing, and there are some very significant policy differences going on in the ruling party of government.

For the health of the party, and for the good of the wider political left, hopefully Parker will continue to be a maverick, positioning himself as an advocate of boldness and progressive change.

Parker recently selected Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century as the book “Everyone should read”. He explained that “As a politician who believes in social mobility and egalitarian outcomes, this book inspired me to seek the revenue portfolio”.

That Parker has now had to give away that portfolio says something unfortunate about the party and government he is part of. And if the last week also signals that Parker is on his way out of politics, that too would be a shame.

After all, in a time when parliamentary politics is about scandal, and the government has lost so many ministers over issues of personal behaviour, it would be sad to lose a minister who is passionate about delivering policies to fix the problems of wealthy vested interests and inequality.

Dr Bryce Edwards is a political scientist and an independent analyst with The Democracy Project. He writes a regular column titled Political Roundup in Evening Report.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

On what would have been Emmett Till’s 82nd birthday, President Joe Biden designated a new national monument in Mississippi and Illinois honoring Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. Emmett Till was just 14 years old when a white mob abducted him from his great-uncle’s home in Money, Mississippi, in 1955 before torturing and lynching him. His mother’s decision to hold an open-casket funeral revealing his mutilated body shocked the country and served as a galvanizing moment in the civil rights movement. This comes amid efforts to suppress such history from being included in school textbooks, led by Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. We speak with Emmett Till’s cousin, Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr., who was Till’s best friend and witnessed his abduction.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

For a long time I was involved in a very DIY music scene in Montreal, and I had always been pursuing music as kind of a hobby: something I did on weekends and evenings. As the years went on, I went to McGill where I studied and worked in equity education stuff. My work life got busier and more intense, and then at the end of 2019 I had this real burnout where I was so overwhelmed by work and at the same time was full of this intense desire to pursue music and creative things. I really felt like “I have to turn my attention to my own creative practice, otherwise I’m going to die.” That’s really what it felt like.

So, at the end of January 2020, I got a clinically diagnosed burnout from my family doctor and took a bunch of time off work and then the pandemic happened, and I basically never went back to work and just started pursuing creative projects. Once I finally gave myself permission to do that lots of really exciting things happened, even though it felt like the scariest decision ever at the time.

I can imagine it would be very scary moving from a perceived stability or security into the unknown.

Totally. Honestly, having the monthly government subsidy during the first year of the pandemic was a huge reason why I was able to pursue creativity. And this is also why I’m such a proponent of universal basic income. I feel like there’s so many artists that would be able to be [full-time] artists if they had the means to do it. Financial resources are super important, and I apply for grants all the time. If I don’t have a grant sitting in my bank account, I’m applying for the next one. We’re so lucky in Canada to have this system that has a lot of funding if you can access it. And a lot of people can’t, which is so annoying.

You mentioned a diagnosed burnout, do you still ever find yourself on that edge?

That took a long time to learn because, after my burnout, I got so scared to be busy. Being busy felt like a trigger. Serendipitously, it was a time to not have anything to do, and the best healing for burnout is to try to learn how to do nothing, which I think is also really good for your creative brain. Now I’m much busier than I used to be, and I love being busy, but it’s so important to me that everything that I do is something I want to do, that’s the only way that I can manage it.

How do you find balance amongst all your creative projects?

I know that some people like to be able to focus on one thing or one creative pursuit, but I’m definitely someone who thrives when I can switch between a bunch of different things throughout the day. I’ll be working on emails, because I work part-time for POP Montreal Music Festival, and then I’ll switch and play piano for an hour, and then I’ll write a song, and then I’ll make a TikTok, and then I’ll go back to my email. That cycle really helps me, and it’s my ideal work environment..

Do you find yourself drawn to a certain form of self-expression depending on how you are feeling? How do you choose what form your creativity takes?

This is actually something I’m thinking about a lot right now. At the beginning of the pandemic, I downloaded TikTok, I watched what people were doing and I found this style of comedy so funny, the little mini sketch comedy. And then after watching it for a while, I was like, I want to do that. At first it was something that just made me so happy and I would laugh so much as I was doing it. It really helped boost my mood and explore feeling happy. Whereas I feel like for a long time, music has been a way that I can explore feeling sad or more complicated, deeper spiritual feelings. And those practices, [comedy and music], have been very separate for a while. But I have recently begun figuring out the ways that they can be threaded together and ways to explore tough emotions or difficult subjects through comedy, and also how to explore joy and funniness through music. And I feel like this is my next creative chapter, I think.

Eve, you are very funny. Could you talk about the presence and importance of humor and playfulness in your work?

I think laughing is so awesome. Oh my god I sound like a kindergarten teacher. There was a rise of a certain kind of comedy and comedy in general during 2020 and 2021. I think people were so scared and sad and depressed and really needed levity and to be able to laugh at home. I definitely needed that, I still do need it. I think people need it all the time. It’s so powerful and exciting to help people laugh and find joy, and not just because it’s a physical experience that feels good, I think that people laugh for a bunch of reasons.

One of the most interesting reasons to me is when people feel like their unique experience is being shown back to them. People laugh because they’re like, “Oh, I know that person, or I know that thing, or, I’ve had that experience and I thought it was so niche to me, but I’m laughing because now, oh my god, there’s all these other people who have experienced that.” So it’s a real recognition moment. I think that’s very, very cool and a powerful thing that comedy does really well.

That is really cool, and points to the power of humor as a tool of connection right?

Yeah. And it’s validation. And I think that’s the special thing about the scene in Montreal. There’s this really cute, cool, queer and feminist comedy scene with all these shows that happen, and people are making jokes about queer and trans experiences and a whole room of queer and trans people are laughing at it. And there’s just something so powerful and unique about that experience. It’s like, spiritual.

You are really active and well liked on social media, and you also do live performances. Do you have a preferred way of connecting with your audience?

I actually really like both. I think nothing can replace performing for a live audience and connecting with people in person because the energy you can get from people and the feedback and the surprise of how people react to stuff is not at all the same thing online. I also think there’s something really special about connecting with people online, not only because you can reach people who are far away and from anywhere, but I think a lot of people find performing online, for lack of a better term, very scary because it’s like, “Oh my god, who’s going to see this?” People really cannibalize their own thought process and get so immersed in an anxiety spiral about it. Like, “Oh does this look stupid? Do I look cringe? Are people going to think I think too highly of myself when I post this?”

And I totally understand, those are all feelings I’ve had to work through, but I feel so free of all of those pressures now when I post something on the internet. I don’t want to say that I’m perfect, but now when I post on the internet, it feels like an ephemeral sandbox. What I find freeing about social media is actually that people look at what you post for a few seconds and then they swipe away and move on with their lives if they don’t like it. It kind of means you can do whatever you want and who cares if someone doesn’t enjoy it because you probably won’t even know. And if they do like it, you’ll get this really special message or comment from some stranger who just felt impacted by it. And I think that’s so cool. Even though at the same time, these are big evil technologies, multi spyware, blah, blah.

If social media isn’t a reliably sustainable means of self-promotion or connection, do you ever fantasize about what the future of connecting with audiences online looks like without having to rely on Instagram or TikTok?

I think social media is just an avenue for experimenting and sharing art and building an audience. I’m always trying to learn whatever the new tool of the day is. I taught myself how to navigate TikTok. Before that I taught myself how to navigate Instagram and whatever comes next I’m ready to teach myself how to do it. I don’t feel married to any of those platforms because you can’t rely on it. TikTok could disappear in a year so I stay focused on the creative things that I really enjoy, which are comedy, which is music, which is the intersection of those things. This CBC show that I’ve been working on, it’s called Ten-Minute Topline. It’s an interview game show with musician guests, and it’s the perfect intersection of comedy and music for me. I’m so excited to explore future things like that which don’t rely on my ability to reach people through a few specific social media pages.

In what ways does your creative community support you and your work?

In 2020 and 2021 I was doing everything by myself in my apartment and it felt like that could be such a lonely experience and can make you feel like you’re spinning in your head. The last couple of years, it’s been very important to me to build up and be enmeshed in an artistic community that’s really supportive. I rent a studio with a bunch of other artists, and we all do different things and talk to each other all the time, helping each other with our projects. That has been so helpful. I have a friend, an amazing musician, Thanya Iyer, and we call each other, semi jokingly, peer managers because neither of us have managers, but we meet all the time and spend hours with each other helping each other work through different aspects of our career that we need help with, setting goals and just feeling supported.

We also got together with a bunch of other musicians in the city and created this musician support group thing, which meets sometimes once a month. We sit around and we talk about what each other are doing and what questions people have. And there’s lots of skill sharing and co-working time. All of those structures are incredibly important to make any of the work possible.

It sounds like you are a strong proponent of collaboration and mutual support.

We’re so enmeshed in a western culture of the individual “it-girl” star that does it all on their own but really behind all of those stars has to be a big structure of support, whether it’s financial or friends or community or industry or whatever. I think the idea of people doing things totally on their own is completely overblown at the moment and sets a false expectation for young artists, too. You don’t have to do this alone. You can do it independently from industry structures, but you don’t have to do it alone. So if you’re feeling that feeling of wanting a community of support, and you don’t feel like you have it, make it happen. And as soon as you put up the light, you send up a flare, people will come and join you.

What are some ways that you make space for your own care within a busy and sometimes inconsistent schedule?

The funny thing about being an artist is I feel like my hobbies and my job are so intertwined; whereas I used to unwind from work by playing music, now rehearsing is part of the job. So self-care is also intertwined with the work in a way because it makes me feel good to do it. But that being said, I really have to be very mindful about taking breaks and taking time off.

Being an independent contractor is tricky because if you’re not careful, you can be ambiently working, always. I’ve tried a bunch of different methods and people just have to find the system that works for them. I used to try and take weekends off but that never worked for me, both because so many creative things happen on the weekends, but also I like the flexibility. Instead I have learned to listen to my body and whenever I need to take a day or a morning or an evening off, I just do it. Remembering to take the time off is super important, but it doesn’t have to be structured if that doesn’t work for you. Social time is very important to me, too. I have this weekly dinner with friends and we’ve had dinner every Wednesday night for almost 10 years, and having a structure like that is so awesome and really helps keep myself accountable to taking time off.

Any parting words or wisdom that you’d like to share?

At the point that I am at in my career, I’m thinking a lot about how to take what I’m doing to a new level, and sometimes I get distracted from the point of all of this which is to be able to do the creative thing and have it fund my life and be sustainable and enjoyable. You can get distracted from that if you’re trying to figure out “How can I make enough money to live or advance my career in x, y, z ways?” I had a realization the other month where I was like, “Oh my god, I haven’t played my violin in a month because I’ve been so busy trying to meet with people and yet the whole point of building the career for me is to have the time to do the creative thing,” so staying grounded in that is something I’m trying to do a lot more of. Even if I’m trying to build my career, I want to stay grounded in the creative part and connected to what brought me to these practices in the first place, because that’s the fun part.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Maya Inglis.

Greens’ co-leader Marama Davidson believes she knows who was riding the motorbike that hit her during a protest against British anti-transgender activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, also known as Posie Parker.

Asked by Radio Waatea host Dale Husband whether it was Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki under the helmet, she said it was definitely a member of Tamaki’s group, which diverted past the Albert Park protest on the way to Tamaki’s own rally at Aotea Square.

• READ MORE: Posie Parker departs NZ – JK Rowling blasts protest as ‘repellent’
• Marama Davidson hit by motorcyclist after Posie Parker protest
• Listen to Radio Waatea

“It was them, I’m really clear about that, and the rest of it is under police complaint so I will try not to jeopardise that investigation but I can confidently say I know who it was,” Davidson said.

She said she was in shock when she made a statement to a rightwing Counterspin Media videographer shortly after that “white cis men” were the main perpetrators of family violence, and she stood by her position that it was men rather than trans people who were the biggest threat to women.

Opposition National, ACT and New Zealand First parties called for her to be sacked as Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence for her comments, while they also supported Keen-Minshull’s visit on free speech grounds.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

British gender activist Posie Parker has left New Zealand, calling it the “worst place for women she has ever visited”.

Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, also known as Posie Parker, shared a photo on social media showing her being escorted by police through Auckland Airport.

She left her rally at Albert Park in Auckland yesterday without speaking, after being overwhelmed by thousands of heckling counter-protesters and pelted with tomato juice.

• READ MORE: RNZ Mediawatch on the coverage of Posie Parker, the provocateur

Controversial Harry Potter author JK Rowling took to Twitter to brand the protest scenes in Auckland yesterday “repellent”.

During a series of Tweets, she said a mob “had assaulted women standing up for their rights”.

Parker posted to Twitter and said she was leaving ‘the worst place for women she has ever visited’.

The activist also claimed she was a victim of a campaign to assassinate her character, boosted by a “corrupt media populated by vile dishonest cult members”.

No Wellington rally
Her departure means her planned rally for Wellington today will not go ahead.

A local group supporting her visit Speak Up For Women NZ had already announced the scheduled rally today in Wellington had been cancelled due to security concerns.

Auckland Pride rejected the idea that the activist had abandoned her Wellington plans due to threats of violence.

There is a narrative quickly taking hold amongst anti-trans groups and individuals that Parker abandoned her event because of violence from our community.

— Auckland Pride (@AucklandPride) March 25, 2023

The group Tweeted: “There is a narrative quickly taking hold amongst anti-trans groups and individuals that Parker abandoned her event because of violence from our community.

“We reject this narrative. We are of the firm belief that the demonstration of unity, celebration, and acceptance alongside joyous music, chanting, and noise of 5,000 supporters was too loud to overcome and the reason for her departure – and not the actions of any one individual.”

NZ First leader Winston Peters said violence and cancel culture did not represent “the majority of New Zealanders who want an open and free Western democracy that values freedom of speech”.

Irony of ‘disgrace’
He tweeted: “Whether you agree with her views or not, the irony of the disgraceful situation that occurred at the Posie Parker event, is that violence, hatred, and intimidation is coming from the very group who claim to be the ones standing up for inclusivity and freedoms.”

While Parker’s planned rally in Wellington today is off, groups opposing her views still plan to turn out, with the city’s annual CubaDupa festival also taking place today.

Police say they will be out in central Wellington to monitor and respond to any problems.

Parker arrived at the Albert Park event yesterday morning to speak with supporters at a rally.

Her presence and comments infuriated rights advocates, and the reception she received in Auckland yesterday left Parker visibly shaken.

Neo-Nazis in Australia
The controversial British activist’s Melbourne rally days before was attended by neo-Nazis, a fact widely reported in New Zealand before she was allowed into the country by Immigration NZ and Immigration Minister Michael Wood.

Parker was critical of what she said was a lack of police presence at the Auckland event, with her security team struggling to separate her from hostile crowds of protesters.

After being escorted to a police car through the crowd, Parker requested to be driven to the police station, because she feared for her safety.

Media had reported she was seen checking in for an international flight out of Auckland last night.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The impending arrival of Kelly-Jean Keen-Minshull — aka Posie Parker — has put the spotlight on the tension between free speech and protecting vulnerable communities in Aotearoa New Zealand.

In particular, it raises questions about Immigration New Zealand’s role in limiting who can visit and speak in the country.

Keen-Minshull is an anti-transgender rights activist and founder of a group called Standing for Women. On the back of a controversial Australian tour, she is planning to speak at a series of events across Aotearoa at the end of March.

• READ MORE: Being transgender is not a mental illness, and the WHO should acknowledge this
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But Immigration New Zealand is now reviewing her status after about 30 members of the far-right Nationalist Socialist Movement supported her rally in Melbourne, clashing with LGBTQI supporters.

The Melbourne police were also criticised by legal observers, accused of protecting and supporting the neo-Nazis while focusing “excessive violence” on the LGBTQI supporters.

Meanwhile, National Party leader Chris Luxon has said Keen-Minshull should be allowed into New Zealand on the grounds of free speech. He argued there should be a “high bar” to stop someone entering the country because of what they say.

At the same time, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has said he condemned people who used their right to free speech in a way that deliberately sought to create division. Therein lies the core of the debate.

Members of a neo-Nazi group made Nazi salutes on Saturday on the steps of Parliament House in Melbourne, Australia, during a protest against transgender rights. Political leaders said they would move to ban Nazi salutes in the state of Victoria.https://t.co/0CHFICjr93

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 20, 2023

Threat to public order
Keen-Minshull has allegedly had ties to white supremacist organisations, featuring in videos with Jean-François Gariépy, a prominent far-right YouTuber, and posting a selfie with Hans Jørgen Lysglimt Johansen, a Norwegian neo-Nazi known for Holocaust denial.

Keen-Minshull has also tweeted racist diatribes against Muslims.

The key question is whether the threat of unrest seen at Keen-Minshull’s events poses sufficient risk to public order to justify revoking her visa. It turns out there is a precedent for blocking entry to controversial figures.

In 2014, hip hop collective Odd Future was prevented from entering New Zealand on the grounds they and their audience had been implicated in violence against police and directing harassment towards opponents.

In one instance, members of Odd Future reportedly urged fans to attack police, leaving one officer hospitalised.

Odd Future member Tyler the Creator also unleashed a tirade against an activist who tried to have his Australian concert cancelled. Both instances were offered as reasons to prevent the collective from entering New Zealand.

Character judgements
The Immigration Act stipulates that individuals who are likely to be “a threat or risk” to security, public order or the public interest should not be eligible for a visa or entry permission.

In the past, good character requirements outlined by the act, including criminal background or deportation from other countries, have been used as a reason to block controversial speakers from entering New Zealand.

For example, Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church was denied entry to New Zealand after being deported from other countries.

Anderson has been known to promote Holocaust denial and has confirmed he believes in “hating homosexuals”.

On the flip side, alt-right speakers Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern were granted entry visas in 2018 after meeting character requirements, despite calls for the pair to be banned from entering New Zealand.

Potential harm
Arguably, Keen-Minshull should not be granted entry under the banner of free speech. Rallies like those recently held in Australia do appear to cause concrete harm.

Research after the Christchurch Call, a political summit initiated by former prime minister Jacinda Ardern in 2019 after the Christchurch massacre, found expanding extremist communities increased the risk of physical attacks in the future.

According to the 2018 Counting Ourselves survey, some 71 percent of trans people reported experiencing high or very high rates of mental distress, and 44 percent experienced harassment during the 2018 survey period.

Research shows that trans people experience “minority stress” — high levels of chronic stress faced by socially marginalised groups, caused by poor social support, low socioeconomic status and prejudice.

A key part of “minority stress” is linked to anticipating and attempting to avoid discrimination.

Being consistent
Beyond the question of free speech, Immigration New Zealand needs to be consistent in its application of the law. In the case of Odd Future, an Immigration official admitted it was unusual to ban musical acts:

Generally it’s aimed at organisations like white supremacists and neo-Nazis, people who have come in here to be public speakers, holocaust deniers – those kinds of people.

However, Immigration stood by its decision based on the lead singer’s incitement of violence against police and harassment of an activist. Considering the ruling on Odd Future as a risk to public order, it would surely be inconsistent to allow Keen-Minshull entry.

In 2018, she was spoken to by UK police for making videos criticising the chief executive of transgender charity Mermaids. And, in 2019, Keen-Minshull recorded herself in Washington DC confronting trans advocate Sarah McBride after breaking into a private meeting.

Encouraging the far-right?
In the post-covid era, New Zealand has already seen a more visible far-right anti-LGBTQI movement. There has been a rise in harassment and attacks against LGBTQI communities across the country, including the arson of the Tauranga Rainbow Youth and Gender Dynamix building.

We need to listen to those targeted by hate groups — it is their safety that is at risk from speakers who deny their existence and humanity.

The line between free speech and causing harm is complicated to draw. But this case seems clear cut. Whether you agree or disagree with the 2014 decision to bar Odd Future entry to New Zealand, the precedent has been set for visitors who pose a threat to public order.

Kevin Veale, Lecturer in Media Studies, part of the Digital Cultures Laboratory in the School of Humanities, Media, and Creative Communication, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Greenpeace Aotearoa has condemned New Zealand for “standing by” while “deep wounds are inflicted on its Pacific neighbours” by silence over deep sea mining.

Greenpeace’s seabed mining campaigner James Hita made the critical statement today after a dramatic shift at the UN Oceans conference in Lisbon this week when several Pacific governments formed an alliance to oppose deep sea mining in international waters.

The environmental movement said the continued silence from the New Zealand government on the issue was “deafening”.

• READ MORE: Fiji, Palau and Samoa call for deep-sea mining moratorium at UN conference
• France’s Macron says deep-sea mining must not go ahead
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To standing ovations, Fiji and Samoa joined the alliance opposing deep sea mining announced by Palau on Monday.

The following day Tuvalu, Tonga, and Guam announced their support for a halt to deep sea mining and France is now also calling for a legal and robust framework to ban deep sea mining in the high seas.

But so far the New Zealand government has not taken a stance on the issue.

“New Zealand risks standing by while deep wounds are inflicted on its Pacific neighbours if it continues to stay silent on deep sea mining,” James Hita said.

‘Ruthless corporations’
“This move by ruthless corporations to begin deep sea mining in the Pacific is the latest example of colonisation in a region that has already suffered so much from nuclear testing, overfishing and resource extraction by the developed world.

“It’s a sad irony that when French nuclear testing threatened the Pacific, Norman Kirk’s Labour government sent a frigate in protest, but now, when corporate seabed mining threatens the Pacific, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government does nothing while Macron’s French government speaks out to protect the Pacific.

“New Zealand has a golden opportunity right now to show real solidarity and leadership in the Pacific and we call on Prime Minister Ardern, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta and Minister of Oceans and Fisheries David Parker to seize the day and make us proud.

“To maintain respect in the Pacific, the Ardern government needs to start standing up for the things that matter to the Pacific.

“Palau, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa are all calling for a moratorium on seabed mining but so far the New Zealand government is sitting on its hands,” said Hita.

Deep sea mining is a destructive and untested industry where minerals are sucked up from the ocean floor and waste materials pumped back into the ocean.

A sediment plume smothers marine life, threatening vulnerable ecosystems, fisheries and the people’s way of life.

Ocean floor disruptions
Scientists say that disruptions to the ocean floor may also reduce the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon, adding to the climate crisis.

Without action from governments to stop it, mining of the deep seas in the Pacific could begin as early as mid-2023.

• Greenpeace Aotearoa launched a petition in June calling on the NZ government and Minister of Foreign Affairs Nanaia Mahuta to support a ban on deep sea mining in the Pacific and around the world. More than 9000 people have signed.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.