California is on the brink of passing landmark criminal justice reform that would end the cruel cycle of incarceration and bail debt for thousands of families. But corporate bail profiteers and the Trump coalition are pulling out all the stops trying to kill it.

At a recent bail reform hearing, our partner, Essie Justice Group — a powerful organization that harnesses the power of women with incarcerated loved ones to end mass incarceration — came to tell their stories and push for bail reform. The bail industry was also there — represented by a troubling coalition. Known-racist and proud Trump supporter Dog the Bounty Hunter was their celebrity guest and they even tried to pass off the leader of ‘Blacks for Trump’ — a bail bondsman herself — as representing the interest of the Black community.

Essie Justice Group’s members’ response to being confronted by overt racism from people desperately trying to hold on to their share of the incarceration business is to fight back by calling on Black communities and our allies to send a clear message that we demand an end to this corrupt and racist system.

Join us in standing with the thousands of Black women and families in California harmed by the corrupt and racist system of money bail.

The bail bond industry makes billions exploiting poor Black people and they don’t hesitate to criminalize our communities to keep the money flowing. Like Donald Trump and so many ‘Law & Order’ politicians, the industry employs scare tactics about mythical crime waves and ‘Law & Order’ talk to protect their profit margins.

It’s no surprise then that they would bring Dog the Bounty Hunter Chapman, who lost his television show after a recording of him going on an N-word filled rant forbidding his son from dating a Black woman, to represent them. What they really represent is the vile agenda to reverse the national trend toward bringing down incarceration rates in order to protect a system that criminalizes communities of color for profit. He should be nowhere near any conversation about reform.

The real experts on California’s criminal justice system are the women and families that have been impacted by it. They know that too many people are trapped in jail, awaiting trial because they cannot afford to buy their way out. They know that whether guilty or innocent, a single arrest could lead to long jail stays and long-term bail debt. They know that families can lose their homes, jobs and even be broken apart because California operates a system that locks people up if they can’t afford to pay.

Demand California put people over profits and reform the bail system.

Black women and low-income women bear the brunt of the vicious bail bond industry. Women become trapped in debt and are forced to make the difficult decision of paying for basic needs for their families and paying off a bail to a for-profit bail bond company.¹ Others, like Sandra Bland, have died in jail while waiting to make bail.

This has gone on long enough and we can’t let frauds who hate Black people block progress in a state like California. Instead, if we can push this reform over the finish line, we can build momentum to defeat the industry for good. Ending the money bail system in a state like California will be a huge turning point for other states to follow suit.

Our families need this. Tell California legislators to pass bail reform.

Until justice is real,

Scott, Rashad, Arisha, Anay, Clarise, Enchanta, Malaya, and the rest of the Color Of Change team

References:

1. “Bail Reform California, ” Bail Reform California Platform, 2017.  https://act.colorofchange.org/go/7839?t=7&akid=7421.1174326.EAoJql

Demand the process  be done by the book

Betsy DeVos selected Candice Jackson to be the acting head of the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, circumventing the Senate’s confirmation process by choosing her to be the deputy assistant secretary of the office and not yet nominating someone to head the department. Jackson is an outspoken anti-feminist who claimed that she faced racial discrimination as a white woman at Stanford.

The Office of Civil rights at the DoE has the mission of protecting students from discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, age, and ability. Looking at Jackson’s history, she’s a terrible pick to be heading up this department. While at Stanford, in addition to contending that she was discriminated against, she wrote passionately against affirmative action for students of color. In the same publication, the Stanford Review, she wrote a different article promoting conservativism over feminism. And while she has advocated for victims of sexual assault in the past, she cast aspersions against the women who bravely came out and said that they were assaulted by Donald Trump.

Tell Betsy DeVos: Candice Jackson is UNFIT to lead the Office of Civil Rights!

In her book about the women who accused Former President Bill Clinton of assault, Jackson also criticized sexual harassment laws and said that they forced men to “self-censor themselves to avoid being accused of sexual harassment,” all the while ignoring Trump’s comments about non-consensual groping of women. Someone who believes that men should not have to “self-censor” those types of comments or actions is not someone who should be anywhere near a department that looks out for the civil rights of all students.

Sign the petition — Betsy DeVos should remove Candice Jackson from the Office of Civil Rights and appoint someone who will advocate for all students.

With her anti-affirmative action history and claims that she faced anti-white discrimination, Jackson is clearly ill-equipped to ensure equal access to education. She’s just once more piece of the dangerous team that the Trump administration is putting together — a team that is hostile toward the very offices they are supposed to represent. The Office of Civil Rights needs to be headed by someone who will advocate for every student and not project a political agenda onto the department.

Demand Candice Jackson be removed from her post now>>

Sincerely,

Katie O’Connell, Digital Communications Coordinator

Eventbrite is selling tickets to events for hate groups.

Tell Eventbrite to stop supporting and profiting from hate groups.

TAKE ACTION

Eventbrite – the world’s largest platform for selling event tickets – has a hate group problem. Eventbrite is making tens of thousands of dollars a year selling tickets to events hosted by hate groups and featuring enablers of white supremacy like Milo Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer.

Demand Eventbrite permanently cut white supremacists off from their platform!

Just this past Saturday, white nationalists hosted a sold-out gala featuring some of the biggest names in the white nationalist movement. Tickets to the event were sold on Eventbrite for as much $1,500 each. For a similar event hosted last year by white nationalists, Eventbrite made upwards of $100,000. The event page hosted by Eventbrite even contained a cartoon image of Trump making a hand gesture that is increasingly being used as a white supremacist symbol.

Despite having met with their leadership and bringing this problem to their attention multiple times, Eventbrite continues to fail to take action that ensures their platform is not used to spread and fund hate, all while CEO Julia Hartz talks openly about being a people-centered company. If Eventbrite truly cares about people, then why do they continue to promote and profit from groups and individuals whose rhetoric are explicitly tied to the rise in violent hate crimes?

Demand Eventbrite permanently cut white supremacists off from their platform!

When white supremacists – and the people who cater to them – use a platform like Eventbrite’s to elevate their hateful and violent ideas they create tangible dangers for our people. These hate groups and their leaders are not just shock-jock provocateurs looking to get a rise out of people by ‘offending’ them; they are actively painting a target on the backs of our communities and teaching their audiences how to harass vulnerable people.

While Eventbrite’s relative profit from these hate groups is practically peanuts, these groups are using the money raised off of Eventbrite to indoctrinate people into their hateful ideologies, spread propaganda that promotes damaging lies about marginalized groups and even to train and deploy an army of white nationalist that travel around the country to harass people of color. And in the case of Gavin McInnes, one of Saturday’s featured speakers, to organize an “alt-right” paramilitary group whose goal is to physically assault people protesting against Trump and the far-right.¹ Groups like McInnes’ are clearly meant to intimidate and harm people of color, so why won’t Eventbrite do the right thing and stop profiting off of hate?

Eventbrite needs to make sure its platform is not profiting from hate groups or giving them a megaphone to stir up racial fear and push damaging falsehoods and distortions about Black communities.

Demand Eventbrite permanently cut white supremacists off from their platform!

Until justice is real,

— Brandi, Rashad, Arisha, Evan, Jade, Yeshi, Anika, Corina and the rest of the Color Of Change team.

References:

1. “Meet the New Military Division of White Nationalism” The Root, April 26, 2017. http://act.colorofchange.org/go/7864?t=7&akid=7400.1174326.V38wnS