Stark Racial Gap in Views on Black Woman on US High Court

Americans are starkly divided by race on the importance of President Joe Biden’s promise to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, with white Americans far less likely to be highly enthusiastic about the idea than Black Americans — and especially Black women.

That’s according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that shows 48% of Americans say it’s not important to them personally that a Black woman becomes a Supreme Court Justice. Another 23% say that’s somewhat important, and 29% say it’s very or extremely important. Only two Black men have served on the nation’s highest court, and no Black women have ever been nominated.

A new AP-NORC poll finds that 7 in 10 Black women say it’s extremely or very important for a Black woman to become a Supreme Court justice. Black Americans are much more likely than white Americans to say so.

The poll shows Biden’s pledge is resonating with Black Americans, 63% of whom say it’s very or extremely important to them personally that a Black woman serves on the court, compared with just 21% of white Americans and 33% of Hispanics. The findings come as Biden finalizes his pick to fill the seat that is being vacated by Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement last month.

“While I’ve been studying candidates’ backgrounds and writings, I’ve made no decisions except one: The person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity, and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” Biden said in his remarks on Breyer’s impending retirement. “It’s long overdue, in my view.”

Black women are particularly moved by the idea, with 70% placing high importance on the nomination, compared to 54% of Black men.

Diana White, a 76-year-old Democrat from Hanley Hills, Missouri, said Biden wouldn’t choose someone if “she didn’t have the potential and the professionalism and the knowledge to do the job.”

White, who is Black, said making a groundbreaking nomination could be inspirational to younger people.

“That’s what I think about, things for other people to look forward to later in life,” she said.

Any enthusiasm that could be generated by Biden’s nomination could benefit his party in this year’s midterm elections, when Democrats risk losing control of Congress. So far Biden has struggled to deliver on other goals for the Black community, such as police reform legislation and voting rights protections.

Some 91% of Black voters backed Biden in the 2020 presidential election, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of the electorate.

But recent polls suggest Biden’s approval rating has dipped substantially among Black Americans since the first half of 2021, when about 9 in 10 approved of how he was handling his job. The new poll shows that his approval among Black Americans stands at 67%.

Jarvis Goode, a 35-year-old Democrat from LaGrange, Georgia, agreed that it’s “overdue” to have a Black woman on the court.

Goode, who is Black, said he hopes the nomination would provide further proof that “women can do the same as men.”

Biden first promised to choose a Black women for the Supreme Court when he was running for president. According to a person familiar with the process, he’s interviewed at least three candidates for the position — judges Ketanji Brown Jackson, J. Michelle Childs and Leondra Kruger — and he’s expected to announce his decision next week.

The poll shows that most Democrats say a Black woman on the court is at least somewhat important, though only half think it’s very important. Among Republicans, about 8 in 10 say it’s not important.

John Novak, a 52-year-old Republican from Hudson, Wisconsin, said he disliked Biden’s pledge to choose a Black woman, saying there’s too much focus on “checking boxes” when it comes to nominating people.

“It should have been stated that we’re going to pick the best candidate who is going to follow the Constitution,” said Novak, who is white. “And then throw in that we’d like her to be a woman and woman of color.”

There’s been a mixed reaction from Republican elected officials.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, described Biden’s promise as “offensive” because it sends a message to most Americans that “I don’t give a damn about you, you are ineligible.”

However, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said it did not bother him, and he noted that President Donald Trump and President Ronald Reagan had promised to nominate women for the Supreme Court.

“I heard a couple of people say they thought it was inappropriate for the president to announce he was going to put an African American woman on the court. Honestly, I did not think that was inappropriate,” said McConnell said during a Tuesday event in his home state.

The poll found that Americans’ faith in the Supreme Court continues to wane. Only 21% said they have a great deal of confidence in the high court, while 24% said they have hardly any confidence. The latter number has risen somewhat from 17% in September 2020, the last time the question was asked.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,289 adults was conducted Feb. 18-21 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

US Maternal Mortality Soars Amid Widening Racial Disparities

The U.S. maternal mortality rate — already the worst in the industrialized world — rose in 2020 to its highest level in half a century, with Black women three times more likely to die than white women, data showed Wednesday.

A National Center for Health Statistics report showed the rate was 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births, far higher than comparable countries, such as Canada where it was 7.5 per 100,000, according to OECD statistics for the same year.

Overall, 861 women were identified as having died of maternal causes, which the World Health Organization defines as a death while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management.

In 2019, the number of deaths per 100,000 live US births was 20.1, while in 2018 it was 17.4.

“We observed increases across a broad number of categories, and Covid-19 likely contributed,” Donna Hoyert, who authored the report, told AFP.

But, she added, the disease was not mentioned in 88 percent of cases, and was thus only a part of the overall picture.

Despite spending more than twice per person on health than the average of high-income nations, the United States has historically remained an outlier on maternal mortality compared to its peers.

Across the world, maternal mortality dropped throughout the 20th century thanks to advances in medical care such as antibiotics and basic hygiene. But the United States has seen backsliding since the year 2000, unlike most other countries.

In fact, the last time the US rate was officially this high was 1968, though a new reporting methodology was introduced in 2018.

“Most of the peer countries have some form of universal health care,” Boston University professor Eugene Declercq, who studies the field, told AFP.

“What we do in the United States is we focus on care so intently on the time of birth — and that’s nice — but the fact of the matter is, women enter their pregnancies in a less healthy state because they’re not covered.”

Certain conservative-led states, such as Texas and Alabama, have increased hurdles to eligibility to Medicaid, the publicly funded health insurance program, said Declercq.

Upper income limits to enroll in Medicaid are lower for women who are pregnant, but there is a greater chance that by the time they become pregnant, they have untreated chronic conditions.

Limiting access to abortion — as conservative-led states have increasingly done in recent years — is also linked to worse maternal health outcomes a 2021 study in the American Journal of Public Health found.

Racial disparities

The racial breakdown of the 2020 figures reveal widening disparities.

The number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births was 55.3 among Black women, compared to 19.1 among white women, which would by itself still be higher than peer countries.

Here too, there are thought to be many factors, and experts say it’s not as simple as race being a surrogate for socioeconomic conditions such as access to care and environmental stressors, though these undoubtedly play a role.

In fact, a 2016 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed for a Black woman with a college education, the likelihood of maternal death is still 60 percent greater than for a white woman with less than a high school education.

“Black women are time and time again shown to not receive the same level of treatment or medications,” Ebony Hilton, an anesthesiologist at the University of Virginia – Charlottesville, and an expert in disparities in health care, told AFP.

Hate Crimes Trial Goes to Jury After Prosecutors Say 'Racial Hatred' Drove Ahmaud Arbery's Murderers

BRUNSWICK, Ga — 

The three white men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery acted out of “racial anger” when they chased down the young Black man as they saw him jogging through their Georgia community, a federal prosecutor told jurors at the defendants’ hate-crimes trial Monday.

Defense lawyers argued that their clients, despite a lengthy record of bigoted social discourse shown in court, pursued Arbery because they were suspicious of his conduct, not because of his race.

Judge Lisa Wood sent the predominantly white jury out to deliberate Monday afternoon after they listened to hours of closing arguments in a case probing whether vigilantism directed against a Black person in this case crossed the boundary of racially motivated violence as defined by U.S. law.

The defendants – Travis McMichael, 36; his father, Gregory McMichael, 66; and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, 52 – have already been convicted of murder in state court and sentenced to life in prison in an earlier trial that largely skirted racial issues and focused on proving a homicide case.

Arbery, 25, was out for an afternoon jog on Feb. 23, 2020, when the McMichaels spotted him running by their home, grabbed their guns and jumped in their pickup truck to follow him. Bryan joined the chase in his own truck before Aubrey was cornered and confronted face to face by the younger McMichael, who fired three shotgun blasts at Aubrey at close range, killing him.

Arbery’s name became entwined with a host of others invoked in protests that swept the country after an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis, George Floyd, was killed by a white police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck until he could no longer breathe in May 2020.

The federal prosecution of Arbery’s killers marks the first instance in which those convicted of such a high-profile murder are facing a jury in a hate-crimes trial.

Christopher Perras, a special litigator for the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in his summation Monday that Arbery was singled out by the defendants because of the color of his skin.

“They were motivated by racial assumption, racial resentment and racial anger,” Perras said, referring to the defendants. “They saw a Black man in their neighborhood and they thought the worst of him.”

Perras cited trial testimony showing the defendants had a long history of making overtly, sometimes violently racist comments about Black people in text messages, social media and conversations with others.

The proceedings were attending on Monday by several members of Arbery’s family, including his parents, Marcus Arbery Sr., and Wanda Coooper-Jones.

Defense attorneys countered that their clients believed they recognized Arbery from previous videos taken by a neighbor showing a person lurking on four occasions around a vacant house under construction amid a series of property thefts in the community.

“If you ask, ‘Would these defendants have grabbed guns and done this to a white guy?’ and the answer is yes,” said defense lawyer Amy Lee Copeland, representing Travis McMichael, the man who fired the three shotgun blasts that killed Arbery.

She and fellow defense lawyers said the record of past derogatory statements made by her clients about Black people failed to prove their actions on the day of Arbery’s killing were racially motivated.

Copeland said prosecutors presented no evidence that her client “ever spoke to anyone about Mr. Arbery in racial terms” or used a racial slur on the day of the killing. And she added that the government never connected McMichael to any white supremacist or hate groups.

A.J. Balbo, the attorney Gregory McMichael, argued that the defendants were motivated by a desire to protect their neighborhood.

Pete Theodocion, Bryan’s attorney, argued the evidence of racism was merely “circumstantial.”

“Yes, the N-word six times is six times too many, but it is not evidence (of a hate crime),” he told jurors.

All three men are charged with depriving Arbery of his civil rights by attacking him because of his race, as well as with attempted kidnapping. The McMichaels are additionally charged with a federal firearms offense.

The hate-crimes felony, the most serious of the charges, carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Both McMichaels had agreed last month to plead guilty to the federal hate-crimes offense, and the son acknowledged in court that he singled out Arbery because of his “race and color.”

But Judge Wood rejected the plea bargain because it bound her to a 30-year sentence that prosecutors had agreed would be served in a federal lockup before the men were returned to the Georgia prison system, widely perceived as a tougher environment for inmates compared with federal penitentiaries.

The plea deals were then withdrawn, and all three defendants proceeded to trial.

El candidato ultra Éric Zemmour, condenado por “provocación al odio racial” por unas declaraciones contra migrantes menores | Internacional

El candidato presidencial francés de ultraderecha Éric Zemmour ha sido condenado este lunes a una multa de 10.000 euros por “provocación al odio racial”, por afirmar en 2020 en un programa de televisión en el que trabajaba como polemista que los menores migrantes no acompañados son “ladrones”, “asesinos” y “violadores”. El hombre que busca ahora dirigir Francia con un discurso de campaña marcadamente antiinmigrantes ha calificado la sentencia de “ideológica y estúpida” y ha anunciado que apelará el fallo —ni el primero ni el último que tiene pendientes, entre otros uno por negación de crímenes contra la humanidad este mismo jueves— porque se siente, dice, “víctima de una justicia política”.

Los hechos a los que se refiere el fallo francés datan de cuando Zemmour ni siquiera barajaba aún la posibilidad de entrar en campaña, pero recuerdan a las acusaciones de “violadores” y “criminales” que lanzó el estadounidense Donald Trump contra los mexicanos al anunciar su candidatura en 2015. En España, el año pasado, la Audiencia Provincial de Madrid desestimó un recurso contra Vox para que retirara unos carteles electorales en Madrid contra menores migrantes. En los afiches, se enfrentaba la imagen de un menor inmigrante (“un mena”, se podía leer) y una mujer mayor (“tu abuela”), comparando el supuesto coste público de mantener a los niños sin familia que llegan a España con la pensión media de un jubilado.

Con su sentencia, el tribunal correccional de Versalles, en las afueras de París, ha aceptado la petición de la Fiscalía, que había reclamado para Zemmour una pena de 100 euros de multa diarios durante 100 días, con la posibilidad de ordenar su puesta en prisión si se niega a pagar. El motivo son las declaraciones contra los menores migrantes no acompañados que hizo el 29 de septiembre de 2020 en la cadena de televisión CNews en la que entonces trabajaba como polemista, y cuyo responsable también ha sido condenado a otros 3.000 euros de multa, como ha revelado el abogado de la acusación civil. “No se les ha perdido nada aquí, son ladrones, son asesinos, son violadores, eso es todo lo que son”, declaró Zemmour durante una tertulia sobre el ataque con cuchillo perpetrado ante la antigua sede de la revista satírica Charlie Hebdo unos días antes y que dejó dos heridos. Según se supo en esos momentos, el agresor, un joven paquistaní, mintió sobre su edad a su llegada a Francia, haciéndose pasar por menor para poder beneficiarse de algunas de las ayudas sociales previstas para los menores que llegan de forma irregular y solos al país.

Lejos de retractarse, el candidato presidencial ultra, que no acudió este lunes a la lectura de la sentencia —y que también se ausentó del juicio en noviembre— no ha tardado en contraatacar. En un comunicado emitido nada más conocer el fallo, afirma que este supone “la condena de un espíritu libre por un sistema judicial invadido por ideólogos” y evoca un informe del Senado del año pasado que concluye que “las infracciones cometidas por jóvenes en situación precaria son cada vez más numerosas, graves y violentas”.

Lo que no dice Zemmour ni en su comunicado ni en sus reiteradas acusaciones públicas contra los migrantes, menores o no, es que ese mismo informe subrayaba también que “una gran mayoría de los hechos delictivos cometidos por menores extranjeros o por personas que se hacen pasar por tales no son en realidad MENA [menores extranjeros no acompañados] a cargo de la ASE [Ayuda Social a la Infancia], sino sobre todo jóvenes en situación de precariedad que presentan un perfil sociológico distinto”.

Según Zemmour, su persecución judicial se debe a que se ha presentado a las elecciones presidenciales de abril.

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“Tengo un expediente judicial cargado porque me quieren demonizar, quieren hacerme callar mediante la justicia, porque soy el único candidato que plantea la cuestión de la inmigración y el gran remplazo”, sostuvo poco después ante periodistas en París en referencia a la teoría conspirativa que promueve, según la cual la población de raíz europea está siendo sustituida en Europa por una población africana y árabe.

No es la primera vez que Zemmour es condenado por declaraciones antiinmigrantes o directamente xenófobas. En la última década, el hoy candidato presidencial ha sido llevado a tribunales una quincena de veces y al menos en dos ocasiones ha sido condenado en firme a una multa, tanto por “provocación al odio racial” como por “provocación al odio religioso”, en 2011 y 2019, respectivamente.

Procesos pendientes

El candidato ultra, quien tras un fuerte impulso en otoño está viviendo un estancamiento en las encuestas —los últimos sondeos lo colocan en cuarto lugar de intención de voto (alrededor de 13%)— tiene además varios procesos pendientes. Este jueves será juzgado por negación de crimen contra la humanidad por haber afirmado, en octubre de 2019 de nuevo en la cadena CNews que el mariscal Philippe Pétain, jefe del régimen colaboracionista de Vichy, había “salvado” a los judíos franceses. La justicia lo absolvió en primera instancia en febrero de 2021, pero la acusación civil apeló y el nuevo juicio comenzará esta semana. El pasado viernes, un tribunal de París fijó además para mayo de 2023 un nuevo juicio contra Zemmour, esta vez por difamación agravada, por unas declaraciones que realizó también en 2019 contra el “movimiento feminista” y el “movimiento LGTBI”.

Además, según adelantó la prensa este domingo, varias sociedades y personalidades del cine, entre ellas la compañía Gaumont y los realizadores Luc Besson y François Ozon han emprendido acciones legales contra Zemmour por haber utilizado sin autorización imágenes suyas en el vídeo con el que lanzó su campaña a las presidenciales. La fecha de la primera vista ante el tribunal judicial de París ha sido fijada para el 27 de enero, según la Agencia France Presse.

¿Marine Le Pen, menos extremista que Zemmour?

La irrupción en la carrera presidencial del polemista ultra ha supuesto una fuerte sacudida en el campo de la derecha y, sobre todo, de la ultraderecha francesa dominada hasta entonces por Marine Le Pen. La llegada de Zemmour ha desbaratado las predicciones que hasta el verano pasado daban por sentado que la segunda vuelta de abril se celebraría entre la líder del Reagrupamiento Nacional (RN) y el presidente saliente, Emmanuel Macron. Aunque el fulgurante ascenso inicial de Zemmour se ha frenado en las encuestas, su figura ha servido para hacer parecer menos extremista a Le Pen, si bien los efectos de este cambio de imagen no están aún claros, a poco menos de tres meses de la cita con las urnas.

En el barómetro sobre el RN que el instituto Kantar Public realiza cada año para Le Monde y Franceinfo, solo el 40% de los franceses consideran a Le Pen como representante de una “extrema derecha nacionalista y xenófoba” (11 puntos menos que en 2018), frente al 64% que usan esa definición para Zemmour. También el rechazo a Le Pen es menos masivo que a Zemmour: mientras que solo el 21% dice desear la victoria de la líder del RN, apenas 8% desea ver al polemista ultra al frente del Elíseo. Aun así, el 50% de los franceses considera aún a Le Pen como un “peligro para la democracia”, muy por encima que a Macron (31%) o incluso el líder izquierdista Jean-Luc Mélenchon (29%), aunque en esto Zemmour también se lleva la palma de la peligrosidad: el 62% de los sondeados considera que constituye un peligro para la democracia en Francia.

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