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November 29, 2017
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 MURAL 

Richmond housing mural featured in new video


A new mural about the housing crisis is now gracing Richmond, California's 23rd St. and Ohio Avenue. Check out our new video highlighting the mural which also features interviews with the architect, and a community activist behind the work, Evan Bissell, and Sasha Graham, who elaborate on the different panels dedicated to rent control, just cause eviction, and fair chance housing laws, and explain their significance for not only the Richmond community, but the larger housing landscape as well. The mural is an initiative of the Haas Institute's Staying Power program. View the video here. Read more about Staying Power here.

 RESEARCH TO IMPACT 

Scamming no substitute for reparations

In our latest Research to Impact talk earlier this month, Jovan Lewis, an assistant professor of Geography and African American Studies at UC Berkeley and a member of the Haas Institute's Economic Disparities cluster, presented a paper on "Reparations, Deferral, and the Promissory of Poverty." In the talk, Lewis presented his research on a lucrative, underground industry of scamming in Jamaica that has brought millions of dollars into the Caribbean nation by duping gullible people in the United States. The scammers justify their actions by equating the cash they are bringing in to a form of reparations to pay for centuries of colonial rule, but Lewis dismisses the notion as flawed. Watch a video of the presentation to learn why.

 VIRGINIA VOTE 

Takeaways from the Democrats' gains in Virginia

In a long-form essay analyzing the results of the gubernatorial and legislative elections in Virginia earlier this month, Tides Fellow Josh Clark draws two main conclusions regarding strategies to help progressives win future elections. First, he says, progressives must focus on attracting voters from the "Rising American Electorate," including non-whites, the young, and single women, as opposed to trying to pull in moderate Trump supporters. And secondly: Don't assume Trump's unpopularity with affluent suburbanites will translate into victories for progressives. Get the nuances of the Virginia election here, and read a recent report by Clark that analyzes the results of the 2016 presidential election here.

 BIONEERS 

Keynote videos from Bioneers conference on accessibility and Belonging

The Haas Institute's Victor Pineda and john a. powell were both keynote speakers at the annual Bioneers conference last month and the video recaps of their talks can now be found online. Pineda, who heads the organization World Enabled and is a Senior Fellow at the Haas Institute, challenged the Bioneers audience to work collaboratively in more innovative ways to solve some of the most pressing problems in our society, particularly those faced by people with disabilities. Watch Pineda's keynote here.

In his keynote, john powell urged an audience of hundreds of Bioneers attendees to focus on compassion, our shared humanity, and reshaping structures to create spaces in which no one is left out. See the video and a write-up of powell's remarks here. powell and Pineda were both honored at a Bioneers Awards dinner on October 21 for their work towards inclusion.

 IN THE MEDIA 

In a detailed Huffington Post article, john a. powell is cited extensively explaining his concept of Targeted Universalism, and what sort of effects policies based on that theory would have on different communities. He argues that one-size-fits-all approaches such as universal healthcare that attempt to solve an issue for an entire population can actually exacerbate already-existing disparities, while an approach that is tailored to certain groups whose lives are shaped by different circumstances can avoid a lot of problems. For more on this click here


In an NPR story published earlier this month on the health impacts of racism, Health Disparities cluster faculty member Amani Nuru-Jeter talks about how lived and social experience of race are related to certain health conditions, such as higher levels of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and higher rates of infant mortality in certain populations. Nuru-Jeter hypothesizes in the piece that the stress of regularly experiencing racism wears down on your health over time. Read this story here.
Cristina Mora, associate professor of sociology at UC Berkeley and Diversity & Democracy cluster member, was cited by The Hill earlier this month in an opinion piece about the all-Democrat Congressional Hispanic Caucus excluding Republican Carlos Curbelo, a Cuban, from joining. The piece takes lines from Mora's book, Making Hispanics, that traces the creation of the Hispanic category in the US. Read the perspective here.
Paul Pierson, a UC Berkeley political science professor and member of the Economic Disparities cluster, co-wrote an opinion piece with Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, for the New York Times about the Republican tax plan. Whereas most analyses of the plan show how it is designed to cut taxes for the wealthy at the expense of the middle class, Pierson and Hacker argue the plan is really aimed at disproportionately burdening "blue states." Read how here.
Related to the topic of the Republican tax plan, the Washington Post ran a piece recently which cites Emmanuel Saez, another member of the Economic Disparities cluster, who argues that the wealthiest 0.1 percent of people have become even wealthier in part because they pay very little tax to transfer money and property to their heirs after they die. Read that piece here.
The New York Times earlier this month selected The Color of Law: The Forgotten History of How our Government Segregated America, authored by Haas Institute Senior Fellow Richard Rothstein, as one of its "100 Notable Books of 2017." The book was previously nominated for the National Book Award.
UPCOMING EVENTS

SEE OUR EVENTS PAGE  FOR LATEST INFO & DETAILS


Wednesday, Nov. 29: Haas Institute Senior Fellow Richard Rothstein will discuss his widely-praised book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, at 6pm today, in Oakland, CA. Details here.
Friday, Dec. 1: Paul Frymer, professor of Politics and the Director of the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University, will speak on "The Politics of Mass Deportation in the United States: State Authority, Public Activism, and Government Removal Policies Targeting Native Americans and African Americans in the 19th Century." Details here.
graphic for Kerner Commission at 50 conference
 

Registration is now open for our three-day "Kerner Commission at 50" conference! The conference, due to be held Feb. 27 - March 1, 2018, will explore race, segregation, and inequality 50 years after the release of the historic Kerner Commission Report. More than a dozen speakers are due to take part in the conference, including Shaun Donovan, who served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Obama, and former US Senator Fred Harris, who is the only surviving member of the Kerner Commission. The event will take place on the UC Berkeley campus with a satellite location at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Registration information, a list of speakers, and other details about the conference are available here.

Our work advancing a fair and inclusive society is more pressing than ever before. If you can help support our work, please consider making a donation to the Haas Institute. Thank you!
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