The Nation May-11-15

@thenation.com Gender Trouble While Katha Pollitt is a fierce advocate for abortion rights, she missed the mark in her column “Who Has Abortions?” [posted online, March 13]. The article, which discusses abortion funds’ shift away from talking about “women” in favor of referring to “people who have abortions,” is a fearmongering and unsubstantiated piece about how this change erases women from the abortion-rights movement. I serve on the board of the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF), one of the funds featured in Pollitt’s article. I am also the executive director of Third Wave Fund, a feminist, activist foundation. I believe language that doesn’t equate abortion with women increases accessibility of services for trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) people, who, because of discrimination at clinics and because these clients are disproportionately…

We saw the 2016 GOP presidential field for the first time in mid-April, when 19 Republicans appeared onstage in New Hampshire for a “First in the Nation” candidate forum. Most of the speakers had not yet formally declared for the presidency, and everyone was testing out their tentative campaign message on primary voters. But this was not the beginning of the GOP contest—in fact, the most important part is almost over. For months, the candidates had been frantically competing in the “invisible primary,” an ignominious feature of post–Citizens United politics in which the dollars of generous conservative benefactors are the prize. Candidates crisscrossed the country at a furious pace, and with as little public fanfare as possible. Even those who desperately need media attention studiously avoided reporters as they visited…

On November 2, 1983, Darrell Cannon found himself in the Chicago Police Department’s Area 2 headquarters with a shotgun barrel stuck in his mouth as a white officer yelled, “Blow that nigger’s head off!” The officer pulled the trigger, but no round was fired, so he pulled it again. But the shotgun wasn’t loaded; it was just one of the tactics that the three CPD officers present that day would use in trying to get a murder confession out of their suspect. Another was applying repeated electric shocks to his penis and testicles until he finally confessed to a murder that he didn’t commit. Cannon served a 24-year sentence and was exonerated after his release. From 1972 to 1991, at least 110 African-American men experienced similar forms of torture at…

MC and SJ: The premise of your book is that we need a “Care Grid” to support aging baby boomers. Why do you see home care as integral to that model? Ai-jen Poo: My grandfather on my father’s side spent the last three months of his life in a nursing home. It was an experience I’ll never forget—visiting him in a room at the back with half a dozen other people, half of whom were completely unmoving, and the other half were wailing in pain and suffering. My grandfather hadn’t eaten or slept for what seemed like days. He was afraid. He was convinced that he was going to die, and indeed he did pass away after three months. It was an incredibly dehumanizing experience, and it haunts me today.…

100K Number of workers who participated in Fight for $15 protests in over 230 cities on April 15 170 Number of US college campuses that participated $7.25 Current federal minimum hourly wage 1.5M Number of US workers who earned the federal minimum wage in 2013 73% Percentage of people on welfare who have an earning adult in the family “We demand the right to earn a living wage. We have a right to take care of our families just like the Trumps.” George Gresham, president of 1199 SEIU in New York City…

In Atlanta, eight teachers, administrators, and testing coordinators have been sentenced to prison terms of one to seven years for falsifying results on standardized tests. Twenty-one others who accepted plea deals will serve lesser sentences. The Fulton County district attorney accused the educators of having “altered, fabricated, and falsely certified” answer sheets as part of a cheating conspiracy that touched a majority of the city’s public elementary and middle schools. Remarkably, the educators were charged under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act—an unprecedented application of a law intended to attack organized crime. By press time, Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter, facing widespread criticism, had announced that he will resentence three administrators given seven-year prison sentences. Meanwhile, the policies that motivated cheating remain in place. Back in 2002,…