The immigrant workforce supports millions of US jobs

  By Dany Bahar, Carlos Daboin Contreras, and Greg Wright Monday, October 17, 2022   Brookings

 

www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2022/10/17/the-immigrant-workforce-supports-millions-of-u-s-jobs/

What Voters Can and Can’t Learn from John Fetterman’s Stroke

Health is rarely the thing that differentiates a competent politician from an incompetent one.

 By Dhruv Khullar

October 24, 2022

In mid-May, four days before the battleground state of Pennsylvania held its primary election, John Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor and the Democratic front-runner for a pivotal U.S. Senate seat, was on his way to a campaign event. In the car, his wife noticed the left side of his face drooping and his words starting to slur. She insisted, despite Fetterman’sobjections, that they reroute to a nearby hospital; there, doctors introduced a catheter into his groin, snaked the device to his brain, and retrieved the blood clot that had caused a stroke. From his hospital room, Fetterman easily won the Democratic nomination, which pits him against Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor turned G.O.P 

politician, in the general election. That same day, he underwent a two-and-a-half-hour procedure to implant a pacemaker and defibrillator in his chest.

 Strokes can be devastating. Fetterman is fortunate to have survived and, it seems, mostly recovered. But, as any first-year medical student can tell you, “time is brain”: even brief lapses in the flow of oxygen to neurologic tissue can have lasting consequences. Fetterman spent nine days in the hospital and three months off the campaign trail. Since returning, his speech is less fluent; at times, he has difficulty finding the right word, or pronouncing it once he’s found it. He struggles with auditory processing, or reliably comprehending spoken language, and has used closed-captioning for interviews and campaign events. “I sometimes will hear things in a way that’s not perfectly clear,” Fetterman told Dasha Burns, of NBC News, during his first in-person television interview since the stroke. During the conversation, which aired on October 11th, real-time captioning helped Fetterman read and respond to questions. But Burns later said that she wasn’t sure Fetterman had followed her small talk beforehand. (Other journalists have taken issue with this characterization, saying that Fetterman didn’t have trouble during interviews with them.) His health has continued to draw attention as he prepares to debate Oz in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on October 25th.

 lthough millions of people use closed-captioning, and Fetterman’s reliance on it does not signify a general cognitive decline, any serious neurologic event inevitably raises concerns about whether a candidate can perform the duties of office. Such concerns can be legitimate: a senator’s job is among the most demanding and influential in the country, and voters deserve a clear understanding of whether a person can competently represent them. But politicians’ medical histories are also easily misused. After the NBC interview, a Twitter account managed by the Republican National Committee shared a montage of Fetterman’s verbal stumbles and asked, “Does it sound like John Fetterman is fit for office?” The next day, Tucker Carlson asked on Fox News, “Where exactly does the software end and John Fetterman’s consciousness begin?” Oz’s senior communications adviser said that Fetterman might not have had a stroke if he’d “ever eaten a vegetable in his life,” and his campaign suggested that Fetterman had trouble standing. Oz himself has said that he would not talk to patients in the way his campaign has talked about Fetterman, and that the people who speak for him don’t necessarily speak for him.

 

 These attacks are troubling not because a candidate’s health should be off-limits but because health status is almost never the thing that differentiates a competent politician from an incompetent one. Not only does this type of health information have limited predictive power—a candidate’s comportment during the rigors of a campaign may prove far more revealing—but it’s also vulnerable to a kind of medical misdirection that foregrounds stereotypes about disability and seeds doubt or bias in the minds of voters.

 

 Fetterman’s stroke was caused by atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heart rhythm that he has experienced for at least five years, and for which, by his own admission, he stopped taking medication. His campaign has released a number of documents related to his condition: according to a June letter from his cardiologist, he also has a previously undisclosed condition called cardiomyopathy, meaning that his heart isn’t pumping at full strength. The letter didn’t specify its severity, but the placement of a defibrillator suggests that it is serious, as these devices are typically implanted when a key marker of heart function decreases by about half. Fetterman has said that, come January, when the new Congress takes office, he will be “a lot better.” Most functional improvement occurs up to a year after a stroke, so this is a realistic hope, but far from assured: he may improve further; he may not.

 

 In the meantime, his campaign’s medical messaging has been spotty. Last month, his campaign said that he scored well on two cognitive tests, but released the results of just one, a move that could uncharitably be compared to a student submitting a partial college transcript listing only the classes in which he excelled. His campaign also said that “John does not have aphasia,” though this is the term most doctors would use to describe his difficulties understanding and expressing spoken words. Assuaging the public’s concerns doesn’t require wholesale release of medical records so that partisans can dissect every lab test, imaging study, and bowel movement. But his campaign should transparently present data about his deficits and recovery, offer regular updates from his doctors, and describe the accommodations that he would need if he’s elected. Last week, after refusing repeated requests for an up-to-date medical assessment, Fetterman posted a note from his primary-care physician, which described communication improvements and said that he has “no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.”

 

Each of the conditions affecting Fetterman also affect millions of Americans, and they can be managed, often with little impact on one’s ability to travel, socialize, and work. (Just this year, Senators Christopher Van Hollen and Ben Ray Luján suffered strokes; both are back at work.) In recent weeks, Fetterman has held rallies,  spoken at town halls, met with editorial boards, and accepted live-interview requests. Fetterman’s ability to read and respond to written language also suggests that his cognitive capacities haven’t been meaningfully compromised. In a way, then, the continued questions about Fetterman’s health seem to ignore the ample evidence that he is already carrying out a demanding job, and may reflect a bias on the part of the media and the electorate to focus on the new and dramatic. In response to Fetterman’s use of closed captions, Ed O’Keefe, of CBS News, wondered whether Pennsylvanians will “be comfortable with someone representing them who had to conduct a TV interview this way?” But suppose Fetterman was congenitally deaf and relied on closed-captioning all the time. Why would that be disqualifying?

 

 The usual argument for probing candidates’ medical histories rests on a reasonable question: Can they perform the duties of elected office for the duration of their term? Unfortunately, medicine rarely offers satisfying answers to this question. Beyond serious cognitive deficits—the inability to comprehend, manipulate, and convey complex information, for instance—few medical conditions should prevent one from serving in office, and every effort should be made to support those who need assistance. Meanwhile, the course of an individual’s illness is notoriously difficult to predict, subject to conjecture and bias. (Studies suggest, for example, that the better physicians know patients, the less accurate they are in their prognoses.) In general, age is the strongest predictor of whether one’s health will decline and, judging by the average age of U.S. senators, sixty-four, Americans have no problem accepting such risks. (The average American is about thirty-eight.) Some of the nation’s most venerated political figures—Kennedy, Roosevelt, Lincoln—struggled with serious physical or mental-health conditions. Fitness for office, then, is more a political judgment than a medical assessment. A candidate’s performance during the campaign may be the best measure of how competently we can expect them to serve.

 

 Ableism is a curious kind of bias, considering that nearly a third of the American electorate has a disability or lives with someone who does. It’s a form of prejudice that, in the end, we’re all at risk of experiencing, irrespective of race, gender, or political affiliation, simply by virtue of being human. Still, it seems to afflict our body politic. People with disabilities are underrepresented in politics: only six per cent of federal elected officials have one, according to a recent study by Rutgers University researchers. A person who needs assistance is often seen as less able to perform the duties of representative government than, say, someone who lies about his record, peddles unproven remedies, encourages political violence, or tramples on democratic norms. There are many reasons that a person could prove unfit for office. Few have to do with their health. ♦

 

 

 

 

Georgia’s GOP overhauled the state’s and critics argue the target was Black voter turnout, not election fraud

In the rash of election reform laws enacted after former President Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud during the 2020 presidential election, few were tougher than SB 202 – the Election Integrity Act – passed in 2021 in Georgia, a state long known for its history of suppressing the Black vote, especially in response to growth in Black political influence.

Media attention focused on SB 202’s shortened runoff periods from nine to four weeks, limits on who can turn in absentee ballots and a partial ban on offering food or water while waiting in line to vote. 

 But other parts of SB 202 have drawn especially strong charges of racism from Black voters, Democrats and voting rights activists. 

 Details of the new Georgia law

One part of the law restricts the use of drop boxes, used most extensively by voters of color. 

 

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In the rash of election reform laws enacted after former President Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud during the 2020 presidential election, few were tougher than SB 202 – the Election Integrity Act – passed in 2021 in Georgia, a state long known for its history of suppressing the Black vote, especially in response to growth in Black political influence.

Media attention focused on SB 202’s shortened runoff periods from nine to four weeks, limits on who can turn in absentee ballots and a partial ban on offering food or water while waiting in line to vote.

But other parts of SB 202 have drawn especially strong charges of racism from Black voters, Democrats and voting rights activists.

Details of the new Georgia law

One part of the law restricts the use of drop boxes, used most extensively by voters of color.

Read news coverage based on evidence, not tweets

A second involves the State Elections Board, the state agency charged with administering elections in a nonpartisan way. The Board, now composed of four Republicans and one Democrat, is subject to review by the GOP-controlled state legislature and has the authority to take over election boards, including in counties with Democratic majorities and large populations of Black and other voters of color.

Finally, the new law allows any Georgia voter to challenge an unlimited number of other voters in their county. That provision already led to consequences after the state’s May 24, 2022, primary and foreshadows potential problems after the upcoming midterm elections. 

 According to the New Georgia Project, a voting rights group that is tracking the impact of the new law, about 64,000 challenges were filed statewide – with about 37,000 of them in the Atlanta area alone – and at least 1,800 mostly Black or Democratic voters’ names already have been removed from the voter rolls.

While the state Board of Registrars upheld the voting rights of the vast majority of challenged voters, voting experts disagree on how voting rules impact voter turnout or erode public trust, especially in a state with a history of discriminatory voting laws that affect people of color. 

 SB 202’s supporters argue that the overhaul expands voting hours and does not suppress Black voting.

Critics counter that the 98-page bill, similar to others across the country, was a thinly disguised effort to target voters of color because it restricts voting mechanisms used most extensively by Black voters, especially in reaction to the recent growth in political power by Black Georgians.

 

Georgia’s growing Black political power

For the last 20 years, Georgia has seen a shift in its state politics, largely the result of an influx of Black Americans who have moved back to the South since 2000 and tend to vote Democratic.

Black voters accounted for half of the state’s 1.9 million increase in eligible voters between 2000 and 2019. 

 With close to 700,000 more voting-age Black Americans moving to the Atlanta area of Fulton County since 2000 – and another 200,000 to nearby Cobb and Gwinnett counties – Black voters in 2018 helped Democrat Stacey Abrams come within about 55,000 votes – 50.2% to 48.8% – of becoming the first Black person and first woman of any race to become Georgia governor.

She lost the race to GOP incumbent Brian Kemp, whose victory withstood several legal challenges filed by Abrams alleging election irregularities. 

 Georgia Democrats had much more success in 2020. Black turnout helped Joe Biden win the state in the presidential election and saw two Democrats – Raphael Warnock, a Black man, and John Ossoff, a Jewish man – win the state’s two U.S. Senate seats. 

 Critics suggest that SB 202’s passage following this rise in 2020 Black turnout mirrors a historical pattern of voter disenfranchisement after a rise of Black voter strength. This pattern, which began right after the Civil War, contributed to historian Laughlin McDonald’s conclusion in his “A Voting Rights Odyssey: Black Enfranchisement in Georgia” that “no state was more systematic and thorough in its efforts to deny or limit voting and officeholdings by African-Americans after the Civil War.”

 

Backlash after the Civil War

In 1868, Black citizens were 44% of the state’s population, and voting-age Black men outnumbered white men in 65 of Georgia’s 137 counties.

Along with the power of growing Black political organizations such as the Loyal Leagues, Reconstruction led to an influx of Black Georgians to elected office in the late 1860s and early 1870s, including the “original 33” Black members of the Georgia General Assembly and members of elected boards of education.

 The white-dominated Democratic party responded to these seismic shifts in political power by not only forcibly replacing Black elected school board members with white Georgians selected by all-white grand juries, but also imposing strict vagrancy laws.

These not only restricted the mobility of Black men – and thus their ability to organize – but they also led to convictions of Black men on charges of vagrancy, thus depriving them of the right to vote.

 In his book, McDonald describes the reality for Black Georgians trying to vote. At the polls, McDonald writes, Black voters were required to prove that they had paid poll taxes at a time when political violence by white supremacists was a constant.

From 1867 to 1872, McDonald reveals, “at least a quarter of the state’s Black legislators were jailed, threatened, bribed, beaten, or killed.”

 The pattern of violence against Black elected officials continued throughout the early 20th century. From 1908 to 1962, no Black Georgian held a seat in the state legislature.

Voting under Jim Crow

Despite those obstacles, Black political power continued to grow. 

 

The movement of Black people to jobs in Georgia’s industrializing cities resulted in the growth of strikes and boycotts. In some cases, as in the Georgia Railroad strike of 1909, white union members resented the employment of Black, nonunion firefighters and staged numerous strikes that ultimately led to federal mediation.

But urban-based industrialization also led to the multiracial, class-based Populist Party in the early 1890s that appealed to Black voters who made up almost half of the state’s population. 

 The response was Jim Crow, a systematic set of restrictions that historians Suzanne Mettler and Robert Lieberman described as “changing the rules for how elections were run, in ways that would cripple the political opposition once and for all.”

Jim Crow laws included a strengthened poll tax and literacy tests, both of which aimed to block voting by Black voters,, reestablishment of the “white primary” where only whites could vote in the key Democratic Party races, and stricter residency requirements that limited Black people’s ability to organize. 

 The impact was significant: According to Richard M. Vallely, a political science professor at Swarthmore College, Black voter turnout in Georgia for presidential elections fell from 42% in 1880 to 33% in 1892, 7% in 1900 and 2% in 1912. 

 

White supremacy in the 1940s

A further example of white conservative reaction to expanded Black political activity took place right after World War II. In Georgia’s 1946 gubernatorial election, the candidacy of Democratic incumbent Eugene Talmadge was threatened by a significant rise in Black registrations, from about 20,000 in 1940 to more than 125,000 in 1946.

In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court had outlawed the white primary and the poll tax. More importantly, Black-led organizations, often involving Black veterans, such as the All-Citizen Registration Committee and the Atlanta Negro Voters League, continued to expand throughout the state. 

In response to the increase in Black voter registrations, Talmadge-led white supremacy forces mailed thousands of mimeographed forms to challenge and disqualify Black voters across the state.

Whereas few if any white registrants were challenged in any county, historian Joseph l. Bernd found that Blacks voters were challenged in more than 30 counties, and an estimated 15,000 to 25,000 were purged.

The result was a Talmadge victory despite the fact that his opponent – James Carmichael – won 16,000 more popular votes.

 

National stakes

Of course, much has changed in Georgia since the days of Talmadge.

But the almost immediate passage of new election laws at a time of growing Black political strength suggests the persistence of a white backlash in Georgia.

In a politically divided state such as Georgia, voter turnout is crucial.

Out of nearly 5 million ballots cast in the 2020 presidential campaign, for instance, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by only 11,779 votes.

 The balance of power in the U.S. Senate may rest on the outcome of the race between Warnock and GOP candidate Herschel Walker.

Though the race is still too close to call, one thing is clear: If the record turnout at May’s primaries was any indication, Georgia election officials will be swamped sorting out challenges in a replay of the state’s 1946 governor’s race.

 Richard F. Doner

Goodrich C. White Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science, Emory University

 

 

The problem(s) with the Republicans’ election focus on crime By Steve Benen

The GOP's focus on crime in the midterm elections may scare voters, but the closer one looks, the more problems emerge with the Republicans' pitch.

 About a month ago, Bill Clinton said Democrats still had a chance to hold on to the House and Senate, but it’d be a real challenge. “We have to note the Republicans always close well,” the former president said. “Why? Because they find some new way to scare the living daylights out of swing voters about something.”

 There is no doubt that this is a key chapter in the GOP’s election playbook, and the party follows it faithfully. The thing voters are supposed to be terrified of changes — the last time a Democratic president saw a midterm cycle, the scary thing was Ebola, which Republicans promptly forgot about after the 2014 elections — but the underlying strategy remains the same.

 Headed into the 2022 cycle, the original plan appeared to be scare the living daylights out of swing voters by talking about critical race theory, immigrants, transgender athletes, or transgender athletes who are also immigrants talking about critical race theory. But as The Wall Street Journal reported this week, Republicans have instead settled on a message focused on crime.

 Republicans in competitive House and Senate districts are hitting Democrats with a barrage of ads focused on voters’ increased fears about the surge in violent crime in recent years, with the issue playing a central role in many tight races. Republicans have called Democrats too tolerant of crime after social-justice protests in 2020 swept through the country over policing abuses, and they have criticized some Democrats’ support of measures such as eliminating cash bail.

If this sounds at all familiar, you’ve either seen the avalanche of ads, or you’ve seen some of the recent coverage. NBC News reported last week that Republicans “have unleashed a barrage of negative ads in the final weeks of the midterms that hammer Democrats on crime.”

 The Associated Press added, “The issue of crime is dominating advertising in some of the most competitive Senate races, including those in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada, along with scores of House and governors campaigns.”

 The thinking behind the strategy is obvious: Much of the public is concerned about an increase in crime rates — a trend that began during the Trump era — and since Democrats are currently in office, GOP officials and candidates are telling the public to simply blame the party in power for the fact that many are feeling less safe.

 ake some hysteria from conservative media outlets like Fox News, add a hearty dose of “defund the police” lies from Republicans who know better, and we’re left with a potent election season message custom-made to “scare the living daylights out of swing voters.”

It’d be even better if it were fair and accurate, but it’s not. Let’s keep some factual details in mind:

 1. The evidence of soaring crime rates is dubious. The latest data from the FBI actually showed a decline in violent crime, and while there are legitimate concerns about the figures being incomplete, there are other recent reports pointing in similar directions.

2. Republicans may need to take a long look in the mirror. As Dana Milbank explained in his latest column:

 Earlier this year, the centrist Democratic group Third Way crunched the 2020 homicide figures and found that per capita homicide rates were on average 40 percent higher in states won by Trump than by Joe Biden. Eight of the 10 states with the highest homicide rates have been reliably red states for the past two decades. Republican-led cities weren’t any safer than Democratic-led cities. Among the 10 states with the highest per capita homicide rates — Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Alabama, Missouri, South Carolina, New Mexico, Georgia,Arkansas, Tennessee — most were in the South and relatively rural. The findings were broadly consistent with other rankings of states (and counties) by violent crime.

 3. The GOP seems awfully selective about its crime-related interests. Many of the Republicans trying to leverage crime as a campaign issue are the same Republicans who appear wholly indifferent to serious crimes such as the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and Donald Trump’s alleged felonies. Take Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, for example.

4. If Republicans were serious about crime, they’d have to get serious about guns. And the GOP simply has no intention of doing that.

 5. The GOP has a credibility problem on the issue. Only one major political party in recent years has raised the prospect of defunding law enforcement while opposing increased federal funding to local police departments. I’ll give you a hint: It’s not the Democratic Party.

 . The role of race in this strategy is hardly subtle. Take one look at the kind of ads Republicans have aired in Wisconsin's U.S. Senate race — targeting Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is Black — and it becomes painfully obvious that race is playing a key role in the GOP’s strategy.

7. Republicans want to highlight crime without proposing real solutions. The House GOP’s “Commitment to America” offered some vague and dishonest platitudes, but voters expecting Republicans to actually address crime rates through meaningful governing solutions are going to be disappointed.

 

Climate Change and King Crab: It's Real

 Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech Tue, October 11, 2022 at 6:13 PM

 The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has canceled the Bristol Bay king crab season for a second year in a row and called off the winter hunting season for smaller snow crabs.

Officials scrubbed the hunting seasons out of concern for king and snow crab populations following the release of a summer survey showing that the abundance of both species is declining. 

 “Understanding crab fishery closures have substantial impacts on harvesters, industry, and communities, ADF&G must balance these impacts with the need for long-term conservation and sustainability of crack stocks,” the agency said in a statement announcing the cancellation of the Bering Sea snow crab.

“Management of Bering Sea snow crab must now focus on conservation and rebuilding given the condition of the stock.” 

 Many Alaskan crab fishers were devastated by the decision.

“Many members of Alaska’s fleet will face bankruptcy, including second- and third-generation crabbers whose families are steeped in the culture of this industry,” said the trade association Alaskan Bering Sea Crabbers in a statement on Tuesday. “Long-time crew members who have worked these decks for decades will be jobless. “

 

Biologists and fishery managers have long warned of declining snow and crab populations, with many pointing to warming waters linked to climate change as the culprit.

The results of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration survey of the Bering Sea Continental Shelf show that while total crab numbers increased from a record low in 2021, the number of mature male crabs was still low in 2022.

 According to the survey, the total combined estimate of mature male biomass for all crab stocks was 64,894 tons, an 11 percent increase from last year’s number.

Survey crafters determined the mature male snow crab population decreased by 22 percent from last year’s numbers, while mature female snow crab numbers fell by 33 percent.

 

Alabama Sen. Tuberville equates descendants of enslaved people to criminals by Juliana Kim

 

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., compared descendants of enslaved people to criminals on Saturday at a rally for former President Donald Trump, drawing intense backlash for promoting a racist narrative.

In front of an overwhelmingly white crowd in Minden, Nevada, Tuberville criticized Democrats for being "pro-crime."

"They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that," Tuberville added. "Bull****! They are not owed that."

 In a press statement, NAACP President Derrick Johnson called Tuberville's comments "flat out racist, ignorant and utterly sickening."

 "His words promote a centuries-old lie about Black people that throughout history has resulted in the most dangerous policies and violent attacks on our community," Johnson added.

Tuberville's office did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment.

 Over the years, there's been growing support to offer reparations for Black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved as a way to address the lingering effects of slavery.

Last spring, a bill to study reparations for slavery had the support of more than 170 Democratic co-sponsors. A House committee voted to advance the legislation but it has yet to be considered by the full House of Representatives.

 Democrats do not have an explicit policy surrounding reparations, though some prominent party members have advocated for the idea.

Banned Books by Alejandra O’Connell-Domenec

• More than 1,600 individual book titles have been banned from school classrooms or libraries over the past year, according to PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for freedom of expression.  

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• While book bans are nothing new in the United States, some authors worry about the most recent wave of censorship.  

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• Authors of banned books say the efforts to contest their books have never been more organized before.  

 

Book bans are nothing new in the United States but authors of some of the country’s most contested books worry about the newest push to censor what literature children have access to in schools.  

“I’m an old pro at this,” said Sherman Alexie, author of the young adult novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.” The novel tells the story of Arnold Spirit Jr., a 14-year-old aspiring cartoonist who lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation while attending an all-white high school.  

The book has faced pushback since it was published in 2007 and has been contested for its use of profanity, racist language — including the N-word — and references to sexual acts. Over the past 15 years, the novel has earned a spot on the American Library Association’s banned books list six times.   

The novel is currently banned in 16 different school districts across a handful of states including Florida, Georgia, Iowa and Kansas, according to PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans. 

But this year’s efforts to ban Sherman’s work were different.  

One example of how pushback against Alexie’s National Book Award-winning work has changed shape is how the novel was contested in Nebraska earlier this year.  

Several members of a group called the Protect Nebraska Children Coalition showed up to a Wauneta-Pallisade Public Schools board meeting in January demanding that a number of books be removed from elementary and high school libraries in part due to sexual content. “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” happened to be one of those books on the list.  

“The difference this time is it’s never been this organized. It was usually one or two parents in one school district,” Alexie said. “But this organizational effort has far more power and influence.” 

The group’s mission is to “protect the health and innocence of children and the fundamental rights of parents to direct the education, healthcare and upbringing of their children,” according to the Protect Nebraska Children Coalition Facebook page.  

The link to the group’s website listed on the Facebook page directs users to a page outlining the dangers of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) and features a step-by-step guide to remove CSE from schools by using a tactic called the “Tsunami Strategy.”  

There are four main parts to the “Tsunami Strategy,” according to the site. The first is to decide on a long-term policy goal, the second is to figure out “the oppositions” policy goals, followed by a short-term decision on what to address in the next school board public meeting and the last step is to “craft 30 statements all asking for the same action to be taken.” 

Some groups pushing for the removal or investigation of certain books for their content argue that they are doing so for the safety of children. But some like Ellen Hopkins, who is the most frequently banned author in the United States, according to PEN America, don’t believe that concern is real.  

“The current attacks are impersonal. No real concern for the welfare of the kids they claim to worry about,” said Hopkins.  

Hopkins added that she believes the ultimate goal of many pushing for these book bans is to “dismantle public education and drive teachers away from teaching.”  

According to PEN America, 14 individual books by Hopkins have been contested or outright banned in schools over the past year. The title with the most bans is the novel “Crank,” a story about addiction inspired by Hopkins’ daughter who went from being a straight-A student to battling a crystal meth addiction during her teen years.  

Hopkins speculates that some parents contesting work like “Crank” believe that if children read about drug use it might make them want to try illicit substances. But thinking that children are only learning about certain parts of life through books is naïve, she said.  

“I don’t know how they consider they wouldn’t know about it considering most of them have internet access,” Hopkins said. “Books are a safer space…if a kid has his nose in a book he’s not actually being courted by somebody or actually watching real people have sex.” 

Hopkins told Changing America that the purpose of the book is to help give insight into some of the problems that young people face every day and to help them make better choices. Taking that information away only increases the odds children will make poor choices if placed in similar situations, Hopkins argued.  

Hopkins said that she has even reached out to several groups contesting her books and asked to have a conversation and explain her motivation for writing on the topics that she does but none have taken her up on the offer.  

“The hysterics don’t want that understanding or difficult conversations,” Hopkins said. “They want attention and get it through rehearsed talking points.”  

When faced with an adult concerned about the content of her books, author Ashley Hope Perez will ask if their child has a cell phone or goes to the public library to use computers. 

“Even if they don’t have a cell phone, do they play on a soccer team? Do they ride the bus? Are they ever in the locker room?… there is always access to content,” Perez said. “Why are we removing access to high quality content to frame difficult conversations and leaving kids with nothing but what they find on the internet?”

What is concerning about the newest wave of book bans is using outrage over the contents of the books as a sort of “proxy war” against non-dominate identities like being queer or non-white, according to Perez.  

Perez said that she has looked at Facebook pages of groups that have contested her young adult novel “Out of Darkness” and has been shocked to see members tell others to “not talk about race” or bring up homosexuality when trying to push for a ban and instead “just talk about sex and curse words.

 To her, comments like that reveal that targeting specific themes in books is just a pretext for targeting specific books that promote the inclusion of people of different races and sexual identities.  

“These groups know they cannot send parents to school board meetings to say I don’t want queer kids in my kid’s school. I don’t want them sitting next to a Black kid,” said Perez. “They can’t say those things in 2022 but they can hold up a copy of ‘Out of Darkness’ with the Black and Mexican main characters on the front and say this is filth.”