The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

For years now, Republicans have used voter ID laws and purges of voter rolls to minimized the minority vote whenever and where possible.  Its the same mindset from the Jim Crow era when poll taxes kept blacks in the South from voting and it surged in the wake of desegregation when Richard Nixon devised his "Southern Strategy" to recruit Southern whites to the GOP.  The other mechanism  used by Republicans, certainly here in Virginia, was the "war on drugs" and Virginia's draconian marijuana laws (a topic this blog has addressed numerous times) to criminalize minorities, especially blacks. The city of Norfolk, Virginia, is a prime example.  The city is not majority black, yet drug arrests and convictions are disproportionately against young black males (when I go to criminal court in Norfolk, the racial imbalance of those charged continues to be shocking).  Given the ridiculously small amount of marijuana required to make possession a felon, those convicted lose their voting rights permanently (there is no automatic restoration of voting rights once one's sentence is served - again by design). 

As the book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," a New York Times best seller, lays out, none of this was by accident.  Here in Virginia, we may be on the cusp of change with a drastic overhaul of the state's marijuana laws, plus dramatic change in control gun laws. The reaction from the far right has been apoplectic and could well see violence erupt in Richmond tomorrow.  An op-ed in the New York Times by Michelle Alexander, the author of the reference book, looks at where America now finds itself in the age of Trump who lauds white supremacy.  Here are column highlights:

Ten years have passed since my book, “The New Jim Crow,” was published. I wrote it to challenge our nation to reckon with the recurring cycles of racial reform, retrenchment and rebirth of caste-like systems that have defined our racial history since slavery. It has been an astonishing decade. Everything and nothing has changed.

When I was researching and writing the book, Barack Obama had not yet been elected president of the United States. I was in disbelief that our country would actually elect a black man to be the leader of the so-called free world. As the election approached, I felt an odd sense of hope and dread. I hoped against all reason that we would actually do it. But I also knew that, if we did, there would be a price to pay.

We had recently birthed another caste system — a system of mass incarceration — that locked millions of poor people and people of color in literal and virtual cages.

Our nation’s prison and jail population had quintupled in 30 years, leaving us with the highest incarceration rate in the world. A third of black men had felony records — due in large part to a racially biased, brutal drug war — and were relegated to a permanent second-class status. Tens of millions of people in the United States had been stripped of basic civil and human rights, including the right to vote, the right to serve on juries and the right to be free of legal discrimination in employment, housing, education and basic public benefits.

I was right to worry about the aftermath of Obama’s election. After he was inaugurated, our nation was awash in “post-racialism.” Black History Month events revolved around “how far we’ve come.” Many in the black community and beyond felt that, if Obama could win the presidency, anything was possible. Few people wanted to hear the message I felt desperate to convey: Despite appearances, our nation remains trapped in a cycle of racial reform, backlash and re-formation of systems of racial and social control.

Things have changed since then. Donald Trump is president of the United States. For many, this feels like whiplash. After eight years of Barack Obama — a man who embraced the rhetoric (though not the politics) of the civil rights movement — we now have a president who embraces the rhetoric and the politics of white nationalism. This is a president who openly stokes racial animosity and even racial violence, who praises dictators (and likely aspires to be one), who behaves like a petulant toddler on Twitter, and who has a passionate, devoted following of millions of people who proudly say they want to “make America great again” by taking us back to a time that we’ve left behind.

We are now living in an era not of post-racialism but of unabashed racialism, a time when many white Americans feel free to speak openly of their nostalgia for an age when their cultural, political and economic dominance could be taken for granted — no apologies required. Racial bigotry, fear mongering and scapegoating are no longer subterranean in our political discourse; the dog whistles have been replaced by bullhorns. White nationalist movements are operating openly online and in many of our communities; they’re celebrating mass killings and recruiting thousands into their ranks.

White nationalism has been emboldened by [Trump] our president, who routinely unleashes hostile tirades against black and brown people — calling Mexican migrants criminals, “rapists” and “bad people,” referring to developing African nations as “shithole countries” and smearing a district of the majority-black city of Baltimore as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Millions of Americans are cheering, or at least tolerating, these racial hostilities.

[W]hat our nation is experiencing is not an “aberration.” The politics of “Trumpism” and “fake news” are not new; they are as old as the nation itself. The very same playbook has been used over and over in this country by those who seek to preserve racial hierarchy, or to exploit racial resentments and anxieties for political gain, each time with similar results.

Back in the 1980s and ’90s, Democratic and Republican politicians leaned heavily on the racial stereotypes of “crack heads,” “crack babies,” “superpredators” and “welfare queens” to mobilize public support for the War on Drugs, a get-tough movement and a prison-building boom — a political strategy that was traceable in large part to the desire to appeal to poor and working-class white voters who had defected from the Democratic Party in the wake of the civil rights movement.

[T]he rhetoric has changed, but the game remains the same. Public enemy No. 1 in the 2016 election was a brown-skinned immigrant, an “illegal,” a “terrorist” or an influx of people who want to take your job or rape your daughter.

The fact that Trump’s claims were demonstrably false did not impede his rise, just as facts were largely irrelevant at the outset of the War on Drugs. It didn’t matter back then that studies consistently found that whites were equally likely, if not more likely, than people of color to use and sell illegal drugs. Black people were still labeled the enemy.

Black people charged with possession of crack in inner cities were still punished far more harshly than white people in possession of powder cocaine in the suburbs. And it didn’t matter that African-Americans weren’t actually taking white people’s jobs or college educations in significant numbers through affirmative action programs.

Getting tough on “them” — the racially defined “others” who could easily be used as scapegoats and cast as the enemy — was all that mattered. Facts were treated as largely irrelevant then. As they are now.

Fortunately, a growing number of scholars and activists have begun to connect the dots between mass incarceration and mass deportation in our nation’s history and current politics.

The story of how our “nation of immigrants” came to deport and incarcerate so many for so little, Hernández explains, is a story of race and unfreedom reaching back to the era of emancipation. If we fail to understand the historical relationship between these systems, especially the racial politics that enabled them, we will be unable to build a truly united front that will prevent the continual re-formation of systems of racial and social control.

[T]hose who argue that the systems of mass incarceration and mass deportation simply reflect sincere (but misguided) efforts to address the real harms caused by crime, or the real challenges created by surges in immigration, tend to underestimate the corrupting influence of white supremacy whenever black and brown people are perceived to be the problem.

Once human beings are defined as the problem in the public consciousness, their elimination through deportation, incarceration or even genocide becomes nearly inevitable.

White nationalism, at its core, reflects a belief that our nation’s problems would be solved if only people of color could somehow be gotten rid of, or at least better controlled. In short, mass incarceration and mass deportation have less to do with crime and immigration than the ways we’ve chosen to respond to those issues when black and brown people are framed as the problem.

It is tempting to imagine that electing a Democratic president or more Democratic politicians will fix the crises in our justice systems and our democracy. To be clear, removing Trump from office is necessary and urgent; but simply electing more Democrats to office is no guarantee that our nation will break its habit of birthing enormous systems of racial and social control.

Equally important is the reality that “felons” have families. And “criminals” are often children or teenagers. The notion that, if you’ve ever committed a crime, you’re permanently disposable is the very idea that has rationalized mass incarceration in the United States.

None of this is to minimize the real progress that has occurred on many issues of race and criminal justice during the past decade. . . . . Everything has changed. And yet nothing has.

The politics of white supremacy, which defined our original constitution, have continued unabated — repeatedly and predictably engendering new systems of racial and social control. Just a few decades ago, politicians vowed to build more prison walls. Today, they promise border walls.

The political strategy of divide, demonize and conquer has worked for centuries in the United States — since the days of slavery — to keep poor and working people angry at (and fearful of) one another rather than uniting to challenge unjust political and economic systems. At times, the tactics of white supremacy have led to open warfare. Other times, the divisions and conflicts are less visible, lurking beneath the surface.

The stakes now are as high as they’ve ever been. Nearly everyone seems aware that our democracy is in crisis, yet few seem prepared to reckon with the reality that removing Trump from office will not rid our nation of the social and political dynamics that made his election possible. No issue has proved more vexing to this nation than the issue of race, and yet no question is more pressing than how to overcome the politics of white supremacy — a form of politics that not only led to an actual civil war but that threatens our ability ever to create a truly fair, just and inclusive democracy.

We have a lot of work to do, beginning with removing Trump from office by any means.

Norfolk Judges By Default Support Disproportionate Prosecution of Blacks

Lobby of Norfolk Court House.

For many years Virginia's arcane marijuana laws have been used - by design, in my view to subjugate and disenfranchise blacks - to disproportionately criminalize black citizens.  This is an issue I have written about in the past and I have previously noted that City of Norfolk has been a prime offender in Virginia when it comes to disproportionately targeting blacks.  Indeed, the most recent statistics are most damning: 81 percent marijuana arrests were black in a city with a population that is 47 percent white and 42 percent black. The continuation of this injustice was recently re-enforced by the Republican controlled Virginia General Assembly which killed legislation that would have overhauled Virginia's horrible marijuana laws and decriminalized simple possession offences.  To address this unconscionable situation, Norfolk's Commonwealth Attorney, Greg Underwood, has indicated that he will not prosecute (would that he could convince the Norfolk Police Department from targeting blacks).  Unfortunately Underwood has hit a brick fall in the form of Norfolk's judges who have stated that they will continue to try marijuana summons even if the Commonwealth Attorney refuses to prosecute them.  Underwood's hopefully work around?  He has petitioned the Virginia Supreme Court - which has a terrible track record of being on the wrong side of history and supporting racial discrimination - asking that it affirm his prosecutorial discretion. A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at the stand off.  The judges' action is unfortunate.  The continued targeting of blacks by the Norfolk Police Department is down right reprehensible. Here are excerpts:

The city’s chief prosecutor said he will ask the state Supreme Court to force local judges into dismissing misdemeanor marijuana cases, effectively de-criminalizing the drug in Norfolk.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Greg Underwood on Friday sent a letter to the chief judge of the city’s highest court, letting him and the seven other Circuit Court judges know that Underwood would appeal their collective decision to deny motions prosecutors have made over the past two months to abandon those cases.

Two months ago, Underwood announced he would undertake several efforts to achieve what he called criminal justice reform, including no longer prosecuting misdemeanor marijuana appeals.

But since then, at least four judges have denied prosecutors’ requests to dismiss marijuana charges. The tug-of-war adds to the confusion about whether it’s OK to have a small amount of weed in the city. Norfolk police have said they will continue to cite people for misdemeanor marijuana possession as they’ve always done. Circuit Court judges appear determined to make sure offenders are tried, even if the commonwealth’s attorney refuses to prosecute them.

Prosecuting people for having marijuana disproportionately hurts black people and does little to protect public safety, Underwood has said.

In 2016 and 2017, more than 1,560 people in Norfolk were charged with first- or second-offense marijuana possession, prosecutor Ramin Fatehi said during a hearing last month. Of them, 81 percent were black in a city that’s 47 percent white and 42 percent black.

This “breeds a reluctance on the part of African Americans, particular young African American men, to trust or cooperate with the justice system,” according to a Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office memo announcing the policy changes

“Such prosecution also encourages the perception that the justice system is not focusing its attention on the legitimately dangerous crimes that regrettably are concentrated in these same communities.”

The judge, Hall, admitted Fatehi made an “extremely compelling case” with his statistics on racial disparities, but said he should pitch it to lawmakers in Richmond.

“I believe this is an attempt to usurp the power of the state legislature,” Hall said. “This is a decision that must be made by the General Assembly, not by the commonwealth’s attorney’s office.”

But circumventing the commonwealth’s attorney’s role in the long term would keep marijuana possession cases alive in Norfolk, thwarting Underwood’s criminal justice reform.

Will the Virginia GOP Kill Marijuana Decriminalization Again in 2019?

More and more states are reforming their marijuana laws to allow medical marijuana, decriminalizing simple possession and/or reducing penalties.  Virginia has lagged behind this changing reality largely thanks to Virginia Republicans.  Why the resistance?  Actually, it is quite simple.  For years Virginia Republicans have sought to disenfranchise as many minority voters as possible be it under the smoke screen of preventing non-existent voter fraud, using Virginia's draconian drug laws to saddle minority voters with felony convictions that deprive them of the right to vote, or other disingenuous lies and ruses. As note, a significant part of this GOP agenda has been the disproportionate arrest of blacks for marijuana possession.   Among the worse offenders in this unconscionable agenda has been the City of Norfolk where blacks were far more likely to suffer arrest and conviction than whites.  Now, the City of Norfolk has changed its position and is calling for the decriminalization of simple possession of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use.  Polls indicate that a majority of Virginians want decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use.  However, the goal of the Virginia GOP ceased to be furthering the wishes of a majority of the population many years ago.  A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at what may transpire in the 2019 session of the Virginia General Assembly.  Here are highlights:

When it comes to marijuana, Virginia has lagged behind many states where the drug has been decriminalized or legalized for recreational use.

With lawmakers approving an expansion of the state's medical marijuana program in 2018, supporters of decriminalization are hoping that momentum will continue in 2019. But Virginia Republicans don't appear willing to support decriminalization. 

As the General Assembly gears up for a new legislative session starting Jan. 9, Democratic state Sen. Adam Ebbin has submitted a bill to decriminalize simple marijuana possession — defined as ½ ounce or less — and provide a maximum civil penalty of $50 for a first violation. The current law carries a jail sentence of up to 30 days and a maximum $500 fine for a first offense.

"Will Virginia eventually decriminalize personal possession of marijuana? Yes. Will it be in 2019? That's very unlikely," said Jenn Michelle Pedini, executive director of the Virginia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Legislation to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana has been introduced in Virginia for years, but has always died in committee. Pedini said the House and Senate Courts of Justice committees are made up largely of Republicans — some with law enforcement backgrounds — making it difficult to build support for decriminalization or legalization.

Ebbin, however, said a criminal charge for marijuana possession can have lasting ramifications, including negative impacts on job opportunities and child custody cases. He said he hopes his bill can at least gain some support, if it is not passed outright.

"The lobby for marijuana reform is getting larger and larger, particularly for Virginia families with members who have been impacted by our current marijuana penalties," Ebbin said.

We have other states that have decriminalized and the sky has not fallen," he said.  Public opinion polls show the majority of Virginians support decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana and making it punishable by fines rather than jail.

One city in Virginia has also given its seal of approval. The Norfolk City Council endorsed decriminalization in its 2019 legislative agenda.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws says 23 states have decriminalized or legalized marijuana, while 33 states have passed laws allowing medical cannabis programs.

In Virginia, five companies are expected to open the state's first medical cannabis dispensaries in 2019. 

Legislation passed in 2018 allows in-state production and sales of cannabis oils to patients with certificates from their doctors. The initial legislation passed in 2016 called for cannabis oils to be available only for people with intractable epilepsy.

It is now 2019 and all responsible Virginian need to begin working now to (i) get progressive legislation passed during the coming legislative session, and (ii) send Republicans into a permanent minority status in both the Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates in November, 2019.

Norfolk Firefighter Says City Forced Him Out for Being Gay

UPDATED:  The case against the City of Norfolk is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia under case No. 2:18-cv-00565-HCM-RJK and states that the City of Norfolk violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e, et. seq.  

I recently wrote about the poor scores of cities in the Hampton Roads region on the Human Rights Campaign's Equality Index.  One of the main reasons for the poor scoring was the lack of meaningful non-discrimination protections for LGBT employees.citizens.  Why this is an important issue is underscored by a story in the Virginian Pilot concerning a Norfolk firefighter who is suing the City of Norfolk over his forced retirement from the Fire-Rescue department for being gay.  From my own experience with anti-gay Norfolk police officers who viewed gay bashing as a sort, I find the allegations all too believable.   The real solution is to have the Virginia General Assembly enact statewide non-discrimination protections binding on all cities and counties in Virginia.  Sadly, to date, Republicans in the General Assembly have blocked such legislation.   Here are article highlights:

For decades, Scott Phillips-Gartner served as a member of Norfolk Fire-Rescue, first as a 911 operator and later as an assistant fire marshal and bomb squad technician.  But then in October 2014 he married his longtime boyfriend, leading his bosses to find out he was gay.

Phillips-Gartner, 55, says the department ultimately stripped him of his rank and directed him to start working out of a temporary facility miles away from his usual office “with little to no job duties.”  “This was not the way he wanted to leave,” said attorney Barry Montgomery, explaining his client retired earlier this year amid threats he’d be fired if he didn’t. “It was humiliating.”

Phillips-Gartner is suing the city of Norfolk, accusing the department of creating a hostile work environment. The suit also alleges the city discriminated against him due to his gender – because he would have been treated differently if he were a woman who’d married a man – and retaliated against him for complaining to the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 

Norfolk implemented policies in December 2016 that prohibit employees, contractors and volunteers from discriminating against a person because of his or her sexual orientation, among other things. The City Council put similar protections into law in early 2017. The suit alleges Phillips-Gartner was well regarded in the department until October 2014, when he notified the city’s human resources department he had married his boyfriend. The suit said Battalion Chief Roger Burris verbally attacked Gartner throughout 2015 and generally treated him less favorably than heterosexual male employees. During a staff meeting that December, he specifically attacked Gartner's sexuality – asking “Where is Ms. Gartner?”

Gartner complained about Burris’ comments, prompting Fire Chief Jeffrey F. Wise to look into what was happening.

Things didn’t get better. The lawsuit said Wise “routinely belittled Gartner in front of colleagues” during the first three months of 2016.

Gartner subsequently complained to Norfolk's then-city auditor, John Sanderlin. Montgomery said he didn’t take action either.

The suit said Wise stripped Gartner of his law-enforcement powers in March 2017, as well as his city firearm, computer and cell phone. He was barred from using city vehicles and denied routine bomb squad training, the suit said.

The suit said Wise advised Gartner in November 2017 he wanted to fire him. In turn, Gartner “reluctantly” put in for retirement on Dec. 7, 2017. His last day was supposed to be Dec. 31, but it was eventually extended to January 31. “This disrupted his whole life,” Montgomery said.

Frankly, it sounds like Messrs Burris and Wise need to be fired and made an example for other homophones and bigots. 

Norfolk Wants to Replace Oldest Lesbian Bar on East Coast with a Dog Park

Patrons comfort one another on Oct. 31 as the Hershee Bar prepares to close.

The City of Norfolk, Virginia has moved light years from where it was 15 years or more ago when the then mayor acted as if LGBT individuals were radioactive. Now, the City is the largest sponsor of Pride Fest and the Norfolk police department has moved from harassing gays for laughs and giggles to now having a facilitator with LGBT community.  That said, the City remains stone deaf in other ways and its alliance with the LGBT community would appear to be a fraud.  The ongoing drama surrounding the Hershee Bar - the oldest lesbian bar on the East Coast is a case in point.  The City is purchasing the property where the Hershee Bar is located as part of a "redevelopment plan."  Unfortunately, the City wants to replace the Hershee Bar with a dog park.  The message could not be much more derogatory towards the local LGBT community. A piece in the Washington Post looks at the disturbing plans of the City of Norfolk and, in the process gives Norfolk negative publicity across America and the globe.  Personally, I believe it is time for Hampton Roads Pride to approach the City of Virginia Beach or perhaps the City of Hampton to host the 2019 Pride Fest event. Perhaps that would send a much needed message to Norfolk.  If you agree, please share this post.  Here are excerpts from the Post article: 

Two days before learning what would become of Norfolk’s embattled lesbian bar, a group of students and activists toured the city’s LGBTQ history.

It was filled with graveyards — a hotel that used to be a gay bookstore, a parking garage where drag queens used to dance.

When the group stopped at the Hershee Bar — Norfolk’s only dedicated space for bisexual, lesbian and queer-identifying women — the owners were packing up 35 years of history, piling it on tables around the bar.

The last of its kind in Norfolk and one of the oldest lesbian bars on the East Coast, the Hershee Bar was shuttered Oct. 31 to make way for a planned revitalization of the Five Points corridor. Last week, activists who spent months trying to persuade Norfolk officials to save the bar learned what would replace it: A dog park.

The announcement rattled those at a Norfolk City Council meeting who were prepared to continue lobbying city leaders for an alternative plan that didn’t involve razing the property. Several people cried.

It means a little more to some of us than a place for people to walk their dogs,” said Jennifer Alomari, who stood before the council in a white T-shirt that bore the words “We are Hershee bar.” She took deep breaths to steady herself before continuing. “It’s a little more than a park. They closed the door to our home.”

Council members and Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander (D) didn’t respond to requests for comment about the bar, the park or redevelopment plans.

Activists who have lobbied them since June said they have been denied meetings with city officials. Until last week, they said, they didn’t know a plan was in the works.

Jackie Rochelle, who addressed the council on behalf of the Five Points task force, which has been forming a revitalization strategy for the area, said the dog park was “an accumulation of years of planning.”

“We did . . . decide that the property’s best use should be for all citizens,” Rochelle said at the council meeting last week. “A dog park, for our friends that have four legs and wear fur outfits as well, and for many of us who feel that this is also our family.”

In February, council members unanimously voted to purchase for $1.5 million the four-building lot where the Hershee Bar had operated since 1983. There was no discussion about the potential impact on Norfolk’s LGBTQ community.

There are three dog parks within three miles of the bar’s longtime home at 6107 Sewells Point Rd.

Norfolk council member Andria McClellan wrote on Facebook that she was blindsided by the dog park announcement.  “For the record, I don’t support paying $1.5M for a dog park,” McClellan wrote. “I had not heard of these plans before they were presented this week and I don’t agree with this direction at all.”

On the LGBTQ history tour through Norfolk last week, the lost history was on display. Students from Old Dominion University and Virginia Wesleyan University were joined by activists, community members and historians.

They wanted the same thing: to see where their history once stood — even if all that’s left is a vacant building or an empty lot.

“One of those things that’s meaningful to people when we go on our queer history tours is they get to stand in the places where other LGBTQ people stood,” said Cathleen Rhodes, a professor at Old Dominion whose students orchestrated the tour. “We don’t have monuments. We don’t have museums. There really aren’t many places where we can go and stand in our own history.”

When they got to the Hershee Bar, the owners invited them inside. The place was dark and quiet. A heavy stillness hung in the air. The space, usually full of life, felt odd and eerie.

“One of my students said to me at one point, ‘I feel like I’m walking through a funeral,’ ” Rhodes said. “And we were.”

America Still Hasn’t Learned the Lessons of Katrina

With Hurricane Harvey still ravaging Texas, a piece in Politico looks at the continuing problem plaguing America - a failure to take proactive actions to avert damage from hurricanes and rising sea levels.  Among the obstacles?  Republicans - with a few exceptions - who refuse to admit the reality of climate change and sea level rise; a fossilized Army Corps of Engineers; a pork barrel approach to funding appropriations; and a focus on disaster response rather than averting disasters.  Here in Hampton Roads, Virginia, cities like Norfolk are trying to forge onward alone (Miami-Dade County in Florida is doing likewise as is New York City after Hurricane Sandy) and has even hired Dutch consultants to devise ways to deal with sea level rise and the flooding goes with it.  Virginia Republicans meanwhile will not use the term sea level rise and instead refer to repetitive flooding, ignore the cause of the flooding.  As the piece notes, there are some bright spots, but overall little has been learned since Hurricane Katrina a dozen years ago.  Here are highlights:

Washington’s systems for protecting communities against weather disasters haven’t gotten better since that 2005 disaster, and in many ways may be worse. The State of Louisiana wasn't supposed to shoulder the Caminada Headland project itself: Rebuilding the island was originally the job of the Army Corps of Engineers, the 215-year-old entity charged with building and maintaining our country’s ports, harbors, locks, dams, levees and ecosystem restoration projects. Today, the agency is the single most important agency in coastal America's battle against rising seas, at the center of every major water-resources project in the country, either as builder or permitter. But the state of Louisiana, exasperated by federal delays and increasingly worried that the next big storm could just wipe out the port, eventually fronted the money and pumped the sand on its own. Today, despite years and millions of federal dollars poured into studying the Caminada Headland project and neighboring islands slated for restoration, the Corps has yet to push a dime toward construction.

Graves compares his experience with the Corps to that of a “battered ex-spouse”: “I feel like I’ve been lied to, cheated, kicked in the teeth over and over and over again.”

The sclerotic Army Corps of Engineers is the most visible and frustrating symptom of what many officials have come to see as the country’s backwards approach to disaster policy. From the way Congress appropriates money to the specific rebuilding efforts that federal agencies encourage, national policies almost uniformly look backwards, to the last storm, rather than ahead to the next. And the scale of the potential damage has caused agencies to become more risk-averse in ways that can obstruct, rather than help, local communities’ attempts to protect themselves. The Army Corps, for example, requires Louisiana to rebuild a full suite of five islands before it can reclaim any of the money it spent on the one headland—and is currently insisting it will take another half-decade simply to review an innovative wetlands restoration project the state has been working on for more than a decade and views as the linchpin of its coastal efforts. Meanwhile, new design standards inspired by Katrina have made levee projects wildly unaffordable.

As the effects of climate change play out, the risks posed by storms like Katrina and Harvey only stand to get worse. A not-yet-final draft of National Climate Assessment, produced by scientists across 13 federal agencies, predicts that global sea levels will likely rise between half a foot and 1.2 feet by 2050, and between one and four feet by the end of the century. In areas like the Northeast and the Gulf of Mexico, relative sea-level rise will happen much faster, researchers say. Coastal Louisiana is currently losing a football field’s worth of wetlands every 90 minutes, making it a harbinger for the crises that coastal communities around the country are expected to face.

Preparing for the looming disasters will require nimbleness, innovation, a willingness to take calculated risks and, as Louisiana has learned, respect for natural processes—all qualities that have been bred out of the Army Corps, and don’t get much consideration in federal policy. The agency molded itself around the earmark system, catering to the pet projects of individual lawmakers and then drawing them out as long as possible to keep the money flowing. Congress, too, learned to treat the Corps as a pork barrel: though Washington officially did away with earmarks a decade ago, lawmakers remain focused first and foremost on their local projects, pushing legislative language that serves their narrow ends without an eye to the mountain of red tape they are adding to the system as a whole.

And although preventing damage is widely considered to be cheaper than mopping up after the fact, congressional accounting creates incentives to spend money exactly the opposite way: Disaster relief bills are generally considered emergency spending, and thus not counted towards the federal deficit, while proactive investment in planning and protection must be funded through the normal budget cycle, which makes it look like cuttable federal spending at budget time.

Hurricane Katrina provided the real wakeup call, though: Residents saw firsthand that without the wetlands to help absorb their power, winds and waves pounded their communities with ferocious strength. In the wake of the storm, the Louisiana legislature passed major reforms aimed at professionalizing the state’s levee boards and coastal protection efforts. It embraced the concept of “multiple lines of defense”—a modern understanding of interlocking coastal systems, in which barrier islands and marshes play a role along with manmade structures like levees and pumping stations to shield communities from storms.

Today, Louisiana’s approach is seen as a model for states facing looming coastal crises, and its experts regularly host visitors from around the world seeking to learn from its resiliency efforts. Indeed, Louisiana is fostering this reputation, with a $60 million new “water campus” under construction in Baton Rouge, its flagship research center, the Water Institute of the Gulf, to be housed in a sleek, glass-encased building that straddles the levee and floats out over the main channel of the Mississippi River. But all this hard-won expertise has come with a side effect: A growing realization that the federal government—whose funding and know-how have been key to all projects of this scale—was far more of an obstacle than an ally. And the biggest frustration was with the Army Corps.

Hurricane Katrina showed that severe storms could be far harsher than previously thought, so the Corps adopted new mandates for federal levees to be built significantly bigger and stronger—a change that made sense in theory but instantly multiplied the price tag on projects to the point they became effectively impossible. One project, a massive levee system designed to protect highly vulnerable bayou communities and a major oil and gas hub in Terrebonne Parish, was approved by Congress at $887 million in 2007, just weeks before the new standards came out. When the post-Katrina standards were applied to it, the price tag suddenly multiplied nearly twelvefold, to $10.3 billion. . . . . they had virtually no shot of ever seeing it built.

[T]here’s a much bigger problem that the country is facing. And in this sense, the Corps—strangled in red tape as it may be—is no more than a tool of a larger system. Across government, virtually the entire philosophy of disaster relief is to react after disaster strikes rather than help communities and residents to prepare in advance. This leaves Congress funding billions in disaster aid when an investment of millions ahead of time could have warded off the worst. And the problem is only likely to grow as a warmer climate brings more frequent and severe hurricanes, floods and droughts.

The rare Republican who acknowledges the scientific consensus around climate change, Graves does not shrink from the future projections. He knows them first-hand—and sees them as a tool for solidly conservative fiscal planning rather than fanning environmentalist fears. “Statistically, we can prove that we have increased vulnerability. We’re spending more on coastal storms, and some of these areas are being inundated with increased frequency,” he says. “So, call it what you want, there’s an adaptation issue here that needs to be addressed—and it’s more fiscally conservative to step in and be proactive on some of these investments than it is to continue to rebuild after they’ve flooded and continue to be reactive.”

Hurricane Harvey is certain to teach this lesson again, in some form. With the storm expected to wreak billions of dollars in damage, there will likely be another of round of disaster aid, perhaps some more legislation directing the Corps to investigate the problem. But until the system fundamentally changes, it will simply be a waiting game, until the next, even stronger storm hits.

2016 Hampton Road Pride Pride

A week from today the main event of 2016 Hampton Roads Pride Fest will take place in downtown Norfolk's Town Point Park, one of the region's premier outdoor venues. The transformation of Pride Fest from when I first attended after "coming out" 14 years ago is nothing short of amazing.  In 2003, the event consisted of a single day event with few hundred people tucked away in a hidden part of Lakewood Part in Norfolk.  This year's event may see 20,000 attendees with the nation's only Pride boat parade (the husband is pictured in the red tank to the left in the photo above from 2014) and events will take place throughout the coming week.  There will be an event on the Hampton Waterfront on Wednesday, Thursday, HRBOR, the local LGBT chamber of commerce holds an event at O'Connor Brewing in Norfolk, and Friday night the block party at Scope, Norfolk's downtown coliseum takes place.  Smaller events are taking place starting today.  

As a sign that Hampton Roads Pride has made the big time, the event site GayCities is even advertising the event with details here. 

If you have never attended a Pride event, consider attending this year. If you cannot make the Saturday event, consider the block party at Scope.  Last year's block party - the first in Scope - was truly spectacular and we had to keep reminding ourselves that we were in Norfolk and not some European capital.  

Yes, Newport News Shipbuilding is a major sponsor.  The changes have been incredible.

Huffington Post Recaps HR Pride Fest

The husband and I were aboard the American Rover pictured above

To my surprise Huffington Post has a piece extolling last weekend's Hampton Roads 2015 Pride Fest  in a piece that ought to make both the Pride board and the City of Norfolk - which has finally awakened to the fact that the event has the potential to be a real tourism draw, hence the City's cooperation in moving the Block Party into Scope due to threatening weather - very proud.  The piece is full of great photos and nice things about the event and certainly gives the event some great national exposure.  Here are some article highlights:

This year I had a strong desire to attend a unique and rare style of pride event, especially in light of the landscape-altering decision by the United States Supreme Court, forever altering America's social contracts.

The State of Virginia holds the nation's only Gay Pride Boat Parade, that's right: no floats, just boats! Hampton Roads Pride, in Norfolk, Virginia, is the State's largest pride celebration, throwing a unique twist on the gay festivities.

Norfolk is synonymous with boats. It's the home of largest naval base in the world, Naval Station Norfolk, and the final resting position of the Wisconsin . . . . . The Wisconsin, a WWII and Korean Conflict battleship punctuates the Norfolk skyline and helps to educate future generations as a fully functional museum ship.

The floating festivities are open to everyone. If you own a boat you're more than welcome to get a permit, color her up, and ride in the parade. If you aren't lucky enough to have your own boat, join someone else's! If you're plagued by the devil that is sea-sickness, get yourself an inflatable swan and watch the parade from the safety of a mimosa on the waterfront!

[T]he American Rover makes a strong and powerful entrance, and best of all, it was open to the public. Tickets were sold to sit aboard this grand vessel as it unfurled those gorgeous sails, and presented a dignified wrut (the water equivalent of a strut) along the parade woute (the water equivalent of a route).

The annual Pridefest Block Party had a seamless run even after a last minute venue change prompted by Mother Nature's insistence on hydrating the land. That's coordination at its finest, moving the party at the last minute, and still having everyone show up. Well done!

What I was most proud of at Hampton Roads Pridefest was the next generation of Americans. These are folks who're going to grow up in the environment we leave to them, and they're in many ways better prognosticators than we were.

In all seriousness, the City of Norfolk - and other local cities - need to advertise the event which is steadily becoming a week long event.  Interestingly, at the event the mayor of Virginia Beach suggested that perhaps Pride should consider Virginia Beach as a future venue for the event.  The times are changing!

HR Pride Block Party - Change of Venue!!

Special announcement: Due to looming bad weather weather conditions, the HR Pride Block Party scheduled for Friday, June 26, 2015, from 7:00 to 11:59PM will now be at Scope located at the corner of St. Paul's Bouevard and Brambleton Avenue, Norfolk, Virginia! Rain or shine! Please attend - it will be a  PARTY!  Here are more details (full details on the Pride week schedule are here):

Be a part of the Positivity as we Celebrate Unity, Equality, and Diversity.

Ascend with us!

Let's Fly together!

Virginia Beach Favorite, DJ RAYS Returns!

Beer, Bubbles, and Craft Cocktails!

Delicious Eats by Brick House Diner!

$10 Donation @ The Door

All proceeds benefit Hampton Roads Pride and it's mission.

All Ages Welcome

Norfolk Seeks to Promote Its LGBT Municipal Equality Index

With the Commonwealth of Virginia launching a new LGBT Tourism Task Force, it seems that at least one Hampton Roads city is trying to make itself more attractive to would be LGBT tourists by playing up its score on HRC's latest Municipal Equality Index for 353 cities across America.  The city?  Norfolk, which with a score of 59 out scores all other Hampton Roads cities.  What's left out of the City's press release is that the top scores in Virginia came in Alexandria and Arlington which scored 94 and 96, respectively.  Sadly, the City of Hampton where the husband and I live scored a pitiful 32 in part I suspect because when Molly Joseph Ward left the mayor's office, all meaningful efforts to regularly build a relationship with the LGBT community ceased (Molly Ward now serves as Virginia's Secretary of Natural Resources).  The irony for Hampton municipal officials is that they are lagging behind organizations like the Hampton Yacht Club which has a growing LGBT membership.  In contrast, Norfolk mayor Paul Fraim has gone from acting as if gays are radioactive to being a personal sponsor of this year's PrideFest.  Here are highlights from Norfolk's press release.

The 2014 Municipal Equality Index evaluates a city’s laws and policies then examines how inclusive city services are of LGBT people.  The MEI rated 353 municipalities of varying sizes throughout the United States.  Read the MEI http://www.hrc.org/campaigns/municipal-equality-index

Norfolk scored 59 points out of a possible 100.  The score equals the national average and put Norfolk fourth out of the nine cities scored in Virginia.   Norfolk significantly increased its 2013 score by raising the Human Right Campaign’s awareness of many policies already in place in Norfolk.  Those include:

• Equal employment opportunities
• Anti-bullying policies
• City of Norfolk as an inclusive workplace
• City leadership’s position on equality

Norfolk, along with all other Virginia localities, received recognition for marriage equality when the U.S. Supreme Court in October denied review of cases challenging state constitutional amendments which resulted in the recognition of same-sex marriage in Virginia.

Obviously, Hampton Roads has a long way to go in terms of making itself truly LGBT friendly and accepting.  That said, outside of the greater DC area, Hampton Roads is the bright center of the gay universe when compared to the ignorance embracing, Bible thumping regions of Southwest Virginia which not coincidentally find it difficult to attract new business and/or forward thinking entrepreneurs.    

Hampton Roads Targeted for National Sea Level Rise Project

Norfolk a few Fridays ago - high tide and heavy rains.  AltDaily photo

While most Virginia Republicans - including the former chair of the Republican Party of Virginia Beach - remain climate change deniers with their heads up their asses, climate change and related rising sea levels is happening.  With the Hampton Roads area considered the most endangered area on the east coast other than New Orleans, it is no surprise that Hampton Roads has been targeted for a new project aimed at devising ways to deal with the reality of what is happening.  It is noteworthy that while the Virginia GOP remains in denial, the U.S. military is taking the matter seriously. A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at the announced project.  Here are highlights:

Hampton Roads will be the site of a national pilot project to figure out how different levels of government, the private sector and academia can work together to combat the effects of sea level rise and climate change.

The two-year initiative, supported by the White House, was unveiled Tuesday at a conference at Old Dominion University on preparing for rising water and flooding.

To aid the effort, ODU President John Broderick also announced the creation of a university institute to research solutions.

A combination of rising seas and sinking land makes Hampton Roads one of the nation's most vulnerable regions to flooding and storms.

ODU professor Hans-Peter Plag, director of the Mitigation and Adaptation Research Institute, called Hampton Roads - with its port, military installations and coastal communities - a "natural laboratory" for studying the issue.

Task force members will be appointed, and a charter will be developed in the next year as the group works on long-term strategic and policy recommendations for sea level rise and major storm surges, said Ray Toll, ODU's liaison to the Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Rear Adm. Kevin Slates, director of the Navy's Energy and Environmental Readiness Division, said one of the task force's big challenges will be how to plan for an uncertain future.

Rear Adm. Dixon Smith, Commander of the Navy's Mid-Atlantic Region, said it will be essential for the task force to have clear objectives and get support from the community.

If that doesn't happen, he said, "the funding will not flow, and we'll end up putting this on the shelf."

Norfolk: A Struggle Between Rising Waters and Sinking Options

Norfolk 2003 - Hurricane Isabel, a weak category 1 storm

As a recent deluge on a workday morning that coincided with high tide strikingly illustrated, Norfolk, Virginia, has a growing flooding problem as the sea level's rise and the land area continues to sink.  Other than New Orleans, Norfolk faces the worse dangers to rising sea levels of any city on the East Cost of America.  I sparked a Facebook debate which played out with Republicans blowing off the issue and saying that "Norfolk has always flooded."  Yes, it has, but it is getting much worse.  It is also too typical that these unconcerned Republicans live on relatively high ground in Virginia Beach and probably have not frequented Norfolk in a rainstorm in decades.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the problem faced by the city.  Here are highlights:

At high tide on the small inlet next to Norfolk’s most prestigious art museum, the water lapped at the very top of the concrete sea wall that has held it back for 100 years. It seeped up through storm drains, puddled on the promenade and spread, half a foot deep, across the street, where a sign read, “Road Closed.”

The sun was shining, but all around the inlet people were bracing for more serious flooding. The Chrysler Museum of Art had just completed a $24 million renovation that emptied the basement, now accessible only by ladder, and lifted the heating and air-conditioning systems to the top floor. A local accounting firm stood behind a homemade barricade of stanchions and detachable flaps rigged to keep the water out. And the congregation of the Unitarian Church of Norfolk was looking to evacuate.

On May 6, the Obama administration released the third National Climate Assessment, and President Obama proclaimed climate change no longer a theory; its effects, he said, are already here. This came as no surprise in Norfolk, where normal tides have risen one and a half feet over the past century and the sea is rising faster than anywhere else on the East Coast. 

The more urgent question is what to do about it — and how to pay for it. For that, the White House has offered few answers.

Obama has turned only recently to the matter of preparing the nation for effects that scientists say already are inevitable. Last year, the Government Accountability Office added climate change to its “high-risk” list, declaring that the lack of planning poses “significant financial risks” to the federal government, which funds flood and crop insurance, pays for disaster relief and owns hundreds of facilities exposed to rising seas.

Meanwhile, there is no new money to help hard-hit places such as Norfolk, where residents are clamoring for relief.

Norfolk exists because of the sea. Ships have been built in its harbors since the Revolutionary War. It is home to the largest naval base on the globe. Bounded by the Chesapeake Bay and two rivers, sliced by coastal creeks, Norfolk has always been vulnerable to flooding. But over the past decade, people began noticing alarming trends. 

Hurricanes and nor’easters became more frequent and more damaging. Even ordinary rainstorms swamped intersections, washed away parked cars and marooned the region’s major medical center. Before 1980, the inlet near the Chrysler Museum, known as the Hague, had never flooded for more than 100 hours in a year. By 2009, it was routinely flooded for 200 and even 300 hours a year.

The city hired a Dutch consulting firm to develop an action plan, finalized in 2012, that called for new flood gates, higher roads and a retooled storm water system. Implementing the plan would cost more than $1 billion — the size of the city’s entire annual budget — and protect Norfolk from about a foot of additional water. 

Options for dealing with the water are limited, and expensive. The city could protect itself with more barriers.

A second option calls for people to abandon the most vulnerable parts of town, to “retreat somewhat from the sea,” as Mayor Paul D. Fraim put it in a 2011 interview, when he became the first sitting politician in the nation to raise the prospect.

For now, Williams said, retreat is not on the table “on a large scale,” though “you may look at localized hot spots.”
That leaves the third option: adaptation. Raising buildings, roads and other critical infrastructure. Last fall, the city council required all new structures to be built three feet above flood level, one of the strictest standards in the state.

The problem is particularly urgent in Norfolk and the rest of Tidewater Virginia — which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has ranked second only to New Orleans in terms of population threatened by sea-level rise — due to a fateful convergence of lousy luck. First, the seas are generally rising as the planet warms. Second, the Gulf Stream is circulating more slowly, causing more water to slosh toward the North Atlantic coast. In 2012, the U.S. Geological Survey declared a 600-mile stretch of coastline, from North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras to Boston, a “sea-level rise hotspot,” with rates increasing at three to four times the global average.

Driving around town, Atkinson and his colleague Michelle Covi recently pointed out dozens of places where water regularly fills the streets, keeping people from work. “By 2040, this will be flooded every high tide,” Atkinson said as he drove north on Hampton Boulevard. “That means the main road to the Navy base will be impassable two to three hours a day.”

At Naval Station Norfolk, sea-level rise prompted a decision in the late 1990s to raise the station’s 12 piers, said Joe Bouchard, base commander at the time. Construction has since been completed on only four, he said, adding that work was halted in 2008, when the recession hit, the federal budget deficit soared and Congress began frantically slashing spending.

Read the entire story.  Ghent, one of Norfolk's most trendy and progress neighborhoods is especially prone to flooding - as are others - and despite the denial and sticking their heads in the sand on the part of the Republicans, the problem is getting worse.  Meanwhile, the Virginia GOP will not even allow the terms "rising sea levels" and "global warming" to be used.