NYU Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights Blog

Navigating the Pandemic While Celebrating Black Joy

by

Stephanie Holguin / 
Reconoci.do & We Are All Dominican /
Dominican Republic & USA (New York) / 

During June and July, Reconoci.do and We are All Dominican (WAAD) put on a series of virtual conversations as a collaborative team. A few of these dialogues were geared towards amplifying the awareness of how COVID-19 has impacted one of the Dominican Republic’s most vulnerable populations.

Unfortunately, many Dominicans of Haitian descent have not been able to receive government assistance due to their denationalized status, since they cannot obtain government identification. Many have lost their jobs and continue to face disparities accessing healthcare and relief programs granted by the state. One of the ways the movements have worked to combat this is by initiating a “De aquí pa’llá” (“From here to there”) transnational mutual aid fund. It has raised more than $9,000 to help families gravely affected by the pandemic (consider donating and see the accompanying video to learn how the funds assist those most in need).

The virtual dialogues, which have included interviews of human rights defenders, have also furthered discussions on the varying experiences of Dominicans of Haitian descent, such as how specific laws currently affect them. Other topics included the use of art in the fight against anti-racism, how citizenship affects access to political activism, different ways activists can protect themselves, and how activists have had to mitigate violence perpetrated by ultranationalist right-wing fascist groups. The dialogues aimed to continue to amplify activist voices and to strategize ways to support activists in uplifting and advocating for all Dominicans of Haitian descent.

In regards to uplifting our communities, on July 25, the Muñecas Negras (Black Doll) Project celebrated the International Day of the Afro-descendant Woman, which started in 1992. I helped a few women from the Muñecas Negras Project create a video of themselves reciting “Me Gritaron Negra” (“They Shouted Black At Me”), a renowned poem by a prominent Afro-Peruvian activist, composer, and dancer, Victoria Santa Cruz. This poem is significant because it speaks to the anti-black rhetoric experienced within Latinx communities and how women reclaim and empower themselves through acknowledging their beautiful Black features and Afro-descendant history.

In assisting to produce this video, it became ever-present to me that Black joy prevails, that Black pride always remains, and that Black women hold and use a collective power to uplift each other despite the anti-Black systemic oppression they face in society. On July 25, numerous organizations and movements all signed a declaration to support and reaffirm the work that the inaugural International Day coalition sought to do in 1992. The statement speaks to feminism and includes anti-racist and anti-capitalist objectives in the fight for the rights of Afro-descendant women of diverse backgrounds. It was also made as a guideline and as demands for the new incoming Dominican government to uphold.

The Right to Dream

by

Annissa Saleh / 
UNHCR, Southern Latin America / 
Buenos Aires, Argentina / 

As my work this summer concludes, I am left wondering what the future will hold and how we can be better prepared for it. Much is uncertain about the coming months, and I am left with a universal sense of uncertainty as well. If there was ever a time for a new system of human rights to come about, it would be now, as we redesign “normal.”

Eduardo Galeano, an Uruguayan poet and historian who often writes about economic and political issues, wrote a poem about the right to dream. To close out my fellowship and to highlight the trust that many people had for a better normal on the horizon, I would like to share his poem with you.

Although the 2025 Galeano writes about is much closer now than it was when the poem was published, the message remains: if it were not for the right to dream of a better future and to hope for new possibilities, our other rights, which are inscribed and proclaimed by the United Nations, would be all but null.

COVID-19 and India: The Bigger Picture

by

Akshara Anirjita / 
ActionAid /
New Delhi, India / 

As I wrap up my internship with ActionAid, I am trying to reflect on the bigger picture of the space I am leaving (in terms of a job title) and thinking of ways I can continue my involvement, and what that might look like. While the pandemic thwarted my initial plans of field research, it created other opportunities. I was able to learn from a wide variety of voices in our web workshops about various informal work categories and also used literature review to supplement my research.

The importance of social security nets and welfare measures have become apparent. MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) seems to be among few guarantees that informal migrant rural workers come to depend upon entirely. While lauded by many, though, this welfare act is problematically tied to one’s ability to work. As COVID-19 rates increase significantly in India, jobless and starving informal workers can have access to a livelihood, but this comprises construction projects that don’t use social distancing measures. Additionally, MGNREGA is viable only if migrants can manage to make it back to their rural homes.

Important provisions such as the Mid-Day Meal Schemes for children enrolled in schools have also been put on hiatus during this time. Development economists working in the field, such as Jean Dreze, acknowledge that while attrition reduces oppressed people’s ability to revolt, food riots become a possibility, with malnutrition possibly being a fatal “underlying condition.”

In his book, Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis, like many other historians, has stressed how natural disasters are never the (only) reason for mass deaths. It is also the policies that either obscure, alienate, or specifically marginalize certain sectors of society, causing unnecessary misery and death. Under a Brahmanical Hindu supremacist state, the following are being labelled as carriers of COVID-19 and are being vilified as intentional spreaders of it: migrant workers of “lower” castes, workers who belong to tribes, and Muslim workers.

COVID-19 is not the only pandemic affecting informal workers, however. Lack of food and shelter, basic means of subsistence, access to healthcare, trade unions, and governmental welfare mechanisms (due to the intensification of neoliberalism) continue to be just as, if not more, fatal.

The Status Quo: Boundaries, Limitations & Opportunities

by

Annissa Saleh /
UNHCR, Southern Latin America / 
Buenos Aires, Argentina / 

Much like my peers pursuing human rights work in this program, I too have found that COVID-19 has not only shifted my work entirely. It is also creating a whole new realm of conflicts previously not encountered. I have spent much of my time this summer conducting interviews with people who have experience working with refugees and migrants prior to now. In doing so, I am hoping to gain a better understanding of the current socioeconomic and political moment. 

During these interviews, certain themes have emerged. Many seem to be limitations and the new ways in which the field is approaching them. My conversations have revolved around the boundaries within which the human rights field used to operate, as well as ways that COVID-19 has been weaponized as a political moment, forcing the boundaries of opportunity to become smaller. I have also learned that, on the other side of the coin, as a new normal manifests within the field, groups are catalyzing their creativity to approach issues differently, with common goals.

As I consider what I have learned and unlearned throughout my internship, I recall an article I read earlier this spring by David Kennedy: “The International Human Rights Movement: Part of the Problem?” Kennedy discusses human rights as a system that operates within the status quo, meant to keep those who would have been busy creating new global political practices twiddling their thumbs, seeking answers, and holding those accountable in a system that would be unwilling to provide any assistance:

“We are up against some pretty daunting challenges on the global stage. Pandemics, global warming, financial instability, inequality–it is a long list. I worry that the human rights revolution might have been a delay and a diversion: a status quo project of legitimization and an establishment career option. […] The global economic crisis is more than a challenge for technocrats and financial regulators. It presses upon us the limitation of national politics in a global economy in a global society.” (Kennedy, 2001)

I wonder if these feelings of constraint working within the human rights system might be the same I have experienced this summer, nineteen years later.

Practicing Solidarity

by

Xandi McMahon (they/them) /
Domestic Workers United /
New York City, NY /

As summer begins its descent into fall and the start of classes comes into view, New York City remains in flux. The pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests have together reshaped the context of our day-to-day lives, and as we reach our sixth month of COVID-19 and our third of everyday protests, I am finally beginning to feel able to reflect on all that’s happening.

This time feels critical. The word applies in nearly all its definitions: precarious, explanatory, crucial–urgently demanding that we be present. In DWU meetings, we have discussed the possibility of attending BLM protests as a group, but we ultimately have not been able to.

Christine, DWU’s secretary and cultural outreach coordinator, spoke about the need for varying forms of justice work for DWU, as it is an organization that promotes solidarity, empowerment, and consciousness raising but has members who, for the most part, cannot get out on the street to protest. This could be due to their lack of time, exhaustion after long days at work, old age, or physical inability, which to some degree speaks to a broader reality of intersectional systems of oppression: it is nearly impossible to work against an oppressive system when it requires all one’s strength and energy to survive within it.

This week, Christine and I are carving out time to talk about the history of DWU and its current role during COVID-19, and how Christine envisions the future of domestic worker organizing. I am very much looking forward to this time with her so that I can hear her perspective. I plan to write a piece based on our conversation for DWU’s new website.

Dismantle, Change, Build: Grassroots Abolitionist Work with Critical Resistance

by

Dylan Brown (he/him/himself) /
Critical Resistance /
Oakland, CA /

Since the end of June, I have been working with Critical Resistance (CR), a national member-led organization that seeks to dismantle the prison industrial complex (PIC). When I think about the historical underpinnings of the sustained revolutionary moment we are all living through this summer, the first thing that comes to mind is “the wake.”

In scholar Christina Sharpe’s book, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, she explains:

“I use the wake in all of its meanings as a means of understanding how slavery’s violences emerge within the contemporary conditions of spatial, legal, psychic, material, and other dimensions of Black non/being as well as in Black modes of resistance” (14).

I am living in the wake. My people are rebelling against U.S. policing (a modern continuation of 1700s slave patrols that were tasked with dismantling rebellions and chasing down stolen African peoples who had escaped enslavement) and are demanding an end to police violence and state terror. We are not appealing to our oppressors but are rather exercising our agency and using a variety of organizing tactics to demand freedom.

This understanding informs my work with the Oakland Chapter of CR. I work most frequently with the Oakland Chapter organizer, and I work as well alongside volunteer CR members in various organizational working groups. Overall, my work so far has mainly focused on supporting the emerging campaign to defund the Oakland Police Department and political education workshop development.

A recent project I worked on was the creation of a workshop that highlights the shared points of struggle in the environmental justice and PIC abolition movements. Conducting research for this project has allowed me to deepen my understanding of how the term “environment” in mainstream EJ work often does not take into account that prisons are part of our environment and a threat to the health of our communities, despite the fact that many prison facilities throughout the U.S. are built on highly toxic superfund sites.

An unexpected aspect of my time with CR this summer has been spent doing editorial work for their publication, The Abolitionist Newspaper. This publication is circulated to more than 7,000 readers internationally, both inside and outside of jails and prisons. Moreover, working with CR has helped me to deepen my own understanding of how to navigate working in a member-based organization. In this moment of upheaval, it has been extremely empowering working alongside Black and indigenous people to ensure the health and well-being of folks in our community.

Immersing myself in CR has provided a renewed sense of purpose and guidance in my life as I attempt to determine what I want my role in the movement to look like after I graduate from NYU in 2021.

Responding to the Moment

by

Xandi McMahon (they/them) /
Domestic Workers United /
New York City, USA /

Over the last month, DWU has continued its “Know Your Rights” campaign remotely. This predominantly entails weekly Tele/Zoom town hall meetings, where DWU members get together, listen to a presentation on a particular topic relevant to us, and engage in a discussion and question/answer forum afterward. Overall, these meetings have been very productive, catalyzing important conversations and expanding DWU’s resources.

For our most recent meeting on Saturday, we invited Ravi Ragbir, the executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, to speak about his personal and organizational experience with the immigration system in the United States. Ravi delivered indispensable advice to DWU members about how to respond when ICE comes looking for you, all of which connected to the overall message that having community is imperative. He explained how to be an ally under these circumstances and how to create and find safe (sanctuary) spaces in the city.

This is just one example of the many meetings we’ve had during the summer. We’ve also notably had mental health specialists, economic advisors, and representatives from the city. Organizers come as well to speak about negotiating contracts with employers.

Many of the events and organizing DWU planned to do prior to the pandemic has since shifted, but we have all managed to find new ways to come together and connect with one another. We currently have two programs up and running that are helping with food security and financial stability for DWU members. The first is a weekly fresh food box from Maple Street Community Garden, provided for free to domestic workers through funding from DWU grants. The garden is run by members of the Flatbush/Crown Heights community.

The second program is called “Love Offerings.” Its goal is to provide emergency stipends to DWU members to help with bills, groceries, rent, and COVID-19-related loss of income. We’ve had some technical challenges with GoFundMe that have delayed the payouts, but this will hopefully be resolved this week!

Along with these programs, there are ongoing efforts to revamp DWU’s website as well.

Prison Abolition and Transformative Justice: Abolitionist Learning

by

Brian Ruiz (he/him/they/them) /
Radical Love Consciousness /
New York, USA /

It’s been awhile since I’ve last written a blog. I’ve been focusing on co-developing several workshops on topics related to prison abolition (PA) and transformative justice (TJ). I have been enjoying the development and have been gravitating most towards workshops involving the youth, specifically between the ages of 5 and 12.

One of the workshops looks at how childhood television shows allow children to envision and practice forms of abolition, whether that be through conflict resolution, resistance towards carcerality, community accountability, and centering impacted folx. I personally want to thank and give all the credit to folx at RLC, Abolitionist Learning Network, my little brother, and partner for these conversations and actions, as it has allowed for more understanding of the significance of communal learning for our youth. PA and TJ is an ongoing intergenerational movement and process; the work we do now will be refined, evolved, and expanded upon by the time it reaches the next generations of folx.

I have found childhood media such as Finding Nemo, Avatar, and The Last Airbender to be the focal point of the workshop, as certain scenes from the movies depict the practice of PA and TJ. The escape from the fish tank scene in Finding Nemo shows a dismantling of carceral structures, and Katara and Zuko’s accountability process shows a response to harm and is survivor/victim-centered.

In doing these workshops, I’ve thought about what it means to incorporate an abolitionist learning framework for the youth. Guiding questions have been helpful for providing a template for discussion topics and ideas for activities. In addition, accessibility is important; we are working on having sign language, transcriptions, and translations for these workshops. This all is nothing new, as many other figures and entities, such a Mariame Kaba, #8toabolition, and Survived and Punished, have done it throughout this movement. However, it is incredibly important for us to honor, highlight, expand upon, and further evolve this amazing work.

In my next blog, I’ll discuss the present and future of abolition, focusing on everything that has occurred this year between the pandemic, ongoing tragic forms of systemic and interpersonal violence towards folx, lack of community accountability, and survivor- and victim-centered initiatives.

Free Expression threatened by COVID-19

by

Erin O’Brien /
PEN America /
New York, NY /

In my continued work at PEN America and in working with and covering protests in NYC, one central theme has become increasingly clear: COVID-19 has provided governments and authorities around the world the perfect opportunity to limit free expression, to silence dissent, and to mistreat political prisoners (many of whom are jailed for their words and writing). 

In Iran, for example, Narges Mohammadi has contracted COVID-19 but has not been allowed access to medical care, and she has a range of pre-existing conditions that have been well documented. In Turkey, vast numbers of trials for “terrorist propaganda cases,” such as the one against Osman Kavala, or against Ahmet Altan in June, have been stayed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and while many prisoners have been released due to pandemic risk, those arrested for “terrorist propaganda” (many of whom are elderly or frail) remain behind bars. In the United States, prison populations are being ravaged at a shocking rate; by the end of June, eight of the top ten coronavirus hotspots in the country were in prisons or jails, and at its highest point, around 10% of people in New York DOC custody had coronavirus.

In my work, this has revealed something I have known but which has rarely been so readily apparent: crises like the coronavirus pandemic impact the discriminatory and authoritarian systems already in place in society and exacerbate their effects. In this moment where free expression and dissent is being targeted, and with political figures like Trump, Erdogan, and Putin, COVID-19 has enabled certain governments to further crack down on and silence their opponents. COVID-19 has given authoritarian leaders around the world the opportunity to further expand and centralize their rule.

In the United States, where prisons are essential for maintaining centuries-old white supremacist systems and hierarchies, COVID-19 has disproportionately targeted incarcerated systems. And when a New York Times study indicated that Black and Latinx populations in the United States are more than three times likely to contract COVID-19, it becomes unavoidably clear that this virus, which should be “equal opportunity” in its spread and which has no scientific link to race, is acting on the racist systems and infrastructures that buttress this country.

Going forward, my work with PEN will primarily focus on identifying new cases to advocate for in the coming year. There is no doubt that much of these will involve writers who are at risk of contracting COVID-19 in prison or who have been imprisoned for reporting on the pandemic, such as in China. While the everyday work of writing about and advocating for these writers can be despairing, I am very glad I can be a part of it.

Human rights violations in ICE detention centers during COVID-19

by

Esther Choo
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)
USA (NYC)

During the past month, PHR’s Research and Investigation (R&I) interns and many others have jumped into PHR projects. For our team, the main focus has been human rights violations committed against immigrants, asylum seekers, and detainees held in ICE custody centers. Specifically, the goals for our main project are to identify retaliation efforts against detainees and general ill-treatment and grossly inadequate conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The team is nearly complete with Phase 1 of the investigation, where we’ve searched through U.S. government documents to identify human rights abuses. During this time, we’ve also had opportunities to listen to and speak with prominent PHR medical consultants, who gave us notable insight and advice on how to approach these types of projects. While combing through hundreds of pages the past few weeks, we’ve noticed that the overall language and documentation (or more so, lack of documentation) of human rights abuses is very vague, and it’s not surprising.

We’ve asked ourselves how we can best analyze these documents and how we can implement more effective investigative methods. Will it come down to using more primary sources, such as detainee narratives and/or documentation of medical specialists/physicians reporting these issues? Or, will we ultimately have to read between the lines and reinterpret the appallingly normalized ways that detention centers have acted in regards to these abuses?

Further, the number of immigrants under ICE custody who have COVID-19 has risen dramatically, with social distancing being nearly impossible. Detention centers have also been found to use a harmful disinfectant in facilities more than 50 times a day, causing detriments for detainees who are heavily exposed. And with recent budget cuts and this pandemic, detention centers may come to a standstill, furloughing workers and pausing any work done within the immigration system.

So, it’s been a busy month! The R&I team has grown close in a short amount of time through multiple meetings held by video calls, where we provide different though greatly valuable perspectives and emotional support for each other. There’s not a moment to rest in human rights research, and I am constantly inspired by the hard work done at PHR. And occasionally, there are days where we’ll receive some positive news or articles in our inboxes, and these seem to help us push through the more difficult ones. Hopefully, we’ll continue to see more good emails as we go forward this summer.