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Seeking The Next Step

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An Afghan family who left their home country years ago and resettled in Virginia attempt to help family members still stuck in Kabul, and grapple with the unavoidable question: With the US military gone, what happens to those attempting to leave Afghanistan now?

Bahar serves paratha and tea in her Richmond, Va. home, as she recalls the first time she fled Afghanistan. She escaped with her family through Afghanistan’s Nuristan mountains, wearing two sets of clothes and carrying bags of potatoes, on a 175-mile journey to Peshawar in Pakistan. They were forced to travel on foot after the bus they rode came under intense Taliban gunfire and armed interrogation. At one point her father was taken away by militants. She was seven years old. 

“I still remember running in those mountains with my dad, with my brother, my sisters and my mom,” Bahar said. “I remember the sound of gunfire on the bus and my mother praying to save us. I don’t know how we made it out.” 

In Peshawar, Bahar’s father, an officer in the Afghan military, couldn’t reveal his identity, and therefore couldn’t find legitimate work. The family of eight lived off an $80 monthly stipend her uncles wired from Canada, while her father made pocket change scalping cigarettes, and selling fruit on the street. Some days they simply didn’t eat. Eventually, her father found work as a security guard, which helped cover their expenses. 

“That money was able to cover the rent, some bills like water and electricity, and to pay for our high school,” Bahar said. “We didn’t care if we didn’t have any food. It’s okay if we didn’t have food, as long as we can keep going to school.” 

“I was very lucky in that I came from an educated family and my parents provided me the opportunity of getting a good education,” Bahar added. “My father believed children are the greatest asset of the country, of any country.” 

Bahar, who asked to be identified only by her first name, returned years later with her family to Kabul. She had just graduated high school, and U.S. forces had suppressed the Al Qaeda insurgency, and driven the Taliban out of the country. 

In the 12 years that followed, Bahar earned a degree in Business Administration, started a family, and built a career serving the US Embassy, and US backed projects intended to strengthen Afghanistan. She believed she was helping to rebuild her country. “I started as a receptionist and ended as an H.R. manager,” Bahar said. “We had very good jobs, very good incomes and we lost all of that. But we saved our lives.” 

When the rumors circulated in 2014 that the U.S. was to withdraw, Taliban militants dispatched messages to leaders in Wardak and Jalalabad, where Bahar and her husband were from, promising that once Kabul was captured, they would hunt her family down. Then her husband’s uncle, a doctor, was shot dead by the Taliban. They immediately fled. 

Bahar and her husband received Special Immigrants Visas (SIVs), since they both worked for U.S. funded projects – he was a translator. But because SIVs only grant asylum to immediate family members, they could escape with their three children. Not her parents and siblings. 

[Taliban] think that we are infidel, a traitor of Islam and a traitor of the country,” Bahar said. “If they are captured, [the] Taliban kill them and all of their family, including their cousins and their kids, in front of them, before you are beheaded.

Bahar has helped complete the necessary paperwork for her family, all of whom are eligible for the SIV, as each has worked in some capacity for the US in Afghanistan. Approval eludes them. And so they remain in hiding, changing locations every few days to evade detection and capture. Their only hope right now is to wait it out until their SIVs are approved, and a flight is made available. 

Escape from Afghanistan, especially at present, is a protracted and complicated process. The U.S. refugee resettlement system, comprised of an overlapping body of government agencies, large resettlement organizations, and local nonprofits and volunteers, is a cumbersome and tedious rigamarole that can take years to navigate. By the time the Biden Administration entered office in January, there had been an estimated backlog of 17,000 Afghans awaiting their visas and a flight out. 

While technically not in their purview, many immigration lawyers have taken on clients stuck in Kabul, to help guide them through the government-run SIV process. “It’s been absolutely nuts for all of us,” said Naureen Hyder, an attorney at Hyder Immigration Law in Richmond, Va. Significant delays to the process began last year, when COVID-19 forced several U.S. consulates to shut down. 

“So they have been prepared and ready for their interview and the government has told us, ‘all of your documents are ready, we are just waiting for an interview date,’” Hyder said. “All they need is an interview date. So what have we been doing? Whatever we can to get them the hell out.” 

During the last week, Hyder worked around the clock– at one point, she said she stayed up for four days straight– to get people to the Kabul airport. “Every five minutes it was something different. Which gate should they go to, which gate is closed, oh that gate just blew up,” she said. “All of my clients got through, and at the very last point, while they were in the airport, officials said, ‘no, this isn’t good enough.’” 

Hyder has coached her clients on wiping their phones of incriminating info, alerted them when to burn documents, and at one point even parlayed with Afghan security. “I’m an immgration attorney,” she adds. “I’m not trained for this. I can’t be responsible for messing up one of those [SIV] requirements at one of the 13 to 25 checkpoints they go through and they get killed. So I have taken a backseat and told my clients to wait until we have a vetted way to get out that’s not in the trunk of a car.” 

At least 250,000 Afghans eligible for expedited visas– not including green card holders– were unable to evacuate before the Aug. 31 deadline, according to estimates from the Association of Wartime Allies and researchers at American University. Thousands of families like Bahar’s have become separated in a worldwide diaspora, with little hope for reunion with those left behind. 

Bahar believes she’s exhausted all of her resources to quicken their visa process. She has contacted several representatives, including Abigail Spanberger, Tim Kaine, and Mark Warner, and filed all the additional paperwork they sent her. Weeks later, she hasn’t gotten any response besides more documents to file. She continues to send emails daily, attaching the documents each time. 

“I don’t know who is working on those forms, but they have not given me any update on their status,” she said. “They only tell me that someone is working on your case and they will contact [my family] in Afghanistan so they can make it to the airport. But no one has contacted them.” 

Unfortunately, U.S. lawmakers are still figuring out the next course of action. In response to request for comment, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine said in a statement that he “will continue working with the Administration to ensure that remaining U.S. citizens and eligible Afghan allies who want to leave are able to do so.” 

“My team and I are working around the clock with the Administration to ensure relocation efforts proceed in the safest and most efficient manner possible,” he added. 

The Biden administration announced Thursday that flights out of Kabul have resumed for U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, and foreign nationals. “We’re holding the Taliban to the commitments that they’ve made to ensure the free passage and safe travel for anyone who wants to leave Afghanistan,” the statement said. 

This comes after numerous reports of grounded flights at Mazar-i-Sharif airport waiting days for clearance. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week those delays were due to Taliban claims that many Afghans lacked the proper documents to leave. “And it’s my understanding that the Taliban has not denied exit to anyone holding a valid document, but they have said those without valid documents, at this point, can’t leave,” Blinken said. “Because all of these people are grouped together, that means that flights have not been allowed to go.” 

Bahar refuses to blame the U.S., or any government for that matter, for the fall of her country. “Now I don’t know what happened, how they did there, but I defend that [Afghan] soldiers are good fighters,” Bahar said. “But there were some corrupt leaders in government who dealt [away] their land, and the embarrassment goes to them. Because of them we are in this situation.”

She also defended Afghanistan former president Ashraf Ghani’s decision to flee the country, stating that if he hadn’t then “Kabul city would have been destroyed,” and her family “would’ve been killed. If he had decided to fight, every street in Kabul would have been destroyed and millions of people would have died,” she said. 

Immigration attorney Hyder said she was frustrated by how many mainstream media and friends have taken this as an opportunity for political discourse and to criticize politicians. She thinks the ‘what if’ conversation is not productive at all. 

“Several people have asked what I thought about what Biden did, and I’m like you know who I haven’t thought about a single time is Joe Biden,” Hyder said. “I have not had the time for one moment, because we are in it and it doesn’t matter what he did or didn’t do or how he did it and what he said. We’re literally in it.” 

Many doubt the Taliban will be as accommodating for Afghan nationals who they’ve only ever seen as traitors. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the former leader of the Haqqani terrorist network, and among the FBI’s most wanted with a $10 million bounty for alleged attacks and kidnappings, was appointed last week as the interior minister of Afghanistan, a position whose duties include passport authorization. 

“Disentangling ourselves from Afghanistan was never going to be easy,” said U.S. Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Gregory Meeks at a Monday hearing. “And for my friends who presume a clean solution for the withdrawal existed, I would welcome [them] to show what a smooth withdrawal of a messy chaotic 20 year war looks like. In fact I’ve yet to hear of a clean withdrawal option, because I don’t believe one exists.” 

“I look forward to hearing from the Secretary how the State Department intends to complete its evacuation of the 100-200 Americans remaining in Afghanistan who want to come home, as well as evacuating those Afghans who worked alongside us during the past 20 years,” Meeks added. 

Blinken said at the hearing that in the coming days and weeks, they will continue their commitment to evacuating American and Afghans who wish to leave, but said there “is no deadline to this mission.” 

At this point, Bahar isn’t convinced she’ll see her family alive again. Without immediate intervention to evacuate her family, Bahar believes it’s only a matter of time until the Taliban finds and kills them. In the meantime, Bahar tries to assuage the fears of her family from 7,000 miles away. A shoddy internet connection limits video calls to one every week or two. Their conversations are brief and emotionally gridlocked. “‘Save us, do something for us, Bahar, please save us!’ and I’m not able to tell them that I can do it. All I can say is that I’m giving it my best,” she said. “I tell them I am in contact with [representatives] and [for them] to just wait.”

The pressure Bahar feels, and the looming threat of losing her family has taken a toll on her home. She goes to work and “feels nothing,” and has been “unable to focus” on her three children. Her mental energy is spent. Sometimes she dreams of her parents and siblings, begging her to save them. 

“For all intents and purposes, these people’s chances of escaping the Taliban ended the day we left them behind,” said Afghanistan war veteran Matt Zeller, founder of No One Left Behind. 

Despite having to flee, Bahar loves her former home and cares deeply about the people she left behind. If she didn’t have a family, she said she would be with her fellow Afghan women, marching in the streets, holding up signs and taking a beating if necessary, to fight for azadi, for freedom. 

“Every woman should be able to stand on her own as an independent individual, because the Taliban doesn’t like this,” Bahar said. “In the majority of Afghanistan, they don’t allow their girls to go outside and study for anything. Every woman should be able to work hard, make their career and do something for themself. Men alone can’t run the world.” 

Bahar never wanted to leave Afghanistan, her family, and a seasoned career. But their work for American forces and other international organizations made them a target of the Taliban, well before their takeover. She believes the Taliban’s promises to pardon Afghan nationals who worked with western forces is simply a ruse to draw them out of hiding. “Right now [Taliban] say they forgive everybody, but I cannot believe terrorists,” Bahar said. 

So for Bahar, her family, and thousands of refugees displaced by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this is home now. They have friends in Falls Church, and dream of sending their older daughter to VCU, even as they continue trying to get her parents and siblings out of Kabul. 

Recently, Bahar said she found comfort in her local community. Out of desperation, she posted her story on NextDoor, a social media app used to connect neighbors. Responses poured in. Most offered words of encouragement. Some sent her email links to local and state representatives. Several filled out inquiries on her behalf. Others brought over food. One man even mowed her yard. 

“They give me hope,” she said. “They give me energy, that there is someone who wants to take care of you. I feel like I have brothers and sisters in this community. It means a lot to me.”

All Photos by Branden Wilson

Sacrifice For Squalor

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At Fort Lee and around the nation, military families are plagued by unsafe housing. Here’s how some Virginians are trying to solve the problem.

In the span of a career in the armed services, military families will move six to nine times. Each time, the family must reorient: new routes to work, new schools, and the various culture shocks typical for a cross-continental move. It can be exhausting. 

When Patricia Santos, her husband, and her three children moved to Fort Lee, they didn’t know what to expect. It was 2017, and this was their second move since Santos’ husband joined the Army in 2004.  

“When a young family comes into the service, they’re just happy to have a home,” Santos said. “They go throughout their daily life and take housing for their word. They don’t want to cause trouble.” 

However, when Santos worked as a temp at a military housing office a few years earlier, she saw glimpses of a darker side. “If they couldn’t find the move-in sheets, they’d throw it away,” Santos said. “If you refused to pay for a carpet stain that was there when you moved in, they would threaten to call the MP’s [military police].” 

The Santos family were hopeful that Fort Lee, 25 miles south of Richmond, would be different. Yet when they arrived, trash and debris littered their new home. Santos said Hunt Military Communities (HMC), who handle leasing for on-base housing at Fort Lee, insisted the home was cleaned — yet the family recorded six pages of damages during their inspection. 

Unfortunately, they had no place else to go. “It was a take it or leave it situation,” Santos said. “[HMC] said there were no other options.” 

A year later, Santos spotted a water leak and mold emanating from the water spout outside. Then her children got sick: her 5-year-old son developed dark rings under his eyes. She put in a work order. “They came, they turned it on, turned it off, said it was fixed,” she said. “They did nothing to fix the water spout.” 

A few days later, Santos discovered a major water leak entering the wall from the outdoor water spigot. She requested that HMC replace the floorboards and the wall ruined by water. Their request was denied. “He says, ‘We’re just going to paint over it,’” she said. “I said ‘No, this needs to be removed.’” 

In the meantime, the mold began to spread throughout the home. The housing office met with Santos and HMC Maintenance director Jeff Koch at the home. “He’s touching the exposed floorboards — no protection, no goggles, no gloves — saying, ‘Oh there’s nothing here.’” Santos said. “I said, ‘Sir, that black stuff, that’s mold.’” 

The leasing office at Fort Lee ultimately ordered Koch to remove the floorboards and siding, but with the mold exposed, the family couldn’t occupy the first floor. Families are typically provided another residence at an on-post private hotel during large maintenance, however, they must cover the cost. According to HMC’s Fort Lee Community Director, Charleen Herriott, there were no available accommodations. 

“They could not move us anywhere,” Santos said. “So we had to live upstairs the whole time it took for them to take everything out. It was about three weeks.”

During this time, the home was barely habitable. The family became severely ill, as did their babysitter. Santos dealt with flu-like symptoms, while her children — already on nebulizers — needed breathing treatments twice a day to combat upper-respiratory infections. 

A few days after the order was finished, Santos found a check for $100 in her mailbox. A HMC rep told her it was for, “Giving [you] a hard time on the mold.” She tossed it back in the mailbox. 

Under Virginia law, tenants in unsafe housing can exit their leases. They can make repairs themselves and deduct the cost from rent. They can notify their local agencies to enforce health codes. They can fight back. 

But on military bases, different rules apply. Tenants may not inspect homes prior to move-in; nor can they fight improperly-documented claims of damage reported when they move out. Tenants aren’t allowed access to the building’s history, and if issues arise and housing services refuse to act, service members can’t hold out on rent. 

“Military families don’t have recourse,” Shannon Razsadin, Executive Director of the Military Family Advisory Network, told CBS News. “They never even see the money. It immediately goes from [the military] to this privatized housing company. So they don’t have the ability to withhold rent when they’re dealing with a challenge.” 

In January 2019, the Military Family Advisory Network (MFAN) conducted a national poll for families who lived on base within the past three years, and received around 17,000 responses. The results were scathing: nearly two-thirds of respondents reported a negative experience with privatized military housing. Housing issues were reported at more than 160 military installations across the country, including at seven of the 10 largest military installations in the U.S. A third of respondents reported mold in their residences, and more than 1,500 reported problems with vermin or pest infestations. 

Families also reported that requests for repair are often denied or ignored — and when they report housing company reps to military command, they’re bullied into silence. Some even claim they received threats. 

“We were overwhelmed by the number of respondents that we had, and it really goes to show that these aren’t one-off issues,” Razsadin said. “This is a widespread problem, and it’s something that needs to be acted on.” 

Housing will push families to accept the home before even seeing it. And if they don’t accept, they have no alternative. For families with special needs or stationed for a short stay, on-base housing is their only option. 

“I want an apology,” said Leticia Lewis, a former Fort Lee resident. “My family wants an apology. Everyone here at Fort Lee is owed an apology by Hunt Housing.” 

Leticia Lewis and her family moved into a special-needs home at Fort Lee in April 2018. In the first few weeks, black mold accrued in her upstairs bedroom. Then mushrooms grew up from the floor. It took three weeks to remove it. 

“Would you allow your kids to sleep in a room like this? No. So don’t do it to someone’s family,” she said. “What we are all fighting for here is our health.” 

Meanwhile, her son was hospitalized in a pediatric ICU for three days, and had to be put on oxygen. “My son has missed so much school,” she said. “He needed to recuperate — he’s five years old.” 

What the Santos and Lewis families have experienced is not uncommon. Military families at Fort Lee and across the nation live in squalor: black mold, lead paint, faulty wiring, poor water quality, pesticides, and a slew of vermin, insects, and animals in their homes. And until recently, their concerns have largely been ignored. 

Fort Lee is the third-largest training post in the Army. One third of the Army’s soldiers will either train or be stationed at Fort Lee sometime in their career. The average stay for a family at Fort Lee is six to 12 months; few stay more than three years. 

“They are counting on us moving out quickly,” Santos said. “They are counting on the quick turnover rate, the high dollars they charge us for normal wear and tear. These profits come off our backs and our sacrifice.” 

A year into Amanda Vargas’s residency at Fort Lee, her carpets began showing clear signs of mold. According to her lease, the carpet was to be replaced by HMC every four years, but when Vargas contacted the previous residents, who lived there for four years, she learned the carpet wasn’t replaced during their stay. When she requested that it be tested, she was denied. 

“If I leave a water bottle out, I can see mold grow in it within hours,” Vargas said. Over the last year, Vargas’s five-year-old daughter has had constant upper-respiratory issues. 

“We live in these homes,” Vargas said. “These homes are not free, they come with a sacrifice. And our children pay the most sacrifice.” 

Hunt Military Communities, who runs the housing at Fort Lee, is one of America’s largest landlords. Of the 35 companies referenced in the MFAN survey, Hunt Military Communities was the third-highest cited of any property manager included. Several families have accused the company of fraud, conspiring to conceal dangerous conditions, breach of contract, and gross negligence. Service members describe feeling powerless, that they have little to no recourse. 

Housing privatization began in 1998, as an unofficial bailout initiative when the Department of Defense failed to provide adequate housing for approximately 200,000 military families. Competitions were held for developers to manage homes on more than 150 installations across the country; those chosen were signed to 50-year contracts. 

The initiative received wide bipartisan support, and worked at first with close attention from civilian and military leaders. But it was never projected to succeed — according to a 1998 pilot report by the Government Accountability Office, cost and earnings from privatization were overstated, and savings would not be as large as the DoD originally claimed. 

Despite these well-informed concerns, the initiative moved forward. But after a financial meltdown in 2008 and cutbacks in military staff in 2011, the military diverted its attention to other priorities, leaving housing companies without oversight. 

“I suspect that [military command] thought things would be better by putting it in the hands of private owners, but in the end they handed it over to a business. And like any other business, they’re out to make money,” Santos said. “They’re not truly fulfilling the mission that the army has entrusted them to do, and that’s taking care of military families.” 

Santos would like to see the DoD engage in more direct oversight of on-base housing and the companies that provide it. 

“I think it would make a difference, because it would make younger families have an idea, when they move in, [of] where their rights would stand,” she said. “That’s something that should’ve been proposed the first time they signed 50-year contracts with these people.” 

In response to the MFAN’s findings, Congress held hearings in February and March to address the concerns. “This issue seems to have caught us by surprise,” said Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Congressional leaders and top military brass toured homes and were appalled by the poor housing conditions and lack of responsiveness from housing providers. 

“We are deeply troubled by the recent reports highlighting the deficient conditions in some of our family housing,” stated Secretary of the Army Dr. Mark Esper. “It is unacceptable for our families who sacrifice so much to have to endure these hardships in their own homes. Our most sacred obligation as Army leaders is to take care of our people — our Soldiers and our family members.”

After the hearings, committee members drafted the Ensuring Safe Housing for our Military Act. The bill would require installation commanders to withhold the family’s rent from the landlord after notifications of potential health, safety or environmental hazards, until military housing officials and the families agree that it has been fixed. 

Senator Tim Kaine, a champion of the bill, stressed that it was the only way to combat malpractice by property managers. “There has been recent attention on the national scope of dangerous conditions in military base housing, including children poisoned by lead, and lapses in oversight that have put military families at risk,” Kaine wrote in an Op-Ed for the Daily Progress. “Military families make enormous sacrifices in service to our nation, and they deserve safe housing.” 

After Fort Lee completed its Congressionally-mandated assessment of on-post homes in March, work order numbers nearly quadrupled — from 194 to 850. As of the most recent town hall, 5,000 work orders had yet to be completed. 

Senator Mark Warner held a roundtable for military families in April. At the roundtable, Vargas and other Fort Lee families stressed their inability to hold HMC accountable, and their suspicions that important documents were being erased or withheld. 

“Hunt is to get work orders done within 10 days, but they rarely honor nor adhere to the appropriate response times for work orders,” Vargas said. “When they do come to do fix things, they leave jobs incomplete.” 

“My concern is, we may improve circumstances for all of you,” said Warner. “But if we don’t change the system, things will get better for a year or two and they’ll fade from people’s memories — and your successors will be sitting here, telling me the same stories.” 

Repairs to military homes nationwide could cost upwards of $386 million, according to a series of reports made between 2013 and 2016 by the Defense Department’s Inspector General. The report found these deficiencies stemmed from “a lack of adequate preventative maintenance and inspections being performed at the installations,” and recommended bi-annual inspections of all homes. 

But defense officials rejected the recommendations. They would “unnecessarily increase costs” and “impose more government intrusion into a private business enterprise,” the D0D said in its official response. 

Returning the responsibility of housing to the DoD (as it was before 1998) would involve enormous costs to U.S. taxpayers, and has potential to bring back the problems that led the government to privatization in the first place. Yet the current system is failing many families, and despite Congressional and military efforts to improve it, problems remain deeply entrenched. 

Many military families agree that a tenant’s bill of rights would be a good first step. But current legislative changes won’t take effect until 2020, and many don’t see themselves sticking around for it. Instead, they are leaving the service prematurely, for the sake of their families’ health. Vargas’s husband plans on leaving in July, on his 4-year anniversary of joining the military. For now, her daughter sleeps in a walk-in closet — the only room in the house without a mold-infested HVAC duct. 

Just before Senator Warner’s roundtable in April, Lewis got a call from the hospital. They informed her that TriCare, the Department Of Defense’s military health insurance provider, won’t cover her X-ray screenings for infections she contracted during her time at Fort Lee housing. But she doesn’t blame TriCare. 

“TriCare doesn’t need to be paying for my medical bills,” Lewis said. “Hunt housing needs to be paying for my medical bills.” 

Tim Kaine Hosts Local Forum About Gun Control

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In a discussion featuring political leaders from around the Commonwealth, Richmonders voiced their support for gun control legislation in Virginia.

In a roundtable discussion on gun control legislation hosted by Senator Tim Kaine on southside Monday morning, Richmonders voiced their concerns about a lack of attention given to youth and education in underserved areas, and that lack of attention acting as a catalyst for gun violence.

Held at the New Life Deliverance Tabernacle, members of affected families and people from multiple organizations such as Moms Demand Action, participated in the discussion, along with General Assembly representatives including Delegate Dawn Adams and Delegate Schuyler VanValkenburg. Also in attendance were Mayor Levar Stoney and Brian Moran, Virginia’s Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security.

“We’ve been dealing with violence for a long period of time, and now it has reached its apex,” Pastor Robert Winfree said. “There ought to be some stipulations on [firearms].”

Kaine stated that two pieces of legislation addressing tighter regulation on background checks when purchasing a firearm are currently pending in the Senate.

“We lose almost three Virignians a day from guns,” Moran said. “What the Senator has put forward is really a robust piece of legislation to address the homicides, the accidental deaths, as well as the suicides.”

In preparation for a special General Assembly session to consider gun control legislation, set by Governor Northam for July 9, Kaine is visiting several towns across Virginia in order to involve local communities in the upcoming discussion with lawmakers.

“We are grateful for calling a special session on July 9, because we are sick and tired of the spineless leadership in the General Assembly,” Stoney said. “Black and brown people and families are affected the most by bringing firearms into underserved communities. Black and brown people are dying each and every day. So my question to the GA is, ‘How many more is it going to take?’”

Northam made this decision after the Virginia Beach mass shooting on May 31, when a disgruntled employee open fired in a municipal building, killing 12 people and injuring four more. Northam criticized majority Republicans in the General Assembly for killing gun control legislature in subcommittees before allowing them to reach the floor for a full vote.

The main concerns expressed by the citizens, families, and advocates in attendance were for children, education, mental health services, and cyclical poverty and drug dependence in underserved communities. Kaine listened intently to all these arguments, while maintaining his reasoning for more rigorous background checks, fewer rounds in magazines, increasing number of street cameras, and banning gun silencers.

“It don’t start with nobody but ourselves in the community,” said Mark Whitfield, a family member affected by gun violence. “I come from the projects, I come from the streets. I know what’s been really going on for a long time… You can’t talk about guns without talking about drugs. The drugs will change people’s attitude. I know people who went to college and drop out. They can’t get income, so what do they do? They sell drugs. You sell drugs? You got to have a gun for protection. That’s how it works.”

Whitfield, as well as several others, called for individual responsibility and more influential involvement with children. He cited a loss of summer programs and educational leadership as part of the cycle of gun violence.

“What burns our relationship with the police is these people who sell drugs, to provide for their children, go to jail,” Whitfield said. “In jail you’re supposed to get rehabilitation. No, don’t work like that, because when you get out of jail, no one’s going to hire you because you’re a class A felon. So now you’re back on the streets. It’s a repeating cycle.”

Local small business owner and children’s health coach Randy O’Neill noted that neither the Virginia Chamber of Commerce nor members of the Richmond City Council were included at the roundtable. Some members of City Council have criticized Stoney in the past for giving his attention to large public projects rather than allocating money into small, local economies, which could potentially initiate change within underserved communities.

“We better get on the block, in those kids’ lives immediately,” said O’Neill, owner of Virginia is for Education, a mobile gym that coaches children how to exercise in their own neighborhoods. “We need to create critical mass on the block, where youth services can actually be on the block where children need to be served. We have to stop taking kids out of their community and suggesting this is the only place you’re safe.”

Mental health professional Anthony Jones noted the lack of focused treatment for those with substance abuse or mental health difficulties, which may also contribute to gun violence.

Although many roundtable participants voiced real concerns from their own communities, few arguments were presented that had not been heard before. Some participants noted the solutions being presented were too short-term and based on reactionary attitudes, rather than actual long-term solutions.

“We have our own, exclusive, unique issues right here in Richmond and the surrounding area,” local radio news personality Clovia Lawrence said.

Two voices of opposition spoke out during the roundtable; they expressed fear that their Second Amendment rights would be infringed if any gun legislation were to pass. Kaine stressed that current legislation focused on more regulated background checks, that no piece of legislation conflicts in any way with Second Amendment rights, and that his legislation would in no way result in banning firearms.

“We really want to focus just on reasonable gun laws,” Moran said. “Thoughts and prayers are not enough. We need facts and laws.”

Photos by John Donegan.

It’s Easy to Get Kicked Out of a Corey Stewart Campaign Event

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Republican Senate candidate Corey Stewart may be trailing his opponent, Tim Kaine, by double digits in the latest polls, but he hasn’t given up yet. Earlier this month, the campaign trail brought him to the Dockside restaurant, in Hopewell, Virginia, for a meet and greet. Less than a dozen people showed up. I was one of them. 

The price of admission was $50, which was about $50 more than I was willing to pay, but nonetheless, I reluctantly made the 30 minute drive out, thinking I might be able to slip in without paying if I stood in the back of the room and kept my mouth shut. 

The Dockside restaurant sits on the outskirts of Hopewell, a small city southeast of Richmond. It’s located at the edge of the James River, just past the factories and manufacturing plants on Rt. 156. I was expecting to pull up to a crowded campaign event, but as I approached the restaurant, it became apparent that the meet-and-greet hadn’t attracted much of an audience. 

I was quickly ushered into a small dining room where about 10 people had crowded around a few tables. Corey Stewart sat at the center, shaking hands and talking quietly with some of the guests. I sat down at the farthest table from the action, by far the youngest person in the room. 

The attendees of the event immediately started glancing over at me, and Stewart himself seemed to recognize me as someone who didn’t belong there. A heavy-set man with a mustache and an oversized beige suit finally asked if I had a ticket. 

I told him I didn’t, and the person sitting next to him told me I could stay if I had $50. I didn’t. I muttered something along the lines of, “maybe next time,” and walked out the door. 

As I drove away, I felt like I’d walked in on a hushed gathering of co-conspirators. Which isn’t a stretch, Stewart had appeared in public with Jason Kessler, the white-supremacist who planned Charlottesville’s Unite the Right rally. I wondered if this was how Mussolini, or a thousand other extremist right-wing agitators, had started out — quietly whipping up support in the forgotten districts of whatever country they were in. 

Stewart has emerged as a force in Virginia politics that can’t be ignored, tapping into the Trump playbook which plays heavily on xenophobia, racism, and other divisive issues. And while has almost no chance of defeating incumbent Senator Tim Kaine in this year’s midterm contest, he won’t be going away anytime soon. He has a sizable following in Virginia’s deep-red rural areas who will vote for him on the basis that he is a Republican, regardless of his issues. 

Throughout his Senate campaign, Stewart has campaigned doggedly on a platform of hardline anti-immigration policies, and has appeared at events with some of Virginia’s most virulent white supremacists. 

Most notably, Stewart held a press conference with white supremacist Kessler ahead of his disastrous Unite the Right Rally in 2017. Stewart also appeared alongside Kessler on several occasions during his unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign. His campaign for Senate has also accepted campaign contributions from the League of the South, a neo-confederate, white supremacist organization. 

In recent months, the candidate has attempted to rebrand himself as a candidate that supports Virginia’s working class. Yet in a recent PBS interview, he struggled to answer basic questions about how he planned to support working class Virginians. 

Stewart has praised himself on several occasions for receiving Twitter support from President Trump, notably for working alongside the President’s “MAGA Agenda.”

But like his sparsely-attended campaign events, it looks as though the candidate’s bark is bigger than his bite — even according to FOX News. Outside the realm of Twitter, Stewart had little to say of the President’s support when questioned by a news anchor.

On October 9, Stewart held a rally in support of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Fairfax, Virginia. The rally attracted about 40 supporters, and an equal number of protesters. 

Stewart has certainly captured the attention and interest of a small but vocal minority around Virginia. But if you’re hoping to infiltrate his campaign events, we’ve got some unfortunate news for you — he probably won’t draw enough of a crowd for you to blend into.

Midterms Matter. Trumpism Cannot Withstand High Turnout

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Progressive yard signs are visible throughout my neighborhood of Church Hill, declaring “Black Lives Matter” and “Hate Has No Home Here.” Those signs help to foster a sense of community; there’s comfort that comes from feeling that our neighbors are interpreting this moment in our country in similar ways. However, there is a danger of mistakenly assuming those shared assumptions are broader than they actually are. There’s a danger in thinking “everyone must view Trump’s election as a big mistake at this point.” From that assumption, it follows that Sen. Tim Kaine will easily defeat Corey Stewart, the candidate who says he is “more Trump than Trump.”

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School just released a poll of 802 likely voters that suggested a 23-point lead for Kaine. More reason to relax, the logic goes.

That’s what the conventional logic says, but if we step outside the bubble of Richmond, we start to see warning signs. My phone died last week, and in order to get a replacement, I headed to the Mechanicsville Verizon store. Stewart signs, big and small, lined the streets of my drive, prominently placed in front of homes and businesses.

It was a good reminder that Stewart has supporters, and that he represents a certain right-wing populist base that will show up politically. There is more of us, yes, but is that enough?

We have to overcome undemocratic structural barriers that exist as part of the legacy of systemic anti-black racism.

Towards building a progressively governed Richmond and nation, we cannot simply live with a Kaine victory; we need a full-scale repudiation of the Trumpism that Stewart represents, and that means a victory with as wide of a margin as possible. But, we should not get ahead of ourselves; as progressives, we should not assume it’s in the bag.

Hillary Clinton was expected by most pollsters to win. Those pollsters were wrong. However, equally relevant for us, it isn’t simply that we can’t put too much faith in the polls, it is also that Clinton lost the election despite winning the popular vote. Superior numbers did not matter.

With the midterms on the horizon, it’s a reminder that the fact there is more of us is not sufficient. We have to turn out in races that we have historically stayed home for. Further, we have to overcome undemocratic structural barriers that exist as part of the legacy of systemic anti-black racism, and that has often been put in place by lawmakers elected on those years we stayed at home.

There are two political forces in our country with a direct interest in political minority rule: one, the white nationalists who recognize the changing demographics of the country, and who tremble in fear at the prospect of a country that isn’t majority white, and, two, corporate elites who want their taxes low and their profits high, and as a result seek policies in diametric opposition to the interests of the majority who want and need fair wages, environmental regulations, and well-funded public schools, housing, and transportation.

President Donald Trump is uniquely dangerous precisely because he has the ability to unite these two different political forces into an aggressive political coalition with a shared agenda and strategy.

However, the Trump coalition’s ability to be successful is premised on two interrelated things; wide-scale voter disenfranchisement and low-voter turnout. That is why we have the ability to defeat Trump and Trumpism by turning out, doing the work to turn others out, registering voters, pushing for restoration of voting rights, and fighting against voter suppression effort.

Turnout in the Nov. 6 election may very well be the deciding factor in whether we win the future or get defeated by the past.

Donald Trump and the politics of the 19th century

There has always been a white nationalist minority which existed as part of the conservative coalition in the USA. During the Obama administration, key elements of this conservative, racist minority became emboldened. They could not accept that an African American had become President of the US—not once, but twice—and they wanted to do all that they could to reverse his legacy, even policies from which they benefitted.

Donald Trump, always politically ambitious and demagogic, seized on the moment. Watching the growth of the Tea Party movement that challenged virtually every reform advanced by President Barack Obama, Trump decided to go deeper into more dangerous terrain. He fanned the flames of what came to be known as the “Birther Movement,” those who suggested that Obama had never legitimately been a US citizen. Despite all evidence, Trump continued to ring the bell of birtherism. The real objective was to say, in coded words, that it was inconceivable that a Black American could (or should) become president of this country.

Trump’s 2016 campaign for president was noteworthy on multiple levels. His opening argument that Mexicans were bringing crime to the US ignored the reality of declining immigration and also the fact that immigrant communities commit demonstrably less crime, and are more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators.

Or consider Trump’s attacks on Muslims and the suggestion that Muslim-based terrorism was the main threat to the US. What is worth noting is that since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the main form of terrorism to threaten the US has been right-wing, white supremacist terrorism.

Trump has been carrying out a well-crafted approach of divide and rule. He, and the corporate interests that he represents, want to ensure that they can move a very reactionary agenda that will reverse the victories that we, the broader American public, have won over the course of the 20th century. As one political theorist put it, they seek to take us back to the era of William McKinley and of the Spanish-American War.

Is the problem just Trump?

I wish that I could say that the problem was only or mainly Trump. After a while, people will tire of him and he will go off into retirement. But the challenges that we face—and that will be represented in the midterm elections—are much deeper.

As I mentioned, there are two very nefarious forces at work that seek to turn back the clock. One is represented by conservative corporate elites, such as the Koch Brothers, and political organizations such as the American Legislative Exchange Council. They are actively attempting to reverse various laws, court decisions, and regulations that have benefited poor and working people. They are using immigrants, Muslims, and black people as a way of distracting white people from what is really going on. After witnessing a blatantly racist act in Tennessee, President Lyndon Johnson told a young Bill Moyers exactly why many politicians nurtured and fed racist discrimination. “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on and he’ll empty his pockets for you,” he said, speaking from his own experience as a former member of the Southern bloc.

Think about it. We have been subjected to a tax reform bill that is nothing short of a bribe for some, that directly benefits the elite. And everyone knows it! Yet, when Trump and his allies, including the corporate right, focus on immigrants, Muslims, etc., it is as if we are dealing with a magician who dazzles us with one hand while the real action is in the other. He’s playing upon inherited prejudices while robbing us blind.

In addition to the corporate right, there is a movement called “right-wing populism.” This is a mass movement. It is racist, sexist, xenophobic, militaristic, and highly authoritarian. It seeks to re-establish the idea that the US is a so-called white republic and that anyone not white is nothing more than a guest – an uninvited one. The corporate right has long sought with varying degrees of success to build a grassroots base out of right-wing populists. In fact, what is so dangerous about Trump, can be best understood as a unique ability to fuse these two right-wing elements. However, even before Trump, both of these elements had political strategies that relied on midterm elections – in other words, relied on low turnout from progressives.

So, what’s immediately at stake in the midterms?

There are many things that are at stake. First, control of Congress. As we have seen in these two years, Republican domination of Congress means that they pick the Supreme Court. They can cut regulations. They can fail to hold Trump accountable. They can keep their hands in our pockets. If even one house of Congress flips, that will give working-class people some breathing room. It prevents against another attempted repeal of Obamacare. It offers for some ability to prevent Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, from being sworn in. It may make or break whether the Mueller investigation can actually lead to an impeachment.

Low turnout and structural barriers to voting

There is something strange that happens during the midterm elections. More often than not, a different “America” shows up at the polls. Rather than the diverse country in which we live, full of growing numbers of young voters who elected Obama or supported Bernie Sanders, we see older, white, conservatives at the polls.

Worth noting is that the U.S. trails most developed countries in voter turnout, but of particular importance to us is the discrepancy in numbers from presidential election years to off years. There’s some fluctuation but generally speaking about 60 percent of the voter eligible population votes in presidential elections, while only 40 percent votes in the midterms. The impact of midterm elections can be dramatic, as we saw in 2010 and 2014. It can flip the country. The facts are demonstrable but, nevertheless, many people continue to stay home.

There is a vicious cycle of us not turning out, followed by those who end up in power as result pushing agendas and enacting laws that make it harder for us to turn out and win in the future.

Trump’s win and the victory of the new Trumpism coalition it represents comes in the first presidential election after the Supreme Court stripped out the protections of the Voting Rights Act, and in only the second presidential election after the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations can spend unlimited amounts to influence elections.

On June 25, 2013, the conservative Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, overturned the protections of the Voting Rights Act. The significance of this cannot be overstated. The law had offered increase oversight and scrutiny to the voter practices of nine states, with a history of suppressing the black vote, including Virginia. Many of these states rushed in the days and months that followed to pass more restrictive voting laws.

After Obama carried Virginia in 2012, the Republican-controlled state legislature moved to enact tougher restrictions on a previously passed Voter ID law – while it would previously have accepted a large range of non-photo ID at the polls – things like utility bills, now it would only accept a driver’s license, voter ID cards, student IDs, and concealed handgun permits. It was a tactic designed to suppress Democratic Party voters and African Americans in particular. Under the Voting Rights Act, the shift would have required approval by the U.S Department of Justice; with the Voting Rights Act gutted it no longer needed to.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission happened during President Obama’s first term, on January 21st, 2010. It ruled that the First Amendment doesn’t just apply to human beings but to corporations as well, and thus struck down any laws that limit the ability of corporate leaders to spend money advocating for or against candidates. The principle of one person one vote continues to exist in theory but in practice, politicians campaigning for office know that those with wealth have disproportionate influence on election outcomes, and so they spend more time courting the wealthy and are wary of advocating any policy the wealthy might disapprove of, even common sense ones like progressive taxation.

The result of Citizen’s United is a political class under extreme pressure to spend most of its time fundraising, which in turn means spending most of their time with moneyed interests and not working-class people. The amount of money in elections has increased, and with it the disproportionate giving and power of the super wealthy.

These two Supreme Court rulings are not isolated occurrences. They are representative of a policy regime at every level of our government that attempt to push progressive voters and particularly African American voters out of the political process while inviting wealthy special interests into disproportionate power over the political process. If it has been confusing as to why our city and state’s elected leadership won’t remove Confederate monuments, this might offer a clue.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Is there a future that focuses on justice, equal rights, preservation of the environment, well-funded public education, the rights of workers to organize and bargain, and an end to the fear that many have lived under since Jan. 20, 2017? The answer is yes. Here’s the understanding it requires: progressive and the majority of the country have been subjugated to a political cycle low turnout resulting in policies that hurt us, coupled with laws that make it harder for us to vote and represent our interests in the future.

Our task is to displace this reactionary cycle with a new progressive cycle; in our cycle, we turn out big for all elections, we register new voters, work with people to get their rights restored, and win elections. Then we build strategies at the grassroots level that involve the elected officials we put into office, to advance policies that benefit everybody and couple that with laws that undo the racist and undemocratic barriers to voting, replacing them with laws that secure the right to vote and policies that promote voting such as early voting and making election day a holiday

Midterms matter. Turnout matters. Let’s go make the future ours.

Virginia Republicans Flirtation With Extremism May Cost Them on Election Day

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Senator Tim Kaine is almost guaranteed to win re-election this November against Corey Stewart, a controversial conservative firebrand who has implied that Republicans who support Medicaid expansion have erectile dysfunction syndrome, defended Roy Moore against credible accusations of pedophilia (and even campaigned for him), endorsed white nationalist Paul Nehlen, appeared at an event with the white nationalist Jason Kessler, who would go on to orchestrate the terror in Charlottesville last year, and has even threatened violence against Sen. Kaine.

It’s very, very improbable that Stewart beats Kaine this November. I’m no mathematician, but I’d say he has less than 1 percent chance of victory. Last November, Virginia was swept by a blue wave that rejected Ed Gillespie, who ran a campaign similar to Stewart’s gubernatorial bid after Gillespie unexpectedly barely won the primary. This November will probably be even worse for Virginia Republicans than last year since Stewart is now on the ballot and the establishment candidate isn’t.

County projections for Kaine/Stewart by Chaz Nuttycombe

What we’re going to see in the senate race this November is the largest statewide win for a Virginia Democrat since Mark Warner’s landslide victory in the 2008 US Senate race. It won’t be as big as that election itself though due to the polarization of America’s political parties. Whereas Warner won by 31 percent against Gilmore, Kaine is currently likely to win by ~18 percent against Stewart. This is two times the size of the margin of victory Northam had over Gillespie last fall.

Stewart, who looks like he will have a hard time cracking 40 percent of the vote this November, is a symptom of the Virginia GOP’s flirtation with extremist candidates. The state party has nominated several controversial figures for statewide office this decade, such as Ken Cuccinelli and E.W. Jackson, both in 2013. Since then, the state party has drifted into the abyss of the culture wars to reach their base, as we saw last year, instead of appealing to moderates and independents.

Kaine has a great opportunity this November to not only win by a slam-dunk, but also the opportunity to extend his coattails far enough to help Democrats flip several US House seats in Virginia. Five GOP-held seats are competitive: VA-01, VA-02, VA-05, VA-07, and VA-10. The bigger wins he has in these districts, the more likely the Democratic challengers are to win.

We’ll talk more about that next week.

Chaz Nuttycombe joined RVA Mag for the midterm elections to provide predictions and analysis on the state of the races.