02/03/23 02/03/23 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> when i first heard the news i thought, great, i have been canceled in florida. i think it is wonderful actually, w that manof us ha been excluded om being taught in this ap cours it will be a backlash stop andot all of our names a out there so students who could not get access to us in this course

could no google us and find our work. amy: the college board has removed black lives matter, slavery, queer theory and an studies course. where the changes made in response to criticism from florida governor ron desantis and other conservatives? we will speak with two professors whose work has been removed from the new curriculum, e. patrick johnson and keeanga-yamahtta taylor. they both teach at northwestern. we will also talk to her professor khalil gibran muhammad . then we will talk to an asylum seeker here in new york who has just been evicted from a hotel where he was staying among hundreds of migrants. now the city is moving many of them to a remote location in brooklyn. >> it gets complicated because

we don't know or don't have anywhere to , don't have money. others, the majority have been able to get work in manhattan and now they have to be transferred to brooklyn. they are going to have to give up their jobs. many of us lost our jobs. once again we are in the street, starting from scratch. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. as pope francis visits south sudan today, 27 people, including five childn, were killed in clashes between cattle herders and militia members thursday. this comes as pope francis is visiting south sudan today in the hopes of reinvigorating a troubled peace process following a decade of conflict since its establishment in 2011. the pope's visit comes after spending the week in the democratic republic of congo, where more than one million

worshipers attended his mass. he condemned the simultaneous exploitation and neglect of the region by western powers. >> the poison of greed has smeared its diamonds with blood. this is a tragedy to which the economically more advanced world often closes its eyes, ears, and mouth. this country and this country deserve to be respected. hands off the democratic republic of congo. hands off africa. stop choking africa. amy: on thursday, protesters gathered outside kinshasa's notre dame cathedral to denounce systemic sexual abuse in the catholic church. advocates are drawing attention to the case of a 14-year-old girl who was raped by a priest in the drc and demanding the church apply a 2019 law enacted by the pope to hold bishops accountable for sex abuse or for covering it up.

this is tim law, founder of ending clergy abuse. >> what happened after the abuse was reported to the bishop, the good sisters and priests that reported it all got fired and he ordered disbanded. the girl has left the country in fear of her life. it is sending a message to all of africa, the bishops say it doesn't matter, do what you want. it sends a message that he cares about the african children. amy: ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy has welcomed the european commission president ursula von der leyen to kyiv for talks on ukraine's push to join the european union. e.u. officials have said ukraine's accession to the 27-member bloc will, at a minimum, take several more years as ukraine needs to ensure more anti-corruption measures. at thursday's summit, von der leyen also said the commission will set up a dedicated office at the hague to prosecute war

crimes committed by russia during its war on ukraine. her remarks came as russian president vladimir putin compared russia's invasion of ukraine to the battle of stalingrad in world war ii. putin spoke at a ceremony in volgograd commemorating the 80th anniversary of the red army's victory over nazi forces. >> now unfortunately, we see the ideology of nazi-ism in its modern form and manifestation once again directly threaten the security of our country. again and again we have to retaliate the aggression of the collective west. amy: it is believed possibly more than 200,000 russian soldiers have died in ukraine. on capitol hill, house republicans have removed minnesota democratic congressmember ilhan omar from the foreign affairs committee after accusing her of antisemitism. omar has been outspoken in her

support of palestinian rights, has been repeatedly accused by republicans and some democratics for russian u.s.-israeli relations and the power of aipac and the israeli lobby in washington. omar spoke from the house floor after 218 republicans voted to strip her committee assignments in a party line vote. >> i did not come to congress to be silent. i came to be their voice. my leadership and voice will not be diminished. if i am not on this committee for one term, my voice will get louder and stronger and my leadership will be celebrated around the world as it has been. amy: congressmember omar came to the united states as a refugee after her family fled civil war in somalia. she's one of the first muslim women to serve in the house. democrats accused republicans of political retribution over the removal of far-right

congressmembers marjorie taylor greene and paul gosar from their committee assignments in the last congress due to their violent and racist rhetoric. in 2021, congressmember gosar became the first lawmaker to be censured in more than a decade for posting an animated video on social media where he murders congressmember alexandria ocasio-cortez and attacks president biden. this is congressmember ocasio-cortez speaking from the house floor thursday. >> i had a member of the republican caucus threaten my life and you all and the republican caucus rewarded him with one of the most prestigious committee assignments in this congress. don't tell me this is about consistency. don't tell me this is about a condemnation of anti-semitic remarks when you have a member of the republican caucus who is talked about jewish space lasers and an entire amount of tropes and also elevated her to some of the highest committee assignment

in this body. this is about targeting women of color in the united states of america. don't tell me because i did not get a single -- >> time is expired. >> thank you. amy: meanwhile, the house approved a bipartisan resolution thursday to "announce the horrors of socialism." it passed with the support of every republican. wisconsin democrat who voted no said "this resolution is plain ridiculous. he gently condemns pol pot and norway. he accused republicans of staging the voter pressure democrats to accept cuts to social security and medicare. in immigration news, nearly 1000 asylum seeking families remain separated after the children were forcibly taken at the u.s.-mexico border under the trump administration's zero tolerance policy. that's according to the homeland security department, which said

thursday a task force created by the biden administration has only been able to reunite some 689 children with their parents and relatives. an estimated 5500 migrant children were separated from their families during trump's in office. thousands have been found and reunited with loved ones largely due to the work of advocacy groups like the aclu. president biden had vowed to stop the practice and to pay reparations to the families separated by trump. but his administration has now refused to pay restitution, while data shows biden immigration officials have separated hundreds of families at the southern border. members of the congressional black caucus met with president biden and vice president kamala harris at the white house thursday, a day after the funeral of tyre nichols. this is nevada democrat steven horsford, chair of the cbc. -- the congressional black caucus.

>> tyre nichols is yet another example of why we do need action. you have let is on the aion we have been able to take through executive order. we need your help to make sure we can get the legislative actions that are necessary to save lives and to make public safety the priority that it needs to be for all communities. amy: in new jersey, a 30-year-old councilwoman was shot dead in her car outside her home wednesday in the town of sayreville. eunice dwumfour was elected in 2021 and was remembered by one of her colleagues as someone who "wanted to make a better community for all our children." the identity of the killer and their motive is still unknown. she leaves behind a young daughter and her husband. a federal court has struck down a ban on gun ownership for some perpetrators of domestic violence. the ruling by the 5th circuit court of appeals relies on an antiquated interpretation of gun laws and comes as the u.s. is

seeing a surge of gun violence. the gun violence archive says there were 52 mass shootings last month, making it the deadliest january since it started tracking such data. a 2021 study found that over two-thirds of mass shootings are either domestic violence incidents or perpetrated by shooters with a history of domestic violence. the justice department said it plans to appeal thursday's ruling. meanwhile, on capitol hill, at least two republican lawmakers, including embattled new york congressmember george santos, have been spotted wearing ar-15 pins on their lapels. the office of florida congressperson anna paulina luna said the shocking accessory is meant to promote a gun bill though it's unclear what that bill is. and the biden administration has released guantánamo bay detainee majid khan after nearly 20 years in custody. in 2021, khan became the first guantánamo prisoner to testify in an open court about torture methods used by the cia at its network of secret black sites, where khan was detained in 2003

to 2006. this is baher azmy, legal director of the center for constitutional rights, speaking to democracy now! that year. >> majid khan, to his credit, detailed the systematic, brutal, sadistic torture of u.s. government officials, namely the cia, which for nearly 20 years the u.s. government has tried to keep secret. amy: khan's lawyer said in a statement -- "guantánamo is a national shame, and we hope that today is another step forward towards its ultimate closure. the men languishing in guantánamo who have been cleared for release must be transferred, indefinite detention is anathema to a just society." majid khan arrived in thursday in belize, which has agreed to permanently resettle him. his release came as the united nations announced it's sending a human rights official to the guantánamo military prison for the first time ever. the u.s. continues to hold 34

prisoners at guantanamo. only 11 of them have been charged in military tribunals. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. when we come back, college board has removed black lives matter, slavery reparations, and queer theory as required topics in the curriculum or its ap african-american studies course. we will speak to two professors on the so-called canceled list whose work has been removed from the new required curriculum. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "what did you learn in school today" by tom paxton. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we begin today's show looking at the controversy surrounding the college board's decision to revised its curriculum for an advanced placement african american studies course. the revised curriculum removes black lives matter, slavery

reparations, and queer theory as required topics, while it adds a section on black conservatism. many prominent authors and academics have also been removed from the ap curriculum, including james baldwin, franz fanon, audre lorde, bell hooks, june jordan, angela davis, alice walker, manning marable, ta-nehisi coates, michelle michelle alexander, kimberlé crenshaw, barbara ransby, roderick ferguson, and two of our guests today -- e. patrick johnson and keeanga yamahatta taylor. the new curriculum was released wednesday on the first day of black history month. this all comes just weeks after florida's republican governor ron desantis threatened to ban the ap black studies class in florida schools. florida's education department said the course "lacks educational value." florida had raised concern about six points in the curriculum -- black queer studies,

intersectionality, movement for black lives, black feminist literary thought, the reparations movement, and black struggle in the 21st century. while several of those topics have been removed as required parts of the new ap curriculum, the college board maintains the final decisions to revise the curriculum were made in december before governor desantis said he was banding the class. ucla professor robin d.g. kelley, whose writings were also removed from the required curriculum, says -- "this is deeper than an ap course. this is about eliminating any discussion that might be critical of the united states of america, which is a dangerous thing for democracy." from the required curriculum. in greenville, south carolina, e. patrick johnson is the dean of the school of communication at northwestern.

he is a pioneer in the formation of black sexuality studies as a field of scholarship. his most recent book is "honeypot: black southern women who love women." in chicago, keeanga-yamahtta taylor is professor of african american studies at northwestern university. a contributing writer at the new yorker magazine. and khalil gibran muhammad is professor of history, race, and public policy at the harvard kennedy school. author of "the condemnation of blackness: race, crime and the making of modern urban america." we welcome you all to democracy now! we're are going to begin in south carolina with dean e. patrick johnson. you are one of the banned. this is a whole controversy, the

college board attacked "the new york times" for saying they removed these certain sections from the required ap course in response to governor desantis. they are not disputing the college board that they removed these sections, but they are saying they did it before desantis made his final comments on this issue. what is known is the college board made their reveal -- revealed the curriculum on the first day of black history month. talk about what is happening here. >> there's so much to cover. in response to the removal of my name, it is a great list to be on because of the wonderful thinkers that are included. i also thought it was ironic the fact that we have been removed means actually in some ways more students will have access because now people are doing searches for our work. so that is the irony in all of

this. i can't speak to the college board's motivations or their process, but what i can say is everyone is clear that african-american history is being used as a political pawn for the governor's own -- his own aspirations to become president. this is a movement to gen up his supporters and as a conservative movement. most of us realize this. so i am not surprised by any of this, but it just means we have to be steadfast, we have to keep at it and make sure the students who would have otherwise been able to access our work can still access it in many other ways. amy: i want to turn to

republican governor ron desantis telling reporters why he opposed the original ap african american studies course. >> this course on black history, what is one of the lessons about? queer theory. who would say an important part of black history is queer theory? that is 70 pushing an agenda on our kids. so when you look to see they have stuff about intersectionality, abolishing prison, that is a potical agenda. amy: dean patrick johnson, your response? >> ron desantis has no standing about what should and should not be a part of african-american history. he is not a scholar of african-american history and he himself is not african-american, so why should he have any role in what should and should not be included? and anything -- anything

lacks educational value, it is the governor. amy: i want to turn to your student keeanga-yamahtta taylor. , a graduate student, now also a professor. one of the canceled as well. professor keeanga-yamahtta taylor, your response to this controversy on what students will learn all over the country? it is not just limited to florida. there are laws being passed or weighein many states across the country. >> thanks, amy. i want to talk about that but i want to begin with your question about the college board and their motivations. i think it is believable that they had a piloted course that

was being circulatedmong many schools, dozens of schools, i think 60 schools around the country. it is totally belvable through that process they decided that things needed toe removed from the course that needed to be revised in some way,hat it needed to be chained -- changed a post about what is not believable is that t political atmosphere had no bearing on their decisions about what to revise and the ways inhich they revised it. i say that because part of -- this has been -- the development of this course has been in process for a decade. however, trevor packer, the head of ap within the college board, told "time magazine" last fall

that the events surrounding the murder of george floyd reinvigorated his desire to get this course accomplished. and so it is hard to believe that given t circumstances around george floyd and the historic demonstrations that came in the wake of that murder, the decision to excise any reference to contemporary black america to the black lives matter movement is coincidence is unbelievable. so the changes to the curriculum did not have to be directly related to the words of ron desantis. the political writingsas been on t wall both in terms of the unfounded attacks on critical race theory, the duration of the

1619 proje cut which is where much of this begins. the 1619 project in band and states across the country. the mere mention of critical race theory being banned in states across the country. and so at the college board, you only needed to be a thinking person to realize that if we don't change significant parts of this curriculum and weed out the radical writers, then we are probably are asking for trouble. so their explanation that this is just part of the process and it has nothing to do with political environment is completely unbelievable. amy: let me ask you to respond to david coleman, ceo of the college board, defending their decision on cbs. >> we don't want to the statements of politicians but would do look to the record of

history. when we revised the course, they're only two things we went to. feedback from teachers and students as well as 300 professors who have been involved in building a course, and we went back to principals who have guided ap for a long time. amy: keeanga-yamahtta taylor, your response? >> again, i do think they were engaged in a process that went from a piloted course to a revised course. but even looking at history, some of this is completely nonsensical. the fact in the unit on civil rights and black power that they have reduced the black power movement to the life of malcolm x who was killed in 1965 -- four, really, the heyday of the black insurgency in the late 1960's took place. and why is that important? because from 1963, really

through 1968 in elizabeth higgins book called "america on fire" that shows a longer history of black rebellion in uprising in the united states, is the context within which black studies was born. black studies is an academic bills as a discipline, emerges out of the rebellions of the 1960's. it is black students demanding that their lives, their history, that a curriculum be developed around the experiences of black people, around an understanding of racism in the united states, around an understanding of the kind of court hypocrisy of the united states proclaiming itself to be a just democracy while treating black people as slaves and then second-class citizens. this is completely removed from the curriculum, so we don't even understand or know where the discipline of black studies comes from.

that is also a political choice. i think it is just wrong to say that politics had nothing to do with it when it is so evident, based on the choices of what remains and what was removed, so evidently shaped the political atmosphere that we are in today. amy: i wanted to ask you about the river collective which remains in the curriculum, a manifesto of the black feminist group. explain what it is and how it fits into this black studies course. >> the coma he river collective itself was an organization of black feminists, black lesbians that formed in the 1970's.

three of the leading members of that organization put together -- wrote a manifesto, essentially, proclaiming the meaning of black feminism for them, which was really about looking at the ways the experiences of black women had been minimalized or marginalized over the course of the radicalization of the 1960's, which is to say many black politics were seen as amale nture, organizing around the demands oblack men and the emergent feminist movement would have been dominated by white women. so the collective emerges to talk about really what are the experiences of black women and they write this manifesto as a way to articulate the need for

what they describe as identity politics and not the kinds of identity politics that is talked about today, criticized by the right and liberals today as an exclusionary venture but really as a way for people who are oppresd and marginalized to have a way to talk about their own experiences, to build a political movement around what they need. because barbara smith, one of the authors of the statement said, if we can't fight for ourselves, then why would we expect anyone else to fight for us? in fact, we know no one else will fight for us. so it is very critical and important statement in the canon of black feminist studies but also the canon of black radicalism. amy: i want to bring in khalil

gibran muhammad. i want to start with fox news jesse watters who said this on fox news, criticizing the ap african american course. >> it is a very good course. three quarters of it is very rigorous and very good. this is very high-level stuff. and then you get to about 1960 in here and it is all activism. it is all ideology. it is no history. good chunk of this is good stuff and then it goes into white supremacy, patriarchy, abolish the prisons come overthrow capitalism, queer theory, tersectionality. you're like, we re going pretty good here and then, boom, it hits with all that stuff. amy: and at the lower third of this fox news is "war on woke." khalil gibran muhammad is

professor of history, race, and public policy the harvard kennedy school. your response? >> we live in a country where the question of how we ought to make use of our resources, what kind of political structure we should have in order to decide on leadership, arell political questions and we en fighting the question about how to distributehose resourc since the beginning, since 1619 in the dete between indentured servitudand chattel slavery. when fox news suggests activism to advance a position of a more equitable, more gala terry and economy, called socialism if you like, or activism in pursuit of a multiracial democracy, call that woke if you like, is just another way of aiculating the same thing the right does whic is to say shoulonly be teaching capitalism, only teaching individual freedom. is absurd but it is good

propaganda. my job -- our jobs as professors and faculties who have written an protest to what is going on, it is our job to actually tell the fullest history and account of the country we actually live in the past to the present. that is our job. it is the job of places like the college board who purports to be in a position to develop curriculum tteach students based on what scholars and scholarship says, it is their job to push back against propaganda. unfortunately, that is not what has happened here. amy: can you tell us, professor, about what the college board is? the college board makes the sat's and psat's, increasingly being made optional across the country. it is a large corporation that makes a fortune off this, but now that revenue is threatened.

and they also then have these ap courses. and if they see the political climate in this country is going to be banning courses, are they caving to this pressure for their own financial reasons? >> we scholars have to ask these questions. you was a journalt have to ask those questions. the college board doe not have to answe just a clarification, they are 501(c)(3), which means they are not a private corporation, they are nonprofit. they get literally tax breaks fowhat they do. they genate a tremendous amount of revenue, $1 billion -- amy: a year. >> half million comes from the distribution of the ap stem and another comes from their sa and then they had these pipeline programs. it is a gigantic entity.

thcollege board president in 2020 made2.5 billion, which is twice the salary that i know of the current harvard president. it is not an iignificant entity and its concerns about his own well-being financially has to be considered in light of these controversies. amy: what about how this leads, not just the elite ap courses but to what teachers and professors teach all over this country and their fears? foexample, in manatee county, florida, teachers have taken to covering up or removing books from their class libraries after a new law prohibiting classroom material that had not been vetted and approved by so-called certified media specialists went into effect. teachers found in violation of these guidelines face felony

charges, could go to prison. so not understanding what this is about, wouldn't there be massive self-censorship before hand not to risk becoming criminalized? >> absolutely. this is why what florida governor desantis is doing is actually shaping -- educational standards. this is no longer just about the stop we act that fects what happens in florida or in the case where he has now taken over one of the colleges and terally banned any notion of diversity and incluon which is extended to the bureaucracies of the universities. the notion of a chilling effect self-censorship on what teachers think they might be able to teach is only now being tested. florida is a laboratory of fascism at this point. i work at the harvard kennedy school and we talk a lot about laboratory democracy, city

innovation. well, governor desantis is now ground zero for paving the way for the extension of the elimination of any notion that we live in an open society will we get to debate ideas freely. i want to remind people an ap course is designed to allow students to get college credit. when he and his minions say, well, this is about high school students, ap courses are not about high school students. it is about them not having to read keeanga-yamahtta taylor or e. patrick johnson in college because they have already read them in high school. the impact on this is national in scope and we have to consider that in light of desantis' own plan. amy: can you talk about the letter you wrote, along with 650 african-american department faculty members, condemning efforts to critique and curtail this new ap course, the significce of this? >> iant to clarify, it is

african-american studies faculty. we are reprented by blac people, white people, latinx people, asian people, everybody. everyone is cluded in that letter. what i want to say is are runninout of people in our field who can support this. including people in the letter who are listed in the ap curriculum for credit for participating in the process. it is becoming less tenable for thcollege board to claim their 300 facul have weighed in on this when this number keeps growing and some of the same people they cite aupporting have signed is letter. professor keeanga-yamahtta taylor taylor has already said straining credulity. this does not add up numerically. what i'm reading what i read the press reports, when i'm reting -- reading tt releases bthe college board, i'm seeing this

gesture to this universe of pele but ifact i am learng a mu smaller number of players for in the actua craftinof e curriculum. i'm not surprised the college board is using this as a communications strategy, ruling out peoplet my colleagues henry louis gat to stand in for what they have done. i henry louis gates never appears in any credit in theriginal currulum. he only magically appears later on and then as apokesperson for this. what our letr attempd to do was to say what is happening here in the coege board's apparent appeasementuggests ron desantis is now fundamentally attacking the most sacrosanct priiple of an educational system, and open society, and frontal assault on academic freedom and democracy. amy: let's be clear, he is not just for the governor ron desantis, he is clearly a presidential aspirate and will shape the discourse in 2024 if

in fact he runs. but clearly taking his positions now, he is trying to shape them to appeal to the entire country, which brings me back to e. patrick johnson. dean johnson. that's right, dean of the school of communication at northwestern university, pioneer in the formation of black sexuality studies as a field of scholarship. can you share a message to future ap students? can you talk about the focus of your work and why you think it is important for students to learn about black queer studies? >> absolutely. going back to something professor taylor said, the suggestion that black history stops in 1963 or even 1968 is ludicrous. one of the progenitors of what we now think of as black queer

studies ijames ldwin, w is one the mosimportt thinkersf the 21 century. to leave someone out of the history -- african-american history like james baldwin is absurd because he was not only just a fiction writer, nonfiction writer, he was an activist and he was also queer. and his thinking has shaped, along with many others -- audrey lord, what we nowhink ofs blk qer sdies. you can't parse out the inllectuistoryf blac studs withouthese importa thinrs. that iwhy it is iortant f studentsho are ihigh school

to be exposed to ese thinkers and also tonderstand th historal conte out of which they emerged, even if they in their time work using the language that we use now, i.e. queer. they were engaged in conversations and questions around sexuality as it pertains to black people. and sexuality as a question, as a mode of thought also applies to the period of slavery and thereafter. as black people, we are sexual beings. that is why it is important to understand the role that sexuality plays in the history of black people. if you think about, for instance, the institution of slavery and how sexuality was vital to sustaining that institution in terms of using black women's bodies as breeders

were using black men's bodies as breeders to maintain slavery as an institution, it is ludicrous to think or to say or espouse that sexuality is not important when we talk about black history. the other thing i will says this culture war we are expressing now is not the same culture war we experienced in the 1980's. the difference is social media. the youth and young people today were born with access of the world in their pockets through a cell phone. so even if you take out the black lives matter movement from this course, even if you take out my work and others' work, people can have access to it. so we have to be steadfast.

we have to be creative as we always have to make sure our young people understand the totality of black history, which includes the history of black sexuality. amy: keeanga-yamahtta taylor, we're going to end with you. february 1 was a beginning and an end. the beginning of like history month. -- the beginning of black history month, the funeral of terry nichols. if you can wrap up this discussion by talking about what is happening today in this country, another attack on the ap curriculum is talking about police violence, and what people have to understand about where we stand today in this country. >> i think one of the reasons why history -- this is an

african-american studies course. but why black history is so important right now is because it speaks to the longevity of both t condition of black people and it is country, one of oppression and marginalization, but it also speaks to the longevity about political struggle. and that is part of what is so appalling, really, about the decision of the college brd in caving in to the right wing on this. whether it was desantis or the general atmosphere, which is to say that black people were brought to this country as aves. and then when slavery ended, there was another 100 years of legal subjugation. so it is entirely consistent that the entirety of black letters would be consumed with

question of struggle, with questions of activism, with westerns of politics. it also part of that were questions about the american projects itself, which is really what many of these people are afraid of. and without that history, we don't understand the intensity of the fury of protest at police brutality. we think the demands to defund the police or or the questioning about the american prison system or even the suggestion that we don't have prisons, that we not have prisons is impetuous, just came up, is a recent phenomenon. no, this comes from a long history of police repression, a long history of traditional misconduct. and that is one of t reasons why this field of inquiry so incredibly important. you cannot understand the link

between crimes and the black community unless you read khalil gibran muhammad book, the best book ever written on the topic. you can't understand so much of black life today unless you engage in the field of african america history, which is why this is not just some isolated scholastic question, but that it has deep political implications. black history is about understanding the contempory moment, not just f black people, but for the nation as a whole. that is why this is completely dangerous and why we have to sist these efforts to attenuate understanding of this history instead of broadening it and deepening it. amy: keeanga-yamahtta taylor, thank you for being with us, professor of african-american studies at northwestern university. e. patrick johnson is the dean of the school of communication

at northwestern university. and khalil gibran muhammad is professor of history, race, and public policy at the harvard kennedy school. we thank you all so much for this important discussion. coming out, we speak to an asylum seeker here in new york who has just been evicted from a hotel where he was staying, along with hundreds of other migrants. now the city is moving them to a remote terminal in red hook, brooklyn. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "transmitting live from mars" by de la soul. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we end today's show here in new york city, where police dismantled an encampment of asylum seekers outside the watson hotel wednesday night, threatening to arrest anyone who did not leave. videos show sanitation workers throwing suitcases into a dumpster. the asylum seekers who were recently evicted from the hotel your columbus circle were protesting the city's plan to house them in a 1000-bed shelter in a remote terminal in brooklyn. people staying at the facility told the group south bronx mual aid they have had to endure inhumane conditions including extreme cold. at a pressonference wednesday, new york city mayor eric adams questioned wther the asylum seekers camping on the sidewalk outside the watson hotel were migrants. >> i am not sure they are even migrants.

there are some agitators that i think are doing as a disservice to the migrants and the children and families of the hotel. amy: well, on wednesday, before city officials cleared the encampment of asylum seekers, democracy now's juan gonzález we spoke to one of them named ruben, who came into a television studio not far from the watson hotel to share his story. we have added voiceovers in english for both. ruben was joined by desiree joy frías, a community organizer with south bronx mutual aid, and i began by asking her to respond to mayor adams' remarks. >> that they are paid actors, the micros outside the watson, and the mutual aid organizers print neighbors dropping by our outside agitators. we are new yorkers. i'm a child of migrants. why do i do this work?

why do i step away from my three-year-old and my husband from my warm home to come out and do mutual aid work? it is because the only people providing care to these people right now is community. when we continue to do it until we have to don't do that work anymore, absolutely? should we also have the preliminary budget 2024 that eric adams has put together adjusted so it stops cutting funding to social services come to libraries, stops funneling billions of dollars the seventh largest army in the world? yeah, that would be great because the problems of housing are systemic and are not goi to be resolved by moving single men out, putting families into the watson. the hotel was never the final solution. the final solution is permanent housing for all new yorkers will stop stable housing, whether you're born here or not, there should never be a second class of humans that are put into a different style shelter just

because they are single men. juan: i would like to ask ruben, can you tell us how long you came from venezuela to the united states? and a bit of the journey? it is so many miles. >> well, yes, it is a bit complicated. not just most of us venezuelans, but people from many other parts of latin america. it is a very heavy journey. many don't come from venezuela come they live in places that are further away than venezuela. crossing through the gap is a very heavy experience. i think it made me a stronger person but for others, sadly, many were unable to get out

alive. others are still in the jungle trying to resolve the situation -- trying to figure out how to get out of there. and then one must cross through seven more countries after coming out of the jungle. many people, without money. they go from bus to bus. others are walking. it is a very heavy journey. juan: we need you come to new york. have even able to get work to support yourself? >> i have come to the united states about three months ago. i have been a new york for about 2.5 months i think. the truth is, it has been a bit difficult to me in terms of work thus far. i don't have a work permit.

it is tough to get work here in new york without a work permit. they will hire you for three hours or for two hours, for a short period of time and they don't pay as all the same in terms of what they paid me, well, it is not been enough or anything. i've not been able to get a stable job so far, which is what we all want, to get a stable job and be able to stay. but to get a job where we work for three days and then we are fired and then we work for five days because we don't have work permit. america ruben, i want to ask how old you are. >> i am 22 years old. amy: can you describe what happened on sunday at the watson? tell us when you were evicted,

what you were told. and then can you talk about the tour that the commissioner -- new york city commissioner castro took you and other asylum-seekers on of this brooklyn terminal facility where they want to put you now? >> well, it was desperate news. they really should have given us more lead time for us to be able to get us situated and to just know that places like so any person would know what they would do, would have thought things through. but it was news that we got just one week ahead of time. so for many of us who don't have work, gets complicated because we don't know or don't have anywhere to go, don't have money to rent a place. others, a majority, have been able to get work in manhattan and now sadly they have to be transferred to brooklyn.

many are going to have to give up their jobs. many of us lost our jobs once again. we are in the streets once again stop starting from scratch. yesterday, yes, i went with the commissioner and he took us to brooklyn and he showed us around to show us how everything is, what the situation is like there , what our decision was. for my part, it is not that we can't just sleep anywhere, we want to be treated like human beings. a place where we can stay. it doesn't matter if they put 20 or 30 of us, so long as we can sleep comfortably. not in the conditions that are in brooklyn. the bathrooms are not in very good shape. some of the bathrooms are inside and others are outside where the

showers are. he said he was going to put a soccer field there. it is not that we don't want recreation, but we have come to the united states to work. juan: i want to ask you, the city says it is going to use though tell for families instead of single men. obviously, they are dealing with hundreds and hundreds of people. how do you think the city is responding to this crisis? >> on the one hand, we cannot demand anything because we have come here to work. we have to thank united states and new yorkers who are giving

as support and have given us the opportunity, however little, be, by giving us support in terms of being able to stay. people have been offering food. in terms of food, we really don't demand any thi big in terms of food, but if i'm going to give somebody else food, that i need to make sure that food is healthy, that it is in proper condition. if it is not, it might be best to just throw it out. this has happened in many cases. they should take note of it. as to the watson, they just -- there were rooms there for two people. for my own part, children and families coming in. but two men in one room, we were like families as well. we are human beings.

and the fact it is two of us men doesn't mean we can't be a family as well. we can be a family as well. and there were many things that happened in the hotel. everything was pretty much at peace. i don't know why they made this decision to send us to that place. they really should have sought another place. it doesn't matter in terms of the exact conditions, but somewhere at least where we would not be so cold. by a lake during the cold. amy: part of our interview with ruben and desiree joy frías. to watch the full intervi and to hear about ruben's journey from venezuela through 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, six, perhaps seven

countries before he made it to the u.s.-mexico border and then made his way to new york, go to democracynow.org. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning ma