{"id":41433,"date":"2021-10-25T10:43:56","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T17:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=41433"},"modified":"2021-10-25T10:43:56","modified_gmt":"2021-10-25T17:43:56","slug":"the-ordinary-people-society-alabamas-faith-based-grassroots-group-takes-on-redistricting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=41433","title":{"rendered":"THE ORDINARY PEOPLE SOCIETY- ALABAMA\u2019S FAITH-BASED GRASSROOTS GROUP TAKES ON REDISTRICTING"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by\u00a0Khalil Abdullah<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Oct 25, 2021<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Voting Rights<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Rodreshia Russaw, T.O.P.S. executive director<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cPeople get it,\u201d says ED Rodreshia Russaw<\/em><\/p>\n

By Khalil Abdullah. Ethnic Media Services<\/strong><\/p>\n

T.O.P.S., The Ordinary People Society, has carved out a formidable space in Alabama\u2019s universe of Christian faith-centered grassroots organizations as an advocate and provider for families and individuals \u2014 especially the formerly incarcerated \u2014 in need of housing, social services, and counseling.<\/p>\n

With chapters in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and beyond, T.O.P.S. also works through Alabama Forward, a coalition of community-based organizations, and with other entities, to educate residents about the political realities that can constrain or improve their daily lives.<\/p>\n

T.O.P.S. has led successful voter registration drives and, on the heels of efforts to boost response rates for the 2020 census, is committing time and resources to encourage residents to submit testimony to the Alabama state legislature\u2019s redistricting committee.<\/p>\n

After each decennial census and based on population shifts that result, states gain, maintain, or lose their number of members in the U.S. House of Representatives. In that process, reapportionment, Alabama has kept its 14 House members.<\/p>\n

However, new district maps still need to be drawn and resulting boundaries will determine whether a community remains intact, affording residents with opportunities to elect officials who represent a community\u2019s interests. In Alabama, as with most states, that mapping responsibility is tasked to the state legislature\u2019s appointed redistricting committee. That committee, as the legislature itself, is numerically dominated by Republicans. Their party has a contentious history of resisting voting empowerment and representation for underserved communities.<\/p>\n

Rodreshia Russaw, T.O.P.S. executive director, concedes that redistricting has been an abstract concept for many community residents, but only initially. \u201cWe have a strategy and we\u2019re gaining ground,\u201d she explained. \u201cWe have enlisted the assistance of trusted messengers, particularly ministers, other members of the clergy and faith leaders to spread the word about why participating in redistricting is vital. We have seen people move from lack of awareness to \u2018I\u2019ve got it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

T.O.P.S. also amplifies its reach and messaging through its ownership of a radio station WKCG 99.1 FM, an invaluable tool as the organization pursues restorative justice issues for the incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and their families.<\/p>\n

For example, T.O.P.S. spearheaded a campaign through a successful lawsuit in 2017 that granted incarcerated individuals, with some restrictions, the right vote. Yet, Alabama prisoners, for purposes of the census, are still counted in the jails and prisons where they are housed rather than at their home addresses. This practice is termed prison-based gerrymandering. Communities\u2019 would-be residents are allotted to other districts which, through those numerical additions, gain per capita financial resources under federally funded programs that use the census as a basis for their formulas.<\/p>\n

Russaw also has been a strident voice in opposing Gov. Kay Ivey\u2019s plans to use $400 million of Alabama\u2019s federally allocated pandemic relief funds toward the estimated $1.3 billion proposed budget to construct new prisons. The state\u2019s legislature has just recently signed off on those plans, but because the U.S. Department of Justice has a lawsuit against the state for the violence and inhumane conditions within its prisons, Russaw said the funding fight may not yet be over.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrivate prisons are of concern to us. We got the banks to back down from Gov. Ivey\u2019s plan to finance new prisons. Most of the major funders dropped out. Alabama Students Against Prisons, Alabama Justice Initiative, the ACLU, among others, joined in this fight. Everybody is fighting against it, including inmates. And, even with the legislature\u2019s vote to approve Ivey\u2019s funding plans, we are hopeful that the U.S. Department of Justice would have some weight to prohibit that money being used for prison construction.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Rodreshia Russaw, T.O.P.S. executive director<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Russaw also sees a direct connection from redistricting, the resulting school districts, and incarceration rates. \u201cWe are looking to end the school-to-prison pipeline here and in other states,\u201d she said, noting that one significant victory was the removal of the zero-tolerance policy in Dothan, where T.O.P.S. is headquartered, and surrounding Houston County.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t even three strikes you\u2019re out. One offence, you\u2019re gone. We\u2019re sending you to an alternative school. We\u2019re kicking you out.\u201d Data has shown that zero-tolerance school policies are often unevenly applied, resulting in disproportionate expulsions of African American students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main thing is to not criminalize our students after one infraction,\u201d Russaw argues. \u201cTo give them harsh punishment after one infraction, it\u2019s not right, and in some cases it\u2019s a violation of their disability rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have also found there was a great disconnect between the educators and the parents. A lot of parents felt they were being failed by the education system as they were being failed by the criminal justice system. For example, paddling, the administration of corporal punishment, is still legal within Alabama\u2019s schools. We\u2019re seeking end corporal punishment is Alabama\u2019s schools and throughout the South where it still exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russaw contends that where a student attends school should be of concern parents, an issue that should spur their active participation in fair redistricting initiatives. \u201cWe know that all of our schools are not equally resourced, but we want all parents to have the best educational opportunity for their children. How those school district lines are drawn \u2014 and why \u2014 are important issues that are in part are determined by redistricting. Achieving equity in school resources is just one more reason to continue to build this movement.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Khalil Abdullah\u00a0|\u00a0Oct 25, 2021\u00a0|\u00a0Voting Rights Rodreshia...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41434,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41433\/revisions\/41434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}