Lisa Lederer, 202/371-1996
Powered by incredible energy from moms across the country, and with a day left before the election, MomsRising’s unprecedented multi-million dollar get-out-the-vote (GOTV) mobilization is already the largest and most successful effort ever to turn out mom voters. To date, MomsRising’s outreach has included:
“Moms are a powerful, often overlooked voting and political force,” said MomsRising CEO Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner. “Our movement includes Black, Latino, White, Asian, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian mothers, and mothers of all immigration statuses. We are moms who are differently abled, trans and gender non-conforming, and sometimes we are all those moms in one. This year, together, we’re showing up as the powerful force that we are. This has been the biggest, boldest voter engagement outreach from and to moms ever.”
“America’s moms recognize that this election will shape our country’s future and determine the kind of world we will leave to our children and their children -- and moms are stepping up to the challenge of ensuring this election is free and fair," added Donna Norton, MomsRising executive vice president.
“In the face of massive voter intimidation and unethical attempts to confuse and deter voters, moms are working hard to protect our democracy by turning out the moms vote this year. The response from MomsRising and MamásConPoder members to this effort has been extraordinary, exceeding our most optimistic expectations. With so much at stake, Latina moms are flexing their political muscle this year,” said Xochitl Oseguera, vice president of MomsRising and MamásConPoder.
"The energy of MomsRising volunteers has been through the roof, confirming what we've known all along, that moms reaching out to other moms is one of the most powerful forces in the world," said MomsRising Vice President for Member Engagement Gloria Pan.
MomsRising, started in 2006, is an online and on-the-ground organization of more than one million mothers and their families.
Lisa Lederer, 202/371-1996
“There is no doubt that mass incarceration has caused devastating and disproportionate harm to Black, Brown, and low-income communities – with the harm often felt for generations. Private prisons have grown into a billion-dollar industry, despite clear evidence that they are, and have long been, plagued by inhumane conditions and substandard staff training, and despite the fact that they exploit the labor of incarcerated people and subject them to work conditions that harken back to slave labor.
“The step the Biden administration took yesterday, to refuse to renew U.S. Department of Justice contracts with private prison companies, is an important step in stopping additional harms caused by mass incarceration. No one should profit – ever – from prisons and from incarcerating millions of people.
“We hope and expect that this is the first of many steps the Biden administration will take and look forward to additional actions, including ending solitary confinement, abolishing the federal death penalty, and ending the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s private prison contracts, which deny immigrants in detention the humane conditions and basic human rights everyone deserves. That, too, must end immediately.”
-Statement of Beatriz Beckford, National Director, Youth and Education Justice, MomsRising
“Too many families, most of them Black and Brown, have been devastated and too many children separated from their families by our country’s broken criminal justice system. We are extremely grateful that the Biden administration will not renew U.S. Department of Justice contracts with private prison companies, which have profited while amassing a shameful record of violating the rights and safety of those in their custody.
“And while yesterday’s executive order on private prisons is important and meaningful, it is a first step: In addition to reforms and protections, government contracts with private prison companies who operate immigrant detention centers through the Department of Homeland Security, must also end right away.
We ask the Biden administration to overhaul our entire criminal legal system so that every person in custody will be safe, have adequate health care, and be treated with dignity and respect.
"Further, while stopping for-profit prisons is key, the U.S. still has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with structural racism embedded throughout our policing and criminal justice system, and the entire criminal justice and police system still needs reforming. MomsRising is committed to doing the work to get our nation toward justice for everyone.”
-Statement of Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director and CEO, MomsRising
Lisa Lederer, 202/371-1996
Xenophobic political statements about China and Chinese people have contributed to rising incidents of racism against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Between March and June 2021, Stop AAPI Hate reporting center received 9,000 reports of hate incidents. On March 16, 2021, a 21-year-old white gunman killed eight people, including six Asian women, in three spas in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. On April 15, 2021, a 19-year-old white gunman killed eight people, including four Sikhs, at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Exploiting the increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, the gun industry and the corporate gun lobby are targeting the Asian American community as potential new gun buyers and future pro-gun advocates, according to How the Firearms Industry Markets Guns to Asian Americans, a new study from the Violence Policy Center (VPC).
The study will be released on a press call with Violence Policy Center, MomsRising, Newtown Action Alliance, AAPI Victory Alliance and Asian Americans who have been directly impacted by gun violence.
The firearms industry and the corporate gun lobby are currently targeting minority communities in their marketing in response to long-term stagnation in the traditional gun market of white men. This coordinated “diversity” campaign was launched in 2015 at the annual “Industry Summit” held by the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the gun industry trade association and gun lobby group. Until recently, this campaign focused primarily on Black and Latino Americans (for more information, please see the January 2021 VPC study How the Firearms Industry and NRA Market Guns to Communities of Color), but the gun industry has now ramped up its efforts to target Asian Americans.
Asian Americans have low gun ownership rates, strongly support stricter gun laws, and are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. As a result of the AAPI population’s growth, gunmakers view them as an untapped market. And in the eyes of the firearms industry and the corporate gun lobby, the purchase of a firearm is the first step down the path for new gun owners to become future pro-gun advocates and voters.
WHO:
WHAT:
An event to convince Asian Americans guns won’t make them, their families or their communities safer and to encourage them to join the efforts to end the gun violence public health crisis in our nation. Studies show having a gun in the home doubles an individual’s risk for homicides and triples the risk of suicides.
WHEN:
Thursday, September 16, 2021 at 1:00 PM ET
WHERE: Zoom Link will be sent after REGISTERING HERE.
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The Violence Policy Center is a national educational organization working to stop gun death and injury. Follow the VPC on Twitter and Facebook.
Newtown Action Alliance is a Newtown-based, national grassroots organization formed after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. Our mission is to achieve the steady and continuous reduction of gun violence through legislative and cultural changes.
MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, stop discrimination against women and moms, and build a nation where businesses and families can thrive.
The AAPI Victory Alliance, as a policy and advocacy organization, works in partnership with the AAPI Victory Fund along with legislators at the federal and state level to move and implement policies that benefit AAPI communities from a diverse lens, harness last year’s record voter engagement, build grassroots support of candidates who prioritize the AAPI community, and works on policy proposals to improve hate crime reporting and response.