Urban News Features

ERA's Time Has Come! by Dr. E. Faye Williams

March 27, 2016

ERA's Time Has Come!
By Dr. E. Faye Williams

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(TriceEdneyWire.com) – It’s Women’s History Month, and we should be celebrating accomplishments of women, but things aren’t improving for women in poverty.

Black women are disappointed that a Black woman wasn’t chosen for the Supreme Court. Yet, many of us have forgiven that and moved on. We appreciate the fact that President Obama has appointed more Black women to lower courts than any other President in history. That’s admirable, but we wonder what we must do to make it to the highest Court.

An even more pressing issue is how the system has failed to find adequate resources to bring women out of poverty. Why are White men so angry when they have the good jobs and earn more money—even without a good education? Why are they angry when they make 50 percent more than many women—especially Black, Native and Latina women? I hear some on the news talk about why people are flocking to Donald Trump and the response often is they’re angry. If anyone should be angry, it should be the women who are often the breadwinners trying to make it on from 78 cents down to 44 cents on the dollar of what White men make.

Our system continues to fail women—just as it fails people of color. Being angry doesn’t change the short comings of our system. Women, must make this a time for passing an Equal Rights Amendment that puts our rights in the Constitution so everyone understands that Equal Means Equal, and gives women a right to sue when they are treated unfairly.

Imagine what a man would do if he were paid less than women, causing him to plunge into poverty. Women are twice as likely to retire still in poverty. That’s if they have the luxury of retiring because most of us have to work until we drop dead!

Imagine what a man would say if he took family leave when there was a new baby in the family, but when he tried to go back to work, his job was gone and his family suddenly had no medical insurance and no way to take care of the family.

Suppose he’d been at home taking care of the children, but had no money saved in his name. Day after day, he suffers abuse from his spouse, forcing him to leave the home he’d worked so hard to help build. What would he do? How would he survive? All too many women have to deal with that because they don’t enjoy equality under the law.

We have the largest number of homeless women and children among industrialized nations. You’ve seen a woman living in some ungodly place in fear, praying she won’t run into an abusive spouse who’s currently enjoying everything she helped him to acquire. Let’s reverse the story. Wouldn’t a man want to change that? We’re told that one of every four homeless women is on the street because of violence committed against her. Some of it is domestic violence, but some of it is abuse suffered while serving our country! Among female vets, homelessness is rising. On average they earn $10,000 less in civilian jobs than male vets, making it harder to afford a home. Less than 5 percent of homeless shelters run by veteran affairs offer women separate housing from men.

Poverty brings down our nation. Studies have shown that what’s good for women is good for the entire community. Economic analyses by the World Bank, United Nations and Goldman Sachs demonstrate a significant correlation between gender equality and the level of development of countries. Let’s get serious about ERA. It will improve the quality of life that is a family value for the entire family. More Republicans need to step up to the plate.

(Dr. E. Faye Williams is President of the National Congress of Black Women, www.nationalcongressbw.org.)

Life is Valuable in Turkey, in Belgium By Julianne Malveaux

March 27, 2016

Life is Valuable in Turkey, in Belgium
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The ISIS attack on Brussels, Belgium strikes fear in the heart of every human being who lives in a “first world” nation rattled by random, brutal and terrorist attacks on law and order. How is it that people get into a subway car, planning to arrive at work, only to find tunnels collapsing and their lives snuffed out? How is it that you go to an airport to be engaged in the ordinary business of international travel, only to find two bombs planted at the airport and hundreds of lives imperiled. How does it feel to end a day not knowing how many perished or, days later, to write that “at least thirty”, or “more than thirty” with no exact number of casualties at hand? How does the inexactitude diminish the sacredness of life?

It was right for the world’s news gaze to focus, unrelentingly, on Brussels during the week of the ISIS attack. It made sense that we learned the harrowing details of the ways bombs were detonated, who was killed, and the details of their lives. It was important, especially, because so many saw Brussels as a “capital” of Europe, or at least of the European Zone. Several international agencies were located within walking distance of the subway station where one bomb went off. The bombs were designed to destroy and disrupt, and they did.

These were the same bombs, the same group of terrorists, who chose to destroy and disrupt Paris with November attacks that left more than 130 dead and hundreds injured. There is a solid line between the Paris attacks and those in Belgium as the arrest of one of the alleged Paris terrorists seems to have been the spark for the Belgium bombings. The world has every right to be horrified at the callous loss or attack on normality, or the massive loss of life, and of the ways these attacks have invoked the spirit of fear both in European capitals and in the United States.

(As an example, a friend told me she found her customary Washington stop both “empty and uneasy” the day after the Brussels attacks. “Should we expect an attack here,” she asked, considering ways (there are none) to protect her and her family from terrorist madness. She had planned travel to London this summer and wondered if it were a good idea. How many others are sharing her apprehension)?

Even as I decry the carnage in Paris and in Belgium, I am troubled that there is a disproportionate amount of compassion for those who are “first world” victims of terrorism and those who victims live in countries deemed less important in the international order of things. March 13 attacks on a beach on the Ivory Coast, claimed as Al Queda’s revenge against France, made headlines, but for fewer days and with reporting at less depth. Well, some might say, it was just the Ivory Coast, a Sub-Saharan African country that, though clearly a French ally, seemed less important than Belgium. So for a week we learned details of the Brussels debacle. Not so much about the Ivory Coast.

Similarly, a suicide bomber hit Ankara, Turkey on March 19. This was the fifth time since October that there has been an attack on one of Turkey’s two largest cities – the other is Istanbul. Almost 200 people have been killed, and hundreds more have been injured, but in contrast to the news coverage we’ve seen in Brussels, coverage of the carnage in Turkey has been miniscule. The bombers in Turkey, like those in Brussels, have been liked to ISIS. As in Belgium, these bombs have disrupted “business as usual”. Why did Turkey’s bombing get sideline, not headline, treatment. Was it because Ankara, Turkey is not a “European capital”?

Our nation’s first world, Eurocentric bias in coverage of terrorism is a bias that has the propensity to breed more terror. To publicly value some lives while ignoring the value of other lives is to send a signal that engenders resentment and dissent. If Brussels and Paris deserve headlines, so do Turkey and the Ivory Coast. A colleague told me he heard about what happened in the Ivory Coast on twitter. I learned about it only because I often look for international news on sites like allafrica.com.

The late political scientist Dr. Ron Walters talked about “foreign policy justice” as way of viewing nations through a lens that had some foundational principles, some around the sanctity of human life. In other words, while strategic concerns may shape our engagement with one or another country at a point in time, nothing should diminish the ways we value human life and mourn the loss of it. A Turkish life is as valuable as a Parisian life, an Ivorian life as valuable as a Belgian life. Our media engagement and our public statements must reflect these values. Otherwise, we may not be pleased when others hear our message and how they act on it. We cannot expect others to value our lives when we do not value theirs!

Julianne Malveaux is an author and economist based in Washington, DC. Her latest book “Are We Better Off? Race, Obama and Public Policy” is available on Amazon and www.juliannemalveaux.com

Americans Often See Cuba Upside Down By Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.

March 27, 2016

Americans Often See Cuba Upside Down
By Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Obama’s historic trip to Havana, Cuba — the first American president to visit since Calvin Coolidge in 1928 — opens the door to a new era in relations not only with Cuba, but also with our neighbors across the hemisphere.

Extensive press coverage of the trip will feature the President’s meeting with Cuban leader Raul Castro, the Tuesday baseball game pitting the Cuban national team against Tampa Bay, the president’s meetings with business leaders and with Cuban dissidents. We’ll get pictures of aged Chevy’s held together by duct tape, of lovely but crumbling Havana mansions, of Cuba’s lively culture and its widespread poverty.

Cuba surely is a poor country. Its government, while still enjoying popular support, is a far remove from a democracy. Freedom of speech and assembly are greater than most realize, but still severely policed. But much of what we think about Cuba is upside down, and inside out.

First, in many ways, the president’s initiative to normalize relations with Cuba isn’t so much ending their isolation as ending ours. Cuba has enjoyed good and growing relations with our neighbors across the hemisphere for years. In recent years, those countries have threatened to exclude the U.S. from hemispheric meetings if we continued to demand that Cuba’s exclusion. We have sought to isolate Cuba for over 50 years; we ended up isolating ourselves.

Second, for many across the world, Cuba, not the U.S., has been on the right side of history. Cuba stood with Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress while the U.S. was supporting the apartheid government and labeling Mandela a terrorist. When South Africa invaded Angola in the mid-1970s to block the independence movement there, it was Cuba, not the U.S. that sent troops to force South Africa’s withdrawal. One of the first visits Mandela made after he was freed was to Havana to thank Fidel Castro for his support, hailing the Cuban revolution as “a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving peoples.”

Similarly, for many across Africa and Latin America, Cuba is known for supplying doctors and teachers, aiding in the development of nations emerging from colonialism. America, too often, has been either allied with the former colonialists or hostile to the emerging independent movements.

Third, while some of Cuba’s poverty is self-inflicted, some is also the direct result of 50 years of the embargo. Cuba is a small island, 90 miles off our coast, without its own oil. Before the revolution, tourism was a leading industry; foreign investors were central to the economy. The revolution upended that order. The embargo severed those and any new ties. In the Cold War years, the Soviet Union alone provided a lifeline for the regime. Since the end of the Cold War, more and more countries have chafed at the American embargo and begun to deal with Cuba.

Fourth, most popular leaders in South America see Cuba as an example of proud, national independence. In many ways, our hostility to Castro elevated his stature across the world. Emerging populist leaders in South America don’t plan to imitate Cuban socialism, which is being slowly reformed. But they are envious of Cuba’s health care and education systems, which provide Cubans with a standard of health and educational opportunity far above most developing countries.

Fifth, Cuba has not been closed to us; we have been closed to Cuba. The Cubans have been looking for a dialogue for years. When I went to Cuba in 1984, I met with Fidel Castro and even took him to church. We negotiated the release of 22 American and 26 Cuban political prisoners. He was ready for a dialogue then, but the U.S. continued its no-talk policy until President Obama finally launched his historic initiative.

Reform will come slowly in a Cuba that is still proud of its revolution and anxious to preserve its gains in health care and education. Its foreign policy will remain proudly independent. The regime remains on guard against U.S. efforts to undermine it from within.

But reform will come slowly here also. To this day, Congress refuses to lift an embargo that punishes a small neighbor off our coast. To this day, our arrogance and ideological blinders make it hard for us to see Cuba whole. The president has opened the door. Increased travel, cultural exchanges and the beginnings of business investment will push it open further. Most Americans already support normal relations and an end to a policy that has failed for over half a century. And one day, we can hope, even the ideologues and zealots in the Congress will get the message.

Obama Cares: Celebrating Six Years of the Affordable Care Act By Marc H. Morial

To Be Equal

March 27, 2016

Obama Cares: Celebrating Six Years of the Affordable Care Act
By Marc H. Morial

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(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “Today, after almost a century of trying; today, after over a year of debate; today, after all the votes have been tallied –- health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America. Today. It is fitting that Congress passed this historic legislation this week. For as we mark the turning of spring, we also mark a new season in America. In a few moments, when I sign this bill, all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform.” – President Barack Obama, President Remarks at Signing of Health Insurance Reform Bill, March 2010

On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Health Care Act into law in the East Room of the White House.

Six years later, 20 million people who could not afford health insurance or were deprived of life-saving coverage because of a pre-existing condition, now have health insurance coverage. Today, our nation is actively narrowing the gap on adverse racial health care disparities. Today, under the law simultaneously loved and reviled as “Obamacare,” most insurance plans fully cover preventative health care services; young adults, who might have otherwise been uninsured, get to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until age 26; and women are no longer forced to pay more for health insurance because of their gender.

And that is why this week; I will add my voice to the legion of American voices congratulating the current administration on its signature health care law as well as those calling for the necessary reforms to fix the law’s shortcomings and ensure that this generation and future generations of Americans experience health care as a right, not an exclusive and elusive privilege.

From sea to shining sea, health insurance coverage gains have been shared broadly among American communities. African Americans have the highest mortality rate of any racial and ethnic group for cancer and Latino communities also suffer from disproportionate rates of illness, like cervical cancer, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Since the law’s hard-fought inception, the number of uninsureds among African Americans—and whites—has dropped by over 50 percent. The Hispanic rate of uninsured has decreased by a quarter, with almost four million Hispanic adults gaining coverage under the law. Over two million young adults, who were particularly likely to be uninsured after losing coverage under their parent’s health insurance, are now guaranteed insurance under their parent’s health plans until they are 26 years old.

Despite all of these gains, Republicans have continued to label the Affordable Care Act a disaster. How can 20 more million Americans with access to life-saving health care ever be described as a disaster? Yet, the Republicans have been engaged in a five-year long effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The GOP has busied itself taking over 50 votes to roll back the law and put the health of millions of Americans at risk, but has never leveled with the American people about a GOP alternative to the Affordable Care Act. Rather than take a position of slash and burn, we need to save what works and better what doesn’t.

The Affordable Care Act is not the first large-scale government program to face its share of challenges or wide-spread criticism. Obamacare shares company with the Social Security Act, which was described by a critic as a “fraud on the working man,” and Medicare was widely seen as a threat to American freedom. Despite the heated rhetoric, both programs are still here serving the needs of Americans.

The Affordable Care Act is in its sixth year of infancy—and while the program is no where near perfect—it is saving lives and putting an end to insurance practices that unfairly deny Americans insurance coverage. Obamacare has a long, bumpy road of reforms to travel, but in year six, it has also come a long way in providing better health choices for the American people.

Parole for Anti-Apartheid Hero's Killer? Victim's Family Says 'No!'

March 21, 2016

Parole for Anti-Apartheid Hero's Killer? Victim's Family Says 'No!'

L. Hani, right, and daughter at Truth and Reconciliation Commission

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The wife of a slain anti-apartheid hero is raging against a court decision ordering the release of her husband’s killer on parole within 14 days.

Limpho Hani, widow of Chris Hani, called the decision to grant parole to Janusz Walus “a sad day for South Africa.” She harshly rebuked the judge who made the ruling, calling her a racist.

In a radio interview, Hani’s widow told talkshow host Redi Tlhabi that the presiding judge had no right to tell her to forgive the killer and move on.

Jack_KnifedSA tweeted this transcript of the interview: "How dare that white woman tell me to get over it? Is she God? Was her husband murdered?"

"I'm not upset‚ but highly irritated‚" Mrs. Hani said.

At the time of his death, on April 10, 1993, Martin Thembisile Hani, was the leader of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and chief of staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC’s armed wing.

He was shot at his Dawn Park‚ Boksburg‚ home. A neighbor alerted police which helped lead to quick arrests in the case that shocked the nation and almost derailed the handover to democracy.

Walus, a Polish immigrant, was said to have received the murder weapon from Clive Derby-Lewis, a Conservative Party MP and a “rabid racist” according to local reports. Both were sentenced to death‚ but their sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment when the death penalty was outlawed. Derby-Lewis was released last year on medical parole after a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.

Lawyers representing Walus argued that he should be released on parole for the purposes of Ubuntu. A demonstration against the parole order is planned for this week by the Gauteng ANC.

The ruling for parole opens a raw wound among South Africans and has triggered a wave of editorials for and against. Daily Maverick essayist Sisonke Msimang in a piece titled “The power of refusing to give,” wrote:

“Forgiveness plays an iconic role in our post-Apartheid national identity; those who forgive are revered as heroes of a special kind. More than any other trait, South Africans see forgiveness as part of the miracle of our transition to democracy.

“Women in particular are expected not only to forgive, but also to mother…” But, she added, “the power of not forgiving, in a context in which forgiveness is expected, is that you force difficult conversations and you disrupt the status quo. The power in Limpho Hani’s anger is that it rages against forgetting. It insists on being heard and it solidifies his place in our collective memory.”

“In a plural democracy such as ours, one where so much time and energy has been put into forgiveness, the voices of the hurt and the outraged have a place too. Surely we can create space for the deep sadness that twenty years will not quell.”