Aug. 6, 2019

After Hate-filled Massacres: NAACP Blames Trump for Fueling ‘Racism, Bigotry and White Supremacy’ 

By Hazel Trice Edney

Dayton, Ohio victims. CREDIT: CBS News

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Donald Trump, in the wake of mass shootings that killed at least 31 people over the weekend, called for a unified condemnation of “racism, bigotry, and white supremacy” while he, himself has consistently promoted and supported racism, bigotry and White supremacy.

At least 22 were killed and more than 20 injured at a Walmart in El Paso Texas on Saturday as parents and children ventured out for back to school shopping. Dallas resident, Patrick Crusius, 21, was arrested in the shootings. According to authorities and widespread reports, Crusius wrote a manifesto claiming responsibility for the attack and railing against what he described as a “Hispanic invasion of Texas,” using language mirroring Trump’s language describing “invasion” immigrants.

Crusius also reportedly told authorities that he had intended to kill as many Mexicans as he could. At least 18 Mexican nationals were shot. Nine died, reports say.

Federal investigators, including the FBI, have classified the case as domestic terrorism.

Less than 15 hours later, another White male opened fire at a bar in Dayton, Ohio, killing nine people, six of them Black. Twenty-seven others were injured in Dayton. The shooter, Connor Betts, 24, was shot dead by responding officers.

“The shooter in El Paso posted a manifesto online consumed by racist hate. In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy,” Trump said in a televised speech from the White House Monday morning. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated.  Hate has no place in America.  Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart, and devours the soul.  We have asked the FBI to identify all further resources they need to investigate and disrupt hate crimes and domestic terrorism - whatever they need.”

Ironically, Trump also called the Internet “a dangerous avenue to radicalize disturbed minds and perform demented acts” and described it as a place with “dark recesses”.

But some - including the NAACP - believe it has been clearly Trump himself who has used social media – mainly Twitter – to fuel racism, White supremacy and bigotry throughout the nation and around the world through his attacks on people of color, portraying them as less than human.

Following the recent shootings, NAACP President Derrick Johnson called out Trump’s own hate-filled behavior on the Internet over past years, months, weeks and days.

“These tragic shootings are stark reminders of the dangers that plague our communities under the resurgence of white nationalism, domestic terrorism, intolerance, and racial hatred germinating from the White House,” wrote Johnson in a statement.

Other civil rights leaders chimed in, appearing to be at a loss for answers.

“When is Enough, enough?” asked Melanie Campbell, president/CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation (NCBCP) and Convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable (BWR). “Gun violence in America must end, and it must end now.  How many more lives must be lost by senseless gun violence for elected officials to step up and lead?”

Campbell issued the following statistics on gun violence to date in 2019:

• There have been 253 mass shootings in America in 216 days of this year.  That is more than one mass shooting per day for 2019.  And we still have five more months to go this year.
• According to the Gun Violence Archive, to date, the total number of gun-related incidents in this country now stands at 33,076, resulting in 8,744 deaths and 17,366 injuries.
• The number of youths killed, ages 1 to 17, now stands at 2,197.

“This is absolute insanity for a so-called ‘civilized’ nation.  The shootings in El Paso and Dayton were senseless acts of hate that could possibly have been prevented had there been laws in place to control access to high powered, rapid-fire, military grade weapons.  The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and the Black Women’s Roundtable strongly urges the U. S. Senate to come off of vacation and deal with this crisis by passing a national common sense gun safety law now.”

In Trump’s speech, he mentioned mental illness that leads to gun violence, but said nothing about his own hateful tweets.

He said, “We must reform our mental health laws to better identify mentally disturbed individuals who may commit acts of violence and make sure those people not only get treatment, but, when necessary, involuntary confinement.”

He said he is directing the Department of Justice to work in “partnership with local, state, and federal agencies, as well as social media companies, to develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike.”

He said the “glorification of violence in our society” through “gruesome and grisly video games” must end.

He added,“We must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms, and that, if they do, those firearms can be taken through rapid due process.  That is why I have called for red flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders.” 

Finally, Trump said he was “directing the Department of Justice to propose legislation ensuring that those who commit hate crimes and mass murders face the death penalty, and that this capital punishment be delivered quickly, decisively, and without years of needless delay.”

Still civil rights leaders lay blame for the El Paso and Dayton massacres squarely at Trump’s feet:

Johnson wrote: “The NAACP is calling on the Trump administration to cease its use of divisive and discriminatory rhetoric which fuel these unconscionable attacks and allot resources to combat the rise of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

August 5, 2019

 

Another 100 Million Consumers at Risk from Capital One Bank Data Breach

Largest bank breach affects 140,000 Social Security numbers, 80,000 bank accounts

 

By Charlene Crowel

 

 

 

A second major disclosure of major consumer data breach was announced on July 29 by Capital One Bank. That same day, the FBI arrested a suspect was charged with stealing the personal information on March 22 and 23. The apparent focus of the financial theft was credit card applications filed with the bank between 2005-2019.

 

Those most vulnerable are two types of consumers: small businesses whose company credit card applications included personal Social Security numbers, and other customers who linked ‘secured’ credit cards to other accounts

 

For these two developments to occur on the same day, suggests a tacit agreement between one of the nation’s 10 largest banks and the country’s top law enforcement agency.

 

But why did it take four months for consumers to learn their personal data has been at risk for four months?

 

Ranked number 145 on the Fortune 500 company list, Capital One has 45 million customers in the states of Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. In the second quarter of this year, the bank reported net income of $1.6 billion.

 

According to the bank, the data breach affects approximately 100 million consumers in this country and additionally 6 million Canadians. An estimated 140,000 Social Security numbers used for credit card applications and another 80,000 bank account numbers all place affected consumers in financial jeopardy.

 

“I sincerely apologize for the understandable worry this incident must be causing those affected and I am committed to making it right,” said Richard Fairbank, Capital One’s CEO.  The bank has also pledged to provide affected customers with free credit monitoring and identity.

 

For consumer advocates, however, Capital One’s mea culpa was too little, and much too late.

 

“I wouldn't say that consumers can or should "breathe a sigh of relief," cautioned Aracely Panameño, the Center for Responsible Lending’s Director of Latino Affairs. “The latest data breach speaks to the lax cybersecurity systems currently in place at major financial institutions and national credit reporting agencies (NCRAs).”

Equifax, one of three NCRAs, waited two months to disclose its cybersecurity breach that occurred in July but was kept from the public until September that year. During that delay, 147 million unsuspecting consumers – the equivalent of 58% of the US adult population -- did not know that their personal data – including federal income tax records, as well as employee records for government employees and those of Fortune 500 firms – was at risk. Nor did recipients of major government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security learn that they too were affected.

 

In response to Equifax’s massive cybercrime, a surge of 50 federal class action lawsuits were filed in at least 14 states and the District of Columbia in September 2017, following the public disclosure.

 

“This settlement is a slap on the wrist of Equifax,” continued Panameño. “The restitution fund is up to $425M, which is equivalent to $2.89 per impacted consumer (147M); the initial restitution fund is only $300M. The average monthly cost for credit monitoring is $20. These 147 American consumers will have to worry about identity theft and financial fraud in perpetuity.  Yet under the settlement agreement, consumers must request benefits by January 22, 2020.”

Similar reactions came from other consumer advocates.

 

“It’s disappointing but not unexpected that consumers face yet another breach of our sensitive financial information,” said Chi Chi Wu, staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC). “People should take the most effective measure to prevent identity theft involving new credit accounts by freezing their credit reports. It’s free as a result of a new law last year.”

 

According to NCLC, credit card customers are not liable for any unauthorized use of over $50. By contrast, consumers with bank accounts in most cases are not liable for unauthorized debit card or other electronic transactions so long as the fraudulent transaction are reported within 60 days of receiving their bank statement. Further, lost or stolen debit cards must be reported within two business day of learning of the loss or theft.

 

For Ed Mierzwinski, U.S. PIRG’s Federal Consumer Program Senior Director answers to consumer questions were also a key concern.

 

“How did this happen,”, asked Mierzwinski. “And how is Capital One going to prevent future breaches? We need answers to ensure that increasingly frequent, large breaches such as this, Equifax and others don’t become the new norm.”

 

Neither America, Canada the United Kingdom, or any other nation needs or wants yet another financial breach. Only time and additional investigations will reveal just how many more consumers may be affected by these or other delayed announcements.

 

“The hackers made out with all the data needed to wreak havoc in the lives of 147 million American consumers for the rest of their lives,” concluded Panameño. “They need remedies that are commensurate with that risk.”

August 5, 2019

The Paradox of Love: Trump’s United States of Hate
By Dr. Keith Magee

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - America is experiencing the most perilous of times in recent history as the result of its president, Donald Trump. Even though Monday morning he stepped forward to speak against the weekend's hate crimes, it lacks residence because of the hate that has been reverberating since his stance against the Central Park Five, his ascendance in the GOP with the birther inquisition of Barack Obama, and not immediately condemning the chants of “send her back” aimed at four congressional women of Congress for doing their job.

It remains jarring how he and the leadership of the GOP lack human decency by caging children at the border and proclaiming that Baltimore is a predominately African-American city where no humans should live. These hateful words are intentional verbal terrorism to inflame his base and continue to label some human beings as unworthy of being in the same race as White Americans. What is equally puzzling is the silence of the White Evangelical church in which 81 percent supports and believes that he has been called by God.

These blatant domestic terrorist attacks, being exercised by White supremacists best known as the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis, are embedded deeply it how they understand God, practice Christianity and see humanity. And, yet, there are other social justice faith leaders who are grappling with this torture and how to convey the message of God’s, resulting in a divided gospel.

In the New Testament gospel of Mark 12:28-33, a scholar and scribe, out of curiosity, questioned Jesus, ‘which out of all the commandments is the most important?’ Jesus responds with two statements. The first is how you are to love the “Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul and your strength.” The second one is to” love your neighbor like you love yourself’. The implication is very powerful because what it means is to be authentically a follower of Jesus, means I have to know how to love me before I can love you.

I recently had a rather challenging dinner conversation with a young Jewish member of the GOP, who I consider close family. He questioned why continuously refer to this president as “it”. He asked, “as a Christian (that believes in the same teaching in the Torah) isn’t the fundamental teaching of our faith love? If so, are you not being equally divisive in referring to Donald Trump as an “it” and the GOP as them?” My rapid response was human beings don’t spark flames of hatred. They would not find any justification in anyone that assembles to chant Jews will not replace us, say that there were very fine people on both sides, call Mexican’s rapists and target Muslims. Those who have a soul would condemn the acrimony so that it wouldn’t ignite a fire.

The Civil rights movement wasn’t driven by policy experts. It was accomplished by people who actually practiced their faith in love. The movement was filled with the love of Imams and Rabbis, Catholic and Orthodox Priest, Unitarians and Muslim, Baptist and Hindus, and Atheist and Quakers. There were Black women frying chicken, White women making cold cut sandwiches, gay men organizing and lesbian women strategizing. They galvanized together to enact laws because there were racist White Americans who lacked civility. The laws had to be created to protect those whom they dehumanized with Jim Crown, the violence of rape and torture of death.

The preaching of “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also”, is no longer applicable in these times. There’s no longer the tolerance to mount a non-violence movement or foot soldiers in protest when the evidence is clear that this venom embodied in these White-skin individuals is filled with intentional rage, injustice and violence, against everyone that isn’t a pure American of Anglo-Saxon decent. Yes, there are few who Blacks that are getting passes but I learned early in life that there was no difference between house slaves and those in the field. The white supremacist groups categorically deem them all as subhuman.

After I stepped away and reflected on my dinner conversation, I realized that my retort to these times have caused me to depart from the most essential and guiding principle of my faith. With all that the raced baited massacres in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio by White males ages 21 and 24 in the last 48 hours, I’m wrestling with how do you continue to offer love to those who are responsible for the spillage of your brother’s blood-shed on the ground?

How do, I, as a social justice intellectual and faith leader provide guidance that teaches how to love those who persecute you, speak all manner of evil against you? How do I lean in to find similarity with those who say that the believe in the same Jesus that many non-White Americans serve? If this gospel can’t unite us, especially, in times like this, then what can?

Anger and Love have no limits especially when it is seeded in fear and one’s misappropriated religion. The scribes were so caught up on the rules, which made up the religion, that they had fallen short on knowing how to have relationship with God, themselves and their neighbor.

There is no negating the reality of the fear of a group of White Americans being left in poverty. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, White people are 52 percent of people lifted from poverty by safety-net programs, while Black people made up less than a quarter of that share. When it comes to receiving Medicaid, Whites make up about 43 percent of recipients, Hispanics about 30 percent, African-Americans 18 percent, with 9 percent identified as other. It is obvious that their concerns are valid.

However, it is unfortunate that their anger is misappropriated. It should be directed towards the White men, like Donald Trump, who are more focused on their own wealth than strengthening and providing economic opportunities for these White Americans.

When I awakened Sunday morning I learned of the incident in Dayton, Ohio, where I graduated high school. My close group of friends immediately began to check on those who still reside there. We learned of several recent insistences of targeted violence in Dayton. When I learned that one of my sister-friends and her family were literally next door to where the shooting happened, I began to weep because she’s family. In our group of five, who have been friends now over 35 years, I’m the only African-American. And, yes, race shows up because we have fluid conversations. However, what has kept our bond with our religious, sexuality and political party difference is love.

It was then that I realized that perhaps the answer is larger than what’s in the written text and man-made doctrines. The defining moments to overcome hate will be from what is written with love in our hearts. Maybe we can organize a healing, peace and love march with American presidents, Baraka and Michelle Obama standing alongside George W. and Laura Bush? Though they had many differences, they served the Unites States of America honoring a commitment of justice, equality and love for all.

Dr Keith Magee is a public intellectual with a focus on social justice and theology. He is Senior Fellow in Culture and Justice at the University College London and Lead Pastor at The Berachah Church, Dorchester Centre, MA. He is also a 1986 graduate of Colonel White High School in Dayton, OH. For more information visit www.4justicesake.org or follow him on social media @keithlmagee.

July 23, 2019

 

Black Wealth 2020 Adds HBCUs to Its Economic Empowerment Agenda

The catalyst for Black wealth also applauds Robert Smith’s gift to Morehouse

By Hazel Trice Edney

Dr. Lezli Baskerville, President/CEO, President/CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education

 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – The short-term economic impact of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) is $15 billion – rivaling corporations such as Bank of America in its more than 177,000 employees.

Yet, according to the U. S. Department of Education, approximately 60 percent of all Black college students have no expectation of family financial contributions to their education. That’s a family financial expectation far lower than that of Whites.  Approximately 30 percent of White college students have no expectation of family financial contributions to their education. That number is approximately 48 percent for Latinos and 38 percent for Asians.

The economic impact of HBCUs, their struggle to stay afloat, and the dire financial disparities faced by HBCU students are the reasons that Black Wealth 2020, a catalyst for Black  economic equality, recently decided to add HBCUs as a forth leg to its three-pronged focus to grow Black wealth through Black-owned businesses, Black banks and Black homeownership.

“We’ve got to keep on pushing this agenda. And hooking up with HBCUs is a big way of doing that,” said Michael Grant, former president of the National Bankers Association, and a founder of Black Wealth 2020 in a meeting just before the principals voted unanimously to expand its vision to acknowledge HBCUs as being “central to strengthening the American economy.”

Grant added, “If we’re serious about building Black wealth, how can we not have a focus on our youth and the next generation?”

The vision expansion was inspired, in part, by a presentation by Dr. Lezli Baskerville, president/CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, also a principal of Black Wealth 2020.

“But for HBCUs, there would be no African-American middle class today. And that’s a fact and that’s documented,” Baskerville told the group. “And just the existence of HBCUs in our communities – even the ones that are not thriving today – ends up collectively to generate about $15 billion in short term. And that doesn’t include anything other than what the campuses, including employees and students, spend in surrounding communities.”

Billionaire Robert Smith’s Morehouse initiative has challenged Black Community on support of HBCUs

In an initial move to encourage support for HBCUs, Black Wealth 2020 principals have also sent a thank you letter to Black billionaire businessman Robert Smith, chairman/CEO of Vista Equity Partners, who touched hearts across the nation when he announced that he would pay off all of the student loans of the Morehouse College class of 2019.

The letter applauded Smith, saying, “With student debt nationally at over $1.4 trillion and with the average college student leaving school $30,000 in debt, your gift not only relieved an enormous financial burden from the graduating class from Morehouse and their parents, you have challenged all African-Americans of means to think bigger about how to use their wealth to improve the lives of others within our race.”

The letter was signed by members and supporters of the Black Wealth 2020 coalition. Those organizations include the National Association of Black-owned Broadcasters; the U. S. Black Chambers, Inc.; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority; National Bankers Association; The Collective Empowerment Group; the National Association of Real Estate Brokers; The National Black Caucus of State Legislators; Marc Morial of the National Urban League; NAFEO; Congresswoman Maxine Waters; former SBA Deputy Administrator Marie Johns; John Rogers, CEO, Ariel Investments; Andy Ingraham, CEO, National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators and Developers; and Marcia Griffin, CEO, HomeFree USA.

“We thought it fitting that a coalition committed to building wealth should take the opportunity to acknowledge and praise your commitment to uplifting our people,” the letter told Smith.

HBCUs struggle for funding to the detriment of the nation

In her presentation to Black Wealth 2020 on the state of HBCUs, Baskerville made the case that student loan debt is inevitable for students who are forced to borrow because their families cannot help. But, she said, financial issues also hinder even good students from making it through college in the first place.

Baskerville drew heavily from a report compiled by noted national economist Bill Spriggs, who has contended that HBCUs are the key to diversifying technology, currently among the top paying fields in the U. S. job market.

“In the pipeline of people who generate wealth in the African ancestry community, there is not today a challenge in terms of Blacks getting into college. Bill’s data shows that there is no disparity in the percentages of African-Americans and their numbers and Whites that are going into college and enrolled in these high needs areas. The gap happens when they get in,” Baskerville said. “It’s not that they’re not prepared, it’s not that they can’t get in and could not thrive, it’s that once they get in, they don’t have dollars.”

Among other facts that Baskerville noted from the Spriggs report:

• Despite the challenges of the institutions and the financial challenges of the students, HBCUs are performing above average and do very well in moving students from low income families to the top 20 percent.
• Generally, many universities now have more students drawn from the top 1 percent of the U. S. income distribution than the bottom 40 percent of the U. S. income distribution.
• With a declining number of White students, and a growing share of low income students, HBCUs are an under-resourced asset for growing the US economy; therefore an increased investment in HBCUs would expand their unreached capacity.

 

According to the U.S Department of Education, there are currently 107 HBCUs operating in the U. S. All have struggles with funding.

“HBCUs Punching Above Their Weight”, a recent report by the United Negro College Fund, the premier fund-raising organization for HBCUs, says despite their difficulty with fund-raising, HBCUs are still succeeding beyond expectations given their struggles.

“Given their small average size and a history of being under-resourced, the enrollment, degree and economic impacts of HBCUs on African Americans in their respective states are significantly greater than one would expect,” says an introduction to the report.

Principals of Black Wealth 2020 have vowed to push for the growth of HBCUs as parts of their respective agendas and encourage other major organizations and the general public to do so.

“It certainly means that for nearly 150 years, we’ve had institutions of higher learning that have produced some of the best and brightest African-Americans and we certainly still recognize the benefits that accrued to the African-American community because of the historically Black Colleges and Universities,” said the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Weaver, a Black Wealth 2020 principal who represents the Collective Empowerment Group, an economic initiative involving approximately 800 Black churches. “It’s only fitting that Black wealth 2020 would have a relationship in which we can find ways to collaborate and to partner to create even greater synergy within the African-American community with the historically Black Colleges and Universities.”