July 21, 2013

Investigate the Racial Context Behind Martin’s Death
By Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.

July 21, 2013

White Shame, Black Pain
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The day after the verdict issued in the George Zimmerman case, I heard a white reporter say there was a lot of shame in America that day.  For all of their shame, I could not help but wonder if any of them felt our pain.

Whether we’re experiencing shame or pain, the question is, "Where do we go from here?"  It's not enough to criticize President Obama for what he did or did not say.  I understood him clearly when he said, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon”.  He was identifying with every parent who’d ever lost a child to such violence.  For me, he didn’t have to say more.

As veiled as the President’s response may sound to some, it represents a call to action for all of us to act before another tragedy is brought to our own doorstep.  This time, when he said, “a jury has spoken”, he didn’t stop there.  He reminded us of what all Americans must do.   It sounds like some of the President’s critics missed his statement when he said, “ ...we should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities. We should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis.  We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this.  As citizens, that’s a job for all of us.  That’s the way to honor Trayvon Martin.”

Some of us put in our earplugs because too many of us don’t like to go beyond meeting and talking.  We want someone else to do what must be done.  Too many of us are happy criticizing others—but fail to ask ourselves, what we can do to make a difference.

Attorney General Eric Holder told us we need to change the “Stand Your Ground” laws.  Since these are enacted through states, we need to deal with state politicians.  Each of us has a voice and a vote.

You must register to vote and, once you are, help somebody else register.  Vote in every election even if it’s only for dog catcher!  Contact the people who run your state and let them know where you stand on laws and practices.  Don’t spend your money in states that don’t respect your civil and human rights.  Take a lesson from Stevie Wonder.  Don’t lend your talents to states with unfair laws. Don’t take your children to see a rat at Disney World.  Instead, take them to places like Washington, DC, where they can experience memorials for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, and others who risked their lives for justice.

The times demand action from more of us—African, Hispanic, Asian, Native and white Americans, LGBT friends, women, the disabled—everyone benefitting from the Civil Rights Movement.

Whether feeling shame or pain, now is the time to stand up for civil and human rights for all. Lord knows, African-Americans have made sacrifices to make America a better nation.  The blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors didn’t omit anyone while seeking justice for us.  If African Americans came up out of slavery to accomplish all that we have for this nation, surely others can help to rid us of “Stand Your Ground” laws that do nothing more than encourage violence.  Together, we can make voting a constitutional right for all. Together, we can overcome the disparities in our system of justice.  The question is, “Are we willing to help each other through this shame and pain”?

(Dr. E. Faye Williams is National Chair of the National Congress of Black Women, Inc. 202/678-6788.  www.nationalcongressbw.org)

July 21, 2013

Walking While Black
By Barbara Reynolds

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - How do we prepare our African-American children for the terrible consequence that the simple act of Walking While Black can be judged a criminal offense that could ultimately cost them their lives and their killers go free?

The not guilty decision in the George Zimmerman trial is producing a shared, collective grieving. Mothers and fathers are feeling as if seventeen-year-old Trayvon could be their innocent son. Black men are sensing the reality that they, themselves, could be Trayvon, someone who is just walking along minding his own business and could get shot dead and the police protect their murderer?

As most Black parents I know, I have trained my son how to avoid any sudden moves when cops pull him over while driving.  And he has been pulled over more times in seven years than I have in 40 years for unexplained incidents. But the Zimmerman decision raises another alarm.  Where should he not walk?  Where should he not show up?   Those thoughts can be overwhelming.

“I have been up all night. Just couldn’t sleep so upset about the decision,” said Rev. Keith Magee of Boston.  Because this decision just sends a message that I am not safe in the space I occupy.  I see it in the cabs that pass me by, the meetings I go to where I am the only Black. This decision just reinforces the label that I am guilty of something even before I show my face.”

The Zimmerman acquittal of an admitted killer, supposedly in self-defense, of a young Black boy armed only with a bag of Skittles and a soft drink by an armed Neighborhood Watch volunteer has captured the hearts of so many not only because of the crime itself, but because it is a continuation of a criminal justice system that continues to fail Black people.

Without the intense focus of the media, the Trayvon Martin case would have fallen off the radar screen because unfortunately racial profiling and shooting unarmed Black men is not unusual.  Remember Amadou Diallo, the 22-year-old immigrant from Guinea, West Africa, gunned down in 1995 by a circle of white cops who said they mistook him for a rape suspect.  The cops, reportedly, fired 41 shots with 19 bullets into the unarmed Diallo.

And remember Dorothy Elliott, of Prince George’s County, whose son Archie Elliott III was shot 14 times and died in the back of a police car as he sat handcuffed.  Police never explained how Archie Elliott, who was reportedly unarmed, was a threat while handcuffed.

Those shootings happened in the 1990s, but the criminal justice system is just as flawed today.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Africans-Americans are twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with police than whites. And students of color receive harsher punishments in school than white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color in jail.

The best way to understand the heartbreak and the outrage in the Zimmerman case is when we close our eyes and see Martin as a black man following Zimmerman, pulling a gun and killing him.  Who could mount a convincing argument that the circumstances and the outcomes would be the same?

First of all it took six weeks, two million signatures and a national outcry and protests for Zimmerman to be charged and arrested. Drug tests were first done on Martin and not on Zimmerman who confessed to the crime.

Secondly, I would argue that the jury composed of six women without males nor blacks from Sanford, Florida a predominately conservative GOP enclave, favored Zimmerman much more than Martin. Just as I identify with Travon as the innocent victim because of our shared experiences the jurors no doubt could see Zimmerman as one of their own. They could see him as their white knight defending himself and white women from a menacing predator, the kind of threatening looking image of Martin that was allowed to be shown by the defense during their closing statement.

Moreover, too often Trayvon was on trial. Negative statements about Trayvon were allowed in, but the jury did not hear about the run-ins Zimmerman had with the law.  In 2005, felony charges were filed but later reduced after he was involved in a brawl with a law enforcement agent. In addition an injunction was filed against him in a domestic violence case.

Yet, it was Martin who was portrayed as the thug and Zimmerman the John Wayne.

The negative insensitive portrayal of Trayvon continued after the trial was over.  In a press conference Mark O’Mara, Zimmerman’s defense attorney lashed out at Trayvon as a “violent attacker” and another defense attorney continued joking about the case as he did at the opening of the trial. Even State Attorney Angela Corey, with her happy face, cavalier appearance and low-cut evening dress seemed out of place, considering the heart-breaking impact the decision had on the parents of Trayvon Martin and the rest of the country who was saddened by the decision.

What now, I wonder. Surely, the Justice Department can intervene as it did when the police were acquitted in the Rodney King beating. But more should be done to change a system that consistently violates the rights of people of color. During the civil rights era, economic boycotts were used, along with protests, as a trigger for change. Maybe that trigger could serve as an effective weapon to protect the lives of unarmed citizens.

In any event, President Obama said if he had a son he could resemble Trayvon Martin.  Martin is his son and our sons.  And more must be done so they will not be shot down just for walking down the street.

July 21, 2013 

Fiscal Follies: Watch the Conversation on Budget Surplus
By William Spriggs

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The White House has announced changes in projections for fiscal health. In June, the government gained a surplus and the projected deficit for this year will be $214 billion less than originally projected. That means the deficit will be 4.7 percent of GDP (the nation's total income), down from the original forecast of 6 percent. Moreover, the deficit will be below 3 percent of GDP by 2017. Now it is time for the follies to begin.

First, the Republicans will be eyeing the upcoming fight to raise the federal debt limit with a new agenda. Clearly, they will argue, with all these rosy numbers, we have room for more tax cuts. They will see no need to argue for restoring tax fairness and progressivity to the system. Will they succeed in holding the president hostage because now the numbers are rosy? The same day the White House explained the deficit was a much smaller problem than believed, the House Republicans voted to slash spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help children get enough to eat. Clearly, Republicans signaled that smaller deficits did not mean they were wrong on the need for austerity; the projections only proved they were right that the rich could have more tax cuts.

The deficit projection is smaller this year, in part, because of the sequestration. So, will the President be successful in arguing that these numbers show there is room to end sequestration because we are meeting the budget targets through economic growth?

This may go back and forth. Now, it is almost a ballet-a beautiful choreographed drama in pantomime. The Republicans are quickly losing ground to President Obama in that they first thought they would win in 2012 because of slow job growth, and then switched after the election to pin uncontrolled deficits on the President. Now we are having deficits smaller than the President promised, and at current mediocre rates of job growth, we will be back to 2007 levels of employment by June 2014, and private-sector employment will be back earlier.

Hopefully, instead of these follies and false premises, the discussion can turn to the real labor market issues. All this discussion of austerity has netted the budget deficit targets the deficit hawks wanted. Too many people became convinced that the discussion of the deficit hawks was related to the real labor market, and so have gone along with this show, assuming that it would drive down unemployment, lead to full employment and raise wages and incomes. Instead, we can now all see that the deficit is not related to the unemployment crisis.

The unemployment rate stays mired at near 7.5 percent because merely getting back to the number of jobs that existed in 2007 is only enough to keep up with the growth of the labor force-which is slowly shrinking from discouragement and exhaustion. Youth employment remains at historical lows. Beyond people without jobs, millions are mired in part-time work but want full-time work and millions more languish outside the unemployment numbers because they are too discouraged to look. Median family incomes continue to sag from lower wages and less employment, still below where they were in 2007.

So, rather than a discussion of differences in approaches to austerity-raise taxes to restore fairness and progressivity versus cut spending regardless of the value of the program-we can turn to hiring people. The sequestration is currently forcing federal agencies to furlough workers, reducing their hours, to hobble to the end of the fiscal year. But, if the sequester is allowed to continue, many federal agencies will be forced to cut positions.

Already, public-sector employment continues to fall during this "recovery." We have lost 36,000 federal workers since January 2009, 10,000 in public higher education and 311,800 in local public education. Our need for schools have not gone down in that period, and we still need people to respond to disasters like Hurricane Sandy and the fires of the Southwest.

To solve our multi-million jobs deficit, we will need to create jobs at twice the rate we have. Rather than argue about continuing sequestration, we must be arguing about how many teachers we can hire. Deficit reduction has not led to rapid job growth, but hiring public workers will. And, we cannot forget the deficit we are leaving our children by letting our infrastructure crumble. The deficit is smaller, in part, because the cost of servicing the federal debt is low because of the current low interest rates. If we force our children to pay inflated prices for restoring our bridges and sewer systems at high interest rates, we will be leaving them with more debt, not less debt, than if we make those fixes now. And, in the process, get people on the job building America.

Wall Street is back. Deficits are down. Now let's get Main Street and Martin Luther King Avenue back up and running.

William Spriggs serves as Chief Economist to the AFL-CIO and is a professor in, and former chair of the Department of Economics at Howard University.  Bill is also former assistant secretary for the Office of Policy at the United States Department of Labor.