August 19, 2020

At DNC: Obamas, Colin Powell, Kamala Harris Start Battle for 'Soul of America' as Biden Becomes Official Democratic Presidential Nominee 

By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Former Vice President Joseph “Joe” Biden officially became the Democratic Party's candidate for president this week, receiving the nomination on Tuesday night after a string of speakers, led by former First Lady Michelle Obama, former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Second Lady Jill Biden among dozens of other political stars and grassroots activists.

Wednesday’s line up was set to feature President Barack Obama and Vice Presidential candidate, Sen. Kamala Harris.

The virtual convention, televised around the nation and world, echoed the Biden campaign slogan, “Build Back Better.” In order to protect people from the Coronavirus, the DNC went virtual with the convention, instead of meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as originally planned. Squares showing diverse people applauding in their living rooms and various places in states around the nation took the place of the live audience.

Surrounded by balloons, Biden accepted the nomination as Kool & The Gang's "Celebration" song blared in the background. He will deliver his acceptance speech on Thursday at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, likely elaborating on his personal theme, "This is a battle for the soul of America."

The Republican National Convention will follow on Monday Aug. 24 through Thursday, starting in Charlotte, N.C. on the first day and then held remotely. President Trump and Vice President Pence, hoping to win a second term, will have their say, but not without the sting of the blistering Democratic speeches this week.

“So let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country,” a poised Michelle Obama said in a pre-recorded speech Monday night. “He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.”

She continued, “So if you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this: if you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can; and they will if we don’t make a change in this election. If we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have got to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.”

Biden supporters are mostly stressing his “good guy” image, stressing his reputation for decency and relatable to common people. Video images during the convention showed him riding the train home everyday in order to be there for his young sons after his first wife and their daughter were killed in a car accident. They also referred to his pain and resiliency amidst the death of his adult son, Beau, who succumbed to a brain tumor in 2015.

 

Prospective First Lady Jill Biden was perhaps his best witness in this regard.

 

“Four days after Beau’s funeral, I watched Joe shave and put on his suit. I saw him steel himself in the mirror—take a breath—put his shoulders back—and walk out into a world empty of our son. He went back to work. That’s just who he is,” she said in her speech. “There are times when I couldn’t imagine how he did it—how he put one foot in front of the other and kept going. But I’ve always understood why he did it: For the daughter who convinces her mom to finally get a breast cancer screening and misses work to drive her to the clinic, for the community college student who has faced homelessness and survived abuse—but finds the grit to finish her degree and make a good life for her kids, for the little boy whose mom is serving as a marine in Iraq, who puts on a brave face in his video call, and doesn’t complain when the only thing he wants for his birthday is to be with her, for all those people Joe gives his personal phone number to, at rope lines and events—the ones he talks to for hours after dinner—helping them smile through their loss—letting them know that they aren’t alone. He does it for you.”

She concluded, “Joe’s purpose has always driven him forward. His strength of will is unstoppable. And his faith is unshakable—because it’s not in politicians or political parties—or even himself. It’s in the providence of God. His faith is in you—in us.”

 

Among the most unusual aspects of the convention – other than it being held remotely – was the number of high profiled Republicans who spoke on Biden’s behalf.

“I support Joe Biden because on Day One he will restore America’s leadership and our moral authority,” said Powell, who served as secretary of state under President George W. Bush and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Bush and Democratic President Bill Clinton. “He’ll be a president who knows America is strongest when, as he has said, ‘We lead both by the power of our example and the example of our power.’ He will restore America’s leadership in the world and restore the alliances we need to address the dangers that threaten our nation, from climate change to nuclear proliferation.”

 

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, also a Republican and a former presidential candidate, weathered criticism from fellow Republicans for his open support of Biden.

“I’m a lifelong Republican, but that attachment holds second place to my responsibility to my country. That’s why I’ve chosen to appear at this convention. In normal times, something like this would probably never happen, but these are not normal times,” Kasich said in his speech. “Yes, there are areas where Joe and I absolutely disagree. But that’s OK because that’s America. Because whatever our differences, we respect one another as human beings, each of us searching for justice and for purpose.”

 

A video was shown highlighting Biden’s friendship with the late Republican Sen. John McCain. It was narrated by McCain’s wife, Cindy, ending with his words to Biden, thanking him for his friendship: “My life and the lives of many have been enriched by it.”

 

 

Millions anticipated Biden’s remarks at the close of the DNC convention Thursday night. But, even more so, the race between him and Trump. The issues at hand in the Black community, including health care, criminal justice, police brutality and economic justice will be foremost as America goes to the polls or mail in their ballots.

 

“Too many have lost their health care; too many are struggling to take care of basic necessities like food and rent; too many communities have been left in the lurch to grapple with whether and how to open our schools safely. Internationally, we’ve turned our back, not just on agreements forged by my husband, but on alliances championed by presidents like Reagan and Eisenhower,” former First Lady Michelle Obama said. “And here at home, as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and a never-ending list of innocent people of color continue to be murdered, stating the simple fact that a Black life matters is still met with derision from the nation’s highest office…If we want to keep the possibility of progress alive in our time, if we want to be able to look our children in the eye after this election, we have got to reassert our place in American history. And we have got to do everything we can to elect my friend, Joe Biden, as the next president of the United States.”

August 12, 2020

Biden Makes History: Chooses Sen. Kamala Harris as Vice Presidential Running Mate
She is the first Black woman on a major presidential ticket

By Hazel Trice Edney

U. S. Sen. Kamala Harris

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Democratic Presidential Candidate Joseph “Joe” Biden has announced his selection of U. S. Sen. Kamala D. Harris as his vice-presidential running mate, bringing an automatic sizzle to the ticket, which now becomes history-making.

A 55-year-old Black woman with Indian and Jamaican ancestry, Harris becomes the first woman of color nominated to the top of a major ticket in a U. S. election.

"I've decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation starting in January 2021," said Biden, 77, in an email Tuesday. The two were expected to make their first appearance together as running mates in Wilmington, Delaware on Wednesday, August 12.

The announcement came after weeks of anticipation after Biden announced he would offer the vice presidency to a woman. The moment grew even more tense as Biden interviewed a string of women, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer who is white and former Congressional Black Caucus Chair Karen Bass, also of California.

Harris responded on Twitter: "Joe Biden can unify the American people because he's spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he'll build an America that lives up to our ideals. I'm honored to join him as our party's nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief."

Harris, a longtime friend of Biden, was not widely speculated to be Biden’s pick; particularly given her sudden attack on him during a June 27 presidential debate concerning remarks he had previously made about having worked with two segregationist senators. Biden was making a point about civility and how he has been able to work across the aisles to pass legislation. But Harris tersely pointed out how segregationist politicians had affected her childhood. Though she made it clear that he is not a racist, she called Biden’s comments “very hurtful.”

Biden barely recovered that night but said Harris’ remarks mischaracterized “his position across the board.” The tense moment clearly stung Biden, but mostly shed a negative light on Harris whose remarks were widely criticized as harsh and misleading. But, this week, Biden proved that he does not hold grudges, placing her alongside him at the very top of the Democratic ticket.

It remains to be seen whether Harris’ historic candidacy as a Black woman and as a woman will engender enough favor from a racially and gender-diverse constituency to defeat the Donald Trump – Mike Pence re-election campaign with the traditional two White males. Trump’s Republican ticket is seen as widely supported by right wingers and White supremacists as well as traditional Republicans.

However, amidst racial tension across America which re-ignited protests after the killing of George Floyd, Trump has slipped in the political polls, several showing Biden leading him with double digits. The coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 160,000 people, including a disparity of African-Americans, has also illuminated questions about Trump’s political deficiencies.

America will now scrutinize the voting and policies pushed by Harris, who, since in the U. S. Senate, has become known for her sharp questioning during Senate hearings and for her criminal justice advocacy. But given that Biden is the presidential candidate, it is his record that must be scrutinized the heaviest.

Having served 36 years (1973-2009) in the U. S. Senate and eight years as vice president under President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, it is believed that he has been thoroughly vetted. His judgement in choosing Harris as his running mate will now be his greatest decision under scrutiny. He is already receiving accolades.

“Joe Biden nailed this decision,” said Obama in a statement Tuesday. “By choosing Senator Kamala Harris as America’s next vice president, he’s underscored his own judgment and character. Reality shows us that these attributes are not optional in a president. They’re requirements of the job. And now Joe has an ideal partner to help him tackle the very real challenges America faces right now and in the years ahead.”

Obama continued, “I’ve known Senator Harris for a long time. She is more than prepared for the job. She’s spent her career defending our Constitution and fighting for folks who need a fair shake. Her own life story is one that I and so many others can see ourselves in: a story that says that no matter where you come from, what you look like, how you worship, or who you love, there’s a place for you here. It’s a fundamentally American perspective, one that’s led us out of the hardest times before. And it’s a perspective we can all rally behind right now.”

Her selection is also winning praises from rank and file civil rights leaders.

“During her tenure in the Senate, Sen. Harris won praise from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law for her work on judges, national criminal justice policies, and other racial justice issues,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in a statement. She said Harris’ historic selection has tremendous “relevance for Black women and women of color who have long been diminished and underrepresented in national politics.”

The following is Harris’ political biography as printed on her Senate website:

In 2017, Kamala D. Harris was sworn in as a United States Senator for California, the second African-American woman and first South Asian-American senator in history. She serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Committee on the Budget.

Kamala has spent her life fighting injustice. It’s a passion that was first inspired by her mother, Shyamala, an Indian-American immigrant, activist, and breast cancer researcher.

Growing up in Oakland, Kamala had a stroller-eye view of the Civil Rights movement. Through the example of courageous leaders like Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, and Charles Hamilton Houston, Kamala learned the kind of character it requires to stand up to the powerful, and resolved to spend her life advocating for those who could not defend themselves.

After earning an undergraduate degree from Howard University and a law degree from the University of California, Hastings, she began her career in the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.

In 2003, Kamala became the District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco. Among her achievements as District Attorney, Harris started a program that gives first-time drug offenders the chance to earn a high school diploma and find employment.

Having completed two terms as the District Attorney of San Francisco, Kamala was elected as the first African-American and first woman to serve as California's Attorney General. In this role, she worked tirelessly to hold corporations accountable and protect the state’s most vulnerable people.

Over the course of her nearly two terms in office, Kamala won a $25-billion settlement for California homeowners hit by the foreclosure crisis, defended California’s landmark climate change law, protected the Affordable Care Act, helped win marriage equality for all Californians, and prosecuted transnational gangs that trafficked in guns, drugs, and human beings.

In the United States Senate, Kamala’s mission remains unchanged: fighting for the rights of all communities in California. Since taking office, she has introduced and cosponsored legislation to raise wages for working people, reform our broken criminal justice system, make healthcare a right for all Americans, address the epidemic of substance abuse, support veterans and military families, and expand access to childcare for working parents.

It’s the privilege of Kamala’s life to work on behalf of the people of California. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Doug Emhoff, and is stepmother to Ella and Cole Emhoff.

 

 

August 18, 2020

In the Days of COVID-19, Black Funerals May Leave More Trauma than Comfort
By Jason James

Shirley Barrett(Right) with her Granddaughter, Isis(Left)

 

Evelyn Lorraine Miller(Center), her Daughter, Caroline McMillan(Right), and grandchildren, including Brijhai McMillan (sitting in Evelyn’s lap in red). PHOTO: Courtesy/Brijhai McMillan

 

 

Evelyn Miller with her Children, Caroline McMillan(Far left), Kirk Dennis(Left), Norman Dennis(Right), and Tony Dennis(Far Right). PHOTO: Courtesy/Brijhai McMillan

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Evelyn Lorraine Miller, the 83-year-old “Madea of the family,” as her daughter calls her, never missed a family event, especially for her grandchildren. She saved the programs of each graduation or play.

 

An entrepreneur who sold ices in her East Brooklyn neighborhood, she instilled in her family the importance of independence and self-reliance. Nicknamed “Ms. E” by her neighbors, Evelyn was as passionate about baking sweet potato pies as she was about her family. And she was as careful in making preparations for her funeral as she was in sewing clothes for herself and her neighbors.

Six years ago, Ms. Miller and her daughter Caroline McMillan, a sergeant in the New York City Police Department, made arrangements with the Bell Funeral Home in Brooklyn. She handpicked a casket, the floral arrangement for the ceremony, and even the letters that would notify friends and family.   But when the end came on March 28, the cause of death was something no one had ever imagined: COVID-19. On that day in New York, there were 7,534 new cases of COVID-19 and 201 people died. Evelyn Miller’s family had to scramble to find a funeral home that would accept a COVID-19 victim.

Mrs. Miller’s funeral took place on April 2 in the chapel of Harlem’s Unity Funeral Chapels, the funeral home whose claim to fame is that it handled the funeral of Malcom X in 1965 when no one else wanted to do so. It was far from the neighbors with whom she had lived in Brooklyn for more than 45 years. Only five people attended, including her daughter, Sgt. Caroline McMillan, and her granddaughter, Brijhai McMillan, a junior at Morgan State University. Evelyn Miller was sealed in a glorified pine box with handles and a piece of paper on top that nagged at her daughter’s curiosity throughout the improvised service.

When she investigated, she discovered that the slip of paper did not say anything like “Evelyn Lorraine Miller, loving mother, grandmother and pillar of her community.” It read: “Toxic: Biohazard.”

The McMillans’ experience has become familiar to hundreds of thousands of families in the U.S. in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 170,000 people nationally and more than 700,000 worldwide. As of Aug. 10, more than 5 million cases had been diagnosed in the United States. This has been particularly impactful on Black families for whom homegoing rituals are a prominent cultural and spiritual event.

At the funeral for Rep. John Lewis in Atlanta last month, which followed six days of international mourning, the number of mourners permitted in the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church was limited and they were required to be socially distanced. Some messages were pre-recorded and everyone wore masks.

“At a time where we would find comfort in embracing one another, love compels us to socially distance from one another. But make no mistake, we are together in principle, even if not in proximity,” said Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at the church most famously led by Reverends Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr. The congressman was a long-time member of Ebenezer.

At Morgan State University in Baltimore recently, mourners gathered at the Murphy Fine Arts Center to bid farewell to Dr. Clara I. Adams, a former Vice President of Academic Affairs and Special Assistant to the President. It was a service dramatically scaled down from what one would expect from someone who had served Morgan for more than 60 years, touching the lives of thousands of students. It was a one-hour service and people were asked to wear masks and keep socially distant.

Dr. Marco Merrick, an education and outreach specialist for the Maryland Commission of Civil Rights, is a musician who, alone or with his choirs, participates in dozens of funerals every year. “The funeral process is a real act of closure for folks, so [this] is a real challenge. Generally, in the Black community funerals take place in the context of a church or a mosque or even a funeral home. But even in the funeral home they make it a religious process.”

The ritual of saying goodbye often begins in a hospital room with family and friends comforting their loved one in their last moments. That’s been curtailed in the wake of COVID-19. There is typically a wake where people gather, tell stories, and serve food. The gathering together continues in a church or mosque or other space where the person’s life is celebrated with an often-lengthy service involving sharing more stories, singing, reciting prayers and reading from sacred texts. That, too, has been cut back.

“There’s definitely going to be some lingering trauma we’re going to have to deal with because people have had to deal with the guilt of not being able to be with people in their last days,” observes Dr. Jasmine Ward, a public health professional from Arlington, Texas, founder of Black Ladies in Public Health. “We start thinking of these people as just percentages; but, in reality, these are people’s lives. Every single day of the week we lose somebody; and as a country and a nation we haven’t been able to deal with that.”

Merrick has witnessed numerous funerals since the pandemic began and says they have been “unsettling for people who have a different expectation of what that should be in terms of the history of funerals.”

Due to the protocols required because of COVID-19, all homegoing rituals have been altered, regardless of whether the virus was the cause of death. Dr. Simone Barrett discovered that after her mother, Shirley Barrett, died of breast cancer at the age of 84 in Baltimore on April 16. On that day eight people died of coronavirus in Maryland and 752 new cases were reported. There were approximately 35,000 coronavirus deaths in the U.S by then.

“There was a noticeable lack of control compared to funerals I’d made arrangements for before,” Barrett said. They preferred to have the service at the church the family has long attended, Greater Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church in East Baltimore. But the church was closed because of COVID-19. Instead they held a service in the chapel in King Memorial Park cemetery. It took some negotiating with funeral directors so that more of the family and fewer staff from the funeral home would be present.

“There was me, my sister Bonita, our cousin and her two kids, a pastor who was a family friend and a few others,” she said. “We all had the stance of, ‘Why do you need to be in the room if it limits the amount of family who can attend?’ And after some back and forth, they relented.”

Still a few family members had to wait outside. Despite the difficulties, Barrett expressed gratitude. “We got to see her put in the mausoleum, so I’m thankful we could actually be there to say goodbye.”

Some families don’t have the opportunity to attend funerals of their family members, even when they did not die of the virus. That was the case when Christian Marcel Shipp died in a car crash in Atlanta on May 31. A 25-year-old budding entrepreneur and 2018 Morehouse graduate who lived in Conyers, Georgia, he was laid to rest at a graveside service in Green Meadows Memorial Garden on June 5. On that day there were 752 new cases and 65 deaths in Georgia. By that time, there were approximately 1.8 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 108,790 deaths in the U.S.

The service, held on a rainy Friday morning with mourners wearing masks and trying to stay socially distant, was live streamed over Vimeo. Back in Baltimore, Christian’s aunt, E.R. Shipp, a professor at Morgan State University, sat on a bench underneath a tree near a koi pond in a friend’s yard. What she did has become more common during the COVID-19 pandemic: She watched the funeral on her laptop.

Despite the difficult circumstances, people are finding ways to make do.

Caroline McMillan has not given up on the idea of a more appropriate homegoing for her mother. “I am the woman I am today because of the woman my mom was,” she said. As soon as it is safe for people to gather at cemeteries in larger numbers, she said, “we’re getting her a tombstone and we’re going to go back and have a memorial for her.”

Others have found ways to use technology as a means of grieving, sharing their experiences on social media, attending memorial services via Zoom, and creating their own memorials online.

Ward, the Texas health care professional, and 12 of her colleagues created a website, United Memories, using over 500 names accumulated as they tried to track the impact of the virus by race and gender. They launched the site on April 18 as a virtual memorial for Black Americans who have died during the pandemic. The site’s home page features a scrolling collection of photos and a form that mourners can fill out to submit information to be added to the virtual memorial. The site also includes links to resources for people who are grieving, specifically links to organizations specializing in mental health in the Black community.

Ward said, “We have to be willing to hold onto those sacred rituals that make us who we are, even if they seem disconnected or improvised.”

Jason James, a student at Morgan State University, writes for the Baltimore Reporting Project, edited by Professor E. R. Shipp. He can be reached at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 July 30, 2020

 

Why We Must Support Plans for A New Reentry Center in DC

By Barrington Salmon

 

 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Advocates, faith leaders and members of the community in DC have long called for the nation's capital to build a more compassionate, holistic and effective model for providing social services to the men, women and young people transitioning back into society after incarceration.

 

Yet, despite a shared goal of providing better support to individuals making that daunting transition, the thorny question of how, exactly, to move forward has been the subject of much debate and sometimes, rancorous disagreements over the particulars. This has clouded the considerable consensus that something must be done and, as a result, stalled whatever progress was made.

 

In 2018, the Federal Bureau of Prisons awarded a contract to a nonprofit organization to replace the city’s incumbent reentry provider, Hope Village, and manage a new program at an existing location in Northeast Washington. But some in the neighborhood resisted the idea of such a facility in their backyard, prompting the owner of the building to abruptly back out of the deal, leaving the city back at square one.

 

Now, after the BOP tapped the same organization – CORE DC – in June to start up a new reentry center in Ward 7, the city once again finds itself at a critical moment. As an unflinching advocate for real criminal justice reform, I am determined to do all I can to  help the community come together to bring about real change on this issue.

 

I have long followed efforts aimed at reforming DC’s criminal justice system, and have spent many years giving voice to returning citizens, their families and the varied challenges they face. Often those of us in the wider community forget that we’re dealing with our brothers and sisters, human beings who made a mistake but paid their debt to society. Unfortunately, the stigma of their incarceration follows them and they’re often not afforded the opportunity to get a second chance. I articulated the need for the District of Columbia to move on from Hope Village if it was really committed to assisting returning citizens and providing them with the crucial support and range of services they need.

 

Today I launched a new website calling on DC to support plans for a new reentry center in Ward 7. The website will also focus on other criminal justice issues. I did this because it is imperative that we not let this process suffer the same fate it did last year. Especially now that Hope Village has closed and there is not a single facility able to provide services to citizens returning to the community. Having no place for returning citizens to go for a safe place to sleep, to readjust to being in the community and get job training is not an option.

 

We should also take advantage of the profound social changes sparked by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota in late May. It’s clear that we are at an inflection point in our nation’s history. Americans appear to finally be ready to confront the reality of the insidiousness of racism and its corrosive effects on all of us. Young people have taken the reins, eschewed asking for permission and are driving this movement forward. They are determined to hold their parents, adults, elected officials, the police and others in authority to account.

 

Our nation is grappling with a racial and moral reckoning that if successful, will change the way we look at the criminal justice system and those entangled in it. Americans are trying to figure out how to navigate the treacherous but long overdue discourse about social and racial justice, inequities, disparities and privilege and what our country will look like going forward.

 

The District of Columbia has a unique opportunity at this moment to take one seemingly small but important step in the right direction and set an example for other communities looking to take similar steps of their own.

 

We came together as a community to demand better services for those returning home from incarceration, and our efforts paid off. Hope Village – which became known as Hopeless Village in DC – is receding into our rearview mirror. Now, with a bold plan in place to provide services that will give returning citizens the support they need to transform their lives, we have an opportunity to demonstrate what real change looks like.

 

There is still a great deal of work to be done, and one reentry center alone will not nearly be enough to bring down recidivism rates that are still far too high, but the city’s plan for a new facility in Ward 7 is progress – not just progress on paper – and we should support it.