May 14, 2017

Thoughts of What Could Be
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As a President of a national women's organization, my continuing challenge is to identify and address/confront issues which broadly impact our membership and those non-members, female and male, who are similarly situated.  Although I am eager to direct this column's focus on a topic other than the Trump Administration, I am literally locked into responding to the never-ending confusion and drama which emanate from Trump-world.  The reason: Under the Trump Administration, all "ordinary" citizens, especially women, occupy a tenuous and contentious place in society.  Without vigilance and resistance, we are all subject to an unpleasant future.

Daily we are inundated with lies and misrepresentations from either Trump or his administration lackeys.  MSNBC's Morning Joe Show offered that Trump averaged five lies daily.  These lies often fly so fast and furiously as to confuse millions.  Sadly, these lies erode confidence in the institutions that form the foundation of our organized society and distort the expectations of those who are involved/engaged with them.

For example, we see a proposal to remove the promise of healthcare from the reach of 24 million Americans.  Supplemental healthcare funding is turned upside-down; reducing amounts received by the most vulnerable while increasing amounts received by the most able.  Recognized as essential for saving life, insurance for pre-existing conditions is poised to be priced out of the reach of those so afflicted.  These outcomes are structured under a deceptive plan touted to be better, cheaper and more available than our current plan.

These lies display a new national profile to our international allies and adversaries.  Throughout my life, the US occupied the pinnacle of international relations.  Although not always deserved, we were the worldwide exemplar for democratic principles.  We were reliable partners with our allies and feared by our adversaries.  The uncertainty of dealing with a government whose leadership is indulgent in lies has diminished us in the eyes of our allies and emboldened our adversaries.  As recently as last week, Angela Merkel and Germany were characterized as the new exemplars of democracy in the world.

Trump proponents have given praise and unwavering loyalty to his executive management.  His explanations of events, or distortions thereof, please and mollify his base.

Alternatively, critics view each utterance as another in a sequence of lies.  Discounting his persuasiveness to large numbers of voters, we critique his statements as being ridiculous and impossible to believe.  Yet, with the support of the Republican Congress, he holds the potential to shape the future of our nation in his own image.

Instead of discounting his possible damage, I urge all to consider his "long game."  I urge you to extrapolate his intent from the signals he sends and look at each of his initiatives not as a singular experience, but as a part of an ultimate plan to accumulate, secure and maintain power for the oligarchy.

Contrary to facts, Trump maintains his election as an overwhelming victory by a majority of Americans.  To prove that, he has established a commission to counter the problem of “millions of illegal voters.” From this, I see an assault on voters who don't embrace Trump-world doctrine.  Blame for irregularities in his administration is never his own, but shifted to the leadership of President Obama.

Trump's admiration for autocrats and dedication to unchallenged leadership are on prominent display.  Surrogate, Steve Bannon, has already professed their desire to disrupt/destroy the institutional foundations upon which our nation stands.  Whether successful achieving campaign promises or not, Trump continues to convince his acolytes that he is the only one who can solve their problems.

This snapshot of bleakness isn’t inevitable, but if we fail to support those principles that have made us strong, little-by-little we’ll relinquish our right to the freedoms we now enjoy.

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

May 9, 2017

'State of Black America': Washington Power Shift Brings ‘Dire Risk’ to Economic, Social Progress
By Hazel Trice Edney

NUL President/CEO Marc Morial

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Now more than 100 days since the inauguration of President Donald Trump and a Republican-dominated Congress, the “shift of power and priorities in Washington” has brought a “dire risk” to Black economic and social progress in multi-faceted ways, requiring resolute protection and a “Main Street Marshall Plan”.

This according to the National Urban League’s annual State of Black America report released last week.

“A little more than three months since President Obama has left office, much of the economic and social progress we saw under his watch is under imminent threat,” says NUL President/CEO Marc Morial in a statement upon the release of the report. “Recovery from the Great Recession has been slow, but it has been real….During the Obama era, the economy added 15 million new jobs, the Black unemployment rate dropped and the high school graduation rate for African Americans soared. Now that progress, and much more, is threatened.”

Morial continued, “It is impossible to discuss the state of Black America in 2017 without addressing the shift of power and priorities in Washington.”

The report, which has a 20-page executive summary and voluminous addendums and essays by numerous policy experts, outlines specific issues where NUL studies have found threats of imminent roll backs. Among them:

• “Recent proposals before Congress would shift desperately needed resources away from underfunded public schools toward our heavily-invested-in military. The federal budget currently under consideration would slash the budget of the Departments of Health, Education, Housing, and Labor—a blueprint for a sick, uneducated, homeless and unemployed America.  Suggested double-digit cuts, or the outright elimination of funding for vital programs and services, would devastate already vulnerable citizens and working families.”
• “During his confirmation hearing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions surprisingly expressed his doubt—and disregard—for consent decrees secured by the Obama Justice Department in cities where policing patterns revealed ingrained racial bias, systemic civil rights violations and the regular use of excessive force. Citing his concern that the decrees undermine respect for law enforcement, Sessions has ordered a review of all federal reform initiatives, signaling a retreat on common sense police reform that endorses constitutional policing in all our communities. We believe he must continue to enforce these vital consent decrees.”
• “Furthermore, the social cancer of hate continues to metastasize, thriving in a climate conducive to hostility towards religious and racial minorities, permeating even at the highest levels of national discourse and threatening to further crack our fractured nation. In the 10 days following the 2016 election, the Southern Poverty Law Center recorded a ‘national outbreak of hate’ it deemed worse than the days after 9/11. Incendiary language about immigrants, Muslims, women and people of color has translated into discriminatory public policy, including an immigration ban that gives preference to one religion over another; baseless accusations of voter fraud that have provided fresh fuel to racially discriminatory voter suppression measures in state legislatures; and efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act in parts, or as a whole, that would have the inevitable outcome of disproportionately burdening communities of color.”

Also included in the report are the annual “Equality Indexes” which compare the economic status between Blacks and Whites. In a nutshell, even the area with the best Black-White income equality revealed Black America woefully trailing and even dropping.

That area is Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif., which remained at the top of the NUL Black-White Income Equality ranking for the third consecutive year. According to the 2017 Index, the median Black household in Riverside had 72 cents for every dollar of median white household income. This is down from 76 cents last year.  In Riverside, Black household income fell 3.2 percent year-over-year, while Whites saw an increase of 2.5 percent.

On the other hand, the SOBA reports that Black and White incomes were worse – or least equal -in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn. And Bloomington, Wis. Areas. There, the gap was 41 cents on the dollar. In Minneapolis, the median household income for Blacks was $31,672 (up 12.4 percent from last year’s Index) compared to $76,581 for Whites (up 2.7 percent from last year’s Index).

The detailed report states that the highest median household income for both Blacks ($68,054) and whites ($112,177) was in Washington, DC-Arlington-Alexandria, Va. Areas. The lowest median Black household income ($23,693) was in Toledo, Ohio. It report notes, “even though Toledo had one of the lowest median white household incomes in the country, the white household income in Toledo was still more than double the Black household income.  Toledo, OH also had the highest Black unemployment rate, which would at least partly account for the low income of Black households.”

As a remedy to some of the most dire problems, the SOBA presented the Main Street Marshall Plan: From Poverty to Prosperity, described as “a sweeping proposal for economic and social revitalization of America’s cities and struggling neighborhoods.”

Among its key points, The plan calls for:

• National investment of $4 trillion over the next 10 years: $2 trillion for physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges and buildings and $2 trillion for human development, such as education, job training and health insurance.
• A comprehensive infrastructure initiative, with inner cities being the major beneficiary, and which must include a strong jobs-building component that guarantees minority business participation and employment for workers in high-unemployment neighborhoods.
• Other highlights outlined in the Marshall Plan include universal pre-k education, a $15 minimum wage with increases indexed to inflation, reforms to financial and educational institutions and programs, criminal justice and police reform and expansion and protection of voting rights.

Morial concludes, “While the Obama years were no panacea for America’s long-standing racial inequities, they were a steady climb toward improvement, and we are determined to keep moving forward to protect our progress.”

.

May 14, 2017

Devoid at Bethune Cookman University: We Must Be the Resistance
By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com)-I could not be more proud of the students at Bethune Cookman University than if I had raised them myself.  Responding to the University’s very late selection of Betsy DeVos (hereafter referred to as DeVoid, as she is devoid of good sense, history, literacy, and even courtesy) for the spring commencement speaker, graduating seniors chose to turn their back on a woman who described HBCUs as “pioneers of school choice”.  Their repudiation of her very right to be present was well coordinated.  It reflects student ability to be sophisticated, not reactive when confronted with a speaker that epitomizes the very refutation of their HBCU education.  It is my hope and dream that these students can continue to operate in formation as they oppose oppression.

I don’t know how DeVoid came to be BCU’s commencement speaker.  I suspect that the White House (Omorosa) made a call to offer an administration speaker and they went for it.  Maybe Trump Whisperer Manigault’s new hubby, Florida Rev. John Allen Newman, has some ties to the college and he saw this as a way of burnishing wifey’s credentials as HBCU savior.  Maybe there are a bunch of Black Republicans on the BCU Board standing in the wings and hoping for goodies from 45.  Truly, this is all speculation, but most of the time commencement speakers are secured months before graduation.  This speaker was thrust on students and their families just ten days before the ceremony.

For most students, speakers are the sideshow, not the main deal in commencement, unless the speaker is someone like President Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington, or Viola Davis.  White folks might prefer Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Wolf Blitzer or Sheryl Sandberg.  Commencement speakers are expected to spout uplifting platitudes, offer sage advice, maybe share a private challenge, and wish the graduates well and do it in less than 20 minutes.  Students are sitting at the edge of their seats not because they are waiting for the punch line, but because they want their degrees.

What was Bethune Cookman University President Edison Jackson thinking?  In his printed statement on May 1, he said “The legacy of Dr. Bethune is that she was not constrained by political ideology, but worked across all parties to support B-CU.  Moreover, students are directly impacted by funding dollars that are dispersed through the Department of Education. B-CU receives $4 million annually through Title III, which supports teaching, research and infrastructure. Additionally, Title IV impacts the ability of B-CU students to receive federal financial aid, overall influencing the ascension of Bethune-Cookman University students”.

Maybe President Jackson thought he was making friends by inviting DeVoid to speak at BCU’s graduation.  Actually, he made a spectacle of the graduation by inviting a woman who had already disparaged HBCUs with her ignorance.  And he did it in the same week when her boss, 45, said (and then quickly reversed himself) that he was not sure that some federal provisions for HBCUs, such as the HBCU Capital Finance Program, are constitutional.

It is odious that DeVoid has received an honorary degree from BCU.  What has she done to earn it?  According to President Jackson, “Through Secretary DeVos’ life work, her contributions extend far beyond her home state of Michigan. Secretary DeVos has supported educational opportunities for students in over 25 states and supported Central Florida through several philanthropic efforts: 100 Black Men of Central Florida; Jones High School, and the Parramore neighborhood located in Orlando to name a few.  Secretary DeVos is a graduate of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. She is the wife of community activist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Dick DeVos, where they have four adult children and six grandchildren.”  This earns her an honorary degree?  Really?

I reached out to President Edison Jackson and several members of his team to discuss this.  I’ve been to Bethune Cookman University twice under President Jackson’s leadership and know, all too well, what kinds of pressures that HBCU Presidents face as they juggle constituencies – faculty, students, alumni, community, trustees and many others.  He might have found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place when he invited DeVoid.  Or he may have welcomed the opportunity.

We in HBCU Land (my special term for our space) play ourselves cheap.  Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, Georgetown, and Stanford aren’t rushing to give Betsy DeVoid honorary degrees.  They don’t think she deserves them.  The woman with a simple undergraduate degree from the unremarkable Calvin College (yes, my elitism is showing), whose only contribution to the education arena is her rabid embrace of school choice, should not get an honorary degree from anywhere.  Unfortunately, Bethune Cookman University was first in line to debase itself by offering a degree to DeVoid.

DeVoid insulted the BCU community by recounting Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune’s life story as part of her commencement speech.  How dare she tell us about ourselves in a way to attempt to endear us to her?  Betsy DeVoid, you are no Mary McLeod Bethune.  You can go to her gravesite, but you can’t channel her energy.  Don’t get it twisted.

The low point of the BCU commencement was the spectacle of President Edison Jackson chiding his students because they had the integrity to protest the presence of Ms. DeVoid.  He is their leader, their guru, their mentor.  He should not have threatened his students, but instead offered them, and Ms. DeVoid, a series of palliative statements designed to honor the protest spirit of Dr. Bethune, and the awkwardness of the moment.  Had I been a scolded student, I would have felt slimed.  Had I been understood, I might have felt differently.

If I were a member of the Bethune Cookman University class of 2017, I would contribute, for the next few years, to a fund that supports student activists.  I’d find a classmate to run the fund outside the confines of the university.  I’d support the fund because I support my college, but not an administration that insults the best day of our college career with an odious and repugnant speaker.

Julianne Malveaux is an economist, author, and Founder of Economic Education. Her podcast, “It’s Personal with Dr. J” is available on iTunes. Her latest book “Are We Better Off: Race, Obama and public policy is available via amazon.com.

May 2, 2017

CBC Lists 100 Trump Actions in 100 Days - to the Detriment of Black Progress 
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – The Congressional Black Caucus has released a list of 100 actions taken by President Donald Trump during his first 100 days that the CBC says have been detrimental to the country – especially the Black community.

“People of all ages and races, including many young people of color, are standing up and speaking out about this Administration’s actions and how they will hurt our communities and the country,” says CBC Chairman Cedric Richmond in a statement. “President Trump says he wants to make America great again but in our view the programs and policies he’s implementing will do the opposite. We hope this list will help those who are engaged and those who aren’t stay woke because our democracy is at stake.”

“The list, titled ‘What Did Trump Do?: The First-100-Days, #StayWoke List,’ is a special edition of CBC’s ‘What Did Trump Do?’ rapid response documents and includes actions across issues areas such as education, healthcare, and justice,” says a statement. “The list is part of the CBC’s effort to listen, involve, and mobilize young leaders during the 115th Congress, an effort that began a few weeks ago with the launch of CBC’s tour of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, #CBCOnTheYard.”

The phrase #StayWoke or “stay awake” is often used by African-Americans in the social media arena to “remind themselves and those around them to stay focused on what’s really being said and done to their community. As a result of the election of President Trump, the phrase has taken on new meaning; people of all ages and races are using it to remind themselves and those around them to stay focused on the programs and policies being implemented by this Administration.”

The following are among the items on the list:

• “After meeting with 70 HBCU presidents and the White House stating the he wanted to give HBCUs “the proper respect,” President Trump has proposed in his budget to give these institutions the same amount of money they received last year even though their operational costs are increasing. President Trump has also proposed to cut programs that support students served by HBCUs including federal work study, Pell, and campus-based aid.”
• “President Trump has said many hurtful things about President Obama, including accusing the first Black president of a felony. On March 4, President Trump tweeted that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 election. President Trump has provided no evidence that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower even though he could easily provide it. In addition, on March 20, FBI Director James Comey told the House Intelligence Committee during a public hearing that the agency has ‘no information’ about the alleged wiretaps.”
• “After several sexual assault allegations and related legal settlements came to light about former veteran Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly, President Trump defended the journalist. “I think he’s a person I know well — he is a good person,” said President Trump on April 5 during an interview with the New York Times in the Oval Office. “I think he shouldn’t have settled; personally I think he shouldn’t have settled. Because you should have taken it all the way. I don’t think Bill did anything wrong.” Days later Fox News canceled O’Reilly’s show and announced that he would not be returning to the network.”
• “President Trump’s proposed budget would eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency, “which funds a nationwide network of business centers to help minority-owned business stay competitive and create jobs.”
• “During a White House press conference on April 11, Press Secretary Sean Spicer suggested that the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, is guilty of war crimes that are worse than those committed by Nazi Germany leader Adolf Hitler during the Holocaust. Spicer said that Hitler did not use chemical weapons like al-Assad even though gas chambers were regularly used to kill Jews and others at concentration camps during the Holocaust.”
• “President Trump appointed Candice E. Jackson as acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education. Ms. Jackson once said affirmative action ‘promotes racial discrimination,’ and claimed she was discriminated against for being white.”
• “On February 27, after meeting with more than 70 HBCU presidents, Secretary DeVos called Historically Black Colleges and Universities “pioneers” for school choice even though these institutions were founded because white colleges and university refused to admit Black students.”
• “President Trump’s proposed budget for the Department of Education hurts low-income students from pre-k through college by undermining public education through the elimination of after school and teacher support programs and diverting federal funds to private school vouchers, eliminating supports for college students, gutting federal-work study, and slashing critical funding for Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants and Pell Grants. All of these cuts would have severe consequences for our nation’s African-American students.”
• “President Trump’s proposed budget would cut Environmental Protection Agency grant programs that help states monitor public water systems, even though Flint, Michigan. is still dealing with a water crisis.”
• “President Trump’s proposed budget would eliminate programs that help limit children’s exposure to lead paint. According to the CDC, African-American children are three times more likely to have elevated blood-lead levels.”
• “The FBI is investigating whether President Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.”
• “One of President Trump’s first actions was to appoint White House Adviser Steve Bannon to the National Security Council (NSC). Many politicians and pundits, including the CBC, called for Bannon to be removed not only from the NSC but from the White House entirely because of his white nationalist views. Bannon is the former chairman of the white nationalist news organization Breitbart News.”
• “President Trump has said little on the threat of domestic terrorism even though religious institutions and people of color have been targeted here at home in the wake of the 2016 election. For example, in Wellsville, N.Y., someone painted “Make America White Again” on a dugout wall, a statement based on President Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”. Source In addition, Jewish community centers and cemeteries have received threats or been vandalized. In short, the threat of domestic terrorism is real but it is not prioritized by this Administration”
• “President Trump has proposed to eliminate funding for the African Development Foundation, which funds grassroots development projects in 30 African countries.”
• “More than 20 million people are facing famine in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria, and Yemen and President Trump’s budget proposal would make the situation worse by cutting funding for humanitarian food aid and United Nations peacekeeping.”
• “On January 25, the White House announced that it would launch a major investigation into voter fraud event though it is essentially a non-issue. The White House decided to launch the investigation in response to President Trump’s false claims that 3 to 5 million illegal voters cost him the popular vote.”
• “On February 27, the Department of Justice, under the leadership of Attorney General Sessions, withdrew its longstanding claim that Texas enacted its 2011 voter ID law with the intent to discriminate. A few months later a federal judge ruled that the law was enacted with the intent to discriminate against Black and Latino voters.”

The full list of actions can be found here: https://cbc.house.gov/uploadedfiles/stay_woke_list.pdf.

According to a CBC release the following committee and congressional offices led by CBC members contributed to the CBC list: House Committee on the Judiciary (Office of Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr.), House Committee on Financial Services (Office of Ranking Member Maxine Waters), House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (Office of Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson), House Committee on Education and the Workforce (Office of Ranking Member Bobby Scott), House Committee on Homeland Security (Office of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson), House Committee on Oversight (Ranking Member Elijah Cummings), and Office of Congresswoman Robin Kelly (D-Ill.).