Fairness for Black Travelers By Laura W. Murphy

June 27, 2016

Fairness for Black Travelers

By Laura W. Murphy

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - You learn a lot about the character of an organization when things go wrong. For the team at Airbnb, hearing the outcry from African-American travelers who were denied lodging because of discrimination was one of these moments. I know, because I met with them in San Francisco in early June to discuss this challenge. Everyone I spoke with, including CEO Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s legal, engineering and policy team, and the leadership of the Black employees group, made clear that they are willing to do all they can to tackle this problem. What they said to me in private matches what they’ve said in public: Airbnb has zero tolerance for bias or racial discrimination.

After spending more than four decades fighting for equality at the ACLU and in other organizations, I’ve seen companies pay lip service to these issues before. But Airbnb leaders have shown a willingness to be transparent and have expressed to me a sincere desire to ensure that its policies, technology and platform are not facilitating discrimination. Towards that end, Airbnb has hired me to help them lead a 90-day review process to address discrimination issues. In working with them, I plan to hold them accountable.

I will begin that process by spending the summer meeting with technology experts, civil rights leaders, housing advocates and members of the Airbnb community to solicit their ideas. Those conversations will be guided by three principles and objectives.

The first is identifying and fixing structural problems with the platform. Airbnb should be less focused on fixing one-off examples of individual discrimination than on understanding how the platform and underlying technology itself may contribute to possible systemic problems. Airbnb has already tapped its best engineers and product team members to lead this effort, and I’m excited to work with them to make real improvements.

The second step is to improve its processes so it can rapidly identify racial discrimination and deal with these matters quickly and decisively. That includes putting in policies and processes that will set the model for the industry and which will reflect the company’s commitment to fighting discrimination and acting quickly if something goes wrong. It will be important for Airbnb, like any company committed to taking on this issue, to continually educate staff and community so that the entire community understand these rules and processes so that responses are quick and appropriate.

Finally, Airbnb must build broader and enduring relationships with diverse travel, civil rights, grass roots, small business, social science and educational institutions. The brilliant staff at Airbnb cannot make its way in this increasingly diverse world, unless they are a more diverse company and are active in communities that will support them in this effort. One meeting in the middle of a crisis won’t do it. They need relationships with experts that last. Discrimination in the sharing economy is not going away anytime soon, and if Airbnb wants to be in the forefront of tackling this problem it will be mutually beneficial to be a part of a sustained dialogue with individuals and organizations.

These steps are just beginning. Airbnb understands that there’s no single solution to the problem of deeply entrenched biases and discrimination in the travel industry or in our society as a whole. It will need to engage in an enduring effort to ensure that every single member of its community is treated equally. At its core, Airbnb is about helping people feel like they can belong anywhere, no matter who they are, what they look like, or where they’re from. They take that mission very seriously, and I will do whatever I can to help them to get it right.

Laura W. Murphy recently retired as director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office after 17 years. She was also Washington, DC’s director of tourism under Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly in the 1990’s.

Democrats Stage 26-hour Sit-in by Frederick H. Lowe

June 26, 2016

Democrats Stage 26-hour Sit-in

They protest the lack of a vote on a gun bill in the wake of the Orlando slaughter Illinois

By Frederick H. Lowe

U.S. Rep. John Lewis sits with U.S. Rep. David Meeks (D., N.Y.)

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.org

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Democratic members of Congress, led by the Congressional Black Caucus, staged a 26-hour sit-in June 22 and 23rd on the floor of the U.S. Congress to demand a vote on a gun control measures in the wake of the massacre of 49 people in an Orlando, Fla., night club.

U.S. Rep. John Lewis sits with U.S. Rep. David Meeks (D., N.Y.)

Led by John Lewis, a Georgia Congressman and a former civil rights leader, more than 40 Democrats took to the House Floor on Wednesday to protest the Republican party leadership’s refusal to allow a vote on the gun control measure.

Speaker of House Paul Ryan (R.,Wis.) called the sit-in a publicity stunt. “I’m not going to allow stunts like this to stop us from carrying out the people’s business,” Ryan said during his on-camera press briefing.

Republicans recessed the House, turning off C-Span, the television network of Congress, but Democrats streamed the sit-in on their mobile phones; some used the Periscope app, a live streaming platform, and Facebook.

C-Span eventually began showing the demonstration.

Democrats have been trying to force a vote on “no fly, no buy bill,” which would bar terror suspects on the “no-fly” list from purchasing guns, according to the website Politico.

By Wednesday afternoon, it was clear that Republicans, who control the House, would not relent. Democrats then took to the floor.

“We have been too quiet for too long,” said Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from 1963-1966.”There comes a time when you have to say something. You have to make a little noise. You have to move your feet. This is the time. How many more mothers, how many more fathers need to shed tears of grief before we do something?”

One of the fathers was Congressman Bobby Rush (D., Ill.). Rush talked about the shooting death of his son, Huey Rich, 29, on Oct. 24, 1999.

“I come from a place where gun violence is a daily, multiple, many times a day occurrence. It’s so bad in Chicago that the murder of a three-year-old yesterday is old news because of the proliferation of guns in my city,” Rush said

“I live in a danger zone. When I pull up to the intersection, me, my constituents, if a cop pulls up beside us, there’s fear. We don’t know what to expect. When I drive along the expressway, we don’t know what to expect. We don’t know where the bullet will come from. We don’t know whether or not a young man or young woman is young but armed. We need effective, sane, common sense gun control legislation. We need the House of Representatives to be the representatives of the American people, and not just the representatives of the NRA.”

During the sit-in, Democrats sang the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” to illustrate their resolve in getting a vote.

Democrats who included Rep. Joe Crowley (N.Y.), Donna Edwards (Md.) and Alcee Hastings (Fla.) stood in front of the speaker’s podium, reading the names of the 49 people who were murdered in the June 12 massacre at Pulse, an Orlando gay bar. Fifty-three people were wounded.

After 26 hours, Democrats called an end to the demonstration.

The Democrats did not get the vote, but the demonstration seemed to galvanize the party.

Black Trade Deficit by James Clingman

June 26, 2016

Blackonomics

Black Trade Deficit
By James Clingman

clingman

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The more I see the statistics relating to the so-called Black Economy and Black Buying Power, the more desperate my message becomes and the more insulted I feel. How can we get so excited about having an annual aggregate income of more than $1 trillion while we are at the bottom of every economic category in this country? We create vast wealth for others at the expense of creating and retaining wealth for ourselves? Black America is operating at a huge trade deficit. We must change that.

Just as the government is concerned about the national trade deficit, Black folks should feel the same about ours, and we should finally do something about it. Our trade deficit is horrendously out of kilter, and it’s getting worse every day. Oh yes, I almost forgot; we are currently enthralled with who will be our next President, and it’s difficult to draw our attention away from that circus, isn’t it? But can’t we walk and chew gum at the same time?

We cannot afford to neglect our trade deficit while we discuss politics as usual and prepare to cast our votes for folks who either don’t care about us or take us for granted. What a choice, huh?

Well, we have other choices. We can choose to redirect more of our $1 trillion toward our own businesses; we can choose to start and grow more businesses; we can choose to create more jobs for our children; we can choose to teach our children how to be entrepreneurs; we can choose to pool our dollars and leverage them to our own benefit; we can choose to use our dollars to create more conscious Black millionaires; and we can choose economic freedom over economic enslavement and modern-day sharecropping.

Several years ago, I read an article by the so-called Black Conservative, Larry Elder, in which he stated, “…despite slavery, Jim Crow and racism, the progress of American blacks is simply astounding. If black America were a country, it would be the 15th ‘wealthiest’ country in the world. He was using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to prove his case.

A little Economics lesson is in order here. First of all, GDP and wealth are not the same as annual income. GDP is a collective measure of income produced per capita by a nation’s citizens. “Black America would be ranked 34^th in per capita GDP at 23,000 each. (The entire U.S. per capita amount is more than $53,000.) Add to the equation the cost of living in this country, and Blacks would rank 44^th in the world.” (Source: Pundit Fact, By Derek Tsang, September 2014)

The components of GDP are consumption, investment, net exports, government purchases, and inventories. Consumption is by far the largest component, totaling roughly two-thirds of GDP.

Blacks save and invest very little. Exports? Not much going on there either, although our brothers and sisters in Africa and the Caribbean eagerly await the day when get our act together and start taking care of business. Government purchases? Well, we have a lot of government jobs, if that counts. And finally, our inventories are not much to speak of either. Consumption? Black folks really make the grade in that category. Our consumption is as high as 95%, and most of what we buy is from businesses other than our own!

Using aggregate income to say we would be the 15^th “wealthiest” nation in the world is absurd. Currently Blacks hold about 2% of this nation’s $85 trillion wealth, which is mostly tied up in home ownership, much of which was lost during the housing crisis of 2008.

We must stop being mesmerized and lulled into complacency and false pride regarding our aggregate $1.2 trillion income. We have a dangerously high trade deficit, and we should be working to reduce that deficit by producing and selling more.

Yes, that line about Blacks being the 15^th richest “country” in the world sounds good. It’s balm for our injuries, consolation for our wounded psyches, and ammunition for those who say, “We’ve come a long way, baby!” But what good is it doing us if we consume everything someone else makes, fail to save a minimum of ten percent of what we earn, have no import/export relationships with Africa, the richest land in the world, and fail to control the distribution of our products? What good does it do us to have a $1.2 trillion income if we are in a constant trade deficit with other groups in this country?

The Black trade deficit is way out of balance, and we had better get busy fixing it before we become totally dependent on “foreigners” to supply our sustenance. No one can take care of us better than we can take care of ourselves. We proved it once upon a time; we can do it once again.

My Brother’s Keeper Looks to Live on After Obama By James Wright

June 26, 2016

My Brother’s Keeper Looks to Live on After Obama
By James Wright

President Obama announcing the My Brother's Keeper initiative on Feb. 27, 2014.

PHOTO: Pete Souza/White House

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Obama has seven months left in office. One of the leaders of one of his key initiatives is hard at work ensuring the president’s legacy will continue after he leaves the White House.

Obama founded “My Brother’s Keeper” in February 2014 to focus the federal government and the private and non-profit sectors on improving the lives of Black boys and young men. James Cole, the general counsel and deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, said the initiative has expanded its mandate over its two years of existence. In January Cole began overseeing the My Brother’s Keeper program.

“We have had an exciting two years,” Cole told the AFRO June 14 during School without Walls graduation ceremony at the Lerner Auditorium at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

“We are working hard to address opportunity gaps for young males of color and we have reached into such programs as English as a Second Language and those who have been diagnosed with disabilities.” “We are working hard to see that young men of color reach their full potential,” he continued.

My Brother’s Keeper has programs in nearly 250 communities in all of the states and the District of Columbia. The initiative has more than $600 million in private sector and philanthropic grants and in-kind resources, and $1 billion in low-interest financing, according to the report, “My Brother’s Keeper 2016 Progress Report: Two Years of Expanding Opportunity and Creating Pathways to Success.” The report said more than 80 percent of the initiatives the task force sent to Obama two years ago have gone into effect or are on track.

One of the activities relates to opportunities in the summer. Cole said that boys of color that are eligible for free and reduced lunch can participate in a variety of programs to strengthen their academic and social skills. “These are the students that need the most help so we are setting them up with mentors,” he said. “We noticed that when young people go on summer vacation, they tend to lose some of what they learned so we have programs and mentors that can keep them academically engaged.”

The District has a program where mentors work with their protégés on improving their reading skills. That effort is part of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s (D) Emerging Males of Color program that was kicked off in January 2015.

Bowser’s EMOC is an example of what Cole is talking about when discussing state-level components of the initiative. “These problems need to be dealt with on the ground, in the communities,” he said. “We are dealing with the mayors in every state and where the programs are utilized, we have seen gains. When the president leaves office, this is how the work will continue.”

Cole said that corporations and nonprofits are continuing their financial support and “that will go beyond this administration.” He could not say whether the next president will continue the program at the federal level.

My Brother’s Keeper is a program that Cole could personally relate to. In his address to the students at the D.C. school, he talked about his tough early life on the south side of Chicago with a mother who died of a heart attack and a father who had Alzheimer’s. “I was the oldest child, so I became responsible for the family,” Cole said. “Just a few weeks after my mom passed, I was robbed at gunpoint. At times, we lived on food stamps and worried when they’d next turn the lights off.”

Cole credited an English teacher for inspiring him to greatness. Cole went on to graduate from the University of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign and the University Of Chicago School of Law. After graduating from law school, he clerked for U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Stephanie K. Seymour for the Tenth Circuit and in 1996. He went to work for the New York law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz where he became a partner in 2004. He left the firm in 2011 to become deputy general counsel to the U.S. Department of Transportation and in December 2014, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to his present position.

Leonard Haynes is a retired senior executive with the Department of Education and thinks highly of the work Cole has done for the initiative. “James has been at the department for two years and I know he is committed to increasing more and better educational opportunities for young people,” Haynes said. “As the general counsel, he has his eye on the disadvantaged and it is good to have a person with that type of commitment in that position.”

Why Warren should be Hillary's VP By Jesse Jackson

June 26, 2016

Why Warren Should Be Hillary's VP

By Jesse Jackson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president, is now sorting out her pick for her running mate and potential vice president. She’s launched the “search,” the traditional and often irritating public surfacing of various possibilities, paying respect to different constituencies and different personalities, before settling on a choice.

One possibility being floated clearly merits serious consideration. Consider the resume: Raised in a family struggling to get by, this prospect started working while still in high school, went to college on a debate scholarship, graduated from law school, and became a Harvard Law professor and expert on bankruptcy law, particularly as it relates to how the financial industry preys on families in crisis.

This person wrote path-breaking books on the economic pressures on working families, then chaired the Congressional Oversight Panel monitoring the federal bailout of the U.S. banking system and created the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), ushering it from conception to passage into law. Then elected as U.S. senator, immediately gaining a national reputation as a progressive leader willing to take on the big banks and stand up for working people, this leader has demonstrated a tough mind, a full heart, a strong will and a gift for inspiring people. What’s not to like?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is, of course, a woman. Some suggest it’s impossible to have two women lead the party’s ticket. But haven’t we gone far beyond that? We’ve had two men lead parties forever, so there’s no tradition of gender balance. Hillary Clinton should be looking for the strongest candidate. And on that criterion, Warren is hard to beat.

Warren would help Clinton heal the divisions of the primaries. She appeals to the Sanders wing of the party, to independents and the young. Indeed, before Sanders announced, progressives organized across the country to urge Warren to run. She speaks with a credibility earned by her willingness to take the side of working families against powerful interests and the Washington establishment. She’s already demonstrated the fire needed to call out Donald Trump and the party that is about to nominate him.

Warren exemplifies Clinton’s goal to be a “progressive with results.” She had to take on the banking lobby, Obama’s treasury secretary, entrenched regulators, and Republican and more than a few Democratic members of Congress to get the CFPB enshrined in law. Already that agency has helped consumers recover more than $10 billion from credit card companies and banking institutions that had defrauded them. If she is on the ticket and helping to lead the administration, voters can be confident that Wall Street bankers will finally be held accountable.

Warren has been a leader in the effort to expand Social Security, now an emerging consensus in the Democratic Party. She led the effort to reduce student debt from college. She’s been a strong supporter of lifting the minimum wage and creating a floor under workers.

Warren has less experience in international affairs and national security. But what is required there is intelligence and judgment. No one doubts she has the intelligence to learn what is at stake in any crisis. She exhibits the judgment — and a skepticism about foreign military adventures — that is badly needed in any White House. And, of course, she’s already shown she will call them as she sees them, ensuring that Clinton would get her best informed and unvarnished opinion, no matter who is lined up on the other side.

Clinton, like most presidential candidates, will make her choice on the basis of political judgment, extensive vetting and personal affinity. She will want to choose someone who will add strength to the ticket, and to the administration if elected, and have her confidence. She should not let the fact that Warren is female get in the way of giving her strong consideration.