Jan. 24, 2023
By Svante Myrick

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - If you’ve been watching news or social media recently, it’s hard to miss a disturbing trend in American culture. It seems like antisemitism is back in a very public way – and not just in the white supremacist circles where it’s been all along. It’s heartbreaking. And it got me thinking about an experience I had fifteen years ago in my hometown of Ithaca, New York.

I was on the city council, and a local rabbi came to me with a concern. He explained that in traditional Jewish communities, many activities that are considered work are not allowed on the Sabbath. These include carrying objects from place to place outside the home. So tradition accommodates this restriction by creating a larger area called an eruv: a space that defines home as several houses and streets within a community. The boundaries of the eruv are designated by markers around the neighborhood, often attached to utility poles and wires.

The eruv symbolically enlarges the home – so the necessities of faith and of daily life can coexist.

For years, the rabbi said, the Jewish community had been asking to put up eruv markers in parts of Ithaca, but the city council hadn’t responded: could I help? I’m happy to say that we got it done. But not without some resistance -- including pushback from people who called themselves progressives, who opposed what they called “catering” to a religious community.

That disappointed me then, and it bothers me even more today. Here’s why.

The alarm bells that are ringing about the rise of antisemitism are on both the Right and the Left. On the Right, we know that white supremacists, militant Christian nationalists and other bigots pose a deadly threat. And the way to combat this is with a strong, progressive, multiracial coalition. This is what happened in the civil rights era, when a Black-Jewish alliance played a major role in the fight for desegregation and voting rights.

But alarm bells are also ringing on the Left, because today there are fractures in that old alliance. A mix of cultural and political influences has left some in the Black community feeling like we’re not all on the same team. And what happens when good people are not aligned is that evil gets the upper hand.

There are plenty of examples of this throughout history. And I don’t use the word “evil” lightly. Think of Nick Fuentes, the far-right activist who grabbed headlines for his dinner with Donald Trump and Ye. Fuentes has openly praised Adolf Hitler. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

This is the kind of viciousness that we are facing today, with a Far Right that became louder, bolder and more aggressive under Donald Trump – and hasn’t gone away. This is a time when the Black community and Jewish community need to come together, and not be driven apart by forces with a divide-and-conquer agenda. We can acknowledge that there are differences between us, things we can talk about, while still having each other’s backs.

In other words, we can symbolically enlarge our home.

Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday just passed, famously reminded us that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Those of us who want equity and justice need to want it for all people. Our real and symbolic home should be with each other, where we are united by our shared humanity and where hate by any name is excluded. Let’s make that space, and welcome each other in.

Svante Myrick is President of People For the American Way. Previously, he served as executive director of People For and led campaigns focused on transforming public safety, racial equity, voting rights, and empowering young elected officials. Myrick garnered national attention as the youngest-ever mayor in New York State history.

Jan. 9, 2023
By Marc Morial

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “Saving American democracy for the long run requires a clear condemnation of the Trump presidency. That means making clear that no one is above the law … Presidents also need a clear message, one that will echo through history, that breaking the law in the Oval Office will actually be punished." -- Boston Globe Editorial Board

As the nation this week marked the second anniversary of one of the darkest days in our history, the January 6 Insurrection, a feeble Republican majority attempted to assume control of the House of Representatives and the House Select Committee to Investigate the Insurrection formally concluded its work.

Now it is up to the Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team of Justice Department prosecutors to act on the committee’s recommendation that former President Donald Trump be prosecuted on criminal charges of Obstruction of an Official Proceeding, Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Conspiracy to Make a False Statement, Incitement of an Insurrection, and other conspiracy charges.

In addition to the committee’s https://default.salsalabs.org/T9646250d-6bc7-4a69-a3fd-bb5a9480a8e4/15b47f7f-8b80-4de7-8022-dd87a1f304c0. Click or tap to follow the link." data-linkindex="0" data-auth="Verified">report, which outlines the damning evidence against Trump, Smith’s team has received https://default.salsalabs.org/Ta5cf3c63-8c41-4cc7-b947-fdc416e5c5b5/15b47f7f-8b80-4de7-8022-dd87a1f304c0. Click or tap to follow the link." data-linkindex="1" data-auth="Verified">emails, letters and other documents from election officials in battleground states who were subjected to false accusations of fraud and pressure to falsify election results.

A failure to prosecute Trump in the face of this extensive documentation of his misdeeds would be a failure of justice of historic proportions and a catastrophic subversion of the principle of equal treatment under the law.

Criminal prosecutions are intended not only to punish individuals for their offenses, but also to deter them and others from engaging in the same conduct in the future.

The federal prosecution of a former president – particularly by the administration of a political adversary – should not be undertaken lightly. But the case against Trump is so clear-cut, and the consequences so profound that Smith has no other rational option.

Though Trump has https://default.salsalabs.org/Te5c2a304-91ab-43cf-9322-8bc54826d90b/15b47f7f-8b80-4de7-8022-dd87a1f304c0. Click or tap to follow the link." data-linkindex="2" data-auth="Verified">publicly denied it, his decision to run for president a third time is widely perceived as an attempt to avoid prosecution – though one unlikely to succeed.

“It is his intention by announcing that to retard criminal cases,” retired federal prosecutor Thomas Baer https://default.salsalabs.org/Td653bf4e-e14c-4330-89ae-b3ab84833613/15b47f7f-8b80-4de7-8022-dd87a1f304c0. Click or tap to follow the link." data-linkindex="3" data-auth="Verified">told The Daily Beast. “He thinks that if he is running for president this will cause prosecutors to drop their cases or think twice because it could be interpreted as political, a reaction to his running. The answer is: No, they will not hold back.”

According to the evidence gathered by the Jan 6 Committee, Trump knew the Vice President had no unilateral authority to prevent certification of the election. He knew Vice President Pence could not lawfully refuse to count votes under the Electoral Count Act. He knew he had lost more than 60 lawsuits seeking to invalidate election results. He knew his Justice Department, his campaign, and his advisors had concluded that there was insufficient fraud to alter the election’s outcome. He knew that no State legislature had taken or attempted any official action that could change a State’s electoral college votes.

Nevertheless, Trump recruited tens of thousands of his supporters, most of them angry and some of them armed, to march to the Capitol on January 6 and “fight like hell.” As the deadly violence he incited raged on for hours, he ignored the desperate pleas of his advisors that he make a public statement instructing his supporters to disperse and leave the Capitol.

“Through action and inaction, President Trump corruptly obstructed, delayed and impeded the vote count,” the committee wrote in support of the charge of Obstruction of an Official Proceeding.

The charge of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States is based upon a likely agreement between Trump, his lawyer, John Eastman, and others to carry out an illegal plan to have legitimate electors from seven states rejected and replaced with fake electors.  This plan to submit slates of fake electors to Congress and the National Archives also is the basis for the charge of Conspiracy to Make a False Statement.

As for the charge of Inciting an Insurrection, “President Trump was directly responsible for summoning what became a violent mob to Washington, DC, urging them to march to the Capitol, and then further provoking the already violent and lawless crowd with his 2:24p.m. tweet about the Vice President,” the committee write, in reference to Trump’s complaint that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.” When told that the crowd was chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” Trump responded that perhaps the Vice President deserved to be hanged.  He has since promised to pardon those convicted for their involvement in the attack.

It's clear that Trump believes he is above the law.  If he is not held accountable for his efforts to subvert democracy through violence and deception, he is almost certain to try it again – and others will follow his example.  It’s a larger question than whether Trump deserves to be punished – which he most certainly does – but whether democracy will endure in the United States.

Jan. 9, 2023
By Ben Jealous

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - It strikes me that the days we’re living through represent a metaphor for our national dilemma. January 6th and the weight of history that date carries are in the rearview mirror, at least on the calendar. Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream still is on the horizon.

America’s existential challenge is to put the former behind us permanently so we can finally achieve the latter and be what we pledge allegiance to -- one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. After the attack on the Capitol, I sat down to figure out how we might finally do that, and my answers have filled a book.

As my mother's family has for four centuries, I live south of the Mason-Dixon Line close to the Chesapeake Bay, which was a literal superhighway for slavery. Casual conversations about the likelihood of another Civil War are frequent at my favorite waterside bar. Combine that with the political fault lines running through many families and friendships (including my own) and we feel more divided than indivisible. It's clear why so many fear for our republic’s survival.

I have always been an optimist about America. Even for me, witnessing a failed coup shook my usually hopeful outlook.

Like many whose Southern roots run deep, I often turn to the past for answers. What I discovered in questioning our current differences revived my faith that the United States always will overcome our troubles and emerge even stronger on the other side.

In the 1880s, formerly enslaved men and former Confederate soldiers in Virginia – home to the Confederacy’s capital – banded together to fight for the future of their children. They built a political party called the Readjusters. Their demand was simple: readjust the terms of Civil War debt so that we can maintain free public schools for all.

Not only did they win that victory, they also won control of the state's government and achieved several more: they abolished the poll tax, they abolished the public whipping post, they created the first public black college in the South, and they expanded Virginia Tech to make it the working person's rival to the University of Virginia.

The Readjusters’ short-lived multiracial populist movement eventually was attacked violently by white supremacists and defeated politically by wealthy special interests spreading vile disinformation; their party is all but erased from history books.

Still, they defined the future of Virginia and our nation by planting early seeds for FDR's New Deal coalition and by creating a bold legacy in public education that endures to this day. Moreover their example reminds us that the spirit that moved Dr. King to dream hopefully about black and white children has always run deep in our nation, and always will. When we lose faith in our neighbors, that hope reminds us that the path to a stronger nation is to remember we still have more in common than we don't, and to act on the beliefs we share.

If men who had been enslaved could find common cause with men who fought to keep them enslaved to build a better future for all their children, we should never lose faith that we can unite for the sake of ours.

Ben Jealous is incoming executive director of the Sierra Club, America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization; former national president of the NAACP; and professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania. His new book “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free” was just published.

Nov. 30, 2022
By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Several months ago, I co-wrote an op-ed with my long-term friend and national media colleague, Jim Winston. Our commentary emphasized why "Diversifying American Media Ownership Must Become a National Priority."

Now after the results of the high turnout of communities of color and young voters in the recent Mid-Term Elections across the United States, it is time once again to reiterate the relevance and importance of ensuring an increase in the multiracial diversification of ownership of radio and TV broadcast stations as well as all other media platforms including print and social media.

The multimedia publishing and communications industry is a trillion-dollar business sector in America. Yet the disparities and inequities of ownership of media industry businesses by persons of color remains glaringly inequitable.

I know some of you would ask me why I am speaking up and out about other persons of color to own media businesses in America in addition to African American ownership of media businesses. There is, I assert, only one clear answer. If you are, as I am, for equality, equity, and believe in the oneness of all humanity, then we must practice what we preach.

This is why I am publicly and forthrightly supporting the efforts and leadership of Soo Kim, founder and managing partner of Standard General. Kim is an effective and outstanding Korean American business leader, and he is on record supporting greater Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in our nation’s media ownership landscape.

As the racial demographics of our nation continue to diversity, American media must intentionally become more representative of that growth. One reason is because diversity is simply good for business. Another reason is because it is right, and it is just to include the very people on which one's business success depends.

But perhaps the ultimate reason is because the greatest issues of our day - economic inequity, health disparities and systemic racism - pure and simple - will be best impacted when addressed by a multiplicity of people of all races.

Kim has announced an application for a $8.6 billion major media merger by acquiring TEGNA, a company owning 64 television stations coast to coast. Kim turned many heads with his description of a vision of "new partnership models to get diverse viewpoints and perspectives on the air and to make sure people have the resources to do it.”

One need only to review the leadership of major media networks in America to see that there are far too few that are owned or led by people of color. This makes Soo Kim's vision and leadership timely, inclusive, and progressive. This is the kind of media ownership that is exactly what our nation needs at this “transformational” moment.

Current TV broadcast industry ownership stats reveal a pattern that favors incumbent owners who are primarily White males –less than 2% of U.S. TV stations are owned by minorities – if the FCC and the DOJ block this deal, it would signal that the broadcast industry continues to be exclusively reserved for White male incumbent players.

I support and join with Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland (D-WA) in her letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that commends and endorses the proposed merger between Standard General and TEGNA. Strickland stated to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, “I share your longstanding goal of expanding voices and minority ownership in this sector, and the merger would be a critical step in that direction.”

We also note with appreciation that FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, a strong advocate for equity in the communications industry, observed last year, “Majority ownership of full power TV stations significantly worsened for Asian American owners (from 9 full power TV stations in 2017 to four stations in 2019). The numbers don’t lie – we must ensure that ownership at broadcast stations better reflects the rich diversity of the communities that they serve. We still have work to do, and we have to do better.”

 Congresswoman Strickland concluded, “This is why the Standard General-TEGNA acquisition is especially important. If the transaction goes through, Soo Kim, a Korean American naturalized citizen, would be the first Asian American to own and operate a major broadcast station group. Additionally, it is my understanding that if this deal is approved, the new entity would be the largest minority-owned broadcast station group in America today. It would also be managed by a leading female broadcast executive with a history of investing in local news and in her employee base. I understand further that…at least half of the proposed board of directors will be of minority composition and a majority will be women.”

Lastly, as has been widely publicized, access to capital also continues to be a big barrier for minority broadcast owners – from getting a mortgage to being able to obtain financing to conduct business deals, like the one with TEGNA. Again, that is why the proposed Soo Kim deal will be a real game-changing move, if approved, that will overcome some of the past significant barriers that minorities have faced to get access to financing in general, but especially for the FCC-regulated broadcast and media space.

The U.S. Justice Department and the FCC should therefore move forward expeditiously to approve the merger, and to reaffirm the importance of serving the greater public good and the issue of equity for all minority-owned media businesses in America. Now is the time.

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. is President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) representing the Black Press of America, and Executive Producer/Host of The Chavis Chronicles (TCC) weekly on PBS TV Stations across the nation. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Nov. 28, 2022
By Ben Jealous

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As I write this, the final few races are being called in the midterm elections that were held weeks ago. It’s clear that that the House will be closely divided, with Republicans holding a very small majority. History shows that in midterm elections, the party that doesn’t hold the presidency typically gains a lot of seats in Congress – oftentimes in a wipeout of the party in power. Republicans’ gains were comparatively tiny this year – but they probably should have been even tinier.

The reason is the far-right Supreme Court, and two rulings that hurt Black voters this cycle.

Two Deep South states, Alabama and Louisiana, redrew congressional maps months before the midterms. Incredibly, given the high proportion of Black voters in those states, the maps allowed for only one majority-Black congressional district in each state. That is almost certainly a violation of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits states from packing minority voters into fewer districts in a way that reduces their power. And you don’t have to take my word for it; federal courts said the same thing and ordered both states to redraw their maps.

But state officials opposed to Black voting power fought back. And in both instances, the Supreme Court allowed them to go ahead with this year’s midterm elections with maps that just happened to preserve “safe” Republican seats.

It’s infuriating. And those are only two of the infuriating decisions that have come out of this Court since Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell succeeded in stacking it with enough ultraconservative justices to make a supermajority.

I know that the inner workings of the courts, especially the Supreme Court, can seem really remote in our day-to-day lives. Most people don’t know any judges, and if they meet one in court it’s probably happening on a very unpleasant day.  In fact, my guess is that a lot of people would rather not think much about the courts at all. But we have to.

We need to pay attention to who sits on our courts and how they get there, because there is such an enormous impact on our lives whether we realize it or not. The Supreme Court’s impact on the House majority is just one example. Those actions by the Court will affect what business gets done in Congress and what laws get passed – or not passed – that impact how we live and what rights we have.

Judges get their seats in different ways, especially at the state level. If you live in a place where state-level judges are elected, it’s critically important to get informed and vote in those judicial elections. When it comes to federal judges, the Senate decides who will be confirmed. So every time you cast a vote for a senator, it should be for the candidate who will vote to confirm fair-minded judges with a commitment to civil rights. The Biden administration has been doing a very good job nominating diverse, highly qualified judges who have this commitment. I believe in supporting senators who have voted to confirm these judges and withholding support from those who haven’t.

The same goes for the presidential election, which we will face again in less than two years. In 2016, Donald Trump ran on a platform to name far-right judges to the Supreme Court who would ultimately overturn Roe v. Wade.  That’s exactly what happened when he won, and now the Court is moving on to do other damage, too – like denying Black voters fair representation in Congress.

So what do we do? We get informed, we organize, and we vote in the next election – the same thing we do to confront so many issues this country faces.  Next election seems too far away? There is something you can do in the meantime. Call your senators and tell them to confirm the federal judicial nominees that are still waiting for a Senate vote between now and the end of the year. There are literally dozens of nominees picked by President Biden, including many people of color and nominees with strong civil rights backgrounds, just waiting for Senate action to take their seats on the courts. We can show we care by calling our senators and telling them to confirm these nominees now.

Courts are going to keep showing us how much of an impact they have on our lives.  We need to exercise every option we have to impact who sits on them.

Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and Professor of the Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. A New York Times best-selling author, his next book "Never Forget Our People Were Always Free" will be published by Harper Collins in January 2023.