Columnists

Some Politicians Confuse Freedom with Irresponsibility By Jesse Jackson Sr.

Oct. 10, 2022

October 10, 2022

Some Politicians Confuse Freedom with Irresponsibility
By Jesse Jackson Sr.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As extreme weather caused floods in Kentucky, collapse of the water system in Jackson Mississippi, and the savage destruction of central Florida – to say nothing of fires and drought and a growing water shortage in the West – we ought to agree on two simple realities: America faces a growing challenge from both catastrophic climate change and a growing infrastructure deficit that is putting lives and communities at risk.

All should agree that we must act aggressively and at scale to address the climate challenge and rebuild our decrepit and aged infrastructure. We can invest now – or we will pay far more on the backside of calamity.

Yet that’s not how it works. Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis and his state’s two senators, Mark Rubio and Rick Scott, all Republicans, now call fervently for federal aid and resources to help clean up the extensive damage caused by Hurricane Ian. With millions still without electricity or safe water, and many still endangered by floods, fallen bridges, downed electric lines and collapsed bridges, recovery will take years and cost tens of billions of dollars. The politicians are all in for getting federal dollars and resources to help in the wake of catastrophe. DeSantis regularly scorns federal spending in general and Joe Biden in particular, but when asked after Ian hit if he’d meet with Biden, he said, sensibly, “We need all the help we can get.”

Yet, Gov. DeSantis, who has presidential ambitions, goes out of his way to dismiss warnings about extreme weather from catastrophic climate change. He said during his gubernatorial campaign that he doesn’t want to be labeled “a global warming person.”

When asked last December how he plans to address climate change, DeSantis replied that “people when they start talking about things like global warming, they typically use that as a pretext to do a bunch of left-wing things. … We’re not doing any left-wing stuff.” Last year, he signed a bill that blocked Florida cities and towns from transitioning to 100 percent clean energy. He also championed a resolution prohibiting Florida’s pension fund from considering the impact of climate change in its investment decisions.

The Lever, a reader-supported investigative news outlet, reports that about three months before Florida was clobbered by Ian, eight of the state’s Republican lawmakers pressured federal regulators to halt a proposal requiring businesses to more thoroughly disclose the risks they face from climate change. Those lawmakers have raked in more than $1 million of campaign cash from oil and gas industry donors.

Similarly, all of Florida’s politicians voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Biden managed to pass through the Congress. DeSantis scorned the $19 billion that would go to Florida. Now, in the wake of Ian, of course, he wants a lot of “left-wing stuff,” like massive funds from the federal government to rebuild Florida.

Politicians like DeSantis, Rubio and Scott confuse freedom with irresponsibility. They tout the freedoms of Florida, where public health officials won’t tell you to wear a mask, planners won’t tell you where to build your house, politicians won’t tax your incomes. And if that leaves the state with vulnerable bridges and water systems, with homes exposed on flood plains, with impoverished communities, so be it.

Pundits regularly expose the hypocrisy of politicians like DeSantis, Rubio and Scott seeking billions in aid to help Florida rebuild in the wake of Ian, while voting against aid for other disasters in other states. One of the first votes DeSantis took when he was sworn in as a congressman in 2013 was to oppose aid to the victims of Superstorm Sandy. But hypocrisy is a relatively minor sin among politicians. A far bigger failing is to sacrifice the lives and the security of the people they claim to represent to embrace the corruption of fossil fuel campaign money and the blinders of ideological posturing.

A catastrophe like Ian or a shameful horror like the collapse of the water system in Mississippi’s state capital should concentrate our minds. Accelerating the transition to renewable energy isn’t “left-wing stuff,” it is a moral and existential imperative. Rebuilding the resilience and efficiency of our dangerously decrepit infrastructure isn’t a socialist plot, it is the foundation for safe communities and a robust economy.

In the wake of a natural disaster, people come together to help their neighbors. Smart politicians put aside their partisan posturing to join in doing what can be done to save the endangered and rebuild from the destruction. Now, we need to demand that the same common sense and responsibility be exercised to protect ourselves from the calamities to come, not just to rebuild after them.

This November, Unite to Defend the Black Vote By Ben Jealous

Oct. 10, 2022

This November, Unite to Defend the Black Vote
By Ben Jealous

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Right before our last national elections in 2020, thousands of Black voters in Detroit got a call from someone posing as a woman named “Tamika Taylor.” She warned them that if they voted, the government would collect their personal information and come after them for credit card debt, outstanding warrants, even forced vaccinations. The calls were a voter suppression scam, and the two white guys behind it were prosecuted. But we’ll never know how many people were nervous enough to avoid voting that year.

Dirty tricks like this make me sick. And as we get closer to this year’s midterms, civil rights leaders are warning that we’re likely to see more of them. The Far Right is waging a war on Black voters, and disinformation is among its favorite weapons. Another one is passing laws to make it harder for Black citizens to vote. The Brennan Center at NYU keeps track of these efforts. The legal scholars there report that since 2020, lawmakers in 49 states have introduced more than 400 bills that would make it harder to vote. This midterm election is the first nationwide election since that massive voter suppression campaign started, and we have one way to fight it: massive voter mobilization.

Getting our friends and neighbors to vote so we can have a say in issues that affect our daily lives is a calling for all of us. I am fortunate to lead an organization that will make Black male voters the focus of our Get Out the Vote efforts this year. Our initiative, Defend the Black Vote, will reach out to Black men in 15 states who are registered but skipped two out of three of the last elections. Our focus will be men because they still don’t vote in the high percentages Black women do. Our message will be simple: Vote this November. Vote because your vote is your voice and your power. Vote because of everything that is on the line in these elections: jobs, reproductive rights, mass incarceration, who sits on our courts, education for our kids, health care, pollution in the environment where our families live.

Vote because we need to Ban the Box. Vote because Black Lives Matter. Vote because you have a dream of entrepreneurship. Vote because your mental health, and your family’s mental health, matters. Vote because the white supremacists don’t want you to, and are doing everything they can to stop you, and that tells you how important it is.

I know that some folks don’t vote because they believe their vote doesn’t matter. History shows that it does. The best example I can think of is what happened in Georgia in 2020, the first year we ran our Defend the Black Vote campaign. We motivated over 200,000 additional Black men in Georgia to vote that year – a year when the presidential election in the state was decided by 12,000 votes. The Black men who voted in Georgia made a historic difference, and the numbers prove it.

We know there’s one more way today’s Far Right and their predecessors -- the Klan, the White League, and all the other terrorists like them – have tried to suppress Black votes, and it’s the ugliest: intimidation and threats of violence. Our ancestors faced a real risk of being attacked or murdered for registering to vote or voting. Today the intimidation might be more high-tech: is your name in the system, will you be accused of an illegal vote? Florida’s arrests of returning citizens who voted – after being issued new voter registration cards by the state itself – are especially cruel. They were meant to scare people, and they probably did.

So, vote because we refuse to be intimidated. Because those who went before us put their lives on the line to cast a ballot. And if you are a man who doesn’t have a plan to vote, or you have a father, brother, uncle or son who doesn’t have a plan, it’s not too late to make one now. We need you.

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.

The Real Deal By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

October 10, 2022

The Real Deal
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Before I jump into the main subject of this week’s article, I would like to remind you that political campaigns are a costly endeavor. Real support for your chosen candidate(s) is best demonstrated with a campaign contribution. Personal experience leads me to offer that a contribution in any amount is greatly appreciated and that you can also support candidates in states in which you cannot vote. Our futures depend on fragile differences which can only be controlled with the election of candidates whose policies reflect our chosen outcomes. Time is getting short, and elections offer us no dressed-rehearsals.

In the coming 2022 mid-term election, the average voter-eligible American is inclined to vote instinctively on the basis of hearing a word or phrase that appeals to a deeply held value or belief system instead of researching or considering the “cause and effect” consequence of their vote. This is not surprising and political operatives continually search for and experiment with methods to use this fact to their advantage.

So much of the Republican agenda for the 2022 mid-term election is rooted in contradiction, obfuscation, and double-speak that the infrequent voter or single-issue voter may be swayed to vote for a candidate whose policies appear to be benign and harmless. I’m sure that, somewhere at some time, a Republican will deserve receiving a vote, but I find myself in agreement with Liz Cheney in opposing pro-Trump, Stop-the-Steal, or sympathizers of the January 6^th Insurrection – most Republicans in general.

For years, respected political/social analysts have theorized that Americans have notoriously short memories regarding political events. I agree with this theory and point to the statements of Trump and Bannon in the early weeks after the 2016 Presidential Election. They each said that a primary goal of a Trump administration would be the “deconstruction of the administrative state (institutions and institutional norms).” Trump, Bannon, and their fellow-travelers have proceeded toward the realization of that end with all deliberate speed.

That goal explains the Real Deal of Republican politics today. In words, deeds, and lack of intelligent responses, both ultra MAGA and conventional Republicans have surrendered to the act of altering the principal norms, mores, and values upon which this country was founded and for which we have fought to perfect over the past 250 years. A minority of American citizens with oversized egos and a willingness to follow the lead of a tyrannical, racist, orange huckster are willing to sacrifice their last best hope for a secure and prosperous future for themselves and their offspring. This fact begs the question -- WHY? This psychosis originates with this country’s original sin – RACISM.

To prevent the erosion and exchange of their traditional positions of power with people of color, whites are now willing to discard the freedoms they have enjoyed most of this country’s history. I am reminded of the older female supporter of Trump who, in 2016, exclaimed on national television, “If we have to have a dictator, it might as well be (Trump).”

I've never vigorously objected to a person structuring their own personal choices and lifestyle, but those who would surrender their lives to the authority of Trump and his minions also gladly surrender mine as well. That is unacceptable! Given past performance of the Trump administration, how far back would the rights of marginalized groups be forced to retreat to satisfy those imbued with racial animus? Remember, we have already seen Roe reversed and Clarence Thomas crow about revisiting rulings governing other privacy rights.

In this coming election, I am sure that the racists among us will vigorously exercise their votes with the intent of protecting their power. While they count, we must use our votes with equal vigor to protect our interests. MID-TERM VOTES MATTER!

(Dr. E. Faye Williams, President of The Dick Gregory Society, United Nations Peace Ambassador. (drefayewilliams.com; thedickgregorysociety.org)

Black Wombs Matter: See Aftershock By Julianne Malveaux

Oct. 3,. 2022

Black Wombs Matter: See Aftershock

By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Did you know that Black women are three or four times more likely to die from childbirth complications than white women? Congresswoman Robin Kelly (D-IL), who heads the Congressional Black Caucus Health Brain trust, says the data are direr depending on where a mother lives. In Illinois, Black women are six times as likely to die. In New York, Black women are ten times as likely to die. And it's not just Black women. With a significant Indigenous population in Washington state, those women are eight times as likely to die as white women!

The issue of Black maternal health care is tackled in the film, Aftershock, which can be seen on Hulu. Produced by Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt, the film features families directly and painfully impacted by how Black women are treated as they deliver children. The Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Forum featured several brain trust meetings on health, including one titled, Creating Maternal Health Care Systems that Believe and Protect Black Women. It featured clips from Aftershock and included panelists affected by the Black maternal health crisis.

Shawnee Benton Gibson, whose daughter Shamony Makeba Gibson died from complications from childbirth only thirteen days after she gave birth to her son. She complained of pain, shortness of breath, and more, but health care providers told her these were "natural" childbirth symptoms. She was only rushed to the hospital to die when she could not move. Later, it was shown that health care providers ignored vital signs of her increasingly poor health. She died from medical indifference and incompetence.

Also featured in the film were Omari Maynard, Shamony’s partner who is now raising two children alone, and Bruce McIntyre III, whose partner Amber Rose Isaac, who died after an emergency C Section. He says her death is the result of "medical negligence" and has joined several others in shining light on this pandemic of Black maternal health.

Aftershock lifts the importance of doula (pregnancy coaches and advocates) and midwives, an essential part of maternal health. It also looks at the criminalization of midwives and those who eschew traditional birthing. Some midwives have been criminally prosecuted for bringing healthy babies into the world.

The film also highlights the racist origins of the OB/GYN medical specialty. Developed by a sadist white physician, James Marion Sims, the specialty has its roots in experiments on enslaved Black women. Indeed, the lie that black people can withstand enormous pain is rooted in enslavement and the brutal way Black women were experimented on.

Because Sims believed Black women could stand all kinds of pain, he conducted painful experiments without anesthesia. Really? Yet some medical professionals continue to laud his work, and until 2018 a statue celebrating him was part of New York's Central Park. His defenders say he was just a product of his times, but it is clear that he not only experimented on enslaved women that he owned but also purchased women to experiment on them. I reject the notion that Sims was a product of his times. He was a sadistic brute who denied Balck women’s very humanity.

Congresswoman Lauren Underwood (D-Ill), the youngest member of the Congressional Black Caucus, has introduced the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, an essential step toward eliminating the treatment Black women experience as they give birth. A twelve-part comprehensive piece of legislation, the act includes expansion of mental health services for mothers, telehealth for new moms, increased data collection, and funding for community-based organizations working on maternal health issues. Supported by more than 250 organizations, including the American Nurses Association, the Association of Black Women Physicians, the Center for American Progress, the Children's Defense Fund, Families USA, the NAACP, and others, the legislation has more than 30 Congressional co-sponsors. The legislation has yet to pass the House of Representatives, and it is unlikely to pass the parsimonious Senate. People can get involved by reminding their legislative representatives of the importance of this Momnibus Act.

Shawnee Benton Gibson, Shomany’s mom, said that if Black Lives Matter, then Black Wombs must also matter. She has turned the pain of her daughter's death into powerful advocacy for Black maternal health. She is among the many, including Congresswomen Robin Kelly, Lauren Underwood, and many others, who must be applauded for addressing this issue. Black Wombs matter. Watch Aftershock!

President Biden's Student Debt Relief Plan is a Welcome First Step in Addressing the Higher Education Affordability Crisis By Marc H. Morial

August 27, 2022

To Be Equal

President Biden's Student Debt Relief Plan is a Welcome First Step in Addressing the Higher Education Affordability Crisis
By Marc H. Morial

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “By forgiving up to $20,000 in burdensome student loan debt, President Biden is giving working and middle class families the financial breathing room the desperately need. Buying a home, founding a business, starting a family, and so much more will now be a financial possibility for millions more Americans. But we cannot stop there. The Congressional Black Caucus remains committed to achieving additional reforms to ensure current, and future borrowers are not subjected to this cycle of burdensome debt.” – Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Joyce BeattyIn the 1970s, the maximum federal Pell Grant covered nearly 80 percent of the cost of a four-year public college degree. Today, it covers only a third.

In the 1970s, a student could earn an entire year’s tuition at a public university by working just five hours a week at a minimum wage job. Today, a student would have to work 28 hours a week.

From 1978 to 2012, college tuition rose four times faster than inflation and has risen three times faster in the last decade.

Since 1970, the average student loan debt at graduation has increased 317% when adjusted for inflation.

In other words, this is not your grandfather’s student debt.

This week President Biden offered much-needed relief to millions of federal student loan borrowers. With the stroke of a pen, he is forgiving $10,000 in federal student loan debt for those making under $125,000 a year. One in four Black borrowers would see their debt cleared entirely under the President’s plan. Pell grant recipients, who are twice as likely to be Black, are eligible for an additional $10,000 in relief.

The extra relief for Pell grants recipients is responsive to the National Urban League’s call for an approach that recognizes these borrowers often owe more and for longer periods.

According to a Brookings Institution report, Black college graduates owe an average $7,400 more than their white peers upon graduation. Four years after graduation, they owe an average $52,726, compared with $28,006 for the average white college graduate, according to the report, which included nonborrowers in the average. About two-thirds of Black borrowers owe more than they originally borrowed 12 years after starting college.

President Biden’s plan also extends the moratorium on federal loan repayment until the end of the year and takes other long-term steps to ameliorate the college debt crisis for all.

Student debt stands in the way of entrepreneurship, homeownership, and even the day-to-day purchase of necessities. But it’s not just bad news for the borrowers. It’s bad news for all Americans. A surprising one out of every five recipients of food stamps (SNAP) holds a postsecondary degree. An even higher percentage of Medicare enrollees – nearly one in four -- hold postsecondary degrees.

While only a first step, the President’s actions will put borrowers one step closer to the financial freedom needed to purchase a home, save for retirement, and build wealth for themselves and their families. But we can do better.

Canceling $50,000 in student debt for households with income below $100,000 would increase Black borrowers’ wealth to from 5% of white borrowers wealth to 33%, while increasing forgiveness to $75,000 in forgiveness would raise it to 42%.

Congress must work on a long-term strategy for student loan debt relief for existing borrowers and reducing the cost of college for current and future students.

The National Urban League stands ready to work with Congress and the White House to make college more accessible and affordable for all.

Fight For Women of Color Who Fight For Us By Ben Jealous

March 15, 2021

Fight For Women of Color Who Fight For Us

By Ben Jealous

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - President Joe Biden has nominated extraordinary women of color to high-level jobs in the Biden-Harris administration. Many of them are being attacked and smeared by the far right. That’s why People For the American Way has launched the #HerFightOurFight campaign.

We cannot let far-right forces silence and smear these trailblazing women who are eager to advance the progressive values that Americans voted for when we put Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the White House.

Our first ad tells the story of Vanita Gupta, who has been nominated for associate attorney general.

Gupta was a young civil rights lawyer in her first job after law school when she heard about a gross injustice in the small town of Tulia, Texas. Almost 40 people—nearly all of them Black—had been wrongly arrested, convicted by all-white juries, and jailed on bogus drug charges. It was a big percentage of the Black community in that town. It was devastating to the individuals and their families. And they saw little chance to get justice.

But then Gupta, who was working for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, took up their cause. She exposed the injustice and won their freedom. She even got them pardons from a Republican governor.

Gupta has been fighting for equal justice ever since. She led the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division for part of the Obama administration. And for the last few years she has led the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

But right-wing groups are running a more than million-dollar ad campaign to smear her. And unprincipled politicians like Ted Cruz are attacking her over her civil rights work in the Obama administration.

Our #HerFightOurFight ad is narrated by Shirley Sherrod, a former government official who lived through a dishonest smear campaign that twisted and distorted her words to try to destroy her career. She sees the same thing happening to Gupta and other brilliant women of color, and she’s speaking out.

It is important to defend women like Vanita Gupta who are being unfairly attacked. But this campaign is about more than these specific women. It is about all of us.

These women are ready to make change happen—the change we voted for. They represent the kind of inclusive multiracial and multiethnic society we are building together—and the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to building one of the most diverse governing teams in our nation’s history.

I am sad to say it is not surprising that many of Biden’s nominees are being attacked by people who see that vision of our future as a threat. It is not surprising that the descendants of the Jim Crow south whose power is threatened by people of color turning out to vote are passing new laws to try to stop us. It is not surprising to see racism and sexism used as a political weapon.

We know that progress is often met with backlash. Our long march toward justice has sometimes been beaten back temporarily—on the blood-stained Edmund Pettus Bridge, in courtrooms where whiteness trumped justice, in state legislatures where the Constitution’s promise of equal justice was repeatedly betrayed, and in the U.S. Senate, where the filibuster was used to delay passage of civil rights laws.

Time and again, we have overcome, often led by courageous Black women and other women of color whose leadership was frequently overlooked and overshadowed.

Today, we fight for Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke, a brilliant Black woman nominated to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and other brilliant women who are ready to help President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris fight for a country that comes closer to meeting our ideals of freedom, equality, justice, and opportunity for all. #HerFightOurFight.

Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation. Jealous has decades of experience as a leader, coalition builder, campaigner for social justice and seasoned nonprofit executive. In 2008, he was chosen as the youngest-ever president and CEO of the NAACP. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and he has taught at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.