THE SAN BERNARDINO
Scan QR Code to visit our Website
AMERICAN
“A Man In Debt is So Far A Slave” -Emerson
NEWSPAPER A Community Newspaper Serving San Bernardino, Riverside & Los Angeles Counties Volume 51 No. 50
April 01, 2021- April 07, 2021
Mailing: P.O. Box 837, Victorville, CA 92393
Office: (909) 889-7677
Email: Mary @Sb-American.com
Website: www.SB-American.com
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them and these will continue till they have resisted either with words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance those of whom they suppress. —Fredrick Douglass (1849)
Children’s Defense Fund: State of America’s Children Reveals that Children of Color are 71 Percent of Those That Live in Poverty
Probe Into Prison Deaths Ends Up Uncovering $8 Billion in Untracked State Money Aldon Thomas Stiles | California Black Media
Part One of an ongoing series on this impactful and informative report
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
Dr. Wilson did note that the Children’s Defense Fund is pleased about President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which, among other things, makes it easier for parents to keep their jobs and provides a lifeline for disadvantaged children. (Photo: iStockphoto / NNPA) The child population in America is the most diverse in history, but children remain the poorest age group in the country with youth of color suffering the highest poverty rates. “While we reported on the 73 million children in the U.S. in 2019, which is 22 percent of the nation’s population, we also note that 2020 was the first year in American history that a majority of children are projected to be children of color,” said the Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson, the president and CEO of the Children’s Defense Fund. Dr. Wilson’s remarks come as the Marian Wright Edelman founded nonprofit released “The State of America’s Children 2021.” The comprehensive report is eye-opening. It highlights how children remain the poorest age group in America, with children of color and young children suffering the highest poverty rates. For instance, of the more than 10.5 million poverty-stricken children in America in 2019, approximately 71 percent were those of color. The stunning exposé revealed that income and wealth inequality are growing and harming children in low-income, Black and Brown families. While the share of all wealth held by the top one percent of Americans grew from 30 percent to 37 percent, the share held by the bottom 90 percent fell from 33 percent to 23 percent between 1989 and 2019. Today, a member of the top 10 percent of income earners makes about 39 times as much as the average earner in the bottom 90
percent. The median family income of White households with children ($95,700) was more than double that of Black ($43,900), and Hispanic households with children ($52,300). Further, the report noted that the lack of affordable housing and federal rental assistance leaves millions of children homeless or at risk of homelessness. More than 1.5 million children enrolled in public schools experienced homelessness during the 2017-2018 school year, and 74 percent of unhoused students during the 2017-2018 school year were living temporarily with family or friends. Millions of children live in food-insecure households, lacking reliable access to safe, sufficient, and nutritious food, and more than 1 in 7 children – 10.7 million – were food insecure, meaning they lived in households where not everyone had enough to eat. Black and Hispanic children were twice as likely to live in foodinsecure households as White children. The report further found that America’s schools have continued to slip backwards into patterns of deep racial and socioeconomic segregation, per petuating achievement gaps. For instance, during the 20172018 public school year, 19 percent of Black, 21 percent of Hispanic, and more than 26 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native school students did not graduate on time compared with only 11 percent of White students. More than 77 percent of Hispanic and more than 79 percent
of Black fourth and eighth grade public school students were not proficient in reading or math in 2019, compared with less than 60 percent of White students. “We find that in the course of the last year, we’ve come to the point where our conversations about child well-being and our dialogue and reckoning around racial justice has really met a point of intersection, and so we must consider child well-being in every conversation about racial justice and quite frankly you can only sustainably speak of racial justice if we’re talking about the state of our children,” Dr. Wilson observed. Some more of the startling statistics found in the report include: A White public school student is suspended every six seconds, while students of color and nonWhite students are suspended every two seconds. Conditions leading to a person dropping out of high school occur with white students every 19 seconds, while it occurs every nine seconds for non-White and students of color. A White child is arrested every 1 minute and 12 seconds, while students of color and non-whites are arrested every 45 seconds. A White student in public school is corporally punished every two minutes, while students of color and non-Whites face such action every 49 seconds. Dr. Wilson asserted that federal spending “reflects the nation’s skewed priorities.” In the report, he notes that
children are not receiving the investment they need to thrive, and despite making up such a large portion of the population, less than 7.5 percent of federal spending went towards children in fiscal year 2020. Despite Congress raising statutory caps on discretionary spending in fiscal years 2018 to 2020, children did not receive their fair share of those increases and children’s share of total federal spending has continued to decline. “Children continue to be the poorest segment of the population,” Dr. Wilson demanded. “We are headed into a dark place as it relates to poverty and inequity on the American landscape because our children become the canary in the coal mine.” Dr. Wilson did note that the Children’s Defense Fund is pleased about President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which, among other things, makes it easier for parents to keep their jobs and provides a lifeline for disadvantaged children. The $1.9 trillion plan not only contained $1,400 checks for individuals, it includes monthly allowances and other elements to help reduce child poverty. The President’s plan expands home visitation programs that help at-risk parents from pregnancy through early childhood and is presents universal access to topnotch pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds. “The American Rescue Plan carried significant and powerful anti-poverty messages that will have remarkable benefits on the lives of children in America over continued on page 3
What started out as an investigation into inmate deaths in some of California's county jails led to an audit that uncovered severe overcrowding, a lack of mental health resources and $8 billion in State funds for which three county Sherriff offices cannot properly account. “What’s happening right now in these counties is not only unjust, but a disservice to our communities,” said Sen. Sydney Kamlager (D-Los Angeles). “It's more than just about housing people. The sheriff’s departments have a duty to provide care and to rehabilitate those individuals who walk through their doors. That simply is not happening, while billions of dollars are being left on the table," she said. In an attempt to curtail California's prison overcrowding problem, in 2011 the state Supreme Court ordered a sweeping reduction of the prison population. This led to the California Public Safety Realignment Initiative signed into law by former Gov. Jerry Brown. The program planned and arranged the transfer of thousands of incarcerated people from state prisons to county jails. It also provided billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to the counties across the state to house and provide services to the inmates. The law also set up the Community Corrections Partnerships (CCPs) in each county to oversee and manage the state funds. Then, last March, following a spike in inmate deaths, Kamlager requested an audit of county jail systems focused on Alamada, Fresno and Los Angeles counties. About a year later, last week, California State Auditor Elaine M. Howle released the findings of her investigation. In a letter to the Legislature, Howle shared her findings. She wrote, “our assessment focused on public safety realignment, and we determined that these three counties and the Corrections Board have not done enough to mitigate the effects of realignment or effectively overseen related spending and services.”
Howle told lawmakers, since 2011, Alameda, Fresno and Los Angeles counties all have run overcrowded prisons, violating the state’s jail capacity rules. “The counties’ jails often lack adequate outdoor and educational facilities to provide certain vocational and rehabilitative programs for inmates who serve terms longer than three years,” she wrote. Howle also told the legislators Alameda and Fresno counties did not provide adequate information about inmates’ health to the jail staff. Responding to the audit, Fresno County corrections board executive director Kathleen Howard said the state audit “makes little sense.” “There is, however, a fundamental disconnect between the overall position of the State Auditor on the structure of 2011 Public Safety Realignment funding and the role of the CCPs in handling these funds and the consistent interpretation given the statutory and constitutional framework by the BSCC and all the counties in California over the past 10 years,” Howard wrote. Los Angeles and Alameda counties have also responded to the auditor’s report with their own explanations, clarifications and recommendations. Since then, the Auditor’s office has said it stands by its report and followed up with a point-by-point reply to each county. In Califor nia, Af rican Americans account for about 6 % of the state’s population but make up a disproportionate 28.3 % of incarcerated people. In contrast, Whites make up about 36 % of the state’s population but 21 % of prisoners. C o n c e r n s of p r i s o n overcrowding in California came to a head when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to greatly reduce California’s prison population with the assertion that the massive number of inmates hindered the state’s ability to provide proper physical and mental health services, therefore violating their continued on page 6