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. 52
April 15, 2021- April 21, 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)
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President on Reparations: “…There Should Be a Discussion About Redress”
Police Say 'Accidental Discharge' Of Gun Led To Daunte Wright's Death Updated April 12, 20215:03 PM ET BECKY SULLIVAN
NNPA NEWSWIRE — As federal lawmakers ponder H.R. 40, legislation led by Congresswoman Sheila JacksonLee (D-Texas) that forms a commission to study reparations, some U.S. municipalities have moved to address systemic racism and forms of redress to African Americans.
Protests lasted for hours in Brooklyn Center, Minn., where 20-yearold Black man Daunte Wright died after being shot by police Sunday. Evan Frost/MPR News
“There are definitely merits to it in the sense that, if people have been harmed by laws, then there should be a discussion about redress,” Bostic told CNN Business in an interview posted on Monday, March 29. By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent Count Raphael Bostic, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, among the growing and vocal majority who support reparations as a way to address the consequences of racism and inequality in America. “There are definitely merits to it in the sense that, if people have been harmed by laws, then there should be a discussion about redress,” Bostic told CNN Business in an interview posted on Monday, March 29. “The legacies of past racism are still present in our society,” said Bostic, who in 2017 became the first Black president of a regional Fed bank. “We have to think about what things are necessary to offset the impacts of those old systems that still flow through.” In the interview, Bostic specifically called out systemic obstacles that inhibit wealth building among minorities, including redlining and other forms of housing discrimination. “We have African Americans today who have a lot less wealth,” he said, “in part because they have not been able to inherit the wealth that would have accrued had their ancestors been able to accrue that wealth.” As federal lawmakers ponder H.R. 40, legislation led by Congresswoman Sheila JacksonLee (D-Texas) that forms a commission to study reparations, some U.S. municipalities have moved to address systemic racism and forms of redress to African Americans.
Oakland, Calif., Mayor Libby Schaaf announced that the city would begin a guaranteed income project that would provide $500 per month to Black and Indigenous families. The assistance, which targets low-income families of color in the 426,000-population city, will last 18 months. Mayor Schaaf detailed that the money comes with “no-strings attached,” and recipients can use it as they please. “We have designed this demonstration project to add to the body of evidence and to begin this relentless campaign to adopt a guaranteed income federally,” Mayor Schaaf told the local ABC News station. Evanston, Illinois, a city where 18 percent of its more than 74,500 residents are Black, approved the Local Reparations Restorative Housing Program, which provides up to $25,000 for housing down payments or home repairs to African Americans. In September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law historic legislation that paves the way for African Americans and descendants of slaves in the Golden State to receive reparations for slavery. The bill, authored by California Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, establishes a nine-person task force that will study the impact of the slave trade on Black people. It does not commit to any specific payment, but the task force will make recommendations to legislators about what kind of
compensation should be provided, who should receive it, and what form it would take. “A f t e r wat ch i ng [t he presidential] debate, this signing can’t come too soon,” Newsome declared during a videoconference with lawmakers and other stakeholders, including the rapper Ice Cube, who championed the bill. “As a nation, we can only truly thrive when every one of us has the opportunity to thrive. Our painful history of slavery has evolved into structural racism and bias built into and permeating throughout our democratic and economic institutions,” the governor stated. Last summer, Asheville, a North Carolina city where Black people make up just 11 percent of the more than 92,000 residents, formally apologized for its role in slavery. The City Council voted unanimously to provide reparations to African American residents and their descendants. “Hundreds of years of Black blood spilled that fills the cup we drink from today,” said Councilman Keith Young, one of two African American members of the City Council that voted 7-0 in favor of reparations. “It is simply not enough to remove statutes. Black people in this country are dealing with systemic issues,” Young declared. Asheville’s resolution doesn’t include monetary payments to African Americans but promises investments in areas where Black people face disparities. Earlier this year, Congress
debated H.R. 40, a bill that doesn’t place a specific monetary value on reparations but focuses on investigating and presenting the facts and truth about the unprecedented centuries of brutal enslavement of African people, racial healing, and transformation. The bill would fund a commission to study and develop proposals for providing reparations to African Americans. The Commission’s mission includes identifying the role of federal and state governments in supporting the institution of slavery, forms of discrimination in public and private sectors against freed slaves and their descendants, and lingering adverse effects of slavery on living African Americans and society. Congresswoman Jackson Lee, who sits on numerous House committees, including Judiciary, Budget, and Homeland Security, has made the reparations legislation her top priority during the 117th Congress. “I think if people begin to associate this legislation with what happened to the descendants of enslaved Africans as a human rights violation, the sordid past that violated the human rights of all of us who are descendants of enslaved Africans, I think that we can find common ground to pass this legislation,” Congresswoman Jackson Lee pronounced. “Can anyone imagine that we’ve never gotten a simple, effective, deeply-embedded, and well-respected apology?”
Daunte Wright's mother, Katie Wright, is surrounded by family and neighbors near the site in Brooklyn Center where a police officer shot and killed her son during a traffic stop. Evan Frost/MPR News Officials in Brooklyn Center, Minn., called the death of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, the result of an "accidental discharge" of a gun by a police officer. At a press conference Monday, Brooklyn Center police Chief Tim Gannon played body camera footage of the shooting, saying its circumstances demanded transparency. "It is my belief that the officer had the intention to deploy their Taser but instead shot Mr. Wright with a single bullet," Gannon said. "This appears to me, from what I've viewed and the officer's reaction and distress immediately after, that this was an accidental discharge that resulted in the tragic death of Mr. Wright." Mayor Mike Elliott announced Monday afternoon that the City Council had given him direct control over police operations. The fatal encounter began just before 2 p.m. local time Sunday when Brooklyn Center police pulled over Wright after noticing his car had expired tags, Gannon said. (Wright's girlfriend was in the passenger seat, according to his mother.) When police discovered he had an outstanding arrest warrant, he said, the officers attempted arrest. (Police did not immediately have details about what the warrant was for.) The video clip shown Monday began as the officer wearing the camera arrived on the scene of the traffic stop already underway. The video shows another officer
speaking to Wright, who exited the white Buick sedan and turned around to be handcuffed. As the other officer began to handcuff him, Wright appeared to pull his hands away and duck back into the car. As the first officer attempted to restrain Wright, the officer wearing the body camera ran toward the open door and drew her handgun. She yelled, "Taser," three times, then fired a shot. Immediately afterward, she said, "Holy s***, I just shot him" as the car drove away. The car continued for several blocks before crashing into another vehicle, authorities said. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating the shooting. Investigators from the bureau were not present at the Monday press conference; Gannon said the bureau did "not condone" the release of the video and left the decision to him. On his choice to release the video within 24 hours of the shooting, Gannon said: "I felt the community needed to know what happened. They needed to see it. I needed to be transparent. And I want to be forthright, with due respect to Daunte as well." The officer who fired the shot has not been named but was described by Gannon as "a very senior officer" and has been placed on administrative leave. Elliott, the mayor, said Monday he continued on page 6