OPINIONS/EDITORIALS
Guest Columnist
By Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.
Thurgood Marshall’s Legacy: Equal Justice Matters This month marks what would have been the 107th birthday of the late United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Given our long struggle for equal justice in America and the need to continue to press forward to ensure freedom, justice and equality for all, it is important to reflect on the key principles upon which Thurgood Marshall achieved his monumental success.
The mounting cries for justice from black Americans, Latino Americans and others denied equality and freedom deserves not only to be heard, but to be acted on by those that have the power to change America for the better. One of the enduring legacies of Marshall was to challenge and change laws that would make our democracy more fair and equal. After all the flag waving and boisterous patriotic proclamations that accompanied the recent Independence Day celebra-
tions, the undisputable truth is racism and racial injustice prevail in every region of the nation. “Black Lives Matters” is more than simply a protest slogan or popular social media hashtag. It is an affirmation that all the lives of black Americans, as well as the lives of all people, are not to be diminished or extinguished by the ignorance and acts of racial hatred and bigotry. Marshall said, “Racism separates, but it never liberates. Hatred generates fear, and fear once given a foothold; binds,
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consumes and imprisons. Nothing is gained from prejudice. No one benefits from racism.” Marshall was right. The ideology and practice of White supremacy continues to be a deadly contradiction of an America’s professed ideals and affront to all humanity. Racially motivated police brutality, racial terrorism against black Americans, resurgence of the mindset that rationalizes the Confederacy, voter suppression, mass incarceration, miseducation, and the growing economic
inequalities all point to the urgency for a sustained long-term equal justice movement. Consequently, equal justice also matters. One of Marshall’s most profound public addresses was in 1987. He stated, “What is striking is the role legal principles have played throughout America’s history in determining the condition of Negroes. They were enslaved by law, emancipated by law, disenfranchised and
CHAVIS Page 47
By Charlene Crowell
Supreme Court Preserves Key Fair Housing Tool A long-awaited decision by the United States Supreme Court led to a June 25 ruling that preserves the usage of “disparate impact,” an important legal principle sometimes known as the discriminatory effects standard. The majority opinion held that housing discrimination under the nation’s 1968 Fair Housing Act occurs by effect – as well as by intent. Writing the decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy concluded, “[S]ince the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968 and against the backdrop of
disparate impact liability in nearly every jurisdiction, many cities have become more diverse. . . .The Court acknowledges the Fair Housing Act’s continued role in moving the Nation toward a more integrated society.” Joining Kennedy to form a 5-4 majority were Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. Although the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development codified the use of disparate impact in 2012 through its rule-making process, the case of Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Proj-
ect Inc., had its oral arguments on January 21. The decision was awaited by consumer advocates and mortgage industry professionals alike. Among civil rights and housing advocates, the decision was as widely applauded as the number of amicus or “friend of the court” briefs that were filed. The lengthy list of briefs came from diverse organizations, including AARP, Hope Enterprise Corporation, Howard University School of Law Housing Clinic, Judicial Watch, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Black Law Students
ASKIA-AT-LARGE
Association, the National Fair Housing Alliance and the Center for Responsible Lending. “When Americans are denied equal opportunity to housing, they are denied access to good jobs, quality education, safe streets, transit, and a clean and healthy environment, all of which are critical to leading healthy and prosperous lives,” said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 organizations. “We have observed, documented, and reported on disparate impact in mortgage lending, auto lending, stu-
dent lending, and a suite of other financial services,” said Mike Calhoun, CRL president. “We have witnessed what happens when a single community cannot access such credit – and we know that these consequences are indicative of deeper, more systemic, more troubling realities in lending practices.” Calhoun’s claims are strongly substantiated by the recently-released 2015 State of the Nation’s Housing from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. In part, the report states, “And despite the
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By Askia Muhammad
American Politics in Red, Blue and White In the 51 years since the political humiliation of conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater by incumbent Lyndon Baines Johnson, there has been a sea change in the American political spectrum. Johnson won one of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history, carrying 44 states and the District of Columbia and winning 486 electoral votes to Sen. Goldwater’s 52, with 61 percent of
the votes cast. Goldwater carried only Arizona, his home state, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Goldwater advocated using nuclear weapons against this country’s enemies on the battlefield, and his mantra was “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” On a political map in which states where the majority voted for the Democrats are depicted in blue and those for the Republican are red, the Goldwater states look like the heart of the
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old Confederate States of America. Four years later, Richard Nixon flipped the script with his “Southern strategy,” appealing to Southern Dixiecrats (Democrats whose true loyalty was to white supremacy in the guise of states’ rights conservatism) who have become the base of the new GOP ever since. Today, the red vs. blue state division is more equally balanced, but the one thing the Republicans have held fast to has been white supremacy. Despite The Washington Informer
huge increases in the numbers of black voters registered in the Deep South, the region is still the heart of the Republican/ conservative “Red State Revolution,” and the party’s message in 2015 is still grounded in mollifying white male voters. Just look at the candidates vying for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. They are all rooted in white racial superiority thinking and real-world denial. How else could a clownish caricature of a mouth with no brain and a terribly bad hair
comb-over named Donald Trump manage to insult the fastest-growing population demographic in the country, get fired from three television network jobs, lose nearly a dozen corporate endorsements in the process, and still poll in the top tier of GOP candidates unless he was appealing to that Caucasian, Duck Dynasty mentality? Without even considering the merits (or lack thereof) of his calumny, the optics of his farce
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