16 minute read
OpEd
EDITORIAL
The long-fought battle for justice and equity for Black Americans is beginning to bear fruit, it appears.
Last year, when George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white Minnesota police officer, there was little faith in a judicial system that most often let police officers off the hook for the murder of Black men and boys, and Black women, as well. But hope reigns, although the writing on the wall assured many that Floyd’s murderer would not be held accountable. Surprisingly, Officer Derek Chauvin was found civilly liable and later criminally guilty. A 12-member jury of six Whites, four Blacks, and two multi-racial people convicted him on three counts of second and third-degree murder for kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than 9 minutes.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser renamed a portion of 16th Street, N.W., one of the most wellknown streets in America, Black Lives Matter Plaza. The bright yellow street name painted on a street where Black Lives Matter protestors continue to gather and issue their demands leads directly to the White House. Last November, American voters put Kamala Harris there alongside President Joe Biden, electing her as the first Black and first woman vice president of the U.S., one of the most powerful positions in the world.
Standing in the footsteps of Ida B. Wells, George Frazier, and Aretha Franklin is 18-year old Darnella Frazier, the teenager that documented George Floyd’s death by filming the horrific event on her cell phone camera. Frazier was recently awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for her courageous act that led to Chauvin’s conviction. She is the first individual to receive the honor as a citizen journalist.
This week, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to establish June 19 as Juneteenth National Independence Day, commemorating the end of slavery in America. Next, the bill will go to the House of Representatives for a vote and then to President Joe Biden for his signature, declaring the bill a law.
These are but a few examples over the past year of the seismic racial shift happening in the U.S. Still, the fight for justice and equity for Black Americans continues, and hope will never end.
WI
TO THE EDITOR
As America Mourns the Death of 600,000 to COVID-19, Slow and Steady is the Best Strategy
Let the party begin – at least that’s what everyone seems to be saying these days.
That’s because most cities, counties and states across the U.S. have either relaxed or completely lifted COVID-19 restrictions after the numbers of infections and deaths have thankfully and significantly fallen.
But before we go overboard, let us remember that the U.S. recently acknowledged the somber news that more than 600, 000 men, women and children have died due to the coronavirus.
And infections and deaths continue each day, albeit at much lower numbers than America was recording over a year ago. Consider that the number of deaths, 600,000, equals the yearly death rate for cancer in the U.S.
That puts COVID-19 at the top of the list of causes of death in the U.S.
In the District, the D.C. Council has given Mayor Bowser the authority to either extend the state of emergency through July 25, or lift it now. She has chosen to invite other Americans to D.C. for the upcoming Fourth of July festivities. Of course, she has asked participants to wear masks, follow social distance protocols and urged everyone to be sure they’re vaccinated.
In the Commonwealth, Virginia Governor Northam will allow the state of emergency order to end at the end of June. Meanwhile, in Maryland, while the official end of the state of emergency is July 11, Governor Hogan has said he has no plans to extend that date.
These dates change from day to day, but in all cases, it’s apparent that our leaders believe we have rounded the curve and weathered the storm.
Still, variants of the virus, most notably the delta variant, have health officials concerned and with good reason. In the United Kingdom for example, leaders have delayed reopening plans because infection rates are once again climbing.
Sure, we want to get out and about. Everyone’s tired of being housebound. But this must be done carefully and with the best science we can muster guiding us.
As the great Aesop once wrote, “slow and steady wins the race.” WI
Black Excellence
I just wanted to commend The Washington Informer for the great works it has done over the past 50-plus years as a Black business in the District. You all should be extremely proud of producing a great newspaper week after week for all these years. Signed, a loyal reader.
Ina Haggard Washington, D.C.
Holding Serve
Kudos to Naomi Osaka for speaking up for herself against the international tennis institution that continues to act as if they’re doing our athletes a favor instead of acknowledging them as hardworking professionals. May she set the tone for the next generation!
Leonard Phillips Washington, D.C.
Readers' Mailbox The Washington Informer welcomes letters to the editor about articles we publish or issues affecting the community. Write to: lsaxton@washingtoninformer. com or send to: 3117 Martin Luther King Jr Ave., SE, Washington, D.C. 20032. Please note that we are unable to publish letters that do not include a full name, address and phone number. We look forward to hearing from you.
Guest Columnist
Julianne Malveauxl
Pride Month Means Black Pride, Too
June is Pride Month, commemorating the violent police raid on the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969, when GLBTQ activists fought abusive police officers who beat gay men, lesbians and those who cross-dressed. So-called law enforcement also participated in blackmail and extortion against those who were closeted.
It took 50 years, until June 2019, for the New York City police commissioner to apologize for the raid. While the GLBTQIA community has increased visibility and acceptance, there is also the putrid and hateful resistance to the very existence of this community.
In a tiny Texas town, a bakery that offered Rainbow cookies in honor of Pride Month faced a detestable backlash when a patron who ordered five dozen cookies — a sizable order for a small, family-run bakery — canceled their order (having not paid for it) because they felt that a Facebook recognition of Pride month was "gay propaganda." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/06/09/ pride-month-rainbow-bakery-customer/).
In Jacksonville, Florida, a planned bridge lighting in honor of Pride Month was threatened, some say over intergovernmental jurisdictional issues, while others say it was simple homophobia. In a D.C. suburb, a teacher says he violates his religion to refer to young people by their preferred pronouns. He was fired, and he sues saying that it violates his faith for him to be courteous and compassionate to others. The court agrees with him, and he is headed back to
Guest Columnist
Lives Are Depending on It
The postponed and rescheduled 2020 Olympic Games are only a few weeks away. If the Japanese and International Olympic Committees can manage a COVID-safe environment, I welcome them. I consider this event to be one of the purest forms of athletic competition. Participants train and compete fairly in a test of physical prowess.
If you will, imagine yourself as a participant in the finals of the 100-meter dash. When you arrive at the starting area, you find the starting block in your lane 18 meters behind those of your competitors. The race begins with little to no hope of you overcoming the disadvantage imposed upon you. In real life, that is the type of disadvantage imposed upon the average American woman. PayScale, a compensation research organization, asserts that in 2021,
E. Faye Williams
the average American woman earns 82 cents for every dollar earned by the average American male — 18 cents less!
To raise awareness of this disparity, Equal Pay Day is observed. It is the day to which the average woman must work in a new year to achieve earning parity with the average male's earnings for the past year. In 2021, Equal Pay Day was March 24. This date is calculated without regard to experience or job type.
The Gender Pay Gap has long the classroom, intolerant as ever.
These are incidents that have bubbled into the national consciousness, but there are others that go unreported. The bottom line is that hate — racism, homophobia and more — thrives in our nation, and few are prepared to stop it.
Police violence is at the root of Pride Month, just as it is at the foundation of the Black Lives Matter Movement. The Movement for Black Lives has been firmly and fiercely supportive of GLBTQIA rights, especially sensitive to the rights of trans people, focusing on the trans women who are exponentially more likely to be murdered than others. But with police violence as the common root of two vital movements, why is there so little visible collaboration between those communities). Gay pride is Black pride, too. Let's call the roll of Black GBLTQIA leaders and thinkers —Bayard Rustin, Pauli Murray, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, so many others. And let’s look at hate and hate crime from an intersectional perspective and solutions from that same place.
been the subject of contention and debate. Few will debate its existence, but there is significant disagreement as to the cause. Some will argue that the career related choices of women and the stereotypical obligations of "womanhood" (homemaker, wife and mother) reduce their "time on the clock" and, therefore, their resulting income. Others contend that, historically and contemporarily, the work and performance of women has been undervalued, and, among other reasons, employ-
Guest Columnist
Marc H. Morial Juneteenth is Opportunity to Confront the Nation's 'Hard History'
"Slavery is hard history. It is hard to comprehend the inhumanity that defined it. It is hard to discuss the violence that sustained it. It is hard to teach the ideology of white supremacy that justified it. And it is hard to learn about those who abided it. We the people have a deep-seated aversion to hard history because we are uncomfortable with the implications it raises about the past as well as the present. … We enjoy thinking about Thomas Jefferson proclaiming, 'All men are created equal.' But we are deeply troubled by the prospect of the enslaved woman Sally Hemings, who bore him six children, declaring, 'Me too.'" — Hasan Kwame Jeffries
When I was a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, I accompanied my parents on a trip to the West African nation of Senegal. As part of our journey, we took a ferry to Gorée, a tiny island about a mile from Dakar's main harbor.
The haunting images of the slave trade we encountered there left a lifetime impression. "Soon, we came upon a large stone structure," My mother, Sybil Haydel Morial, wrote in her memoir, Witness to Change. "The remains of what appeared to be shackles were embedded in the floor. For nearly three centuries, men, women and children were brought forcibly to this island and sold to European and American slave traders. The tour guide explained that the slaves were corralled and held until the next slave ship arrives. On the far side of the building, was a large opening onto the Atlantic. The slaves were taken along a short gangplank into the hold of the ship. The guide called it 'the Door of No Return,' as those African people would never see their homeland again."
As the nation prepares to observe Juneteenth, the celebration of the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States, we are engaged in a bitter battle over the teaching of history, particularly the acknowledgment of white supremacy's role in shaping our laws and institutions.
My great-great-grandparents, Victor Theophile Haydel and Marie Celeste Becnel, were born on the Whitney Plantation, 50
MALVEAUX Page 53
ers have routinely practiced the payment of lower wages in women-dominated career fields. I support the latter position.
Despite the Equal Pay Act of 1963, throughout their careers women continue to earn less than men do, and this disparity occurs as early as one year out of college. Christianne M. Corbett, a senior researcher at the American Association of University Women, co-au-
WILLIAMS Page 53
MORIAL Page 53
Guest Columnist
H.J. Harris
Where Is America? Will It Fade Into Yesterday?
While the world is coming out of the pandemic, the Republican party is attempting to turn back the clock on truth, freedom, and justice.
It is attempting to take America back to the good old days that conservatives long for.
Republicans are making a three-fold attack on the heart and soul of America.
First: Republicans are perpetuating the Big Lie — that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Second: The Republican party is attempting to restrict voting rights of Black Americans.
Third: The Republicans are institutionalizing the denial of racism in America.
Let us look deeper into these three assaults on truth, freedom, and justice.
First: Certain leaders and their enablers refuse to accept that the 2020 election was fair and free of election fraud. They ignore the findings of the US Supreme Court, the Attorney General, the Election Security Agency, and virtually every other court and state election board in the country.
It is a blow to the heart of America when the validated vote of the American people — the cornerstone of the American democracy - is disputed by baseless, false, unsupported allegations of election fraud.
This assault on the sanctity of the vote of the American people is confirmed by the anticipated ouster from Congressional Republican leadership of Liz Cheney - an otherwise party loyal - for standing up for truth and contradicting the Big Lie.
Second: The Republican Party is committed to restrict voting rights of Black Americans.
An article by Amy Gardner in The Washington Post (3/11/2021) reveals that Republican lawmakers in 43 states have proposed at least 250 laws that would restrict voting rights.
Georgia and Florida have already enacted legislation that will restrict voting rights.
This current national assault on voting rights is taken from the racist playbook of voter suppression.
The playbook for voter suppression was an outcome of the only coup that occurred on American soil — "the Coup of 1898 in Wilmington, North Carolina."
After the legitimately elected government of Wilmington,
HARRIS Page 53
Guest Columnist
Ben Jealous
Black Churches Have Moral Authority to Defend the Black Vote
During the civil rights movement's struggle against discrimination and voter suppression in Jim Crow America, the Black Church was a source of refuge and resolve. Today, a new wave of voter suppression laws is targeting Black voters, and new generations of Black clergy are bringing their moral authority to a campaign to defend the Black vote. We need these prophetic voices. The new Jim Crow doesn't look exactly like the old Jim Crow, but it is grounded in the same assault on the dignity, humanity and citizenship rights of Black Americans. We need our communities' truth-tellers to speak out. Because the new Jim Crow is grounded in layers of lies.
The Big Lie told by former President Donald Trump and his supporters is that he won the 2020 election, but had his victory stolen by corrupt election officials and Black and brown people casting fraudulent votes.
The existence of widespread voter fraud is itself a lie. It has been debunked over and over again. But Republicans in dozens of states are using that lie to justify new restrictive voting rules. They claim to be protecting "election integrity" but they are really trying to make it harder for some Black and brown people to cast a ballot and have it counted.
Right-wing lawmakers feel free to impose discriminatory voting rules thanks to another lie — this one told by John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States. He justified the decision of a conservative majority of the court in 2013 to abolish a key enforcement mechanism of the Voting Rights Act by saying in effect that racial discrimination in voting was a thing of the past.
States from across the old Confederacy proved him wrong, by acting to impose new restrictions on registration and voting. Some went into effect just hours after the Supreme Court gave them the green light.
That was bad enough. But the right wing's voter suppression machinery really kicked into high gear
Askia-At-Large
Askia Muhammad
White Americans Murdering Truth
In their descent into the bowels of hell, white Americans have literally murdered The Truth, and are racing to make it illegal to teach this country's true history in classrooms.
Lawmakers in at least 15 states are attempting to pass legislation that would require teachers to lie to students about the role of racism and oppression throughout U.S. history. They mistakenly believe that by banishing truth-telling, the true history of this country will go away, and that they will never be held accountable for it. Wrong!
Chattel slavery was once perfectly legal in this country, and the law of the land prohibited teaching Black people to read. Super, supermajorities on the Supreme Court upheld the most draconian laws punishing Black folks, yet a Black man has been elected president of this republic and a Black woman is now vice president. And look at us now — reading, writing and, with our "Hidden Figures" geniuses, an educated Black woman helped put white men on the moon.
Those wicked, white ideologies cannot stand the test of time.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was fond of quoting poet James Russell Lowell's words from his epic, "The Present Crisis," written in 1845, when slavery and the practices of anti-Black race hatred were at their worst in the U.S. "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne — Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own," Lowell wrote, and the words are certainly true today.
Would you believe, in one state, legislators have proposed that teachers be required to wear body cameras to ensure that they don't sneak and tell their pupils the true history of racial oppression in this country?
If they could, these same white after the 2020 election. Republican lawmakers saw that Black voter turnout helped President Joe Biden win key battleground states. And they vowed not to let that happen again.
Republican lawmakers' strategy for holding onto power is not to reach out to Black voters, but to shut them out. But we won't be shut out. We will push Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, two laws that are needed to overturn the new
JEALOUS Page 54
people would try to blow out the light of the sun as if it was a candle. They are sadly delusional and their way of thinking will be buried on the scrap heap of history.
They think that by banning discussions of what is known as "critical race theory," they can disinfect their filthy past as though the United States of America had not, in fact, committed the worst crimes in hu-
ASKIA Page 54
