OpEd

The Politics of COVID-19

Just as the holiday season starts, a new COVID-19 virus variant, namely omicron, is spreading worldwide and impacting economies struggling to recover from the pandemic that began nearly two years ago.

Reportedly, the first incidents of the omicron variant were cited in South Africa. As a result, President Joe Biden expeditiously halted all air travel from eight southern African countries into the U.S., except for U.S. citizens. “As a precautionary measure until we have more information, I am ordering additional air travel restrictions from South Africa and seven other countries,” Biden announced Monday. These new restrictions went into effect on November 29 and include: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Had the U.S. taken such immediate action when COVID-19 was first reported in Wuhan, China, over a year ago, some suggest the global spread of the deadly virus would have been minimized. But that didn’t immediately happen and African political and health leaders indicate that politics drove these decisions.

Dr. Ayoade Olatunbusun-Alakija, co-chair, Africa Vaccine Delivery Alliance, said in a BBC interview, “Had the first COVID-19 virus, the one first identified in China last year, originated in Africa, it is clear the world would have locked us away and thrown away the key.”

Dr. Alakija went on to say that no one should be surprised that a variant occurred in Southern Africa. “What is going on right now is inevitable,” she said. “It is a result of the world’s failure to vaccinate in an equitable, urgent and speedy manner. It is the result of hoarding [of vaccines] by high-income countries in the world. And, quite frankly, it is unacceptable. These travel bans are based on politics and not on science, and it is wrong.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa echoed her concerns and said his country is being punished for detecting and informing global health authorities about the omicron variant.

Dr. Anthony Fauci reported Tuesday that 226 cases of the omicron COVID-19 variant had been found in 20 countries, including Canada. A Dutch health agency also reported that the omicron variant was in the Netherlands a week before it was reported in South Africa.

We recognize the double standard applied to Africa, related to a travel ban and the higher cost of vaccines, vaccine hesitancy and structural barriers preventing African countries from reaching their goal of vaccinating 40 percent of their populations by the end of this year. And we agree with Dr. Alakija that “until everyone is vaccinated, no one is safe.”

It is wrong to single out Africa when a global response is required.

WI

TO THE EDITOR

Rising Homicide Rates Indicate a Nation in Mental Distress

Another tragic and senseless shooting took place in Oxford, Michigan earlier this week – this time at the hands of a 15-year-old student, now in custody, who killed three students and injured eight others including a teacher.

And as one can expect, politicians will issue statements expressing their condolences and saying such nonsensical statements like “we mourn the loss of these students and teachers,” or “you are in our prayers.” Of course, we use the term “nonsensical” loosely because prayer always matters and lending one’s support to others in time of need remains essential within the framework of the human family.

Nonetheless, examples like these have become so commonplace that they only dominate the news cycle and social media for a few days before becoming footnotes on the pages of life.

Meanwhile, homicide rates in D.C., Baltimore County and many other metropolitan areas remain on track to exceed rates not recorded since 2019.

We know that guns don’t kill people – people kill people. Still, the real question that remains unanswered is why are we seeing this ominous spike in homicides?

Baltimore County officials attribute the rise to behavioral health-related incidents and killings resulting from domestic abuse. However, we believe that the stress placed on Americans because of the pandemic has also led to the homicidal frenzy which continues to plague the nation.

Season’s Greetings!

I want to tell my favorite newspaper happy holidays! It's indeed been a joy reading The Washington Informer all of these years. I get so much out of it, so I wanted to let you all know to keep up the great work.

Linda Maynard Washington, D.C.

People are hurting everywhere in cities big and small. People need help. And people need assistance and direction in developing solutions that will help them solve or at least alleviate the problems that seem to be so overwhelming, mentally and emotionally.

Shooting classmates in a high school, at-

Shifting Opinions

I'm not sure why every 10 years, people get all worked up over redistricting. As populations grow, there must be adjustments. Why would one ward have 30,000 folks and the next 200,000? It doesn't make sense. Though it may feel unfair, redistricting is necessary, in my opinion.

tacking innocent people at Metro stations or at ATM machines or aiming bullets into a crowd of strangers in a drive-by shooting are all inappropriate actions and do nothing but exacerbate the problems we collectively face.

It’s time to stop the madness. And it can be done, one person at a time. WI

Guest Columnist

A Tale of Two Cities

"Justice," now better known as "accountability," is an elusive consequence and, in the current social/ cultural/political climate, is becoming more elusive with each passing day.

Like that well-known quote of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964 defining pornography — "I know it when I see it" — most objective people who control or reject their own partisan leanings will confirm its elusiveness.

Two criminal trials that serve to illuminate and inform our understanding of our criminal justice system have recently ended in Kenosha, Wis., with the Rittenhouse murder trial, and in Brunswick, Ga., with the trial of the murderers of Ahmaud Arbrey. Although the argument for each defense team was self-defense, the verdicts were completely different. which I am sure will be the subject of discussions for years to come.

My assessment of the arguments for the defense in both cases leads me to believe that for true justice and accountability to prevail, more clearly defined parameters of what

E. Faye Williams

constitutes self-defense are needed. But that is a separate discussion.

Like others, my attention was captured by what I can only define as judicial prejudice. In both cities, decisions were made with the intent or effect of influencing the outcome of the prosecution and/or verdicts. These decisions were as clear as mountain air, but only successful in one case.

When I first heard that Judge Bruce Schroeder, presiding in the Rittenhouse trial, had prohibited prosecutors from characterizing the individuals shot by Rittenhouse as "victims" while allowing defense attorneys to refer to demonstrators as "arsonists" and "looters," I knew that judicial bias prevailed in favor of the defendant. Allegations of Judge Schroder telling a racist joke and his cellphone ringtone playing "God Bless the USA," Lee Greenwood's anthem for the political right, gave reason to doubt Schroder's impartiality. The understanding of Schroder's bias was complete when he dismissed the weapons charge against Rittenhouse, paving the way for him receiving a "clean slate" after the expected "not guilty" verdicts were realized.

While Schroder's judicial conduct was open to debate, in Georgia, the threat to justice and accountability was more insidious. From Feb. 23, 2020, until May 7, 2020, no arrest was made nor was any legal action taken against the three who ultimately would be found guilty of Arbery's murder.

Subsequently, police sought legal advice from the Brunswick District Attorney Jackie Johnson about charges for Travis McMichael (son and shooter) and Gregory McMichael (father). The DA advised no arrests were necessary. On the next day,

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Guest Columnist

David W. Marshall

When It Comes to Protecting Voting Rights, Moral Apathy Is Winning the Fight

When speaking before an audience in 1963, James Baldwin could not have stated it any better by saying, "I'm terrified at the moral apathy, the death of the heart, which is happening in my country." His words expresses the feelings and emotions many of us of all races have today as we watch our fellow Americans show little concern or motivation to do what is morally right in regard to protecting the voting rights of people of color.

There is no heart, no conscience or shame in passing laws intended to give Republicans the ability to outright reject election results not in their favor. A recent warning written by a United Nations expert highlights the consequences against human rights in our changing nation. He describes the United States as being near "tyranny" against the voting rights of minorities nationwide. To have the United States, leader of the free world, evolving into a nation under cruel and oppressive rule is a fairly strong but precise assessment.

Fernand de Varennes was appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues by the Human Rights Council. His remarks on the current state of U.S. society and democracy were based on his traveling the country to "assess the human rights situation of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities." As a representative of the United Nations, he met with over 100 officials at the federal, state and territorial levels.

In his initial assessment, de Varennes stated, "My final report will provide more details and analysis in this regard, but what is already eminently clear is that there seems to be growing feeling that the United States is becoming a darker, nastier, and more divided society – and that the patchwork of constitutional and civil rights in the country are not sufficiently protecting those most in need of protection such as minorities and Indigenous peoples, amongst others." When sharing another U.N. expert's observations from 2017, de Varennes noted that "four years later, the pace of what my colleague described as the undermin-

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Guest Columnist

How Many Pastors Can We Have?

Julianne Malveaux

Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton were doing the right thing when attending the Ahmaud Arbery trial. They demonstrated the solidarity that the Black community has with each other when one of us appears to be lynched. Lynching has reverberations. Each of us, every Black person, is repulsed and dismayed when we learn that armed white men, using the pretense of "citizen's arrest," can kill any of us. What is a citizen's arrest, anyway? Is it simply a license to kill?

Kevin Gough, the attorney "defending" William "Roddie" Bryant, the man who both took the video of the massacre and participated in it, asked the judge, each day, to bar Rev. Jesse Jackson from the courtroom. How absurd! He says Rev. Jackson's presence might influence the nearly all-white jury, and I suspect his objections might lay the groundwork for an appeal now that the devilish white men have been found guilty of murder.

Gough's racism and ignorance were a constant presence in this trial. He said he didn't want more Black pastors in the courtroom after Rev. Sharpton sat with the Arbery family. He asked the stupid question, "How many pastors does the Arbery family have?" He had the nerve, though out of the jury's hearing, to ask if Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, also a pastor, will be next in the courtroom. What if he was?

What Gough does not understand are the many ways that racism connects Black people. In the book "Lynching and Spectacle," Amy Louise Wood writes, "The news of lynching shook [author Richard] Wright to his core. Despite, or even because of, its relative rarity, lynching held a singular psychological force, generating a level of fear and horror that overwhelmed all other forms of violence. Even one lynching reverberated, traveling with sinister force, down city streets, and through rural farms, across roads and rivers." Any of us could be followed and shot on any given day.

We have no shield. We can be unarmed and running. In bed and sleeping (ask Breonna Taylor) or simply walking down the street. And white folks see a threat because racism is baked in the cake we call America. When we watch the massacre of Ah-

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Guest Columnist

Jose Marquez

Ensuring Racial Equity by Expanding Internet Access

With protests having erupted in cities across the country over police violence targeting Black men and women, the civil rights and social justice movements have shot to the forefront of U.S. politics in a way not seen since the 1960s.

While much of the conversation rightly has centered on police brutality and the role law enforcement plays in American society, communities of color also are discriminated against in numerous other ways. Many Black Americans, Latinos and other people of color are given substandard educational opportunities, lack avenues to workforce training and advancement and, arguably most important in today's tech-driven world, face a dearth of access to reliable, affordable broadband internet.

Congress made a good first step in ameliorating this dire situation when it passed President Biden's infrastructure bill, but the $65 billion allocation in broadband for all is hardly enough to close the digital divide.

The gap in digital access is particularly wide in communities of color, where one in three families with children lack a high-speed internet connection at home — a rate of disconnection more than 50% higher than that of white families. The problem is exacerbated in areas across the South from Atlanta to Houston where 35% of Black adults lack any access to broadband at home.

The private sector is already doing this with a little-known but ambitious effort like the Southern Communities Initiative. It is seeking to address the socio-economic challenges that African Americans face throughout the region. And among the goals of this partnership is to expand broadband access across six metro areas throughout the South: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, Houston, Memphis and New Orleans. The effort has the backing of some of the most powerful individuals in corporate America, including PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, Vista CEO Robert F. Smith and BCG CEO Rich Lesser.

We are not too late to bridge the digital divide, and the Southern Communities Initiative will almost certainly play an important role in helping accomplish that in communities like my hometown of Atlanta. But this important work cannot be left to private individuals and organizations alone. Lawmakers must do their part to ensure that high-speed internet is available and affordable to every American, no matter where in the country they live.

While policymakers in Washington have focused on getting broadband access to rural areas, we must also make sure that urban areas are not overlooked. Census data has shown

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Guest Columnist

Marc H. Morial

Minority Business Development Agency Elevated to Permanent Status

"President Biden has made clear his commitment to not just rebuilding to how things were before COVID-19, but to building back better and more equitably. The Minority Business Development Agency is ready to step into this historic moment and build on its success — because we recognize that America's road to recovery runs through our minority business community. Making MBDA a statutory Agency provides MBDA with the authorities, workforce and resources needed to help level the playing field on behalf of minority businesses and minority entrepreneurs." — U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo

After more than 50 years, the Minority Business Development Agency has been made permanent, its director has been elevated to undersecretary of commerce, and new tools and authority will allow the agency to address the longstanding economic inequities that face our nation's 9 million business owners of color.

These long-awaited historic provisions are part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by President Biden earlier this month.

The expansion and elevation of MBDA is of special interest to the National Urban League, not only because Black entrepreneurship and business ownership are at the heart of our mission. Robert J. Brown, vice chair of the National Urban League Board of Trustees, created and developed the agency — then known as the Office of Minority Business Enterprise — while serving as special assistant to President Richard Nixon in 1969. "We must also provide an expanded opportunity to participate in the free enterprise system at all levels — not only to share the economic benefits of the free enterprise system more broadly, but also to encourage pride, dignity, and a sense of independence," Nixon said upon signing the executive order creating the agency. "In order to do this, we need to remove commercial obstacles which have too often stood in the way of minority group members — obstacles such as the unavailability of credit, insurance, and technical assistance."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Black-owned businesses shuttered at twice the rate of whiteowned businesses and were largely excluded from relief that was distributed as part of Congress's stim-

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Guest Columnist

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. Our Criminal Justice System Needs Dramatic Reform

In the civil rights movement, we were constantly reminded to keep our eyes on the prize. What's the prize? Equality of opportunity and results, which requires equity in every facet of our lives — education, housing, homeownership, job training, employment, political access and especially in the criminal justice system.

Our criminal justice system still needs dramatic reform. Blacks make up more than 40% of the prison population, but only 13% of the nation's population.

The geographic numerator changes — north or south — but the denominator remains the same — an unjust criminal justice system nationwide. Three current incidents illustrate: Jelani Day in Peru, Illinois; Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin; and Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia. Jelani Day, a 25-year-old Black medical student at Illinois State University, was a "bright light" in his family; he and his sister were competing to become doctors. He disappeared on Aug. 24. The family and a professor reported him missing on Aug. 25.

His car was found two days later in a wooded area near where his body was later discovered in Peru, miles from where he was last seen. LaSalle County law enforcement officials discovered his body on Sept. 4 "floating near the south bank of the Illinois River approximately a quarter-of-a-mile east of the Illinois Route 251 Bridge." The parents continue to be critical of the investigation because little focus was initially put on his disappearance. It occurred in the context of the vanished and subsequent death of Gabby Petito, which was receiving national coverage.

There are inconsistencies, a high degree of incompetence and a lack of collaboration between various law enforcement agencies surrounding the case. There is still no closure about what happened to Jelani Day. Racial dimensions in trials of Rusten Sheskey, accompanied by two other white police officers responding to a domestic complaint by the fiancee of Jacob Blake — a Black man — shot Blake seven times in the back, with his children looking on in the back

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