Page 6
July 27, 2016
O PINION
Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views of the
Portland Observer. We welcome reader essays, photos and
story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com.
Second-Class Citizenship Continues
Has anything
changed?
e bony S laughter -J ohnSon
When I heard about
the police shootings of
Alton Sterling and Phi-
lando Castile, I thought
back to another name
etched into American
history: Dred Scott.
In 1857, the Supreme
Court was tasked with deciding
whether Scott, an African Ameri-
can man born into slavery, should
be granted his freedom.
The justices not only denied
Scott’s request, but also took the
opportunity to send a chilling
message to all African Americans,
free and enslaved, that reverber-
ates to this day.
The court held that as mem-
bers of an inferior race, African
Americans were not citizens at all
— and, as such, did not even have
legal standing to sue.
African Americans, as Chief
Justice Roger Taney so decisively
determined, had “no rights which
the white man was bound to re-
spect.”
The next century was charac-
by
terized by an ongoing struggle to
prove Taney wrong.
African American heroism
during the Civil War era hastened
the passage of the 13th, 14th
and 15th Amendments,
which ended slavery and
(theoretically) reversed
race-based restrictions
on citizenship.
Yet these gains were
negated almost as quick-
ly as they were realized,
This sacrifice of the black body,
along with sustained lobbying, ul-
timately led to the enactment of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Yet even today, second-class
citizenship continues. It shows up
in generational poverty, a dispa-
rate education system, mass incar-
ceration, and violence at the hands
of police.
In fact, African Americans are
three times as likely as whites to
of their constitutional right to life
by self-deputized racists who pro-
claimed themselves judge, juror,
and executioner and gunned them
down.
That same year, Rekia Boyd
was murdered under a hail of
bullets by an off-duty police of-
ficer who reproached Boyd and
her friends for talking too loudly,
depriving her of her right to free
speech, freedom of assembly, and
life.
It shows up in generational poverty,
a disparate education system, mass
incarceration, and violence at the hands
of police.
as the strong grip of Jim Crow
choked communities throughout
the South.
Over the violent decades that
followed, African Americans en-
dured church bombings, harass-
ment, and police beatings and
animal attacks, like the brutali-
ties inflicted on those marching
across the Edmund Pettus Bridge
in 1965.
be killed by police, even though
they’re twice as likely to be un-
armed. That’s produced a slew of
names that, like Dred Scott’s, may
loom over our history for cen-
turies because of the rights they
were denied.
In 2012, Trayvon Martin and
Jordan Davis, both of whom had
committed no crimes or infrac-
tions of any sort, were deprived
In August 2014, Michael
Brown’s right to a fair and public
trial was violated by the police of-
ficer who shot him and callously
left his lifeless body to bleed out
in the street.
Walter Scott’s life and right to
due process were taken in April
2015 at the hands of a law en-
forcement officer, who then had
the audacity to plant his weapon
next to Scott’s motionless body on
the ground — all over a mere traf-
fic violation.
On July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling,
a father of five who was selling
CDs to provide for his children,
was murdered by law enforcement
officers who violated his Fourth
Amendment right to prevent un-
warranted search and seizure sim-
ply because he fit a certain profile.
Less than 48 hours later, Phi-
lando Castile was pulled over
for a broken tail light. Castile’s
non-threatening disclosure that he
was legally carrying a concealed
weapon prompted a police officer
to murder him in front of his part-
ner and her four-year-old daugh-
ter, violating his Second Amend-
ment right to bear arms.
In 2016, one would hope that
the “inalienable rights” of all
Americans are respected. Yet
Taney’s words that African Amer-
icans “have no rights which the
white man was bound to respect”
still ring loud and clear.
The fight for full African Amer-
ican citizenship continues.
Ebony Slaughter-Johnson is
a Next Leader at the Institute for
Policy Studies. Distributed by
OtherWords.org.
Acknowledging the Deep Racial Wealth Gap
A party platform
that finally
targets the
barriers
by
J oSh h oxie
Party platforms are dense and
often morosely boring documents
filled with wonkish poli-
cy proposals and partisan
jeers at the other side.
At over 40 pages, this
year’s Democratic Party
platform lives up to its
predecessors in length
The Law Offices of
Patrick John Sweeney, P.C.
Patrick John Sweeney
Attorney at Law
1549 SE Ladd, Portland, Oregon
Portland:
Hillsoboro:
Facsimile:
Email:
(503) 244-2080
(503) 244-2081
(503) 244-2084
Sweeney@PDXLawyer.com
and ennui. However, it also in-
cludes a section not yet seen in
platforms from either side: an
acknowledgement of the racial
wealth gap.
Wealth has been unfairly dis-
tributed since our nation’s found-
ing, and that unfairness has al-
ways had a racial bent. It goes
something like this: White fami-
lies have more; black and Latino
families have less. (Asian and
Arab Americans have more com-
plex economic histories.)
The gap is far larger than you
might expect.
A 2014 study from Pew Re-
search revealed that median white
families have 13 times more
wealth than median black fami-
lies, and 10 times more than me-
dian Latino families. That gap has
remained relatively consistent for
decades.
The Democratic platform ac-
knowledges that this gap “has
been created by historical and con-
temporary policies and practices
that discriminate against people of
color” and have “constrained their
ability to earn income and build
assets to the same extent as other
Americans.”
In other words, the racial
wealth gap is no accident, and it’s
not caused by some deficiency in
people of color. It’s caused by a
legacy of bad public policies that
extend to this day. The platform
commits to eliminating those sys-
temic barriers, but what exactly
are they — and how do we fix
them?
One way to get at this is to con-
sider who benefits from existing
wealth-building policies.
Consider that in recent de-
cades, wealth has concentrated at
the tippy top of the economic pyr-
amid. The 400 wealthiest Ameri-
cans combined own $2.34 tril-
lion. That’s more than the GDP of
India, a country of over a billion
people. In that group of 400, just
seven are black or Latino.
Those at the top have been able
to reach record levels of wealth
through policies that prioritize
wealth concentration by those
who already have wealth. This is
in stark contrast to focusing on
those who have no wealth and
helping them build a nest egg.
Take for instance the loop-
holes in the tax code that en-
able some of the highest earning
households to pay just 17 percent
of their income in taxes. That’s
less than half the top nominal
rate. At the same time, we’re
told we can’t afford to expand
programs with a proven track re-
cord of improving prospects for
people who start with less, like
the early childhood education
program Head Start.
This tradeoff — wasting pre-
cious public resources on tax
breaks for the rich while leaving
those at the bottom to fend for
themselves — plays out in count-
less different ways in public poli-
cies large and small.
Reversing this dynamic will
have a significant impact on the
racial wealth gap, but first we
have to acknowledge it. Including
the racial wealth gap in the Dem-
ocratic Party platform is a strong
first step — one the Republicans
should follow.
Now, let’s fix it.
Josh Hoxie directs the Project
on Opportunity and Taxation at
the Institute for Policy Studies.
Distributed by OtherWords.org.