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M artin L uther K ing J r . January 15, 2020 2020 special edition O PINION Don’t Expect Fair Elections in 2020 We are in a fight and it won’t be a fair one o sCar h. b layTon The African Amer- ican journey through American history can be summed up in two words – un- just and unfair. From the moment we first set foot on the North American con- tinent, we have been subjected to atrocities both great and small. Armed with a culture of white supremacy bolstered by their re- ligion and world view, Europeans seeking to create empires span- ning the globe built their dream with the lives and labor stolen from Africans and other peoples from around the world. And while the flames of former imperial aspirations have settled into the glowing embers of fi- nancial and military hegemony, control over much of the world’s resources remains in the grip of European nations and the Western nation states they spawned. America, one of those spawns of European colonialism, is a cu- rious mix of posturing as a rebel- lious breakaway from old Euro- pean values while being the most ardent advocate of the old-world concept of white supremacy. America has managed for centu- ries to juggle its race hatred and by notions of democratic fervor with a skill unmatched elsewhere in the world. As 2020 dawns, it is imperative that people of color accept the reality that significant numbers of European Americans are willing to deny us of our rights in order to maintain a world order that favors them. These people who identify most with their European ancestry and have an explicit or implicit bias against people of color are preparing to trash the constitutional values they hypocritically claim to love so dearly in order to put people of color “back in our place.” With the national disgrace who squats in the White House leading the hate-mongering, Republicans and other conservatives are prepar- ing to strip the vote from people of color and make it impossible for our voices to be heard in the na- tion’s elections in November. People of color are being purged from voting rolls, and the polling places most convenient to us are being closed. Conservative judges recently appointed by Trump are not likely to find fault with these tactics. They will find no fault in these injustices and illegalities be- ing carried out by even the worst violators of the Constitution. But this is not the time to give up. Nor is it the time to give in. I am old enough to remember when white bigots ruled the South and threw up barricades in front of every black person who wanted to exercise his or her right to cast a ballot. I remem- ber the marches, the fire hoses, the dogs and the baton wielding “law enforcement officers” used against our people. And I remember the courts ruling that this was the way it should be in America. Today, there are many Europe- an Americans we can count as our allies, just as there were during the civil rights movement. But we must not lull ourselves into believing that they are in the ma- jority. Fifty-three percent of white women voted for Donald Trump despite his crudeness, dishonesty, ignorance and all the other nega- tive qualities he possesses. Many pundits tried to sugarcoat the reason for Trump’s popularity by saying his message of econom- ic prosperity was his appeal. But they never tried to explain why his message had no appeal for poor people of color. The truth is Donald Trump had only one thing to sell to America, and that was white supremacy. This nation had just been through eight years of a president with dark skin, and it is no secret that this drove many European Americans into a type of madness. They saw their world of white supremacy, that took centu- ries to build, beginning to crumble before their eyes. And this was something they could never allow. With the law once again bend- ing back towards their advantage, white supremacists want to keep people of color away from the voting booths in order to continue this regression. And we must do everything we can to prevent that. We must organize and support groups to review the latest voting rolls in order to identify people who were unfairly purged. We need to urge those who have been unfairly purged to re-register to vote. We must help those who have been purged for cause to become qualified to register and vote. But if a person is ineligible to register, they need to be informed so that they do not fall in the trap of vio- lating local election laws by trying to register. And we need to arrange to get people to the polls, especially in communities where nearby poll- ing places have been closed and transportation is needed to reach the new ones. We also need to encourage peo- ple to vote by letting them know how important this election is. Finally, we need to encourage qualified people to become can- didates and support them, both during their campaigns and once they have been elected to office. We are in for a fight and it will not be a fair one, but it is a fight we can win, just like we won more than a half century ago. Oscar H. Blayton is a former Marine Corps combat pilot and human rights activist who practic- es law in Virginia. Injustices Created the Racial Wealth Divide Bridge the gap for kids with ‘baby bonds’ J essiCah P ierre The gap be- tween America’s ul- tra-wealthy and the rest of us is grow- ing dramatically as wealth continues to concentrate at the top at the expense of the rest of us. One major symptom of this eco- nomic rift is the racial wealth di- vide, which is greater today than it was nearly four decades ago. The median black family today owns $3,600 — just 2 percent of the $147,000 of wealth the median white family owns. At the extreme top, the Forbes 400 richest Amer- icans own more wealth than all black households, plus a quarter of Latino households, combined. by When analyzing the racial wealth divide, it’s important to note that this is a systemic issue — a result of policies, not individual behavior. Darrick Hamilton, executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Eth- nicity at Ohio State, emphasizes that the key ingredient of how successful you’ll be in Ameri- ca isn’t how hard you work in- dividually — it’s how wealthy your family is. For instance, the racial wealth gap continues to grow despite rising rates of black employment and ed- ucation. These other things simply can’t make up for enormous, sys- temic disparities in family wealth. Hamilton’s proposed solution? “Baby bonds.” Baby bonds are federally man- aged accounts set up at birth for children and endowed by the government with assets that will grow over time. Neither the child nor their parents would be able to access these funds until the child reaches adulthood, at which point they could use the money to get an education, purchase a home, or start a business. Baby bonds could play an es- sential role in balancing the his- torical injustices that created the racial wealth divide. One recent study shows a baby bond program has the potential to reduce the current black-white wealth divide more than tenfold. Another shows that had a baby bond program been initiated 40 years ago, the Latinx-white wealth divide would be closed by now — and the black-white wealth divide would have shrunk by 82 percent. Baby bonds are an essential, universal, race-conscious program to provide everyone with an oppor- tunity to start life off secure, irre- spective of their race and the finan- cial position in which they’re born. And they’re just 1 of 10 bold solutions offered in a 2019 Insti- tute for Policy Studies report on closing the racial wealth divide, which counts Hamilton among its coauthors. “Large scale policy change,” it concludes, “is the most promis- ing path to addressing the racial wealth divide and many asset poor whites as well.” The report also recommends solutions ranging from Medicare for All and high- er taxes on the wealthy to setting up a congressional committee to study reparations. Just like all other issues of in- equality in America, the racial wealth divide is a structural prob- lem that requires structural solu- tions. In order to create economic prosperity for every American, we must start with taking bold action to close the racial wealth divide once and for all. Jessicah Pierre is the inequality media specialist at the Institute for Policy Studies. 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