Page 2 The Skanner September 21, 2016
®
Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now
Opinion
Bernie Foster
Founder/Publisher
The RNC Is Suing Me, a Loyal Black Republican
Bobbie Dore Foster
Executive Editor
W
Jerry Foster
Advertising Manager
Christen McCurdy
News Editor
Patricia Irvin
Graphic Designer
Arashi Young
Reporter
Monica J. Foster
Seattle Oice Coordinator
Susan Fried
Photographer
2016
MERIT
AWARD
WINNER
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info@theskanner.com
ith less than seven
weeks to go before
one of the most his-
toric elections in our
nation’s history, and when the
GOP needs all the help it can
get reaching Black voters, the
Republican National Commit-
tee (RNC) is suing me, a Black
Republican, over an event I
created. You can’t make this
stuf up.
A few facts. I created and
hosted the irst “Black Re-
publican Trailblazer Awards
Luncheon” in February 2013
in the wake of former Mas-
sachusetts Governor Mitt
Romney’s loss to then-Sena-
tor Barack Obama in the 2012
presidential election. Rom-
ney received just 4 percent of
the Black vote. The event was
designed to recognize and
honor Black Republicans who
have made signiicant contri-
butions to both America and
the Republican Party.
As I have written previous-
ly, the head of the RNC, Reince
Preibus, immediately saw the
value in the luncheon and in-
sisted that his organization
pay for it.
I coordinated and executed
that 2013 luncheon, despite
the fact that RNC stafers, un-
beknownst to Preibus at the
time, attempted to sabotage
my eforts at every turn.
More than 250 people at-
Raynard
Jackson
NNPA
Columnist
tended the inaugural lun-
cheon and I estimate that
about 40 percent of them
were Democrats.
That irst year we honored
William T. Coleman and Rob-
ert J. Brown. David L. Stew-
ard was the keynote speaker.
Coleman’s work was critical
“
is, Mo., who operates one of
the largest Black-owned busi-
nesses in the U.S., on the stage
to talk about politics and the
party. RNC stafers later ed-
ited me out of the video that
was recorded of our conver-
sation.
Despite the behind-the-
scenes turmoil, that irst
event was the gold standard.
By 2014, Black stafers at the
RNC decided they no longer
needed my leadership. My
original vision for the event
was watered down. By the
time NewsOneNow managing
editor and noted liberal Ro-
land Mar-
tin hosted
the event
in 2015, I
had com-
pletely
divorced myself from that
RNC-sponsored
minstrel
show. Even one of the honor-
ees, Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.)
declared: “I’m not a trailblaz-
er. My father is the trailblaz-
er.”
I went my own way and
sought to trademark the event
through my political action
committee (PAC) Black Amer-
icans for a Better Future.
BABF is the irst and only
Black Super PAC established
to get more Blacks involved in
the Republican Party.
Last November, I iled for
This is the thanks I get for
being a loyal Republican
for more than 30 years?
in the United States Supreme
Court’s decision in Brown v.
Board of Education. Coleman
also served as Secretary of
Transportation during the
Ford Administration.
Bob Brown was the high-
est-ranking Black stafer in
the Nixon Administration. As
I’ve said before, Coleman and
Brown were both civil rights
icons, who never forgot their
obligation to ight on behalf of
Black community.
Preibus joined me and Dave
Steward, the head of World
Wide Technology in St. Lou-
and received provisional
trademark approval by the
U.S. Patent and Trademark
Oice (USPTO) for the name,
“Black Republican Trailblaz-
er Awards Luncheon.”
I emailed invitations to my
2016 event in early January
for the upcoming February
luncheon in Washington, D.C.
What did the RNC do? The
organization sent out an invi-
tation for an event using the
same name as my event, but
in Jacksonville, Fla., sched-
uled a week before mine. In a
conversation in January 2016,
Preibus claimed that the RNC
owned the name to my event.
During a heated, hour-long
conversation, the chair of the
RNC, the national committee
leader of my party, threat-
ened to destroy me. He said
that he would make it impos-
sible for me to raise money
through my PAC.
Recently, I received notiica-
tion from the USPTO that my
trademark application was in
dispute and oicially being
opposed by the RNC.
This is the thanks I get for
being a loyal Republican for
more than 30 years?
Well, if they want a ight,
that’s exactly what I’m going
to give them.
Read the rest of this commentary at
TheSkanner.com
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Airbnb Is Making Real Progress for Travelers of Color
W
hen I was asked by
Airbnb to lead their
efort to ight dis-
crimination
and
bias, I was skeptical. Ater
spending decades ighting for
the protection and advance-
ment civil rights and civil lib-
erties, I’ve seen many compa-
nies merely pay lip service to
addressing these issues.
I also wondered how one
single company could have
a real impact on racial dis-
crimination. The sad truth is
that bias is deeply embedded
in our culture, especially in
the area of housing and pub-
lic accommodations. Laws
designed to prevent housing
discrimination are uneven-
ly enforced, and it remains a
persistent civil rights chal-
lenge in many communities.
My time serving as the Dis-
trict of Columbia’s irst Direc-
tor of Tourism let me all too
familiar with the tactics used
by hotels, restaurants and
tour companies to ignore or
even facilitate racial discrim-
ination. And as an African
American woman, I also grew
up feeling the sting of racial
bias. I still remember my
parents’ stories about “The
Negro Motorist Green Book”
and how Black families had to
stay with other Black families
when Jim Crow laws encour-
aged most hotels to deny ac-
Laura W.
Murphy
Laura
Murphy &
Associates
commodations to Black trav-
elers.
What initially persuaded
me that change is possible at
Airbnb was my irst conversa-
tion with Airbnb’s CEO Brian
Chesky. “Airbnb will never be
“
ness will not happen again.
So I, along with key senior
leaders at Airbnb began a
process designed to be as rig-
orous, comprehensive and
inclusive as possible. In addi-
tion to Airbnb’s management
team, I held conversations
with employees at every level
of the company. We also held
consultations with hosts and
victims of discrimination.
Nearly all of them wanted
to use the site again, and for
many, Airbnb remains an im-
portant source of supplemen-
Everyone who uses Airbnb will be
subject to a more robust and strin-
gent non-discrimination policy
and will have to commit to treat
fellow users with respect.
able to fulill its mission with-
out seriously combating dis-
crimination on its platform.
We must solve this,” he said.
Brian was also forthright
in admitting that his com-
pany was slow to address
these problems. He and his
cofounders, Joe Gebbia and
Nate Blecharczyk, started
Airbnb with the best of inten-
tions, but he agreed that there
was an unacceptable lack
of urgency to his previous
attempts to address it, and
vowed that such unconscious-
tal income.
The thing that struck me
the most was that employees
recognized this as a problem
they had to solve across the
whole of Airbnb, rather than
putting the full responsibility
on users to self-police or raise
it to their attention.
As part of this journey I
brought in experts includ-
ing former Attorney General
Eric Holder and Harvard pro-
fessor Dr. Robert Livingston
to get their input, as well as
over 20 civil rights organiza-
tions and leaders who have
thoroughly explored the ad-
vancement of civil rights in
the sharing economy. Airbnb
also engaged with federal and
state regulatory agencies,
who encouraged them to be
proactive. They worked with
elected oicials who have
been ighting for civil rights
in this country for decades,
and who act as an important
barometer of consumer con-
cern when they hear from
constituents about incidents
of discrimination or bias.
These individuals and or-
ganizations provided invalu-
able input that formed the
basis for my report, Airbnb’s
Work to Fight Discrimination
and Build Inclusion, and the
aggressive policy and plat-
form changes Airbnb will
adopt.
Everyone who uses Airbnb
will be subject to a more ro-
bust and stringent non-dis-
crimination policy and will
have to commit to treat fellow
users with respect. They have
also hired a full-time team of
engineers, designers, data sci-
entists and more whose sole
job is to work on rooting out
discrimination where it hap-
pens, and preventing it from
happening again.
Read the rest of this commentary at
TheSkanner.com
