Page 2 The Skanner August 9, 2017
®
Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now
Opinion
Despite Unequal Treatment, Black Women Will Rise
Bernie Foster
Founder/Publisher
Bobbie Dore Foster
Executive Editor
Jerry Foster
Advertising Manager
Christen McCurdy
News Editor
Patricia Irvin
Graphic Designer
Melanie Sevcenko
Reporter
Monica J. Foster
Seattle Office Coordinator
Susan Fried
Photographer
2017
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Many women’s organiza-
tions commemorate Equal
Pay Day, which this year was
April 5. It meant that wom-
en, in general, would have
had to work all of 2016, and
until April 5, 2017, to earn the
same amount of money that
a White man earned in 2016.
Few will recognize July 31,
2017, the day that the pay for
African American women
catch up to the 2016 earnings
of White men — seven extra
months. Hispanic women will
have to work until October,
or nearly 10 extra months, to
earn the same money White
men earned last year.
I wonder about our “wom-
en’s coalitions” when major-
ity women’s organizations,
like the National Organiza-
tion for Women, are basical-
ly silent on Black Women’s
Equal Pay Day. I wonder how
much Black women’s issues
really matter to majority
women’s organizations. It
matters when they want to
present a multiracial, multi-
cultural “united front” at a
Women’s March, but less so at
other times.
The lesson, Black women,
is a lesson some sisters re-
member from 1991, when
Anita Hill testified during
the Clarence Thomas confir-
mation hearings. People had
all kind of explanations for
Hill’s testimony, most of them
woefully wrong and viewed
Julianne
Malveaux
NNPA
Columnist
through a lens, darkly. Led by
feminists Elsa Barkley Brown,
Deborah King and Barba-
ra Ransby, more than 1500
women raised enough money
to pay for an ad in the New
York Times on November 17,
1991. The ad, titled “African
American Women in Defense
of Ourselves” (AAWIDO), re-
minded Black women that no
one should speak for us, ex-
cept us. No one can be relied
on to defend us, except us.
And no one can be depended
on to celebrate us, but us. No
one can lead advocacy for our
equal pay, but us.
I’m not dismissing our al-
lies — “woke” men of color,
especially Black men, “woke”
White women and other
women of color — I’m just say-
ing we can’t count on every-
body to be woke. Evidence:
How much noise did majority
group’s make on Black Wom-
en’s Equal Pay Day?
And in the Reign of Igno-
rance, there is likely to be even
less noise, as the House Ap-
propriations Committee has
actually proposed defunding
a program that collects salary
data from employers. With-
out the data, we won’t know
the extent of pay discrimina-
tion. We know plenty now.
We know that Black women
earn 63 cents for every dol-
lar paid to White men; White
women earn 80 cents for ev-
ery dollar White men make.
We know that Black women in
Louisiana earn the least com-
“
No one can
be relied on
to defend us,
except us
pared to White men, about 48
cents on the dollar. In compar-
ison, Black women in Missou-
ri, Tennessee, Maryland and
Pennsylvania earn 68 cents
for every dollar a White man
earns. Whatever we earn, it
ain’t equal.
Under President Barack
Obama, the Equal Employ-
ment Opportunity Commis-
sion established requirements
to provide pay transparency.
Businesses with more than
100 employees were required
to start releasing salary data
in March 2018. And now, the
Republican Congress says
that no resources may be used
to collect this very necessary
data. It reminds me of the old
folks who used to say, “you
don’t miss what you can’t mea-
sure.” But we can measure the
pay inequity, and we can see
it in the quality of women’s
lives. We might not be able to
point a finger at one compa-
ny or another (Republicans
are also likely to make class
action lawsuits more chal-
lenging), but we have enough
aggregate data to know that
there is pervasive gender dis-
crimination in the workplace,
and that Black women shoul-
der an extra burden.
Not only do African Amer-
ican women earn less, but
we also catch more shade
because of our skin color, be-
cause of who we are and what
we represent.
Former First Lady Mi-
chelle Obama has spoken out,
though very gently, about the
racism she experienced while
in office. At a recent gathering
in Colorado, she spoke about
the many “cuts” she experi-
enced, and told The Denver
Post that “The shards that cut
me the deepest were the ones
that intended to cut,” refer-
ring to comments about her
looks, and especially those
that referred to her as “an
ape.” She said she was dis-
mayed in “knowing that after
eight years of working really
hard for this country, there
are still people who won’t see
me for what I am because of
my skin color.”
Read the rest of this commentary at
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Updated daily.
Trump’s Circus in the White House Continues
I
n only six months in the
White House, the Trump
Administration has deliv-
ered the shortest tenure
of any White House Chief of
Staff in United States history
(189 days) and the shortest
tenure for a White House
Communications Director (10
days). President Trump’s for-
mer National Security Advi-
sor Michael Flynn, holds the
record for the shortest tenure
of any National Security Ad-
visor in U.S. history (24 days).
On July 21, Anthony Scar-
amucci made his debut as
the new White House Com-
munications Director in the
James S. Brady Press Briefing
Room at the White House. It
was a smooth-talking, per-
sonality-driven press confer-
ence; Scaramucci showed all
the signs that he was ready
for prime time as newly-ap-
pointed White House press
secretary Sarah Huckabee
Sanders stood nearby. The po-
litical commentator and cap-
ital management executive
took question after question
and many political observers
called Scaramucci Trump’s
“Mini Me.”
The conservative New York
Post ran a cover that depicted
the jungle-set reality TV show
“Survivor” featuring several
current White House employ-
ees including Counselor to
President Trump Kellyanne
Lauren
Victoria
Burke
NNPA
Columnist
Conway; then-Chief of Staff
Reince Priebus; senior advi-
sor to President Trump Jar-
ed Kushner; and then-White
House Communication Di-
rector Anthony Scaramucci.
“
Trump’s
skills as an al-
leged master
of negotiation
are yet to be
seen during
his time in the
White House
It turns out the cover was ex-
tremely well timed.
On July 26, Scaramucci went
on a profanity-laced tirade
during a phone call with Ryan
Lizza, a Washington corre-
spondent for The New York-
er magazine; the investment
banker-turned White House
insider threatened “to fire
the entire White House com-
munications staff ” and called
Priebus “a f---ing paranoid
schizophrenic, a paranoiac.”
Priebus resigned on July 28.
On Monday, July 31 Scaramuc-
ci was gone, too, even though
his first official day would
have been August 15.
CNN.com reported that,
“Scaramucci is the third
White House communica-
tions director to leave the post
that had been vacant since
late May, when Mike Dubke
left after about three months
on the job. Sean Spicer, the
former White House press
secretary, also assumed some
of the communications direc-
tor role before he resigned
when Scaramucci was hired
July 21.”
The article continued: “In
addition to Priebus, Katie
Walsh, the former White
House deputy chief of staff,
left the administration in
March, and Michael Short,
an assistant press secretary,
resigned earlier this month
when it became clear Scara-
mucci was going to fire him.”
The revolving staff door
in Trump’s immediate orbit
could not be consoling to any-
one hoping that his adminis-
tration, nearly 200 days into
the job, would achieve some
sense of stability. The Trump
staff rollercoaster can’t be
calming to foreign leaders,
either, who have relied on the
U.S. for decades.
The staff shakeups fly in
the face of one of President
Trump’s biggest claims of his
2016 presidential campaign:
That he was an incredibly suc-
cessful, billionaire real estate
mogul driven by “The Art of
the Deal.” Trump’s skills as an
alleged master of negotiation
are yet to be seen during his
time in the White House.
Trump’s biggest and most
embarrassing legislative fail-
ure, to date, occurred on July
27 after the Senate failed to
vote on a partial repeal of
the Affordable Care Act. The
vote failed after Senator John
McCain (R-Ariz.) walked in
through a Senate lobby and
at the front of the chamber, as
other senators and congres-
sional staffers milled about,
lifted his hand and quickly
pointed his thumb down. Sen-
ate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) looked on
in dismay.
Republicans control the U.S.
House of Representatives, the
U.S. Senate and White House,
but with Trump’s combusti-
ble managerial style, it feels
as if Republicans are in con-
trol of nothing.
Now that President Trump
has named retired four-star
Marine General John Kelly as
his new Chief of Staff, the be-
leaguered reality TV star will
have yet another shot at try-
ing to run the country with
some semblance of order.
nt •
lo c a l n e w s •
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