Page 2 The Skanner Portland & Seattle February 27, 2019
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Challenging People to Shape
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Why We Need Paid Family Leave
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Opinion
he start of a new year
is supposed to be about
new beginnings, but for
me this year has been a
reminder of someone I will
always be missing. That’s be-
cause this year marks nine
years since my son Da’Reil
passed away after a long bat-
tle with brain cancer. He was
19 years old.
I wish that I had been able
to spend more time with him
as he fought cancer, but the
childcare company where I
was working at the time didn’t
offer paid or unpaid leave.
Since neither my husband
nor I could take any time off,
we both worked through two
years of Da’Reil’s surgeries,
chemotherapy, and radiation.
The emotional toll of watch-
ing your child face cancer is
heartbreaking enough. But
for us, having to contend
with medical bills on top of
everything else was crush-
ing. Even with financial as-
sistance from Supplemental
Security Income and support
from the hospital, our family
was devastated. We went days
without water because mon-
ey was so tight. My older sons
had to drop out of school to
work and support the family
and help us look after Da’Reil.
Taking unpaid leave to be
with Da’Reil wasn’t a possibil-
ity for us.
When Da’Reil passed away,
I wished more than anything
that I’d been able to spend
Ruthie
Guidry
MomsRising
more time with him during
his final months. That’s time
I’ll never get back.
No mother should be in the
position I was in while Da’Reil
was sick. And the good news
for those of us living on the
west coast is that Washington
state will soon join California
“
whether it’s to care for an ill
child or family member, re-
cover from serious illness, or
look after a new baby.
The average worker con-
tributes just over $2 per week
-- less than it costs to buy a
cup of coffee. An affordable
price to pay for the certainty
that you won’t have to choose
between putting food on the
table and caring for your fam-
ily.
But this isn’t the case for
families in Oregon where
too many workers are still
forced to make this impossi-
ble choice without access to
I wished more than anything that
I’d been able to spend more time
with him during his final months.
That’s time I’ll never get back
in implementing a paid fami-
ly and medical leave program.
Oregon is getting closer to
passing a similar law and
hopefully will in the next few
months.
In Washington, on Jan. 1,
workers and some business-
es across the state began
contributing to a statewide
insurance pool to fund a
comprehensive paid family
and medical leave program,
which will begin paying out
benefits the following year
on January 1, 2020. The new
program guarantees up to 16
weeks of combined paid fami-
ly and medical leave per year,
paid leave. What’s more, 67
percent of Oregon workers
don’t even have access to un-
paid leave under the federal
Family and Medical Leave Act
(FMLA).
Fortunately, support is
growing for a comprehensive
paid leave proposal moving in
Oregon, known as the Family
and Medical Leave Insurance
(FAMLI) Equity Act. A strong
FAMLI Equity Act would pro-
vide a meaningful amount of
time to give or get care, cover
all working Oregonians, pro-
tect employees from retalia-
tion, and be sustainably fund-
ed through a social insurance
pool. Families are counting
on the Oregon Legislature to
make paid family and medical
leave a priority this legisla-
tive session.
I’m a childcare provider
by profession. Taking care
of other people’s children is
what I’ve been doing for more
than 20 years. So I understand
both personally and profes-
sionally the time and effort it
takes to care for a child, even
a healthy one. Families with
sick children need time above
all else — to be able to go to
doctor’s appointments and
hospital visits without being
afraid of losing their jobs.
I wish I could have been at
every appointment with my
son, but our financial situ-
ation made it impossible. I
can’t even imagine how much
paid family and medical leave
would have helped my family.
If the program had been in
place when Da’Reil was sick,
I could have focused on what
mattered most: my son. I feel
hopeful knowing that paid
leave will make such a differ-
ence for other mothers and
families across Washington,
but I will not stop speaking
out until all Americans — in-
cluding Oregonians — can
have the peace of mind that
comes with paid family and
medical leave.
Ruthie Guidry is a Seattle res-
ident and member of Moms-
Rising.
Will Reparations Become Democrats’ Campaign Theme?
A
new refrain could be
taking center stage
during the 2020 Presi-
dential Campaign.
Senators Kamala Harris
of California and Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts,
both 2020 presidential candi-
dates, said they support rep-
arations for African Ameri-
cans to redress the legacy of
the slavery.
The senators’ statements
came as many are observing
the 500th anniversary of the
transatlantic slave trade and
the 400th year since the first
African was brought to Vir-
ginia.
“I think that we have got to
address that again. It’s back
to the inequities,” Harris
said during in an interview
with The Breakfast Club radio
show. “America has a history
of slavery. We had Jim Crow.
We had legal segregation in
America for a very long time,”
she said.
Harris continued:
“We have got to recognize,
back to that earlier point, peo-
ple aren’t starting out on the
same base in terms of their
ability to succeed and so we
have got to recognize that and
give people a lift up.”
When she told the radio
show’s host, Charlamagne
Tha God, that “Livable In-
comes for Families Today,”
Stacy M.
Brown
NNPA
Columnist
the Middle Class Act tax cut
plan is one way to address the
rising costs and the inequities
of living in the U.S., the host
asked if her comments were
about reparations.
“
People aren’t
starting out
on the same
base in terms
of their abili-
ty to succeed
“Yes,” Harris said.
She also noted the “systemic
racism” in the criminal justice
system.
“We have a problem with
mass incarceration in partic-
ular of black and brown men,”
Harris said. “There is no ques-
tion that no mother or father
in America should have to sit
down when their son turns
12 and start having the talk
with that child about how he
may be stopped, arrested or
killed because of the color of
his skin,” she said, addressing
police brutality.
Warren also said she sup-
ported reparations for both
African Americans and Na-
tive Americans.
“America has an ugly histo-
ry of racism,” Warren said af-
ter addressing Democrats at
an annual state dinner in New
Hampshire, according to The
Boston Globe. “We need to
confront it head-on. And we
need to talk about the right
way to address it and make
change.”
Warren later expanded on
her ideas for Native Amer-
ican reparations in a state-
ment, writing that, “tribal na-
tions have unique interests,
priorities and histories, and
should not be treated mono-
lithically.”
“I fully support the federal
government doing far more
to live up to its existing trust
and treaty responsibilities
and that includes a robust
discussion about historical
injustices against Native peo-
ple.”
She continued:
“Tribal nations have a gov-
ernment-to-government re-
lationship with the federal
government, and they de-
serve a seat at the table in all
decisions that will affect the
well-being of their people and
their communities.”
Another Democratic Presi-
dential hopeful, Julian Castro,
also has said he endorses rep-
arations.
A 2017 article in Quartz, not-
ed that to “repair this breach,
it’s becoming increasingly
clear that reparations for
black slavery and its legacy —
including Jim Crow — must be
part of the equation.”
The article continued:
“Facing what activist Ran-
dall Robinson calls ‘the debt’
to people of African descent,
those of us who are low on
melanin content (aka ‘white’)
will have to address the often
uncomfortable history of how
lighter skin color conferred,
and continues to confer, eco-
nomic advantage. To do oth-
erwise is to live a destructive
lie, perpetuating a perverted
myth of deservedness that
holds back our entire society
and each of us individually.”
As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in
his groundbreaking 2014 At-
lantic article, reparations are
“the price we must pay to see
ourselves squarely.”
“Reparations,” he contin-
ued, “beckons us to reject the
intoxication of hubris and see
America as it is—the work of
fallible humans. An America
that looks away is ignoring
not just the sins of the past
but the sins of the present and
the certain sins of the future,”
Coates said.
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