Page 2 The Skanner Portland & Seattle July 21, 2021
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Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now
The President Needs to Pull Out All Stops
Bernie Foster
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Opinion
ast week, Majority Whip
Clyburn,
Democratic
leader in the U.S. House
of Representatives, made
the observation that the fili-
buster currently being used
in the U.S. Senate to block the
Voting Rights Bill as well as
the George Floyd Bill, is a mat-
ter of tradition and not a part
of the U.S. Constitution. There
was also a reference to how
former President Lyndon
Johnson used the full weight
of his office as president to
secure the needed votes to get
the Voting Rights Act passed.
It is a known fact that the
president of the United States
has far more power and in-
fluence than the minority
leader of the U.S. Senate in the
person of Mitch McConnell.
Every Republican member
of the senate at some point is
going to need something from
either the president or a cab-
inet office within his admin-
istration. The passage of the
Voting Rights Act by the sen-
ate will undo most of what the
states are doing with voter
suppression. As suggested by
Congressman Clyburn, now
is the time to put all power
John E.
Warren
The San
Diego
Voice &
Viewpoint
and influence behind getting
the senate to act, not only on
“
President
Biden needs
to remember
that without
the Black
vote, he
would not be
in the White
House
Infrastructure as slated for
this week, but, by all means,
the Voting Rights Act. These
items cannot wait and should
not be held up.
President Biden needs to
remember that without the
Black vote, he would not be
in the White House. Without
the influence of Congressman
Cyburn endorsing him when
he did, Biden would not have
gotten the nomination of the
Democratic Party to run for
president. The Black vote
has to be as important to the
president, if not more so, than
Donald Trump is to the Re-
publican Party
The Texas Democratic Del-
egation, fleeing that state and
coming to Washington, D.C.
to lobby for the Voting Rights
Act as a means of stopping
voter suppression in that
state, has given new meaning
to the words, “All Gave Some,
But Some Gave All.”
President Biden has spent
enough years on Capitol Hill
to know where the bodies
are buried and who placed
them. He and Chuck Schum-
er cannot continue to play
“Gentleman Jack” with Mitch
McConnell. McConnell must
be stopped by any means nec-
essary. That would appear to
mean dealing with the filibus-
ter by any means necessary.
This must be done before the
end of July when the Congress
goes on recess.
One thing should be re-
membered about Capitol Hill
and the legislative process:
There is always a loophole
and a back door to solve ev-
ery problem. Politics is never
absolute about anything. Vice
President Harris, while doing
all she can, is not a substitute
for the office of the president
applying full power. To our
civil rights leaders, your only
message can be: Out with the
filibuster, and pass the Voting
Rights Act. No in-betweens.
If we did not let the pandem-
ic stop the protest and emer-
gence of our votes to take
back the White House, we
must not allow the pandem-
ic’s resurgence, Republican
gerrymandering of the con-
gressional districts because
of tampering with the cen-
sus, or radical conservative
acts of terrorism under the
“Big Lie” to stop the salvation
of democracy that we all are
fighting for. Let’s call the Re-
publican offices, their home
districts and anyone who sup-
ports them and let’s make this
happen before the end of July
2021.
NAACP Vancouver Letter: Police Accountability
T
he announcement in the
case of Mr.Donald was
disheartening, but did
not come as a shock. Po-
lice accountability is some-
thing we do not have often,
no matter if the victim is a
person experiencing house-
lessness, a young adult with a
future ahead of them, a child,
or someone needing mental
health resources.
Our community and com-
munities alike are becoming
conditioned to a traumatic cy-
cle, and the first step to break-
ing this cycle is authentic
accountability; we need un-
questionable independent in-
vestigations. In addition, we
need thoroughly reimagined
“
Rethink what
you are do-
ing to be anti
racist.
policing in our community.
Communities
dispropor-
tionately affected by our back-
wards way of policing cannot
survive until this occurs. Our
communities cannot contin-
ue to withstand such trauma,
the current state of policing
harms everyone including
the police, we all need this lev-
el of reform.
This is one of many pieces of
systemic racism that is rooted
in our community that needs
to be dismantled. Any organi-
zation that is whole heartedly
invested in justice, needs to
stand firm against the current
way of policing, and band to-
gether to restructure the way
we care for our community as
a whole.
My call to action to all indi-
viduals is to rethink what you
are doing to be anti racist.
Performative activism will
not dismantle the systemic
racism plaguing our com-
munity, your actions need to
actually move the needle for-
ward, and not just be a sign in
a window or a fancy DEI state-
ment.
We are dying and no one is
being held accountable.
Sincerely,
Jasmine Tolbert
President, NAACP
Vancouver 1139-B
Black America Needs a ‘New Normal’: Equitable Credit Access
O
ver the past year, the
COVID-19 pandemic has
imposed dual crises.
Over 542,000 Ameri-
cans lives were lost and con-
tinue to increase. At the same
time, the rippling effects of a
massive economic downturn
has caused the nation to lose
9.5 million jobs – more losses
than even those of the Great
Recession, finds the Universi-
ty of New Hampshire’s Carsey
School of Public Policy.
Although many officials
have called for a ‘return to
normal’, millions of small
businesses and communities
need something new instead.
In Black America especially,
the ‘old normal’ never de-
livered equitable access to
wealth-building opportuni-
ties as those that well-served
served much of White Amer-
ica. Instead, a lengthy history
Charlene
Crowell
NNPA
Columnist
of public policies designed to
create and sustain a burgeon-
ing middle class systemically
excluded Blacks and other
people of color.
Now, while federal lawmak-
ers seek to understand how
best to bring the nation out
of health and financial crises,
many advocates are calling
for a new paradigm: inten-
tional inclusion of all who
have been shut out, knocked
down and underserved. Re-
cent testimony before Capitol
Hill committees focused on
different issues but led to the
same conclusion: the time for
change is now.
For example, comments
during a February confir-
mation hearing for Adewale
Adeyemo, nominated by Pres-
ident Biden to become Dep-
uty Treasury Secretary, the
nominee said, “Until we con-
tain the pandemic, economic
policy must remain focused
on providing relief to those
harmed by the public health
crisis, especially those dis-
proportionately
impacted:
low-income communities and
communities of color. The
pandemic has exacerbated
inequality, strained families,
and exposed disparities in
opportunity throughout our
country that existed long be-
fore COVID-19. Without ad-
ditional relief, this hardship
will become even more acute
and will inflict long-lasting
pain on countless Ameri-
cans.”
Adeyemo is the agency’s
point-person to implement
the executive order requiring
all federal offices to submit di-
versity and inclusion plans to
the Office of Management and
Budget. In the interim, Trea-
sury Secretary Janet Yellen,
as reported by the New York
Times, announced plans to
invest $9 billion into Commu-
nity Development Financial
Institutions and Minority De-
pository Institutions as they
look to step up lending.
Concurrently,
the
U.S.
House of Representatives’ Fi-
nancial Services Committee
has convened multiple hear-
ings that featured expert wit-
ness testimony echoing the
calls of Mr. Adeyemo.
Read the rest of this commentary at
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