17 minute read
OpEd
There’s No News but Good News for SYEP
“I’m from D.C., the home of mumbo sauce, go-go and the Summer Youth Employment Program,” a young D.C. native proudly proclaimed when asked where she was from. “Ben’s is all right, but SYEP is the real thing for those of us who grew up in D.C.”
The young woman said, “I got my first job” during the SYEP program, as thousands of D.C. residents often say, and this summer, she is the employer of several D.C. high school and college students who learn about the city, meet its influencers and explore journalism and media as a career.
Mayor-for-Life Marion Barry is most likely smiling from above upon hearing and knowing that the program he started more than 40 years ago remains a positive legacy celebrated by D.C. youths and adults alike, the majority of whom the program has touched in some way.
In 1979, the Barry Administration kicked off the summer with considerable fanfare, as it did every year after, announcing the businesses that supported the local government-subsidized program and encouraging others to “hire a youth.” It was his answer to keeping young people off the streets and allowing them to earn much-needed income during the summer break. Every D.C. youth between 14 and 21 was encouraged to apply. As a result, thousands of youths received summer jobs making D.C.’s program a national model.
Over the years, the program hasn’t operated without its critics, however, whose complaints include its lack of meaningful work experiences, non-DC residents from surrounding jurisdictions who received jobs and times when its young workers didn’t get paid. And the program hit several bumps in the road, including bank cards that didn’t work and not enough jobs for young people who wanted one. Yet, every mayor that succeeded Barry continued the program and sought to find ways to make the program and experience better.
In 2015, Mayor Bowser expanded SYEP to serve 22- to 24-year-olds. And as she seeks reelection to her third term in office, she consistently announces that 14,000 D.C. young people have been hired by the program this summer.
In its 43rd year, SYEP continues to thrive despite a pandemic, thanks to both public and private sector employers willing to ensure D.C. youths have a safe and productive summer. WI
Guns Don’t Kill People but They Do Represent Deadly Accomplices
Perhaps the reason that America refuses to enact legislation that would make our nation a safer place for all is because we have grown immune to violence, murder and mayhem. It’s so routine that it doesn’t bother us anymore.
Surely, it’s not because of the financial backing of organizations like the NRA or other groups, including many members of Congress, who base their arguments on the Second Amendment which protects an individual’s right to bear arms.
Surely, it’s not because of our fear of “the other” – those who look, think, act, speak or live differently and whose differences make us so afraid that we remain insistent on being “strapped” at all times – just in case.
Whatever the reason or reasons, we have long grown weary of the pontifications of elected officials who, following every mass shooting, inevitably say something like, “Our prayers are with you.”
That’s not to say that prayers don’t matter. After all, as one person once said, “Prayer is believing that God has the answer.” But if that is indeed the case, then why do we continue to refuse to listen for the solution to our conundrum?
On Wednesday, July 13, March Fourth sponsored a peaceful protest in the wake of the latest mass shooting in the U.S. The group and its supporters gathered near the Capitol Building in Northeast for a march to end gun violence.
And they marched not only to demand that America wake up and put an end to mass shootings . . . by any means necessary. They, like the editorial board and readers of The Washington Informer, recognize that the scope of gun deaths in the U.S. , has extended far beyond mass shootings.
Consider that just last week, according to data released by Gun Tracker, the U.S. recorded 491 deaths and 1,054 injuries for the period between July 1 and July 7. Tragically, last year’s death rate due to gun violence was 19,288.
Gun violence resulting either in injury or death continues to touch more and more Americans every day. Maybe we won’t see a change for the better until death visits the homes of those with the power to make a change. Perhaps. But that would be thinking pessimistically.
We can end this, we can change this, we can ensure that our children do not fear going to school, or attending parks or gathering in church or . . . walking down the street in their neighborhoods.
We can – but are we willing? Yes, sadly, “that is the question.” WI
WI is Must-Watch TV
I just wanted to shout out The Washington Informer News TV! I don’t always catch the shows live, but I love going back to YouTube and listening to the valuable information each week. I make sure to keep my pen and paper handy. Keep up the excellent work.
Sally Blakes Washington, D.C.
TO THE EDITOR
Fight On for Women’s Rights
The reproductive health rights marches and protests are paying off. President Biden issued an executive order extending abortion protections despite the attack on women’s rights. Let’s all continue to work together.
Tedundè Kamara Laurel, Md.
Readers' Mailbox The Washington Informer welcomes letters to the editor about articles we publish or issues affecting the community. Write to: lsaxton@washingtoninformer. com or send to: 3117 Martin Luther King Jr Ave., SE, Washington, D.C. 20032. Please note that we are unable to publish letters that do not include a full name, address and phone number. We look forward to hearing from you.
Guest Columnist
Julianne Malveaux
To Stop Gun Violence, Use Economic Tools
There have been at least 214 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, the most recent being the killings during a July 4 gathering in Highland Park, Illinois. This year, we have also been both riveted and horrified by the massacre of 21 people, including 19 children, in Uvalde, Texas. A crazed racist killed 10 Black people and wounded at least three others when he shot up a grocery store in Buffalo. In 2022, there have been more shootings than days; the shootings have become commonplace.
The Biden administration and concerned legislators have done what they can to restrict gun ownership, given our nation's gun culture and our combatively divided Senate. There is a new gun safety law, and some survivors of mass shootings joined him at the White House on July 11 to celebrate the legislation. Yet, even after Congress passed the law, we learned that the new law would not have prevented the Highland Park shootings, as the 18-yearold man charged with the shootings legally purchased the assault weapon he allegedly used.
The families of victims are tired of people offering thoughts and prayers. They want action! The Safer Communities Act, passed last month on a bipartisan basis, is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't go far enough. We need to use economic tools or inject economics into the conversation about gun safety. Those of us who are disgusted by mass shootings and the violence that plagues our inner cities may have some weapons at our disposal to punish those who participate in, and encourage, our gun culture.
Those of us with stock portfolios must insist that our money managers avoid stocks like Smith and Wesson (SWBI), which produced more than 1.5 million guns in 2020. If more people who say they hate gun violence stopped investing in gun manufacturing companies, perhaps these companies would rethink their manufacturing, marketing and lobbying. Gun ownership has been cleverly marketed, with companies using buzzwords like "safety" to encourage gun purchases.
Those who are survivors of gun violence and their families should sue the gun manufacturers who produce the deadly weapons that make massacres possible. Earlier this year, Remington (RGM) agreed to pay the families of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, in which 20 children and six educators were killed. It took a decade between the shootings and the lawsuit settlement, so the families must be commended for their persistence. The families of victims in Uvalde, Buffalo, and Highland Park should consider pursuing similar lawsuits to punish those companies that flood deadly weapons into the public.
Those who facilitate the gun possession of young shooters should also
Guest Columnist
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson
Jan. 6 Hearings — Is it Too Late to Save Our Democracy?
The House Select Committee investigating the sacking of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 has held the first of its prime-time, televised public hearings. The committee has done an exhaustive investigation, interviewing a thousand witnesses, looking at tens of thousands of documents.
The hearings will reveal new information about what was, in fact, a multi-layered effort to overturn the results of a presidential election, driven by the White House and involving Republican legislators, operatives, state officials, and donors. The hearings will ask every American to understand how vulnerable our democracy is, and how close we came to losing it.
The question, of course, is whether it is too late to save our democracy. Donald Trump has persisted in propagating his Big Lie about the election, despite the fact that court after court, many times judges appointed by Trump, his own attorney general and Justice Department, and partisan audits of votes in several states universally found no evidence of fraud that could have come close to making a difference in the election result.
No matter. Trump has persisted, the right-wing media led by Fox News has echoed his claims, and today, two-thirds of Republican voters say Joe Biden is not the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election and the election was stolen from Trump. Many Republicans join Trump in praising as patriots those who sacked the Capitol.
The Big Lie goes even further than this. Across the country, in the Congress and in the states, Republican officials have systematically blocked efforts to strengthen our electoral system and instead, in states where they have power, have passed a range of measures to make voting more difficult.
Driven by Trump, they have also supported extremists for what used to be nonpartisan posts in charge
One of the most consequential life decisions you can make is to VOTE. It will affect your home, employment, health and the environment in which you live. No one is gifted enough to determine your needs, your life order or your future without hearing your voice. We tell our children often
Guest Columnists Josephine Mourning and Linda Thornton Thomas
Why Should I Vote?
to make good choices, find those positive friends, don't let people take advantage of them. We tell them that it's your highway and only you can determine which car you drive on it. Is it possible that we don't take heed of our own messaging? Most of us realize that voting isn't the most glorious thing in the world. It can leave a raw taste in your mouth when your candidate doesn't win. Or if he or she wins and nothing significantly changes except you see them less, and their conversations now are identical to the incumbent that they managed to beat.
What a sad state you must think of our democratic system with its supposed checks and balances and laws that don't seem to mirror your needs. And we get it! But what makes one's vote essential are the children who are missing a highly skilled teacher in the classroom; the need to prevent yearly property tax increases; frequent potholes that kick your car out of alignment; the lack of education for those who throw trash on the ground because it's more convenient than to drop it in a trash receptacle ten feet away; watching some elected officials who proudly cheer for their efforts and the money they bring back home from Annapolis which has little to do with your neighborhood; and the disbeMALVEAUX Page 53
of the administration of elections. In some states, they have given the Republican legislatures greater power to overturn the results of the elections. By 2024, Republicans in about 20 states will be primed and eager to ensure that their candidate wins — no matter what the voters say.
In Congress, Republicans have filibustered attempts to reform our electoral laws to make clear how the electoral college works and how it
JACKSON Page 53
lief when one realizes the decrease in product and the increase of air in your potato chip bag. All of which affect your life in some way or another. This is what happens when voting becomes a "guess I will" and not "damn right."
Dr. Martin Luther King stated, "I have come to see more and more that one of the most decisive steps that the people can take
MOURNING/THOMAS Page 53
Guest Columnist
The Choice
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. … Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
That 1857 quote from Frederick Douglass accurately describes our current circumstance and gives little hope for a future consistent with the principles of governance outlined under the Constitution. We face an erosion of the freedoms that originally applied to free, white, land-owning men and extended only by struggle to women, the progeny of enslaved persons, Native Americans and others illegitimately forced by social convention to surrender the benefits of full citizenship.
Unfortunately, too many of us have been lulled into the submission predicted by Douglass by either ignorance, apathy or both. Many have become the dupes of "victim propaganda" believing the spoon-fed fiction of helplessness in the face of oppression. And even though our lives are enmeshed in the social and societal processes of this nation, others are convinced and spread the message of malaise, that we should reject participation in deciding those who manage the processes that affect us daily.
Rather than allowing those who read me to go unaware, I want to clang the bell about another occasion for us to join the struggle. As with Roe, the struggle may not yield desired outcomes, but, through the struggle, "we will not go quietly into the night." As I write this, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has agreed to entertain an argument allowing state legislatures instead of voters to determine the outcome of elections.
Moore v. Harper is scheduled for argument before the Supreme Court of the United States during the court's October 2022-2023 term. According to the SCOTUS docket page, the case concerns the independent state legislature doctrine, which theorizes that state legislatures alone are empowered by the Constitution to regulate federal elections without oversight from state courts.
The question presented: Whether a state's judicial branch may nullify the regulations governing the "manner of holding elections for senators and representatives and replace them with regulations of the state courts' own devising, based on vague state constitutional provisions purportedly vesting the state judiciary with power to prescribe whatever rules it deems appropriate to ensure a 'fair' or 'free' election."
E. Faye Williams
WILLIAMS Page 54
Guest Columnist
Marian Wright Edelman
"I have a basic question that I ask related to policy making and leadership, and that basic question is, is it good for the children? Is it good for the children? If it's not good for the children, we ought not be doing it."
Barbara Sabol has been asking this question her entire life. From her early career as a registered nurse, through her service as Kansas's first director of services for Children and Youth, Kansas's secretary of health and environment, executive deputy commissioner in New York City's Department of Social Services, commissioner of the Human Resources Administration in New York City, program director for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and other local, state, federal and private posts serving children, older adults and others, she has been a thoughtful, determined policymaker and advocate, always dedicated to protecting the most vulnerable. She was an inaugural member of the Children's Defense Fund's (CDF) Black Community Crusade for Children. Now, more than a decade after she "officially" retired, she is spearheading a project converting family land where her father was raised by his grandmother in Leavenworth County, Kansas, into a model community with affordable rental housing for young adults aging out of foster care. In her words, again: "So we owned some property, my sister and I, and we said, 'How can we best use this property to make a difference for children?'"
Barbara recently gave an interview for the Kansas Oral History Project describing her life's work. She shared one influential story that took place before she was born: Her maternal grandmother died early, leaving her young family behind, and her dying request to her husband was, "Charlie, keep these children together." Barbara said that story was passed down through their family, "and I heard it, and it meant something. It got embedded in the DNA." She was called very early on to that sense of obligation and doing whatever was necessary to make sure children are cared for. Now, she is part of the leadership team for Home Works USA, LLC, building 15 small houses on her family's land along with community food gardens, public nature trails and other resources to create a nurturing, safe environment available for young people aging out of foster care.
In addition to providing stable, affordable rental housing, the community will provide access to health and mental health services and supports for education, job training and employment. Home Works USA describes its mission this way: "Emerging adults 'aging out' of foster care often struggle to find housing as they tran-
EDELMAN Page 54
Guest Columnist
Marc H. Morial
Clifford Alexander, Jr.: An Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement
"Cliff was an American original — a civil rights trailblazer whose eyes were never shut to injustice but whose heart was always open. He was like a father to me and an inspiration to Barack. We admired the way he fought and learned from the way he led." — Michelle Obama
The name of Clifford Alexander Jr., who died last week at the age of 88, is not as well-known today as some of his contemporaries in the civil rights movement. Perhaps no American, however, has done more to combat segregation and discrimination in private employment and the military or leaves as great a legacy.
I first met him in 1983 during a pickup game on the basketball court at Xavier University in New Orleans. He was then exactly twice my age, with a masterful hook shot, and nearly bested me. I remember being impressed with his stature, both physical — he stood 6'3" tall — and professional. By then, he had been an adviser to four U.S. presidents, hosted his own television talk show, and was then head of his own consulting firm, Alexander & Associates, which advised organizations including Major League Baseball on recruiting candidates of color.
As one of the architects of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as an early chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and as the first Black secretary of the Army, Alexander transformed not only government policy but social attitudes regarding racial equity.
A graduate of Harvard University and Yale School of Law and veteran of the Army National Guard, Alexander served as Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan and led community-based organizations focused on improving housing conditions and expanding educational and employment opportunities for youth. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy recruited Alexander, then 29, to serve on the National Security Council.
Alexander served President Lyndon B. Johnson in various positions, becoming one of his closest advisers and helping to shepherd the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. But there was one moment where he thought he'd
MORIAL Page 54
