OpEd

No Masks, No Vaccines, Required While COVID Still Lingers

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser dealt District residents the decision they have long been waiting for. Effective Feb. 15, she removed the mandate requiring indoor venues to verify patrons are vaccinated. She went one step further. Beginning March 1, masks will only be needed for those businesses that require masks for their employees and customers.

Bowser’s announcement this week reportedly caught legislators off guard after announcing one month ago the requirement for “three things needed before heading out.” Proof of vaccination (12 years +), proof of vaccination and photo ID (18 years +) and masks and proof of vaccination for restaurant, cafe and bar patrons.

D.C. joins seven states to remove mask mandates this year, making it one of the last remaining states upholding the requirement. But politics continues to play a significant role in the mask debate. D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1) announced Tuesday plans to introduce emergency legislation to reinstate the mask mandate. Along with At-Large Councilmembers Christina Henderson and Robert White, she was reportedly taken aback by Bowser’s surprise move.

Politics aside, the CDC still recommends wearing masks. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], has expressed her warning that this is not the moment to start relaxing restrictions. In D.C., infection rates and deaths are declining but the CDC doesn’t feel the decline is low enough to relax mask requirements and vaccines. People are still getting COVID-19 or the Omicron variant, and many continue to die from it, as well.

No matter what Bowser, the council, or the CDC suggests, local residents will continue to do what they feel is necessary to keep themselves and their families safe. There’s no shame in their game to get vaccinated, declare it to those who ask and wear masks anywhere folks are gathered. They should continue to regularly wash their hands and keep a reasonable 6-feet distance from others.

There’s no doubt these mandates lead to confusion and the mixed signals result in a diminished view of a virus that has killed nearly 1 million people in the U.S. alone. We can only continue to urge readers to take every precaution to stay safe, including getting vaccinated and boosted and continuing to wear a mask. Do this for yourself and don’t be distracted by the bantering among politicians. With or without a mandate, COVID-19 is still here. Do what you feel you need to do to stay safe.

WI

Will Inflation Be the Nail in the Coffin?

As the world enters the third year of the still deadly coronavirus pandemic, Americans face yet another hurdle that could prove equally as challenging, if not devastating for millions of citizens.

In one word – it’s called “inflation.” And the rate of inflation now hitting our pockets has reached a rate not seen in 40 years.

Low-income workers have been hit the hardest with the gains they’ve experienced during the pandemic due to a long-awaited rise in the minimum wage, offset by prices that seem to just keep going up and up and up.

But it’s not just low-income families and workers who are feeling the pinch. Members of the middle class are struggling too, pinching pennies and delaying all forms of gratification just to keep the lights and heat on. As for rent, well, that’s another hurdle for many families as the rent increase nationwide in 2021 rose by 14 percent.

And while we must all eat, paying for quality groceries has suddenly required greater proficiency in balancing a budget than ever before. Anyone who’s gone to the supermarket knows that a dollar seems to be nearly worthless these days. The price for essentials like milk, juice, cheese, fresh fruit, eggs and meat have skyrocketed. Forget about planning meals based on your tastes or desires. If you hope to have any change left in your pocket, you’d better be willing to eat based on the prices for the week. If it’s on sale – and that’s a rarity – you may want to purchase that item and try to pretend to enjoy whatever it is.

By the way, if you were hoping to finally purchase a used car, believing that you could save a few bucks, guess again. Recent reports indicate that the price for a used car is often higher than the cost of a brand new one – if you can find one, that is.

Wealthier Americans have greater protections against inflation and rising prices,

Condolences and Congrats

First, let me say rest peacefully to Hyattsville Mayor Kevin Ward. Also, sending congratulations to Dr. Monifa Knight, the new public school superintendent for Montgomery County. She’s the first Black woman to hold the position, and I know she will do exceedingly well with her pedigree.

Charles Carroll Silver Spring, Md.

TO THE EDITOR

Fixing Crime Begins at Home

The D.C. carjackings are out of control, and everybody’s afraid to say it — well, I’ll say it. These young people out on the streets committing these crimes come from homes that have failed them. There are no family units, present parents, structure in the house, none of that. They’re left to figure it out with nothing but bad influences in their face. I believe crime will diminish when the old values become new again.

Richard Fenley Washington, D.C.

with substantial retirement savings and investments. Most of them also own their homes as well as one, if not several automobiles. But for the middle- and lower-class, it’s a very different situation.

Those who rent their homes, already struggling to pay the bill in this third year of COVID-19, continue to see their rent increase. Stimulus benefits or child-tax credit payments have been spent months ago. And the cost of utilities, also increasing steadily, have people afraid that they won’t be able to keep the electricity and heat on for much longer.

Can things get any worse? It’s hard to imagine but it’s possible. Americans are in trouble.

WI

Guest Columnist

Julianne Malveaux

The Congressional Black Caucus is the Conscience of the Congress

All too often, the Congressional Black Caucus gets a bad rap. What do they do, many ask. What have they recently accomplished? Are they leaning on their revolutionary origins, their founding in 1971, the once widely publicized People's Budget? Have they become go-along-to-get-along politicians as usual?

These are reasonable questions that I often raise myself, often so frustrated by congressional inaction that I don't see the big picture, the lovely picture of more than 50 Black members of Congress, when we once had only one at a time, and with the many ways that their collective action makes a difference. All too often, it is not what they do but what they prevent by working to stop the foolish impulses of some of the Republicans who would oppose our Black existence.

I was reminded of the efficacy of the Congressional Black Caucus when I recently interviewed Dr. Sherice Jenaye Nelson, a Howard University-educated political scientist whose recent book, "The Congressional Black Caucus: Fifty Years of Fighting for Equality" (Archway Publishing, 2020), recounts the history of Black political participation at the congressional level. This sister scholar has done meticulous work describing the many ways the Congressional Black Caucus has been enormously impactful. In our radio conversation, though, she also talked about the limitations that CBC members face because of their ideological diversity and their need to be reelected to make change.

My idols are the activists like Reps. Maxine Waters (Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Barbara Lee (Calif.), and Karen Bass (Calif.). Newcomers like Cori Bush (Mo.) and Lucy McBath (Ga.) have also earned my admiration for their strong positions and willingness to go against the grain. At the same time, some will go nameless who don't much step up or speak up. Dr. Nelson reminded me that some of them don't have the freedom to speak, partly because they represent majority-white districts or aren't that radical, being elected because they are "moderates."

Still, they can sometimes be counted to vote with their African American colleagues, and those are the votes that count. Writing them off can be counterproductive when we need to get things done. Don't get me wrong, we should call them on their racial ambivalence when we need to. At the same time, during this Black History Month, I'm willing to dial back some of the criticism and look at the very many excellent things the Congressional Black Caucus has done.

Dr. Sherise Jenaye Nelson's book is one worth reading. It speaks to the foreign policy the CBC has done historically, especially around Africa issues (Congressman Ron Dellyms' championship to the Free South Africa movement is notable) and Caribbean issues, especially around Haiti. Domestically,

Guest Columnist

Marian Wright Edelman

Young Leaders Making a Difference

When President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Atlanta recently to address the urgent need for voting rights legislation, they chose to speak on the storied grounds of the Atlanta University Center Consortium, the home of historically Black institutions Clark University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and my alma mater, Spelman College. President Biden and Vice President Harris were introduced onstage by current Spelman senior Jillian Jackson, who is serving as the 80th president of Spelman's Student Government Association. I am so proud of Jillian and grateful for the current generation of young servant leaders like her who are busy making their schools, communities and world a better place. During Black History Month, it is especially fitting to celebrate today's and tomorrow's young Black leaders.

Jillian, who is from Memphis, is a political science major and Spanish minor in Spelman's Ethel Waddell Githii Honors Program. Besides serving in student government, she has been part of the Alpha Lambda Delta honor society, URGE (Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity), Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and Fair Fight U, joining other students supporting Stacey Abrams' Fair Fight organization as they fight for free and fair elections, encourage voter participation and educate voters about elections and their voting rights. This is critical work for young people. As Jillian introduced President Biden and Vice President Harris, she reminded her fellow students it was their "duty as campus leaders and change agents to combat voter discrimination on behalf of their peers and [their] community."

Jillian described registering to vote at a NAACP voter drive right after she turned 18 during her first semester at Spelman and shared how excited she was to participate in her first election. But she also saw how many challenges hopeful voters face, including strict MALVEAUX Page 53

absentee requirements, limited polling place access, long lines and rejections over technicalities like misspelled names or incorrect addresses. As Jillian said, these barriers "inhibit many citizens and their right to vote, especially within the Black community," and some of the same barriers that make voting harder for many people of color also make it harder for young people.

July 2021 was the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the 26th Amend-

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Guest Columnist

Marc H. Morial

Coach Flores' Lawsuit Presents NFL With 'Opportunity to Engage in Substantive Change'

"More than half the players in the NFL are Black, and most coaches have played the game at some level. That would seem to be the perfect recipe for Black coaches to find success. But most NFL owners have been white men, and they have seldom been willing to let African Americans or Latinos call plays — either on the field or from the sidelines. This is no different from when franchises presumed that Black players weren't smart enough to play quarterback and lacked leadership skills to command men. The league's paltry record of hiring minority head coaches comes from the same mind-set. And its primary effort to address the problem has been a failure, because a policy can't compensate for ignorance." — Jemele Hill

Three days before Brian Flores was scheduled to interview for the position of head coach with the New York Giants, he received a text from New England Patriots general manager Bill Belichick congratulating him on getting the job.

Except Belichick thought he was texting Brian Daboll. The Giants not only had decided to hire Daboll before even interviewing Flores, but already was sharing the information with others.

Belichick's flub illuminated what has long been an open secret in the NFL: too often, complying with the "Rooney Rule," which requires league teams to interview candidates of color for head coaching and senior football operation jobs, is an empty gesture — a fig leaf to conceal the owners' indifference to achieving racial parity among top coaching and executive positions.

As head coach of the Miami Dolphins, Flores led the team out of a 20-year slump to consecutive winning seasons between 2020 and 2021. Rather than celebrate his success, Dolphin's owner Stephen M. Ross fired him. And rather than leap at the chance to hire Flores — or at least seriously consider him — the Giants used his sham interview to create the false impression that a Black candidate had a legitimate chance at obtaining the job.

Flores' lawsuit against the NFL, the Giants, the Dolphins and the Denver Broncos — whom he accuses of conducting a similar sham interview in 2019 — has brought to a head the league's shameful history of racial discrimination and persistent indifference

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Guest Columnist

Ben Jealous

Republican Party Makes Dangerous Bow to Trump's Insurrectionists

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is officially letting Americans know that it is more committed to former President Donald Trump than to democracy, the rule of law, and the truth.

Some people might say Republicans have been letting us know that ever since Donald Trump became the party's standard-bearer in 2016. And there's some truth to that. Even so, the party reached a new low on Feb. 4.

The RNC accused the congressional committee investigating the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol of "persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse." It called the investigation an effort to "destroy President Trump." And it formally censured the two Republican members of the committee, Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, cutting them off from any future support from the party.

This is disgusting. It is also dangerous.

Keep in mind that the insurrection was meant to stop Congress from confirming the results of the presidential election as they are required to do by the U.S. Constitution.

Keep in mind that members of Congress were targets. They could easily have been among the dead if U.S. Capitol Police had not kept violent attackers from reaching them.

And keep in mind that congressional Republicans had an opportunity to create and participate in a bipartisan commission to investigate what happened. But Republican leaders didn't want an investigation that might reveal embarrassing truths about Trump, his allies and some of their Republican colleagues. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell may have criticized the recent RNC resolution, but that doesn't change the fact that he blocked the creation of a bipartisan commission to get at the truth.

Fortunately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi then moved to create a special House committee to investigate the insurrection. We should all be grateful for her leadership. We should all be grateful for the investigative work being carried out by the committee.

And we should all be grateful to Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger. No matter how strongly we may disagree with their conservative positions, they have modeled an important principle: Some things are more important than partisan politics — like democracy and the rule of law.

While the RNC resolution is disturbing, it's not exactly surprising.

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Guest Columnist

Sean Dugar

Ranking the Vote Equals Strengthening our Democracy

I’ve spent a lifetime ensuring Black people have unfettered access to the ballot box.

My mom says I was born into it. She brought me to my first protest at just six months old, and by the first grade, my classmates and I had organized our first protest. In the fourth grade, I organized my classmates to walk off a school bus after the driver called us the "N" word. At that age, I'm pretty sure I didn't know exactly what the word meant. But, I knew it was something bad enough to motivate us all to get off the bus and walk a mile and a half to our stop. My involvement in activism continued throughout high school and college. At the same time, I worked my way from NAACP member, to president of the college division, to working for the National NAACP where I was responsible for the operations and campaigns in nine states and 350 local units passing legislation in the bluest or blue and reddest of red states. Running parallel to this time with the NAACP, I got involved with the Democratic party, building organizations and working to get dozens of young Black candidates elected to public office. All this background is to say I became an early supporter of the Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), a voting process that allows voters to rank their candidates so that their vote gets included in the final result. With Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) I saw first-hand the equitable impact that it had on my community, the people I care about deeply.

I started running Ranked Choice Voting candidate campaigns in Berkeley and Oakland, again, seeing the impact that it had on maintaining fair representation in communities that were drastically changing.

The DC Council is considering the V.O.I.C.E. Act introduced by Councilmember Henderson and cosponsored by a majority of the Council, which would bring ranked choice voting here to Washington DC. More Voice DC is a non-profit dedicated to expanding the voice of Washingtonians in the political process and making sure that DC residents are educated about how to most effectively use their voice. I'm here to lend my expertise to this local grassroots effort. We are committed to the fact that voters have greater say in the electoral process.

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Guest Columnist

That Black Woman

In February 2020, few gave full thought or consideration to the pledge that then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden made to make a Black woman his first Supreme Court nominee. Of course, any comment made by candidate Biden was subject to political pushback by members of the Trump mob, but I'm not sure that enough people thought he would win and have that pledge to keep — making that statement a huge issue.

Here we are two years later. Joe Biden is President. Justice Stephen Breyer has announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. Albeit a thin one, Democrats control the confirming majority in the U.S. Senate. The nomination of a Black woman to the position of Supreme Court justice is imminent. The racists (Republicans)

E. Faye Williams

can't stand it!

Accordingly, they have responded to the certainty of the nomination of a Black woman with the expected litany of hypocritical and racist invectives. Inflammatory trigger words like "unqualified Black woman," "affirmative action selection," and "reverse racial discrimination" now fill the airwaves. Even before an actual selection is made, Republicans have made it their dedicated duty to denigrate and label the unidentified, unselected nominee as unqualified. I remain amazed by their proclamations of accurate prognostication. Smells like BS to me!

As an attorney, I claim a measure of understanding of these matters. I have seen the "list" of potential nominees and find all to be qualified and possessing the requisite experience necessary for consideration. Current circumstances only make me wonder what really makes the nomination of a Black woman so objectionable to the reactionary right.

One thing is certain: An appointment under the Biden administration will NOT alter the philosophical balance of the current justices. The same majority of six conservative justices will remain against three liberals. No shift of power! No opportunity to protect the interests of progressive ideals or persons! In fact, the opposite is true. The continuing pro-

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