OpEd

Say It Again…Vote

The mid-term elections are right around the corner and Democrats are waving the flag to remind voters to vote on November 8, if not earlier. It’s all about maintaining control of the House and the Senate, and in states across the county, being able to reverse the damage made by President Trump who filled the courts with Right-leaning judges.

Not to say the Republicans aren’t encouraging folks to go to the polls, as well, but it appears as if they are comfortable identifying themselves as part of Trump, and therefore, are only looking for certain people to go to the polls to support their candidates.

Each party is following the results of polls determining what will motivate Americans to vote, and they are steering their messages toward those issues. One would have believed that crime and abortion would top the polls following the events of the summer, but a recent survey indicated that more Americans are concerned about inflation and the economy, not necessarily in that order.

The fact that we are, or almost are, facing a recession has many Americans afraid they’re about to lose the money they’ve been saving. Financial insecurity and job loss are two major issues that may drive voters to the polls. They don’t want to see interest rates rise, but still, they won’t stop spending. They believe that voting for someone new who supports a more conservative stance will somehow impact their finances directly and quickly for the better,

Whatever issues stand foremost in our readers' minds, we just hope it will be enough to motivate each and every one of you to go to the polls and vote, or mail in your ballot now.

Make your voice heard! WI

Why Blacks Are Living Longer in the DMV

A recent article published on the website WordInBlack.com identifies locations in the U.S. where Black people are living the longest.

The article written by Alexa Spencer reports on a study by Dr. Andre Perry, author of the book “Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities” and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy nonprofit.

Perry and other researchers scanned the U.S. and discovered that communities where Black people “are living past the national average of 74-years-old,” include Manassas Park, Virginia, a city of roughly 17,000 located 30 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., and Weld County, Colorado, a metropolitan area just north of Denver that’s home to 378,000 people. Both ranked highest with life expectancies of 96 years old.

“The same can be said for Loudon, Fairfax, Prince William, and Montgomery counties in Virginia — all located outside of Washington, D.C. — where Black residents are living up to 82 years old, on average,” according to the article.

The research was conducted in conjunction with the NAACP, and it is called the Black Progress Index, which looks at how problems are solved and the social conditions causing success by mapping the conditions where Black folks live the longest. It also provides community attributes that contribute to longevity including homeownership, business ownership, high income, public school performance, and college education.

The study also shows that homeownership and educational attainment actually add years to Black lives, while social conditions including air pollution, density, and gun-related fatalities, reduce the average number of years a Black person will live.

The research seeks to demonstrate that where investments are made to improve social conditions are the places where Black lives thrive.

The collaboration between the NAACP and Brookings will continue and the data will be updated every year.

“I think that this is going to be one of the go-to sources to understand the conditions of Black America moving forward,” Perry said.

This will not only prove what disinvestment in communities can cause – it’s killing us, but it also shows that investments made equitably in communities that need it will help to improve the quality of life and longevity. WI

“I think that this is going to be one of the go-to sources to understand the conditions of Black America moving forward.” DR. ANDREW PERRY, SENIOR FELLOW, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION Wave of the Future

I loved seeing our beautiful young people on the cover of last week’s Washington Informer. It’s a friendly reminder that we have so much to fight for as elders and at the same time so much to live for. Our young people are the future and must be invested in.

Martha N. Fields Washington, D.C.

TO THE EDITOR

Pay Working Teens Their Worth

I definitely agree that the city’s summer youth employment program needs to raise its wage. I’m not sure how it went overlooked that some students picking up trash in the summer heat are only making $6.25 an hour. Teenagers are obviously making more than that with traditional summer jobs, most paying an average of $13 an hour. Something has to change or the program will be rendered obsolete.

Curtis Stevens Washington, D.C.

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

Marian Wright Edelman

Putting Children on the Cradle Roll

Last weekend, places of worship across the country took part in the annual multifaith National Observance of Children's Sabbath celebration, focusing prayers, worship, education programs, and action on learning more about the urgent problems facing our nation's children. By exploring sacred texts and teachings that call us to love and protect children, Children's Sabbath encourages faith communities to respond with outreach and advocacy and, most importantly, inspire new, yearround action to improve children's lives. Rev. James Forbes Jr., senior minister emeritus of the Riverside Church in New York City and an emeriti member of the Children's Defense Fund's board, was an early supporter of Children's Sabbath who has long urged us all to reinstate a community-wide "Cradle Roll" for all of our children.

Not everyone knows that old tradition, but Dr. Forbes described how it worked in his childhood congregation: "When I was growing up, in my church they had a Cradle Roll, and any child born to anyone in that religious community immediately got their name placed on the Cradle Roll. And there were people in the congregation whose responsibility it was to follow these children until they reached what they called the 'age of accountability' — the point at which they were able to affirm themselves whom they had become." Adults sent children cards when they were sick and put a star by their name each time they moved on to a new grade. In other congregations the Cradle Roll might have been the roster for Sunday school attendance, or the list used to congratulate and support new parents. No matter what traditions individual congregations had, the Cradle Roll was a way for faith communities to commit to encouraging and nurturing their children as a shared responsibility of adult members. As Dr. Forbes put it, the main point was that "it was the community's way of acknowledging that these children have been entrusted to our care. Their commitment was to follow you from the point of your beginning until God could say, 'Now, that's what I had in mind when I sent this child into the

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Guest Columnist

Ben Jealous

Modeling the Spirit of Democracy

Some things are unthinkable — until they happen.

For Jamie Raskin, a congressman and father, the first unthinkable thing was the loss of his beloved son Tommy to suicide on New Year's Eve 2020. As a father myself, my heart breaks when I imagine the grief experienced by Raskin and his family.

The second unthinkable thing happened less than a week later. Enraged supporters of the defeated President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol and hunted for members of Congress to prevent them from affirming the results of the presidential election.

Raskin was at the Capitol that day — the day after his son was buried — to do his duty. And that meant he and the family members who were there to support him had to live through the terror of the attack and evacuation.

After all that, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Raskin to lead an effort to impeach Trump for his role in the insurrection. Raskin said yes. He did a brilliant job. It was a remarkable show of strength and resilience. The House did vote to impeach Trump for a second time, though most Senate Republicans refused to convict him.

Raskin wrote a book about that 45-day period between the loss of his son and the impeachment of Trump. "Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth and the Trials of American Democracy" is powerful and surprisingly hopeful.

I recently had a chance to talk with Raskin when he spoke with People For the American Way's new online book club. I asked him about the grounds for his hope. How, given the rising threats to freedom and democracy, does he continue to consider himself a "constitutional optimist?"

What makes the U.S. exceptional is not that we are somehow immune to the erosion of democracy, he said. What makes us exceptional is the progress we have made together. We can take hope and strength from our own history, and the example of courageous people around the world. "We are not the first generation to face authoritarianism."

Guest Columnist

Roach Brown

Returnees Who’ve Served Decades in Prison Need Help

A growing crisis sweeping the country involving men and women released from prison after serving three, four, or possibly five decades behind bars needs to be addressed. The unrelenting determination to be free can quickly become a nightmare of unexpected and deadly consequences when the prison doors close behind them.

Kevin Fythe, 52, was released from prison after serving 28 years last January. He had severe mental and physical disabilities that prevented him from speaking, and he was confined to a wheelchair. Despite his disabilities, Flythe reportedly was placed on a bus headed to D.C., where his family anxiously waited to reunite with him. In August, Fythe’s story was covered by The Washington Post, detailing his last known location and reporting that he had never been found seven months later.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case.

With virtually nothing but the clothes on their backs, many inmates are placed on a bus, given $50, known as ‘gate money,’ and if they're lucky, they may be told to have a nice life.

For so many, getting home is only one of the many challenges these now older men and women must face. Moreover, they are returning to a world that’s changed technologically in every way, and some will begin to experience it fast.

Returning citizens don’t always know how to negotiate basic societal functions, such as putting on a seat belt. I recall picking up an older guy, and once in my car, I told him to put on his seatbelt. He asked, “What’s a seat belt?” I showed him how to put the seat belt on.

When I looked back at him, he had the strap wrapped around his neck. I told him, “You are going to kill yourself!” I asked another person why hadn’t he called me. He said, “Roach, I walked and walked and couldn’t find a phone booth.” One individual got on

He reminded all of us that the spirit of freedom and democracy lives in people's hearts even in the face of repression and attempts to snuff it out — and efforts by farright strategists to smother it.

Raskin has modeled that spirit of democracy as a member of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and all that led up to it. In the face of every effort by Trump and his allies to stall, stonewall and shut down the investigation, Raskin and his colleagues re-

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the bus and asked for a transfer. The bus driver laughed at him and said, “Where have you been, Mister? We haven’t given out transfers in decades.” And another person, after serving 50 years in prison, was asked, “What are your employment prospects?” He was 80 years old, never had a job, failing health, and had no family or income. He’s paid his debt to society, and now he has to fight his biggest fight, trying to survive and live out his remaining

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Guest Columnist

Julianne Malveaux

Calling Out Global Anti-Blackness

Federal Reserve Determined to Stop Growth

In Los Angeles, City Council President Nury Martinez resigned both her council presidency and, later, her council seat after someone leaked vile racist sentiments that she shared with members of a Latinx cabal that included fellow Council members Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo. Also present was Ron Herrera, the now-resigned president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. As of this writing, de Leon and Cedillo have retained their seats, but Martinez's goose was cooked when President Joe Biden, Gov. Gavin Newsom, and dozens of others condemned her racist comments and those who concurred with them with their silence.

While I am glad that Martinez is gone, I am not so sure that her resignation is quite a victory. In resigning, she addressed "little Latina girls" and said, "I hope I've inspired you to dream beyond that which you can see." What did she hope to inspire them to become? Racists like herself? If she is an inspiration, I am fearful. Disgraced politicians often go on to teach at universities, establish policy institutes or mentoring programs, or find lucrative jobs in private industry. While everyone deserves a second chance and nobody deserves to be outright canceled, apologies and resignations mean nothing if there is no honest accounting of what was wrong and if there is no remediation. Martinez seems to lack the capacity to recognize what she did wrong and to correct it. Thus, anyone who hires her, offers her an award or lifts her up is as racist as she is until and unless she provides more than tepid apologies and self-justifying resignations.

Nury Martinez is Hydra, and Greek mythology describes Hydra as a many-headed serpent Hercules beheaded only to have two more heads replace it. Nury and other racists can resign, but the tragedy of her hope that she "inspired" little Latina girls set the stage for other Hydras, some younger, some more subtle, to replace her. Hercules finally killed the Hydra snake by killing it with a burning torch. The same torch that killed the mythological snake must destroy the structures that support global anti-Blackness. One or two, or even five or 10, resignations are not enough. Dismantling anti-Black structures is the only way to eliminate them.

Too many embrace anti-Blackness and anti-Black structures. Consider Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R), who shamefully described Democrats as "pro-crime" because

Guest Columnist

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr.

Jobs are back so workers have a target on their backs. The Labor Department reports the economy produced 263,000 jobs in September. After losing an unimaginable 22 million jobs in the first two months of COVID as the economy shut down under Donald Trump, we've now gained all those jobs back and then some. Wages have even begun to inch upwards. That's the good news. The bad news is the Federal Reserve is determined to stop the growth, cost millions of workers their jobs and strangle any hope for higher wages.

That's not a prediction; it's a promise made by Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve.

The Fed has raised interest rates at its last three meetings and promises to keep raising them for the rest of the year. "We will keep at it until we are confident the job is done," says Powell. That will produce, he admits, "some softening of labor market conditions," admitting that there will be "some pain" in what he hopes will be a "softish landing" for the economy. This is bankers talk for hiking interest rates to slow growth, throw workers out of work and squelch any talk of wage hikes. The Fed forecasts that the unemployment rate will rise from 3.65% today to 4.4% next year, implying that an additional 1.2 million people will lose their jobs. That's if — and it's a big and unlikely if — the Fed manages the slowdown perfectly. The far greater likelihood is that the Fed's rapid and repeated interest rate hikes will produce a deep recession here, a massive debt and hunger crisis across the world, and much worse.

Why would the Fed throw millions of workers out of work — disproportionately African Americans and Latinos — and stomp out wage hikes after years of stagnant wages that have produced obscene levels of inequality? It does so because it is freaked out about rising prices — inflation — and will continue to torture the economy to lower demand — that is throw people out of work to reduce their ability to buy food, gas, housing and other goods.

Now inflation is real. We've all been hit by the rising price of gas and food, particularly lower wage workers for whom rising prices means it's harder to put food on the table, to pay for gas to get to work, to find affordable housing, to pay for school supplies and children's clothes.

But the Fed's policy doesn't make much sense. It can't be that the only answer to inflation

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Guest Columnist

Marc H. Morial

'Dog Whistle' Rhetoric Is Giving Way to Overt Racism

"I've heard racists say all kinds of things. I've heard them say that Black people are criminals, and I've heard them say that reparations are reverse racism. But it takes a true racism innovator to combine both ideas at the same time." — Trevor Noah

Until last Saturday, Sen. Tommy Tuberville's most significant contribution to racial justice was asking students and fans of the University of Mississippi, where he was a head football coach in 1997, to stop waving the Confederate flag at home sporting events. Lest anyone doubt, all these years later, that his request was motivated by principle rather than self-interest — public displays of racism made it difficult to recruit Black athletes — Tuberville has laid his cards on the table. At a Trump rally in Nevada on Saturday night, Sen. Tommy Tuberville explicitly referred to Black Americans as "the people that do the crime."

Even in this era of heightened racial rhetoric, Tuberville's undisguised bigotry was stunning.

The following day at a Trump rally in Arizona, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene drew criticism for saying immigrants "are on the verge of replacing you, replacing your jobs and replacing your kids in school and, coming from all over the world, they're also replacing your culture. And that's not great for America."

Greene spoke earlier this year at a white nationalist conference and is barred from sitting on congressional committees because of incendiary social media posts. Her comments might not even have attracted much attention had they not followed on the heels of Tuberville's stunning outburst.

Greene's notoriety and Tuberville's comments signal the escalation of a menacing trend that Donald Trump revived when he launched his presidential campaign in 2015 by calling immigrants criminals and rapists.

The exploitation of bigotry and racial resentment to win elections is a ploy nearly as old as the nation itself. As early as 1798, the two major parties — then the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans wrangled over the residency requirements for immigrants to become citizens (and thus voters). The Native American Party, better known as the Know-Nothings, was founded in 1944, based

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