Research shows Black Americans are audited more often as other taxpayers. Analysts say the IRS' practice is unfair and produces less money for the government than a more equitable system would. Listen to more on this topic from an NPR interview on All Things Considered by using the player below.
Amalgamated Bank, the largest union-owned bank in the U.S. released a statement on Wednesday announcing that it backs reparations for Black Americans, becoming the first major American bank to do so.
Last year, Amalgamated Bank doubled-down on its commitment to racial justice initiatives. Catapulted by the cruel murder of George Floyd, the bank issued a statement supporting Black Lives Matter and publicly committed to 10 concrete actions to support racial justice, including the formation of a Racial Justice Task Force to build a more inclusive work environment. These efforts are built on the foundation that Amalgamated is America’s socially responsible bank and seeks to be a leader among its peers in creating a more just, sustainable world.
Today, Amalgamated Bank announced its endorsement of HR 40, which is calling upon the Federal Government to form a Commission to explore reparations for African Americans. As of now, we are the first major U.S. bank to endorse HR 40, but are hopeful we are not the last.
While Amalgamated’s nearly one hundred-year-old legacy of social action is clearly demonstrated, we acknowledge that there is more for all of us to do to stem the tide of complacency and call for higher levels of justice for all people.
Amalgamated also acknowledges the deep roots connecting the financial sector to the American slave economy. Banks and lenders played a key role in not only financing slavery, but in excluding Black people from financial resources by redlining, withholding investment into black-owned businesses, predatory lending practices, engaging in predatory pay day lending, and charging exorbitant fees that trap people in a downward spiral of debt.
Broadly speaking, the concept of reparations for gross violations against human rights is not new. Reparations have been used in numerous countries to attempt to achieve justice for past violations against specific groups of people. Although these strategies haven’t always been executed perfectly, they have been one of the key ways for governments to make amends for past violations, apologize, and restore equity among impacted communities.
We believe the commission created through H.R. 40 is an important first step towards achieving racial justice. The work shouldn’t stop there. Amalgamated believes there must be real, tangible remedies for African Americans and an explicit acknowledgement and apology by the Federal government for slavery’s role in creating our modern economy. We believe that this isn’t just morally right but is required for the country to truly move forward and build the thriving, equitable economy we clearly need.
That is why Amalgamated is proud to announce our support for H.R. 40 and reparations. We invite other banks and financial companies to do the same.
In addition to Amalgamated Bank’s endorsement of H.R. 40, the Amalgamated Foundation will continue its commitment to racial justice and expand that to strategies in support of reparations over the coming months.
In a letter sent by the Congressional Black Caucus on April 7 to Robert Redfield, M.D., Director for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Congressional Black Caucus is calling for immediate racial data reporting for COVID-19 in every state, amidst rising trends in infections and mortality of Black people with coronavirus. To date, only nine states and the District of Columbia have released data based on race, which represents less than 20% of the country. With the limited data of coronavirus deaths out of cities and states across the nation such as Milwaukee (73%), Chicago (67%), Louisiana (70%), D.C. (58%) it is already evident that the death rates are disproportionate to the Black population in these areas hardest hit. We need full disclosure of racial data to identify and prioritize the areas of greatest impact.
In the letter, the Congressional Black Caucus urges the CDC to prioritize the collection and reporting of vital public health data which will include race and risk factors. With this information, Congress and the Administration must work together to prioritize all efforts to ensure every person in America has equitable access to COVID-19 testing and treatment regardless of their race or ethnic background.
“Healthcare disparities in our country have been a long standing issue and concern for the Congressional Black Caucus. The spread of the coronavirus has compounded these issues, leaving Black people even more vulnerable. We need to urgently address these disparities with a targeted response to our community,” said Congresswoman Karen Bass (CA-37), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.
The spread and outcome of COVID-19 in the United States has simply brought the issues of healthcare disparities to the forefront of national attention. But it did not catch us by surprise. The Congressional Black Caucus Healthcare Brainstrust, Chaired by Rep. Robin Kelly (IL-20), focuses on identifying the areas of grave concern as it relates to health and healthcare for Black people and advocating for equitable legislative responses.
“Obtaining the data from every state in America is critical to a targeted response that ensures ample resources, including funding and testing, are deployed to the communities hardest hit. The data we are seeing from the few states that are reporting shows that Black people are the most vulnerable and the distribution of resources must reflect this. Without this data, we will continue to risk the lives of people in this country,” said Rep. Robin Kelly, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Healthcare Braintrust.
What we are seeing is more than just an overstretched healthcare system, but instead the result of years of systemic racism, disenfranchisement, and oppression of Black people in America. The reason more Blacks are dying from COVID-19 is a result of a history of structural racism, environmental injustice, income inequality, and the lack of resources in Black communities, which have led to the prominence of health related risk factors such as diabetes and hypertension. With this data along with targeted testing and funding the CBC is confident this will be a more effective approach to overcoming this health crisis in our community and saving Black lives
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Sen. Kamala Harris said Wednesday that she regrets that some California prosecutors “criminalized the parents” of truant children using a controversial 2011 law she helped pass when she was the district attorney of San Francisco.
“My regret is that I have now heard stories where in some jurisdictions, DAs have now criminalized the parents,” Harris said in an interview with “Pod Save America.”
“And I regret that that has happened and the thought that anything that I did could have led to that,” she added.
Truancy — which refers to unexcused school absences — was one of Harris’ signature issues while she was the San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general.
The law in question imposes fines and jail time on parents of children in kindergarten through eighth grade who have missed 10 percent of school days or more without a valid excuse.
Harris championed the law in the state legislature after she successfully reduced truancy in San Francisco by threatening to prosecute parents under a more dated law.
Many observers also questioned whether Harris’ push to address truancy through the criminal justice system inherently punished low-income and struggling families. She has previously framed truancy as “a parent issue” that stems from parental “neglect.”
Harris has always said her goal in involving prosecutors in the truancy process was not to punish parents but to give schools more leverage to bring them to the table.
When she was district attorney of San Francisco, she noted, her office never jailed any parents.
“I realized that the system was failing these kids, not putting the services in place to keep them in school, to make it easier for parents to do what parents naturally wanted to do around parenting their children,” she said in the interview. “And so I put a spotlight on it.”
“As a result of doing that, we ended up increasing attendance by over 30% because we actually required the system then to kick in and do the services that they were required to do and sometimes had available, but they weren’t doing outreach with the parents,” she continued. “And so that was the whole purpose.”
If any parents who were punished as a result of the law she later helped pass, that was an “unintended consequence,” Harris said.
Lucy McBath, the mother of a slain teen Jordan Davis running on a gun-control platform has won a long held Republican House seat that Georgia Republicans held onto just last year in what was then the nation's most expensive congressional race.
"We've sent a strong message to the entire country," Lucy McBath tweeted on Thursday after Rep. Karen Handel conceded.
"Absolutely nothing – no politician & no special interest – is more powerful than a mother on a mission," she said.
McBath became a spokeswoman for the Everytown for Gun Safety group after her son was slain in a Florida shooting. McBath made gun control a key issue. Her 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was fatally shot at a Florida gas station in 2012 by a white man, Michael Dunn who was angry over the loud music the black teenager and his friends had been playing in their car.
A jury rejected Dunn's self-defense claim and convicted him of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2014.
McBath, a former flight attendant, told Elle Magazine she decided to run for office to make a difference on her son's behalf. She said she wanted to work to strengthen gun control especially after the February mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
McBath's margin of victory was narrow enough for Handel to have requested a recount. The Associated Press declared McBath the winner Thursday after Handel conceded.
Here's more confirmation of President Trump's delusional views about the relationship between himself and the African American community.
President Donald Trump bragged on Twitter that his approval rating with black Americans has doubled. It hasn't.
Only 15% of black Americans said they approved of Trump's job performance in the days following his inauguration last January — and it's only gone downhill from there. In the most recent Gallup weekly numbers, only 6% of black Americans said they approved of the President's job performance.
The most recent CNN polling, from December, shows that only 3% of black Americans said they approved of how Trump is handling his job nearly a year into his White House tenure.
A whopping 91% said they disapproved.
But that didn't stop Trump from tweeting on Tuesday morning that his approval among black Americans had doubled. "Unemployment for Black Americans is the lowest ever recorded. Trump approval ratings with Black Americans has doubled. Thank you, and it will get even (much) better!" he wrote.
It is true that black unemployment has fallen to 6.8% in the most recent data — the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the number in 1972 but still higher than the 4.1% national unemployment rate among all races.
By George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com
Black conservatives will defend their sides use of derogatory words/language toward African Americans by saying that those are only words and we shouldn't give them power. Then why do they get upset when called a coon or Uncle Tom? Hear more of my thoughts on this in the video below.
During last night's town hall debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump myself and many of my black friends noticed something Trump kept doing. No, not the sniffing (what is up with that?) or lying but the fact that he kept saying, "The African-Americans". That got many of us to wondering just who the bleep Donald Trump was talking about.
I am not a police officer, but as a black man elected to my local school board, I know how it can feel when it seems like your own people are against you. What I had to learn is that it wasn't that they were necessarily against me but that they were passionately advocating for their children and because I look like them they RIGHTFULLY expected more from me. Sometimes that can seem unfair, but we have to keep in mind that when we are in positions of authority and responsibility that we have to walk that delicate balance between treating all fairly and at the same time trying to fix the social ills that befall many in the black community. At times your won may not understand why you have to walk that fine line, BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN THAT THEY DON'T LOVE AND RESPECT YOU.
I know I and many others respect the work you do and love the reason many of our black brothers and sisters became cops. You did it to give back and to make your communities better. You bravely chose to do a job that few can and that even fewer including myself would want to do. Some joined to help changed a flawed system from the inside. I know that you at times have to face the worst in humanity to protect us all, I love and respect you for that. And trust me it's not only me but millions of others feel the same.
I know that you walk a fine line between working to change the culture of many police departments while at the same time working to change that culture. I know that it's not easy and can make you feel like you are just slamming your head into a wall. But no fight for systemic change is easy, and it takes strong people like you to take up that fight.
In many ways you exemplify the best in humanity especially when it comes to bravery and compassion and are to be commended. But with that come being held to a higher standard that may at times seem unfair but one you will have to and will deal with because you are more than capable of doing that to make things better for both cops and minority communities.
So to my black police officers, Keep ya Head Up!
George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.Com
Condoleezza Rice, who served George W. Bush as national security adviser and then secretary of state, has zero interest in being Donald Trump’s running mate, her chief of staff said Friday.
“Dr. Rice has repeatedly said in past cycles as well as this one, she’s not interested in being vice president,” Georgia Godfrey told Yahoo News in a statement. “She’s happy at Stanford and plans to stay.”
Rice will also stay away from Cleveland, where Republicans are expected to anoint the volatile entrepreneur as their candidate. “She does not plan to go to the convention,” Godfrey said.
Read more: Condi Rice rules out being Trump’s VP
A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio on Tuesday ruled that the 2014 elimination of the state's early in-person (EIP) voting was unconstitutional and in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Judge Michael Watson stated in his decision:
The elimination of the extra days for EIP voting provided by Golden Week will disproportionately burden African Americans, as expert and anecdotal evidence reflects that African Americans vote EIP, and specifically EIP during Golden Week, at a significantly higher rate than other voters. ... [Additionally,] it may be more difficult for voters with time, resource, transportation, and childcare restraints to make two separate trips to register and vote, and Golden Week allowed individuals to do both at once. ... The elimination of [same-day registration] means that voters must now register and vote at separate times, which increases the "cost of voting," especially for socioeconomically disadvantaged groups.
Statistical and anecdotal evidence cited by Watson showed support for the claims that African Americans utilized this procedure greater than other groups, and that the elimination of this inevitably places a disproportionate burden on them to the point of violating constitutional rights and the VRA.
Read more: Federal judge rules Ohio early voting cuts unconstitutional
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said Sunday that while he may be trailing among minority voters in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, that would change as soon as those voters learned more about him.
"When the African-American community becomes familiar with my congressional record and with our agenda and with our views on the economy and criminal justice, just as the general population has become more supportive, so will the African-American community, so will the Latino community. We have the momentum. We are on a path to victory," he said during the Democratic debate Sunday evening.
Read more: Sanders: African-Americans will like me when they learn my record
While they’re experiencing greater optimism and increasing affluence, African-Americans are hindered in building long-term wealth because of gaps in retirement planning.
Those are some of the findings from the “2015-2016 African American Financial Experience” study from Prudential Financial, Inc., which also found that African-Americans are not taking full advantage of financial and investment tools.
More than half of survey respondents said that they’re better off than they were five years ago and feel that they’re better off than their parents were at their age.
Interestingly, they also describe themselves as savers rather than investors. Most African-Americans (52 percent) feel very well prepared to make smart financial decisions, while only 40 percent of the general population feels the same way.
Read more: Better retirement planning needed for African-Americans
I really don't give a damn about the piece of human trash that killed nine people at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston SC. The focus should be on the nine innocent victims of the senseless shooting who were killed for no other reason than they were black. Read their names below. George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.com
State Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor.
Cynthia Hurd, 54, St. Andrews regional branch manager for the Charleston County Public Library system.
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, a church pastor, speech therapist and coach of the girls’ track and field team at Goose Creek High School.
Tywanza Sanders, 26, who had a degree in business administration from Allen University.
Ethel Lance, 70, a retired Gilliard Center employee who worked recently as a church janitor.
Susie Jackson, 87, Lance’s cousin who was named by a relative and was a longtime church member.
Depayne Middleton Doctor, 49, who retired in 2005 as Charleston County director of the Community Development Block Grant Program.
Mira Thompson, 59, a pastor at the church.
Daniel Simmons Sr., 74, who died in a hospital operating room.
In light of Mississippi Republican Gene Alday lawmaker making some comments so racist that his own party quickly distanced itself from him (so you know what he said was messed up), I have taken it upon myself to help my republican friends when it comes to answering questions about African Americans.
Now, I'm not going to tell you to avoid phrases like, "them", "The blacks", "democratic plantation", or "those people". If you follow my advice you wont get into trouble for using any of those dog whistle phrases.
Now pay attention my republican friend. If a reporter ask you a question pertaining to race DO NOT under any circumstances answer it! This reporter is not your friend. He or she knows that you will give an answer based on your limited interactions with African Americans. Not only that he or she knows that most of what you will say will be based on stereotypes and false propaganda that has permeated the Republican Party for years thus setting you up for a spectacular fail.
So what's one to do?
Now if the conversation is over a cell phone make a static like noise, pretend you are losing reception, and hang up. Do not take the follow up call from that dastardly reporter!
So what do you do if confronted by a reporter in person? Don't worry I gotcha.
If a glass of water or some salt is nearby throw these items into the eyes of the reporter to give you time to run away and jump into the first moving vehicle you see. The salt will give you more time for obvious reasons. In there is nothing their to temporarily blind the reporter you can try a diversionary tactic like shouting, "Hey, isn't that Hillary Clinton?". When the reporter pees themselves and turns away you can run for it.
If none of that works then pretend to pass out and remember to keep your eyes closed until your aides and staff can whisk you safely away.
If you follow these steps you will be okay answering questions on race and not insert your foot into your mouth.
Now if you do some dumb sh*t like take your republican ass to London and answer ANY question even I can't help you...LOL.
George L. Cook III AfricanAmericanReports.com
Many have accused President Obama of not dealing with the issues of African Americans. Now I don't believe that to be so but I wonder what many African American including those who believe he is doing his job as president would have him do. I want to know what one issue the black public thinks the president could tackle that would have the most benefit to African Americans.
I believe that tackling education issues in the United States would have the greatest impact. There are others issues such as incarceration, income inequality, fair housing, etc that shouldn't be ignored though. What do you think?
