Congresswoman Karen Bass wrote an article in the Thursday, January 12, 2017 edition of the L.A. Watts Times, the issue released the weekend preceding Martin Luther King Day. I stumbled upon this paper at the Wingstop located on Crenshaw and Coliseum in Los Angeles one night that I wanted some indulging food after getting a bit of good news. As I sat at the counter waiting for my order, I started flipping through this paper and after reading the article, I thought it deserved some attention. I first thought well Congresswoman Bass sure knows how to get to her constituents where they are, and I was pleased that she was keeping the people that voted for her in the know.
Congresswoman Bass felt a way about now President Donald Trump revealing his ten-point plan in front of a predominantly White audience in North Carolina during his campaign. Then he followed up this announcement with a press release to MediaTakeOut.com as opposed to mainstream media outlets. This I personally think is hilarious as my top three news sources every morning are CNN, Huffington Post, and BBC News. TMZ would have been a better gossip site, but I digress.
The ten points are basically this:
- Free education to every disadvantaged child in America through school
choice. - Safe Communities by investing in training and funding local and federal
law enforcement. - Equal Justice Under the Law with single set of rules justice system.
- Tax Reform to ‘Create Jobs and Lift-up People and Communities,‘ by
lowering business taxes; middle class tax cuts; tax free childcare savings accounts.
Federal disaster designation for blighted communities. - Financial Reform to Expand Credit to Support New Job Creation. This
includes reform to make it easier for young African-Americans to get credit to pursue
business dreams. Converting poverty assistance into repayable, forgivable micro loans. - Protection from Illegal Immigration by ending decades of illegal
immigration to restore civil rights to African Americans. - Trade That Works for American Workers by placing a 35% tax on products
of American firms shipped from abroad back into America. - Infrastructure Investment by leveraging public-private partnerships ant
tax incentives to rebuild neglected infrastructure. - Protect the African-American Church
- America First Foreign Policy by not building democracies overseas.
Congresswoman Bass effortlessly breaks down the problems of this set of policies. Many of her arguments are sound. “School Choice” means the continued de-funding of public school education which in places like Michigan has proven to be disastrous for learning where students have suffered greatly. “Safe Communities” means ramping up police presence in urban communities without addressing the other issues of the community. These policies which failed in the 1980’s are just being revamped and again focusing on African American communities with no additional policing of drugs and or gang violence in White impoverished areas again setting up the next generation to be less educated and to have a higher probability for incarceration. Using “Equal Justice” as a guise when policing will still be disproportionately focused on a group of people that have been continuously the focal point of law enforcement efforts in this country since the ending of enslavement laws. Congresswoman Bass clearly points out how the Banking Industry has a history of predatory lending in African American Communities so how would new “Financial Reform” be safe guarded with rolling back Dodd-Frank legislation including the dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. She also addresses the divide and conquer aspect of the “Protection from Illegal Immigration.” What is interesting to me is that the language Trump used it is clear that to him removing Illegal Immigrants from the country would restore the civil rights of African Americans to their rightful place of second class citizenship, as if to pacify the African American Community with scraps.
What I am hoping from particularly after the outpouring that we have seen from around the world in support of the Women’s March is a follow up article from Congresswoman Bass laying out what her constituents can do. I like the 10 Actions/ 100 Days Campaign that the organizers of the march are rolling out because it is action oriented. I am not one who believes in marches, I do not like crowds of people so you will rarely if ever see me in that role, and I salute the people that do march. I am a proponent of everyone has a role, and we need to find it. I love that Congresswoman Bass made this information so readily available in the community she serves, and my question Congresswoman Bass is what are next steps?
Unapologetically,
Friday Jones
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