Svante Myrick, Mayor of Ithaca, New York

By Svante Myrick, Mayor of Ithaca, New York

As the mayor of a city in New York, every day I wake up and do what I can to ensure every resident in my city has a good-paying job, affordable health coverage, a roof over their head, food on the table, and to be treated with dignity. It’s simple.

But, as a Black man, I know none of those things are as simple as they should be and, as a society, we have only moved further away from achieving these basic needs for Black Americans over the last four years.

In 2016, President Trump asked Black Americans what they had to lose by giving him a chance and on Thursday night, during the final presidential debate and while he made his final pitch to Americans to give him another four years in office, President Trump incredibly blurted out: “I am the least racist person in this room…I am the least racist person.”

If this claim wasn’t so patently offensive it would be laughable.

The truth is no one has inflamed racial tensions or stoked more discord among Americans than Donald Trump.

In this year alone, he has mismanaged a public health crisis and the resulting economic recession — both of which have disproportionately affected Black lives — and he has added fuel to the fire and inflamed the country’s deep racial inequities. But the Biden-Harris ticket offers a different choice for Black Americans — one that builds back better for us all. That’s why I am proudly supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris this November.

First, a Biden-Harris administration will lead us out of the recession President Trump got us into and build back the economy better with historic investments in Black communities. To start, they’ll increase access to capital for minority-owned businesses through investments of $100 billion in low-interest loans. With the unemployment rate in the Black community more than tripling between August 2019 and May 2020 and more than one million Black Americans losing their jobs under Trump’s lack of leadership, the investments Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want to make with minority-owned businesses will help provide a much-needed boost to our economy, and especially increase the number of jobs available in Black communities.

The COVID-19 public health crisis has not only killed more than 225,000 Americans and infected more than 8.6 million more but has killed Black people at more than twice the rate of white people. Those who have survived now have a new pre-existing condition that Donald Trump plans to use to jack up premiums or kick individuals off their health plans. In fact, just one week after the election, Trump and Republicans will be asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare, which would leave millions of Black people without health insurance in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will strengthen Obamacare and give Black Americans a new choice: a public health insurance option like Medicare. Their plan will prevent health care providers from charging patients out-of-network rates when the patient doesn’t have control over which provider they see and they will double funding for Community Health Centers, which are a critical source of primary, prenatal, and other important care in Black neighborhoods around the country.

Finally, in the five months since George Floyd’s death a new conversation has begun in America that has awakened millions to the perils many Black individuals face while interacting with a police officer, going for a jog, or sleeping in their own beds. While the nation is opening its eyes, Donald Trump still refuses to acknowledge that Black Lives Matter, look no further than his attempts to immediately end the conversation when asked about it during the final presidential debate. Instead of engaging in a dialogue, the president does everything in his power to inflame racial violence and divide the nation.

But Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are fighting to repair the soul of this nation. They have a plan for Congress to address police reform at the federal level. I appreciate these ideas and know they will work across the country because, as mayor, I have made similar changes within the Ithaca Police Department in an effort to improve police and community relations. A Biden-Harris administration will also work to reform our criminal justice system, placing a key focus on prevention instead of incarceration.

I understand some may be weary of these commitments, since politicians have made and failed to deliver on promises in the past. Couple that with gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics and it cannot be surprising that just 40 percent of eligible African Americans voters between 18 and 24 voted in 2016. But Black Americans CANNOT sit this election out.

In every election, we hear “this is the most important election of our lifetime,” but it has never rung so true — especially for Black Americans — with health care, the economy, criminal and racial justice reform, and so much more on the line. It’s crucial we all have a vote plan in place and if you don’t, go to IWillVote.com to make your plan.

When President Trump asked Black Americans what they had to lose by giving him a chance four years ago we never thought the simple, yet disastrous answer would be, “everything.” That’s why we must all vote for and work to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next president and vice president of the United States; our lives lie in the balance if we don’t.

By Joe Biden

There is injustice in America. There is discrimination. There is a legacy of racism and inequality that lives still in our institutions, our laws, and in too many people’s hearts that makes it harder for Black people to succeed. These are facts in the United States of America in 2020, and we must all do more to move our nation closer to the ideals inlaid at our founding—that all women and men are created equal.

This year has also brought us too many examples of the dangers Black people can face in the course of going about their lives. With grieving hearts, we learned to say the names of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and many more. I’ve spent time with the families of George Floyd and Jacob Blake, sharing their grief and anger and seeing the incredible resilience of communities that for too long have had a knee on their neck. And I was inspired by their commitment to turn their pain into purpose.

Photo by Adam Schultz / Biden for President

Today, there are Americans all across this country, especially Black Americans, who are exhausted and hurting. Who are disappointed by a system that never seems to deliver for your communities. Who are sick and tired of a cycle where, in good times, Black communities lag behind, in bad times they get hit first and hardest, and in recovery, they take the longest to bounce back.

We’re in the midst of four simultaneous crises—a pandemic that has claimed more than 200,000 lives, a disproportionate number of whom were Black; an economic crash that has hit Black workers and Black business owners especially hard; a long overdue reckoning on racial justice; and a climate crisis that is already hurting Black and Brown communities the most.

It is our job to do everything in our power to rip out systemic racism across our society, root and branch. It will be hard work in any case. But we will not succeed without a leader who understands our history and is ready to grapple with our challenges.

Photo by Adam Schultz / Biden for President

President Trump wants to paper over the living wound of racism. He’s issued Executive Orders and established a new national commission designed to whitewash our history—and deny the daily reality of being Black in America. He actively appeals to white supremacists and fans the flames of hatred and division in our country, because he thinks it benefits him politically. He ignores the most basic job of every president: the duty to care for all of us, not just those who voted for him.

It’s the polar opposite of what I will do as president. I was proud to serve for eight years alongside President Obama. I watched up close how he filled the Oval Office with dignity and compassion for others. And, together with Senator Kamala Harris as my vice president, we will restore honor, integrity, and competence to the White House.

We will build an administration that looks like America, including nominating the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

We will work to unite the country around solutions that will push our country forward, and most importantly, I will listen to those impacted by the long-standing inequities in our system—especially Black Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.

Photo by Adam Schultz / Biden for President

That’s how we will work together to deliver real, lasting change. Criminal justice and policing reforms, but also economic opportunity and financial stability. Building wealth for families of color and passing it down. Closing the racial wealth gap is one of the most powerful ways we can build real equity in our society, and it’s going to require a full-court press. That’s what my Lift Every Voice plan is—a comprehensive agenda to take on the range of issues that drive inequality in Black America.

We’ll tackle student debt and invest more in our HBCUs, so higher education is a pathway to wealth and opportunity instead of to debt that prevents you from owning a home or starting a small business.

My plan will empower Black-owned small businesses, with short-term relief to get you through this tough time and long-term investments to help you build back better — with access to new capital and financing and government contracts.

Critically, we’re going to tackle the racial homeownership gap head on. There is no greater vehicle for wealth creation than homeownership. That’s why my plan will restore the steps President Obama and I took toward eradicating housing discrimination, including redlining; end racial bias in how we judge which families are credit-worthy; and provide a $15,000 down payment tax credit to help millions of young Black families buy their first home.

Photo by Adam Schultz / Biden for President

We’ll fix our upside-down tax system to finally reward work, not wealth. Trump thinks billionaires deserve more tax cuts. But under my plan, I’ll make sure the super wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, while ensuring that no one making less than $400,000 a year sees their taxes go up.

And I’m going to fight like hell to defend your family’s health care, just like I would my own. Right now, in the midst of a pandemic, Donald Trump is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Obamacare—all of it. He wants to overturn the very law that expanded coverage to an additional 3 million Black Americans. If he succeeds, more than 20 million Americans will lose their coverage, and more than 100 million people with preexisting conditions will no longer be protected against their insurance companies charging them more, or denying them coverage all together.

I’ll defend Obamacare and build on it—adding a public option that will automatically enroll 4 million more people that Republicans shut out by refusing to expand Medicaid in their states. We’re going to get to universal coverage and lower health care costs. We’re going to give working families a bigger subsidy to lower their premiums. And we’re going to take on pharmaceutical companies, bringing down the cost of your prescription drugs by 60 percent.

As my friend John Lewis used his final words to remind us: “Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America.” We cannot be tired. We cannot be hopeless. The choice in this election couldn’t be more stark, and we must vote for the future we want for every single one of our children. I’m ready to fight for you and your families, and I hope to earn your vote.

By Congresswoman Frederica S. Wilson (D-FL)

In 2016, then-candidate Donald J. Trump asked African Americans, “what the hell do you have to lose,” by supporting his campaign. Nearly four years later, the answer is painfully clear: a hell of a lot.

In the past eight months alone, a majority of Black businesses have closed, Black families are experiencing high unemployment and facing economic insecurity. Most tragic of all, Black people have died from the novel coronavirus at double the rate of whites.

It didn’t have to be that way, but thanks to President Trump’s desire to not cause Americans to panic, he and his administration withheld information about the damage that the COVID-19 pandemic would ultimately have on our nation’s physical and economic health. To this day, rather than taking this public health crisis seriously, Trump has chosen to not only spread lies about the virus, but also actually spread it at White House events and campaign rallies across the nation.

Black Americans, millions of whom were already struggling before the pandemic struck, cannot afford to lose anything else and we absolutely cannot afford another four years of President Donald J. Trump. That is why it is more imperative than perhaps at any other period in many of our lifetimes that we vote at record numbers this year.

It is an unfortunate truth that Black voters have long felt undervalued by both the Republican and the Democratic party, and as a result, it’s hard for them to believe that their vote matters. But believe me, it does. We will never know what kind of leader former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would have been, but if more Black voters had turned out in 2016, we might never have experienced the kind of president that Trump has been.

In addition to his egregious mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, he has demonstrated an unwillingness to condemn white nationalists and a propensity to encourage them. Rather than uplift low income and minority communities, he has sought to dismantle health, education and other programs that they depend on. He called people who’ve served in the military losers and suckers. For the past few months, he has worked overtime to stoke fears about us among white Americans in a callous, self-serving attempt to secure their votes.

As someone who has for decades fiercely fought for and advocated on behalf of Black men and boys, I am appalled by his refusal to acknowledge and address the police violence and racist attacks that have prematurely shortened the lives of too many. Black males in our nation have always been an endangered species, but the Trumps of this world threaten to make them nearly extinct, yet I am afraid that they will either not vote this year or may perhaps vote for Trump, who has never addressed the nation or expressed remorse for the killings of George Floyd, Ahmed Aubrey, and so many others. He not only doesn’t care, but frequently blows dog whistles to the kind of people who see no value in Black men.

More than 11.4 percent of African Americans under the age of 65 are uninsured. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s plan to create a public option for the Affordable Care Act will ensure that millions of African American men who have been left out will now be able to seek care for themselves and their families. Biden is keenly aware of the how costly college has become, making it almost unattainable for all but the wealthiest families. His plan would make HBCUs and public colleges and universities tuition free for families making less than $125,000 a year. That policy alone could help send millions of Black men and their children to college who previously thought it was beyond their reach.

Biden also is committed to reducing student loan debt for millions of Americans. His plan would cancel your student debt if you attended a public college or university or an HBCU and met other criteria. That would free millions of Black men who currently are saddled with student loans to make choices about starting a business or changing careers without the financial pressures of debt repayment. Finally, Biden understands that Black-owned small businesses need capital and access to markets on an equal basis to be competitive and grow. That’s why he plans to increase funding for lending and investing in Black-owned small businesses and increase access to federal contracts for Black-owned businesses.

In a recent interview, presidential advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner suggested that Blacks are only as successful as we want to be and dismissed the Black Lives Matter movement as “virtue signaling.” This is the kind of person Trump surrounds himself with. An attorney general who thinks he’s the president’s personal attorney and has failed to protect the voting rights of minority groups and abdicated its oversight of police misconduct. An education secretary who consistently undermines or rolls back key civil rights protections and Obama-era guidance that promoted racial equity in the classroom. A postmaster general who actively sought to suppress mail-in voting.

Joe Biden is an imperfect man and has in the past made his own missteps on race, but he is a caring man who has personally experienced first-hand what it’s like when a family faces illness, loss and financial insecurity. He will serve as president to everyone in America, including those of us who are not wealthy or white. And if his historic choice of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate tells us anything, it’s that Black lives do indeed matter to him.

Every Black voter in America who has not yet cast their ballot needs to head to the polls or ballot drop-off sites and make sure their voices are heard. We cannot afford another four years of Trump.

By The Florida Courier Staff

One of America’s leading Black conservative political action committee has instituted a national effort to help Black-owned businesses earn some of the billions of dollars spent during America’s political campaigns as the 2020 election year hits the home stretch.

BlakPAC, a federally-registered “Super PAC” (political action committee), is spearheading an initiative urging all candidates, political parties, political action committees, and donors to take “The Art Fletcher Pledge” to commit to spending ten percent of their funding, revenues, or both with Black-owned and businesses and financial institutions.

Art Fletcher

Billions spent

According to the Center for Responsive Politics website at opensecrets.com, which tracks campaign funding and expenditures, the 2020 presidential candidates have raised more than $2.8 billion thus far – all to be spent prior to Election Day, November 3, 2020.

That amount does not include campaign fundraising or expenditures for congressional, state, or local elections, or campaign dollars raised by fundraising committees or political parties.

“The purpose of the pledge is simple,” explained BlakPAC Chairman George Farrell.

“Any candidate, Democrat, Republican or independent, that cannot execute the ability to spend 10 percent of campaign funds with Black businesses cannot be trusted to operate honestly as an elected government official and should not earn our votes.”

George Ferrell

Farrell, a Washington, D.C. native who attended Howard University, is a real estate developer and entrepreneur. He and his wife Sandra Lopez co-founded BlakPAC with former Florida Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carroll.

Jennifer Carroll

Carroll was the highest-ranking Black female elected official in the state’s history. She served as the second in command to former Florida Gov. Rick Scott from 2011-2013.

‘Economic flesh’

The pledge is named after Arthur Fletcher, a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor in the Nixon administration. Fletcher, a Black Republican and lifelong civil rights activist referred to himself as “the father of affirmative action enforcement” for his work with the 1969 “Philadelphia Plan.”

The plan required federal government contractors in Philadelphia’s construction trades to set goals and timetables for hiring minority workers. It gave the businesses autonomy on how to increase minority employment. However, if the goals were not reached, the contracts could be terminated by the federal government.

“The name of the game is to put some economic flesh and bones on Dr. (Martin Luther) King’s dream,” Fletcher is quoted as saying.

Fletcher went on to work with successive Republican presidents, including Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. Later in his career, he also served as chairman of the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, and as the head of the United Negro College fund.

He died in 2005.

Growing support

“The Art Fletcher Pledge should be a demand!” exclaimed Carl Marbury, a Pittsburgh, Penn.-based entrepreneur. “Extending the ideas of Art Fletcher to campaign spending should be a demand that every organization that supports the economic empowerment of minority-owned businesses should be making of candidates looking for the votes of their members.”

“In response to rioting, burning and looting, many American businesses and organizations are investing in voices that are loud and often irresponsible. BlakPAC is opening the way for investment in softer but experienced and responsible voices which present plans and projects which actually solve problems and benefit Americans,” said former Louisiana State Senator Elbert Guillory, a Black Republican. He has signed on as a pledge supporter.

“People often forget those who commit to a cause and act as a catalyst for historic change,” said Robert Whittemore, another pledge supporter.

“Art Fletcher, a Republican civil rights leader, championed affirmative action to assure minority workers’ civil rights were protected and represented to assure access to opportunity and economic equality through employment.

“Today, BlakPAC calls upon candidates and campaigns to make a pledge for affirmative political action, assuring minority activists and minority-owned businesses receive the funding needed to get the right candidates elected.”

Electing conservatives

According to its website, http://www.blakpac.gop, “BlakPAC contributes to conservative candidates who share our values and serve as positive role models. They are our best advocates for conservative ideas to be showcased in the community.” The organization has been in operation since January 2015.

BlakPAC also provides candidate training, exit polling, voter research, and social media campaign services, and has set up paid internships for Black youth who are interested in working on political campaigns.

Easy to do

“Meeting the Art Fletcher Pledge is easy if the commitment is there for affirmative political action,” Farrell said. “There are some 200 Black-owned newspapers in the United States covering every possible market with a very loyal readership. Many of these papers are weeklies and therefore have a long shelf life compared to daily newspapers.

“There are more than 100 Black-owned radio stations. There are even Black-owned television stations and Byron Allen’s Weather Channel,” he said.

“National and statewide candidates should be serious about reaching swing voters – otherwise known as Black voters – who provide the margin of victory in Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas.”

The 2018 Florida governor’s race was decided by 44,000 votes. According to Farrell, Republican Ron DeSantis owes his victory in the Florida gubernatorial election to about 100,000 African American women who unexpectedly chose him over Democrat candidate Andrew Gillum because of a school choice-oriented get out the vote effort by BlakPac.

Black Republicans sign up

New Journey PAC President Autry Pruitt and Vernon Robinson of Black Americans for the President’s Agenda PAC are both Art Fletcher Pledge signers and have spent more than $1 million on advertising targeting Black voters and on Black-owned radio stations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida.

Black Republican congressional candidates Carla Spalding of Florida and Casper Stockman from Colorado have signed and have agreed to meet the commitment.

For more information on the Art Fletcher Pledge and to see the latest list of Pledge signers, go to http://www.blakpac.gop.

Each year, some 150,000 children in Nigeria are born with sickle cell disease, the most common—and often life-threatening—inherited blood disorder in the world.

“I was not happy when I read that Nigeria will have the highest contribution to the global burden of sickle cell disease by 2050—if we continue at the present birth rate and the level of inactivity in newborn screening,” said hematologist Obiageli Nnodu, M.D., the lead researcher in Nigeria for the Sickle Pan African Research Consortium (SPARCo), funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health. “As a country, we can do better than that. After all, this is a disease where children die undiagnosed, and largely from preventable causes such as bacterial infections.”

Sickle cell disease affects 20 million people worldwide, including at least 100,000 in the United States, mainly African Americans, but Hispanics and Asian-Americans, too. To help address the problem on a global scale, the NHLBI has been supporting programs in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 75 percent of the sickle cell disease births worldwide occur. SPARCo, with a hub in Tanzania, and additional sites in Nigeria and Ghana, works to develop an infrastructure for sickle cell disease research, health care, education, and training to take place in Africa.

“We are showing that with effective partnerships, significant advances in health and biomedical science can be achieved,” said Tanzania-based Julie Makani, M.D., Ph.D., who leads the SPARCo consortium. SPARCo, in collaboration with the Sickle Africa Data Coordinating Center, led by Ambroise Wonkam, M.D., in South Africa, created  Sickle In Africa, which has a growing electronic registry of more than 10,000 individuals with sickle cell disease.

“The genetic diversity of Africa’s population allows scientific research that will increase our understanding of how a disease caused by a single gene can manifest in such different ways,” Makani explained.

Newborn screening, as Nnodu noted, is the first step to reduce mortality and suffering for these children, and for that, they need good tests readily available at the point of care. That’s why NHLBI supports research towards development of diagnostics, such as a new rapid result test that is relatively inexpensive, accurate, and can provide a timely diagnosis of sickle cell disease. The test does not require sophisticated laboratory equipment, electricity, refrigeration, or highly trained personnel—a critical advantage for countries with few resources.

On the treatment front, a large multinational NHLBI-funded clinical trial found that a daily hydroxyurea pill was safe and effective for young children living with sickle cell disease in sub-Saharan Africa. The NHLBI also has its sights on developing genetic therapies for the disease, as part of a newly announced NIH collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The goal of the partnership, which also addresses HIV, is to advance possible gene-based cures to clinical trials in the United States and relevant countries in sub-Saharan Africa within the next seven to 10 years.

“A person’s health should not be limited by their geographic location, whether it’s in rural America or sub-Saharan Africa,” said Gary H. Gibbons, M.D., director of the NHLBI. “Harnessing the power of science is needed to transcend borders if we want to improve health for all.”

CRA must help address systemic racial barriers and inequality, and it must benefit LMI and families of color

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week in a board meeting, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve approved its draft Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). In May, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency finalized its CRA rule, while the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) has yet to join an agency in finalizing a CRA rule.

The CRA is a civil rights law designed to expand financial opportunity. The law requires banks to meet the credit needs of the communities in which they are chartered. The CRA was created to be a key driver in financial equity, helping to spur hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in underserved areas. Yet, the CRA requires strengthening to evolve with the changing banking landscape and to fully meet its statutory mission.

Center for Responsible Lending Executive Vice President Nikitra Bailey released the following statement:

“Unlike the OCC’s approach in finalizing a deeply misguided rule without stakeholder support, we appreciate the Federal Reserve’s commitment to a data-driven process that solicits broad input. The Federal Reserve should ensure that updated regulations account for the harsh realities of discrimination that still plague today’s financial marketplace.

“CRA was designed to undo the injustices created by the horrific practice of redlining and to expand financial opportunity, equity, and help spur investments in underserved areas. Our nation’s most recent reckoning with racial injustice has elevated the recognition and urgency to enact significant reforms to address structural racial barriers and provide opportunity to LMI families and people of color.  CRA must be one of the major tools to provide these long overdue reforms.”