The California state government has been reminding businesses across the state that it is illegal to discriminate against job applicants because they have committed felonies or misdemeanors in the past. Authorities in Sacramento have also taken steps to make sure businesses do not use COVID-related restrictions to deny entry to customers they do not want based on race or other factors.
So far, the state has sent more than 500 notices to businesses informing them that they have violated protections put in place to protect people seeking work.
“The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) announced a new effort to identify and correct violations of the Fair Chance Act, a pioneering state law that seeks to reduce barriers to employment for individuals with criminal histories,” a statement the DFEH released last week reads.
The Fair Chance act, which took effect on January 1, 2018, was written to increase access to employment for Californians with criminal histories in an effort to reduce recidivism, among other goals. Employers with five or more employees are prohibited from asking a job candidate about conviction history during the hiring process or when advertising a vacancy.
The DFEH says it is implementing new technologies to conduct mass searches of online job applications that include unlawful statements. For example, some businesses explicitly state in hiring advertisements that they would not consider applicants with criminal records.
“Using technology to proactively find violations of the state’s anti-discrimination laws is a powerful strategy for our department to protect Californians’ civil rights,” said DFEH Director Kevin Kish. “DFEH is committed to preventing employment discrimination through innovative enforcement actions and by providing clear guidance to employers.”
DFEH also released a toolkit to aid employers in adhering to the Fair Chance Act guidelines. The toolkit includes sample forms and guides that employers can use to follow required procedures; a suggested statement that employers can add to job advertisements and applications to let applicants know that they will consider individuals with criminal histories; answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the Fair Chance Act and an informational video that explains the Fair Chance Act.
In addition, DFEH plans to release an interactive training and an online app in 2022.
The DFEH also released guidelines for businesses that will be implementing COVID-19 related entry restrictions to protect against discrimination based on race, sex, religious background and nationality.
While businesses have been encouraged to stay vigilant with mask mandates and vaccination verification for entry, the DFEH says it has also found it necessary to preemptively address refusal of entry that could be racially motivated masked as a COVID precaution.
“As Californians navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing has provided guidance to protect civil rights and mitigate risk of COVID-19 transmission in employment, housing, healthcare, and, in our guidance released today, businesses open to the public,” said Kish. “We can and must uphold civil rights while simultaneously disrupting the spread of COVID-19.”
DFEH encourages individuals to report job advertisements in violation of the Fair Chance Act or other instances of discrimination.
DFEH is also encouraging the public to report housing ads that include discriminatory language that exclude certain racial groups, immigrants, people with felonies, applicants with Section 8 or HUD vouchers; etc.
Supporters of a bill that would have increased diversity among civil service employees at all levels across California state government are blasting Gov. Newsom for vetoing the legislation.
Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) introduced the legislation, which would have required all state boards and commissions to have at least one member from an underrepresented community. Called the “Upward Mobility” bill, supporters say the legislation would have also opened up pathways to Blacks and other minorities for promotions, higher salaries and recruitment for state government jobs.
According to Holden, there is documented evidence that some state agencies — the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), for example – have passed over Black and other minorities for promotions.
For Black Californians, Assembly Bill (AB) 105, was particularly critical and historic, supporters say.
“We were asking for more diversity in the HR department of our state, which is the largest employer in California,” said Betty Williams, a well-known activist in Sacramento.
Williams, who is also a member of the African American Empowerment Community Council (AACEC), a coalition of Black leaders across the state, said she was especially taken aback by Newsom’s decision. Governor Newsom was aware of how important AB 105 was to the AACEC, she explained, and they had urged him to sign it.
“Governor Newsom wins 83 % of the African American vote in the recall election, and he vetoes major civil rights legislation in the state right after, is disappointing,” she added.
Currently in California, nearly 64 % of all state government employees — including senior management positions — are held by Whites, according to data from CalHR. Whites make up only 34 % of the state’s overall population of about 40 million people.
Supporters of the bill also explain that, for the first time in the history of the United States, there would have been a law that required state agencies to break down and record the numbers of Black Americans employed in government who are direct descendants of enslaved people.
“I am very disappointed. Look at section six of the bill. We worked with the bill’s author to include language in AB 105 that would have disaggregated the Black or African American category and created a specific way for gathering information on Black folks who descended from U.S. Slavery and who experienced Jim Crow in the Deep South and elsewhere,” said Chris Lodgson, a Sacramento-based community organizer for the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California (CJEC) and the American Redress Coalition of California (ARCC).
Lodgson and both organizations he represents have been at the forefront of the political effort in California to study the history of slavery and Anti-Black discrimination and seek reparation for Black descendants of enslaved people.
“Right now, the category of ‘Black or African American,’ means – and this is from the legal definition the state uses – anybody with origin in the Black racial groups of Africa. That doesn’t specifically describe me — whose family comes from slavery in the American South. That definition makes Black descendants of enslaved people invisible in the data. This bill would have changed that.”
Like Lodgson and Williams, other Black leaders in the state say they were surprised and let down by the governor’s decision.
“Please stop coming into our house asking for bread pudding and then when you get it, you don’t speak to us, or speak to our concerns, when you don’t need us anymore,” said Cynthia Adams, an education and civil rights advocate in Oakland. “This has to stop.”
Adams said government should not just include people who have the right skills set.
“It should level the playing field and reflect, as well as protect, diversity. This is achieved by recruiting and promoting qualified people who look like the racial, ethnic and cultural makeup of people in the state.”
Newsom said he “returned” AB 105 without his signature, because the bill may have had “unintended consequences.”
“While the goals of AB 105 are laudable, elements of the bill conflict with existing constitutional requirements, labor agreements, and current data collection efforts,” the governor said in statement after vetoing the bill. “Furthermore, as AB 105 would cost tens of millions of dollars, these one-time and significant ongoing costs should be considered through the annual state budget process.”
Responding to the governor, supporters say funding for the bill would have come out of the $42 billion dollar state budget surplus, so cost is not a factor. Lodgson also pointed out that the Office of Legislative Counsel reviewed the bill and found no legal or administrative conflicts.
AB 105 defined the term “board member or commissioner from an underrepresented community” as an individual who self-identifies as Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian, Alaska Native, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Military veterans with a disability were also included in the definition.
Lodgson says, although the governor vetoed the AB 105, he is still “encouraged” because both the State Senate Assembly and Senate passed the legislation with “solid” two-third majorities.
There was also widespread support among Californians, he says.
“The governor’s veto message encouraged the bill’s author to work with his team to work through some of the issues during the budget process in January 2022,” said Lodgson. “So, he opened the door for the things in the bill that we are specifically concerned about to possibly be added as early as the first few months of 2022.”
When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, the Black community owned less than 1% of the United States’ total wealth, the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans was told during its fourth meeting.
Mehrsa Baradaran, a professor at the University of California Irvine, School of Law, shared the statistics during the “Racism in Banking, Tax, and Labor” portion of the two-day meeting on October 13.
From her perspective, the power of wealth and personal income is still unequally distributed. And that inequality, in her view, has always been allowed, preserved and compounded by laws and government policy.
“More than 150 years later, that number has barely budged,” Baradaran told the Task Force, tracing the wealth gap from the period after the Civil War when President Lincoln granted formerly enslaved Blacks their freedom to the present day.
“The gap between average White wealth and Black wealth has actually increased over the last decades. Today, across every social-economic level, Black families have a fraction of the wealth that White families have,” she said.
Baradaran has written a range of entries and books about banking law, financial inclusion, inequality, and the racial wealth gap. Her scholarship includes the books “How the Other Half Banks” and “The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap,” both published by the Harvard University Press.
Baradaran has also published several articles on race and economics, including “Jim Crow Credit” in the Irvine Law Review, “Regulation by Hypothetical” in the Vanderbilt Law Review, and “How the Poor Got Cut Out of Banking” in the Emory Law Journal.
A 43-year-old immigrant born in Orumieh, Iran, Baradaran, testified that her work on the wealth gap in America was conducted from a “research angle” and she respectfully “submitted” her testimony “in that light,” she said.
In her research, Baradaran explained that she discovered an intentional system of financial oppression.
“This wealth chasm doesn’t abate with income or with education. In other words, this is a wealth gap that is pretty much tied to a history of exclusion and exploitation and not to be remedied by higher education and higher income,” Baradaran said.
According to a January 2020 report, the Public Policy Institute of California said African American and Latino families make up 12% of those with incomes above the 90th percentile in the state, despite comprising 43% of all families in California.
In addition, PPIC reported that such disparities mirror the fact that African American and Latino adults are overrepresented in low-wage jobs and have higher unemployment rates, and African American adults are less likely to be in the labor force.
Many issues support these activities that range from disparities around education, local job opportunities, and incarceration to discrimination in the labor market, according to PPIC.
“While California’s economy outperforms the nation’s, its level of income inequality exceeds that of all but five states,” the report stated.
“Without target policies, it will continue to grow,” Baradaran said of the wealth gap. “And I want to be clear of how this wealth gap will continue to grow. It was created, maintained, and perpetuated through public policy at the federal, state, and local levels. Black men and women have been shut out of most avenues of middle-class creations. Black homes, farms, and savings were not given the full protection of the law. Especially as these properties were subjected to racial terrorism. The American middle-class was not created that way (to support Black communities).”
A June 2018 working paper from the Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute written by economists familiar with moderate-to-weak Black wealth backs up Baradaran’s assessment.
Published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the authors of the report wrote that strategies to deny Blacks access to wealth started at the beginning of the Reconstruction era, picked up around the civil rights movement, and resurfaced around the financial crisis of the late 2000s.
Authored by Moritz Kuhn, Moritz Schularick, and Ulrike I. Steins, the “Income and Wealth Inequality in America, 1949-2016” explains a close analysis of racial inequality, pre-and post-civil rights eras.
The economists wrote that the median Black household has less than 11% of the wealth of the median White household, which is about $15,000 versus $140,000 in 2016 prices.
“The overall summary is bleak,” the report states. “The historical data also reveal that no progress has been made in reducing income and wealth inequalities between black and white households over the past 70 years.”
Baradaran recently participated in the virtual symposium, “Racism and the Economy: Focus on the Wealth Divide” hosted by 12 District Banks of the Federal Reserve System, which includes the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
There are some positives that are not typically included in discussions about the challenges Blacks have experience historically in efforts to obtain wealth, Baradaran said. Many African Americans, specifically in California, were able to subvert the systems that discriminated against them.
“Black institutions have been creative and innovative serving their communities in a hostile climate,” Baradaran said. “I’ve written a book about the long history of entrepreneurship, self-help, and mutual uplift. Historically Black Colleges and Universities have provided stellar education and Black banks have supported Black businesses, churches, and families.”
California’s Assembly Bill (AB) 3121, titled “The Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,” created a nine-member commission to investigate inequity in education, labor, wealth, housing, tax, and environmental justice.
All of these areas were covered with expert testimony during the two-day meeting held on Oct. 12 and Oct. 13. The task force is charged with exploring California’s involvement in slavery, segregation, and the historic denial of Black citizens’ constitutional rights.
Fifty years after the federal Fair Housing Act eliminated racial discrimination in lending, the Black community continues to be denied mortgage loans at rates much higher than their White counterparts.
“Banks and corporations have engaged in lending and hiring practices that helped to solidify patterns of racial inequality,” Jacqueline Jones, a history professor from the University of Texas told the Task Force.
The Racism in Banking, Tax and Labor segment also featured testimonies by Williams Spriggs (former chair of the Department of Economics at Howard University. Spriggs now serves as chief economist to the AFL-CIO), Thomas Craemer (public policy professor at the University of Connecticut), and Lawrence Lucas (U.S. Department of Agriculture Coalition of Minority Employees).
The Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans will conduct its fifth and final meeting of 2021 on Dec. 6 and Dec.7.
Hear this, you Elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors? Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten. Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips. [Joel 1:1-5].
See, the Lord is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants. [Isaiah 24:1]. The Lord said to me, “From the north disaster will be poured out on all who live in the land. I am about to summon all the peoples of the northern kingdoms,” declares the Lord. [Jeremiah 1:14-19]. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. [Joel 2:31; Acts 2:20].
Weep and howl, cry out unto the Lord himself, repent of your sins, wake up, for the Prophet Joel saw a terrible sight. He saw a locust invasion in the land of Judah. The locusts came in four stages and absolutely reduced the land to bare ground, and the people to poverty and disease. Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. [Hosea 6:1]. God warn; it is decision time [Joel 3:14]. All areas of society will be affected by the devastation caused by the locust invasion. The entire nation, including the priests, is told to mourn. Nothing will be left in the aftermath of the locusts. The fields, the ground, the grain, the new wine, the wheat and barley, the vine and all the fruiting trees… all destroyed. Wake Up, You Drunkards, and Weep!
And if in spite of this you do not obey me but act with hostility toward me, I will act with furious hostility toward you; I will also discipline you seven times for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your sons; you will eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your shrines, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless bodies of your idols; I will reject you. I will reduce your cities to ruins and devastate your sanctuaries. I will not smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices. I also will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to live there will be appalled by it. I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw a sword to chase after you. Your land will become desolate, and your cities will become ruins.” — [Leviticus 26:27-33].
Wake Up, You Drunkards, and Weep! Judgment will come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her. [Revelation 18:8].
Then the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So, the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them. The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle. They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails. Their power was to hurt men five months. And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he has the name Apollyon. One woe is past. Behold, still two more woes are coming after these things. [Revelation 9:1-12].
Indeed, the day of the Lord is terrible and dreadful— who can endure it? Even now— this is the Lord’s declaration— turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God. For He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and He relents from sending disaster— [Joel 2:11-14].
Black Californians have joined Black Americans around the country in closing the COVID-19 vaccine equity gap.
As of October 11, Black Californians were 4.2% of Californians that have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, up from 2.7% in February, according to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). 5.7% of the state’s population of nearly 40 million people are Black.
“Through our investments in targeted outreach and robust community-based partnerships, our work continues to reach the hardest-hit communities. Vaccines are how we end this pandemic – I encourage all eligible Californians to visit MyTurn.ca.gov to schedule an appointment for their first dose or find a booster shot to keep themselves and their community healthy,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said last week.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the vaccine equity gap is narrowing across the United States as about 11% of the people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine are Black Americans, a group that makes up 12.4% of the U.S. population.
U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, spoke with California Black Media last week about the importance of equity in the nation’s pandemic response.
“The way we define success with the vaccination effort isn’t just how many people got vaccinated, but how equitably and fairly we get the vaccine to people across our country,” Murthy said.
“We know that there are communities in our country that have been long underserved by the healthcare system and the victims of structural inequities and structural racism that have prevented them from getting the care that they need,” he continued.
Murthy spoke about some of the equity challenges leaders faced at the beginning of the pandemic. The approach the feds took to address some of those difficulties was similar to California’s strategy.
“Early on in the vaccination effort, we saw those disparities developing in the adult population with Black communities and Latino communities having lower vaccination rates than White communities,” Murthy said.
“But the good news is there has been a lot of effort over the last many months, which included a lot of outreach and partnerships with communities of color, with leaders and organizations in those communities, working hard to make sure we had mobile units out getting to communities to bring vaccines to where people are and getting vaccines directly to community health centers where we know a lot of folks get their care. All of these efforts together, along with making sure the vaccines are free and making sure as many doctors as possible have the vaccine in their offices, has helped us close a lot of that equity gap,” Murthy continued.
Even as vaccination booster shots are becoming more readily available around the country, the COVID-19 Delta variant remains a significant threat in the U.S. and around the world. So, public health leaders are focused on expanding efforts get as many people as possible access to vaccinations and booster shots.
“California is leading the nation in vaccinations, with 52 million administered and 86 % of the eligible population having received at least one dose – today’s Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup recommendation on booster shots will help keep the momentum going as we enter the winter months,” Newsom said last week.
California, Oregon, Nevada and Washington state came together last year and created the Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup. The group, made up of scientists, medical professionals and public health experts, is charged with reviewing COVID-19 vaccine safety.
Last week, the workgroup recommended booster shots for vulnerable people and those who live or work in high-risk settings – if they have received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine prior.
“Recipients of the Moderna vaccine may receive a booster shot six months after completing their primary vaccination series, and recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine may receive a booster shot two months after receiving their first dose,” the governor’s office said in a statement last week.
The workgroup also recommended a “mix-and-match” method, which means people who have received a Moderna vaccine can get a Johnson & Johnson booster shot and vice-versa.
Earlier this month, Newsom announced that California will be the first state in the nation to require children in middle school and high school to be vaccinated once COVID-19 vaccines for children are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The FDA and the CDC will review data from Pfizer during the next two weeks to decide if COVID-19 vaccines are safe for even younger children, ages 5 through 11.
“Right now, what is happening is that the FDA is examining the data from Pfizer about clinical trials that concern kids 5-11 and they’re looking for two things: first is to understand if these vaccines work to protect our children from COVID and second, are they safe,” Murthy explained.
“Until they complete their review and make a decision on whether or not to offer the vaccine, we certainly won’t recommend them to the public or make a move to roll out vaccines. It’s all contingent upon the FDA’s review and the CDC’s recommendation,” according to Murthy.
Murthy also addressed the myth that young children are somehow immune to the effects of COVID-19.
“Even though kids do better than adults when it comes to COVID-19, it is not benign in children. We want to protect our children from the virus, and we also know that COVID has disrupted our kids’ lives in terms of making school difficult, interrupting youth sports, and making it hard to see friends and family members. So, getting our kids vaccinated is a big step towards not only protecting their health but helping them get their lives back,” Murthy said.
Murthy stressed the importance of equity and said that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will continue to employ the same methods for children as they did for adults if the FDA and CDC approve vaccines for children in the 5-11 age range.
“We will bring the same commitment to vaccinating kids under 12. We are building on the great partnerships we have with community-based organizations and trusted leaders across the country. We are building on the access points that we’ve set up in the past and increasing those even further so there will be tens of thousands of places where people can get a vaccine for their children,” Murthy said.
California Black Media’s coverage of COVID-19 is supported by the California Health Care Foundation.
Starting SUNDAY, November 14, catch ya’ girl live on ‘Empire Talks Back’ with Mr. Wallace Allen for my segment of “What it Do with LUE” A PLATFORM SUPPORTING AND PROMOTING ASPIRING ARTIST’S.
I’ll be interviewing local artists and updating you on entertainment happenings in the Inland Empire. The show starts at 10:00 am. Make sure you tune in for the FUN! Checkout the website for updates at www.lueproductions.org. You can checkout who’ll be up next for an interview on the Facebook page under “What It Do with Lue” or “The Westside Story Newspaper”.
Remember every other Sunday! I’ll be giving away tickets to shows and more. If you’re an artist and would like to be on the show text me at 909.567.1000. Make sure you stay safe and give somebody a hug today. L’s!!!
AB AB 928 and AB 1111 make it easier for students to transfer into four-year universities
AB 1377 and SB 330 improve housing affordability for students, complementing the California Comeback Plan’s unprecedented $2 billion investment in student housing
NORTHRIDGE, CA – At California State University, Northridge today, Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation to improve college affordability and increase access to higher education and highlighted the historic $47.1 billion higher education package – the most ever invested in higher education in modern history.
“We’re turning commitments into reality by ensuring that our students have more access to high-quality educational opportunities, creating a change of course for generations to come and bolstering California’s innovation economy,” said Governor Newsom. “Californians have thrived at our world class universities for decades, but not everyone has had similar access – today that’s changing. Everyone deserves a shot at the ‘California Dream’ – we’re eliminating equity gaps and increasing opportunities at our universities to make those dreams a reality for more California students.”
“Over the last five years I’ve held hearings across California to discuss higher education issues,” said Assemblymember Marc Berman, Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on the Master Plan for Higher Education in California. “When students discussed their experience with the transfer process from community college to four-year university their message was loud and clear: transfer is too complex, confusing, and difficult to navigate. Instead of being a clear path, it’s a maze, and it’s costing students time and money that they can’t afford. Together, Assembly Bills 928 and 1111 will make it easier for students to achieve their educational goals. I am grateful that Governor Newsom signed these historic bills, and for the advocates and students who inspired these reforms.”
“From historic investments in financial aid and student housing that will benefit students to a radical revamping of transfer, 2021 is a landmark year for public higher education in California,” said California State University Chancellor Joseph I. Castro. “We appreciate the bold vision demonstrated by Governor Newsom and his commitment to further improving education access and outcomes throughout the Golden State.”
Increasing Transfer Rates for Underserved Students
Governor Newsom today signed legislation to help facilitate access to the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) systems for students to attain four-year degrees and help further prepare them for the economy of tomorrow:
AB 928 by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) – Requires the CSU and UC to jointly establish a singular lower division general education pathway for transfer admission into both segments. Also requires California Community Colleges (CCC) to place students who declare a goal of transfer on an Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT) pathway for their intended major, and establishes the ADT intersegmental implementation committee as the primary oversight entity.
AB 1111 by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) – Requires, by July 1, 2024, the CCCs adopt a common course numbering system (C-ID) at all community colleges and for each community college campus catalog. This common course numbering system is required to be student-facing and ensures that comparable courses across all community colleges have the same course number.
Finding Solutions to the Student Housing Crisis
On top of the unprecedented $2 billion investment to significantly increase affordable housing for students and help address the student housing crisis, Governor Newsom signed legislation to create long-overdue housing plans at the UC and CSU systems:
AB 1377 by Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) – Requires the CSU system, and requests the UC system, to conduct a student housing needs assessment for each campus, and create a student housing plan outlining how projected student housing needs will be met.
SB 330 by Senator María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) – Requires the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) to develop a pilot program to provide affordable housing to students or employees of LACCD. This bill also allows LACCD to enter into agreements with nonprofit or private entities to lease real property under certain conditions, in order to develop affordable housing.
Making Financial Aid More Accessible
Governor Newsom’s California Comeback Plan requires all students to submit a Free Application for Federal Aid (FAFSA) or California Dream Act application in order to significantly increase federal aid opportunities for California students, and today he signed legislation to further expand such supports:
AB 340 by Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego) – Conforms the state’s 529 college savings plan statute to recent changes in federal tax law, expanding allowable withdrawals from 529 plans to include expenses associated with participation in a registered apprenticeship program and student loan repayment.
AB 469 by Assemblymember Eloise Gómez Reyes (D-San Bernardino) – Requires, on or before September 1, 2022, and each year thereafter, the California Student Aid Commission and the California Department of Education to facilitate the completion of the Free Application for Student Aid and the California Dream Act Application, through the sharing of specified data.
SB 737 by Senator Monique Limón (D- Santa Barbara) – Modifies and expands criteria for which the California Student Aid Commission may apportion funds to support projects under the California Student Opportunity and Access program, and additionally expands the duties and responsibilities of funded projects.
Overall $47.1 Billion Higher Education Package
The Budget’s unprecedented level of investment in higher education reflects a continued commitment to affordability, more accessible institutions, higher quality programs, equitable outcomes, and more efficient degree pathways—all of which are critical for driving upward mobility across the state.
The Budget includes total funding of $47.1 billion ($25.7 billion General Fund and local property tax and $21.4 billion other funds) for all higher education entities in 2021-22. The state’s three public segments—the University of California (UC), the California State University (CSU), and the California Community Colleges (CCC)—receive substantial ongoing base augmentations, and the Budget includes significant investments to make postsecondary education more affordable, including expanding the state’s Cal Grant program to additional CCC students. Also included are investments to make college savings accounts widely available to low-income children; provide grants to advance training and education for workers impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic; promote learning-aligned, long-term career development opportunities; and support regional K-16 education collaboratives focused on streamlining educational pathways leading to in-demand jobs.
A full list of the bills signed by the Governor is below:
AB 245 by Assembymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco) – Educational equity: student records: name and gender changes.
AB 275 by Assemblymember Jose Medina (D-Riverside) – Classified community college employees.
AB 340 by Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego) – Golden State Scholarshare Trust: Personal Income Tax Law: gross income: deductions.
AB 417 by Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) – Rising Scholars Network: justice-involved students.
AB 424 by Assemblymember Mark Stone (D-Monterey Bay) – Private Student Loan Collections Reform Act: collection actions.
AB 469 by Assemblymember Eloise Gómez Reyes (D-San Bernardino) – Pupil instruction: financial aid applications.
AB 543 by Assemblymember Laurie Davies (R-Laguna Niguel) – Public postsecondary education: student orientation: CalFresh.
AB 576 by Assemblymember Brian Maienschein (D-San Diego) – Community colleges: apportionments: waiver of open course provisions: military personnel.
AB 615 by Assemblymember Freddie Rodriguez (D-Pomona) – Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act: procedures relating to employee termination or discipline.
AB 914 by Assemblymember Akilah Weber (D-San Diego) – Public postsecondary education: California State University: proficiency level of entering students.
AB 927 by Assemblymember Jose Medina (D-Riverside) – Public postsecondary education: community colleges: statewide baccalaureate degree program.
AB 928 by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) – Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act of 2021: Associate Degree for Transfer Intersegmental Implementation Committee.
AB 1002 by Assemblymember Steven Choi (R-Irvine) – Postsecondary education: course credit for prior military education, training, and service.
AB 1111 by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park) – Postsecondary education: common course numbering system.
AB 1113 by Assemblymember Jose Medina (D-Riverside) – Public postsecondary education: exemption from tuition and fees: qualifying survivors of persons providing medical or emergency services deceased during COVID-19 California state of emergency.
AB 1326 by Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula (D-Fresno) – Public social services: county liaison for higher education.
AB 1377 by Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) – Student housing plans.
SB 330 by Senator María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) – Los Angeles Community College District Affordable Housing Pilot Program.
SB 436 by Senator Brian Dahle (R-Bieber) – Community colleges: nonresident tuition.
SB 512 by Senator Dave Min (D-Irvine) – Public postsecondary education: support services for foster youth: Cooperating Agencies Foster Youth Educational Support Program.
SB 737 by Senator Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara) – California Student Opportunity and Access Program.
MIDDLETOWN, Va. — Winsome Sears has it all figured out. Black Virginians like her, she believes, are more conservative than they know and even more irked by a Democratic Party that takes them for granted. She hopes that with the right amount of righteous outrage she can bring them with her to the Republican promised land. Sears is the GOP’s nominee for lieutenant governor.
“The Democrats have been successful in instilling fear in people who look like me,” she told Zenger in a wide-ranging interview. “I have had white liberals talk down to me — talk down to me, and as if I didn’t exist — simply because I’m a Republican.”
“I mean, how dare you? Who told you you could talk to me that way? Because I’m not the right kind of black? Is that how this works?”
Developers who gentrify urban blocks and price black Virginians out of their own neighborhoods, she said, often work hand-in-hand with liberal politicians: “I think we have to consider that most of these places that they’re talking about — gentrification — they’re run by Democrats. They are run by Democrats. And so here we go again. We’re talking about — Republicans are supposedly racist, and Democrats are supposedly the ones who care more about you.”
Sears, who joined the U.S. Marines as an 18-year-old Jamaican immigrant, said black voters should be shoulder-to-shoulder with the GOP when it defends gun owners, especially armed women in urban areas. “What am I going to do? Tell these black women, ‘You can’t have guns’? I don’t think so,” said Sears. “When I’m waiting for the police to come, what do I do? How do I protect myself? I don’t know karate.”
She said her time in uniform didn’t shape her views on firearms, but the black community in Virginia’s Hampton Roads region did. “Do you know that the first gun confiscation laws were against black people? … We were the ones who immediately could not own guns, even though it’s our Second Amendment right,” she said. “And so we’re not going to do away with that.”
The National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund made headlines in June when it endorsed Winsome Sears and attorney general hopeful Jason Miyares, but not Glenn Youngkin, the Republican nominee for governor. Its website gives the Democrats in all three races “F” grades but leaves Youngkin with a literal question mark.
The NRA endorsed Republicans for Virginia governor in the last four elections. The organization did not respond to a question about why this year is different. Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter didn’t address the NRA directly, but said Youngkin “supports the right to keep and bear arms.” His opponent, former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe, “wants to repeal the Second Amendment and confiscate your guns,” said Porter. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not subject to repeal by any governor.
Sears said Virginians have the right to resist government initiatives that require COVID-19 vaccinations as broadly as possible. Pointing to the infamous Tuskegee experiments that subjected black men to syphilis for 40 years without medical treatment, she said that according to some in the Black Lives Matter movement, as many as 85 percent of African-Americans in New York are not vaccinated.
The city’s public health data indicate the number is a bit lower, 72 percent, counting all black New Yorkers between the ages of 18 and 44. “So what’s going to happen with them? Are they now not going to be able to get a job?” she asked. Sears mused about a future where “you have a restaurant employee, a waiter, checking your medical vaccine status. And by the way, you need a photo ID to prove that this is you on that vaccine record? Are you now going to check for HIV status?”
Spokeswoman Delceno Miles declined to say whether Sears is vaccinated. “As per HIPAA laws, she doesn’t have to disclose any medical information,” Miles said in an email. “Winsome encourages those who wish to take the vaccine to do so, but it should not be mandated.”
Sears believes many black Virginians have sympathized with her furrowed brow as state officials dismantle statues of Confederate generals. “The curious thing,” she said, “is that I have spoken to enough black people, and what they’re telling me is that they wanted the statues up, so that they could talk to their children about who this person was, what they did, what they didn’t do.”
And she would prefer to see a statue of a prominent African-American next to every Confederate statue that remains: “It would be wonderful if we could put up other statues of equal grandeur, to then talk about all of history, so that we could say this is what this person did. We could put up a Harriet Tubman.”
Sitting near the brick hearth of the Wayside Inn — the 18th-century lodge survived the Civil War only because soldiers from both sides stayed there, according to the owners — Sears said she wants to see America’s warring racial politics cool down.
“It is not 1963 when my father came,” she said, recalling her family’s roots in Jamaica. “We can now live where we want, we can eat where we want. We own the water fountains. Excuse me. So let’s not. Let’s stop it. Let’s live together.”
And she was viscerally offended in 2012, she says, watching then-Vice President Joe Biden campaign for re-election in the southern Virginia town of Danville. “Listen to his vernacular, his language,” she said, adopting a vocal caricature of a white man trying to affect a black accent. “‘Republicans are going — ’” Sears stops and ratchets the dialect up one notch, matching Biden’s. “‘Republicans gonna put y’all back in chains.’ Excuse me, who are you talking to?”
“And then when Hillary was in a black church, what did she say?” Sears asked, thinking about a 2007 campaign event at the First Baptist Church in Selma, Ala. “‘Ah don’t feel no ways taahred. I come too faaahr to turn back now,’” she says, mimicking Clinton’s sudden leap to the late gospel singer James Cleveland’s accent.
“This is what I’m saying. They take us for granted,” said Sears.
As a state delegate two decades ago, she represented a 60-percent black district that straddles Norfolk and Virginia Beach. Now she’s one of two women vying to make history in an office that has been exclusively male since the Virginia Constitution of 1851 created it. Her opponent is second-term Democratic Delegate Hala Ayala, whose district in a Washington, D.C., commuter county is nestled between the Manassas Civil War battlefield a giant outlet mall. It’s also 69 percent white.
Ayala has a 4-point polling edge in the latest Christopher Newport University Wason Center for Civic Leadership poll, a nonpartisan survey released Oct. 8. She also has the advantage of being a current lawmaker with party relationships to mine and favors to collect. Sears was vice president of the state board of education a decade ago but hasn’t held elective office since 2004, when she left the House of Delegates and unsuccessfully challenged Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott for his seat in Congress.
But her place in history as Virginia’s first black female Republican lawmaker created enough enthusiasm this year among GOP voters to whisk her past two better-funded contenders during a nominating convention in May.
Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears speaks at a campaign rally at the Danville Community Market on October 26, 2021, in Danville, Virginia. Sears was Virginia’s first black female Republican lawmaker, which helped create enough enthusiasm this year among GOP voters to bolster her candidacy. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
She did it without strong positions on two slow-boiling issues.
A Texas law that significantly limited the accessibility of abortion by allowing citizens to sue doctors and nurses who perform them. Would it be a good thing if Virginia lawmakers imitated it? “We’re not in Texas, and I’m not going to talk about that,” she said.
Still, Sears is pro-life with the same guardrails that have kept anti-abortion Republicans in the hunt for women’s votes. “I believe that the baby in the womb wants to live,” she told Zenger. “I also believe that, you know, we have to make sure that the life and health of the mother is respected. So that she has those options. The life and health of the mother.”
Should the next governor phase out an unpopular personal property tax on cars? “Well, we have to find a way to fund government as well. So we have to be careful with what we’re doing,” she said. The annual tax, the steepest of its kind in America, varies from county to county but averages about 4 percent of resale value.
Haggling with tax-enthusiastic politicians over the value of used cars might become Sears’ reality again, but for now it’s a world away.
She lives in Winchester, an apple-orchard town more than 220 miles from her old district. The move came after her eldest daughter, DeJon Williams, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Sears and her husband, Williams’ stepfather, cared for her and eventually for Williams’ two daughters.
All three — Sears’s daughter and granddaughters — would perish in a 2012 car crash when Williams, according to police, slammed into a car at “a high rate of speed” as its driver turned onto the highway in front of her. Victoria was 7. Faith was 5.
The years of grief that followed, said Sears, gave her perspective about which issues are big and which are small. And it led her toward career choices that run far afield from the lawyer she wanted to become after she served in the U.S. Marines. A few, she said, confound some voters’ expectations of a Republican.
“I’ve run a homeless shelter for women and children. I’ve had people be surprised by that [and] ask, ‘How could a Republican care about the homeless people?’” she said.
“I led the men’s prison ministry. Every Wednesday, I was there, six o’clock, delivering a message of hope,” said Sears. “These are the things that we do in our lives, and we don’t do them for accolades. We do them because we care.”
Zenger asked her to react to this month’s tussle between transgender activists and comedian Dave Chappelle, whose latest Netflix special minimizes that community’s comparatively fast track to civil rights by attributing it to their whiteness. “I’ve never had a problem with transgender people,” Chapelle says in the broadcast. “My problem has always been with white people.”
Sears didn’t want to discuss it. “I want to be left alone. I want you to leave me alone. I want you to live your life,” she said in a moment of quiet libertarian exhibitionism.
“I’m trying to live my life the best way I know how,” she said. “I’ve got my own problems. And when you’ve had three children go to heaven in one night, you see the world a little differently.”
Sears said she loves gardening — “I had a 20-pound watermelon, I couldn’t even pick it up” — and that her favorite comfort food is Caribbean ackee and saltfish. “It’s the Jamaican national dish and I could eat it all day,” she said.
And she laughed at a question about her first pet growing up in Jamaica: “It was a chicken.”
Did it have a name? “No, because we killed her and ate her!”
“You know, I thought of her as my pet until one day we killed her,” said Sears. “We always had dogs and cats and things like that. But this chicken was my chicken.”
Edited by Kristen Butler
Visuals Edited by Claire Swift, John Diaz and Bennett Chess
A novel approach to treating type 2 diabetes under development at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology uses tissue engineering to create muscle cells that absorb sugar at increased rates.
Diabetic mice treated in this manner displayed normal blood sugar levels for months after a single autograft procedure using their own enhanced muscle cells.
“By taking cells from the patient and treating them, we eliminate the risk of rejection,” Levenberg said.
Type 2 diabetes is caused by insulin resistance and cells’ reduced inability to absorb sugar, leading to increased blood-sugar levels. Its long-term complications include heart disease, strokes, retina damage, kidney failure and poor blood flow in the limbs.
Although this chronic and common disease can be treated by a combination of lifestyle changes, medication and insulin injections, ultimately it is associated with a 10-year reduction in life expectancy.
Currently, around 34 million Americans suffer from diabetes, mostly type 2. An effective treatment could significantly improve both quality of life and life expectancy. The same method could also be used to treat various enzyme deficiency disorders.
Professor Shulamit Levenberg and PhD student Rita Beckerman. (Courtesy of Technion Spokesperson’s Office)
Researchers observed that the engineered muscle cells not only absorbed sugar correctly, improving blood-sugar levels, but also induced improved absorption in the mice’s other muscle cells.
After the procedure, the mice remained diabetes-free for four months — the entire period they remained under observation. Their blood-sugar levels remained lower, and they had reduced levels of fatty liver normally seen in type 2 diabetes.
Findings from the study, funded by Rina and Avner Schneur as part of the Rina and Avner Schneur Center for Diabetes Research, were recently published in Science Advances.
Other scientists participating in the study are from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto; and Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City.
Other advances in the field by Israeli companies include LifeWave, a connected health solution that produces a device for treating diabetic wounds, and LabStyle Innovations, which was co-founded by Shiloh Ben Zeev. Its flagship product is MyDario, a compact glucose meter connected to mobile devices through a diabetes management app.
“It was the first time an iPhone was used as a medical device,” said Ben Zeev, whose business model was to sell test strips for the glucometer.
Although MyDario won awards for its revolutionary approach, ultimately what survived was the app rather than the device.
There’s no way to overcome losing a decade of your life by being in prison. It’s even tougher when you were wrongfully convicted of a crime.
When Jarrett Adams was 17, he attended a college party that changed his life forever. An innocent make-out session led to Adams being accused of rape. An important statement from an eyewitness was withheld from the trial, and subsequently led to Adams being sentenced to 28 years in jail.
Eventually, with the assistance of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, the eyewitness statement was released, Adams’ conviction was reversed, and he was exonerated — but only after having already served 10 years of his sentence. Seeking to keep others from suffering the same fate, Adams set his sights on the other side of the legal system by becoming a top defense and civil rights attorney.
He is also an author, and his recently released book, “Redeeming Justice,” is testimony to his refusal to give up on himself. It points out the cracks in a flawed system and shows his commitment to fighting the very system that failed him.
During a recent conversation with Adams, Zenger got a detailed breakdown of what led to his sentence, why he felt compelled to write “Redeeming Justice,” and much more.
Percy Crawford interviewed Jarrett Adams for Zenger.
Zenger: I can relate to your story, given the fact that in 1998 you were 17 years old, and I was 18 years old. The only difference is, I was playing high school football, and you were fighting for your freedom. You were falsely accused of rape — how did this situation come on you?
Adams: It was scary if you think about it because I often time tell people, I wasn’t in and out of juvie (juvenile centers), doing drive-by shootings or none of the stereotypical stuff that people would throw on us and say, this kid was bound to be a statistic. What we would do, me and my friends would get together and go party outside of the neighborhood because it was so damn dangerous. If you’re not getting shot or shot at by the dudes on the street, you’re getting pulled over and hoping you survive an encounter with the police in your neighborhood.
Percy Crawford interviewed Jarrett Adams for Zenger. (Heidi Malone/Zenger)
We got together and we would do this often. We would tell each other’s parents, “I’m going to spend the night at so-and-so’s house.” We would take off, go to these house parties, and we did that on this night like we did many nights. We went to a college party. The same things that we did was what everybody on campus was doing.
There were make-out sessions in every room, people were drinking and smoking. It was an embarrassing situation that this young lady’s roommate walked in on, but it was not criminal, man. We weren’t them kids. Who would be stupid enough to be the only three black dudes on the campus, go rape a white girl in a dorm full of white people, and allow the roommate to walk in, take a halftime break, and then come back and continue to rape? It never made sense.
We have been depicted in such a way historically that it makes it easy for people to believe the most demonized thing that they can about a young black man — even if you’re faced with the reality of, “Hold on, this doesn’t make sense.” You never give the benefit of the doubt to the young black man. That’s how the system has been designed. My mom used to say all the time: “You can’t do what other kids do.” I never understood the depths of that, but what she was saying was, ain’t nobody giving you the benefit of the doubt when you’re a young African American kid. That’s what life was.
Zenger: The cops got involved; you were eventually arrested for this. At 17, you had to be scared to death.
Adams: It was scary… the real reason it was scary is this: I come from a household where you respect your elders, you don’t talk back, the same way you was raised down South. My people [are] from Jackson and Cleveland, Mississippi. I get home from this party, and about three weeks later, there is a card in my door telling me to come down to the police station, robbery/homicide. So, I call the guy, and I’m like, “You definitely got the wrong person.” And he was like, “No, you’re right. I want you to come on down and take a picture and clear your name. You’ve never been arrested before.”
I take my dumb ass down there listening to this dude. I’m 17 and he tricked me. Brother, listen to me when I tell you, and I know you’re going to feel me when I say this. I thought I had nothing to worry about because I was telling the truth. I was so naïve. I hadn’t had those experiences. As a result of that, it sent my life on a tailspin. That experience woke a sleeping legal giant.
This wasn’t one of those, there is an accusation made, and the police come and arrest me on the spot. No! That never happened. What saved our life is this, and this is why I encourage everyone to read the book because it gives you all the details of how it went down. And what’s important is this: After this young lady’s roomie walks in and they start arguing, we all go downstairs in the smoking area. We’re in the smoking area and that’s when we see all of the college students, and again, we’re the only black dudes there.
It saved our life, because there was a white student named Shawn Demain who had given them a statement the day after this false accusation like, “That’s not what happened. We saw the black dudes, they were up and down the stairs, they were all around.” They withheld that statement from us. We never got that statement from them to be able to use it. It changed the trajectory of everything. That statement is what led to the reversal of my conviction 10 years later.
Jarrett Adams’ verdict was overturned and he became a lawyer determined to help others avoid a similar fate. (Courtesy Jarrett Adams)
Zenger: While in prison, you decided you didn’t want to just fight for your injustice but for others wrongfully incarcerated as well. You come out, you pass the bar and become a criminal defense attorney. Tell us about the aftermath of being released from prison.
Adams: It wasn’t an easy feat at all. There was so much life lost. Imagine screaming you’re innocent to the top of your lungs for a decade, and then finally, the courts agree. They overturned my conviction, expunged my record, but the damage was not expunged. I missed the cookouts, I missed the graduations, the birth of family members. You can’t replace that. You can’t replace sitting down and being introduced to the family members who were born while you were locked up, and they looking at you like, “Who is this?”
I vividly remember coming home and visiting people in nursing homes, I’m taking them to dialysis, I’m walking around the neighborhood, and I don’t see a pay phone. I remember getting on the bus with a handful of tokens, and they looking at me like a damn fool. The bus doesn’t take tokens no more.
I want you to highlight this as well:I wouldn’t be where I am right now without the encouragement of my family to get mental health care and to decompress. Let it out. That’s what a lot of our young kids need, and they’re not going to do it unless the people in front of them that they look up to are bold enough to talk about it and share their pain and story. I was angry, man. It wasn’t God-like. A fire within you is good, but you need to keep it in your belly; if not, it will consume you.
I had to learn how to keep the fire in my belly and to not let it consume me overall. Therapy just let me talk about it. You ever been going through something, and you got it out, whether you cried it out, talked it out, you have that relief. That’s exactly what mental health care is. Think about the cities down there in Louisiana and think about Illinois, think about what our babies see on a regular basis. You can’t tell me that ain’t stressful. If it is, it’s not post-nothing, it’s persistent traumatic stress syndrome. If it wasn’t for my family getting me to redirect my energy in a positive light, I probably would have tried to take a shortcut.
Zenger: I read where you said, when you came out of prison, your mom gave you a phone and the first time she texted you, you didn’t even know what a text message was.
Adams: Exactly! When the message came through, I had no clue what it was. Part of the reason I wanted them to put your call through… because my schedule crazy, but I wanted them to slide you in because I get a lot of reporters sticking mics in my face now. I can be sitting on the porch with you right now talking. That’s how comfortable you and I are vibin’ right now. It’s important that we tell each other’s stories as well.
Jarrett Adams’ new book has received shout-outs from the NBA’s Allen Iverson and actor Larenz Tate. (Courtesy Jarrett Adams)
Zenger: Not to give away too much of the book because it’s a must-read, but I have to ask you, do you feel the system is broken or intentionally flawed?
Adams: This is how I would explain it: The system is designed flawed. When we say it’s a broken system, there was an idea that was created around the criminal justice system, the reason why it was flawed is because the people who created it didn’t look like me, you, or any other ethnic person. I’ll give you an example. If you get accused of whatever it is you get accused of, and when you get accused of it, Percy gotta put up his house, or Jarrett gotta put up his land or property.
That sounds good for people who have houses and property. When the people created the criminal justice system and all the things in it, they didn’t take into account people like me and you, our mothers and fathers. If they didn’t design it to equally protect us, it’s going to disproportionately impact us. That’s what’s going on. We don’t throw away the entire idea of cooking with gas just because it burned a steak. We go back in, we acknowledge it, and we fix it.
Zenger: What influenced you to write “Redeeming Justice?”
Adams: I send a shout-out to black women. I used to wonder, “Why the hell I have to always call you when I’m leaving out the house, or just a couple of blocks away, momma? Why I gotta call you when the streetlights coming on or you heard an ambulance? Why do you have to be so worried?” You know what, Percy, I will never ask that question again because I see why. The boys these black women give birth to that they pray become men are under direct threat, and the men that they love and conceive with are under direct threat. Nobody has been stronger than black women in history.
What I wanted to do was tip my cap to my mother and my two aunts. They remained and stood firm. Brother, you know how many family members get lost when you go through something like the joint. I could’ve written the book and clearly said, death to all the people involved, they’re racist, but that wasn’t going to accomplish my goal. I wanted to make sure I acknowledge the black women, the suffrage and the praying. I have had mothers come up to me in the airport and say, “Look, I just want to thank you because that scene you describe of your mother crying in the bathtub was me.”
Zenger: How does it make you feel to receive support from Allen Iverson, Larenz Tate and so many others on the book?
Adams: It means that the light is coming on. If you look back, it was more than Dr. [Martin Luther] King, it was more than Malcolm X and Harriet Tubman. Those are the names they told us about. But there were several other people who were on the front lines moving this thing along. I’m praying through people like A.I. and Larenz that folks understand I’m a part of that generational torch carrier, a person who is leading other people and preparing their hands to carry it the rest of the way. This is about duplication.
This isn’t about Jarrett Adams, this isn’t about the brand, this is about preparing the next hand to carry the torch. That’s what we have to do.
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