By Tanu Henry and Joe W. Bowers Jr. | California Black Media
The federal government is investing more than $400 billion in projects around the United States through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which was passed by President Biden in 2021.
“Small businesses, particularly those that are minority-and women- owned, hold enormous potential to bolster our economy, but they have historically faced disproportionate barriers to succeed in America,” said Padilla in a statement.
“The unprecedented investment in American infrastructure from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law over the next decade provides a major opportunity to create good-paying jobs that uplift disadvantaged communities,” Padilla continued. “These bills would provide the resources to help women and minority entrepreneurs develop self- sufficiency in competing for federal contracts, helping to build prosperity in communities that have too often been left behind.”
President Biden has committed to increasing the participation of disadvantaged businesses in government contracting by 50% by 2025.
If passed, among other provisions, the bills would increase funding by $15 for a training program that helps minority-owned small business to compete for federal government contracts.
It would “would create a grant program to fund transportation agency programs to help underserved businesses grow and compete on an equal basis for contracts and subcontracts in federally funded transportation projects,” according to a press release from Padilla’s office.
By Tanu Henry, Lila Brown and Joe W. Bowers Jr. | California Black Media
On November 20, a group of 14 public and private sector executives in Los Angeles pledged their commitment to ensure that Black and other minority business owners receive a fairer shot at obtaining public contracting opportunities on infrastructure projects.
Record, a publication widely recognized as “the bible of the construction industry.”
The Forum convened hundreds of infrastructure leaders from across California and around the nation. It also marked the second anniversary of President Biden’s signing of the historic federal infrastructure law.
The leaders announced that California Secretary of Transportation Toks Omishakin will serve as Chair of the EIP’s California Plan initiative.
In his remarks before the signing, Omishakin pointed out the need to move from symbolic acts of inclusion to more material efforts for achieving equity.
“We can’t just put a policy in place as if it’s good to go. We have to take additional steps like the ones we’re taking today to say we’re committed to making sure this $1.2 trillion that’s coming in from President Biden gets to firms that are often are overlooked as a part of the process,”Omishakin told California Black Media (CBM).
“Governor Newsom has done a similar effort that also ensures the investments that we’re making across California reaches communities that have been overlooked for years,” he added. “Every single person deserves the chance to be successful. It’s an honor for us to be a part of the Equity in Infrastructure Project.”
EIP’s says its mission is to build generational wealth and reduce the racial wealth gap by improving public infrastructure contracting practices to create more prime, joint venture and equity contracting opportunities for Historically Underutilized Businesses (HUBs), according to the group’s website.
EIP’s Pledge has now been signed by 55 heads of transit authorities, airports, ports, water districts, and engineering firms from across the country, and the White House has directly called upon Bipartisan Infrastructure Law grantees to sign the Pledge.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell introduced the unanimously approved motion that committed the County to the Pledge.
“We commit to tripling the total number of certified small businesses in LA County with a special emphasis on infrastructure servicing small minority businesses,” said Mitchell.
“We are establishing a $2M revolving loan fund to support startup costs as small businesses obtain County contracts and we will create a network of Small Business Advocates with each County department and empower them to advance small business goals and inclusive procurement practices,” Mitchell added. We must ensure that our small and minority firms have the technical assistance they need to access these career-changing government contracts.”
The Pledge was also signed by leaders from the Los Angeles Metro, Port, Airport, Department of Water & Power, and other executives from cities around the region.
By Tanu Henry, Antonio Ray Harvey and Joe W. Bowers Jr. | California Black Media
In recognition of Veterans Day on November 12, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA-12) urged military veterans to submit claims for burn pit exposure, which research has shown is linked to several illnesses, including some cancers.
“This Veterans Day, let us recognize the courageous servicemembers and their families who have sacrificed so much on behalf of our nation,” stated Lee, whose father was also a servicemember.
According to Lee, funds for treating veterans affected by ailments linked to burn pit exposure was made possible by the Honoring Our PACT Act, federal legislation President Biden signed into law in 2022.
“It delivered more than $2.46 billion dollars in PACT Act benefits to veterans,” the statement from Lee’s office read.
“Additionally, 1,103,860 total PACT Act-related claims have been submitted, more than 4.6 million veterans have received new toxic exposure screenings, and more than 426,000 new veterans have enrolled in VA health care,” Lee’s statement continued.
Lee is currently in the race for California U.S. Senator. According to a Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted in October, at 9%, Lee is trailing three frontrunners: Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA-47) at 17%; Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA-30) at 16%; and Republican Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player at 10%.
Voting rights was the central theme at a virtual breakfast the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC) held Jan. 12 to celebrate the sacrifices and impact of Martin Luther King Jr. on American life and politics.
“It is not enough to evoke Dr. King’s name on his birthday, post on social media and then take the day off,” said Sen. Steve Bradford (D-Inglewood), CLBC chair, reminding the audience of King’s activism and how his efforts led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Bradford said there are forces still attacking the rights of some Americans to vote, and more work needs to be done to make sure the voices of all Americans are heard and that all voters have access to the ballot box.
“His birthday should be about a day on, a day of activity in our community, of activism and continuing to push for real change in this country,” he continued.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who is a former chair of the CLBC, said “the crisis of democracy is center stage, we are still fighting for our fundamental rights.”
“In 1965, we secured [the vote] and now we find ourselves debating the same issue over again and with great concern about the fact that we are faced with the rolling back of what we had thought was just old stuff that people would never go back to,” said Weber.
A day before the CLBC breakfast, President Biden and Vice President Harris visited Atlanta to emphasize the importance of protecting voting rights. Although, the House of Representatives voted a day later to pass the Freedom to Vote: John Lewis Act, the legislation is in jeopardy of not passing in the U.S. Senate as two Democratic Senators — Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) — refuse to change the rules allowing a minority of senators to block legislation.
Weber said there are about 400 bills making their way through state legislatures across the country that are attempting to restrict voting rights.
“Here we are now in this century, in this timeframe, in 2022, and we are talking about something that took place in 1965 in terms of the Voting Rights Act,” said Weber. “Dr. King told us, ‘I see governors with the words of interposition and nullification dripping from their lips.’ In other words, ‘I see Jim Crow laws. I see governors trying to overturn federal law with regards to what is right and what is just in this country.’”
Civil rights activist and friend of Dr. King, Rev. James Lawson, also spoke at the virtual breakfast and encouraged Black leaders to fight for their communities.
“Black elected officials must support the community of Black people all around the country, organizing continuous campaigns,” said Lawson who shared intimate details of his work with Dr. King and how much King’s ideas, strategizing and activism secured the human rights of all Americans.
During a press call on the same day, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement Cedric Richmond spoke about the historical weight of the current voting rights standoff among lawmakers in Washington.
“Our democracy has faced defining moments many times in our history and this is one of those,” said Richmond. “This will be a question of what side you want to be on.”
Lawson called for community leaders to “dismantle plantation capitalism” and praised the work of other Black leaders that led to civil rights legislation during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.
“The greatest use of law and nonviolent tactic was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Many movements were in it, and we must not forget Little Rock Nine, Jackie Robinson’s desegregation of baseball and so on. It helped the Black community come together,” said Lawson.
WASHINGTON — When Georgia surprised many by choosing both Democratic Party candidates in the dual run-off elections for its two Senate seats on Jan. 5, many of the 500 pastors of the state’s African Methodist Episcopal Church thought their years of organizing had paid off.
Coming two months after Georgia was carried by now-President Joseph R. Biden Jr in the presidential election — making then-President Donald J. Trump the first Republican to lose the state since the country’s last one-term president, George H.W. Bush, in 1992 — it seemed to many that a new golden era of Democratic ascendency in Washington, D.C., was beckoning.
With black voters playing such a pivotal role in the Democrats taking back control of the White House, Senate and House, a long laundry list of legislative change now seemed feasible.
A woman waits with in line with her son at a polling station on January 5 in LaGrange, Georgia. Polls opened across Georgia in the two runoff elections, pitting incumbent Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler against Democratic candidates Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Both Democrats won. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Six months on, though, a new reality has set in, as Biden and congressional Democrats have struggled to make much headway on any of those goals — or even articulate a plan of action.
For many who worked so hard for the 2020 victories, it’s been a disheartening start.
“My hope has always been that we would put all of our best efforts forward in the elections process — by registering people to vote, by turning out the vote — and our hope is for some justice and fairness to be achieved [through that process],” Rev. Gerald Durley, interim Pastor of the historic West Hunter Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, told Zenger News.
“My hope was by this time, with a 50-50 [split] in the Senate with [Vice President] Kamala Harris breaking the tie, that some form of equity would be done. That was just my hope.”
With staunch Republican opposition to the Democrats’ legislative agenda, and Democratic Party moderates like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) and Sen. Kyrsten L. Sinema (D-Ariz.) standing in the way of colleagues altering the GOP’s filibuster powers in the Senate, the Democrats have appeared hamstrung, unable so far to convert slim majorities into legislative change.
Sen. Kyrsten L. Sinema (D-Ariz.), right, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), left, arrive for a meeting on infrastructure in Washington D.C. on June 8. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Rev. William Lamar, who for years preached in Georgia but is now at the Metropolitan AME church in Washington, D.C., told Zenger he had hosted a group of pastors from Georgia who made the trip to the capital last week hoping to see some major legislative bills make headway.
The group, Rev. Lamar said, were hopeful a bill such as S-1, a voting rights protection act opposed by the Republican Party but put forward by the Democrats as their main legislative priority, might nevertheless make some movement through the Senate. With Republicans threatening the filibuster — which presently requires 10 GOP senators to join with the slim Democratic majority to pass anything — the act stalled; instead, the Republicans joined the Democrats to unanimously pass a bill making June 19’s “Juneteenth” celebrations a federal holiday.
Amid the GOP’s opposition to any of the Democrats’ substantive legislative proposals — and the Democrats’ so far ineffective response — it was hard to interpret the unanimous support of the Republicans in the Senate as anything other than a cop-out, the reverend said.
“If anyone has any allusion about the American imperial project after yesterday in the Senate, they have taken leave of sanity,” he said after the Senate declined to consider the S-1 bill but passed the Juneteenth holiday. “They believe that giving us political and economic trinkets will keep us quiet, but we must ask the questions of who we are and what we want to be.”
“It is time for us to be the church of Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman,” he added, referring to abolitionists who eschewed “moderation” for subversion and rebellion in fighting for freedom.
A woman dresses as Harriet Tubman in front of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King Jr.’s home parish, as people prepare for a parade for Juneteenth on June 19, 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia. Juneteenth marks the end of slavery in the United States and the Juneteenth National Independence Day became the 12th legal federal holiday signed in June 17, 2021. (Megan Varner/Getty Images)
Yet for others, the recent Senate roadblocks are just the latest in a long line of hurdles that can ultimately be overcome.
Speaking at the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Juneteenth, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) noted that achieving change has always been hard — but ultimately worth it.
“President Abraham Lincoln knew that the Emancipation Proclamation would not be enough — that is why he had to get the 13th Amendment passed,” Rep. Green said, noting that Lincoln had, in the end, even been assassinated before the passage of the slavery-abolishing amendment.
Even that was not the end of the story, he added.
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) speaks in front of the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 19. (Hamil Harris)
“The 13th wasn’t enough: We had to pass the 14th Amendment to acquire citizenship and equality under the law. But the 14th Amendment was not enough: We had to pass the 15th Amendment,” he said, pointing out how hard-won change can be. “The 13th Amendment freed the slaves, the 14th Amendment gave us citizenship, and the 15th Amendment gave us the right to vote.”
Other leaders see enduring lessons in different periods of black struggle.
Bishop Reginald Jackson, the prelate for the 6th Episcopal District of Georgia in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, said that in the absence of effective political power, he is turning to the strategies of Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders from last century.
Though political change may not always be immediately possible, keeping up the fight to ensure things do not go backward, and that change may be possible tomorrow, is just as important.
Bishop Reginald Jackson, left, and Rev. William Lamar, right, in Washington, D.C. on June 19. (Hamil Harris)
“The Black Church again has to provide leadership, because voter suppression not only affects people of color,” Jackson said, arguing that today’s fight was something much bigger. “It affects democracy, especially when you look at what they are trying to do in Georgia.”
Yet that means some important fights will — not for the first time — be postponed.
On June 22, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee heard Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser argue for a bill to make her city the 51st state — a move opposed by the GOP, which fears giving their opponents two more senators in perpetuity.
“There is no legal or constitutional barrier to DC statehood; the prevailing constitutional issue is the civil rights violation of 700,000 DC residents who fulfill all obligations of U.S. citizenship, but are denied any representation in this body,” Bowser said. She noted that the states of Wyoming and Vermont have smaller populations than the District and each get two senators.
Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks during a hearing on “Examining D.C. Statehood” before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on June 22. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“I can say unequivocally that the bill before you today, S-51, the Washington D.C. Admission Act, is constitutional,” the mayor argued before the Senate, largely in vain. “Dozens of America’s most recognized constitutional experts had testified before Congress and penned letters to that effect.”
Wielding the Senate filibuster — and with Sens. Manchin and Sinema holding steadfast in their refusal to amend it — Senate Republicans, comfortable in their minority position in Congress, still barely need to bother to muster an argument against the long-sought Democratic goal.
“Any individual that moves to Washington, D.C., understands that Washington, D.C. is unique,” Sen. James Lankford (D-Okla.) said, denying that any District residents were disenfranchised.
Yet until such a time as the Democrats can win enough votes to break the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate, the reality of the situation is unlikely to change.
For Rev. Durley of the West Hunter Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, that’s the challenge at hand.
“Am I disappointed? Yes. Am I frustrated? Yes!” he said.
A year ago, K-12 education was closed across California as part of an effort to mitigate the spread of the COVID -19 virus.
At that time, it was assumed that children could be a primary driver of the virus like they are Influenza A. It took a few months, but health officials determined that COVID -19 is not a pediatric driven pandemic.
Young kids can get the virus, but they are not significant transmitters. Most experience mild or no symptoms and while some might have to be hospitalized, death is rare for children. Children under 15 have a lower risk of dying from COVID-19 than dying from the flu or suicide. A side effect of the virus is a serious and rare illness called multisystem inflammatory syndrome or MIS-C, which can be fatal or cause lasting heart damage.
In states where schools have restarted in person classes, data show levels of transmission of the virus is much lower than in the surrounding community when strict safety protocols developed by public health officials have been adopted. The safety protocols include universal masking, basic hand hygiene, classroom ventilation, maintaining increased physical distance, and contact tracing.
While guidelines for the safe opening of schools have been available for months from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and the 58 California county health departments, according to federal data California has lagged other states in offering in-person instruction to students. 18 % of California schools offer in-person learning compared to all schools in Florida and 62 % in Connecticut. Schools in California have not been able to open while their county was in the most restrictive purple tier indicating high case rates of COVID-19.
Many school districts including Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified have recently announced plans to make in-person instruction available to students who want it. President Biden has been pushing for all K-8 schools to open by May 1 which is the 100th day of his administration. As part of the push to safely reopen schools the Biden administration is allocating about $125 Billion for K-12 education as part of the American Rescue Plan.
In an effort to salvage what’s left of this academic year and prepare for the 2021-22 school year, the Legislature passed Assembly Bill (AB) 86 and Governor Newsom signed it, offering a $2 Billion COVID-19 safety fund for school districts in the red tier to share if they manage to offer in-person instruction for grades K-6 and at least one middle or high school grade by April 1. For those that can’t, they will lose 1 percent of the incentive every day they are not open through mid-May.
Newsom said when he signed AB 86, “There is nothing more foundational to an equitable society than getting our kids safely back into classrooms. Our kids are missing too may rites of passage – field trips, proms, and graduations.”
Students and parents are anxious for schools to safely open for in-person instruction. The term “learning loss” has become synonymous with distance learning which was only intended to be used by school districts for a short period of time. For many students, the year that they have been shut up at home has not only taken a toll on their academic progress but affected their mental health and society may be reckoning with the fallout for many years to come.
In general, Black and Latino children have struggled more academically than their Asian and White peers. Keeping up with schoolwork has been complicated by not having access to technology and reliable internet. Concentrating on studies has been more difficult when they live in communities that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
For many families remote learning created a childcare crisis, forcing some parents to leave their jobs. Many parents became frustrated with balancing jobs and supervising their children’s lessons.
The power to restart in-class instruction is vested in local school boards. It’s their responsibility to develop a plan for the safe opening of their schools relying on direction from the governor and Legislature and following safety protocols provided by the CDC and state and local public health directives.
The willingness of parents to send their kids back to the classroom varies based on their experience dealing with Covid-19 which is related to race, ethnicity and income. White and wealthier families that are frustrated with remote learning and as a group has been least affected by the virus are demanding resumption of in person instruction. They trust that their school district can safely reopen.
Black and Latino parents while wanting their children to return to school have experienced the inequitable impact of Covid-19 and are concerned about exposing their children to the virus in a school setting and bringing it home. While these parents understand their children are not faring well academically and mentally with distance learning they are not willing to risk their safety.
Contributing to the unease that Black and Latino parents have about school reopening classrooms has been their children’s teachers expressing their hesitancy to returning to school without all teachers and staff having the opportunity to be vaccinated. Studies show that transmission in schools appears to be primarily from teacher to teacher, then from teacher to student, but almost never from student to teacher. So vaccinating teachers is important to everyone’s school safety.
While the stance that the teachers took may have delayed in-school learning, Newsom decided that 10 % of vaccines a week would be reserved for teachers and other school staff. Although AB 86 and CDC guidelines have not included vaccinating teachers in the strategy for safe school reopening, school districts have included it as part of their teacher union agreements. In addition, regular testing of students and staff is another strategy being adopted by school districts to detect virus on campus before it can spread.
While zero risk of COVID-19 infection is not possible, results from hundreds of school districts opened across the county and the world show virtually no communal spread of the virus, if safety
protocols are followed. By listening to the concerns expressed by teachers, school districts have made in-person instruction safer for students and given parents more confidence to send their kids back to school.
About the Author
Joe W. Bowers Jr. is an advocate for education opportunities for all and the education writer for CBM. He is a former corporate engineer and business executive and is a graduate of Stanford University.
Debt collectors will have more access to you next year.
Consumer Reports reported that a new rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will allow debt collectors to contact consumers by email, text message, and social media platforms. The ruling would permit collectors to place up to seven debt-collection phone calls per week with an unlimited number of attempts through messaging platforms as well as email.
“The rule clarifies how debt collectors can use email, text messages, social media, and other contemporary methods to communicate with consumers,” wrote Kathleen L. Kraninger, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director, in a post for the bureau. “And our rule will allow consumers, if they prefer, to limit the ability of debt collectors to communicate with them through these newer communication methods.”
This can pose a threat to marginalized communities that have more debt. Data shows that 45% of people who live in predominantly Black or Hispanic areas have debt currently in collections, compared to 27% of people living in predominantly White areas. A 2017 survey by CFPB also showed that over 20% more borrowers of color were continuously contacted about their debt as opposed to 29% of White borrowers.
Critics also worry that the ruling doesn’t enforce collectors to verify the debt to the consumer, which can allow for more harassment for debt consumers may not be legally responsible for.
“Debt collectors are notorious for hounding consumers and filing lawsuits about debts that have already been paid off or were never owed in the first place,” said Suzanne Martindale, who works on financial issues Consumer Reports.“The CFPB’s new rule does nothing about this egregious practice, and fails to ensure that debt collectors can prove that money is actually owed and they have the legal right to pursue the debt.”
A spokesperson for Facebook and Instagram said the company is currently “in the process of reviewing this new rule and will work with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the coming months to understand its effect on people who use our services,” according to Consumer Reports. Twitter has yet to publicly comment on the new rule.
The Biden for President Victory Fund invites the public to join Senator Kamala Harris, Maya Harris, Andrew Young, and special guests for “A Celebration” on Saturday, October 24, 2020. The time will be announced upon registration.
Special guests include Margaret Cho, Connie Chung, David Henry Hwang, Padma Lakshmi, Lucy Liu, Aasif Mandvi, Kumail Nanjiani, Ravi Patel, Lou Diamond Philips, Maggie Q, Lea Salonga, and George Takei.
Nationally syndicated talk show host and author Wilmer Leon believes despite what most political polls are saying and making history at their convention, Democrats still face an uphill battle to defeat President Donald J. Trump in November’s election.
The host of Sirius/XM’s “Inside The Issues” says there are flaws in Democrats’ political strategy and the prospects for voter suppression are real.
He also believes many of the policies are already in place that are designed to deny and discourage minorities the chance to vote or not to have their votes counted.
As the author of “Politics: Another Perspective,” the political scientist and former Howard University professor gives the Republicans credit for their ability to “stay on message” and their marketing strategy gives them an edge in the race.
He joins Mark Gray in this edition of “The Gray Area” podcast to discuss how the last two months of the 2020 campaign will affect the future of the nation.
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