Read on Twitter
"What is past, is prologue. Those who do no remember the past is doomed to repeat it." George Santayana
Policies pushed by modern progressives - for example, M4A - are met with a huge dose of skepticism from Black people.
Why?
Because we know our history.
THREAD
Policies pushed by modern progressives - for example, M4A - are met with a huge dose of skepticism from Black people.
Why?
Because we know our history.
THREAD
1/If a legislative policy does NOT specifically include Black people, or people of color? Guess who loses out. It's happened with Social Security, FHA loans, education benefits under the GI Bill of WWII and the GI Bill's home loans.
2/The irony of this? ALL legislation or policies specifically targeting Black people have, in most instances, helped WHITE PEOPLE more than BLACK PEOPLE.
Let's take a look at the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Let's take a look at the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
3/This law allowed affirmative action in the US. What is affirmative action? It's not set-asides, it's not quotas (a Republican President, Richard Nixon added those). Affirmative action = equal opportunity to compete. That's it.
https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964
https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/title-vii-civil-rights-act-1964
4/Affirmative doesn't mean quotas. It doesn't mean set-asides. It doesn't mean an unqualified Black person "taking" a qualified white person's job or slot in a college or university.
It means equal opportunity to compete. Period.
It means equal opportunity to compete. Period.
5/So who's gotten the most from the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Black, Latinx, Indigenous People or Asian Pacific Islanders?
Nope.
White women.
Receipts: https://time.com/4884132/affirmative-action-civil-rights-white-women/
Nope.
White women.
Receipts: https://time.com/4884132/affirmative-action-civil-rights-white-women/
When my then-boss, Rep. Craig Washington (D-TX) pulled out these receipts during a Congressional Hearing in 1990 (I know these are dated after, but we had others) everyone gasped in the audience.
Even more receipts:
http://www.timwise.org/1998/09/is-sisterhood-conditional-white-women-and-the-rollback-of-affirmative-action/
Even more receipts:
http://www.timwise.org/1998/09/is-sisterhood-conditional-white-women-and-the-rollback-of-affirmative-action/
7/Social Security, when originally drafted in 1935, did not include Black workers. "The Act initially omitted large categories of workers of color from retirement benefits and unemployment insurance."
Source: https://www.naacp.org/latest/viewing-social-security-civil-rights-lens/
Source: https://www.naacp.org/latest/viewing-social-security-civil-rights-lens/
8/ "It was none other than Charles Hamilton Houston, architect of the legal challenge to the “separate but equal” doctrine resulting in Brown v. Board of Education, who objected on behalf of the NAACP and warned Congress that the bill would exclude “Negro sharecroppers . . . "
9/ ". . . cash tenants, who are just about at the bottom of the economic scale.”
Despite the NAACP’s opposition, the Social Security Act passed with these exemptions intact.
Despite the NAACP’s opposition, the Social Security Act passed with these exemptions intact.
10/"As a result, 65 percent of [Black people] throughout the country were ineligible for benefits, with an even higher percentage of [Blacks] in the South excluded from the program.
![10/"As a result, 65 percent of [Black people] throughout the country were ineligible for benefits, with an even higher percentage of [Blacks] in the South excluded from the program.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Em5GbOXW4AAS45U.jpg "10/\"As a result, 65 percent of [Black people] throughout the country were ineligible for benefits, with an even higher percentage of [Blacks] in the South excluded from the program.")
11/"The exemptions were finally repealed in the 1950s, but they had significantly worsened the economic gap between Blacks and Whites."
This is a gap that persists to this very day. The economic status of Black people has not improved since 1968. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/04/economic-divide-black-households/
This is a gap that persists to this very day. The economic status of Black people has not improved since 1968. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/04/economic-divide-black-households/
12/The GI Bill, that guaranteed a college education and home loansto WWII veterans? Black people got left out of that deal, too.
Receipts here: https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits
Receipts here: https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits
13/Don't believe the History Channel? The Military Times said the same damn thing.
Receipts here: https://www.militarytimes.com/military-honor/salute-veterans/2019/11/10/the-gi-bill-shouldve-been-race-neutral-politicos-made-sure-it-wasnt/
Receipts here: https://www.militarytimes.com/military-honor/salute-veterans/2019/11/10/the-gi-bill-shouldve-been-race-neutral-politicos-made-sure-it-wasnt/
14/When President Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, for the FIRST TIME Black people were protected. It included Title VI from the new Civil Rights Act to ensure Black people at least had access to hospitals and doctors in the south.
Source: https://khn.org/news/1965-the-year-that-brought-civil-rights-to-the-nations-hospitals/
Source: https://khn.org/news/1965-the-year-that-brought-civil-rights-to-the-nations-hospitals/
15/Having equal access to health care hasn't meant Black peopple have equal access to treatment. Black health care outcomesare still at the bottom of the barrel. For example, Black women die from pregnancy at a rate 2 to 3X that of white women.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html
16/Black women are more likely to die from heart attacks and heart disease than white women.
Source: https://bwhi.org/2018/02/12/heart-disease-black-women-big-issue-might-not-know/
Source: https://bwhi.org/2018/02/12/heart-disease-black-women-big-issue-might-not-know/
17/Black men are 2X more likely to die from prostate cancer than white men (full disclosure: I've had it TWICE).
Source: https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/prostate-cancer-death-disparities-black-men
Source: https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/prostate-cancer-death-disparities-black-men
18/If Black people are not specifically included in ANY program? We WILL be excluded.
Progressives pushing M4A or ANY program not specifically inclusion of Black people?
History tells us to take a hard pass.
Progressives pushing M4A or ANY program not specifically inclusion of Black people?
History tells us to take a hard pass.
19/Oh look! I think Malcolm X has something to say about that . . .
"I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate."
"I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate."
FIN/Any program - health care, education, jobs, justice, housing - that doesn't SPECIFICALLY include provisions as to how this law and the regulations in its wake will benefit Black people is a morally and legislatively bankrupt one.
And Black people will take a hard pass.
And Black people will take a hard pass.
FINFIN/Why?
Because we KNOW our history.
Because our TRUST has often been misplaced.
If we don't REMEMBER the past, we are doomed to REPEAT it.
Hold politicians accountable.
Vote because your life depends on it.
Wash, rinse, repeat for the rest of your life.
Because we KNOW our history.
Because our TRUST has often been misplaced.
If we don't REMEMBER the past, we are doomed to REPEAT it.
Hold politicians accountable.
Vote because your life depends on it.
Wash, rinse, repeat for the rest of your life.
