Thomas Cultura
2015-11-02 02:50:55 UTC
Liberal champion Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Sunday delivered a
stirring defense of Black Lives Matter, characterizing it as a
modern and necessary civil rights movement.
The full-throated defense of the movement contrasted with
comments from other national politicians, whose remarks on Black
Lives Matter have ranged from cautious to missing the point
like when Martin O'Malley said that "all lives matter."
One of the most powerful moments in the speech came when Warren
criticized opponents of Black Lives Matter, who say the movement
to end racial disparities in the criminal justice system is
inciting violence. "Watch them when they march through the
streets 'hands up, don't shoot' not to incite a riot, but to
fight for their lives," she said at the Edward M. Kennedy
Institute. "To fight for their lives."
Warren: It goes even deeper than criminal justice disparities
Warren's remarks went further than the disparities in the
criminal justice system, speaking to voting rights, economic
inequality, housing discrimination, and predatory banking
practices:
Fifty years after John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke
out, violence against African Americans has not disappeared. And
what about voting rights? Two years ago, five conservative
justices on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act,
opening the floodgates ever wider for measures designed to
suppress minority voting. Today, the specific tools of
oppression have changed voter ID laws, racial gerrymandering,
and mass disfranchisement through a criminal justice system that
disproportionately incarcerates black citizens. The tools have
changed, but black voters are still deliberately cut out of the
political process.
Today, 90 percent of Americans see no real wage growth. For
African-Americans, who were so far behind earlier in the 20th
century, this means that since the 1980s they have been hit
particularly hard. In January of this year, African-American
unemployment was 10.3 percent more than twice the rate of
white unemployment. And, after beginning to make progress during
the civil rights era to close the wealth gap between black and
white families, in the 1980s the wealth gap exploded, so that
from 1984 to 2009, the wealth gap between black and white
families tripled.
Ultimately, Warren called for various policies to help bring
down these disparities from police-worn body cameras that
would help hold officers accountable to steps that would make
voting simpler and easier, such as automatic voter registration
and making Election Day a holiday.
Warren on why "it is important to cause necessary trouble"
Warren finished her speech with a powerful anecdote,
characterizing Black Lives Matter as a continuation of the civil
rights struggles of more than 50 years ago:
Back in March, I met an elderly man at the First Baptist Church
in Montgomery, Alabama. We were having coffee and doughnuts in
the church basement before the service started. He told me that
more than 50 years earlier in May of 1961 he had spent 11
hours in that same basement, along with hundreds of people,
while a mob outside threatened to burn down the church because
it was a sanctuary for civil rights workers. Dr. King called
Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, desperately asking for help. The
attorney general promised to send the Army, but the closest
military base was several hours away. So the members of the
church and the civil rights workers waited in the sweltering
basement, crowded together, listening to the mob outside and
hoping the US Army would arrive in time.
After the church service, I asked Congressman John Lewis about
that night. He had been right there in that church back in 1961
while the mob gathered outside. He had been in the room during
the calls to the attorney general. I asked if he had been afraid
that the Army wouldn't make it in time. He said that he was
"never, ever afraid. You come to that point where you lose all
sense of fear." And then he said something I'll never forget. He
said that his parents didn't want him to get involved in civil
rights. They didn't want him to "cause trouble." But he had done
it anyway. He told me, "Sometimes it is important to cause
necessary trouble."
Read the full speech
Thank you. I'm grateful to be here at the Edward M. Kennedy
Institute for the United States Senate. This place is a fitting
tribute to our champion, Ted Kennedy. A man of courage,
compassion, and commitment, who taught us what public service is
all about. Not a day goes by that we don't miss his passion, his
enthusiasm, and most of all his dedication to all of our
working families.
As the senior senator from Massachusetts, I have the great honor
of sitting at Sen. Kennedy's desk right over there. The
original, back in Washington, is a little more dented and
scratched, but it has something very special in the drawer. Ted
Kennedy carved his name in it. When I sit at my desk, sometimes
when I'm waiting to speak or to vote, I open the drawer and run
my thumb across his name. It reminds me of the high expectations
of the people of Massachusetts, and I try, every day, to live up
to the legacy he left behind.
Sen. Kennedy took office just over 50 years ago, in the midst of
one of the great moral and political debates in American history
the debate over the Civil Rights Act. In his first speech on
the floor of the Senate, just four months after his brother's
assassination, he stood up to support equal rights for all
Americans. He ended that speech with a powerful personal message
about what the civil rights struggle meant to the late President
Kennedy:
His heart and soul are in this bill. If his life and death had a
meaning, it was that we should not hate but love one another; we
should use our powers not to create conditions of oppression
that lead to violence, but conditions of freedom that lead to
peace.
"We should use our powers not to create conditions of oppression
that lead to violence, but conditions of freedom that lead to
peace." That's what I'd like to talk about today.
A half-century ago, when Sen. Kennedy spoke of the Civil Rights
Act, entrenched, racist power did everything it could to sustain
oppression of African Americans, and violence was its first
tool. Lynchings, terrorism, intimidation. The 16th Street
Baptist Church. Medgar Evers. Emmett Till. When Alabama Gov.
George Wallace stood before the nation and declared during his
1963 inaugural address that he would defend "segregation now,
segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," he made clear that
the state would stand with those who used violence.
But violence was not the only tool. African Americans were
effectively stripped of citizenship when they were denied the
right to vote. The tools varied literacy tests, poll taxes,
moral character tests, grandfather clauses but the results
were the same. They were denied basic rights of citizenship and
the chance to participate in self-government.
The third tool of oppression was to deliberately deny millions
of African Americans economic opportunities solely because of
the color of their skin.
I have often spoken about how America built a great middle
class. Coming out of the Great Depression, from the 1930s to the
late 1970s, as GDP went up, wages went up for most Americans.
But there's a dark underbelly to that story. While median family
income in America was growing for both white and African-
American families African-American incomes were only a
fraction of white incomes. In the mid-1950s, the median income
for African-American families was just a little more than half
the income of white families.
And the problem went beyond just income. Look at housing: For
most middle class families in America, buying a home is the
number one way to build wealth. It's a retirement plan pay off
the house and live on Social Security. An investment option
mortgage the house to start a business. It's a way to help the
kids get through college, a safety net if someone gets really
sick, and, if all goes well and Grandma and Grandpa can hang on
to the house until they die, it's a way to give the next
generation a boost extra money to move the family up the
ladder.
For much of the 20th century, that's how it worked for
generation after generation of white Americans but not black
Americans. Entire legal structures were created to prevent
African Americans from building economic security through home
ownership. Legally-enforced segregation. Restrictive deeds.
Redlining. Land contracts. Coming out of the Great Depression,
America built a middle class, but systematic discrimination kept
most African-American families from being part of it.
State-sanctioned discrimination wasn't limited to home
ownership. The government enforced discrimination in public
accommodations, discrimination in schools, discrimination in
credit it was a long and spiteful list.
Economic justice is not and has never been sufficient to
ensure racial justice. Owning a home won't stop someone from
burning a cross on the front lawn. Admission to a school won't
prevent a beating on the sidewalk outside. But when Dr. King led
hundreds of thousands of people to march on Washington, he
talked about an end to violence, access to voting AND economic
opportunity. As Dr. King once wrote, "the inseparable twin of
racial injustice was economic injustice."
The tools of oppression were woven together, and the civil
rights struggle was fought against that oppression wherever it
was found against violence, against the denial of voting
rights, and against economic injustice.
The battles were bitter and sometimes deadly. Fire hoses turned
on peaceful protestors. Police officers setting their dogs to
attack black students. Bloody Sunday at the Edmund Pettus
Bridge. But the civil rights movement pushed this country in a
new direction. The federal government cracked down on state-
sponsored violence. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson
all called out the National Guard, and, in doing so, declared
that everyone had a right to equal protection under the law,
guaranteed by the Constitution. Congress protected the rights of
all citizens to vote with the Voting Rights Act.
And economic opportunities opened up when Congress passed civil
rights laws that protected equal access to employment, public
accommodations, and housing.
In the same way that the tools of oppression were woven
together, a package of civil rights laws came together to
protect black people from violence, to ensure access to the
ballot box, and to build economic opportunity. Or to say it
another way, these laws made three powerful declarations: Black
lives matter. Black citizens matter. Black families matter.
Fifty years later, we have made real progress toward creating
the conditions of freedom but we have not made enough progress.
Fifty years later, violence against African Americans has not
disappeared. Consider law enforcement. The vast majority of
police officers sign up so they can protect their communities.
They are part of an honorable profession that takes risks every
day to keep us safe. We know that. But we also know and say
the names of those whose lives have been treated with callous
indifference. Sandra Bland. Freddie Gray. Michael Brown. We've
seen sickening videos of unarmed black Americans cut down by
bullets, choked to death while gasping for air their lives
ended by those who are sworn to protect them. Peaceful, unarmed
protestors have been beaten. Journalists have been jailed. And,
in some cities, white vigilantes with weapons freely walk the
streets. And it's not just about law enforcement either. Just
look to the terrorism this summer at Emanuel AME Church. We must
be honest: Fifty years after John Kennedy and Martin Luther King
Jr. spoke out, violence against African Americans has not
disappeared. And what about voting rights? Two years ago, five
conservative justices on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting
Rights Act, opening the floodgates ever wider for measures
designed to suppress minority voting. Today, the specific tools
of oppression have changed voter ID laws, racial
gerrymandering, and mass disfranchisement through a criminal
justice system that disproportionately incarcerates black
citizens. The tools have changed, but black voters are still
deliberately cut out of the political process.
Violence. Voting. And what about economic injustice? Research
shows that the legal changes in the civil rights era created new
employment and housing opportunities. In the 1960s and the
1970s, African-American men and women began to close the wage
gap with white workers, giving millions of black families hope
that they might build real wealth. But then, Republicans'
trickle-down economic theory arrived. Just as this country was
taking the first steps toward economic justice, the Republicans
pushed a theory that meant helping the richest people and the
most powerful corporations get richer and more powerful. I'll
just do one statistic on this: From 1980 to 2012, GDP continued
to rise, but how much of the income growth went to the 90
percent of America everyone outside the top 10 percent
black, white, Latino? None. Zero. Nothing. 100 percent of all
the new income produced in this country over the past 30 years
has gone to the top 10 percent.
Today, 90 percent of Americans see no real wage growth. For
African-Americans, who were so far behind earlier in the 20th
century, this means that since the 1980s they have been hit
particularly hard. In January of this year, African-American
unemployment was 10.3 percent more than twice the rate of
white unemployment. And after beginning to make progress during
the civil rights era to close the wealth gap between black and
white families, in the 1980s the wealth gap exploded, so that
from 1984 to 2009 the wealth gap between black and white
families tripled.
The 2008 housing collapse destroyed trillions in family wealth
across the country, but the crash hit African Americans like a
punch in the gut. Because middle-class black families' wealth
was disproportionately tied up in home ownership and not other
forms of savings, these families were hit harder by the housing
collapse. But they also got hit harder because of discriminatory
lending practices yes, discriminatory lending practices in the
21st century. Recently several big banks and other mortgage
lenders paid hundreds of millions in fines, admitting that they
illegally steered black and Latino borrowers into more expensive
mortgages than white borrowers who had similar credit. Tom
Perez, who at the time was the assistant attorney general for
civil rights, called it a "racial surtax." And it's still
happening earlier this month, the National Fair Housing
Alliance filed a discrimination complaint against real estate
agents in Mississippi after an investigation showed those agents
consistently steering white buyers away from interracial
neighborhoods and black buyers away from affluent ones. Another
investigation showed similar results across our nation's cities.
Housing discrimination alive and well in 2015. Violence, voting,
economic justice.
We have made important strides forward. But we are not done yet.
And now, it is our time. I speak today with the full knowledge
that I have not personally experienced and can never truly
understand the fear, the oppression, and the pain that confronts
African Americans every day. But none of us can ignore what is
happening in this country. Not when our black friends, family,
neighbors literally fear dying in the streets.
Listen to the brave, powerful voices of today's new generation
of civil rights leaders. Incredible voices. Listen to them say:
"If I die in police custody, know that I did not commit
suicide." Watch them when they march through the streets
"hands up, don't shoot" not to incite a riot, but to fight for
their lives. To fight for their lives.
This is the reality all of us must confront, as uncomfortable
and ugly as that reality may be. It comes to us to once again
affirm that black lives matter, that black citizens matter, that
black families matter.
Once again, the task begins with safeguarding our communities
from violence. We have made progress, but it is a tragedy when
any American cannot trust those who have sworn to protect and
serve. This pervasive and persistent distrust isn't based on
myths. It is grounded in the reality of unjustified violence.
Policing must become a truly community endeavor not in just a
few cities, but everywhere. Police forces should look like, and
come from, the neighborhoods they serve. They should reach out
to support and defend the community working with people in
neighborhoods before problems arise. All police forces not
just some must be trained to deescalate and to avoid the
likelihood of violence. Body cameras can help us know what
happens when someone is hurt. We honor the bravery and sacrifice
that our law enforcement officers show every day on the job
and the noble intentions of the vast majority of those who take
up the difficult job of keeping us safe. But police are not
occupying armies. This is America, not a war zone and policing
practices in all cities not just some need to reflect that.
Next, voting.
It's time to call out the recent flurry of new state law
restrictions for what they are: an all-out campaign by
Republicans to take away the right to vote from poor and black
and Latino American citizens who probably won't vote for them.
The push to restrict voting is nothing more than a naked grab to
win elections that they can't win if every citizen votes. Two
years ago the Supreme Court eviscerated critical parts of the
Voting Rights Act. Congress could easily fix this, and Democrats
in the Senate have called for restoration of voting rights. Now
it is time for Republicans to step up to support a restoration
of the Voting Rights Act or to stand before the American
people and explain why they have abandoned America's most
cherished liberty, the right to vote.
And while we're at it, we need to update the rules around
voting. Voting should be simple. Voter registration should be
automatic. Get a driver's license, get registered automatically.
Nonviolent, law-abiding citizens should not lose the right to
vote because of a prior conviction. Election Day should be a
holiday, so no one has to choose between a paycheck and a vote.
Early voting and vote by mail would give fast food and retail
workers who don't get holidays day off a chance to proudly cast
their votes. The hidden discrimination that comes with purging
voter rolls and short-staffing polling places must stop. The
right to vote remains essential to protect all other rights, and
no candidate for president or for any other elected office
Republican or Democrat should be elected if they will not
pledge to support full, meaningful voting rights.
Finally, economic justice. Our task will not be complete until
we ensure that every family regardless of race has a
fighting chance to build an economic future for themselves and
their families. We need less talk and more action about reducing
unemployment, ending wage stagnation, and closing the income gap
between white and nonwhite workers.
And one more issue, dear to my heart: It's time to come down
hard on predatory practices that allow financial institutions to
systematically strip wealth out of communities of color. One of
the ugly consequences of bank deregulation was that there was no
cop on the beat when too many financial institutions figured out
that they could make great money by tricking, trapping, and
defrauding targeted families. Now we have a Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, and we need to make sure it stays strong and
independent so that it can do its job and make credit markets
work for black families, Latino families, white families all
families.
Yes, there's work to do.
Back in March, I met an elderly man at the First Baptist Church
in Montgomery, Alabama. We were having coffee and doughnuts in
the church basement before the service started. He told me that
more than 50 years earlier in May of 1961 he had spent 11
hours in that same basement, along with hundreds of people,
while a mob outside threatened to burn down the church because
it was a sanctuary for civil rights workers. Dr. King called
Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, desperately asking for help. The
attorney general promised to send the Army, but the closest
military base was several hours away. So the members of the
church and the civil rights workers waited in the sweltering
basement, crowded together, listening to the mob outside and
hoping the US Army would arrive in time.
After the church service, I asked Congressman John Lewis about
that night. He had been right there in that church back in 1961
while the mob gathered outside. He had been in the room during
the calls to the attorney general. I asked if he had been afraid
that the Army wouldn't make it in time. He said that he was
"never, ever afraid. You come to that point where you lose all
sense of fear." And then he said something I'll never forget. He
said that his parents didn't want him to get involved in civil
rights. They didn't want him to "cause trouble." But he had done
it anyway. He told me, "Sometimes it is important to cause
necessary trouble."
The first civil rights battles were hard fought. But they
established that black lives matter. That black citizens matter.
That black families matter. Half a century later, we have made
real progress, but we have not made enough progress. As Sen.
Kennedy said in his first floor speech, "This is not a political
issue. It is a moral issue, to be resolved through political
means." So it comes to us to continue the fight, to make, as
John Lewis said, the "necessary trouble" until we can truly say
that in America, every citizen enjoys the conditions of freedom.
Thank you.
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/28/9408329/elizabeth-warren-black-
lives-matter
Deer Elizabeth Warren,
You have had 150 years to civilize negroes. Your predecessors,
and you, have failed at every single juncture.
It's time to hang it up and admit that negroes are a total
failure as a social experiment.
If the negroes love Africa so much, send them home. Now.
Regards,
American Public.
stirring defense of Black Lives Matter, characterizing it as a
modern and necessary civil rights movement.
The full-throated defense of the movement contrasted with
comments from other national politicians, whose remarks on Black
Lives Matter have ranged from cautious to missing the point
like when Martin O'Malley said that "all lives matter."
One of the most powerful moments in the speech came when Warren
criticized opponents of Black Lives Matter, who say the movement
to end racial disparities in the criminal justice system is
inciting violence. "Watch them when they march through the
streets 'hands up, don't shoot' not to incite a riot, but to
fight for their lives," she said at the Edward M. Kennedy
Institute. "To fight for their lives."
Warren: It goes even deeper than criminal justice disparities
Warren's remarks went further than the disparities in the
criminal justice system, speaking to voting rights, economic
inequality, housing discrimination, and predatory banking
practices:
Fifty years after John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke
out, violence against African Americans has not disappeared. And
what about voting rights? Two years ago, five conservative
justices on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act,
opening the floodgates ever wider for measures designed to
suppress minority voting. Today, the specific tools of
oppression have changed voter ID laws, racial gerrymandering,
and mass disfranchisement through a criminal justice system that
disproportionately incarcerates black citizens. The tools have
changed, but black voters are still deliberately cut out of the
political process.
Today, 90 percent of Americans see no real wage growth. For
African-Americans, who were so far behind earlier in the 20th
century, this means that since the 1980s they have been hit
particularly hard. In January of this year, African-American
unemployment was 10.3 percent more than twice the rate of
white unemployment. And, after beginning to make progress during
the civil rights era to close the wealth gap between black and
white families, in the 1980s the wealth gap exploded, so that
from 1984 to 2009, the wealth gap between black and white
families tripled.
Ultimately, Warren called for various policies to help bring
down these disparities from police-worn body cameras that
would help hold officers accountable to steps that would make
voting simpler and easier, such as automatic voter registration
and making Election Day a holiday.
Warren on why "it is important to cause necessary trouble"
Warren finished her speech with a powerful anecdote,
characterizing Black Lives Matter as a continuation of the civil
rights struggles of more than 50 years ago:
Back in March, I met an elderly man at the First Baptist Church
in Montgomery, Alabama. We were having coffee and doughnuts in
the church basement before the service started. He told me that
more than 50 years earlier in May of 1961 he had spent 11
hours in that same basement, along with hundreds of people,
while a mob outside threatened to burn down the church because
it was a sanctuary for civil rights workers. Dr. King called
Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, desperately asking for help. The
attorney general promised to send the Army, but the closest
military base was several hours away. So the members of the
church and the civil rights workers waited in the sweltering
basement, crowded together, listening to the mob outside and
hoping the US Army would arrive in time.
After the church service, I asked Congressman John Lewis about
that night. He had been right there in that church back in 1961
while the mob gathered outside. He had been in the room during
the calls to the attorney general. I asked if he had been afraid
that the Army wouldn't make it in time. He said that he was
"never, ever afraid. You come to that point where you lose all
sense of fear." And then he said something I'll never forget. He
said that his parents didn't want him to get involved in civil
rights. They didn't want him to "cause trouble." But he had done
it anyway. He told me, "Sometimes it is important to cause
necessary trouble."
Read the full speech
Thank you. I'm grateful to be here at the Edward M. Kennedy
Institute for the United States Senate. This place is a fitting
tribute to our champion, Ted Kennedy. A man of courage,
compassion, and commitment, who taught us what public service is
all about. Not a day goes by that we don't miss his passion, his
enthusiasm, and most of all his dedication to all of our
working families.
As the senior senator from Massachusetts, I have the great honor
of sitting at Sen. Kennedy's desk right over there. The
original, back in Washington, is a little more dented and
scratched, but it has something very special in the drawer. Ted
Kennedy carved his name in it. When I sit at my desk, sometimes
when I'm waiting to speak or to vote, I open the drawer and run
my thumb across his name. It reminds me of the high expectations
of the people of Massachusetts, and I try, every day, to live up
to the legacy he left behind.
Sen. Kennedy took office just over 50 years ago, in the midst of
one of the great moral and political debates in American history
the debate over the Civil Rights Act. In his first speech on
the floor of the Senate, just four months after his brother's
assassination, he stood up to support equal rights for all
Americans. He ended that speech with a powerful personal message
about what the civil rights struggle meant to the late President
Kennedy:
His heart and soul are in this bill. If his life and death had a
meaning, it was that we should not hate but love one another; we
should use our powers not to create conditions of oppression
that lead to violence, but conditions of freedom that lead to
peace.
"We should use our powers not to create conditions of oppression
that lead to violence, but conditions of freedom that lead to
peace." That's what I'd like to talk about today.
A half-century ago, when Sen. Kennedy spoke of the Civil Rights
Act, entrenched, racist power did everything it could to sustain
oppression of African Americans, and violence was its first
tool. Lynchings, terrorism, intimidation. The 16th Street
Baptist Church. Medgar Evers. Emmett Till. When Alabama Gov.
George Wallace stood before the nation and declared during his
1963 inaugural address that he would defend "segregation now,
segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," he made clear that
the state would stand with those who used violence.
But violence was not the only tool. African Americans were
effectively stripped of citizenship when they were denied the
right to vote. The tools varied literacy tests, poll taxes,
moral character tests, grandfather clauses but the results
were the same. They were denied basic rights of citizenship and
the chance to participate in self-government.
The third tool of oppression was to deliberately deny millions
of African Americans economic opportunities solely because of
the color of their skin.
I have often spoken about how America built a great middle
class. Coming out of the Great Depression, from the 1930s to the
late 1970s, as GDP went up, wages went up for most Americans.
But there's a dark underbelly to that story. While median family
income in America was growing for both white and African-
American families African-American incomes were only a
fraction of white incomes. In the mid-1950s, the median income
for African-American families was just a little more than half
the income of white families.
And the problem went beyond just income. Look at housing: For
most middle class families in America, buying a home is the
number one way to build wealth. It's a retirement plan pay off
the house and live on Social Security. An investment option
mortgage the house to start a business. It's a way to help the
kids get through college, a safety net if someone gets really
sick, and, if all goes well and Grandma and Grandpa can hang on
to the house until they die, it's a way to give the next
generation a boost extra money to move the family up the
ladder.
For much of the 20th century, that's how it worked for
generation after generation of white Americans but not black
Americans. Entire legal structures were created to prevent
African Americans from building economic security through home
ownership. Legally-enforced segregation. Restrictive deeds.
Redlining. Land contracts. Coming out of the Great Depression,
America built a middle class, but systematic discrimination kept
most African-American families from being part of it.
State-sanctioned discrimination wasn't limited to home
ownership. The government enforced discrimination in public
accommodations, discrimination in schools, discrimination in
credit it was a long and spiteful list.
Economic justice is not and has never been sufficient to
ensure racial justice. Owning a home won't stop someone from
burning a cross on the front lawn. Admission to a school won't
prevent a beating on the sidewalk outside. But when Dr. King led
hundreds of thousands of people to march on Washington, he
talked about an end to violence, access to voting AND economic
opportunity. As Dr. King once wrote, "the inseparable twin of
racial injustice was economic injustice."
The tools of oppression were woven together, and the civil
rights struggle was fought against that oppression wherever it
was found against violence, against the denial of voting
rights, and against economic injustice.
The battles were bitter and sometimes deadly. Fire hoses turned
on peaceful protestors. Police officers setting their dogs to
attack black students. Bloody Sunday at the Edmund Pettus
Bridge. But the civil rights movement pushed this country in a
new direction. The federal government cracked down on state-
sponsored violence. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson
all called out the National Guard, and, in doing so, declared
that everyone had a right to equal protection under the law,
guaranteed by the Constitution. Congress protected the rights of
all citizens to vote with the Voting Rights Act.
And economic opportunities opened up when Congress passed civil
rights laws that protected equal access to employment, public
accommodations, and housing.
In the same way that the tools of oppression were woven
together, a package of civil rights laws came together to
protect black people from violence, to ensure access to the
ballot box, and to build economic opportunity. Or to say it
another way, these laws made three powerful declarations: Black
lives matter. Black citizens matter. Black families matter.
Fifty years later, we have made real progress toward creating
the conditions of freedom but we have not made enough progress.
Fifty years later, violence against African Americans has not
disappeared. Consider law enforcement. The vast majority of
police officers sign up so they can protect their communities.
They are part of an honorable profession that takes risks every
day to keep us safe. We know that. But we also know and say
the names of those whose lives have been treated with callous
indifference. Sandra Bland. Freddie Gray. Michael Brown. We've
seen sickening videos of unarmed black Americans cut down by
bullets, choked to death while gasping for air their lives
ended by those who are sworn to protect them. Peaceful, unarmed
protestors have been beaten. Journalists have been jailed. And,
in some cities, white vigilantes with weapons freely walk the
streets. And it's not just about law enforcement either. Just
look to the terrorism this summer at Emanuel AME Church. We must
be honest: Fifty years after John Kennedy and Martin Luther King
Jr. spoke out, violence against African Americans has not
disappeared. And what about voting rights? Two years ago, five
conservative justices on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting
Rights Act, opening the floodgates ever wider for measures
designed to suppress minority voting. Today, the specific tools
of oppression have changed voter ID laws, racial
gerrymandering, and mass disfranchisement through a criminal
justice system that disproportionately incarcerates black
citizens. The tools have changed, but black voters are still
deliberately cut out of the political process.
Violence. Voting. And what about economic injustice? Research
shows that the legal changes in the civil rights era created new
employment and housing opportunities. In the 1960s and the
1970s, African-American men and women began to close the wage
gap with white workers, giving millions of black families hope
that they might build real wealth. But then, Republicans'
trickle-down economic theory arrived. Just as this country was
taking the first steps toward economic justice, the Republicans
pushed a theory that meant helping the richest people and the
most powerful corporations get richer and more powerful. I'll
just do one statistic on this: From 1980 to 2012, GDP continued
to rise, but how much of the income growth went to the 90
percent of America everyone outside the top 10 percent
black, white, Latino? None. Zero. Nothing. 100 percent of all
the new income produced in this country over the past 30 years
has gone to the top 10 percent.
Today, 90 percent of Americans see no real wage growth. For
African-Americans, who were so far behind earlier in the 20th
century, this means that since the 1980s they have been hit
particularly hard. In January of this year, African-American
unemployment was 10.3 percent more than twice the rate of
white unemployment. And after beginning to make progress during
the civil rights era to close the wealth gap between black and
white families, in the 1980s the wealth gap exploded, so that
from 1984 to 2009 the wealth gap between black and white
families tripled.
The 2008 housing collapse destroyed trillions in family wealth
across the country, but the crash hit African Americans like a
punch in the gut. Because middle-class black families' wealth
was disproportionately tied up in home ownership and not other
forms of savings, these families were hit harder by the housing
collapse. But they also got hit harder because of discriminatory
lending practices yes, discriminatory lending practices in the
21st century. Recently several big banks and other mortgage
lenders paid hundreds of millions in fines, admitting that they
illegally steered black and Latino borrowers into more expensive
mortgages than white borrowers who had similar credit. Tom
Perez, who at the time was the assistant attorney general for
civil rights, called it a "racial surtax." And it's still
happening earlier this month, the National Fair Housing
Alliance filed a discrimination complaint against real estate
agents in Mississippi after an investigation showed those agents
consistently steering white buyers away from interracial
neighborhoods and black buyers away from affluent ones. Another
investigation showed similar results across our nation's cities.
Housing discrimination alive and well in 2015. Violence, voting,
economic justice.
We have made important strides forward. But we are not done yet.
And now, it is our time. I speak today with the full knowledge
that I have not personally experienced and can never truly
understand the fear, the oppression, and the pain that confronts
African Americans every day. But none of us can ignore what is
happening in this country. Not when our black friends, family,
neighbors literally fear dying in the streets.
Listen to the brave, powerful voices of today's new generation
of civil rights leaders. Incredible voices. Listen to them say:
"If I die in police custody, know that I did not commit
suicide." Watch them when they march through the streets
"hands up, don't shoot" not to incite a riot, but to fight for
their lives. To fight for their lives.
This is the reality all of us must confront, as uncomfortable
and ugly as that reality may be. It comes to us to once again
affirm that black lives matter, that black citizens matter, that
black families matter.
Once again, the task begins with safeguarding our communities
from violence. We have made progress, but it is a tragedy when
any American cannot trust those who have sworn to protect and
serve. This pervasive and persistent distrust isn't based on
myths. It is grounded in the reality of unjustified violence.
Policing must become a truly community endeavor not in just a
few cities, but everywhere. Police forces should look like, and
come from, the neighborhoods they serve. They should reach out
to support and defend the community working with people in
neighborhoods before problems arise. All police forces not
just some must be trained to deescalate and to avoid the
likelihood of violence. Body cameras can help us know what
happens when someone is hurt. We honor the bravery and sacrifice
that our law enforcement officers show every day on the job
and the noble intentions of the vast majority of those who take
up the difficult job of keeping us safe. But police are not
occupying armies. This is America, not a war zone and policing
practices in all cities not just some need to reflect that.
Next, voting.
It's time to call out the recent flurry of new state law
restrictions for what they are: an all-out campaign by
Republicans to take away the right to vote from poor and black
and Latino American citizens who probably won't vote for them.
The push to restrict voting is nothing more than a naked grab to
win elections that they can't win if every citizen votes. Two
years ago the Supreme Court eviscerated critical parts of the
Voting Rights Act. Congress could easily fix this, and Democrats
in the Senate have called for restoration of voting rights. Now
it is time for Republicans to step up to support a restoration
of the Voting Rights Act or to stand before the American
people and explain why they have abandoned America's most
cherished liberty, the right to vote.
And while we're at it, we need to update the rules around
voting. Voting should be simple. Voter registration should be
automatic. Get a driver's license, get registered automatically.
Nonviolent, law-abiding citizens should not lose the right to
vote because of a prior conviction. Election Day should be a
holiday, so no one has to choose between a paycheck and a vote.
Early voting and vote by mail would give fast food and retail
workers who don't get holidays day off a chance to proudly cast
their votes. The hidden discrimination that comes with purging
voter rolls and short-staffing polling places must stop. The
right to vote remains essential to protect all other rights, and
no candidate for president or for any other elected office
Republican or Democrat should be elected if they will not
pledge to support full, meaningful voting rights.
Finally, economic justice. Our task will not be complete until
we ensure that every family regardless of race has a
fighting chance to build an economic future for themselves and
their families. We need less talk and more action about reducing
unemployment, ending wage stagnation, and closing the income gap
between white and nonwhite workers.
And one more issue, dear to my heart: It's time to come down
hard on predatory practices that allow financial institutions to
systematically strip wealth out of communities of color. One of
the ugly consequences of bank deregulation was that there was no
cop on the beat when too many financial institutions figured out
that they could make great money by tricking, trapping, and
defrauding targeted families. Now we have a Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, and we need to make sure it stays strong and
independent so that it can do its job and make credit markets
work for black families, Latino families, white families all
families.
Yes, there's work to do.
Back in March, I met an elderly man at the First Baptist Church
in Montgomery, Alabama. We were having coffee and doughnuts in
the church basement before the service started. He told me that
more than 50 years earlier in May of 1961 he had spent 11
hours in that same basement, along with hundreds of people,
while a mob outside threatened to burn down the church because
it was a sanctuary for civil rights workers. Dr. King called
Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, desperately asking for help. The
attorney general promised to send the Army, but the closest
military base was several hours away. So the members of the
church and the civil rights workers waited in the sweltering
basement, crowded together, listening to the mob outside and
hoping the US Army would arrive in time.
After the church service, I asked Congressman John Lewis about
that night. He had been right there in that church back in 1961
while the mob gathered outside. He had been in the room during
the calls to the attorney general. I asked if he had been afraid
that the Army wouldn't make it in time. He said that he was
"never, ever afraid. You come to that point where you lose all
sense of fear." And then he said something I'll never forget. He
said that his parents didn't want him to get involved in civil
rights. They didn't want him to "cause trouble." But he had done
it anyway. He told me, "Sometimes it is important to cause
necessary trouble."
The first civil rights battles were hard fought. But they
established that black lives matter. That black citizens matter.
That black families matter. Half a century later, we have made
real progress, but we have not made enough progress. As Sen.
Kennedy said in his first floor speech, "This is not a political
issue. It is a moral issue, to be resolved through political
means." So it comes to us to continue the fight, to make, as
John Lewis said, the "necessary trouble" until we can truly say
that in America, every citizen enjoys the conditions of freedom.
Thank you.
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/28/9408329/elizabeth-warren-black-
lives-matter
Deer Elizabeth Warren,
You have had 150 years to civilize negroes. Your predecessors,
and you, have failed at every single juncture.
It's time to hang it up and admit that negroes are a total
failure as a social experiment.
If the negroes love Africa so much, send them home. Now.
Regards,
American Public.