Letter From Brooklyn

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One Caribbean Nation.
Letter From Brooklyn


By Michael Headley


In the August 21st edition, of Barbados Today, Guest Columnist, Ralph Jemmott stated that African Americans and all persons of color stand to lose most from a Trump victory on November 03.  I am wondering if Mr. Jemmott was aware that prior to the COVI-19 outbreak, African Americans, Latinos, and Asians had experienced historic levels of low unemployment and more were off the welfare rolls. According to RealClear Politics (10/02/18) female unemployment was at a 50-year low.  Non degreed workers were also entering the job market.

 

President Trump, in December 2018, also signed the First Step Act into law.  This act was a first step to reform harsh sentences, meted out  in Federal prisons.  Black men, who were often the majority recipients of these sentences stood to benefit, by getting a second chance to improve their lives, after early release.

 

On December 18, 2019, President Trump signed a bipartisan bill that will permanently provide $250 million, a year, to historically black universities(HBCUs) and other institutions that serve minority students.  The president even quipped that historically black schools 'never had better champions in the white house'.  Michael Lomax, president and CEO of the United Negro College fund even thanked Trump and the other advocates.

 

On August 22, the Washington Examiner reported that Trump's  Opportunity Zones had raised $75 Billion.  Opportunity Zones were created in the 2017 tax overhaul, with the sole purpose to encourage economic investment  in underprivileged neighborhoods. President Trump was hoping that African American and Hispanic voters would  remember that he had worked for ethnic minorities.   The legislation was drafted by Tim Scot, an African America Republican senator, from South Carolina.  Senator Scot said that Opportunity Zones are 'tools that are needed to combat poverty throughout the nation'. And Housing and Urban (HUD) secretary, African American Benjamin Carson, M.D., said that Opportunity Zones are the key to lifting people out of poverty.

 

In May 24, 2018, President Trump pardoned Jack Johnson posthumously.  Johnson was an African American  Heavyweight champion, who was convicted in 1913 under the Mann Act, which, at the time, many had viewed as racially motivated.   And in June 2018,  Alice Johnson, an African American grandmother, was given clemency, after spending 21 years in jail for a non-violent drug offence.  Alice is now a criminal justice reform advocate.

 

Programs were initiated to help  African Americans and other minorities make  strides.  There's no reason why progress won't continue, if Trump is reelected.  Trump's brash and immortal words, while addressing the crowd in Dimondale, Michigan, in August 2016 still echo 'what the hell do you have to lose'.  The history doesn't show that the president has a vendetta against minorities. 

 

 

Michael Headley is a social commentator




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